First Reformed

First Reformed (2017) contains fundamental ideas concerning the human condition and wrestles with the relationship between religion and politics.  Ideas play a significant role in the film, hence it can be used in support of the thesis that film is a viable medium in which to make philosophical (and theological) ideas transparent and derive dramatic tension from clashing ideas. In this film, the ideas that clash concern the role of religion in the political issue of climate change—or is that issue primarily religious?

Early in the film, Rev. Ernst Toffer counsels a despairing environmentalist, Michael. After listening to Michael provide a litany of scientific reasons for despair on climate change as inevitably leading to the unlivability of the species, Toffer acknowledges that “if Man’s accomplishments have brought us to the place where life as we know it may cease to exist in the near future,” such despair is new. In fact, if “humankind can’t overcome its immediate interests to ensure survival, then you’re right; the logical response is despair.” Nonetheless, Toffer proffers that wisdom is holding two contradictory truths—hope and despair—simultaneously; the holding of these truths simultaneously in the mind is life itself. Blackness—the sense that one’s life has no meaning—is something else. As for that, the reverend states that forgiveness and grace apply to us all. This leads Michael to ask, “Can God forgive us for what we have done to this world?” Rev. Toffer replies, “Who can know the mind of God? But we can choose the righteous life over evil.” The religious response to the despair over climate change rendering our species extinct (or at the very least very uncomfortable) is at the individual level: to lead a righteous life.

Righteous is predominately used in the religious domain; in the moral domain, good is used. It would sound strange to say that the righteous person should get into a political debate over pollution with an executive of a coal company even though prophets in the Torah confront kings over their abuse of power. But if no one can know the mind of God, at least concerning whether God is in favor of climate change, then it would presumably be impious (i.e. highly arrogant) of a person to urge coal company executives to reduce carbon emissions because that’s what God wants. The implication here is that climate change is a political issue, and that religious discourse should not encroach on the other domain.

Yet Rev. Toffer, in meeting in a diner with his senior pastor, Rev. Joel Jefffers, and Balq, an executive with an energy company, turns to the polluter and asks, “Will God forgive us for what we’re doing to his creation?” Balq dismisses the question as “loose talk.” Shifting to the political issue, Toffer tells both men what Michael had said: that a scientific consensus of 97% of relevant scientists provides a very solid basis on which to take climate change, and thus pollution, very seriously. Michael had also told Toffer that in 2010, the IPCC predicted that if nothing is done by 2015, environmental collapse would be irreversible. Nothing was done, Michael said in despair, at least as of 2017. Just as Michael claimed, people—including Barq here—have not been listening. Even worse, I submit, is when people not educated in natural science presume nonetheless that they as individuals have a legitimate veto or override over the scientists. Perhaps just as Yahweh uses a flood to clean the slate on mankind, so too God may be using climate change to expunge such an arrogant species.

Balq is arrogant in dismissing the scientific consensus and any knowledge Toffer may have (e.g., from Michael) by retorting, “It’s a complicated subject.” Toller shakes his head no. It is actually not complicated; just look at who benefits. Who profits? Perhaps Toller is implying that Balq’s presumed superiority in understanding the impact of industry on climate change boils down to a desire to continue profiting? For Balq then shorts, “Can we just keep politics out!” Claiming the turf for religion, Rev. Toller counterclaims, “This isn’t politics—what God wants.” But then Toffer has just slipped into his own trap. “Oh, you know the mind of God?” Balq asks. “You spoke to Him personally? He told you His plans for Earth?”

Toffer himself does not believe that politics and religion are mutually exclusive on this issue, and thus by implication in general. Speaking later in his senior pastor’s office, Toffer says, “The whole world is a manifestation of God’s holy presence [omnipresent]. The Church can lead, but if we say nothing? The U.S. Congress still denies climate change.” Referring back to Balq, Toffer adds, “We know who spoke for big business, but who spoke for God.” At that point, Rev. Jeffers pivots his chair so his back faces Toffer and says, “Creation waits in eager expectation of liberation from bondage.” In other words, don’t anger our major donor by getting involved; rather, wait for God to deal both with the planet and the polluters, assuming of course that big business hasn’t been a tool being used by God to applying judgement on an arrogant, conflict-ridden species. “So we should pollute so God can restore?,” Toffer asks, exacerbated. “We should sin so God can forgive?” Jeffers suggests that exterminating us may be part of God’s plan, to which Toffer almost jumps out of his chair. For 40 days and 40 nights it rained; maybe this time God has had it with the species.

From a religious standpoint, therefore, we mere mortals cannot know which side of the political debate is consistent with God. We could be inadvertently thwarting God’s plan by inventing carbon-absorption technology, for example, or the inventive spark may come from God and thus be in line with God’s plan. On this issue at least, religion should step back from entering the political domain. To seek to dominate it would be even more presumptuous. 

What then can a religious person do within the religious domain in which God is both the constraint and the hope? The only clue given in the film comes in Toffer’s advice to Michael to live a righteous life. Righteousness is lived out in conformity with God, rather than in presuming to know God’s mind and act outwardly based on that knowledge. Yet righteousness also includes acting as God's stewards of his creation on Earth. This point was not explicit in the film. Our species role as stewards involves doing what God would do. In the case of climate change: either it a case of us failing to do our job or climate change is part of God's plan and therefore arresting the trend lies beyond our normal custodial work. We typically  view climate change as our species' fault and further assume that we have failed as stewards. So we assume a religious rationale for political or business activism to cut carbon emissions. A CEO, for example, may apply Christian stewardship to his or her role as an ethical leader. 

Alternatively, from assuming an abject failure of righteous stewardship, we can see why God may have a plan that excludes our species such that climate change takes on the mythic role of the flood. Kierkegaard would say that we are left with these alternatives, whereas Hegal would urge us to find a higher synthesis. Such a synthesis, which resolves the contradiction in a higher unity, must fall short of knowing the mind of God because the synthesis comes from a finite mind. Divine revelation is of course another story. Absent that, we are not able to divine the divine mind, hence we are not able to know whether climate change is God's will or due to our failure as stewards to tend God's creation on Earth. Wisdom, Rev. Toffer says, is holding two conflicting ideas (hope and despair) in mind simultaneously. Absent divine revelation, our finite minds may are left in this case with the tension in the contradiction of hope and despair as life itself. In regard to the matter of religion claiming the upper hand in other domains such as politics, a higher synthesis is, I submit, possible even absent revelation. 

I submit that encroachment itself is unethical, and dominance in someone else's garden is especially so. It is problematic, therefore, that the boundary between the religious and political domains remains fraught with difficulty, as this may invite incursions. At the very least, that border ought to be respected, at least on the religious side; the political domain is fueled by the desire for expanding power, it being the essence of politics.