Editorial June 26, 1976 Issue

Energy: The Spiritual Solution

[The Christian Science Monitor of June 25 carries a special section on the topic of energy.]

Peter J. Henniker-Heaton

Energy and its right use are today key factors to resolving many of mankind's major problems. Innumerable energy sources have been and continue to be explored—from muscle power to solar wind. Some questions are short-range, such as the best ways to develop and control fossil and nuclear fuels; others are long-range, such as possible extensive tapping of solar energy. Answers to both must be found. Without energy human civilization is inconceivable.

Some solutions to the energy challenge may be largely technological. But in all of them ethical and moral considerations are involved: how to distribute energy fairly, how to control and direct it wisely. And beyond the ethical and moral considerations there are spiritual ones: the nature of ultimate reality, of creative Spirit and man's final destiny. By starting from the spiritual we will most quickly reach and surely protect right solutions at other levels.

In thermodynamics and its associated technology, power and energy are words with precise specialized meanings. But in the broader usage of common speech power indicates potential for work, energy means power readied for or actually engaged in work. The Greek word from which our energy derives goes back at least to Aristotle. But men's deeper thinking in this area has mostly been formulated in terms of power.

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