Relocating To Elfland

“All our talk of invisible things is metaphorical, figurative, poetic. . . . But this does not mean that what we say is untrue and incorrect. On the contrary, real poetry is truth, for it is based on the resemblance, similarity, and kinship that exist between different groups of phenomena. All language, all metaphors and similes, all symbolism are based on and presuppose this penetration of the visible by the invisible world. If speaking figuratively were untrue, all our thought and knowledge would be an illusion and speech itself impossible.” (Bavinck, p. 2.106)

If Christianity is to remain true to itself, it must insist that there is no such thing as “the secular.” Which is to say, it must insist that there is no sphere of human thinking or doing ungoverned by the divine will and word. Precisely how God governs all things continues to be a matter of fierce debate, but that He speaks with sovereign authority in all created spheres cannot really be denied by those who take the Bible seriously.

I would not have thought of connecting Christianity’s resistance to the autonomy of the secular with the name(s) of God, but here Bavinck, though dead, yet speaketh:

“Nothing exists outside of or apart from God. This truth, it must be said, has over and over been violated: Plato’s dualism, Neo-platonism, Gnosticism, Manichaeism – they all put a limit to God’s revelation and posited a material substance hostile to God over against him. And in all sorts of ways these dualisms have for centuries impacted theology. The same dualistic principle is at work when in modern times, under the influence of Kant and Jacobi, the revelation of God is restricted to the sphere of religion and ethics, when only the religious and ethical content of Scripture is recognized, when the seat of religion is found only in the heart or the conscience, in the emotions or the will.”

Now notice the dire consequences of dualism:

“In this way nature with its elements and forces, human life in society and politics, the arts and sciences, are assigned a place outside the sphere of God’s revelation. They are considered neutral areas existing apart from God.”

In other words (and if the reader will pardon a double negative), we simply cannot accept the notion that God is not speaking in and to everything under the sun. All things – certainly all spheres of human thought and enterprise – are both instruments of His revelation (bearing witness of Him) and subject to His revelation (“normed” and governed by Him). Admittedly, Bavinck has the former primarily in mind: he is not dealing with God’s speech to all things so much as His speech in and through all things. As we shall see, however, these two aspects of God’s revelation cannot finally be separated.

If nature and human life come to be regarded as “neutral areas,” what follows?

“Then, of course, a proper appreciation of the Old Testament and a very large part of the New Testament is no longer possible. Nature and the world no longer have anything to say to believers. Revelation, which comes to us in the Word of God, loses all influence in public life. Religion, now confined to the inner recesses of the heart and the privacy of one’s home, forfeits all claim to respect. Dogmatics, specifically the doctrine of God, shrinks by the day, and theology is no longer able to maintain its place. Theology is no longer able to speak of God because it no longer speaks from him and through him. It no longer has any names with which to name God. God becomes the great Unknown; the world first becomes a domain without God [atheos], then a domain that is anti-God [antitheos].” (Reformed Dogmatics, p. 2.103)

There is a lot going on here, and in multiple directions. To begin with, a secularized realm is one in which the name of God has been erased, to the impoverishment of theology. One may say the firmament shows God’s handiwork, but while Darwinistic materialism reigns in the sciences, we all know this really ain’t so – it’s just the stuff that makes religious folk purr. One may say God reigns over the nations, but while political theory is ceded to Machiavelli and Hobbes, we all know this is mere pious metaphor – the kings of earth actually do as they please. Our conception of God does indeed “shrink by the day.”

But the problem runs the other direction as well. “Neutral” spheres not only deprive religion and theology of important funds of revelation (God is, as it were, gagged in such spheres), they also emancipate themselves from the claims of revelation. God is not only gagged, He is dethroned. His voice is silenced not only through these spheres but also within them. “Nature and the world no longer have anything to say to believers,” on the one hand. “Revelation, which comes to us in the Word of God, loses all influence in public life,” on the other.

Bavinck’s reference to the Old and New Testaments is important here, because it reminds us that our knowledge of what God is saying/revealing in nature and to the world must be derived from biblical revelation. Put differently, if we are to know that God is speaking in the firmament, we must learn this from scripture; and if we are to know what He has to say to the kings of the earth, we must learn this, as well, from scripture.

“Mine, mine was the transgression,” goes the English rendering of Bernard’s hymn, “but Thine the deadly pain.” As our ancient fathers laid their hands on the heads of sacrifice animals and confessed over them their sins, we think today of the Lamb of God and confess, “He bore our sins in His body on the tree.”

“He bore our sins.” Does this really strike home as it should? God knows how sentimentalized and sanitized the cross has become in popular representations; but among us who call upon His name, does it really register that the Son of God hung dying in agony because of us?

I know this already sounds like angst mongering. We have all heard preachers try to whip up mass feelings of guilt before the specter of the cross. The modicum of truth in such otherwise manipulative harangues is that we surely should feel something before the cross. It ought, just perhaps, to move us a little that “herein is love,” and an astonishing love, extended to enemies.

But let us descend to concrete matters. When we confess our sins before the cross today, how do we do it? Do we take a list of precepts, say the Ten Commandments, and think of ways we have transgressed? I wonder if this really gets to the heart of things. Seeing ourselves as rule-breakers has its place, but I doubt it will evoke a sense of the badness of our sins unless we see the glory of the goodness and righteousness God intended for us and see, in light of that glory, the depths of wretchedness to which we have fallen.

May I suggest today some extended reflection on God’s original calling to man to be fruitful and multiply, to subdue the earth (Gen 1:28), to cultivate the sanctuary of God, and to keep it against all that defiles (Gen 2:15)? Here in the fourfold calling of humankind we might begin to see what we were made for, and how pervasive are our sins of commission and omission. We might also think of the threefold offices of our original estate: the prophetic office characterized by wisdom and knowledge, the priestly office characterized by holiness, and the kingly office characterized by righteousness. Or, we might consider the three relational theaters in which we were created: the cultic theater of worshipful communion with God, the communal theater of fellowship with our human neighbors, and the cultural theater of labor among the non-human creatures.

We might, in considering these things, feel just how badly things have gone awry. We might feel our real helplessness before the dominion of sin, and might awaken thankfulness for the work of the Last Adam, apart from whose death we would never have known relief from the curse, apart from whose resurrection our inheritance could never have been returned to us and secured, apart from whose Spirit the degenerations of sin would never have been reversed and healed. We may even, in contemplating how different is our estate now in the Last Adam, feel the stirrings of true hatred of sin, and fresh resolves after repentance and new obedience. “What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered was all for sinners’ gain.”