Symbols Sown in God's Garden

And night to night reveals knowledge.

Psalm 18:3b

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The real truth of the world lies in the confluence of what is and what is perceived. When we see the sun rising in the sky, we do not feel the incessant need to remind ourselves that the sun is actually still and the earth is in motion- we simply experience the sun as rising, peeking up over the horizon and lifting into the sky. So if we ask the question, does the sun rise or does it stand still? Which is true? We could perhaps say it is both- one is how the object of the sun exists unto itself, the other is how the sun is made real in our perception. Knowledge and experience, although differing in this case, don't cause dissonance because both reflect the same truth from two perspectives. All of reality necessarily has these same two perspectives: objective and subjective; the observed and the observer. The world we experience, the reality experienced by all, is always that of the observer.

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Just as we experience a seen reality, the symbols written in creation are found in the world as it appears; they are made up of things seen. Scripture addresses the world through this lens: Genesis 1:6 says that God 'separated the waters' into the sky above and the sea below, not because the sky is water in a literal sense, but it appears to us as an ocean, a vast expanse of deep blue with creatures gliding across it's surface. The moon is called 'the lesser light to rule the night,' because it is the brightest light on the darkened canvas, ruler over the stars in the far-off heavens. Each of these express something of the invisible world, even God Himself. They are the seeds of symbols sown throughout creation to be grown up by the Life Giving Spirit in the mind of man.

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If in nature these symbols are sown, it is the work mankind to reap their bounty forever. To uncover these symbols, God has formed man in His image to imitate Him as a creator, but while God creates out of nothing, man creates out of the world given to him. He is to reshape the fallen world to once again reflect God, tending to the thoughts of God in creation as a gardener tends to the soil.

(Part 3 of 3)