“A gold mine. . . . A strategic book.”

—CHARLES DUNAHOO

k ingdoms

apar t

Engaging the TWO KINGDOMS Perspective

edited by RYAN C. McILHENNY

“One of the most significant controversies of our time among Christians of Reformed conviction is that generated by the Two Kingdoms perspective and its stringent critique of the neo-Calvinist interpretation of the implications of the paleo-orthodox confession that ‘Jesus is Lord’ over all of life, and that ‘life is religion.’ This is not only an academic debate. Its outcome will have broad implications for Christian schools, colleges, seminaries, and churches and for Christians in the academy, politics, business, the arts, and other realms of cultural activity. The essays in this volume contribute clarity to our understanding of what—and how much—is at stake.”

— Gideon Strauss, Executive Director, Max De Pree Center for Leadership, Fuller Theological Seminary; Senior Fellow, Center for Public Justice, Washington, DC

“The church, particularly in ‘old Christendom’ (an admittedly provocative term in this debate, but still useful, I think), is in desperate need of a ‘public theology.’ Our desperation, in my opinion, is linked to increasingly secular and anti-Christian assaults on religious liberty, sanctity of marriage, sanctity of life, and the very meaning of our humanity, as well as the Christian’s place in this pluralistic culture. Wearied Christian activists who have personally endured the corrupt kingdom of this world’s turning a deaf ear (and now active, relentless personal attacks) to their cries are understandably discouraged. For others, pastors are chided for being ‘too political’ by their congregations who have been sedated by the dualistic charms of secularism. Could it be that this discouragement has metastasized into a theological skepticism that shrinks from prophetic engagement with culture and the kingdom of this world? If so, sympathy for war-worn soldiers of the cross notwithstanding, this is the wrong time to retreat from prophetic preaching to human kingdoms. Talk of Two Kingdoms—a secular and a sacred—has possibly provided a supposed Calvinistic safe harbor from the vicissitudes of cultural engagement and its invariable struggles (and defeats). But as the Christian citizens of a 1930s German Republic would now surely testify, such a radical discontinuity—and, I would add, misunderstanding—of Two Kingdoms theology can lead to national and even worldwide catastrophe. And yet we may be living in such a day once more.

“It is for these reasons, and more, that I have prayed for wise and courageous scholars to step up—and step into—this fraternal debate within the Reformed Christian community concerning Two Kingdoms. I am praising God, therefore, for a new book by general editor Ryan McIlhenny: Kingdoms Apart: Engaging the Two Kingdoms Perspective. From razor-sharp scholarly engagement with biblical, historical, philosophical, civil, and theological sources, this new collection by ten trusted theologians treats the issues Christianly, fairly, and respectfully, without the dark smoke of polemics, yet with the unfettered urgent appeal for the reader (and the church) to consider the calling of believers in this age—and especially those who serve the Lord as preachers and teachers—to announce the lordship of Jesus Christ as both Creator and Redeemer until that day when, indeed, the kingdoms of this world become the once-and-for-all kingdom of our God and of his Christ. The Reformed churches and the seminaries who serve those churches need this timely book now more than ever before. I thank the editor, the contributors, and P&R Publishing for producing this critical book and pray that it will encourage twenty-first-century Reformed believers to return to the brave heritage of our spiritual forefathers who lived in the tension of the world now and the world on its way to cry, like John Knox, ‘Give me [this kingdom] or I shall die!’ ”

— Michael A. Milton, Chancellor/CEO, James M. Baird Jr. Professor of Pastoral Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina

“Too many Christians, especially in the American evangelical Reformed renaissance, speak as though one must choose between Christ and culture, gospel and kingdom, salvation and justice. The Kuyperian tradition, with its rich, multiform, and I believe biblical vision, provides a counterweight to all that reductionism. This book engages this conversation and deserves a careful hearing by all who believe God has made Jesus of Nazareth the rightful and ultimate king of everything.”

—Russell D. Moore, Dean, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky

“For centuries, Reformed Christians have debated and divided over the question whether the cultural mandate retains abiding force in the contemporary setting and whether Scripture is the only rule, not just for faith but for cultural life as well. The new debate, stimulated by those who would answer those questions in the negative, is proving to be a matter of life and death for those Christian educational and social institutions dedicated to answering those questions in the affirmative. This volume will be of critical interest for those who support such institutional endeavors as they sort out whether their efforts have truly been God’s work or whether, as their critics imply, these educational social institutions have simply become the new idols of our age.”

—Carl E. Zylstra, President, Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa

“ Kingdoms Apart is a strategic book because it compares and contrasts the one-kingdom view and the Two Kingdoms view. The church has fallen into the Two Kingdoms view, both consciously and unconsciously, and consequently has struggled with its role and message within the kingdom. Each chapter, written by a different author, carefully and fairly leads the reader to a clearer understanding of the importance of the kingdom issue. This is a challenging and straightforward book that deserves to be read, studied, and taught by the church.”

—Charles H. Dunahoo, Chairman of the Board, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

“This is a very fine collection of essays on the issues surrounding Christ and culture, marked by careful scholarship, an irenic spirit, and a deep commitment to a Reformed understanding of the gospel. Though occasioned by the challenge mounted by David VanDrunen and others to the comprehensive and holistic view of the kingdom advocated by Dutch neo-Calvinism and its heirs, these essays are much more than a reflexive defense of neoCalvinism against this challenge. They also represent creative theologizing that not only is rooted in Scripture and the classical Augustinian and Reformed tradition, but also is actively engaged in the philosophical and theological currents of the twenty-first century. The contributors include both seasoned older scholars and promising young academics who are just beginning to make their mark. A number of the contributors also give us much-needed access to the Dutch theological and historical background of neo-Calvinism, and introduce us to little-known but seminal thinkers such as S. G. de Graaf and Klaas Schilder. What I find particularly attractive in this volume is its tone. Though in some ways a work of polemical theology, it avoids the rhetorical excess and partisan characterizations that so often mar this genre of discourse. Instead, it freely acknowledges that there are unresolved tensions in the work of such Reformed giants as Calvin, Kuyper, and Bavinck, and at the same time is animated by a quiet passion for the comprehensive claims of Christ’s rule. I believe this volume represents a valuable and constructive advance in the often heated debates surrounding the themes it treats.”

—Al Wolters, Professor of Religion and Theology/Classical Languages, Redeemer University College, Ancaster, Ontario

“The difference between neo-Calvinism and the Two Kingdoms perspective is much deeper than theology. It is a matter of a fundamental disagreement on the nature and scope of the gospel. And the way one understands the gospel has implications for the missional calling of the church. The writers of this volume commend to us the neo-Calvinist vision as more faithful to Scripture than the dualism of the Two Kingdoms perspective. I welcome this book, which joins a growing chorus of voices critically analyzing the Two Kingdoms approach in an attempt to understand the gospel and the church’s mission more faithfully.”

—Michael W. Goheen, Geneva Professor of Worldview and Religious Studies, Trinity Western University, Langley, British Columbia

“Charles Hodge, the great nineteenth-century Princeton theologian, affirmed the ‘spirituality of the church’ in the face of those who would have him confuse the institutions of church and state. At the same time, Hodge refused to allow ‘spirituality of the church’ to mean that the church had nothing to say to or about the state. In recent times, some proponents of a Two Kingdoms approach have advocated a separation of church and state without addressing the necessary relation that subsists between church and state. The essays in this volume, while not confusing different realms or spheres, such as church, state, and family, show that there are both distinctions and connections between these spheres. In other words, these essays seek to account for the one and the many. Hodge referred to the relation of the church and the state as ‘an exceedingly complicated and difficult subject.’ This writer agrees with Hodge and wearies of those who either simply merge all spheres, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, separate kingdoms without any clear integration points. This volume seeks to reflect the complexity of the subject matter and to treat it with both sophistication and clarity.”

—Alan Strange, Professor of Church History and Librarian, Mid

America Reformed Seminary, Dyer, Indiana

“This thoughtful survey of the thought of Reformed exemplars such as Calvin, Kuyper, Bavinck, S. de Graaf, and others calls us toward a global Christianity, instead of dividing vital sectors into hemispheres with some normed by God’s Word and others left essentially normless. Modernity’s program has surely persisted in seeking to arm-wrestle the church into such a diminished posture—normally leading to some hideous or inhumane trend or other—and the church’s dubious wisdom wishes to go back to the effect of a secularism-of-all-but-the-soul, as spawned by modernity. These deliberate scholars have saved the church much time and interacted with a reincarnated idea that is finding some renewed popularity. Instead of needlessly bifurcating our discipleship or abandoning a calling, however, these essays call us to take every thought captive and follow Christ in all that he commanded. The church and students cannot but be enriched by this bracing reminder toward unified Christian living in all areas of life, as our Reformed parents rediscovered. Our day should hardly beg for a shrunken witness; this balanced collection emboldens the church toward comprehension. We are glad to welcome it.”

—David W. Hall, Senior Pastor, Midway Presbyterian Church, Powder Springs, Georgia

“This collection of essays, both varied and subtle, and mostly emphasizing the Dutch Reformed perspective, should be a helpful guide for anyone seeking to think through the issues of the Two Kingdoms view of culture and its alternatives. Highly recommended.”

—Donald N. Petcher, Professor of Physics and Department Chair, Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Georgia

apar t

apar t

Engaging the Two Kingdoms Perspective

edited by Ryan C. McIlhenny

© 2012 by Ryan C. McIlhenny

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—except for brief quotations for the purpose of review or comment, without the prior permission of the publisher, P&R Publishing Company, P.O. Box 817, Phillipsburg, New Jersey 08865–0817.

Unless otherwise indicated, all English Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Italics within Scripture quotations indicate emphasis added.

ISBN: 978-1-59638-435-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-59638-577-1 (ePub) ISBN: 978-1-59638-578-8 (Mobi)

Nelson Kloosterman’s article “Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck” (chapter 3 in this book) was published in an earlier form in CTJ 45 (2010): 165–76 under the title “A Response to ‘The Kingship of Christ Is Twofold’: Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck by David VanDrunen.” It is used with the publisher’s permission.

Ryan C. McIlhenny’s article “Christian Witness As Redeemed Culture” (chapter 10 in this book) is a substantial revision of an earlier article published in the “Calvin Commemorative” edition of MAJT 20 (2009): 75–94 under the title “A Third-Way Reformed Approach to Christ and Culture: Appropriating Kuyperian Neo-Calvinism and the Two Kingdoms Perspective.” It is used with the publisher’s permission.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kingdoms apart : engaging the two kingdoms perspective / Ryan C. McIlhenny, editor. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 978-1-59638-435-4 (pbk.)

1. Kingdom of God. 2. Two kingdoms (Lutheran theology) 3. Church and the world.

4. Christianity and culture. 5. Creation. 6. Reformed Church--Doctrines--History. 4. Christianity and culture. 5. Creation. 6. Reformed Church--Doctrines--History.

BT94.K57 2012

231.7--dc23

2012006604

To all the Reformed academic institutions in North America dedicated to Christ and his kingdom and, in particular, to the faculty, staff, and students of Providence Christian College.

Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 48

What is the second petition?

Thy kingdom come. That is: so rule us by Thy Word and Spirit that we may submit ourselves more and more to Thee; preserve and increase Thy Church; destroy the works of the devil, every power that exalts itself against Thee, and all wicked counsels conceived against Thy holy Word, until the perfection of Thy kingdom arrive wherein Thou shalt be all in all. Foreword ix James W. Skillen

Acknowledgments xiii Abbreviations xv

Introduction: In Defense of Neo-Calvinism xvii Ryan C. McIlhenny

Part 1: Kingdom Reign and Rule

1. The Restoration of All Things to Proper Order: An Assessment of the “Two Kingdoms/Natural Law” Interpretation of Calvin’s Public Theology 3 Cornel Venema

2. Calvin, Natural Law, and the Two Kingdoms 33 Gene Haas

3. Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck 65 Nelson Kloosterman

Part 2: Kingdom Citizenship

4. “Christ and the Magistrate” and “Church and State”:

Two Addresses by S. G. de Graaf 85 S. G. de Graaf, Translated with Foreword by

Nelson Kloosterman

5. Dual Citizenship, Dual Ethic? Evaluating the Two Kingdoms Perspective on the Christian in Culture 125 Timothy R. Scheuers

6. Theologian of the Revolution: Abraham Kuyper’s Radical Proposal for Church and State 155 John Halsey Wood Jr.

7. Two Cities or Two Kingdoms? The Importance of the Ultimate in Reformed Social Thought 173 Branson Parler

Part 3: Kingdom living

8. How Does “Thy Kingdom Come” before the End? Theology of the Present and Future Kingdom in the Book of Revelation 201 Scott A. Swanson

9. Eschatology, Creation, and Practical Reason: A Reformational Interpretation of the Two Kingdoms Perspective 227 Jason Lief

10. Christian Witness As Redeemed Culture 251 Ryan C. McIlhenny

Contributors 277 Index of Subjects and Names 279

James W. Skillen

THE ESSAyS IN THIS VOLUME are of great importance for Christian life and thought in the twenty-first century. From biblical times to the present, Christians have understood that their life in this age anticipates the age of God’s fully revealed glory to come. They await the return of Christ and the climax of the revelation of God’s kingdom. yet what is the relation between this age and the age to come? And how should Christians think about and conduct their lives in the societies in which they live now? What does it mean to be in the world but not of the world? Should the church keep itself separate from the world or become fully immersed in it? Should Christians be trying to reform society or focusing on evangelization and strengthening the church to keep itself pure in a godless world?

In medieval Christendom, the church served as a moral guide as well as a blessing for secular society. In the period of the Reformation, different approaches were taken, either to distinguish more sharply between the “spiritual” and the “civil” or to relate them closely in new ways. With the sharpening of a distinction between the faithful, Christ’s elect, and those outside the circle of faith, a distinction developed between “special grace” (redeeming grace in Christ) and “common grace” (God’s mercy shown to everyone for temporal blessing and for the restraint of sin, but not for eternal salvation). yet the question remains: What is the relation between these two kinds of grace and the effects that they have? Does God’s common grace give reason for Christians to be more vigorously and extensively involved in the affairs of the common life and to do so with the aim of trying to reform the world in keeping with Christian principles? Or rather, does it mean that Christians should act in this world on terms that Christians and non-Christians can hold in common, while expending their distinctively Christian energies on church life and evangelization?

The great merit of the essays that follow is their careful and critical evaluation of one tradition in the Reformed Calvinistic line that offers a Two Kingdoms answer to the questions posed above. In the Two Kingdoms approach, this age and the coming age are not closely connected, and the “two graces”—common and special—that pertain to the two ages are quite distinct as well. The church, then, has a spiritual calling, while civil government and other earthly responsibilities belong only to life in this age.

The basis on which the authors of this book develop their critical evaluation of the Two Kingdoms view is that of a more integral, nondualistic commitment. While it is true, they argue, that human sinfulness stands against (or antithetical to) God’s will and that God’s redeeming grace in Christ calls believers away from the way of death, it is not right to try to fit every distinction between church and civil government, between this age and the coming age, and between common grace and special grace into the framework of that antithesis. John Calvin, for example, insisted that civil authorities are ultimately answerable to Christ. The antithesis between obedience and disobedience to God also runs through the heart of every Christian insofar as Christians are still sinners being saved by grace. And the age to come should not be thought of as antithetical to life in this age if one recognizes that life in this age is life in God’s creation (however much marred by sin) and that the coming age is the fulfillment of God’s creation purposes and not only the outcome of the defeat of sin and death.

This means, as the essays here suggest or argue directly, that the best place to start to understand the Christian life in this age is not with the distinction between church and state, between church and world, between special grace and common grace, or between the spiritual and earthly. What is needed is a recovery of the integral meaning of creation—the single reality that God loves and governs for one purpose, namely, to reveal the divine glory. Sinful humans are indeed pushing antithetically against God and his purposes for creation, but sin does not stand on its own platform or define the meaning of life in this age. Creation comes first as God’s thesis. God’s restraint and punishment of sin aim in the end to defeat sin

x

and death so that his creation purposes can be fulfilled. Moreover, if we look more closely at the covenantal disclosure of God’s mercy and grace in upholding and redeeming creation, we can see an eschatological orientation of the creation from the beginning. God’s redeeming grace in Christ did not launch a second creation—another world—to which the redeemed would be carried to escape from this one. The meaning of life in this age is not discarded when Christ returns to reveal the kingdom of God. The One in and through whom all things have been created is the One who, in full incarnational identity with us, endured the cross and was raised from the dead to sit at the right hand of glory on high, taking with him in resurrection power the brothers and sisters of this age.

The spirit of this book, it seems to me, is one of seeking both to appreciate and to develop further Abraham Kuyper’s sense that the whole creation belongs to Christ and that in Christ believers should be seeking to develop all their talents and capabilities in every sphere of life to the glory of God. “Creation judged and redeemed” rather than “Two Kingdoms in tension or conflict” is the framework in which we should take up the important questions about church and world, sacred and secular, this age and the coming age, common grace and special grace.

THE SUPPORT OF a number of people helped carry me through this rather arduous project. Along with my beautiful wife, Becky, my three religiously energetic boys—Fish, Canon, and Josey—were readily patient during my late nights while I executed my editorial duties.

Particular thanks must go to my colleagues at Providence Christian College: Steve Kortenhoeven, for his question on the Two Kingdoms position; Russ Reeves, for his very early suggestions as to how the book should be structured; Scott Swanson, for his contribution to the book (chapter 8); Justin Bleeker, for his promptness in reading and offering supportive comments on first drafts of the project; and Troy Lamberth, for his excellent promotional video for P&R Publishing.

Second, I wish to acknowledge the enthusiasm and willingness of the various authors of Kingdoms Apart as they took a chance on a scholar of somewhat emerald hue. Thank you for your patience and collegiality.

I offer special thanks to P&R Publishing’s project team: John J. Hughes, Brian Kinney, and Karen Magnuson promptly and skillfully put the final touches on the book. Great work! Particular gratitude must be extended to P&R’s Marvin Padgett for his immediate interest in and continual advocacy of the book. (Thanks also, Marv, for the discussion and cup of coffee in San Francisco during the ETS conference.)

An educator’s calling would be nothing without students. I am supremely encouraged to interact with students. To that end, I want to thank the many Providence students who have taken the HUM 101 (Reformed Perspectives on Calling and Culture) course. The class provided an opportunity to discuss many of the issues addressed in this volume. Thank you, Sea Beggars, for your commitment and faithfulness, first to the kingdom and second to Providence.

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Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to recognize my father, Charles McIlhenny. Were it not for his theological tutelage from childhood, I—as an American Presbyterian, no less—would not have been able to enter into dialogue with neo-Calvinism. I suspect that for the vast majority of young boys, the most memorable times with Dad often fall into the category of “all things manly,” such as camping or sports (although I do remember wrestling). But for me, father-son time revolved around reading passages from Geerhardus Vos, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, Cornelius Van Til, and Herman Dooyeweerd. I mark these revolutionary thinkers as contributors to my sanctification. Thanks, Dad.

Ryan C. McIlhenny, PhD In Christo Omnia Nova

ARP Anti-Revolutionary Party

CDU Christian Democratic Union

CGK Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerken (Christian Reformed Churches)

ChrRen Christian Renewal

CNTC Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960)

CO John Calvin, Calvini Opera (Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia), ed. Guilielmus Baum, Eduardus Cunitz, Eduardus Reuss et al., 59 vols., Corpus Reformatorum 29–87 (Brunsvigae: Schwetschke, 1863–1900)

Comm. Commentary of John Calvin

CTJ Calvin Theological Journal

GKN Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland (Reformed Churches in the Netherlands)

Institutes John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960)

JCS Journal of Church and State

JR Journal of Religion

MAJT Mid-America Journal of Theology

xv

NHK Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk (Netherlands Reformed Church)

NSB Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging in Nederland (National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands) OS John Calvin, Opera Selecta, ed. Peter Barth and Wilhelm Niesel, 5 vols. (München: Kaiser, 1926–52)

RD  4 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008)

Serm. Sermon of John Calvin

VU Vrije Universiteit (Free University of Amsterdam) WCF Westminster Confession of Faith

WTJ Westminster Theological Journal

Introduction: In Defense of Neo-Calvinism

Ryan C. McIlhenny

THE SUBJECT OF CHRISTIANITy’S relationship to culture has occupied the church for millennia, and it will remain an important topic of discussion until the Lord’s return. Intellectuals in the Reformed tradition have spent a considerable amount of time debating the issue, yet they remain divided. Two differing positions originating from within the Reformed tradition, neo-Calvinism and the Two Kingdoms perspective, continue to generate fertile discussions on this unavoidable topic. Both sides have sought to understand the relationship of Christ, his kingdom, and its impact on the broader culture from an explicitly biblical standpoint. The intent of this volume is to defend—with no less a self-reflectively critical eye—the continued relevance of neo-Calvinism as it collegially interacts with the Two Kingdoms perspective. Not only will readers become familiar with what is called neo-Calvinism, distinct from the currently popular “New Calvinism” among evangelicals, but they will also read more in-depth analyses of neo-Calvinism’s historical, philosophical, and theological influence. The book is for those in the Reformed community who daily grapple with the relationship of their faith, their kingdom citizenship, and their cultural surroundings.

Is Neo-Calvinism Relevant for Today?

Maturing in the Netherlands in the late nineteenth century, with a continuing impact on Dutch Reformed transplants here in the United

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States, neo-Calvinism has been one of the most cogent responses to the secularization that has shaped the contemporary Western world. Modernism, a cultural mood and intellectual agenda that began with the eighteenthcentury Enlightenment, offered liberation from all forms of tyranny— political, religious, and economic—over the human mind. Humanity not only moved to the center of the universe, but became sovereign over it. The metaphysical world, which includes human nature, the soul, and God, became, especially by the early twentieth century, an increasing problem for intellectuals committed to the methods of scientific empiricism and philosophical positivism. For much of the twentieth century, Christians felt the urgency to wage a kind of Manichean battle against the ascendancy of secular humanism. One such figure was pastor, journalist, politician, and academic Abraham Kuyper, founder of what would become neo-Calvinism. Kuyper believed that Calvinism, a tradition that, among other things, stresses the absolute sovereignty and ultimate victory of God over all of life, was the best weapon against the secularism of the modern age.

Although younger than its counterpart at least in the present-day context, the growing popularity of the Two Kingdoms perspective is because of its standing at a crucial historical juncture. The “modernism” that Kuyper and other Reformed culturalists exposed failed to deliver in its promises. Indeed, the hegemony of institutional atheism produced not human liberation but one of the most violent and dehumanizing periods in world history. Given the realities of events such as the Holocaust and the invention and use of the atomic bomb, it became glaringly obvious that the evolutionary liberation promised by modern secularism was tragically unsuccessful. (In an important sense, the term postmodernism should be understood as more of a reaction against the hubris of modernism.) Thus, the urgency to formulate an alternative intellectual force to counter the evils of modernism, which galvanized neo-Calvinists over a century ago, along with a host of Christian conservatives a few decades ago, seems unnecessary today.

Everyone, Christian and non-Christian, has been ready to reintroduce the metaphysical. Many intellectuals view with a skeptical eye disinterested objectivism, the infallibility of science, and evolutionary nationalism. Many are ready to reevaluate the importance of faith in the public sphere. Perhaps (and I say this tongue in cheek) the resurgence of Two Kingdoms is part of the “postmodern condition” that postures an attitude toward the Enlightenment project as something that needs to be sent to the metanarra

xviii

tive dustbin. More directly, maybe the desire to restore the Two Kingdoms reflects an incredulous mood among theologians toward evangelical grand narratives, a mood that, unfairly, has included neo-Calvinism. This, of course, is pure speculation, but the notion that some new atheistic force out in the world—as if the church has not dealt with this since its inception—is threatening to destroy the church is ostensibly impotent.

The error, however, is to think that since neo-Calvinism has had its “15 minutes of fame,” it is no longer a necessary position to defend. Such a dismissal is hasty at best. First, the ghost of modernism still haunts both the academic and popular worlds. Intellectuals, for instance, may hate modernism, but they work in institutions that continue to function in a modernistic way (e.g., institutions still have trouble incorporating and taking seriously the importance of faith and spirituality). Religious studies departments have not been replaced by and are still in conceptual conflict with theological studies. A desire to better appreciate religion, to consider it as more than an invention of humans to cope with the struggles in life, may take some institutional gerrymandering if not full-scale revolution. The growing interest in spirituality among scientists, especially in neuroscience, as a case in point, continues to be guided by empirical methods. Spirituality, while scientifically testable, can never move outside the human “I” having the experience, since such methods are guided by Cartesian rationalism and Humean empiricism. The New Atheism—not something coming wholly from within the walls of the academy—has failed to acknowledge that it bears a striking resemblance to its predecessor, which, as mentioned above, created some of the most horrific atrocities in human history. (The New Atheism is a pop-cultural phenomenon, not an intellectual one.)

Second, neo-Calvinism’s endurance rests on the fact that it is more than a historical movement; it is also a philosophy that rests on a theological foundation. Indeed, it is quite difficult to divorce philosophy, history, and theology from one another. Every philosophical idea has its historical context that must be appreciated, but philosophy, providing various ways to analyze and synthesize through critical reasoning, has a way of staying with us over time. The Reformation was an important historical moment, but its influence, especially the contributions of Martin Luther and John Calvin, is transhistorical. This does not mean history is unimportant; ideas cannot be properly understood apart from their historical context. Neo-Calvinists such as Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd have sought to unravel, both theoretically and practically, the full implications of the Reformation, not just for the church but for society and culture at large. Faithful Christians, especially those in the pews every Sunday morning and evening, believe that their faith impacts their lives outside the institutional church. How does the layman (and woman) act as a witness of the gospel or as a minister of reconciliation to the world? What is the impact of faith on all that he or she does? These questions have been raised by the faithful for millennia.

Defining Neo-Calvinism

So what features of neo-Calvinism can Christians continue to appreciate (and appropriate) in understanding the relationship of Christ, his kingdom, and Christianity’s impact on human culture? At the heart of neo-Calvinism is the claim that God’s sovereignty extends to every square inch of the cosmos. God rules, upholds, directs, and gives meaning to all things. This can be broken down further into four critical tenets in what is often referred to as the “grace-restores-nature” scheme: the cultural mandate, sphere sovereignty, the antithesis, and common grace.1

Cultural Mandate

Genesis 1:26 presents the cultural mandate, which requires of the Lord’s crowning creation, humanity, to subdue, rule, fill, and tend to (i.e., cultivate) the created order. Humans, under the guidance of divine providence, continue the work of cultural (small c) creation. The cultural mandate is both imperative and indicative. God commands humanity, through Adam,

1. In their latest book, Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), Michael W. Goheen and Craig G. Bartholomew identify the major themes of neo-Calvinism: [1] “In and through God’s redemption in Christ, grace restores nature. Grace is like medicine that restores health to a sick body. Christ’s work of salvation is aimed at the creation as a whole in order to renew it to the goal that God always had in mind for it. [2] God is sovereign and orders all of reality by his law and word. [3] The cultural mandate given in Genesis 1:26–28 (to exercise royal stewardship over the creation) has ongoing relevance: God calls humankind to develop his creation through history, to his glory” (16). Contemporary neoCalvinist Al Wolters states that the central aspect of neo-Calvinism (“grace restores nature”) “means simply that the new life brought about by redemption in Jesus Christ does not (A) stand in opposition to created reality, nor does it merely (B) supplement or (C) parallel it, but rather (D) seeks to penetrate and restore the reality of creational life. Redemption is a comprehensive salvage operation, the goal of which is nothing short of recovering all of life as it was meant to be lived according to God’s creational design from the very beginning.” Al Wolters, “What Is to Be Done . . . toward a Neocalvinist Agenda?” Comment, Oct. 14, 2005.

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to fill and watch over the earth. This is part of God’s natural order; it is not eradicated by the fall. Such a mandate requires responsible cultivation that accords with God’s intent for his good creation. As an indicative, the cultural mandate reflects human nature. It is part of our being: humans tend to their responsibility over creation because that is how they are made and because they cannot help but live accordingly.

Furthermore, the imagery of cultivating extends to the outward expression of Christian love, mercy, and justice, and to the more specialized focus of proclaiming the gospel. The seed of the good news is spread throughout all the earth. Ministers plant and water; God causes the growth. New Testament Christians, in general, cannot help but be witnesses of the gospel. Being a disciple of Christ is not an option. Mark 16:15 encourages Christ’s disciples to preach the gospel to all creation—a creation that “groans” and awaits the consummation (Rom. 8). Reconciliation to the Father through the redemptive work of Christ has made Christians ministers of reconciliation. Even those Christians not ordained to the gospel ministry have an imperative, based on the indicative, to be witnesses of Christ to the world. Whether or not they preach the gospel in their various callings, Christians, through word and deed, bring with them the light of the gospel to a dark and dying world. Unbelievers can be won over to Christ through the preaching of the gospel and the demonstration of Christian love and good works. Thus, for the neo-Calvinist, understanding the continued relevance of the cultural mandate, a changed life through the gracious work of Christ, opens one’s eyes to attend to the wounds of a broken world, spreading the gospel and demonstrating the love of Christ to the whole earth. Christians necessarily act on their transformed lives. Whatever Christians do, even the most quotidian of things such as eating and drinking, they must do for the honor and glory of God.2

According to David VanDrunen, the Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Seminary California and one of the leading spokesmen for the revived Two Kingdoms

2. Granted, Scripture is silent as to how this is done, but it is misleading to suggest that neo-Calvinists narrowly devise one program for the engagement of culture. What is more, neoCalvinists have been better advocates of Christian freedom to create, once again, in the context of the cultural mandate and in submission to the creational norms put in place by God. (Christ told his disciples to spread the gospel throughout the world, but he did not provide information related to the mode of transportation in getting from A to B or the kinds of architectural layouts for the gathering of the saints.)

approach, the cultural mandate is no longer relevant for Christians today: “By his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the second and last Adam, has completed the work of the first Adam and attained his original destiny.”3 The mandate has ceased in Christ, the second Adam. “God’s original plan for creation,” VanDrunen writes in Living in God’s Two Kingdoms, “is indeed fulfilled—but not through the cultural works of Christians. The Lord Jesus Christ, as the second and last Adam, has fulfilled Adam’s original commission once and for all. Christ has already attained the original goal by entering the new creation through his resurrection and ascension. And we already have a claim to this new creation by virtue of his work. We are citizens of heaven through faith in him.”4 But since the cultural mandate was given before the fall, what exactly did Adam fail to complete? The creation and the cultural mandate were given in a sinless context. Adam’s pre-fall cultural responsibility was not to make restitution because of sin to satisfy the righteous demands of God. There was no such demand on the table. It was the fall that perverted Adam’s “original destiny,” which then required the active and passive obedience of Christ. But did the fall negate humanity’s mandate to rule over and subdue the earth? Perhaps not. Besides, the work of ministers utilizes the imagery of cultivation—scattering, watering, growing, harvesting, etc. What about the layman? Does he or she play a part in the gospel directive?

Challenging neo-Calvinists on the continuing relevance of the cultural mandate is not a benign interpretive disagreement, however; the danger of this central point, according to VanDrunen, is not in the tendency (or inconsistency among neo-Calvinists) to devalue the importance of the institutional church or that Christians’ redemptive intents may not be transformative (even neo-Calvinists disagree on the practical implications of what this means), but in its potential threat to gospel orthodoxy. The transformational language used among neo-Calvinists, for VanDrunen, sounds a lot like contemporary theologians and evangelicals whose doctrine is theologically troubling at best. This is a subtle implication of guilt by association. NeoCalvinists fall into a category similar to those who identify with the New Perspective on Paul and its rejection of the “traditional Reformation view of justification,” as well as those of the Emergent Church Movement, echoing

3. David VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms: A Biblical Vision for Christianity and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 52.

4. Ibid., 34.

xxii “a great many of [neo-Calvinism’s] central and standard themes,” which is dangerously close to Emergent’s “special dislike for rigid doctrine.”5 For VanDrunen, those committed to the doctrine of justification by faith alone should not find neo-Calvinism attractive. Granted, VanDrunen does not argue that neo-Calvinism necessarily leads to a compromise of the doctrine of justification, but I wonder whether his readers will be as discerning.

In associating neo-Calvinism with those who hold to a less-robust view of justification, Two Kingdoms proponents suggest that neo-Calvinism is too dangerously close to works-righteousness spirituality. Kuyper’s comment that “everything that God has hidden in nature and the world must be brought to light before the end can be ushered in” certainly looks prima facie like works-righteousness.6 But as Cornelis Pronk writes, “The very notion that Christ’s second coming is contingent on the progress we make with our cultural endeavours is preposterous, to put it mildly.”7 What needs to be clarified at the outset is that the Christian’s cultural engagement does not in any way force the hand of God to usher in the new heaven and new earth. Christian cultural activity is always done within the context of the completed work of God in and through Christ and the now/not yet completion of his kingdom. Even as it relates to the missional activities of the church, God does not need the work of humans to preach the gospel, but these are the ordinary means he uses—and requires—to save sinners. Christ has restored and will restore all things, and it’s on this basis, Pronk continues, that “the character of our work and activity has fundamentally changed. Good works, cultural or otherwise, are now performed by the believer out of gratitude.”8

As salt and light to a dying world, Christians testify to the goodness of the creation, and battle against the destructive effects of the fall. Albert Wolters suggests that the distorting and perverting impact of the fall “must be opposed everywhere—in the kitchen and the bedroom, in city councils and corporate boardrooms, on the stage and on the air, in the classroom and in the workshop.”9 Every sphere must be exposed to the light of the gospel, when it comes to the “biblical accounts of sin and redemption.” Redeemed

5. Ibid., 21, 23.

6. Cornelis Pronk, “Neo-Calvinism,” Reformed Theological Journal (November 1995): 42–56.

7. Ibid., 5.

8. Ibid., 7.

9. Al Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview, with a postscript by Michael Goheen (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 73.

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humans are part of this process, but not in a works-righteousness sense. Wolters continues, “It is still humanity that plays the pivotal role. Just as the fall of man (Adam) was the ruin of the whole earthly realm, so the atoning death of a man (Jesus Christ, the second Adam) is the salvation of the whole world. The Adamic human race perverts the cosmos; the Christian human race renews it. If Christ is the reconciler of all things, and if we have been entrusted with ‘the ministry of reconciliation’ on his behalf (2 Cor. 5:18), then we have a redemptive task wherever our vocation places us in his world.”10

On a related note, another Two Kingdoms charge against neo-Calvinism is the place of contemporary cultural artifacts in the new heaven and new earth. First, believers, in both the Old and New Testaments, carry the moniker of exiles, wanderers, and aliens, suggesting that this world is not their home. The Two Kingdoms position appeals to passages in Scripture that highlight the émigré status of believers in both the Old and New Testaments (Jer. 29 and 1 Peter 1), passages that are admittedly silent on cultural transformation. The term exile suggests a place in which believers live, not their ultimate or final home. Second, cultural activity is important, Two Kingdoms supporters will acknowledge, but such “handiwork” will not last (1 Tim. 6:7; Rev. 18:11, 21–24). Humans cannot take their cultural products into the new heaven and new earth. A favorite passage in support of the Two Kingdoms position is 2 Peter 3:10. Accordingly, upon the return of the Lord “the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” In other Bible versions, the phrase “will be exposed” has been translated “will be burned up.” The implication for Two Kingdoms advocates is that spending time trying to “redeem” culture apart from Word and sacraments is an inappropriate use of time or resources for the Christian community.

Commenting on the 2 Peter 3 passage, Wolters suggests that “all but one of the oldest and most reliable Greek manuscripts do not have the final words ‘will be burned up’ but instead have ‘will be found,’ ” which, again for Wolters, does not necessarily mean “annihilation or complete destruction.”11 There is, indeed, something that emerges from God’s incendiary judgment: “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (v. 13). Wolters may overextend his speculation when suggesting that the things purified

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid., 47.

“ must surely include the products of human culture.”12 He believes that on the day of consummation, humanity’s cultural works will be purified at the current state of development. Author Andy Crouch, it seems to me, faces similar difficulties. In Culture Making, Crouch indulges the reader with his own ideas of what cultural items will be in the new earth: “My own personal list of ‘the glory and honor of the nations’ would surely include Bach’s B Minor Mass, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and Arvo Spart’s “Spiegel im Spiegel”; green-tea crème brulee, fish tacos and bulgogi; Moby Dick and the Odyssey; the iPod and the Mini Cooper.” yet these items, he continues, will not “appear without being purified and redeemed.”13 But will all products of human culture be preserved? If the cultural works of non-Christians appear in the new heaven, then could we not also include Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, P. T. Anderson’s Boogie Nights, or Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita? What would these products look like after purification? Purification may fundamentally alter or even demolish certain cultural artifacts. yet does God abandon his good creation? Will the people of God not live in a materially established New Jerusalem? Furthermore, how does the Two Kingdoms’ ultimate immolation negate the responsibility of Christians to be participants in culture for the sake of the kingdom?

Without a doubt, what cultural items will look like in the new heaven and new earth after undergoing purification is certainly shrouded in mystery (not all neo-Calvinists agree on this point). Nonetheless, apart from how Christians may imagine these renewed human products, how should Christians understand the “glory and honor of the nations” in relation to the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21)? A Two Kingdoms interpretation restricts “glory and honor” to Christians and their worship. Why the restriction? Will we not have human bodies and material spaces in which to live? Would this not suggest that portions of God’s good creation will continue? Neo-Calvinists believe that “glory and honor” includes human work. They can agree that the “present form” of such works will pass away, but that does not entail the annihilation of God’s good creational elements any more than the passing away of a child’s toddler stage means the eradication of my son. Still, what the works in this eternal city will look

12. Ibid., 48.

13. Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 170.

xxv like remains to be seen. Discussing Revelation 21:24–27 in He Shines in All That’s Fair, Richard Mouw rightly identifies as mysterious the works brought into the New Jerusalem:

The apostle foresees that the nations of the earth will walk by the light of the Holy City, “and kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. . . . People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.” To be sure, the Spirit-guided author is pointing here to something that is enshrouded in mystery. How will the state of things in our present world contribute to this final manifestation of glory? And how is it possible that the honor and glory of pagan cultures can be brought into a City where “nothing unclean will enter in” (Rev. 21:27). The God who is unfolding his multiple purposes in this present age calls his people to be agents of those diverse Kingdom goals. It is important for us in these difficult days to cultivate an appropriate Calvinist sense of modesty and humility in our efforts at cultural faithfulness.14

Sphere Sovereignty

An important reason for engaging culture is to challenge the tyranny of sin over the world and to call back (or buy back, as in redeem) the created order to its original state as God intended. Confronting the fall likewise means recognizing and returning to the law-order of God’s creation, that is, maintaining the distinct function of creational spheres. This relates to another central element of neo-Calvinism, namely, the concept of sphere sovereignty. Sphere sovereignty first acknowledges that there is not a square inch of all reality that escapes the rule and ownership of the triune God. It also maintains that God has created distinct social, economic, cultural, and political spheres that have their own unique functions but find unity and ultimate ontological dependence on the Creator. “Each sphere,” according to Gordon Spykman, “has its own identity, its own unique task, its own God-given prerogatives. On each God has conferred its own peculiar right of existence and reason for existence.”15 Each sphere, Vincent Bacote further articulates, “possesses its own authority within itself,” meaning that the spheres of the state, church, business, family, and academic institutions,

14. Richard Mouw, He Shines in All That’s Fair: Culture and Common Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 50.

15. Gordon Spykman, quoted in Richard Mouw, Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 24.

to name a few, “have the liberty to function on their own according to the divine ordinances that God established for each one.”16 A social sphere that attempts to take the place of God’s lordship, as in the case of a tyrannical state or an academic institution that becomes judge over God’s Word and world, has stepped beyond the limits ordained by the Creator. A number of contemporary scholars have followed Kuyper’s call. Herman Dooyeweerd, a Reformed philosopher whose erudition is arguably comparable to Immanuel Kant, sharpened Kuyper’s idea by articulating the “mutual irreducibility, inner connection, and inseparable coherence of all aspects of reality,” extracting the dimensions of sphere sovereignty beyond merely social or political spheres.17 The cosmos forms, according to Kuyper (and Dooyeweerd after him), “an infinitely structured organism.”18 Humans inherit from God the normative spheres of the family, the state, and the church, as well as the biological, physical, noetic, and aesthetic norms that find their being in the person and work of Christ.

Although not immediately apparent, given its focus on boundaries, sphere sovereignty makes possible human freedom and creativity. James Bratt articulates a double meaning of sphere sovereignty: “ ‘Souvereiniteit in Eigen Kring’ can mean sovereignty in its circle, referring to the pluralistic ontology Kuyper unfolds in the text [or] sovereignty in our circles, spelling out a pluralistic sociology and epistemology which Kuyper also argues for but which does not have ontological warrant.”19 Recognizing the mutually dependent yet distinctive boundaries separating spheres within the cosmos opens up the richness of the world to the human mind, which then allows humanity to flourish and reveals much more about the Creator. Not only does neo-Calvinism stress the independent yet overlapping spheres of the family, the state, and the church, it also emphasizes, given its strong understanding of creation, the activity of Christians to create institutions that, when abiding by God’s Word, congeal into their own sovereign spheres (e.g., political, economic, and intellectual organizations and institutions). In other words, humanity can utilize the imagination to create institutions

16. Vincent Bacote, The Spirit in Public Theology: Appropriating the Legacy of Abraham Kuyper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 81.

17. Herman Dooyeweerd, Roots of Western Culture (Toronto: Wedge, 1979), 43.

18. James D. Bratt, ed., Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 467.

19. Ibid., 461–62.

xxvii and cultures, seemingly out of nothing, when they accord with the wisdom of God.20

The Antithesis

In reclaiming God’s creation from the totalizing effects of the fall, believers encounter opposition from those who want to redirect what God has instituted. Integral to humanity’s cultural pursuits, especially related to the life of the mind, is the antithesis, the third important tenet of neo-Calvinism. A renewed mind, according to Romans 12:2, compels Christians to destroy “arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5). (Christians need to ask why the need for such belligerence against the spirits of this “secular” age. Christians are not only to endure with patience the trials of this life but also to confront them head-on.) The antithesis proposes that the world is divided between two diametrically opposed belief systems—or, to use Kuyper’s language, “world” systems”—that inform and interpret every aspect of life. In his Stone Lectures at Princeton in 1898, Kuyper argued that there needs to be an acknowledgment of “two kinds of human consciousness: that of the regenerate and the unregenerate; and these two cannot be identical”:

[All knowledge] proceeds out of faith. All science presupposes that we ourselves believe; presupposes a belief that the laws of thinking are correct; presupposes beliefs about life; and presupposes above all faith in the principles from which we proceed . . . . The conflict is not between faith and science, but between the claim that the present state of the cosmos is normal or abnormal . . . . It is not faith and science, but two scientific systems that stand, each with their own faith, over against each other. . . . They are both in earnest, disputing with each other across the entire domain of life and cannot desist from the attempt to pull to the ground the entire edifice of each other’s contradictory claims.21

Kuyper offers something compelling here: when it comes to ultimate moral and cognitively assenting issues, no common ground exists between

20. What is more, even the most egregiously foul cultural products cannot escape God’s creational law or the essential goodness of his creation. Each sphere manifests, to use the words of John Calvin, “at least some sparks of his glory.” See Institutes, 1.52.

21. Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931), 131, 133.

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Christians and non-Christians. These two opposing viewpoints develop “logically and systematically the whole complex of ruling ideas and conceptions that go to make up our life and world-view.” He encourages Christians to oppose the antithetical worldview of modernism and to “successfully defend” their own sanctuary “by placing in opposition . . . a life and worldview” of their own.22 Since Calvinism elevates the sovereign rule of God as King and “meaning-maker” of all things, Kuyper believed that it offered “the ready solution,” the coherent system of philosophical thought, to counter the apostate mind.

The antithesis manifests the religious core of being. Calvin described humanity as inescapably religious. “Religion,” Kuyper wrote, “is and will always be the expression of what is central in our lives. However degenerate and obscured a people’s religion may be, you will always find expressed in it their fundamental ethos. In any given case this [religious] ethos will be bound up with a people’s character and nature, with its history, even with the conditions of the soil on which it lives and the climate in which it breathes.”23 Dooyeweerd referred to it as humanity’s deep-seated religious and pretheoretical ground motive, which undergirds and motivates all worldviews.24 He also labeled humanity’s religious center the “heart,” “the fullness of our selfhood in which all our temporal functions [that] find their religious concentration and consummation of meaning.”25 It is through the heart that humans submit to some form of divine Archimedean point— an axis point from which everything in the world pivots. All knowledge claims, in other words, derive either from a faith reliance on something in the created order that is dependent on the totality of the cosmos, what Dooyeweerd called immanence philosophy, or from the Author of such created reality, a being by nature independently self-sufficient and sovereign over all.26 Meaning and being, which for Dooyeweerd are one and

22. Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism: The Stone Lectures of 1898, Calvinism and Science (New york: Cosimo Classics, 2007), 190; Abraham Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology, intro. Benjamin B. Warfield, trans. J. Hendrik De Vries (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 154, 189–90.

23. Bratt, Abraham Kuyper, 198.

24. James Skillen and Rockne McCarthy, ed., Political Order and the Plural Structure of Society, Emory University Studies in Law and Religion (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 281.

25. Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, vol. 1, The Necessary Presuppositions of Philosophy, trans. David Freeman and William young (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), 506 (emphasis added).

26. Neo-Calvinist and Dooyeweerd scholar Roy Clouser, author of The Myth of Religious Neutrality, has offered a powerful argument defending the idea that all knowledge, even at the

the same, are not static; both depend on the triune God who alone has no (dependent) meaning, since he is self-contained and self-authenticating. Dooyeweerd’s student at the Free University, H. Evan Runner, who later helped organize what would become the Institute for Christian Studies, likewise emphasized the faith center of all knowledge claims. Every person has a faith commitment, beliefs situated at the core of his or her being. Humans are inescapably religious. As Runner wrote in Scriptural Religion and the Political Task, “Our whole life is religion. And that not only for Christian believers (true religion), but also for unbelievers. For unbelief is not described in Scripture as absence of belief, but as mis-directed belief. Religion . . . is man’s ineradicable situation: he has been created ‘before God’ . . . and must render an account.” As a religious presupposition, unbelief shapes the way in which one looks at the world: “Apostate man appropriates to his own heathen pistical phantasy the role that the Word of God really has, and thus from the beginning places himself in a world where the relations are (imagined) other than they really are. Human analysis always takes place within the context of the Lie or the Truth.”27

Like knowledge claims, cultural activity, therefore, reveals the presuppositions of those who submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ over every area of life, contrasting with those who suppress that reality in unrighteousness. The heart, according to Henry Van Til, “serves as the presupposition of every culture.”28 Culture manifests humanity’s religious core. In the sphere of culture making and culture transforming, according to Wolters, a student of Runner, the religious ground motive determines the direction in which human activity moves against the unmovable structure of God’s created order.

As a nontheological specialist and professor at a Christian college, I have found Dooyeweerd’s and Runner’s reworking of Kuyper’s “world systems” immensely helpful. Their work on the religious nature of world

basic surface level (e.g., 1 + 1 = 2), reveals foundational religious motives behind it and thus affirms a Christian view of everything. “Is There a Christian View of Everything from Soup to Nuts?” Pro Rege (June 2003). Clouser makes a distinction between reducibility and irreducibility in the direction of humanity’s perspective on the world. The unbelieving mind reduces knowledge to a creation starting point, a foundation derived from a creational thing (e.g., matter for the Marxist). But this is impossible, for matter is dependent on other created things. Thought is derived from a Christian root, however, with an irreducible reality, namely, the triune God, whose being cannot be dependent on anything in the created order.

27. H. Evan Runner, Scriptural Religion and the Political Task (Toronto: Wedge, 1974), 15. 28. Henry Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1959), 39.

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views has given meaning and drive to my own scholarship. Let me offer an example related to my own pedagogy. Christian institutions of higher learning regularly utilize the term integration to discuss the coupling of faith and learning. Privately, I have always wondered about the term integration, which suggests that faith and learning are somehow naturally separated and must be pulled together—a reality, I assume, of the professionalization of academia that began in the late nineteenth century, and not of the various disciplines in themselves. Indeed, the disentangling of faith from learning, a project inaugurated by Enlightenment thinking and unfortunately widely accepted by many evangelical colleges, is a much more difficult task to execute. Integration presupposes a modernist duality. Faith is already involved in learning. Neo-Calvinist Robert Sweetman, who holds the H. Evan Runner Chair in the History of Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, suggests the substitution of integral for integration, wherein one’s faith commitments can never be evicted from an investigation of the world.29 The religious root of all worldviews and how such ground motives or concentrations of being shape our understanding of the world is something that even the Two Kingdoms perspective cannot escape.

This being said, however, the Reformed community needs to be careful as to how the antithesis is employed. The spiritually renewed Christian continues to struggle with sin. “We know, after all,” Dooyeweerd writes, “that in the heart of the Christian himself the apostate selfhood and the selfhood redirected to God wage a daily warfare . . . . Humanity which is renewed in Him still shares in the apostate root of mankind.”30 This is, if anything, humbling vis-à-vis our engagement with culture. A failure to affirm this leads to the rigid taxonomy that identifies certain thoughts or actions as either saved or apostate. I am not entirely convinced that every cultural item produced by the unbelieving mind is done in willful suppression of the Creator. Unbelievers may be ambivalent when it comes to how they perceive God in their cultural work, for instance. (Of course, ambivalence is not excusable.) The unregenerate are condemned for their latent or manifest suppression and for their failure to acknowledge Christ

29. The distinction between integration and integral can be found in Robert Sweetman’s “Christian Scholarship: Two Reformed Perspectives,” Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought 16, 6 (2001): 14–19.

30. Dooyeweerd, New Critique, 1:137, 175.

as Lord. Still, unbelievers must presuppose God’s law-ordered world, which allows them to produce God-honoring works despite their rebellion. In his reflections on Kuyper, Mouw reminds us that neo-Calvinism allows us to avoid such facile typecasting of the world:

The same apostle who warns against “all that is in the world” also tells us that “what we will be has not yet been revealed”—that will only be clear to us when “he is revealed [and] we be like him” (1 John 3:2). Sin still affects the way we think and act. And just as we are not as holy as we might predict on the basis of our theology of depravity, it is a fact of our Christian experience that the church often disappoints us, while the unbelieving world sometimes pleasantly surprises us.31

Whatever we may say about the thoughts and works of unbelievers, Christians are definitely moved by the Holy Spirit to glorify God in everything they do.

Common Grace

Recognizing the “good” work of unbelievers—“good” in the sense of being in accordance with God’s creational structures—relates to a fourth feature of neo-Calvinism. Discerning the antithesis demands an understanding of its counterpart: common grace. Common grace, or what Calvin referred to as “universal grace,” is defined as (1) God’s offering of his creation to all of humanity regardless of spiritual state; (2) God’s restraining of the full devastating consequences of the fall (i.e., bridling the “perversity of nature, that it may not break forth into action,” according to Calvin); and (3) the ability of the nonelect to have moments of clear insight regarding truth, justice, goodness, and beauty.32 A familiar passage used to formulate the idea of common grace, a phrase that does not appear in Scripture, is Matthew 5:45: “[God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” As Louis Berkhof writes, common grace refers to “those general blessings, such as rain and sunshine, food and drink, clothing and shelter, which God imparts to all men indiscriminately where and in what measure it seems good to Him.”33 This is inextricably tied to the sovereignty of God, for it is he who owns the sun and the rain that

31. Mouw, Abraham Kuyper, 63.

32. Institutes, 1.5.3.

33. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 436.

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are enjoyed by all humans. Humans are offered the freedom to flourish without being immediately judged by God.

Neo-Calvinists and Two Kingdoms theologians, I believe, have a point of contact here. Common grace is similar to the idea of a natural or creational law. Since all humans are image-bearers of God, they have the ability to grasp creational truths. Reason, says Calvin, is “by nature implanted in men . . . . It is certainly a free gift of his beneficence to each . . . upon pious and impious, it is rightly counted among natural gifts.”34 Although humans are born in sin, “by nature children of wrath, incapable of any saving good,” according to the Canons of Dort, “[t]here remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the difference between good and evil, and discovers some regard for virtue, good order in society, and for maintaining an orderly external deportment.”35 In support of its perspective, the Two Kingdoms school of thought refers to Calvin’s distinction between heavenly and earthly activities:

There is one kind of understanding of earthly things; another of heavenly. I call “earthly things” those which do not pertain to God or his Kingdom, to true justice, or to the blessedness of the future life; but which have their significance and relationship with regard to the present life and are, in a sense, confined within its bounds. I call “heavenly things” the pure knowledge of God, the nature of true righteousness, and the mysteries of the Heavenly Kingdom. The first class includes government, household management, all mechanical skills, and the liberal arts. In the second are the knowledge of God and of his will, and the rule by which we conform our lives to it.36

Common grace likewise includes a universal moral sense. The “desire to search out the truth,” according to Calvin, “through natural instinct,” is done in order to “foster and preserve society.”37 God has written his law on the hearts of all humans, as Romans 2:14–15 explains: “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that

34. Institutes, 2.2.14.

35. Canons of Dort, 3.3.4.

36. Institutes, 1.2.2.13.

37. Ibid., 2.2.13–15.

xxxiii the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.” Scripture provides numerous examples of those outside the covenant of God who without the specific revelation of the law nonetheless exhibit a basic understanding of right and wrong. Consider the example of Abraham and Abimelech: the latter, not a member of the covenant community (or at least not represented by the covenant head), confronts Abraham for lying about his wife Sarah in Genesis 20.

Common grace and natural law accord with the Kuyperian notion of sphere sovereignty. Following Calvin and the Canons of Dort, VanDrunen argues for “a distinction between the spiritual kingdom (finding institutional expression in the present age only in the church) and the civil kingdom (encompassing the various nonecclesiastical cultural endeavors, particularly the work of the state).”38 He reiterates the idea in Biblical Case for Natural Law: “The civil kingdom pertains to temporal, earthly, provisional matters not matters of ultimate and spiritual importance.” The spiritual realm or kingdom, VanDrunen continues, “is also ruled by God, but he rules it not only as creator and sustainer but also as its redeemer in Christ. This kingdom pertains to things that are of ultimate and spiritual importance, the things of Christ’s heavenly, eschatological kingdom.”39 The job of the state, for instance, is to administer justice, not preach the gospel, and justice includes protecting a citizen’s right, according to civil law, to preach the gospel.

A few points of clarification need to be made in regard to common grace and natural law. First, in no way does this mean that those without the law are exonerated for their failure to acknowledge the Author of such laws. Unbelievers will be condemned for their failure to believe in the saving work of Jesus on the cross; they will equally be condemned for their rejection of God’s authorship of creational laws—laws that are not the central means of salvation. Second, although there are duties related specifically to the institutional church, these two realms remain under not only the authority of God the Father but also the lordship of Jesus Christ. Third, “this light” is rendered “wholly polluted” because it is held

38. David VanDrunen, “Abraham Kuyper and the Reformed Natural Law and Two Kingdoms Tradition,” CTJ 41 (2007): 283–307.

39. David VanDrunen, Biblical Case for Natural Law, Studies in Christian Social Ethics and Economics, ed. Anthony B. Bradley (Grand Rapids: Acton Institute, 2006), 24.

back “in unrighteousness.”40 When neo-Calvinists talk about two competing “life” or “world” systems, they do not mean there are two different worlds. The antithesis acutely manifests itself when the two competing sets of views engage one common realm in the pursuit of opposing ultimate concerns. The idea of a common realm must not be confused with “neutrality” and should be distinguished from common grace.41 The lack of common ground is distinct from the presence of a common realm. The former addresses the fundamental orientation of the heart as affected by the fall and redemption; the latter refers to the creational structures given to Christians and non-Christians alike. Thus, as there is no common ground in terms of weltanschauung, there is common ground in how such worldviews are constructed. Christians and non-Christians have the same creational “stuff” to work from. Christians worshipfully affirm the Creator, while non-Christians, although knowing the Creator, suppress him in unrighteousness. In Christ and Culture, Klaas Schilder writes, “Within the framework of time after the Fall, the antithesis was inevitable not in nature but in the use of nature, and hence in culture.”42 Wolters’s distinction between structure, “the ‘essence’ of a creaturely thing,” and direction, either the “sinful deviation from that structural ordinance” or the “renewed conformity” in the direction of Christ, is helpful here.43 The sanctified mind “spreads to the full range of human activities.”44

While Christians and non-Christians have access to the same things of this world—metaphysically, ontologically, and epistemologically— the unregenerate mind takes such things in a direction they were not

40. Canons of Dort, art. 4, in Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom, With a History and Critical Notes (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 588.

41. Unfortunately, the notion of the antithesis, like most other theological extrapolations, may be taken in a multiplicity of directions. In one corner, it has created great confusion; in another, it has created fundamentalist escapist Christians. At least one Dutch Reformed thinker, Klaas Schilder, challenged the terminology of common grace: “There is indeed ‘common’ grace in culture (grace for more than one person). But there is no universal (or general) grace for all men. Therefore Abraham Kuyper’s construction was wrong.” Klaas Schilder, Christ and Culture, trans. G. van Rongen and W. Helder (Winnipeg, MB: Premier Printing, 1977). For Schilder, restricting common grace to God’s gracious restraint of human depravity, which is generally what theologians mean when talking about common grace, neglects the fact that God also restrains redemption from the nonelect, which cannot be construed as gracious. Theologians define common grace as God’s restraining power on fallen humanity and, in some cases, as those moments of true insights that unbelievers can have.

42. Ibid., 47.

43. Wolters, Creation Regained, 88.

44. Ibid., 91.

xxxv originally meant to go. They take the good creation and make it into an idol of their own imagination. With this in hand, many Reformed Christians have argued that the non-Christian cannot truly know God’s creation. One such thinker was Westminster theologian-philosopher Cornelius Van Til, who wrote in Common Grace and the Gospel that both believer and unbeliever

are epistemologically self-conscious and as such engaged in the interpretive enterprise [and] they cannot be said to have any fact in common. On the other hand, it must be asserted that they have every fact in common. Both deal with the same God and with the same universe created by God. Both are made in the image of God. In short, they have the metaphysical situation in common. Metaphysically, both parties have all things in common, while epistemologically they have nothing in common.45

This unnecessary separation between metaphysics and epistemology has in many instances not allowed for serious dialogue between Christians and non-Christians, a direction Van Til would not have approved. A few of the followers of Van Til tend to engage culture for the sole purpose of battling anything that comes from the unregenerate mind, not to gain insights from unbelievers. They come to culture with an oppositional attitude. This indeed is the tension that exists between the antithesis and common grace. Mouw suggests that when it comes to common grace, Christians should recognize an element of “mystery regarding God’s dealings with humankind,” and, he says later, “assessing the thoughts and deeds of the unconverted is to operate with what we might think of as a hermeneutic of caution, though not a hermeneutic of outright suspicion.”46

Fourth, the distinction between ecclesial and political functions cannot be easily applied to human beings and to all human activity. In book 3 of the Institutes, for instance, Calvin articulates the functionality of two kingdoms that are intertwined in the undivided (one) human person:

45. Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972), 5. John Frame has pointed out that Van Til recognized the difficulty of articulating this point. In Introduction to Systematic Theology, Van Til writes, “We are well aware of the fact that non-Christians have a great deal of knowledge about this world which is true as far as it goes. That, there is a sense in which we can and must allow for the value of knowledge of nonChristians. This has always been a difficult point. It is often the one great source of confusion on the question of faith in its relation to reason. We should admit that we cannot give any wholly satisfactory account of the situation as it actually obtains.” Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974), 26; see John Frame, “Presuppositional Apologetics,” in Five Views on Apologetics, ed. Steven B. Cowan (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 212; John Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1995), 187–213.

46. Mouw, He Shines, 93.

Let us consider that there is a twofold government in man: one aspect is spiritual, whereby the conscience is instructed in piety and in reverencing God; the second is political, whereby man is educated for the duties of humanity and citizenship that must be maintained among men. These are usually called the “spiritual” and the “temporal” jurisdiction . . . by which is meant that the former sort of government pertains to the life of the soul, while the latter has to do with the concerns of the present life—not only with food and clothing but with laying down laws whereby a man may live his life among other men holily, honorably, and temperately. For the former resides in the inner mind, while the latter regulates only outward behavior. The one we may call the spiritual kingdom, the other, the political kingdom. Now these two, as we have divided them, must always be examined separately; and while one is being considered, we must call away and turn aside the mind from thinking about the other. There are in man, two worlds, over which different kings and different laws have authority.47

Observe the initial and final phrasing of the passage. The “twofold government”—with “two worlds,” “different kings,” and “different laws”— is housed within a single person; it cannot be ontologically separated. Christians, who are redeemed as a whole (i.e., body and soul), do things related to the eternal through the temporal. The Westminster Confession of Faith even affirms that “there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature.”48 The church cannot do its job (i.e., function properly) without mediating the secular. This is why Kuyper could make the claim that “special grace presupposes common grace.”49 In his Systematic Theology, Berkhof writes that common grace “does not affect the salvation of the sinner”; rather, the “forms” of common grace (e.g., “external calling and moral

47. Institutes, 3.19.15 (emphasis added).

48. WCF, 1.6.

49. Bratt, Abraham Kuyper, 169.

xxxvii illumination”) are “closely connected with the economy of redemption and have a soteriological aspect.”50 “If there were no common grace,” Vincent Bacote says, “creation would have been destroyed, or at the very least, the conditions for life would have been so horrific that the church of God would not have had a place to strike root anywhere.”51 Without common grace, special grace is irrelevant.

Finally, the use of the common in all cultural activities puts all humans in contact with God. In his commentary on John 1, Calvin writes, “There is no man, therefore, whom some perception of the eternal light does not reach.” The point is likewise explored in the opening sections of the Institutes:

Wherever you cast your eyes is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of glory. you cannot in one glance survey this most vast and beautiful system of the universe, in its wide expanse, without being completely overwhelmed by the boundless force of its brightness. The reason why the author of the Letter to the Hebrews elegantly calls the universe the appearance of things invisible [Heb. 11:3] is that this skillful ordering of the universe is for us a sort of mirror in which we can contemplate God, who is otherwise invisible . . . . Indeed, men who have either quaffed or even tasted the liberal arts penetrate with their aid far more deeply into the secrets of the divine wisdom.52

Thus even in the so-called earthly realm, humans make contact with the eternal. The Two Kingdoms side may have a hard time talking about Christian learning, for instance, but one’s pursuit of learning has an important relationship to the artistry of the Creator. The burden of justification lies on the shoulders of those who wish to remove “Christian” from a pursuit of knowledge and morality. All truth is Christ’s truth.

What then is the difference between neo-Calvinists and Two Kingdoms theologians on the issue of common grace? On the one hand, the distinction is one of accent. The theology of the latter makes it difficult to fully understand the antithesis and common grace. The Two Kingdoms side seems to play down or apply inconsistently the importance of

50. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 436.

51. Bacote, Public Theology, 98.

52. Institutes, 1.5.1.52.

xxxviii an individual’s heart motive, the influence of one’s religious core. The antithesis is inconsistently applied by VanDrunen in Living in God’s Two Kingdoms. The muting of the antithesis has a reciprocal effect on common grace. Common grace seems to be reduced to what is common or natural. Common grace is what God gives to man, who is, in a nonredeemed way, blessed by God while in (antithetical) rebellion. To say, for instance, that cultural production need not take into consideration one’s religious motive is to ignore, not fully understand, or deny the antithesis. If the antithesis is irrelevant, then why talk about God’s nonredemptive graciousness to fallen humanity?

On the other hand, while arguing for the relationship between common grace and special grace, Kuyper recognized the potential to mishandle grace (common and saving) and nature. According to Bacote, “a problem occurs when grace is distinguished from nature, rendering the significance of Christ exclusive to the spiritual realm.”53 “Reflecting on Christ,” Kuyper writes, “[people] think exclusively of the blood shed in atonement and refuse to take account of the significance of Christ for the body, for the visible world . . . . By taking this tack you run the danger of isolating Christ for your soul and you view life in and for the world as that exists alongside your Christian religion, not controlled by it.”54 The tendency is to leave nature alone; it has no place in a Christian’s cultural responsibility and certainly not a part of God’s eternal kingdom. Contemporary Two Kingdoms theology tries to escape this dilemma by reiterating the fact that God is sovereign over all creation, yet it fails to adequately address the place of Christ not only as the source of creation but as the continual and integrally dynamic center of the ontology of creation. There is no “nature” without Christ.

Conclusion

The tenets of neo-Calvinism must be carefully considered. Indeed, I commend Two Kingdoms thinkers for pointing out the inconsistencies of many associated with the neo-Calvinist tradition, especially in the tendency to ignore the boundaries between spheres, but again, this is no reason to retire it or stop the debates within the Reformed community

53. Bacote, Public Theology, 99.

54. Kuyper, quoted in ibid.

xxxix concerning Christ, culture, and the kingdom. Since its appearance in the late nineteenth century, neo-Calvinism, following the lead of Kuyper, has tried to work out the full implications of Reformational thought. Calvinism has far-reaching implications for society and culture because at its core it unabashedly proclaims the majestic authority of God over the entire cosmos, the triumph of Christ over sin, and the response of his people to bring the light of the gospel through the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, and works of Christian charity. During his ministry on earth, Jesus told his disciples that the kingdom was in their midst, yet Christians continually pray “thy kingdom come.” The kingdom is both a present and future reality. As Christians, we have inherited and are therefore citizens of a kingdom—a kingdom introduced by the coming of the true King, Jesus Christ. The following essays provide insights as to how Christians can live kingdom lives as they confidently wait for the kingdom to come.

xl

Part 1

Kingdom Reign and Rule

1

The Restoration of All Things to Proper Order: An Assessment of the “Two Kingdoms/Natural Law” Interpretation of Calvin’s Public Theology

Cornel Venema

IN HIS DEFENSE OF the “Two Kingdoms/natural law” interpretation of Reformed social thought, it is not surprising that David VanDrunen, one of the principal proponents of this interpretation, appeals to the theology of John Calvin.1 Although recent interpreters of Calvin’s theology have acknowledged that Calvin was not the sole fountainhead of the Reformed tradition, he arguably remains one of its most important and influential figures. Since advocates of the Two Kingdoms/natural law position insist that this was the reigning paradigm of early Reformed orthodoxy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is not surprising that the theology of John Calvin is adduced as an important piece of evidence for this claim.2 Even though the case for the Two Kingdoms/natural law perspective also includes a consideration of the relevant biblical data, which is foundational to the construction of a Reformed public theology, VanDrunen and other advocates of this perspective offer a historical case that grants special importance to Calvin’s role in the development of a distinctively Reformed public theology.3 One of the most important dimensions of any assessment of the Two Kingdoms/natural law position, therefore, must be an evaluation of the historical case for this position, especially its interpretation of Calvin’s public theology.

1. See David VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 67–118; idem, “The Two Kingdoms: A Reassessment of the Transformationalist Calvin,” CTJ 40, 2 (2005): 248–66; idem, “The Context of Natural Law: John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms,” JCS 46 (2004): 503–25; idem, “Medieval Natural Law and the Reformation: A Comparison of Aquinas and Calvin,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 80, 1 (2006): 77–98; and idem, “Calvin, Kuyper, and ‘Christian Culture,’ ” in Always Reformed: Essays in Honor of W. Robert Godfrey, ed. R. Scott Clark and Joel E. Kim (Escondido, CA: Westminster Seminary California, 2010), 135–53.

The aim of this chapter is to evaluate whether VanDrunen’s Two Kingdoms/natural law interpretation of Calvin’s public theology is valid. Because of the complexity of Calvin’s public theology, not to mention the large body of secondary literature on the subject, my assessment of the historical case for the Two Kingdoms/natural law interpretation of this thought will be only a preliminary one. A thorough examination of Calvin’s public theology requires not only an examination of his principal theological writings, which include his Institutes, commentaries, and sermons, but also a consideration of Calvin’s practice. It is scarcely possible to draw conclusions regarding Calvin’s position without some reflection on the way Calvin addressed, as the principal reformer of the church in Geneva, Switzerland, a myriad of social and cultural questions. Nor is it possible to reflect accurately on Calvin’s understanding of the claims of the Christian gospel in the public square without an analysis of the way he addressed such questions throughout the course of his lengthy ministry. Nevertheless, I will attempt to assess in this chapter the principal elements of the Two Kingdoms/natural law perspective.

In order to accomplish this purpose, I will begin with a brief summary of VanDrunen’s interpretation of Calvin’s public theology, followed by three features of Calvin’s position that require special attention: first, Calvin’s view of the “Two Kingdoms,” or as I prefer to express it, the “twofold government” of Christ; second, Calvin’s view of the natural law, especially in relation to the special revelation of God found in Scripture; and third, Calvin’s conception of the interrelation and integration of God’s works in creation and redemption. Although I will have occasion to acknowledge ambiguities in Calvin’s public theology, my thesis is that the Two Kingdoms/ natural law interpretation of VanDrunen does not provide a satisfactory account of Calvin’s public theology. In Calvin’s social thought, a far more integrated and coherent view of the lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of life is presented than that which VanDrunen proposes when he characterizes Calvin’s Two Kingdoms theology. Furthermore, I will argue that VanDrunen separates too sharply between Calvin’s understanding of the revelation of God’s will through natural law and through the more full, clear light of Scripture. Rather than viewing redemption as a kind of overlay or addendum to creation, Calvin views redemption as the restoration of all things to proper order under God’s sovereign lordship and through the office of Christ as Mediator of both creation and redemption.

2. Throughout the chapter, I use the expression Two Kingdoms/natural law as a shorthand way of referring to VanDrunen’s distinction between what he terms the “natural” and the “spiritual” kingdoms, and to his claim that the conduct of human beings in the natural kingdom is governed principally by the natural law. In my use of this expression, therefore, I am not suggesting that VanDrunen equates the Two Kingdoms with the natural law.

3. For a summary of the biblical case for the Two Kingdoms/natural law view, see David VanDrunen, A Biblical Case for Natural Law (Grand Rapids: Acton Institute, n.d.); and idem, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms: A Biblical Vision for Christianity and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010).

A Sketch of VanDrunen’s “Two Kingdoms/Natural Law” Interpretation of Calvin

According to VanDrunen’s interpretation of Calvin, the themes of the “Two Kingdoms” and “natural law” represent two comprehensive and foundational principles in Calvin’s theology. Contrary to a common neoCalvinist representation of Calvin’s public theology, which views Calvin as the proponent of the universal, redemptive kingship of Jesus Christ in all areas of human life, VanDrunen argues that Calvin sharply distinguished between the civil or natural kingdom and the ecclesiastical kingdom. Whereas Calvin has often been co-opted by a neo-Calvinist vision that advocates the transformation of all areas of human life and culture under the redemptive lordship of Jesus Christ, VanDrunen maintains that Calvin actually drew a sharp line of separation between these two kingdoms. In the civil kingdom, Christ’s kingship expresses his office as Mediator of creation and providential lordship over the non-ecclesiastical realm of human society and culture. By contrast, in the ecclesiastical kingdom, Christ’s kingship expresses his office as Mediator of redemption and head of the church. Within the framework of his Two Kingdoms theology, Calvin appeals to the natural law as the norm for human conduct within the civil kingdom, and to the Scriptures as the norm for Christian conduct within the ecclesial kingdom. Far from advocating a transformationalist view of the kingdom of Christ, Calvin advocated a common or secular approach to life within the natural kingdom, and advocated a distinctively Christian culture only within the sphere of the church.

Calvin’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms

Citing passages in Calvin’s Institutes that draw a sharp separation between the civil and the ecclesial kingdoms, VanDrunen identifies three important attributes that distinguish them.

The three attributes of the kingdom of Christ are its redemptive character, its spiritual or heavenly identity, and its present institutional expression in the church. The three attributes of the civil kingdom are its non-redemptive character, its external or earthly identity, and its present (though not exclusive) expression in civil government.4

The distinction between the two kingdoms in Calvin’s theology corresponds to the distinction between Christ’s offices as Mediator of creation and as Mediator of redemption. Although Calvin acknowledges the universal lordship of Jesus Christ, he maintains the difference between the nonredemptive rule of the Son of God as the Mediator of creation and the saving rule of Christ as the Mediator of redemption. Within the redemptive kingdom, Christ rules in the hearts of believers in a spiritual way, and the obedience of believers is a dimension of the Christian liberty that is a fruit of the gospel of free justification.5 Whereas believers freely serve Christ within the spiritual jurisdiction of the church, all human beings, believers and unbelievers alike, are subject to a civil or natural jurisdiction in which Christ constrains the outward conduct by the requirements of the natural law. Furthermore, the spiritual kingdom has a heavenly identity; it addresses the concerns of the soul and the believer’s redemptive relationship with the triune God. The civil or natural kingdom, by contrast, concerns the earthly and natural life of believers and nonbelievers alike, who continue to live

4. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 73.

5. Ibid.

as creatures under the jurisdiction of the natural law, sustained by God’s providence and enabled by the working of God’s common or general grace. Although VanDrunen does not offer a comprehensive identification of what aspects of human life fall within the redemptive and nonredemptive kingdoms, he suggests that the redemptive kingdom corresponds to the institutional church and that the nonredemptive kingdom includes all other aspects of human life and culture. Although the natural or civil kingdom finds its primary institutional expression in civil government, it includes as well everything that has to do with life in the body and this present world.6 Any feature of human life in the created order that does not properly pertain to the calling of the institutional church belongs to the civil kingdom. The presence of the redemptive kingdom of Christ is, so far as this present age is concerned, restricted to the church. As citizens of the spiritual and ecclesiastical kingdom, believers are pilgrims who know that the eschatological fulfillment of the redemptive kingdom awaits Christ’s coming at the end of the age. Believers are citizens of two kingdoms, the ecclesiastical and the civil. As such, they are under no obligation to “redeem” life in the civil kingdom. Rather, the calling of believers is to live appropriately in these two kingdoms, according to their distinctive identities and their distinctive norms.

Calvin’s Doctrine of the Natural Law

In VanDrunen’s estimation, Calvin’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms provides a framework for a proper understanding of the disputed question of Calvin’s view of natural law. In the history of the interpretation of Calvin’s theology, a great deal of discussion has taken place regarding his understanding and use of the doctrine of natural law. According to VanDrunen, the resolution of the debates about Calvin’s doctrine of natural law can be found only when it is placed within the setting of his Two Kingdoms doctrine. Not only did Calvin follow closely a long tradition of Christian theology, which affirmed the natural law as an expression of God’s will for his creation and human beings as his image-bearers, but he also closely linked the doctrine of natural law with the calling of human beings within the natural kingdom. For VanDrunen, “correlating Calvin’s doctrine of natural law with his doctrine of the Two Kingdoms is of great help for reconciling the seemingly discordant strains of his statements about natural law and thereby proves to be a key aspect of its distinctiveness in comparison to the medieval traditions.”7 Contrary to the neoorthodox interpretation of Calvin’s theology, which views his affirmation of a natural knowledge of God’s will and purpose through natural law as inconsistent with his insistence that God can be known properly and fully only through special revelation, Calvin clearly affirms a knowledge of God’s will through the natural law as well as a knowledge of God’s will as Redeemer through special revelation. Moreover, even though Calvin emphasizes the inability of human beings after the fall into sin to do what the natural law requires and thereby find favor with God, he nonetheless affirms that human beings are able to know and perform externally what the natural law requires within the realm of the natural kingdom.

In his treatment of Calvin’s doctrine of natural law, VanDrunen begins with a summary of Calvin’s understanding of the natural law that exhibits considerable continuity with a long-standing tenet of Christian theology. For Calvin, the natural law reveals God’s moral will to human beings who bear his image, and constitutes the basis for the capacity of human consciences to judge between what is good or evil. Consistent with his general emphasis on a natural knowledge of God as Creator, Calvin taught that God’s imagebearers know the moral will of God through the testimony of natural law and the conscience.8 Although the natural law provides no knowledge of God’s will and purpose as Redeemer, it does provide “a far greater amount of specific moral knowledge” that is “immediately accessible to all people” than was acknowledged by even St. Thomas Aquinas, the classic Roman Catholic proponent of a natural knowledge of God.9 Rooted in God’s moral character, the natural law in its moral content is reiterated in the Decalogue of Moses and discloses the moral obligations that express God’s holy will for his creatures. While Calvin follows closely the long-standing medieval emphasis on natural law, VanDrunen acknowledges that he also emphasized

7. Ibid., 95. In his article “The Context of Natural Law: John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms,” VanDrunen offers an extensive defense of this claim. According to VanDrunen, Calvin’s negative assessment of the role of natural law pertains to its use in the spiritual kingdom, not the natural kingdom. Although sinful human beings are not able to obtain favor with God on the basis of their obedience to the natural law, they are able to order their lives in a relatively righteous manner within the natural kingdom by the standard of the natural law.

8. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 100.

more than his medieval predecessors the “dire effects of sin and the consequent necessity of supernatural revelation.”10 Although many interpreters of Calvin conclude from his emphasis on the inadequacy of natural law because of the corruption of human sinfulness that the natural law plays no positive role in the ordering of human life after the fall, Calvin was able to affirm a continuing role for natural law within the civil kingdom.

Calvin ascribed surprisingly positive use for natural law (in the form of various cultural achievements) in his discussion of life in the civil kingdom and consistently negative use for it (in the form of leaving all people inexcusable for their sin) in his discussion of life in the spiritual kingdom. Calvin’s different evaluations of the use of natural law were not the result of intellectual inconsistency but of his view that though natural law permits even pagans to form good laws and produce other social goods in the civil kingdom, it is completely incapable of producing true spiritual good in people for the attainment of heavenly bliss, the realm of the spiritual kingdom.11

In VanDrunen’s interpretation of Calvin’s doctrine of natural law, therefore, the solution to some of the long-standing questions of interpretation regarding the consistency of Calvin’s view is readily apparent. Although Calvin denies to natural law a positive use and role within the spiritual kingdom of the church, emphasizing human sinfulness and inability to perform what the law requires as a basis for acceptance into favor with God, he does affirm the abiding usefulness and positive role of the natural law within the natural or civil kingdom. The failure on the part of many interpreters of Calvin to understand how Calvin could simultaneously affirm the natural law and its positive role, and at the same time deny that human beings as sinners can find acceptance with God on the basis of obedience to that law, stems from a failure to see this close correlation. Calvin’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms offers a coherent explanation of Calvin’s viewpoint and provides a resolution of this apparent inconsistency in his thought.

For Calvin, the sinful human person, by use of reason and natural knowledge, can attain great things in the domain of earthly things, that is, in the civil kingdom. By use of reason and natural knowledge, in contrast,

10. Ibid., 105.

the sinful person cannot even begin to approach knowledge of salvation and eternal life, that is, knowledge of the heavenly kingdom of Christ. Natural law, therefore, has a positive function to play in the life of the earthly, civil kingdom, according to Calvin. But . . . natural law has only a negative function to play in regard to spiritual things and the heavenly kingdom of Christ, where it serves merely to convict people of their sins and to strip them of all pretexts for ignorance.12

According to VanDrunen, Calvin’s Two Kingdoms/natural law public theology represents a clear and compelling vision of the distinct callings of the church, which constitutes the redemptive realm or spiritual kingdom, and of the natural kingdom, which constitutes the common or secular realm. The rule or norm that governs the spiritual kingdom is the redemptive revelation of God in Scripture, whereas the rule or norm that governs the civil kingdom is the natural law of God that is known by all human beings who bear God’s image.

An Assessment of the “Two Kingdoms/Natural Law” Interpretation of Calvin

In order to assess VanDrunen’s Two Kingdoms/natural law interpretation of Calvin’s theology, we need to consider three broad topics in Calvin’s theology. The first of these topics is the distinction Calvin makes between the spiritual and natural kingdoms. VanDrunen is certainly justified in calling attention to Calvin’s distinction between these kingdoms. However, it remains to be seen whether Calvin views them primarily in terms of two separate realms, and whether he makes the clear identification of the spiritual kingdom with the institutional church and the natural kingdom with the remainder of human life and culture, as VanDrunen maintains. Does Calvin use this distinction to restrict distinctively “Christian” conduct to the life and ministry of the church, in distinction from all other aspects of human conduct? The second of these topics is the strict correlation that VanDrunen posits between the natural kingdom, which is governed by Christ as Mediator of creation through the natural law, and the spiritual kingdom, which is governed by Christ as Mediator of redemption through the moral law as it is set forth in Scripture. The third topic is one that VanDrunen inadequately acknowledges in his interpretation of Calvin’s theology, namely, the relation that Calvin emphasizes between God’s purpose and work as Creator and as Redeemer. How does Calvin construe the relation between God’s purposes in creation and redemption? In VanDrunen’s interpretation of Calvin’s theology, Christ’s work as Redeemer is regarded as a kind of overlay or higher stratum of spiritual renewal that has little or no direct relation to the order of creation or human life in the natural kingdom. The redemptive kingdom of Christ does not have any direct implications for the present reordering of human life and conduct within the natural kingdom. However, in Calvin’s conception of the relation between creation and redemption, there is a clear affirmation of God’s purpose in redemption to reverse the consequences of human sin and disobedience and to restore the whole creation to proper order.

Calvin on the “Twofold Government” of Christ

There are two passages in Calvin’s Institutes that distinguish between the natural and spiritual kingdoms of Christ, which constitute an important basis for VanDrunen’s interpretation of Calvin’s public theology.13 The first of these passages occurs in the Institutes, 3.19.15, which describes the twofold benefit of Christ’s saving work in the life of the believer who is joined to Christ by faith and the work of the Holy Spirit. By virtue of their union with Christ through faith, believers enjoy the grace of free justification and acceptance with God, not on the basis of works performed in obedience to the law of God but on the basis of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and the forgiveness of sins. Inseparably joined to the grace of free justification is the second benefit of union with Christ, the grace of regeneration or repentance whereby the Holy Spirit renews believers after the image of God and in obedience to the moral law of God. When believers are joined to Christ by faith, they enjoy simultaneously the “double grace” (duplex gratia) of free justification before God’s tribunal and the sanctification of their lives by the Spirit of Christ.14

Toward the close of his extended treatment of the doctrine of free justification, Calvin takes up the subject of Christian freedom as an “appendage of justification.”15 According to Calvin, Christian freedom consists of three parts. First, Christian believers are freed from the condemnation of the law, since their acceptance with God is firmly based on the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone, which is graciously imputed to them. Second, the consciences of Christian believers are free to obey the requirements of the law, however imperfectly, “not as if constrained by the necessity of the law,” but as those who joyfully and gratefully seek to please their heavenly Father. The life of Christian believers becomes, on the basis of their free justification in Christ, a free obedience and an obedient freedom. Rather than the law’s functioning as a “yoke” that enslaves, the law, enlivened by the Spirit who writes the law on the hearts of believers, serves as a rule of Christian gratitude. And third, Christians are free in respect to matters “indifferent” (adiaphora) where the law of God neither requires nor forbids the use of God’s good gifts. All three parts of Christian freedom, Calvin observes, are “spiritual” in nature. The believer’s conscience is not constrained to obedience by a fearful prospect of judgment or condemnation. Rather, believers, who are freely and graciously accepted by God on the basis of Christ’s work on their behalf, joyfully and gladly obey God’s commandments from a good conscience and are enabled by the Spirit to live a life that is pleasing to him.

13. In addition to these key passages in Calvin’s Institutes, VanDrunen appeals to Calvin’s commentary on Rom. 13:1 and his broad distinction between “earthly” and “heavenly” things in his Institutes, 2.2.13. See VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 76–77.

14. For a comprehensive treatment of Calvin’s understanding of the “twofold grace of God,” see Cornelis P. Venema, Accepted and Renewed in Christ: The “Twofold Grace of God” and the Interpretation of Calvin’s Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008).

Calvin concludes his extensive discussion of these three parts of Christian freedom by noting that some inappropriately argue that the believer’s freedom of conscience implies that he or she has no obligation whatever to submit to any human laws or constitutions. Although Calvin acknowledges that ecclesiastical constitutions, such as those imposed by the Roman Catholic Church on the consciences of believers in respect to the worship and service of God, may not bind the consciences of believers before God, he notes that the freedom of the believer does not entail a freedom from obedience to the civil magistrate or the laws of the state. Although Calvin does not expressly identify those whose position he intends to oppose, he clearly intends to rebut the Anabaptist denial of the Christian’s obligation to obey the laws of the civil government.16 In order to rebut the “seditious” implications of the denial of the legitimate claim of the civil magistrate on Christian obedience, Calvin offers a distinction between two kinds of jurisdiction or government, the spiritual and the civil.

15. Institutes, 3.19.1.

16. This is evident as well in Calvin’s comments on Rom. 13:1. See Comm. Rom. 13:1, CNTC 8.280: “There are always some restless spirits who believe that the kingdom of Christ is properly exalted only when all earthly powers are abolished, and that they can enjoy the liberty which He has given them only if they have shaken off every yoke of human slavery.” For an extended

Therefore, in order that none of us may stumble on that stone, let us first consider that there is a twofold government in man [duplex est in homine regimen]: one aspect is spiritual [spirituale], whereby the conscience is instructed in piety and in reverencing God; the second is political [politicum], whereby man is educated for the duties of humanity and citizenship that must be maintained among men. These are usually called the “spiritual” and the “temporal” jurisdiction [iurisdictio spiritualis et temporalis] (not improper terms) by which is meant that the former sort of government pertains to the life of the soul, while the latter has to do with the concerns of the present life—not only with food and clothing but with laying down laws whereby a man may live his life among other men holily, honorably, and temperately. For the former resides in the inner mind, while the latter regulates only outward behavior. The one we may call the spiritual kingdom, the other, the political kingdom [regnum spirituale . . . regnum politicum]. Now these two, as we have divided them, must always be examined separately; and while one is being considered, we must call away and turn aside the mind from thinking about the other. There are in man, so to speak, two worlds, over which different kings and different laws have authority. Through this distinction it comes about that we are not to misapply to the political order the gospel teaching on spiritual freedom, as if Christians were less subject, as concerns outward government, to human laws, because their consciences have been set free in God’s sight; as if they were released from all bodily servitude because they are free according to the spirit.17

In this extended passage on the Two Kingdoms, there are several features of Calvin’s position that need to be noted carefully. First, the principal emphasis in this passage, with its distinction between the “spiritual” and the “political” kingdoms of God, is on the manner in which God governs the conduct of believers. In the spiritual government of God, believers are freely and inwardly subject to the requirements of God’s law, not as a means to obtain God’s favor but as an expression of grateful devotion. In the civil or political government of God, all members of the civil community are obliged to obey outwardly the laws of the political kingdom, which serve to maintain public order and peace. Obedience to the civil magistrate is obligatory, not by reason of conscience or as a means to obtain favor with God, but by reason of what Calvin elsewhere terms the “civil use” of the law of God.18 Second, consistent with his emphasis on two kinds of jurisdiction or government, Calvin’s “Two Kingdoms” language does not so much refer to two separate realms or worlds as to a twofold government of God over the conduct of believers who are being renewed after his image and are subject to his rule. Although Calvin undoubtedly aims to distinguish by means of his conception of God’s twofold government between the institutions of the church and the state, it is not immediately evident that this twofold jurisdiction can be neatly divided, as VanDrunen maintains, between two comprehensive realms, the institutional church on the one hand, and all other institutions and aspects of human life and culture, especially the state, on the other. Whereas VanDrunen interprets Calvin’s language of “Two Kingdoms” in spatial terms, as though they were primarily two separate realms of human life and conduct, Calvin’s emphasis is on the twofold way in which God governs the conduct of believers in whom these two jurisdictions coexist.19 And third, the particular interest of Calvin in drawing this distinction between the spiritual and political jurisdictions is to emphasize the legitimate obligation of believers to obey the laws of the civil magistrate. Such obedience does not compromise Christian freedom, since it is an outward obedience to the civil jurisdiction that God has ordained for the maintenance of civil order and righteousness.

treatment of Calvin’s commentary on this passage, see Richard A. Muller, “Calvin, Beza, and the Exegetical History of Romans 13:1–7,” in Calvin and the State, ed. Peter De Klerk (Grand Rapids: Calvin Studies Society, 1993), 139–70.

The second passage in Calvin’s Institutes that offers a broad definition of the Two Kingdoms is in the last chapter of book 4, which addresses the topic of the civil government. This comes at the close of Calvin’s extensive treatment of the doctrine of the church. In this passage, Calvin alludes to his earlier distinction between the spiritual and civil jurisdictions, which he introduced in the context of the doctrine of Christian freedom but now calls to mind before treating more extensively the divine institution and calling of the civil government.

18. See Institutes, 2.7.10–11 (OS 3.335–36), where Calvin distinguishes the “civil” use of the law from its first or “pedagogical” use and its third or “principal” use as a rule of gratitude for believers. According to Calvin, in its “second function” [secundum officium] the law restrains “certain men who are untouched by any care for what is just and right unless compelled by hearing the dire threats of the law.”

19. It is significant that Calvin primarily uses the terms regimen and iurisdictio in this passage, and only secondarily speaks of the regnum that corresponds to them. It is more accurate, therefore, to speak of Calvin’s doctrine of a “twofold government” or “jurisdiction” rather than primarily of two separate “realms” or “kingdoms.”

First, before we enter into the matter itself, we must keep in mind that distinction which we previously laid down so that we do not (as commonly happens) unwisely mingle these two, which have a completely different nature. For certain men, when they hear that the gospel promises a freedom that acknowledges no king and no magistrate among men, but looks to Christ alone, think that they cannot benefit by their freedom so long as they see any power set up over them. They therefore think that nothing will be safe unless the whole world is reshaped to a new form, where there are neither courts, nor laws, nor magistrates, nor anything which in their opinion restricts their freedom. But whoever knows how to distinguish between body and soul, between this present fleeting life and that future eternal life, will without difficulty know that Christ’s spiritual Kingdom and the civil jurisdiction are things completely distinct [spirituale Christi regnum et civilem ordinationem res esse plurimum]. Since, then, it is a Jewish vanity to seek and enclose Christ’s Kingdom within the elements of this world, let us rather ponder that what Scripture clearly teaches is a spiritual fruit, which we gather from Christ’s grace; and let us remember to keep within its own limits all that freedom which is promised and offered to us in him. For why is it that the same apostle who bids us stand and not submit to the “yoke of bondage” [Gal. 5:1] elsewhere forbids slaves to be anxious about their state [1 Cor. 7:21], unless it be that spiritual freedom can perfectly well exist along with civil bondage? These statements of his must also be taken in the same sense: In the Kingdom of God “there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free” [Gal. 3:28, Vulgate; order changed]. And again, “there is not Jew nor Greek, uncircumcised and circumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, freeman; but Christ is all in all” [Col. 3:11]. By these statements he means that it makes no difference what your condition among men may be or under what nation’s laws you live, since the Kingdom of Christ does not at all consist in these things.20

In this passage, Calvin reiterates the main emphases of his earlier distinction between God’s twofold jurisdictions, but now within the context of an exposition of the role and calling of the civil government. Contrary to the Anabaptist claim that believers are subject only to a spiritual jurisdiction, and radically at liberty from any obligations to civil authority, Calvin reaffirms his positive view of the continued usefulness and necessity of civil government.

Immediately after reaffirming the distinction between God’s spiritual and civil governments, Calvin goes on to observe that the civil kingdom, although it is “distinct” from the spiritual kingdom of Christ, is in no wise “at variance” with it. While the “spiritual Kingdom of Christ” is already

Initiating in us upon earth certain beginnings of the Heavenly Kingdom . . . yet civil government has as its appointed end, so long as we live among men, to cherish and protect the outward worship of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the position of the church, to adjust our life to the society of men, to form our social behavior to civil righteousness, to reconcile us with one another, and to promote general peace and tranquility.21

For Calvin, the spiritual and the civil government of God do not stand independently alongside each other. The civil government or jurisdiction, although it is not to usurp the distinct spiritual government that Christ exercises through his Spirit and Word, has the task within God’s design to secure the kind of public order and tranquility that is indispensable to the prosecution of the church’s calling. In this way, the civil jurisdiction serves the redemptive purposes of God by protecting the church and ensuring its freedom to pursue its unique calling under Christ. Furthermore,

21. It is interesting to observe that article 39 of the Gallican Confession of 1560 reflects Calvin’s view, when it declares that God “has put the sword into the hands of magistrates to suppress crimes against the first as well as the second table of the Commandments of God” (Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 3, The Evangelical Protestant Creeds [1931; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985], 382). The same is true of the original text of article 36 of the Belgic Confession. Although Calvin’s view on the calling of the civil magistrate may fit uncomfortably with a modern view of the separation of church and state, it reflects Calvin’s conception of the comprehensive lordship of Christ in both the civil and spiritual jurisdictions. Because this emphasis in Calvin seems inconsistent with his interpretation of his Two Kingdoms conception, VanDrunen accounts for it by suggesting that Calvin was either “inconsistent” in the application of his principles or simply a “man of his time” who was unable to see the implications of his Two Kingdoms theology for the separation of church and state in a religiously pluralistic society. See, e.g., VanDrunen, “The Two Kingdoms: A Reassessment of the Transformationalist Calvin,” 260–66; and idem, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 82–86.

as servants of God, civil magistrates have the task of ensuring that both tables of the law—the first table dealing with the service and worship of God, the second table addressing the mutual service of all human beings to each other—are honored and obeyed. Although the civil magistrate is not authorized to usurp the distinctive prerogatives of the spiritual kingdom, namely, the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word in renewing human life in free obedience to God’s law, it does serve to advance the redemptive purpose of the spiritual kingdom by requiring an outward conformity to the requirements of God’s moral law.22

Although it would be premature to draw any far-reaching conclusions from these two passages in the Institutes regarding Calvin’s comprehensive public theology, it should be apparent that Calvin’s Two Kingdoms conception focuses primarily on the legitimacy of the Christian believer’s continued subjection to the civil magistrate. Christian freedom, which includes freedom from the condemnation of the law and for grateful, Spirit-authored obedience to the law as a rule of gratitude, does not exempt believers from an obligation to obey the civil magistrate. Christ governs believers inwardly and spiritually by his Spirit and Word; but he also governs believers outwardly by the institution and positive laws of the civil magistrate. Christ’s government is comprehensive of both a spiritual and a political jurisdiction.

However, it is not evident that Calvin employs this distinction in the way VanDrunen interprets it, namely, as a means to divide all of human life and conduct into two hermetically separated domains or realms. Nor is it evident that Calvin identifies the spiritual kingdom of Christ simpliciter with the institutional church, and consigns the remainder of human conduct and culture to the natural kingdom. Calvin’s Two Kingdoms conception is principally addressed to the distinct way in which Christ governs the conduct of believers, whether spiritually by the Spirit in the renewal/sanctification of believers or outwardly by the institution of the civil magistracy. The pri

22. Calvin’s view of the respective callings of church and state is a complicated one. Although Calvin struggled in Geneva to achieve freedom for the church to administer discipline, particularly excommunication, without the interference of the civil magistracy, he maintained the idea of a Christian commonwealth in which the civil authorities were obliged to uphold the standards of the Word of God in the public sphere. For accounts of Calvin’s struggle to distinguish the jurisdictions of church and state, especially in his reformatory work in Geneva, see T. H. L. Parker, John Calvin: A Biography, 2nd ed. (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 108–45; Josef Bohatec, Calvins Lehre von Staat und Kirche (Aalen: Scientia, 1961); and John T. McNeill, “John Calvin on Civil Government,” in Calvinism and the Political Order, ed. George L. Hunt (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965), 23–45.

mary emphasis in Calvin’s Two Kingdoms construction falls on the manner of God’s governance in the spiritual and natural kingdoms; the former is an inward, spiritual government, the latter an outward, political government. Moreover, in his description of the calling of the civil magistrate, Calvin insists that the civil government must fulfill its calling under Christ’s authority in a way that serves and advances the interests of his spiritual government in the lives of believers. Although VanDrunen correctly calls attention to Calvin’s distinction between these two forms of divine government, it is not evident that his neat bifurcation of all of human life in terms of two realms, the one spiritual and the other natural, is consistent with Calvin’s public theology as a whole. At least in a preliminary way, it seems that VanDrunen overstates the contrast between these Two Kingdoms and tends to downplay Calvin’s clear emphasis on the way they are interrelated.

Calvin on the Relation between “Natural Law” and Special Revelation As I noted in my summary of his Two Kingdoms/natural law inter

pretation of Calvin’s public theology, VanDrunen maintains that Calvin correlated his distinction between the spiritual and the civil kingdoms with a distinction between the natural law and the revelation of God’s will through special revelation. Whereas human conduct within the natural kingdom is primarily, although not exclusively, regulated by the natural law of God, Christian conduct within the spiritual kingdom is exclusively regulated by special revelation in Scripture.23

Although VanDrunen’s interpretation of Calvin’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms tends to exaggerate the distinction between the twofold ways in which Christ governs the conduct of believers, and considerably enlarges the scope of what belongs to the civil kingdom, his interpretation of Calvin’s view of the respective roles of the natural law and Scripture in the twofold government of believers is especially flawed. In Calvin’s theology, there is a much closer relation between the natural and special revelation of God than VanDrunen’s interpretation implies. Calvin’s conception of the

23. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 113, does acknowledge that Calvin appealed to Scripture in developing his view of human conduct in the civil kingdom, but maintains that the natural law retains a kind of primacy in regulating this kingdom: “Of course, Calvin did not think Scripture irrelevant for civil law in the other kingdom, as his practice of applying the example of Old Testament kings and events to contemporary civil issues illustrates. But Calvin did not believe that the civil kingdom can be governed solely or primarily by the teaching of Scripture.”

relation between natural and special revelation grants a priority to special revelation as a more clear and full disclosure of God’s will as Creator and Redeemer for human conduct in every area of life. Whereas natural revelation, including the moral content of the natural law, can disclose only a rudimentary knowledge of God and his will as Creator, special revelation is a more comprehensive revelation, which discloses the knowledge of God’s will as Creator and Redeemer. Special revelation is more rich in its scope, more full and complete in terms of what it reveals of God’s moral will, and far more clear and distinct than the revelation of God in the natural law. Calvin’s metaphor for the Scriptures as “spectacles” through which the revelation of God as Creator is clearly discerned, for example, represents an especially important feature of his doctrine of revelation that VanDrunen’s Two Kingdoms/natural law interpretation tends to diminish. When believers seek to fulfill their distinctive vocations in every area of human society and culture, whether in marriage and family, social relations, economic endeavors, or the arts and sciences, Calvin does not shy away from appealing directly to Scripture as a more clear and comprehensive disclosure of God’s will for the conduct of those whom he is restoring after the image of Christ through the sanctifying, regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

The subject of Calvin’s doctrine of natural law is undoubtedly a complicated one, especially because of the influence of a neoorthodox interpretation of Calvin’s theology that radically rejects the whole idea of natural revelation and natural law. Contrary to the neoorthodox claim that the doctrine of natural law in Calvin’s theology represents an incidental and inconsistent feature of his theology, VanDrunen properly argues that Calvin clearly affirmed a doctrine of natural law. Although Calvin’s treatment of the natural law is often “imprecise and unsystematic,” there can be no doubt that he taught a revelation through natural law of God’s moral will for the conduct of human beings whom he created in his image.24 In two

24. The language “imprecise and unsystematic” is used by Susan Schreiner in her comprehensive study The Theater of His Glory: Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin (Durham, NC: Labyrinth Press, 1991), 77. For general treatments of Calvin’s understanding of natural law, see J. Bohatec, Calvin und das Recht (Feudigen in Westfalen: Buchdruckerei G.m.b.H., 1934); Arthur C. Cochrane, “Natural Law in Calvin,” in Church-State Relations in Ecumenical Perspective, ed. E. A. Smith (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1966), 176–217; John T. McNeill, “Natural Law in the Teaching of the Reformers,” JR 26 (1946): 168–82; Mary Lane Potter, “The ‘Whole Office of the Law’ in the Theology of John Calvin,” Journal of Law and Religion 3 (1985): 117–39; Paul Helm, “Calvin and Natural Law,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 2 (1984): 5–22; idem, “Equity, Natural Law, and Common Grace,” in John

extensive passages on the topic of the natural law, one in Calvin’s commentary on Romans 2:14–15, the other in book 2 of the Institutes, where Calvin is treating the knowledge of man as God created him, Calvin argues that all human beings have a natural awareness of God’s moral will and the distinction between vice and virtue:

Since, therefore, all nations are disposed to make laws for themselves of their own accord, and without being instructed to do so, it is beyond all doubt that they have certain ideas of justice and rectitude, which the Greeks refer to as prolēpseis, and which are implanted by nature in the hearts of men. Therefore they have a law, without the law; for although they do not have the written law of Moses, they are by no means completely lacking in the knowledge of right and justice. They could not otherwise distinguish between vice and virtue, the former of which they restrain by punishing it, while commending the latter, and showing their approval of it, and honouring it with rewards. Paul contrasts nature with the written law, meaning that the Gentiles had the natural light of righteousness, which supplied the place of the law by which the Jews are taught, so that they were a law unto themselves.25

Now that inward law, which we have above described as written, even engraved, upon the hearts of all, in a sense asserts the very same things that are to be learned from the two Tables. For our conscience does not allow us to sleep a perpetual insensible sleep without being an inner witness and monitor of what we owe God, without holding before us the difference between good and evil and thus accusing us when we fail in our duty. But man is so shrouded in the darkness of errors that he hardly begins to grasp through this natural law what worship is acceptable to God. Surely he is very far removed from a true estimate of it. Besides this, he is so puffed up with haughtiness and ambition, and so blinded by self love, that he is as yet unable to look upon himself and, as it were, to descend within himself, that he may humble and abase himself and confess his own miserable condition. Accordingly (because it is necessary both for our dullness and for our arrogance), the Lord has provided us with a written law to give us a clearer witness of what was too obscure in the natural law, shake off our listlessness, and strike more vigorously our mind and memory.26

Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 347–88; and Susan E. Schreiner, “Calvin’s Use of Natural Law,” in A Preserving Grace: Protestants, Catholics and Natural Law, ed. Michael Cromartie (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 51–76.

25. Comm. Rom. 2:14–15, CNTC 8.48 (CO 49.37–38).

26. Institutes, 2.8.1 (OS 3.334).

In passages such as these, Calvin does emphasize the way God as Creator continues by his providence and the revelation of the natural law to preserve order and a relative righteousness in human society and government. Accordingly, in his exposition of the calling of the civil government, Calvin acknowledges a legitimate appeal to the “general equity” of the natural law in order to discern God’s will for the civil government. For Calvin, the different forms that the civil government may assume in different times and places, as well as the “positive laws” that magistrates may promulgate in the discharge of their duties under God, may be inferred from a consideration of the “general equity” of the natural law rather than simply appealing to biblical civil and case laws.27 In his representation of Calvin’s public theology, therefore, VanDrunen correctly argues that Calvin appeals to the natural law and a natural apprehension of God’s moral will to account in part for the preservation and ordering of human life and society. In spite of the pervasive corruption of human sinfulness, God as Creator maintains order and preserves human society among unbelievers and believers alike by his all-embracing providence, which includes the revelation of his will through natural law to all human beings as his image-bearers and through the restraining effect of a nonredemptive “general grace of God” (generalem Dei gratiam), which curtails the full expression of human disobedience in many areas of human life and culture.28

While VanDrunen’s interpretation of Calvin’s public theology rightly calls attention to these features of Calvin’s view of the natural law, there are three important respects in which his interpretation of Calvin’s doctrine of natural law inadequately represents Calvin’s position.

First, although Calvin affirms the reality and benefit of natural law to disclose God’s will for human conduct in society and culture, and although Calvin acknowledges the relative excellence and value of human endeavors in what he terms “earthly” and “natural” things, he emphasizes far more than his medieval predecessors, including Thomas Aquinas, the destructive effects of human sin and disobedience in these dimensions of human life as well as in dimensions of human life that are more obviously spiritual in

27. Institutes, 4.20.16 (OS 5.487–88). For treatments of Calvin’s doctrine of the “general equity” taught in the natural law, which he terms “the goal and rule and limit of all [civil] laws,” see Guenther H. Haas, The Concept of Equity in Calvin’s Ethics (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1997); and Paul Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 347–88.

28. Institutes, 2.2.17 (OS 3.259). For a treatment of Calvin’s doctrine of “general” or “common” grace, see Herman Kuiper, Calvin on Common Grace (Grand Rapids: Smitter Book Co., 1928).

nature. Commenting on Calvin’s affirmation of the natural law, coupled with his insistence that human sinfulness significantly corrupts the ability to apprehend correctly what the natural requires, Paul Helm observes that

there is one crucial difference [between Aquinas and Calvin]. When we turn to the extent to which the natural law is naturally known Aquinas is much more sanguine than is Calvin about whether human reason unaided by special grace can identify it, and the degree to which it recognizes its obligatoriness. The natural law [for Aquinas] allows men and women to have the knowledge of good and evil. For Aquinas the natural law is natural both in the sense that it is a divine law for human nature given at creation, and in the sense that it may now be successfully apprehended as a set of precepts, by unaided fallen reason alone.29

When VanDrunen argues that Calvin ascribed a considerable role to natural law in governing the civil or natural kingdom, he represents a feature of Calvin’s public theology, which does include a positive use of the natural law in the preservation of human society and the ordering of human life. However, VanDrunen posits a more positive and robust assessment of the apprehension of the natural law than Calvin’s position and actual practice warrant. Although Calvin affirms the reality of natural law and a corresponding universal apprehension of the distinction between vice and virtue on the part of unbelievers and believers alike, he also emphasizes the insufficiency under the conditions of sin of natural law to obtaining a full apprehension of God’s will for human conduct, not only in the spiritual but also in the natural kingdom. Even in the passages that we have cited as examples of Calvin’s affirmation of the natural law, Calvin emphasizes the debilitating effect of human sinfulness on the ability of human beings to apprehend God’s will rightly without the aid of special revelation.

Second, consistent with his emphasis on the corrupting effects of human sinfulness on the ability of human beings to apprehend the natural law, Calvin grants, both in theory and in practice, an indispensable and foundational role to special revelation in the discernment of God’s moral will for human conduct in all areas of human society and culture. Although it is often inadequately appreciated, Calvin’s treatment of the doctrine of Scripture in the Institutes occurs in book 1 in the context of a general

29. Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas, 372.

exposition of the knowledge of God as Creator.30 Because of human sin and disobedience, Calvin insists that the knowledge of God as Creator, insofar as it depends on natural revelation alone, “is either smothered or corrupted, partly by ignorance, partly by malice.”31 Indeed, the knowledge of God available through the created order is unable to supply a true knowledge of God even as Creator, since “we have not the eyes to see this unless they be illumined by the inner revelation of God through faith.”32 In Calvin’s estimation, the knowledge of God as Creator serves primarily to deprive human beings as sinners of any excuse for their willful disobedience. The natural knowledge of God does not provide positively for a knowledge of God’s will as Creator that is a sufficient guide for human conduct even in the natural order. Consequently, Calvin maintains that a special revelation of God, also as Creator and not only as Redeemer, has become necessary. For Calvin, it is “needful that another and better help be added to direct us aright to the very Creator of the universe. It was not in vain, then, that he added the light of the Word by which to become known unto salvation.”33 Because of the obscurity and sinful suppression of the knowledge of God as Creator that is disclosed through natural revelation, Calvin’s discussion of the knowledge of God the Creator through Scripture consists of two parts, the first dealing with Scripture in its function of clarifying the obscured knowledge given in creation, and the second dealing with Scripture in its function of complementing this knowledge. Within the first part, Calvin employs his important and much-discussed image of Scripture as “spectacles” (specillis) by which we may “begin to read [the book of creation] distinctly” (distincte legere).34 In this way, Scripture communicates a knowledge of God as Creator that cannot be derived from natural revelation alone because of the effects of sin.35

Finally, Calvin’s doctrine of sanctification does not support the kind of sharp distinction that VanDrunen posits between the role of the natural law in the natural kingdom, and the role of the scriptural revelation of God’s moral law in the spiritual kingdom. Consistent with his emphasis on the superiority of scriptural revelation, which enables believers to rightly discern the natural law in its moral content and supplements it with a more full revelation of God’s moral will, Calvin’s doctrine of sanctification emphasizes that believers are subject to the life-embracing requirements of the moral law of God revealed in Scripture. Furthermore, since Calvin’s doctrine of sanctification amounts to an extended description of the spiritual government of Christ in the lives of believers who are being restored to new obedience through the work of his Spirit, the spiritual kingdom of Christ is as broad and life-embracing as the claims of the moral law of God are on the believer’s conduct in relation to God and to all human beings who bear his image. Therefore, it is not possible to maintain, as VanDrunen claims, that Calvin primarily identifies the spiritual kingdom of Christ with the calling of believers in the setting of the official ministry and life of the institutional church. In Christ’s gracious work of sanctification, the Holy Spirit subdues the hearts of believers to new obedience to all the requirements of God’s holy law, which in its two tables calls for perfect love toward God and selfless devotion to the well-being of others.

30. For an extensive treatment of Calvin’s understanding of the relation of special revelation to general (or natural) revelation, including the way special revelation clarifies and supplements the knowledge of God as Creator, see Edward A. Dowey Jr., The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 86–147.

31. Institutes, 1.4.1–4 (OS 3.40–44).

32. Institutes, 1.5.14 (OS 3.59). See also Institutes, 1.5.4–15 (OS 3.47–60).

33. Institutes, 1.4.1 (OS 3.60).

34. Ibid.

35. Institutes, 1.4.4 (OS 3.64).

Although this is not the place to offer a comprehensive account of Calvin’s doctrine of sanctification, several features of Calvin’s view are of particular importance to an evaluation of VanDrunen’s interpretation of Calvin’s public theology. In Calvin’s understanding of the gospel of Christ’s saving mediation, the sanctification of believers is one of the two principal benefits of Christ’s work as Mediator. Through union with Christ, which Calvin understands to be worked by the Holy Spirit through the gospel Word, all believers partake of the “double grace” of free justification and regeneration or repentance, which are Calvin’s preferred terms for what later theologians call “sanctification.” In free justification, believers are granted a status of acceptance with God on the basis of the imputed righteousness of Christ. In regeneration or repentance, believers are graciously enabled to fulfill the calling of human beings who bear God’s image, namely, to glorify God with body and soul in every legitimate area of human conduct and society. Although Calvin insists that justification is by faith alone, exclusive of the righteousness of works, he also emphasizes that justified believers are simultaneously sanctified by the ministry of the Spirit, who “enlivens” the moral law of God by writing it on their hearts. Christian freedom is a freedom for a glad-hearted and grateful obedience to all the requirements of God’s moral law as they are clearly and fully revealed through special revelation. Sanctification or repentance, as the second benefit of the believer’s union with Christ, constitutes Calvin’s comprehensive category for understanding the redirection and alteration of the lives of those who are indwelt by Christ through the Spirit.

For Christ imparts the Spirit of regeneration to us in order that he may renew us within, and that a new life may then follow the renewal of mind and heart. For if the function of giving repentance belongs to Christ, it follows that it is not something that has been put in the power of man. And since it is truly something of a wonderful reformation, which makes us new creatures, restores the image of God in us, transfers us from the slavery of sin to the obedience of righteousness, men will no more convert themselves than to create themselves.36

Although it would be tempting at this point to provide specific examples in Calvin’s writings of the comprehensive lordship of Jesus Christ over the conduct of believers in every area of life, this brief summary of Calvin’s doctrine of sanctification is enough to illustrate the implications of Calvin’s position for an interpretation of his public theology. Whether in the natural or the spiritual government of Christ, believers are called to honor the requirements of God’s ordering of human life and conduct. Whether in the natural or the spiritual government of Christ, the determination of God’s will for the conduct of believers is never based merely on the rudimentary revelation of the natural law. Rather, believers discern the will of God for their proper obedience to Christ by attending to the more clear and full disclosure of his will in Scripture, acknowledging that Scripture clarifies and supplements the knowledge of God as Creator and provides a rich disclosure of God’s moral law in its life-encompassing claim on human conduct in every legitimate vocation or task. Furthermore, the sanctification of believers, which expresses the spiritual government of Christ by his Spirit and Word in the hearts and lives of believers who are being renewed after the image of God, is not narrowly confined to the ministry of the institutional church. Christian believers under the lordship of Jesus Christ are called to obey God, instructed and enlightened by the light of his special revelation, to pursue their vocation, order their marriage and family, conduct their social and

36. Comm. Acts 5:31 (CO 48.111).

economic enterprises, educate themselves and their children, obey the civil magistrate, and pursue the arts and sciences. Although the language is not Calvin’s, the words of Abraham Kuyper faithfully echo Calvin’s doctrine of sanctification in its wider implications: “No single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’ ”37

The Relation between Creation and Redemption in Calvin’s Theology One of the important questions that VanDrunen’s Two Kingdoms/

natural law interpretation of Calvin’s theology raises is that of Calvin’s conception of the relation between creation and redemption. VanDrunen’s interpretation of Calvin’s theology is explicitly dualistic. The natural kingdom is sharply distinguished from the spiritual or ecclesiastical kingdom, and the present and future realization of God’s redemptive purpose does not entail the redemption, renovation, or perfection of the creation as a whole, including human life and culture within the natural kingdom. Although Christ as Mediator of creation continues to preserve and order human life in the natural kingdom, Christ as Mediator of redemption only renews and reorders the life and culture of the church. For VanDrunen, the demarcation between the natural and the spiritual kingdoms means that Calvin’s public theology does not encourage, at least when it is consistently followed, a transformative or redemptive purpose for human life and culture beyond the boundaries of the institutional church. In this interpretation of Calvin’s public theology, redemption is viewed as a kind of second-story overlay on the order of creation. God’s redemptive purpose in relation to the created order is not integrally related to God’s original design and purpose for creation. Nor does the future fullness of the redemptive kingdom entail the renewal and perfection of the present order of creation, or the enrichment of the final state by the fruits and artifacts of the believer’s present service to God in society and culture.38

37. Abraham Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty” (1880), in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 488.

38. See, e.g., VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 78–82; and idem, “The Two Kingdoms: A Reassessment of the Transformationalist Calvin,” 263. VanDrunen concludes from Calvin’s language, which distinguishes “earthly” from “heavenly” things, that all nonecclesiastical accomplishments, including the artifacts and fruits of human culture in general, belong strictly to the nonredemptive kingdom of this world that is passing away. For a different interpretation

The problem with VanDrunen’s dualistic interpretation of Calvin’s public theology, however, is that it fails to do justice to the way Calvin explicitly emphasizes the positive and integral relation between creation and redemption. One of the principal motifs of Calvin’s theology is his insistence that Christ’s work of redemption involves the comprehensive reordering and renewing of the entire created order. Although Calvin distinguishes between the knowledge of God as Creator and as Redeemer, he does so in order to underscore the way God’s purpose of redemption entails no less than the restoration of the whole creation to a state of glorified perfection. Among some recent students of Calvin’s theology, reference is sometimes made to what is termed the “extra dimension” of Calvin’s theology.39 This language means to call attention to the way Calvin distinguishes and correlates Christ’s work as Mediator of creation and as Mediator of redemption. The presupposition for Calvin’s treatment of redemption in Christ is the biblical doctrine of the creation and ordering of all things by the Word and Spirit of God. According to Calvin, the knowledge of God as Redeemer can be understood only within the framework of the doctrine of creation. The eternal Son through whom all things were made is the One through whom all things are being redeemed. Redemption, accordingly, amounts to nothing less than the restoration of all things to proper order through the mediation of Christ and the work of his Spirit.

Because Christ is the Mediator of creation and redemption, Calvin views the first advent of Christ as a decisive moment in the realization of God’s redemptive purposes. With Christ’s coming, the promises of the old covenant are being fulfilled and the purpose of God to renew all things has advanced. In describing the significance of Christ’s coming and his saving work, Calvin is fond of speaking of the comprehensive purpose of God as a “restoration” of all things to “proper order.”40 In his commentary

of Calvin at this point, and one with which I tend to concur, see Paul Helm, Calvin: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 134–35.

39. See Heiko A. Oberman, “The ‘Extra’ Dimension in the Theology of Calvin,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 21 (1970): 43–64. By the “extra” dimension of Calvin’s theology, Oberman refers to the “mutuality” and “discontinuity” (48) between the created order and redemption in the work and purposes of God. See also E. David Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology: The Function of the So-Called Extra-Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology (Leiden: Brill, 1966).

40. For a more extensive treatment of this theme in Calvin’s theology, see Schreiner, The Theater of His Glory, chap. 5, “Creation Set Free,” 97–114. The opening sentence of Schreiner’s chapter captures well Calvin’s view: “Throughout his polemics against the Anabaptists, Calvin

on John 13:31, for example, Calvin offers a broad view of the purpose of Christ’s advent and crucifixion:

For in the cross of Christ, as in a splendid theatre, the incomparable goodness of God is set before the whole world. The glory of God shines, indeed, in all creatures on high and below, but never more brightly than in the cross, in which there was a wonderful change of things—the condemnation of all men was manifested, sin blotted out, salvation restored to men; in short, the whole world was renewed and all things restored to order.41

Calvin uses similar language in his comments on John 12:31:

The word judgment is taken as “reformation” by some and “condemnation” by others. I agree rather with the former, who expound it that the world must be restored to due order [legitimum ordinem]. For the Hebrew word mishpat which is translated as judgment means a well-ordered constitution. Now we know that outside Christ there is nothing but confusion in the world. And although Christ had already begun to set up the kingdom of God, it was His death that was the true beginning of a properly-ordered state [status rite compositi] and the complete restoration of the world.42

In these and similar statements, Calvin views the work of Christ as issuing in nothing less than the renovation of the whole creation, a reversal of the consequence of human sin and disobedience. In his threefold office as Prophet, Priest, and King, Christ reveals the fullness of the Word of God, reconciles a new humanity to God, and by means of the “scepter of his kingdom,” the Word of God, subdues all things to new obedience. Calvin’s conception of the person and work of Christ, therefore, includes a compelling eschatological vision in which the whole course of history is brought to its appointed end—the renewal of the fallen creation in service to the triune God. Contrary to VanDrunen’s dualistic and incoherent portrait of Calvin’s understanding of Christ’s distinct offices as Mediator of creation and of redemption, Calvin views Christ’s work of redemption as one that reorders and renews the creation, which has been disordered and broken through human sin and the judgment of God.

eschewed all views that would see the church as an oasis isolated from a lost creation or salvation as the rescuing of the elect from a demonic world” (97).

41. Comm. John 13:31, CNTC 5.68 (CO 47.317).

42. Comm. John 12:31, CNTC 5.42 (CO 47.293). See also Comm. Isa. 65:25, Calvin’s Commentaries (repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 8.405–6 (CO 37.434): “But since it is the office of Christ to bring everything back to its condition and order, that is the reason why he declares that the confusion or ruin that now exists in human affairs shall be removed by the coming of Christ; because at that time, corruptions having been taken away, the world shall return to its first origin [primam originem]”; Comm. 2 Thess. 1:5, CNTC 8.388–90 (CO 52.188–89).

There are two particularly important illustrations of the coherence and interrelation between creation and redemption in Calvin’s theology. The first is Calvin’s view of the consummation of the redemption of believers through union with Christ, which entails the resurrection of the body. The second is Calvin’s teaching that Christ’s work of redemption will retain and perfect all that originally belonged to the substance of God’s good creation.

In his conception of the resurrection of the body of believers in union with Christ, Calvin rejects the error of those who teach that the bodies of the saints will be altogether new, and not a glorified form of their present bodies. According to Calvin, this error is similar to the ancient error of the Manicheans who disparaged the body and earthly existence. The resurrection of the body does not entail the bestowal of another body, but rather the renewal and glorification of the present bodies of believers. In an important statement, which provides a general principle regarding the relation between creation and redemption, Calvin notes that “if death, which takes its origin from the fall of man, is accidental, the restoration which Christ has brought belongs to that self-same body which began to be mortal.”43 The corruption and weakness of the flesh is an adventitious or accidental quality that does not belong intrinsically to the body as God first created it. Therefore, Calvin, utilizing an Aristotelian distinction between “substance” and “accidents,” maintains that “as to substance” believers “shall be raised again in the same flesh we now bear, but . . . the quality will be different.”44 Christ’s redemptive work in the lives of believers will ultimately restore the fullness of human life in the body as God originally created it, although in a state of greater glory in union with Christ. Redemption restores what sin has corrupted and deformed; but it does not displace what God created good. Consequently, Calvin insists that there is a substantial continuity between the present body and the resurrected body, although he simultaneously observes that the glory of the believer’s resurrected body will surpass that of the original state of Adam before the fall into sin.

43. Institutes, 3.25.7 (OS 4.447).

44. Institutes, 3.25.8 (OS 4.449).

Calvin employs similar language to describe the way Christ’s redemptive office will renovate the entire created order. The present and future consummation of Christ’s work of redemption will not annihilate or discard the substance of the created order. Rather, it will remove all the “accidental” features of disorder and corruption that are a result of the introduction of human sin and God’s curse on the whole creation. Just as the accidental features of sin that adversely affect human life in the body will be removed through Christ’s work of redemption, so the accidental features of sin that adversely affect the creation will be removed when the creation itself is restored while its “substance” remains: “I will say just one thing about the elements of the world, that they will be consumed only in order to receive a new quality while their substance remains the same.”45 The restoration of the creation will involve a work of redemptive “purification,” but it will not involve the complete destruction of what belongs properly and substantially to God’s creation in its original integrity or its renewed glory at the final consummation. Commenting on Romans 8:20, which speaks of the creation itself groaning in anticipation of the redemption of God’s people, Calvin observes that the whole creation has been subjected to corruption and stands in need of renewal: “There is no element and no part of the world which, touched with the knowledge of its present misery, is not intent on the hope of the resurrection.”46 According to Calvin, then, there is a close parallel or correlation between the redemption of human life in its entirety, including life in the body, and the redemption of the whole creation. Even as the body of believers will finally put on “incorruption,” so the creation itself will be renovated and perfected in the incorruptible state of glory.

The whole machinery of the world would fall out of gear at almost every moment and all its parts fail in the sorrowful confusion which followed the fall of Adam, were they not borne up from elsewhere by some hidden support. . . . However much, therefore, created things may be inclined by nature to some other course, yet since it has been God’s pleasure to make them subject to vanity, they obey His command, and because He has given them a hope of a better condition, they sustain themselves with this, and postpone their longing until the incorruption which has been promised them is revealed.47

45. Comm. 2 Peter 3:10; CNTC 12.365 (CO 55.476).

46. Comm. Rom. 8:19; CNTC 8.172 (CO 49.152).

47. Comm. Rom. 8:20; CNTC 8.173 (CO 49.152–53).

The implications of Calvin’s view of the relation between creation and redemption for an interpretation of his public theology are not difficult to ascertain. While Calvin suffered no illusions regarding the renovation of human life and the restoration of all things to proper order prior to the consummation of all things at Christ’s second advent, he vigorously addressed the life-embracing implications of the gospel throughout his writings, sermons, and reformatory endeavors. In her fine study of Calvin’s view of nature and the natural order, Susan Schreiner offers a remarkable summary of these implications with which we will conclude this section:

In his reclaiming of creation, Calvin’s God makes use of the societal and ecclesiastical activities of Christians. While Calvin charged the Anabaptists with Donatism, his own ecclesiology and spirituality was the reverse of isolationism. . . . The Reformer’s “activist” piety must be seen in terms of his theology of creation as a whole. The renovation of creation renews all of life. Therefore, after submitting their knowledge and will to Christ, the elect are encouraged to turn outward for the common upbuilding of the church and the good of their neighbors. Such ordered outward activity, Calvin assumed, contributed to the sanctifying or reordering of the world. Instead of positing a church that stood in isolation from a threatening world, Calvin saw the church as the organ that led the renewal of both the cosmos and society.48

Conclusion

While acknowledging the preliminary character of my assessment of VanDrunen’s interpretation of Calvin’s public theology, I have identified three key features of his interpretation that are problematic.

First, when Calvin speaks of “Two Kingdoms,” he means primarily to identify the twofold way in which Christ governs the life and conduct of believers. Although the obedience of believers to the law of God is a free obedience, which is born of the Spirit’s working in them, subduing their hearts to new obedience, believers remain subject to the laws and constitutions of the civil magistrate. Rather than representing two separate realms,

48. Schreiner, The Theater of His Glory, 114. VanDrunen appeals to Schreiner’s study in making his legitimate case for a clear doctrine of natural law in Calvin’s theology. However, he does not adequately address the kind of evidence that Schreiner adduces for a robust doctrine of ecclesiastical and societal renewal (transformation) in Calvin’s public theology.

the one limited to the church and the other inclusive of the remainder of human life and conduct, Calvin’s language of “Two Kingdoms” is addressed specifically to the question whether believers are not only freely subject to the moral law of God but also obligated to obey the civil magistrate. Although the civil magistrate may not bind inwardly the consciences of believers, the civil magistrate does have a legitimate role to play in ordering human life and conduct in the civil sphere. As we noted, Calvin even ascribes to the civil magistrate a responsibility to enforce both tables of the law, and to contribute in its own way to the church’s fulfillment of its divine mandate. Indeed, it is impossible to restrict the spiritual kingdom of Christ to the realm of the church, as VanDrunen suggests, since the obligations of obedience to the law within the spiritual government of Christ are as extensive and far-reaching as the demands of God’s moral law.

Second, although VanDrunen claims that Calvin appeals to the natural law as the source and norm for the ordering of human life and conduct in the natural kingdom, he fails to account adequately for the indispensable and vital role of the Scriptures’ revelation of God’s will for a right understanding of the moral obligations of the natural law. For Calvin, the Scriptures provide a more full and clear revelation of God’s will both as Creator and Redeemer. Through the “spectacles” of Scripture, believers are enabled to discern more clearly the will of God for every legitimate area of human vocation and culture. VanDrunen’s claim that the Scriptures are principally a norm for the conduct of believers in the ecclesiastical kingdom, and not in the natural kingdom, is belied by Calvin’s theology and practice throughout his life and ministry in Geneva.

Third, rather than advancing a sharply dualistic view of the relation between creation and redemption, or between the natural and the spiritual kingdoms, as VanDrunen claims, Calvin’s public theology offers a robust and bracing view of redemption as the restoration and perfection of creation in general, and of human life in particular. Contrary to VanDrunen’s insistence on the duality of Christ’s office as Mediator of creation and redemption, or the duality of Christ’s rule in the natural and spiritual kingdoms, Calvin’s public theology offers a coherent and integrated conception of the sovereign and gracious rule of Christ over the entire range of the believer’s activities and callings. The telos of Christ’s work as Mediator of redemption is nothing less than the perfection and restoration of all things to proper order.

2

Calvin, Natural Law, and the Two Kingdoms

Gene Haas

A RENEWED INTEREST in natural law in evangelical Protestant circles has led to a renewed interest in the views of John Calvin on this doctrine. Two recent works have argued that there is a consistent natural-law tradition in Reformed thought that is rooted in the views of John Calvin. Stephen Grabill contends that Calvin “adopts a modified natural doctrine of natural law from medieval antecedents,” and that Calvin “utilizes the doctrine of the twofold knowledge of God (duplex cognitio Dei) to ground natural law (lex naturalis) in the natural knowledge of God the Creator.”1 David VanDrunen maintains that “Calvin unambiguously affirmed the existence of natural law and accorded it positive roles.”2 Conscience and reason, although weakened and corrupted by sin, still allow non-Christians to gain some knowledge of God’s law. Both men argue that this doctrine in Calvin is his legacy to subsequent Reformed theology.

In addition, VanDrunen finds an intimate connection between Calvin’s doctrine of natural law and Calvin’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. First, VanDrunen notes the distinction in Calvin’s thought between the “spiritual” or “heavenly” kingdom and the civic or “earthly” kingdom.3 Then, VanDrunen argues that for Calvin, rulers and citizens of the civil kingdom have insight via the natural law into the “earthly” matters pertaining to the law necessary for maintaining order and harmony for human social civil life together. While God’s revealed moral law is the rule and end for all laws, natural law is the proper standard for the justice embodied in human civil law.4

1. Stephen J. Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 70.

2. David VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 68.

At one level, an understanding of the doctrines of natural law and the Two Kingdoms in Calvin’s works involves a careful exegesis and synthesis of Calvin’s writings. The question here is: What exactly are Calvin’s views on these two doctrines? But at another level, Calvin’s doctrines are part of a larger discussion. Both Grabill and VanDrunen suggest that there is a consistent tradition of natural law and Two Kingdoms doctrine in Reformed thought that extends back to Calvin’s writings. They also contend that Reformed thinkers in recent history have abandoned this tradition.5 Grabill specifically mentions twentieth-century Reformed thinkers who reject natural law.6 VanDrunen critiques Herman Dooyeweerd and his North American neo-Calvinist disciples for their transformationalist view of cultural engagement, which rejects the traditional Reformed doctrines of natural law and the Two Kingdoms.7 Thus, given the grand arguments of Grabill and VanDrunen on natural law and the Two Kingdoms, and given their critiques of recent Reformed thinkers who hold to different views of Calvin’s two doctrines, any exposition of Calvin’s doctrines will have a bearing on the current discussion, either implicitly or explicitly.

This chapter focuses on an exposition and analysis of Calvin’s doctrines of natural law and the Two Kingdoms. At the same time, it has in mind the two claims of Grabill and VanDrunen concerning Calvin’s thought, namely, that there is a distinction between the Two Kingdoms and that natural law plays a positive role in the temporal kingdom.

3. Ibid., 71–82.

4. Ibid., 110–14.

5. Both Grabill and VanDrunen present Karl Barth’s rejection of natural law. Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law, 21–36; VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 316–47. I am less interested in Barth’s views, as it is debatable whether Barth falls into the Reformed tradition.

6. Grabill notes twentieth-century representatives of the Reformed tradition—G. C. Berkouwer, Herman Dooyeweerd, Cornelius Van Til—“who have typically rejected the natural law tradition because it allegedly glossed over the noetic effects of sin on the natural human faculties and because it was ostensibly based on a dualistic nature-grace dichotomy.”

7. The North American neo-Calvinists whom VanDrunen mentions are Henry Stob, Cornelius Plantinga, Albert Wolters, Craig Bartholomew, and Michael Goheen. VanDrunen’s exposition and critique is contained in chap. 9, “The Kuyperian Legacy (I): Herman Dooyeweerd and North American Neo-Calvinists,” in Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 348–85.

The Context for Natural Law in Calvin’s Thought

The context for Calvin’s teaching on natural law is his understanding of creation and its order, the nature of humans in the image of God, and the impact of sin on creation and humanity.

Creation and Its Order

Calvin states that in the act of creation God brings into existence all creatures and “the very order of things” that constitutes and directs them. This “order of nature” (naturae ordine) shapes the whole of creation, and encompasses the characteristics, functions, and ends of all creatures.8 This means that this creational order encompasses both human and nonhuman creatures in all their spheres of existence and functioning. Human beings, who are given the mandate to govern the world and its creatures, must pursue this calling in subjection to God and his law. “And this, truly is the only rule of living well and rationally, that men should exercise themselves in obeying God.”9

For Calvin, the order of creation embodied in law is never a barrier between humans and God. Rather, it is the means of living out their relationship to God. The law orders our lives; it tells us what God requires of us as his creatures, and what pleases him.10 The goal of his law is that we might serve his will and advance his glory.11 As we follow this “rule for right living,” revealed by the law, “our life will be pleasing to God.”12

In his ongoing work of providence, God sustains this order so that the laws of creation endure and remain consistent throughout history.13 For Calvin it is God’s “general providence” that continues “the order of creation” and directs it to “a definite and proper end.”14 Susan Schreiner notes: “The ‘ordre de nature,’ i.e., that order found throughout the cosmos and society, revealed to Calvin not a hierarchy but the stability, regularity, and continuity of creation.”15 The order and laws of creation are sustained by God through the activity of the Spirit. If God were to withdraw his Spirit from sustaining this order, the universe would collapse into nothingness.16 Calvin insists that humans “during their lifetime must not forge any new law for themselves; they must not have one law for today and another for tomorrow.”17 Humans should always observe the law of God, “since it has been established to be permanent, to endure age after age, and to be preached until the end of the world.”18

8. Institutes, 1.14.2, 20.

9. Comm. Gen. 2:16. References to Calvin’s Old Testament commentaries are from John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries on the Bible, reprint of the Edinburgh Edition [various editors and translators], 47 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948–50).

10. Institutes, 3.7.1; 2.8.2; Comm. Rom. 8:7. References to Calvin’s New Testament commentaries are from John Calvin, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance [various translators], 12 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972).

11. Institutes, 3.14.9.

12. Serm. Deut. 4:44–5:5, 39, in John Calvin, John Calvin’s Sermons on the Ten Commandments, ed. and trans. Benjamin W. Farley (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980).

Humans in the Image of God

Calvin notes that, according to Scripture, humans are raised above, and contain marks of excellence that distinguish them from, all other creatures.19 Men and women are created in the image of God. This image is found in those marks of excellence with which God distinguished Adam from all other living creatures. In Adam, “the Creator himself willed that his own glory be seen as in a mirror.”20 As originally created, humans were guided by their reason and understanding so that all senses and affections were kept in harmonious control.21 They contained “the grace of intelligence,” so as to “excel in the endowments of the soul.”22 These powers of the image in humans enabled them to be guided by reason to provide the proper direction of their lives so that they might rise up to God and attain eternal life.23 Thus, the image of God in humans suggests that they are blessed not because of their own good actions, but “by participation in God.”24

14. Ibid., 1.16.7.

15. Susan E. Schreiner, The Theater of His Glory: Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 22.

16. Comm. Ps. 104:29–30.

17. Serm. Deut. 4:44–5:5, 50.

18. Ibid., 48.

19. Ibid., 2.12.6.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid., 1.15.3.

22. Comm. Gen. 2:9.

23. Institutes, 1.15.8.

Calvin locates the image of God primarily in the soul. The soul consists of the two faculties of understanding and will. As created, human reason was able to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong, thereby distinguishing what paths to follow and which to avoid. Since they had the innate ability to consistently make choices guided by reason, humans could have attained eternal life.25 He rejects the view that there was any defect in Adam or that he was compelled to sin. Adam had the capacity to stand firm in obedience. “Man, indeed, received the ability provided he exercised the will; but he did not have the will to use his ability, for this exercising would have been followed by perseverance.” He fell only because of his own will; he destroyed himself and corrupted the blessings he received from God. Having received so much from God, he has no excuse, for he is the cause of his own destruction.26

The Impact of Sin

For Calvin, the impact of sin on humanity is total and comprehensive. Humans have fallen from their original state and are estranged from the kingdom of God.27 All men and women inherit original sin from Adam.28 Calvin defines original sin as “a hereditary corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God’s wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls ‘works of the flesh’ [Gal. 5:19].” Every part of our nature is vitiated and perverted. “Whatever is in man, from the understanding to the will, from the soul even to the flesh has been defiled and crammed with the concupiscence.”29 The impact of sin is so great that Calvin speaks of Adam’s having “lost the image [of God] which he had originally received.”30

The consequences of sin are to separate humanity from God, and to make all subject to God’s just condemnation.31 We are no longer able to do that which pleases God. Our reason remains but is so corrupted that it is

25. Ibid., 1.15.2, 7–8.

26. Ibid., 1.15.8.

27. Ibid., 2.1.3.

28. Ibid., 2.1.5.

29. Ibid., 2.1.8. “The whole man is overwhelmed—as by a deluge—from head to foot, so that no part is immune from sin and all that proceeds from him is to be imputed to sin.” Ibid., 2.1.9.

30. Comm. Eph. 5:24. See also Comm. Gen. 1:26: “But now, although some obscure lineaments of that image [of God] are found remaining in us; yet are they so vitiated and maimed, that they may truly be said to be destroyed.”

“incapable . . . of seeking and finding truth.” Similarly, the will remains, but it no longer has the ability to “strive after the right.” Concerning the knowledge of, and obedience to, God, we wander in error and grope after darkness.32

Calvin makes a sharp break with classical philosophers and medieval scholastic theologians who viewed reason as a sufficient guide for human conduct, both in its ability to discern good and evil and in its power to direct the human will and affections into virtuous action.33 He maintains that sin corrupts the mind, the will, and the affections. The result is that humans do not have a true knowledge of God, his will, and the laws to conform our lives to him. Reason is so blinded by the effects of sin that only the renewing work of the grace of God in the human heart and the ongoing guidance of the Holy Spirit enable the heart to accept, the mind to understand, and the will to pursue the ethical life that God requires. This renewal is accomplished through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.34 Sinful humans can gain knowledge of God and of what he requires of them only through divine revelation given in the Scriptures. They reveal that the law of God has a perpetual validity as “the rule of perfect righteousness.”35

In contrast with the inability of humans concerning “heavenly” matters, Calvin maintains that humans have an understanding of “earthly” matters pertaining to this present life, which includes the areas of government, household management, mechanical arts, the sciences, and liberal arts.36 This knowledge comes about by the general activity of the Holy Spirit, who distributes gifts for the common good of humanity and who works in and through the creational qualities of people. Nevertheless, such knowledge is unstable and transitory because it lacks the solid foundation of the knowledge of God.37 Since humans are social creatures who desire to establish and maintain society, they have some understanding of those laws that foster “civic fair dealing and order.” This is the result of the Spirit’s implanting of a seed of political order that prompts the light of reason in sinful people to establish a community shaped by some conception of equity

32. Ibid., 2.2.12.

33. Ibid., 2.2.2–3.

34. Ibid., 1.6.1–4.

35. Ibid., 2.8.5.

36. Ibid., 2.2.13–14.

(aequitatis).38 It is from the laws of equity that shape community life that Calvin expounds the concept of natural law.

Calvin’s View of Natural Law

Even though sin wreaks great havoc on both the understanding and the will, Calvin contends that fallen humans continue to have some understanding of the moral order of creation. Because of the grace and mercy of God bestowed through the general work of the Holy Spirit on all humanity, God imprints on the hearts of men and women some apprehension of right and wrong, justice and injustice. Calvin appeals to Romans 2:14–15 to contend that “Gentiles by nature have law righteousness engraved on their minds,” so that they are “instructed in a right standard of conduct by natural law [lege naturale].” It is not reason by itself, but rather the conscience that witnesses to this. Calvin defines natural law as “that apprehension of the conscience which distinguishes sufficiently between just and unjust, and which deprives men of the excuse of ignorance, while it proves them guilty by their own testimony.”39 People gain “a certain natural knowledge of the law” that leads them to find certain actions good and worth enacting, and others evil and to be shunned.40 Thus, for Calvin, natural law involves the moral standard imprinted by God on the hearts and minds of humans as well as the conscience, which witnesses to this moral law.

The apprehension of natural law by nonbelievers is evident for Calvin in the fact that all nations make laws of their own accord, without being instructed by the laws revealed in Scripture. “Therefore they have a law, without the law; for although they do not have the written law of Moses, they are by no means completely lacking in the knowledge of right and justice [recti et aequi].”41 They manifest what God has imprinted by nature on their hearts, “a discrimination and judgement, by which they distinguish between justice and injustice [aequum et iniquum], honesty and dishonesty.”42 There remains a “certain natural knowledge of the law” that regards some actions as good and worthy of imitation, and others as evil and shameful.

38. Ibid., 2.2.13.

39. Ibid., 2.2.22.

40. Comm. Rom. 2:14–15.

41. Ibid., Rom. 2:14.

42. Ibid., Rom. 2:15.

This is reflected in the role of conscience, for it comforts when deeds are good, but torments when they are evil.43

Calvin qualifies this by noting that there is not a “ full knowledge of the law” in sinful humans, but merely “some seeds of justice planted in their nature.”44 This affects the ability of sinful humans to know how to frame their lives according to God’s law. Calvin observes that they will generally acknowledge the truth of a law “in general definition or in the essence of the thing.” But when the law is applied to a specific case, especially when it evaluates something they enact, they become forgetful. They fail to evaluate properly their own actions, and stubbornly persist in doing evil.45

Calvin notes that this same tendency exists in the thought and practice of nations concerning the natural law. While nonbelievers generally consent to the need for laws to govern society, they disagree on the specific content of those laws. Some resist legal constraints; some consider unjust the laws of justice; and some approve of what is legally forbidden. “What they approve of in their understanding they hate on account of their lust.” So while they agree on the “general conception of equity [aequitatis]” for social life, Calvin acknowledges “the frailty of the human mind,” which, “even when it seems to follow the way, . . . limps and staggers.”46 This is evident in the rule of various Roman emperors, for some reigned with justice and equity and others reigned with contempt for right and just laws.47

The fact that Calvin gives both positive and negative assessments of the ability of sinful humans to know God’s law has led Reformed thinkers to give different assessments of the place of natural law in Calvin’s thought. John Hesselink and David VanDrunen both divide scholars into three groups: (1) those who consider natural law to be peripheral and unimportant for Calvin (and even inconsistent with the rest of his theology), (2) those who consider it crucial for his legal and political views (continuous with the natural-law teaching of the Middle Ages), and

43. Ibid. Klempa points out that “Calvin associates conscience with the understanding rather than with the will [Comm. Rom. 2:15].” William Klempa, “John Calvin on Natural Law,” in John Calvin and the Church: A Prism of Reform, ed. Timothy George (Louisville, Ky: Westminster/ John Knox, 1990), 83.

44. Comm. Rom. 2:15.

45. Institutes, 2.2.23. Calvin notes that even if they have an awareness of their sin leading to repentance, their intemperance leads them to persist stubbornly “in choosing its habitual evil.”

46. Ibid., 2.2.13.

47. Ibid., 3.14.2. See also ibid., 4.20.15–16.

(3) those who hold mediating views.48 Both Hesselink and VanDrunen give extensive arguments for natural law’s being an essential part of Calvin’s theology. Their arguments are, in large part, developed in their extensive expositions of the notion of natural law in Calvin’s writings. There is no doubt that it is found in Calvin’s thought. The key question is the role that it plays.

Calvin maintains that the law engraved on the hearts of all people asserts the same things as the Decalogue, but that “man is so shrouded in the darkness of errors that he hardly begins to grasp through this natural law what worship is acceptable to God.”49 Although all people have a sense of divinity and a seed of religion in their hearts, history testifies that they are hostile to God and his righteousness. Their consciences corrupt the knowledge of true worship so that they give rise to superstitions and idolatry. And their natural reason never leads them to Christ. Calvin concludes that the natural reason of conscience “does not at all comply with the principal points of the First Table [of the Decalogue], such as putting our faith in God, giving due praise for his excellence and righteousness, calling upon his name, and truly keeping the Sabbath.”50

Calvin believes that the light of reason in sinful humans is better able to understand the second table of the Decalogue. This is because those commands “are more closely concerned with the preservation of civil society among them.”51 These precepts embody principles of justice and equity (droiture et équité) in relation to our neighbors.52 God has engraved on the minds of all some seed of political order and the equity embodied in the moral law. Attested to by the conscience, this is evident in civic life.53 Calvin states:

Since man is by nature a social animal, he tends through natural instinct to foster and preserve society. Consequently, we observe that there exist in all men’s minds universal impressions of a certain civic fair dealing and order. Hence no man is to be found who does not understand that every sort of human organization must be regulated by laws, and who does not comprehend the principles of those laws. Hence arises that unvarying consent of all nations and of individual mortals with regard to laws.54

48. I. John Hesselink, Calvin’s Concept of the Law, vol. 30 of Princeton Theological Monograph Series, general ed. Dikran y. Hadadian (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications, 1992), 57; VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 94–95.

49. Institutes, 2.8.1.

50. Ibid., 2.2.24.

51. Ibid. See also Comm. John 1:9.

52. Serm. Deut. 5:22, 247–49.

53. Institutes, 4.20.16; Comm. Gen. 29:14; Eph. 4:17.

Non-Christians are not in agreement about individual sections of the law, yet they do agree on the general principles of equity. Although the frailty of the human mind is evident here, there is “ample proof that in the arrangement of this life no man is without the light of reason.”55

The key concept for Calvin concerning the second table of the law and the natural law written on all human hearts is equity [Latin: aequitas; French: équité]. For Calvin, the essential meaning of equity is found in Matthew 7:12, commonly called the Golden Rule: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Calvin states that here “Christ is setting His disciples a rule of fair dealing [aequitatem], and is giving a short and simple definition of it.” The Golden Rule is “the rule of fairness [aequitatis regulam]” that shines in the hearts of all people.

So Christ teaches them, that the rule for each man to use, in living rightly and fairly [recte et iuste] with his neighbours, is for each to offer the other what he would have done to himself. This cuts across all empty pretence, which men think up for themselves, to cover and disguise all their injustice [iniustitiam]. No doubt, perfect equity [aequitas] would reign amongst us, if we were such faithful disciples of what I might call active charity [caritas], as we are so acute in the passive instruction we give on the subject.56

Calvin states that the Golden Rule sums up the Law and the Prophets because all that is taught there on charity (de caritate), and all the laws and exhortations found there to promote righteousness, must be related to this rule. “So the sense is, that the second table of the decalogue is satisfied if a man behaves towards others, as he would have the other behave towards himself.” Love of neighbor, which is taught in the Law and the Prophets, and summarized in the second table of the Decalogue, is related to the theme of equity, because for Calvin equity, as summarized in the Golden Rule, provides the guideline for the implementation of love in our dealings with others.57

54. Institutes, 2.2.13.

55. Ibid.

56. Comm. Matt. 7:12.

For Calvin, equity is the basic principle that embodies the essential nature of natural law and of the commandments of the second table.58 He refers to the rule of love of neighbor summarized in Matthew 7:12 as the fulfillment of the natural law, as well as of the second table. The close connection he makes between equity and natural law is evident in his frequent use of words such as natural and nature to modify equity. The following expressions are frequently found in his discussions of equity (often in relation to natural law): naturalis aequitas,59 équité naturelle,60 and équité de nature.61 Commenting on human laws, he states: “Equity [Aequitas], because it is natural [naturalis], cannot but be the same for all.” This is why he believes that principles of equity may be found in the constitutions of various states.62 Furthermore, Calvin defines “natural equity” or “equity of nature” in terms of the Golden Rule. He speaks of “that natural law [équité naturelle], which is, that we ought to do unto others as we want them to do unto us.”63 Calvin considers the demands of natural law to be the same as those of the second table, and he believes these to be the expressions of the principle of equity, the implementation of the rule of love of neighbor. The following statement from one of his sermons expresses these relations: “The second [table requires] that we render to our neighbors what belongs to them and observe the natural law [ceste équité de nature] of not doing anything to anyone unless we would want them to do the same to us.”64 For Calvin, equity—in its outward social expression—and the rule of love of neighbor are the essential features of the natural law that God implants upon human minds and to which their consciences testify.

Nevertheless, Calvin emphasizes that the results of such natural knowledge fall far short of the intent of the commandments. The civil laws enacted

57. Ibid. “In other words, there is no need of long and involved discussion, if we keep to the simple path, and do not allow a fantastically exaggerated self-love to obliterate from our hearts the standard of fairness [rectitudinem] which is engraved upon them.”

58. See Institutes, 4.20.16.

59. Ibid., 4.20.11. Battles translates this “natural equity.”

60. Serm. Deut. 15:11–15, 347.

61. Ibid., Deut. 5:22, 247. Farley translates this “natural law.”

62. Institutes, 4.20.16.

63. Serm. Deut. 5:19, 189. “Above all we have to have regard to that natural equity [équité naturelle] of doing to others only what we want done to us.” Ibid., Deut. 15:11–15, 347.

64. Ibid., Deut. 5:22, 247.

can bring about only external obedience, and not the internal obedience of the soul required by God’s law. Dread of the consequences of the law and of public shame restrains people outwardly, but they remain inwardly opposed to law, obeying it against their will. “This constrained and forced righteousness is necessary for the public community of men, for whose tranquillity the Lord herein provided.”65 Even where people manifest greater sensitivity to equity out of concern for the preservation of human society, Calvin observes that they show great inconsistency, especially when equity makes demands upon them. Where their own advantage is concerned, men and women show themselves exact scholars of equitable dealing (aequitatis), and they demand its strict application to themselves. yet they blink at this same rule of fairness (ad aequitatis regulam) when it involves another’s benefit or loss.66 Similarly, although people manifest understanding of the precepts of the second table of the law because these concern the preservation of civil society, they fail to endure when they are subject to what they consider to be injustice. Too often, “the diseases of his lusts” cause the “light of nature [to be] extinguished” in the natural man. Even the philosophers take no account of these evil desires, and justify sinful actions, such as the avenging of perceived injuries.67

Analysis

It is clear that Calvin holds to a concept of natural law in his theology. Even without a saving knowledge of Christ, sinful men and women can have some knowledge of the law of God. The two components of Calvin’s theology of natural law are that God has engraved his Decalogue, especially the second table, on all human hearts, and that humans are endowed with the conscience as the faculty that witnesses to this law. The conscience gains some knowledge of this law so as to distinguish between right and wrong, just and unjust, and to render us accountable to God for our moral actions. This understanding is evident in two human activities: the general tendency of humans to judge the moral nature of their own and others’ actions, and

65. Institutes, 2.7.10. See also ibid., 2.8.6.

66. Comm. Matt. 7:12.

67. Institutes, 2.2.24. The classical philosophers to whom Calvin has referred in this chapter are Plato, Seneca, and Cicero.

the universal activity of all nations to make civil laws that distinguish just and unjust actions to direct the lives of their citizens.

yet even as Calvin affirms the existence of this natural law in sin

ful humans, he also qualifies this. Apart from Christ, sinners do not have a full knowledge of the law, but merely seeds of justice. They may acknowledge the truth of a law in general, but they become forgetful when it applies to their own actions. This is also evident in the laws of nations. Some resist these laws, some consider just laws unjust, and some approve of what is forbidden. Some rulers of nations govern with justice and equity, and others govern with contempt for right and just laws. When it comes to the principle of equity, which Calvin considers to be the essence of the natural law and the commandments of the second table, people may acknowledge its importance for the preservation of society. But they resist it when it makes demands of them, and they overlook the rule of equity when it concerns the benefits or losses of others. Even leading classical philosophers engage in the justification of evil and unjust actions.

VanDrunen overstates the case when he argues that for Calvin, natural law has such “a positive function to play in the life of the earthly, civil kingdom” that “the sinful person, by the use of reason and natural knowledge, can attain great things in the domain of earthly things, that is, in the civil kingdom.”68 In drawing the distinction in Calvin between the spiritual and civil kingdoms, VanDrunen rightly notes that in the former “Scripture [is] the sole standard for the doctrine and government of the church.” But in his attempt to distinguish the civil kingdom from the spiritual one, VanDrunen goes too far in portraying Calvin as viewing natural law as the primary, and thus adequate, “standard for life in the civil kingdom.”69 A close reading of Calvin’s comments on natural law will simply not support this position.

Given the aforementioned positive and negative comments by Calvin concerning sinful humans’ knowledge and practice of justice and equity, a faithful understanding of his theology of natural law must take note of the whole of his comments. There is a sense in which people apart from a saving knowledge of Christ both know and don’t know God’s law. The equity of the law is engraved by God on their hearts, and yet, individually and socially, they readily deny this, especially when it comes to their own

68. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 112.

69. Ibid., 113.

actions or those of their nations. Based on their actions and justifications, it is evident to Calvin that they both affirm and deny the natural law.

One way to explain these positive and negative features in Calvin’s theology is to distinguish between the effects of the fall on the intellect and on the will. Dewey Hoitinga Jr. makes this distinction in his book John Calvin and the Will.70 He argues that for Calvin, while the fall corrupted the intellect, it retained some inclination to seek the truth and the ability to know the truth. In contrast, Calvin’s view is that the corrupting effects of sin resulted in the postlapsarian will losing the capacity for true moral choice—being inclined only to do evil. It no longer has any moral inclination to seek the good. Whereas before the fall the will followed the guidance of the intellect, since the fall the will no longer does. The intellect may still in some measure know and discriminate between good and evil, but the will always chooses evil.71

This explanation does not fit with Calvin’s comments. Certainly, he notes the tendency of sinful humans to do evil even in the face of what they claim to know about justice and equity. But the intellect is not simply dragged along into evil by the will. Calvin presents the intellect as a willing accomplice in—if not instigator of—evil. It often fails in properly evaluating evil actions; it considers unjust the laws of justice; and it approves of what is legally forbidden.72 People are scholars of equity when it comes to themselves, but overlook this same principle when it comes to the benefits or losses of others.73 Thus, the fall results in both the reason and will becoming active agents of evil.

Perhaps the best way to make sense of Calvin’s positive and negative evaluation of the knowledge gained by the fallen intellect is to distinguish between the knowledge of the general principles of the law and of specific applications where people’s interests are in view. Natural law gives us a clearer apprehension of the former, and a more opaque discernment of the latter. Calvin notes that men and women acknowledge the truth of a law “in general definition or in the essence of the thing,” but fail to evaluate the law properly when applied to a specific case, especially when their

70. Dewey J. Hoitinga Jr., John Calvin and the Will: A Critique and Correction (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997). The heart of Hoitinga’s argument is found in chaps. 2 and 3, 45–91.

71. Hoitinga finds Calvin’s understanding of the will defective and inconsistent, and argues that Reformed theology needs to correct this. Ibid., 94–104.

72. Institutes, 2.2.13, 23.

73. Comm. Matt. 7:12.

own interest is at stake.74 People agree on the “general conception of equity [aequitatis],” accepting its necessity for the preservation of society. yet they ignore equity when it makes demands on them, and when it involves benefit or loss to others.75 Grabill also admits that the intellect, like the natural law, provides knowledge only of general precepts, resulting in “its inherent tendency to excuse, rationalize, or suppress what is known to be true.”76

The conclusion warranted by Calvin’s comments is that the knowledge gained by natural law is at the general level of the equity that constitutes the moral law. Sinful humans have the apprehension of the law of God as summarized by the Golden Rule of Matthew 7:12—namely, of doing to others what you would want them to do to you. They will readily assent to this principle. This extends to the general teachings of the second table of the Decalogue, for Calvin finds them all elaborations of equity for the various activities of human life.77 But natural law is much less likely to give a clear apprehension of right and wrong, good and evil, when it is applied to the specific decisions of human life. The results here are mixed, as Calvin himself notes. This still acknowledges that sinful humans make correct decisions about their own and others’ actions. And rulers may also make correct applications of laws to specific actions. But for Calvin the more specific the application, the more likely it is that erroneous decisions and judgments will be made.

The conclusion of this understanding of natural law is that it is a very unreliable guide for making laws to govern human social life. Human beings will make such laws in order to live together with some measure of harmony and peace. But the results will be a mixture of just and unjust, of equitable and inequitable laws. Given the effects of sin on human understanding and will, Christians cannot be sure that their appeals to natural law in the consciences of nonbelievers will lead the latter to bring the civil laws of society into any greater conformity to the laws that God has revealed in Scripture.

74. Institutes, 2.2.23. Aquinas holds to essentially this same view. People know the common principles of natural law, but when they move to the details of specific applications, they tend to create qualifications and exceptions to these principles (Summa Theologiae, Ia IIae.94, 4).

75. Institutes, 2.2.13; 2.2.24.

76. Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law, 96.

77. See my exposition of the role of equity in Calvin’s exposition of the commandments of the second table in Guenther H. Haas, The Concept of Equity in Calvin’s Ethics (Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1997), 93–106.

The Nature and Purpose of the State

According to Calvin, the state is a “divinely-established order” for “the establishment of civil justice and outward morality.”78 Its jurisdiction is the temporal sphere of life, encompassing the whole of humanity. God grants rulers the power of the sword to achieve these purposes.79 Since these ends are appointed by God, the ruler who rules rightly is a “minister of God,” enacting God’s purposes in the world. Since all rulers rule under the King of kings, they are ultimately answerable to him for the exercise of their power.80

In Calvin’s presentation on “Civil Government” in the final chapter of the Institutes, Calvin indicates that the divinely appointed purpose of the state in this age is:

To cherish and protect the outward worship of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the position of the church, to adjust our life to the society of men, to form our social behavior to civil righteousness, to reconcile us with one another, and to promote general peace and tranquility.81

Calvin encapsulates these in two essential aims: “that a public manifestation of religion may exist among Christians, and that humanity be maintained among men.”82 The former involves protecting the status, worship, and preaching of the true church of Christ. The latter involves government action to restrain the sinful tendencies of the strong to take advantage of the weak, and to secure a certain measure of social justice in human transactions.83 Even with these purposes and the power at its disposal, civil government is limited in the justice it can achieve, because of the fallen and sinful nature of this temporal world. Nevertheless, it has an important role to play in human life in this world. And Calvin believes that “civil authority is a calling, not only holy and lawful before God, but also the most sacred and by far the most honorable of all callings in the whole life of men.”84

78. Institutes, 4.20.1. William Stevenson Jr. maintains that Calvin grounds his view of temporal authority in God’s providence. “Calvin and Political Issues,” in The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, ed. Donald K. McKim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 181.

79. See Institutes, 4.20.9; Comm. Matt. 5:38; Rom. 13:4; 1 Tim. 2:2.

80. Institutes, 4.20.32.

81. Ibid., 4.20.2.

82. Ibid., 4.20.3.

83. Comm. Ps. 82:3; Institutes, 4.20.13. Comm. Rom. 13:1–3: God appoints civil government “to provide for the peace of the good” and “to restrain the waywardness of the wicked.”

Calvin has a positive view of the state not merely because it is ordained by God to maintain order in a fallen world, but also because through the redemption accomplished in Christ God initiates a new order that has an impact on the temporal kingdom. The members of this new order in Christ (that is, of the spiritual kingdom) are also members of the civil kingdom. They are motivated to promote piety and civil righteousness through the civil government. yet they also recognize that, to maintain order in a fallen world, external coercion is necessary for those who are not members of this new order, for they lack this inner motivation. By the use of force, the state both promotes outward righteousness and restrains outward evil.85

The Civil Magistrate

Calvin regards the office of civil magistrate as approved by and acceptable to God. Temporal power is an ordinance of God. There are no powers except those ordained by God, and princes are ministers of God for praising the good and for punishing evildoers.86 By his divine providence and holy ordinance God grants rulers authority over temporal matters. But it is really God who is ruling the affairs of people through these human authorities, for “he is present with them and also presides over the making of laws and the exercising of equity [aequitate] in courts of justice.”87

For Calvin, magistrates are vicars and ministers of God who should “represent in themselves to men some image of divine providence, protection, goodness, benevolence, and justice.”88 They accomplish this by ruling according to the piety of the first table of the law and according to the justice and equity of the second table.89 Piety provides for a public manifestation of religion among Christians; justice involves protecting, vindicating, and freeing the innocent, and withstanding, repressing, and punishing the misdeeds of the wicked.90 The use of force by rulers enables them “to provide for the common safety and peace of all.” And through

84. Institutes, 4.20.4.

85. Calvin speaks of this dual orientation of the civil government in Institutes, 4.20.1–2.

86. Ibid., 4.20.4. Calvin supports this by appealing to Rom. 13:1–4.

87. Ibid.

88. Ibid., 4.20.6.

89. Ibid., 4.20.9.

90. Ibid., 4.20.3; 4.20.10–11.

the honor given to virtue and the penalties inflicted on evil, magistrates give general civil esteem to equity and justice.91 Thus, in the exercise of their power, the magistrates fulfill their calling to be “the guardians of peace and equity,” to preserve the rights of all, and to keep them free from harm by evildoers.92

Civil Law

According to Calvin, the civil law of the state is based on the moral law of God summarized in the Decalogue—God’s “eternal and unchangeable will.”93 The laws of a nation should have reference to both tables of the moral law.94 Those nations that do not have the Decalogue still have the revealed will of God in the consciences of their rulers and citizens, for the conscience reveals the same moral imperatives as the Ten Commandments.95 Although the natural light of human reason has been darkened by sin in its understanding of the moral law, Calvin believes that men and women have some understanding of the precepts of the second table of the Decalogue, since these precepts are necessary for the preservation of society.96 Because God has engraved on the minds of all people some seed of political order and the scheme of equity in the moral law, this equity is practiced, to some extent, in the laws of all nations.97

Calvin does not consider the judicial laws of the Jews to be the norm for the civil laws of all nations. One must make a distinction between the

91. Ibid., 4.20.9: “For the care of equity and justice [ aequi iustique] grows cold in the minds of many, unless due honor has been prepared for virtue; and the lust of wicked men cannot be restrained except by severity and the infliction of penalties.”

92. Comm. Rom. 13:10: “Since magistrates are the guardians of peace and equity [pacis et aequitatis], those who desire that every individual should preserve his rights, and that all men may live free from injury, must defend to the utmost of their power the order of magistrates.” Ibid., 1 Tim. 2:2: “Thus the right way of keeping peace is that every man should be given what is his own [quum unicuique redditur quod suum est] and the violence of the powerful should be curbed.”

93. Institutes, 4.20.15: “Accordingly, it is the true and eternal rule of righteousness, prescribed for men of all nations and times, who wish to conform their lives to God’s will.”

94. Comm. Deut. 5:8–10: “For political laws are not only enacted with reference to earthly affairs, in order that men should maintain mutual equity with each other, and should follow and observe what is right, but that they should exercise themselves in the veneration of God.”

95. See Comm. Rom. 2:14–15; Institutes, 2.8.1.

96. Institutes, 2.2.24; Comm. John 1:9.

97. Serm. Deut. 5:22, 247, 249; Comm. Gen. 29:14; Eph. 4:17.

constitution (or form) of the law and the equity (aequitatem) on which the constitution is based.

Equity [ aequitas], because it is natural [naturalis], cannot but be the same for all, and therefore, this same purpose ought to apply to all laws, whatever their object. Constitutions have certain circumstances upon which they in part depend. It therefore does not matter that they are different, provided all equally press toward the same goal of equity [aequitatis].98

The constitutions of the law are the distinctive forms the laws take in a particular nation that take into account “the condition of times, place, and nation.” Nations may vary in the types of punishment that they inflict for the same crime. What must be the same for all is the principle of equity (aequitatis) prescribed in the moral law of God. “Hence, this [equity] alone must be the goal and limit of all laws.”99

Calvin argues that the judicial law of the Jews “imparted certain formulas of equity and justice [aequitatis et iustitiae], by which they might live together blamelessly and peaceably.” They were particular prescriptions of the love enjoined by God’s moral law. The particular prescriptions have no abiding authority, but the love and equity mandated by God’s moral law does. “When these judicial laws were taken away, the perpetual duties and precepts of love could still remain.”100 This leaves room for genuine diversity in the specific form or constitution of civic laws. “Whatever laws shall be framed to that rule [of equity], directed to that goal, bound by that limit, there is no reason why we should disapprove of them, howsoever they may differ from the Jewish law, or among themselves.”101

Of course, Calvin is not saying that beneath the diversity of the laws of nations one will always find equitable laws. He does not even consider that all of Israel’s civil laws were based on equity; certain laws were accommodations by God to the Jews’ stubbornness and blindness. Calvin considers the laws of some nations as so barbarous and savage

98. Institutes, 4.20.16.

99. Ibid.

100. Ibid., 4.20.15. Comm. Ex. 22:25: “The judicial law, however, which God prescribed to His ancient people, is only so far abrogated as that which charity dictates should remain.”

101. Institutes, 4.20.26. As long as they have as their purpose the practice of love and equity, nations are free to make such laws as they consider expedient and prudent.

that they are not to be regarded as laws: “For they are abhorrent not only to all justice, but also to all humanity and gentleness.”102 yet Calvin holds that no nation with some form of civil government is ever totally devoid of elements of justice and equity in its laws. God is at work in civil authorities to maintain elements of his just order in their constitutions. That is why Calvin argues that even a deformed and corrupt government is better than none at all.103

The Subjects

Because God grants magistrates their power and jurisdiction, Calvin insists that their subjects must honor them as representatives of God and obey them as ministers of God in the temporal sphere.104 Such submission motivated by fear gives rise to social justice, civil order, and human fellowship.105 Magistrates fulfill their calling to promote brotherly love (fraternum amorem) among those over whom they rule by serving them.106 yet even when magistrates rule with injustice and give little thought to serving those under them, their subjects must still give them honor and submission.107 This does not mean that rulers are to be obeyed no matter what they command. If they command something that diverts people from obedience to God or that usurps God’s authority, rulers are not to be obeyed.108 But people must not reject the judicial process, even if the judge is unjust (iniquo).109

Calvin contends that private citizens have no authority to amend laws or undertake anything in the political sphere without the consent of rulers.

102. Ibid., 4.20.15.

103. Comm. 1 Peter 2:14: “There has never been a tyranny, nor can one be imagined, however cruel and unbridled, in which some portion of equity [aequitatis] has not appeared. God never allows His just order [ordinem iustum] to be destroyed by the sin of men without some of its outlines remaining unobscured. And finally, some kind of government, however deformed and corrupt it may be, is still better and more beneficial than anarchy.”

104. Institutes, 4.20.22–23. See also Comm. Ex. 20:12; Rom. 13:5–7.

105. Comm. 1 Peter 2:17: “[Peter] means that God is not feared, nor justice [suum ius] done to men, unless civil order prevails among us, and magistrates retain their authority. His command that honour is to be rendered to all . . . refers to the fostering of human fellowship.”

106. Institutes, 4.20.24, 26; 4.20.7; Comm. Rom. 13:1–3; 1 Tim. 2:2. In Comm. 1 Peter 2:14, Calvin argues that tyrants ought to be obeyed not only because the political order is established by God, but also because “there has never been a tyranny, nor can one be imagined, however cruel and unbridled, in which some portion of equity [aequitatis] has not appeared.”

107. Ibid.

108. Institutes, 4.20.32; Serm. Deut. 5:16, 143.

109. Institutes, 4.20.19. Calvin gives the Acts 25:10–11 example of Paul, who, “when there was need, appealed from the unjust judge to the judgement seat of Caesar.”

God gives only the magistrate the power to change public ordinances.110 Also, private citizens may not engage in acts to overthrow evil tyrants. “Since [magistrates] have been appointed for the preservation of human life, he who desires their removal or shakes off their yoke is the enemy of equity and justice and so devoid of all humanity.”111 God often installs unjust and incompetent rulers to punish the wickedness of the people. So, with an awareness of their sins, the people should implore God to remove these evil tyrants.112 But it is God’s prerogative to remove these wicked princes. Private individuals are forbidden to use force to bring about political change.113

The Two Kingdoms

Calvin mentions the distinction between the spiritual kingdom and the civil kingdom in three places in the Institutes: his discussion of the church’s jurisdiction and discipline in the power of the keys of the kingdom, his introductory comments on the civil government, and his exposition on freedom and conscience. We begin with his treatment of the church’s jurisdiction in discipline.

In his exposition of the power that Christ gave to the church to bind and loose (Matt. 16:9), Calvin raises the matter of the exercise of ecclesiastical power with respect to the discipline of morals. In the preaching by the apostles and church ministers of the gospel of the forgiveness of sins, and in their exercise of church discipline for the unrepentant, the sentence of Christ himself is proclaimed through their lips. What they declare on earth according to the Word of God is ratified by God in heaven. Here, Calvin notes two distinctions between ecclesiastical and civil power. First, the church’s spiritual jurisdiction has a spiritual character, which is to say, the power to bind or loose according to the Word of God. The church does not have the power of the sword, that is, the power to coerce by physical force or punishment. The church can discipline its members, bar them from the Lord’s Supper, and excommunicate them as the severest form of punishment. But it

110. Institutes, 4.20.23.

111. Comm. Titus 3:1.

112. Institutes, 4.20.25, 29. Calvin also urges those suffering under such tyrants to look ahead to the final judgment, where Christ will crush all such tyrants.

113. Calvin does allow for “lesser magistrates,” appointed by God as protectors of the freedom of the people, to resist and overthrow ungodly and unjust rulers who oppress their subjects. Ibid., 4.20.31.

cannot coerce through physical force.114 Second, the church is interested not simply in the external behavior of its members but in their inner spiritual state. The goal of church discipline in dealing with immorality is a matter “of the sinner professing his repentance in a voluntary manner.”115 This is accomplished by the preaching of the doctrine of Christ, so that those who are part of the church are judged by it and moved to submit to it.116

In contrast with the jurisdiction of the church, which is spiritual and internal, the civil power has jurisdiction that is coercive and external. First, it exercises its jurisdiction through the sword, which means through external force and punishment. Second, it is concerned only with satisfying the external demands of lawbreaking. When one violates the law, the punishment enacted by the magistrate is focused on satisfying “outward justice.”117 When the demands of justice are met, even if the lawbreaker is unrepentant, the ruler has no right to punish further.

According to Calvin, spiritual and civil jurisdiction must be kept distinct. Even if the civil rulers have accepted Christ, the civil jurisdiction must not be confused with the spiritual. Magistrates must not exercise power over the church, and bishops must not assume the office and power of the magistrate.118 Calvin is critical of bishops, especially the Roman pontiff, who take up the sword to engage in civil rule.119

In his chapter on civil government in the Institutes, Calvin also discusses the distinction between the “twofold government” over humanity. Calvin explicitly connects this section with his discussion of the same topic in his presentation of freedom and the conscience in 3.19.15. He uses the same Latin expression in both places—duplex in homine regimen—“a twofold government in man.” Therefore, it is a reasonable conclusion that Calvin meant for these two sections to be related to each other concerning this topic.120

Calvin’s comments on this point confirm and expand his position on church discipline. There is a twofold government or kingdom [regimen] in humanity: “one aspect is spiritual, whereby the conscience is instructed in piety and in reverencing God; the second is political, whereby man is educated for the duties of humanity and citizenship that must be maintained among men.”121 We note the same contrasts here that are found in Calvin’s discussion of church discipline. The spiritual kingdom has to do with the life of the soul, the inference being that instruction and guidance come from the Word of God. The political (or temporal) kingdom has to do with matters of civil justice and outward morality.122 The spiritual kingdom resides in the inner mind; the political kingdom regulates only outward behavior.123 He declares that the Two Kingdoms must always be considered separately, for different kings and different laws have authority over each one.124

114. Ibid., 4.11.1–2, 4.

115. Ibid., 4.11.3.

116. This is the third purpose of church discipline that Calvin mentions in 4.11.5.

117. Ibid.

118. Ibid., 4.11.4.

119. Ibid., 4.11.9–11.

120. In footnote 2 of 4.10.1, John T. McNeill, editor of the 1960 Westminster Press edition, comments that 3.19 and 4.20 are linked, and that the latter chapter “is in a real sense a continuation of” the former.

In these two sections Calvin elaborates on the nature of life in the Two Kingdoms. He notes that the gospel of Christ gives people freedom as they become members of Christ’s spiritual kingdom. They are no longer under the bondage of the law, which requires perfect obedience to satisfy his holy and righteous demands. And their standing in Christ’s kingdom does not depend on the status determined by human criteria (Gal. 3:28), nor on the civil laws that control them. Nevertheless, they are not free from the human laws and authorities in their outward lives with others.125 Conversely, Christ’s spiritual kingdom is not to be reduced to or enclosed in the institutional structures of this world.126 Believers have the tension of living both for the eschatological realities of Christ’s return and for the social realities of a sinful world.127

121. Institutes, 3.19.15.

122. Ibid., 4.20.1.

123. Calvin’s emphasis here appears to be on the “otherworldly” dimension of the spiritual kingdom, which has paramount importance no matter what the structures of society.

124. Institutes, 3.19.5. See also ibid., 4.20.1: “Whoever knows how to distinguish between body and soul, between this present fleeting life and that future eternal life, will without difficulty know that Christ’s spiritual Kingdom and the civil jurisdiction are things completely distinct.”

125. Ibid., 3.19.15. Comm. John 8:11: “Although Christ remits men’s sins, He does not subvert the social order or abolish legal sentences and punishments.”

126. Institutes, 4.20.1.

127. Calvin states that we should make the second coming of Christ “the goal of our course.” Then he will abolish all the legitimate powers that have been ordained by God because they are temporary. At the same time, Calvin insists that “all earthly rule and positions of authority have to do . . . with maintaining life as we know it here, and are, for that reason, an integral part of this world” (Comm. 1 Cor. 15:24). We are to fulfill our duties within these temporal orders according to our particular callings (Ibid., Col. 3:18).

The Blurring of the Boundaries

While Calvin appears to draw sharp boundaries between the spiritual and civil kingdoms, there are numerous ways in which these boundaries blur. The kingdoms have considerable areas of overlap and even interpenetration. There are numerous ways in which the kingdoms and the members of those kingdoms intersect. We begin with an examination of Calvin’s views of the involvement of the members of the spiritual kingdom in the civil kingdom. Then we examine the nature of the magistrates and laws in relation to the spiritual kingdom. And we conclude with some comments on the overlapping jurisdictions of the Two Kingdoms in Calvin’s thought and practice.

Calvin deals with the claims of those who argue that Christians should have nothing to do with the civil realm. Some claim that, as members of the perfect kingdom of the gospel of Christ, they are not subject to rulers or to the judicial processes that rulers oversee.128 Others contend that because their consciences have been set free in God’s sight, they are no longer subject to the external political government of magistrates. But the freedom of conscience that Christ gives believers does not free them from the responsibility of submitting to civil rulers in matters pertaining to this life.129 Calvin observes that “the overthrow of civil order is rebellion against God.”130 Our membership in the kingdom of Christ does not remove us from the obligation to submit to civil rulers, and even to pray for them.131 Christians should be active participants in the civil kingdom, and even willing to assume public office. Calvin considers the gift of ruling in Romans 12:8 not merely as applicable to ruling in the church, but also to “include every kind of ruler.” He extols the civil authority as a “holy and lawful” calling before God, “the most sacred and by far the most honorable of all callings in the whole life of mortal man.”132 This is why, as previously noted, Calvin refers to civil rulers with terms such as God’s ministers, representatives, vicars, and deputies.133

In addition, Calvin commends the civil authority as the means whereby Christians can fulfill their callings to love their neighbors. He notes that the

128. Institutes, 4.20.5–7, 19.

129. Ibid., 3.19.15.

130. Comm. Matt. 22:21.

131. Ibid., 1 Tim. 2:2.

132. Institutes, 4.20.4; Comm. Rom. 12:8.

133. Institutes, 4.20.4–6.

purposes for the government involve forming “our social behavior to civil righteousness, to reconcile us with one another, and to promote general peace and tranquility.”134 The government protects the weak from powerful evildoers who take advantage of them, and brings these oppressors to justice.135 By restraining the wicked, rulers allow for the preservation of order, and they promote the safety of all. In promoting the public good, they advance the welfare of all their subjects.136

For Calvin, life in the temporal or political kingdom directs believers to the concerns of the present life, not merely with physical needs but with laws that produce human social life that is holy, honorable, and temperate. Here, we are “educated for the duties of humanity and citizenship that must be maintained” among people.137 In fact, it is the purpose of the civil kingdom, to which we ought to submit, to create some sense of social community, to form our social behavior to civil righteousness, and to create social unity and harmony.138 This is part of the renewed sense of our dominion over creation, granted in the beginning to Adam and his descendants but removed because of sin. The lordship that Adam lost “is fulfilled in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, to wit, that God has given him the earth for a possession.”139 Believers regain their status as heirs of the world only through faith in Christ.140 “By incorporating us into the Body of His Son, [God] makes us anew lords of the earth so that we may legitimately enjoy as our own all the wealth He supplies.”141 In Christ, both we and the good gifts of God are sanctified, so that we may use them with a free conscience in the broad range of social and civil activities.142

God’s rule over all, Calvin argues, has bearing on the office of magistrate. Rulers in civil society must acknowledge that their calling can be fulfilled only according to God’s designs. They have a mandate from God, are invested with divine authority, and are God’s representatives.143 They should remember that they are “vicars of God,” who are diligent “to represent in

134. Ibid., 4.20.2.

135. Comm. Ps. 82:3; Institutes, 4.20.9.

136. Comm. Rom. 13:1–4.

137. Institutes, 3.19.15.

138. Ibid., 4.20.2.

139. Comm. Ps. 8:5–9.

140. Ibid., 1 Tim. 4:4.

141. Ibid., 1 Tim. 4:5.

142. Serm. 1 Tim., 364b, 365b.

143. Institutes, 4.20.4.

themselves some image of divine providence, protection, goodness, benevolence, and justice.”144 They are responsible to God for the way they exercise their rule over their subjects.145 In their use of their authority they must give honor to God and draw their subjects also to serve God.146

Calvin also views the laws whereby magistrates rule to be the revealed law of God. We have already noted that the law of the civil domain is based on the law of God summarized in the Decalogue. While some nations may know the law of God only through the witness of their consciences to this law engraved on their hearts (Rom. 2:14–15), it is the same law as the Decalogue. While the constitutions or forms of the law may vary in different cultures, the laws must all embody the equity [aequitas] that is the essence of the law. Calvin also describes the heart of the law by which nations should be ruled as “the perpetual rule of love.” Whatever laws that nations consider expedient and prudent, they must conform to the rule of love and equity.147

If the laws of civil society should embody the love and equity at the heart of the Decalogue, the obvious conclusion is that Christian rulers who know the revealed laws of God in the Decalogue will be more likely to enact proper civil laws. Because, as previously noted, the witness of natural law via the conscience is extremely unreliable, civil society will function properly when its laws are shaped by the revealed law of God. According to Calvin, it is righteous men and women who will recognize in the law the goal toward which they should strive.148 Where the laws and judgments of God prevail in society, there the good will prosper.149

Acknowledging that Calvin has drawn a sharp distinction between the jurisdictions of the Two Kingdoms, we note that there is a blurring of these jurisdictions in his account of the purposes and actions of the church and state. The primary purposes that he lists for the civil government are “to cherish and protect the outward worship of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the position of the church.”150 This mandates that the civil ruler “prevent the true religion which is contained in God’s

144. Ibid., 4.20.6.

145. Comm. Rom. 13:4.

146. Serm. Deut. 5:16, 142–45.

147. Institutes, 4.20.15–16. See also Comm. Rom. 13:8.

148. Institutes, 2.7.13.

149. Comm. Rom. 12:8.

150. For Calvin, the office of the magistrate “extends to both Tables of the Law.” Institutes, 4.20.9.

laws from being openly and with public sacrilege violated and defiled with impunity.”151 VanDrunen admits a number of ways in which the civil power cooperates with the church to promote the Christian faith: elders appointed by the government, punishment of excommunicated people, legal penalties for unrepentant sinners, and the execution of the heretic Servetus.152 Calvin was involved in writing legal briefs and rewriting laws for the city of Geneva; city councilors served on the city’s consistory.153 One could add to this the cooperation of church and civil government in the care for the poor. Calvin designated the office of deacon for the task of caring for immigrants, the poor, and the sick.154 Deacons carried this out with the aid and funding of the city council by establishing hospitals as centers of social welfare.155

VanDrunen acknowledges the blurring of the boundaries of the Two Kingdoms in both the teachings of Calvin and the practice in Geneva. He gives a weak justification for this by contending that the church’s involvement in civil matters had a “spiritual dimension,” and the civil government’s involvement in spiritual matters dealt only with the “outward, external manifestation of religion.” But VanDrunen admits that, according to his own sharp distinction of the Two Kingdoms in Calvin’s thought, Calvin was clearly inconsistent in many areas of his teaching and practice. The final appeal that VanDrunen makes for these inconsistencies in Calvin is that he was simply a man of his time, not able to imagine “a functioning religiously plural society.” That is, given the commonly held view that each state viewed itself as a society unified by one Christian church, he could not imagine a society in which the church did not have a role in civil life, and in which the civil magistrate was not involved in using force to maintain religious belief and practice.156

While it is certainly true that there are inconsistencies in Calvin’s thought, and that he is influenced to some extent by his historical situation, I think the evidence indicates that Calvin did not make the antithetic distinction between the Two Kingdoms that VanDrunen claims. He gave

151. Ibid., 4.20.2–3.

152. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 84–85.

153. Jeannine E. Olson, “Calvin and Social-Ethical Issues,” in The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, ed. Donald K. McKim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 161–63.

154. Institutes, 4.3.9; Comm. 1 Tim. 3:8.

155. For a concise account of the role of deacons in social welfare, see Olson, “Calvin and Social-Ethical Issues,” 163–67.

156. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 83, 86–90.

evidence of his willingness to break with the tradition in his time as lived in both civil jurisdiction and church teaching. He had ongoing battles with the magistrates of Geneva concerning the authority of the church consistory in determining who could receive the Lord’s Supper.157 He enacted all sorts of change in church polity, teaching, and practice. His ultimate authority in guiding his theology and practice was the teaching of the Word of God. It seems to me that the evidence in both Calvin’s thought and practice is for both kingdoms to be guided by the Word of God, even as they have separate spheres of jurisdiction.

Analysis

Our examination of Calvin’s view of the Two Kingdoms in the context of his view of the state establishes two things. On the one hand, he holds to a distinction between the two spheres associated with the church and with civil government. They each have very different natures, purposes, and means of achieving their respective purposes. The church is a spiritual kingdom, which exists to create and build up a redeemed people of God, by the agency of the binding and loosing power conferred by the proclamation of the Word of God. The civil power is a temporal kingdom, which exists to maintain a human society of peace and harmony, by means of the coercive power of external force and punishment. The two must be kept separate and not confused.

On the other hand, a close examination of Calvin’s instructions to believers concerning their involvement in the civil realm indicates a blurring of the boundaries in his thought. Believers should be active members of the civil realm, both as subjects and as rulers. Calvin considers the gift of ruling (Rom. 12:8) to apply to both church rulers and civil magistrates, so that the latter are properly designated as God’s representatives. The command to love our neighbors is fulfilled in some measure through the work of the state in restraining evil and promoting social harmony. Believers are called to engage in various activities of social life so as to fulfill their mandate to have dominion over creation under the lordship of Christ, the second Adam.

There is also a blurring of the sharp distinction between the Two Kingdoms in Calvin’s account of the office of the magistrate and the laws

157. Noted by Bruce Gordon in Calvin (New Haven, CT, and London: yale University Press, 2009), 88–89, 213.

of the civil realm. Rulers are God’s representatives, answerable to God, and called to honor God in their offices. The civil laws that they enact and enforce must be based on the Decalogue, reflecting the equity and love at the heart of these laws. The inference is that the best civil rule is achieved by Christian magistrates who recognize their callings before God and who implement his laws in society. Calvin viewed the magistrate as obligated to enforce the whole of the Decalogue, which means the promotion and protection of the Christian faith and of the church. This resulted in a number of cooperative efforts enacted by church and state in Geneva. There was mutual activity by the leaders in both realms to aid each other in carrying out their activities.

VanDrunen claims that for Calvin the Two Kingdoms have two realms and two sources of knowledge. The civil kingdom is concerned with earthly things and is informed by the knowledge gained by reason in the natural law. God does not rule this realm in a redemptive manner, but by the guidance of creation and providence. The spiritual kingdom is concerned with heavenly matters and is guided by the teaching of Scripture. God rules this realm in a redemptive manner through the teaching of Scripture.158

VanDrunen makes two major claims that, in my view, are not supported by the evidence. First, he states that “Calvin did not believe that the civil kingdom can be governed solely or primarily by the teaching of Scripture.” It is certainly true that for Calvin the church is the realm in which God rules directly by the power of the Spirit through the teaching and preaching of his Word. And it is also true that God does not rule in the civil realm in the same way that he does in the church. But the abundance of evidence presented in this paper indicates that Calvin did consider the teaching of Scripture to have a role in directing and guiding the ruler and laws of the civil realm. The nature and calling of the civil office before God and the content of the laws—grounded in equity and love—that regulate the civil kingdom indicate for Calvin the importance of biblical teaching to enable the state to function as God established it.

The second major claim that VanDrunen makes in his section on Calvin is that the natural law gives “true and useful knowledge of mundane things in the civil realm.”159 My previous remarks in the concluding section on natural law in Calvin indicate that, while Calvin does acknowledge

158. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 110–13.

159. Ibid., 113.

some knowledge of the law by sinful humans, these are merely “seeds of justice.” When their own interests are at stake, these seeds wither and die. VanDrunen acknowledges these negative evaluations of natural law in Calvin, but he views them as Calvin’s assessment of the value of natural law for the kingdom of Christ. In other words, Calvin’s point is that natural law has no value for salvation.

VanDrunen’s dismissal of Calvin’s negative assessment of natural law is contradicted by Calvin’s own words. It is precisely in his discussion of civil laws that Calvin notes both that nonbelievers disagree on the specific content of those laws and that some Roman emperors ruled with injustice and savagery. While people may express approval of civil laws for the sake of society, their lusts lead them to exempt themselves from these laws. They care little about injustice done to others, while being resistant to undergoing any perceived injustice themselves. These comments by Calvin are clearly not about the value of natural law for the spiritual kingdom.

Conclusion

This exposition of Calvin’s writings has established two important points. First, there is an unquestionable doctrine of natural law in Calvin. The conscience witnesses to the moral law of God engraved on the heart, a law that continues to exist in the creation order as established by God. However, because the impact of sin on human nature is total and comprehensive, there is a limited understanding of God’s laws. What sinful humans do know is produced through the general activity of the Holy Spirit, by the common grace of God to all.

This natural law functions to give non-Christians some insight into those laws for governing human society, but this knowledge is usually defective, distorted, and inconsistent. While at the general level, sinful people may acknowledge the general principles of equity and love embodied in the Golden Rule of Matthew 7:12, their applications to specific situations, especially when it involves their own concerns, are not reliable. This is also evident in the laws enacted by rulers. Calvin gives both positive and negative assessments of the value of natural law. While natural law is often the means that nations use to construct their laws, human sinfulness makes it a very unreliable guide for the civil laws of a nation. For Calvin, the testimony of history and experience witness to this unreliability.

What is more, this chapter has established Calvin’s distinction between the spiritual kingdom and the civil kingdom, which deal with heavenly and earthly matters, respectively. They have different jurisdictions, purposes, and means of achieving their ends. This distinguishes the nature and calling of the church of Christ from the nature and calling of the civil government. yet, for Calvin, this distinction does not negate the participation of Christians in civil life with the gifts they are granted by the Spirit and the insights they gain from God’s revealed Word. Christians’ insight into the function of the civil magistrate will enable them to have a proper understanding of the role of the magistrate and the duty of subjects to them. Believers’ understanding of the law of God revealed in Scripture will guide them in shaping the laws of society, whether as rulers or as subjects. They will also understand the importance of the state as an instrument of God for loving their neighbors through the restraining of evil and the promotion of social peace and harmony.

Christians are able to bring the insights of Scripture to bear not only on the sphere of government, but also on all the spheres of public life. This is all part of the cultural calling lost by Adam but renewed and fulfilled for believers under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Believers are again restored to that calling so that in all that they do they may bring glory to the King and Lord of all creation.

3

Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck

Nelson Kloosterman

THIS CHAPTER REFLECTS on the life and labors of Herman Bavinck, a major figure—although at times ignored—in the development of neo-Calvinism. It responds, in particular, to the Two Kingdoms claim that there exists a fundamental inconsistency in Bavinck’s thought when it comes to natural law and the kingdom of God. Some might conclude on the basis of this essay^1 that the difference between a Two Kingdoms perspective and a neo-Calvinist perspective on Bavinck is merely a difference of accent; indeed, there is much from Bavinck about which we agree. Nevertheless, I do not think that differences of accent are benign, since they can in fact be an impediment to clear communication and mutual understanding. After indicating significant points of agreement with the analysis of Herman Bavinck’s thought by David VanDrunen, a leading proponent of the Two Kingdoms view, I will indicate my reservations and sketch an alternative, unified approach to natural law and the kingdom of God in Bavinck. I conclude with two addenda, on “The Two Bavincks?” and on the possibility of “Christian Education” if the Two Kingdoms approach is overemphasized.

1. An earlier form of this material was presented at the September 2008 Bavinck conference sponsored by Calvin Theological Seminary, and has been both abridged and expanded here. It was abridged with a view to clarifying several statements, and expanded to interact more fully with references to the original presentation identified below in footnote 4. Aside from several editorial adaptations, this essay was published earlier as “A Response to ‘The Kingship of Christ Is Twofold’: Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck by David VanDrunen,” CTJ 45 (2010): 165–76. It is being reprinted here with permission.

I share with the Two Kingdoms position concerns regarding the apparent triumphalism among some neo-Calvinist heirs of Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck.2 Naturally, it must be determined whether in this case the error of the disciples can properly be attributed to the masters. Unfortunately, in the 1960s and later, the neo-Calvinist project became misdirected to the extent that it embraced the transformational Calvinism of H. Richard Niebuhr, whose project is currently undergoing significant analysis and correction.3

I wish to demur with respect to the thesis that forms a thread, if not the backbone, of VanDrunen’s understanding of Bavinck.4 He is suggesting that the alleged existence of “two Bavincks” has left us with a theology that is inconsistent and incoherent.5 Rather, I wish to suggest that Bavinck’s life

2. This triumphalism is not just rhetorical, but extends to theological emphases as well. I have in mind rhetoric about Christians’ “extending” the lordship of Jesus Christ; about Christians’ “redeeming” or “renewing” culture; about Christians’ “transforming” culture for Christ; and the like. Such rhetoric forms the substance of vision statements and advertising slogans for a number of Reformed, Presbyterian, and evangelical colleges in North America.

3. H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New york: Harper & Row, 1951). For analysis, critique, and revision, see Craig A. Carter, Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006), reviewed by Nelson D. Kloosterman in MAJT 18 (2007): 221–23; D. A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), reviewed by Nelson Kloosterman in MAJT 19 (2008): 297–301; and Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008). Problems identified in Niebuhr’s project include these: (1) his classifications are reductionistic, since a number of representatives whom he classifies as belonging to one category can in fact be classified with others; (2) his classifications are not clearly rooted in the entirety and unity of biblical revelation; and (3) his classification of transformational Calvinism is not faithful either to Augustine or to Calvin, in its neglect of predestination and of the antithesis.

4. See David VanDrunen, “ ‘The Kingship of Christ Is Twofold’: Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck,” CTJ 45 (2010): 147–64.

5. As one of his concluding assessments of Bavinck’s teaching regarding natural law and two kingdoms, VanDrunen writes, “Third, I am not convinced that Bavinck has left us with an entirely coherent portrait of Christians’ basic relationship to this world and of the fundamental nature of their cultural endeavors.” Ibid., 162. In his footnote at this point,

work in general, and his treatment of natural law and the kingdom of God in particular, supplies us with a helpful model for integrating the dualities present in theological truth and the dualities operative within his—and our— religious experience. That there were tensions, even polarities, in Bavinck’s life and thought is incontrovertible, but in my judgment these need not be elevated to the level of incoherent inconsistencies or irreconcilable themes.

Natural Law in Herman Bavinck

There is no doubt that Bavinck articulates a doctrine of natural law in his writings. As we know, Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin spoke of natural law. In doing so, however, these Reformational writers, in distinction from Roman Catholic and humanist doctrines of natural law, uniformly opposed significant elements of the classical doctrine of natural law. The Reformers’ doctrine of natural law needs to be coordinated with their robust acknowledgment of the radical seriousness of the fall, of the pervasive depravity of human reason, and of the necessity of Holy Scripture as the spectacles for correctly interpreting all of general revelation. For example, although Calvin regularly spoke of the ordo naturae, the lex naturalis, and natura docet, both their right apprehension by fallen human reason and their right functioning in the consciences of fallen humanity were governed by the wisdom learned from Scripture. Moreover, the Reformers never used their doctrine of natural law as the basis for a twofold ethics, one derived from nature, the other from grace, the one governed by human reason, the other by the Christian faith.

Bavinck’s careful acknowledgment of human morality was nurtured by an awareness like that confessed in the Canons of Dort 3.4.4:

he appeals to “the two Bavincks hypothesis.” In this context he refers to an article by George Harinck, to an article by John Bolt, and to Bolt’s editorial introduction to Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics. The use of at least two of these sources to imply agreement with “the two Bavincks hypothesis” is astonishingly dubious, since Harinck clearly emphasizes the achievement in Bavinck’s thought of integration and unity, and Bolt’s introductory essay speaks only of “tensions” in Bavinck’s life. More problematic, however, is this insinuation in that same footnote: “Though a complete account is more complex, a good general argument can be made, I believe, that his [Bavinck’s] defense of the natural law and two kingdoms categories belongs to the orthodox Bavinck and his advocacy of themes such as grace restoring nature and the kingdom as leaven belongs to the modern Bavinck.” Presumably, we are being invited to embrace the “orthodox” Bavinck and to shun the “modern” Bavinck with suspicion. For more discussion of the “two Bavincks” hypothesis, see Addendum 1 below.

There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the difference between good and evil, and shows some regard for virtue and for good outward behavior. But so far is this understanding of nature from being sufficient to bring him to a saving knowledge of God and to true conversion that he is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil. Nay further, this understanding, such as it is, man in various ways renders wholly polluted, and hinders in unrighteousness, by doing which he becomes inexcusable before God.6

Thus, as one who followed in the line of Reformed orthodoxy, Bavinck in his understanding and use of natural law must be coordinated with the following equally important components of his theological system.

First, it is God, not nature, that explains all the external moral righteousness we see around us. By his providence God governs the world and maintains the structures—moral as well as physical—of the creation. God’s general revelation, as Calvin has taught us, is dynamic, personal, and existential throughout history. Bavinck’s emphasis on God’s continual personal interaction with creation prevents natural law from becoming, as it so often has throughout the history of the concept, a handmaiden to secularization.

Second, this active, personal divine providence accounts for the continuation, and recognition, of creational ordinances such as marriage, authority, labor, and leisure. In God’s daily government of the universe we may recognize constants that serve to restrain human beings who would otherwise live out their rebellion unto total destruction. For example, propagating anarchy presupposes some kind of authority; even denying the creational boundaries of marriage presupposes at some point the acknowledgment of “the way things work.” So there is a providential correspondence between the content of the Decalogue and the law embedded in the give and take of human living in God’s universe.

6. Latin original: “Residuum quidem est post lapsum in homine lumen aliquod naturæ, cujus beneficio ille notitias quasdam de Deo, de rebus naturalibus, de discrimine honestorum et turpium retinet, et aliquod virtutis ac disciplinæ externæ studium ostendit: sed tantum abest, ut hoc naturæ lumine ad salutarem Dei cognitionem pervenire, et ad eum se convertere possit, ut ne quidem eo in naturalibus ac civilibus recte utatur, quinimo qualecumque id demum sit, id totum variis modis contaminet, atque in injustitia detineat, quod dum facit, coram Deo inexcusabilis redditur.”

Third, in this context, it may be helpful to recommend the superb analysis provided by Al Wolters regarding the relationship between structure and direction. No one would deny that the normative structures of creation continue since the fall, providing the bedding and boundaries of human existence. What distinguishes believers from unbelievers is the directionality, motivation, and purposiveness in their respective uses of creation. In terms of this distinction, moreover, Wolters insists that creational norms can be properly discerned only in the light of Scripture.7

Finally, God has inscribed “the work of the law” in the hearts of Gentiles. If we study carefully the context of Romans 2:14–15, two exegetical notes are relevant to this discussion. First, the law being referred to here in the context of Paul’s argument is the Mosaic law, the Decalogue—not “the natural law.” Second, God (not nature, not reason) has written this in their hearts. That which we know from the law of God, written once on two tablets of stone, set forth in the Law and the Prophets, we find among unbelievers because they show that they have received the law’s work, the law’s activity, written by God in their hearts. Thus, we need not deny or ignore such moral activity if we are directed from the activity to the law—not the natural law, but the law revealed in the Bible. There we find the hermeneutical key for interpreting the moral uprightness we see in the world. The universal is clarified by the particular, the human is explained by the Christian. Not the other way around, such that the lex naturae becomes the hermeneutical key for the lex scripturae.

Two Kingdoms in Herman Bavinck

The Kingdom of God: ipsissima verba Bavincki (the very words of Bavinck)

As we investigate Bavinck’s understanding of the “two kingdoms,” we are fortunate to possess two significant essays from his pen that deal explicitly with the kingdom of God. Each was available at the initial point of this discussion only in the Dutch language,8 but both provide an important

7. Albert M. Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 49–52, 72–95. For the point of the ability to discern creational norms only in the light of Scripture, see 91.

8. The first is “Het Koninkrijk Gods,” in Handboekje ten dienste der Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland voor het jaar 1894, ed. J. H. Feringa and A. Littooij (Le Cointre, 1893), 243–52. The second is “Het rijk Gods, het hoogste goed,” in Kennis en leven: Opstellen en artikelen uit

biblical-theological orientation to Bavinck’s kingdom theology. The second essay (1893) exhibits Bavinck’s expansive view of the kingdom of God, including its political significance.9

Twelve years earlier, on February 3, 1881, Bavinck presented a lecture to the Kampen theological students on “The Kingdom of God, The Highest Good.” Midway through this lecture, Bavinck treated the subject of “the kingdom of God and the community (family, state, church, culture).” The kingdom of God is broader than the organized institutional church, Bavinck argued, because Christianity is more than worship, since it constitutes an entirely new life power that can penetrate and enliven all spheres and forms of life.

For that reason we speak of a Christian society, of a Christian school. There is nothing human that cannot be called Christian. Everything within and outside the church that is enlivened and governed by Christ who exercises sovereignty over all things, constitutes and belongs to the Kingdom of God.10

The goal of the church’s ministry is that its members live out their personal consecration to God in their natural, moral, civic, and political lives.11 With a clarity that astonishes twenty-first-century ears, Bavinck insists that even the state finds its goal and destiny in the kingdom of heaven.

vroegere jaren (Kampen: Kok, 1922), 28–56, now available in English as “The Kingdom of God, The Highest Good,” trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman, in Bavinck Review 2 (2011): 133–70 (available at http://bavinck.calvinseminary.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/TBR2.pdf).

9. Bavinck, “Het Koninkrijk Gods,” 249: “When we explain the kingdom of God in this full, rich sense, there is no basis for the claim that the OT idea of the kingdom of God was entirely spiritualized in the NT and stripped of all its sensory [zinnelijke] and political elements. For also in the NT the kingdom of God comes to earth (Matt. 5:5); it is frequently portrayed by the images of a wedding and festive celebration (Matt. 8:11); and it also possesses a political significance (Matt. 20:20–23; Luke 19:11–27; Acts 1:6–7; Rev. 21:23–24)”; the Dutch original: “Wanneer we het Koninkrijk Gods opvatten in dezen vollen, rijken zin, is er geen grond voor de bewering, dat de Oudtestamentische idee van het Koninkrijk Gods in het N. Test. geheel vergeestelijkt en van alle zinnelijke en politieke elementen is ontdaan. Want ook in het N. Testament komt het Koninkrijk Gods op aarde Matth. 5:5; het wordt meermalen geschilderd onder de beelden van een bruiloft en feestmaal Matth. 8:11; en heeft ook eene politieke beteekenis Matth. 20:20–23. Luk. 19:11–27. Hand. 1:6, 7, Openb. 21:23v.”

10. Bavinck, “The Kingdom of God, The Highest Good,” 158; the Dutch original: “Wij spreken daarom ook van eene Christelijke maatschappij, van eene Christelijke school; niets menschelijks is er, wat niet Christelijk heeten kan. Al wat in en buiten de Kerk door Christus, die de souvereiniteit draagt over alle dingen, wordt bezield en beheerscht, vormt mee en behoort tot het Rijk van God.” “Het rijk Gods, het hoogste goed,” 46–47.

11. On this point, VanDrunen puzzlingly employs a footnote to identify what appears to be his most basic criticism of both neo-Calvinism in general and Herman Bavinck in particular. For further discussion of this, together with a response, see Addendum 2 below.

Just as the individual person must not seek the Kingdom of God outside of but in his earthly vocation, so too the Kingdom of God does not demand that the state surrender its earthly calling, its own nationality, but demands precisely that the state permit the Kingdom of God to affect and to penetrate its people and its nation. Only in this way can the Kingdom of God come into existence. For this Kingdom is not a labor of these or those people, not even of one nation and of one state, but of all peoples and all states. It is the total task (Gesammtaufgabe) of the human race.12

Of course, the state is an agent not of grace, but of the law. The state neither establishes the kingdom of God nor brings about redemption. By fulfilling its divine calling to pursue justice and to uphold the moral order, however, the state can become a paidagogus or tutor (Bavinck uses the Dutch word tuchtmeester; he is alluding to Gal. 3:24) leading unto Christ. In that sense the state has the ability and the calling to work in service to the kingdom of God.13

Regarding the broader relationship between the kingdom of God and culture, Bavinck views these as members of the same family. Using an analogy as imaginative as it is profound, Bavinck observed:

Cult and culture ought then to be sisters, independent to be sure, but still sisters, bound to each other through love. And even though Martha, who represents the culture that is occupied with many things, may differ from Mary, who represents the cultus that has chosen the best portion, nevertheless the truth remains that Jesus loved them both.14

12. Bavinck, “The Kingdom of God, The Highest Good,” 160; the Dutch original: “Evenals de enkele het Rijk Gods niet moet zoeken buiten, maar in zijn aardsche beroep, zoo ook eischt het Godsrijk niet van den Staat, dat hij zijn aardsche roeping, zijn eigene nationaliteit prijs geve, maar juist dat hij het Rijk Gods in zijn volk en nationaliteit late inwerken en doordringen. Zoo alleen kan het Rijk Gods tot stand komen. Want dit Rijk is niet een werk van dezen of genen, zelfs niet van één volk en van één Staat, maar van alle volken en alle Staten, het is de ‚Gesammtaufgabe’ van het menschelijk geslacht.” “Het rijk Gods, het hoogste goed,” 49.

13. Bavinck, “The Kingdom of God, The Highest Good,” 161.

14. Ibid., 162; Dutch original: “Cultus en cultuur behooren dus zusters te wezen, wel zelfstandig maar toch zusters, door liefde aan elkander verbonden. En al is het dan, dat van beide Martha, dat is de cultuur zich om vele dingen bekommert, en Maria, dat is de cultus,

The point we are seeking to emphasize is that although Bavinck recognized the twofold kingship of Christ, this never functioned in his theology as the warrant either for a dual ethic or for a duality of independence between religion and cultural life in the world, including politics.

The Christological Unity and Integration of God’s Works

With respect to the matter of “two kingdoms” in Bavinck, I believe that Bavinck places more detailed emphasis on the Christological unity and integration of the so-called two kingdoms than Two Kingdoms proponents suggest. For example, from his other writings we learn that for Bavinck, the state was not to be characterized by a colorless neutrality toward spiritual realities, but rather by having a sacred task and by being unable to adopt a position of neutrality between truth and falsehood.15 The separation of church and state never entailed the claim that the state was free from religion or from God’s claims in Jesus Christ. Somewhat more than Kuyper, Bavinck maintained the principle that the state was called to advance God’s honor and the church, although this may not happen through force and may not conflict with the nature of the gospel and the rights of people and of various arenas of life.16 According to Bavinck, the first of seven summarizing principles to be kept in mind in connection with regulating the relationship between the church and the world was the principle that the church cannot resist stating the demand that all creatures, arts, sciences, family, society, state, and so forth must submit to the Word of the Lord.17

This unity and integration are rooted particularly in the person and work of Christ Jesus. In contrast with positing a continuing duality between the Logos and the Incarnate One, Bavinck saw Jesus Christ as revealing himself progressively in human history through his unitary

het beste deel heeft gekozen, toch blijft het waar, Jezus had ze beide lief.” “Het rijk Gods, het hoogste goed,” 50.

15. See Herman Bavinck, “Christian Principles and Social Relationships,” in Essays on Religion, Science, and Society, ed. John Bolt, trans. Harry Boonstra and Gerrit Sheeres (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 119–43. See also Herman Bavinck, Christelijke en neutrale staatkunde. Rede ter inleiding van de deputatenvergadering, gehouden te Utrecht, op 13 April 1905 (Hilversum: Witzel & Klemkerk, 1905).

16. This observation is made by Klaas van der Zwaag, in Onverkort of gekortwiekt? Artikel 36 van de Nederlandse Geloofsbelijdenis en de spanning tussen overheid en religie. Een systematischhistorische interpretatie van een ‘omstreden’ geloofsartikel (Heerenveen: Groen, 1999), 405–7.

17. RD 4, 439–40.

and unitive mediatorial activity. Although before his incarnation the second person of the Trinity was indeed the Logos Asarkos, since his incarnation he remains the Logos Ensarkos. The profound significance of the incarnation is precisely that Christ’s work in the creation is taken up within and made serviceable to his work of redemption. This has implications for the relationship between the church and the world. In a significant passage in volume 4 of his Reformed Dogmatics, Bavinck applies this Christological unity to the relationship between the church and the world:

Accordingly, the relationship that has to exist between the church and the world is in the first place organic, moral, and spiritual in character. Christ—even now—is prophet, priest, and king; and by his Word and Spirit he persuasively impacts the entire world. Because of him there radiates from everyone who believes in him a renewing and sanctifying influence upon the family, society, state, occupation, business, art, science, and so forth. The spiritual life is meant to refashion the natural and moral life in its full depth and scope according to the laws of God [Dutch original: Het geestelijk leven is bestemd, om het natuurlijk en zedelijk leven in volle diepte en omvang weer aan de wet Gods te doen beantwoorden]. Along this organic path Christian truth and the Christian life are introduced into all the circles of the natural life, so that life in the household and the extended family is restored to honor, the wife (woman) is again viewed as the equal of the husband (man), the sciences and arts are Christianized, the level of the moral life is elevated, society and state are reformed, laws and institutions, morals and customs are made Christian [Dutch original: Christelijk gestempeld worden].18

The importance of this paragraph as a digest of Bavinck’s understanding of the relationship between Christ and culture is difficult to exaggerate. For Bavinck, church and world, grace and nature, faith and reason, although distinguishable, are best understood as integrated in Christ Jesus.

As we know, Bavinck contended against various dualities by appealing to the overarching unity—especially the unity found in God himself—that integrates the truth concerns found on either side. “The entire Scripture proclaims the unity of God,” Bavinck declared in 1911, “which means, the unity of the God of nature and of the God of grace, and for that reason Scripture cannot dualistically separate creation and redemption, but always binds them together organically and harmoniously.”19 His concern for the unity that integrates duality included his anthropology:

To divide [human] persons in two—like Rome and in part like the Lutherans—and to say that in the realm of the supernatural and spiritual they are incapable of any good but in the natural realm they can do things that are totally [volkomen] good is contrary to the unity of human nature, to the unity of the moral law, and to the teaching of Scriptures that humans must always be images of God, do everything they do to the glory of God, and always and everywhere love God with all their heart, mind, and strength.20

Bavinck’s concern for this kind of unity included Reformed spirituality as well. Observing that Bavinck refused to choose between faith and science, George Harinck claims that

all his theological work can be regarded as a refutation of the duality of faith and culture, which was, given his secessionist background, so familiar to him and for which a meeting with modern theology offered such an opportunity. This rejection of duality, which he knew from the Secession and from Leiden, was a decisive step in Bavinck ’s spiritual development and became characteristic of his Reformed spirituality.21

Harinck describes Bavinck’s emphasis on the unity between faith and scholarship as “the Leitmotiv of Bavinck’s life.”22 Such unity between Christianity and culture was rooted in the Christian confession of the one God: the one Creator of all things and the one Redeemer. “This Redeemer not only shed his blood for people’s sins, but also for all creation.”23

19. Herman Bavinck, Modernisme en orthodoxie (Kampen: Kok, 1911), 37: “Heel de Schrift predikt de eenheid Gods, dat is de eenheid van den God der natuur en van den God der genade, en kan daarom schepping en herschepping niet dualistisch scheiden, maar bindt ze altijd organisch en harmonisch saam.”

20. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, Sin and Salvation in Christ, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 123.

21. George Harinck, “ ‘Something That Must Remain, If the Truth Is to Be Sweet and Precious to Us’: The Reformed Spirituality of Herman Bavinck,” CTJ 38 (2003): 252.

The Cosmic Scope of God’s Work in Jesus Christ

Part of our disagreement with the portrait sketched by contemporary Two Kingdoms theology arises from the inadequate attention given to Bavinck’s emphasis on the catholicity and integration of the Christian faith and life. Catholicity here is more than historical and geographical; it includes the cultural. As John Bolt has observed, “This emphasis upon catholicity becomes Bavinck’s sword against all forms of dualism, that of Rome, of Luther, and that of Anabaptism and pietism. ‘The gospel is a joyful tiding,’ wrote Bavinck, ‘not only for the individual person but also for humanity, for family, for society, for the state, for art and science, for the entire cosmos, for the whole groaning creation.’ ”24

At the same time, it is precisely this catholicity and integration of the Christian faith and life that marks an important difference between Calvin and Luther, and the deficiency of the latter. Bavinck wrote:

Luther thus, like Calvin and Zwingli, frees the earthly realm from the ecclesiastical. However, he leaves it standing without connection next to the spiritual realm and sometimes speaks as though the external is a matter of complete indifference and not capable of ethical renewal. Luther’s mistake here is that he restricts the Gospel and limits the grace of God. The Gospel only changes the inward man, the conscience, the heart; the remainder stays the same until the final judgment. As a result, dualism is not completely overcome; a true and full catholicity is not achieved. Re-creation (herschepping) continues to stand alongside creation (schepping).25

23. Ibid., 255.

24. Herman Bavinck, “The Catholicity of Christianity and the Church,” trans. John Bolt, CTJ 27, 2 (1992): 220–51, this quotation from 224; for the Dutch original, see Herman Bavinck, De Katholiciteit van Christendom en Kerk, with an introduction by G. Puchinger (Kampen: Kok, 1968); the Dutch original of this quotation: “Het Evangelie is eene blijde boodschap, niet slechts voor de enkele mens, maar ook voor de mensheid, voor het gezin en de maatschappij en de staat, voor kunst en voor wetenschap, voor den ganse kosmos, voor heel het zuchtend creatuur.” Bavinck, De Katholiciteit van Christendom en Kerk, 7.

25. Bavinck, “Catholicity,” 237; Dutch original: “Luther maakt dus het wereldlijke wel, evenals Zwingli en Calvijn, vrij van het kerkelijke, maar hij laat het verder los naast het geestelijke staan en spreekt soms alsof het uitwendige geheel onverschillig is en voor zedelijke vernieuwing niet vatbaar. De fout ligt daarin, dat Luther het Evangelie beperkt en de genade Gods verkleint. Het

Permit one more quotation from Bavinck that clarifies the important differences among the Reformers, and explains the genuine catholicity of Calvinism:

[Calvin] traced the operation of sin to a greater extent than did Luther, and to a greater depth than did Zwingli. It is for that reason that the grace of God is more restricted by Luther and less rich in Zwingli than it is in Calvin. In the powerful mind of the French Reformer, re-creation is not a system that supplements Creation, as in Catholicism, not a religious reformation that leaves Creation intact, as in Luther, much less a radically new creation as in Anabaptism, but a joyful tiding of the renewal of all creatures. Here the Gospel comes fully into its own, comes to true catholicity. There is nothing that cannot or ought not to be evangelized. Not only the church but also home, school, society, and state are placed under the dominion of the principle of Christianity. Calvin established this domini[on] in Geneva with an iron will and implacable rigor. The German reformation, therefore, was a reformation of worship and preaching while the Swiss reformation included a renewal of state and society. The former was exclusively ecclesiastical (godsdienstig) in character, the latter also displayed a social and political character. All of this results from the fact that the Bible is, for Luther, only a source of salvation truth, whereas for Calvin it is the norm for all of life.26

Evangelie verandert alleen het inwendige, het gemoed, het hart, maar al het andere blijft zoo tot den jongsten dag. Het dualisme wordt hier dus niet geheel overwonnen; tot de ware volle katholiciteit van het Christendom komt het hier niet. De herschepping blijft naast de schepping staan.” Katholiciteit, 22–23.

26. Bavinck, “Catholicity,” 237–38; Dutch original: “Calvijn heeft de werking der zonde breeder dan Luther, dieper dan Zwingli nagespeurd. Maar daarom is de genade Gods bij Luther ook beperkter, bij Zwingli armer dan bij Calvijn. Hier in de machtige geest van de franse Hervormer, is de herschepping niet een stelsel, dat de schepping aanvult als bij Rome, niet een godsdienstige hervorming die de schepping intact laat als bij Luther, veel minder een nieuwe schepping als bij de wederdopers, maar een blijde boodschap van vernieuwing aan alle creaturen. Hier komt het Evangelie tot zijn volle recht, tot waarachtige katholiciteit. Niets is er dat niet geëvangeliseerd kan en behoort te worden. Niet de kerk alleen, ook het huis en de school, de maatschappij en de staat worden onder de heerschappij van het Christelijk beginsel gesteld; en met ijzeren wil en onverbiddelijke gestrengheid heeft Calvijn die heerschappij te Genève ingevoerd. De duitse reformatie was daarom een hervorming van godsdienst en predikambt, de zwitserse een vernieuwing ook van staat en maatschappij; gene droeg een uitsluitend godsdienstig, deze evenzeer een sociaal en politiek karakter. Alles gevolg daarvan, dat de Bijbel voor Luther alleen bron is van de heilswaarheid, voor Calvijn de norma van geheel het leven.” Katholiciteit, 23–24.

The Integration of the Christian’s Spiritual Pilgrimage and Cultural Participation

We conclude with some thoughts about the relationship between pilgrimage and participation. The biblical-theological grounding of our living as Christians in the world should be the cultural mandate as fulfilled in the finished work of Christ as the last Adam. In this way, Two Kingdoms theologians are correct to warn us of the toxin of triumphalism arising from an overrealized eschatology that sees our efforts as establishing and ushering in the kingdom of God. There is, however, another equally dangerous toxin—namely, an ingratitude arising from an underrealized eschatology that refuses to extend the Third Use of the Law beyond personal ethics into social-cultural relationships, an ingratitude that quarantines the active rule of King Jesus, and communal principled response to it, to the church parking lot.

We deeply appreciate the biblical image of Christians as pilgrims, yet the status of pilgrim should not be viewed as an alternative to Christian cultural participation, but rather as the mode of Christian cultural engagement. It is precisely as pilgrims that we seek and pray for the coming of God’s kingdom here and now. Our seeking of the kingdom of God, Jesus taught, is already accompanied here and now by the gifts of food, drink, and clothing. If we may—indeed, must—seek God’s kingdom as we enjoy food, why not as we plant the seed and farm the ground that supplies our food? Why would we not seek God’s kingdom as we market and package and ship our food? Everything we do—all our eating, drinking, buying, selling, marrying, child-rearing, educating, entertaining, burying—must be directed to the glory of God. Our orientation toward the future need not paralyze our responsible cultivating of creation in the present. The church fills the time between Christ’s ascension and Christ’s return with preaching and teaching the gospel together with all its consequences for living in this world. Such gospel preaching and teaching necessarily, and thankfully, bear fruit also for Christian cultural activity.

Finally, we must take note, with respect to eschatological world renewal, that Bavinck takes a scriptural position between the two extremes of the permanent continuation of the world in its present form and of the annihilation of this world’s substance and its replacement with a brand-new world (Origen, the Lutherans, Socinians, Remonstrants, and some Reformed). Redemption, writes Bavinck, “is never a second, brand-new creation but a re-creation of the existing world”: “All that is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable in the whole of creation, in heaven and on earth, is gathered up in the future city of God—renewed, re-created, boosted to its highest glory.”27

Summary

As we encounter Bavinck’s constant emphasis on the present and future integration and restoration of all of created reality in Christ Jesus, and as we review his own application of theology to life in the areas of women’s suffrage, statecraft, pedagogy, and psychology, we may not fail to honor both his struggle and his achievement. But more than that, as together we reflect on whatever weaknesses and strengths that Bavinck’s thought and life exhibited, we may not refuse to give thanks to Bavinck’s Savior and Lord, even Jesus Christ.

r

Addendum 1: Were There Really “Two Bavincks”?

In his discussion of the North American reception of Herman Bavinck ’s work,28 John Bolt, professor of systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, begins with the “annoying acknowledgment” (his words) “that there is not just one but rather two Bavincks.”29 Presumably, Bavinck #1 was a son of the Secession, loyal to the piety and orthodoxy of the church of his youth, yet critical of its cultural asceticism; whereas Bavinck #2 was a restless student of modernity, enamored of the problematics that had surfaced in contemporary philosophy and theology, yet critical of their answers. Bolt’s conclusion at this point rests on the analysis of Dutch writers such as A. Anema, G. C. Berkouwer, and J. Veenhof—all of whom identify the “tensions” and the “polarities” in Bavinck’s theology and experience, but none of whom (including Bolt)

27. Bavinck, RD 4.717, 720.

28. John Bolt, “Grand Rapids between Kampen and Amsterdam: Herman Bavinck’s Reception and Influence in North America,” CTJ 38 (2003): 263–80.

29. Ibid., 264–65.

elevates these, as VanDrunen does, to the level of two inconsistent and incoherent Bavincks.

To buttress his claim that there were “two Bavincks,” Bolt quotes the observation of Dutch theologian G. C. Berkouwer, and footnotes the Dutch original, as to how people with radically opposing agendas had annexed (appealed to) Bavinck’s theology in defense of their own views. In his essay, Bolt observes how

Berkouwer judges that it is difficult to overcome this danger [of annexing Bavinck to their cause] “because Bavinck’s theology contains so many irreconcilable themes in tension.”30

A careful look at what Berkouwer wrote will disclose, however, that he was not talking about the danger of others with opposing views appealing to Bavinck, but rather about the danger that Berkouwer himself faced. Here is the full original quotation from Berkouwer in Dutch:

Het gevaar van een beschrijving en beoordeling van Bavincks levenswerk is, dat men hem annexeert voor eigen inzichten. Het is echter [this word omitted from Bolt’s citation] niet onmogelijk boven dat annexatie-gevaar uit te komen, doordat in het werk van Bavinck allerlei onweersprekelijke motieven zichtbaar worden.31

Rather than Bolt’s rendering of Berkouwer’s claim to the effect that “Bavinck ’s theology contains so many irreconcilable themes in tension,” a more accurate rendering of the Dutch original would be this: “The danger present in describing and evaluating Bavinck’s lifework is that one might annex him for one’s own insights. It is, however, not impossible to escape that annexation-danger, since various undeniable themes become manifest in Bavinck’s work” (italics and underline added).

We must make two exegetical comments here. First, the Dutch word onweersprekelijke means “uncontradictable” or “not able to be spoken against”—hence undeniable. Second, within its own context, Berkouwer’s point is that the danger of wresting Bavinck’s thought in defense of opposing viewpoints can be avoided if we both acknowledge and respect the presence in Bavinck of various undeniable themes. In other words, respecting the coherence of Bavinck’s own thought will prevent us from succumbing to the danger embedded in the popular approach of isolating and identifying one’s own point of view with one or another “strand” in Bavinck.

30. Ibid., 265n6 (emphasis added).

31. G. C. Berkouwer, Zoeken en Vinden: Herinneringen en Ervaringen (Kampen: Kok, 1989), 55.

In summary, although one can identify various “tensions” in the thought of Herman Bavinck (as one can for every theologian, including John Calvin), this is inadequate warrant for the claim that there existed “two Bavincks”—i.e., two irreconcilable strands of thought in Bavinck’s theology.

Addendum 2: What about “Christian” Schools and “Christian” Art?

In the context of an academic presentation of one’s insights, it can easily happen that substantive claims get buried in footnotes. Lest this happen with a number of important claims made by VanDrunen but relegated to footnotes, let us examine one of them a bit more fully.

In seeking to explain Bavinck’s distinction between the authority God has given to the church and the authority God has given to the state, VanDrunen properly points to Bavinck’s warning that civil government should not usurp jurisdiction that God has not entrusted to it. This comment is accompanied by a footnote containing the following:

E.g., Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4.370. In my judgment, Bavinck’s use of language here about a “Christian government” and similar terms is confusing. If [civil government proceeds from] the Son as Logos, through the work of common, preserving grace, rather than from the Son as Christ, through the work of special, redemptive grace, then ascribing the language of “Christian” to the state, even when civil authority is exercised by Christians in a just manner, is a confusion of categories. A similar dynamic and confusion, again in my judgment, occurs in the work of Abraham Kuyper.32

If Bavinck’s language about “Christian government” involves a confusion of categories for the reasons given by VanDrunen (a claim with which we

32. VanDrunen, 153n28 (emphasis added).

disagree), one may validly infer from VanDrunen’s argument that the same confusion attends the language of Bavinck and Kuyper with respect to “Christian education” and “Christian art” and “Christian science.”

As far as I understand the contemporary advocacy of this recent version of the Two Kingdoms doctrine, it is precisely this “payoff” involving the rejection of the century-long neo-Calvinist heritage among Reformed and Presbyterian believers that should form an important concern among these folk about the implications of this version of the Two Kingdoms doctrine. Perhaps Bavinck’s heirs today could be shown how, if the language of “Christian government” is a confusion of categories, Reformed and Presbyterian believers can continue speaking of “Christian schooling” and “Christian art” and “Christian science.” Given VanDrunen’s analysis, are not these phrases also a confusion of categories? Further, if the language about “Christian” government, education, art, and science constitutes a confusion of categories, perhaps those advocating this recent version of the Two Kingdoms doctrine might serve the Reformed Christian community by clarifying their disagreement with the worldview undergirding the establishment and support of “Christian schools” around the world, a Reformed Christian worldand-life-view that for more than a century has been nourished precisely by this allegedly “confusing language” of Kuyper and Bavinck.

Part 2

Kingdom Citizenship

4

“Christ and the Magistrate” and “Church and State”: Two Addresses by S. G. de Graaf

S. G. de Graaf

Translated with Foreword by Nelson Kloosterman

Translator’s Foreword

Biographical Details

Simon Gerrit de Graaf (1889–1955) was a prominent preacher in the Amsterdam congregation of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (GKN) for most of his adult life. His masterpiece on covenant history in the Bible, written to assist Sunday school teachers in preparing their lessons, was translated into English as Promise and Deliverance.1 This four-volume work served to introduce English readers to what has come to be known as the covenantal-historical (or redemptive-historical) reading of Scripture. Recently, his single-volume commentary on the first twenty-two Lord’s

1. Available digitally at http://www.reformationalpublishingproject.com/rpp/paideia _books.asp.

Days of the Heidelberg Catechism has been translated into English as well, titled The True Faith.2

The Netherlands in the 1930s

Grasping the importance of de Graaf’s addresses requires familiarity with a few historical circumstances in the Netherlands surrounding their presentation in 1939. Although the Dutch had been successful in maintaining neutrality during the First World War, a similar attempt during the Second World War would become impossible when, on May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded the Netherlands. Leading up to that time, the country saw the gradual ascendancy of political parties and voices sympathetic to German National Socialism. By the time de Graaf delivered these speeches in 1939, the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB) had officially turned toward anti-Semitism and was vigorously advocating the movement’s ideals for a nationalist identity that would invest the state with sweeping powers. On the other side, a pacifist posture and solution were being advocated by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), drawing widespread sympathy from theologians and pastors, many of them Reformed.

For de Graaf and others, therefore, a genuine pastoral crisis arose when these troublesome political and social ideals from both sides came to be shared by many in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, among leaders and followers alike. Through the propaganda and arguments set out by both the NSB and the CDU, Reformed people were being drawn away from their commitment to the biblical principles undergirding the policies of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP). This political party, founded by Abraham Kuyper, was at this time at the forefront of Dutch political life, and identified closely with those belonging to the GKN.

This pastoral crisis led the 1936 GKN general synod in Amsterdam to declare that commitment to unscriptural principles, such as the German “leader principle” (Führerprinzip), the nationalistic totalitarian state, and the pacifist rejection of all forms of war, was deemed incompatible with membership in a Reformed church, and therefore a matter for pastoral church discipline. So it was, then, subsequent to this 1936 ecclesiastical decision and amid growing political turmoil that S. G. de Graaf delivered these addresses, the first on February 23, 1939, and the second on April 26, 1939. Within

2. Available digitally at http://www.spindleworks.com/library/DeGraaf/DeGraafThe TrueFaith.pdf.

the preceding calendar year, Adolf Hitler had taken over Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, the Jewish population in Germany and Austria had been terrorized by the rioting on Kristallnacht, 10,000 German Jewish children had been transported unaccompanied to Britain for safekeeping, nearly 320,000 German Jews had fled their country, and Hitler was poised to invade Poland. And of this we may be certain: on those evenings when these addresses were delivered, de Graaf and his listeners were up on the news.

Three substantive elements in these addresses are directly relevant to contemporary discussions among Reformed and Presbyterian writers in North America regarding the subjects of natural law and Two Kingdoms.3 The first involves an integrated Christology for the sanctification of the state. What is in view here is not the relationship between the two natures of Jesus Christ, but rather the differentiated-yet-unified work of Jesus Christ. Perhaps the most basic Christological teaching undergirding a Two Kingdoms perspective—at least the one most often repeated—is that the second person of the Trinity is both the Mediator of creation and the Mediator of redemption. This points not to a twofold mediatorship, but to two mediatorships. The second person of the Trinity was Mediator of creation as the logos asarkos, or the preincarnate Word. In addition, he is Mediator of redemption as Jesus Christ. This distinction provides the doctrinal underpinning of Two Kingdoms. Such Christology yields the result that the Son rules one kingdom in a redemptive manner (as Lord Jesus Christ)

3. These discussions are being conducted through books, journals, and Internet blogs. Sources advocating this novel construal of natural law and Two Kingdoms include: Michael Horton, “A Tale of Two Kingdoms,“ Tabletalk (September 1, 2008); David VanDrunen, A Biblical Case for Natural Law, Studies in Christian Social Ethics and Economics, no. 1 (Grand Rapids: Acton Institute, 2006); idem, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought, Emory University Studies in Law and Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009); idem, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms: A Biblical Vision for Christianity and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010); and Darryl Hart, A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006).

For thorough and constructive responses to these and similar essays, see Nelson D. Kloosterman, “Review of A Biblical Case for Natural Law,” New Horizons 28, 6 (June 2007): 22–23; idem, “A Biblical Case for Natural Law: A Response Essay,” Ordained Servant (December 2007) (available at http://www.opc.org/os.html?article_id=77); idem, “A Response to ‘The Kingdom of God Is Twofold’: Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck by David VanDrunen,” CTJ 45 (2010): 165–76; idem, “The Bible, the Church, and the World: A Third Way,” ChrRen 28.16–28.9 (May 2008–January 2010) (available at http://worldview resourcesinternational.com/ecclesial_ethics.html); and idem, “Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Review,” ChrRen 29.1–14 (2010–11) (available at http://worldviewresourcesinternational .com/ecclesial_ethics.html).

and the other kingdom in a nonredemptive manner (as Logos). Moreover, this Christology explicitly undergirds Two Kingdoms criticism and rejection of the neo-Calvinist emphasis on the lordship of Jesus Christ over all of human living, like that set forth by S. G. de Graaf.

The heart of de Graaf’s position involves the unity and integrity— integration—of the one unified second person of the Trinity and his work. The Logos is the Lord Jesus Christ. Although we may distinguish his cosmic (creational) significance and his redemptive (re-creational) significance, we may never separate or isolate them from each other. It is the very same Word through whom everything was created and who in the fullness of time has become flesh. It is the very same Spirit who renews the face of the earth and changes the heart of the sinner—the very same God who, in nature and in grace, in creation and re-creation, in the Logos and in Christ, in the Spirit of God and in the Spirit of Christ, speaks to us. Nature and grace are not opposites, nor are they parallel realms of living. We have one God from whom and through whom and unto whom both exist.

Today’s Two Kingdoms advocates who emphasize the differentness and separateness of all these dualities—including two kinds of rule, two kinds of kingdom, two kinds of mediator, etc.—need not thereby be guilty of dualism or Gnosticism. Their warning is necessary and proper, namely, that we should not confuse this intimate unity with identity, and that we should not blend together what must remain distinct. But a warning of equal urgency must be sounded: We may not choose for one or the other, either. Mysticism sacrifices nature for the sake of grace, while “practical deism” sacrifices grace for the sake of nature. What may need to remain differentiated nevertheless must remain unified and integrated.

It should be clear that de Graaf’s emphasis on the one law of God, including both tables of the Decalogue, over all of life, on the integrated rule and lordship of Jesus Christ, and on the integration in Christ of both creation and redemption presents a wholesome biblical alternative to Two Kingdoms Christology. you cannot miss the poignant summons to Christ-centered public political testimony in de Graaf’s closing appeal to his Dutch co-believers: “The state faces the grave danger of refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty of God and of Jesus Christ as King, of worshiping its own resplendent power, and of rebelling in self-sufficiency against the Lord. . . . We have the calling to fight for the sanctification of the state and its life . . . . The one who perseveres to the end will be saved.”

De Graaf and his collaborators heroically resisted omnivorous National Socialism with the only effective weapon they had: the Christ-centered, Christ-grounded unity and integration of special revelation and general revelation, of grace and nature, of faith and reason, of the moral teaching of the Bible and the moral teaching of creation. In 1939, amid the oncoming rumble of German tanks and the distant drone of Luftwaffe bombers, de Graaf was preparing his countrymen to fight for the sanctification of the state with this vision of the kingdom of God and its King.

Second, de Graaf emphasized that God and his will (law) cannot be, and indeed are not, apprehended apart from Jesus Christ. The law of God, embedded in creation and knowable to the magistrate from divine works in creation, is the law of Christ. Having been appointed by the Eternal Word to govern creation, the law of God was restored in its blessed dominion over human life by the Incarnate Word. By his obedient living, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, revealed perfectly what it means to be genuinely human in God’s world. Moreover, because the kingdom of God is designed to encompass all of human living, Christ’s revelation of the meaning of the Ten Commandments in the Sermon on the Mount affects all forms of life in that public kingdom, including the civil community. Again, the one law of God was restored by Jesus Christ to produce blessing in all of life, while that law is nonetheless particularized for living within various spheres, such as family, state, and church.

In his address “Christ and the Magistrate,” de Graaf expended significant effort to open up Scripture (1 Tim. 2:1–7; Ps. 2; Rom. 13; John 18:36) and the Reformed confessional tradition (Belgic Confession, art. 36) for light on this subject. Because of his Christ-centered interpretation of these materials, together with his Christocentric integration of grace and nature, de Graaf could insist that the magistrate is called to acknowledge Christ as the ruler of the kings of the earth: “For establishing the justice that he is called to enforce, and for determining the manner in which he must enforce justice, the magistrate is called to follow the directions in Christ’s Word.” To be sure, these “directions” are few and quite indirect, operating at the level of principle, what some might term the “good and necessary consequence” of scriptural teaching. But the point to be emphasized is that these principles derive from Christ’s Word, and the magistrate’s public enforcement of justice is to be in subjection to Christ’s authority as King and Ruler.

Admittedly, in today’s North American context, speaking of fighting for the sanctification of the state and of honoring the primacy of Christ with respect to public justice sounds very much like the language of theonomy/Christian Reconstruction. In fact, contemporary critics of neo-Calvinism barely blush as they thoughtlessly identify the two. But two significant differences distinguish neo-Calvinism from theonomy/ Christian Reconstruction, namely, hermeneutics and history (on this latter, see below). The hermeneutical difference with theonomy/Christian Reconstruction involves the modern use of Old Testament law. Both de Graaf and theonomy/Christian Reconstruction would agree that the whole Bible addresses all people at all times in all areas of life, but they would disagree regarding the latter’s claim that today the state must use the whole Bible as the direct source of public moral standards. In contrast with using the Bible as the direct source, de Graaf shows how the Reformed confessional and theological tradition uses the whole Bible as an indirect source. The church must interpret the precepts of Scripture in terms of their place and function in covenant history, in order to distinguish a precept’s principle from its covenantal-historical application so that we may apply that principle to our living today.4

De Graaf’s clear commitment to Christ-centered public political testimony accounts for what was probably a rather uncomfortable moment in the auditorium, when near the conclusion of his address on “Christ and the Magistrate” he declared: “As long as one thinks that in the state, one may mention the name of God apart from the name of Jesus Christ, then the expression that our queen rules ‘by the grace of God’ remains a nicety to be trotted out occasionally for the sake of nostalgia.” Indeed, God save us from nostalgic, Christless Christianity.

Third, this element of de Graaf’s teaching about Christ and the magistrate that we have called its “indispensable historical concreteness” provides an important benefit we may not overlook. The Christ-serving magistrate may govern with a clear conscience if he understands his own time and place in history, and the historical development of the moral capacities of those he is called to govern. This element of indispensable historical concreteness enables the Christ-serving magistrate to practice compromise

4. For a helpful extended discussion of the hermeneutical alternatives here, see J. Douma, “Appendix: The Use of Scripture in Ethics,” in The Ten Commandments: Manual for the Christian Life, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1996), 355–90, esp. 376–84.

without surrendering consistency. This element supplies the realism and flexibility required for effective lawmaking as times and circumstances change. Understanding and practicing statecraft, or politics, as “the art of the possible” need be neither Machiavellian nor utilitarian, but can be genuinely Christian, insofar as it honors the historical concreteness and particularity of civil laws and statutes. This element in de Graaf’s proposal provides a significant alternative to the approach of theonomy/Christian Reconstruction, which appears methodologically unable and temperamentally unwilling to view compromise in terms of historical realism as an essential Christian tool for serving Christ in this world.

The foregoing is simply a modest but useful theoretical observation that serves as a prelude to our culminating appeal arising from de Graaf ’s contribution, with which we will conclude. This translator’s foreword offers a brief sketch of the historical context surrounding S. G. de Graaf and the GKN in 1939, allowing readers to sense their momentous historical concreteness. Readers must realize that both de Graaf and his listeners knew full well that they might die one day for holding and speaking these convictions about Jesus Christ and the magistrate, about the church and the state.

As someone with a personal retroactive stake in those epic events in the life of Reformed Christians in the Netherlands, and as someone deeply moved by the courage of conviction that would soon lead de Graaf and his heroic compatriots—some of them my own family—to resist the tyranny of National Socialism out of loyalty to their queen and government in exile, I find it unspeakably difficult to take seriously these timidly innocuous recommendations:

The real difficulty arrives when believers consider public policy questions involving moral issues that are addressed in Scripture. In the contemporary American context questions about abortion, marriage, and war are among the most contested political issues. Scripture says many things relevant to these topics, so how much liberty do Christians really have when these topics become political controversies? To what extent are there “Christian” positions on political questions such as abortion, such that the church might promote them and one Christian expect another Christian to hold them?5

5. VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms, 199–200.

Reread that last question, and then recall the historically concrete 1936 GKN general synod in Amsterdam, for whom the political question involving the principles underlying demonic National Socialism was definitely not a matter of Christian liberty, but of life and death. The advice continues:

In my judgment, the general rule is that the church must teach—and Christians may hold one another accountable for believing—all that Scripture says about such topics as moral issues but should be silent about such topics as concrete political or public policy issues. The biblical teaching on these topics clearly has political ramifications. In nearly every case when a moral issue becomes a concrete political or public policy issue, however, believers must make discretionary judgments in order to decide how to apply the clear biblical teaching to the particular situation. And whenever the application of biblical teaching is a matter of discretion and not specified by Scripture itself, the church must be silent and Christians may not impose their own discretionary judgments upon the consciences of other Christians.6

Some of these caveats might be valuable cautions against civil religion generally, and against an Americanized Christianity in particular. But why recommend to the church that it be silent about abortion, marriage, and war as concrete political or public policy issues? Surely these issues are not on the same level as whether to build a two-lane or a four-lane highway past your subdivision. Or are they? We’re not told.

Right here we have come to the heart of the problem regarding the outcome of Two Kingdoms thinking: by divorcing the content of natural law and of the Ten Commandments from the person and work of Jesus Christ, the modern construal known as Two Kingdoms refuses to urge faithful Christian witness-bearing in the public square to the very morality it claims is required by each and all of the Ten Commandments. For Two Kingdoms advocates, only the institutional church really belongs to Jesus Christ and is obligated to exist under his authority and supremacy. This applies to politics, education, business, science, and every other sphere of human living outside the institutional church. Stated simply, the church— and by extension, Christians—may not speak bindingly to the morality of any concrete nonecclesiastical policy issue, since the morality of an issue

6. Ibid.

and the concrete implementation of that morality are completely separate dimensions. In the name of Jesus Christ, the church and Christians may declare abortion to be morally wrong, but not that it should be legally proscribed. The church and Christians may declare that homosexual marriage is wrong, but not that it should be legally proscribed.

Outside the institutional church, according to the Two Kingdoms, Christian morality comes to expression only by the individual believer’s acts of piety or an individual believer’s conduct. Christian morality never becomes historically concrete in shared relationships, communal action, and faith-based institutions, none of which may properly be called Christian. Christian morality is never instantiated within society and culture, never incarnated in the world’s history. In fact, a careful reading of Two Kingdoms literature reveals the steadfast aversion to applying the word Christian as an adjective to anything but the church or the individual believer outside the church. There exists no such thing as a Christian school, a Christian state, a Christian business enterprise, or, by logical extension, a Christian family.

With a sense of therapeutic urgency, we are told:

For many readers I also hope that this book will be liberating, freeing you from well-meaning but nonbiblical pressure from other Christians to “transform” your workplace [or home, or school, or newspaper] or to find uniquely “Christian” ways of doing ordinary tasks. For all readers I hope that this book will serve to focus your hearts on the things that are far more important than a promotion at work or the most recent Supreme Court decision: the sufficiency of the work of Christ, the missionary task of the church, and the hope of the new heaven and new earth.7

As critics have pointed out, it is difficult to imagine a more destructive example of a false choice.

Let us be clear. When it comes to such culturally crucial issues as abortion, marriage, and war (and we might add runaway government spending, the politicization of poverty, and many similar issues), separating “x” as a moral issue from “x” as a concrete political policy issue constitutes precisely the kind of surreal religious secularizing dualism that permitted numerous German and Dutch citizens to cooperate with German National Socialism. In no small part, it was precisely because their churches were silent about

7. Ibid., 27.

National Socialism as a concrete moral-political issue that these swastika sympathizers, who may well have been “personally” opposed but never politically opposed, stood by while thousands of their countrymen were railroaded to their deaths.

Today, more than ever, we must thank God for S. G. de Graaf, for his biblical-theological vision of an integrated, comprehensive, historically concrete lordship of Jesus Christ. Today, more than ever, we must thank God for the continuing biblical vision for Christian cultural obedience that is fueled by the pulpit, formed by corporate public worship, and made forever fruitful by the whole-life-transforming power of the gospel.

Comments on the Translation

These two addresses appeared in a collection of addresses that de Graaf gave in 1937–39, titled Christus en de wereld. Enkele Referaten (Christ and the World: Several Addresses) and published in 1939 by J. H. Kok (Kampen). In addition to the two that appear below, de Graaf spoke on the following topics: “The Ecumenical Movement,” “Appreciating Life,” “Church and Evangelism,” “Stanley Jones and Communism,” and “Grace and Nature.” (The last of these addresses remains crucially significant today for Reformed theology in general, and for questions relating to Christianity and culture in particular.)

As is often required in rendering twentieth-century Dutch theological works into English, all the headings in the addresses below have been introduced for the reader’s benefit. Since the incidental references to personal names in these addresses were left unexplained in the original, we thought it advisable to omit them from the translation. Finally, various English-language punctuation conventions have been followed to enhance readability.

r

CHRIST ANd THe MAGISTR ATe 8

S. G. de Graaf

Translated by Nelson d. Kloosterman

IN RECENT TIMES it has become very evident that among us not all of our questions have been resolved; on the contrary, many questions remain. This is the case not only in the ecclesiastical sphere, but just as much in the political arena. Everywhere we are facing a large number of difficulties, and the discussions about them are occurring continually. To make this observation is not to raise a song of lament about this situation. On the contrary, we can rejoice about the fact that in every sphere, attention is still being devoted to the issues of principle that are involved. We will never be finished with those issues. That is not a complaint. In the context of practice we repeatedly face decisions whose background consists in issues of principle. It becomes a difficulty at the point where such a background is not completely clear for us. Nevertheless, as believers we are fortunately often led intuitively to the proper decision. you sense, however, that we cannot be satisfied with that. We would then run the risk of demonstrating the absence of a sure direction and of pursuing politics that were haphazard at best. It is extremely necessary, therefore, that we reflect increasingly on those principles.

One of the questions being discussed among us, one that needs an answer, is this: Is the magistrate subject only to almighty God, to the triune God, Creator of heaven and earth, or must the magistrate be subject also to Christ as the King who has been crowned by God?

Frequently that question is answered among us in this way, that the magistrate is indeed subject to the sovereign God and thus also to the eternal Son as the second person of the divine Being, but not to the Mediator, to the Incarnate Word, to Christ, who is also man, who suffered, died, arose, and is seated at God’s right hand. The lordship of Christ, according to this perspective, applies to his church. From God as the Sovereign One people draw one line to Christ, to whom the church is subject, and another line to the magistrate, to whom the citizens are subject in the state. Christ is to the church what the magistrate is to the state.

8. Translator’s note: This address was delivered at a meeting of the ARP caucus in Amsterdam on February 23, 1939.

As a matter of vocabulary, the Dutch noun overheid used throughout this address generally means government or authority; our use of magistrate seeks to employ a common English designation for those people or that body exercising political and legal authority within the state.

Shortly before submitting this translation to the editor, I discovered an English translation by P. J. Boodt, available digitally at http://www.reformationalpublishingproject.com/pdf_books/ Scanned_Books_PDF/ChristandGovernment.pdf. This piece is inaccurately identified on the website (accessed July 30, 2011) as “Christ and Government; by S. A. de Graff.” I have made grateful use of this earlier translation in what follows.

This notion has found its way into many circles among us and is being taught among our people in many writings. By means of my topic, “Christ and the Magistrate,” I intend to discuss especially this matter. Thereby I hope to show from Scripture that we must confess the subjection of the magistrate to Jesus Christ. In the second place, I hope to answer the question: How must we understand Christ’s lordship over the state? Finally, I wish to say something about the practical consequences of this idea.

The Teaching of Scripture

I will begin immediately, then, with the scriptural proof. For we are very well aware that Scripture does not make pronouncements that are directly political, because it is after all a book whose focus and intention involve awakening faith. Nevertheless, it is not acceptable to suppose that with such an important matter involving the position of Christ, Scripture would consign us to uncertainty.

At this point I could refer immediately to the pronouncement of Christ himself: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18), a pronouncement that in its comprehensiveness says quite a bit. This pronouncement needs further analysis, however, an analysis that I wish to postpone until the discussion of my second point regarding the nature of Christ’s lordship.

1 Timothy 2:1–7

Therefore, I wish first to turn to the passage that was read just prior to this address, 1 Timothy 2:1–7. Here is that passage:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

With that passage of Scripture as well, it is necessary that we analyze it further. There we are commanded to intercede for all people, especially for those who govern. That admonition is pressed by pointing to the will of God for all—i.e., all kinds of people, not just the common folk, but also those who govern—to be saved. Then follows once again the added explanation that there is one God who has created all people, not just the common folk but also those who govern, and that there is one Mediator for God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who has come for all those people, including for those who govern, and without whom no one can come to salvation.

The decisive point with this pronouncement of Scripture is what we must understand by the kings and regents being saved. Does Paul have in view merely that those who govern will be saved as far as their personal lives are concerned, or does he mean also that as governing officials they will be saved and learn subjection to God in the exercise of their office? Is Paul envisioning only the salvation of these governing officials as persons, or does he envision a future when those who govern will be Christian regents and thereby govern Christianly?

We must pay attention to the circumstances in which Paul and the church of those days lived. Especially in the Roman Empire, people idolized the splendor of power, which they did not view as having been given by God and subject to him, but worshiped as something that was itself divine. Thus, power was exercised by various people in authority in an antitheistic spirit. In those circumstances Paul must have foreseen the outbreak of conflict between the magistrate and the Christian church. That conflict had already manifested itself in various persecutions.

Now as he admonishes people to pray for those who hold a high position, he is thereby saying that such is according to God’s will, which has in view the salvation also of those who govern. So prayers must be offered not only for wisdom for those who govern, but especially for their conversion. The result of that will be that believers may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and dignity. Thus he is intending the conversion to God of those who govern, breaking with the spirit that until then had motivated their exercise of office, whereby the conflict with the church inevitably arose. Those who govern have to reach the point of subjecting themselves to God; they have to learn to serve him in their governing, so that by means of that governing, the Christian life would be advanced.

To this Paul adds the idea that not only is there one God, to whom the magistrates are subject, but also that there is but one Mediator, through whom those who govern will convert to God. So this includes the requirement that the magistrates will also acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Mediator through whom they go to God. A confession that the source of their authority lies in God is impossible for magistrates apart from acknowledging Jesus Christ. In terms of the exercise of their power, there is no other connection between God and them than through Christ. Because their power comes to them from God through Jesus Christ, with the use of their power they can serve God only through Jesus Christ.

Psalm 2

In addition, there is all of Psalm 2, where the psalmist speaks of the rebellion of the nations and the kings against the Lord and against his Anointed. I would observe immediately that the name Lord is written here with capital letters, and therefore is referring to Yahweh, the God of the covenant who in Christ has established the covenant with us. The psalm goes on to tell of the decree according to which Christ was anointed King. Then the kings are summoned to serve Yahweh and to kiss the Son—that is, the theocratic King. I quote at this point what Calvin writes: “Accordingly, however good an opinion the princes of the world may have of their own shrewdness, we may be sure they are arrant fools till they become humble scholars at the feet of Christ.” Perhaps still more clear is what Professor Noordtzij writes in his brief exposition of this psalm: “Israel’s MessiahKing is Son of the Lord; God himself has appointed him to his theocratic office; so to him belongs world dominion; he may do with the nations what pleases him.” In fact, when the kings are here instructed: “Kiss the Son!” or, as Noordtzij renders it, “Pay homage to the Son!,” what else can that mean than that the kings are to offer their submission to him and to be conscious of the fact that they govern only by his will and are obligated to render obedience to him?

The Book of Revelation

I would refer as well to the names with which the Lord Jesus Christ is identified in the book of Revelation. If the expression “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 17:14) were thought to lack any convincing force, then the same could not be said of the title “the Ruler of kings on earth” (Rev. 1:5; cf. 17:14; 19:16). Dr. S. Greijdanus comments on this title that “these kings also stand under him, must serve him, obey him, bow before him.” This is being said, then, not about the eternal Son, but about “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead.”

The Reformed Confessional and Liturgical Tradition

With this I hope to have provided sufficient proof from Scripture for the claim that kings and magistrates are subject to Jesus Christ and obligated to demonstrate obedience to him—or, put another way, that Jesus Christ is King also over the magistrates.

Another question is whether it is also put this way in our confessions. That question must be answered affirmatively as well. In the Heidelberg Catechism, Q/A 50, we confess that Christ has been so highly exalted to God’s right hand in order that he may there appear as the head of his church, by whom the Father governs all things, including the kingdoms and magistrates. It will not work to interpret that formulation to mean that Christ rules those kings despite their unwillingness to acknowledge him as such, dismissing the reality that within his rule would lie the calling for the magistrates to submit to him.

In the second place, I refer to the closing prayer for ecclesiastical assemblies, in which we pray to God to grant that the rule of government officials be entirely directed toward the supremacy of the King of kings over rulers and ruled alike. This petition clearly expresses the desire that the magistrate may willingly submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Romans 13

As proof to the contrary, people often refer to Romans 13, where we are told that the magistrate is God’s servant, but where Christ is not mentioned at all. If from that fact people would wish to deduce an argument against the claim that Christ is King over the state, such a conclusion can proceed only from the assumption that one can speak about God in relation to any sphere at all apart from Jesus Christ. At that point one has in a certain way separated God from his manifestation in Jesus Christ. But in all of Scripture, God is none other than the God who reveals himself to us in Jesus Christ.

Perhaps it is unnecessary, but I would also mention that the dominion of Jesus Christ is a derived dominion. The Mediator owes his authority to the triune God. So it is obvious why, when people discuss the source of authority, as that appears in Romans 13, people would speak of God and not of Jesus Christ. Doing so, however, does not deny that such divine authority is being exercised over us by Jesus Christ. I have written elsewhere that the magistrate rules by the grace of Christ. If by this I had intended to say that the source of authority lies in the Mediator, I would have been mistaken. I intended to say, however, that the magistrate rules by the grace of God, which comes to us in no other way than by Jesus Christ.

The Lordship of Jesus Christ

In the second place, I wish to discuss the question of how the lordship of Jesus Christ over the state and over the magistrate is to be viewed. Two objections appear to arise at this point: first, the fact that the state and the government are instituted only temporarily on account of sin; and second, another fact related to this, namely, that to the magistrate has been entrusted especially the power of the sword. Indeed, it appears that here we have encountered two formidable objections, since we confess regarding the lordship of Christ that it is an eternal lordship and a lordship of peace. What connection can there be between the eternal lordship of Christ and the temporal quality of magistrate?9 And what connection can there be between the peaceable lordship of Christ and the sword power of the magistrate? Both of these questions deserve an answer.

Thus I will speak first about the temporal quality of the magistrate’s power in connection with the lordship of Christ. In Belgic Confession, art. 36, it is declared: “We believe that our gracious God, because of the depravity of mankind, has appointed kings, princes, and magistrates; willing that the world should be governed by certain laws and policies; to the end that the dissoluteness of men might be restrained, and all things

9. The Dutch word tijdelijk means “temporary,” but in contexts where political, earthly authority is being discussed, the English word temporal is often the preferred equivalent.

carried on among them with good order and decency.” Here it is explicitly confessed that civil government exists on account of sin. One could raise the question whether any of the power that is now in the hands of the magistrate would be exercised if there had been no sin. We need not discuss that issue in this context, however. The government exists in its present form on account of sin.

What then is the relationship between that temporarily inserted power of the magistrate and the lordship of Christ? Is not that temporal character an impediment for tracing it back to the lordship of Christ?

One could hesitate at this point if with the lordship of Christ we were indeed thinking only of his eternal lordship. That is not the case, however. Alongside that eternal lordship, a temporal power has also been granted to him, which at the end of time he will give back into the hands of the Father (see 1 Cor. 15:24).

What is the difference between the eternal and the temporal power of Christ, and what is the special character of his temporal power? That distinction becomes clear when we compare the power of Christ with that which Adam once possessed, when sin had not yet entered the world, and which Adam would have exercised if sin had not entered the world. Apart from sin, Adam would have continued to be our head and he would have continued to be clothed with an official position, which meant not only that all people were included in him, but also that he exercised a certain power over everyone. He would have ruled as the head of the human race, though that would also have meant that all people would have ruled along with him over the works of God’s hands. This power of the first Adam is now placed in the hands of the second Adam. In this way, Christ is an eternal King and his lordship is an eternal lordship.

As a consequence of sin, however, it was necessary that he was clothed with another, temporal power besides. Now he also needed to receive the power for fighting his enemies and for pursuing the victory of his kingdom in this world. Such a power could never have been bestowed on Adam, but it could be granted to Christ because he is not only man but also God, because he is the Incarnate Word.

The power of the magistrate corresponds to that temporal power of Christ. Even as that temporal lordship of Christ, so too the power of the magistrate serves to fight against sin. In that dominion of Christ the magistrate has to serve him. With the discussion of my third point I will have to indicate the boundaries of the authority of the magistrate, but now I am indicating simply that the temporal character of the magistrate’s power constitutes no obstacle to tracing the magistrate’s power to the power of Christ.

The same is true regarding the second objection that arose. The magistrate bears the sword. Thus, is this not that character of the magistrate’s power in conflict with the peaceable lordship of Christ? There is no doubt that the eternal lordship of Christ is a peaceable lordship. He received his temporal power, however, precisely in order to pursue through continual conflict the victory of his kingdom in this world. In this sense we can say that the Lord Jesus Christ also possesses the power of the sword. In this context, however, two comments must be made.

He possesses the power of the sword precisely so that the kingdom of his grace, the kingdom of peace, may be victorious. This power of the sword possessed by Christ is not foreign to the spirit of his peaceable lordship, and constitutes no contradiction to it. Christ, who will one day judge and destroy his enemies, is none other than the Christ who offers us his eternal peace. Love does not exist apart from justice. That which he will one day enforce is the justice of his love. If people were to see any contradiction here, that would betray that they still retained the mistaken assumption that love and justice are supposedly opposites. Moreover, one would then need to argue that the kingdom of peace can never enter into this world and simply continues to hover above this world, for if that kingdom enters this world, it must arouse conflict. This is why Christ himself said that he did not come to bring peace on earth but the sword. Indeed, the power of the sword has been entrusted to him.

To this a second comment must be added. Christ will employ that power of the sword completely only at the end of time. At this point he does indeed send his judgments on earth because people reject his grace. But he is still restraining this power of his. That means, then, that he is also temporarily restraining the power of his grace. For when he brings his grace to ultimate triumph, it will immediately be accompanied by the final judgment upon all his enemies.

So at this point we arrive at the conclusion that the characteristic feature of the power of present governments, namely, the power of the sword, does not prevent us from deriving the power of the magistrate from the power of Christ. With this I think I have sufficiently developed my second point for you. When we declare that Christ possesses dominion over the magistrate, we are thinking especially of the temporal lordship granted to him with a view to this period of conflict on behalf of the coming of his kingdom. At this point I need no longer emphasize the fact that this power was granted to him by the triune God. When I used several times the expression that the power of the magistrate is derived from that of Christ, such a formulation did not imply that the source is to be sought in Christ’s power. As I already mentioned in connection with the first point, that source lies in God, and Christ has received his power from God. He himself says that in the well-known statement: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” I think that in this statement, he was referring especially to the temporal power granted to him. For he continues with these words: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations!” In other words, serve me in the struggle of pursuing my kingdom in this world.

Practical Consequences

Saying that the magistrate must serve Christ for the coming of his kingdom requires further explanation. I will have to indicate in that context the proper nature and the limits of the power of the magistrate. In this way I have come to the treatment of my third idea, where I wanted to mention the practical consequences of my main thesis.

One consequence that people might imagine the main thesis to require is a commitment to maintain Belgic Confession, art. 36, in its original version, which requires the magistrate to resist and root out all idolatry and false religion. One might even fear that by this line of argument, a certain coercion of conscience exercised by the magistrate might become legitimate.

That danger does not exist at all, however. The rejection of the coercion of conscience and of the original version of article 36 must not be motivated, however, by the reprehensible idea that the magistrate would not have to serve Christ in terms of his divinely royal power. Rather, it must instead be motivated by the proper nature and limits of the power of the magistrate. The magistrate finds his sphere of activity in the judicial order as given in the state. Government not only must enforce the existing judicial order, but is also itself active in creating that judicial order. Its task lies in constituting and enforcing justice. In general, it can be said, then, that with the judicial order is given the object of government activity.

Proceeding from that idea, many are then inclined to reject the claim that the magistrate should be subject to Christ and should serve him in the exercise of his task. When Christ speaks about his kingdom, so people think, he appears to ascribe no value to the judicial order and place no value on enforcing it. That conclusion is thought to be evident especially from the familiar passage in the Sermon on the Mount where he teaches that one must not resist evil.

It is remarkable that with respect to this passage in the Sermon on the Mount so much confusion continues to exist—despite having been compelled by the controversy with Anabaptists. Think clearly through the meaning of the immediately preceding passage. In that preceding passage, Christ is speaking about the equally absolute prohibition of the oath. In this respect, we need to understand that he is prohibiting every oath that serves our self-interest, but that what continues to be maintained is the requirement to swear the oath for God’s sake, “in order to confirm fidelity and truth” (Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 37, Q/A 101). The intention of this passage, then, is entirely consistent with that of the entire Sermon on the Mount. In that sermon, Christ eliminates any living for self. We do not belong to ourselves, but with the cares of our lives we belong to the Father in heaven, and so we are to live only for him. In this way Christ unfolds the law of his kingdom, which is nothing else than the law of the Ten Commandments, but also the only correct application of that law. In the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the oath can and even must be sworn for God’s sake. In this way, swearing an oath is not in conflict with the spirit of that kingdom. The same applies now to enforcing justice. Christ forbids all resistance of evil that is motivated by the pursuit of self-preservation. your complete victory over the desire for self-preservation must be demonstrated by your readiness, with respect to those who strike you on one cheek, to turn the other. In the kingdom of Jesus Christ there can be no preserving of yourself for your own sake. Enforcing divine justice for God’s sake is something entirely different. Resisting evil for God’s sake because that evil is attacking divine justice cannot be in conflict with the spirit of the kingdom of heaven. For that kingdom has appeared on earth precisely so that God’s justice might be restored in this world. I have already argued that in this sense, the power of the sword has been entrusted to Christ as well.

In this way, it must be thoroughly established that in his power for constituting and enforcing justice, the magistrate must serve Christ. Even a neutral and a pagan magistrate serves him in various respects, albeit unwillingly, that is, apart from the intention of the one governing. For if the entire civil order as that is present in the state is not to be understood positivistically, but if it must be an expression of divine justice, then the existence of this civil order must be seen as a fruit of the cross of Christ. In this address I cannot defend this last notion extensively. That would require another address, dealing with the relationship between grace and nature.10 This idea does constitute the background for the main thesis of this address. That God has placed dominion over the magistrate in the hands of Christ is related to the fact that the existence of the judicial order in the state is the fruit of his cross. By maintaining this judicial order, insofar as it corresponds to divine justice, the magistrate is serving the exalted Christ.

With all of this we may not lose sight of the fact that the magistrate can abuse his power, can exalt power for the sake of power, can view himself as released from every higher norm, can choose to follow his own direction, and can perpetrate injustice. To the extent that he still uses his power for enforcing something of divine justice on earth, he is serving Jesus Christ. Insofar as he abuses his power, he is resisting Jesus Christ. As the Ruler of the kings of earth, Christ will one day also judge the magistrate. In his subjection to Christ lies the calling of the magistrate, to acknowledge him as the Ruler of the kings of earth and to live by the light of his Word in the fulfillment of his calling. For establishing the justice that he is called to enforce, and for determining the manner in which he must enforce justice, the magistrate is called to follow the directions in Christ’s Word.

Thereby we are not denying that the magistrate must take full account of the other source of knowledge, namely, the revelation of God in the works of his hands. The magistrate will never be able to know this revelation purely, however, apart from the light of the revealed Word.

10. Translator’s note: S. G. de Graaf had, in fact, lectured on “Grace and Nature” at a gathering in Leiden earlier that month, on February 9, 1939. Among the stunning conclusions he offered in that significant address were these. According to John 1, Proverbs 8, Colossians 1, and other passages, God’s favor (gunst) is the background and governing motive of all creation, so that we should not speak of nature and grace, but only of grace and nature. Moreover, the existence of the world was possible only through the covenant of God’s favor (gunst) with Adam, and now through the covenant of God’s grace (genade) with Christ. The covenant of grace addresses every person, and along with its summons to the whole world, it produces a certain blessing for the whole world and for every sphere of human existence. In every sphere, seeing aright by the “light of nature” requires the light of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

The fact that the magistrate finds the object of his activity within the civil order provides a definite limitation of his task. It is undoubtedly difficult to specify what does and what does not belong to that civil order. In general this much can be said: the civil order has in view the common interest. It serves to enforce divine justice insofar as the common interest finds protection under that justice. One may not introduce here the objection that God’s justice and people’s interest as such constitute a contradiction. That objection loses any validity when one realizes that through Jesus Christ there is once again fellowship between God and this world, and that enforcing God’s justice thus includes the well-being of the human race.

Concerning the nature and the limits of the power of the magistrate, two things must be kept in view: that he serves for the advancement of the common interest and that he advances that common interest only to the extent that it falls within the sphere of justice. The sphere of the magistrate’s concern lies in the just relationships among the citizens of the state. The calling of the magistrate is not to be restricted to enforcing the second table of the law. This arbitrary restriction is impossible. The magistrate must enforce the entire law of God, but can do that only insofar as the law of the Lord can find expression in the civil order of the state. Transgression of the Third Commandment, blaspheming God’s name, is punishable in our land, but it is properly punished by the magistrate, in my opinion, not as blaspheming the name of God, but because thereby the religious sentiments of fellow citizens are hurt. In this way the magistrate enforces the Third Commandment, to the extent that this finds expression in the civil order, which the magistrate must guard.

A moment ago I said that the magistrate must not only enforce the existing judicial order, but also actively participate in forming positive law. He does that in cooperation with representatives of the people. In that connection we must not lose sight of two things. In the first place, the magistrate must take history and tradition into account. He cannot change the entire law all at once. He may not act in a revolutionary way, but must take into account historical developments. All stability would disappear from political life if he acted any differently. The obedience of the magistrate to Jesus Christ thus cannot include attempting to bring about in as short a time as possible an entire renewal of the political system. Christ is Lord also of history, and it would be a denial of his kingship if the magistrate carelessly tried to intervene in the course of history.

In the second place, the magistrate must take into full account what is living among the people. The state includes both the magistrate and the people. The magistrate does not somehow float above the people, but magistrate and people are mutually bound together in the state. If the magistrate should be convinced that the law of the Lord fixes a particular requirement for the life of the state, in some cases he will not be able to achieve the expression of that requirement in a law of the state, because such a law would not enjoy adequate reception in the popular conscience. The magistrate would be unable to pursue enforcing that law, and were he to insist upon doing so, he would be injuring his own authority. In this way the magistrate who desires to bow before Jesus Christ is directed toward continual compromise. Here as well, people may not view this as an objection against the confession that the magistrate is subject to Jesus Christ. Indeed, the law of the kingdom of God is absolute, to be sure. But Christ asks no institution to do anything beyond its competence. It falls outside the competence of the magistrate to want to pursue anything that finds absolutely no sympathy with what lives among the people. So in the kingdom of God, as it manifests itself here on earth, there is room for a well-considered and principled compromise. Principle and compromise are then not mutually exclusive. Such a principled compromise means something different from merely accommodating practical realities.

you will understand that in connection with the development of my third point, I could mention only a few things. This sobriety was necessary for the sake of time, but it was also intentional. I am aware that as a nonjurist, I have ventured onto slippery ice. you will understand that in this sphere I prefer to restrict myself to the minimum. The only thing I felt obligated to show was that by maintaining the kingship of Jesus Christ over the state and over the magistrate, one does not end up with political parties that deviate in their program from the ARP.11 On the contrary,

11. Translator’s note: The Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) was founded by Abraham Kuyper on April 3, 1879, as the first nationally organized party in the Netherlands. In 1877, Kuyper wrote Ons Program, setting out the political goals of the ARP, many of which focused on equality of education between the public and private sectors. The name of the party goes back to the influence of Groen van Prinsterer, who argued, against the Enlightenment spirit of the French Revolution, that Christian living in society proceeds by faith and under divine authority that has been given to various spheres or areas of relationships in society, and is thus antirevolutionary.

I think that one can all the more advocate and try to advance principled antirevolutionary politics.

I wish especially to make the additional comment that with this confession of the kingship of Christ, one does not necessarily end up with the CDU.12 I make that comment emphatically, because whenever one stands up for the kingship of Christ over the state, one is so easily categorized as belonging to those who ought to harbor a certain sympathy for that party. I think that that party proceeds from a mistaken opinion about the kingship of Christ. The explanation of my second point that I supplied will be sufficient for justifying this opinion. If one acknowledges the kingship of Christ in the correct sense and then also respects the Word of the King, then one will be opposed to various practical programmatic points of the CDU, such as unilateral disarmament and the adoption of much from the social program of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party.13 One will be just as opposed to the NSB,14 and all the more so when one sees that an authority like that which the government of a totalitarian state usurps can be given only into the hands of Christ, who holds sway not only over the state but also over every sphere in this life.

12. Translator’s note: The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was formed in 1926 as a merger of three small parties. It was linked to a small denomination (Gereformeerde Kerken in Hersteld Verband), and promoted pacifist values and principles drawn in part from the theology of Karl Barth. In 1936 the general synod of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (GKN) criticized political principles such as those defended by the CDU as incompatible with membership in a Reformed church and therefore a matter for pastoral church discipline.

13. Translator’s note: The Social Democratic Workers’ Party was founded in 1894, and followed the program and objectives of the German Social Democratic Party. Its commitment to social and political revolution for resolving inequality, to the adversarial policies of labor unions, and to the socialization of capital made the party inhospitable to Reformed political principles.

14. Translator’s note: The National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB) was a fascist and National Socialist party founded in 1931 by Anton Mussert and Cornelis van Geelkerken. The party’s program combined the ideas of Italian fascism with those of German National Socialism. Before 1936, the NSB was not anti-Semitic, nor was it committed to violent revolution, but to democratic dominance. Thereafter, together with its growing anti-Semitism and open sympathy to German Nazism, the NSB became a powerful political force prior to and during the German occupation of the Netherlands.

In 1936 the general synod of the GKN condemned political principles such as those defended by the NSB as incompatible with membership in a Reformed church and therefore a matter for pastoral church discipline. Behind the synodical decision was the significant influence of Klaas Schilder, editor of De Reformatie (The Reformation), a weekly paper whose outspoken editorials against various manifestations of political and ecclesiastical chicanery were widely influential among the Reformed churches in the 1930s and ’40s. With a pamphlet whose title recalled the Christian cultural ideals of his mentor, Abraham Kuyper (“Geen Duimbreed”! Een synodaal besluit inzake ‘t lidmaatschap van N.S.B. and C.D.U. [Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1936]; “No Square Inch”! A synodical decision concerning membership in the N.S.B. and the C.D.U.), Schilder subsequently provided a penetrating theological and philosophical analysis of the ideals of the NSB and the CDU, explaining their rootage in the thought of Hegel and Kierkegaard, and, in the case of the CDU, of Karl Barth.

In this address, it is not possible for me to show that the acknowledgment of Christ’s kingship both over the state and over the church does not entail erasing the boundaries between the authority of both spheres. That would require a separate discussion of the relationship between church and state.15

In conclusion, permit me to mention especially this: as long as one thinks that in the state, one may mention the name of God apart from the name of Jesus Christ, then the expression that our queen rules “by the grace of God” remains a nicety to be trotted out occasionally for the sake of nostalgia. Only in Jesus Christ is God our living God, and only in Jesus Christ can we believingly understand the connection between God and the life of the state. Our faith obtains significance only if we are willing to stand up in this way for God’s sovereignty in the life of the state, whereas apart from Jesus Christ, God’s sovereignty remains a dead slogan.

With regard to the upcoming ballot contest, we must be very conscious of the fact that we are contending under the lordship of him to whom the Father has given all power for salvation in heaven and on earth. Only when the nation sees that it is serving the Christ and marching behind the banners of our Redeemer will the nation be thoroughly obeisant, also in this sphere, on the day of his ultimate victory.

r

15. Translator’s note: See the following translated address included in this volume, dealing precisely with that discussion.

CHuRCH ANd STATe

S. G. de Graaf

Translated by Nelson d. Kloosterman

yOU WILL UNDERSTAND that dealing with the topic of “Church and State” is quite a challenge for me. One ought to be both a jurist and a theologian, and in addition, one needs to have studied the entire history of the relationship between church and state in order to form a specific opinion about this issue. I can hardly fulfill my responsibility for addressing you concerning this still perpetually unresolved question.

There is something, however, that compelled me to accept this invitation. I am reading more frequently in writings appearing in our circles that people are approaching the issue in terms of the following formula: the church is the fruit of particular grace and the state is the fruit of common grace. Now, it is well known that I have objections against this construal. Moreover, I have recently spoken a couple of times for the ARP caucus about “Christ and the Magistrate,”16 and defended the idea that the magistrate owes obedience to Jesus Christ. The question must indeed arise whether the difference and unique nature of church and state can continue to be viewed clearly if one does not maintain the distinction that the church is the fruit of particular grace and the state is the fruit of common grace. I am compelled to provide an explanation of my views in this regard.

With this comment, the intention of this address becomes simultaneously clear. One should not expect from me a broad treatment of this difficult issue. I can attempt merely to show that a confusion of church and state need not be the inevitable consequence of the position I have adopted. I can merely try to show how, in my view, this issue should be approached. I even cherish the hope that I can make clear that if one approaches the issue from an angle different from the usual starting point, the boundaries will be seen more clearly. One should not expect anything more from me this evening!

16. Translator’s note: See the preceding translated address. As a matter of vocabulary, the Dutch noun overheid generally means “government” or “authority”; our use of magistrate seeks to employ a common English designation for those people or that body exercising political and legal authority within the state.

By way of further introduction I would mention the following. When we speak of church and state, we have in view two societal relationships, two relationships in which people live together with each other. Those relationships are governed by the law of God, regardless of how that law is known by us, whether from creation itself or from the Word of the Creator. Within those relationships exists a certain community.17 People live within them together with each other and maintain a certain community that is qualified by the nature of that relationship. That community arises by the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit grants power to the law of the Lord, so that thereby a certain community is created within that particular relationship. I am leaving aside for now the question about how that work of the Spirit must be viewed. It is impossible for me to discuss every question lying in the background of our subject. But this much is clear: within each of these societal relationships a certain community exists.

In treating the topic of “Church and State,” however, we are keeping in view especially those two societal relationships of the church and the state. I am not thinking in the first place of the church as institute, whereby one focuses on the believers, but I am thinking of the institution of the church. I am also not thinking in the first place about that particular community of people found within the state, but I am thinking of the organization itself through which that civil community (rechtsgemeenschap) exists. Only in the second place do we focus on the people within their community, on the one hand as a faith community and on the other hand as a civil community.

It will be necessary to establish the unique nature of these societal relationships, so that their differences and their mutual connection may become clear. Naturally this will be a purely theoretical treatment. As a nonjurist I can hardly pronounce judgment concerning the practical questions that arise. That does not render a discussion of this issue without value, however. For our insight into life and our attitude toward life, it is of the highest significance that we form a clear judgment with respect to particular questions. Usually we proceed first from particular questions to the main questions that underlie them, which govern the whole of life. Moreover, as we discuss the practical difficulties, we proceed safely only if we see the principal distinctions clearly. This, then, serves to justify the kind of treatment of my topic that I have proposed.

17. Translator’s note: The Dutch noun gemeenschap can mean “fellowship,” “community,” or “communion,” depending on the context.

A Brief Historical Overview

We should not omit giving a brief overview of the history of the relationship between church and state, because this can help clarify the issue. But it can be a very brief overview. If you want to know more about this, I must refer you to the relatively brief overviews provided in books and addresses of people among us who are experts in the areas of politics, philosophy, and history. I am leaving aside the relationship that existed in the pagan world between religion and cults, on the one hand, and the state, on the other hand. When the church emerged at the beginning of the New Testament as a worldwide church, the attitude of the Roman state was initially hostile. That changed after Constantine the Great came to the throne in 323, when Christianity was first permitted and thereafter recognized as the privileged religion. At that point, believers were freed from persecution, while at the same time, however, the emperor placed the yoke of the state on the church. That was the beginning of what is known as caesaropapism.

In the Western part of the Roman Empire, during this period, the bishop of Rome was already dreaming about exercising hierarchical power over the church, and so he refused to submit to the yoke of the state. The independence of the church with respect to the state was preserved in the West. In this way, however, the question about the relationship of church and state was for the first time legitimately under discussion, especially when the states in the West were merged into the great Western empire of Charlemagne. During that period the state-church idea of the Carolingians contended against the church-state idea of the popes. The remarkable feature of this conflict is that neither side recognized the church and the state as two entities each with its own order and significance alongside the other, but each side in its own way strove for a certain unity between both of these entities. The Carolingians proceeded from the idea that they were supposed to advance the kingdom of God in their empire. This notion they understood to mean that the care for the church belonged to the state and the emperor. In their way they viewed themselves just as much rulers for Christ as the popes saw themselves to be the same. The popes strove for the subjection of the emperor to their dominion. Indeed, the starting point was the notion that in the corpus Christianum, i.e., Christianity viewed as an imperial entity, priesthood and kingship needed to cooperate. In connection with the doctrine of the two swords, however, the pope functioned as the emperor’s suzerain, as the commander of the princes.

The Reformation, as it was initially led by Luther, disconnected the mistaken bond between church and state as that had been conceived by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, without, however, offering a solution for the matter through the Lutheran Reformation. In connection with his perspective on law and grace, Luther divided life into two hemispheres. In one hemisphere the law governed; in the other, grace governed. The latter is the sphere of faith, in which one is free from the law. The state belongs to the sphere of the law, as does the church as a hierarchical organization, while the congregation belongs to the sphere of grace. The power to rule in the church, however, was given over to the territorial magistrate. In this way an external relationship between church and state was once again established, in the sense that the magistrate ruled the church as well.

Calvin posited the independence of church and state with respect to each other. He rejected the attempt to force a unity between both of them in one way or another. He saw both of them as being subject to the Word of God, but each had its own assignment independent of the other. Nevertheless, on the other hand, he did seek for a kind of connection between church and state. The magistrate was to protect and advance the church, while the church through its office-bearers had to make known the Word of God to the magistrate. In addition, he proceeded from the idea that there was room within the state for only one church.

Calvin’s ideas made headway in the Netherlands, especially his ideas involving the close connection between church and state. In the Netherlands, eventually only the Reformed religion came to be tolerated. People also attempted to maintain the independence of the church with respect to the state. But the result was different from what people expected at the outset of this liberation. In our country as well, the government interfered in church matters and robbed the church of its independence. Just as in Germany and in England, during those days there arose a state-church here in the Netherlands. This period lasted until the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, when the connection between church and state was severed. William I once again placed the yoke of the state on the church. William II did retreat from the administration of the church, but a definitive regulation for the relationship of church and state was not instituted, so that the question of the silver cord continued to be a problem that was difficult to resolve.

Much more could be said about the history of the relationship of church and state. This brief overview, however, provides us with several pieces of information to which I will be able to refer momentarily.

Similarities between Church and State

Having now come to the actual treatment of my subject, I would posit four points in which church and state are similar to each other and display a certain agreement.

The Law of God

The organizations of both church and state are grounded in and governed by the law of God. Neither the institution of the state nor that of the church arose by human invention. Throughout the course of time, the form of the state may frequently differ, but the state itself is not an arbitrary human invention, and it did not arise by means of a social contract. The dominion of law^18 over human life brought with it the origin of the state in this sinful dispensation of history. The power of the magistrate within the state is grounded in the blessed dominion of law over life. The magistrate himself is subject to that law and is to enforce it in the sphere of the state. For that reason, although we confess that kings, princes, and magistrates are ordained by God, it will remain difficult to point to the origin of the state in history. One should not look to find the institution of government as such in Genesis 9:6. The dominion of the divine legal order over human life has led in the course of time, under God’s leading and by his will, to the origin of the state and to the power of the magistrate. According to God’s intention, the divine legal order has obtained a certain expression in the civil order of the state.

Similarly, the institution of the church and the power of the offices in the church are grounded in the law of God. Later, when I set out the difference between church and state, I must point out the distinction between the law of the state, on the one hand, and that of the church, on the other hand. I will also need to show that the claim that the institution of the church is

18. Translator’s note: Within contexts of politics, jurisprudence, and social policy, the Dutch noun recht can mean “right,” “justice,” or “law,” depending on the context and the linguistic compound to which it belongs; as an adjective, recht can mean “right,” “correct,” “proper,” or “legitimate,” but also “civic” or “civil.”

grounded in and governed by the law of God cannot be a matter of doubt in Calvinistic circles.

Both the organization of the church and that of the state exist through the dominion of the law of God over human life. That the law of God possesses that power is a result of the cross of Christ. Of course, the law has not lost its validity because of sin. As a consequence of sin, however, the law can work nothing other than death. Through the cross of Jesus Christ the law can be appointed once again unto blessing for human living. Both the state and the church are thus the fruit of the cross of Christ.

The Communities in Church and State

Both in the state and in the church there exists a certain community. (Later it will be my task to identify the distinction between the community of the state and the community of the church, but now I am simply identifying the points of similarity and agreement.) The creating of that community both in the state and in the church is the work of the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit the law exercises such a power that through it, that community of people comes into existence. Without this blessed working of the law, and thus without the power of the Holy Spirit, there would simply be dispersion. It is the Holy Spirit who through the law binds people together in one way or another.

In connection with my first thesis, then, the Holy Spirit must be seen as the Spirit of Christ. If the law can exercise its blessed working only through the cross of Christ, it is also Christ who has given the Holy Spirit for that purpose. Both the state and the church belong, then, to the redemptive work of Christ. Through Jesus Christ people are redeemed and restored within their community, even if that community adopts other forms than it would have displayed if there had been no sin. Through Jesus Christ nobody is saved as an abstract individual, but always as a member of a community.

The reality that believing and unbelieving people dwell together in the state should not lead us to lose sight of the fact that the state focuses on the redemption and restoration of people in their civil community before God. The crime and injustice punished by the sword of the magistrate is not merely to restrain and suppress unrighteousness, but has as its goal primarily to teach people righteousness, that is, the righteousness of the kingdom of God. In this way, therefore, both the state and the church are instruments in the hand of Christ for the salvation and restoration of the human race before God, on the one hand, in its civil community, and on the other hand, in its faith community.

The fact that unbelievers also live in the civil community of the state and are ruled by the power of the magistrate, even though they do not learn the righteousness of God, does not abrogate the goal of the state. Within the state there exists a blessing for the life of unbelievers. For identifying this blessing, however, I do not wish to use the term common grace, because that blessing is neither common nor grace. The blessing bestowed upon unbelievers in the state is qualitatively distinguished from the blessing prepared for believers in the state, and is thus not common. In addition, that blessing entails no grace for the unbeliever, no guilt-forgiving favor, because that grace is shown by God only to his people.

Christ Is King over Church and State

Connected with both of the preceding notions is the claim that Christ is King over the state as well as over the church. If one accepts what has been argued in both of the previous points, then this claim will already be obvious; in addition, this claim is stated for us literally in Scripture. I made this argument when I addressed the ARP caucus concerning “Christ and the Magistrate.” At this point I will only refer to the title borne by Christ in the book of Revelation: “the Ruler of the kings of earth.” In both the state and the church, therefore, the law of Christ must be acknowledged. The law of Christ is none other than the law of God; the law given by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount is none other than the law of the Ten Commandments. At the creation of the world, the law of God was appointed by the Eternal Word to be the governing principle of all of creation, and was restored in its blessed dominion over human life by the Incarnate Word. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ gives nothing other than the correct interpretation of the Ten Commandments, as those apply in his kingdom. And his kingdom will encompass all of human living, including the civil community in the state.

In this way, then, the law of Christ, which is the law of God, is to be known not only from his Word but also from all the works of God. That the magistrate is to serve and obey Jesus Christ does not mean that he must take into account only God’s revelation in his Word. All of creation and world history have much to teach the magistrate. Since Christ is leading history in the Father’s name, the magistrate has to take history and tradition fully into account.

Current Forms Because of Sin

Both the church and the state exist in their current form because of sin. That this is true of the state is constantly defended among us with great emphasis. The same, however, applies to the church. In this connection a particular distinction is needed. Even apart from sin, a civil community would have existed among people. One can argue about the question whether there would also have been an institution of power that would have served to enforce justice or to constitute justice. I need not resolve that question. The civil order as it now exists in the state and as it is maintained by the sword of government was, according to our confession, given on account of sin. The civil community of people as such exists apart from sin. The fact that this civil community in some dimension is maintained through the civil order in the state is connected to sin. So within the state there is something ambiguous. The power of the magistrate within the current state is largely connected with the temporal power granted to Christ.

The same is true of the church. A cultic community would have existed apart from sin. The ecclesiastical community as it exists now, in which the Word of reconciliation is preached and confirmed by the sacraments, in which offices possess particular authority and in which discipline is exercised—the ecclesiastical community that now exists does so in connection with sin. When we view the kingship of Christ over his church from that perspective, we think first of all of the temporal power granted him by the Father for pursuing his kingdom in this world and for conquering sin. Thus with the church we encounter the same ambiguous character.

Dissimilarities between Church and State

Having identified four features in which church and state are similar, in terms of each of these four we must also identify the difference between both of them.

The Sources of Knowing God’s Law

The law on which the institution of the church is grounded and by which it is governed is known primarily from Holy Scripture, while the law that serves as the ground and the governing principle of the state is known primarily from creation and history. I commented earlier that God’s revelation in the works of his hands can never be known purely apart from the light of the Word-revelation. That does not deny that the primary source of knowledge for the law of the state is God’s revelation in his works. The Word of God provides only a few directives for the law of the state, although these are decisive.

When I speak on the one hand about the law for the church, and on the other hand about the law for the state, doing so does not deny that there is only one law to which God has subjected the entire world. That one law is particularized, however, in connection with our various life expressions. The laws for our faith life are a different particularization of the one law of God than the laws for our civil life. The one law of God was restored by Jesus Christ to produce blessing in all of life, but that did not abrogate its particularization for the different life expressions. Its restoration by Jesus Christ does not constrict human living, nor does it obviate any distinctions or cause differing life expressions to blend together. So it may not be argued in advance that if one sees the existence of both the state and the church as the fruit of the cross of Christ, one can no longer keep in view the distinction between the two.

That the law of the church can be known primarily from the Word-revelation, while the law of the state can be known primarily from the revelation of God in his works, must be related to the nature and purpose of each of these institutions. The church finds its purpose in the meeting between God and his people, so that in the church we find the tent of meeting between God and the people. That meeting comes into existence by means of God speaking through his Word to his people and that people responding in confession and prayer. This is how faith is created and strengthened among that people and is how the name of the Lord is praised. I could say it with one word: the purpose of the church lies in its cultus—in its worship. Since this meeting is totally dependent on the speaking of God in his Word, the manner of this worship and the laws for that meeting must also be supplied in his Word. In the state, however, the civil life of the people is ordered in terms of a specific dimension. Certainly we are to serve the Lord also in terms of this juridical dimension of our life expressions. Each relationship in which we live is governed by our relationship to God. This explains why also in the juridical sphere we cannot get along without the light of the Wordrevelation. Nevertheless, it is justice that governs our relationship within the world; it is justice with which the state is concerned. Therefore, the correct civil order of the state is known primarily from this world.

This distinction between church and state is different from the one people make when they say that the state owes its existence to common grace and the church owes its existence to special grace. The restoration of the one law of God as it produces blessing in all of human living is because of Jesus Christ. In that connection, however, the particularization of that one law of God must remain in view.

The Natures of These Communities

The community that comes into existence in the church is different from the community that exists in the state. In the church, the fellowship community of faith in Jesus Christ and the fellowship community of God’s worship in Christ are awakened by the ministry of the Word.19 Through the civil order of the state, however, merely a certain legal community is secured. Now, undoubtedly this civil community is blessed through the community of faith in Jesus Christ. Without the latter, justice always threatens to degenerate into injustice, compulsion, and tyranny. The gospel has blessed and liberated human living in the state as well, through justice achieving dominion within the state and in turn conquering injustice and the tyranny of force. The fact remains that in the restoration of the one law of God through Jesus Christ for the sake of the elect, there lies a blessing also for unbelievers. Therefore, even in the pagan world a state is still possible, and within one state, believers and unbelievers can live in a certain kind of civil community.

Because in the church the community of faith has come into existence, such that maintaining a certain church community without that fellowship through genuine faith in Jesus Christ is absurd, discipline must be exercised within the church toward those who show themselves to be unbelievers. In the face of evident unconverted living, they must be banned from the community of the church. In this way fellowship in the church is a prefiguration of the eternal fellowship of the new humanity in the state of glorification. The object of the state’s activity, however, lies in a particular civil order.

19. Keep in mind that we are speaking here about the church as institute and about the fellowship community through faith in the Word of God that we have in the church. Behind the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word lies the work that he performs directly on our hearts.

This explains why the government cannot use its avenging sword to settle questions of faith, but only if that civil order is injured. That the government would have to resist and root out all idolatry and false worship is not in agreement with the character and purpose of the state.

There is something else related to this. Faith—and the heart-fellowship through faith—is not tied to the possession of a particular land. That was the case in the old covenant. The possession of the Holy Land was, however, a sign of the promise that believers would inherit the earth. In this way the promise is given to faith of the possession of the entire earth. But precisely for that reason, the church is not national but ecumenical. The civil order in the state presupposes, however, the possession of a particular land. This civil order is tied to particular territorial boundaries. This is not to deny the fellowship that states must maintain with each other, and the duty to bring that fellowship to expression through international statute. If the various states were to deny that, and were to proclaim the self-sufficiency of their own existence, then in so doing the state would immediately have assumed a demonic character. The state recognizes its territorial boundaries, however. A unification of state and church in the sense of a state-church or of a church-state misunderstands the unique character of both state and church.

The fact that in the state a particular civil community is maintained, and that this civil community can exist without being a faith community as well, does not prevent us from viewing the civil community as a work of the Holy Spirit. When people together submit to justice, it occurs through the power of the Spirit of Christ, who guides the law to supremacy over their living.

The Ways in Which Jesus Christ Rules as King

Jesus Christ is King both in the state and in the church. In each of these, however, he rules in a different way. In connection with the fact that in the church a community of faith and worship comes into existence, we find that Jesus Christ rules by his Word and Spirit, a discipline exercised only in a spiritual manner. However, precisely because there is a faith community in the church and thereby the church is a prefiguration of the eternal fellowship of the new humanity, in the church a dead member must be cut off and be excluded by the ban from that community. In the state, subjection to the law is compelled with the sword. Because the state serves for maintaining a particular civil community, Christ rules there through other means. The authority of the magistrate as coercive authority is qualitatively distinguished from the authority of the office-bearers in the church, and he punishes transgression with other punishments. In this maintaining of justice there is always something external. Many would be innocent with respect to the magistrates, who have not yet bowed before justice as divine justice.

With this last statement we are not denying that the state would reach its ultimate purpose only if all its citizens bowed before the law for God’s sake. That is related to the fact that Jesus Christ is King also over the state. During “this age,” that is, the time preceding his return, he is still temporarily holding back his power for salvation and the victory of his grace. This explains how a certain external civil community can exist while the attitude of submitting to justice as divine justice is absent. People lost sight of this distinction between church and state in the Middle Ages, when they pursued the ideal of the church-state, on the one hand, and the ideal of the state-church, on the other. With such a unifying of church and state, the power over both of them must be viewed as being held in one hand, either the hand of the pope or the hand of the emperor. When such a coercive power over the heart and life of people existed, the one exercising that power had to be viewed as the earthly substitute for Christ. The popes and the Carolingians both saw themselves as magistrates of Christ.

Differences in Ambiguity Because of Sin

We observed something ambiguous in both state and church. In each of them there is something that would have existed apart from sin, but the current organization of each is related to sin. At this point we must analyze the significance of that a bit further. Within the church we find the manifestation of the community of faith in Jesus Christ. There we have the service of worship that would have existed apart from sin and that has been restored in Jesus Christ. No one can doubt, then, that within the church we find a manifestation of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God manifests itself not so much in the organization of the church, which is temporary and related to the temporal kingship of Christ, but in the faith community that exists in connection with that organization.

Similarly in the state, there is a civil community that would have existed apart from sin. That civil community is maintained merely in terms of a particular dimension and in a particular manner through the civil order in the present state. The civil community itself, however, is not related to sin. It was restored again through Jesus Christ, and the fact that in a particular sense it is maintained through the civil order in the state is a fruit of his cross and his kingship.

Can a manifestation of the kingdom of God also be seen in the state? That manifestation must not be sought in the organization as such, which is merely temporary and which, in contrast with that of the church, is not prescribed in Scripture. Nor can it be claimed that the kingdom of God has always appeared in the civil community that is maintained under the protection of the state. Such a civil community exists, after all, among pagans as well. Only when and to the extent that the magistrate acknowledges God’s sovereignty as the source of his authority, and Jesus Christ as King also in the state, to the extent that the government allows itself to be led by the light of the Word of God, and to the extent that the people within the state voluntarily bow before justice as divine justice—to that extent, the kingdom of God has come in that civil community in the state.

Against this claim one may not object, as often happens, with the words of the Lord Jesus Christ: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (John 18:36). People raise this objection to suggest that with these words, Christ is supposedly positing a contrast between his kingdom and earthly kingdoms as such. If that were so, then one could never speak of a Christian state. This assumption rests, however, on an incorrect exegesis of these words. What is Christ saying with the words cited above? My kingdom is not, as the words literally state, out of—or from—this world; it does not arise from this present world in its antitheistic character. If it were from this world, my servants would have fought for me at every opportunity, for in the world that thinks itself emancipated from God, the spirit of self-preservation rules. In my kingdom, however, people preserve neither themselves nor their own rights, but my kingdom involves preserving only God’s rights. For defending those rights, self-sacrifice can occasionally be necessary, even as Christ gave himself as a sacrifice. In the kingdom of God one may never resist evil for one’s own sake, but in that kingdom one must resist evil for God’s sake and for the sake of the righteousness of his kingdom. Seen in this way, the kingdom of God is indeed in conflict with the kingdoms as, and to the extent that, they arise from this world, but not with those kingdoms as such. So if life within the state is consecrated to God, the state can then be serviceable to the coming of the kingdom of God.

In this connection, one must be on guard against every kind of perfectionism, as that came to expression, for example, in the dream of a “parliament of saints.”20 Even if the state can be called a Christian state, in which something of the kingdom of God comes to manifestation, a society of believers and unbelievers continues to exist within one state, and there is still much lacking even among believers in terms of voluntarily bowing before the righteousness of God. In both the state and the church, therefore, the kingdom of God can come to manifestation. Never may the one or the other be viewed, however, as the single manifestation of God’s kingdom. Inevitably such a view will always lead to subjecting the state to the church, or to incorporating the church within the state, thereby making it subservient to the state. Church and state must each be recognized in terms of their own order. From what has been said to this point, it is also evident that there is a connection between church and state.

Regarding the significance of the church for the state, the following must be observed. Through the church, God’s sovereignty as the source of all authority, together with the kingship of Jesus Christ over all of life, must be continually preached. In the second place, through the administration of the Word in the church, light is shed on the calling of the magistrate. For the magistrate is bound to the Word of God, not by any church, but in his conscience. But the fact remains that in the church, the Word of God is opened and this administration of the Word is very significant for the insight of citizens and magistrate. In the third place, the holiness of the justice of God is held forth to all the people, so that the people will bow before that justice for God’s sake. In this way, the church and its preaching are of the highest significance for the preservation of the life of the state. On the other hand, the state must recognize the church as an entity with its own order, and to the extent that the church functions in public life, the state has to afford the church protection. (you will permit me, in discussing this last matter, to be unusually brief, because I am now in an area where I would rather not comment more extensively.)

20. Translator’s note: This assembly was summoned by Oliver Cromwell in July 1653, after he had dissolved the Rump Parliament. It consisted of 140 members chosen partly by the army leaders and partly by congregations of “godly men.” Known initially as the Parliament of Saints, it was later nicknamed after “Praise-God” Barbon, or Barebones (c. 1596–1679), one of its pious leaders.

I would conclude simply by observing that the state faces the grave danger of refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty of God and of Jesus Christ as King, of worshiping its own resplendent power, and of rebelling in self-sufficiency against the Lord. That future has also been predicted to us. At that point, the state will increasingly take on a demonic character and Christ will one day triumph in his judgment over that state and its life. We have the calling to fight for the sanctification of the state and its life, so that church and state may cooperate for the advancement of the kingdom of God, a calling that we must perform to the end, even if we were to see our work demolished by human hands. The one who perseveres to the end will be saved.

5

Dual Citizenship, Dual Ethic? Evaluating the Two Kingdoms Perspective on the Christian in Culture

Timothy R. Scheuers

FAITHFUL CHRISTIANS are searching for a balanced answer to the persistent question, “How do I live as a Christian in the public sphere?” This question, while it is complex and undoubtedly worthy of a multifaceted response, stimulates the most practical and everyday concerns of a sanctified believer. Are God’s people justified in viewing the relationship between cultural activity and the Christian perspective as integral rather than unimportant or even nonexistent? Or is Jason Stellman correct when he insists that applying our biblical worldview to the cultural realm “sacralizes” culture and “trivializes” the Christian faith?1 A brief scan of church history reveals a variety of paradigms that Christians have adopted in an attempt to relate Christ and culture, the Bible and public life. Some have taken a hands-off approach, regarding Christ and culture as two competing authorities. Many by default absorb the cultural forms of their day, offering little or no critical evaluation of them. Popular within broadly evangelical circles is the formulation of an alternative “Christian culture,” suggesting that to live as a follower of Christ in the public sphere is to “take back” legitimate cultural forms from their worldly derivation and bring them into the safe confines of a Christian subculture.

1. Jason Stellman, Dual Citizens (Orlando: Reformation Trust, 2009), 32.

Sadly, many Christians have grown completely dispirited in the pursuit of living distinctly as Christians while remaining fully engaged in the world because there are many who control “the commanding heights of culture (the phrase is from Karl Marx)” and consider anything labeled Christian as “second-rate, sectarian, and an instance of special pleading.”2 Richard Neuhaus properly diagnoses this Christian anemia regarding public living: “Too many Christians have internalized that view promoted by the cultured despisers of Christianity. They have resigned themselves to life in the Christian subculture, and are pitiably pleased when they receive a morsel of praise falling from the table of those on the commanding heights. Other Christians are pitiably pleased when they are given a place at the table ‘on good behavior’—meaning that they promise not to be too Christian.”3

Various pastors and elders of confessional Reformed churches are currently propagating a distinctive paradigm regarding the relationship between Christ and culture, the Bible and public life, and the Christian and vocation. Dubbed the “Two Kingdoms perspective,” this development in social thought allegedly represents the perspective of theologians stretching back to Augustine. The Two Kingdoms doctrine asserts that God rules all human institutions and endeavors, but in two very distinct ways.4 According to this view, God rules his church as Redeemer through Jesus Christ. Thus, the church is God’s “spiritual kingdom.” He also rules the state and all other social institutions outside the church. However, he rules this “civil kingdom” only as Creator and Preserver, and not as Redeemer. The Two Kingdoms perspective significantly emphasizes the importance of natural law—the belief that God has written his moral law on the heart of every individual, so that all people have “knowledge of their basic moral obligations [and] a universally accessible standard for the development of civil law.”5 This natural law constitutes the moral criterion for life both for the Christian and for the unbeliever in the civil kingdom.6 Practically speaking, the Two Kingdoms perspective purports that Christians are citizens of two diverse God-ordained kingdoms, such that the believer submits to the redemptive code of Scripture in the ecclesiastical or spiritual kingdom, while fulfilling his temporal and mundane cultural endeavors in a strictly “common” way without appealing to Scripture in his participation in the civil kingdom.7

2. Richard John Neuhaus, foreword to T. M. Moore, Culture Matters (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2007), 8.

3. Ibid.

4. David VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 1.

5. Ibid.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. While providing useful principles for relating Christ and culture that properly interpret the thrust of redemptive history as the entire canon of Scripture describes it, I aim to have dialogue with the Two Kingdoms perspective and identify a few of its significant pitfalls. I conclude finally that this view fails to provide Christians with a biblical or helpful paradigm for living as Christians in the world. God’s Word does not allow the Christian to live a compartmentalized life or entertain a dual ethic, which is the logical outcome of accepting the tenets of the Two Kingdoms perspective. Rather, it commands God’s people to view all of life under the comprehensive lordship of Jesus Christ, a perspective that affirms the integral relationship between faith and cultural living in every sphere of Christ’s kingdom.8

Five important principles should guide our thinking as we seek to ascertain a balanced perception of the relationship between Christ and culture, the Bible and public life. First, our perspective should rest on the solid bedrock of a robust biblical theology, which our Reformed confessional documents reflect in the framework of creation, fall, and redemption. Second, our outlook must be Christ-centered, affirming the cosmic significance of Christ’s sovereignty over all creation. Upholding the integral relationship between worldview and world activity, in the third place, is necessary to preserve Christian spirituality and maintain that dual citizenship does not entail a dual ethic for the Christian life. In the fourth place, an eschatological focus that faithfully balances life in the “already and not yet” is vital. Finally, our perspective will affirm that real (albeit partial) transformation can occur where Christians engage in cultural affairs distinctly as followers of Christ.

6. Ibid., 2.

7. I realize that there exists minimal consensus among those espousing the Two Kingdoms perspective. This chapter draws from the perspectives of a variety of theologians who in some way (whether popularly or academically) identify themselves with the Two Kingdoms view. While the Two Kingdoms perspective is still in the process of development, its proponents are directly responsible for what they say, as well as the implications they draw from their social paradigm.

8. Authors Michael W. Goheen and Craig G. Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), offer the helpful reminder that believers are simultaneously living members of their Christian community (believing in the true and biblical story of the world) and their cultural community (having its own story of reality, influenced significantly by Western culture and thought). Christians live “at the crossroads” between these two largely conflicting metanarratives, “both of which claim to be true—and claim the whole of our lives” (8). Therefore, the question every believer must ask is not whether we have a worldview, but rather, “Out of which worldview will we think, live, and work” (29) (emphasis added)? Which religion will be the guiding standard for our lives? Furthermore, while the religious convictions of the Christian and unbeliever inevitably clash, the authors remind us that we may never “opt out of the surrounding culture” (8). So the necessary challenge that every Christian must face—as those in the world, but not of it—is the question “whether our faith will find its focus in Jesus and his kingdom as the clue to understanding the whole of the world and its history, or whether we will embrace the cultural story as true, and thus succumb to its pressure to limit our faith to the private realm of mere ‘religion’ ” (8).

Biblical Foundations for a Christian Perspective

If our aim is to live as Christians in the public sphere, then our perspective must conform to the pattern of God’s special revelation, the Bible. From the opening pages of Genesis to the closing exhortations of Revelation, God reveals himself as the divine, omniscient, infinite, eternal, sovereign One in Three. It is this Trinitarian confession—that there is one God in three persons, centered in the Lord (Ruler) Jesus (Savior) Christ (Anointed)—that must constitute the foundation of our Christian perspective (John 14). We will have a truncated view of the person of Jesus Christ if we confess him only as Savior, neglecting his roles as the Creator “by whom all things were made,” the ascended Ruler “on the right hand of the Father,” and the Judge who “shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead” (NicenoConstantinopolitan Creed: a.d. 381). A biblical conception of the work of Christ is equally important. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ veiled himself in human flesh, announced the special inauguration of the kingdom of God, and accomplished redemption. A biblical worldview, then, is about getting right who Jesus is and what he does in redemptive history.

Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew provide a helpful summary of the significance of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension for the restoration of all things in their book Living at the Crossroads. It presents a more complete picture (than this chapter can afford) of the backdrop against which the story of redemption is set, namely, the creation of the cosmos and its fall into sin. Succinctly and clearly, Goheen and Bartholomew describe the harmony and goodness of God’s creational structures, as well as the cultural mandate for God’s image-bearers to work, develop, and cultivate his world to its fullest potential, all the while engaging in precious and intimate communion with their Maker.9 Subsequently, the Edenic rebellion both alienated humankind from God and wrought cosmic devastation to the entire nonhuman creation that is “groaning” under the burden of sin (Rom. 8:20–22). While sin corrupted, polluted, and misdirected humanity’s religious orientation and God’s good creation, it did not destroy them. Thus, for every cultural form we encounter, we must “distinguish the good creational design . . . from what it has become by the twisting and corrupting force of sin.”10

Amid the brokenness of the fall, however, God introduced the gospel promise of restoration through his only-begotten Son, who is both Creator and Redeemer (Col. 1:14–17). Acting as the second Adam, he would not only atone for his people’s sin and restore them to true and complete integrity, but also secure for them an eternal inheritance. The patriarchs received their inheritance through faith by laying symbolic claim to this earth, all the while understanding their eternal inheritance to be a heavenly country (Heb. 11:10). Hence, it is this land, in its restored condition, that Abraham and all those who are his spiritual children by faith will inherit as the new earth and the New Jerusalem (Heb. 11:39; Rev. 21:1–22:6).11 “All true believers will ‘live long’ (indeed forever!) on the earth (i.e., the new earth), which we will receive from our Father as our long-promised inheritance” (Eph. 6:2–3).12 However, as the authors indicate quite aptly, Christ’s restorative work does not simply return us to the undeveloped garden of Eden by an act of “repristination.” Instead, we anticipate a new earth that is renewed, perfected, and enhanced. It is precisely the work of Jesus Christ, both as Creator and as Redeemer, that helps us see that salvation involves continuity between God’s original created order and a renewed creation. In fact, God is still in the process of “making all things new,” continually bringing everything under the headship of his beloved Son, Jesus Christ (Rev. 21:5; Eph. 1:9–10).13

9. In his recent book, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms: A Biblical View for Christianity and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), David VanDrunen tries to demonstrate that no legitimate cultural mandate remains for Christians today. Because Christ fulfilled the first Adam’s original (failed) commission, those belonging to Christ by faith are no longer given that cultural task, he says. VanDrunen states, “Christians already possess eternal life and claim an everlasting inheritance. God does not call them to engage in cultural labors so as to earn their place in the world-to-come” (28). Two problems plague this line of reasoning. First, Scripture repeatedly testifies to mankind’s ongoing call to manage God’s world. Even after the fall, there remains a divine calling for us to be wise and faithful caretakers or “stewards” of God’s creation (Ps. 8:6–8; Gen. 48:3–4). This stewardship is grounded in creation, and it is part of what it entails to be the image-bearers of God in the more comprehensive sense (Gen. 1:28–30). Even after the fall, having lost the image of God in the restricted sense, mankind remains the image of God as it fulfills the creation mandate. This stewardship still comprises our human vocation in Christ. Precisely because we are members of Christ by faith and already rule spiritually with him over all opposing spiritual powers (Eph. 6:10–12), we share in his anointing as King over all creation, overseeing it faithfully and beneficially through our office as kings (H.C. LD 12; A 32). God’s glory and our neighbors’ good are the goal of our mandate to have dominion over God’s world. Second, VanDrunen offers his readers a false dilemma. Simply by affirming the ongoing mandate to be caretakers of this world and cultivate human culture for God’s glory, we do not fall into legalism, hypocrisy, or the intention of earning (meritoriously) the world to come by our cultural labors. Of course, we do not work as Adam did to obtain a permanent state of righteousness in the garden. We labor out of grateful faith in Jesus Christ, trusting in his righteousness, glorying in his kingly victory, believing his promise that he will re-create the existing world where we will rule forever in the new (and better) garden city, Jerusalem! We see that Old Testament Israel continued to heed God’s cultural mandate, even as they possessed eternal life, looked forward to their coming Savior, and anticipated their eternal inheritance. To affirm an ongoing mandate to develop human culture for the sake of Christ need not generate a works-righteousness mentality, as VanDrunen would have us believe. Nor should the fact that fallen human culture itself cannot attain the new creation keep us from fulfilling that which remains of the “cultural mandate”—the call to stewardship and witnessing to Christ’s lordship in our day-to-day activities.

10. Goheen and Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads, 49.

Establishing this scriptural backdrop, from which a uniquely Christian perspective arises, serves the purpose of this chapter very well for several reasons. First, Christians today must understand that they do not live in a vacuum. Rather, they occupy a special epoch in the continually unfolding redemptive plan of God. A proper understanding of the past, present, and future aspects of God’s redemptive agenda must guide our participation in the public sphere as Christians today. Second, by following the biblical

11. Gen. 48:3–4 records an interesting dialogue between Jacob and his son Joseph, which should prompt us to fulfill our cultural mandate in the hope that Christ is renewing all things. Before his death, Jacob took his son aside to remind him of the cultural mandate (“I will make you fruitful and multiply you”) and its close ties to the covenant promises of God to provide land as “an everlasting possession.” Joseph’s work in fulfilling the creation mandate held significance in light of the eternal inheritance promised to him.

12. David Bruce Hegeman, Plowing in Hope (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2007), 67.

13. To be sure, God brings about this restoration through the church and its faithful administration of the means of grace (as the Two Kingdoms perspective contends). However, we must not miss the broader significance that God has effected cosmic reconciliation in Christ. Through the blood of the cross, Christ has earned redemption and peace for his people, and is defeating rebellion and hostile powers on earth and in the heavenly places (see Eph. 3:10; Col. 1:15–20). God’s promise that he is now in the process of “renewing” points forward to the consummation, when he will transform the entire created order in all its intricate parts (Rev. 21:5).

history of God’s dealings with humankind we encounter two interrelated doctrines that our Two Kingdoms brothers adopt as springboards from which to espouse their paradigm for relating Christ and culture, the church and public life. A brief examination of common grace and natural law will aid our understanding of the Two Kingdoms perspective and help us develop a proper balance between these doctrines and faithful cultural living.

Common Grace and Natural Law in “God’s Two Kingdoms”

In his book titled God of Promise, Michael Horton describes the Two Kingdoms perspective of “common grace” or “commonness” as it develops after man’s fall into sin. He writes, “Before the fall, the persons and work of Adam and Eve were holy. Even their most mundane daily tasks were part of their mission to extend the kingdom of God throughout all the earth and to confirm all of creation in perfect righteousness.”14 Because of Adam’s sin, however, “all of creation . . . is now under a common curse. Everyone, believer and unbeliever alike, experiences life as painful, difficult, disappointing, and finally, as death.”15

yet this common curse is not all that emerges after the fall. According to the Two Kingdoms perspective, there also develops a strictly “common” realm in which believers and unbelievers alike enjoy God’s common grace on their life and labor. In this kingdom of man, which is both common and secular (temporal) as opposed to sacred (set apart), all people engage in vocations that “are neither saving nor sinful, neither holy nor dishonorable. [Believers] stand shoulder to shoulder with non-Christians in sharing the common blessing of God upon our work.”16 Nevertheless, as the special covenant people of God, believers are also members of the kingdom of God, which the Two Kingdoms perspective identifies as the church.

Put simply, Christians are dual citizens. From Monday to Saturday they conduct themselves in an indistinct manner “which is neither holy nor unholy but simply common.”17 Horton commented in a lecture, “When it comes to childbirth, lovemaking, disease, tragedies, earthquakes, and

14. Michael Horton, God of Promise (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 114.

15. Ibid., 115.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid., 117.

famines, there is no distinction between the Christian and non-Christian.”18 During Sunday worship and other such ecclesiastical activities, however, Christians find themselves in the sacred, religiously distinct kingdom of God wherein the “redemptive purposes” of God advance “by means of Word and sacrament.”19 One of Horton’s former students, Jason Stellman, summarizes how the Two Kingdoms perspective interprets the implications of the fall: “Once man declared his rebellious sovereignty, his [common] kingdom became distinct from God’s kingdom, causing an unnatural separation between cult and culture . . . . The religious sphere [became] distinct from the cultural sphere.”20

Proponents of the Two Kingdoms doctrine insist, however, that although “culture is no longer sacred but secular, yet the secular is not literally ‘godless,’ a realm beyond God’s concern and involvement. Even those who are hostile to the God who has revealed himself in his Word can nevertheless discern right from wrong, for they are created in God’s image and the law is written on their consciences.”21 In a similar vein, Stellman maintains, “The cultural realm within which the church dwells, while common and non-Christian, is nonetheless legitimate.”22 According to the Two Kingdoms perspective, the “legitimacy” of culture is possible because of the natural law or common moral norms that God writes on the consciences of all men. Drawing from passages such as Romans 1:18–21 and Romans 2:14–16, advocates of this view contend that while such natural, creational laws are unable to save individuals, they nevertheless constitute the moral standard for ruling society on a common basis. In the civil, nonredemptive kingdom, Christians alongside unbelievers strive “for justice in society and excellence in culture” on the basis of natural law alone, “without insisting that the Bible must be the basis for moral discourse in the public square.”23

18. Michael Horton, “Christ and the Workplace,” Lecture, Christ and Culture, from Westminster Seminary California, Escondido, CA, January 15–16, 2010. Horton’s unqualified statement that “there is no distinction between the Christian and non-Christian” regarding childbirth, lovemaking, disease, etc., is rather unhelpful. On a superficial level, he is correct (e.g., the Christian wobbles no less than his unbelieving neighbor does during a seismic upheaval). However, more relevant to the discussion is how Christians approach and interpret such events as Christians in the state of grace.

19. Stellman, Dual Citizens, xxvii.

20. Ibid.

21. Horton, God of Promise, 118.

22. Stellman, Dual Citizens, xxvi.

23. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 429.

Since these two crucial elements of common grace and natural law are foundational to the Two Kingdoms perspective, we must ask two pointed questions: Does Scripture teach that God writes his law on the consciences of unbelievers, such that their apprehension of God’s demands is sufficient to form a consistent social standard for the development of civil and moral law? Must an affirmation of the doctrine of common grace for culture logically result in restricting the distinctiveness of the Christian perspective within the public marketplace of ideas?

Natural Law in Romans 1:18–21 and 2:14–16

Our attention turns to the first question and a brief examination of two Scripture passages that allegedly support the Two Kingdoms construal of natural law. The apostle Paul begins his discourse in Romans 1:18–21 by pointing out the central fact that sinful men “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth (v. 18).”24 They shun all truth, in the comprehensive and essential aspect of the word, by trying to stifle it and avoid it. God has provided all men sufficient revelation of himself, which should prompt them to “honor him as God [and] give thanks to him” (v. 21). However, “by their culpable inattention and sinful stubbornness, people have not allowed it to bring them unto the proper knowledge and worship and service of God.”25

Nevertheless, Paul reveals that unregenerate persons “know God’s decree” in an instinctive way (Rom. 1:32). We observe that in our postmodern context there are no consistent relativists. Frequently, unbelievers will espouse certain moral commitments as universal norms, not merely as personal beliefs. They do have a natural sense of God’s true moral code, which helps account for the obvious level of agreement between believers and unbelievers concerning moral arguments and ethical standards.26 At

24. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

25. Nelson Kloosterman, “A Biblical Case for Natural Law: A Response Essay,” Orthodox Presbyterian Church: Ordained Servant (2009): 1–14 (available at http://opc.org/).

26. On this point of discussion, the Two Kingdoms perspective has something positive to offer.

the same time, they are inconsistent and often fail to do what they in some measure perceive to be right and good.

This very inconsistency in the unbeliever’s worldview exposes a fundamental limitation of natural law as it compares to the more complete revelation of Scripture. Consequently, it also helps us to see what is improper about adopting a Two Kingdoms understanding of natural law, along with its corresponding implications and ethic. Two Kingdoms adherents generally construct a strict separation between natural law and special revelation in an attempt to make natural law a sufficient and independent rule for grasping mankind’s broad moral and ethical duties before the face of God. In their paradigm, the “common realm” should not be directed by Scripture, but only by the “universally sufficient” law of nature. Furthermore, the moral and ethical commands taught in Scripture are pertinent only for instructing Christians, they say. In short, it is in the Two Kingdoms perspective that, because of natural law, “the standards of morality and excellence in the common kingdom are ordinarily the same for believers and unbelievers.”27 By using the terminology of “Two Kingdoms,” it becomes clear that advocates of this perspective are fixed on making natural law and Scripture two separate, non-overlapping, independent sources of wisdom and knowledge, each containing a different collection of moral and ethical commands for the believer, depending on which kingdom he finds himself in at the moment.28 But several significant problems arise if we adopt this view—problems that negatively affect the way God’s revelation of himself guides our Christian lives and the way in which we engage unbelievers in the public forum. First, the Two Kingdoms perspective seeks to forge an unnatural separation between general revelation and special revelation. It is not God’s will, however, that general and special revelation should function separately from one another, for even in the garden Adam and Eve depended on the special word of God to ascertain their cultural and moral obligations. Never has general revelation, on its own, apart from the more complete and clear testimony of Scripture, been a wholly sufficient guide for life in God’s kingdom.29 Furthermore, the essential content revealed through general revelation concerning the world, the human mind, body and soul, ethics and morality, aesthetics, beauty, and so forth is inseparably tied to and necessarily illuminated by the more complete testimony of special revelation. To take the most intricate and important facets of our lives—the institution of marriage, for example—wrest from them their proper and natural explication in Scripture, and then attempt to make sense of their right character and purpose on the basis of natural law alone can result only in a limited conception of the truth of God contained in them.30 To live any part of life abstracted from the guidance of the Word of Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3), results in a clouded vision of reality. As John Calvin so aptly reminds us, God’s special revelation is the “spectacles” only by which we can rightly and fully comprehend God’s truth and engage his world. Without the corrective lenses of Scripture to bolster the testimony of natural law and amend the frailties of natural man, our cultural witness will ultimately suffer and our

27. VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms, 31.

28. The terminology of “Two Kingdoms” is somewhat incompetent for a discussion of this kind. Properly defined, kingdoms are uniquely separate units or regions, independently administered by an exclusive and non-coextensive group of rulers, laws, and fields of interest. For this reason, the only two “kingdoms” of which Scripture speaks are the kingdom of God (spiritual and universal) and the kingdom of Satan, described as two antithetically opposed entities (Ps. 2; 1 Cor. 15:24–25; Rev. 11:15). Providing this implication of a kingdom, the language of “Two Kingdoms” seems to import an unnatural and problematical dichotomy between natural law and special revelation. Interestingly, in its discussion of the relationship between the duty of the civil state and the promotion of biblical teaching, the original reading of the Belgic Confession, article 36 (prior to its 1910 alteration), asserted that it was the civil magistrate’s duty to protect the sacred ministry, “and thus may remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship, that the kingdom of antichrist may be thus destroyed and the kingdom of Christ promoted” (emphasis added). The Synod of 1910 rightly placed this portion of the article in an explanatory footnote, noting its unbiblical nature concerning freedom of religion and the duty of the civil state to destroy false religion. However, what remains pertinent for us from this original rendering is the actual “kingdom distinction” made in article 36. The confession distinguishes not between the “spiritual kingdom” (ruled by Christ as Redeemer, by the Word) and the “civil kingdom” (ruled by Christ only as Creator and Preserver, by the light of nature alone). Rather, it makes the biblical distinction between the kingdom of Satan (that aspect of “the world” of which “we are not”) and the one kingdom of Christ.

29. Herman Bavinck reminds us, “Nature and Scripture are not detached and independent entities, any more than natural and revealed theology are. . . . Nature did not stand on its own as an independent principle alongside of Holy Scripture, each of them supplying a set of truths on their own.” Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 87.

30. Marriage, for example, contains special moral obligations from Christ. Just as a person’s union with his own body is intimate and lasting, and marriage forms a similar union (Gen. 2:24), so the great and glorious “mystery” is that Christ has intimately joined the church to himself through the “marriage” bonds of the fulfilled covenant. In order to grasp its truest nature and function, the intimate union of marriage should be understood in relation to Christ and his church, as Eph. 5:31–32 teaches. The institution of marriage should never be relegated to a socalled “neutral” or “nonreligious” sphere of life, for such a realm neither exists nor is possible, since all human activity is performed either in obedience to God’s total truth or in disobedience to his obligatory commands.

unbelieving neighbors will continue to stumble in the darkness of unbelief for lack of knowledge.

The limitations of natural law, in that it cannot provide a strictly independent standard for ethics and morality in the civil realm apart from the clearer testimony of special revelation, necessitate the maintenance of a distinctively Christian worldview in the civil sphere. Every time a believer and an unbeliever “shake hands” on the side of justice and morality (even by appealing to natural law!), the Christian exposes the conflicting aspects of his counterpart’s worldview. He bears witness to the fact that only the Christian perspective can account for universal norms and a consistent social ethic. The Christian testifies that his religion makes sense of the world and is the only sufficient measure of and explanation for absolute truth.31 The Two Kingdoms perspective rightly contends that Christians may appeal to natural law while arguing with non-Christians, so they need not insist that the Bible is the only basis for moral discourse in the public sphere. However, this viewpoint goes too far when it concludes that pursuing a biblical or Christian perspective on the affairs of everyday life is “a debasing of the label Christian by applying it to areas concerning which it has little or nothing to say.”32 While we should affirm the existence and powerful testimony of natural law, we need not devalue the important contributions of the Christian perspective in the civil sphere.

A second passage that supposedly teaches the Two Kingdoms version of natural law is Romans 2:14–16.33 In this context, the apostle distinguishes between the concepts of “nature” and the written Mosaic “law” given first to the Jews (Rom. 2:17). It is important to notice that Paul is not teaching that there is some fixed, universal law that “naturally” applies to all people, existing independently alongside the written law of God.34 There is only one law of God, and it is precisely because his moral law is singular “that there is the amount of agreement that we do in fact observe in the moral judgments and practices of people everywhere.”35 By stating that the Gentiles “do by nature” the requirements of the law, Paul is essentially describing how the Gentiles happen to obey certain aspects of the Torah. They obey naturally, doing lawful things instinctually “by spontaneous impulse,” even though they do not have the law (v. 14).36

31. Bearing witness to the uniqueness of the Christian worldview on all of life will take on various forms depending on one’s context. For example, a Christian individual on the city council may preside over a committee established to promote safer working conditions at a local factory. While arriving at an ethical agreement on the issue with his unbelieving counterparts, he can easily distinguish himself by sharing that his biblically distinct Christian perspective informs his motivation for pursuing a safe working environment. His passion for social justice is consistent with his unique worldview!

32. Stellman, Dual Citizens, 32 (emphasis added).

33. “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”

Since the moral law of God is singular, the requirements of special revelation do indeed have application for unbelievers and implications for their moral obligations in ways that transcend the instruction of general revelation and the testimony of natural law. We cannot accept the Two Kingdoms assertion that the commands of Scripture are largely unimportant or inapplicable for unbelievers simply because they are offered to believers on the indicative basis of their redemption in Christ. Unbelieving man, despite his active suppression of God, still retains the obligation to worship, honor, and submit to God and his law, even if only redeemed Christians actually have (indicative) the Spirit-empowered ability to partly fulfill such obligations. Although God overlooked the times of man’s past ignorance and rebellion, the principal indicatives of his total truth revealed in Scripture apply universally and uniformly to all men irrespective of

34. In his work The Epistle to the Romans, John Murray offers a sound exegetical argument showing that the “natural law” confronting unbelievers who are without the law is nothing less than the one law of God brought to bear on their consciences by a different mode of revelation. Natural law, then, is not a separate and independent set of moral statutes. Its fundamental content is nothing other than the one law of God, although it is more fully explicated in special revelation. Murray’s exegesis is valuable here: “The omission of the definite article before n o m o vV on three occasions in verse 14 is an interesting example of the omission when the subject is specific and definite. On the first two occasions the law in mind is the specially revealed law as exemplified in Scripture. That it is definite is shown by the expression ta; touÆ novmou. For this reason we should most reasonably take n o m o vV in the concluding clause as definite—the Gentiles are not simply a law to themselves but the law spoken of in the other clauses of the verse. This is confirmed by verse 15 where we have the expression to; e[rgon touÆ novmou. The point is that it is not an entirely different law with which the Gentiles are confronted; the things of the law they do are not things of an entirely different law—it is essentially the same law. The difference resides in the different method of being confronted with it and, by implication, in the less detailed and perspicuous knowledge of its content.” John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (1968; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 74.

35. J. Douma, Natuurrecht—een betrouwbare gids? (Gronigen: Vuurbaak, 1978), 67–68, quoted in Kloosterman, “A Biblical Case for Natural Law: A Response Essay,” 1–14.

36. Murray, Epistle to the Romans, 73.

their refusal to believe them. Because God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness” by his appointed Christ Jesus, and because he has given assurance of this to all men “by raising him from the dead”—because of these indicatives concerning the destiny of the whole of human existence—God subsequently “commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30–31).37 The work of Christ while on earth and now as he reigns as Lord from heaven renders all men obligated to serve him and confess that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:11).

So we see that because the content of natural law is integrally tied to that of special revelation, we can expect to observe a significant amount of agreement in the moral judgments and practices of people in general. By replicating certain virtues that the law requires, such as the pursuit of legitimate vocations and the discharge of familial and societal obligations, they are “a law unto themselves,” and by their own actions testify that they are created in the image of God (v. 14). However, John Calvin is careful to notice that “Paul does not mean that [the law] is engraved on their will, so that they seek it and pursue it diligently, but that they are so mastered by the power of truth as not to be able to disapprove of it.”38

This distinction is necessary to make since most advocates of the Two Kingdoms perspective repeatedly defend their version of natural law by interpreting Paul’s words in verse 15 to mean: “God had inscribed his moral law on the heart of every person.”39 It is important to notice, however, that the apostle purposefully refrains from saying that the law is written on the hearts of pagans. Rather, he reveals that “the work of the law,” or the “things of the law” (tov ergon tou’ novmou), is written on their hearts. Jeremiah 31:33 states that only the chosen people of God actually have the law within them—written on their hearts by the Holy Spirit. Paul deliberately underscores this difference in order to maintain that, while there is awareness of what are lawful deeds among the unredeemed, they do “nothing . . . in the manner which the law required, that is, from the only motive that makes an action good, namely, a spirit of obedience, and of love to God.”40 Recorded in the consciousness of an unregenerate person is “an effect of

37. Emphasis added.

38. John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul to the Romans and Thessalonians, trans. R. Mackenzie (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), 48.

39. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 1.

40. Robert Haldane, An Exposition of Romans (McLean: MacDonald Publishing Co., 1958), 90.

the law’s ‘operation.’ ”41 However, while his outward acts appear very pious and amenable to God’s law, the unbeliever has willingly rejected the total truth of God, and his actions are ultimately unacceptable before the Lord.

We do well to accept the teachings of the Reformers and the Reformed confessions regarding “the glimmerings of natural light” that remain in fallen humankind. It would be foolish to deny that the unbeliever “retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the difference between good and evil, and shows some regard for virtue and for good outward behavior” (Canons of Dort, 3–4, 4).42 But we cannot accept a view of natural law that seeks to make it a self-contained and separate rule for public life, totally apart from Scripture. We give the testimony of natural law its due weight by recalling that when unbelievers purposefully suppress their knowledge of the truth (Rom. 1:18), the result is that they are disabled in using the light of nature rightly, “even in things natural and civil” (Canons of Dort, 3–4, 4). We should be wary, then, of the presupposition that the testimony of natural law and the aid of common grace can, in any self-sufficient way apart from the testimony of God’s fuller special revelation of himself and his law, provide the necessary epistemological common ground between a believer and an unbeliever in matters of civil procedure, morality, and ethics. Calvin warns us, “When you hear of a universal judgment in man distinguishing between good and evil, you must not suppose that this judgment is, in every respect, sound and entire.”43

Truly, the narrative of creation, fall, and redemption teaches us that all men continue to reflect the imago Dei (image of God) even after the fall. All men retain a religious “sense of God,” as Calvin put it. God’s elect are justified by God through faith in Christ, regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the law is written on their hearts—to be gratefully observed. The unbeliever also remains an image-bearer, but his capabilities are ultimately man-centered and utilized in rebellion against God. Nevertheless, the works of the one law of God are imprinted on his heart and mind. “This

41. Henry Stob, “Natural Law Ethics: An Appraisal,” CTJ 20, 1 (April 1985): 63.

42. For example, we should not accept the basic fundamentalist assertion that a study of “the world’s knowledge and information” is good only for “opposition research” (Michael Farris, Chancellor, Patrick Henry College). The Christian can and should learn from natural man, who, by the grace of God, retains some knowledge of God and his truth. Quoted in Hanna Rosin, God’s Harvard (Orlando: Harcourt, 2007), 21.

43. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 172.

means, among other things, that when Christians enter the public square to proclaim and defend that unitary law of God as it has been most fully, clearly, and authoritatively revealed in Scripture, they should not think they are defending some ‘special’ or ‘private’ law, but rather they are setting forth something suited to all human beings by virtue of their creation by this God.”44 It should not surprise Christians when they discover that common ground exists between them and their pagan neighbors. However, it should not lead them to abandon their unique, scripturally informed Christian perspective while living and working within the public sphere.45

Common Grace and Cultural Activity

Much like our conception of natural law, our understanding of “common grace” should flow from a careful examination of God’s kindly providence toward all men, as Scripture describes it, and no more. We should remember that it was God’s unchangeable plan from all eternity to restore the world in Christ his Son, “in whom the seed of the woman has been predestinated from before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).46 A proper view of culture is Christocentric, affirming that in Christ, God is reconciling “all things” to himself (Col. 1:20). By grace, God is restoring human creative culture and transforming sinners’ hearts. Believers, then, not only have a new nature in Christ, but also attend to their cultural endeavors in the state of grace. Henry Van Til rightly maintains that we cannot regard the cultural activity of Christians merely as a common-grace operation. Rather, it is “simply the restoration to man’s creation calling through the restoration of Christ.”47

It is improper to speak of common grace as that which “maintains the creatural characteristics of man,” or to regard it as the only grounds on which the believer fulfills his cultural mandate.48 However, we should regard

44. Kloosterman, “A Biblical Case for Natural Law: A Response Essay,” 1–14.

45. Advocates of the Two Kingdoms perspective generally impose a false dichotomy on Christians who want to apply their biblical perspective to life in the civil realm. The dichotomy is this: either you accept the terms of the Two Kingdoms view or you fall into the camp of the “Christian Right/Fundamentalists” who naively assume that they can successfully impose biblical morality on their pluralistic society. Christians can (and should) avoid this dichotomy, and affirm that while Scripture is not the only basis for moral discussion, it is profoundly relevant because the works of that one law are written into God’s created order.

46. Henry R. Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 231.

47. Ibid.

48. Cornelius Van Til, A Letter on Common Grace (Phillipsburg, NJ: Lewis J. Grotenhuis, 1953), 37.

common grace as the tool by which God restrains the power of Satan and the rebellious inclinations of the unsaved, bestows divine favor on all his creatures, and permits even the unbeliever to perform some form of civil righteousness. In spite of their hostility toward their Maker, God graciously “sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45), and “he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil” (Luke 6:35).

The Lord’s gracious restraint of sin accounts for the fact that the antithesis—the widespread antagonism between those who oppose and submit to God—does not appear as pervasive as it is in reality.49 Cornelius Van Til helpfully describes God’s common grace as his cordial attitude toward all men, “by which man is restrained from fully expressing his enmity toward his Creator or his fellow man, and whereby he is enabled to perform certain moral actions. These may be denominated ‘good’ in the relative sense in which Scripture applies that term to the approved actions of unregenerate sinners.”50 Calvin reminds us of our Christian duty to identify and be glad about the noble abilities given to natural man. He confirms, “The human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator.”51 For the good of all mankind, the Spirit bestows and preserves these gifts in fallen humanity. Hence, we should gratefully utilize and appreciate the contributions of ungodly people in the various sciences lest we neglect God’s good gifts to us!

We should not, however, lose sight of the limitations of common grace. The knowledge of God that common grace imparts is always and in every way insufficient to generate a saving understanding of God and true conversion. Moreover, the complete and necessary fruit of conversion—spiritual good and godly practical wisdom—cannot be obtained through common grace alone. Indeed, natural man has “retained only small remains” of his original excellent gifts (Belgic Confession, art. 14). And so of the unregenerate sinners Calvin says, “Their discernment was not such as to direct them to the truth, far less to enable them to attain it, but resembled that of the bewildered traveler, who sees the flash of lightning glance far and wide for a moment, and then vanish into the darkness of the night, before he can advance a single step.”52 Unless he experiences the inner renewal by God’s Spirit, natural man totters drunkenly in the darkness of his own foolish rejection of Jesus Christ, who is the foundation of all wisdom and knowledge. Therefore, as cultural Christians, we must bear in mind that even while the provision of God’s common grace does pervade this world, we are not meant to conclude that the civil sphere ought to operate on the basis of natural law and common grace alone. Answering the question of how believers ought to discharge their cultural duties and live in the public sphere necessitates the full and clear guidance of God’s Word.53

49. The deception of the devil, by which he has “veiled the eyes” of believers and unbelievers alike to the ongoing spiritual warfare, also accounts for this.

50. Van Til, A Letter on Common Grace, 38.

51. Calvin, Institutes, 167.

How Now Shall We Live?

This discussion forces us to consider the very personal and practical question, “How now shall we live?” While the apostle Peter reminded God’s children that they were “elect exiles” (1 Peter 1:1) on the earth, he certainly did not urge them to reject cultural engagement or dismiss “the Christian imperative to live as ministers of reconciliation.”54 In fact, we will discover soon that while it is God’s intention and capacity to save and restore people from all nations, the whole of human cultural life, and also the entire nonhuman creation from the devastating effects of sin, this divine plan “unfolds progressively through his work in the life of Israel and in the person and work of Jesus, and it continues today in the mission of the church.”55 It is the Christian imperative to live as witnesses of the progressive nature of Christ’s kingdom restoration, and this task is germane to every aspect of the Christian lifestyle. Indeed, “since the gospel is about God’s rule over all of creation, all nations, all of human life, the mission of Jesus’ followers is as wide as creation itself.”56

Like the early Christians, we are also foreigners and pilgrims on the earth, but does our dual citizenship entail a dual ethic, as the Two Kingdoms perspective suggests? Can we talk merely about Christians’ living in

53. I want to be clear here: By asserting that our cultural living should be guided principally by Scripture, I am not promoting a form of biblicism. Rather, I wish to retain the prime importance of the infallible and inerrant Word of God as it pertains to civil matters, ethics, morality, beauty, aesthetics, the sciences, etc. The Bible, inasmuch as it sets out or purports to teach about these matters, should guide the Christian’s thinking and living in the public realm, even as he makes proper use of the testimony of natural law.

54. Ryan McIlhenny, “A Third-Way Reformed Approach to Christ and Culture: Appropriating Kuyperian Neo-Calvinism and the Two Kingdoms Perspective,” MAJT 20 (2009): 84.

55. Goheen and Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads, 52 (emphasis added).

the world and miss the crux of the issue—how do we live in the world as Christians, articulating our fundamental belief system and interpretive grid of the world, not merely in words and thoughts, but in the way of consistent daily conduct coram Deo (before God’s face)?

The most troubling aspect of the Two Kingdoms perspective on natural law and common grace is its logical implications for Christians. One of the more aggressive contentions of Two Kingdoms advocates is the denial that biblical principles have a place in the areas of public ethics and morality, civil procedure and cultural engagement. The argument for “religious secularism” unfolds in like manner: the Bible’s moral norms and ethical commands apply only to those in the church. In this passing age of history (saeculum—“secular”), the sovereign rule of Jesus Christ is acknowledged and brought to bear on the Christian’s activities only while he is in the ecclesiastical kingdom (the church). All other cultural pursuits in which the Christian is involved, whether they are academic, vocational, or political, are devoid of religion and the norms and values of Scripture.57 Within the secular or profane kingdom, the Christian should participate in public life, but only as a respectable citizen, not as a Christian.

One of the most vocal defenses of “religious secularism” comes in a book written by Darryl Hart, titled A Secular Faith. Hart expresses disgust with much of liberal and conservative Christianity’s failed attempts to engage modern culture. His critical evaluation of the church’s presence in culture is helpful on certain points—his rejection of the improper mixing of religion and politics, for example. Hart rightly maintains that there ought to be a certain separation between church and state. The institutional church has no God-ordained authority or capability to allocate funds for a particular political party or candidate, or to take up arms to defeat a foreign invader. Likewise, the state has neither the right nor the proficiency to govern the ecclesiastical functions of the church. The church should remain the church,

57. Two Kingdoms adherents frequently refer to the civil kingdom as “nonreligious” or “not pertaining to salvation.” And yet they do not want to go so far as to affirm that it is “without morals.” To be sure, God has created and still maintains this world’s natural order with various temporary structures (e.g., civil governments) that are germane to this specific age, and in this sense not relating to salvation. However, we cannot draw the implication that certain parts of our lives in this “common” natural order are ever truly “nonreligious.” The basic moral obligations of humanity written into the created order cannot be divorced from the deep-seated religious faith commitments that inevitably shape every individual. There exists in God’s world no “neutral ground” wherein people think and function apart from their inherently religious presuppositions.

centered on the faithful preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments, while the state must maintain authority in its proper sphere of influence.58

Where Hart and his fellow proponents of the Two Kingdoms perspective go wrong, however, is in their failure to distinguish adequately between the work of the church (as an institution) and the cultural activity of Christians who are simultaneously citizens of heaven and earth (church as an organism).59 The Two Kingdoms doctrine neglects the biblical command that in every area of public living, believers should apply the principles and values that shape their distinctiveness as Christians. It fails to provide a biblical and helpful paradigm for cultural living by limiting the unique identity and spirituality of believers in the world.

In A Secular Faith, Hart suggests that the Christian faith is “essentially an otherworldly faith.”60 Predominantly spiritual and eternal in nature, the Christian religion is “occupied with a world to come rather than the passing and temporal affairs of this world.”61 Thus, in order to maintain proper separation between religion and politics, he proposes a sharp disconnect between Christianity and culture, between the Bible and public morality, between worship and work. While some Protestants aspire to apply their faith to every area of life, the Two Kingdoms view suggests that such a goal “misconstrues the essence of the Christian message, which has far more to do with eternal rather than temporal realities.”62

However, such a paradigm is neither biblical nor possible. Scripture nowhere hints that we are to live a compartmentalized life in which we relegate our Christian convictions to Sunday observance only. Romans 12:1 declares that for those who have been renewed by the Spirit of God, it is entirely reasonable and fitting for them to offer up to God their whole person, both body and soul, in an act of worship. The Heidelberg Catechism (Lord’s Day 32, Q/A 86) states that this type of worship does not transpire

58. In this sense we can affirm the existence of two distinct realms, in terms of both authority and function.

59. In his RD 4, 330, Herman Bavinck helpfully describes the two distinct (although interconnected) ways in which the community of believers is manifested: in the church offices and means of grace (institution), and in the gathering of believers who recognize the integral relationship between faith and life (organism).

60. Darryl Hart, A Secular Faith (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), 16.

61. Ibid., 12.

62. D. G. Hart, The Lost Soul of American Protestantism (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), xxi (emphasis added).

merely in the context of corporate worship, as some Two Kingdoms supporters contend. Rather, “in all our living” we must bear obedient witness to the sovereign rule of Christ, “so that he may be praised through us.”63 If we accept the Two Kingdoms assertion that the Christian’s secular activities are “thoroughly common,” and that it is improper to “apply” the gospel to our work in the common realm, it would seem that a type of Sunday Christianity remains for us.64 However, if we are transformed by the gospel, then it is profoundly relevant for how we conduct ourselves as Christians in the civil realm, for “the very essence of the Christian faith includes a grace-produced identity that comes to manifestation in the way we live our lives every day of the week.”65

When we speak of this grace-produced identity or Christian spirituality, what comes to mind are those unique and observable qualities of the Christian lifestyle or, more specifically, the resultant fruit coming to broad expression in a believer’s manner of living as he cultivates holiness and follows Christ as Lord in his Sitz im Leben (situation in life). This cultivation of holiness takes place especially through covenant communion with and commitment to God himself, his Word, and his church, such that a robust Christian spirituality involves both “being” (a covenant member of Christ’s church) and “doing” (cultivating piety and God’s creation as a distinct vocation). It is the church’s duty, particularly that of the ruling officers, to cultivate piety and biblical spirituality within the church (Eph. 4:12). We would not dare suggest that any biblical spirituality can exist apart from the church and its faithful administration of the Word and sacraments. However, while we must maintain this important truth, we cannot relegate the development of a robust Christian spirituality to a mere one-day-of-theweek occurrence. The nurturing of a distinct Christian lifestyle surely takes place within the sphere of the church. Specifically and very importantly,

63. Emphasis added.

64. Stellman, Dual Citizens, 22. Stellman is rather inconsistent when speaking about the relevance of Scripture and the distinctiveness of the Christian in the public realm. On one hand, he wants to say that our cultural activities are “thoroughly common” and characterized by “relative sameness.” However, he subsequently asserts, “a Christian . . . will discharge his or her duties in a manner distinct from the way an unbeliever will (and for very different reasons).” Similarly, although he promotes the Two Kingdoms view that the application of Christianity to practical affairs is untenable, he still must affirm, “It is not that Christianity is irrelevant and has nothing to say to contemporary culture, for it certainly does” (27).

65. Nelson Kloosterman, “The Bible, the Church, and the World: A Third Way,” ChrRen (January 14, 2009): 35.

however, it occurs within the church as the communion of saints.66 This means that wherever and whenever Christians gather for fellowship, as those united by faith in Christ, there should be a concern for and a promotion of biblical spirituality. Holiness, understood as the posture of being distinct and set apart unto God, grows as Christians join together as a community or organism of saints to consider moral dilemmas relevant to their day and age, whether they be important civil matters (abortion, euthanasia, unethical working conditions) or more localized, personal concerns (entertainment choices, modesty, familial needs).

This unique identity or Christian spirituality pertains to our everyday occupations. The Reformers of the sixteeenth century, who believed that all of life submitted to God’s reign, labored to recover the integral relationship between one’s vocation (spiritual labor) and office/occupation. They insisted that all Christians, regardless of the nature of their earthly labor, have a spiritual calling from God through Christ within their occupations. No occupation or act of human service, no matter how menial it seemed, was excluded from the calling to follow and obey Christ and his Word (1 Cor. 7:17–22).67 One lived out his Christian spirituality in whatever task God called him to perform.

Two Kingdoms supporters frequently point out that because we perform our temporal activities out of gratefulness to God, any attempt to relate faithful working and Christian spirituality borders on “works righteousness.” Stellman describes his belief in the strict division between temporal works and spiritual love for God. Regarding Christian service, he writes, “The good works we perform for our fellow man are filthy rags in God’s sight because of his surpassing holiness (Isa. 64:6; Titus 3:5). Considered on their

66. Herman Bavinck, in his RD 4, provides a wonderful description of the function of the church as organism, that is, as a saintly community of faith and life. Bavinck affirms that while it is on this earth, the church as the gathering of believers is itself used by Christ as an instrument to bring others to his fold. By his church, “Christ administers his mediatorial office in the midst of the world” (330). When distinguishing the church as institution from the church as organism, one question is always raised: which of these has priority? David VanDrunen would have us conclude that “the life and ministry of the church—rather than the cultural life and activities of the common kingdom—stand at the heart of the Christian life” (30) (emphasis added). It is his “rather than” that should concern us. Bavinck would help us see that “the question concerning the priority of the institution or of the organism betrays its own one-sidedness. The two are given in conjunction and continually interact with and impact each other” (332). Thus, it is a mistake to pit the church’s work as institution and as organism against one another. They are conjoined for the health of Christ’s body and ought not to be bifurcated.

67. Kloosterman, “The Bible, the Church, and the World: A Third Way,” 35.

own merits, they are not even helpful or worthwhile in any ultimately meaningful sense, and they provide no lasting satisfaction.”68 Stellman succeeds in both making a good point and missing the point at the very same time. His statement is noticeably qualified when he refers to works “considered on their own merits.” We can certainly agree with Stellman that Christians ought not to fulfill their occupations or perform works of service for their neighbors in an attempt to earn strict merit (worksrighteousness). However, while we stand with Stellman on this point, we need not jump to the conclusion that faithful acts of service have no worthwhile meaning when performed from a decidedly Christian perspective. Calvin affirmed the meaningfulness of earthly labor in virtue of the justifying work of Christ. While we surely cannot merit justification through our cultural endeavors, the restoration coming from Christ’s justifying work on our behalf issues into sanctification. Our constant pursuit of holiness manifests itself in the public sphere as we seek the glory of God and the benefit of our neighbor, which can bring about restoration in our society.69

Two Kingdoms proponents restrict Christian spirituality in another sense by contending, “Our relationship to God . . . has nothing to do with our works.”70 Gene Edward Veith suggests that while “we often speak of ‘serving God,’ . . . in the spiritual realm, it is God who serves us. In vocation, we are not doing good works for God—we are doing good works for our neighbor.”71 Again, the hasty assumption arises that if we speak of “working for God,” “serving God,” or “promoting his kingdom agenda,” we immediately fall into “the way of legalism and hypocrisy.”72 We need not accept such a false dichotomy, however. Scripture repeatedly teaches that, while our obedience does not merit salvation, it does remain an intricate part of the process of sanctification. God’s command for us is this—“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12–13). This “working out” of our salvation unto the glory of God extends to every sphere of the Christian life. In our earthly labors we work with integrity, “as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord” (Eph. 6:6–8). Similarly, in their submission to earthly rulers, Christians are “living as servants of God” (1 Peter 2:16). We cannot separate our earthly work from Christian spirituality for even a moment, for their integration is an important part of the ongoing process of personal sanctification.73

68. Stellman, Dual Citizens, 107.

69. Institutes, 3.7.5.

70. Gene Edward Veith Jr., God at Work (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002), 38.

71. Ibid., 39.

72. Ibid.

By limiting the distinctiveness of Christian spirituality in all facets of the public sphere, it follows that the Two Kingdoms perspective also has a truncated perspective of the lordship of Jesus Christ over the public sphere. The language used by the Two Kingdoms view to describe the nature of Christ’s sovereignty echoes that of Martin Luther, who occasionally seemed to make a sharp distinction between Christ’s rule over the church and the world. He wrote, “Christ is King and Lord in the kingdom of God”; but “Christ’s government does not extend over all men.”74 While the “secular” and “sacred” realms both belong to God, Luther contended, the lordship of Christ does not extend to the “secular” realm. It is governed simply by natural law and human reason.75

It is no surprise that by adopting this dualistic-sounding perspective of the lordship of Christ, the Two Kingdoms doctrine affirms a dual personhood within each believer.76 The “sacred” Christian person is the one

73. Stellman’s assertion that our good works “are not even helpful or worthwhile in any ultimately meaningful sense” also neglects the scriptural teaching that God graciously chooses to reward our good works. J. Mark Beach points out that insofar as God rewards our pious acts by his divine generosity, “He is rewarding His own righteousness in them.” Thus, John Calvin could affirm, “Good works . . . are pleasing to God and are not unfruitful for their doers.” Institutes, 3.15.3. Far from being “worthless,” our good works bring glory to God and confirm the faith of the believer. Quoted in J. Mark Beach, Piety’s Wisdom (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010), 208.

74. Martin Luther, “Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed,” trans. J. Schindel and W. Brandt, in Luther’s Works 45 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1962): 96, quoted in Timothy P. Palmer, “The Two-Kingdom Doctrine: A Comparative Study of Martin Luther and Abraham Kuyper,” Pro Rege (March 2009): 14 (emphasis added).

75. “Clearly, Luther’s ‘system’ is pervaded by thoroughgoing dualities. The two regiments (spiritual and temporal) relate to two kinds of righteousness (iustitia fidei et iustitia civilis), each of which in turn relates to gospel and law, respectively. Faith directs us upward toward God, while love drives us outward toward our neighbor. As persons we stand before God (coram Deo), while we hold various offices in the world as we live before others (coram hominibus). In short, Luther’s doctrine of the two regiments belonged to an entire theological system built around, and designed to safeguard, the sola fide of the gospel.” Nelson Kloosterman, “Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Review (3),” ChrRen (October 13, 2010): 18–21.

76. A more full and careful reading of Luther’s treatise on “Temporal Authority” reveals that Luther did indeed promote the integration of Christian faith and public service, rather

who, being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, submits to the lordship of Christ, and the “secular” or “worldly” Christian person is the one who exercises his daily tasks in a strictly “common” way, submitting to the earthly ruler as “citizen,” and not as “Christian.”77 Truly, according to this dualistic perspective of Christ’s sovereignty, there is only “one time when God has actually ordained that His people should be truly different from the world—corporate worship.”78

However, Scripture teaches that Jesus Christ, after accomplishing redemption for his people, ascended to heaven and now sits at the right hand of God in supreme power and authority. The Heidelberg Catechism (Lord’s Day 19, Q/A 50) affirms his mediatorial work and supreme rule over all aspects of the universe when it teaches, “Christ ascended into heaven for this end, that he might there appear as Head of his Church, by whom the Father governs all things.”79 Thus, the comprehensive reign of Christ over the whole of human and nonhuman existence is a present reality. Christ Jesus “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:25; cf. Ps. 110).

Even while the reign of Christ is a current and visible reality, Hebrews 2:8 reminds us that “at present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.” His kingdom rule, and the restoration it brings, continues to progress, and we anticipate its consummate fulfillment at the second coming of Christ. Calvin affirmed this “already, but not yet” aspect of the kingdom of God. In his commentary on Acts, he remarks, “Christ hath already restored all things by his death; but the effect doth not yet fully appear; because that restoring is yet in the course, and so, consequently, our redemption, forasmuch as we do yet groan under the burden of servitude. For as the kingdom of Christ is only begun, and the perfection thereof is deferred until the last day, so those things which are annexed thereunto do now appear only in part.”80

than the dual ethic of the Two Kingdoms perspective. For example, part 3 of Luther’s essay requires a Christian prince to govern justly and fairly while clinging to God, praying fervently and frequently for wisdom and understanding to fulfill his task and seeking to follow Christ’s example to establish proper human laws and promote faithful counsels in a godly manner.

77. Palmer, “The Two-Kingdom Doctrine: A Comparative Study of Martin Luther and Abraham Kuyper,” 14.

78. Stellman, Dual Citizens, 23 (emphasis added).

79. Emphasis added.

80. John Calvin, Commentary on Acts, vol. 1, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 153, quoted in Jason Lief, “Is Neo-Calvinism Calvinist?” Pro Rege (March 2009): 7.

Christ’s all-embracing sovereignty and his inaugurated restoration of “all things” (Eph. 1:9–10; Rev. 21:5) provide Christians with ample hope as they fulfill God’s mandate to cultivate his creation. Their hope rests on the fact that Christ rose victoriously from the dead. “Christ’s resurrection is a ‘first-fruits’ of the creation of a new humanity within the setting of a renewed creation” (cf. Rom. 8:18–25).81 Believers, who are indwelt by the life-giving Holy Spirit and strengthened by the same power that raised Christ from the dead, already share in the “first-fruits” of the life of the new creation (Eph. 1:19–20). They have a confident knowledge that “God’s great work of redemption in Christ is not one that ‘abandons’ this creation and its history, but one that ‘renews’ and ‘perfects’ it.”82

These truths urge Christians to “plow in hope,” bearing witness to the kingdom rule of Christ in whatever activity they are involved. This universal kingship touches every corner of human and nonhuman existence, such that “the Kingdom reminds us of the absoluteness, the pervasiveness, the unrestricted dominion” of God (1 Chron. 29:11; Ps. 45:6/Heb. 1:8–9; Ps. 103:19; Ps. 145; Matt. 6:10).83 The church is the most visible display of Christ’s lordship on earth, and it holds the “keys” to the kingdom. Nevertheless, Christ’s kingdom is broader than the church, extending to all things spiritual and temporal. In his Reformed Dogmatics, Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck celebrates the pervasiveness of Christ’s kingdom. He writes, “Christ has indeed stated that his kingdom is not of this world, but he is not a spiritual king in the sense that he has absolutely no interest in external and earthly things. . . . Christ planted his kingdom in that world and made sure that it could exist in it, and, like leaven, have a transforming impact in all areas of life.”84

As the willing citizens of Christ’s kingdom, we also seek to have a “leavening” or “transforming” impact on our culture. However, if we wish to assert a positive influence on various cultural institutions and the people who run them, we must think as carefully and biblically as possible. We need to approach our cultural endeavors with wisdom, instead of rash optimism.

81. Cornel Venema, “Christ’s Kingdom Now and Then,” review of Heaven Misplaced by Douglas Wilson, ChrRen (February 10, 2010): 25.

82. Ibid.

83. Geerhardus Vos, The Teaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom and the Church (New york: American Tract Society, 1903), 194 (emphasis added).

84. RD 4, 413 (emphasis added).

W. Robert Godfrey provides wise and balanced advice to Christians for keeping their cultural endeavors “in their proper context.”85 He illustrates his point by providing the example of Abraham Kuyper, the great Dutch theologian and public official. In his own twentieth-century context, Kuyper met with the difficult question of how the Christian was to live in the modern world. Many of his colleagues “longed for ‘the good old days’ of the medieval period when it was the civil magistrate’s duty to defend the sanctity of the church and the honor of its officers.”86 However, they faced the disheartening reality that their modern world was not the medieval world, “and if they insisted on living with medieval ideas in the modern world, they would simply be irrelevant, marginalized, pathetic.”87 Nevertheless, Kuyper recognized the need for “sphere sovereignty” to remind the civil state of the extent of its power. In order to keep the state from abusing its authority, he taught that Christians need to “bear testimony” to their deeply held conviction that God governs his created order through a variety of uniquely separate institutions or spheres of authority, each with responsibilities directly from God.88

Hence, Kuyper observed that there are not “two kingdoms,” but rather a vast number of kingdoms or spheres of authority that exist in the world. The state, the church, the family, and the academy of scientific endeavor are all unique institutions, to which God has given special responsibilities and the authority to fulfill them. Thus, the Christian must recognize that while God’s kingship is comprehensive, he exercises that lordship differently in distinct spheres.

In light of the fact that God’s kingdom “is a kingdom of all ages, of all spheres, of all creatures,” the Christian perspective has much to contribute to such spheres as higher education, business, politics, and the arts and entertainment.89 Godfrey properly advises, “We need to take one step further beyond the ‘common’ elements of our culture, and think as Christians, maybe, hoping to transform things by that thinking.”90 We can agree with the Two Kingdoms insistence that the state should not be a Christian institution, for this would be a confusion of spheres. However, “just because the state is not in the business of redemption, just because Christians and non-Christians can cooperate in a great deal of the work of the state, doesn’t mean Christians should not think as Christians as to how the state should operate.”91

85. Robert Godfrey, “The King and His Kingdoms” (lecture, Christ and Culture, Westminster Seminary California, Escondido, CA, January 15–16, 2010).

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid.

88. Ibid.

89. Abraham Kuyper, E Voto Dordraceno. Toelichting op den Heidelbergshcen Catechismus (Kampen: Kok, 1895), 4:465–66, quoted in Palmer, “The Two-Kingdom Doctrine: A Comparative Study of Martin Luther and Abraham Kuyper,” 19.

90. Godfrey, “The King and His Kingdoms.”

The idea that transformation or restoration can occur in culture as Christians witness consistently to the reign of Christ is frequently either dismissed completely or overvalued to an unbiblical (and sometimes embarrassing) degree. Supporters of the Two Kingdoms perspective typically reject the idea of transformation for a variety of reasons. The term transformation or transformative is rather broad and can express the idea that Christians should forcefully build God’s kingdom through cultural activity, which engenders “too much of an eschatologically-charged cultural optimism.”92 This is a legitimate objection, considering the fact that numerous churches of more liberal constitution urge their members to bring heaven to earth, as it were, through their cultural endeavors.93 This problematic scenario, however, is not the necessary consequence of holding to the belief that Christian action in the public sphere can result in positive change (no matter how small) within cultural institutions. Scripture nowhere commands us to build the kingdom of God. However, it does call us to witness to the kingdom reign of God and tell of his sovereign intention to “unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10). We may speak of “transformation” simply because the word denotes both a condition and a way of living. The believer’s transformed condition through the death and subsequent resurrection of Christ engenders a new way of living that comes to expression and is cultivated in public life. When transformed Christians embody the gospel in their cultural context, they ought to expect that there

91. Ibid. We cannot justly conclude that to speak of transformation necessarily results in mistaking the nature and purpose of the church. Christians have brought about significant, albeit incomplete, transformation in their respective spheres by thinking “Christianly” in the “common” realm. William Wilberforce, for example, understood that history and society are driven by ideas, by individuals, and by institutions, and so, guided by his Christian conviction that the slave trade was a calumnious evil, he fought for the abolition of the institution of slavery. Few men in history have had such a lasting impact on the structure of society as William Wilberforce, who brought his Christian conscience into the “common” realm of politics.

92. David VanDrunen, “Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck” (lecture, A Pearl and a Leaven: Herman Bavinck for the Twenty-First Century, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, September 19, 2008).

93. However, the Two Kingdoms perspective often falls into an equally-as-dangerous extreme of this view: secularizing one’s faith such that the truth claims of the Christian worldview retain no place whatsoever in the public sphere of commonly known “facts.”

will be leavening or restorative effects, even while they may not be immediately noticeable in the visible sense.94 The Two Kingdoms perspective criticizes much of the evangelical church for its belief that “anything short of worldwide transformation is deemed failure by default.”95 Ironically, it seems that advocates of this view generally adopt the same all-or-nothing perspective that unless worldwide transformation is the fruit of our earthly labor, we should not even try.

Another concern of the Two Kingdoms perspective is that our attempts at transformation will show “that we are not interested in our concrete neighbors.”96 Again, this is not the natural outcome. The scriptural calling to be salt and light in the world does not leave us with the option to neglect our neighbors. “If we truly understand our cultural calling in the light of the gospel and carry it out faithfully, not only will we point to the rightful Lord of creation and renewal, but we will also love our neighbor. It is the justice, peace, joy, and righteousness of the kingdom of God that provide for the flourishing of human life, and it is these gifts to his creation that God has entrusted to us for the sake of our neighbors.”97

To be sure, the Christian is a pilgrim in this life. With eyes lifted upward, the believer must “press on” to pursue an “upward call” (Phil. 3:14). However, we should not regard this pilgrim status as “an alternative to Christian cultural participation.”98 Rather, our condition as pilgrims is “the mode of Christian cultural engagement.”99 It is our utmost joy and passion as pilgrims to pray for and seek the coming of God’s kingdom in our everyday living. All the spheres of our human existence, even the most seemingly mundane, unite to glorify God and witness to the comprehensive lordship of his beloved Son, Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 10:31). Our pilgrimage is life “under the cross,” for our redemption in Christ and the renewal it accomplishes are part of the restoration of all things, inaugurated by the risen Lord.100 Thus, even while the pilgrim fixes his gaze firmly on the future, his hands are busy at work, cultivating God’s creation in the glorious hope of the New Jerusalem.

94. See Goheen and Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads, chap. 9, “Life at the Crossroads: Perspectives on Some Areas of Public Life,” 146–73, for a worthwhile elucidation on how the gospel needs to be made incarnate in every area of the Christian life.

95. Stellman, Dual Citizens, 47.

96. Horton, “Christ and the Workplace.”

97. Goheen and Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads, 145.

98. Nelson D. Kloosterman, “ ‘Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck.’ A Response (abridged and expanded) by Nelson D. Kloosterman” (2008), 16 (available at http://richardsibbes.com/_hermanbavinck/Kloosterman-2Kingdoms.pdf).

99. Ibid.

100. Lief, “Is Neo-Calvinism Calvinist?” 3.

6

Theologian of the Revolution: Abraham Kuyper’s Radical Proposal for Church and State

John Halsey Wood Jr.

“The Herald adopts the ground principle of the Revolution.”1

“As far as the state is concerned, Kuyper remains with the Revolution.”2

Abraham Kuyper defined himself by his opposition to the French Revolution. His heirs continue to do so,3 and so do historians. Michael Wintle, for example, places Kuyper at the culmination of the conservative movement in nineteenth-century Dutch Protestantism. Wintle contrasts Kuyper with progressive supporters of liberal and Enlightenment values.4 Kuyper’s contemporaries, however, did not see it this way. Philip Hoedemaker accused Kuyper of promoting the principles of the French Revolution in Kuyper’s newspaper, The Herald (De Heraut). Moreover, if Kuyper did oppose the French Revolution, as he claimed, he did not therefore see himself as a conservative. He derided religious conservatism, and in his sermon “Conservatism and Orthodoxy,” preached at the distinguished conservative congregation of Utrecht, he set conservatism over against orthodoxy, an ironic contrast with J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism.5 And in 1886, the year of Kuyper’s secession from the NHK and the formation of the Doleantie churches (literally, the grieving churches), the newspaper De Uilenspiegel portrayed Kuyper as a conspirator in fomenting revolution with modernist and ex-pastor Domela Nieuwenhuis (see figure 1). Hoedemaker was not alone in his estimate of Kuyper.

1. Philip J. Hoedemaker, Artikel XXXVI: Onzer Nederduitsche Geloofsbeleidenis tegenover Dr. A. Kuijper Gehandhaafd (Amsterdam: J. H. van Dam, 1901), 172.

2. Philip J. Hoedemaker, Dr. A. Kuyper in Tegenspraak met Groen van Prinsterer; een Waarschuwend Woord voor de Verkiezingen in Juni 1891 door een Hervormd Predikant (Amsterdam: Egeling, 1891), 13, quoted in H. van Spanning, “Hoedemaker en de Antirevolutionairen,” in Hoedemaker Herdacht, ed. G. Abma and Jan De Bruijn (Baarn: Ten Have, 1989), 236.

3. E.g., Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Abraham Kuyper (1827–1920),” in The Teachings of Modern Protestantism on Law, Politics, and Human Nature, ed. John Witte Jr. and Frank S. Alexander (New york: Columbia University Press, 2007), 32–33.

Figure 1

4. Michael Wintle, Pillars of Piety: Religion in the Netherlands in the Nineteenth Century, 1813–1901, Occasional Papers in Modern Dutch Studies (Hull, UK: Hull University Press, 1987), xiii, 40.

5. Abraham Kuyper, “Conservatism and Orthodoxy: False and True Preservation (1870),” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). See also Abraham Kuyper, “Dr. Kuyper’s Democracy,” in A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper’s American Public Theology, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001).

Abraham Kuyper was a revolutionary and a radical, his political mantra notwithstanding. The confusion is a semantic and historical one. What kind of revolutionary was he? Historians most often contrast Protestant modernism with theological conservatism, and Abraham Kuyper was certainly no modernist theologian. However, neither was he a religious conservative. He would not accept the existing order. The opposite of this kind of religious conservatism, that which maintains and endorses the status quo, is not theological modernism but religious radicalism, the impulse to overturn existing structures and replace them with new ones, and that is the kind of radical that Kuyper was. One might consider the respect that Kuyper cultivated for modernist Allard Pierson and compare Pierson’s secession from the Netherlands Reformed Church with Kuyper’s own. Kuyper and Pierson took the same action, albeit from different motives, to achieve similar radical ends. They differed from the “Irenicals,” as Kuyper contemptuously dubbed the national church conservatives, who pursued the peace and unity of the church at any theological price. For all the differences between them, what the Irenicals had, and what Kuyper lacked, was the commitment to a single, broad national church. Kuyper’s objection to this system constituted a revolutionary departure not only from Dutch tradition but from the settlement of Western Christendom.

The matter of Kuyper’s radicalism gets at the question of just what was new about Dutch neo-Calvinism. This question, John Bolt suggests, does not yet have a complete answer, although it has something to do with the church.6 The new in Kuyper’s neo-Calvinism was not a single idea or even a collection of doctrines, but an ethos that oriented his adjustment of Calvinism to the social situation of the nineteenth century wherein separation of church and state, religious pluralism, and democracy were ascendant, an ethos that not only tolerated but even incorporated these features of modern society into Calvinism. This ethos was not simply a matter of this doctrine or that, but it came to special poignancy in Kuyper’s doctrine of the church. One place where this is clearly seen is Kuyper’s proposal for church and state. By itself, Kuyper’s proposal for church and state was not the sum of neo-Calvinism, but it signaled a shift in the way

6. John Bolt, A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper’s American Public Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 443–64. In this appendix, Bolt mentions several others, including Ernst Troeltsch and F. M. Ten Hoor, who like Hoedemaker viewed Kuyper as a liberal and not as a conservative Calvinist.

Protestantism would do business in modern society, and it was close to the heart of the new religious and social synthesis that Kuyper envisioned. Kuyper put forth a vision of society that separated the Dutch nation and the Dutch state from any single institutional church and that allowed for a plurality of churches, or, in Kuyper’s own terms, the “pluriformity” of the church. He provided warrant for his account of the new social settlement by explaining the differing natures and roles of church and state, and here, his doctrines of common and particular grace and the sovereignty of Christ played especially important roles. After examining these matters and others, this chapter then turns to Philip Hoedemaker’s critique, which brings Kuyper’s ideas into sharper historical relief, since Hoedemaker was an unquestioned Reformed conservative if ever there was one.

A host of literature has now arisen addressing the topics of natural law and Two Kingdoms theology in the Reformed and neo-Calvinist tradition.7 As a work of historical theology, this chapter concerns itself with the meaning of Kuyper’s theology in its own right, in its own day. While this chapter does not directly adjudicate contemporary debates, it occasionally gestures toward them and hopes to shed some light on them. Primarily, however, this chapter tries to make some historical sense of Kuyper’s theology, if not to answer once and for all the question of what Kuyper said in minute detail, then perhaps still to explain so what. In so doing, this chapter limits itself primarily to Kuyper’s discussion of church and state in his three-volume work Common Grace, originally published serially in The Herald. When studying Kuyper, there is always the possibility (perhaps one should say the likelihood) that he says something different in some other place. That is the risk of this approach. Nonetheless, Common Grace is the fruit of Kuyper’s mature thought and one of his most important contributions, and for those reasons it carries intrinsic interest. At twenty-eight chapters long, it is also quite an extensive statement. In order to appreciate the imagination of this proposal, it is helpful to begin by recalling the situation he found himself in.

7. E.g., David VanDrunen, “Abraham Kuyper and the Reformed Natural Law and Two Kingdoms Traditions,” CTJ 42 (2007): 283–307; John Bolt, “The VanDrunen-Kloosterman Debate on ‘Natural Law’ and ‘Two Kingdoms’ in the Theology of Herman Bavinck,” Bavinck Society Discussion 1 (2010), http://bavinck.calvinseminary.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/ Discussion_1_VanDrunen-Kloosterman_debate.pdf.

The Travails of Church and State in the Nineteenth Century

The relationship of church and state in the Netherlands during the nineteenth century shifted and surged as the Netherlands moved toward a more modern arrangement. The Netherlands was never a confessional state in the manner of Scandinavian countries, but the Reformed church was unquestionably the dominant church. Since the Reformation, the Reformed church had been the public church, whose members alone could hold public office, for example, and the church that had preeminent public sanction. Formal disestablishment came with the rise of the French revolutionaryinspired Batavian Republic in the 1790s, but under Napoleonic influence the Reformed church regained public prominence. Napoleon and his followers regarded it as more politically expedient to have religion and the churches on their side and under their oversight than against them, and so once again the Reformed church took a prominent national place. Willem I, a true Dutch monarch, continued these trends by centralizing, regulating, and consolidating the heretofore more loosely and locally organized Reformed church into the Netherlands Reformed Church (NHK) in 1816. Willem’s son, Willem II, did not share his father’s ecclesiastical concerns, and under his rule the liberal constitution of 1848 defined the separation of church and state for good. Until then, “Dutch Reformed ministers plausibly could claim that their church was the spiritual centre of the nation, cherished and protected by a monarch and a ministry that sought to give the church a prominent role in Dutch society.”8

As it turned out, it was easier to separate church and state on paper than in practice. After 1848, various attachments between church and state remained, and many of the Reformed were loath to give them up. The churches continued to receive financial subsidy from the state, a practice not completely abolished until the 1980s (in one of the supposedly most secular and progressive countries in Europe!). Ministers for the NHK were still educated at the public universities (rijksuniversiteiten), and volkskerk (literally, “church of the nation”) became the motto for many

8. James C. Kennedy, “Dutch Political Developments and Religious Reform,” in Political and Legal Perspectives, ed. Keith Robbins (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2010), 131. The brief history of church and state here depends largely on Kennedy’s work, but readers may also consult George Harinck and Lodewijk Winkeler, “De Negentiende Eeuw,” in Handboek Nederlandse Kerkgeschiedenis, ed. Herman J. Selderhuis (Kampen: Kok, 2006), 597–721.

in the NHK. This post-1848 church is difficult to characterize. From an American perspective, the Netherlands may look to have been still firmly grounded in the ancien régime given the ongoing restrictions on Catholics, the public privilege of the NHK, and the antidemocratic sentiments circulating among the elites, but the old regime was weakening. There were, relatively speaking, more freedoms for Catholics and smaller communions and a growing sense of self-consciousness and self-determination among the people.

Charles Taylor offers a scheme for interpreting this peculiar transition and for defining the shift for which Kuyper adjusted the church. Generally, the nineteenth century moved from a “paleo-Durkheimian” situation to a “neo-Durkheimian” one, he says. Emile Durkheim recognized the close relationship between religion and society, so close that Durkheim himself proclaimed that society is the sacred. The sacred is a purely social construction, that is. Without succumbing to Durkheim’s sociological reductionism, Taylor refers to the classic situation of one dominant societal church as “paleo-Durkheimian.” The paleo-Durkheimian situation consisted in two elements: a single dominant church and a close relationship between that church and civil society—cuius regio, eius religio in Reformation-era terms. Responsible citizenship and the common good depended on participation in the one church and the close coordination and cooperation between church and state. The “neo-Durkheimian” situation experienced a degree of religious pluralization, but nonetheless religion, especially Christianity, was still closely aligned with society and considered a public good. One might think of characterization of American religion as “Protestant, Catholic, Jew” or the appeal to “Judeo-Christian” values. One needn’t be a Calvinist, Catholic, or Methodist in the neo-Durkheimian situation, but one had to be something. The religious pluralization that inaugurated the neo-Durkheimian era occurred preeminently in the nineteenth century. Correspondingly, Hugh McLeod says that the key to understanding nineteenth-century religious culture is pluralization—not just the proliferation of alternatives to Christianity, but pluralization within Christianity itself.9 In this situation, Abraham Kuyper’s proposal for church and state called for the end of the paleo-Durkheimian framework, a framework that had oriented Western society since Constantine and that the Reformation had

9. Hugh McLeod, Secularization in Western Europe, 1848–1914 (New york: St. Martin’s, 2000), 28.

not overturned. In the Netherlands, even with its relative religious tolerance, this was a revolutionary call.

Abraham Kuyper’s Radical Proposal

When considering the questions of the Two Kingdoms in Kuyper’s theology, it is especially important to consider the historical shift that occurred in church-state relations in the nineteenth century. Abraham Kuyper viewed the problem of church and state in the nineteenth century in terms remarkably similar to Charles Taylor’s. Kuyper observed that for most of medieval Christendom, there had been a close unity of church and state. The Great Schism between the East and the West and even the Reformation did not significantly alter this. The Reformers from Luther and Zwingli, Calvin and Bullinger, Wycliffe and Knox, to Guido de Bres, and Roman Catholics as well, assumed the unity of the visible church and the coordination of church with the state. The Belgic Confession, written by de Bres and included in the Three Forms of Unity, made the common post-Constantinian and early Protestant assumption about the unity of church, state, and society. Article 36 of the confession charged the magistrates that “the government’s task is not limited to caring for and watching over the public domain but extends also to upholding the sacred ministry, with a view to removing and destroying all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist.”10 The chief hindrance to this element of the confession in the nineteenth century, Kuyper said, was pluralism (in agreement with Hugh McLeod). “The relation of church and state undergoes no stronger change than through the splitting of the one visible church into many churches of different, even partly contradictory confession.”11 Was any government competent to decide among the myriad of churches which was the one true church and which ones ought to be removed and destroyed? Kuyper asked.

Democratic governments, like that of the Netherlands, further complicated things. In Russia, the czar could at least establish the true church with little dispute, Kuyper observed, but in the Netherlands it would be the voters deciding. Kuyper worried that this would unleash an ecclesiastical

10. Guido de Bres, “The Belgic Confession (1561),” in Creeds and Confessions of Faith in Christian Tradition, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss (New Haven, CT: yale University Press, 2003), 424.

11. Abraham Kuyper, De Gemeene Gratie, 3 vols. (Kampen: Kok, 1931–32), 3:231–32.

civil war or, worse, voters would confuse the prerogatives that belonged to them and those that belonged to God. Moreover, what would happen when the majority shifted in years to come and voted that a different church was the true church? Would the formerly true church then become a sect? Democracy was seeping through the walls, but “Christ’s church is not judged by the majority of voices.”12 For this reason, article 36 was impossible to implement in the modern, plural world, and Kuyper proposed abolishing it altogether. That was not as simple as removing the offending clauses from the confession; it required a new logic of church, state, and society. This Kuyper provided in a series of articles under the heading of “Church and State” within his larger series on Common Grace (eventually appearing in volume 3 of De Gemeene Gratie).

As a preface to his theology of church and state, Kuyper’s reordering of church and nation also clearly expressed his vision of a neo-Durkheimian society. Kuyper argued that although the invisible church had existed since creation, the church institution had not. There was no church institution under Israel. It was a new creation at Pentecost. As such, the institutional church had never been a single institutional unit even at the beginning, nor could it be. To think so was the error of Rome. Churches and confessions varied according to ethnic, historical, and local differences. “The Javanese are a different race than us; they live in a different region; they stand on a wholly different level of development; they are created differently in their inner life; they have a wholly different past behind them; and they have grown up in wholly different ideas. To expect of them that they should find the fitting expression of their faith in our Confession and in our Catechism is therefore absurd.”13 Such diversity was not a problem but part of the beauty of human life.

Neither did the division of churches correspond to the division of nations. Instead, Kuyper proposed the pluriformity of the church. He objected to the idea of a volkskerk, a single church institution for the Dutch nation, which had become popular in the NHK in the late nineteenth century.14 He believed that the Dutch were a Christian and Protestant nation, but

12. Ibid., 3:253–55. Curiously, Kuyper did not explain how this could be harmonized with his own arguments for democratic polity in the church, e.g., Abraham Kuyper, Wat Moeten Wij Doen: Het Stemrecht aan ons zelven Houden of den Kerkeraad Machtigen? Vraag bij de Uitvoering van art. 23 Toegelicht (Culemborg: A. J. Blom, 1867).

13. Kuyper, De Gemeene Gratie, 3:237.

14. See Annemarie Houkes, Christelijke Vaderlanders: Godsdienst, Burgerschap, en de Nederlandse Natie (1850–1900) (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 2009).

that might be expressed in different ecclesiastical institutions with diverse confessions. The church was thereby pluriform, plural in its external form.15 The Reformation should have ended the one-state, one-church settlement, but here it failed to carry through its own principles. Further, Kuyper’s construal of the church institution as a “mechanical” and “artificial” imposition permitted his doctrine of pluriformity, which was itself a further development of the ecclesiological principles by which Kuyper legitimized his Doleantie churches alongside the more historically grounded NHK.16 Kuyper hereby introduced a neo-Durkheimian vision of society and, in retrospect, a European parallel to the American denominational system.

Kuyper provided theological legitimation for his vision of a religiously plural society through his theology of church and state. In particular, his distinction between common and particular grace and his understanding of the mediatorship of Christ distinguished these two institutions. The primary distinction between the institutions of church and state depended on the distinction between common grace and particular grace. In simplest terms, “the Church is from Particular Grace, and . . . the State . . . is an institution of Common Grace.”17 Common grace pertained to nature, and “the light necessary to form the state was none other than the light of nature.”18 Kuyper did allow that special revelation was of value in refining the state’s role, but it was not strictly necessary. In contrast, the church was grounded in the supernatural, specifically in special revelation and regeneration.

With the pluriformity of the church, the responsibility of the state was not to judge which confession and which church were the true ones, a task for which the government had no competency as an institution of common grace. Instead, the state simply had to provide for the free movement of the

15. Kuyper’s revised theology of the institutional church as a “mechanical” and “artificial” imposition permitted such a view.

16. Kuyper, De Gemeene Gratie, 3:103–5, 288–89; John Halsey Wood Jr., Going Dutch in the Modern Age: Abraham Kuyper’s Struggle for a Free Church in the Nineteenth-Century Netherlands, ed. David Steinmetz, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (New york: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Compare the notion in Common Grace of the church institution as artificial with Kuyper’s earlier view of the institutional form of the church in Confidentially, wherein he portrayed the institution not as an accretion of spiritual life, but as a precondition and necessity for it. “Exactly the unconscious life of every individual demands that the church, as mother of believers, must offer conscious form, that can bring the yet embryonic life to clearer consciousness.” Abraham Kuyper, Confidentie: Schrijven aan den Weled. Heer J. H. van der Linden (Amsterdam: Höveker & Zoon, 1873), 58.

17. Kuyper, De Gemeene Gratie, 3:104.

18. Ibid., 3:109; see also 289.

churches under it. Nonetheless, the presence of churches within the state was a salutary thing, which the state ought not take for granted. Churches promoted civil order and virtue. While the state did not absolutely depend on the church, particular grace, or special revelation for its existence, the nation and the state were indisputably better for them.19 In the pattern of church and society that Kuyper outlined, not everyone had to be a member of a particular church, but everyone (or almost everyone) ought to be a member of some church.

This distinction between the church as institution of particular grace and the state as institution of common grace also sorted out these two institutions as private and public, respectively. Common grace covered all of life, and consequently “the state comprehends the whole of our human race, the church only a part.”20 That made common grace and the state public entities insofar as they covered the common, shared elements of human life. In contrast, particular saving grace was not public, and correspondingly, neither was the church. It was limited in scope and required voluntary consent.21

Church and state also differed in their relation to the Son of God, and on this point Kuyper developed a doctrine of the Two Kingdoms—or, more precisely, the twofold kingship of the Son of God. He also departed from his dictum of twenty years earlier (or at least as it is commonly interpreted^22) that “there is not a thumb’s breadth in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’ ”23 Both church and state had their origin in the Son of God. Nevertheless, while the Son was Mediator of creation for all people, he was Christ, Mediator of redemption, only for the elect. Therefore, the Son was head of the church in his capacity as redemptive Messiah, Christ, “while in contrast, this Christ rules in the life of States, not as mediator of redemption, but as mediator of Creation, and thus as Son of God.”24 Strictly speaking, then, Christ was not Christ for the state. As Messiah and Christ, he could cry “Mine!” only over the church, even if as Son of God he did so over all creation.

19. Ibid., 3:129–44, 260–67.

20. Ibid., 3:105.

21. Cf. Wood, Going Dutch in the Modern Age.

22. E.g., Richard J. Mouw, Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 57–58.

23. Abraham Kuyper, Soevereiniteit in Eigen Kring. Rede ter Inwijding van de Vrije Universiteit, den 20sten Oktober 1880 Gehouden, in het Koor der Nieuwe Kerk te Amsterdam (Amsterdam: J. H. Kruyt, 1880), 35.

24. Kuyper, De Gemeene Gratie, 3:123; see also point 125 on 290. The same logic is at work in Kuyper’s earlier work, Abraham Kuyper, “Van het Kerkelijk Ambt,” De Heraut (1887–88): 519–33.

This point was so contentious that Kuyper returned to it again in his series on church and state. Apparently critics had responded that Christ ruled not only over the church but over all creation. Such a position, Kuyper said, led to a hopeless confusion over the roles of church and state. Confusing Christ’s lordship in the visible and the invisible, over civil and ecclesiastical life, over common and particular grace led either to the state’s usurping the rights of the church or to the church’s subjecting the state. Kuyper appealed to the Reformed confessions. As Mediator at God’s right hand, Christ was never said to take up the providential work of God. “On the contrary, Christ is only spoken of in connection with Particular Grace in the great work of Redemption.”25

Further differences concerned the scope and power of the church and state and corresponded to the difference between these institutions as natural and supernatural. The sphere of the state was observable, natural life, whereas the church dealt with the heart. The state used coercive means in its ordering of natural life, whereas the church used spiritual means. Finally, the state was an institution that was given and whose authority was absolute, even extending over life and death, as for example when the state called one to go to war. The church, on the other hand, was not given but voluntary, and could not force anyone to become a member.26

Kuyper’s proposal was no ivory-tower abstraction. After the French Revolution and later the Batavian Revolution, King Willem I reorganized the Reformed churches in the Netherlands in 1816 into the Netherlands Reformed Church following the Napoleonic model. Willem constructed an ecclesiastical hierarchy with its pinnacle in the national synod. Kuyper protested this intrusion of state power in church matters. He blamed the melding of church and state for various ills: the co-option of the church for state purposes, a lethargic spirituality induced by dependency on state handouts, and the use of the church by “wealthy young men of high standing, who use the gospel to strengthen their position and family influence.”27 Kuyper recognized what sociologists confirmed a century later: the statechurch is a losing proposition in the modern world.28

25. Kuyper, De Gemeene Gratie, 3:274–81, here 279.

26. Ibid., 3:105–7, 109–14; also points 106 and 108 on 290.

27. Ibid., 3:259; also 252.

Astutely attuned to the plural and disestablished character of modern society, this position involved a certain irony. A necessary correlate of the doctrine of pluriformity of the church was the priority of the subject over the corporate, institutional church. Kuyper interpreted the Reformation as the great turn to the subject, when doctrinal authority was transferred from the church to the people led by the Spirit.29 Consequently, when it came to determining which church among the myriad of churches was the true church, Kuyper left it up to the individual believer’s judgment to compare and determine which church was the purer and the better.30 So while Kuyper charged theological modernism with putting the human subject in the place of God, he himself put the subject in the place of the church.31 Subjectivism thus appeared in Kuyper’s theology—if not in his beliefs about the authority of Scripture, then one step removed, in his theology of the church’s right to interpret Scripture. Philip Hoedemaker was quick to point this out.

Philip Hoedemaker’s Critique

As a Protestant who held closely to the Reformed confessions, Philip Hoedemaker is an unexpected opponent of Abraham Kuyper. After graduating with his PhD in theology from the University of Utrecht, Hoedemaker made an odd mistake that would characterize the double bind he found himself in the rest of his life. Hoedemaker accepted the opportunity to preach in two churches on the same Sunday, in the morning at a congregation of the NHK and in the evening in a congregation of the Christian Reformed Churches (CGK), a church that had left the NHK in the Secession of 1834 and had then existed more or

28. Ibid., 3:257. And much earlier, Kuyper, Confidentie, 86–91.

29. Kuyper, De Gemeene Gratie, 3:239–45.

30. Ibid., 3:272–73.

31. Abraham Kuyper, “Modernism: A Fata Morgana in the Christian Domain (1871),” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, 103. Kuyper did recognize that the church was not simply a voluntary organization. The practice of infant baptism proved that, but he did not fully explain this point in Common Grace. His argument for presumptive regeneration as the basis for infant baptism was his attempt to marry his otherwise highly subjective ecclesiology with traditional Reformed practice.

less as a conservative Reformed sect.32 Hoedemaker accepted the confessional theology of the CGK but cherished the broadness and the tradition of the NHK. The CGK leaders, however, would not abide a preacher who made peace with their old ecclesiastical enemy, and they demanded that Hoedemaker choose.33 He chose for the NHK. Later, when Hoedemaker was appointed as a professor at Kuyper’s Free University of Amsterdam (VU), he faced a similar dilemma. He joined the VU with the idea that it would be a bastion of Reformed orthodoxy for ministers of the NHK, but after Kuyper’s own secession from the NHK and the refusal of that church to ordain VU students, it became clear that the VU and the NHK had different agendas and that Hoedemaker could not serve both of these masters. Again, Hoedemaker chose for the NHK with its national aspirations and its Dutch Reformed heritage. Hoedemaker was no less a critic of theological modernism and the co-option of the church by the state that had occurred under the 1816 arrangement, but he disagreed with Kuyper that secession was the right or only course. Subsequently Hoedemaker, for all his other theological overlap with Kuyper, opposed Kuyper with pen and paper on matters of church, state, and society.

Above all, Hoedemaker wanted one Reformed church for the Netherlands, and he detested Kuyper’s tactics that endlessly divided party against party in church and in state. Hoedemaker represented an attempt to maintain the Reformation’s paleo-Durkheimian situation in the modern age. Leaving aside for now the question of whose theology was more truly Reformed or biblical, Hoedemaker’s or Kuyper’s, Hoedemaker recognized Kuyper’s reordering of church and society for what it was, an epoch-making overturning of the Reformation settlement and the Dutch Republic. Three topics in particular exhibit Kuyper’s and Hoedemaker’s differing approaches to church and society and their willingness, or not, to accommodate Reformed Protestantism to modern social trends: religious freedom in the form of the religious neutrality of the state, the democratization of Christianity, and the divorce of church and nation.

32. On Hoedemaker’s life, see Jan de Bruijn, “Philippus Jacobus Hoedemaker: Een Biografische Schets,” in Hoedemaker Herdacht, 11–29. Here I mean the term sect in the general sociological sense that Ernst Troeltsch used it and not as a derogatory term.

33. Lest anyone think the CGK overly divisive, it should be noted that the CGK had faced various injustices more or less directly at the hands of the NHK, beginning with but not limited to the quartering of soldiers in their homes.

Kuyper had argued that although ideally the state should support the true church, in the contemporary situation, facing a plurality of churches, it was impossible for the state to determine which one was the true church. The only proper course was to permit all churches to operate freely. This, Hoedemaker said, was none other than the principle of the revolution (i.e., the French Revolution) applied in the sphere of the state. This construal of religious freedom was an illegitimate religious neutrality foreign to the Reformed tradition. While Kuyper well knew that in the realm of ideas there was no neutrality, Hoedemaker understood better than Kuyper that institutional and social arrangements were never religiously or theologically neutral. When the state administered punitive judgments, for example, it did so on the basis of an idea of right and wrong and thus assumed a religious principle.34 Further, Hoedemaker continued, Kuyper’s concept of common grace supported this error. Kuyper too narrowly delimited the state as an institution of common grace without recourse to particular grace and special revelation.

Special Revelation, we [i.e., Hoedemaker] opine, comprehends not only everything that stands in connection with reconciliation, that is, the restoration of fellowship between God and humanity, but everything that touches redemption in the broadest sense, namely the restoration, yes the glorifying of the first creation. And Particular Grace does not fall so wholly together with the ministry of Word and Reconciliation that one can assign the terrain of the State to Common Grace and that of the church to Particular Grace.35

It may seem as if Hoedemaker was out-Kuypering Kuyper himself. In fact, his critique illustrates just how much Kuyper’s division of special and common grace and his application of these doctrines to church and state participated in the modern project of separating the society into discrete spheres of activity, and how they departed from the premodern vision of an organically interconnected society.

Hoedemaker likewise recoiled at Kuyper’s democratization of Christianity in compensation for the state’s incompetence in matters of religion. Since the state was not able to judge which church is the true church, the state had to rely on the voters, said Kuyper. The church had only an indirect influence on the state, via the people. In this way, Hoedemaker said, Kuyper treated doctrine as a matter of public opinion, and he lost the principle that the church in its institutional appearance was the arbiter of doctrine. “Dr. Kuyper attacks the Confession in its essence, when he concludes that it is not a short synopsis of Holy Scripture (repetitio Sacrae Scripturae) but the echo of public opinion.”36 Closely related was Hoedemaker’s criticism of Kuyper’s partisan politics and the way this made church and state depend on the whims of the masses. In Hoedemaker’s system, the state would be bound to the Word “not only through the conscience of the government officials, but through the conscience enlightened by the public exposition of the Church as established in the confession.”37 The state would rely on the church, not public opinion, for the right exposition of Scripture.

34. Hoedemaker, Artikel XXXVI, 16, 63–64. Various articles discuss Hoedemaker’s critique of Kuyper’s neutrality: see G. Abma, “Hoe Neutraal is Neutraal? Hoedemaker en de Politiek,” in Hoedemaker Herdacht, 188–215; van Spanning, “Hoedemaker en de Antirevolutionairen,” 234–45.

35. Hoedemaker, Artikel XXXVI, 55.

Finally, there was the nation. Both Kuyper and Hoedemaker exhibited the strong nationalist sentiments common to their day, and both viewed the Dutch as a Protestant nation by virtue of its history and the general character of the people. While Kuyper did not demand that this Protestant character be expressed in a single institutional church, Hoedemaker wanted to preserve the Dutch as a unified nation under a single Reformed church, not as a nation of disparate competing religious groups. “This [Protestant] character of the nation is connected with and finds one expression in the national church [landskerk], the revelation of the body of Christ in this land such as it manifests itself purified from deviations as Reformed Church.”38 Further, this one church would be the legal public church, that is, recognized and supported by the state though not dominated by the state.

Kuyper supported his position by disconnecting the institutional church from the nation in his biblical-theological interpretation. He claimed that the institutional church had not existed under Israel but came into existence only at Pentecost. It had therefore never been an institution chained to a single nation. Hoedemaker took the more traditional Reformed view, and one more grounded in the Old Testament. The church had indeed existed under Israel. There one could find the ancestor of the New Testament Christian church, and of course the church under Israel was a national

36. Ibid., 87; see also 73, 88–89.

37. Ibid., 76; see also 56.

38. Ibid., 76; van Spanning, “Hoedemaker en de Antirevolutionairen,” 236–38.

church.39 Both views led to some ill-considered conclusions. Hoedemaker’s close association between the Dutch nation and the one, true Reformed church issued in an unsavory anti-Catholicism. Kuyper, for his part, tolerated a plurality of churches and made common cause with Catholics in a variety of political endeavors, but his antipathy for the national church apparently also hid some anti-Semitic feelings: “The national church as such is a parasitic Jewish plant that must be uprooted everywhere as a damaging weed.”40

Conclusion

In protest to Hoedemaker’s claims, Kuyper said that his idea of neutrality was not that of the “men of the Revolution,” by which he meant the French Revolution. Of course, it wasn’t. Their neutrality, Kuyper pointed out, stemmed from the belief that religion was a private matter and that the church counted for nothing in the public domain. Against this, Kuyper championed the church as a part of national life and something that the government must honor. The crucial distinction lay in the concept of the church underlying Kuyper’s and Hoedemaker’s respective claims. Kuyper meant the invisible church and preinstitutional organic church manifested in pluriformity, while Hoedemaker thought of a particular, concrete institution, namely, the NHK. That allowed Kuyper to simultaneously affirm the public role of the church and deny the government the right to choose between churches.41 But if Kuyper’s theology was not that of the French Revolution, it was nonetheless a radical proposal.

Hoedemaker and Kuyper agreed on at least one thing. They agreed that Kuyper’s proposal departed from historical Protestant beliefs and practices on church, state, and society. Kuyper viewed himself as carrying through the Reformation principle of freedom of conscience, which had become bogged down in Europe by the emergence of state churches. Hoedemaker, however, thought this was an essential element of the Reformation and, not without some justification, said that Kuyper’s free-church ecclesiology was

39. See Philip J. Hoedemaker, “De Kerk en de Staat Onder het Oude Verbond,” Troffel en Zwaard 1 (1898): 142–62; Philip J. Hoedemaker, “Kerk en Staat in Israel,” Troffel en Zwaard 1 (1898): 208–37.

40. Abraham Kuyper, Encyclopaedie der Heilige Godgeleerdheid, 3 vols. (Amsterdam: J. A. Wormser, 1894), 3:286. See also Abma, “Hoe Neutraal is Neutraal?” 198–99.

41. Kuyper, De Gemeene Gratie, 3:286–88.

the child of Friedrich Schleiermacher, not the Reformation.42 Regardless of who was right, Kuyper represented a new development in the Western understanding of church and society, one that in certain respects was more momentous than had occurred with the Reformation itself, to take both Kuyper’s and Hoedemaker’s words for it. Kuyper introduced an era characterized by the continuing dominance of Christianity in the public sphere but no longer by a single dominant church. That is the historical lesson.

Hoedemaker’s critique suggests an attendant lesson for theologians. The chief weakness of Hoedemaker’s position lay in the impracticability of his theocratic plan for a “state with the Bible” in a plural society and under disestablishment. He was right, however, to recognize that social structures are never religiously or theologically neutral. For Kuyper, persons were not religiously neutral but, under common grace, social structures effectively were. This was particularly detrimental to the church. Kuyper naively thought that the state and individual Christians could treat the church as a matter of individual choice and still maintain the church as something more than that. Of this modern socioreligious predicament, Clark Gilpin perceptively asks, “If religious community was based on the personal decision to affiliate and personal commitments to spiritual ideals, what social experience supported the common assumption that religion represented an alignment of life with transcendent powers or a claim upon the self that originated from beyond the self?”43 With the church being a voluntary association, one’s experience with it conflicts with all but the most diluted theological account of the church. Kuyper failed to see the extreme religious individualism of the American situation, which most closely approximated his vision, or the atomization and degrading of the church into a voluntary society that resulted from such an arrangement. Today, Americans can hardly conceive of the church otherwise. Kuyper understood well that the life of the mind was shot through with religious meaning, and he recognized the impossibility of value-free science, but these insights need to be applied to life in society as well. Without that, the church stands to lose the most.

42. Hoedemaker, Artikel XXXVI, 16; Jasper Vree, “Historical Introduction,” in Abraham Kuyper’s Commentatio (1860): The Young Kuyper about Calvin, A Lasco, and the Church, 2 vols., vol. 1, Brill’s Series in Church History (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 49–51.

43. William Schweiker et al., “Grappling with Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age,” JR 90 (2010): 387.

7

Two Cities or Two Kingdoms? The Importance of the Ultimate in Reformed Social Thought

Branson Parler

CAN AUGUSTINE’S TWO CITIES be assimilated into a Reformed Two Kingdoms approach to social thought? David VanDrunen makes this case and presents the two as potentially compatible, whereas I argue they are not.1 Insofar as the Two Kingdoms perspective argues that the civil kingdom has an independent end from God’s redemptive kingdom and that common grace has an independent end from special grace, it presents a theological problem by imagining that the ultimate and penultimate ends of humanity can be divorced. This problem is common to both VanDrunen and Abraham Kuyper, both of whom suppose that humans can be disordered with respect to humanity’s ultimate end but still be properly ordered toward penultimate ends.2 On the other hand, I argue that both Augustine and Klaas Schilder see the city and culture as animated by their ultimate ends. For Augustine, the city of God is not part of a different realm or kingdom than the earthly city but, unlike the earthly city, uses the gifts God has given with reference to God rather than an idol.3 Schilder likewise refuses a dichotomy between religion and culture, arguing that the ultimate end is what shapes and directs

1. See David VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 22–32. Other writings of VanDrunen include “Abraham Kuyper and the Reformed Natural Law and Two Kingdoms Tradition,” CTJ 42 (2007): 283–307; “The Importance of the Penultimate: Reformed Social Thought and the Contemporary Critiques of Liberal Society,” Journal of Markets and Morality 9, 2 (2006): 219–49; “ ‘The Kingship of Christ Is Twofold’: Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck,” CTJ 45 (2010): 147–64; Living in God’s Two Kingdoms: A Biblical View for Christianity and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011); “The Two Kingdoms: A Reassessment of the Transformationist Calvin,” CTJ 40 (2005): 248–66; “The Two Kingdoms Doctrine and the Relationship of Church and State in Early Reformed Tradition,” JCS 49, 4 (2007): 743–63; “The Two Kingdoms and the Ordo Salutis: Life beyond Judgment and the Question of a Dual Ethic,” WTJ 70 (2008): 207–24. Engagements with aspects of VanDrunen’s work include Jeong Koo Jeon, “Calvin and the Two Kingdoms: Calvin’s Political Philosophy in Light of Contemporary Discussion,” WTJ 72 (2010): 299–320; Nelson D. Kloosterman, “A Response to ‘The Kingdom

of God Is Twofold’: Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck by David VanDrunen,” CTJ 45 (2010): 165–76; Ryan McIlhenny, “A Third-Way Reformed Approach to Christ and Culture: Appropriating Kuyperian Neo-Calvinism and the Two Kingdoms Perspective,” MAJT 20 (2009): 75–102.

2. On this point, I agree with VanDrunen’s presentation of Kuyper as representative of Two Kingdoms thought, at least in some aspects of his thought. I focus primarily on two works: Kuyper, “Common Grace,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 165–204; and Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975). Others comment on Kuyper’s notion of common grace, including Jeremy Begbie, “Creation, Christ, and Culture in Dutch Neo-Calvinism,” in Christ in Our Place: The Humanity of God in Christ for the Reconciliation of the World, ed. Trevor A. Hart and Daniel P. Thimell (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1989), 113–32; John Bolt, A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper’s American Public Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001); Jacob Klapwijk, “Antithesis and Common Grace,” in Bringing into Captivity Every Thought: Capita Selecta in the History of Christian Evaluations of Non-Christian Philosophy, ed. Jacob Klapwijk, Sander Griffioen, and Gerben Groenewoud (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991), 169–90; Cornelis van der Kooi, “A Theology of Culture. A Critical Appraisal of Kuyper’s Doctrine of Common Grace,” in Kuyper Reconsidered: Aspects of His Life and Work, ed. Cornelis van der Kooi and Jan de Bruijn (Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 1999), 95–100; Henry R. Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1972); S. U. Zuidema, “Common Grace and Christian Action in Abraham Kuyper,” in Communication and Confrontation: A Philosophical Appraisal and Critique of Modern Society and Contemporary Thought (Assen/Kampen: Royal VanGorcum Ltd./Kok, 1972), 52–105.

3. I draw primarily on Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans, ed. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). I largely concur with John Milbank’s reading of Augustine in Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 380–434. For further commentary on Augustine’s thought, see, among others, Robert Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); and Oliver O’Donovan, “Augustine’s City of God XIX and Western Political Thought,” Dionysius 11 (1987): 89–110.

penultimate ends.4 For Augustine and Schilder, there is only one proper ultimate end (telos)—God—and apart from God’s reign in Christ, human beings and institutions who aim at independent ends can only meet their end (destruction).

If my argument holds, then Reformed social thought is at a crossroads. On key issues, a choice must be made between what I call Reformed Augustinianism and the Two Kingdoms perspective (which may, as VanDrunen argues, include figures such as Kuyper).5 Although there are points of similarity, these two perspectives have differences regarding human nature and culture, the relationship of religion to politics and culture, and the nature of the church-state relationship. Simply put, the question is exactly how the link between humanity’s ultimate and penultimate ends should be theologically construed and the precise effect that human sin has on that linkage. The answer to that question has ripple effects through all the issues noted above.

In this chapter, I first examine VanDrunen’s thought, noting his contention that fallen humanity can fulfill certain temporal and penultimate ends apart from the reorientation toward humanity’s ultimate end that comes through redemption. For both Kuyper and VanDrunen, fallen humans are still able to fulfill God’s will with respect to penultimate ends related to the temporal matters of politics and culture. This move may seem innocuous enough, but in actuality it has theological problems: it radically divorces

4. Klaas Schilder, Christ and Culture, trans. G. van Rongen and W. Helder (Winnipeg, MB: Premier Printing, 1977). This text is available online at numerous sites, including http://www .reformed.org/ master/ index .html?mainframe=/webfiles/cc/christ_and_culture.html. Accessed July 7, 2011. Commentators on Schilder include the collection of essays in Always Obedient: Essays on the Teachings of Dr. Klaas Schilder, ed. J. Geertsma (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1995), especially N. H. Gootjes, “Schilder on Christ and Culture”; Richard J. Mouw, “Klaas Schilder as Public Theologian,” CTJ 38 (2003): 281–98; and Henry Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1972), 137–56. Schilder is also referenced briefly in James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 209–11.

5. They are not mutually exclusive on every point, but on central points they are not compatible. In addition to Schilder, James K. A. Smith is another example of a thinker I would place in this category. See especially Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom. Beyond the Reformed tradition, this type of Augustinianism informs William Cavanaugh, “The Liturgies of Church and State,” Liturgy 20, 1 (2005): 25–30; Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011); The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Theopolitical Imagination: Discovering the Liturgy as a Political Act in an Age of Global Consumerism (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2002); Milbank, Theology and Social Theory; and Bernd Wannenwetsch, Political Worship, trans. Margaret Kohl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

the ultimate and penultimate and underestimates the effects of the fall, in that postlapsarian human nature is still intact with respect to temporal and penultimate ends. More dangerously, this position cannot register the doxological nature of politics, thereby failing to equip Christians with the necessary theological and practical tools to recognize that modern politics tells a pseudo-soteriological tale in which the liberal state is the one by whom, through whom, and in whom all things hold together.

Second, I show that this view of human nature and culture is rejected by both Augustine and Klaas Schilder. Given the importance of Augustine for all later Christian theology and social thought, his work bears revisiting with an eye toward its relationship to VanDrunen’s project. In particular, I highlight the points that make Augustine’s two cities impossible to assimilate with the Two Kingdoms perspective. Schilder, although little known even within Reformed circles, provides an interesting specimen of what I am calling Reformed Augustinianism. As such, he is a resource that Reformed theologians should revisit in the face of current discussion between the Two Kingdoms perspective and neo-Calvinism. As a Reformed Augustinian, his theology of culture points to a potential third way not found in the Two Kingdoms or neo-Calvinist camp. Although very different, both Augustine and Schilder hold that the loss of orientation toward God results in the disordering of humanity’s natural faculties and ends, whether ultimate or penultimate. For this view of human nature, God’s intentions in creation (including humanity’s social and cultural life) cannot be fulfilled apart from redemption. Grace is not an external layer added on top of still-functioning nature; it is the cornerstone by which nature is given integrity and order. In other words, only with reference to the ultimate does the penultimate gain its proper place, whether in Reformed social thought or in the life of humanity.

David VanDru nen: The End of the Civil Kingdom

VanDrunen’s survey and analysis of the history of Reformed social thought underscores numerous distinctions that are crucial to Two Kingdoms thought. These include distinctions between creation and redemption, the civil or common kingdom and the redemptive kingdom, and the eternal Son as Mediator of creation and Christ as Mediator of redemption. VanDrunen notes that John Calvin, Francis Turretin, Samuel Rutherford, Abraham Kuyper, and Meredith Kline all in some way highlight these distinctions that are indicators of Two Kingdoms thought.6 These distinctions serve to underscore the many commendable aims of VanDrunen’s project: recovering the centrality of the church, a fresh reading of the natural-law tradition, and delimiting the eschatological expectations that many Christians (not least neo-Calvinists) place upon the state. These distinctions, however, serve to reinforce the possibility that postlapsarian humanity is still functional with respect to attaining penultimate ends.

A central theme of Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms is that the civil kingdom must be granted an independent end from the redemptive kingdom. The former is grounded in creation and has to do with the penultimate; the latter is grounded in redemption and has to do with the ultimate.7 In the context of his discussion of Kuyper, VanDrunen charts a line of similarity between Kuyper and the Reformed Two Kingdoms doctrine inasmuch as Kuyper sees an independent purpose for common grace, or the civil kingdom.8 For VanDrunen, Kuyper rightly emphasizes that “society and the world in general were not preserved and allowed to flourish only for the purpose of helping to achieve God’s saving work in Christ.”9 Common grace thus serves God’s purposes in a way that is completely distinct from special grace. VanDrunen notes that this terminology was not used by the older tradition, but that it spoke of maintaining relative justice, peace, and prosperity in the world, all of which are ends independent of redemption.10 Elsewhere, VanDrunen reiterates the notion that natural law and the civil kingdom serve purposes “independent of redemption.”11 This point forms his strongest criticism of Herman Dooyeweerd and his neo-Calvinist heirs. Unlike Kuyper, these thinkers see no independent purposes of a civil kingdom or realm of common grace. Indeed, it is precisely this issue that demarcates traditional Reformed thought from North American neo-Calvinism.12

VanDrunen’s motivation for speaking of an independent end for the civil kingdom is understandable: he rightly criticizes Christians who too easily speak of “transforming culture” or “redeeming politics” and proceed

6. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 75–76, 177, 295, 305, 415.

7. VanDrunen uses language of ultimate and penultimate most frequently in “The Importance of the Penultimate.”

8. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 305.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., 306.

11. Ibid., 367.

12. Ibid., 370.

to associate transformation and redemption with the platform of the Republican or Democratic party.13 Independence is thus declared to preserve the integrity of both ecclesiastical and civil authority.14 This frees the institutional church to recognize its own proper end, which includes preaching the Word, celebrating the sacraments, and announcing and participating in the kingdom of God. Recognizing these ends frees the church from trying to run the civil kingdom. One can thus see why VanDrunen speaks of the separate ends of the redemptive kingdom and civil kingdom.

This distinction in ends comes to the forefront in VanDrunen’s defense of liberalism and the importance of the penultimate.15 Recent decades have seen numerous analyses of liberalism from philosophers and theologians, including Alasdair MacIntyre, Stanley Hauerwas, Oliver O’Donovan, and the proponents of Radical Orthodoxy. VanDrunen notes that the critiques leveled against liberalism mesh well with Kuyperian thought inasmuch as they approach the matter from an ultimate perspective. That is, they criticize liberalism from the perspective of God’s reign in Christ. VanDrunen argues, however, that the older Two Kingdoms perspective is a mode of analysis that views society in general and liberalism in particular from a penultimate rather than ultimate perspective. That is, granting that the civil kingdom will always fall short of God’s eschatological kingdom, what is the best possible prudential ordering of society? This is not an amoral evaluation, but neither does it use the standards of God’s redemptive kingdom. Creation and redemption must be clearly distinguished “so that when one thinks about one kingdom he should call off his mind from thinking about the other.”16 The limited ends of the civil kingdom mean that it should not be based on a theological or spiritual ideal but a prudential and temporal model. For VanDrunen, liberalism falls short of the eschatological kingdom. However, if evaluated on its ability to provide solutions to penultimate questions, such as maintaining law and order, advancing art and science, and supplying physical needs, then liberalism does remarkably well.

Indeed, VanDrunen’s remarks on Genesis 9 seem to point to liberalism as the best fulfillment of the cultural mandate and the apex of humanity’s penultimate ends. In Genesis 9:1, God repeats the original creation mandate

13. VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms, 194–203.

14. Ibid., 182–89.

15. The following paragraph summarizes VanDrunen, “The Importance of the Penultimate.”

16. VanDrunen, “The Importance of the Penultimate,” 232.

to be fruitful and multiply, while Genesis 9:2–4 reiterates the commands to exercise dominion and subdue the earth.17 For VanDrunen, these activities entail imaging God. Interestingly, VanDrunen also notes that Genesis 9 and the covenant with Noah have to do with “ordinary cultural activities,” not with religious activities.18 Like Kuyper, VanDrunen holds that, by God’s common grace, “sinful humanity remains commissioned to develop the potentialities of the image, whose outer limits, even for sinful image bearers, no one can identify.”19 God is thus imaged by those who exert raw power over nature, so that social complexity and technological advance are signs that “man is coming to ever greater expression of the image of God, whose knowledge is indeed absolutely boundless.”20 Although liberalism has not yet attained perfect obedience to the original creation mandate, it seems to be well on the way, in VanDrunen’s estimation. Given that it is the height of human history to this point, the most complete fulfillment of Genesis 9 (and thus Genesis 1) and humanity’s imaging of God, liberalism should be ranked higher than “any other human system of social ordering yet imagined.”21

On these points, VanDrunen comes very close to the idea of pure nature, the idea that fallen humanity can still order its penultimate ends in such a way that God’s original creational intentions can be met apart from the redemption accomplished in Christ.22 One could argue that he points to God’s common grace, not human nature, as the reason for this. The irony, however, is that common grace then becomes the

17. VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms, 80.

18. Ibid., 79. Continuing, VanDrunen implies that the task of imaging God does not require people to function as priests. This seems to ignore the argument of biblical scholars that humanity’s imaging of God is a priestly activity. For example, see John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009). VanDrunen thus divorces the “religious” and the “cultural” in a way that is commonplace in modern thought but foreign to the biblical world.

19. VanDrunen, “The Importance of the Penultimate,” 241.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid., 242. VanDrunen does not seem to imagine the church as itself a social order, or link the true image of God with Christ (Col. 1:15) and thus the body of Christ.

22. For a helpful discussion of the concept of pure nature, see Paul Helm, Calvin at the Centre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), especially chapter 10, “Pure Nature and Common Grace,” 308–39. Helm points out that the concept of “pure nature” is a Counter-Reformation reading of Aquinas that is at odds with the thought of Augustine, Calvin, and probably even Aquinas himself. This reading of Aquinas is defended by, among others, D. Stephen Long, Speaking of God: Theology, Language, and Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 55–81; and John Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate concerning the Supernatural (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 89.

Reformed equivalent of the Roman Catholic conception of pure nature. That is, both concepts entail that postlapsarian humanity still functions in such a way that it can attain its penultimate ends, which are grounded in creation. Humanity’s supernatural end is lost, but rather than seeing this supernatural end as the basis for ordering natural ends, VanDrunen sees the supernatural end as nonessential for human functioning with respect to natural or penultimate ends. VanDrunen, however, is not alone in this view, as Abraham Kuyper’s thought bears many similarities on these crucial questions.

Abraham Kuyper: The End of Common Grace

There is agreement that Kuyper gives common grace an end that is independent of special grace.23 The relationship between common and special grace in Kuyper is complicated.24 As S. U. Zuidema notes, interpreting exactly how Kuyper saw these two as interrelated is complicated by the apparent vacillation in the precise relationship between them, as well as shifts in Kuyper’s own thought. On the one hand, he will give priority to special grace, so that common grace always serves and contributes to achieving the goals of special grace. On the other hand, he sometimes distinguishes between them so severely that common grace is depicted as operating independent of special grace. My chief worry is that Kuyper’s rhetoric, at some points, risks underwriting a near-dualistic view of common and special grace. That is, although Kuyper criticizes those in the Roman Catholic camp who posit some state of pure nature,25 this danger lurks in the concept of common grace, if one does not rightly conceptualize an integral relation between common and special grace, such that they truly cohere. Kuyper recognizes this and repeatedly asserts a close relationship between the two, seeing them as two intertwined branches of the same tree.26 Nevertheless, this analogy does not adequately convey the independence that Kuyper elsewhere ascribes to common grace.

23. A number of commentators argue to this effect, such as Begbie, “Creation, Christ, and Culture”; Klapwijk, “Antithesis and Common Grace”; van der Kooi, “Theology of Culture”; VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 305; and Zuidema, “Common Grace.”

24. This point is well documented in Zuidema, “Common Grace,” 52–105.

25. Kuyper, Lectures, 122.

26. Kuyper, “Common Grace,” 186. Kuyper also states that Christ is the end of all things and that the body of Christ is thus the key to history. Ibid., 170.

The main problem in Kuyper’s thought is that he relates history, creation, and common grace in such a way that the realm of common grace has a telos that can be conceived immanently, without reference to God on the part of humanity. As James Bratt has highlighted, Kuyper was no uncritical modern, for he was circumspect regarding modern optimism about technology and faith in humanity.27 Still, a certain concept of progress is operative in his thought, based on his organicism and the principles embedded by God in the human race at creation. So common grace as Kuyper envisioned it would “consistently enrich human life” in “perpetual development.”28 Since God had placed all the riches necessary for human life in creation in the beginning, what we see in the unfolding of the centuries is God’s enabling of humanity to discover and use the riches of creation—this is what constitutes the “development of our race” and the “real component of progress.”29 Thus, the work of common grace encompasses the “whole life of the world,” such that the consummation of God’s work in the world is an actualizing of everything that God “put into this world” at the time of creation in a way that fully develops the “energies” of nature/creation.30 Although God providentially orders this process, humanity’s acknowledgment of God is not necessary for the attainment of this end. As a result, the fall marks no significant change in the ability of humanity to meet the original creation mandate, thanks to common grace.

Elsewhere, as Kuyper embarks on a discussion of what it means to be the image of God, there is further discussion of the distinction between common and special grace. As the image of God, the human race must continue to exist post-fall, if for no other reason than that the “highly ramified development” of humanity has a “significance of its own, an independent goal, a reason for being aside from the issue of salvation.”31 Only in this full revelation of humanity’s diversity in unity will the Creator God receive full glory. Interestingly, however, Kuyper makes it quite clear that this revelation of all the “glories” of creation may (and in fact probably

27. Bratt, “Abraham Kuyper: His World and Work,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, 12.

28. Kuyper, “Common Grace,” 174.

29. Ibid., 176. Kuyper and VanDrunen thus use the term progress in a similar way, to refer to sheer technological expertise without any question of the ends to which power is exercised. See, for example, VanDrunen, “The Importance of the Penultimate,” 239–40.

30. Kuyper, “Common Grace,” 176.

31. Ibid., 178.

will) occur simultaneously with the most abject, anti-God behavior. This tension is seen in an extended but notable quote from Kuyper:

Though people may pluck the enjoyment and profit of [the full development of humanity], its realization is in fact not for the sake of humanity but for God. The supreme Artisan and Architect will want all that has gone into his design to be realized and stand before him in a splendid edifice. God will take delight in that high human development. He himself will bring it about and into view. Then he will seek in it his own glorification. The control and harnessing of nature by civilization, enlightenment, and progress, by science and art, by a variety of enterprises and industry will be entirely separate from the totally other development in holiness and integrity; indeed, that exterior development may even clash openly with an interior development in holiness and become a temptation to the believer. Still, that exterior development has to continue and be completed to bring the work of God in our race to full visible realization. Whether or not this will subsequently be consumed in the coming cosmic conflagration does not matter.32

As he continues, Kuyper makes clear that the fundamental creation mandate—to achieve dominion over nature—is still realized even after the fall, thanks to common grace.33 Taken at face value, this position seems riddled with difficulties. For instance, this conception of “power” appears to be more Nietzschean than biblical. That is, the expression of power for sheer power’s sake seems to be something that brings glory to God, on Kuyper’s read. So he considers it unsurprising that it is only at the apex of scientific progress that the Antichrist can appear.34 Is it not a contradiction that common grace leads to the greatest evil in history? Kuyper says no. God is glorified, because common grace is the field of God’s created order, and he gave humanity these powers.35

On the question of power and common grace, Kuyper needs chastening from Augustine. As John Milbank argues, “The revolutionary aspect of [Augustine’s] social thought was to deny any ontological purchase to dominium, or power for its own sake: absolute imperium, absolute property

32. Ibid., 178–79 (original emphases).

33. Ibid., 179.

34. Ibid., 180.

35. Ibid.

rights, market exchange purely for profit, are all seen by him as sinful and violent, which means as privation of Being.”36 Karl Barth likewise points out that sheer capability, unconditioned by any question of goodness, is not true power in the biblical sense: “Only the evil impotence which is an attribute of nothingness, chaos, falsehood and its ‘powers’ is indefinite power, power over all things and everything. Unqualified power is per se the power of negation, destruction and dissolution. The man who is obedient to the command of God self-evidently cannot and will not desire this power.”37 In other words, the type of power that Kuyper references in this text as operative in common grace is not godlike, but satanic, in that it conceives of power without regarding the end to which power is used. The biblical text is consistent that power for power’s sake is abhorrent to God. To take just one biblical example, the census of King David’s fighting men is met with fierce divine judgment precisely because it reveals that David glories in sheer power rather than God’s strength (2 Sam. 24). From Babel in Genesis 11 to the Babylon of Revelation 18, power and “progress” for its own sake is never seen as good in and of itself, much less as the standard by which humanity’s imaging of God is measured.

Kuyper’s discussion of King Solomon serves as an interesting illustration of the tension in his thought between common and special grace.38 This illustration also raises further questions about how his idea of progress informs his reading of common grace in the biblical text. Since Israel is behind other nations in the realm of architecture, Solomon needs to go outside Israel’s border, to Hiram of Tyre, in order to construct the temple. In Kuyper’s view, this shows that God is working outside Israel via common grace in those who have more fully developed the natural ordinances of God in the realm of architecture. Solomon’s temple-building program is an advance in terms of Israel’s civilization, and Israel draws on the riches of God’s common grace manifest even in Tyre. But what happens when we allow Israel’s text itself to determine whether or not this is real progress?

When we look at the biblical text, there are real questions about whether Solomon’s temple-building is indeed progress. First, like Israel’s kingship, the temple originates in human desires rather than God’s commands. When David decides to build a temple, God essentially says, “When have I ever

36. Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 419.

37. Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.4 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961), 391.

38. Kuyper, Lectures, 161.

said that a tent was not good enough for me? When have I ever asked for a temple?” (2 Sam. 7:4–7). Second, in the process of building the temple, Solomon conscripts his own people into forced labor (1 Kings 5:13). Finally, the account of the temple is bracketed on the front end by Solomon’s marriage alliance with Pharaoh and on the back end by Solomon’s building his army with horses and chariots from Egypt (1 Kings 3:1; 10:28–29). If we are locating our notion of progress by Israel’s own story rather than modern Western conceptions, then the text makes it clear that the story has retrogressed to an Egypt-like experience rather than moving ahead with God’s revealed desires for Israel. Thus, it is precisely because Solomon’s kingdom and goods become detached from reference to God’s ultimate purposes for Israel that they are judged. The Old Testament is clear on this matter: the progress and power that entail the accumulation of chariots, horses, armies, and political alliances are rooted in a lack of faith and an outright rejection of God rather than a positive development of God’s intentions for creation. Israel thus repeats the sin of Adam and Eve, failing to recognize that true power is expressed by faith in God. Interestingly, the nature of true faith and true power often entails accepting limits rather than transgressing them. So the weakness of the first Adam is shown in taking from the tree, while the power of the second Adam is shown in accepting death on a tree.

We can bring some clarity to this matter if we understand that Kuyper has two distinct meanings when he speaks of that which “brings God glory” or that which counts as “development” or “progress.” On the one hand, it can mean those things that find their origin in creation and common grace. On the other, it can mean those things that find their origin in God’s purposes in re-creation and salvation. This raises a conundrum, however; for, besides driving a wedge between God’s ultimate purposes in creation and redemption, it appears that one can think about common grace without thinking about creation’s ultimate end. That is, common grace can operate with reference only to the creation and not to the Creator. Kuyper thus creates the intellectual space in which our actions can be thought of on an entirely immanent plane, without reference to God, but only to nature and its incipient potentialities (which, conceived apart from God, become horrifying). Moreover, God’s chief command to humanity in creation is to achieve dominion over nature. But as we have seen, Kuyper also holds that God’s intentions in this regard are not in fact thwarted by the fall— common grace allows them to be achieved! But if this is the case, it would seem that whatever special grace accomplishes, it is something that appears wholly extrinsic to our nature and function in creation and God’s original mandate for human life. In this sense, it is possible to regain creation with no reference whatsoever to God’s special grace, the work of Christ, or the church. In fact, once dominion is conceived as sheer exercise of power, this mandate obviously cannot be limited by the fall because the fall is itself a prime example of (rather than a contravening of) creation’s intention, understood as the sheer exercise of power without regard to God. Thus, like VanDrunen, Kuyper in his theology of common grace posits that fallen humanity still operates largely unaffected with respect to penultimate ends. This stands in sharp contrast with Augustine, who argues that one’s ultimate end necessarily has a profound effect on penultimate ends.

Augustine: The End of the City

Although VanDrunen sees Augustine’s thought as similar to the Two Kingdoms perspective, there is a key difference: Augustine argues that only one city is properly called a city, whereas VanDrunen makes the case that both kingdoms are properly called kingdoms.39 For Augustine, it is precisely because the city of God is ordered toward its proper and ultimate end that it deserves the title of “city.” By contrast, not only is the earthly city disordered with respect to its ultimate end, but precisely because its ultimate end is out of joint, its penultimate and temporal ends cannot help but be confused as well. For Augustine, only when our minds are properly set on things above are things below ordered properly.

Four elements of Augustine’s thought illuminate why he contrasts the heavenly and earthly city. Arguably, these aspects of Augustine’s thought place his framework at odds with VanDrunen’s Two Kingdoms perspective, suggesting that these two frameworks may, like Augustine’s two cities, contrast rather than complement one another. First, Augustine’s anthropology drives the sharp distinction he makes between the two cities. When Augustine speaks of the two cities, he does so from the perspective of the human actors involved. Although it would be possible to speak of how God can providentially order the end of human activities, Augustine focuses on the end that is aimed at by humans operating in the earthly city. For

39. VanDrunen discusses Augustine’s thought in Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 22–32.

Augustine, desire is constitutive of what it means to be human.40 Indeed, desire pervades the life of all creation.41 The very fact of human existence entails that we are desiring beings who should not only know God but love him as our ultimate and proper end.42 The fall is not the loss of this desire, but its misdirection, such that the lust for mastery now pervades the earthly city.43 As Milbank notes, this means that “the ends sought by the civitas terrena are not merely limited, finite goods, they are those finite goods regarded without ‘referral’ to the infinite good, and, in consequence, they are unconditionally bad ends.”44 In other words, human beings always aim toward an ultimate end, whether God or a penultimate-end-turned-idol. Against the Two Kingdoms perspective, the contrast between the two cities does not stem from differences in nature or origin (creation vs. redemption), but from a difference of the wills and desires of the human persons that constitute these two cities.45 Human sin produces the distinction between these two cities, not any theory about a creational difference of realms, spheres, or kingdoms. Ultimately, then, Augustine sees both earthly and heavenly cities as constituted by desire of some ultimate end, whether the true God or some idol. Thus, to be human is to love something in an ultimate way.

Second, because of his anthropology, Augustine sees human sociality as inherently related to some ultimate end. That is, all cities are doxologically grounded and therefore inherently religious.46 For Augustine, it is not possible for one to be social or political without being oriented by love or worship of something ultimate. The earthly city is animated by its worship of self and demons, whereas the city of God is animated by its worship of God the Trinity. For the city of God, peace and justice embrace in that humans can live peaceably when all things, including God, are given their due and loved appropriately.47 The members of the city of God, while not yet perfected in this life, are thus on the path to true virtue. The earthly city, by contrast, is inhabited by those who find their ultimate end in the creature rather than the Creator. As a result, any virtue in the earthly city

40. See Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 39–73, for elaboration on this point.

41. Augustine, City of God, 16.27.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid., 3.14.

44. Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 406.

45. Augustine, City of God, 12.1.

46. Ibid., 19.23.

47. Ibid., 19.13, 19.20.

is not properly virtue because it is directed toward earthly goods, such as domination of other humans or glory of the self.48 Any peace of the earthly city is not, therefore, properly called peace, but is the product of the strong subjugating the weak. Without God as ultimate end, there is only the will to power.

The significant point is this: whether it is the city of God or the earthly city, every city is united by some ultimate love, a point VanDrunen dismisses with respect to how liberalism actually functions. That is, to assess liberalism using only a penultimate register buys into the narrative the modern state tells about itself as not having to do with the ultimate, whereas an Augustinian register recognizes that every body politic inherently has to do with some kind of ultimate love. As Augustine helpfully clarifies, “We cannot strictly speaking say that religio means nothing other than the worship of God, since we should then be unjustifiably disregarding the sense in which the word applies to the observance of duties in human relationships.”49 Thus, to be human is to be social and political and, although it may be commonplace for modern thinkers to divorce these two from the “religious,” Augustine argues that one must be part of a polis that is united either in praise of God or in exaltation of self.50

Third, when speaking normatively, there is only one true city, not two.51 On this point, Augustine draws on Cicero’s definition of a commonwealth as a property of the people. A city must therefore have true justice. For Augustine, justice is the virtue that gives to each what is due. Because Rome never worshiped the true God, it lacked justice and was therefore not a city in the true sense of the word. Without worship and service to God, there can be no proper city. In the just city, God rules the obedient according to his grace and they offer sacrifices only to him. If we want to use the term city descriptively, however, we may talk about the earthly city, now not as a true city or commonwealth but simply as a multitude of rational creatures bound together by a common agreement as to common objects of love.52 This allows us to speak descriptively of the ties that bind various peoples together, but also to recognize that what binds them together is self-love. Although this binding together (religare) of people may address penultimate matters, it always presupposes and is integrally connected to the ultimate.

48. Ibid., 19.25.

49. Ibid., 10.1.

50. Cf. Cavanaugh, “The Liturgies of Church and State,” 28.

51. This paragraph summarizes Augustine, City of God, 19.21.

52. Ibid., 19.24.

Fourth, the contrast between the normative and descriptive uses of the term city comes to the forefront when considering the ultimate ends (destinations) of the earthly and heavenly cities. Because the city of God has a proper end, it can make progress toward this end, and in fact has throughout history, thanks to God’s revelation and grace. The people of God have thus truly advanced throughout human history.53 The end of the city of God is nothing less than God himself and eternal peace.54 This is true peace in which our natures partake in God’s nature by God’s grace, thereby enabling us to be a true city that enjoys the freedom of concord with one another that comes with the impossibility of sinning. By contrast, because the earthly city worships what is properly penultimate rather than ultimate, it disregards its proper end. Without a proper end, the notion of progress cannot apply even to the technological advances of the earthly city.55 Although certain cities and cultures may be relatively better or worse, there is no way to talk about real progress. Rather, because the earthly city denies its proper end, it degenerates into endless war, both in this age and the age to come. Present wars are manifestations of the disordered desire of the libido dominandi, and the eternal punishment of the wicked is simply an enactment within the individual body of the endless war within the body politic of the earthly city.56 War is hell, and vice versa.

In sum, Augustine sees sin as the loss of the ability to distinguish properly between the ultimate and penultimate, construing the latter as the former. Thus, one can never bracket the question of the ends to which each human directs his or her life. This question, moreover, is intimately related to questions of human sociality. The ultimate ends of the earthly and heavenly cities are what bind the humans in them together. Desire, worship, and ultimate loves are therefore not to be relegated to a “religious” sphere of life; instead, these terms describe what animates the very nature of our social, cultural, and political institutions.57 VanDrunen’s notion of a civil kingdom that functions properly because it deals only with the penultimate does not appear in Augustine, nor does it appear in Klaas Schilder.

53. Ibid., 10.14.

54. Ibid., 22.30.

55. Cf. O’Donovan, “Augustine’s City of God XIX,” 103.

56. Augustine, City of God, 19.28.

57. Cf. Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 407.

Klaas Schilder: The End of Culture

Klaas Schilder (1890–1952) is not well known, even in the North American Reformed community.58 Therefore, his thought on Christ and culture remains untapped as a resource for current debates. A few biographical notes are thus in order. In 1933, Schilder was appointed professor of dogmatics at the theological seminary in Kampen, and he was involved in publishing the weekly magazine De Reformatie, for which he was arrested in 1940 by the German police. Schilder was also no stranger to intraecclesial controversy. In 1944, the Synod of Utrecht deposed Schilder from the offices of professor and minister, along with S. Greijdanus, because of their opposition to doctrinal statements of 1942 regarding the issues of covenant and baptism, presumed regeneration, and common grace.59 This controversy was the catalyst for the formation of the Reformed Churches (Liberated). Along with Greijdanus and R. J. Dam, Schilder continued to train students for ministry and write until his death in 1952.

Schilder is arguably a deeply Augustinian thinker inasmuch as his reflections on Christ and culture correspond to the two-cities model of Augustine. That is, Schilder contends that humanity must be properly ordered toward the ultimate end in order to truly attain penultimate ends. Since Schilder’s thought is less known than Augustine’s, I will spend more time summarizing him, doing so with particular attention to how his theology of culture bears similarities to Augustine’s thought. A central theme in Schilder’s analysis of Christ and culture is that there is no sharp division between the cultural and the religious or, in VanDrunen’s terms, the civil kingdom and the redemptive kingdom. Schilder’s thought differs from the Two Kingdoms perspective in that he denies the possibility that one can assess culture apart from the question of culture’s ultimate end.

For Schilder, God’s intentions for humanity in creation and redemption are the same. There are not two different ends we ought to be striving for, one a result of creation and the other a result of redemption. The key is seeing that God created humanity as office-bearer. By this, Schilder highlights that humanity is called to exercise proper power in relation to

58. For a brief biographical sketch, see J. Faber, “Klaas Schilder’s Life and Work,” in Always Obedient, 1–18. The following paragraph draws from that source.

59. In drawing on Schilder, I do not mean to advocate every doctrinal point he espoused. Rather, I find his theology of culture to be worth investigating further, while also recognizing that his ideas in this area are certain to be interconnected to his broader theology.

God and creation. In the original creation, “this work can immediately and always be called ‘liturgy,’ that is, service in and to the Kingdom.”60 This liturgical work is cosmic in scope. For Schilder, the essence of fulfilling our proper office is “to serve God, in concrete life, to obey God in any function, to fulfill God’s expressed will with all that is in us and to do so in the midst of and in organic relation and communion with all that is around us.”61 The fecund fields and seeds are a gift and sign of God’s promised faithfulness, but they are also a call to receive that promise through faithfulness to God’s commandments.62 The mandate to humanity in creation is to engage and develop culture.63

This development, however, must always be fundamentally anchored by its end: love of God.64 The first commandment, “you shall have no other gods before me,” is thus the foundation for all true culture, which, in Schilder’s definition, draws from the Latin term colere, meaning “to build.”65 As a result, Schilder reserves the term culture for those things that build up rather than tear down God’s world. As Schilder puts it, “In God’s original dictionary of revelation, ‘culture’ is always constructive, but sin is destructive.”66 The service or liturgy of cultural work is both internal and external, with respect to the objective world and one’s own subjective life and motives: “One cultivates everything, the ground on which one walks and the heart in its full depth, plants as well as the meditative spirit. There one washes his undefiled hands as well as his soul in righteousness—the one thing cannot be separated from the other.”67 This point obviously stands in stark contrast to Kuyper’s sharp dichotomy between internal holiness and external “progress” in developing power over nature.

As a result, unlike Kuyper and VanDrunen, Schilder argues that technical expertise and power divorced from respect for God’s will is not true power or true culture, but disobedience and unfaithfulness.68 So-called culture, apart from God, is characterized by disintegration; under the reign of sinful humanity, things fall apart.69 Although specialized expertise and technology might improve, humanity loses any vision of a coherent, holistic vision of reality.70 This disintegration leads to worship of the creature rather than the Creator. As Schilder puts it, “the cultivation of a cultural instrument in itself and for its own sake is nothing but idolatry.”71 Just as Augustine argues that there is only one true city, so Schilder argues that, normatively speaking, only those things done in line with God’s will and for God’s glory truly deserve the name “culture.”

60. Schilder, Christ and Culture, 43.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid., 51.

63. Ibid., 54–55.

64. Ibid., 62.

65. Ibid., 69.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid., 56.

Schilder thus adamantly insists that religion and culture cannot be divorced; we cannot evaluate one without the other. Interestingly, Schilder holds that this common intellectual move is itself a result of the fall: “Under the influence of thinking that has been corrupted by sin and is hostile to God, in a world that disrupts all relationships, culture is usually separated from ‘religion,’ or at least sharply distinguished from it. But from the beginning it was not so (Matt. 19:8). For religion is not a province of life, not a separate function of or for the ‘heart,’ not an isolated activity of a devout conventicle of people during certain elevated fragments of man’s lifetime.”72 Schilder thinks a sharp dichotomy between culture and religion is problematic because it imagines there is a sphere of creation that can be disconnected from the Creator. Moreover, when the subjective intentions of the agents involved are ignored, there is a risk that cultural institutions and habits are themselves seen as static realities rather than as dynamic powers created (by humans) for certain ends.73 Like Augustine, Schilder contends that our assessment of culture must take into account whether human activity is done out of love of God and neighbor or love of self, out of worship for the Creator or the creature. To name this concern as “religious” and therefore bracket it as irrelevant to questions of culture belies the nature of God’s world and the nature of humanity’s place within it. For Schilder, whether we call it “culture” or “religion,” the ultimate end at which we aim our life affects everything we do.

69. Ibid., 57.

70. Schilder is clearly worried that Kuyperian terminology of “spheres” is complicit in this disintegration that lacks a proper pluriform unity. See ibid., 57–59.

71. Ibid., 80.

72. Ibid., 56 (original emphases).

73. See John Milbank’s criticism of Kuyperian thought on this point in “Foreword,” in James K. A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-Secular Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 13. Smith makes a similar point in Desiring the Kingdom, 71–73.

Given the intertwinement of culture and religion, Schilder holds that the true culture maker is Jesus Christ. Jesus, as second Adam, fulfills the office and mandate given to humanity in the beginning.74 For Schilder, Christ is the Alpha and Omega of human history who appears in the middle of history. As the Alpha, Jesus lives according to the original rule, the first and greatest commandment to acknowledge God as God, which thereby allows humanity to fulfill the creation mandate by recognizing both our responsibility and our limits. As the Omega, Jesus is the One who resets the course of history so that humanity can again realize its proper end. Because of this, he is “the solid foundation, the original ground, the fulfiller, redeemer, and renewer of culture.”75 It is in Jesus that “this corrupt world experiences once again the miracle of the appearance of the whole, the beautiful, the original or, if one wants, the ‘ideal’ man.”76 Not only does Christ appease God’s wrath and reconcile us to God, but he is also the beginning of the new humanity, “which is nevertheless fundamentally the same as ‘the old.’ ”77 In Christ, then, creation and redemption are not to be set against one another or seen as having separate ends or norms. Through Jesus we see the proper ultimate end of all creation: to love and glorify God as God.

Schilder helpfully highlights the role of Christians and the centrality of the church in the renewed liturgical task of serving God in his creation. Like VanDrunen, Schilder emphasizes the centrality of the church. As he forcefully states, “Take the Church away and the Kingdom of God becomes a nebulous affair.”78 Since faith (the first commandment) is the seed of true culture, then the place where faith comes through hearing the Word preached must be seen as a cultural-religious force. Paradoxically, however, the cultural force of the church is greatest precisely because it does not make culture an end in itself, but properly recognizes love of God and God’s glory the proper end of culture. In addition, because culture is always a communal act, God’s work of re-creation is not simply the regeneration of individuals, but the establishment of “a politeuma (Phil. 3:20), of which we are the citizens and which has its centre and royal residence in the heavens.”79 Precisely because this kingdom is oriented toward its proper

74. Schilder, Christ and Culture, 39.

75. Ibid., 48.

76. Ibid., 47.

77. Ibid., 46.

78. Ibid., 106.

doxological end, it works mighty things on earth, not least of which is the creation of a true communion, or koinonia, of humans. For Schilder, as for Augustine, worship of God brings about true human community and acknowledgment of the common good.

The Christian’s cultural calling is also framed by Schilder in a way that defuses VanDrunen’s concern that too much weight is being given to the Christian’s cultural task. VanDrunen speaks repeatedly against the idea that Christians somehow, through redemption in Christ, return to Adam’s original task. From the perspective of the covenant of works, Adam can attain rest only by perfectly keeping God’s commands. If we take this into account, then, as VanDrunen puts it, “To understand our own cultural work as picking up and finishing Adam’s original task is, however unwittingly, to compromise the sufficiency of Christ.”80 Christians do not “usher in,” “build,” “win,” “attain,” or “earn” the new creation.81 To hold otherwise is to essentially return to some notion of justification by works.82 It is not clear that this is the position held by any neo-Calvinist thinker.83 yet VanDrunen helpfully sounds a note of caution, lest neo-Calvinism’s theology of culture devolve into an overly optimistic postmillennialism or triumphalism.84

For Schilder, Lord’s Day Twelve of the Heidelberg Catechism provides a key to understanding the Christian’s cultural calling. Jesus is called the Christ because of his anointing with the Holy Spirit as Prophet, Priest, and King. We are called Christians because we share in this anointing with the Spirit.85 Because Christ is the One who perfectly fulfills Adam’s office, our participation in Christ is, in that sense, a continuation of the original task of Adam to serve as God’s vice-regent in creation. For Schilder, Christians can be seen as “builders of the new world.”86 Schilder’s view here should not be seen as triumphalism or justification by works, because he

80. VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms, 50.

81. Ibid., 28, 51, 62.

82. VanDrunen, “The Two Kingdoms and the Ordo Salutis,” 214–20.

83. VanDrunen does not quote any authors who he thinks put the matter this way, so it is hard to assess whether specific neo-Calvinist thinkers make this strong a claim. His survey of North American neo-Calvinists makes no reference to this type of language. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 368–85.

84. Schilder speaks to the limits of human cultural endeavors, calling them “truncated pyramids,” which are common to both Christians and non-Christians. Schilder, Christ and Culture, 84.

85. Ibid., 111–12.

situates the Christian’s cultural calling in the context of Christ’s ascension and the present work of the Spirit. Echoing humanity’s creational task in Psalm 8, Ephesians 1 declares that “all things” have been put under the feet of Jesus.87 The reign of Jesus as the Ascended One does not preclude but includes those who have been redeemed: God has “seated us with him in the heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6). The anointing of the Spirit is therefore what enables Christians in the present to serve as prophets, priests, and kings.88 Far from working to somehow earn our salvation, a proper pneumatology explains why and how the Christian’s cultural calling connects with the original creation mandate to Adam because it flows from a place of resting in God’s grace made known in the second Adam. As a result, we can fully rest in the knowledge that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.

The apostle Paul is held up as an exemplar of this type of true culture. Schilder’s emphasis on the connection between culture and religion comes together in a rhetorical flourish with his comparison of Paul and the Roman Empire:

When the whole world was top heavy with an effete and violently disruptive pseudo-culture which did not acknowledge God as the Owner of the cosmos, a handful of simple guild artisans in some small towns in Asia Minor—workers, who by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ had learned to serve God in their daily labour—as often as they had dutifully, with God in mind, tanned a piece of leather or made a tent or completed a certain guild task, meant more, precisely for culture, than the entire imperial train of the Caesar of Rome with his palaces, his dancers, his laurels, his maecenasses, and his metropolis. Hence, when on a certain day an escort of prisoners was led into the city of Rome, among whom there was a certain Paul, this man was of greater significance, particularly for cultural life, than all of culture-drunk Rome: he signified a radical change, over against all those prominent ones who were running the show.89

Measured protologically by what is God’s will for humanity and eschatologically by what will stand up under God’s judgment, Paul’s life of faith is a cultural monument that, for Schilder, far exceeds the grand ruins of Rome. While Rome was building temples that would crumble, Paul was serving as God’s fellow worker in the construction of the temple that is the body of Christ. For Schilder, as for Augustine, the splendid vices of Rome might be magnificent if Christ is bracketed out of the picture.90 When we remember the wisdom and power of the cross, however, we see God’s world as one in which humility, faith, and love of God and neighbor are the measures by which we assess the true end of culture.

87. Schilder references Ephesians 1 in ibid., 99–100.

88. Ibid., 111–12.

89. Ibid., 67. For further commentary on how the early church was a cultural force because of its doctrine, see Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 147–59.

Conclusion

In this essay, I have argued that the Two Kingdoms perspective and the two-cities model cannot be assimilated to one another, inasmuch as they disagree about the relationship between humanity’s ultimate and penultimate ends. For VanDrunen, the penultimate end, pertaining to the civil kingdom, can still be met apart from humanity’s ultimate end. Similarly, for Kuyper, common grace enables fallen humanity to reach the end of creation apart from reference to the Creator. Moreover, this view of common grace conceives power and progress as sheer technological expertise and capability. Against this, an Augustinian account of desire helps to explain why, in a fallen world, the social and political arenas are not merely a penultimate realm, but directly connected to ultimate ends and loves. In that sense, worship always has a social-political aspect, and the social-political is always connected to worship. In contrast with the problems generated by VanDrunen and Kuyper’s bifurcation of the ultimate and penultimate, I have presented Schilder as a Reformed Augustinian who argues for a more holistic vision of culture that sees humanity’s true calling as liturgical service to the Creating and Redeeming God. On this point, Schilder should be followed rather than VanDrunen and Kuyper, because he accurately perceives that apart from the supernatural end of humanity, the penultimate becomes disordered.

Reformed social thought thus stands at a crossroads, for the Two Kingdoms perspective and Reformed Augustinianism present two alternatives that are irreconcilable on certain points. Reformed Augustinians, such as Klaas Schilder, see religion and politics or religion and culture not as two distinct spheres, but as various forms of liturgy. On the other hand, the Two Kingdoms perspective sees religion and politics as dealing with two distinct

90. Kuyper dismisses talk of “splendid vices” in Lectures, 122.

realms, the former addressing matters of ultimate concern and the latter engaging matters of penultimate concern. Given the nature of human desire, Reformed Augustinianism is inclined to see the church and modern state not as complementary but as competitors. The Two Kingdoms perspective, however, sees the church and state as complementary, each following its own proper order, that of creation (the state) and redemption (the church).

These two perspectives also disagree about human nature and culture. For Reformed Augustinians, humans must be properly oriented to God as ultimate end in order to be properly oriented toward penultimate ends. In other words, the fall left human nature disordered toward both ultimate and penultimate ends. Reformed Augustinianism thus stands in congruity with the Canons of Dort, article 4, which states that any postlapsarian light of nature left to humanity is distorted not only with respect to God, but with respect to matters of nature and society as well. As a result, redemption is not simply the acquisition of the supernatural gifts given in creation, but also the restitution of integrity to humanity’s natural faculties.

The Two Kingdoms perspective reads the situation differently, arguing that penultimate ends can still be largely achieved by fallen humanity. It entails a reading of human nature that is similar to the Counter-Reformation Roman Catholic conception of pure nature. The implication of this idea is that although not properly oriented toward the ultimate and supernatural end—God himself—humanity can still meet temporal and penultimate ends in line with God’s intentions in creation. Because God’s creational intentions with respect to culture, politics, etc., can still be met, redemption cannot be the restitution of integrity to the natural faculties that would allow humanity to be properly oriented toward both ultimate and penultimate ends. It has to be something else, the “upper floor” of grace that is externally and extrinsically added upon the still-intact ground floor of nature.91 Accordingly, faith is not the reorientation of all of life; rather, it pertains to the specific domain called “religion” that is completely other than the still-functional domains of politics and culture. This is not only a view about the nature of politics and culture, but a modern construal of the church that rejects Augustine’s view of religion as the doxological orientation to God that binds us not only to God but to our neighbor in proper love. For Augustine and Schilder, unlike Kuyper and VanDrunen, the two great commands to love God and neighbor are irrevocably connected. So although there may be other points of convergence between Reformed Augustinianism and the Two Kingdoms perspective, these key differences cannot be overlooked.

91. For this analogy, see Helm, Calvin at the Centre, 327.

Drawing on Augustine and Schilder, we can say that, because Jesus Christ is both Alpha and Omega, the way to image God properly is to participate in the priestly kingdom, the doxologically grounded and culturally active polis that is oriented by humanity’s true ultimate end. This is “the end to which there shall be no end! For what other end do we set for ourselves than to reach that kingdom of which there is no end?”92 Only when we are, by God’s grace, oriented by this endless desire for our true end will we be citizens of the city not built by human hands, a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

92. Augustine, City of God, 22.30.

Part 3

Kingdom Living

8

How Does “Thy Kingdom Come” before the End? Theology of the Present and Future Kingdom in the Book of Revelation

Scott A. Swanson

Hallelujah!

For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. The kingdom of this world

is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ,

and He shall reign forever and ever. King of kings, and Lord of lords, and He shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah!

The “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah is familiar to most Christians, and is traditionally sung at either Christmas or Easter. Perhaps not many know that the words, from the libretto by Charles Jennens, are taken from three verses in the book of Revelation: 11:15; 19:6; and 19:16. But what may come as a surprise is that the meaning and implications of these affirmations regarding the kingdom of God and Christ are not straightforward, either in Handel’s Messiah or in Revelation. In fact, they may fairly be taken to encapsulate the challenge and dispute regarding that kingdom in relation to this world. After reflecting briefly on the Jennens/ Handel composition and Christian reception of it, this essay will focus on Revelation 11:15 in its context, and in terms of Revelation’s overall theology of the kingdom of God. We will observe that this verse introduces a passage, 11:15–19, that is pivotal in the book. This passage is in turn illuminated particularly by addressing key interpretive issues in the central section found in chapters 10–15. Our goal, while not to settle all those issues, is to find guidance from Revelation for our kingdom witness in the world. What kind of answer does it encourage us to expect from the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:10)? And how does this witness and expectation relate to our obligations for cultural and political engagement?

Many Christians have assumed that the Hallelujah chorus proclaimed the present sovereign kingdom reign of God and Christ over all the kings and kingdoms of this world. God reigns over all and Christ is King of kings, and so the kingdom of this world (in whatever form that might take) is subject to that ultimate kingdom. With some awareness of biblical theology, the “is become” can be easily seen to reflect the central Christian confession that with Christ’s resurrection and ascension, he has sat down on his throne at the right hand of God (Acts 2:34–36; Ps. 110:1). Such an understanding is probably reflected in the tradition that King George II began by standing for the Hallelujah chorus, even though such an origin for the custom cannot be verified.1 By standing, the king would be acknowledging that his own kingship was subject to the King of kings. Similarly, Christians today who follow that practice may rightly think of it as a solemn acknowledgment and honoring of Christ’s supreme sovereignty over all.

Nevertheless, it is likely that this was not Jennens’ intention with his compilation of these verses from Revelation. He was an amateur theologian with an extensive library, and would have been familiar with contemporary English commentary on Revelation (that is, prior to 1741, when he sent the libretto to Handel). The dominant view was that Revelation 11:15 (“the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ”) prophesied the future triumph of Christ’s kingdom against all opposition from this world’s kingdom(s).2 And there would have been no dispute that the referent of Revelation 19:6 (“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns”) was the end-time victory: it immediately precedes the announced arrival of the marriage supper of the Lamb, and the vision of the rider on a white horse coming to judge and make war.

1. Donald Burrows, Handel: Messiah (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 28–29.

On the other hand, the placement of the Hallelujah chorus in the three-part structure of Messiah might lead us to doubt that the consummative victory of Christ over all his enemies was the primary idea being conveyed. For the Hallelujah chorus comes at the end of Part 2, and Part 3 then depicts our continued waiting for the return of Christ and the resurrection (“I Know That My Redeemer Liveth” from Job 19, “Behold, I Tell you a Mystery” from 1 Corinthians 15, etc.). Part 2 has presented the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. And it conveys a profound biblical understanding of the exalted status of Christ indicated by those events. With “Lift Up your Heads” from Psalm 24, Christ at his ascension is declared “the King of glory.”3 Then “Unto Which of the Angels” quotes Hebrews 1:5 and its citation of Psalm 2:7, depicting the enthronement of Messiah, as well as Hebrews 1:6, which alludes to Psalm 97:7, indicating Christ’s receiving the worship of angels (one of the “divine kingship” or “yahweh Malak” psalms; more on this below). Then “Thou Art Gone Up on High” quotes Psalm 68:18 (following the lead of Eph. 4:8) to describe Christ’s ascension as a victory procession: “you have received gifts even from your enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among them” (in the translation from the Psalter in the Book of Common Prayer). The next three pieces celebrate the sending out of messengers announcing this gospel triumph to all the world. Then, leading into the Hallelujah chorus, we return to Psalm 2 with “Why Do the Nations Rage” and “He That Dwelleth in Heaven [shall laugh them to scorn].” The announced doom of these enemies (“Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron”) is sure because in the psalm the Lord has declared, “I have set my King on Zion” (v. 6) and “you are my Son” (v. 7). In the following Hallelujah chorus, as in Revelation 11:15, “the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ” also alludes to this Psalm 2 context where verses 1–3 depict the nations raging and conspiring “against the Lord and against his Anointed [Messiah or Christ]” in a vain attempt to break free of their dominion (cf. Rev. 11:18). This all suggests that the kingdom reign celebrated in the chorus refers to the already-accomplished establishment of Christ’s reign over those rebellious nations (the kingdom of this world), as in Psalm 2:6–7 and repeatedly emphasized in the preceding libretto numbers, rather than only the future reign when those nations will be once for all broken with a rod of iron (2:9).4

2. John H. Roberts provides a representative selection of comments on Rev. 11:15 in “False Messiah,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 63, 1 (Spring 2010): 66–67.

3. The explanation of Daniel Block is evocative: “Jennens appeals to Ps. 24:7–9 to paint a celebrative picture of a triumphant King marching up to the Temple on Mount Zion. As a divine warrior the Messiah has triumphed over death. The psalmist calls on the gates of Zion and the gates of the Temple to open wide for the King that he might take up his throne in the Temple.” Daniel Block, “Handel’s Messiah: Biblical and Theological Perspectives,” Didaskalia (Spring 2001): 15–16. His analysis in this article helpfully elucidates much of the implicit hermeneutics and theology in Messiah.

Of course, the interpretation of Handel’s Messiah should have no bearing on the interpretation of the biblical text, except in this sense: this work of Jennens and Handel is itself an interpretation of the passages it compiles. It is clearly an influential interpretation, even if it does not typically prompt renewed Bible study. In his classic commentary on Revelation, William Hendriksen said that if you want to understand the biblical text at 11:15, go listen to the Hallelujah chorus.5 However, as we have seen, such an appeal to the chorus does not automatically resolve the interpretive issues. What it may do is help us to examine our assumptions as we attempt to understand the biblical text. And it does this most effectively by insightfully highlighting key associations between the New Testament and Old Testament texts. This feature of Revelation in particular, its constant allusive referencing of Old Testament texts, and consistent Christological and ecclesiological interpretation of those texts, has been increasingly understood and elucidated in recent scholarship. The title of Richard Bauckham’s massively detailed collection of studies on Revelation reflects what he and others have labored to show: this final book of the New Testament canon is “the climax of prophecy.”6 John understands himself as a prophet who stands at the end of biblical revelation, and deliberately takes up and interrelates specific Old Testament texts, with the expectation that God’s people will be instructed and

4. Block evidently takes it to be the latter, as he calls it “God’s climactic act in history,” which leads one to expect the end of the performance. Therefore, he says, “on textual and logical grounds,” it belongs more properly at the end of Part 3. “Handel’s Messiah,” 18.

5. William Hendriksen, More than Conquerors (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1940), 132.

6. Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation (London: T&T Clark, 1993).

encouraged, the more that they are steeped in God’s Word to his servants the prophets (cf. Rev. 10:7).7

We stand in a new day in the study of Revelation, and not merely because of the increase in scholarly output in recent years.8 The wider church now has available a number of excellent resources that distill recent scholarship and present the book’s exciting theology in accessible form.9 Revelation has often seemed one of the most difficult books in the Bible to understand, chiefly because of its regular use of apocalyptic imagery and symbolism that is not immediately familiar to us. Hence the book was often left behind to become the battlefield for partisans of alternative millennial schemes, while aside from popularizations that did serve to remind many of coming judgment, the church could well question the relevance of all the fuss for their ordinary Christian lives. Today there is much more widespread agreement on key interpretive issues, as well as common ground that the church urgently needs to understand and heed the book’s message for practical Christian living.10 As to the traditional division into schools of interpretation (idealist, futurist, preterist, and historicist), Vern Poythress simply and clearly makes the point that there is something to be gleaned from each. We can all recognize the importance in the book of the firstcentury context, of an ultimate final fulfillment, and that, perhaps most important, its symbols have “an embodiment now.”11 So pastors and lay Christians alike should be encouraged to take up the book of Revelation

7. Ibid., x–xi; Richard Bauckham, The Theology of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 4–5.

8. Besides Bauckham’s Climax, we have recent detailed commentaries on the Greek text: David E. Aune, Revelation, Word Biblical Commentary, 3 vols. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997, 1998); G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999); and Stephen S. Smalley, The Revelation to John (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

9. J. Ramsey Michaels, Interpreting the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992); Bauckham, Theology; Vern S. Poythress, The Returning King: A Guide to the Book of Revelation (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2000); Craig Keener, The NIV Application Commentary: Revelation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000); Dennis E. Johnson, The Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2001); Joseph L. Mangina, Revelation, Brazos Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2010). While the books by Ramsey Michaels and Bauckham are aimed at students, they are readable slim volumes and too important to be left to the specialists!

10. For example, the notes for Revelation in the recent ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), provided by Dennis Johnson, show the extent to which ordinary Christians may appropriate the theological message of the book, while acknowledging many conflicting points of view.

11. Poythress, Returning King, 37, and the whole chapter, 27–37.

for themselves (even read it aloud, 1:3), and learn what it means to “keep the words of this book,” as it repeatedly warns us to do (Rev. 1:3; 22:7, 9).

In confirmation of this, it should be emphasized that in this study focusing on Revelation 11:15 in its context, the matters of contested interpretation are far less significant than conclusions about Revelation’s theology held in common by most interpreters today. Certain of these conclusions are particularly relevant to the issues of Christ’s kingdom and our life in the world. Three important points should be made in this regard. First, it is increasingly recognized how much the kingdom of God and Christ is the theme of Revelation.12 All agree also that Revelation, like the Synoptic Gospels, presents an already/not yet view of the kingdom.13 God is sovereign over all, Christ has taken his throne and now rules over the nations as King, and yet that kingdom is opposed by earthly kings and kingdoms, so the kingdom reign of God and Christ is not yet here in its fullness. Much of this is pictured in Revelation by the disparity between heaven and earth, hence the relevance of the Lord’s Prayer. As Bauckham suggests, Revelation can be accurately characterized as all about how and when the petitions “your name be hallowed, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” are to be fulfilled.14 In an obvious sense, the only complete answer to that prayer will be the glorious consummation of all of God’s judging and saving purposes depicted in Revelation (and so the book ends with the prayer “Come, Lord Jesus”). However, contrary to many popular and older approaches to Revelation, the main focus of Revelation may not be on the hope and consolation that the promise of future deliverance provides.15 Christ’s kingdom reign, with its attendant victory and blessing, is even now being realized through the church and its witness in the world. It is widely recognized that the central section of chapters 10–14 especially elaborates this theme of realized eschatology, and is thus key to the whole book.16

12. For a most helpful presentation of this, see Seyoon Kim, “Kingdom of God,” Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments, ed. R. P. Martin and P. H. Davids (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 634–37.

13. As well as Kim, “Kingdom of God,” see Thomas R. Schreiner, New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 111–12. Schreiner agrees, although he somewhat minimizes the “already” aspect in Revelation.

14. Bauckham, Theology, 40.

15. Contra Schreiner, New Testament Theology, 111–12.

16. See Johnson, Triumph, 35, 44–46, for structural points about this section, which he characterizes as about “the church militant” in “the cosmic conflict.” Cf. also Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998),

Second, while clearly in Revelation it is in and through the church that Christ’s kingdom reign is most clearly manifested, it must be understood that the church is not the kingdom. There is overlap, in the sense that the kingdom encompasses and creates the church, but the church does not encompass or create the kingdom. The church is the people of the kingdom, but not itself the reign or rule of God.17 Revelation twice characterizes the redeemed as made to be a kingdom (1:6; 5:10), but note that this is each time combined with “priests to God.” The reference is to Exodus 19:6, where Israel is called to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” or, as Peter puts it in 1 Peter 2:9, “a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” The church has both a kingly and priestly calling because it is united with Christ the King, and receives and conveys his benefits. Hence we will also reign with him. But Christ is also already “the ruler of kings on earth” (1:5).18 Their denial of his sovereignty does not remove them from his reign, and hence they experience and will experience his judgments (just as churches and Christians will if they refuse his lordship in their lives). yet in Revelation, God withholds and tempers his judgments, while the church fulfills its mission of testifying to the kingdom. As people from every nation enter the kingdom by submitting to his rule, the kingdom advances in the sense of becoming more visible. The church does not “bring the kingdom,” or even further the kingdom in itself.19 We testify to the gospel of the kingdom reign of God in Christ, and hence as Revelation instructs us, this testimony must extend to and have implications for every area of life, often at great personal cost.

The third important point of common consent among students of Revelation is that there are two kingdoms, and really only two. Revelation depicts the battle on earth between these two kingdoms, the kingdom of God and Christ versus the kingdom of Satan and the beast.20 This is why Revelation 11:15 can refer to “the kingdom of the world” in the singular, and it is not a neutral or common kingdom.21 Thus it will not do for advocates of a contemporary Two Kingdoms model of socialpolitical engagement to appeal to this text even if it does have only a future referent.22 For that kingdom of the world, whether regarded as already ultimately under Christ’s kingdom, or as waiting ultimately to be crushed by Christ’s kingdom, rebelliously opposes itself to Christ’s rule. Christians pursuing their callings in culture and politics must recognize a great deal in common with their neighbors made in God’s image, and be thankful for creational goods and restraining grace. And it is right to pray for a “neutral” space for the preaching of the gospel (1 Tim. 2:2), but as Oliver O’Donovan argues, that opportunity will be rare, and it does not reflect the more fundamental reality, which is the demand for ultimate idolatrous allegiance.23 Revelation teaches us that inasmuch as a state, city, or society refuses to submit to Christ’s rule (worshiping him alone as God), Satan makes it the instrument of his pretended rule: his “subjects” will serve him and be seduced by the harlotry of Babylon. O’Donovan points out that this demonic characteristic of the kingdom of this world is particularly a feature of our eschatological time. It is because of the victory of Christ’s kingdom that Satan is cast out of heaven and instigates the activity of the beast (Rev. 12–13).24 This perspective undergirds the concept of “antithesis” developed in neo-Calvinist Reformed thought: it applies to all cultural activity because it will all necessarily be in service to one kingdom or the other, the true God or the false god.25 According to Revelation, we cannot escape the life-and-death spiritual struggle between these two kingdoms.

55, who argues that 10:1–15:4 “constitutes the formal center of Revelation,” and that 11:15–19 “shortly but precisely” expresses its theme.

17. George Eldon Ladd most forcefully expresses this in his classic A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 111–19.

18. Some have tried to escape the implications of this statement by arguing that by “kings of the earth” John means Christians. So Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, 78n18. But cf. also “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 17:14; 19:16).

19. To suggest such an idea is to make “a category mistake.” “ ‘Kingdom of God’ means God in control, God’s initiative, God’s purpose accomplished. To talk of men, even Christian men, bringing about God’s kingdom on earth is to ursurp God’s sovereignty.” R. T. France, “The Church and the Kingdom of God: Some Hermeneutical Issues,” in Biblical Interpretation and the Church: Text and Context, ed. D. A. Carson (Exeter: Paternoster, 1984), 43–44.

20. Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, 50.

21. Smalley, Revelation to John, 289.

22. David VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms: A Biblical Vision for Christianity and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 118; Michael Horton, White Horse Inn Blog, 10/5/2009, www.whitehorseinn.org/archives/146.

23. Oliver O’Donovan, “The Political Thought of the Book of Revelation,” Tyndale Bulletin 37 (1986): 82.

24. Ibid., 79–80.

25. In regard to the antithesis, see Henry R. Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1959), 182–83. See also on 152–53 his appreciative analysis of Klaas Schilder’s critique of Kuyper for his use of “common grace.” It could tend to function as a “neutral field” that obscured the reality of antithesis, and lead to a duality in Christian living, in which one moved back and forth between common and special grace. Substitute “between the redemptive and common kingdoms,” and the warning is relevant to some proponents of the Two Kingdoms model today.

The sovereign reign and rule of the kingdom of the true God over the world’s kingdom and its eternal enduring is what is celebrated in Revelation 11:15. This is announced by loud voices from heaven on the occasion of the blowing of the seventh trumpet. In response, the twenty-four elders fall down before God and give thanks for this accomplished reign of the Lord God Almighty, and proclaim his final judgment and deliverance (Rev. 11:16–18). This then prompts the opening of the heavenly temple and the appearance of the ark of the covenant inside it (11:19). The passage is a great encouragement to God’s people, but we need to understand why that is. Can we know the referent of the proclamations of the heavenly voices and the twenty-four elders? Does it encourage us with hope that this will come to pass, so that we will wait for it with perseverance?26 Or does it encourage us that this can already be said of Christ’s reign, so that victory is ours even in our suffering?27 Both kinds of encouragement are important in Revelation, as all recognize, and either is possible here. As with much in Revelation, the language and imagery are not only allusive but also, in certain respects, ambiguous. yet John has not given us a warrant to simply make sense of it as we will, as if it were a postmodern set of multivalent signs waiting for us to assign it our meaning. Understanding any biblical text, but especially John’s apocalyptic visions, depends on our doing the work to find the connections and associations provided in the broader context.28

Probably the majority of commentators see Revelation 11:15 as an announcement or prophecy about the consummated kingdom, rather than a proclamation of Christ’s current reign. They have good reasons for this view. To begin with, this comes at the sound of the seventh trumpet, and as with each of the series of seven—seals, trumpets, bowls—the seventh suggests an intensified or final judgment. This is also associated with the third woe in 11:14 (the last three trumpet blasts are designated as woes in 8:13). Furthermore,

26. Johnson expresses this concisely: “Songs from the future consummation speak back through time to the suffering church, announcing the day when the world’s kingdom has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, reversing the present when the nations and their rulers still rage.” ESV Study Bible, 2479.

27. Cf. Mangina, Revelation, 141–42: “ ‘The kingdom of the world,’ that is, the world insofar as it constitutes itself as a sphere of power independent of God, has become the kingdom of Israel’s God and his Messiah. The great city and the other cities of the world are no longer under the dominion of the powers of evil. Even before the end, they have come under the dominion of God.”

28. As Beale, Book of Revelation, 614, rightly says, “Statements about the initial form of the kingdom and the consummated form are scattered throughout the Apocalypse, and the two should not be confused.”

in 10:7 we are told that the seventh angel’s trumpet would signify that the mystery (or, better, “secret”) of God would be fulfilled (or "completed"). Also, if the immediately preceding vision of the two witnesses (11:3–13) has ended with a description of the final resurrection of God’s people, as many think, this would imply a chronological necessity of 11:15 being an announcement of consummation. When we come to the thanksgiving response of the twenty-four elders in verses 17–18, the Lord God Almighty is designated as the One “who is and who was.” This is unlike 1:4, 8 and 4.8, where “who is to come” is added, but the same as 16:5. This seems to indicate that in the former, God is still to come in judgment, but in the latter, his final judgments have now come. Next, in 11:17, the elders say, “you have taken your great power and begun to reign.” God’s coming with great power and glory is throughout Scripture associated with Christ’s second coming. “Begun to reign” would suggest the inauguration of reign, except that the same verb in the same ingressive/inceptive sense of the aorist tense is used in 19:6. There the context is the celebration of the fall of Babylon and the announcement of the marriage supper of the Lamb: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.”29 The idea would be, in other words, that he has begun his visible reign in power and judgment.

Additional arguments come from the next verses in chapter 11, although perhaps they are not as determinative as the foregoing since the points could more easily be seen as compatible with both views. In verse 18, the elders say that the nations raged, and that two things “came”: God’s wrath and the time for judgment and reward. The aorist verbs, indicating past action, suggest that this is a prophetic or proleptic (ahead of the actual occurrence) announcement of the end, thus confirming the same understanding of 11:15. Verse 19, with the appearance of the ark and the theophanic events accompanying it, is significant because of the parallel manifestations at the seventh seal (8:5) and seventh bowl (16:18). When that seventh bowl is poured out, a loud voice from the throne announces, “It is done!” (16:17), and “the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of wine of the fury of his wrath” (16:19).

29. This translation of 19:6 is virtually universal. Cf. “reigneth” in the King James Version and the Hallelujah chorus. The Contemporary English Version has “now rules as King,” with the addition of “now” attempting to bring out the inceptive sense of the verb. It means here, as it does in 11:17, that he has begun his reign, or taken up his reign, or has become King. That is, it references an activity or state that has begun at a certain point in time. See Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 558–59.

It is interesting that the advocates of this view typically paraphrase Revelation 11:15 with the addition of qualifying statements to clarify the meaning, such as “now there is no more opposition” or “now all God’s enemies have been judged” or “now the victory of the kingdom is clear to all.”30 This is quite legitimate, and it is an important function of exposition to provide such clarifying paraphrase. But it should give us pause to remember that none of these things are said in the text, and the commentator’s paraphrase should not in itself count as exegetical demonstration, although it may appear to do so. As we now consider whether a good case can also be made for an alternative view, we need to weigh carefully the competing arguments. If our conclusion will seem ultimately to depend on larger questions of structure and meaning in Revelation, this should not discourage us. Rather, it should encourage us to keep digging and pursue those issues, because they are key to our appropriation of Revelation for our lives. This is, after all, part of God’s Word for his church!

We will take each of the arguments above in turn, beginning with the series of seven judgments, their nature, and their relationships. Then we will look at the preceding context in chapters 10–11. What is going on in these chapters? What is the meaning of the two witnesses? Then we will consider the wording of verses 17–18, and then key parallels in the following context of chapters 12–15. In that context we will also address John’s allusions to certain Old Testament texts and the implications for his intended meaning.

How to understand the relationship between the sevenfold series judgments is not entirely clear, and their symbolic nature may preclude intended specific referents. However, many agree that they feature both recapitulation (parallel events from different perspectives) and intensification (increasing severity). Also, the seals and trumpets are most often seen to be describing God’s judgments throughout the time between the first and second comings of Christ, while the bowl judgments, beginning in chapter 16, refer to final judgments at the end of history. The question is what to make of the seventh in the series, particularly the seventh seal and the seventh trumpet. They

30. Cf. Johnson, Triumph, 153: “Dominion over the world, without challenge or rival, has come into the possession of our Lord and his anointed King” (emphasis added). Hendriksen, More than Conquerors, 132: “all opposition will then be abolished. Then it will be clear to all that the world has become the province of our Lord and of his Christ. And he shall reign for ever and ever.” Also, Beale, Book of Revelation, 611, but his paraphrase is accompanied by what is probably the most complete exegetical argument (not surprising, given that it is a Greek text commentary of over a thousand pages and many other commentators are dependent on him).

both are clearly intended to be climactic, but they seem only to anticipate or announce judgment. Where, then, are those judgments—specifically “the third woe” associated with the seventh trumpet? The answer is suggested by 8:1–2, where, immediately after the opening of the seventh seal and the half hour of silence in heaven, the seven angels with seven trumpets are introduced. In other words, we are led to see that the seventh of each series consists in the next series of seven.31 The seventh trumpet (11:15), then, is most likely the announcement of the next and final series of seven, the bowl judgments, even though they do not follow until chapter 16. This may be supported by the fact that the opening of the heavenly temple in 11:19 occurs again in 15:5, just as the seven bowls are introduced. That is, 15:5 seems to pick up where 11:19 left off, before the “interlude” of 12:1 to 15:4. So then, rather than functioning as a prophecy or preview of the end, the seventh trumpet would be summing up this time, and announcing that the end is ready to begin.

However, Ramsey Michaels cautions us about assuming intended “interludes,” since John is describing visions as he saw them.32 Also, they would not necessarily be obvious to the original hearers, who experienced the continuous text in oral performance. Such sections should not, then, be seen as parenthetical asides, but as text crucial to the development of the narrative. So the material that follows the blowing of the seventh trumpet and the heavenly declarations, even before its judgments (“the third woe”) have come in the bowls, is integral to the meaning of that trumpet, i.e., chapters 12–15 expand on 11:15–19, even while chapter 16 picks up from 11:19. So also, between the sixth trumpet (9:13–21) and the seventh in 11:15, the “interlude” section of 10:1 to 11:14 should be seen as crucial to what comes at 11:15. In other words, our understanding 11:15–19, even as a climactic seventh-trumpet announcement, must take careful account of the preceding (10:1–11:14) and the following (12:1–15:4) contexts.

The beginning of chapter 10 of Revelation takes us back to John’s heavenly vision in chapters 4–5, when John is first told to “come up here” (4:1), and we are given a glimpse of the sovereign majesty of God and Christ at the center of all reality, and surrounded by heavenly worship, including

31. “They emerge from one another like boxes within boxes, or like the graphic ‘windows’ some computer programs allow a user to open within other windows on a screen.” Michaels, Interpreting, 57.

32. Ibid., 55.

the church (represented by the twenty-four elders).33 Readers of Revelation may miss, in view of the awe-inspiring depiction of heavenly glory and praise, that the point of this is for John to receive the scroll that comes from the hand of God on the throne (5:1). The scroll must symbolize for John the prophet, as it did for Ezekiel (Ezek. 2:9), the essential content of his prophecy, which for John must be the revelation of God’s ultimate sovereign purpose for history. Of course it is sealed, and its great significance is shown in John’s weeping over the fact that no one is found worthy to break the seals and open the scroll (5:2–3). That Christ is worthy as the Lion and slain Lamb shows the dependence of God’s final plan on Christ’s victory on the cross, ransoming “people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (5:9–10).

What follows then in the series of seven seal judgments is the breaking of the seals of this scroll. We might wonder where the scroll has gone after its seals have been broken. As we have seen, the last seal contains the trumpet judgments, and these are described in chapters 8–9 up through the sixth trumpet. This heightens our expectation that we are about to come to the contents of the scroll, to have revealed the ultimate meaning of God’s purposes in both judgment and salvation.34 Thus chapter 10 begins, before the climactic seventh trumpet, with Christ (or his angelic representative; the appearance is a divine theophany) descending from heaven with an open scroll in his hand.35 Why did we have the first six trumpet judgments, but not the climactic seventh, revealed before coming back to the scroll? That will become clear when we are shown the contents of the scroll.

But first, in 10:6–7, the angel makes an announcement by solemn oath, which must relate to the scroll content that is about to be revealed (starting in verse 8), and the announcement connects that scroll content to the significance of the coming seventh trumpet. John reports that he said “there would be no more delay, but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the secret [rather than ‘mystery’] of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.” We could think that this means the consummation comes with the blowing of the seventh trumpet in 11:15, indeed the end of time. But in the chapters that follow we have more visions of heaven and earth, and angelic announcements, before we arrive at 15:5 and the seven bowls. Then with the unfolding of that series of judgments we are told that “the wrath of God is finished” (15:1; cf. 16:17). As we have seen, the climactic seventh in the series encompasses within it the next series of seven. And just before the seventh trumpet, we are told that “the third woe is soon to come” (11:14). It is soon, but not immediate. So it seems we are not to press the “no more delay” too literally with regard to what follows the seventh trumpet; the wording of 10:7, “in the days of the trumpet call,” also suggests this.36 Of course, we may still have proleptic announcements of the end with the seventh trumpet, as 11:18 certainly is (also 14:8, 14–20), but the point is that it does not only or immediately herald the very end.37

33. It is important to see that 4:1, introducing these chapters with “I will show you what must take place after this,” does not indicate that all that follows must have exclusively future referents (as many “futurists” have claimed). Understood as an allusion to Dan. 2:29, 45, it refers to these “latter days,” including the whole time inaugurated by the victory of Christ and up to the end of history. Johnson, Triumph, 32–33; Beale, Book of Revelation, 152–70, esp. 158–59.

34. The terrifying nature of these judgments, apparently then currently being poured out, would also have increased our sense of dread, were it not for the picture in chap. 7, between the sixth and seventh seal, of the great multitude of God’s people protected and preserved through the tribulation.

35. The coherence of John’s narrative requires that we see this “little scroll” as the same as that introduced in chap. 5, and whose seals have just been opened (the same word, “scroll,” is used in 10:8 as in chap. 5). It is little compared with the size of the mighty angel. Bauckham, Theology, 80–84.

Furthermore, what that announcement of 10:6–7 may indicate about the seventh trumpet more than chronology is the character of the last “short” period before the end (12:12). This is because it is to herald or entail the fulfillment (or completion) of God’s purpose. The use of “secret” here is consistent with New Testament usage to indicate the formerly hidden purposes of God, typically hidden in Old Testament prophecy, but now revealed to the New Testament apostles and prophets (cf. Rom. 16:25–26). That secret is invariably about Christ and the gospel or the way the gospel is bringing about a new people of God in Christ (Eph. 3:4–6, 9–11; Col. 1:26–27; Rom. 11:26–27).38 Thus it is interesting to see that the Daniel passage alluded to by Revelation 10:6–7, which is also addressing when these last things will

36. Thus Smalley, Revelation to John, 288, argues that “in the days” indicates not “the actual moment of sounding the final trumpet,” but “the period introduced by the seventh trumpet-woe, namely the trumpet-visions of Rev. 12–15.”

37. Smalley, Revelation to John, 287–88, stresses that the reference to the third woe, the seventh trumpet, and what follows it “is allusively presented,” which should keep us from being dogmatic about the chronology. “The ‘mystery of God’ is always on the point of fulfillment, right up to and beyond the end.” So here he says that “the result of the seventh trumpet-blast” is not, as we might expect, “the action that follows immediately.”

38. Note also that here in Rev. 10:7, this secret was “announced” to his servants the prophets, and this word means more specifically “announce the good news” or “preach the gospel.”

be brought to completion, tells us that it will be “when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end” (Dan. 12:7).39 John has also told us something similar in the response to the cry of the martyred souls under the altar—and the closest thing in Revelation to a specific time reference about the end: they are to wait until the full number of the martyrs has been completed, and the end would come (6:11). For what immediately precedes the seventh trumpet in chapter 11, and comes after it in chapters 12–15, is precisely the revelation that the obedience of the saints even unto death, by the power of the gospel, will be the means of their victory and the final ingathering of people from every nation.

What comes next in Revelation 10 is John’s receiving the scroll to eat, which we must see, on the pattern of Ezekiel 3, means that he is now being given its contents to prophecy. It is both sweet and bitter (implying suffering and victory, judgment and salvation), and it is “about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.” As Bauckham has forcefully argued, the section that follows, Revelation 11:1–13 on the two witnesses, must then be understood as John’s prophecy revealing the contents of the scroll.40 It is certainly a measure of the challenge of Revelation that this turning point in the book, actually the main contents of John’s whole prophecy, is one of its most contested passages (second only perhaps to the millennial passage in Revelation 20). Hence it cannot be adequately dealt with here. But the difficulty in detail should not keep us from appropriating key points on which there is much agreement. It is also helpful to approach the description of the two witnesses as more of a parable, rather than trying to force either literal or allegorical correspondences at every point.41 The two witnesses represent the church (cf. lampstands, 11:4 and 1:20) in her faithful witness to the gospel. They have a powerful testimony worked by the Holy Spirit in them.42 But at the appointed time, they are allowed to be conquered by the beast (first introduced here) and killed. Then they come back to life and ascend to heaven (like Christ). Their enemies among the “peoples and tribes and languages and nations” witness this, and when an earthquake

39. Beale, Book of Revelation, 544–45.

40. Bauckham, Theology, 82–84.

41. Ibid., 84–85.

42. The reference to “the two olive trees” (11:4) comes from Zechariah 4 and indicates empowering by the Holy Spirit. As Bauckham points out, John was likely drawn to that passage because its key verse could also summarize the theology of Revelation: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6).

judgment follows, a tenth are killed, but the rest “were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven” (11:13).

The original hearers would have likely found this puzzling as well, and that is because some of the obscurities become clear only in the subsequent chapters 12–15, which reiterate the central message of the parable. Everything turns on recognizing that to “fear God and give him glory” (or “glorify his name”) is John’s coded language for repentance and conversion. We see this explicitly in 14:7; 15:4; 16:9 (also “those who fear your name” just a few verses later in 11:18).43 This conversion of “peoples and tribes and languages and nations” is not a small thing. It is a “reverse remnant”: instead of only seven thousand saved (Rom. 11:4–5; 1 Kings 19:18), seven thousand are killed, while “the rest” (equal to nine-tenths of the inhabitants) repent.44 Their repentance is pictured as following an earthquake judgment after they have seen the two witnesses’ “resurrection.” This means that it cannot be the literal resurrection of the saints, since there is no more conversion at that point (20:11–15).45 Rather, it is the spiritual resurrection of the martyrs, as in Revelation 20:4–6 (“the first resurrection”), and it is their heavenly vindication that has been recognized as vindicating their testimony.46 How do the nations recognize that? Their martyrdom identifies them with Christ—“resurrection” is thus pictured as after three and a half days in 11:11—who is the Faithful Witness, and whose death and resurrection is the object of their testimony.47 (Cf. 12:11: “they have conquered him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”) Now we can see why the seventh trumpet, as announcing and summing up the final disclosure of

43. This was recognized earlier by G. B. Caird, A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine (New york: Harper & Row, 1966), 140. Also Michaels, Interpreting, 59–60; Aune, Revelation 6–16, 628–29; Smalley, Revelation to John, 286; Kim, “Kingdom of God,” 636. For a tour de force on this theme that has convinced many, see Bauckham, Climax, chap. 9, “The Conversion of the Nations.” Beale, Book of Revelation, 605–7, agrees in principle, but objects to this interpretation in 11:13 because the verb for “fear” is different and because it doesn’t work in this context (see n45).

44. Bauckham, Theology, 87. The numbers are symbolic, so the point is the great result of the witnesses’ testimony compared with that of the Old Testament prophets.

45. Beale, Book of Revelation, 607, holds that it must be the literal resurrection, and therefore 11:13 cannot be conversion; this also confirms for him that 11:15 must refer to the consummation.

46. In Rev. 20:4, the martyrs who came to life and reigned with Christ are “those for whom judgment was given” (rather than, as most translations have, “those to whom the authority to judge was committed”).

47. Bauckham, Climax, 280–81.

God’s purpose, had to wait for the revealing of the contents of the scroll. After all the preceding judgments of God (seals and first six trumpets), at the end of chapter 9, it is stressed that those judgments did not bring anyone to repentance from idolatry (or murders, sorceries, sexual immorality, or thefts) (9:20–21). The intended contrast with 11:13 is clear, underscored by the use of the same word, “the rest,” now to describe the great number who have repented because of the faithful testimony of the church.48

The announcement that comes after the trumpet sound in Revelation 11:15 is thus most appropriate because what has been revealed is the winning of people from the kingdom of the world to the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. yet it is not as if the church’s testimony has accomplished this. Their testimony is to the Lord and his accomplished victory, and it is only because he has established his throne over all that their testimony and death has its effect. But their victory is evidence that the true sovereignty and kingdom reign belong to God, and that Christ’s victory on the cross has established this once for all, so that he must continue to reign forever and ever.

In 11:16 it is most significant that the response to this heavenly proclamation comes from the twenty-four elders. These were last heard from in 5:9–10, where in response to the Lamb’s taking of the scroll they sing “a new song,” a designation in Isaiah and the Psalms for celebration of eschatological redemption, proclaiming Christ’s victory on the cross, which has ransomed a people for God, making them a kingdom and priests. Now that Christ has revealed the contents of the scroll and it is coming to pass, it is fitting that they reappear to offer thanks to God “for what he has done and what he is about to do.”49 It is widely understood that they represent the church, yet the functional implications of this for John are often missed.50 Particularly in popular perception, Revelation 4–5 is often assumed to portray the church’s glorified worship when she will have received her heavenly reward (cf. white garments and golden crowns, 4:4), which is not yet a reality. Yet for John we have already been made kings, and the key to understanding our earthly struggle and suffering is to perceive that our heavenly existence is in fact now a reality. This is depicted most strikingly by the description of Christians as “those who dwell in heaven,” as opposed to those in the sway of Satan and the beast, who “dwell on earth.” (Cf. “woe to you who dwell on the earth” [8:13]; “rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them” [12:12; cf. 3:10; 6:10; 11:10; 13:6–8].) Consequently, John agrees with New Testament teaching elsewhere that we are already raised up by the Spirit into the heavenly places (Eph. 2:6; Col. 3:1–3), and that particularly in our corporate worship we really participate already in the worship of the heavenly assembly (Heb. 12:22). But as also in the rest of the New Testament, this does not become an overrealized eschatology, because we are nevertheless still really physically here suffering on earth, and it is here that we must persevere in faithful testimony. The point is that we can endure in that earthly testimony only by being “heavenly minded” (cf. Col. 3:2), hence the importance throughout Revelation of depictions of heavenly worship. The intention is that we see our own worship now, as the church militant, suffering, and victorious, reflected in the ongoing heavenly worship, particularly as shown to us by the twenty-four elders.

48. Ibid., 279; Michaels, Interpreting, 59–60.

49. J. Ramsey Michaels, Revelation, IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 144.

50. Beale, Book of Revelation, 322–26, surveys the options. The identification with the church stands whether they are angelic beings or only symbolic representatives.

Thus here in Revelation 11:16–18, the twenty-four elders direct our own thanksgiving to God now for his accomplished and coming kingdom on the occasion of the death of the saints. We, like the nations who repent, must see that our apparent defeat is our victory, and the sign that the final accomplishment of God’s purposes is at hand. So rather than a hymn that will be ours only at the consummation, this role of the twenty-four elders and the connections to chapters 4–5 lead us to recognize it as part of the church’s confession in this time. What then of the language of verse 17? The absence of “is to come” in the description of the Lord God Almighty does not require the idea that the second coming has taken place. John depicts the coming of God in salvation and judgment as “already/not yet,” just as he does the kingdom. So also the other occurrence of the expression in the form it is here, in 16:5, as presumably the final judgments are unfolding, clearly precedes the return of Christ. Next in 11:17 they say that “you have taken your great power,” where the Greek perfect verb can portray a definite point in the past that is having its continuing effect in the present. Although Christ’s return is clearly to be in great power and glory, John also means to convey to the church the great power of Christ’s present victory over Satan accomplished once for all and having its effect in the enduring witness of the church. So clearly in 12:7–10, and also in 11:4–6, we are shown the powerful word of the church’s witness.

The following line in 11:17 declares that the Lord has “begun to reign” or “taken up his reign” or “become king.” This links with verse 15 because the word used is the verbal form of that used for “kingdom” or “sovereign reign.” This means that however we understand it, this phrase and the announcement in verse 15 should be taken to mutually interpret one another. Setting aside for a moment the later parallel in 19:6, it would seem that if we must take the meaning here as a future beginning to reign (that is, presumably visibly manifest on earth), we would have to adopt a different understanding of the concept than we have in the very texts that lie behind this passage. Psalm 2 is most overtly referenced in this context (v. 18), and in that psalm the Messiah’s future rule (vv. 8–9) is predicated on his already having begun to reign on Mount Zion (vv. 6–7, signifying in the New Testament his heavenly rule), and therefore the nations are called to submit—in “fear”—now before his wrath is kindled (vv. 10–12). Similarly in Daniel 7, we have the enthronement, the beginning to reign (vv. 13–14), as well as the subsequent final victory when the saints possess the kingdom (vv. 22, 27). Likewise in 7:13–14, Christ’s “coming with the clouds” up to the Ancient of Days, where he is “given dominion and glory and a kingdom,” is fulfilled in the beginning of Christ’s reign at the ascension (Matt. 26:64; Mark 14:62; in both of which the Daniel passage is connected with Ps. 110:1).51

When we compare Revelation 19:6, reading as in 11:17, “For the Lord our God the Almighty has begun to reign,” we may question the quick assumption that the reference is to a final, visible, future beginning. As in chapter 11, the return of Christ is still future, and as in chapter 11, the passage can be seen to move from the certainty of what was established in the past to what is about to take place. This has been preceded by the judgment of Babylon, and that must be recognized to have historical manifestations that come prior to the final cataclysm.52 Furthermore, this is the third of the threefold “Hallelujah!” in chapter 19, and each one is proclaimed by “a great multitude in heaven,” indicating or at least including all the saints (7:9). In 19:4, the twenty-four elders are specifically represented as worshiping with the words “Amen. Hallelujah!” This should still be seen to represent the church’s current participation in this heavenly praise, which is confirmed in verse 5, where the call is made explicitly to the church now to respond: “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.”

51. Commentators sometimes refer to these Old Testament passages as important background without explaining how the inaugurated reign that they teach and that the New Testament elsewhere affirms can be overlooked. For example, Hendriksen, More than Conquerors, 132; Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977, 1997), 226.

52. Cf. Smalley, Revelation to John, 481–82.

Verse 18 of chapter 11 proceeds to emphasize the certainty of the final accomplishment of both God’s vindication of his people and judgment of his enemies as in Psalm 2. The aorist verb used here to describe the coming of God’s wrath and the time for judgment and reward does not require us to hear it as a past description from the time of the consummation.53 Many see a proleptic use, depicting a future event as more certain by portraying it in the past tense.54 We may compare 14:8: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great,” when clearly in the context it has not happened yet, and the point is the warning that its fall is imminent. It is also possible to understand “your wrath came” in parallel with “begun to reign” (ingressive sense) to refer to God’s judgments in history that have already begun.55 When next this is explained as the time (kairos) for judging the dead and rewarding God’s servants, it does not mean to say the end has come. Rather, it either continues the sense of proleptic announcement or stresses that this “appointed time” is near or at hand (cf. 1:3).56 This verse underscores a feature of John’s perspective that is easy to miss after two thousand years. Throughout Revelation we hear the warning that “the time is short” (6:10; 12:12), and that these events, including the final things, must “soon” take place (1:1). In the last verses of the book, Jesus repeats three times “I am coming soon” (Rev. 22:7, 12, 20). So also “the hour of his judgment has come” (14:7), even as the call goes out for repentance.57 This means that the distance between the beginning of these things and their final outcome, that is, between the inauguration of Christ’s kingdom and its final victories, is not very far. Therefore, it should not surprise us to see them linked closely together (in 11:15–18 or 19:6–8),

53. Beale, Book of Revelation, 611.

54. This may be compared to the Semitic “prophetic perfect,” which clearly intends to prophesy about the future with a past-tense description.

55. So Grant R. Osborne, Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 444n8. “Wrath” in Revelation is not exclusively a matter of God’s final judgment, contra Beale, Book of Revelation, 615. See Smalley, Revelation to John, 170–71. We may note how John expresses this in his Gospel: “whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains [or abides] on him” (3:36), which also alludes to the warning of Psalm 2:12.

56. Again Smalley, Revelation to John, 291, takes issue with Beale, Book of Revelation, 615, saying the idea is that “the moment for judging the dead” is here, or even “this is the moment that (as a result of which) the dead should be judged.”

57. Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, 46–49.

especially in hymns expressing praise and thanksgiving to God for his “great and amazing” acts (15:3–4).

As we have argued, Revelation 11:15–19 must be closely related to chapters 12–15. The significance of the seventh trumpet continues to unfold in these chapters, even as they recapitulate and expand on the message of the scroll introduced in the parable of the two witnesses.58 Therefore, verbal and thematic parallels contained in these chapters are crucial to understanding what has immediately preceded in chapter 11. These chapters depict that the church’s calling to be faithful witnesses is in the midst of a cosmic battle or holy war, and the dragon Satan is shown as the ultimate enemy. yet Christ has overcome him, and the saints overcome him in the same way (chap. 12). The same conflict is shown through the activity of the beasts, with whom Satan has formed a counterfeit unholy trinity to oppose God and the saints (chap. 13). It seems that they succeed by persecuting and killing them, but God’s holy army of the redeemed is nevertheless victorious (14:1–5). These visions have further explained the two-witnesses parable, but have not yet shown the outcome of the conversion of the nations. This comes in the remaining sections, as angels announce the eternal gospel, and call the nations to repentance and the church to endurance (14:6–13). Two harvests follow, depicting the gathering of the righteous and the pouring out of wrath on the wicked (14:14–20). Then as the seven bowls are readied, the martyrs who have conquered sing a victory song that sums up many of these themes, including the reign of God over the nations (15:1–4).

The nature of these visions as different or deeper perspectives on what was introduced earlier implies that to some extent we will need to reread and reconsider those earlier parts. For instance, the beast is introduced in the drama in 11:7, but his origin and nature is not explained until chapter 13. The nations’ conversion as a result of the martyrs’ testimony could be easily missed without chapter 14. It is reasonable, then, when we find in chapter 12 a description of the kingdom reign of God, in similar language to 11:15–17, that we ask whether this should illuminate the earlier passage.59 Verse 10 of chapter 12 describes the result of the defeat of Satan by Christ, and his being cast out of heaven: “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our

58. Bauckham, Theology, 83–84, 88; Smalley, Revelation to John, 287–88.

59. Beale, Book of Revelation, 614, as we have seen, argues that we must carefully distinguish the two passages; Smalley, Revelation to John, 288–89, argues that the passages are parallel.

brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.”60 Here, as in 11:15–17, God’s kingdom and power have come.61 We are surely meant to see the parallels, particularly as 12:11 explains that it is this kingdom power that is the basis of the church’s victorious witness (which was depicted in 11:4–13). These verses are among the most important in the book for demonstrating its teaching that God’s kingdom has truly already invaded this world’s kingdom with power, and Christ’s authority (cf. Dan. 7:14; Matt. 28:18) over Satan and the nations is supreme.

That kingdom authority appears again in the song of those who have conquered the beast in Revelation 15:2–4. It is called “the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.” Bauckham has shown in detail how John has adapted language and themes from that song celebrating the Red Sea deliverance in Exodus 15.62 Its key final verse has already appeared in Revelation 11:15: “The Lord shall reign forever and ever.” As in Exodus, God’s mighty acts of judgment are celebrated, showing his incomparability to all other gods (countering those who said, “Who is like the beast,” Rev. 13:4), and causing the nations to fear. But in the song in Revelation those great acts of God are shown to lead to repentance and worship. This is done by citing other Old Testament texts with parallels to Exodus 15. So Jeremiah 10:7 is cited: “Who would not fear you, O King of the nations.” This is followed by Psalm 86:8–10: “There is none like you among the gods, O Lord . . . . All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.” God alone is King of the nations, and because of the church’s faithful testimony, people from every nation will come to recognize that he alone is worthy to be worshiped.

Many have noticed that behind the expressions “you have begun to reign” (Rev. 11:17) and “the Lord our God the Almighty reigns [i.e., has begun to reign]” (19:6), we should see the influence of a group of psalms with a similar recurrent refrain.63 These have been called “enthronement psalms,” “divine kingship psalms,” or Yahweh Malak psalms, reflecting the Hebrew expression characteristic of these psalms, usually translated

60. Cf. in John’s Gospel, 12:31: “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.”

61. The verb translated “have come” here is the same verb in the same tense as that used in 11:15, translated “has become.”

62. Bauckham, Theology, 98–101.

63. Beale, Book of Revelation, 614; Smalley, Revelation to John, 290.

“The Lord reigns” (esp. Pss. 93, 96–99). Bauckham also noticed that the form of the angel’s gospel announcement in 14:6 (“with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation”) derives from one of these, Psalm 96. From there he pointed out that the many themes of this psalm (and its parallels) are key in Revelation 14 and indeed throughout the book.64 These include singing a new song (5:9; 14:3); calling all the nations to fear God, give him glory, and worship him; the same terminology of nations, tribes, and peoples; contrast with the idols of the nations; and the announcement of coming judgment. And of course “the Lord is King” (Ps. 96:10) reflects “the dominant theme of Revelation,” God’s kingdom.65 So it is clear that Psalm 96 and this whole group of psalms are important for the theology of Revelation.

However, these psalms hold even greater relevance, for they announce more than the “universal kingship” idea in “the Lord reigns” or “the Lord is King.” As some Psalms scholars have recognized, Yahweh malak cannot really be translated “the Lord reigns.” The verb in the Hebrew perfect tense would always elsewhere be translated “has become king” or “has begun to reign.”66 It is the same problem we have noted in the Greek with this type of verb, and so as we have seen, in Revelation 11:17 and 19:6, they are to be translated in the same way (“you have begun to reign”). This same aorist tense is what we find in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew) version of these psalms. It is thus highly likely that John’s allusions to these psalms in those verses and elsewhere reflect the same inaugurated eschatological perspective of these psalms. That perspective announces “a new song” (Pss. 96:1; 98:1) because the Lord has accomplished a marvelous salvation and entered into his glorious reign. This salvation has been made known to all the nations (96:2; 98:1–3), and we are called to make it known (96:2–3). We are to “say among the nations, ‘the Lord has begun to reign!’ ” (96:10), and call all to abandon idolatry and worship the exalted King (96:4–5; 97:7–9; also Heb. 1:6). But the announcement is also that judgment is coming:

64. Bauckham, Climax, 286–89.

65. Ibid., 288.

66. Mark D. Futato, Interpreting the Psalms (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007), 165–70, makes one of the best cases for this understanding: these psalms announce that “God has become King in a new sense, because he has won a new victory that has brought his kingdom to realization in a new way” (167). The difficulty many scholars have in accepting an eschatological (and hence Christological) interpretation of the Psalms probably accounts for the persistence of the traditional translation.

“he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness” (Pss. 96:13; 98:9). Psalm 47 is similar: “God has gone up with a shout” (v. 5); “God is the King over all the earth . . . . God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne” (vv. 7–8; cf. 97:9).67 In other words, these psalms are best understood to describe the in-between, already/not-yet time in which Jesus Christ has once for all accomplished salvation victory by his death and resurrection, and has now taken up his throne over the world; but he is soon to come in judgment, and so calls all the nations to submit to his reign. This is the essential message of Revelation.

What, then, does Revelation call us to do? What implications does this have for our lives in the world? Can we expect an answer to “Thy kingdom come” before the end? There is no dispute that Revelation calls us to be faithful witnesses. Our witness is to follow the “testimony of Jesus,” who is the true and faithful witness, declaring his accomplished salvation and kingdom reign. For Revelation this is a Spirit-empowered testimony that confirms the central role of the ordained preaching ministry of the church (Rev. 11:3–13), yet no less devolves upon ordinary Christians to maintain that testimony by word and deed (“who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus,” 12:17). However, we would seriously misconstrue the message of the book if we understood this as limited to evangelism narrowly conceived. Revelation is about our testimony among the nations (the content of the scroll concerns “many peoples and nations and languages and kings,” 10:11), and Christ’s kingdom victory confronts those nations with their political, social, and cultural idolatries. As we have seen, “politics is eschatological,” because all the world’s structures have been taken over by the unholy trinity, deceiving people and seducing them to their idolatries.68 Our cultural life in the world is thus not a neutral realm apart from the moral and spiritual demands of Christ’s inaugurated kingdom. This means that we must confront the “idolatries of the public world” with the all-encompassing claims of Christ’s lordship.69 And it is clear in Revelation that this is an unavoidable cosmic struggle that may carry serious personal consequences for us: “If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword

67. Ibid., 166–67.

68. O’Donovan, “Political Thought,” 79–80.

69. Bauckham, Theology, 160–61; O’Donovan, “Political Thought,” 90: we are called to a “genuine political engagement,” which requires confronting the false political order.

he must be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints” (Rev. 13:10; cf. 14:12).

But we have also seen that the surprising ironic twist in God’s final revealed purpose is that he, through the faithful witness of his church, even unto death, is bringing people out of this doomed idolatry. These are people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:10). This “great multitude” (7:9) of converted people will reject the politics of the beast, which claims ultimate sovereignty for its rule; they will resist the enticements of Babylon. This cannot mean withdrawal, but rather active testimony against those claims.70 So does Revelation imply or at least allow for a “Christian” culture, a “Christian” politics? How could it not be otherwise, if Christians’ public life in all its callings and spheres must manifest a distinct difference from that of the kingdom of this world? For all that is shared in common in the world, the testimony of Christians to Christ’s kingdom reign means that they strive for recognition of that rule across the whole created order.71

yet Revelation’s message should also warn us against any triumphalistic overconfidence in Christian cultural transformation in this world. Nor does it encourage us to see our cultural engagements as in themselves advancing Christ’s kingdom. They can and must aim to be expressions of our faithful witness to that kingdom. And the kingdom does “come” in Revelation even now on earth as the King is increasingly acknowledged by the nations. This must have its outworking in our cultural lives. However, Revelation makes absolutely clear that the beast, in all his embodiments, will not finally be defeated, nor will Babylon finally fall, before the end. Christ has “begun to reign,” but we wait with perseverance in our testimony and commandment-keeping for God’s climactic intervention in history to

70. Bauckham, Theology, 161, refers to “the standard caricature”: an attitude that justifies “Christian withdrawal into a sectarian enclave that leaves the world to its judgment while consoling itself with millennial dreams.” He says this is “the opposite of Revelation’s outlook,” which is “active participation in the coming of this kingdom.” Note also that Klaas Schilder, Christ and Culture (Winnipeg, MB: Premier Printing, 1977 [original, 1947]), 28, arguing against a kind of “cultural abstinence,” says we must not misconstrue the demand of Rev. 18:4: “to come out of Babylon is not the same thing as to go out of the world” (cf. 1 Cor. 5:10); it is rather to reject the harlotries of the world even as we are in the world (25).

71. So for example Henry Meeter, The Basic Ideas of Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1939, 1990), 67: “It is your duty and mine to labor, with all our powers on a Christian basis, for Christian ideals, in every sphere where the Lord calls us so that Christ shall be the recognized King, also in the realm of culture.”

finally bring in the new heaven and new earth. And so we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20).

Furthermore, Revelation warns us that Christians are not immune to the lies of the beast and Babylon. Much of the church may be in grave danger of losing the battle, and even of losing its Christian identity entirely (Rev. 2–3). We must recognize that our testimony in the world involves us in a life-or-death spiritual struggle, which can be won only as we conquer by the power and blood of Christ. There are many nations in the world today where the pressure to compromise and conform to the claims of the beast is intense. In most of the developing world, however, our problem is no doubt more with Babylon. We easily succumb to the blandishments of our materialistic and sexually immoral world system because of our spiritual poverty, like Laodicea. What, then, if Christians built a city? It would still not be our home.72 The antithesis runs not only between nations and through every nation, but through every individual, as we now partake of both the kingdom and the tribulation (Rev. 1:9). It is thus significant that Revelation begins and ends not with calls to transform culture, but with warnings to heed the message of the book by being overcomers. It leaves us with the urgency of avoiding any compromise with the sins of this world and the call to faithful testimony and keeping God’s commandments (21:7–8; 22:7, 14–15).

yet Revelation is ultimately hopeful: Christ the Lord is on the throne, and he will protect his true people in the spiritual struggle. Because he is “King of the nations,” we sing, “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name?” (Rev. 15:4). The nations will come, and so this will mean the promise of “substantial healing” in every area of our lives, as Francis Schaeffer characterized it. In humility and in the power of the Spirit, we can look for “real changes that bring real fruits of justice and peace into our lives and into the lives of our neighbors.”73 We will see this as we work for an ever-greater acknowledgment that “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.”

72. See Leon Morris, The Revelation of St. John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969), 163: although Christians live in the world, in cities, “their true home and their sure refuge is far from the great city, i.e., in the wilderness.”

73. Paul Marshall, in an additional chapter in the revised edition of Meeter, Basic Ideas, 198. He references Schaeffer’s expression “substantial healing,” which is found especially in Schaeffer’s book True Spirituality (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1971), chaps. 10–13.

9

Eschatology, Creation, and Practical Reason: A Reformational Interpretation of the Two Kingdoms Perspective

Jason Lief

THE RECENT CONVERSATION regarding the Two Kingdoms perspective within contemporary Reformed thought is a welcome invitation for renewed theological and philosophical reflection on the relationship between Christianity and culture.1 The tendency toward complacency with regard to theological and biblical positions is overcome only by the challenge to reexamine what we believe—leading either to clarity or to transformation of thought. This is particularly true for the neo-Calvinist articulation of the creation-fall-redemption paradigm—with its emphasis on the restoration of creation—grounded in the thought of such theologians/philosophers as Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd. This perspective has provided insight for a Christian interpretation and engagement of culture within the broader evangelical community.2 At the same time, the criticism of this perspective by those who advocate for a renewed Two Kingdoms doctrine within Reformed thought provides an important opportunity for biblical, historical, and philosophical self-reflection.

1. See Stephen John Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics, Emory University Studies in Law and Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006); David VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).

2. Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008). Crouch references the influence of the neo-Calvinist perspective,

Beneath the larger historical and theological issues regarding the presence of the Two Kingdoms paradigm within Reformed thought lie implicit, fundamental presuppositions. How one interprets the opening chapters of Genesis and their place in the larger canon goes far in determining an approach to the issues of natural law and the Two Kingdoms perspective. An important part of this discussion is the issue of human identity—what it means to be made in the image of God and how it relates to a biblical understanding of culture. Is the created world, and more specifically human nature, an absolute, given that it provides the context for the story of redemption? Or are the creation texts eschatologically charged, meaning that the identity and fulfillment of creation—including the image of God—is directed toward the future? This leads to the issue of the relationship between Christology and creation. How should we understand Paul’s proclamation in Colossians that all things have been created through Christ?

There are also important anthropological and cultural presuppositions to consider. The resurgence of the Two Kingdoms perspective within Reformed theology reflects an attempt to ground human nature, and the social order, in a form of objective truth. David VanDrunen, in his work Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study of the Development of Reformed Social Thought, argues for an interpretation of natural law as a source for objective moral law. He writes, “This function of natural law as the fundamental basic moral standard was true already in creation and continues to bind all people after the fall into sin, even apart from Christ’s work of redemption, according to the common teaching of Reformed orthodoxy. This is a crucial teaching for the claims of this book.”3 In placing the issue of morality at the center of his project, VanDrunen makes an anthropological claim, asserting that natural law represents objective knowledge about what it means to be human. In this context, natural law becomes the basis for interpreting and judging the historical and the cultural existence of humanity. This prompts the fundamental question: Where should a theological anthropology be grounded—within a doctrine of creation and natural law, or the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? If, as I suspect, the answer is both, then how are the two related?

which is demonstrated by his argument. See also Richard J. Mouw, When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); Richard J. Mouw, He Shines in All That’s Fair: Culture and Common Grace: The 2000 Stob Lectures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).

3. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 161.

Finally, the resurgence of the Two Kingdoms perspective has brought into focus the question of tradition—specifically the determination of who does, or does not, represent the “orthodox” perspective of the Reformation.4 Of particular interest is the determination of the “orthodox” interpretation of Luther and Calvin regarding the Two Kingdoms doctrine, and the implications with regard to the theological issues at the heart of the Reformation. As a result of this endeavor, significant questions have been raised concerning the faithfulness of certain perspectives—such as neoCalvinism—to the thought and tradition of the Reformation. This raises the question: What does a faithful articulation of Luther’s and Calvin’s Two Kingdoms perspective look like?

The purpose of this essay is to explore an understanding of the Two Kingdoms perspective in the context of an eschatological interpretation of creation. I will begin by examining the possibility of an eschatological paradigm based on the thought of Calvin, from which I will address the neo-Calvinist perspective represented by Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd. By bringing the neo-Calvinist perspective into dialogue with contemporary theological and philosophical thought, I will argue that the idea of “emergence” found in the work of Charles Taylor and Wolfhart Pannenberg provides important insight for the development of an alternative interpretation of “natural law” or the “moral good” within the Reformed perspective. I will begin by examining the influence of skepticism and rhetoric on the Two Kingdoms perspectives of Luther and Calvin within the context of the humanist critique of scholasticism. From there I will explore the implications of a Christocentric, eschatological doctrine of creation for neo-Calvinism by engaging Clifford Anderson’s interpretation of Kuyper and Calvin Seerveld’s work on Dooyeweerd. Finally, I will argue that a Christological interpretation of creation not only provides an important context for speaking of the “natural good” and “human authenticity” within a neo-Calvinist perspective, but also offers a significant Calvinist alternative to the Two Kingdoms paradigm being advocated in Reformed theology.

4. See David VanDrunen, “The Two Kingdoms: A Reassessment of the Transformationalist Calvin,” CTJ 40 (2005), 248–66.

The Skepticism of Luther and Calvin

In Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, VanDrunen traces the natural law and Two Kingdoms perspective as it develops out of the patristic and medieval period through the Reformation. While his primary focus is Calvin and his successors, he briefly touches on the precursors to Reformational thought found in Augustine’s “two cities” perspective, the “two swords doctrine” of St. Boniface and Pope Gelasius, and the nominalism of Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. One purpose of this discussion is to address the implications of the nominalist shift that occurs with Scotus and Ockham’s rejection of classical realism. While this development had obvious consequences for natural-law theory, VanDrunen offers what he considers to be a “balanced view of Ockham”—arguing that even with a nominalist perspective, natural law remained an essential part of Ockham’s thought.5 What VanDrunen does not do, however, is acknowledge the subtle, yet significant, nuance that develops out of Ockham’s nominalism.6 With this omission he sidesteps a crucial aspect of Ockham’s thought that directly relates to the natural law/Two Kingdoms perspective of both Luther and Calvin— the question of certainty.

The nominalism of Ockham raises serious epistemological questions about what can be known through reason. Over and against the positive role played by reason in a realist perspective, the skepticism of nominalism operates as a form of epistemological agnosticism. While we engage the world through perceptions and intuitions that result from empirical experience—clearly a rational process—there is no guarantee that the objects of our perceptions actually exist.7 Thus, built into the nominalist perspective is an inherent skepticism with regard to the rational process by which we

5. VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 52.

6. Ibid., 53. VanDrunen writes, “Discussing all of these issues [the influence of nominalism] in Ockham’s philosophical, theological, and political work is not necessary for the particular purposes of the present study.”

7. See Meyrick H. Carre, Realists and Nominalists (London: Oxford University Press, 1946). Carre describes two qualifications of Ockham’s empiricism when he writes, “The first widens the range of objects which can be intuitively perceived; the second introduces a reservation into the guarantee given by the act of perception that objects exist.” He goes on to write, “The final references of truth, then, are the testimonies of the external or internal senses. These alone in Ockham’s terms give evident knowledge. But he does not deny that propositions even of the most general character are not immediately apprehended and recognized as true . . . . They presuppose the apprehension of individual things, though the immediate assent is not to them” (111–12).

come to know the world. The best that reason can do in the engagement of the world is to demonstrate the probability of truth. Therefore, while reason remains an important and valuable means for engaging the temporal world—which explains Ockham’s continued use of natural law—it unleashes a form of skepticism that manifests itself as a form of tentative optimism regarding the capability of rational knowledge to determine truth.

William J. Wright, in his book Martin Luther’s Understanding of God’s Two Kingdoms: A Response to the Challenge of Skepticism, argues that Luther’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms should be interpreted as an attempt to deal with the rational skepticism that resulted from the nominalist perspective.8 He argues that Luther’s perspective must be understood in the context of the humanist appropriation of rhetoric and skepticism represented by the thought of Lorenzo Valla. The humanist challenge to the scholastic version of propositional truth is demonstrated in the use of rhetoric to address the heart rather than the mind.9 Christian humanists eventually developed two rhetorical approaches: the first emphasized one form of rhetoric for the engagement of the world (philosophy, science, etc.) and another pertaining to matters of Christian faith. The second maintained that the Christian faith should be subject to the same form of skepticism and rhetoric as the other spheres of life. Valla followed the first approach—developing a form of Christian rhetoric based on Scripture that was separate from the skepticism cultivated in the other spheres of life.10

According to Wright, it is in the context of this epistemological crisis that Luther begins to form his Two Kingdoms doctrine. The nominalist skepticism of the humanists led to a form of pessimism regarding the sufficiency of reason to achieve certainty.11 Luther, having been influenced by Valla, develops his Two Kingdoms perspective in an attempt to attain certainty with regard to matters of faith. This leads Luther to emphasize faith as the guarantee of certainty in the context of the revealed truth of Scripture, as faith becomes a matter of the heart and will—a form of rhetoric for the soul. At the same time, Luther applies skepticism to the other spheres

8. William John Wright, Martin Luther’s Understanding of God’s Two Kingdoms: A Response to the Challenge of Skepticism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010).

9. Ibid., 98.

10. Ibid., 61–71.

11. Ibid., 82. Wright writes, “The difference between the Scholastic and humanist approaches to dialectic or logic was that the former tended to seek objective truth, while the latter could only accept probable truth issuing from dialectic.”

of life—holding a posture of guarded optimism toward knowledge gained through reason and philosophy.12 Here, we find the basis for Luther’s twopart Christian interpretation of reality: the inner, or spiritual, realm of faith that is rooted in the certainty and authority of God’s Word revealed in Jesus Christ, and the temporal realm in which reason provides an imperfect, but useful, means of knowledge for daily living.

The point of Wright’s argument is that Luther’s Two Kingdoms doctrine was not developed primarily out of a concern for providing a Christian basis for political or cultural order; rather, it was a paradigm for navigating the epistemological crisis that resulted from nominalist skepticism. For Luther, certainty is found only in the spiritual realm—the realm of faith—rooted in the Word revealed in Jesus Christ, while the temporal realm remains plagued by skepticism and uncertainty. The implications of Wright’s argument are that all articulations of a natural-law or Two Kingdoms perspective that claim to be based on Luther’s thought must take seriously the influence of skepticism. In this way Luther’s Two Kingdoms perspective affirms the certainty of faith, while suggesting that within the temporal realm we are left to do the best we can.13

As advocates of the Two Kingdoms perspective point out, Calvin’s doctrine of the Two Kingdoms closely resembles that of Luther. Like Luther’s, Calvin’s thought was shaped by the humanism of his day—as seen in his admiration of the rhetoric of such individuals as Seneca and Cicero.14 A careful reading of Calvin’s Institutes also suggests the influence of skepticism regarding the ability of reason to discern truth. This is seen in the opening of the Institutes where Calvin asserts that the basis of true knowledge of the

12. Ibid., 99. Wright writes, “With the humanists, Luther held that neither the senses nor reason could know certain truth. Luther argued that this inability resulted from the fall . . . . Luther doubted that natural philosophy could attain truth about astronomy or the physical world.”

13. Ibid., 100–101. Wright writes, “Thus rhetorical humanism played a significant role in the development of Luther’s Reformation theology by helping to shape his two-kingdoms view, which underlay most of his theological discussions and pastoral advice. Its skepticism, in opposition to Scholastic logic and dogma, saw the weakness of human sensual perception and reason. At the same time, rhetoric, like Scriptures, spoke to the heart, to the human will, but not to the intellect, as Valla showed. It provided a way out of the skeptical dilemma by leading back to Paul and a conception of Christian reality that recognized two separate, alien realities: the kingdom of Christ in which certainty could be attained through faith and the kingdom of the world in which reason could provide imperfect but useful knowledge for daily life.”

14. See Thomas F. Torrance, The Hermeneutics of John Calvin (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1988). Specifically, see 95–126 where Torrance discusses the influence of Seneca, Cicero, Valla, and Erasmus on the thought of Calvin.

self is found only in the knowledge of God, which is revealed in the Word spoken in Jesus Christ.15 He, like Luther, emphasizes the certainty of faith when he writes, “For by his Word, God rendered faith unambiguous forever, a faith that should be superior to all opinion. . . . Hence, there also emerges the beginning of true understanding when we reverently embrace what it pleases God there to witness of himself. But not only faith, perfect and in every way complete, but all right knowledge of God is born of obedience.”16

Even when Calvin makes statements that seem to affirm the capability of reason to discern God in the created world, he proceeds to deconstruct this perspective by speaking of the futility of the mind and philosophy that only leads to idolatry.17 Serene Jones, in her book Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety, writes, “Having put forth this description of natural sources of knowledge, Calvin then firmly and emphatically announces to the reader that all this evidence is for naught. . . . Could it be that Calvin has situated this particular argument at the beginning of the Institutes in order to break down any arrogant pretensions to self knowledge his audience might have, and thereby to clear the way for them to understand truly the real source and power of divine wisdom?”18 For Jones, the Institutes exemplifies how Calvin the rhetorician works to convince the reader that the knowledge of God is the only basis for truth—and that this knowledge of God comes only in the self-revelation of God’s Word.

In a similar manner as Luther, Calvin affirms the role of reason and conscience in the temporal realm, while at the same time he expresses doubt concerning the ability of reason to know truth with any certainty. In this spirit of skepticism, Calvin continually qualifies what can be known about the world through reason as “probable.” In speaking of the cognitive faculties of the soul, he writes, “Although these things are true, or at least probable, yet since I fear that they may involve us in their own obscurity rather than help us, I think they ought to be passed over.”19 He refers to the “sluggishness of mind,” and says the natural gifts have been corrupted as the mind is “plunged into deep darkness.”20 Even when he affirms the remnants of “human understanding” that exist after the fall, he goes on to say, “yet this longing for truth, such as it is, languishes before it enters upon its race because it soon falls into vanity. Indeed, man’s mind, because of its dullness, cannot hold to the right path, but wanders through various errors and stumbles repeatedly, as if it were groping in darkness, until it strays away and finally disappears. Thus it betrays how incapable it is of seeking and finding truth.”21 Calvin affirms the ability of the human mind to contemplate “earthly things,” specifically social organization, politics, and family, but he does so using language that is far from enthusiastic— describing the “weakness of the human mind, which, even when it seems on the right path, halts and hesitates.”22 He goes on to write, “In this respect the frailty of the human mind is surely provided: even when it seems to follow the way, it limps and staggers.”

15. Institutes, 1.1.1. Calvin writes, “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” He goes on to write, “Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.” Ibid., 1.1.2.

16. Ibid., 1.6.2.

17. Serene Jones, Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety, Columbia Series in Reformed Theology (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995). She writes, “In this manner, Calvin uses his rhetorical skills to construct doctrines that produce in his readers a certain play of mind, a play of mind that has as its final goal the inculcating of a faithful disposition . . . . There are times when his rhetorical manipulations become quite complex and subtle, and it will not be as clear how his doctrinal constructions are contributing to the formation of specific dispositions. Calvin is also not beyond tricking his audiences: He may appear to be engaged in teasing out a play of mind when he suddenly subverts, turns on its head, or collapses it. Or he may initiate a particular play of mind that he soon fractures into multiple mind plays, some of which are positive, others of which he forthrightly condemns” (30).

18. Ibid., 31.

In this way, Calvin’s thought reflects the influence of skepticism with regard to the ability of reason to discern truth and certainty. At the same time, he firmly grounds true knowledge of God and creation in faith through the revelation made known in Jesus Christ. This can be seen in his commentary on Genesis, where he writes, “Nothing shall we find, I say, above or below, which can raise us up to God, until Christ shall have instructed us in his own school . . . . yet this does not prevent us from applying our senses to the consideration of heaven and earth, that we may thence seek confirmation in the true knowledge of God.”23 Here we find an implicit Christological grounding of all knowledge—both spiritual and temporal—in

19. Institutes, 1.15.6.

20. Ibid., 2.2.12.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., 2.2.13.

23. Peter Wyatt, Jesus Christ and Creation in the Theology of John Calvin, Princeton Theological Monograph Series 42 (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications, 1996), 116. Wyatt is quoting from Calvin’s “Argument” in his commentary on Genesis. Jean Calvin and John King, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses, Called Genesis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948).

the Word of God by which one comes to properly know the self and the created world.24 He writes:

For Christ is that image in which God presents to our view, not only his heart, but also his hands and feet. I give the name of his heart to that secret love with which he embraces us in Christ: by his hands and feet I understand those works of his which are displayed before our eyes. As soon as ever we depart from Christ, there is nothing, be it ever so gross or insignificant in itself, respecting which we are not necessarily deceived.25

Thus, while Calvin affirms a type of natural law and the role of reason within the temporal realm as a part of a Two Kingdoms perspective, ultimately truth and certainty are found only in the realm of faith rooted in the Word of God.26

Calvin’s understanding of the pervasiveness of sin means that any knowledge gained in the temporal realm through reason and conscience must be Christologically grounded. This is not to say that reason and conscience are incapable of discerning certain forms of truth—clearly he believed it possible for non-Christians to have access to knowledge about the world—but such knowledge is only a form of relative truth. This demonstrates the necessity of the temporal and spiritual realms remaining deeply connected—penetrating each other in such a way that, while they retain their proper attributes (they are not conflated into each other), they cannot be separated. This does not mean that the institutional church can or should claim authority in such areas as government policy and scientific inquiry; it does, however, mean that the certainty of faith and hope found in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the paradigm through which our participation in these temporal endeavors must be undertaken. While Christology cannot tell us everything about humanity or creation—thus the need for various forms of natural or creational knowledge—it does provide an essential interpretation of the meaning and direction of humanity and creation. This Christological interpretation of creation, which provides the telos and direction of creation, then, is the ground from which the Christian community, as the body of Christ, participates in the broader cultural life of the temporal sphere.

24. This can be seen in his statement: “It is no wonder, then, that the knowledge of all that is most excellent in human life is said to be communicated to us through the Spirit of God.” Institutes, 2.2.16. Calvin summarizes, “Human reason, therefore, neither approaches, nor strives toward, nor even takes straight aim at, this truth: to understand who the true God is or what sort of God he wishes to be toward us.” Ibid., 2.2.19.

25. Wyatt, Theology of John Calvin, 116. See Calvin and King, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses, Called Genesis.

26. Jones makes the claim that a rhetorical reading of the Institutes demonstrates the relationship between the thought of Calvin and Barth. She writes, “When Calvin’s theology is viewed from this perspective, his methodological affinities with the twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth become quite apparent.” Jones, Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety, 34.

It is this Christological grounding of the telos and direction of creation found in the thought of Calvin that makes an eschatological interpretation of creation possible. This is seen in Calvin’s theological anthropology, and his interpretation of human nature in the context of Christology. In Calvin’s Doctrine of Man, T. F. Torrance explores the presence of God’s continuous creation in bringing forth in each moment forms of new creation. Appealing to Calvin’s commentary on the Psalms, Torrance describes an emergent interpretation of creation in which God continually brings forth life out of nothingness. He quotes Calvin as saying, “The world is daily renewed, because God sends forth his Spirit. In this propagation of living creatures we doubtlessly see continually a new creation of the world . . . . All the deaths which take place among living creatures are just so many examples of our nothingness, so to speak; and when others are produced and grow up in their room, we have in that presented to us a renewal of the world.”27

Turning to humanity, Torrance finds what he refers to as a “dynamic view of the relation of man and God” in the thought of Calvin.28 In this context the “image of God” in humanity is no longer understood to be static; it is formed through the continuous relationship between God and humanity. Torrance writes:

Therefore our life is but an “empty image” unless we keep close to God. When we do we become a “vital life.” There can be no doubt that Calvin lays the stress therefore on the dynamic character of the image of God which is maintained in man by continuous conformity to God, by continuous obedience to the claim of the divine will upon him. In other words, the imago dei is interpreted teleologically as above and beyond man in terms of man’s destiny which is made known in the Word of God, and in the claim of the divine will this revealed upon man’s life.29

27. Thomas F. Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man (London: Lutterworth Press, 1952), 62.

28. Ibid., 64.

29. Ibid., 65–66.

This applies even to Adam, as Torrance writes, “That applied equally to Adam before he fell, inasmuch as he had no firm and settled constancy, but had a life maintained, as we have already seen, in the Word of continuous creation and communication, to the end that he might attain to the celestial image and to eternal life. Thus Calvin thinks it to be true that ‘the image of God was only shadowed forth in him, till he should arrive at perfection.’ ”30

This dynamic and ultimately Christological interpretation of the image of God provides important groundwork for an eschatological interpretation of creation in which meaning is no longer located in some static, finished past, but is found in the future revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Such a perspective does not negate the possibility of articulating the natural or moral good; rather, it provides an important context for a Christologically grounded interpretation of the moral good as described above. This leads to the question: What might such an articulation look like? More importantly, how might an eschatological articulation of the natural good relate to the neo-Calvinist emphasis on the “restoration of creation”? In what follows I will engage the possibility of an eschatological interpretation of creation in the neo-Calvinist perspective, specifically the thought of Kuyper and Dooyeweerd, while offering a perspective of the moral good, through practical reason (natural law), that complements a Christological interpretation of creation.

Kuyper, Neo-Calvinism, and Two Kingdoms

In turning to the neo-Calvinist perspective, it is important to acknowledge the tension that exists between the two poles of Kuyperian thought—“common grace” and “antithesis”—that has important ramifications concerning a natural-law or Two Kingdoms perspective. An emphasis on common grace leads to the formulation of a type of natural law that provides the basis for the universal engagement of the various cultural spheres. Those who lean toward an articulation of the “antithesis” tend to emphasize the discontinuity between Christian and secular thought, which leads to the establishment of Christian versions of cultural structures. While all forms of neo-Calvinism attempt to maintain the tension between these two poles, there is a tendency to gravitate toward one or the other, which can be seen in the current debate concerning the

30. Ibid.

Two Kingdoms perspective. At the same time, the tendency within neoCalvinist thought to articulate a doctrine of creation that emphasizes the givenness of creation, along with an interpretation of the fall and redemption that focuses on “restoration,” makes a Christological interpretation of creation problematic for fear of falling into the perceived Barthian conflation of creation and redemption.31

In his essay “A Canopy of Grace: Common and Particular Grace in Abraham Kuyper’s Theology of Science,” Clifford Anderson suggests the possibility of a Christological interpretation of creation—grounded in the later thought of Kuyper—as a way to reconcile common grace with the antithesis.32 He writes, “Kuyper argued that since God both created and redeemed the world through Jesus Christ common ands particular grace find their common root in Christ.”33 He goes on to discuss the implications of this Christological perspective by stating:

The organic unity of common grace and particular grace in Jesus Christ also has particular implications for the theology of science. In my opinion, it suggests the distinction between Christian and secular science cannot be made absolute, but must remain relative. I believe the Christological unity of common and particular grace relativizes the antithesis by preventing any separation between them; Kuyper’s theology points toward the eschatological reunion of Christ and secular science.34

31. There remains a quick dismissal of Barthian thought within certain Reformed circles with regard to this issue. I believe that these perspectives have misinterpreted, and therefore misunderstood, Barth’s theological interpretation of creation. In his essay “Mediating Theologies: Karl Barth between Radical and Neo-Orthodoxy,” Joseph Mangina writes, “Barth thought most of the things said about him by theologians in the English-speaking world were absurd. He was bemused at depictions of himself as an enemy of human life, experience, and culture. ‘For me creation is non-existent! By me culture and civilization are damned!’ ” Mangina goes on to write, “The more one reads Barth, the more one realizes that this Christological askesis, the technical name for which is analogia fidei, not only closes doors (and some doors it definitely does close) but opens them. Some of his most insightful interpreters have recognized that Barth’s Christocentrism authorizes a practice that, to our surprise, has the feel of a natural theology or theology of history. If nature is ordered to grace, if creation is the outer form of the covenant, why shouldn’t creaturely history, too, give voice to God’s works and ways?” Joseph L. Mangina, “Mediating Theologies: Karl Barth between Radical and Neo-Orthodoxy,” Scottish Journal of Theology 56, 4 (2003): 437, 439.

32. Clifford B. Anderson, “A Canopy of Grace: Common and Particular Grace in Abraham Kuyper’s Theology of Science,” Princeton Seminary Bulletin 24, 1 (2003).

33. Ibid., 136.

34. Ibid., 137 (emphasis added).

For Anderson, a Christological interpretation of the relationship between common grace and particular grace relieves the tension between them without obliterating or conflating the two categories. The key to this Christological interpretation is the eschatological focus in which the meaning of creation is found in the future—symbolized by the resurrection of Jesus Christ—rather than a static, finished beginning. Anderson writes, “Perhaps the tension in Kuyper’s theology of science may best be maintained not by stressing the common roots of Christian and secular science in creation or by emphasizing the separation of the sciences fostered by the division of humanity by particular grace but by considering the growth and development of the sciences in light of God’s providential purpose for creation.”35

As long as neo-Calvinism continues to insist on a doctrine of creation separate from Christology, the tension between common grace and antithesis, and thus the Two Kingdoms dilemma, remains. If, however, as Anderson seems to be arguing, neo-Calvinism can develop an eschatological doctrine of creation rooted firmly within a Christological perspective, then the focus is not on a finished past, but on the future destiny of humanity and all creation. Interestingly, there are aspects of this thought already present within the neo-Calvinist perspective—within the Dooyeweerdian interpretation of Kuyperian thought.36

Dooyeweerd, Pannenberg, and an Eschatological Interpretation of Creation

In his essay titled “Dooyeweerd’s Legacy for Aesthetics,” Calvin Seerveld describes the four “reformational features of Dooyeweerd’s theory.”37 First, he refers to the concrete reality of creaturely existence over and against abstract realism. For Dooyeweerd, “creaturely being is veritably meaning” as the “modal aspects of existent things are their creaturely defining

35. Ibid.

36. I recognize that there has been much engagement of philosophical and theological anthropology in the context of modern and postmodern thought within certain neo-Calvinist circles. In this way, what I am arguing for is nothing new. See James H. Olthuis, James K. A. Smith, and Henry Isaac Venema, The Hermeneutics of Charity: Interpretation, Selfhood, and Postmodern Faith (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004).

37. C. T. McIntire and H. Dooyeweerd, The Legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd: Reflections on Critical Philosophy in the Christian Tradition, Christian Studies Today (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985), 59.

moments of cosmic temporality.”38 Second, Seerveld describes how Dooyeweerd speaks to the irreducibility of creation and interpenetration of the various modes of meaning that constitute creaturely existence. He writes, “Just as sunlight refracted by a prism shows up in a spectrum of brightly diverse colors, which are irreducible to each other yet glow through one another and really cohere as white light, so the different prime modes of meaning which constitute the functioning of things are a seamless mesh of enduring becoming and begoing.”39 Third, he refers to the “good, single, multi-splendored direction for every creaturely thing” provided by the modal laws—what Seerveld refers to as the “prismatic variations of God’s covenanting Word.”40 Seerveld interprets these modal laws as the grace and love of the Creator. He writes, “The multiple zones of meaning which creaturely things are, are all together the gift of God’s timing . . . . God’s gracious, good, ongoing temporal structuring of things for them is God’s holy, creative will in operation.”41 Finally, Seerveld describes how Dooyeweerd’s interpretation of creation is grounded in God’s Word spoken in Jesus Christ. He writes, “So, as a matter of concrete fact—and here we necessarily step towards matters beyond but linked to the theory of modal law spheres—both human experience and the meaning of every non-human creaturely thing entrusted to human ministry is brought together and reaches historically its God-intended meaning in Christ.”42

The significance of this interpretation of Dooyeweerd’s thought is that it speaks to the possibility of an eschatological connection between creation and Christology similar to Anderson’s interpretation of Kuyper. Again, it is important to emphasize that such a move does not lead to the conflation of creation into Christology; rather, it is the recognition of the eschatological direction of creation toward the telos revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his work In the Twilight of Western Thought, Dooyeweerd writes:

There would be no future hope for mankind and for the whole process of man’s cultural development if Jesus Christ had not become the spiritual center and his kingdom the ultimate end of world-history. This center and end of world-history is bound neither to the Western nor to any civilization. But it will lead the new mankind as a whole to its true destination since it has conquered the world by the divine love revealed in his self-sacrifice.43

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid., 60.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

With this emphasis on the destination, or the destiny, of humanity, we find a significant correlation to Wolfhart Pannenberg’s belief that the goal of all of creation is to “share in the life of God” by participating in the “eschatological future of the resurrection of the dead, which has already come in Jesus Christ.”44 For Pannenberg, “creation and eschatology belong together because it is only in the eschatological consummation that the destiny of the creature, especially the human creature, will come to fulfillment.”45 This means it is not the beginning that provides the “basis of unity in the whole process”; instead, the “beginning” will come to be fully vested with meaning only in the end.46 The meaning of creation is not found in some fulfilled action that took place “in the beginning”; rather, the meaning of creation “in the beginning” is fully realized only in the eschatological end revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This is further seen in Pannenberg’s interpretation of what it means to be made in the image of God.47 The tendency within certain articulations of natural law is to emphasize the givenness of human nature as the image of God. As a result of the fall, human identity has been either lost or badly broken, and is in need of restoration or repair. In this context, natural law becomes a means for determining a normative understanding of humanity and the cultural patterns that humans create. Pannenberg, however, provides a theological interpretation of human identity that is Christological and therefore eschatologically directed toward “human becoming.”

For Pannenberg, this means that human identity is not something that is statically given in the past, but something found in the future. Thus, to speak of being made in the image of God, for Pannenberg, is to speak of “becoming” the image of God—that it is not a status statically given in the past, but

43. H. Dooyeweerd, In the Twilight of Western Thought: Studies in the Pretended Autonomy of Philosophical Thought (Lewiston, Ny: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999), 76.

44. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 3:136–37.

45. Ibid., 139.

46. Ibid., 146.

47. See Wolfhart Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985). While I acknowledge the Reformed concern that Pannenberg seems to make the finitude of creatureliness the basis of sin, I am not convinced that this is his intention.

the destiny of humanity that has ultimately been fulfilled and revealed in Jesus Christ. He writes, “In the story of the human race, then, the image of God was not achieved fully at the outset. It was still in process. This is true not only of the likeness but of the image itself . . . . This full actualization is our destiny, one that was historically achieved with Jesus Christ and in which others may participate by transformation into the image of Christ.”48 In this way the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not interpreted merely as a response to the fall, but as the intended fulfillment—the destiny—of all creation. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the end toward which all of creation is moving, and the fulfillment of human becoming in the image of God. This allows Pannenberg to write, “Therefore the incarnation cannot be an external appendix to creation nor a mere reaction of the Creator to Adam’s sin. From the very first it is the crown of God’s world order, the supreme concentration of the active presence of the Logos in creation.”49

In this context Pannenberg interprets human identity to be fundamentally grounded in sources outside of the self—what he refers to as a condition of “exocentricity” or “openness to the world.”50 While this includes an essential relationship to the social and cultural world, of ultimate concern for Pannenberg is the grounding of human identity and meaning in the ultimate source—the absolute that is God. He writes, “Every human relation to finite objects implies a relation to the infinite and therefore has . . . a religious foundation and that from the transcending of all finite realities it always returns to the reality given in each instance.”51 He goes on to say, “Human openness to the world, the capacity for objectivity in relation of the objects of our world, thus has an implicitly religious dimension of depth.”52 All of this for Pannenberg means that the question of human identity and of the “divine reality” are interconnected—to the point that he states, “Only in relation to God can human beings become fully themselves.”53

Pannenberg’s articulation of human identity shares significant connections with Dooyeweerd’s anthropological insight. Dooyeweerd, like Pannenberg, interprets human identity in a similar way as Calvin—in which the meaning of human identity is found outside itself in proper relationship with God. In this way the true meaning of human identity is relational—manifesting itself in the love that exists between humanity and God that provides the basis for the other relationships (i.e., creation and others) in which human identity is located. Dooyeweerd writes, “It is only in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word and Redeemer, that the image of God has been restored in the religious center of human nature . . . . It must reveal itself in the whole of our temporal life. Consequently, there now can be no real self-knowledge apart from Jesus Christ. And this biblical self-knowledge implies that our whole world-and-life-view must be reformed in a Christo-centric sense.”54 Dooyeweerd’s interpretation of the work of Christ as the restoration of the image of God in humanity demonstrates an anthropological impulse that sees human identity and meaning rooted outside the self, reflecting what Pannenberg refers to as “human becoming”—or human destiny—as the image of God, and therefore true human identity, is restored by faith.

48. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:217.

49. Ibid., 64.

50. See Pannenberg, Anthropology. Specifically, see chap. 2, “Openness to the World and Image of God” (43–79).

51. Ibid., 70.

52. Ibid., 72. In this way, for Pannenberg, human identity is intricately grounded in the lived world of culture. If this is true, it demonstrates the need for the “spiritual” and “temporal” realms to be necessarily connected. To say that the work of Christ has nothing to do with culture makes no sense if human identity is formed and shaped by the exocentric capacity for culture.

53. Ibid., 73.

While there is certainly much more to unpack regarding the relationship between the thought of Dooyeweerd and Pannenberg, my purpose has been to demonstrate a point of contact regarding the idea of human identity as destiny. For Pannenberg this is articulated in his argument for an eschatological interpretation of creation—one that sees identity and meaning found in the future rather than in the past. While Dooyeweerd does not explicitly make such a connection, there seem to be elements of his thought that point in this direction. If these connections can be shown to be plausible, what are the implications for the Two Kingdoms debate?

Conclusion: The Eschatological Promise of Creation

A close examination of the renewed Two Kingdoms debate in Reformed theology demonstrates that it primarily concerns the relationship between Christology and the doctrine of creation. More specifically, it focuses on the question of meaning: Are the meaning and identity of creation determined “in the beginning,” meaning that the fulfillment of creation occurs

54. Dooyeweerd, Twilight, 130.

in the past? Or is the meaning of creation located in the future, of which the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a proleptic inbreaking? If the meaning of creation is found in a completed beginning, then natural law and the Two Kingdoms perspective play a conservative role in maintaining the natural order instituted by God for creation. In this way, natural law and the Two Kingdoms approach become a tool for maintaining a specific interpretation of anthropology and the social and cultural norms that humanity should fulfill. It also provides a basis for God’s judgment against a sinful humanity and a sinful culture, which is guilty of violating the natural order instituted in the temporal kingdom. If, however, the meaning of creation is found in the future consummation revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then creation, and an understanding of natural law, is open to an entirely different interpretation and articulation of the world—a promissory interpretation of creation.

To refer to the “promise” of creation is to emphasize the eschatological direction that points to the fulfillment of creation in the new creation revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, when God will be “all in all.”55 Jürgen Moltmann describes this when he writes, “All created beings, simply as created beings, point to their Creator. But all created beings, as creatures of the beginning, also point to their completion at the end.”56 In this way creation is not relegated to a fulfilled beginning; it is instead interpreted as the beginning of a future that is promised in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.57 Ted Peters, in his work God—The World’s Future, refers to this as the “proleptic concept of creation” in which God “creates from the future,

55. Jürgen Moltmann, Experiences in Theology: Ways and Forms of Christian Theology, 1st Fortress Press ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 102–3. Moltmann writes, “Over and against a definition of “concept” like this, a promise reaches out beyond what is existently real into the sphere of what is not yet real, the sphere of the possible, and the world anticipates what is promised. In so doing it opens up what is existently real for the futurely possible, and frees it from what fetters it to the past: if things are fixed and finished . . . reality can be reduced to a concept, and defined; if they are in process . . . they can be influenced only through anticipations of a possible future.”

56. Ibid., 111.

57. The charge that this leads to the conflation of creation into soteriology does not hold in the context of a Trinitarian understanding of the work of God, or soteriology, since the difference between Creator and creation does not disappear. Moltmann writes, “The Creator’s distance from those he has created will be ended through his own indwelling in his creation; though the difference between Creator and creature will not disappear.” Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, 1st Fortress Press ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 64.

not the past.”58 This represents the creative activity of God as “a pull from the future rather than a push from the past”—which ultimately means that “God’s creative activity within nature and history derives from God’s redemptive work of drawing free and contingent beings into a harmonious whole.”59 Reflecting the theological work of Pannenberg, Peters interprets the movement of history as the movement of creation toward wholeness— the fulfillment of the promised Sabbath rest of creation as it comes into the fullness of relationship with God. This, for Peters, is fundamentally a Christological interpretation of creation, as he writes:

This purpose can be discerned in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ we see proleptically God’s intention for the whole, God’s single purpose that runs from alpha to omega, from beginning to end. “For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible . . . . He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Col. 1:16–17)60

Ultimately, this represents what Peters calls a “proleptic consciousness”— an interpretation “based upon God’s promise and upon faith in God’s faithfulness.”61

Within a promissory interpretation of creation there remains an important role for natural law. The function of natural law, however, is no longer to discern with absolute certainty the moral ontology of the created world. Instead, as Charles Taylor describes in Sources of the Self, we seek to make moral sense of our lives by engaging the narratives and practices that inform our identity—from which we give a “best account” of the good.62 In this way, for Taylor, “practical reasoning . . . is a reasoning in transitions. It aims to establish, not that some position is correct absolutely, but rather that some position is superior to some other. It is concerned covertly or openly, implicitly or explicitly, with comparative propositions.”63 The articulation of the good, for Taylor, is grounded in the process of human becoming—the belief that to be human is to be directed toward an end, toward a future. An important part of this perspective is the disclosure of identity—what he refers to as “authenticity”—from the web of relationships in which we live. Thus, the practical moral good flows from the emergence of being through the process of becoming—which leads not only to the disclosure of human identity, but also to the disclosure of “things,” or the created world. It is only in the context of our narrative, which encapsulates the various relationships from which our identity is formed, that we are able to speak of the good. Within this narrative, language plays a central role as the means by which humanity articulates the good in the process of moral reasoning. Taylor writes, “Of course, the terms of our best account will never figure in a physical theory of the universe. But that just means that our human reality cannot be understood in the terms appropriate for this physics. . . . Our value terms purpose to give us insight into what it is to live in the universe as a human being, and this is a quite different matter from that which physical science claims to reveal and explain.”64

58. Ted Peters, God—The World’s Future: Systematic Theology for a Postmodern Era (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 134.

59. Ibid., 136.

60. Ibid., 139.

61. Ibid., 19.

62. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989). See also Christian Smith, What Is a Person? Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). Smith provides an “emergent” understanding of human identity and an interpretation of the natural moral good that is made available through this “emergence.” Coming to an understanding of the “good,” for Smith, is a complex process. He writes, “A teleological personalist approach to morality does not specify in advance a fixed list of rules or procedures or imperatives that need to be followed to do the right and achieve the good. The good is a quest to pursue. And the very purposeful pursuit of the good itself becomes part of the realization of the good” (421).

Thus, for Taylor, the moral good emerges from the process of human becoming as individuals attempt to articulate their identity in the context of the lived world. In this way the articulation of the good is not an exercise in determining absolute certainty. It is instead the practice of articulating “best accounts” of the good at a given time and place. Linguistically, we trust that the words used to make moral value statements do relate to reality—we are saying something about the world and about human identity—but in a poetic way, not a positivistic way.65 Taylor writes,

63. Taylor, Sources, 72.

64. Ibid., 59.

65. See Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007). Taylor writes, “A new poetic language can serve to find a way back to the God of Abraham . . . . On one hand, the poetic images strive to articulate experience, almost one might say, to gain relief from the ‘acute discomfort’ of powerful but confused feeling, as Eliot put it; on the other, they strive to make sense of, to make once more experientially real, the action of God which has already been captured in theological language honed by tradition. The ultimate insight captured in the poem is a fusion of the two, which transforms both; that is, the experience is given a deeper meaning, and the work of God acquires a new kind of experiential reality” (757).

“The general feature of human life that I want to evoke is its fundamentally dialogical character. We become fully human against, capable of understanding ourselves, and hence of defining an identity, through our acquisition of rich human languages of expression.”66 He goes on to say that this includes “not only the words we speak but also other modes of expression whereby we define ourselves, including the ‘languages’ of art, of gesture, of love, and the like.”67

It is through this dialogical understanding of human life that the good emerges in relationship with the lived world. In this way human identity and meaning are rooted outside the self, within our relationships to the cultural and social world. At the same time, the articulation of the good is rooted in the future—the open process of becoming—meaning that our language, while expressing a reality about the world, points beyond itself to the end toward which we move. In this way Taylor provides an understanding of the moral good discerned through practical reason that complements Pannenberg’s “proleptic consciousness” and Moltmann’s promissory eschatological interpretation of creation.68 Taken together, they demonstrate an eschatological interpretation of creation that retains a significant role for reason and human experience to provide an account of human identity and the lived world. Such a perspective does not obliterate a doctrine of creation within a Christological or soteriological perspective; instead, Taylor’s work provides the basis for the significant, and necessary, role for practical and scientific reason to explore what it means to be human in relation to the created world. In this way theology cannot claim to provide a holistic account of things apart from practical reason, but neither can practical reason offer an interpretation of what it means for humans to live in relation to the temporal world apart from the destiny of creation revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thus, if the Reformed tradition uses the language of the Two Kingdoms, it must do so, as I have argued elsewhere, in a way that does not separate the two distinct spheres from each other.69 If we are going to use the language of the Two Kingdoms at all, we must insist that the two spheres inform and interpenetrate each other within the context of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

66. Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 33.

67. Ibid.

68. Moltmann argues for the necessity of a form of “natural theology” as a foundation of Christian theology. He writes, “Today, out of its own eschatological theology, Christian theology is in the process of drawing up a new creation theology, and out of that a natural theology of its own. This creaturely theology will have to address the new ecological crisis and the challenges of our time. If we are to have co-operation with other religious communities and philosophies, but above all with the sciences and technologies, we need the framework of natural theology; for it is through a natural theology that others can be brought into the mystery of God’s presence in all things and in all the complexities of life, and that Christians can gain an interest in the perceptions and wisdom of others in the ecological crisis which threaten us all.” Moltmann, Experiences in Theology, 80.

Furthermore, using Taylor’s articulation of the moral good as a way of speaking about a type of natural law, meaning the ability of humanity to discern the good through practical reason, is much closer to the theological perspectives of Luther and Calvin described above. This perspective can be referred to as poetic or aesthetic interpretation of creation from the perspective of faith. Like the thinking of Luther and Calvin, it is a perspective that takes reason seriously within the language of faith that derives from the hope of creational becoming revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Reason remains a crucial part of being human—since it is through practical reason and scientific inquiry that we engage the created world—but it is only in Jesus Christ that one attains the full wisdom and understanding of the direction and destiny of creational becoming, and therefore it is only by faith that we are ultimately able to contemplate the whole of creational becoming.

This articulation of an eschatological interpretation of creation will undoubtedly be criticized from both sides—from those calling for a return to the Two Kingdoms perspective, and from neo-Calvinists uncomfortable with a Christological interpretation of creation. Even within the neoCalvinist perspective there remains a significant tension between the idea of redemption as restoration and the eschatological emphasis on becoming and transformation. However, I am convinced that these perspectives share more in common than they disagree—and it is this commonality that makes a constructive dialogue both possible and necessary. Ultimately, what unites Luther and Calvin with this perspective is an aesthetic hermeneutic in which the meaning of creation is found outside and beyond itself—articulated by a common language of hope, trust, promise, and love that grounds meaning and identity in relationships.70 Therefore, it is this aesthetic hermeneutic that provides the basis for properly speaking of the interrelationship between the so-called spiritual and temporal realms in the one kingdom of God. In this context, natural law does not mean that “what is given, is just given—make heads or tails out of it”; instead, creation becomes a form of grace—a gift—a divine blessing that is primarily concerned with our creaturely well-being—what Seerveld summarizes as “a philosophy of God’s structuring Word.”71

69. See Jason Lief, “Is Neo-Calvinism Calvinist? A Neo-Calvinist Engagement of Calvin’s Two Kingdoms Doctrine,” Pro Rege 37, 3 (2009).

70. Dooyeweerd writes, “As the central seat of the image of God, the human self-hood was endowed with the innate religious impulse to concentrate its whole temporal life and the whole temporal world upon the service of love to God.” Dooyeweerd, Twilight, 126.

71. McIntire and Dooyeweerd, The Legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd: Reflections on Critical Philosophy in the Christian Tradition, 61–62.

10

Christian Witness As Redeemed Culture^1

Ryan C. McIlhenny

Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (Phil. 2:14–16)

Since we have been delivered from our misery by grace alone through Christ, without any merit of our own, why must we yet do good works?

Because Christ, having redeemed us by His blood, also renews us by His Holy Spirit to be His image, so that with our whole life we may show ourselves thankful to God for His benefits, and He may be praised by us. Further, that we ourselves may be assured of our faith by its fruits, and that by our godly walk of life we may win our neighbors for Christ. (Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day #32: Q&A# 86)

1. This chapter is a substantial revision of my article published in the “Calvin Commemorative” edition of MAJT 20 (2009): 75–94. The original title was “A Third-Way Reformed Approach to Christ and Culture: Appropriating Kuyperian Neo-Calvinism and the Two Kingdoms Perspective.” Since the publication of that article, which was an attempt to hold a more mediating position, I have further entrenched myself in the neo-Calvinist position.

When it comes to the relationship between Christianity and culture, H. Richard Niebuhr continues to guide discussion. Is Christ against or above culture? Should Christians retreat from culture? Should they transform it or seek relevance by adjusting to the spirit of the age? Should they be culturally aware but stay silent about the hidden plans of providence? Both Two Kingdoms advocates and neo-Calvinists, in distinct ways, seem to prefer one of the mediating positions discussed by Niebuhr in his midcentury study. The latter sounds much like Niebuhr’s Christ-transforming-culture category; the former falls into the ill-named Christ-and-culture-in-paradox category, wherein Christians recognize the entanglements of sin in culture and their pilgrim state on the earth, turn their focus away from transformation, and wait patiently for Christ’s return. Dealing with the relationship between Christ and culture is one of continual dialogue, Niebuhr suggests, “in the Christian conscience and the Christian community.” Niebuhr’s five proposals—“Christ against culture,” “Christ of culture,” “Christ above culture,” “Christ and culture in paradox,” and “Christ the transformer of culture”—are not isolated categories to choose from. Each one overlaps, and they are better understood as corresponding moods that every Christian feels when engaging culture, although some categories may be felt more strongly than others.

The intent of this chapter is to convince readers that cultural engagement is not simply important but a requirement for Christians, including ministers of the Word and sacraments. The first part considers a specific yet workable definition of culture that draws primarily from new cultural studies.2 Rather than a thing or the sum total of all human activity, culture is a language cultivated by the interaction between maker and audience that

2. For a postmodern definition of culture, broadly speaking, readers can start with some of the following works: Simon During, ed., The Cultural Studies Reader, 2nd ed. (London and New york: Routledge, 2001); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New york: Basic Books, 1973); Theodor Adorno, The Cultural Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, 2nd ed., intro. by J. M. Bernstein (London: Routledge, 2001); Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983); Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991); Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, 2nd ed. (New york: Vintage, 1995). An invaluable work on current discussions about culture can be found in Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).

creates an identity, a dynamic process not only related to but also constitutive of the real. Bringing together familiar evangelical understandings of culture with those offered by contemporary cultural studies will, I hope, reinvigorate and strengthen a neo-Calvinist concept of culture. Second, in offering a definition that may be unfamiliar to both sides and one that supports the neo-Calvinist position, I also want to bridge the aisle by highlighting a feature of Christian cultural activity that both Two Kingdoms and neo-Calvinist thinkers can agree on. Christians are called to be servants and witnesses for Christ and his kingdom. The telos of such required activity is to project a redemptive witness that conforms to the defining features of what constitutes culture. Being a witness takes into consideration our social lives and the manifestation of an image that refers back to who we are. For Christians, then, culture is inescapably a sanctifying—i.e., “setting apart,” not externally sacralizing—phenomenon. A redeemed or transformed witness is culture. Thus, rather than use the favored phrase redeeming culture, as if it were a thing to which redemption needs to come, I prefer, in this chapter, to use a more direct phrase: redeemed culture.

Defining Culture

No one, Niebuhr says, can “escape culture any more readily than [he] can escape nature.”3 In the same way that humans share a common created realm, they also share the universal quality of being culture-makers. More recently, author Andy Crouch claims, “There is no withdrawing from culture. Culture is inescapable. And that’s a good thing.”4 But what is culture? If Christians are to have any continuing voice in discussing Christ and culture, which they should, defining culture needs to be equally as important

3. H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New york: Harper & Row, 1951), 39.

4. Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 36. It is not that Two Kingdoms theologians reject the idea that culture is a necessary part of human life, or that Christianity can have an influence on culture (although I am not sure how one can separate influence from the making of culture). Instead, they seem to oppose the institutionalizing programs offered for Christian cultural activity outside the church. Believers and unbelievers share the same natural and temporal world. Christian activity in the world is no different from the works done by unbelievers. Thus, it is pointless to speak about Christian culture-building, since culture is related to the temporal, not the eternal. (An important caveat needs to be made: I am not interested in offering an apology for Christian institutions per se. I wish to address a tendency of the Two Kingdoms mind-set to ignore, dismiss, or, as I have witnessed, ridicule attempts at Christian culture-making.)

as defining Christ. Niebuhr opens his book by engaging this most difficult assignment. Jesus Christ, Niebuhr writes, “is a person with definite teachings, a definite character, and a definite fate . . . . For the Jesus Christ of the New Testament is in our actual history, in history as we remember and live it, as it shapes our present faith and action.”5 This historical Christ who shapes our “present faith and action” is therefore directly related to culture, Niebuhr writes, since the “Son of God is himself [a] child of a religious culture, and sends his disciples to tend his lambs and sheep, who cannot be guarded without cultural work.”6

While there are contending definitions about the historical Jesus, most of which seem forced into liberal and conservative pigeonholes, culture is arguably a much more complicated beast to tame, a protean term as challenging to define as nature, according to Terry Eagleton.7 Perhaps such difficulties reflect the very essence of culture, a perennially unstable dialogue between socioeconomic forces at multiple levels. Negatively, for Niebuhr, culture cannot be identified with a “particular society” or “some special phase of human social organization and achievement.”8 Positively, however, culture is fundamentally “social” and centered on “human achievement” for the cultivation of value in a pluralistic world. While portions of Niebuhr’s definition are certainly relevant for today, we need to offer an updated version.

Culture has a number of interconnected features. First, it requires the manipulation of nature and the imposition of meaning to it by humans. Humans take from nature to build homes, gardens, academic institutions, political institutions, great hydraulic works, and the like. This is not a matter of bending nature to the will of humanity (although this has often occurred). Instead, nature acts on humans as a tutor to help them explicate the richness of the cosmos. Nature, or the created order, provides the raw material for our culture-making. In this vein, Niebuhr writes: “Culture is the ‘artificial, secondary environment’ which man superimposes on the natural. It comprises language, habits, ideas, beliefs, customs, social organizations, inherited artifacts, technical processes, and values.”9 For Crouch, “culture is what we make of the world . . . the name for our relentless, restless human effort to take the world as it’s given to us and make something else.”10 “Culture,” he continues, “is the activity of making meaning”—meaning that derives from but is also presented to the world.11 Making our cultural world includes imbuing nature with meaning, not an artificial or forced meaning but one that respects and submits to how the world is structured. As culture-makers, humans mimic God by being creators themselves. An artist takes a blank canvas and uses tools at his or her disposal to give form to the formless. This culture/meaning-making can be done only by human beings, who, imaging their Creator, have the freedom to reach the limits of their cultivating activity, working in accordance with the divinely instituted borders of the created order. Rejecting our cultural privilege is to reject God’s original creation.

5. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, 13.

6. Ibid., 39.

7. Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, 1–5.

8. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, 30.

9. Ibid., 31.

Second, culture “is always social.”12 Culture, Niebuhr continues, “is the social heritage [we] receive and transmit. Whatever is purely private, so that it neither derives from nor enters into social life, is not a part of culture.”13 In his Calvinistic Concept of Culture, Henry Van Til writes, “Culture, it ought to be observed, is a social enterprise; it is not achieved in isolation, but through the interaction and cooperation of men in communion.”14 Cultural activity is the process of making sense of the world and sharing—or not sharing—it with others. Likewise, Crouch believes that culture “requires a public: a group of people who have been sufficiently affected by a cultural good that their horizons of possibility and impossibility have in fact been altered, and their own cultural creativity has been spurred, by that good’s existence.”15 Crouch focuses on the direction of the cultural artifact, how it stimulates the imagination and opens up new possibilities.

To home in on the meaning of social, we should note that culture is inextricably tied to communal existence.16 Western philosophers throughout the ages have suggested that humans are social by nature. I would add that they are not only social but communal, for it is in community that we come into contact with meaning. According to John Zizioulas, personhood

10. Crouch, Culture Making, 23.

11. Ibid., 24.

12. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, 32.

13. Ibid., 33.

14. Henry Van Til, Calvinistic Concept of Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1959), 32.

15. Crouch, Culture Making, 38.

“cannot be conceived in itself as a static entity, but only as it relates to. Thus personhood implies the ‘openness of being,’ . . . a movement towards communion which leads to a transcendence of the boundaries of the ‘self’ and thus to freedom . . . . It is not in its ‘self-existence’ but in communion that this being is itself and thus is at all. Thus communion does not threaten personality particularly; it is constitutive of it.”17 Our parents give us a name and share in the cultivating of our unique identity; other communities likewise shape beliefs and habits, which contributes to our uniqueness. Without community there is no individual identity.

While identity is created within community, it is also community that creates culture. At what point does our manipulation-for-meaning of nature constitute a cultural product? For “not everything that human beings make shapes culture.”18 Let me offer an example to illustrate the role of community in culture. It is necessary for an artist, for instance, to utilize nature as both substance and guide. yet this is not sufficient: the artist’s painting does not become “cultural” until it is viewed by a community of professionals—a community from which the artist must himself learn—who validate and incorporate the work into a historical tradition for the sake of preserving it and passing it on to others. Likewise, the confirmation of others changes the identity of the artist, for his or her name is associated with the particular work and by extension the particular tradition.19 Work and person are inextricable. Culture is the dialectical interplay of maker and audience. As Eagleton puts it, “the very word ‘culture’ contains a tension between making and being made.”20

Following the dialectic between author and audience in making an item cultural, the third feature is that culture preserves meaning and value historically. This includes especially our ultimate concerns. All humans are religious in the sense that they maintain faith in something higher than the phenomenal world, which motivates culture-making. As beings made in the image of God, we have a first and foremost relationship to our Creator, a connection with the divine, which makes us at root religious. Although sharing the same nature, not all humans follow the same direction. Because of the fall, humans suppress Christ in unrighteousness and then reinterpret what they already know about the things that have been made. But this does not undo the relationship that makes us cultural. Those who are saved by the grace of Christ undergo a revolutionary change: they live in submission to the sovereign rule of Christ. The issues of life flow from the heart, the concentration of being.21 “Culture,” Van Til acknowledges, “is ‘lived religion’ . . . it is the form that religion takes in the lives of men.”22 Niebuhr would tacitly agree. We often see the function of cultural products as pointing to “causes transcending human existence.”23 All humans share a pretheoretical religious ground motive that puts them in contact with their Creator God. This describes our cultural being; our cultural activity is always already interacting with the ultimate. In true Calvinistic form, Klaas Schilder identifies human culture-making and its necessary relationship to God and his creation:

17. Zizioulas, quoted in Esther Lightcap Meek, Loving to Know: Covenant Epistemology (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 28–29. I find Meek’s covenant epistemology compatible with my understanding of culture, including the notion that the two are static, cold, or objective entities out there but are dynamically intertwined with our own personhood.

18. Crouch, Culture Making, 37.

19. Of course, the expert community often gets things wrong. Communities can lose sight of truth and beauty when they are more focused on power. Nineteenth-century Impressionist painters were initially rejected by the aesthetic elites of Paris. Believing that they had something authentic and cutting-edge, however, they organized their own art shows. They formed a community that instantly started the process of imbuing their work with meaning. Their paintings accorded with the standards of beauty, and over time have crystallized into some of the best art in the West. Nonetheless, the Impressionists followed the process of culture-making.

20. Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, 5.

[Culture is] the systematic endeavour toward the process-wise acquisition of the aggregate of labour by the sum-total of human beings as they belong to God, evolve themselves unto God in history with and for the cosmos, and are present at any historical moment, having assumed the task of disclosing the potencies lying dormant in creation and successively coming within reach in the course of the history of the world of developing them in compliance with their individual natures, of making them subservient to their environment, both far and near, according to their cosmic relationships and in submission to the norms of God’s revealed truth; and all this in order to make the treasure thus acquired usable by man as liturgical creature, and, subsequently, to bring them, together with the now more thoroughly equipped man himself, before God and put them at his feet, in order that he may be all in all, and every work may praise its master.24

21. I’m making a distinction between the pretheoretical or prearticulated moral and philosophical issues that flow from the heart. This is internal. Our cultural identity has more of an external dimension to it. Our identity comes from our community, and we further construct our identity through the habits, including the rehearsing of beliefs, that we inherit from our community.

22. Van Til, Calvinistic Concept, 35.

Cultural products bear “the stamp of our creativity,” Crouch suggests. That stamp reflects the nature of those making culture, namely, humans as image-bearers of God.

This is not restricted to Christians. Divine creational structures remain even in a Christless cultural artifact. Even while suppressing God in unrighteousness and regularly working against the created order, which leads only to frustration, fallen humanity still presupposes the structures put in place by the very Creator they suppress. Sin does not remove the faculty of God-knowing. Nor does the fall destroy the goodness, truth, and beauty of creation; it does, however, pervert creation and subject it to death. But even in the fallen world, there is a reflection of God’s magnificent creation. An artist may express hatred for the divine in his or her work, but he or she cannot escape the common grace that God freely offers. Once again, Niebuhr is instructive: “Man’s good nature has become corrupted; it is not bad, as something that ought not to exist, but warped, twisted, and misdirected. He loves with the love that is given him in his creation, but loves beings wrongly, in the wrong order; he desires good with the desire given him by his Maker, but aims at goods that are not good for him and misses his true good . . . . His culture . . . is perverted good, not evil; or it is evil as perversion, and not as badness of being.”25

A third attribute of culture is that it is dialectical and discursive: forces from different directions interact to produce a dynamic phenomenon. The idea of “race” or “racial identity” illustrates this point. Race originates from modes of (material) production, making it essentially cultural. The transport of thousands of Africans to Caribbean sugar plantations in the eighteenth century produced a “racial” identity, creating concurrently the “superior” racial identity of those forcing Africans into slavery. Although racial slavery has ended in the Western world, the process of racial construction—as well as forms of slavery—has not. Race continues to be the favored idiom for the social and communal consequence of economic

24. Klaas Schilder, Christ and Culture, trans. G. van Rongen and W. Helder (Winnipeg, MB: Premier Printing, 1977), 40.

systems. In other words, when a specific social group is tied to a specific laboring activity within an inherited power structure, it unwittingly creates a particular idea that such a social group is naturally conditioned for such labor. By the seventeenth century, Africans were sealed to the lowest form of cursed labor on earth—slavery. Slavery has existed for centuries, but not in its “racialized” (read cultured) form. The connection, then, between African and slavery produced over time a sinfully derogatory cultural identity. What this means is that when we see a particular group participating in a type of labor, which itself has a particular value, then a secondary identity springs from the interaction between the labor and the laborer—i.e., the human manipulation of the natural world that produces meaning. There are certain jobs that are respectable and others that are not, which then speaks to the seemingly intrinsic value of the person doing the work.

Continuing along these lines, the dialectical nature of culture necessarily undermines the notion that culture is unidirectional. An individual who is conscious of what he or she is creating and intending in regard to a potential cultural item may be derailed by external social forces that impose a different meaning and, over time, a different identity. It is often difficult to trace a neat line from the aim of the doer to its manifestation in culture. Culture does not always move from the core to the periphery or from the top down. In one of his eleven propositions on culture in To Change the World, James Davison Hunter makes the claim that culture is produced in accordance with a “fairly rigid structure” that moves from center to periphery: “The individuals, networks and institutions most critically involved in the production of a culture operate in the ‘center’ where prestige is the highest, not on the periphery, where status is low.”26 Hunter assumes that a traceable line exists between core and periphery (as well as change from the top down as opposed to bottom up). The two are intertwined and mutually constitutive of one another. Today, however, scholars have complicated the relationship between core/periphery and top-down/bottom-up understanding as it relates to cultural production. Related to origins, the American Revolution, many contemporary historians have argued, cannot be narrowly restricted to core sites in places such as Boston or among prestigious intellectuals (America’s Founding

26. James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (New york: Oxford University Press, 2010), 37.

Fathers), but in (bottom) places such as the Atlantic—on ships, among sailors, and at seedy “lowbrow” cultural dives such as taverns along the Atlantic littoral. America’s early political ideas and institutions were not strictly the flowering of the ideas of the Founding Fathers, but rather an interaction between the founders and other social forces, including the actions of those barred from politics.

One could also point to race relations and the pursuit of social justice in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Consider the activities of nineteenth-century Southern slaves, who made a livable world for themselves in the most humiliating and terroristic environment. And in a very real sense, as slaves defined their own identity they also played a central role in shaping the “whiteness” of the South’s cultural elite; that is, their very oppressed and terrorizing situation worked to reinforce notions of superiority. (Indeed, without slaves there would not be any masters.) Further, a major branch of the civil-rights movement in the South began at the bottom by citizens excluded from politics. Their actions moved to the top and radically changed America’s political culture. Identifying the line distinguishing core/periphery or top-down/bottom-up binaries is significantly complicated.

The fourth feature of culture—and arguably its most important element connected to the passing along of tradition—is that it is, at root, language. I mean more than written and spoken words, although these are included, but the wide array of literary, visual, and habitual symbols of meaning that project a variety of identities. Cultural historian Stuart Hall sees culture as “lived practices” or “practical ideologies which enable a society, group or class to experience, define, interpret and make sense of its conditions of existence.”27 yet a social community may have competing interpretations. Cultural habits, while textual in themselves, project their own language. One of the foremost thinkers on culture, Clifford Geertz, writes that culture “denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic form by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life.”28 The definition of culture proposed in this chapter follows what Geertz says about culture as a “transmitted pattern of meanings.” Raymond Williams concurs: culture is “the signifying system through which . . . a social order

27. Hall, quoted in Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, 34.

28. Clifford Geertz, Interpretation of Culture: Selected Essays (New york: Basic Books, 1973), 89.

is communicated, reproduced, experienced and explored.”29 Such systems of meaning are communally situated that project a textual identity.

Most of us are familiar with the adage “knowledge is power.” The same is true for language (and thereby culture). Power can refer to disproportionate relationships that produce and maintain unequal relations between oppressed and oppressor, but power can mean something else. Cultural texts—what we wear, how we carry ourselves, what music we listen to, and, of course, our specific language—situate and secure us and give us a sense of belonging in a complex world. Knowing who we are gives us a sense of power. Conversely, we use texts not only to set ourselves against “the other,” but also to create the other. My cultural identity comes as I, consciously or not, negotiate a plethora of historically entwined binary opposites—man/woman, white/black, mind/body, reason/emotion, oppressed/oppressor, etc.

Failing to recognize culture as language puts us in the habit of confusing culture with nature. It is crucial to understand this point. Presupposing culture as a thing, I believe, is a problem common to both neo-Calvinists and Two Kingdoms proponents. Culture is born from human interaction with nature, as stated above, but is distinct from it. Let me provide another example in order to show how we tend to confuse culture with the created order (the status of being). Consider the cultural consequences of the transition in early-nineteenth-century America from an agrarian to a commercial society. Innovations in transportation, commercialization, and communication—what historians identify as the Market Revolution—not only helped establish the nation’s modern economy, but also produced separate spaces, which, in return, created new cultural identities. The improvements in transportation (from canals to railroads) sent products to market at a much faster rate, thereby intensifying the need to create labor-saving devices to increase production, which in turn made products much more affordable. How did this affect culture? The home was no longer the place of work. The master craftsman and his workers now had to leave the home to go to the place of work—viz., factories—pumping out products to keep up with market demand.30 Craftsmen, many of whom worked in the home,

29. Raymond Williams, Culture and Society 1780–1950 (London: Chatto and Windus, 1958), 307.

30. Although changing in form, the mode—and telos—of capitalism has remained: overcoming time and space, the division of labor, specialization, and the profit motive.

became either factory workers or managers. Managers hired and regulated cheap labor as they used more efficiently productive machines. This created a class distinction between an emerging managerial class (e.g., factory owners) and a much larger working class. yet the daily habits of the working class (and middle class) were assumed to derive not from externally changing material conditions. The ideological error in the minds of most Americans at the time was that class distinctions were the intrinsically natural consequence of natural human effort.

Such class distinctions produced further cultural categories— especially in the area of gender. The removal of people from the home in order to work created the material space of work that stood in contrast with (and often in competition with) the material space of the home. This helped shape the identities of those within those spheres. Although many women were the source of cheap labor in the earliest industrial factories, they could not compete with the higher wages of male workers and were thus, because of wage disparities, dissuaded from entering the public world of work. Over time, managers came to secure a high and respectable place in society and politics. The “public” world of work, then, became characteristically masculine, rational, individualistic, and stoic. Over time, this instilled the idea—again falsely—that such attributes were intrinsic to men. In contrast with the space of work, the home, where women were encouraged to reside, became feminine, nurturing, noncompetitive, communal, spiritual, and emotional. The women within such a space, like their gender counterparts, took on their space’s attributes. Women who did not conform to this domestic culture were, in the eyes of many, far removed from being women. It was not, in a strictly linear way, the human creating the culture or the culture creating the human. Instead, it was the dialectical process wherein both the material world and the human community mutually created identities for both.

So as not to lose the reader, let me restate my point: changes in how humans interact with the natural world often produce unintended cultural identities that we tend to confuse as being—universally and transcendentally— part of the created order. And since culture is at times dynamically discursive, it is crucial for us to pay attention to how it works, which requires thick descriptions. In many circles, these cultural constructs—race, class, and gender—are taken for granted and largely remain; in other words, we take a middle-class identity as a universal ideal or race as biological (i.e., natural). But Christians need to consider whether they have biblical warrant and whether such identities reflect God’s original intent for nature. Does God submit to the various modes of production that produced unequal gender relations or socioeconomic forces that historically created competing class and racial identities? Are women inherently more emotional than men? Should men not cry in public because that is not what men do by nature? A large majority of Christians take these cultural descriptors as part of God’s original creational order. Once again, we should think of culture as language produced by forces both through and apart from individual human agents as they act on the world that generates an identity.

The description of culture put forward should not lead us to become cultural relativists or ontological nihilists. Language creates knowledge; it even creates our identity, but not in an arbitrary fashion. Language is a tool used to communicate and put us in contact with or at least in the orbit of what we call reality. And as mentioned already, some of the words we use to describe reality fail to do so: both word and reality are absent. The philosophical difficulties of language—especially in the postmodern context where, as thinkers such as Jacques Derrida remind us, we can never break free from texts—have led to a few bad habits. An unintended philosophical perspective among postmodern cultural scholars paralyzed by the inability to go outside the text has been to reject all claims of essence, including ideas regarding universal human nature. Even when our claims about the “real” world are horribly wrong, we are nonetheless in contact with the real.31 Although race, gender, and class are historical creations within a textual grid, they are nonetheless connected to a real created order. Culture and nature are connected but not identical. God has created men and women in a specific way, but history often ignores what God has done. While we may agree that race and class are real ideologies and created by real forces in the world, we can nonetheless deconstruct them in order to gain a clearer understanding of human nature. It’s true that we cannot step outside the text to get at pure essence, but why do we need to? Language helps us understand reality; we understand reality analogously, through signs

31. Christian philosopher Esther Meeks favors the term contact over correspondence when it comes to knowing the real world. I’m indebted to her revision of modern epistemology on this point. See her Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2003).

and symbols. Faith should be a close companion to language—faith that we are in contact with the real. The same is true for knowledge claims. We must have faith that a biblical wisdom will help us mediate the real from the ideological.

And why should a belief that language is integral to the constructive role of knowledge lead us to reject ideas about absolute truth? Language changes us; it alters our emotions and changes our identity. Studies have shown that meditation through linguistic incantation can change the biology of the brain and thereby the human person. The more intently we talk and think about something, the more it changes us. This is nearly impossible without language. It is through the divine Word, Jesus Christ, for instance, that everything is made. It’s through the preaching of the Word that a heart is radically changed, and it’s also through constant reading and hearing the gospel, which includes learning through the sacraments (signs and symbols), that we are continually transformed by God’s gracious work of sanctification. Christians, therefore, should appreciate this feature of culture: language is central not simply in explaining but in creating being.

Redeemed Culture

Whether or not variations exist within the Two Kingdoms camp— and I assume they do—they agree on the tension between the modifier Christian in its relation to culture. Never the two shall meet, so it seems. This, I believe, rests on the false assumption, refuted above, that culture is a static “thing” and separate from faith, not intertwined with it. We would do well in considering Kuyper’s explication of what is meant when the adjective Christian is used in reference to “a Christian nation,” “a Christian country,” “a Christian society,” or “Christian art.” In his distinction between the church as both institution and organism, Kuyper does not mean that the Christian label “consists mainly of regenerate Christian persons or that such a society has already been transposed into the kingdom of heaven”:

This was never the case anywhere . . . . The adjective “Christian” therefore says nothing about the spiritual state of the inhabitants of such a country but only witnesses to the fact that public opinion, the general mind-set, the ruling ideas, the moral norms, the laws and customs there clearly betoken the influence of the Christian faith. Though this is attributable to special grace, it is manifested on the terrain of common grace, i.e., in ordinary civil life. This influence leads to the abolition of slavery in the laws and life of a country, to the improved position of women, to the maintenance of public virtue, respect for the Sabbath, compassion for the poor, consistent regard for the ideal over the material, and—even in manners—the elevation of all that is human from its sunken state to a higher standpoint.32

The adjective Christian, for Kuyper, speaks to Christianity’s influence on society and indirectly to culture. Kuyper stands on the shoulders of the great leaders of the Reformation, especially Luther and Calvin, who understood that even the most mundane tasks such as washing dishes and tending a field were given new meaning because of the Christian’s worshipful attitude. “What seem to be secular works,” Luther once wrote, “are actually the praise of God and represent an obedience which is well-pleasing to him.” Such secular work, including housework, may have “no obvious appearance of holiness, yet these very household chores are more to be valued than all the works of monks and nuns.”33

Both the Christian’s attitude and Christianity’s impact, however, are necessary but not sufficient to manifest a cultural difference. Instead, our activities become cultural when they are done in a social setting that reveals our identity to those watching us. In this final section, I hope to tighten the relationship between Christianity and culture and demonstrate that common-realm works are indeed different for Christians than for non-Christians. This means more than merely the underlying perspective that motivates such activity. The good works done by Christians, although common in the abstract, nonetheless can effectively win over people to the kingdom, as Lord’s Day #32 (Q&A 82) of the Heidelberg Catechism tells us. I will first complicate the Two Kingdoms facile categorizations of the sacred and secular by turning to the neo-Calvinist notion of structure and direction. I will then consider the idea of redeemed culture from a neo

32. James Bratt, ed., Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 198–99 (emphases added).

33. Luther, quoted in Alistair McGrath, “Calvin and the Christian Calling,” First Things 94 (June–July 1999): 31–35 (available at http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01 /calvin-and-the-christian-calling-20).

Calvinist perspective. My intent is to reorient the idea of redemption by bringing it closer to our definition of culture.

Sacred and Secular

Two Kingdoms theologians, reviving and repositioning the term secular, purport that jobs outside the church are functionally secular and therefore have no bearing on the eternal. Since the emergence of the evangelical right decades ago, the term secular has denoted all that is atheistic, humanistic, and materialistic. Indeed, we can avoid an etymological fallacy by paying close attention to the variations on a word, but we need not adopt the historical baggage within the last century and a half that appears to have taken dominion over secular. Secular, Darryl Hart writes in A Secular Faith, “is derived from the Latin seclorum” and is “similar to the English words ‘era’ or ‘period.’ As such the word accurately signifies a somewhat definite period of time and especially its provisional or temporal quality. A seclorum technically represents a period that is likely impermanent, or a stage in history that is passing.”34 Earthly (worldly) vocations outside the church are part of a secular or common realm. The implication is that the adjective Christian is not only unnecessary but irrelevant. Furthermore, attaching the Christian label to nonecclesiastical institutions potentially devalues the sphere of the church.

But is it that easy to label certain vocations sacred or secular from a Two Kingdoms grid? A seminary education can be construed as purely secular (nonkingdom activity) when dissected in its various functional parts. Consider the role of a professional scholar teaching at a confessionally Reformed seminary. What is his culture-making responsibility, and does his faith have a bearing on everything he does? Would we consider his job sacred or secular, concerned with temporal and/or eternal things?35 Since secular does not necessarily contradict the meaning of sacred, it is not simply plausible but appropriate to think about his job as both sacred and secular. He can read in the same way as an unbeliever; he has been trained in the same universities and thus given the same methodological tools of the trade as his unbelieving colleagues. Unbelieving scholars can read similar texts, understand the same structure of the Bible, and even know the content of traditional theology. To ask it another way, is the act of reading the words in the Bible, going so far as the original languages, inherently a sacred activity? (I am not here challenging the inerrancy of Scripture, but focusing on the epistemological function, the cognitive reception of the one reading the text.) The language used in the Bible is common to all and belongs to the temporal realm. What, then, makes him different?

34. Darryl Hart, A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), 242.

35. At the 2011 Westminster Seminary California conference “Christ, Kingdom, and Culture,” a question was asked to faculty presenters: “To which kingdom does an independent reformed seminary belong?” David VanDrunen offered a careful response: “I would say that a place like Westminster, in and of itself, is part of the common kingdom in that it doesn’t have the promises of the eternal kingdom of God . . . that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church . . . but I would say that . . . in general it’s a common kingdom institution and has all the trappings of a business in a lot of ways . . . that the work of the church, the work of God’s spiritual kingdom goes on here because what I do, not necessarily when I’m sitting in a committee doing certain tasks like informing our plant facilities guy when we’re out of paper towels

What we need to consider is the directionality and focal point of such labor and its subsequent culture. In distinguishing the change from the parts to the whole, we must consider to whom or to what such activity is directed. The central goal, the concentration of the parts, of a seminary is to train up ministers to preach the gospel—to transform the world for Christ through the preaching of the Word. The function

in the bathroom or something, but when I’m in the classroom and I’m exegeting the Scriptures and I’m trying to explain the Word of God to the students, I am doing the work that I’ve been called to do as a minister of the gospel, and God, through Paul, has told Timothy to entrust to other men these truths that they can in turn hand them on to others, so . . . that’s given to the church, and I think the ways many reformed churches today fulfill that task is by setting apart certain men like [the Westminster faculty] and instead of entrusting us with pastoral calls or foreign missionary duties, they have said we want you to focus your attention on training people for the gospel ministry. And so in a sense I would look at this institution as a common kingdom institution that houses and hosts this very important work the church does through certain ministers set apart for the task . . . . It doesn’t mean that we can always put every single activity and every single plot of ground here in one kingdom bucket or another. Sometimes it’s more complex than that.” I would agree that it is more complex, but both sides often fail to appreciate the complexity. In regard to VanDrunen’s response, however, a host of questions come to mind. Aren’t pastors already ordained? Shouldn’t they be the ones training others? Again, why the need for an independent seminary? Christian colleges have done the same thing. In fact, it is my teaching goal at Providence Christian College to encourage students to glorify God and enjoy him forever (eternally), to love God and serve neighbor, and to support his church in the vocations they pursue. In other words, I desire them to have a kingdom (ultimate), not secular (temporal), perspective. Can a nonordained minister, in a purely functional manner, teach someone how to exegete and preach the gospel properly? What ecclesial body “sets apart” faculty members for hire at Westminster? Saying it differently, what central role does a presbytery, consistory, synod, or General Assembly have in hiring seminary professors? Are all faculty members at Westminster, including visiting and adjunct, ordained ministers of the gospel?

of each isolated part—including, paradoxically, the elements that go into the preaching of the gospel—is not the preaching of the gospel. The common elements used by the seminary professor—the methodological and conceptual tools, including language, inherited from his or her scholarly training—are indeed common and secular, but as we know, such things are the means to communicate a higher sacred reality. The use of these natural elements is directed toward a different end—an end that stands in opposition to a broken world but also for the healing of that world. Two Kingdoms scholars ignore this neo-Calvinist distinction between structure and direction.

On one level—the common level—there is no difference between Christian and non-Christian scholars; but on another, there is certainly a difference—a difference in cultural identity. The divergence comes in how the common is directed. A shared use of the common will expose two diametrically opposed attitudes of the heart. Such competing worldviews have little bearing on who can physically read “better,” knows more passages, or effortlessly wins a Sunday school Bible drill, yet they do relate to who has the better understanding (not necessarily ability), which can come only through the illumination of the Holy Spirit. This is a critical issue that Two Kingdoms thinkers overlook, resulting in a reductionism wherein a particular vocation (usually something like plumbing or street paving) epitomizes all others. yet, to say again, a seminary can be reduced to the common and secular consistently from a Two Kingdoms framework. Even if we grant that some vocations are, strictly speaking, severed from the eternal kingdom, does it follow that all vocations are?36 One would have to do a significant amount of arguing to answer in the affirmative. Is plumbing or street paving the same as writing a dissertation on the philosophy of mind, the theology of Karl Barth, or the cultural underpinnings of national identity in nineteenth-century America? The issue is why we need to drive a wedge between common-realm activities and the Christian’s chief end to seek the things above (Colossians 2) and glorify God in all things.

The objective of a Christian college, an institution that Two Kingdoms advocates have a hard time offering a rationale for, is to train students to honor and worship God and enjoy him forever in and through their

36. George Marsden asked this question when considering the impact of the Christian perspective on historical scholarship.

studies and future vocations. How is this not related to the kingdom? How is this not also cultural? A Christian seminary and a Christian college hold this sacred objective in common. Having Christian in the name of a school does not make it so, if we are referring to its physicality, but cultivating an ethos whereby each member of the community explores the fullest extent of confessing Christ and is held accountable to and transformed by the learning community satisfies the features of culture. Such an institution is culturally Christian. It’s not that the buildings, printers, bookshelves, or computers have been Christianized. In isolation, the parts are not, but in the larger context the goals of an institution are maintained, preserved, and passed on by each member (conforming to the process of enculturation), and over time such an institution will be identified by surrounding social groups as Christian. Remember, culture is not a thing, but a dynamic language identity adopted and passed on by communities. In the particulars, Christian activity is similar to that of unbelievers and therefore part of the common, secular realm, but the picture changes when the pieces form a whole. A Christian school has all the trappings of a culture, but uses the common in an ultimately different direction than the world.

Does the Christian faith have an impact on specific callings? Is my work as a professional historian who specializes in radical reform and religious intolerance in the early republic of temporal concern? What I teach and write as a Christian historian cannot be done without concern for ultimate issues, which includes a biblical view of human nature or the idea of providence (against chance or evolutionary naturalism). Even if I am unable to articulate the mind of God related to the ontology of history (which, indeed, I cannot), it does not follow that my historical work has no attachment with the metaphysical.

It is true that I have a point of contact, a common ground, with the unbeliever when interacting with the raw material of history (i.e., dates, names, places, etc.), but this is not all that history or culture is. History, derived from the Greek term for inquiry or investigation, is a term primarily denoting thought: the cognitive activity of putting materials together in a cohesive and coherent way. The historian’s interpretation is situated in his or her cultural and intellectual context. My core religious beliefs help me organize the stuff of history without violating the standards of the craft. On a common level, I have agreements with materialist history, but given my own conceptual framework, I cannot fully accept the idea that history is nothing more than the jumbled processes of the mode of production, although I can certainly affirm the importance of material dialectics in history. In the case of professional history there seems to be an extricable relationship between temporal and ultimate or eternal issues, and of course, the latter spring from a religious ground motive.

Interestingly, VanDrunen seems to agree with this when he writes, “Christian scholars will encounter the distorting effects of non-Christian presuppositions upon technical work in certain academic fields more often than in other fields. . . . I suggest (without presuming to know with certainty) that these effects might be felt more intensely in the humanities, which deal more directly and regularly with the evaluation of human conduct and the interpretation of life’s meaning than do, for instance, the natural sciences.”37 Thus there is the possibility that, in the humanities, one’s religious heart motive can and often does saliently manifest itself. (What is more, why single out the humanities? What about the natural sciences? Do they not relate to “life’s meaning”? Would an individual’s Christian perspective aid in contemporary neurological studies done on the functioning of the brain during prayer or meditation? What role does the antithesis play in the debates between paleoanthropologists and molecular biologists on the origins of humanity?) Unfortunately, VanDrunen does not explore this further in Living in God’s Two Kingdoms. The Christian perspective, he says, does “an excellent job of showing the distinctiveness of big-picture ideas and subjective motivation but provide[s] little about how [the humanities scholar’s] technical research and teaching is distinctly Christian.”38 I am not sure we can separate our “subjective motivation” from “technical research and teaching.” The way scholars frame a question and thus the scope of their work is integral to methodology—of how they do their work. Why is this divorced from our religious perspective? There seems to be a modernistic assumption within Two Kingdoms: that the objects of study are neutral and valueless and that facts, whether historical or theological, are devoid of the higher meaning creatively invested in them by the one constructing a particular argument and later confirmed by his or her intellectual community.

37. David VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms: A Biblical View for Christianity and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 181–82.

38. Ibid.

Redeemed Witness

Articulating what it means to “redeem culture” has been one of the greatest difficulties for neo-Calvinists. Redeem is a word that requires careful consideration. Many think about the term as a radical change from A to B, as in the transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly, organisms that are essentially the same but come in different forms. Redeeming culture is not a matter of transforming the ding an sich of material things. This is impossible given the fact that there is no ding an sich of culture. Culture is purely phenomenal.

There is, however, a transformative quality about culture. The Christian’s calling, according to Cornelis Pronk, “is to live in this sinful and corrupt world as salt and light. . . . Christians should by their gospel witness and holy walk seek to influence the world around them. In other words, their presence and activity in the world should help to alleviate and offset the baneful effects of sin and make life in society tolerable and conducive to the work of proclaiming the gospel. Everything we do as Christians should have a missionary and eschatological focus. Even our cultural involvement such as it is, should take place from the perspective of Christ’s coming kingdom.”39 For Wolters, redeem means “to ‘buy free,’ literally to ‘buy back,’ and the image it evokes is that of a kidnaping. A free person has been seized and is being held for ransom. Someone else pays the ransom on behalf of the captive and thus ‘buys back’ his or her original freedom.” Thus, there is a change to the natural order, a return to what the Creator intended, which brings a change to the cultural identity. “Another salvation word beginning with re is renewal,” Wolters continues. “Paul uses the comparable prefix ana to coin the Greek word anakainosis when he speaks of ‘the renewal of your mind’ in Romans 12:2. Literally, this word means ‘a making new again.’ What was once brand new but has gotten worse for wear is now renovated, brought back to its former newness.”40

To say that the church’s primary focus is the advancement of the gospel is not to neglect the crucial use of culture. Gospel preaching can never be separated from cultural activity, since preaching is a cultural activity that shapes an identity. Author Michael Horton,

39. Cornelis Pronk, “Neo-Calvinism,” Reformed Theological Journal 11 (1995): 56.

40. Albert Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 69–70.

J. Gresham Machen professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary California, wrote over a decade ago that “Christianity is not a culture [but] a system of truth-claims.” “The gospel,” Horton continues, “has succeeded in a variety of cultures and has thrived among groups, maintaining vastly different values and mores.”41 While appreciating Horton’s emphasis on the fact that our identity is not tied to our political or moral allegiances—challenging the American assumption that if evangelicals did away with abortions and outlawed gay marriage they would truly have a “Christian Nation”—but to the person and work of Christ, I believe he puts forth an unnecessary and potentially misleading dichotomy. To preach the gospel but not engage in culture is impossible.

Language is central to culture and the propagation of the gospel. Consider the similarity in language between Christianity as “a system of truth-claims,” according to Horton, and the contemporary definition of culture as “systems of meaning.” Christians must use their cultural context, especially language, to present a system of doctrine, which, concomitantly, presents an identity to the world. The Christian’s engagement in culture is a moral responsibility, an imperative, not an option. The issue is not whether Christians should be engaged in culture: they are always already engaged in it. Translating the Scriptures is a cultural activity and must be done regularly. Learning the original languages of the Scriptures is a cultural activity. An English, Korean, or Spanish preacher is acting within a cultural context, and the gospel preacher is a leading cultural activist.

A Christian cultural witness, for both preacher and layman, has a galvanizing effect. True, the focus of the preacher, as J. Gresham Machen argues toward the end of Christianity and Liberalism, is not to change culture. He means this in terms of cultural identity. The goal is to change hearts. Nonetheless, as Machen affirms, the preaching of the gospel will influence culture and thus identity because of the heart change. What is meant here is that the Christian witness, in and through the presentation of the gospel, the administration of the sacraments, works of charity, or acts of Christian love may be used by God to convert the sinner, whose identity (read culture) will, if God pleases, be changed,

41. Michael Horton, “Beyond Culture Wars,” Modern Reformation (May–June 1993), reprinted in Modern Reformation 17, 5 (September–October 2008).

associating the temporal secular sign with the ultimate sacred signifier. Even if God does not enact an inner change, the witness will not be severed from the presence and goal of redemption. The person listening to the gospel may react in hostility, futilely attempting to smother the truth. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3:6, “I [Paul] planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” (This brings us back to the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:26.) Cultural identity is changed insofar as God’s Spirit alone transforms the sinner, not through just any social activity or institution, but through the preaching of the gospel. There is only one of two responses to the hearing of the Word.

In the same way that culture is necessary for the preaching of the Word (i.e., spiritual transformation is done through culture), so too the Christian walk outside the institutional church requires culture. The world recognizes our Christian culture—our text, our identity. The Christian’s “text,” if you will, is seen and interpreted—rightly or wrongly—by the world. In the providence of God, the Christian’s cultural engagement, which is a dynamic encountering and countering of the world, will transform culture. Along with the preaching of the Word, the doing of good works by every Christian—works done out of grateful response to what Christ has already done—can have a radical cultural impact. It is through common or natural-law deeds—“our godly walk of life”—that, as the Heidelberg Catechism reminds us, “we may win our neighbors for Christ” (Q. 86). The citizens of the world recognize our love and good deeds—deeds done through common activities. This “winning over,” one could argue, is an initial stage that does not require the immediate preaching of the gospel. The one who is prepared to hear the gospel has already stepped into the cultural realm of the eternal, bringing together the penultimate with the ultimate and blurring, at best, a sacred-secular distinction. The Christian witness through good works is used by the Holy Spirit to prepare the one who is won over to hear the Word and participate in the sacraments. I am not suggesting that, as a matter of strategy, Christians should not give the gospel upon first encounter with unbelievers. The Spirit can use first encounters, but he also uses our good works. Oftentimes the world asks Christians about their identity, not because of what they say but because of what they do. Christians can effectively show the love of Christ without preaching the gospel only because they have been changed by the gospel. yet there certainly needs to be a partnership between the preaching of the gospel and good works, including the demonstration of love, done by Christians in every sphere of life. The Christian walk projects an identity (a culture), which in turn can have a transformative impact. Christian culture is transformative.

If we are in agreement with Niebuhr that our cultural activity should be directed to the cultivation of value for the common good and thereby the flourishing of humanity, then the Christian definitely has something affective to offer—an offering that communicates to the outside observer someone who has been transformed. Acts of civil good—or works common or instilled naturally in the heart of humanity—are different for a Christian than for a non-Christian. The good works done out of gratefulness to God’s redeeming grace are the same works of non-Christians, but only in mere common appearance. The Holy Spirit works in and through the former, but not the latter. Godly works—e.g., feeding the hungry, providing for the needy, confronting racism and sexism, opposing abortion, standing up against corporate greed, or opposing an unjust war—have the same “look” as “good” non-Christian civil deeds, but a biblically grounded interest in battling such fiery issues stems from the fact that they are waged by a redeemed community—acting, out of gratitude, to live consistently with the preeminent ethic of loving God and serving neighbor.

In his Epistle to the Romans, the apostle Paul emphasizes the specific hope that saves: “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved” (Rom. 8:22–24). It is not in the human efforts of hoping that we are saved, but rather what we hope in, the reality of the promise—a promise (and hope) born from a “now” redemption in and through Christ. In this life, Christians wait patiently and actively live hope-filled lives as ambassadors for Christ. The world sees such a life—such a culture. This new state of being is what motivates Christians, writes Nicholas Wolterstorff, “to act faithfully . . . without giving up hope.”42 Indeed, as Calvin says in his commentary on Acts 3:21, “Christ hath already restored all things by his death; but the effect doth not yet fully appear; because that restoring is yet in the course” (i.e., in the course of the future).43 Christians serve in culture exactly because they have been redeemed; their redemption now surrounds everything they do and consequently communicates that redeemed identity to the world.44 Christians are redeemed culture.

42. Nicholas Woltersdorff, “In Reply,” Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought (February 2008): 18–19.

43. John Calvin, Commentary on Acts, vol. 1, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 153.

44. Throughout this essay I’ve moved back and forth from talking about our being culturemakers to our practical cultural activity. What we do reflects who we are, and who we are guides us in what we do. But an important caveat needs to be made vis-à-vis cultural engagement. First, the Bible does not offer one explicit strategy for bringing Christian shalom to a broken world apart from Word and sacraments. While I believe that a biblical wisdom can offer insights into how to cultivate our witness as we grow in sanctification, we must be careful not to bind the conscience of believers. (On this point, VanDrunen and I agree.) Second—and this is more troubling—most of us have heard the old saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Even what we may think is good work, in theory, may have a negative cultural impact. To offer an example, consider the actions of, say, an agribusiness firm owned by conservative Christians who invest in an extremely poor area of Africa. The company builds an advanced hydraulic system to fertilize swaths of acres and provides a large number of jobs and commercial goods for the market, benefiting a number of people in the surrounding community. At the same time, the Herculean efforts of this company destroy the land and housing of modestly living subsistence farmers whose economic life has been cultivated by a community over generations. Having no voice, they lose their land and develop a negative attitude toward the company—a company supposedly motivated by Christian belief. I would submit that this is not kingdom activity, since the company, in reality, works within a utilitarian framework where profit is at the center, seriously compromising its Christian cultural identity. My point is that Christians, as they engage in culture, must keep the love of God and love of neighbor first and foremost. This requires vigilance, since, as mentioned in our definition, culture can be discursive.

Gene Haas, ThD (University of Toronto), is professor and chair of the Religion and Theology Department at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada.

Nelson Kloosterman, ThD (Theological University of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands), is executive director of Worldview Resources International, serving as a freelance translator, consultant, and speaker in the fields of medical ethics, business ethics, and animal food ethics.

Jason Lief, PhD (cand.) (Luther Seminary), is assistant professor of theology at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa.

Ryan C. McIlhenny, PhD (University of California, Irvine), is associate professor of history and chair of the department at Providence Christian College in Pasadena, California.

Branson Parler, PhD (Calvin Theological Seminary), is assistant professor of biblical and theological studies at Kuyper College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Timothy R. Scheuers is an MDiv candidate at Mid-America Reformed Seminary in Dyer, Indiana.

James W. Skillen, PhD (Duke University), is former director and CEO of the Center for Public Justice in Washington, D.C.

Scott A. Swanson, PhD (Hebrew Union College), is associate professor and chair of biblical and theological studies at Providence Christian College.

Cornel Venema, PhD (Princeton Theological Seminary), is professor of doctrinal studies and president of Mid-America Reformed Seminary in Dyer, Indiana.

John Halsey Wood Jr., PhD (Southern Illinois University), is an independent scholar whose forthcoming monograph will be published by Oxford University Press.

Adam, xx, xxii, xxiv, 29–30, 36–37,

57, 60, 63, 77, 101, 105, 129–31,

135, 184, 192–93, 237, 242

Adam and Eve, 131, 135, 184

Anabaptist, 12, 16, 27, 31, 75, 76, 104 Anderson, Clifford, xxv,

229, 238–40, 252

Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP),

xv, 86, 95, 107, 110, 116

Antithesis, x, xx, xxviii–xxix, xxxi–xxxii, xxxv–xxxvi, xxxviii, 66, 141,

174, 180, 208, 226, 237–39, 270 Augustine, 66, 126, 173–76, 179, 182,

185–89, 191, 193, 195–97, 230 and Reformed Augustinia

ism, 175–76, 195–97

and Reformed Augustinians, 195–96

Babylon, 183, 208, 210, 219–20, 225–26 Bacote, Vincent, xxvi–xxxix

Barth, Karl, xvi, 34, 108, 183, 235, 238, 268 Bartholomew, Craig, xx, 34, 127–29, 142 Bauckham, Richard, 204–6,

213, 215–16, 221–25

Bavinck, Herman, vii, xiv, xvi, 65–81,

87, 135, 144, 146, 150, 158, 173 Beach, J. Mark, 148

Belgic Confession, 16, 89, 100,

103, 134, 141, 161

Berkouwer, G. C., 34, 78–79

Bolt, John, xvi, 67, 72, 74–75, 78–79, 156–58, 174

Bratt, James, xxvii, xxix, xxxvii, 26, 156, 174, 181, 265 and Christology, 27, 87–88, 228, 235–36, 239–40, 243

and Faithful Witness, 216

and Lamb, 203, 205, 210,

213, 216–17, 222

and Logos, 72, 80, 88, 242

and lordship of Jesus Christ,

xxx, xxxv, 5–6, 25, 63, 66,

88, 94, 99–100, 127, 148

and Messiah, 164, 201–4, 209, 219 and Redeemer, 8, 11, 19, 23, 27, 32, 75, 109, 126, 130, 134, 203, 243, 277 Christian Democratic Union, xv, 86, 108 Christian Reformed Church

(CGK), xv, 166–67

church and state, vii, viii, x, xv, 16–17, 58, 61, 72, 85, 87, 109–17, 119, 121, 123–24, 143, 155, 157–65, 168–69, 173, 175, 187, 196, 266 civil magistrate, 12, 14, 16–18, 26, 31, 49, 59–60, 63, 134, 151

and magistrate, 13–15, 17, 32, 53–54, 57–58, 60, 63, 89–91, 95–97, 99–107, 110, 113–17, 121–23

common grace, ix–xi, xx, xxvi, xxxii, xxxiv–xxxix, 19, 21, 62, 110, 116, 119, 131, 133, 139–41, 143, 158, 162–64, 166, 168, 171,

174, 177, 179–84, 189, 195,

208, 228, 237–39, 258, 265

conscience, xxxiv, xxxvii, 8, 12–14, 20, 32, 39–41, 43, 44, 47, 50, 53–58, 62, 67, 75, 90, 92, 103, 107, 123, 132–33, 136–37, 169–70, 233, 235, 252, 275 creation, iv, viii, x–xi, xvi, xx–xxiii,

xxv–xxviii, xxx, xxxii, xxxv–xxxvi, xxxviii–xxxix, 5–7, 10, 22–23, 26–32, 35, 39, 57, 60–63, 68–69, 73–77, 87–89, 105, 111, 116, 118, 128–31, 133, 139–40, 142, 145, 150, 153, 162, 164–65, 168, 174, 176–78, 180–82, 184, 186, 189, 191–93, 195–96, 227–29, 234–45, 247–48, 255, 257–58, 271, 274 and transformationalist, 6, 34 and triumphalism, 66, 77, 193 Grabill, Stephen, 33–35, 47, 227

Calvin, John, vii, x, xv–xvi, xix,

xxviii–xxix, xxxii–xxxiv,

xxxvii–xxxviii, 3–19, 21–63, 65–68, 75–76, 78, 80, 98, 113, 135, 138–39, 141, 147–49, 161, 171, 173, 176, 179, 196, 229–30, 232–37, 239, 243, 248, 251, 265, 274–75, 277

and Commentaries, xv, 28, 35, 234–35 and Institutes of the Christian Religion, xv, xxviii, xxxii–xxxiii,

xxxvii–xxxviii, 4, 6, 11–15, 17,

20–23, 29, 35–37, 40–44, 46–59,

139, 141, 147–48, 232–35

Canons of Dort, xxxiii–xxxv, 67, 139, 196 Christ, Jesus, xx, xxii, xxiv, xl,

5, 12, 25, 38, 57, 72, 75, 78,

87–92, 96, 98–100, 102, 104–7,

109–10, 115–16, 118–24, 126,

128–30, 138, 142–43, 149, 153,

192, 197, 224, 229, 232–35,

237–45, 248, 254, 264

and Anointed, 98, 128, 204

and Christological, 72–73, 87,

204, 223, 229, 234, 236–39,

241, 245, 247–48

and order of nature, x–xi, xx–xxiii,

xxv–xxviii, xxx, xxxii, xxxvi,

xxxviii–xxxix, 5–7, 10–11,

22–23, 26–32, 35–36, 39, 57,

60–63, 68–69, 73–78, 87–89,

105, 111, 116, 118, 128–31,

133, 139–40, 142, 145, 150,

153, 162, 164–65, 168, 176–82,

184–86, 189–96, 227–29, 234–45,

247–49, 255, 257–58, 274

and the order of things, x–xi, xx–xxiii,

xxv–xxviii, xxx, xxxii, xxxvi,

xxxviii–xxxix, 5–7, 10–11, 22–23,

26–32, 35–36, 39, 57, 60–63,

68–69, 73–78, 87–89, 105, 111, 116,

118, 128–31, 133, 139–40, 142,

145, 150, 153, 162, 164–65, 168,

176–82, 184–86, 189–96, 227–29,

234–45, 247–49, 255, 257–58, 274 Crouch, Andy, xxv, 66, 194,

227, 253–56, 258

culture, iv, viii, xiii, xvii, xx–xxii,

xxiv–xxvii, xxx–xxxi, xxxv–xxxvi,

xl, 3–5, 7, 10, 14, 17, 19, 21–22,

26, 32, 66, 70–71, 73–74, 87,

93–94, 125–27, 129, 131–33, 140,

142–45, 150–52, 160, 173–77,

180–96, 208, 225–28, 238,

242, 244, 251–67, 269–75

and cultural mandate, iv, xvii, xx–xxi,

xxiv–xxvi, xxx–xxxi, xxxv–xxxvi,

xl, 5, 7, 10, 14, 17, 19, 21–22, 26,

32, 66, 70–71, 73–74, 93–94,

125–27, 129, 131–33, 140, 143–45,

150–52, 160, 174–77, 189–96, 208,

225–28, 238, 242, 244, 252–56,

258–65, 267, 269, 271–75

and cultural transformation, xxiv, 225 and redemption and cul

ture, 253, 265, 271, 275

and transformation, xxii, 5, 31,

66, 128, 152–53, 178, 227,

242, 248, 252, 271, 273

de Bres, Guido, 161

Decalogue, 8, 41, 42, 44, 47, 50,

58, 61, 68–69, 88

de Graaf, Simon Gerrit, vii, 85–86,

88–91, 94–95, 105, 110

and Promise and Deliverance, 85 Derrida, Jacques, 263

Doleantie, 156, 163

Dooyeweerd, Herman, xiv, xix, xxvii, xxix–xxxi, 34, 177, 227, 229,

237, 239–41, 243, 248–49 Durkheim, Emile, 160

and neo-Durkheimian, 160, 162–63 and paleo-Durkheimian, 160, 167

equity, 21, 39–47, 49–53, 58, 61–62 and aequitatis, 21, 39–47, 49–53, 58, 61–62 and ceste équité de nature, 21,

39–47, 49–53, 58, 61–62

and droiture et équité, 21, 39–47,

49–53, 58, 61–62

and équité naturelle, 21, 39–47,

49–53, 58, 61–62

and equity of nature, 21, 39–47,

49–53, 58, 61–62

and naturalis aequitas, 21,

39–47, 49–53, 58, 61–62

eschatology, viii, 77, 206, 218, 227, 241

Free University, xvi, xxx, 167 and VU, xvi, 167, 174

French Revolution, 107, 113, 155, 165, 168, 170

Geertz, Clifford, 252, 260 Gilpin, Clark, 171

Godfrey, W. Robert, 3, 151 Goheen, Michael, xx, xxiii, 34,

127, 128–29, 142

Golden Rule, 42–43, 47, 62 Jennen, Charles, 201

Jones, Serene, 94, 233, 235

Hall, Stuart, 260

Handel, George Frederic, 201–4

and Messiah, 201–4

Harinck, George, 67, 74, 159

Hart, Darryl, 87, 143–44, 174, 266

Hauerwas, Stanley, 178

Heidelberg Catechism, v, 86, 99, 104, 144, 149, 193, 252, 265, 273

Hendriksen, William, 204, 211, 219

Hesselink, John, 40–41

Hoedemaker, Philip, 155–58, 166–71

Hoitinga, Dewey, 46

Horton, Michael, 87, 131–32,

208, 271–72

human, x, xix, xxi, xxiii–xxiv, xxix, xxxiii, xxxviii, 35–41, 44–47, 62, 74, 174–75, 185–86, 188, 191, 193, 196, 241, 247, 253–56, 258, 262 and fallen humanity, x, xviii–xxi, xxiv–xxv, xxvii–xxviii, xxx, xxxv, xxxvii, 4–10, 12–14, 17–19, 21–22, 24–26, 28–32, 34–35, 37–38, 40, 42–44, 47–50, 52–53, 55, 57, 60, 62, 67–72, 74, 88–89, 92, 101, 105–6, 114–16, 118–19, 124, 126, 128–29, 135, 138, 140–42, 146, 148–50, 153, 162, 164, 166, 175–76, 179, 181–83, 185–88, 191–93, 196–97, 228–29, 232, 234–36, 238, 240–43, 245–48, 252–57, 259, 261–65, 269–70, 274 and humanity, xx, xxii, xxiv, xxv, xxvii–xxxii, xxxv, xxxvii, xxxix, 13, 28, 35, 37–39, 48, 52–55, 57, 67, 75, 119–20, 129, 141, 143, 150, 168, 174–79, 181–84, 189, 191–92, 194–97, 228, 235–36, 239, 241–44, 246, 248, 254, 258, 270, 274

image of God, xxxvi, 11, 25, 35–37, 129, 138–39, 179, 181, 228,

236–37, 241–43, 248, 257

kingdom, iv–v, vii–ix, xi, xiii, xvii, xx, xxiii, xxv–xxvi, xxxiii–xxxiv, xxxvii, xxxix, xl, 1, 4–10, 12–18, 22–23, 26, 28, 32, 34–35, 37, 45, 49, 53–57, 60–63, 65, 67, 69–71, 77, 83, 87–89, 101–4, 107, 112, 115–17, 121–24, 126–28, 131–32, 134–35, 142–43, 146–53, 173–78, 184, 186, 189–92, 197, 199, 201–2, 204, 206–7, 209, 211, 216–26, 232, 240, 244, 249, 253, 264–65, 266, 268–69, 271, 275

and civil government, x, 6–7, 12,

14, 16–18, 21, 48–49, 52–54,

58–60, 63, 80, 101, 143

and civil kingdom, xxxiv, 5–7, 9–10, 16,

18, 34, 45, 49, 53, 56–57, 61, 63, 126,

134, 143, 174, 176–78, 188–89, 195 and heavenly kingdom, xxxiii, 10, 16 and Kingdom of God, iv, 15, 69–71,

87, 174, 192, 206–7, 216

and Two Kingdoms, vii–viii, x–xi, xiii, xvii–xviii, xxi–xxii, xxiii–xxxi, xxxiii–xxxiv, xxxviii–xxxix,

3–10, 13–14, 16–18, 26, 31, 33, 34,

41, 45, 53, 55–56, 58–61, 65–66,

69, 72, 75, 77, 81, 87–88, 91–93,

125–27, 129–38, 140, 142–48,

151–53, 158, 161, 164, 173–80, 185,

189, 193, 195–96, 208, 227–31,

232, 235, 237, 239, 243, 248,

251–53, 261, 264–66, 268, 270 and Two Kingdoms perspective, xvii–xviii, xxxi, 65, 87, 126–27,

130–36, 138, 140, 142–44, 148,

152–53, 173, 175–76, 178, 185, 189,

195–96, 227–32, 235, 237, 244, 248 Kline, Meredith, 176

Knox, John, 17, 40, 161, 233

Kuyper, Abraham, viii, xi, xiv,

xviii–xix, xxiii, xxvi–xxx, xxxii, xxxiv–xxxv, xxxvii, xxxix–xl, 3, 26, 66, 72, 80–81, 86, 107–8, 148, 151, 155–58, 160–71, 173–84, 190, 195–96, 208, 227, 229, 237–40, 264–65, 277

Luther, Martin, xix, 67, 75–76, 113, 148, 161, 229–33, 248, 265, 277

Lutheran, iv, 74, 77, 113

Machen, J. Gresham, 156, 271–72 MacIntyre, Alastair, 178

McLeod, Hugh, 160–61

Michaels, Ramsey, 205, 212, 216–17 Milbank, John, 174–75, 179,

182–83, 186, 188, 191

Moltmann, Jurgen, 244, 247

Mouw, Richard, xxvi, xxxii,

xxxvi, 164, 175, 228

New Atheism, xix

New Calvinism, xvii

New Jerusalem, xxv, 130, 153, 228 Niebuhr, H. Richard, 66, 25–55,

natural law, vii, xxxiv, 3–11, 16, 18–23,

25–26, 31–35, 39–45, 47, 58–59,

61–62, 65–69, 87, 92, 126, 131–40,

142–43, 148, 158, 173, 177, 180,

185, 193, 227–31, 232, 235, 237,

241, 244–45, 248–49, 273

and civil law, xxxiv, 3–10, 18–23,

25–26, 31–35, 39–45, 47, 50–51,

55, 58, 61–62, 65–69, 87, 91–92,

126, 131–40, 142–43, 148,

158, 177, 228–32, 235, 237,

241, 244–45, 248–49, 273

and lege naturale, xxxiv, 3–10, 18–23,

25–26, 31–35, 39–45, 47, 58,

61–62, 65–69, 87, 92, 126, 131–40,

142–43, 148, 158, 177, 228–32, 235,

237, 241, 244–45, 248–49, 273 neo-Calvinism, vii, xiv, xvii–xx,

xxiii–xxiv, xxvi–xxviii, xxxii, xxxix, 65, 70, 90, 142, 157, 174,

176–77, 193, 229, 237, 239, 251, 271 Netherlands, xv–xvii, 85–86, 91, 107–8, 113,

156–57, 159–61, 163, 165–67, 277

254, 257–58, 274

and special revelation, 5, 8, 18, 22–23, 25, 89, 128, 134–35, 136–39, 163–64, 168

Rutherford, Samuel, 176

O’Donovan, Oliver, 174, 178, 208

Pannenberg, Wolfhart, 229, 239, 241–43, 245, 247

Pierson, Allard, 157

Poythress, Vern, 205

providence, v, xiii, xx, 7, 21, 35, 48–49, 58, 61, 68, 140, 252, 267, 269, 273, 277–78

Radical Orthodoxy, 178, 191

redemption, xx, xxiii, xxxv, xxxviii, 5, 6, 10, 26–27, 29–32, 49, 71, 73–74,

77, 87–88, 115, 128, 130, 137, 139,

149–50, 152–53, 164–65, 168,

175–79, 184, 186, 189, 192–93, 196,

217, 228, 238, 248, 253, 266, 273–74 Reformation, ix, xix, xxii, 3, 108, 113,

125, 148, 159–61, 163, 166–67,

170, 229–30, 232, 265, 272

Reformed, iv–v, viii, x, xiii, xv–xviii, xxiii,

xxvii, xxix, xxxi, xxxiv–xxxvi,

xxxix, 3, 33–34, 40, 46, 66–68,

73–74, 77, 80–81, 85–87, 89–91,

94, 99, 108, 113, 126, 128, 135,

139, 142, 150, 157–59, 165–69,

173, 175–77, 180, 189, 195–97,

208, 227–30, 233, 238, 241, 243,

248, 251, 266, 271, 274, 277–78 Revelation, ix, xxxiv, 5, 8–10, 18–19, 21,

23, 25, 32, 38, 66, 89, 105, 116,

118, 133–35, 137, 163, 169, 181,

188, 190, 204, 213, 215, 233–34 and book of Revelation, 99, 116, 201 and general revelation,

67–68, 89, 135, 137

sacred, xxix, 266

and set apart, xi, 49, 56, 72, 131–32, 134,

148, 160–61, 265–66, 268–69, 272 Schaeffer, Francis, 226

Schilder, Klaas, xxxv, 108, 174–76,

188–97, 208, 225, 257–58

Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 171

Scotus, Duns, 230

secular, ix, xi, xviii, xxviii, xxxvii,

6, 10, 87, 131–32, 143–45,

148–49, 159, 171, 174–75,

237–39, 246, 265–69, 272

and temporal, ix, xi, xviii, xxviii,

xxxvii, 6, 10, 131–32, 143, 145,

148–49, 159, 237–39, 265–69, 272 Seerveld, Calvin, 229, 239, 249

sin, ix–x, xxii–xxiii, xxvi, xxxi–xxxiii,

xl, 8–9, 11, 21–23, 25, 28–30,

33–35, 37–40, 46–47, 50, 52,

57, 62, 74, 76, 100–101, 115,

117, 121, 128, 130–31, 141–42,

175, 184, 186, 188, 190–91, 228,

235, 241–42, 252, 258, 271

sphere sovereignty, xx, xxvi–xxvii,

xxxiv, 26, 151

Stellman, Jason, 125, 132, 136, 145–48

Taylor, Charles, 160–61, 171, 229, 245–48 theonomy, 90–91

and Christian Reconstruction, 90–91

Torrance, Thomas F., xv, 35, 232, 236 –37 Trinity, 73, 87–88, 186, 221, 224

and Logos, 73, 87–88, 186

and Mediator, 73, 87–88, 186

Turretin, Francis, 176

26–28, 31–35, 40–41, 45, 59, 61–62, 65–66, 70, 79–81, 87, 91, 126, 129, 132, 134, 138, 146, 158, 173–81, 185, 187–90, 192–93, 195–96, 208, 227–30, 266, 270, 275

Van Til, Cornelius, xiv,

xxxvi, 34, 140–41

Van Til, Henry, xxx, 140, 175, 255 Veith, Gene Edward, 147

Williams, Raymond, 260–61

Wintle, Michael, 155–56

Wolters, Albert, xx, xxiii–xxiv, xxx, xxxv, 34, 69, 271

Wolterstorff, Nicholas, 155, 274 worldview, xx, xxiii, xxix, xxxi, xxxv, 69, 81, 125, 127–28, 134, 136, 175, 268, 271, 277

Wright, William J., 231–32

Wycliffe, John, 161

Westminster Confession of

VanDrunen, David, xxi–xxii, xxxiv, xxxix, 3–11, 14, 16–19, 21–24,

Faith, xvi, xxxvii Zwingli, Ulrich, 67, 75, 76, 161

T

HE SUBJECT OF CHRIST AND CULTURE has occupied the church since its inception. Some emphasize the reality of redemption and the imperative of cultural transformation; others criticize this approach because of the transient nature of this current life and the specific function of “kingdom” activity.

This project focuses on the two competing positions rooted in the Reformed tradition: neo-Calvinism, a nineteenth-century school of thought associated with the Calvinist polymath Abraham Kuyper, and the Two Kingdoms perspective.

How you think on this issue affects how you interact with the culture around you. It’s an important debate for anyone who wants to speak God’s words fairly into that culture.

“This is not only an academic debate. Its outcome will have broad implications for Christian schools, colleges, seminaries, and churches and for Christians in the academy, politics, business, the arts, and other realms of cultural activity.” —Gideon Strauss, Executive Director, Max De Pree Center for Leadership, Fuller Theological Seminary; Senior Fellow, Center for Public Justice, Washington, DC

“I have prayed for wise and courageous scholars to step up—and step into— this fraternal debate within the Reformed Christian community concerning Two Kingdoms. I am praising God, therefore, for . . . Kingdoms Apart.” —Michael A. Milton, Chancellor/CEO, James M. Baird Jr. Professor of Pastoral Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary

“A very fine collection of essays. . . . A valuable and constructive advance in the often heated debates surrounding the themes it treats.”

—Al Wolters, Professor of Religion and Theology/Classical Languages, Redeemer University College, Ancaster, Ontario

“This book engages this conversation and deserves a careful hearing by all who believe God has made Jesus of Nazareth the rightful and ultimate king of everything.”

—Russell D. Moore, Dean, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

RYAN C. McILHENNY (Ph.D., University of California, Irvine) is Professor of History and Humanities at Providence Christian College in Pasadena, California.

COVER: church © istockphoto.com / Richard Goerg;THEOLOGY / DOCTRINEcrowd © istockphoto.com / Terraxplorer

ISBN: 978-1-59638-435-4 5 2 4 9 9

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Table of Contents

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3