In Chapter 7 of Volume 2 of his OT theology, Humanity, Goldingay discusses nature and God’s involvement within the world. He quotes Terence Fretheim to describe the way that the Old Testament the reality of the universe, “the world of the Hebrew Bible is a spiderweb of a world. Interrelatedness is basic to this community of God’s creatures. Each created entity is in symbiotic relationship with every other and with God.”
The first major point he makes is that this is God’s World. He made it and he owns it. God determines how it works and and it shows God’s “greatness and grace.” This means the world displays regularity and order. Our security in this world comes from the fact that God maintains the universe. The order reflects the moral order that God desires. The world also prompts worship because it is a magnificent place full of wonder and grace. The Psalms show that God is committed to bringing about the same perfect order that is in heaven into the earth some day. Yhwh is committed to bringing about his plan for the inanimate, animal and human parts of his creation. All the world is an exposition of God’s wisdom.
God's ownership of the world has a number of other implications. It means God is in a position to decide how it works and to make sure of its security and stability. It means it manifests God's greatness and grace. It means there is a unity about it; earthly experience can help us understand God's dealings with us. It means that we can share in the world (because God invites us to), though we cannot behave as if we own it. It means the world gives God worship. 648
To understand the workings of the cosmos is to be drawn into worship, not to find reason to suspend worship. Nature does not cease to be full of wonder. 657
The world deserves not only human respect but human reflection. The world tells us about the nature of reality. It even tells us about ourselves (cf. Prov. 30.24-33). The world is, indeed, an expression of divine wisdom...So the world is a place to learn from. Because the world is God's creation, it cannot but be a revelation of God. 668
The next section deals with the relation between The Heavens and the Earth. The heavens are the home of God and the earth is the dwelling place of people. Psalm 19 points out that the heavens (though imperfectly) give witness to God’s glory. Yhwh is the “faithful God of the storm” who uses its awesome power to benefit his people and the animal world with the gift of rain and abundant food, even though people and animals are often too stupid to use the benefits. The entire world is there for the benefit of God, not people, but we are tasked with managing it for him. Relationship with God benefits people both spiritually and materially. Governments are supposed to aid in this and promote order but often have the opposite effect.
These phenomena in the heavens that have their effect on earth are not merely manifestations of extraordinary power. In Yhwh, power is adjoined to moral qualities and serves a moral purpose. Yhwh has determined to reign in the world, but the exercise of authority is associated with a commitment to faithfulness. 673
Accounts such as Job 38-39 also complement Genesis 1 by offering a less monarchic and human-centered understanding of God and creation and by seeing humanity much more as part of the ecology of the world. While retaining ownership of the heavens, Yhwh has given earth to humanity (Ps 115.16), yet even the earth is given us to use, not to own. The land itself continues to belong to Yhwh. 682
(Psalm 72) propounds a different view of the way the government goes about ensuring that the economy works, that the crops grow. It is not so much a matter of encouraging investment and efficient management of human resources. It is a matter of ensuring that things work out fairly for the needy...It assumes an underlying moral structure of reality. Matters on earth are interwoven, and attention to one issues in effectiveness in another. 688
God’s Ongoing Activity in the World continues in the creation pattern. He is always at work graciously making daily provision for the needs of his creatures. Throughout history he works in the corrupted world of sin and suffering to bring about his plan as humans fail in their responsibility to manage it. God brings both deliverance and blessing to nature and history in ordinary, natural and extraordinary ways. Yhwh is sovereign over the world and those who recognize this will do a better job of managing his world. Yhwh will use nature to restore his people and, with that, restore the rest of his creation.
The pattern of Yhwh's activity in the original creation continues in Yhwh's ongoing activity in the world. Wondrous acts of creation continue in ongoing provision. Occasional acts of deliverance are complemented by ongoing blessing. Nature and history, creation and politics, the creation of the world and the history of Israel, all are one. 692
Both the ordinary and extraordinary reflect God's involvement, and in this respect the First Testament invites us to rework both our understanding of nature and our understanding of history. Yhwh works both in cyclic time and historical time. 700
The psalm (77) is also a reminder that the person praying has to look for the invisible indications that God is acting and has to be prepared to read nature as reflecting God's activity. 706
How this works is not always clearly seen by people because of The Ambiguity of Life in the World. There are evil forces, entities and people (spiritual and physical) that seem to be working against Yhwh and sometimes it seems the forces of darkness and chaos are winning. But the sunrise every morning should be seen as a sign that the forces of darkness will not ultimately succeed. Somehow darkness and death play an important and necessary part in God’s perfect plan and are under his control. Nature, while often a blessing, can often be a threat and bring about death and darkness, but Yhwh will harness even that in the end to bring about the “Day” of his rule.
There is an irreducible ambiguity about life in the world. The world as God created it, rules it and manages it is full of surprises. It is not at all what we would have made it...But Yhwh is committed to bring ambiguity to resolution and the world to its destiny. 709
The Old Testament recognizes the reality of evil and sees its origin in the “self-assertiveness” in nature itself, of spiritual entities and in humanity. For some reason, God did not put down the forces of evil in creation before he created human beings. We recognize that life in the universe does not reflect universal submission to God as it will some day. Ultimately, only God can put down the evil of the “beast” and “dragon.” Evil, in its subhuman and human, natural and supernatural forms will only be put down when God finishes his plan for the universe and Christ rules over all, as prefigured in his resurrection and ascension.
Human beings are responsible for what they do; no one forces them to do it, yet it does not simply emerge from inside them. This is clearer in Genesis 6 where evil issues from the intervention of heavenly forces in the world, though Genesis does not explain how there came to be heavenly powers in apparent rebellion against God. Genesis 1-2 recognize that as created good, the animal and plant world still needed some mastering, and this mastering is humanity's vocation. 718
When we pray "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" we imply that heaven is a place where God's desires are fulfilled and that earth is a place where they are not, but both Testaments imply a more complex understanding...But the Lord's prayer is realistic in recognizing that it is no good us thinking that we can overcome evil, that through us God's will can be implemented. We await divine action to achieve that. The Lord's Prayer is a prayer, not a disguised New Year's resolution. 719
There is plenty of ambiguity in the life of the church and in the life of individual Christians. New things have happened, but the old things have not gone very far away. Precisely that fact puts us into the same position as the creation. We do not simply accept the emptiness to which we are subjected, as if no alternative could be envisaged; we know there is an alternative, and we therefore rail against the emptiness (cf. Rom 7). 731
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