God and Nature 2025 #2
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By David Owen
What is nature for? Not just a resource to be used, but a way to know God. He invites us to know him by delighting in what he has created and called good. When we delight in its goodness, we experience it as he does; we see it from his point of view.
God invites us to work within his creation and to express ourselves in creative ways, to be “sub-creators,” as Tolkien said; but he invites us also to know him by resting in the goodness of creation as it is. When we rest in its goodness, we experience it as he does; we see it from his point of view.
Here is a poem meant to challenge a view of nature that makes too much of its utility and not enough of its goodness:
Useful
And God saw every thing
That he had made,
And, behold,
It was very good.
Good enough, anyway.
Probably good
For something.
Let us make man
Maybe they can find
A use for it.
In our image,
After our likeness.
Maybe they will make things too,
Useful things.
Maybe they can make themselves
Useful.
Dr. David Owen teaches computer science at Messiah University in Grantham, Pennsylvania. In graduate school he studied testing and verification strategies used to assure that desired properties hold for a distributed software system. In recent years, he's enjoyed learning more about hardware design, graphics programing, computer vision and the design of programming languages. As a Christian, he is also interested in how our daily experience with technology influences our view of God and what it means to be human. In addition, David loves music of many kinds and enjoys riding and repairing old bicycles.
What is nature for? Not just a resource to be used, but a way to know God. He invites us to know him by delighting in what he has created and called good. When we delight in its goodness, we experience it as he does; we see it from his point of view.
God invites us to work within his creation and to express ourselves in creative ways, to be “sub-creators,” as Tolkien said; but he invites us also to know him by resting in the goodness of creation as it is. When we rest in its goodness, we experience it as he does; we see it from his point of view.
Here is a poem meant to challenge a view of nature that makes too much of its utility and not enough of its goodness:
Useful
And God saw every thing
That he had made,
And, behold,
It was very good.
Good enough, anyway.
Probably good
For something.
Let us make man
Maybe they can find
A use for it.
In our image,
After our likeness.
Maybe they will make things too,
Useful things.
Maybe they can make themselves
Useful.
Dr. David Owen teaches computer science at Messiah University in Grantham, Pennsylvania. In graduate school he studied testing and verification strategies used to assure that desired properties hold for a distributed software system. In recent years, he's enjoyed learning more about hardware design, graphics programing, computer vision and the design of programming languages. As a Christian, he is also interested in how our daily experience with technology influences our view of God and what it means to be human. In addition, David loves music of many kinds and enjoys riding and repairing old bicycles.