Coram Deo ~

Looking at contemporary culture from a Christian worldview

Creation Regained BOOK CLUB

Creation Regained: Biblical Basis for a Reformational Worldview by Albert Wolters

This book is recommended by the Center for Faith & Work. They write:

“Few contemporary books have been cited as often by those who are writing about taking up callings and vocations faithfully. This serious little book walks us through the key Biblical themes of the goodness of creation, the seriousness of the fall into sin, the decisive redemption gained by Christ, and the implications of working out the promised hope for a creation-wide restoration. With the keen eye of a philosopher and the passion of a Bible scholar, Wolter’s offers one of the definitive, concise books about a Christian worldview.  One of the most important books for those of us in CFW and highly recommended to understand a uniquely Christian view of cultural and vocational engagement.”

As we read this through this book, we now look at Chapter 1: What Is a Worldview? Here are a few highlights from the chapter:

  • This book is an attempt to spell out the content of a biblical worldview and its significance for our lives as we seek to be obedient to the Scriptures.
  • For our purposes, worldview will be defined as “the comprehensive framework of one’s basic beliefs about things.”
  • Everyone has a worldview; however inarticulate he or she may be in expressing it. Having a worldview is simply part of being an adult human being.
  • Our worldview functions as a guide to our life.
  • Our worldview shapes, to a significant degree, the way we assess the events, issues, and structures of our civilization and our times.
  • Our worldview must be shaped and tested by Scripture. It can legitimately guide our lives only if it is scriptural.
  • A good part of the purpose of this book is to offer help in the process of reforming our worldview to conform more closely to the teaching of Scripture.
  • Testing our worldview against Scripture and revising it accordingly is part of the renewal of the mind.
  • The plea being made here for a biblical worldview is simply an appeal to the believer to take the Bible and its teaching seriously for the totality of our civilization right now and not to relegate it to some optional area called “religion.”

Chapter 2: Creation: The Law of Creation

  • God’s daily work of preserving and governing the world cannot be separated from his act of calling the world into existence.
  • Nearly all worldviews are united in their belief in a divine world order that lays down the law for both the natural and the human realms.
  • Biblical religion is unique in proclaiming a God who is not himself subject to, but as Creator has posited, the world order.
  • We have defined creation law as the totality of God’s sovereign activity toward the created cosmos. Included in that sovereign activity is God’s revelation in creation, what has traditionally been called “general revelation.”
  • An implication of the revelation of God in creation is that the creation order is knowable.
  • There is a spiritual discernment necessary if we are to know God’s will.
  • The whole world of our experience is constituted by the creative will and wisdom of God, and that will and wisdom—that is, his law—is everywhere in principle knowable by virtue of God’s creational revelation.
  • We can discern creational normativity best in the light of Scripture.
  • We are called to participate in the ongoing creational work of God, to be God’s helper in executing to the end the blueprint for his masterpiece.
  • Creation before and apart from sin is wholly and unambiguously good.

Chapter 3: Fall

  • Everywhere we turn, the good possibilities of God’s creation are misused, warped, and exploited for sinful ends.
  • It is one of the unique and distinctive features of the Bible’s teaching on the human situation that all evil and perversity in the world is ultimately the result of humanity’s fall, of its refusal to live according to the good ordinances of God’s creation.
  • Human disobedience and guilt lie in the last analysis at the root of all the troubles on earth.
  • All of creation participates in the drama of man’s fall and ultimate liberation in Christ.
  • World designates the totality of sin-infected creation. Wherever human sinfulness bends or twists or distorts God’s good creation, there we find the “world.”
  • Despite the role played by Satan, it is humanity that bears the blame for making the distorted creation groan.
  • The sum total of evil and rottenness in creation (i.e., “the world”) is therefore the result of both human sin and the creature’s enslavement to the devil.
  • Every area of the created world cries out for redemption and the coming of the kingdom of God.

Chapter 4: Redemption

  • The redemption achieved by Jesus Christ is cosmic in the sense that it restores the whole creation.
  • Redemption is not a matter of an addition of a spiritual or supernatural dimension to creaturely life that was lacking before; rather, it is a matter of bringing new life and vitality to what was there all along.
  • If the whole creation is affected by the fall, then the whole creation is also reclaimed in Christ.
  • What distinguishes a reformational worldview is its understanding of the radical and universal import of both sin and redemption.
  • 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.
  • Jesus’ ministry clearly demonstrates that the coming of the kingdom means the restoration of creation.
  • The temptation to categorize the creation into good and bad areas must be resisted.
  • A genuinely biblical worldview recognizes that a real battle rages between God and his adversary for the control of creation.
  • The sum of our discussion of a reformational worldview is simply this: (1) creation is much broader and more comprehensive than we tend to think, (2) the fall affects that creation in its full extent, and (3) redemption in Jesus Christ reaches just as far as the fall.

Chapter 5: Discerning Structure and Direction

  • The first implication of the reformational worldview is very broad and underlies all the others. It describes the basic temper and attitude that should accompany the Christian as he or she tackles the societal, personal, and cultural issues of the day.
  • It is clearly sanctification that is meant when we speak of the restoration of creation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
  • A second feature of reformation is that the avenue of this sanctification is progressive renewal rather than violent overthrow.
  • What was formed in creation has been historically deformed by sin and must be reformed in Christ.
  • A Christian’s rejection of evil must always lead to a cleansing and reforming of created structures, not to an indiscriminate abolition of an entire historical situation.
  • Every situation calls for a crusading activity of societal reformation. The status quo is never acceptable. Every “establishment” needs internal renewal and structural reform.
  • Whether we work in the arts, business, or the media, the strategy of reformation must always guide us. We must respect the historical givens and without compromise call for reform.
  • God calls us to cleanse and reform all the sectors of our lives.
  • The Christian is called to oppose all totalitarianism, whether of the state, church, or corporation, because it always signifies a transgression of God’s mandated societal boundaries and an invasion into alien spheres. But that opposition should always affirm the proper and right exercise of responsibility.
  • Christians should actively engage in efforts to make every societal institution assume its own responsibility, warding off the interference of others. That, too, is participation in the restoration of creation and the coming of the kingdom of God.
  • The call for Christians, therefore, is to sanctify aggression, not to repress it. Meekness and aggression need not be contradictory.
  • All human talents and abilities can flourish and blossom under the regenerating and sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit to the glory and service of God. When opened up by the Spirit they are all charismatic gifts.
  • Everything created by God is good and is reclaimed by Jesus Christ. The question is not “Does this belong to Christ too?” The question is rather “What is the most effective manner of bringing reformation and sanctification to this area of our lives?”

Conclusion

  • To approach the phenomena of the world in terms of structure and direction is to look at reality through the corrective lens of Scripture, which everywhere speaks of a good creation and the drama of its reclamation by the Creator in Jesus Christ.
  • The reformational worldview we have been considering itself calls for a reformational philosophy that can relate the basic insights of a biblical perspective to the groundwork of a systematic philosophy that is relevant to the special disciplines of the university. This book is meant as an introduction to such a philosophy and to such a program of academic renewal.
  • All thoughtful Christians, in whatever area they are called to exercise their responsibilities, must take seriously the question of biblical worldview, and must guide both their thinking and their acting accordingly.

Postscript: Worldview between Story and Mission by Mike Goheen and Al Wolters

  • Creation Regained originated in a particular set of historical circumstances. It was originally written to provide biblical and worldview foundations for a Christian philosophy course which Al Wolters taught at the Toronto Institute for Christian Studies in the 1970’s.
  • Although the book clearly states that it was originally written as an introduction to the philosophy of D. H. T. Vollenhoven and H. Dooyeweerd, that qualification of its purpose has often been overlooked.
  • On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of this book, we add a final chapter that is meant in part to address this problem.
  • The gospel is the instrument of God’s Spirit to restore all of creation.
  • To miss the grand narrative of Scripture is a serious matter; it not simply a matter of misinterpreting parts of Scripture.
  • Story provides the deepest categorial framework in which human life is to be understood.
  • The Bible demands that the people of God play a contributing role in the development of their culture.
  • The early church recognized that they were not only to be at home in the culture, but also at odds with the controlling faith assumptions that undergirded and shaped that culture.
  • The mission of the church is not first of all about organization and strategy—as good as these things may be. Rather it is about a healthy life of prayer and meditation, immersion in Scripture as the true story of the world, and active participation in the life of the local congregation.
  • The Christian church is called to live out of the power of the gospel and make the kingdom known in all departments of human life. In part that means interpreting the world through the lens of the gospel.
  • Worldview elaboration plays a channeling role, bringing the gospel to meet the life needs of the church in its mission in the world.
  • Worldview articulation can play a mediating role between the gospel and the missionary calling of God’s people.
  • Creation Regained is offered to the church to equip her in a world that desperately needs to see and hear the good news that God’s kingdom has come: God is renewing the creation and the whole of human life in the work of Jesus Christ by the Spirit.