The Harmony of Creation: Discovering Divine Wisdom in Nature and the Universe

“How great are Your works, O Lord; You made them all with wisdom; the earth is full of Your creations” (Tehillim 104).

We sit in a blooming garden, our eyes and thoughts fixed on what surrounds us, all our senses absorbed by the riot of colors and intoxicating scents. Unnoticed, at that very moment, a fierce battle is being waged within us, automatically, in our internal immune system.

The Hidden War Within the Body

Hour after hour, our bodies stand like a fortified compound under heavy bombardment by hundreds of weapons, from arrows and spears to missiles with nuclear warheads. These are foreign bodies, antigens, that penetrate us. A complex system of antibodies, produced in special cells of the spleen and lymphatic tissues, is constantly activated. Each antibody that fights a threatening foreign body is always built in a structure that precisely matches the antigen that triggered it.

No brilliant general has ever managed such a defense strategy. This is a defensive war conducted separately against every attacking weapon, with the simultaneous internal production of defensive arms, each with its own specialized ammunition, effective only against that specific threat. Sometimes this ammunition not only neutralizes the attacker but renders it incapable of developing that same weapon again.

All of this determines a person’s fate, healthy or ill, alive or dead, while they simply gaze at a flower, entirely unaware of the struggle.

The Miracle of Vision

To enjoy the sights around us, we were born with an instrument composed of a lens, iris, retina, and pupil. The retina itself consists of nine separate layers whose combined thickness is thinner than paper.

The inner layer contains about 30 million rods and three million cones, arranged in perfect coordination with one another and with the lens. The lens expands and contracts as needed. We have two eyes to enable stereoscopic vision, creating depth and space. The optic nerve transmits the image to the brain’s center of perception, where the tiny, inverted image is translated into its real form and dimensions through millions of nerve fibers.

This includes the ability to see color, created by sensations transmitted from light. All of this occurs effortlessly.

Eating Without Thinking

During a conversation, a host brings snacks. The hand lifts them to the mouth, which opens and closes as needed. The tongue moves the food around while the jaws rise and fall and the teeth grind. The glands secrete saliva that mixes with the food to ease swallowing and begin chemical digestion.

At the same time, the stomach secretes digestive juices for every kind of food. Astonishingly, the stomach itself is not digested by these juices, even though it is made of the same material it digests. The liver produces bile and releases it into the intestines in precisely the required amounts. The intestines complete digestion, and through countless tiny channels, the processed nutrients are delivered to every part of the body, each channel supplying exactly what its destination organ needs.

Who commands and operates this system?

Hearing Beyond Imagination

Part of the ear consists of four thousand tiny arches, intricately arranged with delicate precision in size and pattern. They seem designed to capture and transmit sounds ranging from thunder to the subtle harmonies of an orchestra.

Animals, however, perceive sounds beyond the range of human hearing, often with far greater acuity. Humans, through intellect, developed instruments that allow us to hear the movement of a fly from great distances.

Why did these auditory cells develop more fully in animals than in humans? Why did human hearing develop only as much as necessary for survival, while animals were endowed with greater sensitivity? Is there a force that foresaw that humans would invent devices to provide what nature did not give them, while animals, lacking inventive intellect, were given heightened natural senses?

Wonders in Animals and Microorganisms

Volumes have been written about the brain, genes, DNA and RNA, the heart, and circulation. But what of plants and animals, even the tiniest creatures?

A sea turtle lives peacefully along the Brazilian coast. Once every two years, turtles and their mates swim 12,250 kilometers to tiny Ascension Island, barely visible on a map. They identify the island, lay their eggs there and only there, and return.

Sea algae sink every evening to the depths. Each morning, they somehow know the exact moment dawn will break and travel upward for two hours in darkness to line up on the surface precisely at sunrise, within a margin of one or two minutes.

Insects and Ingenious Design

The mosquito, despite its size, has a heart, stomach, intestines, blood vessels, and nerves. It can pierce human skin, a feat equivalent to drilling through a 40-centimeter wall relative to its size. To escape, it flies at 4 kilometers per hour and is light enough not to be felt when it lands.

During a bite, it injects a pain-numbing substance, like a dentist’s anesthetic. Only after it flies away does the pain begin, and we strike ourselves while the mosquito watches from afar. Within its body travel thousands of parasites that pass into us during the bite, causing malaria.

Billions of bacteria exist in soil, air, and sea, invisible without a microscope. Each single-celled bacterium is composed of countless atoms working in astonishing coordination, each knowing its role.

Communication Without Words

Bees scout fields of flowers and return to inform others through dance. The speed of the dance indicates distance, and its shape provides direction relative to the sun. Bees know the sun’s position even on cloudy days and perceive flowers in ultraviolet patterns invisible to us.

Bats hunt moths at night. How do moths survive? Some hear only one sound, the bat. Others deter birds by spreading wings marked with eye-like patterns that frighten predators.

A water spider builds an underwater air-filled nest like a balloon, repeatedly transporting air bubbles from the surface. A female moth emits a silent signal detected only by her mate from vast distances. A cricket rubs its limbs, vibrating massive volumes of air, and its mate hears it from half a mile away.

Humans invented phones and radios, yet remain limited. The moth, which preceded us, still outperforms us.

From the Small World to the Cosmos

The distance from Earth to the sun is 150 million kilometers, precisely calibrated. Any closer and oceans would evaporate; any farther and Earth would freeze. Thousands of meteors race toward us daily, and Earth’s atmosphere protects us. A thin ozone layer filters harmful radiation.

If Earth rotated once every 240 hours, days would burn and nights would freeze. The current 24-hour rotation is perfect. The axial tilt of 23 degrees creates the seasons. A different tilt would concentrate water at the poles and turn the rest into desert.

If oxygen levels were 50 percent instead of 21 percent, a single lightning strike would ignite the world. We breathe oxygen, burn food, produce carbon dioxide, which plants absorb to build themselves and release oxygen again. A perfect cycle.

Even methane gas in the soil helps maintain atmospheric balance, produced by beetles, an unseen yet essential link.

Is It All Chance?

You ask, how do you know all this? These facts were established by leading scientists and researchers across disciplines.

So you understand now, you say. This entire concert of humanity and cosmos was played so you would recognize its harmony and be convinced there is a Creator, that the laws and wisdom of the world are proof of God’s existence.

Of course. Everyone knows that a cat jumping on a piano does not create Chopin, that an encyclopedia does not result from an exploding printing press. Yet this magnificent world arose by accident?

You say you are tired and suggest going to a concert. They are playing Beethoven’s Eroica. Listen, you say, and you will recognize the genius of the composer.

No, I reply. I have heard it before. To me, it is just a random collection of sounds.

What happened? Have we switched roles?