"My greatest sin was to bring a son into a world I knew was ending. Do you think God will forgive me?"
So proclaims Andrei Sator, the villain of Christopher Nolan's 2020 blockbuster action film Tenet, in its climactic final minutes. It's a piece of blunt screenwriting that nonetheless captures an increasingly prominent idea in a zeitgeist riddled by anxieties over nuclear Armageddon and climate apocalypse: Maybe existence is overrated.
Enter anti-natalism, a term coined by South African philosopher David Benatar in his 2006 book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. The title is partially inspired by work of the ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles, who in his play Oedipus at Colonus has the chorus lament: “Never to have been born is best / But if we must see the light, the next best / Is quickly returning whence we came."
Anti-natalism, in a nutshell, declares procreation unethical. What has long been a fringe viewpoint has in recent years become less so. The r/antinatalism community on Reddit has jumped from 46,000 subscribers in early 2020 to 146,000 subscribers today. Anti-natalism International was founded in the summer of 2020 to “bring anti-procreative thought into the mainstream of society.”
Anti-natalists often position themselves against religion, which they deem harmfully pro-natalist. The truth, however, may be less straightforward.
Future
Much of contemporary anti-natalism is driven by ecological pessimism. Some anti-natalists — like the fictional Andrei Sator, for instance — point to human-induced climate change and its potentially catastrophic consequences as reason enough to, as Antinatalism International puts it, “break the cycle of sentience.” The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, founded in 1991 but still going strong worldwide, argues that “phasing out the human species by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health.”
Religious leaders, however, question whether procreation and environmentalism need be opposed to one another.
"I often teach that the first directive in the Torah is 'Let there be light,' but the first directive as traditionally seen is 'Be fruitful and multiply,'" said Rabbi David Kaufman, of Temple Shomer Emunim. "Judaism would strongly oppose the idea that procreation is wrong. That said, Judaism also teaches that we need to be good stewards of the environment. For us, the way to advance both of these ideas together is to advocate for other ways to maintain and improve the environment."
Douglas Berger, president of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie, said that none of his group's members subscribe to anti-natalism but that humanists in general "are concerned about unchecked population growth because of the effect on our planet's resources." However, that doesn't mean they support universal childlessness, especially any kind that's imposed from above.
"We strongly feel any family planning should be up to the individual(s) involved without interference from the government or religion," said Mr. Berger. "The decision to have children or not should be based on situational ethics — can I afford to bring a child into this world, for example."
The secular humanist outlook isn't too distant from an Abrahamic one. As noted by Peter Feldmeier, professor of Catholic studies at the University of Toledo, "procreation is not the only end or a necessary end for marriage or intercourse." There are, after all, older and non-fertile couples.
Yes, he affirmed, "the Catholic Church, along with our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters, celebrate new life," for "children are seen as a blessing." However, "Catholic couples are highly encouraged to discern when it would be prudent to procreate. This leaves some room to ask whether one should bring more humans into a world that is already over-populated, and it leaves total latitude with regard to how many children they discern having."
Ultimately, said Professor Feldmeier, "there is no place in Catholicism for anti-natalism, but there is plenty of room for prudence, particularly in an overpopulated world."
For Masjid Al-Islam's Imam Ibrahim Abdulrahim, meanwhile, Islam espouses what amounts to a theology of optimism. He pointed to one verse in the Quran, 17:31: "And do not kill your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you. Indeed, their killing is ever a great sin."
That, Imam Abdulrahim said, is a divine promise that every generation, God willing, will find a way to fend for itself. There’s no space for the pessimism.
"The future,” he said, “is always in God's hands."
Hell
For "original" anti-natalists like Benatar, though, the dangers of environmental degradation are secondary to the basic, eternal fact of chronic suffering. Pain is inherent to existence, and pleasure simply cannot compensate for it. Whether or not an Armageddon of rising seas and parched famine comes to pass is irrelevant, because suffering is an existential constant ruling every dimension of life — from a rib-shattering car accident to pangs of hunger after missing breakfast.
"The quality of even the best lives is very bad — and considerably worse than most people recognize it to be," Benatar wrote in his 2006 book.
To (symbolically) make that point, a 27-year-old Indian man named Raphael Samuel filed a lawsuit against his parents in 2019 for bringing him into a ceaselessly cruel world without his consent.
This line of thinking might gain greater potency, not less, if one believes in the afterlife. One of the more unusual anti-natalist arguments points to the existential danger of hell. To have a child is to risk their eternal damnation in a fiery pit. The more humane option for a believer, the argument goes, is to simply not bear children lest they increase the number of hell's inmates.
Professor Feldmeier isn’t convinced.
“The Catholic Church has great confidence in the mercy and grace of God, so another way to look at it would be that this would be another soul that can enjoy union with God for eternity,” he said. “Really, we would consider that kind of thinking a bit silly.”
As for the Rev. James Bacik, the theologian and retired diocesan priest, eternal damnation isn’t really an option. The Second Vatican Council in the 1960s declared that “God wills the salvation of all people,” so that “even atheists can be saved if they follow their conscience.” Two of the greatest Catholic theologians of the 20th century, Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, held similar positions.
Freedom
Implicit in anti-natalism is an argument concerning the nature of suffering — namely, that it does not and cannot contain any deeper meaning. This stands opposed to most religious traditions, which have historically found various ways of resolving the apparent contradiction between divine goodness and worldly evil.
It’s not that Christians deny the reality of suffering. As recounted in the Bible, Job, in a moment of profound pain, cursed the day he was born: “May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said, 'A boy is born!' That day — may it turn to darkness; may God above not care about it; may no light shine upon it.”
“It is part of the biblical tradition, that lament over suffering,” said Father Bacik. “[Anti-natalism] has tapped into that, and it's very real ... [but] we as Christians see suffering as redemptive.”
Jesus Christ is the paradigmatic example — a prophet and savior put to death by the corrupt powers that be, but eventually risen again to save the many lost souls of humanity. As the saying goes, "no pain, no gain." Suffering can be an instrument for growth and, ultimately, for good. For instance, Father Bacik said, members of Mothers Against Drunk Driving suffered grievous loss, but banded together to transmute their suffering into a positive force for good in the world.
Making a similar point but from a different angle, Imam Abdulrahim noted that humanity's greatest minds have found ways to make life better not just for human beings, but all of life on Earth. Their existence is a net benefit for all existence, not simply a force (or stage) for greater torment. To suppress the springing of future generations is to suppress the good they may bring.
"When it comes to people being born or not born, we've already annihilated many people through oppression and world dominance, already killed millions if not billions of people," said Imam Abdulrahim. "Out of those people we don't know what the creator would have blessed us with — an Albert Einstein or Frederick Douglass or Booker T. Washington. How many of those did we kill that didn't even have the chance to live? We don't know how far man would have progressed from this point if certain people had been allowed to live."
The focus on that positive potential is intrinsic to Buddhist teachings. As noted by the Rev. Jay Rinsen Weik, of the Buddhist Temple of Toledo, "the very beginning of the teaching is that human life is precious, and to be born into the human life is the most auspicious life possible because it allows us to fulfill our true nature."
The primary goal of the Buddhist path is no different from the anti-natalist one: The ultimate alleviation of suffering. In Zen Buddhist teachings, however, clinging to nonexistence is as much a cause of suffering as the opposite.
"There are people for whom there is a wish for self-annihilation," said Reverend Weik. "This can lead to apathy, a life that doesn’t go anywhere or do anything. In its most extreme form it can manifest as suicidal ideation or action."
Anti-natalists aren't typically suicidal — they're committed to the erasure of future generations, not their own — but they are fixated on nonexistence in a way that may prevent enlightenment. "Realizing the true nature of the self,” a nature that's identical to other people, to the planet, to the cosmos itself, "is where true freedom comes in," Reverend Weik said.
Reverend Weik had encountered Buddhist practitioners who, after considered deliberation, opted not to procreate, and he's encountered others who have raised full households. In the end, both are holy, "valid ways of spiritual living."
First Published March 6, 2022, 1:30 p.m.
