A Theological Truth: God Loves Beetles
January 30, 2026
Once the well-known English biologist,
J. B. S. Haldane, faced an eminent group
Of clergymen who asked him what he’d say,
From his career of studying the creatures
Of the universe, about the nature
Of the Supreme Being who created it.
The old man thought a bit and finally said,
“An inordinate fondness for beetles,”
The theologians may have been in shock
Or awe or disbelief, it isn’t said.
But what the scientist was telling them
Was true: of all the million animal
Species on the earth identified
And named, it seems some seventy-five per cent
Are insects, and out of those some sixty per cent
Are beetles.
Whether or not the secret to God’s
Great Plan is truly beetles I am somewhat
Hesitant to say, but two undoubted
Truths arise from this profound remark.
The first is that diversity is key,
That marvelous diversity that’s found
In beetles, four-hundred thousand kinds—
Amazing is it not?—in fact more different
Kinds than any other species: spotted,
Striped, checkered, solid, yellow, purple,
Green, and rose, and some that live in sand
And garbage, some in trees and roses, some
So miniscule they’re almost invisible
To the naked eye, some a full-foot
Long; some are uni-sexed while some
Are multi-sexed, and some live in the tropics,
Some are in the Arctic, some indeed
Throughout the world.
The second truth is that
Of size: small is beautiful. The great
Preponderance of the many million beetles
Is small, smaller than a human finger
All of them. Which leads us to the fact
That there are many times more species that
Are small than there are large, by a ratio
Of ten to one at least. So here we ask:
Does nature have a lesson for the human
Species in how it is that we should run
Our systems, customs, programs, nations—lives?
Kirkpatrick Sale is the author of 20 books, including Why the Sea is Salt: Poems of Loveand Loss (2001) and In the Beginning: Essay-Poems and Others (2023).
If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles.
The Creator, if He exists, has a special preference for beetles, and so we might be more likely to meet them than any other type of animal on a planet that would support life.
J. B. S. Haldane
Once the well-known English biologist,
J. B. S. Haldane, faced an eminent group
Of clergymen who asked him what he’d say,
From his career of studying the creatures
Of the universe, about the nature
Of the Supreme Being who created it.
The old man thought a bit and finally said,
“An inordinate fondness for beetles,”
The theologians may have been in shock
Or awe or disbelief, it isn’t said.
But what the scientist was telling them
Was true: of all the million animal
Species on the earth identified
And named, it seems some seventy-five per cent
Are insects, and out of those some sixty per cent
Are beetles.
Whether or not the secret to God’s
Great Plan is truly beetles I am somewhat
Hesitant to say, but two undoubted
Truths arise from this profound remark.
The first is that diversity is key,
That marvelous diversity that’s found
In beetles, four-hundred thousand kinds—
Amazing is it not?—in fact more different
Kinds than any other species: spotted,
Striped, checkered, solid, yellow, purple,
Green, and rose, and some that live in sand
And garbage, some in trees and roses, some
So miniscule they’re almost invisible
To the naked eye, some a full-foot
Long; some are uni-sexed while some
Are multi-sexed, and some live in the tropics,
Some are in the Arctic, some indeed
Throughout the world.
The second truth is that
Of size: small is beautiful. The great
Preponderance of the many million beetles
Is small, smaller than a human finger
All of them. Which leads us to the fact
That there are many times more species that
Are small than there are large, by a ratio
Of ten to one at least. So here we ask:
Does nature have a lesson for the human
Species in how it is that we should run
Our systems, customs, programs, nations—lives?
The Creator, if He exists, has a special preference for beetles, and so we might be more likely to meet them than any other type of animal on a planet that would support life.
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