From All that Has Been Made: Knowing Nature, Knowing God

 

 

 

 

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” – Romans 1:20

The word “pantheism” refers to a belief system that places God in all of nature, thereby compelling believers to identify different forms of life as God’s actual physical presence. In other words, the essence of God is present in the trees, the birds, the grass, the sea, wild animals and so forth.

Based on several passages found in the Bible, this thinking is inaccurate. The standard Christian belief is that God is greater than his entire creation, and it is mainly a reflection of his character. Thus, it is a mistake to place God’s spirit in all that we see in nature, because he is much greater than the sum and total of his entire creation.

In the book of Genesis, after God had created the earth and everything on it and above it, Satan, furious with God for having thrown him out of heaven, decided to try to tempt the first two humans away from their Maker. To carry out his evil plan, Satan took the form of a snake and was able to convince the humans that his plan was much more preferable to God’s. So with that said, it is entirely possible that God, if he so chooses, can take the form of any species of animal he chooses. As Lord and Master of all he created, he certainly has that right as well as the ability if the need should ever arise.

But Scripture has made it very clear that God has chosen to remain apart from his creation, even going so far as to put everything on earth under the dominion of humans. Ideally, humans were to “increase and multiply” and fill the whole earth, using its fruit for their sustenance and being ever grateful to God for all his blessings. After the temptation and fall, all that changed. God cast them out of the garden he had created for them and opened the door to all the forces of “good and evil” that had been unleashed through their agreeing with Satan’s deception.

To this day, however, all of nature, apart from humans, has remained miraculously off-limits to Satan and his evil. Aside from the damage that our intervention has perpetrated on the planet, nature continues to be the one realm where things still pretty much go on as God intended them to. It’s one of the blessings that I thank God for every single time I bow to him in prayer.

During a recent time of prayer, I remembered, as always, to thank God for his creation and for the gifts he has given us to enjoy with all our senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Nature has something to offer to any, most, or all of these five senses, from the sight of misty mountains or choppy seas, the sound of birds or thunder, the soft feel of an animal’s fur, the sweetness of wild raspberries or maple syrup, and the smell of pine trees in a forest or a blossoming hyacinth. Every single living thing in nature reaches us through at least one, if not all the senses, reflecting the fact that God himself also possesses these senses; and we, in turn, were blessed with them because God created us in “his image,” so we wouldn’t be complete without them.

While meditating, I always look out the window at the woodlot behind this building. Right now, with all the deciduous trees bare and the ground covered in snow, there isn’t much color. But on sunny days, there is a special beauty to the spot in the shadows cast by the individual trees across the forest’s white floor, and how those shadows shift as the day moves toward evening.

Once again, I praised God for all his amazing gifts and blessings, and added the words “for the great art gallery that is your creation.” Because that is exactly what it is: a vast global collection of all God’s works, not a one of which has not been depicted in some form or other by various artists during human history. Even in urban settings, where buildings, highways, subway trestles and shopping malls mar the view, there is something natural to see for those who are observant and who look for the little things. Again, somewhere and at some point in time, even the tiniest detail has been captured in the mind and eye of someone who was able to replicate it in order to, if nothing else, preserve its memory. So in essence, God created the myriad of originals that have come down to us, not only in their true and natural forms but also through the interpretation and vision of the world’s painters, sculptors, and photographers.

For nature is the last bastion between us and a world that is growing ever darker and more troubling each day. While news outlets bombard us every second with new worries and concerns, life goes on in woodlands and oceans, on hills and in valleys, their gentle reality far removed from the chaos that is life as we now know it...where the thousands of species of plant and animal life go about their business, free of the evil that robs us of our own peace and serenity.

When it threatens to derail me and drag me from my spiritual journey, all I need do is look out my window for a soul-saving glimpse of one of God’s many gifts, that never fails to renew my spirit and reinstate my hope and the assurance that, no matter how bleak things seem to be, he is always with me, his rod and staff sustaining me.

The Never-Ending Story That is God's Word

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It occurred to me awhile back that at least a few people I know are wondering why, all of a sudden, I’m spouting Christian dogma and platitudes, when, at one time, it was quite the opposite. During the last half-century or so, I’ve run the gamut of believing but not understanding what I was believing to doubting and questioning, then back to believing, though I still didn’t understand why. I made the decision at that particular time that, even if I did believe, I was not worthy to trouble God for anything, let alone a request for more clarity and enlightenment.

This last time around, I decided it was time to find out why I thought certain things were so and I made a vow to do all I could possibly think of to increase in a faith that I had neglected for far too long. It was time for me to drag that pan of faith from the back of the stove where it had just stayed warm onto an active burner that would set it to boiling. And it hasn’t stopped since, nor have I moved that kettle of faith back to where it simmered for so long.

In a previous blog, I described how, as a child growing up in a more specific and ritualistic denomination, wherein I was told what to do, when to do it, what to say, and when to say it. But the list of DO NOT DO’S was much longer, and it was in its shadow that I, and many other children of that era, lived for a large part of our lives. In time, some of us left that faith altogether, while others continued to practice for reasons known only to them. Of those who left to try on different spiritual hats, the reasons they cited almost always dealt with a feeling of oppression and the specter of guilt ever lurking in their minds.

I remember that guilt well, but I can honestly say that it never felt oppressive. My big problem was that I wanted to know WHY I’d been raised that way, in the form of some sort of explanation as to who God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were and why it was so important to worship them and maintain an eternal allegiance to them. Still, I’d get the same answers every time: it’s one of God’s mysteries, or, the priests will explain it to us, or, we just have to say our prayers and believe. And there again was the rub: believe what and why?

Which is the reason I embarked on this latest journey of spiritual discovery, enhancement, and clarification of all the truths inherent to what I already knew and sort-of believed to all that is contained in the Holy Bible. I’ve gone from not understanding any of it to actively seeking clarification and explication of many of the more difficult passages that all focus on one main event in every Christian’s belief system: the death of Jesus Christ on the cross where he paid the ransom for our sins and reconciled us to the Father for all time.

At this late date, I doubt I’ll have time to become a Biblical expert. But one thing I’ve learned is that this book is not merely two covers between which exist hundreds of pages of history, all of which points ultimately to the Cross. It is a living active thing. It is God speaking to us TODAY. And the more of it I read, the more I want to read. And despite the fact that I’ve read it through four times now, and am embarking on my fifth reading, I long to return to it again and again, always waiting for some new truth to jump out at me.

Aside from it’s abundance of truth dear to all devout Christians, the Bible has also been proclaimed as one of the most poetical and lyrical collection of books ever written. I’ve found that the best way to see this is by reading it out loud. The meter and lyricism flow, and it has a steady rhythm that also points to the story’s continuity. And here’s another pretty remarkable thing: no matter which page you put your finger on, there will be something on that page and in that text that connects the entire salvation story together. And although there is a beginning, with the book of Genesis, and an ending, in the book of Revelation, the narrative really has no beginning or end, much like God himself...You can pick it up anywhere and find yourself never having left the path that leads to him.

It’s sort of like a favorite soap opera where you can leave off for a few days and then just jump right back in without having missed much. The difference, however, between a daytime drama and the Holy Bible is this: you can abandon it altogether and not return to it for years. Yet, the minute you reopen it, you are drawn right back in to a story that leads right back to the same place each and every time: a cross on a lonely hill where, once long ago, a man died so that we would all have the chance one day to read his story, one that includes each and every one of us...if we choose to believe.