James Jordan on the symbolic nature of everything

"What do we see when we go outside and look at the world? Has it become so familiar to us that we pay no attention to it at all? Or perhaps when we look at blue sky do we think of the refraction of light? When we notice the sun, do we think of a nuclear furnace? When we see a fox in a zoo, do we think of what we learned in biology class about bones and organs? And beyond this, when we step back and view the world, how do we see it? Blue grass, green fields, brown earth, blue water-does this set of images mean anything at all, or is it "just the way things are"? How do we view the world?"

and later: "...This raises the question of why God chose to fill up the world with all kinds of things. Why create geographical diversity: mountains, rivers, seas, wilderness? Why create animals, plants, bushes, trees, fish, and birds? Why create alternating days and nights,weeks and years, with sun, moon and stars measuring them? In other words, why this world?"

"Why this world with all this diversity? Why not just man and God interfacing together, with man growing and developing from this interaction? I believe the answer to this lies in the fact that God is infinite and man is finite. We simply cannot grasp God's infinite tri-personality all at once. For this reason, God chose to reveal the infinity of his personality in the diversity of this world. Various things in the world reveal various things about God. As we interface with these different things in the world, we are indirectly interfacing with God, who is revealed in them."

later:

"All this can be boiled down to a simple fact: The universe and everything in it symbolizes God. That is, the universe and everything in it points to God. This means that the Christian view of the world is and can only be fundamentally symbolic. The world does not exist for its own sake, but as a revelation of God."

-James Jordan in Through New Eyes