ACPADI Book Club—Creation Regained Week 4, Chapter 4: “Redemption” (With Chapter 5 and the Postscript Kind of Thrown In There)

I’m late, I’m late… I was on a professional development trip and I just couldn’t get the last post of the month out. I needed to redeem the time a little better, apparently.

So here we go: Redemption. First I’ll just tick off a few reflections:

• Normally I’m uncomfortable with reasoning directly from individual biblical words to a resultant systematic theological point (pp. 69–70). Just because redemption, reconciliation, renewal, and regeneration start with “re-” doesn’t mean that the Bible predicts a restoration of the originally good creation. Let’s not reason right from words but see if the Bible says this in sentences and paragraphs. But, in fact, the chapter goes on to prove that the Bible does in fact say what Wolters is saying, so the concurring evidence of a lot of re- words is indeed helpful to note (nevermind that not all the underlying Greek words Wolters points to have the equivalent of a re- prefix).
• Good quote: “Redemption is not a matter of an addition of a spiritual or supernatural dimension to creaturely life that was lacking before; rather, it is a matter of bringing new life and vitality to what was there all along.” (p. 71)
• The second biblical text Wolters cites in the chapter is an extremely important proof for his view, and it’s one to hold onto and mull over. “Through Christ God determined “to reconcile to himself all things [Col 1:20].’” God isn’t merely going to rescue people out of this sin-cursed earth and then leave it all to burn; He’s going to fix everything the fall broke.
• Which brings us to another key statement to hold on to: “The scope of redemption is as great as that of the fall; it embraces creation as a whole.” (p. 72) There is no neutral ground: either Satan rules a particular square inch of this world or God does. And in the end all things will be submitted to the Son (1 Cor 15:27–28).

But now I hit a little wall. Wolters says that the “obvious implication” of what he’s saying is “that the new humanity (God’s people) is called to promote renewal in every department of creation.” (p. 73) Okay… Fine. But is that really what Paul was talking about when he said that God had given him “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18)? Wolters thinks so, but in that context people—not kitchens, bedrooms, and boardrooms—are the ones being reconciled. Right?

Here’s how I get over that wall: I do think people are the most important objects of God’s redemptive work through Christ. We are the only part of creation that bear His image, so we have higher value than many sparrows (though there’s humor in that line in Matthew 10, it’s surely still true on its face). But sparrows do have value, and so does all the rest of God’s green earth. God has not given up on His creation and will not. We dare not give up on it if He won’t.

The kingdom of God is among us (Luke 17:21), but we are to pray that it will fully get here (Matt 6:10). And meanwhile Wolters is right to call all Christians to press the claims of God’s kingdom everywhere they find themselves, everywhere God calls them. Most of us are not standing in pulpits. We’re in kitchens, bedrooms, and boardrooms. Those are not neutral territories; we have to attempt—in the power of God, following His word—to claim them for Christ.

But if your background is like mine, you are still suspicious. Isn’t it the case that many individual conversions are the only way that any domain of culture will actually be reclaimed? Won’t Rachel Ray and Emeril Lagasse (and whoever makes KitchenAid mixers) need to get saved before we can reclaim the American kitchen for Christ? Won’t pretty much everyone in the U.S. need to get saved before we can reclaim the bedroom? And won’t most corporations have to move to China before we can bring the American boardroom under Christ’s rule? Why bother talking about redeeming culture at all when that is so clearly a fruitless task? Those who are more eschatologically sophisticated may add, “Why polish the brass on this sinking ship?” (like the Christian school teacher I had many years ago who sniffed at the very idea of recycling).

For one thing, Wolters has made it clear in previous chapters that the Bible points to God’s goodness as being everywhere in creation. “Some element in every situation is worth preserving.” (p. 93) Jesus could tell even the dead church at Sardis, “Strengthen what remains” (Rev 3:2).

For another thing, Wolters is not recommending “violent overthrow” but what he calls “progressive renewal.” (p. 91) That progress will feature lots of individual conversions. And one of his major illustrations—that the resurrection was like D-Day—assumes that renewal will not be easy and linear. Wolters is not a postmillennialist who believes things will get better and better until Jesus comes.

This is where Michael Goheen’s contribution in the Postscript comes in. He incorporates the storyline of Scripture, the importance of the Great Commission, and the reality of suffering in this time of overlap between the age that is passing away and the one that is to come. “The church, as a preview of the kingdom, shows actual ‘footage’ of what the kingdom will look like to interest unbelievers in the future.” (p. 132) You and I are a trailer for the coming attraction.

So whether or not our work for the kingdom seems to endure or get destroyed the day (or even a century) after we do it,* whether or not our work ever turns the tide in any domain of human culture (family, politics, business, art, education, etc.), whether or not we face suffering for our attempts to oppose the powers ruling this age, we have a responsibility to exhibit and promote kingdom values. God said, “Fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:26-28). Jesus said, “All power is given unto me, so make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:18–20). These two commands are not in conflict. And we have work to do.

*I like what Jeremy Larson said in a book club comment about my old boss, Phil: “Regarding premillennialism and the Creation Mandate, my dad has said that when premils make comments like Mark made above (permanence or no, we have a duty to subdue), he’s happy to work with them.” Good.

ACPADI Book Club—Creation Regained Week 3, Chapter 3: “Fall”

The chapter on fall shows that the scope of the fall is “not only the whole human race but the whole nonhuman world.” (p. 53) Wolters ticks off some of the domains affected by Adam’s sin:

• marriage
• the family
• the state
• the environment
• the arts
• the academy
• technology
• emotional disturbances
• mental diseases
• bodily sicknesses

But the absolutely key thing to realize—and, Wolters says, the reason that theistic evolution misses the point of Genesis 3 and is theologically dangerous (p. 62)—is that all of these problems are parasitic on an originally good creation. “Sin and evil always have the character of a caricature—that is, of a distorted image that nevertheless embodies certain recognizable features.” (p. 58)

If this is the case, then distinguishing between the perfect original and that damaging caricature is all-important, and Wolters introduces a very helpful way of doing so: the concepts of structure and direction.

1. “Structure refers to the order of creation, to the constant creational constitution of any thing, what makes it the thing or entity that it is.” (p. 59)
2. “Direction, by contrast, designates the order of sin and redemption, the distortion or perversion of creation through the fall on the one hand and the redemption and restoration of creation in Christ on the other. Anything in creation can be directed either toward or away from God—that is, directed either in obedience or disobedience to his law.” (p. 59)

But God won’t let sin completely destroy His good creation. Jesus Christ is the turning point, “the ultimate and decisive antidote to creational distortion.” (p. 60)

There is a danger that we will “single out some aspect or phenomenon of God’s good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of human apostasy, as the villain in the drama of human life.” (p. 61) I used this quotation in my dissertation, because Wolters points to human emotional capacities as one of the commonly named villains. I wrote a whole chapter in the dissertation arguing that not just emotion but intellect and volition and every other aspect of man was created good, fell in Adam, and is restored through Christ. We can’t speak as if the intellect is trustworthy, pretty much untainted by the fall, but emotions are fallen.

If everything is touched by the fall and everything can be redeemed, then there is no reason to cut a big dividing line between the secular and the sacred. As Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. used to say, “There is no difference between the secular and the sacred; all ground is holy ground, every bush a burning bush” (sorry—that’s from memory; I can’t find an original source). There is worldliness in the church; there is holiness in the world. The fall touches everything, and so can (and will) redemption.

ACPADI Book Club—Creation Regained Week 2, Chapter 2: “Creation”

It’s hard to write a brief post on this chapter! Don’t feel you have to read the whole summary; it’s here for your use and mine both now and in the future. Just pick out what interests you in the book, scan my post to see if I added anything, and make a comment.

Creation Vs. Providence

Let’s make sure we nail down what Wolters is doing at the beginning of the chapter.

1. First he argues that you can’t really draw a firm and clear distinction between God’s creation of the world and His providential rule over it; otherwise, you’ve got a Deistic god who made the watch, wound it up, and then just let it tick. “Let there be light is, in a way, still uttered by God moment by moment” (2 Pet 3:5, 7).
2. So what do we call God’s work of creation and providence put together? Wolters suggests law. That word points to God’s rule over all creation (Ps 33:9).

That category of law has to be further divided into two binaries:

1. Laws of Nature vs. Norms

So, for example, God works without mediation through nature. Laws of “gravity, motion, thermodynamics, photosynthesis, and heredity” work whether man does anything about it or not. But God works with mediation through the norms he sets up for human behavior. And make no mistake about it, Wolters says: God rules over all areas of individual and group behavior. There are divine norms for agriculture and business as well as for politics and journalism. There is “an order to which both mankind and nature are subject” (p.18).

And this is where Wolters argument is at its strongest, because he shows that the Bible says what he’s saying. Psalm 147:15-20 conflate what we moderns are apt to keep in very separate compartments. God’s words rule nature just as they rule human behavior.

2. General Laws vs. Particular Laws

God law, too, has both a general aspect (“Do not murder”) and a particular one (“You ought to work as an internist this summer”).

Creational Norms

And this brings us back around to the major assertion of the chapter

Human nature is normed throughout. Everywhere we discover limits and proprieties, standards and criteria: in every field of human affairs there are right and wrong ways of doing things. There is nothing in human life that does not belong to the created order (p.25).

God instituted marriage (1 Tim 4:3-4), for example, and even governmental authority (Rom 13:1-2; 1 Pet 2:13). To go against their norms is to go against the God who put them there.

Wisdom

Wolters gives general norms by the scriptural name “wisdom.” The wise man in Proverbs is one who conforms his ways to God’s order and plan, whether in nature or in interpersonal relationships (p. 29). It may take me some years to decide what I think of his translation of אמון (amon) in Proverbs 8:30. (The only other instance of that word would seem to require that it refer to a person, not a blueprint, but perhaps I’m missing something.)

A Major Scripture Reference To Hold On To

The one thing I have found my mind going back to most often in this chapter is Wolters’ citation of Isaiah 28:23–29. I’ve looked at it closely, and I think it’s saying what he’s saying it’s saying: God teaches the farmer the best ways to do the most mundane parts of his work. Crop-rotation, threshing practices—“All this…comes from the Lord Almighty…, whose wisdom is magnificent” (28:29, NIV).

In other words, if God’s “creational norms” extend that far down, to the most menial tasks, they certainly exist for the halls of Congress or for academic journals in the sciences and the humanities.

But how do we know God’s laws for these disciplines if He hasn’t revealed them explicitly in Scripture? Wolters answers with Scripture: Col 1:9-10 expresses a prayer that believers would be “filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” There are, then, aspects of God’s will that fall outside what He’s stated in Scripture. We need spiritual wisdom and understanding to find them out. Scripture is still primary, however, because it serves as a lens interpreting an otherwise fuzzy reality. God’s word isn’t just a light shining on nothing; it’s a light shining on my path. I need to actually look at the path. (This is very reminiscent of John Frame’s normative [Scripture’s light] and situational [the illuminated path] perspectives.)

Creation as Blueprint

Another way to think of it, and another thing I find myself coming back to, is the blueprint metaphor. Scripture is the audio recording of instructions given to a builder as he attempts to build following the blueprint in creation.

Civilization Unfolds What God Placed Here

One big point in this chapter that I starred is that the various academic disciplines and fields of human endeavor (Wolters does a good job, again, of listing off a large spectrum of them in just a few words—from needlepoint to rocket science) all arise from possibilities God programmed into creation at the beginning. Humans are responsible to actualize, reify, or positivize them. The fall, of course, makes our responsibility difficult. We get frustrated. But it doesn’t remove the responsibility; we’re not allowed to check out and do our own thing: “If God did not give up on the works of his hands, we may not either” (p. 45).

And that fall into sin brings Wolters to a key point which will help defuse the kinds of objections I first had when encountering his perspective: Wolters is trying to strike a scriptural balance between stressing the good inherent in creation and the evil brought on by sin. This is, he says,

an absolutely fundamental distinction, and one neglects it only at the peril of falling into either cultural pessimism (which sees only the debilitating effects of sin) and cultural optimism (which sees only the normative development of creational possibilities). (p.46)

God values His creation so highly that He didn’t

scrap it when mankind spoiled it, but determined instead, at the cost of his Son’s life, to make it new and good again. God does not make junk, and he does not junk what he has made. (p. 49)

Application/Critique

I’m a dispensationalist, as far as I know. I’m a premillennialist that far, too. I believe that God has a future for Israel and that Christ will set up His 1,000-year kingdom with a cataclysm. And for these reasons I have struggled at times to see much value in mowing my lawn. There are souls to save, books to read, blog posts to post! You know? But now that I’m a husband and father—and even though I work in full-time ministry—I see how needful it is to have a theological justification for all my shopping trips to Home Depot. The necessity is even greater for those who fix refrigerators day after day. And here it is: we’re supposed to subdue and have dominion. We’re supposed to cultivate and create. We’re supposed to make something of the small pieces of the world God has put under our care. And all of this is somehow consistent with the premillennial view that things will get worse overall until Christ comes and fixes everything for us. I haven’t worked all that out, but a thought from a theologically astute friend has helped a good deal.

Wolters: “Perhaps the most fitting symbol of the development of creation from the primordial past to the eschatological future is the fact that the Bible begins with a garden and ends with a city—a city filled with ‘the glory and the honor of the nations.” (p. 48)

Me: “But there’s a cataclysm in between the culture we’re creating all the time and city God will create. Doesn’t that destroy Wolters’ picture? Yes, history is flanked by a garden on one side and a city on the other, but the two don’t stand on the same timeline. It’s as if God starts a new one above the old. So if our cultural labors have no lasting place in the new earth, why engage in them?”

Theologically Astute Friend: “The cataclysm does not end the trajectory from Garden to City. It gives the ultimate victory to the City of God. Also, we should justify cultural engagement for doxological reasons, not for permanence reasons. The search for permanence is a frustrating search for all—including church planters and missionaries. This is the nerve that Solomon keeps stepping on in Ecclesiastes. His conclusion is that we fear God and keep his commandments. And what are his commandments? The Creation Mandate is the first.”

ACPADI Book Club—Creation Regained Week 1, Chapter 1: “What Is a Worldview?”

In these posts I’m not going to try to repeat what Wolters said—you just read that—but to try to pick out key ideas and explain and defend (or critique!) them. I’m going to say what I would say if the ACPADI Book Club/Βλογάπη Book Consortium were meeting in my living room.

Clearing Away Objections

Let me first try to clear away a few objections readers in the Club may have:

1. Wolters opens by citing some names we don’t normally cite (Vollenhoven, Bavinck, Kuyper, Dooyeweerd) and appealing to a few people we know but don’t talk about much and may even be wary of (Irenaeus, Augustine, Calvin, Tyndale) (pp. 1–2). I’d suggest that the problem is largely ours, not his, because (assuming that your background is similar to mine) historical theology is something we don’t give sufficient attention to. Old dead people have a lot to teach us; they are God’s gifts to us according to Eph 4:11–16; 1 Cor 3:22.
2. Wolters does come from a different world within Protestantism—a world based in Grand Rapids—and we need to be prepared to adjust to a slightly different lingo. However, note that on page 7 he very clearly says, “Our worldview must be shaped and tested by Scripture…. A good part of the purpose of this book is to offer help in the process of reforming our worldview to conform more closely to the teaching of Scripture.” This is familiar talk. We’re on the same page with the essentials.
3. When I first encountered the ideas in this book several years ago, my initial reaction was to say, “Aren’t we a little off course? Why so much effort polishing the brass on a sinking ship? Aren’t souls the only things worth redeeming?” His ideas sounded at the same time theonomic/postmillennial (“Let’s take over the culture!”) and new-evangelical (“Let’s engage the culture!”). I had given in to the very pressure Wolters mentions on page 7:
   

   There is considerable pressure on Christians to restrict their recognition of the authority of Scripture to the area of the church, theology, and private morality—an area that has become basically irrelevant to the direction of culture and society as a whole.

Wolters does not say in this book, “Let’s all send the Democrats to Siberia and take over the US government!” He doesn’t say, “Let’s all become beatniks, smoke heavily while reviewing raunchy French films from the 60s for the New Yorker, and take over the art scene!” All he’s said so far, anyway, is that God’s word is relevant to the direction of culture and society as a whole. Do we have a problem with that? If God has norms for how individual people ought to behave, why not norms for groups of people? Is God indifferent to “labor, social groups, and education” (p.8)? If we don’t let God speak to the areas of life that we view as “secular,” then some other worldview will; some other allegiance will take precedence.

Worldview

As for worldviews, Wolters makes several key assertions about them in this chapter that we have to retain:

1. They tend to form a system.
2. They deal with basic beliefs about things.
3. They are pretheoretical.
4. Everyone has one—everyone has to have one just like they have to have food.

Applications

One of Wolters’ real strengths in this book is his ability to tick off a number of different real-life applications quickly—watch for these throughout the book. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in them. The paragraphs on the bottoms of pages 4 and 5 are good examples. He is suggesting that there is a Christian view of inflation, film censorship, military conscription, counterculture, crime, taxation, etc. There are many other views on these matters, of course, and those views themselves stem from people’s worldviews.

One Small Disagreement

I want to register one point of disagreement that I’m not sure is full disagreement. Wolters says that feelings cannot lay claim to knowledge (p.3, first par.); and if I read him right, he says that worldviews are beliefs, not feelings. Following John Frame, I don’t think those two aspects of human personality can be so neatly divided. One’s worldview is, finally, based on one’s loves: love for God or love merely for self. And my beliefs have an inescapable element of feeling in them. I say I “know” something when I feel “cognitive rest” about it.

Biblical Theology and Worldview

Wolters hints on page 9 at what I regard to be one of the most important ideas in my life at the moment: a worldview tells a “metanarrative,” a story about where we came from, why we’re here, and where we’re going—and so does the Bible. So the story of the Bible makes up our metanarrative, our worldview. Wolters doesn’t expand on this much (that’s one of the reasons for the postscript he coauthored with Michael Goheen), but he says, “It is essential to relate the basic concepts of ‘biblical theology’ to our worldview—or rather to understand these basic concepts as constituting a worldview” (p.9). We’ll talk more about this!

Now You

Now you talk! What questions and comments do you have? What did you like? What did you dislike? What did you learn?

Note: NEW RULE! You can’t comment unless you have read the chapter!

ACPADI Book Club Begins This Week!

Remember, members, the ACPADI Book Club begins yesterday!

We’re reading the first chapter—"What is a Worldview"—in Creation Regained. It’s only 12 pages. You can do it.

We’ll read one chapter each week during the month of August. Every Friday morning at 6 a.m. I will post a post on that week’s chapter, and we’ll discuss it in the comments.

To stay in the club, you have to post a comment each week!

C’mon! All the Cool People Are Doing It!

(Next month: Bridge Jumping!)

ACPADI Book Club

Would you like to join the All the Cool People Are Doing It (ACPADI) Book Club? Our subtitular name is the Blogape Book Consortium (BBC) if you don’t like ACPADI. There are only two members so far, but we are willing to grant that more cool people exist, and we have left some room for them in our club.

Here’s the deal: every week during the month of August we are going to read a chapter of Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview. In order to be part of the club, you have to read the chapter and make at least one cool and intelligent comment each week. I will be writing a weekly post every Friday morning for you to comment on; I and other club members will interact with your comments.

C’mon! All the Cool People Are Doing It!

Al Wolter’s book Creation Regained is a modern classic, and it’s the kind of little book that bears repeat readings. It follows in the tradition of Herman Bavinck, but it is a good deal less prolix. I personally have appreciated how the book hews to Scripture and also shows me a scriptural framework through which to evaluate my world.

To recap…

When (each week is a Monday through Friday):

• Aug 1-5: Ch.1 What is a Worldview?
• Aug 8-12: Ch.2 Creation
• Aug 15-19: Ch.3 Fall
• Aug 22-26: Ch.4 Redemption
• Aug 29-Sep 2: Ch.5 Discerning Structure and Direction

What: Write something cool.

Who: Cool People. Please do let me know if you’re planning on doing it. But even if you are too cool to let me know, you are still welcome to participate if you read the chapters. Oh, and the other founding member is the definition of cool. Do you know him?