CHAPTER FOUR
RESTORATIVE ESCHATOLOGY PRINCIPLE, PART ONE

A second foundational principle flows out of the doctrine of sola Scriptura. It abounds in long-term, culture-transforming optimism because God is moving history towards its predestined goal, a matured restoration of his original design.

This principle teaches that the Great Commission will be fulfilled before the End. No general culture decline is inevitable until the last revolt. God will bring substantial though not perfect healing of the peoples, their cultures, and the environment through Spirit-empowered work (Ge 1:26-27; Ps 8; Mt 28:19ff).

Thus the second question this dissertation researches involves the relationship of the beginning (protology) to the end (eschatology). Though remaining true to best insights of classic Reformed eschatologies, this dissertation’s restorational eschatology uses recent exegetical insight to give an alternative to modern proleptic eschatology.

The Apostolic Confession and all the major Reformed creeds (see Hall 1992; Schaff 1966) emphasized the Bible’s self-testimony that God literally created the heavens and the earth exactly as the first chapters of Genesis and the rest of Scripture indicate (Ex 20:11, 31:17; Mk 10:6-7; Mt 19:4-5; 2Pe 3:5-6; see BC 12, 14, WCF 4.1; Schaeffer 1972).

The principle of sola Scriptura has no fundamental exegetical, scientific, or philosophical problem with the unity, antiquity, and Mosaic editorship/authorship of the creation account in Genesis. Neither does it have any problem with a creation in six, 24 hour days, a few thousand years ago (Ge 1-2; see Ex 20:11, 31:17; Cameron 1983; Kelly 1997). This understanding of the text was that "of the majority throughout church history, notably that of the Reformers" (Blocher 1984, 46).

The wise God created the universe and all that is in it, pronouncing the finished product "very good" (Ge 1:31; Pr 3:19-21). Over the "very good" earth, man-in-his-family was given dominion rule, under the Suzerainty of Yahweh, the King of Creation (Ge 1:27-28; Ps 8) (see Wolters 1985; Spykman 1992). This dominion rule continues into the present, especially for those in the family of the second Adam (see Kreitzer 1991).

Second, all "contemporary dialectical, process, and monist theologies" deny the "untainted goodness of God’s original work of creation" (Spykman 1992, 143) so that the earth "does not yet participate in the vivifying presence of God" (Schuurman 1991, 109). Neo-Puritanism’s restorational eschatology, in contrast, accepts a literal Fall in which man’s first parents rebelled against the God’s command. Man-in-Adam was establishing his own law, seeking to be his own god (see discussion in Blocher 1984). The fall was thus "ethical, not metaphysical (that is, having to do with some abstract ‘being’ or essential reality)" (North 1982, 451).

This means that "in a way which has become impossible" for modern theology, orthodox "theology could link together ‘death’ and ‘sin’" (Wingren 1979, 136). Contrary to modern worldviews, the Fall caused the creation to experience spiritual and physical death and all forms of evil for the first time (Ro 5:12ff). Death and evil are not part of original nature.

It is for this reason that the god of theistic evolution or progressive creation and Yahweh of Scripture cannot be the same divinity. With great insight, naturalistic atheist David Hull describes this contrast:

Biblical Creatio Ex Nihilo: Gives a World-Affirming

and Dominion Oriented Worldview

In asserting the ex nihilo, creation doctrine, the Reformers claimed continuity with the anti-Gnostic, Apostolic Creed. This ancient symbol affirmed the literal creation in opposition to a key culture-myth of the ancient world. That myth, adopted by Gnostics, taught that the gods, representing the sphere of unchanging truth and unity, were constantly waging war against an eternal and always impinging evil force called Chaos. In other words, the divinities were fighting to keep worldly order from breaking down to a chaotic, divisive randomness (see Dooyeweerd 1979). The anti-Gnostic Fathers systematized the biblical doctrine of the creatio ex nihilo by a totally sovereign God to counter these myths.

Many modern theologians, however, make various assertions about the first chapter of Genesis that depart from the ancient consensus of the Fathers. First, some claim that creatio ex nihilo is not taught in Scripture (see e.g., König 1988). This is not accurate. The Genesis 1:1-3, several Old Testament (e.g., Ps 148:5; Pr 8:22-27), and New Testament passages(Jn 1:3; Heb 1:2; 11:3; Col 1:16) do indeed teach this doctrine (see Kelly 1997).

"In the beginning, God created everything," is a good paraphrase of Genesis 1:1 (Wenham 1987, 15). A central implication of this traditional translation is that the complete creation occurred at Yahweh’s kingly fiat without any help and without any pre-existing material out of which to form the universe.

Second, others claim that Genesis 1:1 was not correctly understood nor translated by the Fathers. Of the various alternative translations proposed by modern theologians, "all presuppose the existence of chaotic pre-existent matter [used as raw material] before the work of creation began" (Wenham 1987, 11). In this way, then, these theologians subtly support the ancient Gnostic mythology and reject Creed’s first article.

Other theologians depart from the ancient Creed in a third way. Although they do not find remnants of an ancient Chaos myth in the first verse of Genesis, they instead find it in the second (e.g., Westermann 1984, Von Rad 1972). The words "formless and void," Westermann and Von Rad imply, teach that the creation was originally chaotic. Upon this chaos, Yahweh stamped his order.

Wolters summarizes several good arguments against this. He writes: "No distortion of God’s good creation [existed] before man’s sin: formless means "unformed," not "deformed" (Wolters 1985, 20). Furthermore, because God reigned by his Spirit upon the freshly created earth (see 1:2), harmony, order, and peace must have existed in this formless and void state. This is the opposite of chaos. The only lack on this sinless earth was the lack of life. Thus, sterile water covered the spherical earth (see Pr 8:22-29). The present earth’s surface was under that lifeless deep, awaiting the Creator’s command to be formed like clay in the hands of a potter. It then emerged and he brought forth life upon it. In summary, then, Scripture teaches that an already orderly planet merely needed to be formed and filled with life at his command.

The implication is that God created the world to be formed and filled by righteous families who ruled the creatures God made.

Therefore, this dissertation accepts the ancient orthodox contention that Ge 1:2 cannot describe a defective creation. The beginning was not a "chaos — that is, the antithesis of cosmos (the currently prevalent interpretation, which draws on Babylonian parallels)" (Wolters 1985, 19). Clearly, then, the world is not about to fall back into an original disunity. In other words, the earth is not about to degenerate back into a state of an original disorder of matter as Von Rad assumes:

Hence, not all of the six days are strictly a creatio prima, that is an ex nihilo creation. However, they also include a creatio secunda, an elaborating and completing of the unformed state of creation. During this time God’s providence finished forming and filling his creation.

The creation process, however, does not stop at the sixth day. Man, in his turn, in a creatio tertia, continues God’s elaborating and differentiating work after the seventh rest day in the conscious and unconscious work of building culture and developing language(s) (see Spykman 1992, Van Til 1972).

The history of the earth is the fulfillment in time of the dominion covenant or cultural mandate that God gave to mankind to develop creation potentialities. Wolters in Creation Regained agrees: "History is the generational unfolding and opening up of the possibilities hidden in the womb of creation, both natural and human" (Wolters 1985, 37).

Implications

Therefore, the creation does not remain an abstract, static "order" [Schöpfungsordnung] which allows for no maturation or change. Through the application of God’s Word by believing men, the world is molded and transformed. Gender roles are reformed and modified. Inter-ethnic relationships are improved. Class warfare and the greed of both the oppressed and oppressor are transformed. "Human history and the unfolding of culture and society are integral to creation and its development" (Wolters 1985, 38).

A second implication of this doctrine of creation and providence is that distinctions of civilizations and languages seem to be implicit in the original design. In the beginning, God commissioned man to multiply, scatter and fill the earth. Then God charged faithful peoples to exercise dominion over the land where he placed them. The goal was that all the earth would be filled with his glory. A byproduct of this outward movement was that civilizations based on differing languages have developed.

Third, this process of culture and language development continued even in man’s disobedience. Man has been consciously and unconsciously guided in this development by the creation "blueprint," even though it has been affected by sin and the curse. God commands man to build language and culture in his service. Nothing should be abandoned to the dualistic, post-Kantian, forces of secularization. These seek to segregate the material from the metaphysical.

All men, therefore, "are called [willingly or unwillingly] to participate in the ongoing creational work of God, to be God’s helper in executing to the end the blueprint for his masterpiece" (Wolters 1985, 37-38). Even in Promethean rebellion, including the rebellion which resulted in Christ’s crucifixion, mankind fulfills the foreordained plan of the Creator (Ac 2:23, 3:18, 4:27-28).

Conclusion

The creation changes, unfolds, and in a non-biological sense, grows up. A primary but not exclusive cause of this growth is the dominion work God has given man. In this way God brings "to fruition possibilities of development implicit in the [original creation]." These possibilities, interpreted by subsequent biblical revelation, provide normative boundaries for any future development and maturation. They thus provide the "creational law [that] is crying out to be positivized in new and amazing ways" (Wolters 1985, 37).

This dissertation agrees with Herman Dooyeweerd who sees this concept of providential differentiation of creational potentialities as one of the key principles in a Christian philosophy and culture theory (Dooyeweerd 1979).

Creatio Ex Nihilo Contra Dualist Worldviews

Dualist, non-Reformed worldviews limit Christian experience to the "religious" or "sacred" sphere. Everything else is the "world," the "secular," or "natural" area of life. In contrast to this, the wholistic or "the integral perspective of the reformational worldview" has no such sacred and secular distinction (Wolters 1985, 10).

A literal creation account, affirmed by the creeds, is the only basis for a comprehensive view of Christ’s present transforming Lordship, as the Second Adam, over the whole universe (Mt 28:17-20; Heb 2; Ps 8; 1Co 15; Ps 110). The doctrine of creation is also the only true source of any true knowledge of meaning, design and purpose in created nature.

The biblical doctrine of creation nullifies any form of dualist philosophical assumptions. Only on this basis can the various syncretistic, Christian-dualist worldviews be countered. The Creator-God of Scripture is "the Absolute and Integral Origin of . . . [all things]. There is no original power which is opposed to him. Consequently, in his creation we cannot find any expression of a dualistic principle of origin" (Dooyeweerd 1953, 173-174).

Genesis 1 "is . . . [thus] not merely a demythologization of oriental creation myths. . .; rather it is a polemical repudiation of such myths (Wenham 1987, 9). It remains a polemic against modern dualist, naturalist cosmogonies as well. These also deny original sin, God’s creative power, and his present providence over and differentiation of the rapidly accomplished creation.

If the contemporary church wants to effectively witness to modern dualist worldviews, it must affirm God’s creational polemic against it. Scripture denies the evolutionary "doctrine of cosmic impersonalism" which claims that the universe "is the product of impersonal, self-generated, random forces of nature" (North 1982, 2). Modern man illogically desires to hold onto metaphysical categories of design, meaning, purpose, causality and teleology while claiming that the natural order is a nihil, a meaningless product of pure random chance and time. Dooyeweerd demonstrates that the ancient form-matter dualism is essentially no different than the modern nature-freedom dialectic of post-Enlightenment science and philosophy (Dooyeweerd 1953-1958, 1979).

There is thus little difference between the modern concept of organic evolution and the ancient universal belief in a god or gods who fought against the "primeval chaos (randomness) in order to produce a somewhat orderly, partially controlled universe which is constantly threatened by either too much law or a breakdown of order" (North 1982, 2). Darwinians merely have persuaded contemporary culture that the ancient myth could be explained by random mutations during a long period of time.

Absolutely no need exists, therefore, to compromise with the neo-pagan dualistic assumption of modern scientific, culture myths. Any compromise with the Chaos based myths of ancient paganism or modern humanism, compromises the revelatory character of every fact of the universe. If all things happened by chance or if evolution did occur, then there would be no unmistakable and inescapable witness to the Creator (Ps 19, Ro 1:18ff). All things God has made, including all social and ethnic phenomena, witness to his existence, divinity, wisdom and infinite power.

Creation: Authority for God’s Command that All Peoples Submit to Him

Because Yahweh created all things, he commands all things including every individual, all human rulers, and all peoples on earth to obey, praise, trust and worship him (Ps(s) 2, 86:9, 96; Ac 17:26; Ro 1:18-30). He calls all peoples in all the ends of the earth to swear covenant fealty to him alone as Lord of the nations (Isa 45:18-25; Ps 96; etc.). Yahweh is not a tribal deity.

Creation: Only Source of Purpose and Design in Nature

Second, and flowing from the above, the doctrine of creation is also the only true source of any true knowledge of meaning, design and purpose in created nature. In this sense, it serves as a necessary prolegomenon to the Gospel (see Spykman 1992; BC, art. 2). This knowledge is absolutely essential for the church to correctly exercise the Dominion Mandate of Genesis. Without true knowledge of the creation, the Great Commission’s mandate to obey all that God commands is negated. Without such a true knowledge, no one can discover in the external creation any truth or divinely given normativity, witnessing to the divinity and eternal power of the Triune God. All phenomena in the external world would then only be mere givens, that is "brute facts," lacking any eternal meaning.

C. A. Van Til writes: "In a world of [chaotic] contingency all predication is reduced to flux" (Van Til 1969, 28). Without the creation and its implicit design, there is no definition nor meaning possible for any of the physical or social phenomenon upon which so many Scriptural predications are made. The reason is that randomness and flux can never produce meaning in anything. However, in a totally created and pre-ordained world, there is a meaning, design and a telos to everything, including every social group (Eph 1:3ff; Col 1:15-20). "All created reality is inherently revelational of the nature and will of God" (Van Til 1980, 274).

Van Til explains this further. Since all things in history occur according to the counsel of his will and foreordained plan, "then all created reality, every aspect of it, is inherently revelational of God and of his plan." Therefore, "all facts of history" including those of the natural and social sciences, "are what they are ultimately because of what God intends and makes them to be." This includes that which he accomplishes through men (see Acts 2:23, 4:28). God thus "knows exhaustively because he controls completely." It is only such an all-knowing, totally creating God who "identifies all the facts of the universe. In identifying all the facts of the universe he sets these facts in relation to one another (Van Til 1969, 28).

Although "revelation in nature was never meant to function by itself" (Van Til 1980, 275) but always in conjunction with the direct revelatory word from God, it is still sufficient for its purpose. It necessarily reveals God’s nature and will to every individual to the extent that man is rendered without excuse (BC, art. 2). It does so with authority and perspicuity. Consequently, mankind is held absolutely accountable to worship him and seek out and obey God’s purpose, plan and will in every sphere of life (Ac 17:24-31; Ro 1:17-30).

Every person and especially a Spirit-enlightened man taught from Scripture, thus, can see clearly the divine Creator’s design, purpose and plan in every social phenomena on earth. Man’s problem is not vision mechanism, but a rebellious suppression of the truth he clearly sees (Ro 1:18; see Jn 7:17).

This does not imply that man, the creature, can "penetrate to the very bottom of this inherently clear revelation." Only God can do that. Yet even still man can still "see clearly what is revealed clearly even if he cannot see exhaustively. Man does not need to know exhaustively in order to know truly and certainly" (Van Til 1980, 278).

In conclusion, then, the earth is not a nihil, empty of meaning and purpose. All things in the earth, including social and ethnic phenomena, are knowable and rational because God is knowable and rational. Thus contrary to Barth and dialectical theologians, God and his ways are incomprehensible to man only in the sense that God "is exhaustively comprehensible to himself [alone]." In God’s "all-comprehensive plan for the created universe," he planned every relationship between all things, from the beginning to the end. "All created reality therefore actually displays this plan. It is, in consequence, inherently rational" (Van Til 1980, 277).

Mankind has true knowledge of God and of the phenomena of nature both from creation and Scripture (Ps 19). These are two witnesses which hold man accountable (Ro 1:18-3:23). In order to function as human, man must use something of God-given knowledge of the creation he possesses. Even in the process of denying God, man has to sit on his lap to slap him in the face (C. A Van Til).

Thus, when man "thinks God’s thoughts after him," that is, when he "thinks in self conscious submission the voluntary revelation of the self-sufficient God, he has therewith the only possible ground of certainty for his knowledge." Thus when man thinks analogically, "he thinks as a covenant creature should wish to think." As a result, man "knows that his own interpretation of nature must therefore be a re-interpretation of what is already fully interpreted by God" (Van Til 1980, 277-278).

Orthodox Christianity, therefore, which this dissertation’s neo-Puritan perspective follows, is quite distinct from the early Enlightenment heresy of deism. The same God who called all things into existence by his sovereign fiat, blesses, judges, preserves and guards his earth and universe until the last day (Ro 1-2; see 2Pe 3:5ff).

The doctrine of creation includes more than the dogma of the hexaemeron (six-day creation). "It simultaneously affirms the sustaining hand of God in time" (North 1982, 430). The One by whom the Father created all things is the same One who "upholds all things by the word of his power" (Heb 1:3; Jn 1:1-3; Col 1:15ff). In other words, the doctrine of providence is a sub-set of the doctrine of creation. Jeremiah and the prophets point this out poetically. The same God who made the earth by his power, and wisdom, is the One who thunders, "makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth . . ., sends lightning . . . and brings out the wind from his storehouses. (Jer 51:15-16).

Providence a Correlate of Creation

Creation and providence are correlates. God’s sovereign work of preserving, holding together, and ruling the world cannot be dialectically divorced from the fiats of the creation days. To do justice to his Kingly power, "we must [define] . . . creation, [as] the ‘correlation of the sovereign activity of the Creator and the created order’" (Wolters 1985, 13).

This difficulty of separating creation from providence has very important implications for the doctrine of the creation/ formation and preservation of the peoples of the earth. It provides insight into the meaning of the differentiation of mankind into various endogamous, ethno-cultural groups. The observable facts of the differentiation of man into groups along with each group’s common biological characteristics (e.g., hair and eye type and color, height variations, etc.) are not mere givens, or brute facts that have no other meaning beyond mere accident. Neither are specific language, dialect, and cultural distinctions in mankind. All of these are the specific work of God’s creative providence. He rejoiced in the beginning (Pr 8:30-31) to fill the earth with a delightful diversity.

The correlation of creation and providence, therefore, is directly relevant to the development of the NGK’s doctrine of a separative, social theology (HRLS) and to the differing understanding of social theology in C&S.

Creation Law on Par with Moral Law

Lastly, to the doctrine of creation and providence, Scripture adds an important corollary. The law-word of God’s creative fiat and of his providential action is always placed on par with the law-word of his norms for individual and socio-cultural life of the peoples of earth. God’s word in creation, his word in Scripture, and his Word in Christ, are one Word.

The interpretive priority, however, goes to the written Word as the final bar of appeal in all matters of a comprehensive, all-encompassing faith, life and practice. The word of creation never contradicts sound exegesis of the written Word.

Wolters notes that nearly all human worldviews in history, except the modern western perspective, "are united in their belief in a divine world order that lays down the law for both the natural and the human realms." At the same time, however, "biblical religion is unique in proclaiming a God who is not himself subject to, but as Creator has posited, the world order." One result of this Creator-creature distinction is complete unity between the book of nature and Scripture: "The Bible . . . mentions the ordinances for nature and mankind in one breadth" (Wolters 1985, 16). Several passages state this (see e.g., Ps 147:15-20; Ro 1-3). In the Psalms and Prophets, the commands of providence ordering the weather patterns of winter, and the law-word of the Mosaic legislation all are of one fabric. All "belong to his universal law for all creation" (Wolters, 1984, 17; see Ps(s) 33:4-11; 19:1ff)

The Possible Existence and Normativity

of Creation Ordinances

Of the various perspectives creation ordinances, Barth’s and Kuyper’s have been the most important in the South African context. Both are inadequate. The philosophy of C.A. Van Til, with some modifications and clarifications, is the most helpful in finding a Scriptural solution to the problems of discerning truth from the creation (contra G. Clark [Van Til 1967]).

The Fathers designed the Apostolic Creed to combat a dualist, anti-creational worldview. It constructed in three articles around the work of the Father (creation), the Son (his humanity and our historical redemption), and the Spirit (the formation of the church and its bodily resurrection). All three articles are still necessary to combat similar worldviews.

Indeed, that creed is still relevant today. Contemporary rejection of the First Article doctrine of creation has "Karl Barth as its spiritual father: all others are secondary and have grown up in his shadow" (Wingren 1971, 20). Basically Barth’s position was that the orders of creation have always been fallen. Hence they cannot be know at all. The only divine order known by man is the new-creation order found only in the gospel as existentially encountered in the preached kerygma.

Dualistic, dialectical theology hence adamantly opposes creation orders based on the First Article of the Creed. This includes the Southern African followers of Barth and his disciple, D. Bonhoeffer in and outside of the NGK who reject the theology of Kuyper in which they find similarities to the Creation Orders concept (see Durand 1985; 1988; De Gruchy 1984).

Gustav Wingren explains Barth’s position as an approach of political reaction (Wingren 1979). Barth, a radical socialist (see Hunsinger 1976; McCormack 1995), reacted theologically to a competing socialist ideology, an idolatrous nationalistic socialism built upon Blut und Bodem.

Jürgen Moltmann follows Barth in rejecting the doctrine of the Creation Orders because it reflects a closed future. Wingren points out that his criticism was based on the fact that First Article doctrine have too often been used "as support for reactionary political ideas" in Latin America and as "a legitimation of tyranny" in Nazi Germany (Wingren 1979, 27).

Of course there is some truth to the accusation that the dogma of Creation Ordinances is inherently conservative and reactionary. Latin American Thomists; Kuyperian theologians in South Africa; and "German Christians" who supported Hitler buttressed their unjust systems using unbalanced First Article based theories (see critique in Dooyeweerd 1979, Van Til 1972). This is true even though there are many dissimilarities between these schools of thought, and realizing it is grossly unjust to lump Thomistic activists and HRLS supporting NGK theologian’s with Hitler-supporting German Christians.

Note the haunting similarities between NGK and "German Christian" justifications of ethno-racial preservation based on the First Article of the Creed.

Therefore, after World War II, "anyone who spoke . . . of Schöpfung was viewed as a defender of Hitler" (Wingren 1979, 67). Post-War dialectical theology felt "something intrinsically repulsive in the word Schöpfung or ‘Creation’" (Wingren 1979, 66). similarly, many in South Africa react to creation based doctrines of volk and ethnicity as irrecoverably tainted with apartheid’s oppressions (Moodie 1975; Ntoane 1983; Mzimela 1983; Durand 1984; Botha 1984; Loubser 1987; Boesak 1989).

This reaction is not necessary. As Wingren points out (Wingren 1979), there is more than sufficient material in the canon to reject the deification of one’s own volk without rejecting the explicit statements that God created the peoples.

For example, Moses reminded the Jews to have compassion on the foreigner and to treat them with the same legal standard as themselves. The prophets and Psalmists reminded them continually that he is the reigning King of the nations. Jonah reminded them of his compassion even for the cruel Assyrians. Amos rejected any notion of Israel being special because Yahweh led them out of Egypt. Indeed he brought the Philistines from Caphtor [Crete] and the Arameans from Kir (Am 9:7). Isaiah foresees that one day Egypt and Assyria will be called by endearing covenant names just like Israel (Isa 19:24).

Dialectical theologies, who reacted to unbalanced First Article dogmas, developed after a century long process of "peeling off of one layer after another [of the Reformation heritage]: Creation faith, the ‘civil’ use of the Law" and so forth (Wingren 1979, 71). The peeling process had begun "as early as the Revivalistic movements of the nineteenth century. (It was already, at that time, observable socially as a conscious retreat from cultural life)" (Wingren 1979, 71).

This peeling off process had left a massive cultural void because it rejected the foundation for the worldview which had developed a Christianized civilization in Europe for centuries. The principles for the transformation of European culture had come from an emphasis upon First Article doctrines such as predestination, providence, creation, law, and design.

Dialectical theologians sought to fill this doctrinal void with "general cultural phenomena that appeared radical, modern, progressive, and ‘worldly.’" In the absence of a creation-and-law-determined framework to develop a Christian philosophy of life, they baptized humanist ideologies to fill the gap. These ideologies could describe the world surrounding the church without resort to any First Article theology.

Dialectical theologians’ answer was a Second Article based "theology qua theology [which] says nothing more about these surroundings than that which it derives from the Gospel" (Wingren 1979, 73-74). Like the "Revivalists’ flight from culture in the nineteenth century," these theologians became acutely "suspicious of man’s own cultural possibilities" (Wingren 1979, 71).

Barth, Bultmann and most of their followers were "Christological theologians in the [reductionist] tradition of Revivalism, not in the tradition of the Reformation" (Wingren 1979, 71). Both revivalism in its reaction to the Enlightenment with its over-optimistic, "Creation faith devoid of eschatology and any realistic view of destruction" and dialecticism in its reaction to over-optimistic Ritschlian liberalism reduced the faith to the Second Article of the creed. In a pendulum reaction, dialecticism swung against liberal theology "with its openness to the entire cultural world." Liberalism was itself a pendulum swing attempting to correct "the narrowness of Revivalism" (Wingren 1979, 71).

Any movement which dialectically opposes revelation to the reasonable perceptions of creation, in other words opposing head to heart, "must, in the long run, necessarily place the church in the center of the whole system." With personal salvation and Second Article themes "as its only base," Anabaptists, Revivalism, and most Free Church groups over-focused upon the church as "pious groups of truly converted persons. . . . " (Wingren 1979, 73). Dialectical Theology possessed a similar dualism and since the 1920’s, it also has adopted an similar ecclesiocentric approach to Christianity. Dialectical theology in the person of Barth said No! to the First Article of the creed (see Brunner and Barth 1946) which is the sole biblical basis for describing and then transforming the world outside the church as institute.

Dooyeweerd explains this reaction process. First, "dialectical theologians . . . have not escaped from the non-scriptural ground motive of nature and grace" even though "their view of `natural life’ is not Greek but more in line with humanism." "They identify `nature’ with `sin’." Thus there is no single contact point between sinful nature and the faith as a gift of the wholly other God (Dooyeweerd 1979, 92). Like medieval Romanism which places nature below a "supranatural sphere of grace . . . centred in the institutional church," so does dialecticism. In Roman Catholicism, "only papal authority could preserve the artificial synthesis between these inherently antagonistic ground motives" (Dooyeweerd 1979, 92).

Though Dooyeweerd does not expressly state it, this must also be true of dialecticism. It must give virtual papal authority to synodical decisions to hold together its nature-Word dialectic. This is especially true in the area of ordination (e.g., woman and homosexuals). The church in its proclamation of the kerygma is the sole mediator of the sovereign Gospel-Word of the Totally Other to the world. There is no other Word, accessible to all, except the kerygma decided upon by the Church. In emphasizing Christ himself as the only revelation of God, dialecticism produced "one-sided concentration on the Church" as the only place where the Word of the Living Christ was prophetically proclaimed and lived out (see Wingren 1979, 109).

This ecclesiocentricism is a virtual retrogression to the Medieval priority of the church, as the sphere of grace, over nature, the sphere of the world. In no other period of time since then "has the concept of the church occupied such a dominant position in theological work as in the period after 1930." Perhaps this can be explained in part by the growth of the ecumenical movement, Wingren explains, but the chief ground "for the prominence of ecclesiology is to be found somewhere else, namely in the isolation of the Second Article of Faith. (Wingren 1979, 72-73).

The Apostolic Creed (see Wingren 1959) clearly taught that a true revelation of God was not only or merely found in the person of the Christ of faith, that is in the Gospel alone. The Fathers designed the Creed to combat the heresy of Gnosticism. This is still very relevant today.

Twentieth century dialectical theology "assumes that within a limited and enclosed segment of history [in the person of Christ] a knowledge of God has been given. All around that fragment there is emptiness – the absence of all knowledge of God" (Wingren 1981, 31). In other words, there is no ordering, structural design found in the Creation to which all men are responsible. Following the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, dialectical theology "nihilistically empties common human occurrences of all divine activity, and then confines God’s revelatory contribution solely to Christ" (Wingren 1979, 76).

The Barthian position was thus based "on an isolated Second Article," that of Christology (Wingren 1979, 76). However, when the processes of human history "are emptied of divine deeds and God’s act of revelation is located at a single point, that is in Jesus, then, in principle, the same interpretation of life as that of the second century Gnostics is accepted" (Wingren 1979, 79).

There is thus a parallel between the theology of Marcion, a chief Gnostic opponent of orthodoxy in the second century, and modern dialectical theology. Marcionism can be capsulized by the following presupposition: "‘God has revealed himself in Christ and nowhere else.’" (Wingren 1981, 31). Dialectical theology is thus a rejuvenated Marcionism: "It was against this view of life that the Apostles' Creed with its three parts was constructed" (Wingren 1981, 31, emphasis in original).

A theology which denies the historicity of the creation and the continuity of the covenant of grace with its embedded Decalogue is similar in some ways to Gnosticism. "That the church fathers viewed this theology as a greater threat to faith than atheism, testifies to their good judgment" (Wingren 1981, 31).

Dialectical theology, like the Radical Reformation, revivalists, and various dispensationalists, speak about the Word of the Gospel as something "specific to the New Testament and to the Second Article of Faith, the content of which is given through Christ" (Wingren 1979, 74). In other words, the Gospel has little if anything to do with First Article themes such as the law or the one covenant of grace. In doing so, Second Article reductionists reject the full-orbed, social transformational theology of the Calvinist Reformation. This applied to society such First Article themes as (1) the use of the sword by the civil magistrate to enforce the whole Decalogue, (2) engagement with and transformation of all of culture, and so forth (see Verduin 1964, Balke 1981, Good 1986, Eller 1987, Williams 1992).

Therefore, reducing the Message of Scripture to an exclusive Christological, Gospel focus, means that the Law is not "active in the world before and independently of the preaching of the Gospel" [e.g., Ps 19; Ro 1:18-31, 2:12-16]. It is only the Gospel itself, "out of whose preaching the church arises", which is the sole fountain of blessing "the church makes in the world." Those with a Second Article faith are thus compelled to think through "Gospelized" social analysis, that is the "social principles of ‘evaluation’ [i.e., law] are that lie enclosed in the Gospel" (Wingren 1979, 75).

As a consequence, for Barthians and most of dialectical theology the law is no longer spoken of as being already active in the world in conscience and created design. The law’s location is shifted to the sole sphere of the church, the group who have consented to God’s revelation in Christ. From this Gospel-society alone, the law comes into society. Barthians thus are consistent:

Second Article reductionists left a vacuum in Western culture to be filled with Enlightenment based, humanist ideologies such as Secular Humanism, Social Democracy, and Christo-Marxism. All these groups tended to reduce the Gospel to Christology and hence they reduced Christianity to the institutional church. The church’s gnosticized doctrine and gospelized structure, without the creational law, then became the picture or model for how the world should be structured. Wingren’s observation is very important to understand the social ethics of C&S.

Barth’s Christological focus leading to ecclesiocentricism, therefore, seems to be a moderate form of Gnosticism. How this came about can be summed up concisely. Nineteenth Century liberalism reduced the Creed to First Article faith emphasizing reason to change culture. Next Kant removed "God-talk" from the created phenomenal world of passive raw matter, existing only by chance, waiting to become "something when we humans form" order out of primal "Chaos" (Wingren 1979, 78).

Barth tried to fill this chaotic void with the dogma that God only makes himself known in the existential encounter with Christ in the proclaimed Word, the Christ-event, no-where else. This kerygma, bringing meaning and truth, is only encountered in the Church built on that proclaimed Word.

Dialectical theology’s return to ecclesiocentricism takes the Word from God’s People in the world and returns it to the specialists of the proclaimed Word, the clergy and synods. Barthian dualism thus helps create a synodicracy analogous to the ecclesiastical oligarchy of the Medieval period.

Toward a Biblical Alternative to Creation Ordinances

Many theologians such as Gustav Wingren in the Swedish Lutheran tradition, American Reconstructionists, C. A. Van Til and those of the Amsterdam school of Christian philosophy (e.g., Kuyper, Bavinck, Dooyeweerd, and Vollenhoven) have urged that the Church not reject a proper use of the First Article because of misuse (abusus non tollit usam).

Wholistic First Article doctrine balanced with Second and Third Article insights, do not have to be reactionary and quietistic in the face of oppressive social structures. In Calvin, the Puritan divines, some writings of Luther, and others, the doctrine of "creation and a ‘protological’ approach" that speaks of the restoration of a matured creational design, were powerful spurs to "pervasive social restructuring" (Schuurman 1995, 150-151).

Braaten and Verkuyl agree with South Africans who rightly reject a "German neo-Fichtean romantic nationalism" (Bosch 1984, 29; original emphasis) as the background to the concept of volk which controlled much NGK thinking from the thirties to the mid-seventies (Moodie 1975; Bosch 1984; Morphew 1989). In so doing, however, both wrongly equate Barthian distrust of idolatrous, unchanging creation Ordnungen (e.g., Volk) with a biblical doctrine of creational design-norms (e.g., ethno-covenantal solidarity).

These dialectical, anti-Ordnung theologians claim that the ethno-linguistic, social group "phenomenon" is merely an observable "fact" and not a "divinely sustained ‘ordo creationis’" possessing "decisive, constant, permanent, or absolute" existence and normative meaning (Verkuyl 1973, 27). Thus "every dogma of divinely willed racial differences is a heresy" and idolatry (Verkuyl 1973, 27).

These social phenomena are something which the eternal Kingdom totally overcomes in eternity and thus something which a proleptive kingdom orientation would seek to overcome today. "Group loyalty, national patriotism, ethnic pride and love of one’s own people" only have a "limited truth," one of "certain givens in our life" that are as "good as any others, simply because they are yours" (Braaten 1974, 136, emphasis in original).

Scripture, Braaten believes, teaches something different in the Abraham story. According to Braaten, Abraham was a "proto-missionary," who did not reject his native patriotism, but was "captured by a transcendent vision of promise." The result was that the patriarch was freed to live as a pilgrim "beyond his native identity toward an alien identity that constitutes his essential future." This put Abraham "in solidarity with all those who, though they are not part of his native beginning, may nevertheless be integral to his ultimate fulfillment." Abraham’s future vision possessed a "universal scope . . . not determined by an accident of birth. . . . [nor] national, cultural, and racial origin." This universality moved away from present oriented, parochial particularity into so that "transcendence and futurity and universality are part of his essential destiny as man" (Braaten 1974, 136).

The Abrahamic Covenant does indeed promises a future in which all the peoples of earth will celebrate Abraham as their adopted Father. However, Braaten and South Africans echoing similar themes, seem blind to a virtual Platonic-Gnostic rejection of the particularities of place, time, and lingual-cultural identity. Such specificity is swallowed up in de-particularized, platonic "forms" of transcendence and universality.

Bynum’s historical theological study of the doctrine of the resurrection from 200-1336, summarizes the reason why movements infected with a similar dualism (e.g., Christo-Platonic and Gnostic movements), hated and continue to hate specific human individual, bodily particularities. Their matter-spirit dialectic imputed goodness only to spirit as the possessor of Oneness or Unity. The Fathers saw the physical body as the bearer of particularity, which includes gender, race, and ethnicity. Thus to believe in the goodness of the resurrection of the body was to choose one’s individual particular identity for all eternity (see Bynum 1995). This led the dualist heresies to hate the particularities of the creation (and by extension, those of the incarnation and resurrection).

Movements infected with dualism (e.g., Thomism, revivalism, dialecticism), emphasize that some or all aspects of individual identity are lost into unity in the redemptive process. In practice, however there are varying degrees of consistency in pushing the logic of the dualistic ground motive in these movements.

It is no surprise then that much of dialectical-dualist theology emphasizes that no true follower of Christ can righteously impute to him/herself an eternally valid, hyphenated identity including both unique human particularities and the unities of Christ. For example a female-Christian or a Zulu-Christian should logically be a reactionary return to particularity and a denial of all believer’s oneness in Christ as a unifying spiritual reality. According to dualistic theories, a Christian’s former particular identity is logically lost completely and absolutely in the spirituality reality of the encounter with the Christ-event. In Christ, there should be no gender, class, or ethnicity, thus no Jew, Greek, Scythian, barbarian, Afrikaner or Xhosa. If all are one in Christ, there is "neither hetero- or homo-" as well, as R. Vessinga, the fraternal delegate from the GKN stated before the CRC Synod (1995), (Vessinga 1995).

Against the Protestant Gnostics (Lee 1987), exposes this hatred of particularity in dialectical theology. It tends to impute goodness to the sphere of spiritual unity and virtual-evil to that of particularity. Dualist theories are hostile to "divisive" boundaries between societal groups. The male-female and now that between homo- and hetero-sexual are the most consistently denied boundaries in Protestant ecumenical circles. Feminists, thus, reject "any distinction between sexes in terms of emotional outlook, responsibility, even natural necessity . . . [as being] reactionary and enslaving" (Lee 1987, 213). This is echoed by Gay and anti-ethnic theologies. There is thus something of the "old gnostic heresy in our culture" when it moves towards the "myth of the spherical man, uni-sex in the original state" such as is found in the Gospel of Thomas (Braaten 1974, 166; Jones 1992).

Thus gnosticized Christians believe that when group diversities are transcended, "when the individual has crossed all boundaries and the complete person has been recognized as the true and only unit of life," then life is "tolerable." Therefore, "so long as there are differences–whether male-female, old-young, sick-well, black-white – the gnostic mentality judges the creation as deficient and unacceptable" (Lee 1987, 213).

Modern antipathy to geographic roots is another particularity, Lee states, often rejected by gnosticized theology because in "gnostic philosophy . . . place does not matter." To "need" such geographic roots "would be a definite sign of weakness." Thus "Appalachian folk, blacks, Southerners and even New Yorkers have been criticized for the desire to maintain their own recognizably different cultures" (Lee 1987, 214-215).

The implications are self-evident for multi-ethnic countries such as South Africa, Canada, and Russia. Theologies rejecting ethnic, geographic, gender, or even social class distinctions in the spheres of church or state are infected with Gnostic assumptions. "Without a doubt, an unmistakable Gnostic tendency asserted itself in dialectical theology" (Dooyeweerd 1979, 146).