Praise God for food
Some thoughts on how food shows us the
beauty and graciousness of our Creator
Tonight, for my wife's birthday (I love you Jan -
Happy birthday), we went out to a VERY nice restaurant - the Anaheim
Whitehouse. I have some
thoughts specifically on the restaurant and how great it is, but it
made me think more about what food, and specifically our enjoyment of food, says
about our Creator.
The first observation is that eating need not be inherently pleasurable. In an evolutionary model, one would think that perhaps something as essential to our survival as food has evolved into being pleasurable in order to spur the species on to doing more of it. Yet there are plenty of activities that are necessary for our survival that do not require our enjoyment. Breathing for instance, is an incredibly necessary function, and yet we don't feel elated whenever we take a breath. Conversely, there is no survival value in music or other arts, and yet they are immensely pleasurable activities.
Furthermore, there is quite a lot more to good food than simply taste or the pleasure of eating. When you go to a great restaurant like we did tonight, you are not simply enjoying the taste of something in your mouth. It is carefully prepared to be a visual work of art, with wonderful textures in your mouth and delectable taste, and is presented in a carefully decorated room by a friendly and polite staff. Seems like an awfully large amount of pomp and circumstance for something that is essentially no more valuable to my survival than some nuked bowl of Campbell's I ate while watching TV in my boxers.
Of course, this doesn't really measure up to being a bonafide argument against evolution. There's nothing in this that says that food can't be pleasurable in an evolutionary model. But the only real way to explain it is to say its just a fluke, or that there really isn't any difference between great food in a restaurant and food we choke down just to stay alive. And I guess thats my whole point in this. Some look at great food and say I know its no different, but I just like it. Some will say its a fluke, but they enjoy it anyway. I'm thankful that when I eat great food, I can praise the God who made food wonderful because He is wonderful, who gave us a foretaste of His goodness which we will enjoy with Him forever. Praise God for food.
The first observation is that eating need not be inherently pleasurable. In an evolutionary model, one would think that perhaps something as essential to our survival as food has evolved into being pleasurable in order to spur the species on to doing more of it. Yet there are plenty of activities that are necessary for our survival that do not require our enjoyment. Breathing for instance, is an incredibly necessary function, and yet we don't feel elated whenever we take a breath. Conversely, there is no survival value in music or other arts, and yet they are immensely pleasurable activities.
Furthermore, there is quite a lot more to good food than simply taste or the pleasure of eating. When you go to a great restaurant like we did tonight, you are not simply enjoying the taste of something in your mouth. It is carefully prepared to be a visual work of art, with wonderful textures in your mouth and delectable taste, and is presented in a carefully decorated room by a friendly and polite staff. Seems like an awfully large amount of pomp and circumstance for something that is essentially no more valuable to my survival than some nuked bowl of Campbell's I ate while watching TV in my boxers.
Of course, this doesn't really measure up to being a bonafide argument against evolution. There's nothing in this that says that food can't be pleasurable in an evolutionary model. But the only real way to explain it is to say its just a fluke, or that there really isn't any difference between great food in a restaurant and food we choke down just to stay alive. And I guess thats my whole point in this. Some look at great food and say I know its no different, but I just like it. Some will say its a fluke, but they enjoy it anyway. I'm thankful that when I eat great food, I can praise the God who made food wonderful because He is wonderful, who gave us a foretaste of His goodness which we will enjoy with Him forever. Praise God for food.
Posted: Sat - January 29, 2005 at 10:05 PM | | | | | | |
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