Only a God can Save Us

Leonardo Boff

01/06/2013

Opinión

^-A ⁺A

The crisis of our scientific-technical civilization demands more than historical and sociological explanations. It requires a philosophical reflection that leads to a theological question. It was Martín Heidegger, (1889-1976), who saw it clearly, even before the ecological alarm was sounded. In a famous 1955 conference in Munich, "On the question of the technical" where Werner Heisenberg and Jose Ortega y Gasset were also present, he clearly set out the risk the natural world and humanity ran by being totally absorbed with the intrinsic logic of the mode of thinking and acting that, in order to obtain individual or social benefits, intervenes in and manipulates all aspects of the natural world. The scientific -technical culture has so profoundly penetrated our understanding of ourselves that we can neither understand each other nor live without incorporating this crutch into ourselves and our way of being in the world.

This represents the convergence of two traditions of Western philosophy: the Platonic philosophy, with an idealistic flavor transformed by the Christian tendency, and that of Aristotle, more empirical and science-based. They fused in the XVII century, with Descartes, and formed the basis of modern techno-science, the present dominant paradigm. This mode of being concentrates on how things are, how they function and how they can be useful to us, and is not interested in the miracle that things are, compared to nothingness. We separate ourselves from the natural world and immerse ourselves in the artificial world. We have lost the organic relationship with things, plants, animals, mountains and with humanity itself.

Everything is converted into the means to an end. We do not see a being as the carrier of a purpose, but for its utility, physical or intellectual, that can be exploited. If something can be done, it will be done, with no ethical justification. If we can split the atom there is no reason not do so, and build the atomic bomb. If we can drop that bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who will stop us? If I can manipulate the genetic code, there is no ethical or moral limit that can stop it. And we perform experiments that interest us and appear useful for the market and to a given life style.

Heidegger warns us that techno-science has created a mechanism in us (Gestell ), a way of seeing that considers everything as an item at our disposal. It has colonized all spaces and subjugated all knowledge. It has been converted into a motor that auto-accelerates in such a manner that we do not know how to stop it. We have made ourselves its hostages. It dictates to us what to do and what not to do. Here, Heidegger points out the very high risk we run, as natural beings and as a species. Techno-science affects the fundamentals that sustain life and has generated such destructive power that it can exterminate us all. The means have already been built and are at our disposal. Who will stop the hand that would unleash the natural and human Armageddon? That is the great question that should concern us as persons and as humanity; rather than growth and interests rates.

Heidegger's intended answer is a Kehre, a "return" or transformation. This is the final purpose of all his thinking, as is revealed in a letter to Karl Jaspers: to be the attendant of a museum who cleans the dust from the objects so that they can be seen. As a philosopher he proposed himself (it is sad that such terribly complicated language was used) to remove all that covers the habitual and daily life. Doing that, what is revealed?

Nothing, except everything that surrounds us and that constitutes our being-in-the-world-with-the others and with the landscape, with the blue sky, with the rain and with the sun. And to enable that all these things be seen as they are; they do not oppress us, but they are there, tranquil, with us, at home.

He looked for inspiration for this mode of being in the pre-Socratic, especially in Heraclitus, who lived the original thinking before it was transformed by Plato and Aristotle into metaphysics, which is the basis of techno-science. But Heidegger fears that it is too late. We are so close to the abyss that we cannot go back. In his last interview with Der Spiegel, in 1976, published post-mortem, he says: "Only a God can save us." The philosophical question about the destiny of our culture has been converted into a theological question. Will God intervene? Will God permit the species to self-destruct?

As a Christian theologian I will join Saint Paul in saying: "hope does not disappoint" (Rm 5,5), because "God is the sovereign lover of life" (Sb 11,26). I do not know how. I only wait.

- Leonardo Boff, Theologian-Philosopher / Earthcharter Commission

Free translation from the Spanish by Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org. Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/76432