Nature
VIEW:24 DATA:01-04-2020
NATURE.The term nature is not used in the OT. nor was the conception current in Hebrew thought, as God alone is seen in all, through all, and over all. The idea came from the word physis from Hellenism. Swines flesh is commended for food as a gift of nature in 4Ma_5:7. In the NT the term is used in various senses: (1) the forces, laws, and order of the world, including man (Rom_1:26; Rom_11:21; Rom_11:24, Gal_4:8); (2) the inborn sense of propriety or morality (1Co_11:14, Rom_2:14); (3) birth or physical origin (Gal_2:15, Rom_2:27); (4) the sum of characteristics of a species or person, human (Jam_3:7), or Divine (2Pe_1:4); (5) a condition acquired or inherited (Eph_2:3, by nature children of wrath). What is contrary to nature is condemned. While the term is not found or the conception made explicit in the OT, Schultz (OT Theol. ii. 74) finds in the Law the general rule that nothing is to be permitted contrary to the delicate sense of the inviolable proprieties of nature, and gives a number of instances (Exo_23:19; Exo_34:26, Lev_22:28; Lev_19:19, Deu_22:9-11, Lev_10:9; Lev_19:28; Lev_21:5; Lev_22:24, Deu_14:1; Deu_23:2). The beauty and the order of the world are recognized as evidences of Divine wisdom and power (Psa_8:1; Psa_19:1; Psa_33:6-7; Psa_90:2; Psa_104:1-35; Psa_136:6 ff., Psa_147:1-20, Pro_8:22-30, Job_38:1-41; Job_39:1-30); but the sum of created things is not hypostatized and personified apart from God, as in much current modern thinking. God is Creator, Preserver, and Ruler: He makes all (Isa_44:24, Amo_4:13), and is in all (Psa_139:1-24). His immanence is by His Spirit (Gen_1:2). Jesus recognizes Gods bounty and care in the flowers of the field and the birds of the air (Mat_6:26; Mat_6:28); He uses natural processes to illustrate spiritual, in salt (Mat_5:13), seed and soil (Mat_13:3-9), and leaven (Mat_13:33). The growth of the seed is also used as an illustration by Paul (1Co_15:37-38). There is in the Bible no interest in nature apart from God, and the problem of the relation of God to nature has not yet risen on the horizon of the thought of the writers.
Alfred E. Garvie.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
In Scripture the word nature expresses the orderly and usual course of things established in the world. St. Paul says, to ingraft a good olive tree into a wild olive is contrary to nature, Rom_11:24; the customary order of nature is thereby in some measure inverted. Nature is also put for natural descent: We who are Jews by nature, by birth, and not Gentiles, Gal_2:15. We were by nature the children of wrath, Eph_2:3. Nature also denotes common sense, natural instinct: Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame to him? 1Co_11:14.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
By Gods appointment, human beings are the earthly rulers of the created world. From the beginning Gods intention was that as they brought the physical world under their control, nature would enter into fuller glory and people would enter into greater blessing (Gen_1:28). Natures destiny was tied up with that of the human race. Therefore, when Adam and Eve sinned and brought suffering upon themselves, nature also suffered (Gen_3:17-18; Rom_8:20; Rom_8:22). Only when a redeemed humanity enters its full glory will nature enter its full glory (Rom_8:19-23).
Different attitudes to nature
People who do not believe in God may not agree with the Christian that the human race has authority over nature. They may consider that men and women have no more rights than animals, plants, or even lifeless things such as minerals. As a result they may worship rocks or trees, and sometimes may treat animals better than they treat people. The outcome of their belief is not that they raise nature to the level of humans, but that they lower humans to the level of the animals (Rom_1:20-25).
Gods people, while not giving animals, plants and minerals a higher place than God intended for them, should nevertheless realize that these things have a place and purpose in Gods order. This was demonstrated in the law God gave to ancient Israel. He allowed his people to plant trees for fruit or to clear forests to establish settlements (Lev_19:23-25; Jos_17:18), but he did not allow them to chop down trees unnecessarily. People could not destroy forests and orchards simply to use the trees for building siegeworks. They were to use only those trees that were not useful for anything else (Deu_20:19-20).
Likewise God taught his people to be kind to animals. They were to give proper food and rest to the animals that worked for them, and were not to use their animals in any way that could be considered cruel (Deu_5:14; Deu_22:10; Deu_25:4). In killing animals they were not to be heartless or thoughtless. They had to consider the animals instincts and feelings, and remember the need to maintain the balance of nature (Exo_23:19 b; Lev_22:28; Deu_22:6-7). In particular they had to acknowledge that God was the owner of all life, and that they could take the life of an animal only by his permission (Lev_17:13-14; Deu_12:15-16; Deu_12:23-24; Psa_50:10-11; see BLOOD).
Responsibility to God
Although given authority over nature, people are not to treat nature according to their own selfish desires. They do not have unlimited right over nature, for they are merely the representative of God in administering what God has entrusted to them. God is the owner of nature (Psa_24:1-2; see CREATION), and people are answerable to God for the way they treat it (Gen_2:15; Psa_8:6-8).
According to the gracious permission given them by God, people may use nature for their own benefit. God allows them to take minerals from the earth, to enjoy the fruits of plant life, to cut down trees to build houses, to eat the meat of animals, and to kill insects and animals that threaten their lives (Deu_8:7-10; Deu_12:15; Jos_6:21). But God does not give them the right to desolate the land solely for monetary gain, or destroy life solely for personal pleasure. Their attitude to nature should be a reflection of the care over nature that the Creator himself exercises (Psa_104:10-30; Mat_6:25-30; Mat_10:29).
God gave specific laws to the people of Israel concerning their attitude to nature in the matter of farming. He told them to rest their land one year in seven. If they failed to, he would force them to rest it by driving them from it (Lev_25:3-7; Lev_26:34-35; Lev_26:43; see SABBATICAL YEAR). God assured the Israelites that he would use nature as a means of blessing them when they obeyed him, but of punishing them when they disobeyed him (Deu_11:13-17; Deu_28:1-24; 2Ch_7:14).
It seems that God so created the natural world that, when people act towards it without restraint, they help bring ruin to it and to themselves (Isa_24:5-6). Christians know that human sin affected nature from the time of the rebellion in Eden (Gen_3:17-19), but they know also that when they are finally delivered from the effects of sin, nature also will be delivered (Rom_8:19-23).
In their personal lives Christians work towards the goal of their deliverance from the consequences of sin. They should work towards similar deliverance in all things affected by sin. Not only should they purify themselves because of the likeness they will one day bear to Christ, but they should also help towards the healing of nature in view of the full glory God has planned for it (Php_3:20-21; Tit_2:11-14; 1Jn_3:2-3).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
See NATURAL, NATURE.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Nature
I. New.-Test. Usage of the Word. In Jam_1:23; Jam_3:6, the Greek is γένεσις,-έως; elsewhere, as Rom_1:26, φύσις. It is variously used for,
1. the laws of the natural or moral world (Rom_1:26; Rom_2:14; Rom_11:21; Rom_11:24).
2. Birth, origin, or natural descent: "Jews by nature" (Gal_2:15; Rom_2:27); "Which by nature are no gods" (Gal_4:8).
3. Genus, kind: "For every kind (marg. 'nature') of beasts," etc., "is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind" (marg. "nature of nman" [Jam_3:4]).
4. The native mode of thinking, feeling, acting, as unenlightened and unsanctified by the, Holy Spirit: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God" (1Co_2:14; comp. Eph_2:3).
5. Nature also denotes a customary sense of propriety: "Doth not nature itself teach you that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?" (1Co_11:14). It was the national custom among both the Hebrews and Greeks for men to wear the hair short.
II. Philosophical Import of the Word. "The term nature is used sometimes in a wider, sometimes in a narrower extension. When employed in its most.extensive meaning, it embraces the two worlds of mind and matter. When employed in its more restricted signification, it is a synonvme for the latter only, and is then used in contradistinction to the former. In the Greek philosophy, the word φύσις was general in its meaning; and the great branch of philosophy, styled 'physical or physiological,' included under it not only the sciences of matter, but also those of mind. With us, the term nature is more vaguely extensive than the terms physics, physical, physiology, physiological or even than the adjective natural; whereas, in the philosophy of Germany, natur and its correlatives, whether of Greek or Latin derivation, are in general expressive of the world of matter in contrast to the world of intelligence" (Sir W. Hamilton. Reid's Works, page 216, note).
"The word nature has been used in two senses, viz., actively and passively; energetic (=forma formans), and material (=forma formata). In the first it signifies the inward principle of whatever is requisite for the reality of a thing as existent; while the essence, or essential property, signifies the inner principle of all that appertains to the possibility of a thing. Hence, in accurate language, we say the essence of a mathematical circle or geometrical figure, not the nature, because in the conception of forms, purely geometrical, there is no expression or implication of their real existence. In the second or material sense of the word nature, we mean by it the sum total of all things, as far as they are objects of our senses, and consequently of possible experience the aggregate of phenomena, whether existing'for our outer senses or for our inner sense. The doctrine concerning nature would therefore (the word physiology being both ambiguous in itself, and already otherwise appropriated) be more properly entitled phenomenology, distinguished into its two grand divisions, somatology and psychology" (Coleridge, Friend, page 410).
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
Alfred E. Garvie.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
In Scripture the word nature expresses the orderly and usual course of things established in the world. St. Paul says, to ingraft a good olive tree into a wild olive is contrary to nature, Rom_11:24; the customary order of nature is thereby in some measure inverted. Nature is also put for natural descent: We who are Jews by nature, by birth, and not Gentiles, Gal_2:15. We were by nature the children of wrath, Eph_2:3. Nature also denotes common sense, natural instinct: Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame to him? 1Co_11:14.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
By Gods appointment, human beings are the earthly rulers of the created world. From the beginning Gods intention was that as they brought the physical world under their control, nature would enter into fuller glory and people would enter into greater blessing (Gen_1:28). Natures destiny was tied up with that of the human race. Therefore, when Adam and Eve sinned and brought suffering upon themselves, nature also suffered (Gen_3:17-18; Rom_8:20; Rom_8:22). Only when a redeemed humanity enters its full glory will nature enter its full glory (Rom_8:19-23).
Different attitudes to nature
People who do not believe in God may not agree with the Christian that the human race has authority over nature. They may consider that men and women have no more rights than animals, plants, or even lifeless things such as minerals. As a result they may worship rocks or trees, and sometimes may treat animals better than they treat people. The outcome of their belief is not that they raise nature to the level of humans, but that they lower humans to the level of the animals (Rom_1:20-25).
Gods people, while not giving animals, plants and minerals a higher place than God intended for them, should nevertheless realize that these things have a place and purpose in Gods order. This was demonstrated in the law God gave to ancient Israel. He allowed his people to plant trees for fruit or to clear forests to establish settlements (Lev_19:23-25; Jos_17:18), but he did not allow them to chop down trees unnecessarily. People could not destroy forests and orchards simply to use the trees for building siegeworks. They were to use only those trees that were not useful for anything else (Deu_20:19-20).
Likewise God taught his people to be kind to animals. They were to give proper food and rest to the animals that worked for them, and were not to use their animals in any way that could be considered cruel (Deu_5:14; Deu_22:10; Deu_25:4). In killing animals they were not to be heartless or thoughtless. They had to consider the animals instincts and feelings, and remember the need to maintain the balance of nature (Exo_23:19 b; Lev_22:28; Deu_22:6-7). In particular they had to acknowledge that God was the owner of all life, and that they could take the life of an animal only by his permission (Lev_17:13-14; Deu_12:15-16; Deu_12:23-24; Psa_50:10-11; see BLOOD).
Responsibility to God
Although given authority over nature, people are not to treat nature according to their own selfish desires. They do not have unlimited right over nature, for they are merely the representative of God in administering what God has entrusted to them. God is the owner of nature (Psa_24:1-2; see CREATION), and people are answerable to God for the way they treat it (Gen_2:15; Psa_8:6-8).
According to the gracious permission given them by God, people may use nature for their own benefit. God allows them to take minerals from the earth, to enjoy the fruits of plant life, to cut down trees to build houses, to eat the meat of animals, and to kill insects and animals that threaten their lives (Deu_8:7-10; Deu_12:15; Jos_6:21). But God does not give them the right to desolate the land solely for monetary gain, or destroy life solely for personal pleasure. Their attitude to nature should be a reflection of the care over nature that the Creator himself exercises (Psa_104:10-30; Mat_6:25-30; Mat_10:29).
God gave specific laws to the people of Israel concerning their attitude to nature in the matter of farming. He told them to rest their land one year in seven. If they failed to, he would force them to rest it by driving them from it (Lev_25:3-7; Lev_26:34-35; Lev_26:43; see SABBATICAL YEAR). God assured the Israelites that he would use nature as a means of blessing them when they obeyed him, but of punishing them when they disobeyed him (Deu_11:13-17; Deu_28:1-24; 2Ch_7:14).
It seems that God so created the natural world that, when people act towards it without restraint, they help bring ruin to it and to themselves (Isa_24:5-6). Christians know that human sin affected nature from the time of the rebellion in Eden (Gen_3:17-19), but they know also that when they are finally delivered from the effects of sin, nature also will be delivered (Rom_8:19-23).
In their personal lives Christians work towards the goal of their deliverance from the consequences of sin. They should work towards similar deliverance in all things affected by sin. Not only should they purify themselves because of the likeness they will one day bear to Christ, but they should also help towards the healing of nature in view of the full glory God has planned for it (Php_3:20-21; Tit_2:11-14; 1Jn_3:2-3).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
See NATURAL, NATURE.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Nature
I. New.-Test. Usage of the Word. In Jam_1:23; Jam_3:6, the Greek is γένεσις,-έως; elsewhere, as Rom_1:26, φύσις. It is variously used for,
1. the laws of the natural or moral world (Rom_1:26; Rom_2:14; Rom_11:21; Rom_11:24).
2. Birth, origin, or natural descent: "Jews by nature" (Gal_2:15; Rom_2:27); "Which by nature are no gods" (Gal_4:8).
3. Genus, kind: "For every kind (marg. 'nature') of beasts," etc., "is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind" (marg. "nature of nman" [Jam_3:4]).
4. The native mode of thinking, feeling, acting, as unenlightened and unsanctified by the, Holy Spirit: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God" (1Co_2:14; comp. Eph_2:3).
5. Nature also denotes a customary sense of propriety: "Doth not nature itself teach you that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?" (1Co_11:14). It was the national custom among both the Hebrews and Greeks for men to wear the hair short.
II. Philosophical Import of the Word. "The term nature is used sometimes in a wider, sometimes in a narrower extension. When employed in its most.extensive meaning, it embraces the two worlds of mind and matter. When employed in its more restricted signification, it is a synonvme for the latter only, and is then used in contradistinction to the former. In the Greek philosophy, the word φύσις was general in its meaning; and the great branch of philosophy, styled 'physical or physiological,' included under it not only the sciences of matter, but also those of mind. With us, the term nature is more vaguely extensive than the terms physics, physical, physiology, physiological or even than the adjective natural; whereas, in the philosophy of Germany, natur and its correlatives, whether of Greek or Latin derivation, are in general expressive of the world of matter in contrast to the world of intelligence" (Sir W. Hamilton. Reid's Works, page 216, note).
"The word nature has been used in two senses, viz., actively and passively; energetic (=forma formans), and material (=forma formata). In the first it signifies the inward principle of whatever is requisite for the reality of a thing as existent; while the essence, or essential property, signifies the inner principle of all that appertains to the possibility of a thing. Hence, in accurate language, we say the essence of a mathematical circle or geometrical figure, not the nature, because in the conception of forms, purely geometrical, there is no expression or implication of their real existence. In the second or material sense of the word nature, we mean by it the sum total of all things, as far as they are objects of our senses, and consequently of possible experience the aggregate of phenomena, whether existing'for our outer senses or for our inner sense. The doctrine concerning nature would therefore (the word physiology being both ambiguous in itself, and already otherwise appropriated) be more properly entitled phenomenology, distinguished into its two grand divisions, somatology and psychology" (Coleridge, Friend, page 410).
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
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