Is God in Mother Nature?

As I gazed hypnotically outside my window, I wonder if the wind blowing, trees dancing, even the dirt swirling are God’s work or the work of another design. This lead me to a question, is Mother Nature a work of God or is Mother Nature a different design altogether? “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins and “Design” by Robert Frost, both poems explicitly use nature to conclude two different results dealing with the existence of god in nature.

By definition, God is a great being or force that manifested life in this world. Knowing this, Hopkins wants to show how strong God is by portraying God as electricity and thunder, a nature-based element that means strength. Initially when I read “The world is charged…of God,” I thought that the world is God’s duty, but “charged” can also mean to “energize.” Hopkins also goes on to find words relating to electricity such as “flame out,” “ooze of oil,” “shining” and “rod.” These words describe God as someone or something of greatness (“flame out”) and richness (oil). The poem then suggests that even when the light turns black, the “Holy Ghost” will be the protect the world like a hen with its warm breast and bright wings. Hopkins’ poem suggests that God is nature and God will always protect the world in a form of nature.

Rather than following the design of God like Hopkins‘ poem suggested, Frost’s poem proceeds in a different direction; he sees nature as a different design other than God‘s design. Frost’s poem paints images that are controversy such as the spider and the heal-all. The heal-all is said to be white in the poem, but heal-alls are usually blue in real life. And when we hear the word spider, we usually think of darkness, witch-related and spider-webs, but the words such as “white” and “dimple” force the reader to picture the spider pure and innocent. Even though the spider and heal-all are portray as innocent and pure, they are described as “death,” “froth,” and “blight” later on into the poem. Humans and these creatures are both different beings, but they follow the rule of never to judge a book by its cover and they all use similar trickery and objects. An example would be the spider is “holding up” the moth like a “rigid satin cloth,” this portrays an image of thievery and a coffin. Even if humans and creatures are similar to one another, Frost questioned why would God pay attention to such small things (“If design govern in a thing so small)? The way the poem questions God existence in nature makes it seems that Frost believes God and Nature are two different designs.

Hopkins and Frost both use nature as the main point to answer the existence of God. While Hopkins believes that God is Mother Nature who watches over the world in the form of wind, plants, soil, etc, Frost believes that God and Mother Nature are two different entity.