The two books

by Olaf Pedersen

"The metaphor of the Book of Nature goes back to the age of the Fathers. St. Paul asserted that the works of God disclose His divinity, invisible being and eternal power [Rom 1,18-20]. St. Augustine preferred to speak of the vestigia Dei in creation. Nevertheless, at least in one place he invited the Manichaeans "to consider the whole of creation, regarding God as its author, by reading so to speak in the great book of nature (magnus liber naturae rerum)" [Cfr. Contra Faustum, 32,20], Here the metaphor emerges into full daylight and the context shows that it is used to a particular purpose, namely to convince his adversaries that the created world is good because God is the author." "In his Theologia Naturalis of 1436 Raymund Sebundus explained that humanity has two books at its disposal. They both come from God, but the Book of Creatures came first, being written by the finger of God at the creation of the world; the Book of Holy Scripture came later when men had become too blind to r