I’ve always loved that verse contained in Isaiah, speaking of the coming time when God’s reign is made manifest on the earth, which tells us that “the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:12). I thought, as most Bible-believing and conservative Christians will insist, that such passages speaking of nature as having consciousness are metaphorical only. The trees will seem to be clapping their hands because that’s the sound some trees make when a strong breeze blows through them. However, I’m just beginning to open up my mind to the possibility that such passages speak of something more than metaphor.
DONKEYS AND SERPENTS. The donkey ridden by Balaam suddenly speaks in his own defense while Balaam beats him for not continuing in the path. We discover that there’s an angel with a flaming sword, ready to slay Balaam were he to continue any further, and only the donkey can see it (Numbers 22:21-34). Most believers, even conservative in their views, don’t see this as being a literal event. However, despite claims that such passages are word pictures only, it seems to me that Scripture normally lets us know when it’s being figurative, and this isn’t one of those passages. The donkey may have only been made to look and sound like it was speaking by a miracle of God, but maybe not. The passage says that “The Lord opened the donkey’s mouth”. The donkey speaks, suggesting that God merely enables the donkey to communicate what it was already thinking, and not that the Lord has put words in the donkey’s mouth.
The serpent spoke to Eve in Genesis 3:1-5. I’m not saying that animals can normally talk in a human manner, or walk, as in Gary Larsen’s cartoon of cows standing on two legs conversing, until one warns that there’s a car approaching and they all go to four. But thinking? I’m convinced that all animals think to an extent, and some to a greater extent than others – perhaps more than some people do.
TREES AND SOULS. J.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis included in their incredible literary creations thinking and talking animals and other creatures from their imaginations, from legend, mythology and speculation. “Ents” in Lord of the Rings – trees which talk, walk and communicate – are immediately endearing, but let’s face it, aren’t exactly original in the sense of talking and thinking nature. People have speculated through the ages that our fellow earth-dwellers have been able to at least understand some of what we say; were able to communicate with their own kind; took action to save or cooperate with humans in need, and that they could even communicate verbally with man. Is this perhaps going too far, or is it possible indeed that animals have much more intelligence than most of us give them credit for? Going one step further: do animals have souls? Do they live on after they die?
Dr. Michael Egnor, a neurosurgeon who has performed thousands of brain surgeries in his career and who was at one-time a solid materialist, now speaks as a Bible-believing Christian to promote his conviction of the reality of the human soul as being apart from the physical constraints and workings of the brain. In one of his fascinating video interviews, he shares his understanding that “all living things have souls – even plants”. The difference, he says, between them and us is that we are rational and can engage in abstract thought. We have free will. Our souls are “spiritual souls”. We can reason and we are immortal souls. It’s clear also, biblically speaking, that we humans alone were created in God’s image. We are high up in God’s hierarchy – He being Supreme in every way, the angels below Him, we a little below them (Hebrews 2:6-8) and then come other creatures which God also created at the beginning. To these Tolkien adds (in his own mythology or perhaps in his own speculation) elves, dwarves and certain spirits associated with Satan. By no means are we to worship nature because this would be sin against our creator. Nature is the work of the One who demands all our love and worship.
Into the mix place the reality that if we are true followers of Christ our bodies – our “physical” bodies – are, says Paul, temples of the Holy Spirit of God, and we are to treat them as being hallowed and set apart. This is interesting indeed, because it suggests that nothing of our being is just physical: it has great spiritual significance. How we live in our bodies is very important. We will not be without physical form in the next world, but our bodies will be raised, say Jesus and the apostles. They will not be thrown away and replaced but raised and re-formed. And if any of you are wondering, I’m personally certain that cremation is no problem to God at all. Buried bodies end up as dust over hundreds of years just as cremated bodies do. God has the DNA “blueprint” of every one of us, and our spirits are in His power at all times. Fear not!
REASON AND SPIRIT. I was listening to an interview with Malcolm Guite (note 1), an academic and a Bible-believing Anglican priest who is a recognized expert on the writings of Tolkien and Lewis. He looks like he could have played a Hobbit in Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit”. In this wonderful interview Guite was expounding on what he is convinced humanity has lost since the beginning of the scientific “enlightenment”. Materialism and naturalism have robbed us of our sense of the spiritual in nature. Humanity has turned its back on its one-time understanding that all of creation has a spiritual aspect to it. He isn’t speaking of pantheism or anything like that: philosophies which no true Bible-believer would consider or accept. Creation is the work of God: it is not God.
Guite points out that while the ancient Greek vocabulary was rich there is essentially only one word, “pneuma’, used for the Holy Spirit, the human spirit and the wind which Christ speaks of when he says that “the wind blows where it wants to”. Somehow the three are intimately related.
I believe Guite’s thinking, as I’ve been considering, is that since God is Spirit (John 4:24) it is logical that His physical creation would not be completely separate from the spiritual. Paul asserts that Christ “holds all things together” (Colossians 1:17) making Him intimately and perpetually involved with every quantum particle and every force and law of nature. Yes indeed, we exist in three dimensions or four if you count time, but that doesn’t make us entirely detached from the spiritual, any more than water can be detached from the living earth. The two are mutually related and interactive (this is my analogy, not Guites). They are, and we are essentially made of the same “stuff”. We are made almost entirely of H2O.
ALL OF CREATION PRAISES GOD. Certain Scripture passages are most provocative in relation to the thinking of our world being not just physical but also spiritual in nature. One of the best – known examples is found in Psalm 148. I’ll quote some of it here, and as I develop my thinking on the subject, I’ll write on it again:
Psalm 148
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights above.
Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, you highest heavens
and you waters above the skies.
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for at his command they were created,
and he established them for ever and ever—
he issued a decree that will never pass away.
Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
stormy winds that do his bidding,
you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds,
kings of the earth and all nations,
you princes and all rulers on earth,
young men and women,
old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
And he has raised up for his people a horn,
the praise of all his faithful servants,
of Israel, the people close to his heart.
Praise the Lord.
NOTES
1 YouTube video, “Malcolm Guite on enchantment and imagination”, @TolkienWonder.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 