This is interesting, bec I used to teach mythology, and for the most part the religions of the world have anthropomorphic deities – that is they are basing their notions of gods and goddesses on the knowledge of themselves as humans, which in a way is logical. Also their “science” was to explain scientific or natural phenomena in anthropomorphic terms, as the storm indicates Zeus is angry at us. In Greek mythology the first deity was Gaia, or Mother Earth, which seems logical; from the earth we get nearly all that we need for life. Then later the “sky gods” took prominence, Zeus (and there was a female to male shift). That also happened in the ancient pre-Shinto religion in Japan, a shift from female to male (or patriarchal) focus.
I’m thinking this fear of “Mother Earth” lingo among Christians is more than just a fear of paganism, it is sort of a fear of the female principle. Also the Enlightenment social construction of person was of an autonomous being, without society, without rulers, without mother, or without any interdependence among peoples (as in previous ages), who came together to create society and ceded only that much freedom so as to ensure their well-being. So I’m thinking this is more an Enlightenment (anti-Christian) thing. Afterall, St. Francis has no trouble saying, “Our Sister, Mother Earth,” and pre-Enlightenment Catholics were okay with human interdependence and BVM (and I think we in modern times have relegated her to the back kitchen, so to speak, when in fact she is “Queen of Heaven” – which means something to those not suck in Enlightenment thinking).
Now re the Judeo-Christian tradition, the ancient situation seems a bit different from the other traditions. God Himself contacted the people and revealed certain things about Himself and other matters … of course, within what our limited, finite minds could take (they wouldn’t have been able to understand evolution, for instance; "Say what?!).
I think early on within our tradition there was a notion that God was transcendent (but also immanent in a transcendental way), and not an anthropomorphic figure (tho we always tend toward making Him into such, God in the image of man, rather than man in the image of God; that’s a natural tendency). But theologians have come to understand God as the “Totally Other” as Martin Buber said and JPII quoted him.
St. John of the Cross said (and I paraphrase greatly), if you have a conception of God, you’re wrong. There is also a beautiful book on Christian mysticism – The Cloud of Unknowing.
Now re the Pope’s encyclical, it is based on science, and science arose out of this Judeo-Christian tradition which did not anthropomorphize God (polytheism) or see God in everything (animism) or God as everything (pantheism).
The Pope artfully brings in both science (allowed by a transcendental God’s laws of nature…which atheists have no difficulty working with) and applies to it our Christian morality as it has developed over the millennia, as we have become better aware of our faults and flaws and problems, and the “so-much-the-greater” concomitant mercy of Jesus.
The Pope could have had some atheist advisors on the science part (I don’t know), but I completely doubt he would have had some pantheistic and pagan advisors for the science part…or he’d be suggesting we propitiate the anthropomorphic powers by sacrificing goats, etc, rather than saying we should do the needful to solve the problems – such as reducing our pollution
