The Heavens Declare the Glory of God
by Cherry Kwan and Henrieke van Kampen
[This blog is part of a series on the Gospel and the Environment]
“Father in Heaven, when spring is come, everything in nature returns in new freshness and beauty, the lilies and the birds have lost nothing of their charm – oh, that we also might return to the instruction of these teachers! Ah, but if in the time that has elapsed we have lost our health, would that we might regain it by learning again from the lilies of the field and the birds of the air!”
– Kierkegaard
We mentioned in the last blog that the beginning page of the Bible starts with describing the dwelling place of humanity. It tells about God creating each detail of the place we call home. It is the coming into existence of all his creation including the plants and the animals. This shows God’s value over all of his creation as he calls them good! Nature is mysterious and beautiful, as anybody who has taken a hike or taken a wildlife photograph can tell you. Yet at the same time, we also realize the world is not the way it is supposed to be when we hike and see how the nature trails are filled with plastic bottles and masks.
The Artist and Engineer
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” – Psalm 19:1-4a
This passage shows how God is a great artist and engineer! When we look at different elements within nature we see how God has created it in a beautiful way. The diverse designs, and the way life operates at the micro and macro level has amazed scientists for decades. We have identified and described 1.3 million species, but there are an estimated 8.7 million species living in our waters, the skies and the land. There is even life in the deep sea–in freezing waters, pulverizing pressures and pitch darkness. The cell, the smallest unit of life, operates using tiny little machines! The biosphere is complex, dynamic and functional – God made the small pieces fit into the big, producing a home that has everything we need to not just survive, but to thrive in, from raw materials for our food, clothing and houses to ‘services’ of air purification, stable climate, and water recycling. The ecosystem is a finely balanced system of interactions that sustains us and millions of species.
Missed Opportunity
Unfortunately, this is all being compromised due to human activity. There are many examples of where cities have increased industrial output and vehicles on the road pushed smog to toxic, uninhabitable levels and constantly grey skies. Just like a smoker willingly defiles his body with chemicals, we too are defiling our homes and neighbours with the smoke of our habits. We might have experienced the time when we hiked up The Peak, hoping to see the Hong Kong skyscrapers against a clear, blue sky only to be greeted by a dusty scene. Aside from the health hazards, production and consumption of energy from fossil fuels contribute to climate change. While many secular sources have written about the dangers of climate change, increase in items that end up on landfill – Hong Kong’s landfill receives more than 300 tonnes of textile waste daily – and the deteriorating air quality, Christian responses to the environmental crises seem to be lagging.
While many see a need for us to treat our environment well, it becomes hard when this is in tension with economic development. After all, it is not feasible to shut down the economy in order for the environment to flourish. This does however not mean that we should not think critically about this tension. Scripture gives the following guidelines:
When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees people, that you should besiege them? However, you may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city at war with you falls. – Deut 20:19-20
Laying siege to a city requires the use of many trees, and yet, verses 19 and 20 are a command imposing limitations on what type and how many trees to cut down, thus preserving the food supply and leaving the land productive even after war. From this passage, we can see that though the Israelites had to carry out what was economic development for them at the cost of land being savaged, there was intentional control over how that is done. We can see that there is wisdom in stewardship; in fact, we are not owners, but we are stewards of what God has given us.
Knowing that pollution and climate change has been one of the causes of the present-day extinction makes us reflect about the Christian’s contribution or lack of interference with this trend. After all, should we not care about the amount of detail in which God created all creatures? Could it be that we are unsure of how we can protect the environment when it seems so at odds with human development?
How did we get here?
One reason for a lagging response could be that some people in the past may have been uncomfortable drawing the conclusion that Christians should care for the earth as it seemed this relationship with nature was not so different from pagan religions. Many religions believed in a god of the sea and a god of the earth (e.g. Neptune and Tellus). Christian teaching was therefore based on showing how our God was different from those gods as we believed that our God is the creator of nature, rather than Him being nature Himself. While the Christian faith can indeed be distinguished from others, we must not forget that we do believe that certain characteristics of God are reflected through nature (which is a subtle difference but important to teach). This means that God should not be divorced from nature entirely as we can learn more about God (e.g. seeing how He is an artist and engineer) by looking at our environment. After all, what would it mean for us to read that the heavens (skies) would proclaim the glory of God, when these skies are polluted.
Unfortunately, another reason why many seem to think that Christianity does not care about the environment, stems from a popular article written in 1967, that Christianity was to blame for our current environmental crisis. Lynn White argued that Christianity has taught the world not to care for the world, as humanity was merely to care for its own survival. Being given dominion by God meant, according to White, that one could forsake it’s care of the earth and exploit it instead. Yet, as the previous blog post showed, God giving us dominion over the earth was meant to help us reflect and be a witness of the great God we serve: one that cares about all He created.
Called to be a Witness
Psalm 19 shows how nature declares or gives witness of the glory of God. Not just this Psalm, but throughout the Bible we can find nature illustrations which tell us something about God. The thunder shows us his majesty; the rain shows us how God’s word will come to us; plants illustrate how we as people grow in our relationship with God. Elihu, one of Job’s more helpful friends, tells us how even animals respond to God’s presence (Job 36-37). If nature shows us something about God’s glory, it seems to be our responsibility to steward this in a way that shows God to those that reside in our world and to those who will reside here after we die.
Our Calling
This begs the question: How does your current consumption affect the world? How can we be part of reversing (creating an environment) some of the harm that has been done to our environment? Can your friends be pointed to a majestic creation that reveals a magnificent Creator?