Proverbs 6:6-8
Go to the ant, O sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.
Without having any chief,
officer or ruler,
she prepares her food in summer,
and gathers her sustenance in harvest.
An ancient Israelite, looking at nature, asked very different sorts of questions than we ask today. Our minds are dominated by the scientific outlook. As heirs to the Greco-Roman/Christian/Enlightenment/Modern Secular Tradition, when we look at nature we are seeing it through lenses with names like “zoology”, “biology”, and “entymology”. The main questions that drive our culture are focused on How, What and When. That’s why, when both fundamentalists and atheists read the book of Genesis they get into arguments about whether it is good or bad science. What never occurs to either party is the question, “Were ancient Israelites interested in science at all? Were they asking How, What and When questions?” If we did think to ask the question we would find, to our surprise, that the answer is, “No.” Rather, the questions that dominate the minds of the Old Testament writers are Who and Why? And so, when the Old Testament writers look at an ant, they see not “organisms” performing “behaviors” but creatures acting according to the purpose of the Wise Designer. Moreover, they see that “Brother Ant” (as St. Francis would have called him) is not just a thing for dissection but a work of art to be admired and even a tiny six-legged sacramental given us by God who orders all things ultimately for our good. For God is more than merely our Wise Designer. He is our Father.
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