 |
| Saturday, May 31, 2008
A Fleeting Thought On Nature Writer : Ronald WongIt is innately perplexing that a lone word may profess varying scopes of semantics. Perhaps one of the most confounding words, in my opinion, is the word 'nature'. Nature is generally associated or defined by two possible meanings - one being the phenomena of the physical world, and the other being the intrinsic features or properties of something. Upon contemplating 'nature', I found myself plummeting blindly through the darkness into a series of thoughts which cascaded into perpetuity and the unknown. Somewhere along this string of neurological images lie notions of botany & biology, the physical world and its origin or creation, human nature and its consequents, and the most manifestly veiled notion of the divine. The contrasting myriad of drips and blots of thoughts, images and concepts, when one considers in depth, is really much more inextricably entangled with one another, along a thread of logic. Desperately tugging at it from the crevices of my mind, I find myself almost numb in a vestigial attempt to grasp them. Perhaps the only way they may all be strewn into a single concoction and still make sense is to turn to the supernatural, God. That the world is what it is today is, as we all know, can only be a product of a series of consecutive precisely accurate accidents or a product of the supernatural God, we as the human race, with our collective intellects and conscience of past and present, remain shrouded from any glimpse of hope towards reaching the truth, in spite of all our successes. Take for example, our scientific development in medicine - we create cochlear implants which translate sound waves received from the ear to generate electric signals which pulsate to the brain and become re-interpreted as the sounds we perceive to hear; such an amazing invention is the culmination of not just several years of scientific research but the foundation of the entire development of the human race, which is approximately 20,000 years. It took us twenty millenniums to come to this point where we, upon close observation of the anatomy of our own bodies, mimic the structures and organs which are found innately within human bodies to develop cochlear implants, which while I must confess is an amazing invention, is a mere dwarf amongst other even great inventions which have revolutionised the way we live our lives; often these inventions are developed similarly by observing nature and replicating them: aeroplanes, computers, and yes, even paper clips. One of the strangest quandaries, which I often ponder over, is how we may profess to be kings and gods when we are mere charlatans replicating what we see. The next trouble I have is in the argument that if we as humans can develop such inventions within mere decades (which is really a product of 20,000 years of human civilization), surely the mystical forces of evolution, having had the liberty of millions of years, would have resulted in the world we see today, all from mere nothingness (or at least, a singularity, in the scientific philosophy of Stephen Hawkings). Surely it would not require a genius (like Hawkings) to pass a conjecture that really, nature is so much more amazing than we can ever fathom. And surely, the nature of Nature is infinitely more abstruse. After all, nature can only either have replicated something else in order to develop itself into what it is today, or it was created by something or someone so amazingly knowledgeable that he had had no need to replicate any precedent because he is the precedent or merely that he knows just exactly how everything should be done. If one chooses the former, we have another problem of infinite regression on our hands, that is, the origin of the nature which Nature replicates. Others may argue that the latter, which is essentially reference to a supernatural God, is also another regression since someone or something must have created God (and many of the pseudo-Christian proponents of this belief often end up becoming pantheists, choosing it as the panacea to the problem). The response is simply this: why should the all-powerful require a creator if it is the absolute perfection in and of itself? Why can it not merely be the start and end point of a circle, never born and never to cease? Truth be told, this very supernatural God had already hinted that to us when He said He is the Alpha and Omega, though possibly, the linguistic constraints and semantics had limited the scribe's (John who wrote Revelation) conveying of this simple fact (since Alpha and Omega seem to imply a separate start and end). It is thus thoroughly dubitable as to how we can possibly comprehend even an iota of the truth that this supernatural God encompasses within Himself. While all that I have suggested thus far is merely the origin of Nature, i.e. the physical world, the more perplexing thing is really human nature, which is in itself an element within Nature. Now, even if this fantastical theory of evolution were indeed the case, its proponents have much difficulty justifying the development of human nature, or even the 'nature' of any living organism for that matter. The notion that a complex thing such as human nature (or any other animal's nature or intrinsic character) is developed along with the gradual development of life - from amino acids to protein strands, single cells to multi-cellular life forms, and (possibly skipping the whole tissue and organs development phase) eventually complex multi-cellular, multi-organ, multi-system organisms who have an innate character so confounding that to-date, not one of its own kind can put a finger on itself - today, we are still struggling with altruism and philanthropy, love and anger; surely Darwinian evolution and natural selection should have selected against all such complexities by now. Less complex, more focus on survival. I am no expert on anything but being a copycat - I can only learn from what I see and build on what I comprehend of it. As Jesus Himself said, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." (John 5:19) There is really nothing that I can ever claim to have ever created out of my own volition, from absolutely nothing but my a thought that generated from within me, without any inspiration or observations whatsoever. Yet it seems more ludicrous that an entity can create the entire universe from mere nothing. The problem with such a thought is that this entity is very much unlike you or I - He holds perfect knowledge of everything, of what was, what is, and what is to come, even of those which never was. An entity who wields such immense infinite knowledge surely would know a thing or two about creating things from scratch, wouldn't He? I deem it even more utterly ludicrous that anyone can suggest that Nature and human nature were formed as a result of an endless strings of random causes and consequences which are apparently still occurring at this very present moment (and I would suppose my writing this belongs to the same). Then there are those who proclaim the universe (regardless of its origin) to be a manifestation or equivalent to God Himself - the pantheists. There are the naturalists who believe that everything in Nature results in a collective which is or leads to God. Yet, how can this be the case if Nature is corrupted by Man, whose nature is itself corrupt? A natural God is as good as a dummy god - powerless and an element of nature itself. In light of all the musings above, I am repeatedly reminded and forced to concede that the only possible shot at the truth is that the Creator is a supernatural God who create the universe and all of existence based on the perfect infinite knowledge that He has, and who made the nature of mankind and of all living things in their respective fashion because He thinks it best. Nature is merely a reflection of this God's power and wisdom. Let's not worship Nature but instead, use it to direct us to the one worthy of worship and praise. Praise God. Hallelujah!
|
|
|
 |
 |