NatureTheology1.htm

Anyone who understands nature as God’s creation sees in nature, not merely God’s ‘works,’ but also ‘traces of God,’ ciphers and hidden tokens of his presence…Nature is not the revelation of God. Nor is it God’s image. But it shows ‘traces of God’ everywhere, if we are able to perceive in it a mirror and reflection of God. -Jürgen Moltmann 1

And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the clouds, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees. -Kahlil Gibran 2

For what can be known about God is plain…Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things God has made... -Romans 1:19 & 20 3

The difficulty with a topic like nature theology is that much of the findings from the research done must be inferred. Thus, it can become a sticky realm of opinions, and even over-inference. Yet, despite this, my passion is to put a voice to the age-old interaction between the natural world and the theological realm of religion. For so long both have been integral to each other, but the connections have often not been known, let alone discussed. In this paper I attempt, from a Christian theological perspective, to give voice to the ever-existing, even essential, interaction between the natural world, which God breathed into being, and the spiritual world of faith.

To begin, let us consider a few definitions of what has been deemed by some as natural theology. Colin Gunton defines his theology of nature as acknowledging that creation’s createdness points to God. 4 John Polkinghorne, of Queens College, University of Cambridge, describes natural theology as “the search for the knowledge of God by the exercise of reason and the inspection of the world.” 5 He goes on to say:

If God is the ground of all that is, then everything will, in its own way, bear some testimony to the Creator. Exploring these ‘hints of divinity’ is the activity called natural theology. The rational beauty and transparency of the universe, together with the finely tuned fruitfulness of its history, have suggested to many that we see here signals of the presence of a divine Mind and Purpose. 6

Acknowledging these hints of divinity, the natural world was seen long ago as a realm embedded with mystery, full of spirituality and interdependent life, a remnant of Eden, that perfect garden in which humans were placed by their Creator. This view was most strongly held by romantics in the 19th-century. They believed that communion with nature could bring deeper truth of life and of God, the One who led His people with pillars of cloud and light, the One who parted the sea, the Creator who is infinitely bound up in creation. Yet, they also acknowledged that they could never attain a full understanding of God. The idea that God cannot be fully known is in keeping with the idea expressed by the Apostle Paul, in Romans 11:33-34:

How deep is the mine of God’s wisdom, of his knowledge; how inscrutable are his judgments, how undiscoverable his ways! Who has ever understood the Lord's thoughts, or been his counsellor? 7

Yet, despite God’s mysteriousness, the natural world, according to James Skehan, geologist and priest at Boston College, is sacred. Boldly affirming that the natural world is a place to obtain knowledge of God apart from revelation, he says:

God is speaking to us, through nature, and we have to be very attentive to nature as having a sacramentality, as being sacred, because this is the word, the cosmic word of God. 8

This idea of sacramentality in nature, which was highly embraced during medieval times, was done away with by Calvinism, which initially viewed nature as completely depraved. According to ecofeminist, Rosemary Radford Ruether, those who followed Calvinism believed:

[T]here was no residue of divine presence in [nature] that could sustain a natural knowledge or relation to God. Saving knowledge of God descends from on high, beyond nature, in the revealed Word available only in Scripture, as preached by the Reformers… The fallen world, especially physical nature and other human groups outside of the control of the Calvinist church, lay in the grip of the Devil…[and] were labeled pagan... 9

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 Jürgen Moltmann as cited by Anthony Monti, A Natural Theology of the Arts: Imprint of the Spirit (Ashgate, 2003), 35.

2 Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943), 86.

3 The HarperCollins Study Bible, New Revised Standard Version, gen. ed. Wayne A. Meeks (NY: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1993), 2117.

4 Colin Gunton as cited by Anthony Monti, A Natural Theology of the Arts: Imprint of the Spirit (Ashgate, 2003), 30.

5 John Polkinghorne as cited by Monti, A Natural Theology of the Arts: Imprint of the Spirit, 29.

6 Polkinghorne, in the foreword of Monti’s A Natural Theology of the Arts: Imprint of the Spirit.

7 Taken from a translation from the Latin Vulgate in the light of the Hebrew and Greek originals, Holy Bible (London: University Press, 1954), 159.

8 James W. Skehan, S.J. as cited in Living In Nature: Religion and Science in Dialogue on the Environment, Boston Theological Institute, 1997, video.

9 Rosemary Radford Ruether, Ecofeminism: Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature, 19.

NATURE THEOLOGY
HOME	IS 391 Final Paper, by Christie Gibbons, February 15, 2005, page 1 Nature Theology Anyone who understands nature as God’s creation sees in nature, not merely God’s ‘works,’ but also ‘traces of God,’ ciphers and hidden tokens of his presence…Nature is not the revelation of God. Nor is it God’s image. But it shows ‘traces of God’ everywhere, if we are able to perceive in it a mirror and reflection of God. -Jürgen Moltmann 1 And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the clouds, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees. -Kahlil Gibran 2 For what can be known about God is plain…Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things God has made... -Romans 1:19 & 20 3 The difficulty with a topic like nature theology is that much of the findings from the research done must be inferred. Thus, it can become a sticky realm of opinions, and even over-inference. Yet, despite this, my passion is to put a voice to the age-old interaction between the natural world and the theological realm of religion. For so long both have been integral to each other, but the connections have often not been known, let alone discussed. In this paper I attempt, from a Christian theological perspective, to give voice to the ever-existing, even essential, interaction between the natural world, which God breathed into being, and the spiritual world of faith. To begin, let us consider a few definitions of what has been deemed by some as natural theology. Colin Gunton defines his theology of nature as acknowledging that creation’s createdness points to God. 4 John Polkinghorne, of Queens College, University of Cambridge, describes natural theology as “the search for the knowledge of God by the exercise of reason and the inspection of the world.” 5 He goes on to say: If God is the ground of all that is, then everything will, in its own way, bear some testimony to the Creator. Exploring these ‘hints of divinity’ is the activity called natural theology. The rational beauty and transparency of the universe, together with the finely tuned fruitfulness of its history, have suggested to many that we see here signals of the presence of a divine Mind and Purpose. 6 Acknowledging these hints of divinity, the natural world was seen long ago as a realm embedded with mystery, full of spirituality and interdependent life, a remnant of Eden, that perfect garden in which humans were placed by their Creator. This view was most strongly held by romantics in the 19th-century. They believed that communion with nature could bring deeper truth of life and of God, the One who led His people with pillars of cloud and light, the One who parted the sea, the Creator who is infinitely bound up in creation. Yet, they also acknowledged that they could never attain a full understanding of God. The idea that God cannot be fully known is in keeping with the idea expressed by the Apostle Paul, in Romans 11:33-34: How deep is the mine of God’s wisdom, of his knowledge; how inscrutable are his judgments, how undiscoverable his ways! Who has ever understood the Lord's thoughts, or been his counsellor? 7 Yet, despite God’s mysteriousness, the natural world, according to James Skehan, geologist and priest at Boston College, is sacred. Boldly affirming that the natural world is a place to obtain knowledge of God apart from revelation, he says: God is speaking to us, through nature, and we have to be very attentive to nature as having a sacramentality, as being sacred, because this is the word, the cosmic word of God. 8 This idea of sacramentality in nature, which was highly embraced during medieval times, was done away with by Calvinism, which initially viewed nature as completely depraved. According to ecofeminist, Rosemary Radford Ruether, those who followed Calvinism believed: [T]here was no residue of divine presence in [nature] that could sustain a natural knowledge or relation to God. Saving knowledge of God descends from on high, beyond nature, in the revealed Word available only in Scripture, as preached by the Reformers… The fallen world, especially physical nature and other human groups outside of the control of the Calvinist church, lay in the grip of the Devil…[and] were labeled pagan... 9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 Jürgen Moltmann as cited by Anthony Monti, A Natural Theology of the Arts: Imprint of the Spirit (Ashgate, 2003), 35. 2 Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943), 86. 3 The HarperCollins Study Bible, New Revised Standard Version, gen. ed. Wayne A. Meeks (NY: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1993), 2117. 4 Colin Gunton as cited by Anthony Monti, A Natural Theology of the Arts: Imprint of the Spirit (Ashgate, 2003), 30. 5 John Polkinghorne as cited by Monti, A Natural Theology of the Arts: Imprint of the Spirit, 29. 6 Polkinghorne, in the foreword of Monti’s A Natural Theology of the Arts: Imprint of the Spirit. 7 Taken from a translation from the Latin Vulgate in the light of the Hebrew and Greek originals, Holy Bible (London: University Press, 1954), 159. 8 James W. Skehan, S.J. as cited in Living In Nature: Religion and Science in Dialogue on the Environment, Boston Theological Institute, 1997, video. 9 Rosemary Radford Ruether, Ecofeminism: Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature, 19. page 1<>2<>3<>4<>5<>6
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