Glorying in God’s Creation
Yesterday, I had the opportunity of kayaking on a local lake with my family. As we paddled, I looked around and saw the stunning beauty of the world in which God has placed us. It is incredibly complex in even its most basic parts (i.e. sub-atomic particles), yet we often take it for granted, not giving it a second thought. That needs to change.
Glorifying God through Creation
God created the human race to glorify Him in all it does. However, lest we puff ourselves up, we must remember that we are not the only thing that God created for the increase of His glory. He created the entire universe around us for the sole purpose of bringing him pleasure and glory! Creation reveals God’s personality to us. Romans 1:20 says “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 men are without excuse.” I think of Nature as a sort of secondary witness. It screams the person of God out to all who will listen, even if we are negligent in our duty to do the same.
By admiring the complexities of Nature, we can bring glory to our Father. But we only glorify Him if we give Him the credit for the wondrous world within which we dwell. If we examine the intricacies of the working of the cell and exclaim, “Amazing!” without adding “There must be a Divine Creator who designed this!” we actually profane God. We make his work as though it were common. If we make the workmanship of God out to be commonplace, then, by extension, we make the Creator out to be commonplace, which is a blasphemous position.
This is what grieves me so much about atheistic scientists. “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21) They deny the “evidence that demands a verdict” (Josh McDowell), sticking their heads in the sand, so that they can continue to worship in their religion of secularism. Therein lies the danger of glorifying Creation.
The Danger of Glorifying Creation
We need to be careful to make a distinction between glorifying God through Creation and glorifying the Creation itself. Nature is not God. Just like we humans ourselves, the world around is in bondage to decay (Romans 8:20-21), following the second law of thermodynamics, the tendency to fall apart as time goes on.
Confusing the creator with the created has evidently been a problem in the past, because Paul dedicates the latter part of Romans 1 to the issue. He says in Romans 1:21-23, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” Piper says the idea is that they traded in the real thing for a “copy of a copy of a copy.” What a lousy deal is that?! Yet we still fall for it. That passage in Romans is followed by a list of debaucheries which are the result of the tragic trade made by men. God handed them over to their own evil desires, and they were dragged down to the depths of depravity by them.
What Now?
So what does this mean for us? Does it mean we should stop reveling in the beauty of God’s Creation? NO! We just need to keep our eyes on God and ask Him to help keep our priorities straight as we bring Him glory by reveling in His handiwork!
I read this with interest. I think the problem experienced by many of those atheistic scientists you mention is the confusion of mechanism and meaning. The ancients saw lightning and thought it was supernatural; science has ‘dispelled’ that ‘myth’ by finding a mechanism – the electrical activity and so forth. But what doesn’t come through is the fact that mechanism, the scientific ‘how’, does not in any way give the meaningful ‘why’. It follows that they do not see the hand of a creating God because they do not see any purpose.
Mechanism does not negate magic, and finding the magic in the world around us is how we see along nature to supernature.
Thank you, Jayan and Michael for raising issues worthy to be “chewed on”. Your comments bring to mind C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien on several accounts. Jayan’s caution against glorifying creation reminds me about Lewis’ analogy of seeking to look up along the sunbeams to the sun instead of just enjoying the sunbeams. Michael’s comments bring to mind Lewis’ comments on the relationship between science and magic (in the essay: “Men without chests” in the book Weight of Glory). They are also reminiscent of Tolkien’s (and secondarily Lewis’s) views on the importance of myths as cultural vehicles for meaning; all myths culminating in the crescendo of the “One True Myth” of the Incarnate Christ, Crucified and Risen. Upwards and onwards!
Thanks, for the great post, Jayan and the thought-filled comment, Michael.
I think we can use science to better admire the complexity of God’s creation. For example, the eye is a very complex thing, which God created, but we only discovered its complexity through science (and revelation of the Holy Spirit). Religion and science are not in opposition.
Very good point.
I may add to it that science has yet to prove many things and such about nature. The more I study quantum mechanics, biology, environmentalism, it continually shows the wonder of God’s creation. His creation is an echo of him, and, as he called it himself, Good. It is not bad, and the more you see, experience, and learn about God and the creation, the more wondrous it is. And that we are dust, (and unto dust we shall return).
Great Article, Keep up the good work!