What is nature? If you asked this question, you would find most people seem to understand nature as something distant or separated from people. We tend to look at nature as something wholly other than us. To “get back to nature” means leaving places where people are and visiting a place where no people live. Is this a right understanding of nature?
The problem, it seems to me, is that this makes humans somehow unnatural. This is most clearly shown in how some argue that humans are the real problem. Some argue we are “evolutionary mistakes.”[1] Likewise, many who argue for the preservation of nature essentially mean keeping people out. This can be seen in parks. While national and state/provincial parks help preserve natural habitats, a side effect is that they give the impression that nature does not include people.
Dividing People from Nature
In his work Post Christian, Gene Edward Veith makes the astute observation that “In Today’s post-Christian world, human beings are cut off from nature.”[2] We see this in the transgender movement which argues that one's biological nature is irrelevant to one’s sexual identity. Likewise, we tend to view what we see on a screen as more real than what we experience out in the world. However, it goes much deeper than that.
This division can be seen in many ways. We take great expense to control our indoor climates so we are not too affected by the weather. I have previously noted that the whole notion of Daylight Saving Time is a move away from nature because we no longer think that time should be governed by the sun.
Nature, however, really means more than just what is outside. It is a physical reality. We humans are part of the world and, therefore, we are a part of nature. Before the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th Centuries, everyone assumed we were a part of nature.[3] However, now the assumption is that nature is something separate from us that we can study, destroy, or even control, but it is not something that we belong within.
During the Enlightenment, as well as in the Scientific Revolution that helped kick it off, philosophers and scientists started treating physical reality as something we can think about and study. While this seems obvious to us today, it also meant that we started to think about ourselves as separate from nature and, therefore, able to study and control it. While people have always adapted their environment as they could, this denoted a significant shift. Even from Genesis 1 and 2 before the Fall into sin, mankind was to have dominion over the earth and tend the garden. Until the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment, it was assumed that man is a part of nature. So, to clear a field, plant something, or domesticate an animal was seen as more of an interaction between parts of nature than man, as a separate force, changing nature.
No Creator, No Creation
Another shift at this time was that the role of God as creator was diminished until He was pushed out altogether. At first, God was seen as active in creation and sustaining everything. Then God was seen as the creator, but more like a watchmaker who made the world, wound it up, and let it go. Ultimately, Darwin spoke of God as creator but in a way that He could easily be removed from the equation, which was what happened. This led scientists to attack God which eventually alienated them from nature as well.[4]
Previously, all of nature, including people, was viewed as “creation,” meaning that we were part of a much greater creation made by God. Consider how the Bible speaks of the creation of mankind within the whole narrative of creation in Genesis 1. However, it also speaks of humanity being created special and with a special role.
“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26)
This meant we were given a role of leadership within creation while also being a part of it. This fits with the biblical idea of stewardship. A steward was a servant given authority over the other servants. So as a steward was both over the servants and a servant, mankind was intended to be both over nature and a part of nature.
When thinkers in the West pushed aside the notion of God as creator, it meant that we still saw ourselves as over nature, but no longer a part of nature.
This move has led to a couple of different problems. For centuries, many have treated “nature” as something that could be used for their enrichment. This led to some extreme experimentation on animals. In an even more terrifying manner, if some people become defined as not fully human, then experimentation on them becomes allowable, like that done by Germany and Japan during the Second World War.
Another problem is seen in radical environmentalism which argues that humanity is an evolutionary mistake and a blight on the world. These individuals also see humanity as separate from nature - not over it but destructive to it.
A Plea for Creation
Properly understood, we should view ourselves as part of nature. To better define this, maybe we should recover the term “creation.” First, this acknowledges God as the creator. Then, rightly placing God as the creator, should remind us that we are creatures, a part of creation, not inherently separate from it. It is only when we admit that we are part of creation (nature) that we can then hope to care for creation without losing our sympathy for creation, knowing that we are a part of it.
[1] This is a curious argument, when you think about it. After all, how can the supposed meaningless and random development of species make a mistake? To make a mistake means that you have failed in doing what you are supposed to do, but without any purpose, there can be no mistakes.
[2] Gene Edward Veith, Post Christian: A Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 37.
[3] Veith, Post Christian, 38–39; Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004).
[4] Veith, Post Christian, 48.