World Perception

It is interesting to follow the human and divine perceptions of the physical universe, principally in the context of the earth’s place in it all – what has been, is and will be.  The informed person is interested in all this, to the degree that information of meaning is available, but it may not have the same compelling interest for all persons that it holds for scholars and information seekers.  We are awesomely addicted to observations of the physical universe, sensing the mighty beauty of a Niagara or Victoria Falls, of the Grand Canyon or the Sahara Desert, of Mountains like the Alps or Everest, like a volcano or tornado.  We are so addicted that many men and women risk their lives in a Disneyland of God – just because it is there.

Our interest in anything that impinges on our senses is taken somewhat seriously, whether thing is the daily weather or sunspots, stars or asteroids.  We track them, study them, generalize from what we perceive of them, and go on living even when prognostications seem dire.  It is commonly believed that a wayward asteroid will do in the earth.  We know they have tried.  Some practice runs have occurred in our lifetime, a striking one crashed into Russia a few years ago, wrecking a large area.  Oregon’s Crater Lake is evidence of another from a bygone aeon.  It is believed by scholars who study such things that there have been five extinctions of the earth before our time.  Accordingly: the fifth one is presumed to have taken place 66 million years ago that exterminated 75^% of the earth’s species including the dinosaurs – some of whose bones have survived into our era.  (Space traffic appears to be relatively well controlled.) The one before that, 252 millions of years ago, took 90^% of the species.  In the reporting I read, it was called: The Great Dying.  The flood of Noah, a relatively modest event, said to be meaningful to species’ lives, gets either no mention or short shrift in literature.  A number of references have been made to Noah’s Ark and expeditions have been made to find it, some reporting success – not verified.  Recent reporting accents the few massive changes in earth’s environment but seem to avoid or are skeptical of Noah’s narrative.

The large point of the recent reporting is the claim that a decline to extinction appears to be underway.  The dying of species has increased significantly, by ten times in recent decades.  The story is projected as a delaying tactic, perhaps a sad one addressed by various approaches such as zoos, artificial means of insemination and life context, and the like series of inventions running interference to extinction.  Some scientists believe that mankind can delay extinction for the sake of our near generations even if we are impotent to delay ultimate extinction in some century perhaps later in the new millennium – or the next one. What has Scripture to say to all this?  First, that if there is extinction as prophesied, and demonstrated possible in such instances as that of the fossils’ or Noah’s ordeal, the decision will be made by God and the demonstration will occur within the plan he gives to it, whether in some miraculous factors or through the machinations of mankind.  He informs us it will not be by water, although as I write we are being informed that earth warming will flood the heavily populated ocean fronts of the world.  The reporters, once attributing doom’s day predictions to religious zealots are now announcing doom’s day on the basis of the evidence of nature.  Biblical predictions relate to God and mankind’s free relationship.  God held back Israel from the Canaanites until there was no further reason for delay.  His judgments lead from a lesser situation to a better one.  When we function in righteousness, he delays judgment (evaluation of human sorrows).  When we function in the context of his will for us, to serve for the good of others, he evaluates in that which serves him, so he permits consequences.  It sounds simple in the telling, but so difficult in the doing.  The Christian believes God loves his creation, that he monitors it, that he will make any final decisions relative to it, that he will provide resources to those who want his largess, and that the future for those relating to him will be awarded with the gifts of his love no matter what their earthly sojourn may be in length and breadth.  Truly devout persons rest in this faith.  In any final denouement the Christian has a hope found in faith from God.  The one going it alone has little for self and little to offer others.