The Genius of God in the Glory of Man

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea (Psalm 8:3-8).

Our family has been watching the BBC production of Life (narrated by David Attenborough). This sequel to the much (and appropriated) ballyhooed Planet Earth is nothing less than a work of artistic beauty and technical excellence. It’s also really cool. You get to watch scary Komodo dragons and a sacrificial mommy octopus and amazing little falling frogs and lizards that run on water and hippos crashing into each other. It’s amazing the things animals do for food, for a mate, for life.

Watching Life leads me to worship God for the wonders he has made. It also causes me to marvel at the crown of God’s creation: man. We are more than impressed to see hyenas working together to outnumber a pride of lions or to watch a monkey crack open a nut with a rock. But then you realize men and women made the camera to video tape the monkey, and the DVD to watch it, and the internet and computers, with their silicon chips made from sand, by which to order it. Animals are amazing to us because we don’t often see or think about what they do. But if we weren’t so familiar with humans, so used to the advances thought up by man and the God-given abilities only mankind possesses, we’d be in constant awe of their creativity, ingenuity, and brilliance.

This isn’t a paean to us, but a call to consider the genius of God in the glory of man. Augustine was right:

What varieties has man found out in buildings, attires, husbandry, navigation, sculpture, and painting! . . . What millions of inventions has he [in] arms, engines, stratagems, and the like! What thousands of medicines for the health, . . . of eloquent phrases to delight, of verses for pleasure, of musical inventions and instruments! . . . How large is capacity of man, if we should dwell upon particulars!