power and ability; he imprinted this power on it. God’s only role [now] is
to maintain nature’s productive power and ability and keep them from
failing. Therefore these days everything in the world that comes about and
is produced or reproduced is attributed to nature.”
I replied that nature of itself does nothing; it is God who produces
things through nature. They asked me to prove it. So I said, “People who
believe that the Divine is at work in every detail of nature find support
for a belief in God in many of the phenomena they observe in the world.
They find much more evidence to support a belief in God than to sup-
port a belief in nature.
[ 2 ] “Those who see evidence of God at work in the details of nature
ponder the obvious yet astounding phenomena in the reproduction of
plants and animals.
“In the reproduction of plants,a tiny seed is put in the ground, and a
root comes out. Up through the root comes a stem, and then in succes-
sion come branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, and fruit, leading to new seeds,
completely as if the seed knew the sequence of events or procedure to fol-
low in order to create itself anew! What rational person could think that
the sun, which is nothing but fire, knows how to achieve this? Or that the
sun can empower its heat and light to bring about these developments? Is
the sun capable of intending to be useful? Those with an elevated rational
mind, when they see and consider these phenomena in the proper light,
cannot help but think that these phenomena come from One whose wis-
dom is infinite—namely, God. Others as well who do recognize the
divine handiwork in the details of nature find additional support for their
belief in these phenomena.
“On the other hand, those who do not acknowledge that God is at
work in nature move the eyes of their reason to the back of their heads
rather than the front when looking at these phenomena. They are the
type who derive every idea of their thought process from their bodily
senses, and let themselves be convinced by false sensory evidence, saying,
‘You seethe sun producing all these changes through its heat and light,
don’t you? What is a thing you can’t even see?Is it in fact anything at all?’
[ 3 ] “People who are strengthening their belief in the Divine take note
of the astounding things they see in the reproduction of animals:Here I
should first mention eggs as an example. In the seed of an egg there is a
potential chick, together with everything required for its formation and
for every stage it will go through after hatching until it becomes a bird
just like its mother.
singke
(singke)
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