Book of Nature

The Book of Nature (Lat. liber naturae/liber mundi, Ar. kitāb takwīnī) is a religious and philosophical cosmological metaphor known from Antiquity in various cultures, and prominent in the Latin and Romance literature of the European Middle Ages.^[1] The idea of a cosmos formed by letters is already found in the fragments of Heraclitus, where it relates to the Greek concept of logos,^[2] in Plato’s Timaeus,^[3] and in Lucretius’ De rerum natura.^[4]

The metaphor of the Book of Nature straddles the divide between religion and science, viewing nature as a readable text open to knowledge and understanding. Early theologians, such as St. Paul,^[5] believed the Book of Nature was a source of God's revelation to humankind. He believed that when read alongside sacred scripture, the "book" and the study of God's creations would lead to a knowledge of God himself. This type of revelation is often referred to as a general revelation. The concept corresponds to the early Greek philosophical concept of logos, which implies that humans, as part of a coherent universe, are capable of understanding the design of the natural world through reason. The phrase liber naturae was famously used by Galileo when writing about how "the book of nature [can become] readable and comprehensible".^[6]