TAKE A QUIZ ON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT NATURE

How can we protect our environment if we don’t properly understand it?

Test what misconceptions you have accepted about God’s creation by answering these True or False questions:

  1. The balance of nature shows the harmony of the original creation. T or F?

  2. The food chain is one of the basic building blocks of God's creation. T or F?

  3. Our environmental problems are primarily due to the fact that people are no longer are behaving like a part of nature. T or F?

  4. To preserve the last remnants of the garden God created, we should work to protect wilderness areas. T or F?

  5. Each religious tradition is valuable for the wisdom it contributes to enable us to heal the land. T or F?

  6. Through education, programs to help the poor, and laws to prevent the misuse of the environment, we can help to save the planet. T or F?

ANSWERS

  1. False - Nature is what the good creation looks like after suffering under the curse for 6000 years.  Nature is not progressing through evolution, it has been deteriorating from its original orderliness.  We see fertile land becoming dry and unproductive, diseases being created through viral mutations and diversity being reduced due to extinctions, not all of which are caused by man.  (See Chapter 8)
  2. False - The food chain is based on the strong eating the weak for survival.  Even though this is the way the world is today, we need not assume that this was the way that it was prior to the Fall and its curse.  In the beginning, God gave every creature the green plants as their food, not each other. (Genesis 1:30)  It misrepresents the character of God to suggest that he was only able to provide for his creatures by having them stalk and kill one another.  Suffering and death were not introduced into the world until Adam sinned.  (See Chapter 9)
  3. False - The Bible teaches that man is the caretaker of the creation, not simply a part of it.  Our relationship to the creation is presented as tenants in God's vineyard.  Both Peter & Jude warn us against those who would have us think like just another one of the animals. (2 Peter 2:12 & Jude 10, 19)  (See Chapter 15)
  4. False - Due to changes that were brought on by the Fall and its Curse, the conditions that were present in the Garden no longer exist on earth.   While it is important to not waste what God has given us, the "undisturbed" wilderness where creatures dwell in the absence of man are not lush peaceful islands of Eden for God’s creatures.  (See Chapter 9)
  5. False - The Bible teaches that God’s instructions concerning the steps necessary to “heal the land” in 1 Chronicles 7:14 can only be put to use by those God recognizes as his own, “my people, who are called by my name.”  Therefore, if you are truly concerned about the environment and want to do something to help, the first thing that you need to do is to get right with the God of the Bible.  Only then will you have the right to ask God to heal our land, as he promised. (See Chapter 17)
  6. False -  It is presumptuous to think that we can save anything under our own power.  Education and laws will not change man's sinful nature, and no amount of charity will prevent us from having the poor among us. (John 12:8)  These are all ideas that our culture promotes to make use of the inherent "goodness" they believe is in man's heart.  We can slow the rate we are degrading the earth, but it is Christ revealing the "children of God" that the creation eagerly awaits. (Romans 8:21)  (See Chapter 7)

From “Nature God’s Groaning Creation”                healingtheland.org