Minnesota 26.5.02: Nature Is as Nature Does

Steve’s father, as we pass a farm with a row of newly planted trees today: I don’t know why they planted them trees there. They don’t do anything.

There is an almost ruthlessly utilitarian approach to nature here: nature is what does, not what is. Yet that approach stops sharply at reproductive life: there, nature decidedly is. Interesting, the difference, and much commented on by theologians.