{"id":5824,"date":"2011-07-13T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/?p=5824"},"modified":"2011-07-10T13:41:23","modified_gmt":"2011-07-10T17:41:23","slug":"god-red-in-tooth-and-claw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/god-red-in-tooth-and-claw\/","title":{"rendered":"Is God Red in Tooth and Claw?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote a poem called In Memoriam A.H.H.<\/em>\u00a0which reveals the tension between what Scripture says about God and what nature seems to reveal. The poem is famous for the statement that although Scripture says God is love, nature is “red in tooth and claw.”<\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

Tennyson wants to know how we can get Scripture and Nature to agree on what God is like.<\/p>\n

In Canto 54 he states that he is like a baby trying to find the truth, but all he can do is cry out wordlessly. How do you speak to God or to Nature if you are not sure either is listening?<\/p>\n

So runs my dream, but what am I?
\nAn infant crying in the night
\nAn infant crying for the light
\nAnd with no language but a cry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Canto 56, Tennyson states that what he sees in Nature is not love and peace, but blood and death. Nature seems to scream against the teachings of Scripture that God is love.<\/p>\n

Who trusted God was love indeed
\nAnd love Creation’s final law
\nTho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
\nWith ravine, shriek’d against his creed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tennyson later raises doubt that nature can be matched at all with what we think we know about God. He seems to say that the two are\u00a0incompatible.<\/p>\n

Are God and Nature then at strife,
\nThat Nature lends such evil dreams?
\nSo careful of the type she seems,
\nSo careless of the single life;<\/p>\n

That I, considering everywhere
\nHer secret meaning in her deeds,
\nAnd finding that of fifty seeds
\nShe often brings but one to bear,<\/p>\n

I falter where I firmly trod,
\nAnd falling with my weight of cares
\nUpon the great world’s altar-stairs
\nThat slope thro’ darkness up to God,<\/p>\n

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
\nAnd gather dust and chaff, and call
\nTo what I feel is Lord of all,
\nAnd faintly trust the larger hope.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the end of the poem, however, Tennyson seems to admit that even when his faith fails and he thinks that maybe nature proves that God doesn’t exist, he still remembers the warm and gentle touch of God within him, and it allows him to realize that his Father is near.<\/p>\n

If e’r when faith had fallen asleep,
\nI hear a voice ‘believe no more’
\nAnd heard an ever-breaking shore
\nThat tumbled in the Godless deep;<\/p>\n

A warmth within the breast would melt
\nThe freezing reason’s colder part,
\nAnd like a man in wrath the heart
\nStood up and answer’d ‘I’d have felt.’<\/p>\n

No, like a child in doubt and fear:
\nBut that blind clamour made me wise;
\nThen was I as a child that cries,
\nBut, crying knows his father near.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Personally, I love this poem, and think it reflects honesty, openness, and a yearning for truth, wherever it is found, and it recognizes that there are no easy answers in life or in theology.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love “In Memoriam” by Tennyson. Contrasting Scripture and Nature, it recognizes that there are no easy answers in life or in theology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[128],"class_list":{"0":"post-5824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"tag-theology-bible","8":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nIs God Red in Tooth and Claw?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I love "In Memoriam" by Tennyson. 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