I am the most ignorant of men; I do not have a man’s understanding. I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One. . . . If you have played the fool and exalted yourself, or if you have planned evil, clap your hand over your mouth! (Proverbs 30:1-2, 32).

Then Job answered the LORD : I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more. . . . I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, “Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?” Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, “Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.” My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes (Job 40:4-5; 42:1-6)

One of the joys of studying Scripture is that there’s always something new to learn. Recently I saw Proverbs 30 again—for the first time. What struck me as I read it was how much the chapter seems to be a shortened version of the book of Job—only in reverse. Agur, the writer, begins by confessing his ignorance and then points to wonders of the creation as being proof of how little knowledge he has, eventually saying that those who exalt themselves as knowledgeable about the creation should clap their hands over their mouths.

Job, on the other hand, begins, along with his friends, to chatter about how much they know about the ways God works and why He does what He does. Only when God confronts him and points out the humanly incomprehensible miracles of the creation does he see how he needs, frankly, to shut up (put his hand over his mouth). Agur begins by saying that the majesty of creation—even the commonest of creatures of his region, like the ant, the hyrax, the locust, and the lizard—inspire such awe and wonder that we ought to be compelled to worship the Creator of them all—in part by admitting we don’t have all the answers.

Agur’s humble position reminds me of the comment made by Jack Thomas, former director of the US Forest Service, who was asked to give some definitive conclusion about the forest ecosystem. His answer is a classic: “The ecosystem is not only more complex than we think; it is more complex than we can think.” What did Jack, Job, and Agur hold in common? They all came to be taught by the creation itself that we hardly have an inkling of the complexities of the creation.

If you’ve been visiting this website for a while, you likely understand that this has become a hobby horse of mine: I’m not at all thrilled by so-called creation science and its preachers. The reason? Once you tie the meaning of the Genesis account of creation to science, be it “creation science” or “evolutionary science,” you are saddling the Creator of the universe with puny human conclusions. With a nod to Jack Thomas, I say, “not only is the Genesis account of creation more complex than we think; it is more complex than we can think.”

Why does the earth and the cosmos look like they are virtually endless and ageless? The Bible gives us the answer—in Romans 1:20. Man is “without excuse” in denying the existence of the Creator because the created things demonstrate “His eternal power.”  Space and time show themselves endless and ageless to us because God’s power is beyond space and time. So I’m no longer going to debate, like Job’s friends, about what the science of origins, Christian or not, is supposed to prove. I’m going to start where Agur started: confess my ignorance right up front and then go out to simply take delight in ants, grasshoppers, lizards, and lions.

Don’t you wonder what God thinks about the time, money, and energy we spend on the creation-evolution debate—and the time, money, and energy we don’t spend on the stewardship of His creation—or simply just loving and enjoying it?

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created (Revelation 4:11) -King James Version.

Worthy, O Master! Yes, our God! Take the glory! the honor! the power! You created it all; It was created because you wanted it.  -The Message.

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being. –New International Version

One of my fond memories is a trip I took with our youngest son, David, when he was in junior high. We lived in Fullerton CA at the time; so we made a canyon loop that included the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and Kodachrome Basin and Bryce Canyon in Utah.  When we got to Kodachrome Basin and looked on the park event bulletin board we saw that we could take a trail ride with a local wrangler around the shallow, but fascinating, canyon in the morning.  This we did.

The ride became a highlight for us.  It included just Bob, the wrangler, Dave and I, and a small family represented by three generations: grandpa, the parents, and two kids—plus some well-behaved horses.  It turned out that grandpa was a joker, and he enjoyed repartee with Bob, who was doing a great job telling us about the natural history of the place—in particular the strange narrow spires that stood up like ancient, fossilized tree stumps.  They were apparently geyser holes that eventually filled with mineral deposits.  When the surrounding and softer rock and soil eroded away, the geyser “holes” had become tower casts and were now one of the canyon’s great attractions. And grandpa’s joking and continual questioning about these and everything else tested Bob’s knowledge and patience to the max.

Bob was soon commenting on about everything he could.  One feature he pointed out was what he called corral grass: a ring of grass so dense that it kept other plants from encroaching on its enclosed bare circle, which then became the exclusive watershed for each particular clump.  Here grandpa had to quip again: “That’s nice, but what’s it good for?”  Well Bob could not come up with a human utility for it, so he didn’t reply and just directed us on to the next feature.  But I could sense that he was getting his fill of grandpa—as were Dave and I.

Later I thought back on grandpa’s question and its implication.  It was definitely a question engendered by so-called Enlightenment thinking—thinking that even Christians came to adopt especially as the West entered the Industrial Revolution: nature’s value is in what it can practically provide to humankind.  And it’s that thinking that’s done a lot of damage to God’s good creation:  If we don’t see any direct benefit to a natural feature, we don’t value, preserve, and protect it.  That’s one of the reasons we call much of God’s creation “natural resources”: resources for man’s use and profit.  The implication left by that designation is that everything else is pretty much useless.

However, if we consider the King James rendition of Revelation 4:11, the English biblical text used virtually throughout the Industrial Revolution, we learn that the entire creation came about for “God’s pleasure.”  That should have been enough to remind our ancestors that if all created things exist for God’s pleasure, we have no right to heedlessly destroy them.  We don’t know all of God’s purposes; so we shouldn’t assume upon them.  And even more to the point is our knowing that Jesus our Savior is also the Creator who made all things for himself and will reconcile them all to God (Colossians 1:15-20)—even corral grass

Right now in my favorite old orchard goldenrod is gilding the landscape, punctuated by brilliant magenta-stemmed pokeberries, striking red high-bush cranberries, white-eyed osier berries, and several varieties of crabapple.  They’re of no utility to me, but they are pleasing to my eye—and just knowing that they also give pleasure to my Savior-Creator, I take joy in them and in their seasonal glory.  And if I lived in Utah, I’d be finding wonder in corral grass.  “wonder resources” I call them.

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King (Matthew 5:33-35).

Friday I used this passage from the Sermon on the Mount to show that Jesus reiterates the prophet Isaiah’s words (chapter 66).  I’m not a theologian, so I can’t tell you all the nuances of Jesus using these same words, and most of the commentaries I have read simply explain the main point of the message: just be honest and keep your word.  You do not need to make an oath on anything if you tell the truth and honor your promises.

That’s obviously a critical admonition for us all.  But in reference to the purpose of this Wonder of Creation site, something else really jumped out at me: As Isaiah states, the heavens and the earth—the entire cosmos—is the work of God’s “hands.”  And Jerusalem is as well.  Jerusalem was chosen by David (obviously through God’s direction), and it became the city of his throne built by human hands.  Psalm 48, written by “the sons of Korah,” used the same expression that Jesus used: it is “the city the Great King”—foretelling the time in the future when the New Jerusalem, made by God’s hands, descends to the earth and serves as “the throne of God and the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1).

A major point, then—and one the church seems to have often missed—is that the material heavens and earth and coming New Jerusalem are all of sacred significance.  Consider some meanings of “sacred” from Dictionary.com:  Sacred: 1. devoted or dedicated to a deity or to some religious purpose; consecrated. 2. entitled to veneration or religious respect by association with divinity or divine things; holy. 3. pertaining to or connected with religion (opposed to secular  or profane); 4. regarded with reverence; 5. secured against violation and infringement; 6. properly immune from violence, interference, etc.

John Muir left the formal church primarily because of his super-pious father, who knew the Scriptures backward and forward but was abusive and spiritually shallow.  But Muir kept his faith in God the Creator and perhaps sensed the sacred in the cosmos more than anyone else.  And it was primarily because of Muir that American political leaders had the foresight to preserve some of the nation’s most awe-inspiring wonders.  The great national parks indeed offer us the opportunity to sense the sacred in God’s good creation, but even a nearby meadow, woodlot, pond, seashore beach, or marsh left to pretty much function naturally gives evidence of His eternal power and divine nature.

I close with a reverie of John Muir’s as a motivation for us to wonder even today in the glory of God’s “footstool”:

The forests seem kindly familiar, and the lands and meadows and glad singing streams.  I should like to dwell with them forever.  Here with bread and water I should be content.  Even if not allowed to roam and climb, tethered to a stake or tree in some meadow or grove, even then I should be content forever.  Bathed in such beauty, watching the expressions ever varying on the faces of the mountains, watching the stars, which here have a glory that the lowlander never dreams of, watching the circling seasons, listening to the songs of the waters and winds and birds would be endless pleasure.  And what glorious cloudlands I should see, storms and calms—a new heaven and a new earth every day, aye and new inhabitants.  And how many visitors I should have. I feel sure I should not have one dull moment.  And why should this appear so extravagant?  It is common sense, a sign of health—genuine, natural, all-awake health.  One would be at an endless Godful play, and what speeches and music and acting and scenery and lights!—sun, moon, stars, auroras.  Creation just beginning, the morning stars “still singing together and all the children of God shouting for joy.” [From My First Summer In the Sierra]

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm (Psalm 33:6-9)

I have good Christian friends who are young-earth creationists, old-earth creationists, creation scientists, intelligent-design creationists, evolutionary creationists, and theistic evolutionists. I don’t have any friends who are atheistic evolutionists—primarily because both at work and at leisure I’m surrounded by followers of Christ.  But, to be frank, I have to confess that after following the creation-evolution debate for more than forty years, I’ve come to believe that those who look at life’s origin according to Genesis mostly as a question of science are belittling Scripture.

Let me explain.  By “belittling” I’m referring to the word’s original connotation: “to regard or portray as less impressive or important than appearances indicate.” In other words, trying to squeeze into human categories and understanding what is outside of human comprehension.  I don’t believe that anything in God’s creation can be made to fit perfectly into any human categories. Genesis is one of the world’s grandest statements of truth—with meaning and implications that we can only begin to grasp.  Science philosopher Michael Polanyi expressed it like this:

The book of Genesis and its great pictorial illustrations, like the frescoes of Michelangelo, remain a far more intelligent account of the nature and origin of the universe than the representation of the world as a chance collocation of atoms.  .  .  .  The scientific picture denies any meaning to the world, and indeed ignores all our most vital experience of this world. The assumption that the world has some meaning which is linked to our own calling as the only morally responsible beings in the world is an important example of the supernatural aspect of experience which Christian interpretations of the universe explore and develop. [My emphasis -DO]

I feel that “creation science” often belittles God’s Word and “secular science” belittles God’s world.  Typically those who say that special creation alone gave origin to life and those who say that evolutionary processes alone gave origin to life seem to imply that they have some comprehensive explanation of the origin of life.  They don’t.  Nor do you or I.  Life is so awesome and its origin so beyond our ken that our primary response to it should be worship (what Paul was surely implying when he said that the natural world reveals the Creator’s eternal power and divinity in Romans 1:20).

These conclusions of mine (simple, incomplete, and non-comprehensive as they must remain) have caused me to be fascinated with the studies of John H. Walton both in his book The Lost World of Genesis One and his study of the entire first book of the Bible The NIV Application Commentary on Genesis.  One of his most significant conclusions is that the Genesis account of creation is part of a temple ceremony and that its purpose, in part, was to proclaim to nations surrounding Israel and especially to the children of Israel that there is only one true God and that the earth is His temple.  So Walton would go beyond John Calvin who saw the earth as “the theater of God’s glory” and say that the earth is “the temple of God’s glory.”

This emphasis, then, has significant implications regarding the theme and purpose of this Website: celebrating the wonder of creation.  A theater is a place where you go to observe, and its elements are mundane.  The observer has no responsibilities in a theater but perhaps to applaud.  A temple, on the other hand, is a place where you go to worship, and its elements are sacred.  In a temple you are a participant and have responsibilities.  In the next few posts I would like to explore the implications of seeing the cosmos as God’s temple.

(NOTE: My introductory statements are not an invitation to make WOC a platform for the creation-evolution debate, which I feel is terribly disruptive in the church.  Those discussions can better take place at venues dedicated to that one issue.  If you’re interested in reading my concerns about that debate, you might want to read the RBC Discovery Series booklet on it: “The Genesis Account of Creation: Diffusing the Controversy.”)

Praise the LORD from the earth, . . . Mountains and all hills; Fruit trees and all cedars.  (Psalm 148:7 & 9)

I’ve found that I have good company in my love for the creation: Colonial theologian Jonathan Edwards is considered to be America’s first true intellectual. While Edwards studied the Word of God with great fervency, he also studied almost as intensely the works of God in the creation. As a preacher and an avid naturalist, Edwards explained the meaning of the creation with these words:

“When we are delighted with flowery meadows and gentle breezes of wind, we may consider that we see only the emanations of the sweet benevolence of Jesus Christ. When we behold the fragrant rose and lily, we see His love and purity. So the green trees and fields, and singing of birds are the emanations of His infinite joy and benignity [kindness, graciousness]. The easiness and naturalness of trees and vines are shadows of His beauty and loveliness. The crystal rivers and murmuring streams are the footsteps of His favor, grace, and beauty” (Observations, p.94).

In commenting on Psalm148:9, the great English preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote:

Western red cedar

Fruit trees and forest trees, trees deciduous or evergreen, are equally full of benevolent design,and alike subserve some purpose of love; therefore, for all and by all, let the great Designer be praised. There are many species of cedar, but they all reveal the wisdom of their Maker. When kings fell them,that they may make beams for their palaces,they do but confess their obligation to the King of trees, and to the King of kings, whose trees they are. Varieties in the landscape are produced by the rising and falling of the soil, and by the many kinds of trees which adorn the land. Let all, and all alike, glorify their one Lord. When the trees clap their hands in the wind,or their leaves rustle in the gentle breath of Zephyr, they do to their best ability sing out unto the Lord (The Treasury Of David).

Would it be unthinkable to imagine these great men of God dropping to their knees if they had had the privilege of entering the awe-inspiring forests of the Pacific Northwest, where behind me as I write massive Douglas firs reach for the sky? They were the furthest thing from pantheists, but they would no doubt have felt as I do that some of the greatest “cathedrals” in the world can be found in wilderness areas far from great cities where grand church spires point to the heavens. 

As in ancient times, many today fail to distinguish between the tree and the tree’s Creator. Towering firs, cedars, spruces, and hemlocks are not part of God—that’s a pagan, pantheistic belief. Trees were not made to be worshiped—as did the Druids—but they do help us in our worship. When we walk into a forest, we are properly awed to be surrounded by all the other creatures God loves, cares for, and rejoices in. And they in turn praise Him merely by doing what He made them to do. Wherever His work is being faithfully carried out by His living creatures, wherever trees honor the Creator in whatever mysterious way they “clap their hands,” there is indeed a cathedral.  If when entering a forest you recognize its trees as fellow worshipers, it has to lift your own spirit in praise.

How long has it been since you have identified with the writer of lyrics to “How Great Thou Art”:

When through the woods
And forest glades I wander
I hear the birds
Sing sweetly in the trees;

When I look down
From lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook
And feel the gentle breeze;

Then sings my soul,
My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art!

[Hear Sandi Patty sing it on YouTube. 
Crank up the speakers!]

[Photos taken in past few days here on Orcas Island in Washington State.  Click on the photos to see them larger.]