Some Highlights From Emerson's "Nature"

Emerson's "Nature" is one of those works that I have a hard time not underlining the whole thing, so it's very hard to pick out "highlights." But since I have been thinking about the theology of everything via Jonathan Edwards lately, I decided to pick out some aspects of the essay that relate to that.

Emerson says, "the use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history."

He offers a very holistic approach to nature; nature is spiritual and symbolic. There are no detached caveats or exceptions to the rule. Everything in nature tells a story or speaks of something else, something spiritual.

Jonathan Edwards likewise had 220 notes ("Images of Divine Things") in which he explained explicitly how various things teach us spiritual lessons about Christ. Emerson does the same. Of course, he is not the same sort of Christ-centered theologian that Edwards is, but nevertheless he establishes precisely the same framework and presupposition for seeing and savoring the spirituality of nature.

"All things with which we deal, preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun, — it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields. But the sailor, the shepherd, the miner, the merchant, in their several resorts, have each an experience precisely parallel, and leading to the same conclusion: because all organizations are radically alike."

Here, I think that Emerson is absolutely right. The reason farms, cars, tables, coffee, oranges, clouds, houses, bridges, and everything else in nature are in existence is to preach the Gospel to us.

Paul is clear on this too; God's invisible attributes are seen in the things that are created. Paul is so strong on this that he says that mankind is without excuse in their rejection of God because of "the things that have been made", namely, nature.

Read "Nature." It will bring joy to your soul.

"The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship."