(3) The cultural mandate

Understanding Christianity in terms of the salvation of our souls has led to a seriously reduced understanding of the “Great Commission” to make disciples of all nations.  We will only get a fuller understanding if we go back to the first commission God gave to humans.  That is the “cultural commission”, often referred to as the “cultural mandate”.

In Genesis 1:26-30 and 2:15 God gives Adam and Eve oversight of the whole of creation.  We are to act as the stewards of creation both to preserve and to develop.  It is this role of authority concerning creation given to humans, both male and female, that is the central meaning of the image of God.  We reflect to the world the character of God through continuing God’s work of ordering and developing creation.  As with the goodness of creation this is a point that is reaffirmed in many of the Psalms (Psalm 19; 104). It is also central to the picture the New Testament gives us of God's coming kingdom (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:24-30; Matthew 25:23; 1 Corinthians 6:1-6; Revelation 5:10).

This is a neglected theme, and is of great relevance for understanding the whole-of-life implications of Christianity needed to sustain an authentic Christian philosophy. Therefore, we will spend a little time drawing out three elements of the human task to develop creation:

a.      God’s task to humans is creation-wide.

b.      Human authority is always limited

c.      Our task is always to be seen in the context of service

The first point is foundational.  To all those who would say that the primary task of a Christian is to evangelise, and that everything else is of secondary or even of no importance, it should be pointed out that evangelism has no meaning unless it is a discipleship of every nation in the Gospel of Christ.   It is worth remembering that the Gospel of Jesus was the announcement of the coming kingdom (Mark 1:15, Matthew 4:17), that is the rule of God over all things, for which we are taught to pray (Matthew 6:10, Luke 11:2).  Everything is to be done to the glory of God and for the blessing of one’s neighbour as affirmed in Jesus’ summary of the law (Matthew 22:34-40). Nothing can be excluded from this, from the making of clothes to farming, governing to refuse collection, artistic crafts to commerce. Each of these tasks can be engaged in so as to invite God’s kingdom to come or so as to take a share of God’s inheritance while refusing to recognise him as Father. Anything less than this is a reduction of the Gospel.

An implication of this is that we are to develop creation and its great potential.  Our task involves an opening up of the richness of creation bringing forth new possibilities.  This means that historical development and change is a natural and good part of God’s purposes for human life.  Historical change can often be guided by a spirit of human rebellion against God, as made clear at the tower of Babel. Nevertheless, as Christians we should not be reactionary in our evaluation of historical change.

Our freedom to get involved in cultural activities is creation wide.  However, there is also an important sense of limitation.  We do not own the world, “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it”. Therefore, our cultural activities and social roles always take on a limited form in contrast to God’s unlimited sovereignty.  These activities and roles have the quality of tasks and responsibilities we hold before God.  For example: to maintain justice and order in public life, to bring children into the world, to worship God and proclaim the message of salvation, to pass on the wisdom of one generation to the next, to produce goods for human use and enjoyment.

Each of these tasks should be seen as a genuine Christian vocation.  When we pray; “your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven”, we should be reminded of our own role in fulfilling these tasks, and others as well, all in the service of God.  The Lord’s Prayer must be prayed from within the work office, within the board meeting, within the courtroom. God’s Will is to be done in each and every situation.

We are touching here on a basic perspective on social institutions that is quite different from that commonly held today. We shall explore this more later on.  For now, it is enough to say that in understanding a school, or a business, a government or hospital as something formed in response to God-given tasks means that we must reject the view that such institution are basically arbitrary structures that exist to serve the interests and goals of the individuals that make them up.

Within the framework of limited responsibility before God and for the blessing of our neighbour we can outline a different approach.  God appoints humans to perform certain tasks that are communal in character. Humans respond through the formation of different social organizations.  So we have marriages, families, businesses, churches, governing authorities, schools and so on.  Each exists by responding to distinct cultural tasks.  These tasks are neither all-encompassing nor individualistic; they are limited and communal tasks.  We can evaluate institutions on the basis of their openness to God and others and on the basis of their distinctive tasks.  We can also be critical when one particular task starts to dominate and usurp or undermine the role of other societal tasks.  In such a situation we can see the real danger of a move away from recognising God’s total authority over human culture and towards an assertion of human authority based in one of the social spheres.

The final point is that human cultural activity is designed to be honouring to God, a blessing to those it affects and an act of stewardly love to the rest of creation.  Dooyeweerd summarised the cultural mandate by saying that God created humans as rulers of creation so that the powers and potentials which God has enclosed within creation are to be disclosed by men and women in their service of love to God and neighbour.  This will have a radical impact on the way we think about the role of an artist or the place of a business enterprise in society, the task of national governments and the role of universities, and indeed about the vital task of philosophy.

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(2) Philosophy and Worldview

Philosophy must start somewhere and the aim of reformational philosophy is to be a philosophy that is in line with scripture.  This means it is important to say something about the world and life vision that finds its inspiration in the Bible.  To do this we shall make some comments about the key Biblical themes of creation, fall and redemption with particular emphasis on the first since, as we have already indicated, that is what gives context to philosophical activity.

Creation includes everything that is not God.  There are three points about creation that are relevant in this context which will be explored in this and the following sections:

1.      Creation is good.

2.      The human task is to develop creation.

3.      Creation is ordered (given structure) by God

The Bible’s story of creation is described in terms of God commanding by his Word and creation responding in obedience.  After each response God affirms what he has made.  And we see that the whole of creation, in all its rich diversity is considered very good.  We should be careful not to equate this goodness with other-worldly notions of perfection, or think of goodness only in relations to our own desires.  Creation is set up to fulfil the purposes given to it by God; that is what is central.  Creation is God’s kingdom (Psalm 24); it reveals his will (Psalm 19); and should be received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:4)

To believe in the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible is to understand ourselves and the world we live in as God’s world; we were made to be at home in this world. We are part of God’s good creation and thus are part of His ongoing purposes.  Life is of one piece and the fundamental question for the Christian is to what extent one’s life is a walk of obedience to God.  That following Christ has implications for the whole of life is often resisted by Christians and it is worth considering why this is.  In reformational philosophy this resistance is attributed to a basic “dualism” that underlies it, though it is worth noting that today there may be a lot of emphasis given to “integrating” the two realms or spheres that form this dualism.  The basic idea is that life can be separated into a natural and a supernatural realm.  The natural realm is constituted by the common world in which all people live whether they are Christian or not.  Here people build homes for themselves, live together in society, develop science and pursue various social and personal goals without much concern for “religious” issues.  It is a realm that is largely neutral with regard to religion and, in that sense, is sometimes described as “secular”.  The supernatural realm is then that realm of life that is unique to Christian experience.  It is primarily found in the church community and involves distinctive activities like worship, prayer, Bible reading and some specific moral teachings.  This sphere is directly affected by religion in the sense that God’s grace brings an individual into this sphere, or adds this to one’s common life.  So, as well as being a car mechanic and football fan you become someone who prays, reads the Bible and attends church.

It is important to see that this is a very persuasive position.  It is a “ground motive” that affects us all such that it often acts like ‘common sense’ and can be very difficult to resist.  We need to see what’s wrong with this view at its heart.  The key is to see that our whole life belongs to God. There is no sphere of our existence that can be hidden from God or that can be kept back from the claim of Christ’s Lordship.  So the problem with this view is that it undermines the integrity of our religious situation.    The whole of reality is created, sustained, and ordered by God; it is comprehensively distorted, though not destroyed, by the fall; and the whole of reality is taken up in God’s redemptive work through history to reconcile all things to himself.  The great Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck summarised this stance simply like this: “God the father has reconciled His created but fallen world through the death of His Son, and renews it into a Kingdom of God by His Spirit.” What this means is that any attempt to divide reality up into a 'secular' or 'natural' sphere and a 'spiritual' or 'supernatural' sphere undermines the comprehensiveness of the central biblical categories of creation, fall and redemption.

We must therefore resist any view that sees salvation as taking us out of this world, and so sees our destination as a spiritual realm beyond this world.  Such a view finds no support from the Bible. However it does hold a striking resemblance to certain pagan Greek ideas of the world of matter as evil, or a principle of imperfection, and of a non-physical soul as our true self which is trapped in the body and longs for its release into a purely spiritual world.  One important source of these ideas has been Plato’s dialogue the Phaedo, which has unfortunately been more influential in many Christians’ understanding of spirituality and eternal life than 1 Corinthians 15, as the New Testament scholar Oscar Cullmann once noted. This Greek inspired view has both minimised the value of our earthly lives and cut off whole chunks of our life from the renewing power of the Gospel.  While it is true that most Christians would reject the more extreme forms of this view it is still common for Christians to think of their life in terms of sacred and secular and so find it strange that the Gospel is relevant to the whole of life. The effect of this deep lying dualism is to deny the lordship of Christ for the greater part of our life!  It leads us to assume that work and play, food and drink, business and politics, art and entertainment are somehow outside of our Christian calling.

This is really important.  When the comprehensive character of creation is taken out of a Christian view, when we start with a reduced Christian faith that covers only Sunday service and private Bible study, then we cut out any relevance the Christian faith can have for life, and in doing so we condemn Christianity to irrelevance.  A Christian philosophy cannot solve these problems, indeed it will suffer from them. Seeing how such a philosophy can give distinctive insight and direction in the different sectors of life can, however, play its part in encouraging a more wholehearted Christian life.

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(1) Philosophy and the richness of creation (continued)

So, the example of a children's party, a fairly ordinary and practical event which can provide our first step towards a philosophical exploration of the richness of creation.  To the child, their birthday party is a very simple thing; it means presents, friends, food and fun. For the poor parents, however, there is much more going on!  First, there will be the decision as to who, and how many, will be invited. Invitations will need to be designed and sent out. Then, where to hold the party; a space is needed big enough to contain the number of children invited. Since the children will be doing a lot of running around the space will need to be big! How big, and what entertainment to put on, old-fashioned party games, or a hired magician, will depend in part on what the parents view as a reasonable cost for such a party. However, there will also be social expectations, perhaps very high and pressuring, that the parents will feel more keenly than the children. With games come prizes; how will they be distributed, and what happens when boisterous play upsets one of the little guests? Food is also an important component, and thought will need to go into when this is given to the children and how they might be encouraged to eat some healthy food rather than going straight for the crisps and cake! The timing for what happens at the party may also be important; for how long will each activity hold the attention of the kids; when is the appropriate time to bring in the cake and sing happy birthday?

In reformational philosophy it is standard to give expression to the richness of creation by recognising that in reality we experience a number of different dimensions or ‘aspects’.  Much more will be said about these later; for now we start by listing the 15 ‘modal aspects’ that, give or take a few, all reformational philosophers have come to recognise.  Questions have been added to help see how recognising these aspects will help us explore the variety of ways created things can function.

Table 1(adapted from Arthur Jones 1998, 18-19)

Aspects	Key Questions
Numerical	How many?
Spatial	How big?
Movement	How fast?
Energy	How reactive?
Biotic	How productive?
Psychic/sensitive	How stimulating?
Analytic	How intelligible?
Historical	How creative/skilful?
Aesthetic	How imaginative?
Lingual	How clear?
Social	How sociable?
Economic	How valuable?
Jural	How just?
Ethical	How loving?
Faith	How trustworthy?

 Have a look back at what was said about planning a child’s birthday party.  With a bit of effort you should be able to see that most, if not all, of the 15 aspects are present.  You may want to try and imagine a children’s party that completely avoids one of the aspects.  In trying this you may be surprised at how hard it actually is. 

So we now have an example of recognising the richness of creation.  Its practical use is that a good children’s party will need to consider all of these factors and ensure that they are all in order.  However, it also raises a problem.  What looked simple now looks too complicated and we might wonder what has happened to the simplicity of having fun while celebrating a child’s birthday.  This problem is actually a very significant and long-standing philosophical one: the problem of unity and diversity.

Without trying to solve this philosophical problem right now, we can say that it is common for one aspect to take the lead, so to speak, in specific contexts.  In the context of a children’s party it is the social element of friends having fun together and marking an important point in a child’s life. This means that the social element is the leading aspect which should provide focus for the parents in their planning and all the other elements that are part of the party should serve this one.  If the parents considered only the health and safety of the children, or only worried about getting all the numbers right, then the chance of a good birthday party would be significantly reduced.

You might like to try this exercise on other planned events, projects or communities you are involved in. Do you discover that there are always many factors involved in a successful outcome even if many of these seem minor and often go unnoticed? Have you experienced events where the little things became so important that the main purpose was lost sight of?

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What's the use of a Christain philosophy?

I mentioned in my last post that we should be cautious about the demand for usefulness. If the task is a genuine one, and I believe seeking to give a coherent theoretical account of the diversity of God's creation is such a task, then it will bear fruit. It may not be immediate and obvious, but we can expect some contribution to human flourishing. Now I would suggest that if an explicitly Christian philosophy, developed before the advent of digital computers, was able to bring insight into the study of information systems, then that would suggest that it had something worthwhile to it. If this philosophy could be presented in a way that acknowledged it's rootedness in the Christian faith, and yet could appeal to a wide audience so that a leading academic publisher was willing to print it, then we should sit up and take some notice.

Andrew Basden has taken Herman Dooyeweerd's philosophy and done just that. See his latest book Foundations of Information Systems.

Steve Bishop has a great two part interview with Andrew. Here's a snippet:

I want to leave behind a means by which people can understand Dooyeweerd and his usefulness.  That is primarily why I wrote the book.  It explains Dooyeweerd's philosophy to a degree that I think people would be able to work from even if I wrote nothing more, and it discusses how Dooyeweerd's philosophy can do two things in each of five areas.  One is to provide a foundational understanding of each area.  The other is to engage with discourses in the area - over 50 of them.  I don't want to reject or replace the ideas on which each discourse centres, but to affirm what is valid, critique the underlying presuppositions, and enrich the ideas, all using Dooyeweerd and the foundational understanding I have constructed.

Read the interview here:

Part 1

Part 2

(1) Philosophy and the richness of creation

“And it was good” said God concerning creation six times before concluding on the seventh occasion that it was very good.  Any philosophy that aims to honour God will have to reckon with the goodness of creation.  As Vollenhoven has it, Reformational philosophy takes creation, the cosmos as distinct from God, as its focus.  This is an important difference from other philosophical approaches.  One consequence of this difference is that we honour God by doing justice to the richness of creation.  Much philosophy finds its motivation in trying to explain the whole of reality in terms of a very limited range of features.  Today materialism is very popular.  According to this view everything that exists is just physical stuff arranged in a variety of complex ways.  Materialism may well be very ‘open’ to new evidence and to the further progress of science. However, it is still a ‘closed system’ in the terms of the quote from Vollenhoven since it encloses the richness of creation in only one of its dimensions or aspect (the material), and therefore shuts itself off from the many other dimensions of creation.

An emphasis on doing justice to the richness of creation may cause a positive reaction.  “Good,” some might say, “a philosophy that affirms God’s world in all its variety.  A Christian philosophy that gives a ‘yes’ to being fully human, a Christian philosophy that is not restrictive of human activity out of fear of being too worldly”.  That is a reaction we hope for since we can only be truly human by being in Christ and so being reconciled to God.  Christ came that we should have life, and life in all its fullness.

However, it is quite possible that this talk about the richness of creation might provoke a different reaction.  Others may have had some good experience of philosophy, but mixed in with more disheartening experiences.  Philosophy can be difficult and complicated, full of strange words and abstract distinctions.  Such people may well have read some reformational philosophy and found this to be their experience.  “All this talk of the richness of creation,” they object, “is it not just an excuse to be over complicated?  And after all, what is the practical use of all this theory?  Should we as Christians really spend so much time on obscure philosophy?”

The requirement that philosophy should enrich our lives is a valid one, though we need also to be careful of closing things down by demanding that something have an immediate and obvious practical use.  Leaving that aside for now, since we can agree that the objection does have its validity, let us consider an example of what doing justice to the richness of creation might look like.  Before continuing consider the planning of an event, choose something familiar to you, in my next post I’ll reflect on planning a child’s birthday party.  What things would you need to consider?

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