Relocating To Elfland

Would an all-Christian team win the 2010 World Cup? A friend recently asked me if Christian soccer players are better at soccer, by virtue of the particular grace of God at work in their lives. He noted the following from Henry Van Til’s Calvinistic Concept of Culture, in which Van Til is explicating Abraham Kuyper’s philosophy of culture: 

“In the broader cultural field there are certain activities that are not affected by particular grace, such as architecture and dentistry. Particular grace does not give a man a better understanding of such technical matters, nor does it give any additional knowledge or craftsmanship in any of the arts [citation omitted]. In science, for example, the difference between a natural and a spiritual man does not count when they are engaged in such simple activities as weighing, measuring, counting, etc. Observation is said to be non-scientific in nature, and Kuyper maintains that looking through a microscope or a telescope are forms of observation. Logic also is neutral. But when an attempt is made to interpret the facts empirically gathered, and to arrive at ‘the thought which governs the whole constellation of phenomena,’ then we may truly speak of science emerging. And in this field of interpretation the impact of particular grace is very great.” (Van Til, pp. 124–125) 

This is one of those issues within the Christ-and-culture constellation on which a ton of ink could be (and has been) spilled, but I will keep my response pretty modest. I think perhaps the problem lies in the question itself: what does it really mean to be “better” at soccer (or anything else in the artistic or technical fields, for that matter)? If we define the quality of a cultural product simply in terms of its technical character (e.g., footwork in soccer, brushstroke in painting, body control in a half pipe routine, precision with a scalpel or a chisel or a stringed instrument), then we must acknowledge that the mental and physical faculties of man have not been destroyed by the Fall; it is simply not the case that believers can walk, while unbelievers must crawl. It must, moreover, be acknowledged that the Creator has granted particular mental and physical gifts to particular people, and He showers these gifts on the just and the unjust. Tiger Woods has something I don’t have, and this fact is not altered in the least by the fact that I worship the true God while he does not. In fact, to think that just because I am born from above I possess every gift known to man, while those not so born are bereft of all gifts, is, to put it kindly, delusional. 

But of course the Bible does not define the quality of cultural products simply in terms of their technical character. All cultural products are the fruit of a total “vision” of reality. They reflect a certain view of relationships in the cosmos, and of man’s place within those relationships. They express particular motives, follow particular rules, and are directed to particular ends. It may be, therefore, that a neurosurgeon’s technical skills are impeccable and yet his medical practice be utterly impoverished, because he works his skill in rebellion against his Maker, and pursues a philosophy of life (including medicine) that, carried to its logical extreme, would undo all of the integrating dynamics in the cosmos upon which his technical skills are premised. Is his surgical work “better” than that of his less-gifted Christian colleague? In strictly technical terms, perhaps so, but the biblical view of culture encompasses much more than the strictly technical; its vision of the culturally “good” and “excellent” and “beautiful” cannot be reduced to utilitarianism (e.g., what will win a soccer game).