Different ages have taken different views. These grow out of their understanding of the relationship between God and the natural world. In turn, that understanding is closely related to our understanding of the relationship between humanity and the natural world.
This table is an over-simplification, but expresses some of the most important ideas around.
| Understanding of God and Natural World | Understanding of Humanity and Natural World |
| The pre-industrial age | |
|
God as the all powerful ruler. Often his power is expressed in the violence of nature, in storms, winds and thunder. At the same time, his love is expressed through the regularity of the seasons, the gift of harvest and the abundance of the natural world. |
Humanity is at the mercy of forces it neither understands nor controls. God is placated by religious observances, asking him to with-hold the harmful and give us the gift of the beneficent. |
| The industrial view | |
|
God is the great clockmaker who set the Universe up and devised the laws of its operation. But after his initial act of creation, he is now withdrawn and events in the natural world follow predictable courses governed by precise quantitative physical laws. The motions of the planets are the most spectacular example: all that apparent complexity is reduced to Newton's three laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. |
Humanity is a detached observer, looking at the natural world from outside, and sometimes devising experiments to test hypotheses of how it works. At a practical level, nature is a resource to be exploited for humanity's benefit. Humanity's treatment of nature is governed by the laws of the market. Humanity is seen as having received "dominion" of nature from God, or perhaps "stewardship", holding God's creation in trust, until God decides to re-involve himself. |
| The modern view | |
|
God is understood as working in nature, not reposing outside it. Creation is an act continually happening, not just a one off prime move. A trinitarian understanding sees God not only as creator, but also as redeemer and sustainer, continually involved in creation. |
The quantum and relativistic revolutions in physics were founded on abolishing the "detached observer". Humanity is part of nature, and the act of observation changes the thing observed. In ecology, humanity is seen to be as much part of the ecosystem as any other part, participating in and depending upon the whole. |
| The post-modern view | |
|
"God" is a social construct, whose purpose is to consolidate power. In fact, no "meta-narratives", no big stories of explanation are valid. Human society is the only reality. |
"Science" is a social construct, whose purpose is to consolidate and extend power. In fact, the "meta-narratives", the stories of scientific explanation have no validity except as expressions of social consciousness. Human society is the only reality |
