God and nature

What is natural law?

Winds and earthquakes and tempests are not capricious outbreaks of unregulated mechanical forces. All nature is in the fullest sense under the control of physical law. It is the expression of a higher will. “He holdest the winds in His fists;” “He gathereth the waters in the hollow of His hands;” “He maketh the clouds His chariots;” “The Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea, the Lord sitteth king forever.” Let not human wisdom dethrone and defy the great Sovereign of the universe. “He that made the world, and all things that are therein,” He is the sustainer. All nature is but the working out of the laws which He has made, a manifestation of His sovereign will.—Ms 10, 1906.

It is a wonderful and grand fact that in the laws of God in nature, effect follows cause with unerring certainty. The seed sown will produce a harvest of its kind. So it is in human nature. He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. He who sows to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. If human beings would consider that they are making their own harvest, they would be careful what seed they sow.—Ms 104, 1898.

All the lessons of the natural world reveal the providence of God. He who has this lesson book opened before him, and becomes a student thereof, will find himself looking into a fountain that deepens and broadens beneath his gaze. From the Old Testament, he can store up the most precious instruction, the gospel being the key.—Ms 30, 1898.

Under the supposed wisdom of men, nature is placed where she becomes a destructive agency. The good things which were given to man only to bless him are converted into a curse. By the use of wine and liquor men become slaves to appetite. God does not interpose and work a miracle to convert evil into good; for He has laid all nature under His eternal laws. Let there be no peace to the wicked, He says. Let everything be at war with him. And nature responds, “There shall be none.” If man takes himself in his own hands, to do with himself as he pleases, if he works against God and nature, his indulgences will become to him the instruments of death. (3MR 344.2)

Nature does not act on her own

“Many teach that matter possesses vital power—that certain properties are imparted to matter, and it is then left to act through its own inherent energy; and that the operations of nature are conducted in harmony with fixed laws, with which God Himself cannot interfere. This is false science, and is not sustained by the word of God. Nature is the servant of her Creator. God does not annul His laws or work contrary to them, but He is continually using them as His instruments. Nature testifies of an intelligence, a presence, an active energy, that works in and through her laws. There is in nature the continual working of the Father and the Son. Christ says, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” John 5:17.” (PP 114)

As time passed on, with no apparent change in nature, men whose hearts had at times trembled with fear, began to be reassured. They reasoned, as many reason now, that nature is above the God of nature, and that her laws are so firmly established that God Himself could not change them. Reasoning that if the message of Noah were correct, nature would be turned out of her course, they made that message, in the minds of the world, a delusion—a grand deception. They manifested their contempt for the warning of God by doing just as they had done before the warning was given. They continued their festivities and their gluttonous feasts; they ate and drank, planted and builded, laying their plans in reference to advantages they hoped to gain in the future; and they went to greater lengths in wickedness, and in defiant disregard of God’s requirements, to testify that they had no fear of the Infinite One. They asserted that if there were any truth in what Noah had said, the men of renown—the wise, the prudent, the great men—would understand the matter. {PP 97.1}

Upon all created things is seen the impress of the Deity. Nature testifies of God. The susceptible mind, brought in contact with the miracle and mystery of the universe, cannot but recognize the working of infinite power. Not by its own inherent energy does the earth produce its bounties, and year by year continue its motion around the sun. An unseen hand guides the planets in their circuit of the heavens. A mysterious life pervades all nature—a life that sustains the unnumbered worlds throughout immensity, that lives in the insect atom which floats in the summer breeze, that wings the flight of the swallow and feeds the young ravens which cry, that brings the bud to blossom and the flower to fruit. {Ed 99.1}

The same power that upholds nature, is working also in man. The same great laws that guide alike the star and the atom control human life. The laws that govern the heart’s action, regulating the flow of the current of life to the body, are the laws of the mighty Intelligence that has the jurisdiction of the soul. From Him all life proceeds. Only in harmony with Him can be found its true sphere of action. For all the objects of His creation the condition is the same—a life sustained by receiving the life of God, a life exercised in harmony with the Creator’s will. To transgress His law, physical, mental, or moral, is to place one’s self out of harmony with the universe, to introduce discord, anarchy, ruin. {Ed 99.2}

I speak to you who know not God, who may read these lines; for in his providence they may be brought to your notice. What are you doing with your Lord’s goods? What are you doing with the physical and mental powers he has given you? Are you able of yourself to keep the human machinery in motion? Did God speak but one word to say that you must die, you would at once be still in death. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, God works by his infinite power to keep you alive. It is he who supplies the breath which keeps life in your body. Did God neglect man as man neglects God, what would become of the race? {RH, May 23, 1907 par. 8}

The God of nature is perpetually at work. His infinite power works unseen, but manifestations appear in the effects which the work produces. The same God who guides the planets works in the fruit orchard and in the vegetable garden. He never made a thorn, a thistle, or a tare. These are Satan’s work, the result of degeneration, introduced by him among the precious things; but it is through God’s immediate agency that every bud bursts into blossom. When He was in the world in the form of humanity, Christ said: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” John 5:17. So when the students employ their time and strength in agricultural work, in heaven it is said of them, Ye “are laborers together with God.” 1 Corinthians 3:9. {6T 186.2}

Nature is not God

“The longsuffering of God is remarkable, for it indicates that He is putting constraint upon His own attributes. It is His omnipotence exerted over Himself. Why has the Lord borne with the continual increase of defiance against His laws, given to govern the human agencies He has created? He has borne long with their perversity, and at the same time He has been giving continual light to those who remain obedient. He sees that life is becoming intolerable because of cruelty. This is because men have changed His laws.—Ms 59, 1906.” (3MR 349)

The greatness of God is to us incomprehensible. “The Lord’s throne is in heaven” (Psalm 11:4); yet by His Spirit He is everywhere present. He has an intimate knowledge of, and a personal interest in, all the works of His hand. {Ed 132.2}

Should the Lord Jesus anoint the eyes of fallen mortals, and lay open to their inspection the mysteries of His providence, they would see that not for a moment has any transaction of any human being been unknown to the Lord.—Undated Ms 54. {3MR 350.1}

“Nature is not God nor ever was God. God is in nature; the voice of nature testifies of God; but nature is not God. It but bears a testimony of God’s power, as His created works. There is a personal God, the Father; there is a personal Christ, the Son. . . .” (3MR 347)

Nature declares the glory of God. The psalmist says: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard."

Some may suppose that these grand things in the natural world are God. But they are not God. They but show forth His glory. The ancient philosophers prided themselves upon their superior knowledge. But let us read the inspired apostle’s understanding of the matter. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things; who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forevermore."

Will we consider this? In its human wisdom, the world knows not God. Its wise men gather an imperfect knowledge of God in His created works, and then in their foolishness exalt nature and the laws of nature above nature’s God. Nature is an open book which reveals God. All who are attracted to nature may behold in it the God that created nature. But those who have not a knowledge of God in their acceptance of the revelation God has made of Himself in Christ, will obtain only an imperfect knowledge of God in nature. This knowledge, so far from giving elevated conceptions of God, so far from elevating the mind, the soul, the heart, and bringing the whole being into conformity to the will of God, will make men idolaters. Professing to be wise men, they become fools. Those who think they can obtain a knowledge of God aside from the Representative whom the word declares is “the express image of His person,” will need to become fools in their own estimation before they can be wise. Christ came as a personal Saviour. It is impossible to gain a perfect knowledge of God from nature, for nature itself is imperfect. A curse and blight is upon it. Yet the things of nature, marred as they are by the blight of sin, inculcate truths regarding the skillful Master Artist. One omnipotent in power, great in goodness, in mercy, and love, has created the earth, and even in its blighted state much that is beautiful remains. Nature’s voice speaks, saying that there is a God back of nature, but it does not in its imperfections represent God. Nature cannot reveal the nature and character of God in His moral perfection.—Ms 86, 1898. (3MR 348.3)

“Through Jesus Christ, God—not a perfume, not something intangible, but a personal God—created man, and endowed him with intelligence and power. . . .” (3MR 355)

No independent laws

“Those who have a true knowledge of God will not become so infatuated with the laws of matter or the operations of nature as to overlook, or refuse to acknowledge, the continual working of God in nature. Nature is not God, nor was it ever God. The voice of nature testifies of God, but nature is not God. As His created work, it simply bears a testimony to God’s power. Deity is the author of nature. The natural world has, in itself, no power but that which God supplies. There is a personal God, the Father; there is a personal Christ, the Son. And “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:1-3).

“The psalmist says: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard” (Psalm 19:1-3). Some may suppose that these grand things in the natural world are God. They are not God. All these wonders in the heavens are only doing the work appointed them. They are the Lord’s agencies. God is the superintendent, as well as the Creator, of all things. The Divine Being is engaged in upholding the things that He has created. The same hand that holds the mountains and balances them in position, guides the worlds in their mysterious march around the sun.

“There is scarcely an operation of nature to which we may not find reference in the Word of God. The Word declares that “he maketh his sun to rise,” and the rain to descend (Matthew 5:45). He “maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.” “He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels. . . . He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow” (Psalm 147:8, 16-18). “He maketh lightnings for the rain; he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries" (Psalm 135:7).

“These words of Holy Writ say nothing of the independent laws of nature. God furnishes the matter and the properties with which to carry out His plans. He employs His agencies that vegetation may flourish. He sends the dew and the rain and the sunshine, that verdure may spring forth, and spread its carpet over the earth; that the shrubs and fruit trees may bud and blossom and bring forth. It is not to be supposed that a law is set in motion for the seed to work itself, that the leaf appears because it must do so of itself. God has laws that He has instituted, but they are only the servants through which He effects results. It is through the immediate agency of God that every tiny seed breaks through the earth, and springs into life. Every leaf grows, every flower blooms, by the power of God.

“The physical organism of man is under the supervision of God; but it is not like a clock, which is set in operation, and must go of itself. The heart beats, pulse succeeds pulse, breath succeeds breath, but the entire being is under the supervision of God. “Ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building (1 Corinthians 3:9). In God we live and move and have our being. Each heartbeat, each breath, is the inspiration of Him who breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life—the inspiration of the ever-present God, the great I AM.” (1SM 294)

Even our good thoughts are from God

The world has had its great teachers, men of giant intellect and extensive research, men whose utterances have stimulated thought and opened to view vast fields of knowledge; and these men have been honored as guides and benefactors of their race; but there is One who stands higher than they. We can trace the line of the world’s teachers as far back as human records extend; but the Light was before them. As the moon and the stars of our solar system shine by the reflected light of the sun, so, as far as their teaching is true, do the world’s great thinkers reflect the rays of the Sun of Righteousness. Every gleam of thought, every flash of the intellect, is from the Light of the world. {Ed 13.3}

Only by the aid of that Spirit who in the beginning “was brooding upon the face of the waters;” of that Word by whom “all things were made;” of that “true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (Genesis 1:2, R.V., margin; John 1:3, 9), can the testimony of science be rightly interpreted. Only by their guidance can its deepest truths be discerned. Only under the direction of the Omniscient One shall we, in the study of His works, be enabled to think His thoughts after Him. {CT 530.2}

ps 40:8 then Sin can triumph only by enslaving the mind. Christ came to our world to break the power of Satan, and emancipate the will of man. He came “to proclaim liberty to the captives,” to “undo the heavy burdens,” and to “let the oppressed go free;” and he calls upon us to cooperate with him by entering his service, wearing his yoke, and lifting his burdens. And, if we consent, he can and will so identify himself with our thoughts and aims, so blend our hearts and minds into conformity with his will, that when obeying him, we shall but carry out our own impulses. The will, refined and sanctified, will find its highest delight in doing his service. {ST, November 19, 1896 par. 8}

Gird up the loins of your mind, says the apostle; then control your thoughts, not allowing them to have full scope. The thoughts may be guarded and controlled by your own determined efforts. Think right thoughts, and you will perform right actions. You have, then, to guard the affections, not letting them go out and fasten upon improper objects. Jesus has purchased you with His own life; you belong to Him; therefore He is to be consulted in all things, as to how the powers of your mind and the affections of your heart shall be employed. {AH 54.2}

The professed follower of Christ must not be led by the dictates of his own will; his mind must be trained to think Christ’s thoughts, and enlightened to comprehend the will and way of God. Such a believer will be a follower of Christ’s methods of work.—Manuscript 21, 1908, p. 1. {9MR 156.4}

The men most learned in science cannot interpret or explain the ways and works of God. Those only who have been entirely divested of self and selfishness and have been made partakers of the divine nature, can understand, by the aid of their spiritual faculties, the ways and workings of God. To those who know Him not His ways are past finding out. —Ms 76, 1903. {3MR 358.1}