Nature has No Conscience

I am not one of those people who look at nature and conclude there is a God.  To admit, there are beautiful and amazing aspects to nature.  The vast variety of birds, fish, animals, flowers, trees, mountains, lakes, oceans can be breathtaking and their multi colors and shapes offer all sorts of opportunities for avid photographers and spirituality seekers.  I grant it all and marvel at its wonder.

But take a good look.  Nature is ambiguous, unreliable and dangerous.  Nature has no conscience.  Along with its marvels, nature produces terribly destructive hurricanes, volcanos, tornadoes, earthquakes, monsoons, avalanches, forest fires, ice storms, not to mention a host of diseases including varieties of cancer, heart and birth defects, rare infections and countless other ailments.  Nature can be gentle and kind and nature can be wild and ferocious.

Yes, we can try to accentuate the positive.  Some will say, the wildness of nature causes us to be grateful, humble and respect the fragility of our existence.  Others remind us, when natural disasters occur it gives us a chance to help.  Still others talk about how God has blessed us with science and technology to survive nature’s craziness and nurse the environment. And there are even some who talk about the innate beauty of nature’s wild ferocity.

But I remain perplexed.  Is the ferocity of nature worth the cost it exacts on human life?  Think of all the physical, psychological and emotional trauma created by natural evil; think of all the damage endured by people as they try to survive nature’s madness.

I say again, nature has no conscience.  The Jewish and Christian scriptures depict water as a symbol for chaos.  God is pictured creating the world by wrestling or struggling with the chaos of nature, separating the waters from the waters, grappling with human nature, sometimes succeeding sometimes not.  But nature is not held up as something to be worshiped. The word “nature” does not even occur in the Bible. 

Like the biblical deity, we are compelled to wrestle with nature, particularly our own nature.  We ought not worship or romanticize nature. 

We have just experienced the wild calamity and terrible damage caused by two hurricanes.  Nature has no conscience.  When we realize this, we will be better prepared to meet nature’s beautiful, fantastic, horrific and ambiguous behavior.