Difference between revisions of "Nature"

<p> <strong> NATURE. </strong> The term ‘nature’ is not used in the OT. nor was the conception current in [[Hebrew]] thought, as God alone is seen in all, through all, and over all. The idea came from the word <em> physis </em> from Hellenism. Swine’s flesh is commended for food as a gift of <em> nature </em> in 4Ma 5:7 . In the NT the term is used in various senses: (1) the forces, laws, and order of the world, including man (&nbsp; Romans 1:26; &nbsp; Romans 11:21; &nbsp; Romans 11:24 , &nbsp; Galatians 4:8 ); (2) the inborn sense of propriety or morality (&nbsp; 1 Corinthians 11:14 , &nbsp; Romans 2:14 ); (3) birth or physical origin (&nbsp; Galatians 2:15 , &nbsp; Romans 2:27 ); (4) the sum of characteristics of a species or person, human (&nbsp; James 3:7 ), or Divine (&nbsp; 2 Peter 1:4 ); (5) a condition acquired or inherited (&nbsp; Ephesians 2:3 , ‘by nature children of wrath’). What is contrary to nature is condemned. While the term is not found or the conception made explicit in the OT, Schultz ( <em> OT Theol </em> . ii. 74) finds in the Law ‘the general rule that nothing is to be permitted contrary to the delicate sense of the inviolable proprieties of nature,’ and gives a number of instances (&nbsp; Exodus 23:19; &nbsp; Exodus 34:26 , &nbsp; Leviticus 22:28; &nbsp; Leviticus 19:19 , &nbsp; Deuteronomy 22:9-11 , &nbsp; Leviticus 10:9; &nbsp; Leviticus 19:28; &nbsp; Leviticus 21:5; &nbsp; Leviticus 22:24 , &nbsp; Deuteronomy 14:1; &nbsp; Deuteronomy 23:2 ). The beauty and the order of the world are recognized as evidences of Divine wisdom and power (&nbsp; Psalms 8:1; &nbsp; Psalms 19:1; &nbsp; Psalms 33:6-7; &nbsp; Psalms 90:2; &nbsp; Psalms 104:1-35; &nbsp; Psalms 136:6 ff., &nbsp; Psalms 147:1-20 , &nbsp; Proverbs 8:22-30 , &nbsp; Job 38:1-41; &nbsp; Job 39:1-30 ); but the sum of created things is not hypostatized and personified apart from God, as in much current modern thinking. God is Creator, Preserver, and Ruler: He makes all (&nbsp; Isaiah 44:24 , &nbsp; Amos 4:13 ), and is in all (&nbsp; Psalms 139:1-24 ). His immanence is by His Spirit (&nbsp; [[Genesis]] 1:2 ). Jesus recognizes God’s bounty and care in the flowers of the field and the birds of the air (&nbsp; Matthew 6:26; &nbsp; Matthew 6:28 ); He uses natural processes to illustrate spiritual, in salt (&nbsp; Matthew 5:13 ), seed and soil (&nbsp; Matthew 13:3-9 ), and leaven (&nbsp; Matthew 13:33 ). The growth of the seed is also used as an illustration by Paul (&nbsp; 1 Corinthians 15:37-38 ). There is in the Bible no interest in nature apart from God, and the problem of the relation of God to nature has not yet risen on the horizon of the thought of the writers. </p> <p> Alfred E. Garvie. </p>

<div> '''1: φύσις ''' (Strong'S #5449 — Noun [[Feminine]] — phusis — foo'-sis ) </div> <p> from phuo, "to bring forth, produce," signifies (a) "the nature" (i.e., the natural powers of constitution) of a person or thing, &nbsp;Ephesians 2:3; &nbsp;James 3:7 ("kind"); &nbsp; 2 Peter 1:4; (b) "origin, birth," &nbsp;Romans 2:27 , one who by birth is a Gentile, uncircumcised, in contrast to one who, though circumcised, has become spiritually uncircumcised by his iniquity; &nbsp;Galatians 2:15; (c) "the regular law or order of nature," &nbsp;Romans 1:26 , against "nature" (para, "against"); &nbsp;Romans 2:14 , adverbially, "by nature" (for &nbsp;Romans 11:21,24 , see [[Natural]] , Note); &nbsp;1 Corinthians 11:14; &nbsp;Galatians 4:8 , "by nature (are no gods)," here "nature" is the emphatic word, and the phrase includes demons, men regarded as deified, and idols; these are gods only in name (the negative, me, denies not simply that they were gods, but the possibility that they could be). </p> <div> '''2: γένεσις ''' (Strong'S #1078 — Noun Feminine — genesis — ghen'-es-is ) </div> <p> is used in the phrase in &nbsp;James 3:6 , "the wheel of nature," RV (marg., "birth"). Some regard this as the course of birth or of creation, or the course of man's "nature" according to its original Divine purpose; Major (on the Ep. of James) regards trochos here as a wheel, "which, catching fire from the glowing axle, is compared to the widespreading mischief done by the tongue," and shows that "the fully developed meaning" of genesis denotes "the incessant change of life ... the sphere of this earthly life, meaning all that is contained in our life." The significance, then, would appear to be the whole round of human life and activity. Moulton and Milligan illustrate it in this sense from the papyri. See Natural , B. </p>

<p> '''I.''' ''New.-Test. Usage Of The Word'' . — In &nbsp;James 1:23; &nbsp;James 3:6, the Greek is γένεσις,- έως; elsewhere, as &nbsp;Romans 1:26, φύσις . It is variously used for, </p> <p> '''1.''' the laws of the natural or moral world (&nbsp;Romans 1:26; &nbsp;Romans 2:14; &nbsp;Romans 11:21; &nbsp;Romans 11:24). </p> <p> '''2.''' Birth, origin, or natural descent: "Jews by nature" (&nbsp;Galatians 2:15; &nbsp;Romans 2:27); "Which by nature are no gods" (&nbsp;Galatians 4:8). </p> <p> '''3.''' ''Genus, Kind:'' "For every kind (marg. '''Nature')'' of beasts," etc., "is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind" (marg. ''"Nature Of Nman"'' [&nbsp;James 3:4]). </p> <p> '''4.''' The native mode of thinking, feeling, acting, as unenlightened and unsanctified by the, [[Holy]] Spirit: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God" (&nbsp;1 Corinthians 2:14; comp. &nbsp;Ephesians 2:3). </p> <p> '''5.''' [[Nature]] also denotes a customary sense of propriety: "Doth not nature itself teach you that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?" (&nbsp;1 Corinthians 11:14). It was the national custom among both the Hebrews and [[Greeks]] for men to wear the hair short. </p> <p> '''II.''' ''Philosophical Import Of The Word'' . — "The term [[Nature]] is used sometimes in a wider, sometimes in a narrower extension. When employed in its most.extensive meaning, it embraces the two worlds of mind and matter. When employed in its more restricted signification, it is a synonvme for the latter only, and is then used in contradistinction to the former. In the Greek philosophy, the word φύσις was general in its meaning; and the great branch of philosophy, styled '''Physical'' or ''Physiological,''' included under it not only the sciences of matter, but also those of mind. With us, the term nature is more vaguely extensive than the terms physics, physical, physiology, physiological or even than the adjective natural; whereas, in the philosophy of Germany, natur and its correlatives, whether of Greek or Latin derivation, are in general expressive of the world of matter in contrast to the world of intelligence" (Sir W. Hamilton. Reid's Works, page 216, note). </p> <p> "The word nature has been used in two senses, viz., actively and passively; energetic (=forma formans), and material (=forma formata). In the first it signifies the inward principle of whatever is requisite for the reality of a thing as existent; while the essence, or essential property, signifies the inner principle of all that appertains to the possibility of a thing. Hence, in accurate language, we say the essence of a mathematical circle or geometrical figure, not the nature, because in the conception of forms, purely geometrical, there is no expression or implication of their real existence. In the second or material sense of the word nature, we mean by it the sum total of all things, as far as they are objects of our senses, and consequently of possible experience — the aggregate of phenomena, whether existing'for our outer senses or for our inner sense. The doctrine concerning nature would therefore (the word physiology being both ambiguous in itself, and already otherwise appropriated) be more properly entitled phenomenology, distinguished into its two grand divisions, somatology and psychology" (Coleridge, Friend, page 410). </p>