The Natural Order, And All That . . .

Seeing Things As They Truly Are

The Christian faith requires Believers to see the creation as it really is, not as it is mediated to us through the glasses of Unbelief. This means that Believers view the world through the prism of cosmic personalism--and the Person is God. Literally everything lives, moves, and has its being in God Himself.

The Enlightenment attempted a grand thought experiment of positing that the nature or the natural order was independent of God; it operated with an integrity intrinsic to itself (although the earlier Enlightenment thinkers were prepared to acknowledge the "integrity" originally came from a god, but moved rapidly to consign him to a realm of irrelevance). However, this thought experiment is definitely not what is actually true--despite the fact that it's veracity is beyond question to modern Unbelievers.

Scripture teaches that God sustains life directly, not indirectly. There is no such thing as Nature. God has not given any inherent power of development to the universe as such. . . . The idea that God wound up the universe and then let is run its course, so that there is such a thing as Nature which has an intrinsic power, is Deism, not Christianity. . . .

What we call natural or physical law is actually a rough approximate generalization about the ordinary activity of God in governing His creation. Matter, space, and time are created by God, and are ruled directly and actively by Him. His rule is called "law". God almost always causes things to be done the same way, according to covenant regularities (the Christian equivalent of natural laws), . . . . Science and technology are possible because God does not change the rules, so man can confidently explore the world and learn to work it. Such confidence, though, is always a form of faith, faith either in Nature and natural law, or faith in God and the trustworthiness of His commitment to maintain covenant regularities. James B. Jordan, Judges: God's War Against Humanism (Tyler, TX: Geneva Ministries, 1985), pp. 37,38,102

For the Christian, this means that the natural order can never be understood or interacted with accurately or properly or truthfully unless and until it is seen in the light of the transcendent Living God. The Unbeliever, however, never sees the natural order truthfully. When Shimei cursed David as David was fleeing Jerusalem, Abishai sought permission to cut off his head. David refused, on the grounds that the Lord had told Shimei to curse him. (II Samuel 16:11) Now the idea here is not that Shimei was a recipient of divine revelation, but that he was acting by the will and appointment of the Lord.

David saw the situation truthfully. Abishai saw half-truths and accordingly was distorted as to his duty and what God would have him do.