the beauty of god's creation essay

The Beauty of God’s Creation. Theology Essay

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Every human being should appreciate and embrace all the creations of God. All creatures should give glory to God despite the challenging situations a person goes through in daily life. Human beings should see the hand of God in every single creature surrounding them. God has created different patterns in nature, such as the sky, plants, water, among others. Every existing creature is entirely perfect in the eyes of God.

The moment people start seeing the defects in any of the creations of God, they ruin their minds and cause themselves more pain. In Nathaniel’s short story “The Birthmark,” Aylmer dislikes the birthmark upon his wife’s cheek (Hawthorne 5). Aylmer had the thought of having the mark removed from Georgiana’s face for he was a scientist. He then tells Georgiana that the birthmark looked bad on her face and shocks him (Hawthorne 5). Aylmer forgets the goodness of his wife as the mark becomes unbearable. Every day, Aylmer could only think about how to get rid of this disastrous subject.

The birthmark in the short story is a symbol. It symbolizes that each human being has flaws or imperfections that are hard to change. People should learn to accept the weaknesses of their colleagues positively. The plant in the short story “The Birthmark” is also used as a symbol that symbolizes a natural product that a human wants to manipulate to give control over his healing properties. Georgiana was very sorrowful and hurting from her husband’s compliments on her birthmark.

Aylmer’s previous projects had failed, thus it would be hard for him to succeed in removing the birthmark. The style of foreshadowing is evident in the short story “The Birthmark.” Once again, the type is seen when Aylmer dreams with Aminadab operating to remove the birthmark (Hawthorne 8). Still, the narrator explains that “the deeper the knife went, the deeper the small hand mark sank” on Georgiana’s skin till it got hold of her heart (Hawthorne 8). The style of repetition is evident where the word deeper is repeated. The use of techniques helps attract more attention from the reader.

To satisfy her husband’s pleasure, Georgiana agrees with Aylmer’s plan to remove the mark. She tells him that “life is not worth living while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust” (Hawthorne 8). Aylmer takes her to his laboratory and makes a glass of the liquid of a particular plant he believed would heal the mark. Georgiana takes the drink and falls asleep right away (Hawthorne 17-18). Aylmer observed the spot left as Georgiana lost her breath at the same time. The small hand mark had been Georgiana’s connection to life, Aylmer realized.

According to Hopkins in his poem, “Pied Beauty,” He shows the reader the astounding variety of God’s creation. Hopkins sees the hand of God as the creator in every single creature despite the differences (Hopkins 1). “Glory is to God for the dappled things,” says Hopkins (Hopkins 1). The quote indicates that human beings should give praise and glory to God for all things, including worse situations. It can help someone save a lot of time in happiness rather than being obsessed with complaints. Consonance is used in the short poem of “Pied Beauty”, where the letter “f” is repeated. “Fresh-fire coal chestnuts-falls; finches’ wings…” says Hopkins (Hopkins 1).

The author also uses similes where there is a comparison of a sky to a branded cow. “For skies of couple-color as a branded cow” (Hopkins 1) Symbolism style is evident where the author talks of chestnuts. The hard exteriors often hide some that are beautiful inside.

Human beings have pleasure in all the creations of God and enjoy them to the maximum. All people should praise God for his results and challenging situations as well. Accepting changes and imperfections in people will help people make peace with each other. Human beings should remember that pride comes before a fall. Everything appears perfect in the sight of the creator and people should embrace that to give God all the glory.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Birthmark.” Feedbooks, 1843, pp. 8-18.

Hopkins, Gerard M. “Pied Beauty.” Poems and Prose , Penguin Classics, 1985.

• The Significance of Being a Theologically Informed Christian
• The Importance of Thinking Beyond the Home Culture for the Sake of the Gospel
• Hawthorne's "Rappacini's Daughter" and "The Birthmark": Comparison
• Perfection in Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” and Bradbury’s “The Veldt”
• Positivism in “The Birth-Mark” by N. Hawthorne
• Cosmogony Theories in Religion
• Faith and Justice in the City. Seek for Justice
• The Problem of Evil: Personal Viewpoint
• Connection of the Study of Christology to Soteriology
• Relation Between Sacred Time and Space
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Beauty of God’s Creation. Theology." October 18, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-beauty-of-gods-creation-theology/.

Supremely Fitting: The Beauty of God in Redemption, Our Beauty in Sanctification

Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference: beauty demands to be noticed; it speaks to us directly like the voice of an intimate friend. If there are people who are indifferent to beauty, then it is surely because they do not perceive it .[1]

This observation from British philosopher Roger Scruton points to the undeniable yet elusive nature of beauty. Whenever we try to pin down exactly the objective criteria for what is beautiful, we struggle. The perennial question is, “What is beauty?” or “What makes something truly beautiful?” The difficulty in answering leads many to repeat the old trope, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Yet, have you ever thought about how this notion effectively relegates beauty to subjective experience? A purely subjective view of beauty is just as problematic and dangerous as a purely subjective view of truth and goodness. For Christians, furthermore, beauty is often suspect because of its potential to deceive us or seduce us to sin. Indeed, Christians know that evil can produce counterfeit beauty: “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14).

In this essay, I want to explore how beauty, while mysterious, is not ultimately subjective or evil. Rather, created beauty is objective and good because uncreated beauty is one of the communicable perfections of God’s essential character. This means that true beauty is as essential to the “already” sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in God’s redeemed children as it is to our experience—here and now, at the visceral level—of tasting and seeing the goodness of the Lord (Ps. 34:8).

A Realist View of Beauty

Along with all the other “omni” perfections of God (omnipresent, omnipotent, etc.), we must affirm that God is also “omni-beautiful”: that is, God is all beautiful. The objective reality of beauty comes from its correspondence to God, and it is solely this correspondence that grounds a realist view of beauty. Realism is a classical philosophical account of reality affirming that the universe and all it comprises exists independently of how and whether we perceive, experience, or think about it. A longstanding commitment to the objectivity of beauty comes out of this classical tradition. Here’s the classicist definition I used in my book, The Beauty of the Lord :

Beauty is an intrinsic quality of things which, when perceived, pleases the mind by displaying a certain kind of fittingness. That is to say, beauty is discerned via objective properties such as proportion, unity, variety, symmetry, harmony, intricacy, delicacy, simplicity, or suggestiveness .[2]

These objective properties have been associated with beauty since ancient times, but this list is obviously not exhaustive. Here’s the mysterious thing about creaturely beauty: objective aesthetic criteria can only be discerned and then described in an a posteriori way, never in an a priori way. In other words, we’re struck by beauty in the act of perceiving it; we more consciously recognize something as beautiful after the fact; we cannot say beforehand what must strike us as beautiful. The beauty of something, after all, is wondrously greater than the sum of its parts. So while we may describe a feature of the natural world or something someone personally created or performed as beautiful, our unbidden affective response of delight evoked in the act of perceiving it defies deducibility. Etienne Gilson says it well: “The pleasure experienced in knowing the beautiful does not constitute beauty itself, but it betrays its presence .”[3]

When we’re considering objective criteria for beauty, it is important to recognize that beauty can have both a narrow sense and a broad sense. Many things evoke our deepest feelings of awe, wonder, longing, gratitude, and reverence. This is beauty in the narrow sense. We’ve all had the experience of watching a stunning sunset or pausing to take in a marvelous mountaintop view. Seeing a murmuration of starlings or a peacock fanning his feathers—or any other experience that instantly captivates our attention and leaves us emotionally moved—evokes some pleasure and wonder in us as we encounter them. Of course, we can be just as captivated and moved by things that people do or perform: a virtuoso musical performance or a masterpiece of visual art or dance performance; perhaps a magnificent work of architecture. Any work created or performed by human beings that captivates our attention and leaves us emotionally moved with delight is also an encounter with beauty in the narrow sense. Indeed, the spectrum of beauty we see in other people, both their outer and inner beauty, is the beauty we’re usually surrounded by most.

Beauty taken in a broad sense, however, is a subtler form and in certain cases, even imperceptible. The propriety of something or the overall sense of order or harmony in a given context are examples of beauty in a less conspicuous but no less real sense. At the most macro level, for instance, the order of the universe that God maintains according to natural laws is simply one aspect of what King David celebrates in Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. . . . In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. (vv. 1, 4–5)

Scientists talk about orbital planetary motion and how the observable universe is something like ninety-two billion light years across, all of which is impossible for us to really grasp. At the other end of the size spectrum—the cellular and even the atomic and subatomic levels—there exists a micro-universe of dynamically operating order, balance, symmetry, proportion, and unity whose reality we accept even though we can’t directly perceive it. Who can deny the amazing intricacy, resiliency, and delicate balance maintained through biological cycles of predation and symbiotic dependencies of plants and animals within their terrestrial and aquatic ecological complexes? Even particular acts or actions done by individuals or groups may strike us as beautiful because of how wonderfully befitting we perceive them to be: an expertly performed feat of athleticism, a mundane yet expertly executed household task, a well-choreographed medical team, a wonderfully suitable answer, a delicate touch conveying much-needed comfort or understanding, the interpersonal harmony uniting the lives of diverse people, the city planning optimizing the metropolitan life bristling in all directions, and so on. Aesthetic qualities in such things are often perceived in an indirect way, which I refer to as beautiful in a broad sense.

I use the term “fittingness” as an overarching description expressing the full range of beauty’s objective characteristics, whether in the narrow or broad sense: the more fitting a person or thing or action, the more beautiful. All these characterizations of beauty, narrow and broad, also point us to the necessary subjective perception of it: the effect of delight experienced in recognizing something—consciously or unconsciously—as beautiful, as fitting. The subjective is necessary but not ultimate; it depends on the objective. Saint Augustine remarked on this interplay: “If I were to ask first whether things are beautiful because they give pleasure, or give pleasure because they are beautiful, I have no doubt that I will be given the answer that they give pleasure because they are beautiful .”[4] Thus beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, though it is not reduced to our experience; it does not merely mean beautiful to me .

The Beauty of the Trinity

The beauty of something is directly proportional to its fittingness. We learn this from the character and action of God himself. We know God as he has revealed himself in his works of revelation and redemption. The divine works of creation, redemption, and consummation entail a consistent, suitable, and worthy expression or outworking of God’s wisdom and glory, displaying in time the eternal beauty of the immanent Trinity. Recognizing this fittingness of the revealing and redeeming activities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is basic to celebrating the beauty of the Trinity. Nicholas Healy captures this idea in regard to the actions of God as follows:

The theologian should attempt to explain why these means to salvation are the best by displaying the appropriateness of God’s actions as they are described in Scripture. The argument for fittingness is therefore something like an aesthetic argument because it searches for structure and proportion. The French Dominican, Gilbert Narcisse, gives this definition: “Theological fittingness displays the significance of the chosen means among alternative possibilities, and the reasons according to which God, in his wisdom, has effectively realized and revealed, gratuitously and through his love, the mystery of the salvation and glorification of humanity .”[5]

Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas offer a similar theological rationale for the question of whether the Father or the Holy Spirit could have assumed the role of incarnate redeemer instead of the Son. I won’t rehearse the entirety of their arguments here, but the gist is that it is most fitting for the Son to become the incarnate redeemer rather than the Father or the Holy Spirit. This fittingness is based neither on our assumptions about what is appropriate for God nor on any anthropomorphic projection of our image upon God, but on the order of personal relations within the unity of the Godhead. The divine persons’ outward activities reflect with perfect harmony the inner paternity of the Father (since all things are from him), the filiation of the Son (all things are through him), and the spiration of the Holy Spirit (all things are in him). And this perfect fittingness, remember, is at one and the same time perfect beauty .[6]

This objective beauty of the Trinity as expressed in the divine works of creation, redemption, and consummation is an inherent quality of God’s glory. God’s glory is the fullness of his perfections, the expression and manifestation of which is the reality of all that God is. We find in Scripture that the word glory frequently serves as a proxy for specific divine attributes: goodness in its aspects of mercy and grace (Exod. 33:18–19; Eph. 1:6, 12, 14), truthfulness (1 Sam. 15:29), holiness (Isa. 6:3), majesty (Isa. 35:2), righteousness (Rom. 3:23), and power (John 11:40; Rom. 6:4; 2 Thess. 1:8–9). “Such biblical data suggests that God’s intrinsic glory is broader than a single attribute,” writes Christopher Morgan. “It corresponds with his very being and sometimes functions as a sort of summation of his attributes .”[7]

The relation between white light and the color spectrum serves as a good illustration of the relation between God’s glory and his perfections. Isaac Newton demonstrated in the late seventeenth century that an optical prism can be used to separate white light into its constituent spectral colors. A second prism can then be used to recompose the spectrum back into white light. The prism does not create colors but simply reveals that all the colors already exist in the light. As a quality in the light of God’s intrinsic glory, beauty is always an aspect of its multicolored external display. God’s works are altogether fitting and should always evoke our subjective recognition of his beauty in and through them .[8]

The Beauty of the Incarnate Son

The beauty of a person depends not only on that person’s outward form but on the inner content of their character. True beauty, in other words, means that form and content inextricably cohere in perfect unity. God’s creational intention for human beings is that ultimately the beauty of our outer self (our body) coheres in perfect unity with the beauty of our inner self (our soul), for God intended our bodies to be, as John Barclay puts it, “the necessary expressive medium of the Christ-sourced life .”[9] In this present age, beauty in the outward sense is compromised and fading. Although the image of those redeemed in Christ includes the resurrection and glorification of their physical body (Phil. 3:21), for now we experience its wearing away (2 Cor. 4:16). On the “already” side of our eschatological glory, then, what counts as the true beauty of a person is a character reflective of the character of Christ. True beauty of character in that sense—our beauty in and through Christ—entails what Kevin Vanhoozer describes as “right thinking, desiring, and doing alike, involving all the disciple’s faculties: cognitive, affective, and dispositional .”[10] Sometimes we fail to recognize a person’s beauty, whether inner or outer. Our subjective failure to recognize beauty, however, does not negate its objective reality, since God is ultimately who determines what is beautiful. There is no better example of this than the unlikely loveliness of the incarnate Son.

In Isaiah’s Servant Song, the prophet describes Christ as having “no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isa. 53:2). This is certainly how he seemed during his humiliation “in the form of a slave” for our sakes (Phil. 2:6–8). Nonetheless, that form of a slave was most fitting for God the Son for his role as the Messiah. In and through the form of a slave, the incarnate Son magnifies the beauty of the glory of God’s self-giving love and at the same time begins to glorify—to beautify—us who not just apparently but really lacked that beauty. As New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham says, the character of God “is revealed as much in self-abasement and service as it is in exaltation and rule. The God who is high can also be low, because God is God not in seeking his own advantage but in self-giving .”[11]

Especially in his humiliating death on the cross, Christ reveals in the most climactic way how God’s judicial wrath that must condemn the sinner unites in perfect expression with the mercy that would pardon. George Hunsinger wonderfully encapsulates this mystery:

The wrath of God is removed (propitiation) when the sin that provokes it is abolished (expiation). Moreover, the love of God that takes the form of wrath when provoked by sin is the very same love that provides the efficacious means of expiation (vicarious sacrifice) and therefore of propitiation .[12]

Behold the perfect equipoise of God’s beauty: his righteous, holy love manifest in the execution of his wrath poured out on the Beloved on behalf of the unlovely!

The event of the cross reveals the divine love that expresses itself in unreserved self-giving for the sake of others. Yet this surprising beauty displayed in Christ’s humiliation must hold together with that displayed in his exaltation. There is an unbreakable biblical connection between the beauty of the Lord and his manifest glory, especially his majesty, kingship, and splendor. In other words, not only are terms in Scripture expressive of “beauty” used in a parallel with “glory” (e.g., Exod. 28:2), but God’s objective beauty is also strongly correlated with his kingship. This is a common refrain in the Psalms:

For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary” (Ps. 96:5–6)

On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate. (Ps. 145:5)

God similarly describes himself to Job:

“Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor.” (Job 40:9–10)

Of particular note for the beauty of the incarnate Son, Isaiah 33:17—“Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty”—is widely interpreted as a vision of the Messiah referring to a future time when God’s people would see the anointed king in all his royal splendor (cf. Isa. 33:22; Ps. 45). Bernard Ramm aptly summarizes the Bible’s royal motif, a precursor in the Old Testament to the majestic messianic character of Christ’s glory:

If there is a bridge which connects the visible glory of the Lord with his essential being, it is that of the kingship. . . . The royal kingship becomes one of the richest sources of analogies in the OT for the doctrine of God. The kābôd of the earthly king becomes the analogue for the kābôd of the Lord (cf. Pss. 22:28; 24:7–10) .

The display of the incarnate Son’s divine beauty is revealed perfectly in his messianic fulfillment as the greater Davidic Seed—the King of kings and Lord of lords! Jesus, and Jesus alone, is that ladder bridging heaven and earth (cf. John 1:51), personally embodying both the inner glory of God and its outward display in self-giving love and kingly rule.

The Beauty of Our Identity and Formation in Christ

If we want to be deeply encouraged in our identity in Christ and personal spiritual formation, we must discern the beauty inherent in the plan of God as well as the beauty of God’s work in and through us. The common idea that “as we think, we do” leads us to assume that real change needs to take place first in our thinking, which will then move us to act in accordance with what we think is true. Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, however, has argued that perceiving the beautiful is the real starting point of change in our actions and even in conceptualizing truth accurately. I don’t believe we need to make definitive pronouncements about the exact chain of causation between our thinking, perceiving, experiencing, and doing; the mind in its connection with the bodily senses is as deeply mysterious as it is wondrously complex. Yet there is a thoroughly biblical logic in Balthasar’s reasoning: “The more obediently [the Christian] thinks, the more accurately he will see .”[14] This reminds me of Jesus’ claim, “If anyone wants to do God’s will, he will know about my teaching, whether it is from God or whether I speak from my own authority” (John 7:17; cf. 1 John 4:11–12). The more we come to be affected by the beauty of the Lord, the more we will be delighted to follow him. It’s interesting that when Jesus refers to himself as the “good shepherd” (John 10:14–16), the Greek word here translated “good” often refers to the aesthetically beautiful, the excellent, noble, desirable, and praiseworthy. Beholding Jesus as not only morally upright but also wholly beautiful draws us both to know him better (“my own know me”) and to obey him more faithfully (“they will listen to my voice”).

I mentioned earlier in relation to the character of Jesus that personal beauty depends not only (or even primarily) on one’s outward form but on the inner content of one’s character, and especially the fit between the two. This is also true of the character of Jesus’ disciples. Our spiritual formation as believers—our conformity to the image of Christ—may be described as the practice of Christian fittingness. Christian fittingness means God’s people living in conformity to their identity in Christ and growing in Christlike character. The apostle Paul expresses his deeply felt burden that Christ be fully “formed” in us (Gal. 4:19) in accordance with the design of the divine plan (Rom. 8:29–30). Christ’s beauty—the fittingness of his person and work—is always the standard and pattern for our formation in beauty .[15] In the account of the woman who anointed Jesus’ head with an alabaster flask of expensive perfume (Mark 14:3–9), some of those present were harshly critical of Jesus, seeing this woman’s act as an utter waste of money and a squandered opportunity to help the poor. But Jesus responded by saying, “She has done a beautiful thing to me.” Again, the Greek word translated “beautiful” here is the same as in John’s reference to Jesus as the “good” shepherd. Jesus knew he’d soon be taken away and killed; the self-surrendering act of this woman is a beautiful thing because of how perfectly fitting—how supremely good—were her actions in displaying his beauty through anointing his body before his death and burial for our sake.

Contrast this beautiful obedience with Christ’s denunciation of the ugliness of the scribes and the Pharisees:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matt. 23:27–28)

We can understand the nature of such ugliness not as the absence of beauty but a defilement, distortion, or perversion of it. The hypocrisy displayed by the scribes and Pharisees is the ugliness of self-righteousness masquerading as true love for God and true righteousness in front of others for their applause and esteem (cf. Mark 7:1–23; Luke 11:37–41). To be conformed to the image of Christ must include becoming truly beautiful like him in the inner self, a beauty expressed through our bodily actions and experienced in the increasing delight we take in the Lord (Ps. 37:3–4). All this beautifying work occurs by the Holy Spirit, who graciously and powerfully motivates the heartfelt pursuit of true godliness. Those who belong to a beautiful Savior long to live lives befitting their identity in Christ as God’s beloved children (Eph. 4:1, 32; 5:1–2) .[16]

To be sure, because God calls his children to embrace by faith our identity as a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), he empowers us by his Spirit to pursue a life of true discipleship. The person re-created in Christ has been brought out of a condition of spiritual malformity into an already-but-not-yet perfected conformity to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29–30). Even in this present age, God has begun that re-creational work of forming each person in Christ in spiritual beauty by making us more and more like him.

The dynamic of growing more beautiful in Christlike character is thus an active participation. “Call it eschatological participation,” writes Vanhoozer, “a this-age taking part in the reality of the age to come .”[17] Paul, quoting Isaiah 64:4, directs our hearts and minds to the limitlessness of God’s beautifying work of redemption: “Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined, are the things God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). The ever-surpassing, ever-surprising nature of God in his works is most fully revealed in the radiance of our image-bearing beauty, as his beauty is reflected in us, from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18).

As we await this beautiful future, let us not only seek to grow in the truth of God’s revealed plan, but let us also increasingly delight in God for who he is and for making us partakers of his eternal Triune life through the person and work of Christ. This is what it means to behold the beauty of the Lord through eyes of faith (Ps. 27:4). And this is what will motivate and encourage us as we grow in the goodness of God by pursuing a faithful fittingness between our lives and his beautiful character.

Roger Scruton, Beauty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), xi.

Jonathan King, The Beauty of the Lord: Theology as Aesthetics (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018). The full discussion that follows draws from this work. On the particular point made here, see my discussion in the introduction under the subsection “Theologies of Aesthetics,” 2–7.

Etienne Gilson, Elements of Christian Philosophy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960), 162.

Augustine, De Vera Religione , cited in Umberto Eco, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas , trans. Hugh Bredin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 49.

Nicholas M. Healy, Thomas Aquinas: Theologian of the Christian Life (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), 38.

See King, The Beauty of the Lord , 70–73.

Christopher W. Morgan, “Toward a Theology of the Glory of God,” in The Glory of God , ed. Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 165.

See King, The Beauty of the Lord , 44–49.

John M. G. Barclay, “Under Grace: The Christ-Gift and the Construction of a Christian Habitus,” in Apocalyptic Paul: Cosmos and Anthropos in Romans 5–8 , ed. Beverly Roberts Gaventa (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2013), 69.

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding: Performing the Drama of Doctrine (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), 147.

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 45.

George Hunsinger, The Eucharist and Ecumenism: Let Us Keep the Feast (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 173–74.

Bernard Ramm, Them He Glorified: A Systematic Study of the Doctrine of Glorification (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), 19.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics , vol. 1., Seeing the Form , ed. Joseph Fessio, S.J., and John Riches, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982), 165.

See King, The Beauty of the Lord , 260–65.

See King, The Beauty of the Lord , 284–86

Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding , 126.

Jonathan King

From the issue: the already, vol.32 , no.5 , sep/oct 2023, related resources, grace for all seasons.

Frank was pathetic, with all the uncomfortable connotations of that overused word. He was twice our age, with ten times our worldly experience, legally blind, formerly a member of an L.A. street gang, without any formal education, and crying as if no one else was in the room. The teacher had just explained how to […]

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Once upon a time, the label evangelical identified those who were committed not only to historic Christianity but to the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In our day, however, that can no longer be taken for granted. Increasingly, evangelical scholarship is challenged by trends in biblical studies […]

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“Modern Reformation has championed confessional Reformation theology in an anti-confessional and anti-theological age.” J. Ligon Duncan, III Senior Minister, First Presbyterian Church

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How to See Yourself as God’s Beautiful Creation

A guest blog post by megan nguyen.

Lisa Igram  —  December 05, 2018

Comparison: we call it the thief of joy. It constantly causes us to feel inadequate and unworthy. It tries to rip us apart, make us over-examine our flaws, and tell us we aren’t good enough. We live in a society that encourages us to be different and unique, to embrace our imperfections and see them as beautiful, yet it also tries show us picture perfect images of what and who we should be. So how can we see ourselves as beautiful then? The short answer is to see yourself as God sees you, WORTHY, LOVED, and His MASTERPIECE. But it’s easier said than done. Seeing yourself as God’s beautiful creation can be one of the most challenging things you can do, especially in the fallen world we live in. But luckily God doesn’t leave us alone to deal with it. Through scripture, prayer, knowing yourself, and fellowship, God reminds us that we are created in His image, His beautiful image.

Our foundation for seeing ourselves as a beautiful work by God should always start with scripture. If we replace the lies Satan and society feeds us with the truths offered by the bible, we are one step closer in finding our value. God gave us verses like Proverbs 31:10 which tells us we are more precious than jewels, Ecclesiastes 3:11 which details that God has made everything beautiful in its time, or Psalm 139:14 exclaiming we are beautifully and wonderfully made are God’s ways or reminding us He sees us differently than how we see ourselves, and no matter what we see, we are unconditionally and eternally loved.

God can also reveal our beauty in times of prayer and listening. God opens our eyes when we give Him our time and reflect with Him. I don’t know about you, but I find it an extreme challenge to hear God in my prayers because I’m always looking for an answer instead of waiting to hear His voice. God always knows just what to say to us, and all He asks is for us to listen. Through prayer God can uncover His plans and purpose for our lives and from this, give us the encouragement to see that we are created beautifully by the greatest maker of all time.

Knowing yourself seems like a pretty easy thing to do, but if you’re anything like me, it’s hard to recognize what God has blessed you with. I often look around to see what God has gifted my family and friends with: music talent, artistic ability, wisdom, etc. and look back at myself and wonder, what do I have? I think it’s important to ask God what strengths He has given you and be able to recognize these distinct qualities and how He made everyone in His image, yet created such uniqueness and beauty in creation. Everyone is blessed with something from God, whether they realize it or not, and no characteristic is wasted by God. Through his blessings, He encourages us with a purpose and gives our lives value and meaning.

Finally, we have fellowship. I personally find this one to be something God has used in my life these past couple of years to help me grow and realize who I am according to Him. Building community and forming relationships is one of God’s gifts to us. He gives us this to lift each other up and encourage one another and embrace what God created us to be. From community we can see the beauty of God’s creations and all the love and grace He pours out onto our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and in turn see how God created us beautifully as well.

Seeing yourself as God’s beautiful creation is not something that can be done overnight and it’s definitely not an easy task. Whether it’s looking into the mirror and wanting to see something else, or comparing yourself to another person, we will always find ourselves to be imperfect. Fortunately, we don’t serve a God who expects perfection. We may stumble and fall, but God calls us His beloved children. So I challenge you the next time you look in the mirror to look through God’s mirror, which shows us that our brokenness is made beautiful, our sins are forgiven, and by His grace, we are redeemed.

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Genesis 1:31

About the Author: I’m Megan Nguyen and I’m a sophomore pre-clinical nursing student. This year, I had the privilege of becoming the president of Delight Ministries, a women’s devotional club that fosters fellowship within the community of Biola. I’m super passionate about fellowship, family, and food.

Categories:

Lisa (Talbot ‘15) works on campus as Associate Dean of Spiritual Development — a fancy title for someone who gets to meet with students, help lead chapels and go to lots of meetings. She cares deeply about seeing women and men thrive in their God-given gifts. When she’s not on campus, she’s living one of her life-long dreams: sitting in her cozy living room, reading through colorful stacks of books for her doctorate in Divinity and Religious Studies (coffee, anyone?).

The views expressed here may not necessarily represent the beliefs of Biola University or the GRIT Editorial Board. All content is designed to inspire and challenge GRIT readers and listeners to explore their gifting, foster resilience, gain insight and develop tenacity.

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The Beauty of God’s Creation: Finding Inspiration in Nature

Simple Faith | August 29, 2023 August 29, 2023 | Prayer

Introduction

In a world bustling with human-made marvels and technological wonders, it’s easy to forget the unparalleled masterpiece that surrounds us: nature. From the majestic mountains to the tranquil lakes, the vibrant forests to the intricate ecosystems, every facet of our natural world stands as a testament to the divine craftsmanship of the Creator. The word “creation” carries a profound significance, serving as a reminder of the beauty, complexity, and inspiration that flow from the heart of God into the heart of the Earth. In this exploration of the beauty of God’s creation, we delve into the profound ways in which nature captivates our souls and fuels our creativity.

The Symphony of Diversity

Imagine standing atop a hill, gazing out at a landscape that stretches as far as the eye can see. The mosaic of colors, shapes, and textures that unfold before you is a symphony of diversity, orchestrated by the very hand of God. From the delicate petals of a wildflower to the towering sequoias that have witnessed centuries, each element of creation is unique and irreplaceable. Just as a skilled artist uses a multitude of hues to paint a canvas, so too does the Creator use an infinite palette to bring forth the beauty of the natural world.

Nature’s Lessons in Simplicity and Complexity

Nature is a living paradox, effortlessly balancing simplicity and complexity in a harmonious dance. Consider the intricacy of a single leaf – its veins, its delicate structure, its role in the grand cycle of life. Yet, despite this complexity, nature exudes a simplicity that resonates deep within us. The rhythmic lapping of waves on a shore, the gentle rustle of leaves in a breeze – these moments of serenity remind us that amidst life’s chaos, there is profound beauty in the uncomplicated.

Seeking Solace in Creation

In a world marked by constant motion and unrelenting noise, finding solace can be a challenge. Yet, within the embrace of creation, we discover a sanctuary for our weary souls. The calming stillness of a forest, the meditative rhythm of a flowing stream – these are spaces where we can reconnect with the sacred quietude that often eludes us. As we immerse ourselves in the hush of nature, we find ourselves drawing closer to the Creator, whose presence is palpable in every rustling leaf and echoing birdcall.

Nature’s Timeless Rhythms

Creation operates within an ancient rhythm that predates human existence – the rise and fall of the sun, the changing of seasons, the ebb and flow of tides. In these timeless cycles, we find reassurance of a greater plan, a divine order that extends beyond our fleeting moments. The sunsets that paint the sky with a myriad of colors, the stars that shimmer in the velvety night – they whisper of a Creator who set the universe in motion and entrusted us with its stewardship.

The Healing Touch of Creation

There is a reason why “nature therapy” has become a buzzword in recent times. The healing touch of creation has an astonishing capacity to mend what the world often breaks. Whether it’s the restorative power of a walk in the woods or the rejuvenation that comes from basking in the warmth of the sun, the Creator has bestowed upon us a remedy that is both profound and gentle. As we immerse ourselves in creation, we find that the worries that once weighed us down lose their significance in the grandeur of the natural world.

Creation as a Source of Inspiration

For artists, writers, musicians, and creators of all kinds, nature has been an eternal wellspring of inspiration. The symmetrical patterns of a snowflake, the intricate design of a seashell – these are reminders that the Creator is the ultimate artist, and His work is an ever-present source of ideas and creativity. When we open our hearts to the beauty of creation, we unlock a channel through which divine inspiration flows freely, sparking new creations that mirror the magnificence of the world around us.

Stewardship: Nurturing God’s Gift

As beneficiaries of this awe-inspiring creation, we bear a profound responsibility – that of stewardship. Just as a caretaker tends to a precious garden, we are entrusted with safeguarding the delicate balance of ecosystems, preserving biodiversity, and ensuring that the beauty of God’s creation endures for generations to come. Our stewardship is an act of love and gratitude, a way of honoring the Creator by caring for His masterpiece.

Exploring Creation’s Intricacies

The more we delve into the details of creation, the more we uncover its intricate design. The interdependence of species within ecosystems, the delicate balance maintained in every habitat – these reveal a wisdom far beyond human comprehension. Take, for example, the symbiotic relationship between bees and flowers. The flowers provide nectar as nourishment for the bees, while the bees inadvertently aid in the pollination of these very flowers, ensuring their continued existence. Such intricate partnerships underscore the harmonious interconnectedness woven into the fabric of creation.

Miracles in Miniature

While grand landscapes often steal the spotlight, the miracles of creation are not limited to the grandiose. Microscopic wonders paint a fascinating tapestry that exists beyond the limits of our naked eye. From the intricate patterns of a butterfly’s wing to the crystalline beauty of a snowflake, these small-scale marvels remind us that creation’s artistry extends into the realm of the infinitesimal. Each minuscule creation carries the signature of the Creator, revealing His attention to even the smallest of details.

Seasonal Metamorphosis

One of the most enchanting aspects of creation lies in its cyclical transformation through the seasons. Every transition – the vibrant blossoms of spring, the lazy warmth of summer, the fiery hues of autumn, and the contemplative stillness of winter – offers a unique palette of sights, sounds, and sensations. In the dance of the seasons, we witness creation’s adaptability and resilience, mirroring the rhythm of life itself. This perpetual cycle is a reminder that change is an integral part of creation, bringing forth beauty in every stage.

Nature’s Palette: A Source of Wonder

Artists throughout history have tried to capture the essence of creation’s beauty on canvas, yet nature’s palette remains unparalleled. The colors that adorn the sky during sunrise and sunset, the ever-changing hues of the ocean, the kaleidoscope of foliage – these are hues that no artist can replicate. The Creator’s handiwork is a testament to His creativity, using color as a brushstroke to evoke emotions and awe that transcend words. As we immerse ourselves in these living canvases, we are reminded of the Creator’s ability to evoke wonder and admiration through His masterful artistry.

The Wisdom of Creation

Beyond its aesthetic appeal, creation is a wellspring of wisdom waiting to be discovered. The intricate patterns found in a spider’s web, the efficiency of a honeycomb – these natural structures are the result of millions of years of adaptation and refinement. They teach us valuable lessons in efficiency, sustainability, and ingenuity. The Creator’s design transcends mere aesthetics; it is a blueprint for living in harmony with the world around us. By observing creation’s wisdom, we can glean insights that inform our own interactions with the environment and with one another.

Creation’s Symphony of Sound

Close your eyes and listen. The world is alive with a symphony of sounds, each note played by creatures great and small. The chirping of crickets, the rustling of leaves, the melodious calls of birds – these are the threads that weave together the tapestry of creation’s auditory landscape. In the hustle and bustle of modern life, these sounds often go unnoticed. However, they are a reminder of the Creator’s intention for us to be attuned to the world He crafted. By embracing the cacophony of creation’s song, we open ourselves to a deeper connection with nature and the divine.

A Call to Awe and Wonder

In the journey of life, we sometimes become desensitized to the beauty around us. The mundane routines and distractions cloud our perception, causing us to overlook creation’s wonders. Yet, the call to awe and wonder is one that continually beckons. It urges us to step outside our comfort zones and immerse ourselves in creation’s grandeur. Whether it’s standing under a starlit sky and pondering the vastness of the universe or witnessing the birth of a new day, these moments of awe remind us of our place in the intricate tapestry of creation.

The Eternal Creator and His Creation

As we contemplate the beauty shaped by God’s hand, it’s crucial to remember that the Creator Himself is eternal. The world around us mirrors His timeless essence, a tangible display of His limitless affection and ingenuity. Just as an artist pours a fragment of their soul into their masterpiece, similarly the Creator imbues His handiwork with His core. Every sunset, each mountain range, every intricate creature represents a stroke on the canvas of existence, unveiling the profound nature of the Creator’s being.

Embracing the Creator Through Creation

In the vast expanse of existence, we discover an invitation to draw closer to the Source. The beauty that envelops us serves as evidence of a higher presence, an influential force, and an unwavering affection. By embracing the world around us, we welcome the Source Himself. This journey of the spirit leads us beyond the surface and into the domain of the divine. As we stand in awe of the grandeur before us, we stand before the heart of the Source, discovering comfort, motivation, and a deep bond that goes beyond the confines of time and space.

Safeguarding Creation: Our Sacred Responsibility

With great beauty comes great responsibility. The task of safeguarding the Creator’s masterpiece is one that transcends personal gain and momentary pleasures. It is a sacred responsibility that calls for collective action and individual commitment. The challenges that our environment faces today – from deforestation to pollution to climate change – are reminders that creation is vulnerable to the actions of its inhabitants. The call to stewardship is a call to act in harmony with creation, to protect its delicate balance, and to ensure that its beauty endures for generations.

Sowing Seeds of Conservation

Preservation begins at home, within the corners of our daily lives. By adopting sustainable practices, we sow the seeds of conservation that can ripple out to make a profound impact. Simple choices, such as reducing single-use plastic, conserving energy, supporting eco-friendly products, and practicing mindful consumption, collectively contribute to the well-being of creation. These actions are an extension of our reverence for the Creator’s handiwork, reflecting our desire to honor and nurture the world He entrusted to us.

Empowering Future Generations

The beauty of God’s creation is a legacy that we pass on to future generations. Our actions today will determine whether they inherit a world brimming with vibrant ecosystems or one marred by environmental degradation. As we connect younger generations with the wonders of nature, we instill in them a sense of wonder, appreciation, and responsibility. By nurturing their curiosity and teaching them about the delicate web of life, we equip them to be stewards of creation, carrying forward the mission to protect and cherish the world that was lovingly crafted by the Creator.

Inspiration for Innovation

Nature is the ultimate innovator, providing us with solutions to challenges that human ingenuity has yet to conquer. From the way plants harness sunlight through photosynthesis to the aerodynamics inspired by bird flight, the secrets of creation hold keys to technological advancements. By looking to creation as a source of inspiration, we unlock pathways to sustainable solutions that can address some of the most pressing issues of our time. The Creator’s design is a testament to His mastery, revealing ingenious mechanisms that continue to inspire breakthroughs in various fields.

The Continuity of Creation’s Story

The beauty of God’s creation transcends mere aesthetics; it tells a story of growth, adaptation, and resilience. The evolutionary journey that life has undertaken over millions of years is etched in the very fabric of creation. Every living organism, from the tiniest microbe to the most majestic creature, carries within it the legacy of survival, innovation, and adaptation. This story is a testament to creation’s ability to endure and flourish, serving as a reminder that our actions today can influence the course of this ongoing narrative.

Celebrating Creation Through Art

Art has an exceptional ability to capture the essence of creation’s beauty and inspire a deeper connection with nature. Artists across disciplines have sought to translate the awe they experience into tangible forms that resonate with others. Painters, poets, photographers, musicians – they all offer us glimpses into their encounters with creation’s grandeur. Through their works, they invite us to pause, reflect, and embrace the wonder that surrounds us. In turn, we find ourselves drawn closer to the Creator through the beauty they illuminate.

Retreating to Creation’s Embrace

In the midst of life’s challenges and demands, creation offers us a refuge – a sanctuary where we can find solace, restoration, and connection. The quiet majesty of a mountain peak, the therapeutic rush of a waterfall, the vastness of a desert landscape – these natural sanctuaries remind us of our smallness in the grand scheme of creation. In these moments of retreat, we unplug from the noise of the world and reconnect with the Creator’s presence, finding renewal for our spirits and strength for our journeys.

The Unending Journey of Discovery

The beauty of God’s creation is an unending journey of discovery. No matter how much we learn, explore, or observe, there will always be more to uncover. From the depths of the oceans to the heights of the heavens, creation continues to unveil its mysteries, inviting us to delve deeper into its realms. The Creator’s artistry is boundless, and our quest to understand it reflects a longing to connect with the divine, to peer into the mind of the Master Artist.

Final Thoughts: Gratitude and Awe

In the tapestry of existence, we are privileged to be threads woven into the intricate fabric of creation. The beauty that surrounds us is a testament to the Creator’s boundless love, imagination, and power. As we navigate the complexities of life, may we never lose sight of the awe-inspiring world in which we dwell. Let our hearts be filled with gratitude for the beauty that graces our days and reverence for the Creator who crafted it all. Let creation continue to inspire us, ignite our creativity, and guide us in our quest to be faithful stewards of this remarkable gift.

In a universe of stars, galaxies, and celestial wonders, the Earth stands as a remarkable anomaly – a haven of life, beauty, and diversity. From the smallest organisms to the grandest landscapes, the intricacies sing of the Creator’s boundless imagination and love. The concept serves as a touchstone, reminding us of the exquisite artistry that surrounds us every day. As we open our eyes and hearts to the beauty evident in the world, we discover a wellspring of inspiration, solace, and wonder that transcends the limitations of our human understanding. May we continue to cherish, protect, and find endless inspiration in the awe-inspiring masterpiece that is our world.

The Power of Forgiveness: Healing Your Heart Through Christ’s Love

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The Pleasure of God in His Creation

John Piper Twitter @JohnPiper

Radically free to please god, what is healthy teaching, faith sees 3-d, did my negligence kill my baby, how did the false teachers misuse the law, where does empty talk come from.

• Scripture: Psalm 104:31    Topic: Creation

May the glory of the Lord endure forever,    may the Lord rejoice in his works.

In our first message of this series on the pleasures of God we saw that God delights in his Son. For all eternity God has been exuberantly happy in the fellowship of the Trinity. He has been overflowing with satisfaction as he looks out over the endless panorama of his own perfections reflected in the radiance of his Son’s face.

Then we saw that one of the lessons to be learned from that divine happiness is that God is complete in himself. He has no deficiencies. And therefore he can’t be bribed with something he craves or blackmailed with some secret weakness or coerced by some superior power. And so all that he does, he does, not under constraint, but according to his own good pleasure. He is free, and he takes pleasure in all that he does.

Today we focus on one of the most astonishing things that God has done: he has created the universe, and what a universe it is! And there are two questions that I want to try to answer:

• Does God take pleasure in his creation?
• And if so, why does he?

1. Does God Take Pleasure in His Creation?

The first question I would answer with a resounding, “Yes!” God does take pleasure in his creation.

The Testimony of Genesis 1

How do we know this? Genesis 1 describes for us not only the fact of an ordered creation by God, but also God’s response to his creation. Five times, you recall, God stands back, as it were, and takes stock of his creation. Each time the text says, “And God saw that it was good” (verses 4, 12, 18, 21, 25). And when all was finished and man and woman were created in his own image, it says, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”

I take this to mean that God was delighted with his work. When he looked at it, it gave him pleasure. He was pleased and happy with his creative effort.

The Testimony of Psalm 104

Today’s text, Psalm 104, is a song to express the joy God has in his creation. The key verse for our purpose is verse 31:

This is not a prayer for something that might not happen. The psalmist does not mean: “O, I hope God will rejoice in his works, but I am not sure he will.” If that were the meaning, then the first line of the verse would have to have the same sense: “O, I hope God’s glory will endure forever, but I am not sure it will.”

That is surely not what he means. The rock solid confidence of the whole Bible is that the glory of the Lord will not only endure forever but that it will cover the whole earth like the waters cover the sea (Numbers 14:21; Habakkuk 2:14).

The psalmist is not praying that an uncertainty might come to pass. He’s exulting in a certainty that will come to pass. There is no doubt behind the shout, “May the glory of the Lord endure for ever!” And there is no doubt behind the shout: “May the Lord rejoice in his works!”

So the answer to the first question is Yes ! God does take pleasure in his creation. He delights in the work of his hands.

Why It Is Important to Ask the Next Question

Now the question is, Why ? There are two reasons why this question is important to me.

One is that I feel compelled to explain why this pleasure God has in his creation is not an act of idolatry . Why is this pleasure that God has in creation not a dishonor to the Son of God? Why shouldn’t the Son be jealous? Should the Father really share his affection with the world? Should he not be totally satisfied in the beauty of his own perfections reflected back to him in the person of his Son?

The other reason for asking why God delights in his creation is that we need to know this before the delight itself can tell us very much about God’s character. Two people can desire the same thing for such different reasons that one is honorable and the other is perverse.

2. Why Does God Take Pleasure in His Creation?

So for these two reasons at least let’s try to answer the question why God takes pleasure in his creation. I’ll try to sum it up in five statements based on this psalm and some other parts of Scripture.

These statements about why God delights in his creation are not really separate reasons because they overlap so much. But they each express a little differently the basic reason. So let’s begin with the basic reason that seems to me to be right here in verse 31.

What this suggests to me is that the joy that God has in his works is owing to the fact that they are the expression of his glory. In other words, I think the two halves of this verse are related something like this: “As long as the glory of the Lord endures in his works, God will indeed rejoice in his works.” Or you could say, “May the glory of the Lord endure forever, so that the Lord may rejoice in his works.” So my first and most basic, statement is that

1. God rejoices in his works because his works are an expression of his glory.

This is what Psalm 19 makes very clear:

The heavens are telling the glory of God;    and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

So the most basic reason that God delights in his creation is that in creation he sees the reflection of his own glory, and therefore he is not an idolater when he delights in his work.

But what about the Son of God? Does this mean that the creation is in competition with the Son for the affection of the Father? Remember that the Son, too, is called the reflection of God’s glory (Hebrews 1:3). Does God delight partly in the Son and partly in the creation? Does the creation rob the Son of any of the Father’s delight? Should the Son be jealous of the creation?

No . Before creation the Father and the Son rejoiced in each other with overflowing satisfaction. And when the time came for creation, the Bible says that both the Father and the Son were active in the work of creation (1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:16).

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:3)

In other words, the work of creation is not merely the work of the Father as though he had to satisfy a need that the Son couldn’t meet. Nor was creation merely the work of the Son as though he had to satisfy some need that the Father couldn’t meet. Instead it was the work of both of them together.

And so when the Bible teaches that creation expresses the glory of God, we mustn’t think merely of the glory of the Father or the glory of the Son, but rather the glory that they have together. And the glory that they have together is that overflowing mutual joy in each other’s perfections. So creation is an expression of the overflow of that life and joy that the Father and the Son have in each other.

There is no competition or jealousy in the Godhead. The Son and Father are equally glorified in creation, because creation is the overflow of gladness that they have in each other. So the first and most basic statement we can make about why God rejoices in his work of creation is that creation is an expression of his glory.

2. God rejoices in the works of creation because they praise him.

In Psalm 148 the psalmist calls on creation itself to praise the Lord:

Praise him, sun and moon,    praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens,    and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord!    For he commanded and they were created. Praise the Lord from the earth,    you sea monsters and all deeps. (verses 3–5, 7)

What does this mean? Well we might say that sun and moon and stars praise God by testifying to us about God. That would be true — that’s what Psalm 19says. But what about verse 7: “Praise the Lord you sea monsters and all deeps!”

One of my favorite poems is “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray in 1751. One of the stanzas says,

Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Gray had been moved by the thought that on the bottom of the ocean there were beautiful gems that no human eye would ever see, and that in distant deserts millions of flowers would bloom, blush with vivid colors, give off a sweet fragrance, and never be touched or seen or smelled by anybody — but God!

The psalmist is moved by the same thing, it seems, in verse 7: “Praise the Lord, you sea monsters and all deeps!” He doesn’t even know what is in all the deeps of the sea! So the praise of the deeps is not merely what they can testify to man.

It seems to me that creation praises God by simply being what it was created to be in all its incredible variety. And since most of the creation is beyond the awareness of mankind (in the reaches of space, and in the heights of mountains and at the bottom of the sea), it wasn’t created merely to serve purposes that have to do with us. It was created for the enjoyment of God. Ranger Rick arrives in our house. I open it and read about the European water spider that lives at the bottom of a lake, but breathes air. It does a somersault on the surface of the water and catches a bubble of air, and holds it over the breathing holes in the middle of its body while it swims to the bottom of the lake and spins a silk web among the seaweed. Then it goes up and brings down bubble after bubble until a little balloon of air is formed where it can live and eat and mate.

I sit there with my mouth open and I think God smiles and says, “Yes, John, and I have been enjoying that little piece of art for 10,000 years before anybody on earth knew it existed. And if you only knew how many millions of other wonders there are beyond your sight that I behold with gladness everyday!” Right here in our text, Psalm 104:25–26 it says,

Yonder is the sea, great and wide,    which teems with things innumerable,    living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan which thou didst form to sport in it.

Why did God create great sea monsters? Just to play, to frolic, in the ocean where no man can see but only God. The teeming ocean declares the glory of God, and praises him a hundred miles from any human eye. That’s the second statement about why God rejoices in his works.

3. God rejoices in the works of creation because they reveal his incomparable wisdom.

Look at verse 24:

O Lord, how manifold are thy works!    In wisdom has thou made them all;    the earth is full of thy creatures.

“In wisdom thou hast made them all!” In other words the Lord delights in the expressions of his wisdom. This universe is simply a masterpiece of wisdom and order. Or if you just take a part of it like the human body — what an amazing work of knowledge and wisdom. Who can fathom the human brain and the mystery of mind and body!

The world is full of the wisdom of God. Take diatoms for example. In December, Ranger Rick had color photographs of microscopic diatoms. There are 10,000 known species of diatoms! In a teaspoon of lake water there may be a million of these tiny invisible plants. And what are they doing while entertaining God with their microscopic beauty? They are making tons and tons of oxygen so that the animals in the water can breathe!

O Lord, how manifold are thy works!    In wisdom hast thou made them all.

The psalmist simply marveled at how everything worked together. You see this in verse 14.

Thou dost cause the grass to grow for the cattle,    and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth.

What a wonderful experience it is when God grants us a moment in which we don’t take anything for granted, but see the world as though it were invented yesterday! How we would marvel at the wisdom of God.

The Lord is the everlasting God,    the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary,    his understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40:28)

4. God rejoices in the works of creation because they reveal his incomparable power.

In Isaiah 40:26 Isaiah looks up at the star-filled sky — perhaps on a night like I remember on a mountain in Utah in September 1968, when the sky was literally a sheet of light and star could not be distinguished from star — he looks up and says,

Lift up your eyes on high and see:    who created these? He who brings out their host by number,    calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might,    and because he is strong in power    not one is missing.

If Isaiah was stunned at the power of God to create and name and sustain every star in the heaven that he could see, what would be his worship today if he were shown that the nearest of those stars in his sky, Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri, are 25 million million miles away, and that what he was seeing in his night sky was a tiny patch of our galaxy which has in it a hundred billion stars, and that beyond our galaxy there are millions of galaxies?

What is this universe but the lavish demonstration of the incredible, incomparable, unimaginable exuberance and wisdom and power and greatness of God! And what a God he must be! What a God he must be! Which brings me to the final statement.

5. God rejoices in the works of creation because they point us beyond themselves to God himself.

God means for us to be stunned and awed by his work of creation. But not for its own sake. He means for us always to look at his creation and say: If the work of his hands is so full of wisdom and power and grandeur and majesty and beauty, what must this God be like in himself?

These are but the backside of his glory seen through a glass darkly. What will it be to see the Creator himself! Not his works! Not even a billion galaxies will satisfy the human soul. God and God alone is the soul’s end. And so our text draws to a close like this (Psalm 104:31–34):

May the glory of the Lord endure forever,    may the Lord rejoice in his works, who looks on the earth and it trembles,    who touches the mountains and they smoke! I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;    I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to him,    for I rejoice in the Lord. Let sinners be consumed from the earth,    and let the wicked be no more! Bless the Lord, O my soul! Praise the Lord!

In the end, it will not be the seas or the mountains or the canyons or the clouds or the great galaxies that fill our hearts to breaking with wonder and fill our mouths with eternal praise. It will be God himself.

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September 27, 2023

The beauty of creation: created for god’s own glory.

Have you ever wondered about the beauty of creation? Why a sunset on a beach is captivating, snowcapped mountains are breathtaking, and a valley filled with wildflowers is enchanting?

Scripture, as a whole, teaches that God brought the universe and everything in it into existence to magnify His glory. The creation of all these things serves as a testament to His glory, love, grace, mercy, wisdom, power, and goodness (see  Psalm 8:1 ; 19:1; 50:6; 89:5, among other verses). Jonathan Edwards expressed it this way:

It appears reasonable to suppose that it was God’s last end, that there might be a glorious and abundant emanation of his infinite fullness of good ad extra, or without himself; and that the disposition to communicate himself, or diffuse his own fullness, was what moved him to create the world. [1] Edwards, J. 1765.  A Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World .  The Works of Jonathan Edwards , Vol 1, Chapter I, Section II. Boston, MA: S. Kneeland, 23-24.

On this topic,  Proverbs 16:4  succinctly states, “The LORD has made all for Himself.” In other words, God’s glory is the reason He created (see  Romans 11:36 ;  Colossians 1:16 ; and  Hebrews 2:10 ). If God created for His glory, naturally, He would find His creation beautiful since it is a reflection of His glory. Historic Christianity asserts that the origin of all beauty can be attributed to God, either through direct acts of creation or through the creative endeavors of human beings, who are considered to be bearers of the divine image.

Why, then, does mankind collectively find these aspects of nature beautiful? Because, per  Genesis 1:27 , man was created in God’s image (imago Dei). [2] See Corrado, J.  Imago Dei: Man’s Designed Role as Image-Bearer .  Creation Science Update . Posted on ICR.org April 25, 2022. https://www.icr.org/article/mans-designed-role What He finds beautiful, we would also find beautiful since the concept of objective beauty and the human capacity to perceive beauty can only be comprehended in relation to the objective criteria of beauty and value that are inherent in God. As the Christian historian William C. Davis has noted:

Values like these [artistic beauty] are what we would expect if humans (and the human environment) were created by a personal, loving, and beauty-valuing God. God’s existence is a much better explanation for the existence of nonutilitarian value than any explanation without God. [3] Davis, W. C. 1999. Theistic Arguments.  In Reason for the Hope Within . M. J. Murray, ed. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 39.

When we observe nature, we can recall that God created it. The concept of God as the Creator encompasses not only the role of a Designer and Engineer responsible for the intelligibility of the universe but also that of a skilled Artist. Nature can be amazing, almost to the point of incomprehensibility. The splendor of a sunset, the radiance of the stars, and the variety of animals are all evidence of a Creator and Designer.

Observing God’s creation can inspire greater reverence for God and His handiwork. The splendor of nature serves as a reminder of God, and in nature, encircled by His creation, we might feel more connected to God. When we venerate any aspect of God’s creation, whether it be nature or another person, we recognize the significance of what God created and admire the Creator. In the end, “all of creation will see God enthroned in majesty. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord!” [4] Corrado, E.  Throne Room . Posted on open.spotify.com 2023, accessed August 15, 2023.

As Romans 11:36 declares, “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever.” Here, Paul declares unequivocally that God is the source, sustainer, and owner of all creation, and glory will be His for all eternity. It is a blessing to be a part of it and beneficiaries of its immense beauty.

Author: Jon-Roy Sloan is the Chief Communications Officer for NationsUniversity and the author of Anastasia Smiles: Love Needs No Translation . Disclaimer statement: Please note that the opinions expressed herein are those of the author alone and are based on his personal understanding of scripture and how God works in our lives and do not necessarily reflect the views of NationsUniversity®.

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Beauty is defined as  ‘ a combination of quali ties that delights the senses ’ .  Think of that in relation to God’s creation. The colours of the rainbow, the fragrances of flowers, the majestic mountains and  mighty  rivers bring us delight and evoke  a   sense of  ‘ awesome wonder ’ .  

When God created   the w orld , all   was perfect –  ‘ God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. ’  The effects of the  Fall  were catastrophic ,  but there is still beauty everywhere. There are beauties in the deep places of the oceans and in the remote , unseen  reaches of space ,  but God has placed them there in His bounty of beauty.   

There is a purpose to all of this – it is to declare His glory.  ‘ The heavens declare the glory of God; and the  firmament  sheweth  his  handywork ’   ( Psalm 19 : 1 ) . It is to make us understand  ‘ his eternal power and Godhead ’   ( Romans 1 : 20 ) .  There is such a powerful declaration  to men   in this  marvellous creation that those who refuse to acknowledge what God has revealed are left  ‘ without a rag of excuse ’  ( J B Phillips ) .  

The  beauty of creation  therefore  reflects the attributes of the God who created it all.  S o generous and lavish  is He  in His provision  that   He  ‘ gives us richly all things to enjo y ’ .  He is a God of order and purpose , because   ‘ He has made everything beautiful in its time ’ . With Him everything is fitting and appropriate.  He has taken into account not only our needs but our  pleasure   ( Psalm 36 : 8 ) .    

‘ The beauty of creation  exhibits,  expresses and communicates God’s beauty and glory to men and women. In nature God’s beauty is visible. ’   ( J Edwards )  

We are learning that  the beauty of w hat we see around us causes us to appreciate the qualities of the One who made it all.  We can  gladly  sing:  

For the beauty of the earth, 

For the beauty of the skies, 

For the love which from our birth 

Over and around us lies, 

Lord of all, to thee we raise 

This our grateful hymn of praise.  

(Folliot S Pierpoint) 

Lillian is married to Jack and they have two married daughters. Lillian lives in beautiful Perthshire and is in fellowship in the assembly that meets in the Gospel Hall, Perth, UK.

25 Bible Verses About the Beauty Of Creation (With Commentary)

Nature’s beauty is a constant source of wonder and inspiration. The Bible is filled with verses that celebrate the awe-inspiring creation of our world. Join us as we immerse ourselves in these verses that remind us of the breathtaking beauty that surrounds us.

Also Read: Bible Verses About Removing People From Your Life

Bible Verses About Beauty Of Creation

Genesis 1:1.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

This verse sets the foundation for understanding the beauty of creation. It reveals that all things were brought into existence by God’s creative power. The heavens and the earth, with all their wonders and intricacies, display the awe-inspiring beauty of God’s handiwork.

Psalms 19:1

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

Nature itself proclaims the glory and beauty of God. The vastness of the cosmos, the intricacy of the natural world, and the breathtaking beauty of the skies all point to the creative genius of the Creator.

Psalm 104:24

“How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.”

This verse reminds us that God’s creativity extends to every living creature and aspect of the earth. From the tiniest insect to the grandest landscapes, God’s wisdom is evident in the diversity and beauty of His creation.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

In God’s perfect timing, everything in creation has been made beautiful. This verse emphasizes the beauty that can be found in every season of life and highlights the deep longing for eternity that is embedded in the human heart.

Isaiah 40:26

“Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

God’s power, attention to detail, and care for His creation are showcased in this verse. The beauty of the stars and heavenly bodies reminds us of the greatness and majesty of the One who spoke them into existence.

Psalm 8:3-4

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”

This verse reflects on the paradox of God’s care and attention towards humanity amidst the vastness of His creation. It demonstrates the stunning beauty of God’s love and highlights the privilege of being the crown jewels of His creation.

Psalm 104:31

“May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works.”

The enduring glory of the Lord is proclaimed in this verse. It emphasizes the eternal beauty and significance of God’s creation, which brings joy to the heart of the Creator.

Romans 1:20

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

God’s invisible qualities are revealed through His creation. The beauty and intricacy of the natural world testify to His eternal power and divine nature. Through His creation, God has provided evidence of His existence to all people.

Psalm 145:9

“The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.”

This verse confirms God’s goodness and compassion towards all aspects of His creation. His love extends to every living creature, reflecting His desire for the well-being and happiness of each one.

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.”

Job 38 contains a series of rhetorical questions posed by God to Job, calling attention to His supreme authority and wisdom as the Creator. This verse reminds us of our limited understanding and the vastness of God’s creative power.

Matthew 6:26

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

Jesus uses the example of birds to show God’s loving care for His creation. The beauty of nature and the provision made for even the smallest creatures remind us of God’s abundant love and faithfulness towards His people.

Psalm 104:19

“He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down.”

God’s design and order in creation are showcased in this verse. The moon and the sun serve as reminders of the constancy and reliability of God’s provision and faithfulness in every season of life.

Jeremiah 10:12

“But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.”

God’s power, wisdom, and understanding are on full display in the creation of the earth and heavens. This verse highlights the beauty that arises when divine power and wisdom come together.

Psalm 19:1-2

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.”

The beauty and majesty of the heavens, as well as the consistent display of God’s handiwork in the skies, speak volumes about His glory and provide a constant reminder of His presence and power.

Job 12:7-10

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”

This passage highlights the wisdom and knowledge that can be gained from observing the natural world. All aspects of creation testify to the hand of the Lord and His sustaining power over every living creature.

Colossians 1:16

“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”

Jesus Christ is the Agent of creation. This verse reveals that everything, both visible and invisible, was brought into existence through Him and for His glory. The beauty found in creation is ultimately intended to point us back to the Creator Himself.

Psalm 65:9-11

“You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance.”

This beautiful passage speaks of God’s care and provision for the earth and all its inhabitants. It reflects the beauty of His faithfulness in providing for our needs and abundantly blessing us with His provision.

Psalm 136:5-9

“To him who by wisdom made the heavens, His love endures forever. who spread out the earth upon the waters, His love endures forever. who made the great lights, His love endures forever. the sun to govern the day, His love endures forever. the moon and stars to govern the night; His love endures forever.”

This psalm serves as a reminder of God’s enduring love displayed through His creation. It celebrates His wisdom in creating the heavens and the earth, as well as the unceasing love demonstrated through the provision of light and order in the universe.

Psalm 33:6-9

“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.”

In this passage, God’s creative power is emphasized. He brought the heavens and their stars into existence through the power of His spoken word. The beauty of creation invites all people to stand in awe and reverence before the Lord.

Psalm 147:8-9

“He covers the sky with clouds, he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills. He provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call.”

God’s intricate care for every aspect of creation is beautifully depicted in this verse. His provision for the needs of both animals and humans reflects His great love and attention to detail.

Nehemiah 9:6

“You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.”

This verse affirms God’s exclusive position as the Creator of all. The beauty and wonder of creation give rise to praise and worship from the multitudes of heaven and should inspire the same response from the hearts of His people.

Psalm 95:4-5

“In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.”

God’s sovereignty and ownership over all aspects of creation are vividly portrayed in this verse. The beauty and majesty of nature serve as a constant reminder of His power and authority over the earth and its elements.

Revelation 4:11

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

This verse expresses the heartfelt praise and adoration that is rightfully given to the Creator. God’s worthiness of glory and honor is directly linked to His act of creation, through which all things come into being and find their purpose.

These verses beautifully depict the beauty of creation and highlight the importance of acknowledging and appreciating God as the Creator. They invite us to marvel at the intricate details and grandeur displayed in the natural world and to recognize the majesty and power of the One who brought it all into existence. Each verse offers a unique perspective on God’s creative genius and emphasizes the importance of acknowledging His handiwork in every aspect of creation. May these verses inspire us to see the beauty around us and respond with praise and gratitude to the Creator of all things.

What Does the Bible Say About the Beauty Of Creation?

The Bible speaks of the beauty of creation throughout its pages. In Genesis 1:31, after God created the heavens and the earth, it says “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” This demonstrates that God delights in the beauty of His creation. From the stunning landscapes to the intricate details of every living creature, the beauty of creation reflects the creativity and majesty of God.

Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” This verse highlights how the beauty of the natural world around us is a reflection of God’s glory. It inspires us to praise and worship Him.

Romans 1:20 also emphasizes that the beauty and order of creation point to the existence and nature of God. It says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”

As Christians, we are called to appreciate and steward the beauty of God’s creation. This means caring for the environment and valuing the world around us, recognizing that it all belongs to God and has been entrusted to our care (Psalm 24:1). We should also use the beauty of creation as a means to reflect on the character and attributes of God, drawing closer to Him as we admire and respect His handiwork.

In summary, the Bible speaks of the beauty of creation as a reflection of God’s glory and a testament to His existence. As Christians, we are called to appreciate, preserve, and draw closer to God through the beauty of the world around us.

30 Bible Verses About God’s Beautiful Creation

In the Bible, God’s beautiful creation is described in vivid detail, showcasing His artistic nature and love for variety. From the intricate design of flowers to the grandeur of the mountains, each verse highlights His magnificent handiwork.

Let’s explore some of these awe-inspiring scriptures together.

Bible Verses About God’s Beautiful Creation

Genesis 1:1.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

This verse marks the start of everything we know. It tells us that God is the ultimate creator. Every beautiful sight we see, from a starry sky to a blooming flower, all began with God’s power. Remembering this can help us see the world with awe and gratitude.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

Every time we look up into the sky, whether it’s during the day or the star-filled night, it is like a canvas showing off God’s glory. The vastness and beauty of the heavens are a reminder of God’s greatness.

They speak without words, showing us the incredible work of His hands. I remember a camping trip where the night sky was especially clear; I felt so close to God in that moment.

Romans 1:20

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

In nature, we can see hints of who God is. His power and divine nature are visible in the things He has made. Every creature, every tree, and every landscape speaks of His character. Once during a hike, I was struck by the complexity and beauty of a simple leaf.

Isaiah 40:26

“Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

Looking at the night sky can give us a sense of how detailed and caring God is. Each star is placed perfectly and named by God. Not one is out of place. This shows His great power and attention to detail. It is inspiring and comforting.

Psalm 104:24

“How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.”

God’s creation is vast and full of life. His wisdom is evident in the variety and complexity of all living things. From the tiniest insect to the massive mountains, everything shows His intelligent design. This thought makes everyday walks feel like a stroll through God’s divine gallery.

Job 12:7-10

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”

The natural world around us is God’s way of teaching us about His care and creativity. Animals, birds, fish, and even the earth itself can show us His handiwork. They are all a testament to His life-giving power.

This verse invites us to observe and learn from nature, deepening our appreciation for God’s creation. I recall watching an ant carrying a leaf many times its size; it was a small but powerful lesson in perseverance and divine design.

Genesis 1:31

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”

When God finished His creation, He deemed it “very good.” This includes everything from the smallest molecule to the largest galaxy. Knowing this should make us cherish and respect our world even more.

Everything has its place and purpose. It reminds me of a time when I helped plant a garden; each plant, though different, contributed to the overall beauty and health of the space.

Psalm 96:11-12

“Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it. Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.”

All of nature celebrates its Creator. The heavens, the earth, the sea, the fields, and the forests all express joy. It’s as if creation itself is in constant praise of God. Knowing this can make us feel more connected to God’s love for His creation.

Try to imagine being in a forest where every tree seems to sing with joy; it’s a beautiful picture of harmony and reverence.

Colossians 1:16

“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”

This verse underlines that everything exists in and for God. He is the origin and purpose of all creation. Whether we see them or not, God’s handiwork is everywhere. Every part of creation has a place within His grand design.

Nehemiah 9:6

“You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.”

God alone is the Creator of everything. The heavens, earth, and seas—all life originates from Him. This underlines His supreme authority and life-giving power. The multitudes of heaven worship Him, setting an example for how we, too, should honor and worship our Creator.

“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.”

The immensity and grandeur of the heavens were brought into existence by God’s word. This simple yet powerful act is a testament to His omnipotence. Each star and planet was created with purpose and intention, reflecting God’s creativity and power.

Psalm 8:3-4

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”

Even as God created the vast universe, He still cares deeply for us. This can make us feel both small and significant at the same time. Looking at the moon and the stars can remind us of God’s greatness, but also of His personal love for each of us.

Jeremiah 10:12

“But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.”

This verse highlights God’s power, wisdom, and understanding in the creation of the earth and the heavens. These are not random occurrences but rather meticulously crafted works that reflect God’s character.

Everything around us exists because of His thoughtful design, inspiring us to seek wisdom and understanding in everything we do.

“You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it.”

God’s care for the earth ensures that it is continually renewed and enriched. The water He provides sustains crops and ensures our survival. This ongoing process is part of God’s provision for us, showing His continuous involvement in creation.

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;”

This verse is a reminder that everything on earth belongs to God. This understanding can change how we view and treat the world. It encourages us to take care of what has been entrusted to us, knowing that we are stewards of God’s creation.

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.”

God’s presence and power extend far beyond any human-made structure. He is the Creator of all and is present everywhere. This thought can remind us that worship isn’t confined to a place but is a part of everyday life and His creation.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

God’s timing in creation is perfect. Everything has its time and place, contributing to the beauty of the world. God has placed a sense of eternity in our hearts, encouraging us to seek and appreciate His eternal plan, even if we don’t fully understand it yet.

Proverbs 3:19

“By wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place;”

God’s wisdom and understanding were the foundations of creation. Every aspect of the earth and heavens reveals His thoughtful planning. This encourages us to seek wisdom and understanding in our own lives, following God’s example.

Isaiah 45:18

“For this is what the Lord says—he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited—he says: ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other.'”

God’s intention in creating the earth was that it be filled with life. He created it to be inhabited and loved. This verse speaks to the purpose and care involved in creation, and reinforces the truth that God is the one and only Creator.

1 Chronicles 29:11

“Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.”

This verse is a majestic proclamation of God’s greatness and ownership over all creation. Everything in heaven and earth belongs to Him. It acknowledges God’s supremacy and invites us to worship Him in awe and respect.

“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

Jesus, being part of the Trinity, was central in creation. Everything we see around us came into being through Him. It adds another layer of appreciation for Christ, recognizing His involvement in the beauty and complexity of the world.

Psalm 95:4-5

“In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.”

God’s domain encompasses every part of the earth from its depths to its peaks. The seas and lands are His handiwork. These elements of nature serve as constant reminders of His craftsmanship and ownership of the world.

Psalm 148:5

“Let them praise the name of the Lord, for at his command they were created,”

Everything in creation owes its existence to God’s command. This verse encourages all of creation to praise the Lord, acknowledging His power in bringing everything into being. Every part of creation is a testament to His spoken word and authority.

Isaiah 42:5

“This is what God the Lord says—the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:”

God is the giver of life and breath. His act of creation extends not just to the physical world but also to the lives that inhabit it. Understanding this can transform the way we see ourselves and others, recognizing the divine breath that sustains us all.

Psalm 104:5

“He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.”

The earth’s stability is a testament to God’s careful design and power. This verse reassures us of God’s control over His creation. The earth remains firm because of His foundational work, providing us with a stable home.

“He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns midnight into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the Lord is his name.”

God’s creative power is magnificently displayed in the formation of the stars, the changing of day and night, and the movement of waters. This poetic verse showcases the grandeur and rhythm of creation as orchestrated by the Lord Himself.

Psalm 100:3

“Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”

We belong to God because He created us. This identity as His people brings comfort and purpose. Just as sheep are cared for by their shepherd, we are lovingly cared for by God. This connection deepens our bond with Him, knowing we are part of His beautiful creation.

“He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.”

This verse marvels at God’s ability to create and sustain space itself. The imagery of the earth suspended over nothing showcases His omnipotence and the striking wonder of creation. This verse can fill us with awe at the complexity and balance of the universe.

Also Read: 30 Important Bible Verses About Covenant

What Do Bible Verses Teach Us About God’s Beautiful Creation?

When we look around at the world, it’s impossible not to notice the beauty all around us. The Bible helps us understand that this splendid world didn’t just appear randomly. It was designed with love, care, and precision by God.

In the Bible, we can find many references that show us just how wonderful God’s creation is. From the mountains that stand tall to the tiny flowers that bloom in vibrant colors, each part of our world has a unique role. This makes us feel a sense of awe and gratitude.

One story that highlights this is in the very beginning of the Bible. It talks about how God created the heavens and the earth. He filled them with light, separated the waters, and brought forth plants and animals of all kinds. Each stage of this process shows us His incredible attention to detail. Imagine being there and watching each element come to life under His command. It’s both fascinating and humbling.

Another example is found in the description of God’s wisdom in making the world. It mentions things like the sky, animal life, and the seas, all crafted with great skill and purpose. This reminds us that every part of nature, no matter how big or small, plays an important role in the grand design.

We also see in the text how personal God’s creation is to us. When it talks about mankind being created in God’s own image, it highlights our special place in this vast universe. We are not just a part of creation; we have a unique role to play within it. This gives us a sense of responsibility to care for and appreciate the world around us.

Nature itself often serves as a reflection of God’s character. Take, for example, the timeless changing of seasons. Each season comes with its own unique beauty and challenges, much like our own lives. Just as spring brings new life and autumn shows us the beauty in change, these cycles can teach us lessons about growth, patience, and adaptation.

In another part of the Bible, it talks about the heavens declaring the glory of God. This is a poetic way of saying that when we look at the night sky filled with stars, we should be reminded of God’s magnificent power and creativity. Those twinkling lights are not just specks in the sky; they are a testament to the greatness of the Creator.

So, when we witness a stunning sunset, a mighty river, or even the simple elegance of a butterfly, it’s a reflection of God’s handiwork. All these wonders invite us to stop and ponder the greatness behind them.

In conclusion, the Bible is full of references that help us see the world in a deeper, more appreciative light. By recognizing the thought, care, and love that went into every detail, we can better appreciate the world we live in. We are not just spectators; we are active participants in this beautiful, ongoing work of creation. Let’s embrace this role with gratitude and responsibility.

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The God of Creation

The creation reveals much about God. The first fact about God recorded in the Bible is that he is the Creator. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). God’s written revelation to humanity (the Bible) begins by describing his creation (Genesis 1-2). That God is creator is declared many times in scripture (e.g., Psalm 8:1; 19:1; 33:6, 9; Isaiah 40:12, 22, 26, 28; 42:5; 45:18; 66:1-2; Acts 4:24; 14:15; Romans 1:25; Revelation 4:11).

The nature and character of God may be partly understood by observing creation. “ The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). “ For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made . . .” Among those invisible attributes, Paul names God’s “eternal power and Godhead” (Romans 1:20). These may be more fully described.

God is eternal , i.e., God is without beginning or end. “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God” (Psalm 90:2). God not only pre-existed creation, he preceded and created time. Whereas God is eternal , creation is temporal. Jesus’ stated that creation had a beginning. “From the beginning of the creation, male and female made he them” (Mark 10:6). He also said that the devil “was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). Time not only began at creation, but unlike the eternal God, will come to an end when the creation is destroyed (2 Peter 3:7, 10, 12) because time is regulated by the creation.

God is eternally powerful – for from him came and by him continues all demonstrations of power, whether from the sun, moon, stars, other planetary bodies or earthly activities. By his power, the heavens and the earth, and everything in them, were made (Jeremiah 10:12, see also Jeremiah 51:15). Isaiah describes the power of God thusly, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. . . . Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; he calls them all by name, by the greatness of his might and the strength of his power; not one is missing” (Isaiah 40:21-22, 26).

Creation was by the Godhead. While creation is specifically said to have come from God, sometimes the creator is designated as the Son of God (John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:16; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Hebrews 1:2) and sometimes the creator is designated as the Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:2; Psalm 104:30; Job 33:4 ). The Hebrew word used to designate God in Genesis 1:1, 27 is Elohim, a plural term that is used with singular verbs whenever designating the true God. Thus, the God of creation carries the concept of the triune God.

The creation also indicates other attributes about God. Creation indicates the independence of God. God is complete within himself. He is not dependent on creation for his existence. While the creation is physical and therefore natural and material, God is not. God is a spirit (John 4:24). Therefore God must not to be equated with naturalism or materialism. And while God is, and always has been, a living, personal being (Joshua 3:10; 1 Thessalonians 1:9), the created world is impersonal and was made from nothing. The Hebrew word, bara, in Genesis 1:1 means to create out of nothing, i.e., to bring into existence something that did not previously exist. “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear” (Hebrews 11:3). Whereas humans are sometimes talented with creative abilities, they create from things that already exist.

Creation indicates that God is a designing God . That the creation was designed is indicated by many obvious physical factors like separation of water from dry land, separation of heavenly bodies into sun, moon, and stars, for light and day and for regulation of the seasons (Genesis 1:14-18). Design is also indicated by separation of plants from living creatures, categorical distinctions by categories of birds, fish, dry land creatures, and mankind – each designed with mechanisms for reproduction. Upon completion of his creation, God evaluated it as being very good ( Genesis 1:10, 12, 17, 25, 31 ).

Creation indicates that God is a providing and purposeful God. I nasmuch as the world was created, it had purpose. Hence, the physical, natural, and material world could not have come into being by purposeless chance or accident. All creation was intended to provide for human needs and purposes. God provided all things needful to man, e.g. food (Genesis 2:16-17), freedom and responsibility (Genesis 1:28), companionship (Genesis 2:18; 21-22), clothing (Genesis 3:21), etc. At creation God indicated care and concern for humanity by providing for human needs. When people realize that God is concerned about human needs, they may be motivated to pray with thanksgivings, knowing that God hears and responds to their petitions.

Creation indicates the graciousness of God. God’s graciousness is indicated in that he created man in his own image (Genesis 1:26-27), provided for his every need (Genesis 1:29; 2:8, 15-16, 18-22), gave him dominion over all creation (Genesis 1:28), and sought communication with him (Genesis 3:8-19). When man sinned, God was gracious in indicating that he intended to provide the future redemption of humanity which he ultimately accomplished in Christ Jesus (Genesis 3:16; see also Romans 5:18-19).

Creation indicates the sovereignty of God. A sovereign is “above or superior to all others; chief, greatest, supreme in power, rank, or authority.” No one has supremacy over God ( Isaiah 43:10-11, 44:6; 45:5) . As sovereign ruler, God made humans to have dominion over creation (Genesis 1:28). This was an assignment of stewardship over God’s creation, to which humanity is accountable to God. God judges people by whether or not they keep his commandments (Genesis 2:16-17; 3:6-7, 14-19). God asks no one for permission; nor does he seek approval from any other (Job 41:11). All creation is dependent upon God (Acts 17:28), Nature itself obeys God (Matthew 8:23-27). He rules according to his own purposes and elective will.

Creation indicates the wisdom of God. “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens” (Proverbs 3:19; see also Psalm 136:5). In Proverbs 8:1, 22-31, God is personified as Wisdom by which all things were created. “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all” (Psalm 104:24). Jeremiah declared that “He has established the world by his wisdom, a nd has stretched out the heavens at His discretion” (10:12, see also 51:15).

Since God is the Creator, all creation belongs to him. He is Lord of heaven and earth (Acts 17:24). The Creator, not the natural creation, should therefore be glorified and worshipped (Romans 1:22-25; 11:36; Revelation 4:11).

Copyright ©, June, 2005, by Robert L. Waggoner. Permission is granted to copy and distribute this document for non-profit educational purposes if reproduced in full without additions or deletions. Why not distribute this document to others? For other essays about God and additional information regarding biblical theism, go to the website www.biblicaltheism.com

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God’s Beautiful Creation Essay | Essay on God’s Beautiful Creation for Students and Children in English

God’s Beautiful Creation Essay: Shakespeare makes the hero Hamlet of his play ‘Hamlet’ say, ‘what piece of work is a man’. What has been said by Hamlet is really a great truth. Man is the best of God’s creation. He is the best being among the living creatures.

Long Essay on Man is God’s Beautiful Creation 400 Words in English

Short essay on man is god’s beautiful creation 200 words in english, 10 lines on god’s beautiful creation.

• How can we appreciate God’s creation?
• What is the most beautiful creation of God?
• Where can I find Long & Short Essays on God’s Beautiful Creation in English?
• Why is man said to be the best creation of God?

Long and Short Essays on Man is God’s Beautiful Creation Kids and Students in English

Given below are two essays in English for students and children about the topic of ‘Man is God’s Beautiful Creation’ in both long and short form. The first essay is a long essay on the Man is God’s Beautiful Creation of 400-500 words. This long essay about Man is God’s Beautiful Creation is suitable for students of class 7, 8, 9, and 10, and also for competitive exam aspirants. The second essay is a short essay on Man is God’s Beautiful Creation of 150-200 words. These are suitable for students and children in class 6 and below.

Below we have given a long essay on Man is God’s Beautiful Creation of 400 words is helpful for classes 7, 8, 9 and 10 and Competitive Exam Aspirants. This long essay on the topic is suitable for students of class 7 to class 10, and also for competitive exam aspirants.

Man is the only one among God’s creations who is a ‘thinking’ being. So far as his physical behavior is concerned, man is just like an animal; eating, drinking, sleeping. But man also has a reason he has the thinking capacity — he can reason out things, he can argue, he can hold his views and convince others of his views or get convinced from the views of others. Man has been able to develop and create so many new things and keeps on inventing, creating, and discovering newer and newer things. This only the man can do. If this has not been so man would have remained a savage as he was in primitive days.

The man above can feel animals also feel but their feeling is instinctive not as a result of any thought.

Man is also a social being. From the Stone age, he came up to the Iron age, and from the iron age, he grew into a move civilized being. He began to live together with his fellow’s villages came into existence, then towns, then big cities, then metropolitan towns. Man created machines and factories grew, markets came into existence. The man began to travel — cars, buses, trucks, trains, airplanes were invented and it is man alone who can thus travel from one place to another. Means of transport developed to such an extent that man could travel even up to the moon and set his foot on that planet. Unthinkable and unimaginable feats have been performed by a man and it is only because man is able to think and plan and turn his plans into reality.

Below we have given a short essay on man is God’s Beautiful Creation is for Classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. This short essay on the topic is suitable for students of class 6 and below.

Man can now fly in the air like birds, travel over the seas and oceans, go deep down into the depths of the ocean or earth, and explore the unexplored. Now he can communicate with his friends and his family thousands of miles away on the telephone, E-mail, fax and do the chatting on the internet. He has written down his thoughts in the form of books and thus the human thought has been and can be preserved for times immemorial.

Even in the field of warfare the nuclear bombs, the unmanned missiles can strike targets thousands of miles away.

In the field of physical well being, man has invented medicines for most of the diseases, he has even successfully designed and made artificial lungs and hopes to develop an artificial heart.

How very wonderful are man’s achievements but it would be best if all these achievements are used in human welfare and social well-being and not for any destructive means? That would really make a man ‘the wonderful being of God’s creation’.

Students can find more English  Essay Writing Topics, Ideas, Easy Tips to Write Essay Writing, and many more.

• Man is the best creation among God’s creatures.
• Man is a ‘thinking’ being which no other creature is.
• He has thought and planned and has created, invented, and discovered newer and newer things.
• Man is the only creature who has a feeling and that has made him/her into a social being.
• Even the unimaginable things have been created by man.
• He can fly in the air, go over the seas and oceans, and have even been able to reach the moon.
• In the field of warfare very deadly weapons have been invented.
• Factories and mills have been built.
• All this would be great if he creates everything for the welfare of human beings and not for destructive purposes.
• That would really make a man ‘the wonderful being of God’s creation’.

FAQs on Gods Beautiful Creation Essay

1. How can we appreciate God’s creation?

If you want to experience and appreciate God’s rich variety in creation, simply look at yourself, your neighbor, and every other human being.

2. What is the most beautiful creation of God?

Man is the most beautiful creation of God.

3. Where can I find Long & Short Essays on God’s Beautiful Creation in English?

You can find Long & Short Essays on God’s Beautiful Creation in Simple Language.

4. Why is man said to be the best creation of God?

God prepared the earth to be inhabited by humans, who were to look after the earth and all the creatures on it. The Goal not Scored Summary

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Essay on Most Beautiful Creation Of God

Students are often asked to write an essay on Most Beautiful Creation Of God in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Most Beautiful Creation Of God

Nature’s art.

God’s most beautiful creation is nature. It’s like a painting with vibrant colors. The sky, a canvas, changes hues with time, showing off blues, oranges, and pinks. Trees dance with the wind, and flowers bloom, adding life to this masterpiece.

Animal Kingdom

Animals are also a part of this beauty. From tiny insects to large elephants, each creature is unique. They live in harmony, following the rhythm of nature, showing us the value of life and diversity.

Human Connection

Humans, with their ability to love, think, and create, are wonderful too. We can appreciate and care for all creations, making us a special part of God’s art.

250 Words Essay on Most Beautiful Creation Of God

Many people believe that the most beautiful creation of God is our own planet, Earth. It is like a giant, colorful painting that is always changing. Earth has deep blue oceans, tall mountains, and green forests that are full of life. It is the only place we know of that has life, which makes it very special.

Animals and Plants

Animals and plants are also amazing creations. There are so many different kinds, from tiny insects to large elephants, and from small flowers to huge trees. They all live together on Earth, creating a world that is always full of surprises and new things to learn.

Lastly, many believe that humans are God’s most beautiful creation. People can think, love, create art, and help each other. We have the power to take care of the Earth and all its creatures. This makes us very important and special.

In conclusion, the most beautiful creation of God might be different for everyone. It could be the Earth, the sky, animals, plants, or humans. What is certain is that all these creations are wonderful in their own way and make our world a beautiful place to live.

500 Words Essay on Most Beautiful Creation Of God

The earth: a masterpiece.

When we think about the most beautiful creation of God, our planet Earth stands out. It’s like a giant, floating home that has everything we need: air, water, food, and so much more. Earth is unique because it’s the only place we know that has life. Imagine a giant blue and green ball spinning in space, and that’s our Earth. It has vast oceans that cover most of its surface, and these oceans are full of amazing creatures, from tiny fish to the huge blue whale.

The Variety of Life

One of the most amazing things about Earth is the variety of life it supports. There are animals and plants of all shapes, sizes, and colors. In the jungle, you can find bright birds and big cats like lions and tigers. In the ocean, there are fish that glow and others that can change color. Even in the driest deserts, where you might think nothing could live, there are animals and plants that have learned to survive with very little water.

The Sky and the Stars

The seasons.

Another wonderful thing about Earth is the seasons. In many places, the weather changes throughout the year. Spring brings new leaves and flowers. Summer is warm and perfect for playing outside. Fall turns the leaves orange and red, and winter covers everything in a blanket of snow. Each season has its own kind of beauty and fun activities to do.

Mountains, Rivers, and Valleys

Our planet has some amazing places to see. There are tall mountains that reach up into the clouds and deep valleys that are carved into the Earth. Rivers flow across the land, sometimes calm and slow, other times fast and wild. Waterfalls are especially beautiful as water tumbles down from high places, splashing and sparkling in the sunlight.

Human Beings

In conclusion, our Earth is a beautiful place filled with wonders. From the smallest ant to the tallest mountain, every part of it is special. It’s like a giant painting that is alive, always changing, and always giving us new things to see and learn. We are lucky to live on such a wonderful planet, and it’s important to take care of it so it stays beautiful for a long time.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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11 Bible verses on the beauty of God's creativity

We can experience the beauty of God's creation no matter where we are. Whether it's the birth of a new family member or the spiritual peace that we experience whilst out in nature, there are constant reminders of God's handiwork in our world. As we look forward to spring, Easter and the celebration of new life, here are 11 Bible verses which speak of God's glorious creativity.

Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1: 27 - So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Job 12:10  -In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

Job 37:15-16  - Do you know how God control the clouds and makes his lightening flash? Do you know how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who is perfect in knowledge?

Psalm 8:3-6 - When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet.

Psalm 95:4-5  - In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Psalm 104:24-25 - How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number - living things both large and small.

Isaiah 42:5 - This is what God the Lord says - the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it.

John 1:3  - Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Romans 1:20 - For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Ephesians 2:10  - For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

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The Body of Christ Is Made from Bread: Transubstantiation and the Grammar of Creation

by Frederick Bauerschmidt August 29, 2024

T he twentieth-century philosopher Josef Pieper, noting that what is most important in a thinker’s work can go unnoticed by interpreters because it “goes without saying” for the author, goes on to say of Thomas Aquinas, “The notion of creation determines and characterizes the interior structure of nearly all the basic concepts in Thomas’s philosophy of Being. And this fact is not evident; it is scarcely ever put forward explicitly; it belongs to the unexpressed in St. Thomas’s doctrine of Being.” While demurring from Pieper’s seeming restriction of this claim to the realm of Thomas’s “philosophy of Being,” I would want to affirm the importance of the idea of creation in all of Thomas’s thought, as well as Pieper’s observation that this can sometimes go unnoticed. We might say that the doctrine of creation displays with particular clarity the creator-creature relationship that constitutes the “grammar” of Thomas’s theology, a grammar that is at work, although often unnoticed, throughout that theology. In what follows, I want to show the importance of the grammar of creation for Thomas by means of a single example. After first briefly sketching how Thomas understands creation, I will turn to Thomas’s theology of Christ’s Eucharistic presence and an important modern critique of that theology to show how the grammar of creation is at play in his thought, as well as how inquiry into an area like sacramental theology might help us gain insight into the grammar of creation.

Creation: relatio quaedam ad Deum cum novitate essendi

What does Thomas mean when he speaks of “creation”? He does not mean most fundamentally the six days of creation, though he offers in the Summa theologiae an account of the days of creation that is highly interesting and, alas, too often overlooked. But because he always seeks to move beyond the simple repetition of sacred truths to a grasp of the fundamental principles involved—from knowing not simply what is the case to a deeper grasp of why it is the case — Thomas wants to know what it means for something to be “created.” To put it in a way that would not be alien to Thomas’s medieval Scholastic idiom, he is not satisfied with a “material” account of creation that explores the biblical creation narrative but offers as well a “formal” account of creation that seeks to define what creation is. To put it in yet another way, Thomas seeks not simply to repeat statements about God’s work of creation but to grasp the grammar of those statements. As David Burrell puts it, for Thomas, “the very structure of a well-formed sentence reflects the formal or constitutive features of the object spoken about.” The definition of createdness that Thomas works his way toward is, as he phrases it in his disputed questions De potentia , “a relation of something to God together with newness of existence [ relatio quaedam ad Deum cum novitiate essendi ],” and this definition can serve as an entry point for examining Aquinas’s “formal” or grammatical account of creation.

So, first, Thomas thinks of creation in terms of a relation between creator and creature, specifically “the very dependence of created being [ esse creati ] on the ultimate source [ principium ] from which it comes.” To be a creature is simply to have an existence that depends on another; conversely, the ultimate source of creatures must have a nondependent existence. In other words, to be a creature is to be contingent with regard to existence and to be the creator is to have a necessary existence, where “necessity” means not simply that a thing does not pass into or out of existence but rather that a thing has existence through itself and not through another. Drawing upon the insights of Avicenna, Thomas conceives of the contingency of creation in terms of the distinction between essence ( essentia )—what a thing is—and existence ( esse )—the fact that a thing is. Thomas’s argument for this distinction is, in brief, that one cannot fully understand what a thing is without knowing all of the essential parts of its definition (e.g., I can’t understand what human beings are if I only know that they are animals without knowing that they are also rational). But I can know what something is apart from knowing whether or not it exists (e.g., I can grasp the definition of a unicorn whether or not unicorns exist). Therefore, the fact of something’s existence is distinct from its essence, unless, he notes, there exists something the essence of which is existence itself. What this means is that existence is not an essential property of things. Their existence depends upon something else—ultimately upon something in which essence and existence are identical. The ultimate dependence of things upon something outside themselves for their existence, their “existence through another,” is the relation that Thomas calls “creation.”

Second, and following from this, creation has to do with the existence or “being [ esse ]” of things. Thomas notes, “God’s first effect in things is existence itself.” What God creates are not abstract essences but substances, concretely existing things. Thomas thinks of the distinction of essence and existence in terms of the distinction between potentially being something and actually being something. That is, just as the bronze that is potentially a statue can become an actual statue, so too an essence, which can potentially exist, can come to actually exist. So for Thomas, what it means for God to create is to bestow existence upon essences that are in themselves only potentially existing. Yet this existence is not an adventitious add-on to essences that somehow pre-exist; the essences are constituted as actual in the bestowal of existence. In this sense, creation is ex nihilo —not in the sense that there is a “nothing” that pre-exists creation but rather that creatures are, apart from the actualization of their existence by God, nothing.

Third, as implied by this view on what it means for creation to be ex nihilo , Thomas thinks that the notion of creation itself does not necessarily imply a temporal beginning to the world. The issue of what is often called “the eternity of the world” was hotly contested in the Middle Ages, not least because the infinite temporal duration of the world was the nearly unanimous view of the Greek philosophical heritage, whether understood in terms of eternal matter to which God gives form (Plato) or eternally existing substances in motion (Aristotle). Some, including the Arabic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes, as well as their thirteenth-century followers who are referred to as “Latin Averroists,” followed Aristotle in seeing the universe and its motion as being of infinite duration. Others, including Al Ghazali in the Arabic-speaking world and Bonaventure among the thirteenth-century Scholastics, held that the eternity of the world and of motion not only contradicted divine revelation but was philosophically incoherent (implying things like an actual infinity of immortal souls), and also seemed to give creation a kind of necessity that rivaled God’s. Thomas, along with Moses Maimonides, holds the position that, while we know from Scripture that the world is not infinite in temporal duration but rather is created “in the beginning,” there is nothing in itself incoherent in the notion of a creation that exists eternally without a beginning or end in time, and therefore neither the eternity nor non-eternity of the world can be either proved or disproved. We might say that the grammar of creation does not necessarily include tense, being solely concerned with dependence upon God, which could conceivably be an eternal dependence. In this way, the beginning of the world’s duration in time belongs to the “material” account of creation rather than to the “formal” account.

Fourth, if “creation” does not necessarily imply temporal beginning, what then does Thomas mean when he includes cum novitate essendi (“with newness of existence”) in his definition of existence? What is key for Thomas, and will become important in our discussion of his Eucharistic theology, is that creation is not simply a transformation of something that already exists—such as a calf growing into a cow or a cow being made into a hamburger—but rather the radical origin of things. The inclusion of “newness of existence” speaks not to temporal origin but to the fact that existence is imparted by God apart from any preexisting condition or potential. When we speak of creation as the actualization of potential to exist, we are speaking of “potential” in the sense of the non-impossibility that, for example, a triangle has to be three-sided (as opposed to two- or four-sided), and not of the potential of a calf to grow into a cow or a cow to become a hamburger. These latter things are not instances of creation but rather of “change [ mutatio ],” which is the term Thomas uses to speak of giving new form to something that already exists. “Creation from nothing” does not mean that nothingness begins to be something, but that creation does not involve “Making X from Y” but simply “Making X to be.” In creation, something exists solely from its relatedness to God its source.

Fifth, the relation of radical dependence that constitutes creatures is uniquely a relationship to God. While creatures may cause various changes in other creatures, even to the point of making a new thing (as when a hamburger is newly made from a cow), only God makes things to be apart from any preexisting potential. At the same time, while creatures cannot cause things to be from nothing, they do possess a genuine causal efficacy. The nutrients in the grass really do cause the calf to become a cow and the agency of the butcher really does cause the cow to become hamburger. For Thomas, this causal efficacy of creatures in no way detracts from God’s power as the cause of existence; indeed, he thinks it is a testimony to God’s power that he bestows the dignity of “secondary causality” on creatures. As it is sometimes put, for Thomas, the relationship of God and creatures is “noncompetitive.” There is no zero-sum relationship between God’s creative activity and the creaturely activity of causing because they lie on different planes: God’s activity of creatio —making things exist—and the creature activity of mutatio —bringing about changes in things that exist. Those planes do sometimes intersect, as in the case of miracles, but these do not figure into Aquinas’s formal account of creation. Still, there is an intimate connection between the two planes in all cases, since the creaturely capacity for mutatio is a participation in divine creatio .

These remarks, brief though they are, will have to serve as an account of Thomas’s “formal” or grammatical account of creation, as we now turn to look at how the grammar of creation structures his account of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.

Transubstantiation on Trial

Even though the term “transubstantiation” predates Thomas Aquinas by at least a century and is used by him only occasionally in his mature theology, the doctrine of transubstantiation has often, rightly or wrongly (and I am inclined to think the latter), been taken to be his signal contribution of Catholic Eucharistic theology, employing Aristotle’s philosophy to explain Christ’s Eucharistic presence. Not everyone, of course, sees this contribution as a positive thing. Martin Luther opined that the church that had decreed the doctrine of transubstantiation was “the Thomistic—that is, the Aristotelian church.” He saw it as an explanation that misused Aristotle, who himself was a dubious authority on matters of faith, such that Thomas was to be pitied for “building an unfortunate superstructure upon an unfortunate foundation.” Luther’s objection gives voice to those who feel that Christ’s Eucharistic presence should be left mysterious and not subjected to the torturous rigors of Scholastic logic and the natural philosophy of Aristotle. Others have had an opposite, yet no less negative reaction, seeing transubstantiation as involving magical and irrational claims, as witnessed to by the term “hocus pocus,” which the seventeenth-century Anglican divine Bishop Tillotson suggested was “a corruption of Hoc est corpus , by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation , a doctrine he thought riddled with “ monstrous absurdities .” Engendering seemingly contradictory charges of hyper-rationalism or magical irrationality, transubstantiation, and by extension Thomas, has been a principal piece of evidence in the case for the failings of medieval Catholic theology.

Of course, criticism of Medieval Scholastic approaches to the sacraments is not solely the purview of Protestant theologians. The Catholic theologian and priest Louis-Marie Chauvet has developed a particularly sweeping and influential critique of Scholastic accounts of sacramental causality, a critique that does not spare Thomas Aquinas. While appreciative of what Thomas was attempting to achieve and judging him superior to many other Scholastics, Chauvet nonetheless sees his sacramental theology, including his theology of the Eucharist, as part of a tradition that is ultimately a dead end. His criticism of Aquinas is two-fold. In broad terms, he includes Thomas in his rejection of the entire Scholastic tradition of speaking of sacraments as “causes,” which he sees as “metaphysical” and “onto-theological.” Second, he criticizes Aquinas’s Eucharistic theology more specifically for the rupture it creates between the sacramental and ecclesial bodies of Christ. Both of these criticisms are indebted to Heidegger, whom Chauvet takes as the bellwether of our current postmodern situation.

Chauvet begins his masterwork, Symbol and Sacrament , by asking why it is that the Scholastics would make “cause” (along with “sign”) a privileged category for understanding the sacraments. Why speak of sacraments as “causes of grace” when the term “cause” implies the production or augmentation of an object, and grace is “the paradigmatic case of something that is a non- object, a non -value”? His answer is, in brief, that “the Scholastics were unable to think otherwise ; they were prevented from doing so by the onto-theological presuppositions which structured their entire culture.” Chauvet takes Aquinas to be the most sophisticated representative of this tradition—one who avoids many of the most egregious excesses of onto-theology, while in the end being unable to escape its clutches.

Chauvet appreciates the primacy that Aquinas gives in the Summa theologiae to the category of “sign” over cause: sacraments are signs that have causal efficacy. This represents a shift from the theology of his Sentences commentary, in which sacraments are causes that signify. Yet this “banishment” of causality is only temporary, for a few questions later ( Summa theologiae 3.62), when Thomas inquires into the principal effect of the sacraments, which is grace, “causality returns in force” as Thomas develops his mature view that sacraments are neither mere “occasions” of grace, nor simply “disposing causes” making human beings apt to receive grace, but rather are true instrumental efficient causes of grace. And with this, Thomas falls into the pit of what Chauvet calls “the productionist scheme of representation” in which being takes priority over becoming and grace is thereby reified as a “thing” that is produced rather than a gift that is given. In the end, despite his valiant attempt to think sacraments as signs, Thomas cannot escape the onto-theological heritage in which being is “represented as the general and universal ‘something’ or ‘stuff’ that conceals itself beneath entities, which ‘lies at the base’ of each of them ( hypokeimenon ). A permanent ‘subsistent being,’ substratum , sub-jectum , and finally, as Descartes describes it, sub-stantia .”

Chauvet offers further criticisms of Aquinas’s Eucharistic theology in particular. Again, he offers an appreciation of the subtlety and sophistication of Thomas’s theological achievement and avoids simpleminded caricatures of transubstantiation. He recognizes that, by recourse to the language of “substance,” which is “neither a ‘this’ or a ‘that’ nor anything which can be attained by sensible cognition,” Thomas “ exorcises every spatial representation of the Eucharistic presence.” Thus it is also “ outside any physicalism and any more or less gross representation.” He further recognizes that transubstantiation is not reducible to Aristotelian metaphysics but, particularly in the claim that the accidents of bread and wine persist without inhering in a substance, calls for the “sacrificium intellectus” of faith.

Yet, as Chauvet sees it, a problem still remains in Aquinas’s view that in the Eucharist, “its first effect ( res et sacramentum ) is in ipsa materia (‘in the matter itself’).” Chauvet acknowledges that Thomas sees the “final purpose [ res tantum ]” of the Eucharist as the unity of the totus Christus —the Mystical Body, head and members—but believes that so long as the sacrament is seen as “perfected” in the consecration of the bread and wine, and not in the Eucharistic communion of the faithful, “the Church remains only the extrinsic end.” Thus, the culprit in all this, not surprisingly, is “the model of a metaphysical substance .” As Chauvet puts it,

In the perspective of the Aristotelian “substance” as the expression of the ultimate reality of entities, one could express the integrality and radicalness of the real presence of Christ in the sacrament only by putting between parentheses, at least during the analysis of the “how” of Eucharistic conversion, its relation to the Church. This is exactly what happens with Thomas: if he strongly emphasizes the connection of the Eucharist to the Church both before and after his analysis of transubstantiation, he puts it between parentheses during this analysis.

The language of “transubstantiation” implies that what the sacrament is really about is the production of the static “substance” of Christ’s Body and Blood, which might be eaten or adored by the Christian faithful but that in its self-enclosed sufficiency can bear only an extrinsic relationship to the ecclesial Body of Christ. Chauvet’s own view is that “the great sacramentum of Christ’s presence is not the bread as such in its unbroken state. Or rather, it is indeed the bread, but in its very essence, bread-as-food, bread-as-meal, bread-for-sharing.” The presence of Christ is better described not as a substance that has been produced but as a gift that has been given.

Chauvet’s critique is both subtle and sympathetic (the same cannot really be said of Frater Luther’s or Bishop Tillotson’s), yet to my mind, it is also quite wrong. To appreciate its wrongness, we need to attend to how the grammar of creation structures what Thomas says about Eucharistic presence. Fortunately, Thomas does this for us explicitly in his Summa theologiae , and I will proceed by looking in some detail at his discussion.

Making Christ’s Body

Thomas concludes question seventy-five of the Third Part of the Summa with an article that begins, videtur quod haec sit falsa: “Ex pane fit corpus Christi [It seems that this is false: “The body of Christ is made from bread”]. The statement under scrutiny, of which Thomas will affirm the truth, would seem to be a prime example of what Chauvet calls the “productionist mentality” with regard to the sacraments. Before going on to examine whether or not this is the case, we should first appreciate the form of the question. It is in some ways reminiscent of the approach taken in question sixteen of the Third Part of the Summa , in which Thomas inquires into such statements as “God is a human being” and “God was made a human being” and “Christ is a creature.” In other words, Thomas proposes a particular piece of human speech and asks whether it can be affirmed as true. The question, then, is whether “The body of Christ is made from bread” is a well-formed sentence for speaking about the Eucharist and, if it is, what does it tell us about the formal or constitutive features of Christ’s Eucharistic presence.

The four objections Thomas gives to the statement “The body of Christ is made from bread” lay out the basic issue at stake in this article: How is the Eucharistic conversion of bread into the Body of Christ located conceptually in relation to other ways in which particular substances come to be where they were not before—i.e., natural change and the divine act of creation? Put differently, in what ways do well-formed sentences about natural change provide a paradigm for well-formed sentences concerning Christ’s Eucharistic presence, and in what ways do well-formed sentences about creation provide such a paradigm?

Objections 1, 2, and 4 see “The body of Christ is made from bread” as implying that Christ’s Eucharistic presence involves some sort of change along the lines of the changes that we encounter in nature, such that Eucharistic conversion is equivalent to a subject undergoing a change, whether this be a substance taking on an accident or a material substratum receiving a new substantial form. Each of these objections points to the absurdity of such an account of Eucharistic presence by showing the unacceptable further statements it would seem to authorize. Objection 1 reads “The body of Christ is made from bread” as treating “bread” like a subject that receives a new substantial or accidental form, authorizing us to say “Bread is made the body of Christ” in the same way that we might say “The calf becomes a cow” or “The cow becomes hamburger.” Objection 2 sees it as treating the bread as the “stuff” from which Christ’s Body is made, authorizing us to say, “The bread is the body of Christ” in the same way that we might say, “The cow flesh is hamburger.” Objection 4 sees it as implying that there is a passive potential in bread to be Christ’s Body, authorizing us to say, “Bread can be the body of Christ,” in the same way as we might say, “A cow can be hamburger.”

The third objection takes a slightly different tack: in the expression “The body of Christ is made from bread,” the preposition “from [ ex ]” implies a conversion of one thing into another, and not simply the sort of conversion involved in natural change, but the radical conversion of one whole substance into another whole substance. It is analogous to an individual cow becoming, not hamburger, but a different individual cow (Flossie becoming Bossie), in which the form “cow” is instantiated in different matter. This would seem to imply, the third objection goes on to state, that the Eucharistic conversion is “more miraculous” than God’s act of creation, which we do not conceive of as a conversion of one entire thing into another entire thing but rather as a production presupposing nothing. What is unstated in the objection, but made clear in Thomas’s reply (ad 3), is that such a conversion of one entire substance into another is more miraculous than creation because, as unimaginable as creation might be, it still conforms to the notion of causal production.

Thus, the objections pose the difficulties with the proposition “The body of Christ is made out of bread.” Objections 1, 2, and 4 see it as assimilating Eucharistic conversion to natural change; objection 3 argues that if it is not interpreted as implying natural change, then it implies a sort of divine activity exceeding the miracle of creation from nothing, which presumably cannot be exceeded since it is presupposed by all other miraculous activity. The sed contra , posing the difficulty with the position taken in the objections, notes that no less an authority than Ambrose had written, Ubi accedit consecratio, de pane fit corpus Christi (“When the consecration takes place, the body of Christ is made of bread”). The question is, has Ambrose simply uttered an ill-formed sentence? If not, if we judge his sentence to be well-formed, what does this tell us about Eucharistic conversion?

As so often when confronted with a traditional formulation that seems in conflict with an established doctrinal position, Thomas seeks to make key distinctions in order to save the traditional formulation. He recognizes that what we might call the “primary speech” of the Church—in this case, the mystagogical preaching of Ambrose, but also the language of Scripture and liturgy—does not always neatly conform to doctrinal rules, and that part of the task of sacra doctrina is to show how these primary utterances of faith can intelligibly fit together within the doctrinal grammar of the Church. Thus, he begins by saying that the “conversion of bread into the body of Christ in some respect fits [ convenit ] both with creation and with natural change, and in some respects differs from both.” This raises the question of the ways in which language akin to the language that we use to speak of natural change is a fitting way of signifying what takes place when bread and wine become Christ’s Body and Blood, and in what ways such language is unfitting. Likewise, how is language akin to the language that we use in speaking of God’s production of creatures from nothing a fitting way of signifying what takes place when bread and wine become Christ’s Body and Blood, and how is such language unfitting? We might say that Aquinas is inquiring as to which grammar—the grammar of natural change or the grammar of creation—we ought to look to find our paradigm of a well-formed sentence regarding Eucharistic conversion.

Aquinas first notes that, in all three cases, our well-formed sentences have an “order of terms.” Thomas means by this that our statements about creation, natural change, and transubstantiation all present two terms in such a way that one follows the other, and they do not present the two terms as existing simultaneously. Thus, we have nonexistence followed by creation, cow followed by hamburger, and bread followed by Christ’s Body. In this way, whether we take natural change or creation as our paradigm for a well-formed sentence concerning the Eucharist, the statement “The body of Christ is made from bread” would seem to be a well-formed sentence. But while the linguistic ordering of the terms might be the same in both creation and in natural change, what it means for one thing to follow the other is quite different in the two cases. Which is to be preferred in speaking of the Eucharist?

Thomas notes that well-formed sentences about creation offer a uniquely fitting paradigm for speaking about the Eucharist inasmuch as in neither case ought we to speak as if there were a subject underlying the terms of the statement. In the case of creation, it is clearly nonsensical to speak of there being a subject possessing the form of nonexistence that then undergoes a change such that it acquires the form of existence. Likewise, we ought not understand any statement regarding Eucharistic conversion (such as “The body of Christ is made from bread”) as implying that there is a subject possessing the form of bread that undergoes a change such that it acquires the form of the Body of Christ. In this way, Eucharistic conversion conforms to the paradigm of creation: it is not mutatio , the kind of coming to be that we are familiar with from nature, in which a potential is realized in some subject; it is, rather, the beginning to be of an entire substance, matter and form, potential and actuality. It is, as we have seen, the divine gift of esse . If in this regard our statements about the Eucharist conform to the paradigm of natural change rather than to the paradigm of creation, they will be ill-formed, “unfitting” sentences.

But then Thomas goes on to say that there are two ways in which well-formed sentences about natural change do offer a fitting paradigm for speaking about the Eucharist. First, well-formed sentences in both cases will make clear that one term of the sentence “passes into” [ transit ] the other: just as we have a cow that becomes hamburger, so too we have bread that becomes the body of Christ. As Stephen Brock has pointed out, one thing “passing into” another is a passage “from what is distinctive about one term to what is distinctive about another.” In creation, there is nothing “distinctive” about nonbeing, and thus there can be no passage from nonbeing to what is “distinctive” about being. Natural change and transubstantiation, on the other hand, are just such passages. Despite the radical difference in the two cases of what it means for one term to “pass into” the other—in the case of natural change involving the reception of successive forms by a subject (the flesh ceasing to be a cow and becoming hamburger) and in the case of Eucharistic conversion involving one entire substance beginning to be another (as if Flossie were to become Bossie)—both involve one distinct thing followed by another distinct thing, something clearly not the case in creation. Second, Thomas notes that in both natural change and transubstantiation there is “something that remains the same”: in the case of natural change, this is the matter or subject that undergoes the change; in transubstantiation, this is the empirical reality (i.e., “accidents”) of the bread and wine. This second similarity between natural change and Eucharistic conversion will, as we shall see, account for the possibility of misunderstanding certain statements contained within the primary speech of the Church.

Thomas then draws linguistic conclusions from this mapping of Eucharistic conversion in relation to natural change and creation. In all three cases, well-formed sentences cannot employ the present tense copula est to relate their terms—one cannot say that nonbeing is being, or that a cow is a hamburger, or that bread is the Body of Christ—but, because of the order of terms, one can employ the preposition ex to relate their terms—creation is properly spoken of as ex nihilo , hamburger comes ex vacca , and the body of Christ is ex pane. As Thomas explains in the reply to objection 1, the preposition “from [ ex ]” is used in sentences concerning creation and Eucharistic conversion in the same way that one says, “Out of morning comes day.” There is no thing that is first morning and then becomes day. Thus, it would seem that “from” is used analogously in statements about natural change, on the one hand, and creation and Eucharistic conversion, on the other.

In the cases of natural change and transubstantiation, but not in the case of creation, one can employ the verb conversionis , since this implies the transitus of one subject “passing into” another, of one distinctiveness ending and another distinctiveness beginning from it. Yet the crucial difference between every natural change and the Eucharistic conversion is that in natural change, distinctiveness is a question of one form passing into another form, while in Eucharistic conversion, we have one entire substance passing into another entire substance, and this difference marks Eucharistic conversion with its own proper name: “transubstantiation.”

The absence in transubstantiation of any perduring subject that undergoes the change leads to further linguistic consequences. We cannot speak of the bread having the potential to be the Body of Christ because something’s potential to be something else depends upon the capacity of the perduring subject or matter to take on new forms. While we might say that “a cow can be hamburger” or “the flesh of the hamburger is made of the flesh of the cow,” since there is a common substrate of flesh in both the cow and the hamburger, we ought not to say that “bread can be [ possit esse ] the Body of Christ” nor that “the Body of Christ is made of [ de ] bread,” just as, in the case of creation, we ought not to say that “nonbeing can be being” or “being is made of non-being.” In the cases of both creation and transubstantiation, the first term of the statement does not possess any potentiality to become the second term. Likewise, while we might say that “a cow will be a hamburger” or “a cow becomes a hamburger,” we ought not to say that “bread will be [ erit ] the Body of Christ” or that “bread becomes [ fiat ] the Body of Christ,” any more than we would say that “nonbeing will be being” or “nonbeing becomes being.” While Eucharistic conversion is, like natural change, a transitus , it is so in a highly qualified sense—a sense that is qualified by its conformity to the grammar of creation as the coming to be of the whole substance.

Up to this point, Thomas seems to have offered us a fairly clear set of linguistic rules, a tight grammar of Eucharistic speech. In statements in which the first term is “bread” and the second term is “the Body of Christ,” we ought not to connect them by means of a word that implies their concurrent identity (such as “is [ est ]”), nor a word that posits a perduring subject with the potential both to be bread and to be the Body of Christ (such as “can be [ potest ]” or “is made of [ de ]” or “becomes [ fit ]” or “will be [ erit ]”). Words that we can use to join the two terms are those, such as ex , that signify only the order of terms, as well as those, such as conversionis , that signify one substance “passing into” another.

So far, so good. But then it all seems to fall apart, or at least the ligaments of the grammar loosen as it collides with the colloquialism of the primary speech of the Church. Thomas is forced to acknowledge that this primary speech sometimes does not conform to his criteria for well-formed sentences expressing the Eucharistic conversion. The example from Ambrose provided in the sed contra is a case in point: Ubi accedit consecratio, de pane fit corpus Christi . Here, we find both the preposition de and the verb fit , which Aquinas had earlier said implied a perduring subject.

Thomas’s way of accommodating these instances of primary Christian speech is to say that they may be allowed if understood in a certain sense ( secundum quandam similitudinem ); that is, they are allowable if the first term of the sentence, “bread,” is taken to signify not the substance bread, but rather “that which is contained under the appearance of bread [ hoc quod sub speciebus panis continetur ].” In other words, in some statements, our use of the term “bread” is a kind of “pointing” that indicates the bread’s dimensive quantity and the accidents inhering in it, which normally mediate the presence of the substance of bread but after the consecration mediate the presence of the substance of Christ’s Body. In this way, Ambrose ought to be understood as saying that when the consecration happens, that which appears under the appearance of bread ceases to be bread and begins to be the Body of Christ. We might say that the colloquial, primary speech of the Church quite naturally uses “bread” and “wine” as indeterminate “pointers” that can draw our attention first to the natural substances of bread and wine, and then to the Body and Blood of Christ. Glossed in this way, not only the sentence posed in the original question, ex pane fit corpus Christi , but also Ambrose’s sentence, de pane fit corpus Christi , can be understood as well-formed sentences.

Transubstantiation in the Space Between Creation and Change

What might we draw from this somewhat torturously close analysis of an article from the Summa theologiae ? In displaying this careful dissection of a single piece of Eucharistic language and suggesting that in the end even a statement like Ambrose’s can be made to fit the parameters of doctrinal grammar, have I perhaps simply confirmed suspicions that transubstantiation hovers somewhere between a hyper-rational dissection of a mystery and sheer nonsensical magical assertion, that it is a conjuring trick with language that conveys a sense of logical rigor but can in fact accommodate almost anything? Moreover, does Thomas’s justification of the language of “making” Christ’s Body justify Chauvet’s suspicion that he, too, falls prey to a “productionist” account of sacramental causality? I hope to show that neither of these things is the case.

Perhaps what is most clear from the analysis that he offers in Summa theologiae 3.75.8 is that Thomas seeks to locate Eucharistic conversion in the logical space between natural change and creation by employing a kind of hybrid grammar, a creole. Sometimes statements about natural change provide a paradigm for well-formed sentences concerning Christ’s Eucharistic presence, and sometimes statements about creation provide the appropriate paradigm. We might say that the proper conceptual location for Eucharistic conversion is an interstitial one, and this location is appropriately marked by the word “transubstantiation.” Why is this an appropriate location, and why is “transubstantiation” an appropriate marker for this location?

As to conceptual location: first, Eucharistic conversion is fittingly spoken of in the way that we speak of creation because both involve the production of an entire substance and not simply the educing of a new form in matter. Of course, in speaking of substance, we are also speaking of being [ esse ], which is the proper act of a substance. Thus Thomas writes in his commentary on First Corinthians, “The consecration does not occur by the consecrated matter merely receiving some spiritual power, but by the fact that it is transubstantiated according to its esse into the body of Christ.” What is ultimately at stake in speaking of the conversion of substance is precisely this claim that what we encounter in the Eucharist is the esse substantiale or, better, the esse personale of Christ. As Colman O’Neill emphasized, what is at stake in recognizing the substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist is not the recognition of a kind of thing but of a unique person. He writes that if we “leave aside all but the most primitive of concepts and . . . concentrate on the utter purity of existential judgement which expresses our first, uncomplicated recognition of the other as other—perhaps when we say: ‘Why, it is you’—then the authentic meaning of ‘substance’ is given because it has been instinctively recognized simply in recognition of the other.” Because what becomes present to us in the Eucharist is the act of existing that is the personal being of Jesus Christ, the Eucharistic conversion is spoken of in ways that conform to the production of substances ex nihilo , the beginning to be of actus essendi that we call “creation.” Indeed, while Aquinas locates transubstantiation between creation and natural change, the balance tilts rather decidedly toward creation and, therefore, the gift of esse .

And yet, Eucharistic conversion is also fittingly spoken of in the way that we speak of natural change. This is because Eucharistic conversion, like natural change, is an event that occurs in our world against the background of creation, whereas creation is not a change in our world but rather the reason why we have a world at all. By virtue of the Resurrection and Ascension, Christ’s body shares in God’s own transcendence and impassibility, and any fitting account of his Eucharistic presence must take account of this. That is to say, Eucharistic conversion must be a change that occurs in this world, or it is no change at all. Stephen Brock notes, “This is the decisive point for Thomas: the body of Christ cannot begin to exist in the sacrament by any change in the body itself ( ST III, q. 75, a. 2). It must do so by a change undergone by something else.” The paradigm of natural change serves to point up the this-worldly character of the change that is transubstantiation. The tenseless grammar of creation is inadequate for indicating that there is a true process of becoming, a real transitus , involved: Christ becomes our food, not by becoming bread and wine, but by the this-worldly reality of bread and wine becoming Christ.

Thus, the balance tilts toward the language of creation, but not completely. And this is why Thomas says that Eucharistic conversion has “its own name,” which is transubstantiation. Neither creation nor natural change can in the end furnish us with the paradigm for well-formed sentences about Christ’s Eucharistic presence. The uniqueness of the term “transubstantiation” is its combination of the transitus that we know from the immanent natural process of one substantial form “passing into” another with the transcendent beginning to be of substances that we call “creation.”

Is it, then, the case that transubstantiation tends, as Chauvet claims, to a conceiving of the Eucharist as a process of production in which Christ’s body becomes an object that is available in a fashion that is, as it were, indifferent to its reception by the faithful? Chauvet assumes that the language of efficient causality must imply the soulless production of inert objects, but this is not the case. Wouldn’t we rather say that in creation ex nihilo God produces the world, yet not as an inert object but as the gift of existence? Bernhard Blankenhorn has suggested that Aquinas’s language of sacraments as instrumental efficient causes derives not from the onto-theological tradition but from the scriptural image of Wisdom as God’s “artisan” (Wisdom 7:32) through whom God creates the world out of love. As he notes, “Precisely when Scripture most explicitly connects the language of the Creator God to the notion of artistic production do we find the clearest teaching that creation is an act of divine love.” Likewise in the Eucharist. Located between creation from nothing and artisanal making, the language of transubstantiation seems almost designed to lead us away from a “productionist” model. Like creation, it is not a process of production because it is not a natural process at all but simply a supernatural gift. Yet, like natural change, it is a transformation that occurs in our world because it occurs for our sake. Christ is not present indifferently but personally, for us and for our salvation.

In Thomas, the term “transubstantiation” is the fruit of the modest, but ferociously difficult, endeavor to understand the primary speech of the Church about the Eucharistic mystery. It does not name a theory of Eucharistic conversion; it does not give us a list of ingredients (substance, accidents, dimensive quantity, etc.) nor describe the process of transformation by which Christ becomes present. Nor is it simply a fideistic affirmation of the magical presence of Christ behind the shadows of bread and wine. Rather, it gives us some glimpse of the Eucharistic mystery by locating the event of Christ’s presence in an interstitial location, not between rationalism and magic, but between the grammars of creation and natural change. In response to the third objection in Summa theologiae 3.75.8, Aquinas grants the objector’s point: speaking of the Eucharistic conversion of one entire substance into another entire substance does imply something more miraculous than creation. He simply does not think that this makes transubstantiation false; rather, it situates it in a space of supreme wonder. Transubstantiation is more miraculous than creation, not because it requires more divine productive power, but because it shows forth more clearly the nature of that divine power by using the grammar of creation to speak of God’s drawing near in redemption. For while creation might be ascribed to a deity who acts at a distance, the Eucharist shows forth a divine power that is transcendent precisely in being present to us as our pilgrim food.

EDITORIAL STATEMENT: This article is excerpted from  Thinking Through Aquinas  ( Word on Fire Academic , forthcoming).

Featured Image: Master of the Host, Mystic Mill, c. 1460, taken by Rufus46 ; Source: Wikimedia Commons,  CC BY-SA 3.0 .

Frederick Bauerschmidt

Frederick Bauerschmidt is Professor of Theology at Loyola University Maryland and a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, assigned to the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. He is most recently the author of The Love That Is God: An Invitation to Christian Faith .

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100 Bible Verses about Beauty Of Gods Creations

Genesis 1:1-31 esv / 11 helpful votes helpful not helpful.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. ...

Romans 1:20 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Psalm 19:1 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Genesis 1:1 ESV / 6 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

1 Corinthians 8:6 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Isaiah 42:5 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Thus says God, the Lord , who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it:

1 Chronicles 29:11 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Yours, O Lord , is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord , and you are exalted as head above all.

John 1:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Matthew 6:26 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Isaiah 55:12 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Psalm 104:24-30 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

O Lord , how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it. These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. ...

Psalm 24:1-2 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

A Psalm of David. The earth is the Lord 's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.

Psalm 19:1-14 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. ...

Psalm 8:3-9 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, ...

Nehemiah 9:6 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“You are the Lord , you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

Deuteronomy 10:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.

Genesis 2:7 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Genesis 1:27 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:14-19 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ...

Revelation 3:14 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation.

2 Peter 3:4 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

1 Peter 3:3-4 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

1 Peter 1:20 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you

Hebrews 11:3 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Hebrews 9:11 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation)

Hebrews 4:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Colossians 1:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Colossians 1:15 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Galatians 6:15 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

Romans 8:22 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Romans 8:19 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

John 3:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 1:1-5 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Mark 10:6 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’

Jeremiah 2:7 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination.

Psalm 104:14-21 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart. The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. In them the birds build their nests; the stork has her home in the fir trees. The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers. ...

Psalm 90:2 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Psalm 19:1-4 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,

Psalm 8:1-9 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David. O Lord , our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. ...

Job 38:1-7 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? ...

Job 12:7-10 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.

Genesis 2:15 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Genesis 2:2-3 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Genesis 1:31 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Genesis 1:24-25 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:24 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.

Genesis 1:20-23 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

Genesis 1:20 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”

Genesis 1:9-13 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

Genesis 1:6-8 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

Genesis 1:3-5 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Genesis 1:1-2 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Revelation 17:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.

Revelation 13:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.

Revelation 11:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”

Revelation 4:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

Hebrews 9:26 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Hebrews 4:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”

Hebrews 1:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

1 Timothy 2:9-10 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.

Colossians 1:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Colossians 1:16-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Colossians 1:15-16 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Ephesians 1:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love

Romans 8:39 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

That the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Romans 8:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope

Romans 1:25 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Romans 1:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

Acts 17:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

John 17:24 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

John 3:16-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Mark 16:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

Matthew 25:34 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Matthew 13:35 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”

Habakkuk 2:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols!

Ezekiel 28:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.

Jeremiah 51:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.

Isaiah 24:4-6 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and withers; the highest people of the earth languish. The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and few men are left.

Isaiah 11:6-9 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 9:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Proverbs 31:30 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Psalm 148:1-6 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Praise the Lord ! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts! Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord ! For he commanded and they were created. ...

Psalm 139:1-24 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. O Lord , you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord , you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. ...

Psalm 104:24 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

O Lord , how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

Psalm 104:1-35 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Bless the Lord , O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire. He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. ...

Psalm 89:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded them.

Psalm 27:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

One thing have I asked of the Lord , that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

Psalm 24:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

A Psalm of David. The earth is the Lord 's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,

Psalm 8:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

Psalm 8:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

Job 12:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you;

1 Chronicles 16:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before him! Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness;

Leviticus 25:23-24 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.

Exodus 34:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord , the Lord , a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

Exodus 20:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Exodus 3:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

God said to Moses, “ I am who I am .” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘ I am has sent me to you.’”

Genesis 6:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female.

Genesis 2:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

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The Beauty of God’s Creation

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Posted by Andy Naselli

These photographs are among National Geographic ’s best. To me they are a worship experience. They speak not only of the beauty of God’s creation, but the skill of others of God’s creatures—the photographers.

Justin Taylor is executive vice president for book publishing and publisher for books at Crossway. He blogs at Between Two Worlds and Evangelical History . You can follow him on Twitter .

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Home — Essay Samples — Religion — God — Care for God’s Creation

The Importance of Taking Care of God's Creation

• Categories: Environmental Issues God Religious Beliefs

About this sample

Words: 492 |

Published: Mar 1, 2019

Words: 492 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Works Cited

• Anonymous. (n.d.). Genesis 1:1-2:15. BibleGateway. Retrieved from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A1-2%3A15
• Carr, D. (2016). The beauty of God's creation. Ministry Magazine, 88(4), 11-14.
• Chan, J. W. (2019). Environmental stewardship: A biblical perspective. In S. A. N. Fernando (Ed.), Science and Christianity: A partnership in action (pp. 81-100). Theological Publications in India.
• Gobster, P. H. (2018). The call to care for creation: Perspectives from world religions. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 12(1), 53-81.
• Guzman, J. A. (2015). Caring for God's creation: The Christian ecological ethics of Aldo Leopold. Ecotheology, 20(2), 220-233.
• Hessel, D., Ruether, R. R., & McFague, S. (Eds.). (2000). Christianity and ecology: Seeking the well-being of Earth and humans. Harvard University Press.
• Ingersoll, T. (2016). Christian environmental stewardship in the Anthropocene. Theological Studies, 77(3), 667-688.
• Johnson, B. R. (2015). Earth and embodiment: The praxis of creation care in a particular place. Theology Today, 72(2), 170-186.
• Schaefer, R. T. (2018). Theology for earth community: A field guide. Fortress Press.
• White, L. (1967). The historical roots of our ecological crisis. Science, 155(3767), 1203-1207.

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