Our relationship with God is rooted in Genesis 1:28…the “Great Charge” directing us how to live and our responsibilities on this planet. The win for Satan is that you give him credit for anything instead of crediting all things to God and seeking always knowledge of his will and the courage and wisdom to act on it. Self-donating love and prudential living are the natural results of acting upon the “Great Charge”…and we must act.No. All real problems are moral problems. Our relationship with God is the fundamental. All other ‘problems’ are pathways to growth and deeper unity with God.
The “understanding” problem you reference is actually a very superficial thing compared to the super-substantial understanding that we are children of God.
The environment isn’t the thing to fix. It’s our desires and intentions, which should be centered on pleasing God…in what we do, in how we act, in what we think, and what we choose to feel, etc.
This is the moral life. So…if we tend to want things…except that they will in some way serve others or God…then that could be a point of moral error.
If we tend to over-desire comfort, putting comfort in front of serving others…then that’s the problem.
Balancing nitrogen isn’t the problem, loving God by loving others with our whole heart, soul, mind, and all our strength is the struggle to focus on.
Satan would love us to focus on balancing nitrogen and getting all hot and contentious and supercilious and academic over phosphorus. That’d be an easy but big win for satan.
A big loss for him would be for us to to constantly remember that we are children of God and for us to strive daily to love without measure, even at the expense of our little vanities, prides, and comfort seeking…and even the comfort seeking we get by idolizing the environment which instead is merely a tool for our (and our children’s children, children) path toward God.
The Catholic Church has an enormous amount to offer with respect to the ‘environment’ issue…but it’s not in the area of balancing nitrogen, it’s in helping people to build an interior life with God that manifests itself in ever more self-donating love and prudential living.
Nitrogen is not in any way in shortage. It’s four fifths of the air we breathe!Genesis 1:28 is one of the more difficult verses to find scholarly interpretation of…quite amazing as these are the first recorded words of God in the Bible.
Our environmental problems are a failure to understand the fundamentals inherent in subduing, replenishing and having dominion over mother earth…while we understand the limits of non-renewable resources we continue to multiply the world population expecting somehow that the world’s oil, nitrogen, phosphorus, etc will somehow multiply like the loaves and fish? As our knowledge and science bring the truth to light we are compelled to and must act as responsible managers as directed in Genesis.
I think you misunderstand freedom and free will. I give no credit to satan other than cleverness and persistence.Our relationship with God is rooted in Genesis 1:28…the “Great Charge” directing us how to live and our responsibilities on this planet. The win for Satan is that you give him credit for anything instead of crediting all things to God and seeking always knowledge of his will and the courage and wisdom to act on it. Self-donating love and prudential living are the natural results of acting upon the “Great Charge”…and we must act.
Serviam “I will serve”…the will of God. Seems to me acting on God’s directive in Genesis 1:28 is entirely consistent with being of service.I think you misunderstand freedom and free will. I give no credit to satan other than cleverness and persistence.
Self-donating love isn’t the natural result of something else ("…acting upon"). It is instead very much the YES, the Serviam, in contrast to satan’s “non serviam” mentioned in the Bible.