I was looking outside the windows of the church and noticed a strange clash of colors. I saw the tops of the trees verdant with the summer heat pressed against the clear azure sky. It reminded me of Douglas Adams' work, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In it, the protagonist travels to the planet Magrathea where they build custom planets for those who simply do not like the shade of pink that appears in the sky. The planets Adams describes sound like horrific Frankensteinian monsters. Now, Adams was no friend of Christianity. His Magrathea served only as a foil against what he perceived as the excesses of wealth and consumerism. Yet, in his description of these custom planets, I can't help but see in their deformity, unintended praise for the world that is.
God did not create a monochromatic world. He gave us color and beauty. He gave us green tree tops pressed on clear blue skies. He gave us oranges, reds, lavenders, and yellows that the greatest artists struggle to emulate. He filled the world with natural wonders and delights that we seldom, if ever, enjoy. When was the last time you actually looked at the created order and marveled at God's handiwork? When has something as ordinary as tree tops in the sky captured your imagination?
I fear that our generation has made a concerted effort to replace the natural beauty of this world for a beauty of our own creation that looks more like Magrathean worlds than we would like to admit. In making this trade, we do so to the harm of our own well-being. Do we think, that the only provision for our spiritual and mental health appears in Scripture? Does not Scripture regularly refer to the events and beauties of nature? Have we become so obsessed with one book of God's revelation that we dare not lift up our head one moment to reflect on His first completed work of self-revelation? Can we truly be faithful expositors of Scripture without taking that which we exposit and wrestling with its creational implications? Let us never forget, that the God who revealed Himself in the Bible spoke first the word of creation, "Let there be....and it was good."
I comment to my own post for the purpose of nuance. The post is written to emphasize one point. It's brevity serves that limited purpose. However, there are many applications and nuances that ought to be assumed. For instance, I hold that Scripture is God's primary revelation and creation is secondary revelation. This ought be self-evident for the explicit inspired revelation must define and constrain any implicit discoveries from nature. Other nuances must follow, but I desire the reader to first wrestle with the necessity and beauty of creation before dealing with the indispensable distinctions.
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