Commune with the Creator through Christ not Nature! - Posted: June 30, 2015
Pope Francis' latest encyclical on climate change, Laudato Si', emphasizes the importance of preserving ecology. This is good. Unfortunately, his spiritual emphasis uses climate change to support pantheism. This is bad.
Pantheism is the belief that the actual divinity of God exists in nature. It devalues God's personality and expresses a tendency to worship the Creator primarily through creation. By emphasizing praise to God through nature, salvation through Christ and personal accountability to God is degraded. Nature becomes the way to God rather than Christ. The primacy of pantheism is nature not Christ.
Pope Francis in his climate change encyclical in paragraph eleven praises Francis of Assisi by stating,
Francis helps us to see that an integral ecology calls for openness to categories which transcend the language of mathematics and biology, and take us to the heart of what it is to be human. Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise. He communed with all creation, even preaching to the flowers, inviting them "to praise the Lord, just as if they were endowed with reason".1
Do you see the subtle error? Nature becomes the focal point to praise and commune with God not Christ.
He states, "he communed with all creation... just as if they were endowed with reason." He states it was communion with nature, "preaching to the flowers", that led to communion with God.
This is backwards and unscriptural.
It is our communion with Christ as our personal Savior that leads to appreciation of nature and communion with our Creator. Communion with Christ means repenting and forsaking sin in our lives. This is because sin places us in rebellion against our Creator. If we are in rebellion against God through sinful living, we cannot commune with our Creator or appreciate His creation. It is through Christ alone that we are reconciled to God. The focus must be Christ not nature. We can praise the Lord only as we fear God and keep His commandments.
Psalm 112:1 KJV
v.112 Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.
It is through Christ alone that we commune with the Father.
John 14:6 KJV
v.6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Praise to God ascends from human hearts through Jesus Christ!
Nevertheless, Pope Francis continues to underscore praise to God as if the very personality and personal presence of God permeates creation. This is pantheism. In paragraph seventy-two Pope Francis quotes Ps 148 out-of-context to sustain his drive toward nature worship.
"Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created" (Ps 148:3-5). We do not only exist by God's mighty power; we also live with him and beside him. This is why we adore him.1
Do we live by the very personal presence of God in nature? Pope Francis quotes from Ps 148:3-5 to sustain his assertion. However, Ps 8:6 describing the relationship of humans to nature says, "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet." Man was given dominion over nature. Does man have dominion over God? Of course not! God's glory and personal presence is above the heavens and earth.
Psalm 148:13 KJV
v.13 Let them praise the name of the Lord: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.
Again in paragraph one hundred of Pope Francis' encyclical talking about Christ when He took human form, states the following:
The very flowers of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with his radiant presence.1
Pope Francis is stating that God's personal presence is in nature. Is this the gospel of Jesus Christ? This is not the gospel of Christ. Nowhere in the Bible are such sentiments found. This is pantheism. Such reasoning does not come from God.
However, Pope Francis' emphasis on nature as the means to commune with God is not surprising.
The Papacy is "baptized" Paganism. The Papacy, Roman Catholicism, is Paganism and Christianity combined.
Paganism is a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion. There are three main tenets of paganism; they are nature veneration, polytheism or pantheism, and goddess worship.2
Catholicism is a mixture of Paganism and Christianity. For example, Sunday observance combines nature veneration (Laudato Si') with the resurrection of Christ. The veneration of Mary (the mother of Christ) combines goddess worship with prayer.3
Roman Catholicism is not the gospel of Christ. It is a blend of pantheism (nature worship - Laudato Si'), polytheism (veneration of dead saints) and Christianity.
In the time of Pagan Rome, when Roman Catholicism originated, pagans were polytheistic. Pagans worshiped many gods. One attribute of Paganism was the worship of nature or the earth. For pagans, one chief deity of nature worship was "Sol Invictus" or "Unconquered Sun." This was the official sun god of Rome. This explains why Pope Francis emphasizes communion with God by deifying nature in conjunction with Sun-day observance. It also explains why most Christians observe Sunday as the day to worship God. The origin of Sunday observance is nature worship or sun worship. Worship on Sunday emerged from Paganism not Christianity. Remember, the Papacy is the "mystery of iniquity" that combined Ancient Pagan beliefs with Christianity (2 Thessalonians 2:7).
Roman Pagans worshiped the sun.
Hence, Roman Catholics exalt Sunday as the day to worship God. And nearly all Christians follow her example.
In paragraph eighty-seven, Pope Francis praises the sun saying it bears a likeness to God.
Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
who is the day and through whom you give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour;
and bears a likeness of you, Most High.1
While exalting the sun, Pope Francis belittles God's seventh-day Sabbath found in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8-11). Pope Francis calls God's sacred day of rest the "Jewish Sabbath" and "biblical tradition." Pope Francis pulls the Fourth Commandment out from God's Ten Commandments and replaces it with Sunday as a day of worship by praising "Sir Brother Sun." One day soon, God will pour out the Fourth Plague by scorching men with fire from the sun (Revelation 16:8-9) because they exalt Sunday and break the Fourth Commandment that says remember the seventh-day Sabbath to keep it holy (Exodus 20:8).
Pope Francis needs to establish this false day of worship. For it is the exaltation of Sunday observance that unites all Protestant Christians in America with Roman Catholicism.
Indeed, Pope Francis seeks to unite all major religions under Catholicism or a single Ecumenical Church. By deifying nature, the Papacy establishes common ground with many false systems of worship. This is because many religions use nature and natural phenomenon combined with dead ancestor worship as the basis of their religion. Their dead ancestors become part of the natural world. Therefore, they venerate nature and natural forces.
But nature is not God. The person of God is not in nature.
Did you know that the deification of nature contributes to homosexuality?
Romans 1:23-27 KJV
v.23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
v.24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
v.25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
v.26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
v.27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
Did you also know that the nature worshipping pagans in ancient Rome freely practiced homosexuality? This may be why Pope Francis demonstrates indifference towards the (LGBT) community. Again, the Papacy is an outgrowth of paganism.
It is no wonder that the institution of Roman Catholicism is referred to in the Bible as "Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth" Revelation 17:5.
References:
1 05/24/2015 Vatican Website: Laudato Si'