How many are your works, O Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
The earth is full of your creatures.
Psalm 104:24

The Christian worldview has its foundation in the Bible’s Old Testament, beginning with the creation story and then the judgments of the Fall, the curse, the Flood, and the confusion of languages at Babel.  From that point on to the end of the testament, we see the worldview fleshed out in the story of the chosen people, which includes multiple promises of a coming redemption—a redemption spoken of by the prophet Isaiah as incorporating the entire natural world.  No wonder the Psalms are full of references to the natural world—the apex being the “Creation Psalm”: 104.  [Read it online here.] In it you will likely detect the following features about the creation by which every person who has ever lived could have and can detect what Paul calls God’s “invisible qualities”: His “eternal power” and “divine nature.”

Virtually endless variety. Science has  a word for nature’s great variety: biodiversity [2010 has been designated as the International Year of Biodiversity] And for virtually every variant, scientists offer supposed practical values. Male cardinals are brilliant red and more striking than the dull orange females in order to get the female’s attention for mating. So why do male and female blue jays look the same? The males of some species are larger than the females—in order that they can protect the females. So why are females of some species larger than the males? Some insect species are brilliant colored—in order to attract attention. So why are other insect species dull in color to keep from attracting attention? Recently I heard a scientist say that biologists once thought they knew why a certain animal did a particular thing, but new observations have forced the conclusion, “We don’t have a clue why it does it!” That was a refreshing admission to hear. Might we not be justified in concluding that the endless variety in nature is just another aspect of God’s boundless creativity? The amazing variety within creation caused J. B. S. Haldane, a famous evolutionist, to say that “God has an inordinate fondness for beetles” (over 350,000 variants identified so far!).

Profound mystery. Light, matter, energy, and life remain inscrutable to mankind. But those are not the only mysteries that surround us in the natural world. At my back as I write this is a pot with a philodendron vine that has existed indoors for years. It was rooted from a plant owned by a cousin whose body is now in the grave, but whose soul is now in the Creator’s care. Christine’s humble charge is now mine, but this most common of domesticated trailing plants still causes me to marvel. Its vines grow about a foot each month by taking artificial light, carbon dioxide, and water to create its solid material structure: photosynthesis. It still amazes me. All around us are similar mysteries: birds that were never carpenters’ apprentices but know how to construct intricate nests; fireflies that turn organic matter into flashlights; wasps that make paper; spiders that spin nature’s strongest fibers; fish that spend their entire adult lives at sea only to return over thousands of miles to the very creek that spawned their existence. We may well be able to dissect their anatomies and describe their life processes, but we remain mystified about the how and why of their marvelous existence.

DNA structure

Abiding orderliness and unfailing regularity. Secular scientists often speak of apparent randomness and disorder in nature; yet for science even to exist, the creation must be mostly predictable. Researchers cherish its orderliness and regularity while at the same time admit that the source of such order and regularity is beyond their understanding. If planetary motions and gravity, for instance, were not orderly and regular, life would not exist. There is such order and regularity in the entire creation that even mathematicians who acknowledge no God often speculate that mathematical laws are eternal and are the ultimate cause of the cosmos. One theoretical mathematician, in fact, calls the mathematical principles in nature “beautiful”—a term this numbers-challenged writer never uses in reference to math! To call nature’s orderliness beautiful is an implicit confession of belief in a Creator—a human heart resonating with the heart of God.

He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.  He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.  He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.  When he passes me, I cannot see him; when he goes by, I cannot perceive him (Job 9:9-11)

In conversation with his accusative “comforters,” the patriarch Job often spoke truth.  In this portion of the dialog Job points out the greatness of God and His wonders—yet notes also the invisibility of God.  It is this same point that the apostle Paul makes in his letter to the Roman church (Romans 1:20).  The Creator cannot be seen.  His qualities, however, do reveal truths about Him.  The awesome nature of the created world does show us that He has power that is eternal (no doubt the reason mankind cannot determine the beginnings or endings of time or space) and He has a divine nature (meaning that what we see around us should compel us to worship—worship Him, not worship the things He has made).

Following are three more aspects of the wild natural world that demonstrate further His eternal power and divine nature:

Constant recreation. One of the most significant aspects of the wild is that when we enter it, we come nearest to being present at the Creation. In the wild God’s work is still going on. Christian philosopher Wolfhart Pannenberg exclaims:

“The creation does not remain what it was at its point of origin. It changes. It develops. New forms appear. New things happen. There is a sense in which one can say that creation ex nihilo [out of nothing] is complemented ex continua, continuing creation. . . . The faithfulness of the creating God continues to conserve the existence of this world while drawing it forward toward a new and transformed state of existence.”

God in Jesus Christ rested from the original work of creation, but we can praise Him that He still works in the process of its continuation and its redemption:

[The Father] has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. (Col 1:13-20 NKJV)

How thrilling it is to contemplate in the unspoiled regions the divine Trinity’s ultimate purpose for us—to be looking for and working in the power of God the Holy Spirit toward the time when God the Son will come and reconcile all things to God the Father.

Unfathomable complexity and incredibly informed design. Academia asserts that the natural world is the result of uncomplicated basic elements acted on by simple forces in an entirely random and undirected manner. But common sense alone teaches us that the material world is irreducibly complex and its features are obviously the result of a purposeful plan. Every year millions of words are written and hundreds of thousands of research studies are conducted that do little more than raise even more questions about how things work and how they are made to work. In spite of the arguments of those who deny the existence of a Creator, the creation defies simple explanation. From massive cosmic forces to subatomic particles, the natural world is unrelenting in yielding up only more complexity and more evidence of purpose. George MacDonald used the purposefulness of the creation to touch the heart of the key character in his novel The Musician’s Quest. Agnostic Robert Falconer had gone to the wilderness for solitude and rest, but found himself pondering whether the natural world might have its source in a supernatural Creator.

Now working in Falconer’s mind was the dull and faint movement of the greatest need that the human heart possesses—the need of God. There must be a truth in the scent of that pinewood; someone must mean it. There must be a glory in those heavens that depends not upon our imagination; some power greater than they must dwell in them. Some spirit must move in that wind that haunts us with a kind of human sorrow; some soul must look up to us from the eye of that starry flower. Little did Robert think that such was his need—that his soul was searching after the One whose form was constantly presented to him, but as constantly obscured by words without knowledge spoken in the religious assemblies of the land. [And scientific assemblies as well –DO]

The truth of this was eloquently spoken by a child walking with his dad in the woods—the son of one of my friends: “It’s easy to believe in God when you’re outdoors, isn’t it, Dad?”

Abundant Joy. The French term is joie de vivre “the joy of life.” Few things in the outdoors fill me with delight like the joy of living often demonstrated by God’s creatures. Once while I was kayaking on a lake a sudden commotion in the water near the shore caught my eye. As I paddled closer I saw a lone female mallard splashing in the shallows, turning in mad circles and making the water fly. From that she went to preening and then to drinking—savoring whatever flavors and organisms the lake water yielded by holding her mouth wide open and then clacking her bill. Academics might propose that her activity was all mere utility, but I’m sure the duck was smiling! And what about cavorting calves and colts, squirrels playing tag, songbirds rejoicing at the dawn, otters gliding down muddy slides over and over again, and grizzly bears deliberately somersaulting on mountain slopes? You’ll not convince me that these creatures are not living with joy. Henry Van Dyke writer of the hymn “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You” *(to the music of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony) must have felt the same:

All Thy works with joy surround Thee, earth and heaven reflect
Thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around Thee, center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain, flowery meadow,
flashing sea,
Singing bird and flowing fountain call us to rejoice in Thee.

God made the wild creatures and the wilderness for them to live in. And the psalms tell us that God delights in the wilderness and its creatures. Hence, the more we delight in them, the more we share in God’s joy.

*“Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You” from “Sister Act 2″  (Warning: Jivvy version!)
*Andre Rieu Version

Earlier this week we started to look at the implications of 1st Century Christian apostle Paul’s foundational statement in his letter to the church in Rome: 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 men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20 NIV). We began enumerating aspects of the natural world that might indeed reveal to us the existence of a Creator God whose power is eternal and whose nature is divine. Here are three more aspects that could compel us to believe that He is due our worship:

Fearsome, but essential, death. Most of life on earth depends on soil—and soil becomes life-giving because it contains dead organic matter. It’s both astounding and humbling to realize that the carbon atoms found in the earth’s living things have been recycled numberless times from the living to the dead and back to the living. The carbon atoms in our bodies were once in the bodies of the rich and famous, in the bodies of the poor and unknown, and in the bodies of mammals, fish, reptiles, insects, algae, and bacteria.

What a comfort it is to know that the God who sparks the dead into life underwent in His human form the separation of the soul from the body in death. That the caring and loving Creator would note the death of one sparrow has to fill us with hope that our souls, like that of Jesus Christ, will survive our material death. Having that hope, it is not morbid for us to see the necessity and ultimate goodness of surrendering our lifeless carbon atoms to new living things.

Awesome power. John Muir once wrote of his experience climbing as high as he could in one of Yosemite’s huge Douglas firs in a windstorm. He wanted to feel the power of the gale like a tree does. He writes:

When the storm began to abate, I dismounted and sauntered down through the calming woods. The storm-tones died away, and, turning toward the east, I beheld the countless hosts of the forests hushed and tranquil, towering above one another on the slopes of the hills like a devout audience. The setting sun filled them with amber light, and seemed to say, while they listened, ‘My peace I give unto you.’ As I gazed on the impressive scene, all the so called ruin of the storm was forgotten, and never before did these noble woods appear so fresh, so joyous, so immortal.

The power of the forces that God maintains to keep the engine of His creation going is so overwhelming that it too is beyond words. A blinding blizzard, a roaring waterfall, a surging wave, a bolt of lightning, a grinding glacier—their power has to fill your mind with wonder and compel your soul to worship their Creator.

Revitalizing stillness. While the displays of the Creator’s power are indeed awesome in wild nature, I’m often as much impressed by the stillness counterpoised to power: the dripping silence after a passing thunderstorm, a lake still flecked with the foam of whitecaps becoming placid as a mirror, the soundlessness of snow transforming thousands of square miles of northern landscapes, the almost infinite quiet of a sere desert landscape cooling under a multihued sunset sky, and the noiseless rising of the sun when all nature seems, for a few moments, to bow its head in quiet reverence for the daily miracle of light renewed. So be still, my soul. Rest in the Creator who, according to the psalmist David, “is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made” (145:13).

[Lake photo source]

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 men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20 NIV)

Conservation of energy. Campfires have to rank near the top among the joys of a wilderness adventure. One of the first things we do when we reach a campsite is to build a fire and seek to maintain it. Then come nightfall we sit cross-legged and become transfixed by the phenomenon of carbon being consumed and being turned into light and heat energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) that the trees from which we took our fuel are “ingesting” and turning into oxygen so that it can help burn the wood the next generation will use to build their campfires!

What a delight. What a mystery. All the energy and matter the Creator gave us in the beginning is still here: the definitive example of recycling! For all our human wisdom, we don’t really know much about the why and how of this fact. When it comes down to it, as Einstein discovered, we ultimately can’t even tell the difference between matter and energy. Perhaps it’s this that fascinates us about campfires—and the reason that building a campfire almost becomes a sacrament, a celebration of creation that honors the ultimate inscrutability of our Creator.

That’s no doubt also the fact that drew wilderness-dwelling Moses to the burning bush, because for the first time a human being, as far as we know, was seeing the Author of matter and energy change the rules. And from that unusual fire came the voice identifying itself as the “I am”—the eternally existent One and the source of all things. That’s also the reason the religious authorities of first-century Israel were so astonished by Jesus’ confession that He too was the “I am.” The great Creator became our Savior!*

[*Take a little break here and read the lyrics and listen to the melody of "Down From His Glory," one of my favorite Christian songs as a youth---one often sung by George Beverly Shea.  Click here.  The tune, of course, is from the old Italian love song "O solo mio" that you can hear in dramatic fashion here.]

Astronomical extravagance and magnitude. Realizing how immense one galaxy is and how many stars, planets, and moons each one contains staggers the mind, but grasping the fact that there are billions of such galaxies is beyond the human mind’s capacity to take hold of. We think we can somehow bring into human scope the dimensions of God’s cosmic creation by using specific measures like “billions” and “light years.”

One night under the stars in the wilderness, however, is enough to show us that the extravagance and magnitude of the universe is beyond our imagination and beyond our mathematical calculations. Astronomers say, for instance, that one star is twenty million light years away and another is a billion light years distant from Earth—figures based on the speed of light (at 186,000 miles per second). In saying so, we think we’ve made the universe measurable. How foolish. How proud. Reality mocks the assumption that we can even approximate an ample grasp of the function and meaning of it all.

Wonderful life. Like light, energy, and matter, life is also a mystery to human beings. Scientists don’t know what it is or how it came into a cosmos that is almost totally hostile to life. And there is no evidence that it exists anywhere else in the universe. In the wild there is one constant celebration of life, the varieties of which are without number. That’s one reason that abuse of our wilderness areas seems to be so profane. Realizing that human beings are carelessly causing the extinction of thousands of life forms that are the miraculous handiwork of God ought to fill us with shame—and apprehension. The Bible affirms that God loves all that He has made. Certainly our destruction of these living creatures will not continue without negative consequences physically, emotionally, and spiritually for us all.  We are living as a diminished people because of the divinely proffered treasures we have already lost.  We should grieve at the thought that we are destroying more of them each day.

It is sobering to think about the following prophecy from the Revelation—one of many Scripture passages that should give us pause when we come to understand that our over-consumptive and under-careful use of these gifts from the hand of our Creator is leading to their destruction:

And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great—and for destroying those who destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:16-18).

[Next post: Fearful, but essential, death; awesome power; revitalizing stillness]

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 men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20 NIV)

The first-century Christian convert, Paul claims that we can “clearly” see God’s eternal power and divine nature (that which compels us to worship) in what He has created. So what is it we can actually witness in His general revelation?

That question compelled me over the years to attend more carefully to the natural world and also to learn from others about what they have discovered while reading pages from the “book” of God’s works in the wilderness. For the days leading up to the celebration of the human birth of our Savior/Creator I would like to offer a sampling of what I believe we can witness most dramatically when we enter the unspoiled areas of what John Calvin called “the theater of God’s glory”:

Seemingly endless time and space. Arguments in the church about whether the earth is young or old often blind us to the fact that, according to Paul, the material world will provide evidence of God’s power being “eternal.” Time has no beginning or ending apparent to our human senses or understanding—a fact I realized as a teenager that would sometimes cause my mind to whirl in the dark hours of the night. Because the earth-bound human mind cannot conceive of eternality, we want to either deny it or somehow bring it into our human scope. But we can’t.

Space too has no span measurable by our human instruments. Using our most powerful microscopes, we find no limit to smallness. In the largest telescopes, bigness gets forever bigger. Yes, timelessness and infinity are awesome realities for time-bound finite creatures to ponder. Nonetheless, they are actualities we can “clearly see” in order to keep us on bent knees before our Creator.

Mystifying light, energy, and matter. Even in this day when scientific studies tell us so much about the cosmos, the true nature of light, energy, and matter still defies human definition and understanding. Because we know so much about what these natural features do and how they do it, we usually forget that we operate with them much like a person who skillfully drives a car, but knows next to nothing about what’s under the hood. We need to recover the sense of awe that primitive civilizations had regarding these core elements of nature—not that we might worship them but that we might better worship their Creator and Sustainer.

[In the next post we'll look at the conservation of energy, astronomical extravagance and magnitude, and wonderful life]

This post appeared originally on SustainLane