The beauty of nature

I haven't been blogging much lately. Maybe I should start again. What topic should I choose? Here's one: the beauty of nature. 

Nature is beautiful, and we should thank God for it. 

Jesus told us to consider the lilies:  Luke 12:27 Consider the lilies, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

He didn't say that Solomon was not gloriously arrayed. But He did say that lilies (and other flowers) were and are, and He implied that we humans are never going to surpass the beauty of nature.

I need to speak of God's work in nature more often.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 854

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Christianity: (and Health) A Relevant writer discusses the "aborted fetuses were used in developing the vaccine" objection to COVID vaccination.

Relevant discusses the Jon Gruden affair, and concludes that he was not the victim of "cancel culture."

Education:  Grammarphobia discusses the idea of the four corners of the earth.

Health: Lungs are difficult organs to use in transplants, because they are sensitive to bumps during travel, but two Toronto hospitals were able to use a drone to deliver lung material, which was quickly and successfully transplanted into a patient. Reported in Gizmodo.

Science: NPR displays the 10 best nature photos of the year. The pictures showed up well on my computer.

Gizmodo reports that a NASA simulation indicates that, should we be threatened by an asteroid collusion, it may be possible to prevent such a happening.

Sports:  Gizmodo reports on a study that indicates that horseback riding is more likely to cause injuries than football and some other sports.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

 

Creation Unfolding by Ken Coulson

I recently read Creation Unfolding: A New Perspective on Ex Nihilo (available to read free to Kindle Unlimited members) by Ken Coulson.

It was an interesting book, and I'm glad I read it.

Coulson is a Young-earth creationist (YEC). He is a geologist, not a biologist. The book says very little about biology, nor, of course, about evolution. The author has researched his subject thoroughly, except that he doesn't deal with the interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2. He takes both chapters as if they were meant to be literal, history-like descriptions.

How is Coulson different from many other YECs? I point out three significant ways.

First, he doesn't believe that nature, general revelation, was meant to reveal God as creator. He puts it this way:
In 1 Corinthians 1:21 (ESV), Paul makes God’s design abundantly clear: “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” The world is not allowed to come to know the God of creation by pursuing its own wisdom (e.g., through scientific endeavor). This is by God’s sovereign design.

Coulson goes on to say that, if God had wanted to make His creativity indubitably clear, He could have stamped each child born with a stamp proclaiming this. He doesn't say so, but perhaps, if Coulson had thought of this, he might have said that cloud formations could have said "made by God," in the language appropriate to each area of the world.

There are YECers, and other Christians, who would argue that Psalm 19 and Romans 1 tell us that God has revealed Himself though His creation, and holds us responsible for understanding that. Statements like this are made: "Look at the retina of the eye. (or some other natural wonder) How marvelous it is! You should believe in the God who created it!"

The picture at the top of this post, quoting Hebrews 11:3, indicates that we understand God's creative power through faith, and that perhaps those without faith cannot grasp this.

Second,  here's what he has to say about the Flood:
The Flood of Noah was a real, world-wide watery catastrophe. As such, geological evidence should exist that supports this catastrophe. Many YEC, however, have overstepped the line here by proposing that almost all the world’s sedimentary layers were deposited in the Flood. To think otherwise is sometimes viewed sacrilegiously. Now, it may be that nearly all the Earth’s geological layers were in fact deposited during Noah’s Flood, but there is nothing in Scripture that demands this. For all we know, the entire Flood record could extend to a single geological package of strata that represents a single geological period.

Not many YECers would agree with that.

Third, Coulson introduces a concept, and a term, that, as far as I know, is his, er, creation.

The term is Supernatural Formative Process(es) (SFP) which acronym is abundant throughout the book. For example: "In other words, although Adam’s bones and Eden’s trees would suggest processes leading to real histories, those processes and histories, as with those of the crust’s first crystals, are only apparent." In other words, Coulson argues that the earth, and the surrounding universe, only appear to be billions of years old, because God changed the rates of natural processes. And,

For example, if all rates everywhere in the universe were doubled, the participant would not notice this doubling unless there existed an unaltered rate that could serve as a frame of reference (Poythress 2019, p. 221). I propose that God has provided this frame of reference in the refrain that occurs at the end of each creative day: “And there was evening and there was morning.” This would mean that except for the rhythm of night and day, all other rhythms were accelerated in a time-lapse fashion.

So SPF are "natural" processes, which may be accelerated by God, and, if appropriate, kept in synchrony with other such processes, because the rates of each are sped up proportionally.

Coulson discusses several events, some biblical (like the water being transformed into wine in John 3) and some not so (the discovery of SN1987A, a supernova that looks like the light from it started heading toward us a long time before 6000 BC.)

Although Coulson claims that an appearance of age is not God being deceptive, because God altered various rates of processes, it's hard for me, after reading the book, to accept any Appearance of Age concept without thinking that God has unnecessarily hidden what He has done, and maybe is even being deceptive. God, of course, could have modified all sorts of rates, maybe even all of them except night and day, and presented us with an earth that is, actually, only a few thousand years old, in a universe that is also only a few thousand years old, regardless of their appearance. But did He? I don't think so. Perhaps I'm wrong.

It seems to me, and to many others, in the present, and in the history of the church, that most YECers, including Coulson, are starting from wrong presuppositions, namely that the days of Genesis 1 were consecutive 24-hour days, and that the Bible teaches that the earth, and the universe, were created in about 6000 BC. Many Christians, of the present and the past, believe that the first part of Genesis was not meant to be interpreted in a literal fashion. It is easier for me to believe that it was not so meant, than to believe that God adjusted all sorts of geophysical, chemical, astronomical and biological processes.

For some discussion of the interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2, see here.

There's also this simple graphic:

Which, I believe, shows that Genesis 1 and 2 cannot both (or either) taken literally.

Thanks for reading!

Sunspots 762

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:

Christianity: An article in BioLogos discusses the relationship between Down Syndrome and the image of God.

Education: Grammarphobia on the use of shrink, shrank and shrunk.

Health: The Scientist reports that smelling natural surroundings appears to relieve stress.

The Scientist also reports that the effects of natural surroundings may be due, at least in part, to exercise.

Politics: FiveThirtyEight says that the majority of poll respondents believe that there is sufficient evidence to remove President Trump from office. But that is unlikely to happen, at least until the election of this year.

FiveThirtyEight also discusses the divisions about President Trump's actions in the Middle East, within the two major parties. (Not between, within!)

President Trump says that the US will target some Iranian cultural sites. NPR reports on how striking them would be illegal.

Science: Gizmodo, and other outlets, report that puffins use a tool to scratch themselves.

NPR reports on why some knots hold better than others.

Listverse tells us some common interesting misconceptions about colors.

Thanks for looking!
The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

Some thoughts on Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, by C. S. Lewis

I have gladly re-read, for the I don't know how manyth time, Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, the first two parts of what is referred to as the Space Trilogy, by C. S. Lewis. I will not attempt to summarize these fine books -- see the links above for the Wikipedia articles on them.

I wish to point out two relatively minor points about these books.

First, Lewis was a fine nature writer, or could have been, judging from his made up Mars and Venus. We now know that Mars doesn't have canals, nor much water, and we have no evidence that there is any kind of intelligent life there. But Lewis took what some early astronomers called as "canals," and made them into great valleys, with scenery, water, vegetation, intelligent life, and animals. He described the effect of lower gravity on the shape of waves and ridges. If Mars was more accessible, and was really like that, it would be a fabulous place to visit, indeed, rivaling the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and any other natural scenic spot you care to mention. Lewis's Venus was mostly a water world, (some astronomers used to believe that) and, again, he clearly loved making up descriptions of animals, floating islands, undersea and cave-dwelling life, and vegetation, including fruit. Again, were Venus really at a temperature compatible with a giant world-wide ocean, and if we could get to it, this would be a fabulous place, for sight-seeing, eating the fruit, surfing, swimming, and spelunking. He knew how to make his made-up nature attractive.

Second, Lewis apparently believed that Venus (and, therefore, Mars and the Earth) were very old. This is a quotation from Perelandra: "Some day, no doubt, it would be peopled by the descendants of the King and Queen. But all its millions of years in the unpeopled past, all its uncounted miles of laughing water in the lonely present . . ." 

Thanks for reading! Read Lewis.

Why does the Bible say so little about nature's beauty?

Bougainvillea flowers, with orange bracts

In an address a few years ago, Bible scholar N. T. Wright answered the question of the title of this post. His answer was that creation's beauty is an intrinsic property of nature, and, as such, not generally described just for itself.

God's creation surely is beautiful, and can be appreciated by anyone with normal or nearly normal vision.

I found a few Biblical references to the beauty of nature:
2 Chronicles 3:6a He garnished the house with precious stones for beauty:

Hosea 14:6 His branches will spread, and his beauty will be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. (Apparently referring to the fragrance of the plant life in Lebanon.)

Genesis 49:21 "Naphtali is a doe set free, who bears beautiful fawns. ..."

Ecclesiastes 3:11a He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Psalm 104:31 Doesn't mention beauty, but it sounds like it is there, in God's creation: Let Yahweh’s glory endure forever. Let Yahweh rejoice in his works.

James 1:11a For the sun arises with the scorching wind, and withers the grass, and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. (There are other verses which speak of plant life losing beauty, such as this one. But they do state that plant life has beauty, however temporary it may be. The Bible also speaks, in several places, about women's beauty, and Moses was said to be a beautiful child, but this post is about the beauty of non-human nature.)

Although the last chapter in the Bible doesn't specifically mention beauty, it's hard to read it without imagining great beauty in the new earth: Revelation 22:1 He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. The first chapter in the Bible says that everything God created was good, implying that it was beautiful.

Thank God for the beauty of God's creation, from the sub-microscopic to the cosmic!

Sunspots 659

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: (or something) Listverse describes, and shows, 10 beautiful natural  wonders.

Christianity: (and Computing) I don't use YouVersion, the free Bible app, but lots and lots of other people do. Maybe you should.

He Lives on "Jacob's Genetic Engineering." (Commenting on Genesis 30.)


Computing: FiveThirtyEight reports on a new computer chess program, which has used artificial intelligence to train. It seems to  be more aggressive than previous programs, and analyzes fewer possibilities.

Wired tells us what happens to our electronic waste (old phone, TVs, etc.). It's not pretty. Not at all.

Politics: (and computing) Wired reports on Russian trolls that are after Robert Mueller.

Science: FiveThirtyEight reports on personality tests that are better than the famous  (or infamous) Myers-Briggs instrument.

And FiveThirtyEight also reports on the discovery of the largest known prime number.

Sports: (and Health) FiveThirtyEight debunks Tom Brady's fitness books and products.

Thanks for looking!

Image source (public domain)

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, 41

Is it not quite clear that what we really hope for is one particular management and proposition of these two things; a certain amount of restraint and respect, a certain amount of energy and mastery? If our life is ever really as beautiful as a fairy-tale, we shall have to remember that all the beauty of a fairy-tale lies in this: that the prince has a wonder which just stops short of being fear. If he is afraid of the giant, there is an end of him; but also if he is not astonished at the giant, there is an end of the fairy-tale. The whole point depends upon his being at once humble enough to wonder, and haughty enough to defy. So our attitude to the giant of the world must not merely be increasing delicacy or increasing contempt: it must be one particular proportion of the two—which is exactly right. We must have in us enough reverence for all things outside us to make us tread fearfully on the grass. We must also have enough disdain for all things outside us, to make us, on due occasion, spit at the stars. Yet these two things (if we are to be good or happy) must be combined, not in any combination, but in one particular combination. The perfect happiness of men on the earth (if it ever comes) will not be a flat and solid thing, like the satisfaction of animals. It will be an exact and perilous balance; like that of a desperate romance. Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.

Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here. Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, 40

Darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities, but it cannot be used to back up a single sane one. The kinship and competition of all living creatures can be used as a reason for being insanely cruel or insanely sentimental; but not for a healthy love of animals. On the evolutionary basis you may be inhumane, or you may be absurdly humane; but you cannot be human. That you and a tiger are one may be a reason for being tender to a tiger. Or it may be a reason for being as cruel as the tiger. It is one way to train the tiger to imitate you, it is a shorter way to imitate the tiger. But in neither case does evolution tell you how to treat a tiger reasonably, that is, to admire his stripes while avoiding his claws. If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must go back to the garden of Eden. For the obstinate reminder continued to recur: only the supernatural has taken a sane view of Nature. The essence of all pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really in this proposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.

Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here. Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Sunspots 489

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: It's not out yet, but here's a blog post warning Christians not to take the Left Behind movie too seriously.
A splendid lecture on how God is seen through nature.
Computing: Be careful of pirated e-books. Apparently, some of them can hack your Amazon account.
Relevant has posted a map showing all the web-connected devices on the planet. Interesting, but perhaps not terribly surprising -- web use is concentrated in a few places.

Science: One of the advantages of being sexual is that the offspring have new and unique combinations of the genes of their parents. But Wired reports on a microscopic organism that takes such recombination much further than any other known living thing.
Wired also reports on a parasitic worm that invades the eyestalks of snails, so it can be eaten. Really. There's a short video.
Image source (public domain)

The glory of God's creation, from R. D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone

I recently re-read Lorna Doone, by R. D. Blackmore. I first read a condensed version of the book while I was in elementary school. The Wikipedia article on the book says that it was originally published anonymously in 1869, as a print run of only 300, because the author had difficulty finding a publisher, but that the book has never been out of print since. Here are a few excerpts from the book, all having to do with the glory found in the non-human world:

The rising of the sun was noble in the cold and warmth of it; peeping down the spread of light, he raised his shoulder heavily over the edge of grey mountain, and wavering length of upland. Beneath his gaze the dew-fogs dipped, and crept to the hollow places; then stole away in line and column, holding skirts, and clinging subtly at the sheltering corners, where rock hung over grass-land; while the brave lines of the hills came forth, one beyond other gliding. Then the woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened mountains, stately with a depth of awe, and memory of the tempests. Autumn's mellow hand was on them, as they owned already, touched with gold, and red, and olive; and their joy towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father. Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich red rose; according to the scene they lit on, and the curtain flung around; yet all alike dispelling fear and the cloven hoof of darkness, all on the wings of hope advancing, and proclaiming, "God is here." Then life and joy sprang reassured from every crouching hollow; every flower, and bud, and bird, had a fluttering sense of them; and all the flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence. So perhaps shall break upon us that eternal morning, when crag and chasm shall be no more, neither hill and valley, nor great unvintaged ocean; when glory shall not scare happiness, neither happiness envy glory; but all things shall arise and shine in the light of the Father's countenance, because itself is risen.

R. D. Blackmore. Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor (public domain). From Chapter XXXIII, "An Early Morning Call."

Now though it is part of my life to heed, it is no part of my tale to tell, how the wheat was coming on. I reckon that you, who read this story, after I am dead and gone (and before that none shall read it), will say, "Tush! What is his wheat to us? We are not wheat: we are human beings: and all we care for is human doings." This may be very good argument, and in the main, I believe that it is so. Nevertheless, if a man is to tell only what he thought and did, and not what came around him, he must not mention his own clothes, which his father and mother bought for him. And more than my own clothes to me, ay, and as much as my own skin, are the works of nature round about, whereof a man is the smallest.

R. D. Blackmore. Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor (public domain). From Chapter L, "A Merry Meeting a Sad One."

God has made the earth quite large, with a spread of land large enough for all to live on, without fighting. Also a mighty spread of water, laying hands on sand and cliff with a solemn voice in storm-time; and in the gentle weather moving men to thoughts of equity. This, as well, is full of food; being two-thirds of the world, and reserved for devouring knowledge; by the time the sons of men have fed away the dry land. Yet before the land itself has acknowledged touch of man, upon one in a hundred acres; and before one mile in ten thousand of the exhaustless ocean has ever felt the plunge of hook, or combing of the haul-nets; lo, we crawl, in flocks together upon the hot ground that stings us, even as the black grubs crowd upon the harried nettle! Surely we are too much given to follow the tracks of each other.

R. D. Blackmore. Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor (public domain). From Chapter LXIX, "Not to be Put up With." 

"No more sea" -- is John the Revelator telling the whole story?

John begins his description of the new heavens and new earth with this statement: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea." (Revelation 21:1, KJV) This verse has intrigued me for a long time. Is God really going to create a new habitation for humans without the watery environment that covers three-quarters of the earth? If so, why?

I cannot read God's mind, of course. I am also aware that interpreting Revelation is a tricky business. But it sounds as if John meant exactly what he said, and perhaps he did. Possibly there will be no sea, no waves, no tides, no whales, no plankton, no kelp, no sea horses, no sponges in (or around?) the new habitation of mankind with the heavenly beings.

This has always (dare I say it?) disappointed me. I like the ocean, and ocean life. Some have suggested that John wrote this because he was imprisoned on an island, with no escape, surrounded by the sea. But would God allow his Word to be so influenced by the dislike of one man? I doubt it. I just don't know why that verse is in Revelation.

The Old Testament has a couple of passages that seem to modify the picture of a new, sea-less cosmos. One of these is Genesis 1. In verse 10, Genesis says: God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. (ESV)

In verses 20-23, it says: 20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. (ESV) The description of the fifth day (whatever a day is, in this context) concludes, also, with the phrase about God seeing what he had created as good. So the sea, and the creatures in it, were originally declared to be good.

I recently found another passage that seems to relate, namely Ezekiel 47:6-12:

6 And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?”

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7 As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other. 8 And he said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea;* when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. 9 And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. 10 Fishermen will stand beside the sea. From Engedi to Eneglaim it will be a place for the spreading of nets. Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. 11 But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. 12 And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.” (ESV) *a text note says that the sea in question is the Dead Sea.
So, in this passage, apparently also describing the way things will be after Christ's second coming -- and, also, as prophecy, tricky to interpret -- there will be a sea, with water-dwelling creatures in it.

The Blueletter Bible has commentaries. Two of them bear on this verse. David Guzik says that, to the Hebrews, the sea represented evil, or God's enemies, and cites Psalm 89:9 and Isaiah 57:20 as proof of this. He also says that the sea has already appeared in Revelation, in 13:1, where the beast comes from the sea, and 20:13, as a place holding the dead. A. R. Fausset says this: The sea is the type of perpetual unrest. Hence our Lord rebukes it as an unruly hostile troubler of His people. . . . As the physical corresponds to the spiritual and moral world, so the absence of sea, after the metamorphosis of the earth by fire, answers to the unruffled state of solid peace which shall then prevail.

If I understand them correctly (and they understand Revelation correctly) John was not speaking literally. Based on the probable symbolic use of the sea by John, on its original goodness, and Ezekiel's statements about the Dead Sea, perhaps there will be some sort of sea in the new heavens and new earth. We'll see, I hope.

Thanks for reading.

* * * *

See this post for more on this topic.

* * * * 
Added February 2, 2015:

In this post, Bible scholar John Walton says, about the Final Kingdom, ". . . there’ll be no sea, which is the place of non-order in the ancient world.

Added November 18, 2015:

In this post, Tim Reddish writes about disorder and order (he agrees with Walton) in the ancient world, and claims that God left chaos in the created world on purpose.