I got up early, around six o’clock. It is an early September morning in the Sussex countryside in Southern England. I wished to go for a walk and to pray in the stunning garden of the old manor that houses my retreat. The dawn is breaking, and the first rays of the sun glitter on the fields and the leaves.

We read in Romans 1:20 that “ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” This scriptural statement became with time the locus classicus of natural theology, a standard authority for the claim that God can be known through his works. But instead of complex arguments, it speaks of perception: God’s invisible nature is clearly perceived.

How does one learn to look like that? Perhaps, instead of learning, one must unlearn: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children” (Matthew 11:25). In his sermon 68 on the New Testament, Augustine combines these passages to explain that humility and simplicity of heart are the key to finding the invisible things of God:

Others, in order to find God, will read a book. Well, as a matter of fact there is a certain great big book, the book of created nature (magnus liber ipsa species creaturae). Look carefully at it top and bottom, observe it, read it. God did not make letters of ink for you to recognize him in; he set before your eyes all these things he has made. Why look for a louder voice? Heaven and earth cries out to you, “God made me” (s. 68, PLS 2:505).

Look, observe, read it. Yet, the word book can be misleading. It makes us think of words printed neatly on piles of bound paper. In Augustine’s time, in the world of late antiquity, books looked quite different. They were handwritten by scribes, each copy being more unique. Moreover, most people could not read them directly, let alone own a copy. Books were heard, proclaimed, and listened to.

Each creature, great or small, is like a unique voice in the living book of nature. Those feeble leaves, waving in the morning wind almost as if greeting the passer-by. That squirrel, which peeks from behind the tree, curious to know while wishing to preserve its gift of life. And the magnificent oak tree, whose branches seem to reach to the sky like hands in praise of its maker.

Then, there’s the gift of light – how it changes everything! What seemed somber, scary, or sad in the darkness of the night, is suddenly brought to life, beauty, and joy with the sunrise. “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). No wonder early Christians liked to speak of Christ as the sun that rises upon the world and the mind, illuminating us from the outside and the inside and transforming us by his grace.

Extending this image in book 13 of the Confessions, Augustine also suggests that the words, “Let light be made” (Genesis 1:3) may be read as referring to our spiritual creation in Christ (conf. 13.3.4). In fact, the entire book 13 is Augustine’s meditation on the six days of creation, taken to symbolize the Holy Spirit’s work through Scripture, the Church, and the spiritual gifts. Just as Jesus had explored images and parables from the natural world to describe the kingdom of God, so Augustine now re-reads the scriptural account of creation as a prefigurement or image of the new creation in Christ.

The separation of light from darkness, for example, signifies the separation of the spiritual members of the Church from her carnal members (conf. 13.12.13–13.14.15). The creation of the firmament symbolizes the authority of Scripture, “the works of [God’s] fingers” which “gives wisdom to little children” (13.15.17; tr. Thomas Williams). The sea is likened to the gathering together of the wills of the wicked, dry land to those who thirst for God (13.17.20–21). Lights in the sky are the spiritual gifts (13.18.22–13.19.25). The creatures of the waters are the sacraments as well as the “mighty works and wonders” of the saints (13.20.26). And so on, until we finally see with God how it all together is very good (conf. 13.28.43) and find true rest in the peace of the sabbath (conf. 13.35.50).

The figurative reading of creation is more than a pious exercise. The entire creation speaks of something greater than itself, and not just of God but also his greatest works. At the same time, Augustine is showing how God has redeemed his earlier relationship with the world. Before his conversion, as James Lee earlier noted on this blog, Augustine had loved the beauty of created things for their own sake and for his own pleasure. He had delighted in the beauty God had made, but without God (10.27.38). He now observes that “many people are pleased with your creation because it is good, but are not pleased with you in it, and so they would rather enjoy your creation than enjoy you” (13.31.46).

Should a Christian avoid enjoying the beauty of nature at all? Not entirely. Perhaps correcting an earlier tendency of his to merely retreat from the world, in book 13 of the Confessions Augustine invites us to contemplate the goodness and beauty of the world with God, seeing it in him and seeing him through it. This is possible because “the charity of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom. 5:5)” (13.31.46). Not only can we love God as the creator of everything, but we are called to behold it with God, who lives in us and sees the world through us:

But you [God] see through the eyes of those who see your works through your Spirit. So when they see that your works are good, you see that they are good; whatever pleases them for your sake pleases you in them; and what pleases us through your Spirit is pleasing to you in us…Thus, if by the Spirit of God they see that something is good, it is not they but God who sees that it is good (13.31.46).