Sunday, May 1, 2011

Lessons from a Snowflake




Of all the wonders in the world, sometimes the simplest things can teach us the most profound lessons. Consider the lowly snowflake. Simplicity, beauty, and unfathomable mystery all crystallized in a few molecules of water. What can it teach us?





Lesson #1:

The world is not a passing illusion derived from random purposeless events.

In a single snowflake there is order, harmony, and directedness that reveals the intelligence and purpose behind every existing thing. The feeling that life is chaotic and meaningless that is frequently communicated in modern art, music, and philosophy is a sign that far too many people have missed this lesson. Their lives may be chaotic and out of control, but the universe is not that way.

Lesson #2.

The world is not a machine in which everything is rigidly determined by impersonal forces and laws.

If determinism and fatalism were true, then every snowflake would be exactly the same. There are of course, certain natural laws that maintain limits on how snowflakes can be formed. But within those boundaries there is unlimited freedom for each snowflake to be uniquely what it is and never to be repeated in any other. If there is freedom and individuality at the simplest physical level in nature, how much greater is the uniqueness of every human being. One of the great lies of modernity is that we are just the products of our genetics and the environment. Don’t you believe it.

Lesson #3.

If the world was either pure chaos or rigidly determined there would be no wonder and there would be no joy.

Wonder is the experience of seeking understanding in a world in which everything cannot be fully explained. In a chaotic world nothing can be explained. In a mechanical world everything can be explained. This is a wonderful world which we can partly understand, but which always retains its mystery. Joy is not found in confusion, nor is it found in cold hard facts. Joy is found in knowing the mystery.

Lesson #4.

People who have learned these lessons know that there is a God. There can be no other explanation for the world as it actually exists.

Atheists live in a world of their own creating. It is either chaotic which leads to the nihilism of the west. Or it is deterministic which produces the totalitarianism of the east. These two points of view miss the reality that the other sees. They cancel each other out and cannot be true. The real world is a world of faith, hope, and joy. This is the world created by Love itself.




Photo: SnowCrystals.com

1 comment:

  1. There are many more lessons we can learn from nature:

    "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these."
    (Luke 12: 27)

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