---
title: 'J.W. Alexander on Seeing God in Nature'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2023-07-06
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2023-j-w-alexander-on-seeing-god-in-nature
---

# J.W. Alexander on Seeing God in Nature

“*See God in Nature*. — When the prospects of the heavens or the verdant summer earth look most beautiful to me, I most think of God. But let us be careful how we see God in nature. The Pantheist sees the visible phenomena as a *part of God*. This is a sort of Atheism. The poet sees *beauty, order*, the *picturesque*, or the *sublime*, and this he makes his God. The Christian sees in the glories of nature not merely the effect of God’s hand, but its presence; not only God’s work, but God working. He not only created that landscape of field, wood, and orchard which I see from my window, but he upholds it, he gives it its existence, he causes every change, at every moment — at every moment there is a coming forth of his attributes into action. And these innumerable acts are each of them a display of some perfection; each is divine. I behold in his works, I do not merely see a mark that the Creator *has been* there, but a token that he *is* there. Just as when I hear the footstep of my dearest friend in his chamber, I know that he is there present.” — [**J**.**W. Alexander**](/authors/james-waddel-alexander), *Thoughts on Preaching* (1861), p. 422-423