T
H E O L D T E S T A M E N T L E A V E S no doubt on t h e s u b j e c t : B y the creation the creature is entrusted with powers and gifts in the development and use of which he is called to lead a life of his own. Just as the earth, and likewise the sea, is endowed in its own sphere with the power of bringing forth plants and even animals as a permanent capability,1 so Man has authority over a wide sphere of activity. Here he rules in the fullness of his own power, installed as lord over the created world,2 called by the divine blessing at creation to people the earth by virtue of his natural fertility, and equipped to overthrow all obstacles to the spread of his sovereignty.3 As regards the relation in which this life proper to the creature, established once for all at the creation, stands to God, the creation-concept in its Old Testament form already offers certain conclusions. On the one hand, by the concept of the creature, which is inseparable from the idea of creation, it presupposes the permanent dependence of the world on God, with no room for a detachment of the created thing from him who created it;4 and on the other it shows that a necessary conse- quence of the act of creation is an historical process which finds its forward motive power in the permanent life-relationship of the creature with the Creator. Similarly the self-attestation of the Creator in his work by means of the teleology visible in the structure of the cosmos points to abiding values which the creaturely life strives to actualize, and which exclude the possibility that the world-process should be governed by capricious forces.51 Gen. I. I I, 20, 24. Cf. the popular view that the stable cycle of natural pheno- mena is a once-for-all divine decree : Gen. 8.22.
2 PS. 8.6-g.
3 Gen. I .28.
4 Cf. pp. ggf. above.
5 Cf. pp. Iogff. above.
‘5’
1
152 T H E M A I N T E N A N C E O F T H E W O R L D
Even though all this indicates the general direction in which Israelite reflection on the further history of the created order was bound to move, nevertheless there are still varying possibilities, differing in their religious value, as to the more precise definition and development of the basic elements of belief already contained in the idea of creation. The most important points involved here are indi- cated by the concepts of law in Nature, of miracles, and of Providence. I
I . L A W I N T H E N A T U R A L P R O C E S S
activity in history and in the life of his people they are the accompani- ment. Hence the stage is nowhere reached at which the forces of Nature are credited with a mythological life of their own, as a result of which they might be able to assert themselves as independent entities over against God. It is certain that Israel knew of such mythological conceptions, partly from her own past, and partly from neighbouring peoples. But just as she made use of the traditional material purely as poetic decoration, so her personifying view of Nature evinced no capacity for producing new ideas of this mythical kind.1
I. (a) An important element in Man’s experience of the life proper to Nature is his observation of the inherent regularity of its events.
Yet the whole character of Israel’s approach to Nature would seem to be unfavourable to the acquisition of this knowledge, since she does not confront Nature objectively, but sees it from a strongly subjective angle as involved in every event of human life, and judges it from that standpoint. This applies both to the popular outlook and to that of the earlier prophets. We have already seen how Nature imposes definite demands on Man, and so exercises a regulating effect on his conduct.1 But Nature is closely related to him not simply as the setting in which he has to work but also as the accompaniment and reflection of his activity and experience. Just as men know her to be involved with them in the destinies of their own nation, fighting in alliance with Israel,2 rejoicing and clapping her hands at Israel’s redemption,s and dismayed at her apostasy,4 so she sympathizes with the people in their rejection, and from a state of desolation achieves a renewal of para- disal abundance when the broken bond between God and his people is mended once more.5 Indeed, in her dealings with men, refusing them her gifts or bestowing them in willing service, Nature behaves in accordance with the pattern of God’s own activity.6
Already in this vivid sense of JVature as a living thing, ascribing to the non-human creation a relationship with its divine Lord analogous to that enjoyed by the people of God themselves, may be seen the marked and direct connection of natural events with God, of whose
(6) Conversely, however, it was possible just as spontaneously and axiomatically to portray natural events, which elsewhere might have been given an anthropomorphic life of their own, as a direct act
of
God, who controls both Nature and history by the omnipotence with which he fills all things. Thus the bestowal of rain and fertility is the direct gift of Yahweh; in the rain he blesses the field,2 causes the plants to grow, and gives the animals their food;3 he nourishes his people with fruits of the ground,4 and punishes her by withholding them.5 Just as he desires to be petitioned afresh every time for the blessing of chil- dren, which he grants or refuses,6 so he himself forms the individual human being in his mother’s womb, clothes him with skin and flesh, gives him the breath of life, and summons each new generation into existence.7 The sick man recognizes his sickness as God’s visitation,8 the shipwrecked sailor sees him stirring the sea by means of the storm wind.9 The earthquake comes from the blow of his fist,10 the smoking volcanoes have felt his touch.11 After the night he brings in the morn- ing,lQ and holds sway over the course of the stars.13 The regular return both of the seasons of the year with their gifts of harvest and of the comforting light of day after the dark of the night spring from the1 Pp. I 18f. above.
2 Judg. 5.20; Josh. xo.Iaf.
sIsa.35.1f.;43.20;44.23;49.13;55,72;Joe12.21f.;Pss.g6.11f.;g8.8.
4 Isa. 1.2; Jer. 2.12; 6.19; Micah 6.If.; Deut. 32.1.
5 Cf. vol. I, pp. 47gff.
1 Cf. the fragments of the Chaos conflict-myth cited on p. I 14 above.
2 Gen. 27.27; Ps. 65.7-14; Jer. 5.24; 10.13.
3 Pss. r47.8f.; 145.15f.; Job 38.3gff.
4 Gen. 26.12; 27.28; 49.25; Hos. 2.1off.; Ps. 107.35ff.
5 Amos 4.6ff.; Ps. Io7.33f., etc.
sGen. 15.5f.; 18.1off.; 25.21; 30.2, 8.
7 Pss. 22.Iof.; 90.3; 13g.I3ff.; Job 10.8-12; 31.15; Isa. 41.4; Mal. 2.10.
* I Kings 17.17f.; II Kings 20.3; Ps. 6.2ff., etc.: cf. Ps. 107.17f.
9 Ps. 107.23ff. ; Jonah 1.4.
lo Isa. g.7f.; Nahum 1.5; Job 9.6.
11 Pss. 144.5; 104.32.
12 Amos 5.8.
6 Hosea 2.20, 23f. ; Job 3 I .38; Ps. 65. rgf. 1s Job 9.7, g; Isa. 40.26; Ps. 147.4.
L A W I N T H E N A T U R A L P R O C E S S ‘53
‘54 THE M A I N T E N A N C E O F T H E W O R L D
paternal care of the Creator, who even after the judgment of the Deluge wills to preserve his creature.1 In everything his wonders may be discerned ;2 the pious soul, overleaping all intermediate causes, sees God forming the universe at every moment. This conception is strikingly expressed in the fact that the Hebrew language has no special word for the sustaining of the universe, but for both creation and preservation uses the verb b&xi’.3 It is hardly going too far to describe this Old Testament view of the maintenance of the world as n-e& continua.4 As opposed to similar expressions in Egyptian and Babylonian hymns, 5 the Old Testament statements naturally acquire a wholly new meaning through both the emphasis with which they are related to the one Creator God and the distinctive form of their idea of the Creator. Hence they give expression not only to the popu- lar faith of early Israel, but equally to the prophetic outlook on Nature, For it was plainly of great moment to the prophets to perceive God’s operation in Nature as closely and directly as in history.
I I. It is implicit in the peculiar character of this view of the natural order, which fixes wholly on the individual event and places it within the mighty interplay of divine and human action, that men should find it hard to arrive at a disinterested attitude to the life of Nature as a whole and to its basic laws. This state of affairs changes when jvattlre receives attention for its own sake as a work of God’s creating and ordering, the anthropocentric outlook thus making way for a cosmic one. This shift of standpoint is most strikingly worked out in the Priestly account of creation, in which the concept of the universe stands out as the domi- nating element. ‘In a systematically planned hierarchy the compo- nent parts of the world here fit together into the cosmic whole as so many realizations of the divine thought in creation.‘6 Man, too, fits into this cosmos as one part alongside the others-even if the most privileged part-and is given his allotted task.
1 Gen. 8.22.
2 Job 9.10; Ps. 107.24.
3 Ex. 34.10; Num. 16.30; Isa. 43.1, 15; 45.7; 48.7; 54.16; 57.19; 65.18; Ezek.
21.35; P&-51.12; 102.19; Eccles. 12.1.
4 As rightly suggested by G. F. Oehler, Theologie des A 13, 1891, p. 188. That the old-fashioned supranaturalism was able to discern in this, generally speaking, onlv the indirect operation of God, shows how far it had strayed from the biblicalI
idea of creation ; cf: E. Kijnig, Theologiez* 3, pp. 2o8f:.
5 Cf. G. RGder, Urkunden zur Religion des alten ADpten, 1923, pp. 7f.; 22; 62ff.;
A. Falkenstein and W. von Soden, Sumerische und akkadische Hymnen und Gebete, 1953, pp. 80 ; 241; 24gf. ; 254f.
6 P. Kleinert, ‘Die Naturanschauung des AT’, Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1898, p. 16.
LAW IN THE NATURAL PROCESS ‘ 5 5
(a) In accordance with what has been said earlier1 about the religious structure of the priesthood, and in particular about its predilection for the concept of regular order, it is readily under- standable that it should be precisely in these circles that attention should be paid to the independent life of the universe, and should lead to the formulation of ideas of this kind. By the same token the most important extant pieces of evidence for this view of Nature occur in hymnic poetry, which, even if not used directly for the purposes of the cultus, was nevertheless influenced by the stylistic forms there developed. Of these hymns Pss. 8, IgA and 29 ought probably to be regarded as older than Gen. I, while Pss. 104 and 148 belong rather to a later period. All these hymns are distinguished by the fact that they regard the marvellous life of Nature in itself, quite apart from Man, as a subject meriting enthusiastic description, and thus acquire an eye for the grand totality of the natural order. It is clear that what must have impressed the writers was the element of the unfailingly permanent, that which in spite of all flux and change possesses stability in itself and recurs in accordance with a regular system. It would seem, too, that foreign patterns from the hymnody of the ancient East contributed to this development2 by directing the atten- tion of the Israelite poets to a theme which originally was remote frdm their interests. Yet they were quick to bring the new subject-matter into line with Israelite feeling, and to permeate it with the spirit of the Yahwist faith. In Ps. 29 the individuality of early Israel is brought out most forcefully in the praise of the divine glory in the thunder- storm; while the other hymns display their sense of the overwhelming greatness, order and beauty of the cosmos, so far beyond Man’s power to grasp that they leave him only the response of wondering reverence, in their solemn contemplation of the regular course of the stars,3 the marvellous music of the spheres,4 the firm control of the forces of Nature which allows them to move only in accordance with
1 Vol. I, pp. 402ff.
2 In the case of Ps. 1g the model seems to have been an ancient hymn to the sun; Ps. rg may be compared with a hymn to the Babylonian storm-god Hadad (cf. M. Jastrow, Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriezs I, pp. 482f.), though one ought more probably to think in terms of a Canaanite Baa1 hymn, such as those suggested especially by Ugaritic parallels (cf. H. J. Kraus, Psalmen (Bibl. Kommentar Neu- kirchen. XV), 1959, ‘Erklgrung und Literaturangaben’, pp. 233ff.). In the case of Ps. 104 the influence, possibly indirect, of the famous Hymn to the Sun of Ikhnaton has been clearly established.
3 Pss. 8.4; 19.2, 5-7; 104.19; 148.3.
4 Ps. 19.3-5.
x56 T H E M A I N T E N A N C E O F T H E W O R L D
fixed ordinances,1 and the mysterious treasures in the great household of the natural2 world. In face of the immensity and power of these works of creation Man cannot but be aware of his own infinite little- ness, and bow himself in the dust.3
This cosmic outlook combines with the ancient Israelite view of Nature the constant reference of everything to the Creator as the origin and source of universal life. This is the point at which the ancient oriental models used by the hymn-writers underwent a de- cisive transformation. The personal will of the transcendent God deprives even the most impressive phenomena of Nature of indepen- dent significance, and makes them witnesses to the infinite power and wisdom of the one Lord. This is true even in the case of that most magnificent of all the products of Man’s contemplation of the universe in the ancient East, Ikhnaton’s Hymn to the Sun. There is no dis- puting the compelling power of this grandly conceived panorama of a world controlled by the goodness of God, in which every life, not simply that of Man, has its own autonomous necessity and justifica- tion. But the transcendence of the divine creative will, its essential difference from all intra-mundane powers, is obscured; and there is therefore no possibility of Man’s arriving at a real spiritual fellowship with this divine sustainer of the world in a relationship of moral responsibility and decision, and the ethical contrast which bursts from the singer at the end of Ps. 1044 remains beyond its ken.
Nevertheless the relationship between God and the world en- visaged in this cosmic view of Nature also exhibits a significant dif- ference from the popular outlook as developed by the prophets, in that it understands God’s sovereignty incomparably more emphatically as something indirect, exercised through the operation of forces established once for all and guided in predetermined courses. The vision of an articulated universe, with its multiplicity of interacting and yet systematically coherent events, inevitably opened men’s eyes to the stability of great complexes, and thus made them more or less clearly conscious of the rule of definite ordinances and laws in the cosmos.
(6) Various passages indicate that this awakening vision of the world did not remain a matter of no importance, but extended its influence into other spheres of thought. If the text already mentioned,
1 Pss. 104.9; 148.6.
2 Pss. 104.2ff., 25ff.; 148.7ff.
3 Ps. 8.5; cf. Isa. 40.15, 17; Job 38.4ff.
4 Ps. 104.35.
L A W I N T H E N A T U R A L P R O C E S S ‘57 the Yahwist primal history, in its account of God’s fresh initiative of grace to the earth after the Flood echoes the elevated language of the hymn,1 its scope after all extends far beyond the immediate effects of the Deluge, giving praise for the constancy of the seasons as the great fundamental ordinances of life. It is, in fact, only the insertion of this proclamation of permanent universal laws into its present context which prevents its objectivity from becoming absolute, and makes it instead an expression of the divine care for Man.2 The eschatological covenant with the animals in Hosea,s which undoubtedly pre- supposes a covenant made at the beginning of Time, should be under- stood not as an attempt to explain the regularity of natural pheno- mena but quite certainly at a much more primitive level as an explanation of the distinctive character of the animals.5 By contrast, from the time ofjeremiah onwards, a remarkable openness to regularity in the order of Nature is discernible. It is as though amid the storms which led to the shattering of the State and brought insecurity into every situation of life reflective thought had become especially sensi- tive to the serene uniformity of the economy of Nature. Thus Jere- miah praises the &&t &ir, the settled ordinances of harvest, constituted by the regular cycle of autumnal and spring rains, as a special gift of Yahweh’s goodness,6 and points the erratic and unstable people to the punctuality with which the migratory birds arrive and depart.7 Indeed, he even compares his God’s unshakable disposition of love to the eternal ordinances, &kirn, revealed in the courses of the stars and in the movement of the sea.8 The prophet already sees the divine cosmic order as possessing such autonomy that not only can he apply to it the same word as was used for the statutes of the Israelite covenant order, but he even contrasts it as a self-contained totality .with the standards by which the world of men is governed, and claims it as a guarantee that the divine sovereignty will also be implemented in human history. In this way the popular parallel drawn between Nature and the life of mankind is raised from the level of a na’ive and arbitrary connection to that of a relationship, the necessity of which
1 Gen. 8.22.
2 Procksch (Die Genesis 2~ 3, p. 70) would seem to feel that the thought-content of this element in the narrative is not purely that of the Yahwist.
3 Hos. 2.18 (MT 2.20).
4 So Gressmann, Der Ursprung der israelitisch-jiidischen Eschatologie, rgo5, p. 206.
5 Eichrodt, Die Ho$tzung des ewigen Friedem, 1920, pp. 8gf.
6 Jer. 5.24.
‘.Ter. 8.7.
8 jer. 3 ;.35f.
158 T H E M A I N T E N A N C E O F T H E W O R L D
is inherent in the essential nature of twb realms supported by the same sovereign will.
(c) It is no mere coincidence that Jeremiah’s occasional use of the cosmic element in his preaching should be in line with that clear grasp of the cosmos as an organism with laws proper to its own life which characterizes the Priestly account
of
Creation in Gen. I. Here not only are Nature’and Man seen as endowed with permanent capacities, not only are complementarity and mutual service brought out as a law of the universe in the purposefully interacting works of creation, but a clear distinction is also made between the origin and the con- tinuance of the world, between creation and preservation, by con- cluding the Creation with the day of rest.1 This results, m.oreover, in the formulation of a concept of great theological importance, namely that of tiie constanc~yof
the divine creative will. By conferring on the work of his hands a life of its own the Creator stamps it, as it were, with the seal of his own approval, and raises it above the level of a worthless and ephemeral formation to that of a permanent existence. The creation is not merely a game of caprice, something which might equally well disappear again without trace, a divine fantasy, as in the Indian conception, but possesses a God-given right to existence in itself. Thus God’s creative act is confirmed as the operation of a constant, purposeful will.Quite clearly this conception is it the #mite pole
from
the heathen world-view. In the latter the attitude of the deity to the world is always incalculable and capricious. This stands out especially sharply if we compare the biblical and Babylonian sagas of the Flood. Among the Babylonians the reason for the cataclysm is the baseless rage of a god against the creation, in face of which even the celestial world is shaken. The only thing that prevents the annihilation of the created order is the superior cunning of another god. The biblical conception, on the other hand, sees in the Deluge precisely the means by which the divine plan in creation is brought to fulfilment. There is no question of an attack on the order of the universe, the cosmos: God’s judicial action is directed against Man alone.It is equally clear, however, that any idea of a regularity in Nature such as formed the basis of the ancient belief in Fate is rejected. In this belief Fate is greater than the gods. An incomprehensible but regular mechanism directs the continued existence of the world in order finally to guide it to its dissolution. By contrast the thought of
1 Gen. 2.1-3.
L A W I N T H E N A T U R A L P R O C E S S 159 the Old Testament believer penetrates to the idea of a divine founder of the natural order, who uses it to attain his own cosmic purpose, and, of course, remains at all times superior t6 it.
(d) This cosmic view of Nature exercises its strongest influence in Deutem-Isaiah. He not only sets the glory of the work of creation before the eyes of his people as a proof of the incomparable superiority of the power of the God of Israel to that of the gods of the heathen,1 but also sees in that work an actual source of revelation, on which faith in God’s power and will to redeem can feed.2 For the Lord from whose control none of the countless glittering stars dares withdraw itself, and before whom the human race appear as grasshoppers and the mightiest nations as a drop in a bucket is also he whose righteous- ness brings all creatures within the scope of his covenant grace, and ushers in the new world in which salvation is fulfilled.3 It is this which enables the prophet to take as the subject of his hymn precisely the solid, objective reality and magnitude of the marvellous system and purpose in the events of Nature. Nevertheless Deutero-Isaiah does not abandon the old idiom which spoke of God’s direct operation in the events of Nature, but here, too, shows himself the inheritor of a great past, a thinker who knows how to synthetize opposing in- sights.4
The fertilizing and liberating effect of this new world-view on religious belief is shown by the willingness of the prophets to intro- duce references to the natural order and its uniformity. Side by side with fragments of liturgical hymns5 occur more stereotyped turns of phrase which in the manner of Deutero-Isaiah employ the greatness of the creation in polemical argument against the makers of idols, or use it to encourage the pious. 6 Another distinctive conception is the mention of a berit of Yahweh with day and night, the firmness of which promises to the covenant with David an analogous continu- ance.’ In fact, the same section even speaks of &&6t S&myim way&es laws embracing heaven and earth, a phrase which makes it seem that the writer had arrived at something very like our own cnnception of
1 Isa. 40.15ff., 22.
2 Isa. 40.26.
3 Cf. vol. I, pp. 246f.
4 Isa. 41.18ff.; 43.1gf.3 44.3; 48.21; 4g.xof.; 50.2. For Nature as sharing re-
jOkingly in Israel’s redemption cf. 42. IO-I 2 ; 44.23; 49.13.
5 To this category certainly belong the three passages in Amos: 4.13; 5.8; g.5f.
Cf. F. Horst, ‘Die Doxologien im Amosbuch’, &4 W 1929, pp. 45ff.
SCf. Jer. Io.12f.; 32.17.
7 Jer. 33.20.