Logic and Faith

The Mountains are Calling

I must admit I was excited.  It had been a year since I had seen them.  My wife and I had left home about six hours earlier driving and I knew I was getting close. I could have told you that I was near even if I had been blindfolded.  We traveled north from Chattanooga and turned at Lenoir City heading east.  I anticipated the moment when the SUV would reach the crest of a hill, and they would begin to fill the view.  Then, majestically, and wonderfully, there they were: the Smoky Mountains.  This wasn’t just a vacation, rather it was a pilgrimage.  The mountains were there; sentries, and I was immersed in a deepening realization that, for them, man’s sense of time is meaningless.  They beckon us to come and learn about ourselves and to marvel in mute silence at their dignity and magnificence.

Each time I go back, the bond becomes stronger, and the allure heightened.  This is not just a place of relaxation.  Rather, it is a place of refuge, reflection, and strength.  Being there responds to an inner need issued from the depths of the soul.  Even when away, I can close my eyes and feel mountain air while contemplating the vast power of creation echoed through the mystery and beauty resplendent through hundreds of peaks and coves.  John Muir knew the feeling and penned the words “The mountains are calling, and I must go” over one hundred years ago.  It was the same John Muir who fought for and helped to establish the National Park Service. 

I have a colleague and friend who is a science instructor and shares the same passion for the mountains.  We have spoken often about this call we have experienced, and how we must, when it is possible, answer that call.   To those of us who love the mountains, it is a spiritual need that helps to fuel the essence of our existence, as food and water sustain the body.   

My wife says that the mountains are the place where I can best feel close to God.  (For her, the place where she can best find that inner connection with the Creator is the ocean.)  We are still looking for that rare spot of land where there are mountains on one side and ocean on the other.  Many questions may be asked here, but the most critical of these might be “How did this appreciation and love of beauty develop?”  This question is not asking how I came to develop my personal love of mountains but rather how did recognition and appreciation of nature and beauty develop within humans?  There is certainly no need for such to have evolved.  A species can flourish very well without ever raising its head and examining elements in its environment for anything other than food, shelter, and procreation.  In short, there is no reason for recognition of aesthetics to have ever arisen.

Prof. Stuart Burgess is a professor of engineering design at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.  His areas of expertise are in mechanical engineering, both in manmade devices and God’s design in nature. Prof. Burgess has published many articles and books on his research.  In the article Beauty-The Undeniable Witness (written for the website Answers in Genesis) he wrote:

“Creation contains an astonishing abundance and variety of beauty that constantly surprises and delights us. Every individual tree is a work of art, yet trees come in an immense variety of sizes, colors, and shapes. Each day we’re barraged not just by beautiful sights of cedars, oaks, and firs, but by sundry smells of wildflowers and ripening fruit, or the sweet sounds of songbirds and rustling wind. The deeper we explore our world, the more beauty we find. 

How did all this come to be? Understanding creation isn’t just about explaining matter or the complex moving parts of living things, but “added beauty.” Experience tells us that beauty doesn’t come by accident—it offers no obvious survival benefit, and many existing natural laws promote deterioration and decay. So, what created and sustains the earth’s beauty?”¹

The designed beauty of creation is so exquisite, both at the intricate as well as expansive levels, that the best human technology and abilities struggle to capture even the simplest quality.  For instance, artists can duplicate a flower petal on the surface, but can never replicate the multiple levels of beautiful detail when the same petal is examined on the smaller and smaller scale.   The best man-made works of art struggle to compare with a simple flower.  Yet, Jesus reminded his listeners Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like a single flower of the field. 

“…See the flowers of the field, how they come up; they do no work, they make no thread: But I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”  (Matthew 6:28-29 BBE).

The evolutionist crowd often attacks Intelligent Design.  The attacks are rarely scientific in nature but often personal.  This is usual when there are few rational counterpoints that can be made.  A key feature of intelligent design is that only a designer can add beauty for the sake of beauty. Again, Prof. Burgess wrote:

“An architect embellishes his buildings, and a car designer embellishes his cars, both for the sake of beauty. The Capitol Building shows strong evidence for design because the beautiful features are there for beauty’s sake. In contrast, evolution has no random mechanism to explain how beauty could evolve for beauty’s sake. The atheist Steve Jones once wrote that evolution does its job and no more.  This is why added beauty in creation is evidence for a Creator.”¹

Sadly, belief in evolution often causes erosion of a person’s ability to appreciate beauty because they reject beauty for beauty’s sake. Charles Darwin admitted that he had lost his natural, childlike appreciation for beauty. He said:

“I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty or thirty years. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music . . .  I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did.”²

This is not true for the Christian.  A belief in the love and power of the Creator only serves to increase a person’s appreciation of beauty.  The Christian knows that beauty is a gift from God and is given to help us be reassured of His presence and care. This is what the hymnist George Wade Robinson said of beauty:

“Heaven above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green; something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen: birds with gladder songs o’erflow, flow’rs with deeper beauties shine, since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.”³

John Muir knew this and felt this.  His oft repeated quote is only part of his feelings and desires.  Early in his adult life, Muir was a very successful inventor of machinery.  However, he went on to say that he reached the point in his life where:

“I made haste with all my heart, to bide adieu to all thoughts of inventing machinery and determined to devote the rest of my life to the studying of the inventions of God.” ⁴

Once again, we can exalt God the Creator by being reminded of the scriptures:

“The heavens are sounding the glory of God; the arch of the sky makes clear the work of his hands.  Day after day it sends out its word, and night after night it gives knowledge.”  (Psalms 19:1-2)