No Relativism Present in Deadly-Hot Pool
God’s creation is beautiful, inspiring, imposing, and frightening. Warm water is nice—and warm water with a hottish edge is nice too, as all hot-tubbers and hot spring seekers will attest to. Slightly cool water is good for swimming, better than too-warm water. But freezing water, cold water, hot water, and boiling water are either daunting or terrifying. The same stuff, with key variations, is alternately beautiful, inspiring, imposing, and frightening. Plunge pools that skip their way down the slopes of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains are beautiful, and alluring, and maybe invigorating on a hot summer’s day, but essentially they are to be approached with caution because of their cold water and because of the slippery rocks. Naturally-occurring hot baths in Indonesia are amazing, but one ought to be careful how close one’s hot bath of choice is to the lava tube that feeds it—too close and it could be a scalding bath or a deadly bath. The same goes for the pools in Yellowstone National Park—some are just right, but others are deadly. Is there a pattern here? It would seem that in the case of water, and throughout God’s creation in general, God is teaching people that His gifts are for our enjoyment and sustenance, but that they are not to be trifled with. A deadly-hot pool is not whatever we want to make it—a deadly-hot pool is a deadly-hot pool, stark and absolutist. Or take Mount Shasta, for instance. Mount Shasta is a 14,000-foot bruiser, part of God’s magnificent array of volcanoes, and quite capable of kicking up storms that will scare, or kill, strong men. Mount Shasta is not a cutesy backdrop for self-indulgent pseudo-philosophers from Mill Valley or Sausalito, but rather a beacon of God’s eternal power and divine nature, indeed a sculpture that veritably sings the glories of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God who made a mountain for the delivery of the Ten Commandments to Moses also made Mount Shasta, Mount Lassen, Mount Hood, and Mount Rainier—and even Fuji, Kilmanjaro, and Ararat.
