Why Every Christian Should Be a Naturalist, #2- Knowing the Unknown Through the Known

James Nickel and his new bride were seated on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. They were numbed by a presentation explaining the evolution of the strata. While they listened a tour bus arrived and let out a flood of tourists. An elderly German lady marched past them, surveyed the scene and lifted her hands to heaven. From her mouth came a torrent of Alleluias. James admitted that it took a worshiping lady from Germany to rouse him from inattention.

Every Christian should be a naturalist not only because creation opens a window inviting worship like the German tourist, but also because through that window WE GLIMPSE SOMETHING OF THE CHARACTER OF GOD. Creation testifies to the invisible God.

Nature not only tells us there is a God, but if our eyes are not blinded by atheistic philosophies, we will plainly see truths about what God is like. Paul explains, “what may be known about God is plain to them [that is those who see nature around them] because God has made it plain to them.” How has God done that? “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understand from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Rom. 1:19,20).

Early scientists such as Kepler, Newton and Galileo recognized that because God created the universe it enshrines an order and dependability that makes the discovery of scientific principles possible. Later scientists adopted truths discovered by these theistic scientists but denied God. They believed instead in blind chance and evolutionary forces. Rationality, however, when confronted with the immensity of the universe and the unbelievable energy of even our puny sun should force us to admit that the Cause of all this must be infinite and almighty and all wise.

The fine-tuning necessary to locate sun, moon, and planets exactly where they are so life on earth could exist shouts out the reality of a Divine Mind. The infinite complexity of even the tiniest creature or a simple cell speaks to a Cause greater than random chance and vast amounts of time. The simplest mind can fathom that the stupendous nature of the universe could not possibly have just happened or that it eternally existed. Everything we experience in life tells us that things happen due to causes. When we see something happen we innately look for a cause. Cause and effect is a law. Without an infinite Cause our vast universe could not exist.

We should purge our minds of anti-God presuppositions and look, listen and learn. As Psalm 19 declares:

God’s glory is on tour in the skies,

God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.

Madame Day holds classes every morning,

Professor Night lectures each evening.

Their words aren’t heard,

their voices aren’t recorded,

But their silence fills the earth:

unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.

God makes a huge dome

for the sun–a superdome!

The morning sun’s a new husband

leaping from his honeymoon bed,

The daybreaking sun an athlete

racing to the tape.

That’s how God’s Word vaults across the skies

from sunrise to sunset,

Melting ice, scorching deserts,

warming hearts to faith.

(A paraphrase of Psalm 19 by Eugene H. Peterson, The Message – Psalms, Colorado Springs: Navpress, 1994, p.27)

James Nickel wrote of his experience on the lip of the Grand Canyon upon hearing the German tourist’s cries of allelujah; “What dulled me for a few moments has blunted modern culture for generations. One of the characteristic signs that a culture is under divine judgement is a loss of wonder in the greatness of God’s works.” (Chalcedon Report, Oct. 02)

Every Christian should be a lover of creation because it shouts about the glories of God.

God is invisible. How then can we know what he is like? We can grow in understanding of God by comparing him with things in our experience. For example, how do I explain a guava to someone who has never seen nor tasted one? I can compare it to a pear, but explain that it is an edible, pale orange tropical fruit with pink juicy flesh and a strong sweet aroma. Understanding things beyond are experience depends on comparing them to things within our experience.

Every Christian should be a naturalist because, fourthly we cannot know what God is like without COMPARING HIS ATTRIBUTES WITH THINGS WE SEE IN CREATION.

David ponders the power of God as he gazes at the sea. “The seas have lifted up their pounding waves. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the see—the LORD on high is mighty” (Psalm 93:4). God is all powerful; more powerful than tornadoes or volcanos or earthquakes.

David often pondered the big questions. How much does God know? Where is God? He concludes; “You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar…you are familiar with all my ways.” God knows everything! He is omniscient in such a way that he is in my mind, reading my thoughts even before I think them. That is too much to understand so he begins to think in terms of escaping God into the vastness of the universe. “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there…if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there you hand will guide me…even the darkness will not be dark to you;” God is greater than the whole universe and doesn’t need light to see. David concludes that God is omnipresent in such an amazing way that he is personally here with me yet is vaster than the universe. And he knows everything I think; he sees me in light and in darkness. (See Psalm 139)

The Bible is full of comparisons—similes and metaphors—through which we begin to know God better. He is a fire. He is a rock. His protecting love is greater than the wings of an eagle. The Holy Spirit is like a mighty wind. He cares for sparrows, but cares for us even more. His love is greater than that of the best Father. His love is deeper than that of a husband and wife.

Without studying and appreciating nature, we may miss the power of many of these comparisons and understand less of the glory of God. He is more beautiful than a sunset, sweeter in his love than a mango, more powerful than a cyclone.

(Let me know your thoughts on this subject. If you appreciate this blog, please pass it on. Further articles, books, and stories at: http://www.countrywindow.ca Facebook: Eric E Wright Twitter: @EricEWright1 LinkedIn: Eric Wright ––)

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Why Every Christian Should Be A Naturalist

The lockdown has us all longing to escape the confines of our homes. We need some fresh air. We need to walk in the wild. We need our eyes to feast on flowers and green leaves and grass. Among those of us who follow the Master, there should be a heightened desire to bathe our souls in nature rather than this everlasting masking and washing our hands in toxic cleansers.

I want to begin a series of blogs on why I believe every Christian should be a naturalist. I don’t mean that in the technical sense that we should all be environmentalists. I don’t expect every Christian to be a hiker or camper or even a gardener. I certainly don’t mean this in the sense that new-agers mean it, that we should all worship “mother nature”.

But we should all appreciate nature because of our LOVE FOR THE ONE WHO CREATED IT. Don’t you love the rather squiggly slashes of colour when your child or grandchild brings you one of their paintings to admire? Why? Because we love the child who painted it. Well, nature is God’s art.

Do we appreciate Michelangelo’s art? Art tells you about the artist. If we visit the Sistine Chapel in Rome and gaze at the ceiling with its astounding paintings, we will ponder how Michelangelo could possibly have painted those while lying on his back on a scaffold. Surely, we must come away with, maybe not love for him, but an enormous appreciation for the artist. When consider;

This is my Father’s world,

And to my listening ears

All nature sings, and round me rings

The music of the spheres.

This is my Father’s world:

I rest me in the thought

Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas—

His hand the wonders wrought.

Do we love God? Well consider his artistry. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…God saw all that he had made [during the six days of creation] and it was very good” (Gen. 1:1,31). If we go outside in the evening and gaze at the sun setting or the moon rising. If we wonder through the woods and see trilliums and violets carpeting the ground. If we gaze into the sky and watch V’s of Canada Geese flying north. Or if we even ponder the mystery of how our fingers work. If we really look beyond what we have come to take for granted and see God, our mouths must open in awe and our hearts expand with love.

Do you not know God as Father? Then you can’t really appreciate the glory and purposes of the created world. Read and believe the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-5, and then gaze at the natural world around. As I found out when I was converted at 19, you too will discover through God’s Son by the power of the transforming Holy Spirit that:

Heaven above is softer blue Earth around is sweeter green;

Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen

Birds with gladder songs o’erflow

Flowers with deeper beauties shine.

Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.

(Loved with Everlasting Love, George Wade Robinson)

How do we feel as we watch the sun set or as we see the moon rise? “Oh, that’s really lovely.” How do we feel when we gaze on trilliums carpeting a woodland? “That’s beautiful.”

The Psalmist felt something deeper when he saw mountain peaks, oceans—indeed, everything. “The LORD is the great God…In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker, for he is our God” (Psalm 95:3-6). So moved was the Psalmist that he began the Psalm by saying, “Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation” (Psalm 95:1).

Every Christian should be a naturalist because first of all, we love for the one who created it. Secondly, and similar to that reason, we should be genuine, biblical naturalists because NATURE MOVES US TO WORSHIP.

John Muir founded the Sierra Club, a powerful force for ecological responsibility. Once when Muir was standing with a friend at a high point of the Yosemite Valley tears began to course down his cheeks. His friend was one of those rather unemotional types. Muir turned to him and in the Scotch dialect into which he often lapsed when filled with wonder said; “Mon, can ye see unmoved the glory of the Almighty?”

“Oh, it’s very fine,” came the reply “but I do not wear my heart upon my sleeve.”

“Ah, my dear mon,’ Muir replied, ‘in the face of such a scene as this, it’s no time to be thinkin o where you wear your heart.” (Sierra, March/April 1989, p23)

Even if we, like Muir’s friend, are unemotional types surely when we gaze at our wonderful world, or the mystery of a new-born baby, or the weather cycles we should at least shout in our hearts about the creative majesty of God! His power! His wisdom! His goodness and beauty for all that is good and beautiful in our world reflects the creativity of God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen and amen.

(Let me know your thoughts on this subject. If you appreciate this blog, please pass it on. Further articles, books, and stories at: http://www.countrywindow.ca Facebook: Eric E Wright Twitter: @EricEWright1 LinkedIn: Eric Wright ––)

 

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[i] This Is My Father’s World, text by Maltbie D. Babcock, music by Franklin L. Sheppard

Does my Politician Encourage a Victim Mentality or Initiative?

How should a Christian view systems of government? A couple of things seem clear. As exhorted throughout Scripture, we should encourage compassion for orphans, widows and strangers or refugees. (Deut. 10:17-18 among many texts.) Into this category we should probably include seniors in long term care homes—those who have been so poorly served during this pandemic.

Certainly, character is a basic criterion. We need politicians who show from their history that they have a commitment to honesty and faithfulness. We want public servants who don’t run for office because they desire the limelight or love to debate. But in this blog, I want to highlight one general characteristic of desirable political parties.

Scripture makes clear that governments should do everything they can to encourage industriousness. While exhorting the Thessalonian Christians, Paul wrote: “Keep away from every brother who is idle…you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. …we worked night and day laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you…in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule. ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat. We hear that some among you are idle…Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:6-12).

Good government discourages idleness and promotes initiative. It encourages everyone to earn a living, be hard-working, develop entrepreneurship and if possible, create more jobs. Governments should not hinder entrepreneurship through excessive taxes or laws that hinder creativity.

While the selfish DNA within us might tempt us to vote for those who promise us a guaranteed income or special subsidies, we must deny the tempter and vote for what is good for the country as a whole. Encouraging laziness is not good for Canada. Welfare, except that which is very carefully targeted, hinders Canadian fiscal and emotional health.

A few Canadian facts. From 2010 to 2013 during the Harper era, the Canadian economy grew an average of 2.8% a year after inflation. In the next four years during the Trudeau era the economy grew less than 2.3% a year. Leaders in the current government claim that their approach to the pandemic—all the emergency spending—has worked and yet $100 billion went straight into Canadian’s bank accounts. That obviously was not stimulus money but added to our mammoth deficit without increasing flourishing. Fortunately, some of the stimulus money did go to those who need it.

Let me add one further set of facts even though they are rather tangential. At this point I am risking provoking the ire of cancel culture. We hear much about the importance of equality between men and women in the workforce. Central to the current Canadian budget has been promoting the fallacy that women suffered disproportionately from pandemic job losses. The facts tell a different story. Male unemployment shot up to 13.5% last May while female unemployment was close at 13.9%. Currently both have rebounded to 7.3% and 7.6% respectively. Of course, this does not describe the matter of wage parity, which must to be considered. Both sexes are equally worthy.

My point in this blog is to simply urge us, especially Canadians, to make political choices based on principle and facts. Certainly, one of the most important principles is to choose a party based on whether or not it encourages hard work, entrepreneurship and initiative or helps to further the victim mentality that is so hurtful to our democracy. Christians, like others, need to make informed decisions about politics based on facts not hearsay or warm fuzzies.

(Statistics thanks to comments in “The many false assumptions on which the 2021 budget is based,” by Andrew Coyne, Globe and Mail, April 24, 2021, O2)

The Tri-unity of God

Can we collect lightning in a bucket? Can we gather the ocean in a thimble? Either would be easier than trying to fathom the mystery that is God. We’ve covered a lot of ground in our attempts in these blogs to understand what God has revealed about himself through his attributes. As this series nears it end, we approach one of the greatest mysteries, the Trinity. This truth is not one we can deduce through reason, but as with most of what we know about God can be known only through revelation.

As we would expect, the most complicated truths about God are revealed later in his revelation, the Bible. Biblical revelation is progressive. The Old Testament has some passages that imply multiple persons but don’t fully describe the three persons. For example, ”And God said, ‘Let US make man in OUR image’” (Gen 1:26). At the tower of Babel, we read, “The LORD [said]…Come, let US go down and confuse their language” (Gen. 11:7). “The sovereign LORD has send ME, with his SPIRIT” (Isaiah 48:16).

The New Testament clearly affirms each of the three persons as divine. No reader of the Bible doubts that the Father is God. In many places Jesus Christ is declared to be deity. “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3) [Further see John 1, Col. 1, Hebrews 1, and Revelation 1.]

That the Holy Spirit is God is clear because the divine names, perfections, works and glory are attributed to him. “The Spirit of God…the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). It is important to note that the Holy Spirit is not a force but has personality. He is the Comforter who dwells within believers. He counsels, he comforts, and he “will teach you all things” (John 14:26).  “The Spirit helps us in our weakness” (Romans 8:26).

Thus, we have three, distinct, Divine Persons and yet they are one in essence. The Trinity is not a descriptor for one God with three names, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nor is it three Gods united in one purpose but with different responsibilities; the Father as the planner, the Son as the builder, the Spirit as the power. Neither does the Trinity refer to how God has revealed himself in three dispensations; the Father in the OT era, the Son during the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and the Spirit during the Church Age.

There is one God, undivided in essence. And each of the persons is fully, completely, wholly God and yet they are distinct as expressed often in the NT. For example, see the baptismal formula in Matthew 28; the involvement of each person in our redemption in Ephesians 1, and the blessing in 1 Cor. 13:14. “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”. [Please refer to a good theology book such as Systematic Theology by L. Berkhof for a more thorough discussion.]

This is a mystery beyond our experience and comprehension. But make no mistake, to be Christian is to be thoroughly trinitarian. We would be wise to heed the Athanasian dictum, lest we venture into heresy. “We must neither divide the essence nor confuse the persons.” Despite its mystery, the Trinity is a wonderful reality. It demonstrates that at the root of all existence is personality and relationship. Existence cannot be understand as merely material or mechanistic. From eternity, the Father has been delighting in fellowship with the Son and with the Spirit and so have each of the three with the other member of the Tri-unity.

As a relational God, God loves to have fellowship with you and me. He expects us to be in loving fellowship with each other. The Christian faith never encourages us to be loners.

But perhaps, you feel alone. You need not for there are three who love you more than a mother or spouse could. The Father. The Son. The Holy Spirit. Jesus taught us to pray, “our Father who art in heaven.” Jesus rose from the dead but said, “Lo, I am with you always.” Before he went to the cross, Jesus explained to his disciples, “I will leave you another Comforter, the Holy Spirit who will be with you for ever.

On the darkest night in the loneliest desert, we are never alone if we have received Jesus Christ as our Saviour. Repenting of our sins and receiving his forgiveness ushers us into an eternal relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

(Let me know your thoughts on this subject. If you appreciate this blog, please pass it on. Further articles, books, and stories at: http://www.countrywindow.ca Facebook: Eric E Wright Twitter: @EricEWright1 LinkedIn: Eric Wright ––)