Are There Too Many People?
January 29, 2019
St. Francis de Sales
POPULATION CONTROL experts say there are too many people in the world. They say there is not enough food, shelter, jobs, clean air, open space, etc. for so many billions and that if we don’t do something to prevent more births, terrible things will happen. The evidence of demographic winter, not plenty, does not divert these alarming prophecies. These experts want the planet far less crowded.
Are there too many people? Is the world too crowded? It’s a fair question. Possibly you have wondered yourself.
But when it comes to world population, there is only one issue — one burning issue — that is decisive, and it has nothing to do with food or environmental issues. We only need to answer this question: Are there too many people for God to love? If there are too many people for God to love, if He does not create each and every person in His image, then the population controllers would be absolutely right in suggesting limits.
Perhaps you have been walking down a crowded street or been in a busy airport or packed stadium, and honestly wondered about this too. Looking at all the many people coming and going, perhaps you have grown fatigued of human beings. “Enough, already!” Perhaps you have thought that it is simply impossible for God not to feel the same fatigue and for Him to love every single person individually. It is certainly impossible for us.
Unfortunately, by studying statistics or our own abilities, we cannot arrive at an answer. We need a scientist of God’s love to give us the answer.
St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) was just that kind of scientist. The French bishop, who came from an aristocratic family with a father who was not enthused about his becoming a priest, possessed such learning that he was eventually declared a Doctor of the Universal Church. But he also possessed a beautiful simplicity, which helped him to study the evidence of God’s love that is not in books.
In his Treatise on the Love of God, St. Francis de Sales wrote:
The Heart of God is so abundant in love and its goodness is so infinite that all can possess it, without anyone’s share diminishing. Infinite Goodness cannot be exhausted, even if it fills all the souls in the world. God does not pour a smaller quantity of His love into a soul because He pours out His love into an infinity of others; the power of His love is not diminished by the multitude of rays that He spreads abroad, but remain ever overflowing with its immensity.
God knocks on the door of every heart. Open the door and you will begin to see the limitlessness of His love. Keep it open and you will cease to wonder whether there could ever be enough for billions. The saint continues:
Ah, my God! How frequently we should put the query to our soul: Is it possible that I have been loved, and so tenderly loved by my Saviour, that He was pleased to think of me in particular, and ion all those little occurrences by which He has drawn me to Him? How much should we appreciate them, and how carefully turn them to our profit!
(Treatise on the Love of God, Book 4; Ch. 14; O. V, p. 215)
Population control experts suffer from a serious limitation. Their hearts are not as large as the heart of God. They are like a farmer who plants seeds and has no consciousness that the sun is responsible for their growth into mature plants. The population controllers live and thrive in the light of Divine Love — they wouldn’t exist without it — and yet they don’t know it, or refuse to know it.
To say there are too many people in the world is to say there is too much God. And that is impossible.
This great God, Who is uniquely good, is correct in desiring our whole heart. Ours is only a little heart, and it cannot sufficiently return the love due to the Divine Goodness…However, God does not love us out of self-interest but for our good. Our love is useless to Him, but it brings us great profit! If it pleases Him, it is because it is profitable to us. (T.L.G. Book 10, Ch. 13; O. V. p. 209)
God loves us for our own good, not for His good. It is arduous work, the whole goal of the spiritual life, to respond to the abundance of this divine light. Here is a very good compilation of the words of the great saint, whose feast day is today, to help along the way. A free reading of this book is available here.
Saints, not statisticians and demographers, can tell us whether there are too many people or not.
— Comments —
Lydia Sherman writes:
We took a trip across America last year and saw a few crowded cities and quadruple the amount of open space. Is it always the philosophers in populated areas that conclude there isn’t enough room? I took this picture in a part of Calfornia with no signs of life. Please note my caption beneath it.
To everyone concerned about over-crowdedness: There is still room.
In spite of the so-called over-population, there are still many couples who suffer the sadness of being unable to conceive and who desperately long for children to raise.
In spite of the reported lack of room, there are many houses that remain empty most of the day because of the custom of ferrying children somewhere else to be cared for.
In spite of the report about lack of food, there are benevolent food services from both religious groups and the local towns, full of food they cannot give away.
Of course I don’t live in a crowded town or city. I live in the country. These people who suppose to be experts in world population have not seen the world nor observed the way things work in real life.
And how many of us have lost loved ones this last year? If these brilliant social planners were to really take a poll, they would have to say, “More people have died than every before.”
I know a large family that puts just as much effort back into life as they take out. They grow their own food and share it with others who don’t, and they have created their own business of building houses. They take no money from the government yet still pay a lot of taxes. Their married children have houses of their own and are raising their own children to do the same as they did in many areas of life.
Besides the question you asked “Are there too many people for God to love?” it would be good if we asked some other hard questions, such as, “Which one of your own children or parents would you like to eliminate in order to provide more food and space for everyone else?” I have asked this before, and the person who was espousing this insane belief, was never willing to give up his own life for it.
