No Return to Eden: The Debate over Nuclear Power

The vision of the perfect city conflicts with a vision of the garden.

The energy crisis is a perplexing issue. It pervades the public media, and it is blamed for everything from social unrest to inflation. And it is patently beyond the ability of our political system to resolve. Christians are deeply involved. Pastors, who are often confused by the difficult, technical issues involved, are under pressure to come up with biblical answers.

Middle- and upper-class Christians are generally supportive of the industrial society that has produced our high standard of living. Many of these are blue collar workers, acutely conscious of the price to be paid in layoffs and unemployment. On the other hand, some Christians are deeply committed to a critique of current society as materialistic and unjust to the poor both in America and the Third World. They see the energy crisis as an inevitable judgment on a corrupt industrial system, and they welcome it.

Christians should be passionately concerned. However, a Christian approach to the situation must be far more critical of these two sides. Both the industrialist and environmentalist movements are in the world and of the world. But they are not basic Christian positions and, therefore, Christians should examine them with some reserve before embracing them.

The Christian Starting Point

The Christian view of man is utterly different from that of secular humanism. It is most clearly presented in Genesis 2 where God judges the sin of Adam and Eve by driving them from the garden, and preventing their return to Eden with a flaming sword at its gate. Outside the garden, they face an earth cursed by God because of human sin, one that will offer its rewards only at the price of difficulty, struggle, and labor. The commands to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue the earth are conditioned by this new and difficult relationship between man and nature. In the New Testament, creation is presented as still groaning under this curse (Rom. 8:22), so intimately linked with human beings that their deliverance will be conjoined on the “day of the Lord.”

Evangelical faith demands that the consequences of sin be taken seriously: (1) There is no return to Eden; the flaming sword will always be present as long as humanity remains sinful. (2) This world cannot be turned into Eden; the curse will always show itself against any attempt by man to play God on the earth. This is not to say the earth does not yield its fruits, only that in doing so problems and difficulties will always arise to extract a cost and set a limit on human activity. The curse involves both the earth and the human beings who are indissolubly linked with it. It is a continual and painful reminder not only of human creatureliness (we are not God), but also of human sinfulness. (3) The new order, to which the Christian is committed, will not appear as a product of human achievement. It will be the kingdom set up by the Lord himself on his return.

Scientific-Materialist-Humanism

Secular humanism, in contrast, is the religion of man, the great idol of humanity’s self-image. It appears in its first influential form as human self-confidence to transform nature by technology to serve humanity. It is intellectual man: man come of age. Its vision is the new Babylon—streets paved with stainless steel along which white-coated scientists stroll discussing the mysteries of the universe, which they presume to understand.

Nuclear power is, for the religion of humanism, the expression of human dominance over nature. The human mind has penetrated and controlled the atomic nucleus. The “age of the atom” was to be a time when man set himself free from labor at last, free of the curse. The struggle over nuclear power in the world is, therefore, a religious struggle.

Certainly nuclear power offers a real promise. In contrast with chemical power (oil, gas, or coal) the amounts of heat released by nuclear fission are enormous per pound of fuel. A modern power station typically requires some 8,000 tons of coal every day and produces 800 tons of waste ash. A nuclear power station for the same output requires only seven pounds of uranium to be fissioned per day and produces some 60 pounds of total waste. The problems of mining, transport, and waste disposal therefore involve far smaller amounts of material. This is the consequence of a basic law of nature.

The development of a technological society, the evidence of human triumph, was based on fossil fuels—coal and oil. Since new oil is now getting harder to find and more expensive to extract, this triumph appears threatened by a catastrophe. Nuclear power thus was to be the escape for that society—by means of the breeder reactor. This is a system for transforming into a new fuel (plutonium) the part of uranium in the fuel that takes no part in the fission reaction. Since the nonfissioning form of uranium predominates in natural uranium, this process enormously extends the fuel reserves. Use of the breeder reactor will allow for the supply of uranium fuel for thousands of years, even at current rates of usage. The limitation on the ever-expanding powers of industrial man would then be removed.

The environmentalist attacks this form of humanism by pointing to flaws in the achievements. The attack begins with the indisputable fact that expansion of the gross national product cannot forever satisfy an ever-expanding world population. It points to limits inherent in a finite world and to the further fact of an exponentially expanding world population. It is already clear that even the present world population cannot be provided with a Western standard of living with current (or even forseeable) technology. For the Christian, such limits are the consequences of the divinely appointed bounds in the human situation. We are coming up against the stubborn fact of the curse.

The environmentalist critique goes further. Industrial society is regarded as intrinsically immoral and corrupting. It is presumed to lead inevitably to “consumerism,” forcing unwanted and unnecessary material goods on us and feeding our worst appetites in the name of profit. Here, too, we are presented with costs, and once again nuclear power represents the classic case: (1) Nuclear power and a breeder reactor system are essentially linked to centralized electricity production. (2) This system uses plutonium, from which a sufficiently sophisticated group or nation could manufacture an atomic bomb. (3) The wastes produced, while small in quantity, are highly radioactive. (4) Use of nuclear power involves risks to the public. The environmentalist sees these costs, concludes that they should not be paid, and says we should reject a technological future of this kind. The argument is, of course, fundamental; it is not merely against nuclear power, but against any centralized high-technology future.

Romantic Environmentalism

It is important to note that environmentalism is also part of the secular humanist religion. It is not only a critique of the past, it also involves a vision of the future. It is a romantic rather than an intellectual vision. It presents us with a noble farmer with one hand on a rake and the other on a solar collector. Once set free from the slavery and corruption of industrial, centralized society, man can reach peace and plenty in harmony with nature. Such is the vision of romantic humanism. If ideal man (free from sin) is not to be found along the intellectual path, then set him free from “the system” to regain innocence in nature. It is an attempt to reenter Eden, as if the Fall had never occurred. It is to attempt to ignore the flaming sword.

The first form of secular humanism has always faced a running battle with the second. The vision of the perfect city has always been opposed by a vision of the garden. People like Rousseau, Thoreau, and Blake have always presented not only a critique of the industrial community, but an alternative vision as well.

The critique has often been compelling. When Blake described the “dark satanic mills” of the early industrial revolution, he was pointing to brutal injustices. The critique by romantic environmentalism is cogent, but this philosophy is more than a mere critique of industrial society: at its root it is antithetical to it. It offers in its place a new secular vision.

In fact, romantic environmentalism is full of illusions. It fails to recognize that in moving along the industrial path a cost has already been entailed and that there is no return. Farming today is industrial; it is centralized. In 1979 the U.S. had a record harvest of $61 billion, 17 percent higher than the previous year, which was also a record. It is being harvested with powerful machines by some 5 million workers. Without the machines 30 million workers would be needed, along with twice as many horses and mules. This harvest was grown by means of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides from the chemical industry; it will go to feed a hungry world by means of a distribution network that is also part of the industrial system.

Consider the solar collector in the romantic vision. It is made of copper and glass. The copper is found in only a few places, mostly in the West. It requires bulk ore processing and extraction. (Mao Tse-Tung tried the idea of backyard blast furnaces and found, as any metallurgist would predict, they did not work; that is why we have centralized systems for metal extraction.) In order for every home to have the system of collectors, pipes, and pumps associated with solar heating, it will require a centralized industrial system.

The illusion of somehow returning to a preindustrialized society is necessary to maintain the argument of secular humanism. It must not be human nature that is shown to be wrong but the system, so that humanity can reenter Eden. Instead of seeking to improve the faults in centralized society, it must be condemned, root and branch, in the name of human innocence. The illusion touches not only centralization but also each of the criticisms of the nuclear power option described.

For example, it is not plutonium that is evil, but people. (This should surely be obvious, but romantic environmentalists in the National Council of Churches have played exactly this theological game in their first report on nuclear energy.) Similarly, the romantic yearning for a risk-free society is an illusion. There never has been and never will be any such thing. Even hunting was dangerous!

The growth of industrial society has reduced risks overall while changing their nature. Current developments will continue this process. Nuclear power historically has had a lower accident rate than coal-based industry with its 140 mining deaths per year, black lung disease for miners, and widespread sulfur air pollution.

A Christian Perspective

In this internecine war between the two wings of secular humanism, we Christians need to find a third position that is uniquely our own, and one that reflects the basic truths found in Genesis 2 and Romans 8. First, we cannot commit ourselves to any view that treats earth as ultimate. Our commitment is to heaven and for that reason we cannot be standard bearers for either side. Second, we should be strongly aware of implications for the Christian view of human society now. We should not be surprised that each new technological advance will carry a corresponding price. In just this way the curse and the sword are made manifest. That does not mean that there are really no advances; the earth does yield a fruit, but it does so at a price, which may be painful. After all, thistles often are!

Such an approach allows us to be neither naively optimistic of human scientific progress, nor condemning of it as radically unfruitful. We will avoid the idea that Eden can be planted in the world without turning to impale ourselves on the flaming sword in a doomed attempt to reenter Eden. We will accept the cursed and temporary status of our earth and work within those limitations. We are at last ready to realize that an infinite growth of both population and living standard is impossible.

Accepting the sinfulness inherent in the human situation is necessary. We should reassert the role of law—the biblical check on an unredeemed world. That technology requires careful use and serious safeguards should not surprise us. But neither should it deter us from setting up appropriate constraints against its abuse. A plutonium-based system, if it delivers greater benefits, should not be rejected merely because it requires careful safeguards. Nor can we merely hope, as present U.S. policy dictates, that an example of forebearance will suffice. We need to be involved actively in developing a safeguarding system to counter human sinfulness.

The realistic appraisal of human nature found in Scripture provides an important part of our protection against abuse. Humans can never be expected to be perfect, and the rule of law is our defense against inevitable consequences. This constructive approach leads to what one might describe as Christian environmentalism: regulation in which continual watchfulness is applied to all our organizations, especially those that are commercial. This watchfulness is institutionalized through government, but when government becomes the agent of romantic environmentalists, its regulation becomes negative and destructive, for it tries to reach the impossible ideal of a risk-free society.

But government regulation can be constructive when it is not chasing an impossible ideal. Considerable gains have already been made in this direction by the environmental movement. As a result, a substantial cleanup of air, water, and land is now under way, involving every industry. The good record of the nuclear industry is due in part to the increased public scrutiny it has experienced. This sort of practical, constructive environmentalism can only be welcomed by Christians as fully attuned to our view of man. Unlike romantic environmentalism, it is not destructive, nor does it apply its vigilance to industry and government only. Its suspicions extend to all organizations, including lobbying groups, whether industrial or environmentalist.

A Possible Christian Program

Since personal judgment is required in applying broad Christian principles to detailed energy programs, it is not expected that Christians will agree on future policies. However, our discussion should differ sharply from that of the world, because it is based on a different world view.

But there are areas of agreement. In the current world situation Christians must surely give great weight to the needs of those millions who live outside industrial society, for whom the energy crisis is understood as deforestation—no more wood for the fire—and starvation. Especially under such circumstances, Christians agree on the necessity to renounce the greedy materialism so common in the West. We have not done well in ensuring that the benefits of industrial society extend to the poor, even to those in our own society. Improvement in these areas must take precedence for the Christian over gains in middle-class lifestyle, for the Bible is emphatic about the responsibilities of those who have many possessions toward those who do not. At the very least, all this implies a strong effort toward conservation. In this situation, waste is unconscionable!

Christians must also come to a sober acceptance of an industrial future, not just for ourselves, but also in order to provide the means to help the poor in our society and in the world. To abandon technology in favor of a bucolic environmentalist illusion is to give up hope of helping. To accept it, knowing that its use involves a cost we must undertake responsibly for the sake of others as well as ourselves, is to accept the biblical view of the human situation.

Christian responsibility also requires that the U.S. stop absorbing so much of the world’s dwindling supply of oil. This is the only way to deal with the continuing increase in oil cost that has priced poorer countries out of their most important source of industrial energy. We must have a serious national commitment to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. In spite of the rhetoric, we do not have such a commitment. The reason is twofold. First, as a nation we refuse to take the issue sufficiently seriously; this is the legacy of our past acceptance of the optimism of materialistic humanism. Second, a wild reaction into romantic environmentalism paralyzes us from responsible acceptance of available technological solutions. We demand the illusion of technology without risk and without cost.

The argument for an industrial future without the romantic illusion takes us to the energy sources of coal and uranium, and both involve human costs in terms of risks to life and health in our society. The price of a nonindustrial future is even higher—not only to us but to the peoples of the world. The responsible Christian view entails the sober acceptance of the cost to increase the use of both our major energy sources in order to replace oil. It results finally in acceptance of a partly nuclear future—including the breeder reactor—acceptance of the price to be paid in disposal of small volume/high activity waste, and national and international safeguards in the use of plutonium.

I accept these realities because I believe technology is to be used responsibly for our benefit, without any starry-eyed illusions. As a Christian I cannot resort to illusion. I have made my choice in the context of a fading world still struggling with the curse. The only solution is, “Maranatha, even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

Carl F. H. Henry, first editor of Christianity Today, is lecturer at large for World Vision International. An author of many books, he lives in Arlington, Virginia.

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