Today in my biology class, a discussion came up about a 21-foot-long crocodile that had been found in the Philippines. At some point during the conversation, Dr. Noble made a comment about how man has the idea that we are big and all-powerful, but when you start to look at some of the wildlife, the other things out there, you get an idea of how small you really are. As I was re-reading “An Essay on Man”, this thought popped back up a few times.
In line 20, it begins by talking about how small man is in comparison to God. We can not see anything by what is right in front of us, but God sees everything. We tend to see this as a flaw. We are not perfect. We don’t have the ability to know everything. In line 70, however, Pope argues that humans are as perfect as we should be. We were not created to be all knowing. In fact, I think that our inability to know all things gives us the opportunity to have faith and trust God.
Around line 118, Pope talks about man’s view and actions toward creation. Many times, instead of protecting and caring for God’s creation, humans get a trill out of destroying it, whether it be for personal gain, or just for sport. “Yet cry, If Man’s unhappy, God’s unjust.” (A person blaming God after being attacked by the 21 foot crocodile he was trying to catch, maybe?)
P.S. I commented on Lucy Beth's
We humans really aren't that smart sometimes, huh? If we really as big and powerful as we thought we were, we would know exactly when, where, why, and how we were going to die, right? If we are big and all-powerful, it stands to reason that we are all-knowing as well. But we aren't, we can't know for certain when anything is going to happen or what is going to happen. We can guess, and we can hope, but we can't know. So, like I said, we humans really aren't that smart!
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a sermon I've heard by Louie Giglio. He talks about how large space is, how small we are compared to it, and how big God must be to create it. It's all about perspective. We as humans have only a small piece of the puzzle, but yes, God DOES see everything and I am very thankful for that. The fact that He is in charge keeps me from messing something up. We should be happy that it's just one less thing that we have to worry about.
ReplyDeleteI liked this post a lot! It made me think of the class discussion the other day when we talked about the maze and how the only way to see all of it was to be above it. God is the only one who can see the complete design. We tend to forget that a lot. People are very ignorant sometimes. Maybe someday people will come to understand that we are not the masters of the universe. Unfortunately, I don't see that day coming anytime soon.
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