SPIRITUAL LAW IN
THE NATURAL WORLD:
CHAPTER III.
NATURE IN SCRIPTURE.
IF the work of God in nature, then, is admitted to to be
any testimony to God at all, that is nothing else but folly which lies hid
under what is supposed to be a self-evident truth, that "the Bible was not
intended to teach us science." For if science be nothing else than reasoned
knowledge, and if it be of importance that Nature should give true witness to
her God, who shall presume to say that Scripture will not give us help in such
a matter? Is it not, on the other hand, rather to be expected that it would do
so? If its own question be, "Doth not nature itself teach you?" and if, after
all this teaching be not always so clear and explicit as to need no help to
understand it, - (if it were, we could hardly put the doubt,) - then we should
surely expect that at least the data for true science should be furnished us
abundantly. That, after what men have decided, seems a bold thing to say; to
many, no doubt, even to be evidently contrary to the fact. If so, we shall
refute ourselves, before we have travelled a good half our proposed journey.
The answer will be found, then, as we proceed with it.
Scripture being
witness however, nature does teach. "The invisible things of Him are clearly
seen, being known by the things that are made, even His eternal power and
Godhead." (Rom. i. 2o.) "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the
firmament showeth His handiwork." (Ps. xix. 1.) The work must needs declare the
Artificer; and the Worker is, we are assured, He who, because He is the
Revealer, is called the "Word of God." (Jno. 1. 1-3.) Creation must be, then,
part of this revelation.
The parables and types of Scripture take up,
therefore, and use Scripture to this end. They are not merely an adaptation of
what has strictly another meaning. Rather, they develop what is there. It is in
this way that they become so significant for the interpretation of nature.
Analogies of this kind we argue from constantly without apology, and without
suspicion of deception. They are the marks of the One Mind which everywhere
delights to show itself to us and thus would make all things intelligent to
creature intelligence. The proof is that it really does this: as light, it
illumines.
The men of science have a name for a principle which
underlies this. They call it the "principle of continuity." Of this Prof.
Drummond has well said:
"Probably the most satisfactory way to secure for
ones self a just appreciation of the principle of continuity is to try to
conceive the universe without it. The opposite of a continuous universe would
be a discontinuous universe, an incoherent and irrelevant universe - as
irrelevant in all its ways of doing things as an irrelevant person. In effect,
to withdraw continuity from the universe would be the same as to withdraw
reason from an individual. The universe would run deranged; the world would be
a mad world. . . . The authors of The Unseen Universe conclude their
examination of this principle by saying that assuming the existence of a
Supreme Governor of the Universe, the principle of continuity may be said to be
the definite expression in words of our trust that He will not put us to
permanent intellectual confusion, and we can easily conceive similar
expressions of trust with regard to the other faculties of man. "
Now, if this be true, as it surely is, the continuity of Nature and
Revelation is assured. It does not imply, as our author would seem to make it,
that the book of nature will be the simpler to read, the surer to follow,
therefore in fact the more authoritative, but the reverse. For, if
nature-teaching be essentially that of parable, no parable is primarily
authoritative as to doctrine; and though still of an importance hard to be
exaggerated, it leaves Scripture as that in which alone God speaks to us "face
to face."
Yet nature remains unfallen from its place as the eldest of
revelations. There is nothing fallen but man, and even his fall has only in a
sense confirmed its witness to us as from Him to whom mans ruin is no
surprise, and redemption no after-thought. Assuredly, such a world of conflict
and destruction, beast preying upon beast, down to the minutest being that
comes under the microscope, would be to an unfallen being an inharmonious and
incongruous mystery. How striking, then, that we find the yet unfallen parents
of our race shut off from it in a specially prepared and sheltered garden of
delight, which might be for them a better witness of Creating Love, - a memory
of blessing to them when fallen. Then, when at last sent forth into the earth,
with the new strife that had been awakened in their souls, they could find from
the conflicting elements around, with which they were in so manifest sympathy,
the assurance of omniscient foresight undeceived and undethroned. Has science
done aught but deepen this thought, when it bids us note that the very ground
they trod upon was already the wreck of former worlds? Yet that
mountain-upheaval, and glacier-plough, and the long list of catastrophic forces
had been used of Him whom Scripture reveals as the God of resurrection, to
prepare and fertilize and beautify their yet wondrous dwelling-place?
And this Scripture also confirms, even though we may have been a long
time coming to read it right, and for this too are indebted, as they say, to
science. Science did not, however, put it in the book of Genesis, that while
God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, before the first
days work the earth was waste and empty, and darkness on the face of the
deep. Then the Spirit of God and His Word bring in the light, and the work of
renewal begins.
Here the analogy, then, is perfect The history of the
earth is the prophecy of the man who is to be put upon it; an this prophecy
proceeds step by step with the history of the six days, creation being the type
of new creation, until the Man comes for whom all is destined, the first man
here the type of the Second, Christ, who is the Heir of all. This can be shown
even minutely, though here is neither time nor place; and the spiritual
significance is the seal of the natural, the perfect assurance of whose
inspiration has guided Moses. But we must pass on.
Spiritual law then
governs the natural world. God, the Creator, is the " Father of spirits," and
to spirits He speaks in it. Nature is, to him who has the key of it, one vast
object-lesson of spiritual things. Did we know it, what a different world would
the. world be to us! How full of reason would all things become! How should
day to day utter speech, and night to night tell knowledge! How would we
realize in our daily toil the presence of God! How would all the natural
sciences become Christian sciences, and only what was unnatural be at last
unchristian! A dream, you say? Well, then, at any rate, suffer a little while
the dream; and if it should after all be found so rational as to fill all else
with reason, so lightlike as to fill the whole landscape with colour, warmth,
and beauty, so spiritual as to connect all things with God, then it will be
worth while, surely, to inquire how far the realism of such a dream can differ
from reality itself.
We take Scripture with us as we go forward -
Scripture that cannot be broken, the true Ithuriels spear by the touch of
which all falsehood is discovered; Scripture, not as the poor thing that men
have made it, a rush that one cannot lean upon, a sensitive plant that shrinks
from contact with the realities around, but as the weapon of the Spirit,
sharper than any two-edged sword; as the staff of the pilgrim, more trusted the
more used; yea, as the word of Him, from whom nothing is hid, and of that
Spirit who "searcheth the deep things of God." There are wide fields before us,
reader. Let us go forth.
Go To Chapter Four
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