From Bats to God’s Sovereignty: John Calvin on Creation

This past Sunday after leading worship and preaching, I and several of our members as well as folks from the local community attended the Isaak Walton Naturalist program featuring bats. I knew that bats were nocturnal creatures and are good for the environment, but I never realized all the varieties of bats there are, how intricate their physiology can be or that they can eat their own weight in bugs every night! Learning about God’s creation is an important part of caring for and being good stewards of this creation as well as drawing close to and glorifying their Creator. Learning about bats reminded me of what the Reformed tradition, especially its founder, had to say about God’s creation and our responsibility towards it.

Even for most Presbyterians, John Calvin is not a familiar figure. We see pictures of him looking solemn and stern and may associate him with the doctrine of predestination. We know that he is important to our tradition but may struggle to know how he can be relevant to us today.

At least, that was my perception of John Calvin. So I was very surprised when I studied his theology and learned about his life at Notre Dame and Princeton and discovered that not only was he a brilliant theologian, but that he was also an intensely committed pastor and a tender lover of God who saw in every aspect of creation God’s fingerprint and thought that the redeemed people of God were tasked with the care of creation as a part of worshipping God.

John Calvin saw creation as “the theatre” of God’s glory, with God as the Divine Playwright. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, he declared: “You cannot in one glance survey this most vast and beautiful system of the universe, in its wide expanse, without being completely overwhelmed by the boundless force of its brightness.” For Calvin, creation is meant to teach us to desire God. As we see and desire the beauty of creation, we learn that even the smallest creatures desire God and imitate God’s beauty.

This desire is not passive. Rather, it is a desire that invites us into relationship and worship. For Calvin, all creation praises God and invites human beings to praise God. God’s design of human beings and creation also arises out of the relational dance between the Persons of the Trinity. Beholding the beauty and intricacy of this design invites God’s people into the intimacy and relationship that are at the very center of God’s being.

Care for and proper stewardship of creation is very much a part of this invitation to worship and relationship. Calvin states that the sin of humanity has made creation fragile and caused creation to suffer. The misuse and misappropriation of creation are very much a part of that sin. Witnessing the continued beauty of “the theatre of God’s glory” even when it has been made fragile by sin should bring forth repentance for the abuse of creation and to worship which restores right relationship with God and creation and efforts to secure justice, healing and shalom on behalf of creation.

Care for creation is not something outside of our tradition. Rather, from the very beginning it is intimately tied to worship and praise of a sovereign and loving God who created everything, cares for everything and desires intimate relationship with the human beings who are created in his image. Learning about bats, contributing to their survival and flourishing, the bluebird houses providing homes for God’s creation, investment in solar energy and our other efforts at creation care go hand in hand with worship, praise, preaching and Bible study. God is present in creation as God is present in word, worship and sacrament. Thanks be to God!

Love and blessings,

Pastor Julia

Source: Lane, Beldon C., Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.