God in the Forst

I have been lucky enough that this week I have been able to start a couple of my days by taking a walk in the forest with my dog. I am fortunate in that I live about ten minutes' walk away from the "Perlacher Forst" (yes, the title of this post is not a typo), so it's pretty convenient, when I have an hour to an hour and a half, to walk over there and get out in nature. It's the type of forest that this American is still amazed by, the sort that a Floridian only sees in movies and reads about in books - little undergrowth, and in some places pretty old growth.

This morning, I was walking with the dog and just looking at the trees (and what animals stuck around long enough to be seen), and I was thinking about natural theology. Now, me thinking about natural theology is not an unusual fact, I've kind of been thinking about it pretty steadily for years now due to the research. This was not so much an theoretical consideration, though. My major project for a while has been defining what natural theology is, and how Christians can use it - in a nutshell, as part of the revelatory framework for thinking about God, but not as a method to get to knowledge of God in the first place. There have been some decent modern takes on this, though I note that, aside from a section of time following the Enlightenment, the modern views are more of a ressourcement than original ideas.

Anyway, the point is not the theoretical concept. The point is, that it hit me that in may cases there is still a lot of discussion about the possibility of finding God in nature, given that the Christian knows where to look - there's not been so much discussion about actually doing it. While there is a great deal of need for the theoretical underpinnings (otherwise, I wouldn't have a dissertation), I am also thinking a bit about what a practical application of these sorts of concepts actually looks like. I know I am a couple steps ahead of the game, here - as a movement, it's still on theoretical possibilty, and some of the next steps are things like the nature of the presence of God in the sublime and the beautiful, and interpreting general revelation in the context of particular revelation. Nonetheless, I think that doesn't mean that we can't, in a hands-on manner, begin to think about and act on the how of seeing God in nature, where He has given Himself to be known. A couple of churches here do "Waldgottesdienst", a worship service in the forest every now and then, but I'm not sure if transplanting the liturgy to a different setting is qualitatively the same as genuinely engaging with God's revelation in nature (not that I am arguing for a new liturgy, mind you!). And I am sure that we are not expected by God to go out as individuals and try to interpret our subjective experience. So what does it look like for the community of Christ to reflectively engage with Creation? How can we seek God where He may be found? Perhaps I'm trying to analyze the intuitive, but I think we need to at least ask the questions in our church communities and families. How are we the body of Christ in community, in society, and in Creation?