"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing
that moveth upon the earth.... And the Lord
God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep
it."
―Genesis 1:28, 2:15 Suggested Reading: Genesis 2:15-17
We must cultivate a right attitude to
God's created order. As Genesis itself suggests, we can do that by observing
the following principles:
We should not deify nature. The creation is separate from the Creator. Unlike
pantheists, who believe that God is in nature and that nature and God are therefore
one, we believe our God is above nature. So we must never worship "Mother
Nature." Nature is not our God.
We should delight in God's creation. We should not adopt the pagan Greek idea that the human body and other material things have no value. If God had made our soul, and some human being had made our body and the universe, the Greeks would have been right in devaluing all that is physical. But the Bible says God made all that is; therefore, all should be valued. Because it is God's creation, we should bask in its beauty.
We should show respect for nature and be responsible for it. We should not destroy the world we live in but elevate it to its fullest potential. Do you respect this earth as your Father's world? Do not damage nature in any way without compelling cause.
We should study and explore nature's grandeur. Christianity gives us the basis for scientific research. That mandate is summarized in Psalm 111:2: "The works of the LORD are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." The order of the universe makes scientific inquiry possible. The scientist depends upon this order, which helps him formulate the laws that he aims to describe. Those laws are really just the customs of God.
We should praise God for nature. Some see no beauty in the created order. They
do not bow, as the psalmist did, before its majesty and exclaim, "How great
Thou art!" They are absorbed more in the works of men than in the works of God.
We
will see more of God in nature once we've seen Him in grace. Grace opens sightless
eyes to beauty in creation. Nature therefore becomes the Lord's handmaid to
enable true believers, like the writers of many of the creation psalms, to
magnify the Lord. That is how we ought to view nature.