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Parable of the Self

By: ​Jacob Stephens 

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“From one, many; from many, one; Forever uniting, growing, dissolving— forever Changing. The universe is God’s self-portrait.”  

The late-stage capitalist dystopia of Octavia Butler’s 1993 science-fiction novel Parable of the Sower gives frightening warnings about our world marching towards a destructive path in which our future is catered to the rich and devouring the poor, with most giving up on saving it or being able to do so. The universe that Butler constructs is one in which nature is desiccated, individuals are disregarded, and constantly subject to mistreatment by both non-state and state actors, and people are left desperate. This leads the protagonist, Lauren, to formulate a religion to create a better world. It involves a return to naturalistic principles and a rejection of an über deterministic God characteristic of the Abrahamic religions; in doing so she re-establishes a homology between the ancient dichotomy of man and nature. With the rise of post-capitalist society, Butler creates the societal feeling of a Godless universe within an unjust society, something that is too familiar today. Hence, Butler creates a spiritual product more adjusted to Parable of the Sower’s social and cultural progression named ‘Earthseed’. With the idea that ‘God’ is “Change”, creating a religious philosophy that is all-encompassing, Butler argues that we can manifest ourselves individually and as a society, change it and ourselves for the greater good, that we are in control of our own destinies, and that the state of current society goes directly against the self and fulfilling nature of the universe.  

Laura, the main protagonist in the novel, undergoes an important spiritual awakening by abandoning faith in the religion for which her father preaches, Christianity; in the name for her self-discovered religion ‘Earthseed’, founded on the idea that “God is Change”. Earthseed states that ‘God’ shapes us as we change but that we also shape God, therefore ourselves, and in turn the universe. As well as asserting the idea that God exists to shape the universe, and that the universe exists to shape God. Laura explains Earthseed this way, and why she pushes her Fathers religion of Christianity away is not exactly explained in the novel, but can be traced to her thoughts of inequality she believed to be apparent within the Abrahamic philosophies, “In the book of Job, God says he made everything and he knows everything so no one has any right to question what he does with any of it. Okay. That works. That Old Testament God doesn’t violate the way things are now. But that God sounds a lot like Zeus – a super-powerful man, playing with his toys the way my youngest brothers play with toy soldiers. If they’re yours, you make the rules. Who cares what the toys think. Wipeout a toy’s family, then give it a brand-new family” (Butler 16). Laura commonly ponders the suffering in the world - and in this quote, the Book of Job (which is the section of the Bible that deals with the suffering of a man named Job), Job is righteous, yet is stricken down by God with misery, material destruction, and suffering. When Job questions God’s actions, God tells Job he cannot question an omnipotent entity. Lauren is very critical of this material and personified version of God. She is also critical and dismissive that undeserved suffering is ultimately, the will of God. So, Laura creates Earthseed in her belief that one is able to take charge in one’s life rather than simply accept needless suffering. She is still influenced by her fathers’ ministry, and she has learned Christianity well, which is further backing for her own rejection of the religion. Lauren commonly questioned the Bible and the idea of a personified all-knowing entity with her father, “Is there a God? If there is, does he (she? it?) care about us? Deists like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson believed God was something that made us, then left us on our own. ‘Misguided,’ Dad said when I asked him about Deists. ‘They should have had more faith in what their Bibles told them.’” (Butler 15). A similar idea to deism plays a large role in Earthseed, that the divine does not interfere, that you are still the worker, creator, and master of your destiny in the universe [4].  

One consistent theme that runs throughout the entirety of the book is that of nature and how it is viewed. In the conditions of this future America that the Butler sculpts, there exists a serious ecological crisis. Anthropogenic climate change has reaped a heavy toll on the landscapes and political climate of the United States. California, Lauren’s home state, experiences terrible droughts that only further destabilize the already tenuous situation. 

 In this atmosphere of constant environmental crisis, Lauren conceptualizes a new religious worldview. In doing so, she intentionally makes constant reference to natural phenomena. Butler writes in a crucial part of her personal growth and transition away from her Father’s religion and towards her newly conceived worldview that “[a] tree cannot grow in its parents’ shadows” (Butler 82). The very name of her new religion, “Earthseed” reduces humans to seeds before the grandeur of God, and those seeds must be spread across the universe to truly grow and realize themselves. She is inspired by voyages to Mars and the valiant journeys of astronauts into the stars and thus sees the destiny of the human race, and there with God in her religion lies in those distant regions of the cosmos. In a rupture with established western doctrine (both religious and philosophical) regarding nature, Earthseed preaches a unifying belief in the oneness of all things. Christianity, starting with the Old Testament in which God granted the first men beasts for their own use, and enlightenment philosophy share in common the creed that nature exists for human beings and implies the separation of the two; In Lauren’s theology, man is the seed. He is inextricably linked with the destiny of all other men and subsequently nature. Humanity is the raw material for God and themselves to carry out their work, to improve their lot, and to perpetuate beyond hitherto established limits. In the wake of ecological desiccation, this naturalistic-oriented philosophy attracts people who, after years of environmental crisis, are seeking a future and worldview to believe in. In a world in which you and your own physical environment seem to be in constant conflict, and where every single object you own and the person you care for is subject to be lost in an instant, hearing “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change” (Butler 195) would provide you with a sense of solace in knowing your power through contingency. If all you see is change, hearing “God is Change” is not a simple revelation; rather it is merely a statement of reality. To those living in this world that seems to have abandoned them, the only force they bow down to is change.  

The ideas of God and nature play strong roles hand in hand in Parable of the Sower, and in the context of Butler’s society, it is all the more present. Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous quote of, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” - this quote is important when relating to Butler’s world, as Nietzche meant not that a physical God had died, but the idea of God has died in our modern world of detachment [1] - detachment that is apparent in the novel. Besides Lauren’s hyper-empathy, which goes against this idea, the majority of society feels this way. A hyper-capitalistic society that shifts all weight to material desperation creates no room for the idea of a community, no support for a God, because of this detachment. But Lauren’s sense of community changes the mindsets of many, “We have God and we have each other. We have our island community, fragile, and yet a fortress. Sometimes it seems too small and too weak to survive. And like the widow in Christ’s parable, its enemies fear neither God nor man. But also like the widow, it persists. We persist. This is our place, no matter what” (Butler 135). Truly, Lauren takes on a strong leadership role in the spread of Earthseed and cares about the well-being of her community and group through this purpose, a common purpose. Lauren gives a sense of purpose to her group with the ideas she presents as spiritual theology in a seemingly damned world.  

Octavia Butler creates a not-so-far-off world full of hate, despair, and resource wars. A detachment occurs within society, so a spiritual product is created from its suffering. Self-deterministic, self-fulfilling, and encompassing ideas that brings community together for this purpose. Butler reconnects the characters through these ideas, and a harmony is created through the now meaningful suffering of Lauren’s group. A truly meaningful idea when taken into even today’s reality and context, with the ever so growing trend of nihilism and despair resulting from our spiritual detachment, material anguish, and global warming catastrophes. What we are to do with Butler’s philosophy of the novel is to realize it for our own, and manifest the idea of, “All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change God Is Change” (Butler 1).