Liberating Planet Earth

The Liberation of the Individual 65
olution, the surviving leaders imprison or execute their former
“comrades.” The revolution eats its own children. (But not soon
enough! ) This has been a theme in human literature from the beginning.
In Greek mythology, Chronos is the god who ate his children.
One child escaped (Zeus), and later destroyed Chronos.
Chronos was the god of time, known in Roman mythology as
Saturn, the god of revolution. He was the god of the chaos festival:
saturnalia. (We still call the seventh day of the week Saturday.)
What is the heart of the error of all false religions? That man’s
own works can save him. This is the dead end for mankind. Men
are already under judgment in Adam. They need grace, not
works, to deliver them back into the household of God.
Environmental Detmminism
A related error is environmental determinism. Men blame their
environment for their sin. When God came to Adam and asked
him if he had eaten the forbidden fi-uit, what did Adam say? “The
woman whom You gave to me, she gave me of the tree, and I did
eat” (Genesis 3:12). Then God confronted the woman. What did
she say? “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (v. 13). In short, ‘
“You did it, God. It’s really your fault. You gave us a poor environment.
You kept saying that it was good, but it wasn’t good. It
allowed us to sin.” They blamed God for their sin.
Satan, of course, said nothing, for God asked him nothing.
Satan was cursed. Adam and Eve were punished. The ground
was cursed. God is not an environmental determinist. He blames
sinners for their sin (Remans 9:14-23).
Marxism is perhaps the most successful religion of environmental
determinism in man’s history. The Marxist believes that
positive change in society can come only when key impersonal
forces of history are present. The good intentions of men are
worth nothing. Only historical forces count. Marx was quite clear
about this in his famous Preface to his 1859 book (the year that
Darwin’s Otigin of Species appeared), A Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy. (This is a lengthy and highly theoretical passage,
but the whole world has been turned upside down by it.)