God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. . . . He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish” (1 Kings 4: 29, 33).
Kodachrome Basin, Utah
Several years ago my son Dave and I were on a trail ride in one of southwestern Utah’s seemingly endless awe-inspiring canyons: Kodachrome Basin. Riding along with us was a California family that included the grandparents, parents, and children. Our trail boss, Bob, a good-humored, experienced wrangler, patiently put up with our amateur horsemanship on the trail and even took time to give us the natural history of the land and the vegetation. One of the unusual plants he pointed out was what he called “corral grass.” Its unique feature is that it grows in circular patches and, as he explained, by making a ring of tight growth, it protects its root space from other encroaching plants. When Bob finished his explanation, the grandfather, who had been matching wits with the trail boss, quipped, “Yes, but what’s it good for?” And we all chuckled.
As the horses plodded on toward the next spectacular vista, I thought about the grandfather’s comment: While I knew it was meant to be funny, almost unconsciously it influenced three generations to continue thinking, like the majority of the Western world, that natural things have little value unless we can identify some practical human use for them. If they have no obvious value for me or for mankind in general, they are mere curiosities—not worth much, if anything.
Ecological studies, however, are providing overwhelming evidence that the survival of the earth’s ecosystems depends upon a vast diversity of plants and animals that interdependently maintain life. Living things once considered worthless, or even harmful, are now known to be vital ingredients in the recipe for a healthy environment.
In fact, Christians can declare without fear of contradiction, “God believes in biodiversity.” How else can we interpret the account of Noah’s ark? Since God created the earth with astounding diversity, we can logically conclude that He intended for that biodiversity to continue. All of us who claim the authority of the Bible as the Word of God should be willing to accept biodiversity as a basic fact of creation. Further, I believe we have a responsibility to honor all things created because God has reasons that we have no knowledge of. When we scoff at the attempts of scientists to preserve species, could we also be scorning our Creator?
We also have an important statement in Scripture about biodiversity and the place of human utility in relationship to what God has created in Genesis 2:9: “The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.” Here there is biodiversity in “all kinds of trees,” and the beauty of the trees is mentioned before their utility.
Hyssop in the rocks
I feel it’s wise for us to gain knowledge of all things God created. If you are like me in having a long history of Bible study, church going, and Sunday School, you no doubt assumed that Solomon’s wisdom pretty much had to do with social systems, government, history, economics, interpersonal relationships, and general science. It came as a surprise to me when rereading the story of Solomon that he was also a botanist, zoologist, ornithologist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist.
So, anonymous California grandfather, if you want to match wits with Solomon, you’ll probably have to care more for such things as hyssop—and corral grass.
One of the areas of Bible study that does not seem to get much attention from Bible scholars and teachers is its vast references to animals, birds, trees, and other plants. That’s why I really enjoy the site developed by my friend Lytton Musselman, head of the botany department at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia: his Bible Plants site. Lytton has also written a great reference book that’s just the right size to carry with your Bible: Figs, Dates, Laurel, and Myrrh: Plants of the Bible and Quran. Timber Press
January 12th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Dean, I like biodiversity, but I don’t like the word! It sounds (oh how I don’t want to say this) liberal. I read where you came from that conservative group of Dutch folks from western Michigan, so you probably feel a little of this too. Diversity can bring on all sorts of thinking.
But you are right: each creature God made has purpose, although we may never quite understand that purpose. Mosquitoes and poison ivy come to mind. And since He gave every creature purpose, and He gave us co-regency over it, we must seek to understand its purpose and say “God made it for some reason” if we don’t understand it. But we must respect every creature and seek to protect it.
I like the way you are helping to change our minds about these things!
Bob
January 12th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Kinda goes back to my English teaching days when we discussed the denotation of a word and its connotation. Biodiversity denotes the marvelous and overwhelming number of different living things on the earth–and is a reflection of what God does within us to do above what we can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). Outwardly too He demonstrates the capacity to give abundantly more than we can ask or think. Unfortunately, humanistic science almost worships biodiversity while rejecting the Creator of it all–giving the term its negative or “liberal” connotation. Our lack of capacity to know all that God knows also limits our capacity to understand everything about species that cause us grief (like mosquitoes and poison ivy). We know that when the creation was cursed, it brought forth species (thorns and thistles) to frustrate our capacity to too easily rape the land. So we really have no grasp on His purposes in creating species that create problems for us. Not only that, we are finding out that some species that we judged either superfluous of harmful are actually very beneficial to us–often in secondary ways.
So since we do not have the knowledge to know all our Creator’s purposes for the species of the natural world and certainly don’t even have complete knowledge of their biological purposes, I believe we have a right and responsibility to preserve what He made. So when we discover that we are driving species to extinction, we can at least understand that we are arbitrarily declaring them to be of minimal value, if not of entirely no value. As Wendell Berry keeps pointing out, it is at least arrogant if not outright foolish to presume upon God’s purposes and say is does not matter if we wipe out the snail darter fish, blue darner butterfly, or the blue-gray gnatcatcher bird.
We live in a life-giving, life-sustaining troposphere surrounded by biodiversity still beyond our imagination, and because of this, we can easily devalue such as the sparrow and the lily-of-the-field, creatures the Bible declares that God values. When God gave Job his needed corrective, He used His creation as the tool to bring the man to his senses–naming many species that we see little, if any, value in. Those two biblical affirmations ought to give us great pause when we discover that we are driving any of His creatures to extinction. A mosquito on earth is a pesky trifle: can you imagine, however, what a scientist would think of mankind’s finding a mosquito fossil on Mars?! Life is astoundingly rare outside our troposphere, and at this point in time can be considered exclusive to earth alone. Carefulness and humility are the two key attributes all human beings must have as we continue in our dominion and stewardship tasks.