What is Human?

35 Responses to “What is Human?”

1. David

   August 12th, 2007 at 9:50 am

   Dr. Hart,

   Christ is in our midst!

   Thank you for your post. I would like to make a few points worthy of your consideration and any others who are interested about this topic.

   1. Cardinal Henri de Lubac, a Jesuit and one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th Century, said by Christ becoming human it teaches us what it means to be human. What is human? We should look to Christ. How did Christ use language?

   2. Humans are made in the “Image of God.” The value of what it means to be human is not rooted in what we do (how we speak or write) but in who were are. I would refer you to the life of and the work of Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche.

   http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/larche/index.shtml

2. Baus

   August 12th, 2007 at 4:54 pm

   This could be very fruitful.
   you write:
   “In other words, we are dualists when it comes to language.”

   I take the subsequent sentence to elaborate what you mean by ‘dualist’:
   “All people have the same capacity for language, some have even greater gifts for language, but regeneration does not make someone more talented or gifted at language.”

   So, that redemption does not introduce an additional capacity for language; that redemption does not alter the creational “structure” of language… this entails a dualism? Really? What sort of dualism? How so?

   In what way do you find the fall (sin) to eliminate the capacity for language; how does sin remove the creational structure of language? In no way? Again, then, whence the dualism?

3. Ruben100

   August 12th, 2007 at 9:22 pm

   D Hart I want to learn more on this W2k. This Blog is very interesting.
   I am planning to buy your secular faith soon.
   For now I have
   Michael Horton- Where in the world is the Church
   Paul Althaus- The Ethics of Martin Luther
   David VanDrunen- A Biblical Case for Natural Law
   H.Richard Niebuhr- Christ and Culture
   Stephen Grabill- Rediscovering the natural law in reformed theological ethics.
   David VanDrunen- A biblical Case for natural law
   Are these good books to learn more on W2K
   I would like to know those that are opposed to W2K if they have a list of books they would recommed?
   Thank you

4. Phil

   August 13th, 2007 at 8:18 pm

   Regarding language, where does grace come in? Machen helps us sort through the issue in his talk to the NUCS in 1934, his “mature” years after he had “outgrown” his youthful optimism. I mentioned some of these comments earlier in this conversation:

   JGM: “But what miserable makeshifts all such measures [release time from public schools], even at the best, are! Underlying them is the notion that religion embraces only one particular part of human life. Let the public schools take care of the rest of life [concerning the LHK]—such seems to be the notion—and one or two hours during the week [for RHK education] will be sufficient to fill the gap which they leave. But as a matter of fact the religion of the Christian man embraces the whole of his life [unlike W2K]. Without Christ he was dead in trespasses and sins, but he has now been made alive by the Spirit of God; he was formerly alien from the household of God, but has now been made a member of God’s covenant people. Can this new relationship to God be regarded as concerning only one part, and apparently a small part, of his life? No, it concerns all his life; and everything that he does he should do now as a child of God.

   “It is this profound Christian permeation of every human activity [in both the RHK and the LHK], no matter how secular the world may regard it as being, which is brought about by the Christian school and the Christian school alone. I do not want to be guilty of exaggerations at this point. A Christian boy or girl can learn mathematics [or linguistics], for example, from a teacher who is not a Christian; and truth is truth however learned. But while truth is truth however learned, the bearing of truth, the meaning of truth, the purpose of truth, even in the sphere of mathematics [or linguistics], seem entirely different ot the Christian from that which they seem to the non-Christian; and that is why a truly Christian education is possible only when Christian conviction underlies not a part, but all, of the curriculum of the school. True learning [LHK?] and true piety [RHK?] go hand in hand, and Christianity embraces the whole of life—those are the great central convictions that underlie the Christian school” (Machen, p. 81; Education, Christianity, and the State).

   As with mathematical vectors, whatever we know gives not only (1) a creational data point, but also (2) a big-picture orientation. W2K seems well-prepared to deal with #1, but not at all with #2.

   Surely the data of natural law will be shared between regenerate and unregenerate: after all, we share the same planet. But W2K seems to deny that regeneration has implications for the believer’s frame of reference from which he observes our shared creation. If so, then W2K rejects the biblical requirements for the believer to love God with his entire mind, that his entire body is to be a living sacrifice as his mind is transformed (Rom. 12:1–2, including LHK living such as Rom. 13:1ff), and that everything he does is to be done in the name of the Lord Jesus (Col. 3:17, again including LHK living, Col. 3:23–24). In its desire to magnify the redemptive work of Christ, apparently it belittles it.

5. Phil

   August 13th, 2007 at 8:29 pm

   Darryl writes, “A Christian needs to work as hard to learn other languages as a non-Christian. And a Christian writer is not inherently better than a non-Christian because of regeneration. He is no more fluid or clever than a non-Christian.”

   All of this is true, but something is missing. Sometimes when my colleague discusses this issue, he jokingly tells listeners that if only we could have an MRI on someone when he “gets saved,” we would see cool areas around the brain transformed into hot reds and oranges. Everyone listening knows that this is a joke: clearly many ungodly folks are smarter than me, and we have no evidence at all that regeneration boosts one’s IQ. For instance, the Philistines knew blacksmithing when the Israelites didn’t; “the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light;” etc.

   But disregarding the missing part is why I suspect that W2K has profoundly negative educational implications—strictly in the LHK, no less.

   For instance, one of the ways to categorize the ways students think about mathematics (and probably also linguistics) is to categorize learning into instrumental and conceptual categories. One could define them like this: “instrumental” learning involves learning how to operate the instrumentalities of mathematics, such as remembering math facts and procedures; on the other hand, “conceptual” learning involves learning to analyze mathematical structures, such as proofs in high school geometry, or applying old knowledge to new (and different) situations.

   One could also say that instrumental learning is lower level learning, while conceptual learning is higher level learning. Or, one might obtain a certificate or an associate degree with little more than instrumental knowledge, but a graduate degree from a good school should be impossible without a demonstration of conceptual learning.

   So when I see Darryl’s point repeatedly made, I suspect that W2K theorists think about aspects of the LHK in strictly instrumental rather than conceptual ways. If they thought about them in conceptual ways, soon they would arrive at the outskirts of philosophy of linguistics, the ethics of linguistics, etc., at which point natural law shows itself to be useless.

6. Phil

   August 13th, 2007 at 9:02 pm

   Darryl wrote, “if it is possible to be a dualist about what is human, that is, that some things are natural and some are supernatural in the life of a Christian, why do people get so jumpy about similar distinctions applied to the political order and to culture more generally?”

   I am delighted with a “dualism” of a particular kind: I gladly regard a “secular” side of life as distinct from a “cult” side of life. You could define “sacred” as “cultic” if you like.

   The OT models this very well: righteous kings kept out of the priestly work, and vice versa. Only in the case of serious transgressions was this altered: (1) King Solomon fired the high priest, Abiathar, for treason, and (2) the high priest, Jehoiada, ordered the execution of the monarch, Athaliah, also for treason. Twice in over 400 years years is pretty rare: that’s

7. MarkPele

   August 13th, 2007 at 9:46 pm

   To the greater point, I would say that language is not an application of morality, whereas legislation is the application of morality through law.

   Philosophically, though, I don’t necessarily agree that the comprehension of language is entirely devoid of God’s blessing. The Christian has a completely different perspective on learning language that the non-Christian doesn’t have. One of the things that C.S. Lewis cautioned was comparing a Christian with a non-Christian. Instead, the correct comparison is to ask, what would that very same person do if he were not a Christian.

   In fact, we have seen significant change in peoples’ lives through regeneration. If someone, for example, repents of an adulterous relationship through the process of regeneration, we see that the portion of his mind that was contemplating the adulterous relationship is now available to ponder other things, such as learning a new language.

8. stevez

   August 14th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

   Your question, I understand, is fairly rhetorical (and the assumed answer I unreservedly agree with, of course).

   But if I might do the rather lawless and uncouth thing of suggesting a literal answer to a figurative question, I wonder if it has to do with why some people get along better with animals than people? That is to say, the phenomenon of language is not so loaded as politics and culture. Sort of like how the Gnostic pietistists of our time (in any formal tradition’s stripe) like to consider themselves “world-affirming” instead of “world-fleeing” since they embrace the muted world of animals, sunsets and oceans as being fundamentally good, yet only engage the more complicated social/cultural/political world with either an evangelical spacesuit or billy club, if at all. One is benign and not much given to disagreement or resistance or a perceived disloyalty, the other fraught with complications, nuance and layers…so maybe it’s best to collapse the spheres and pull the God-lever down on all of it so we don’t have to experience too much discomfort when someone sees things quite differently than us in the common sphere. Hmmm, there’s that problem of creaturely-comfort and ease coming up again: we don’t want to experience death or any of its attendant shock-waves.

   (Consarnit! I asked a similar question a bit back about my poor own algebraic skills. When I wondered aloud why my conversion didn’t booster my grasp of polynomials and radicals I was roundly booed as perhaps being one [a radical, that is, and an absurd one at that].)

   Steve

9. stevez

   August 14th, 2007 at 2:27 pm

   Phil,

   I am neck deep in the geographical bastion of Christian education. I have friends and acquaintances who teach or are otherwise involved in this phenomenon called Christian education; I have worked in or around education of various stripes and sorts and purposes and scopes most of my life. I still don’t understand what it is. What is it? Nobody here seems able to answer my simple question, can you? I know what a Christian *environment* is, but I am still lost as to what a Christian *education* is. I know youth pastors who whisper under their breath to me that they see no appreciable difference between their CS kids and the non-.

   If Christians can make meaning in a superior fashion because of their faith, how do you explain upping the tuition of special needs students (and no else, mind you) in order to build bigger and better football stadiums and field houses around here? All those years of supposed Christian education (I’m sure) and the powers-that-be don’t seem any better at making decisions of justice any better than the…ahem…”Godless” secular school systems.

   All in all, the rather high-falutin concepts I always hear about Christian education look great on paper but whenever I venture into one, so to speak, it looks an awful lot like the poor saps trying to justly execute their secular mission in other hallways.

   My hunch is that this whole project is a misguided way of “getting religion,” as some might put it. Calvin’s Dr. Stob filled our pulpit a few weeks back. He is now retired as headmaster from a Presby Christian school in which, by his own admission, only 15% of the parents attend church. You know if the parents don’t the kids don’t. Why? Because they get religion in their 6 days. But did God ordain the Church (and family) to get religion or schools?

   Steve

10. GAS

    August 15th, 2007 at 12:17 am

    “If it is possible to make these distinctions when it comes to language, if it is possible to be a dualist about what is human…”

    Making a distinction is a duality while absolutizing each end of the spectrum is a dualism.

11. stevez

    August 15th, 2007 at 9:21 am

    “In fact, we have seen significant change in peoples’ lives through regeneration. If someone, for example, repents of an adulterous relationship through the process of regeneration, we see that the portion of his mind that was contemplating the adulterous relationship is now available to ponder other things, such as learning a new language.”
    Mark,
    Are you saying that regeneration somehow creates more distance in the renewed mind from sin? If anything, isn’t the renewed mind almost more vulnerable because of its renewal? And what role does the covenant community (i.e. the Church) play insofar as it stands as an objective means to make clear to the convert what is right and wrong when a given renewed mind is not magically restored by grace? Messages like this always seem to imply, at least to me, what I think of as “grace as magic,” that the individual convert can now operate somehow freely and be more or less guided by shafts of grace being poured in from above. It sounds an awful lot like the individualistic-therapeutic approach that has relatively little need for community.
    And what do you do with unbelievers that do the same, that is, “repent of an adulterous relationship by distracting themselves with learning another language”? I can’t help but think of George Costanza’s becoming intellectually brilliant by giving up (illicit) sex. Part of what made it so funny was its absurdity. But seriously, how do you explain the unregenerate behaving well?

    Steve

12. D Hart

    August 15th, 2007 at 4:21 pm

    Reuben, I wouldn’t really recommend Niebuhr. I think his categories are tired but to orient yourself to those categories he may be necessary. I’d recommend some Machen. I edited a collection of his essays which has section on the church and society or something like that. Great stuff. Plus, Machen’s introduction to Christianity and Liberalism has lots of 2k insights.

    To Greg, I’d say that the dualism is between all language speakers (Christian and non-Christians) and Christians who use their language to confess Christ.

    I think the point stands that regeneration does not equip someone to be a better language learner or use than being non-regenerate.

13. Phil

    August 15th, 2007 at 8:10 pm

    Reuben, some of the sharpest criticisms that Niebuhr (©1957) has gotten was from John Howard Yoder, the great Anabaptist scholar (from Notre Dame!). If you’ve read much of Niebuhr, you’ll know that he indirectly advocated transformation and opposed the Anabaptist position. So you wouldn’t be surprised to find that Yoder regularly roasted Niebuhr. Nevertheless, Anabaptist scholars since Yoder have largely ratified Niebuhr’s scheme (even advocating transformation), adding a perpendicular dimension, pacifism-nonpacifism. Some Lutherans modify Niebuhr’s scheme a bit, but many leave it alone, simply evaluating the positions differently. Roman Catholics seem to have ignored it. So after 50 years, Niebuhr’s categories still manage to carry quite a bit of weight.

    Surprisingly, Machen foreshadowed Niebuhr’s scheme in his 1912 address to the Princeton Seminary by his own paradigms, (1) Subordination to Culture (liberalism), (2) Indifference to Culture (such as fundamentalism), and his own view, (3) Consecration of Culture. Here’s what he said about a Consecrationist view:

    “Are then Christianity and culture in a conflict that is to be settled only by the destruction of one or the other of the contending forces? A third solution, fortunately, is possible—namely consecration. Instead of destroying the arts and sciences or being indifferent to them [as the Indifferentists], let us cultivate them with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist, but at the same time consecrate them to the service of our God. Instead of stifling the pleasures afforded by the acquisition of knowledge or by the appreciation of what is beautiful, let us accept these pleasures as the gifts of a heavenly Father. Instead of obliterating the distinction between the Kingdom and the world [Augustine’s City of God vs. City of Man, believers vs. unbelievers (rather than sacred vs. secular)], or on the other hand withdrawing from the world into a sort of modernized intellectual monasticism, let us go forth joyfully, enthusiastically to make the world subject to God.

    “. . . Furthermore, the field of Christianity is the world. The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations, but also all of human thought. The Christian, therefore, cannot be indifferent to any branch of earnest human endeavor. It must all be brought into some relation to the gospel. It must be studied either in order to be demonstrated as false, or else in order to be made useful in advancing the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom must be advanced not merely extensively, but also intensively. The Church must seek to conquer not merely every man for Christ, but also the whole of man.”

    It has been said that Machen matured beyond this 1912 youthful optimism, yet he was writing the same transformative things just a few years before his death, as one can easily show.

14. Phil

    August 15th, 2007 at 9:31 pm

    Steve, you asked, what is Christian education? It’s the Great Commission applied to all of life, just as Matthew Henry said (Matt. 28:16): “That Christianity should be twisted in with national constitutions, that the kingdoms of the world should become Christ’s kingdoms, and their kings the church’s nursing-fathers.” In the case of our schools, our calling is to implicate Christianity in every academic area in substantial and transparent ways. Or, our goal is for students to see all of life through the lens of God’s Word.

    I’m an outsider to Dutch Reformed schooling. However, I have read a lot of Dutch Reformed educational literature, as well as similar stuff from evangelicalism, fundamentalism, Seventh-Day Adventists, Roman Catholics, plus neo-Marxist educational theory, and others. In my opinion, the Dutch Reformed have much to teach other Christians about education, and remarkably, the others have been learning a lot from the Dutch. But the Dutch apparently were always deficient in connecting educational theory to praxis, and you seem to be noticing that. At this point, the Seventh-Day Adventists are probably better than anything in the CSI because the former are so focused on curriculum and instruction; that’s sad, in my opinion.

    Van Brummelen has a very good 1989 monograph hosted at Calvin College relating much of this, “Curriculum: Implementation in Three Christian Schools.” From 1985 to 1988 he gathered field notes from these schools, noting their curriculum decisions and documenting how their educational philosophy informed and even changed those decisions. The first school, Agape Academy, began as a Pentecostal church-school but moved toward a transformational outlook. Bethel Christian School was primarily Mennonite and Baptist. The third school, Covenant Christian School, had Dutch Reformed roots and aimed to be “integrally Christian,” although its “program resembled that of a public school more closely than those of Agape and Bethel,” apparently retreating from the Dutch Reformed goal that all things should be placed under Christ’s lordship. Clearly these are anecdotal, yet they tell a common story.

    So from what you say, many in the CSI are losing their passion for Christian education (as is much of fundamentalism!), while at the same time, many Southern Baptists, Assemblies of God, Calvary Chapels, and others see an acute need for Christian schools, not merely to save their children from public school excesses, but especially proactively. In fact, I’ve been amazed to see how many people are preaching what I would say is a full-throttled Reformed theory of education while attempting to work out the zillions of details in the praxis, even to non-Reformed audiences, and the reception is wonderful. Charismatics especially love it: they see this era as the age in which the Holy Spirit is on a tear throughout the globe, which connects wonderfully with the Reformed delight in Jesus’s present reign over all (Rev. 5:6, for instance).

    In the end, Steve, it sounds like you are asking a question from the CRC community that, at least in some sense, is losing its way.

15. Phil

    August 15th, 2007 at 9:39 pm

    Darryl said, “I think the point stands that regeneration does not equip someone to be a better language learner or user than being non-regenerate.”

    Agreed. But whoever disagreed over this issue?

    Could this be more decisive: (1) Does Christ’s rule have implications today not only in the cult but also in the secular side of life? Or its corollary, (2) Does the Bible, as the Word of Christ, have essential implications for Monday’s labors as well as Sunday’s worship?

    May I suggest that we begin to discuss the biblical data concerning Christ’s reign? Or the confessional treatments of the biblical data?

16. Phil

    August 16th, 2007 at 1:27 pm

    In this entire discussion, I must admit to being puzzled by what drives W2K’s engines: why are its advocates so concerned?

    1. I could be very mistaken, but exegetical concerns do not seem to be driving W2K. At any rate, I do not see its advocates engaged in significant interaction with the Scriptures as they develop their arguments. (I do not mean this disparagingly.)

    2. It also does not seem to be driven by systematic theology, for I see very little engagement with that.

    3. I do see much more interaction with interpretive history, but such could only serve as illustration—it cannot be apodictic.

    4. But I do see a lot of offense taken at transformational “abuses,” often offended because the unregenerate are offended; it also seems to make a number of mistakes about transformational thought, such as transformationists necessarily (or even usually) steamroll distinctions between Sunday and Monday.

    So is W2K essentially a reaction to transformative thought?

17. D Hart

    August 16th, 2007 at 10:57 pm

    Phil, no offense but I don’t see much exegesis on the anti-W2k side. I do see proof texts. But that’s not exegesis. For something that is biblical on W2k, see VanDrunen’s Biblical Case for Natural Law.

    Also, I never said that we disagreed on language. Language hasn’t come up. But it’s a pretty significant part of culture. And if we can agree that language is something that lies in a range of commonness, then can it be that hard a leap to go to politics? If one part of culture is common to believers and non-believers, and if you don’t insist on making it Christian, then why do the same with politics?

    And sure you can find transformational stuff in Machen. I can also find a host of W2k stuff that would drive you nuts, as in praise for Jefferson, as in taking prayer and Bible reading out of public schools, as in keeping church and state separate.

18. Andrew Matthews

    August 17th, 2007 at 6:47 am

    Of course, exegesis can always be disputed, can’t it Darryl?

    I’m interested in seeing an exegetical case for the supposed distinction between the providential vs. redemptive reigns of Christ. I have a historical theological work on Gillespie’s views, but was wondering where to look for the biblical argument. Does VanDrunen make the case?

    As for Machen, didn’t he oppose public schools in general? Perhaps, in light of his tranformational statements, he preferred religion to be part of private education curriculum. Given his very American standpoint, he probably thought religion in public schools would make for a dangerous mixture of religion & politics.

19. Phil

    August 17th, 2007 at 7:35 am

    Below is Gene Veith’s morning blog in which he responds to excessive compartmentalization in American life, which he denies is 2K, but which sounds very much like W2K.

    I can agree to his view, as I understand it.

    So is Veith the Lutheran rejecting W2K’s compartmentalization, among other things?

    –
    http://cranach.worldmagblog.com/cranach/archives/2007/08/giulianis_relig.html

    Family life, faith, and leadership

    Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani has declared his Catholic faith to be off-limits to questions, since this has to do with his personal beliefs. (A voter had asked him if he is a practicing, observant member of his church.) Today, a letter-writer to the “Washington Post,” Kenneth J. Wolfe, gives some helpful information that the theologically-clueless mainstream media has, to my knowledge, not mentioned: Mayor Giuliani has been married three times, in violation of canon law, and so he is under church discipline and may not receive Communion.

    The mayor has also declared his family to be off-limits. This sounds all family values. But at least some of his children are alienated from him and two of them are publicly refusing to support him.

    Lots of Christians are rallying behind him, thinking he is electable and strong on terrorism. But doesn’t our faith discourage that kind of compartmentalism, in which matters of faith and family aren’t considered relevant to public affairs? (That is NOT what the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms means.) Since governmental authority flows out of that given in the family (see the explanation of “Honor thy father and thy mother” in Luther’s Catechism) and since the Bible says having a good family life is a prerequisite for church leadership, mustn’t we consider such things in choosing a presidential candidate?
    Posted by Veith at August 17, 2007 07:30 AM

20. stevez

    August 17th, 2007 at 9:25 am

    Phil,

    Re education…interesting. From my vantage point, no matter who is doing what, I still don’t quite grasp the notion of any Christian education, philosophically. I even taught in one for a year and I still don’t get it. I understand Christians doing education, but I don’t get Christian education. Seems to me there is at once a fine line and wide gap between those two ideas/phenomenon, much as many might protest.

    Steve

21. stevez

    August 17th, 2007 at 9:26 am

    Phil wondered, “In this entire discussion, I must admit to being puzzled by what drives W2K’s engines: why are its advocates so concerned?”

    From this W2K devotee’s perspective, Phil, it has less to do with being “offended because the unregenerate are offended” (I for one am loathe to use the “offended” language of our time, honestly. It is over-used and meaning is lost to a to mere whininess over the loss of self-centered, people-group values, conservative Christians perhaps the biggest culprits); however, that is a close second to what I perceive to be the primary problem: what it does to true religion. Henry Lewis said it well in the July 2006 NTJ’s “De-Christianization, the Up Side”: “Folks like Neuhaus who resist de-Christianization…do not seem to consider that de-Christianizing America is not far removed from de-politicizing Christianity. Conversely, few seem to fathom that Christianizing America can easily lead to Americanizing Christianity. I for one would rather take my gospel unadorned with political theory or republic policy. That way I can ignore the gods of the Republicans and Democrats and worship the only living and true God.” In other words, it has less to do with how the public square is scandalized and run over rough-shod by religious propagandist-bullies of every stripe—although it most certainly and sadly is that—and more to do with how it pollutes faith. It’s what it does to the cult that is so much more scandalous and cause for consternation.

    That’s why all the hub-bub, bub.

    Steve

22. Phil

    August 17th, 2007 at 10:30 am

    Darryl, you’re right: there can be a lot of Bible thumping on my side. But a wonderful exception is the republished text in the Covenanting heritage, William Symington’s *Messiah the Prince* (1999/1884). It’s a worshipful (and strictly confessional) organization of the biblical data concerning Christ’s kingship, including its implications for magistrates.

    I’ve ordered VanDrunen’s book.

    I agree that language and politics are “in a range of commonness.” But biblical data on total depravity requires that I take a dim view of epistemic commonness. We possibly share everything with unbelievers instrumentally, but conceptually it’s another story.

    On Machen, I wonder how much of his “W2K” rhetoric wasn’t generated by his aristocratic Southern background, hence an essential dislike for the national government lording over states rights. Was he more tolerant toward individual states (especially Southern ones) exercising what he disliked from the Federal government?

23. stevez

    August 17th, 2007 at 1:51 pm

    “…and since the Bible says having a good family life is a prerequisite for church leadership, mustn’t we consider such things in choosing a presidential candidate?”

    Phil, I am sorry, but your logic loses me again (or is this Veith’s?). How do you jump from applying the criteria for church leadership to presidential candidate? It’s like saying “a good mechanic shall know the in’s and out’s of every domestic and foreign made vehicle”…”so, you want to be our golf pro here at Shady Acres? Well, how would you pull apart a standard Honda?” Then, to make it worse, make some effete connections to the fact that golf pro’s *do* have occasion to drive golf carts, you know, so this it’s conceivable that such knowledge would come into play. Huh? My point is that these are two entirely different endeavors.

    My child’s public school teacher is a public servant. I don’t think I missed anything when I neglected to ask her how many marriages she had (being a devout Catholic I wager not more beyond her present one). And her views on the real presence probably have no bearing on much that she does.

    I do not mean to be cavalier and dismissive, Phil, or poly-anna. I realize human beings are informed by their religious persuasions and that it is pretty complicated. Such makes the world as interesting as it is. But it is one thing, as my father always says, to have a place for everything and everything in its place, to wisely know and appreciate the rules and play by them…it is another to charge such wisdom as being compartmentalized. That is a terribly wooden take on those of us who want the rules clearly made and strictly played by. Indeed, *because* we are so complicated and nuanced and layered we *need* such rules to better govern ourselves. The chargers of compartmentalization are simply too loose and do not appreciate things very…what?…Calvinistically. Consarnit, there ought to be rules for sinners because of their sin.

    Steve

24. Baus

    August 17th, 2007 at 10:41 pm

    I had asked how the fact that redemption does not introduce an additional capacity for language… that redemption does not alter the creational structure of language… how this entails a dualism.

    Hart answered:
    “I’d say that the dualism is between all language speakers (Christian and non-Christians) and Christians who use their language to confess Christ.”

    It’s a true statement, and well put. But this doesn’t answer the question. Or does it?

    What Hart is here referring to as “dualism” is more commonly called “The Antithesis“. See excellent post on the neocalvinist understanding of the antithesis here:
    http://prosthesis.blogspot.com/2007/08/dooyeweerd-antithesis-and-common-grace.html

    The antithesis is simply not a dualism between the creation order and redemption. Hart has shown his cards here in a superb fashion. For in correlating the antithesis & the distinction between redemption and creation, then calling this a dualism and disclaiming “jumpiness” about it, Hart has (inadvertently, no doubt) told us that the political order and culture in general is itself sinful, and Christians must embrace such sin.

    Of course, in light of this, Hart may want to further clarify his position and the true nature of his claims, and we would welcome that.

25. Phil

    August 18th, 2007 at 12:50 pm

    Steve said, “Seems to me there is at once a fine line and wide gap between those two ideas/phenomenon [Christianity and education], much as many might protest.”

    Try this; at least when developed (takes 30-60 minutes), it has good face validity with all who have heard it.

    Level 1, Examples and Analogies: include examples of or analogies to relevant biblical texts. Characteristics: useful if infrequent, can be very shallow; tends toward rote knowledge and other low-level thought. For some evangelicals, this is all they can imagine.

    Level 2, Action: include relevant action, especially worship or the Creation Mandate. Characteristics: connections should be infrequent or invisible to many classroom visitors, but establishes a classroom ambience; supports an environment centered on solving problems. Most of the class time would be spent here.

    Level 3, Worldview: identify grade-level appropriate, disciplinary presuppositions, and replace where necessary. Characteristics: requires analytic, evaluative, and creative thought; very presuppositional. Those whose educational vision is only instrumental never imagine such a classroom. (I fear that W2K could not support this level of thought in the secular academics because they seem averse to asking the big questions.)

    Theoretically, this can work well with ideas from cultural sociology, such as the common designations, artifacts - sociofacts - mentifacts.

26. Phil

    August 18th, 2007 at 1:08 pm

    Concerning Augustine, I’m re-reading David VanDrunen on “The Two Kingdoms: A Reassessment of the Transformational Calvin” (CTJ, 2005).

    There seems to be a fundamental misalignment between Darryl and David on the nature of Augustine’s two cities. David tells us that for Augustine, “Christians have no dual citizenship: they belong only to the heavenly city, even while making temporary use of the earthly city” (p. 253).

    Thus Augustine’s cities do not correspond to the W2K idea of the left hand and right hand kingdoms. Rather, they correspond to Kuyper’s antithesis.

27. Phil

    August 18th, 2007 at 8:56 pm

    Calvin’s 2K distinct from W2K (VanDrunen)

    In VanDrunen’s CTJ article, “The two kingdoms: A reassessment of the transformationist Calvin” (2005), he concludes that for Calvin, the heavenly kingdom has an earthly expression, but only in the church (p. 257). He writes that “to the common interpretation of the kingdom of Christ offered by contemporary transformationists, with its focus upon earthly progress and the redemption of this world’s institutions, Calvin wrenched the eyes of his readers away from this world toward the next. Christ’s kingship is spiritual and his kingdom heavenly” (p. 257). However, VanDrunen apparently overstepped the data by claiming that Calvin’s two kingdoms, both ruled by God, are divided into the secular and sacred, or “the spiritual kingdom of Christ . . . in explicit comparison to the civil kingdom” (p. 258).

    As Calvin inaugurates his extended discussion of civil government, he writes that “Christ’s spiritual Kingdom and the civil jurisdiction are things completely distinct,” and that he “previously laid down” the differences between the two (4.20.1); Battles gives these references as 3.19.16 and 4.10.3–6 (fn. 5, pp. 1486). An examination of these sections gives the reader a basis for Calvin’s meaning of the two kingdoms.

    In the first section, Calvin has been discussing the liberty of conscience that Christ purchased with his death; one of his concerns is to demonstrate that human laws are invalid in the spiritual kingdom and that they nullify the gospel (3.19.14). In the following section, labeled “The two kingdoms,” Calvin continues his concern for conscience as he writes of “a twofold government in man;” one is “spiritual,” related to the “life of the soul,” while the other is “political” or “temporal,” involving such things as “food and clothing.” Surprisingly for Calvin, these kingdoms have “different kings” as well as “different laws” (3.19.15). He writes that he will later discuss the temporal kingdom when he discusses “civil government” and “church laws” (3.19.15). In the next section (3.19.16), Calvin contrasts the two kingdoms by noting that “as works have regard to men, so conscience refers to God.”

    In the second section, Calvin discusses human laws, the horizontal kingdom, remarkably including “church laws.” He continues this surprising view of the church a few paragraphs later when he writes of “human laws, whether made by magistrate or by church . . . (I speak of good and just laws). . . .” Therefore “good and just laws” exist both in the church and state as “human laws,” and therefore both church and state belong in the political or temporal government. Thus it seems that Calvin’s view contradicts VanDrunen’s separation of sacred and secular: for Calvin, the two kingdoms instead distinguish the vertical, conscientious relationship to God from the horizontal relationships to humanity, whether in church or state (4.10.5).

    How can such a vertical-horizontal model of the two kingdoms better explain Calvin? First, this model honors Calvin’s concern that the state not be identified with the Kingdom of Christ: the spiritual kingdom is not the temporal kingdom, yet the temporal kingdom requires First Table proaction from both magistrates and gospel ministers. Second, it helps to explain why Calvin could say that these kingdoms are “two worlds, over which different kings and different laws have authority” (3.19.15) as opposed to the Escondido view in which the two kingdoms have a single king; for Calvin, God reigns alone in the vertical kingdom, while men rule in the horizontal kingdom under God. Third, in contrast to VanDrunen’s distinction of otherworldly vs. this-worldly, Calvin seems more concerned to distinguish man’s individual relationship to God from his social responsibility to society, but the kingdoms are equally concerned with the here and now. Last, while VanDrunen is noticeably unable to account for Calvin’s discussion of the civil magistrate and the First Table (pp. 264–265; 4.20.1ff), a vertical-horizontal model can coordinate all horizontal relationships under Christ’s authority, since both church or state are in the same kingdom for Calvin.

28. Phil

    August 19th, 2007 at 7:33 am

    Anne Rice for Hart, Hillary

    If you haven’t read or heard about Anne Rice’s website (http://annerice.com/), she endorsed Hillary for President on August 10. In her endorsement, she says that Darryl’s book is the “best book” on the separation of church and state. However, she believes that “when one enters the voting booth, church and state become one for the voter.” Then she affirms her loyalty to the Democratic Party because “the Democratic Party best reflects the values I hold based on the Gospels. Those values are most intensely expressed for me in the Gospel of Matthew, but they are expressed in all the gospels. Those values involve feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting those in prison, and above all, loving one’s neighbors and loving one’s enemies.” She affirms her pro-life position, and believes that a non-judicial solution must be pursued; she believes that the Democratic Party is the one party from which this solution may best be found. She then tells of her admiration of Hillary, but without any development.

    I saw this first at Reformation21, as many of you did, I’m sure. But maybe some of you did not.

29. D Hart

    August 19th, 2007 at 11:50 am

    Phil, could it be that Augustine was unwilling to talk of dual citizenship because many Christians had not been citizens of the empire? I’m not sure how he or anyone could deny that you and I are both citizens of the heavenly city and the USA. If you deny dual citizenship, by what means would you try to transform the USA? Please don’t say by the means Joshua fit the battle of Jericho.

    Also, Machen’s aristocratic bearing, if it existed, was not responsible for his advocacy of states rights. Lot’s of middle-class and poor southerners also wanted the fed’s to keep their noses out of local politics.

    Greg, how does a distinction between creation and redemption and yes, with it a dualism betweeen the physical and the spiritual, involve a commitment to regarding creation as evil? You’ve completely lost me in trying to capture W2K in the neo-Calvinist trap. It is neo-Calvinists who talk about redeeming the culture, not W2K. Redemption is a remedy for sin. W2K implies that in the realm of creation we are dealing with better and worse, better and worse ways of acknowledging and submitting to the good created order, not that the creation needs to be saved. By the way, if neo-Calvinists really think that they can redeem society, politics, TV, education or the like, then they are Arminians because paleo-Calvinists believe that only God saves.

30. Phil

    August 19th, 2007 at 2:39 pm

    Darryl, I’ll pass on Machen’s Southern aristocratic upbringing; let’s just call it his Southern upbringing. Could this not explain his desire for the Feds to “keep their noses out of local politics”?

    As a transformationalist, I do not know a reason to oppose dual citizenship. In fact, I have more than two citizenships: I’m a citizen of this city, county, state, and nation, as well as Christ’s kingdom. Sometimes the first four memberships conflict (especially living in the South!), and sometimes the first four conflict with the last. This is not an essential problem for a transformationalist any more that it was for the warrior-king, David, who combined warfare with his pilgrimage (Psa. 39:12).

    This point needs to be drilled home: our life as a pilgrim does absolutely nothing to support W2K. Nothing at all. Read how Isaac was a pilgrim (Gen. 28:4) yet he was mighty in the land so that the Philistines begged him to leave, even before he owned the land: “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we” (Gen. 26:16).

    The dilemma W2K poses between pilgrimage and transformation is a false dilemma: biblical heroes combined pilgrimage with transformation, so why shouldn’t we?

    Thus I would never deny multiple citizenships, and this gives not an inch to W2K.

31. Phil

    August 19th, 2007 at 2:50 pm

    Darryl wrote, “By the way, if neo-Calvinists really think that they can redeem society, politics, TV, education or the like, then they are Arminians because paleo-Calvinists believe that only God saves.”

    No Calvinist or neo-Calvinist has ever believed that THEY can save anyone or anything. We haven’t the power to draw the next breath, let alone effect cultural transformation.

    Cultural transformation, as with personal regeneration, is the monergistic work of God; one is an individual transformation, the other is social. Both rest entirely on the fact that Christ has been given “authority over all flesh” (John 17:2), who also is “ruler of kings on earth” (Rev. 1:5), and who demands that kings “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry” (Psa. 2:12).

    Cultural transformation has not the least to do with a synergistic or Pelagian gospel. Otherwise we should all walk away from the authors of the paleo-Reformed confessions: W2K depends on creedal changes since 1776.

32. Baus

    August 20th, 2007 at 2:17 pm

    Hart asks:
    “how does a distinction between creation and redemption… involve a commitment to regarding creation as evil ?”

    The neocalvinist is that it doesn’t. Redemption is not something that exists in a dualism with creation. Neither is the physical something that exists in a dualism with the spiritual (but that’s a different point).

    But in confusing that distinction with the antithesis, you have inadvertently regarded creation as evil. I have demonstrated how you have done this. Let me do so again:
    Hart claims 1) we are dualists concerning language.
    question: it is true that redemption does not add to creational structure, but how is that a dualism?
    Hart claims 2) dualism is difference between all people (including Christians) in sin and obedience in Christ.
    response: that is the anithesis, not the distinction between creation and redemption. To equate the antithesis with the creation-redemption distinction is to regard creation as sin.

    Let me address the Augustine issue, since it may be relevant. Besides the distinction between membership in a political community (”citizenship”) and what the Scripture analogously calls “heavenly citizenship”. There is another distinction between kingdom memberships that is mutually exclusive. The kingdom of sin, evil, darkness, Satan in contrast to the kingdom of redemption. For example, Colossians 1:13-14.

    If Augustine is making this contrast of kingdoms (ie, the antithesis) then he is not referring to creational societal communities as such at all. It may be that Augustine is torn concerning whether “politics is evil,” and so there may be confusion in his writing. Whatever the case with Augustine, Hart has certainly shown this confusion.

    Hart interprets the neocalvinist perspective through his own confusion and gets Arminianism. But if he would actually read neocalvinist scholarship (such as Roy Clouser’s The Myth Of Religious Neutrality) he would be in a position to consider our claims on the terms as we use them. Simply considering the neocalvinist understanding of the antithesis would be enough to demonstrate that our understanding of redemption in culture is at real odds with what Hart supposes tranformationalism to be.

33. Phil

    August 20th, 2007 at 8:16 pm

    Hobbes and W2K

    Have you read about Mark Lilla’s upcoming book, *The stillborn God: Religion, politics and the modern west*? The NY Times just had an essay from his book; it’s available here:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/magazine/19Religion-t.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=a098a9ed1ed27038&ex=1187668800&pagewanted=all

    His concern is the problem of “political theology,” especially Islamic incarnations. He thus launches into a sweeping history lesson concerning “The Great Separation” between Church Street and Main Street, focusing especially on Thomas Hobbes, then Rousseau.

    He writes, “This liberal-democratic order is the only one we in the West recognize as legitimate today, and we owe it primarily to Hobbes.” Surprised?

    How would we decide whether Hobbes were the primary source of the separation of spirituality and the civic square?

    (It’s demonstrable that links either to Augustine or Calvin cannot be sustained.)

34. D Hart

    August 21st, 2007 at 6:11 am

    Okay, Phil. It’s a slam-dunk. W2K makes no sense whatsoever.

    But how exactly does a pilgrim become a crusader? Or has transformationalism changed the meaning of words? The Christians who went to the Holy Land in the eleventh century were not pilgrims. When Luther went to Rome in 1515 he was on a pilgrimage. Exiles and strangers submit to the powers that God has ordained. Reformers and citizens resist and overturn the structures that they find around them.

    If neo-Calvinsts believe they can’t save anything, that it is only the work of God, how do they plan to get God to vote? And does his vote count as three?

35. Phil

    August 21st, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    If I’ve said W2K makes no sense, I’ve overextended myself.

    How does a pilgrim become a transformer? First, I don’t hold these in tension as you do. Second, use a public, historic hermeneutic to apply the Bible everywhere (as described by Van Til, Machen, etc.).

    To the extent that I understand the medieval crusaders, I do not regard them as legitimate transformers. Transformation is (esp. Matthean) evangelism; the sword is disallowed for this, certainly on the part of the institutional church.

    “Exiles and strangers submit to the powers that God has ordained” to be sure, but a few will become those God-ordained powers; what then?

    “Reformers and citizens resist and overturn the structures that they find around them.” Like Calvin, I accept the Law of the Lesser Magistrate. But as a private citizens, I have no business overturning something I don’t like: legitimate channels must be used (except for immediate, life-threatening situations to one’s person or family).

    What about planning “to get God to vote?” He doesn’t, but we do know what He thinks.

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