MADNESS AND MERCY: A CHEMICAL REACTION
Like the chemicals he worked with his entire life, Fritz Haber was volatile, and a catalyst — for both good and evil. He saved billions of lives then helped kill millions of people, yet most people have never heard of him.
His story began in 1868 when Haber was born into a well-to-do Jewish family in the Prussian city of Breslau, which is now part of Poland. His father, Siegfried, made dyes, paints, and pharmaceuticals.
But when his wife died soon after childbirth, the industrialist withdrew emotionally from his infant son and their relationship stayed distant and difficult from then on.
After mastering chemistry in university, Haber worked for his father but the two continued to clash. So the young man went his own way and soon developed a process that changed the world.
He discovered how to make ammonia by combining pure nitrogen and hydrogen gas, to produce a cheap and abundant fertilizer. At the time, world agriculture depended largely on saltpetre (potassium nitrate) from Chile, but Haber's invention revolutionized food production by dramatically increasing yields to stave off starvation.
Even today, his synthetic fertilizer is used to grow a full third of the world's food, which supports half the globe's population. For saving literally billions of lives, Haber is often called one of the most important scientists in human history.
But the chemist's sterling reputation was tarnished by his rabid support of Germany in the First World War. When hostilities broke out, he became the lead scientist in the Ministry of War and pioneered the use of chemical weapons, even though they were banned by international agreement.
Not only did he develop and weaponize chlorine gas, he personally oversaw its first successful use at the Second Battle of Ypres, which led to 67,000 casualties. Then he went to the Eastern Front to guide the gas against the Russians.
Soon after, Haber's wife, Clara, argued with her husband then used his service revolver to shoot herself in the heart, in the family garden. Though there were many tensions in the marriage, several authors say Clara was distraught over Haber's work in chemical warfare.
For his part, the chemist argued his lethal gas was less brutal than bullets because it didn't maim. But when he was awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, many scientists refused to attend the ceremony.
Ironically, when the Nazis rose to power in the 1930s, the Jewish-born Haber was pressured to resign from his lucrative positions, even though he'd converted early in life to Christianity. The ailing chemist spent time in several countries during the war and died in 1934 of heart failure. He was 65.
Years later, his work was used to create Zyklon A, a pesticide that releases hydrogen cyanide. The Nazis used it in their gas chambers, further complicating Haber's mixed legacy.
Though most of us recognize in ourselves the same combination of good and bad that plagued the scientist, we feel vastly superior because of the sheer magnitude of the evil consequences stemming from his choices.
And that makes perfect sense from a moral, emotional, and social perspective. After all, we — at our worst —will never take millions of lives.
So it's often staggering for many people when they learn that, from a New Testament point of view, sin and its gravity have absolutely nothing to do with degree or intensity. In other words, any sin — no matter how insignificant — is enough to keep us out of God's eternal presence, according to the Biblical writers.
That's because He is holy and can't remain in the presence of anything but perfection.
So, out of unfathomable love, He sent Jesus to pay the penalty for our sin. As the apostle Paul explains to the early Christians, “He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth through Christ's blood on the cross.
"This includes you who were once separated from Him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now He has reconciled you to Himself through the death of Christ. So He has brought you into His own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before Him without a single fault.” (Colossians 1:21, 22)
Ironically, when Fritz Haber studied the effects of poison gas, he noted that exposure to a low concentration for a long time often had the same fatal effect as exposure to a high concentration for a short time. That principle is known as Haber's Rule.
And the Christian notion that sin is spiritually fatal in any concentration is a fitting parallel. Call it God's Rule.
Rather than be outraged that He would exclude anyone for what we consider trivial offences, we should be astonished that
His relentless love, grace, and forgiveness extends to even the most barbarous offenders, if they come to Him in genuine confession and repentance.
To many, that doesn't seem fair, either. But if any amount of sin is lethal, we can all be grateful that God's favour depends on His mercy, not our merit. It's only because of His grace in our relationship with Him that we can share the right chemistry.
Share your thoughts with Rick at info@followers.ca A former TV reporter and journalism prof, he pastors an independent, nondenominational church in Brantford, ON called Followers of Christ (www. followers.ca)