It’s a miracle that Nature is so convenient

Not too long ago, something dawned upon me…

I was by the sea, eating some oysters that had been caught just off that coast. I suddenly realized just how convenient oysters are to eat: they’re basically meat atop a shell which doubles as a handle! Ancient cultures have subsisted for millennia (so they tell us) by going to the tidepools at their local beach, picking up the living meat that is an oyster, and gulping the raw flesh (which people think tastes incredibly good). How convenient is that?

The same applies to, for example, bananas, which are basically delicious fruit with a wrapper so you don’t get your hands sticky. The peel also tells you exactly when the banana is ripe!

This seems obvious or commonplace to us, but we should note that Nature doesn’t have to be this way.

Einstein said that “It’s a miracle that the universe is intelligible, because it doesn’t have to be.” In the same way, it’s a miracle that Nature is so convenient: if oysters were really meant to protect themselves, why aren’t they covered in poison barbs or something?

This miraculous convenience (what I would call “Convenience by Design”) applies to basically everything in the universe. When you get a chance, go and find examples of this yourself!

Why is Nature made so convenient for humans, the universe’s physically weakest creatures? It is because we are made to rule the universe, and so should not be brought down under other animals. Genesis 1:24 says: “Let us [God] make mankind in our image, in our likeness, that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Even stronger than Nature’s law of self-preservation, is the law that mankind is ruler of the universe, and so Nature must accept mankind’s dominion.