Gratuitous Beauty

There are certain aspects of nature—creatures that boggle the imagination, or the perfect unity and diversity of flowers, for example—that we cannot understand apart from the glory of God.

The book of Job reminds us that if we cannot understand these earthly things, then we cannot fully understand God and His purposes. God never gives Job the reason behind his suffering; instead, He opens Job’s mind to His glory. We need to learn how to trust in the God who created these things.

Gratuitous Beauty

The beauty we see in nature goes far beyond what is necessary for mere reproduction or survival. The materialist worldview cannot account for this, but Christians can. Our God has graciously put beauty into nature to point to Himself.

Natural selection cannot account for the wondrous diversity in our creation. A creature that randomly developed a single leafy appendage, for example, would not pass that on to the next generation. There is no point for just one limb to masquerade as a leaf. It’s all or nothing—the creature was either created to look like a leaf all at once, or it was not.

God created complex structures in nature that we cannot understand. But looking at them should lead us to marvel at our God and worship Him.

[divider style=”solid” color=”#cccccc” opacity=”1″ icon_color=”#666666″ icon_size=”15″ placement=”equal”]

Note of Caution: The videos shown in Ken’s teaching come from sources that do not necessarily hold a biblical worldview; by using them, we are not endorsing the ideas or viewpoint that they might espouse.

[divider style=”solid” color=”#cccccc” opacity=”1″ icon_color=”#666666″ icon_size=”15″ placement=”equal”]

Missed a video? Ken’s Sunday morning study archives are available here.

Want more on how faith and science relate? Check out the audio or transcript from Ken’s In Question event, “Are Faith and Science Compatible?

Related Posts

Image of the crucified Christ

The Seven Last Words of Christ

These are the last recorded statements of Jesus Christ before His death on the cross. Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing. (Luke 23:34) When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and

The Ocean of Eternity

Mortality and the purpose of life are prominent themes in Thomas Cole’s paintings. Through his paintings, he vividly brings out the human dilemma of mortality, a dilemma we ourselves must wrestle with. Given the inevitability of death, what are we to do with our days? We can try to stave

The Five Loves—and the Highest of These Is Agape Love

In the article below, Dr. Boa synthesizes material from several teaching sessions from his series Biblical Principles for Marriage and from portions of his spiritual formation text Conformed to His Image (primarily from chapter 18, “Holistic Spirituality”). Dr. Boa focuses on agape love as one of the five forms of loves (based on the different Greek words). After reviewing all forms, he gives reasons for why agape is the greatest.