Foundations of a Concrete Worldview
Series 6: Part 1
When I began this substack, I made something clear upfront:
My plan is to post “nothing new”.
Today I hope to begin a series that takes aim at both targets of my original post.
I fully intend to contribute nothing new :) and also to begin a series that focuses squarely on what it means to be Reformed, orthodox, and modern. I hope to build up from the basics of a Reformed worldview.
Toward a Concrete Reformed Worldview
Our Dutch Reformed heritage has long been comfortable with the term “worldview” or “world-and-life view”. This framework guides and shapes how we think about and interact with the world around us. More than that, worldviews are deeply religious. Our thoughts and behaviors are directly influenced by the answers we believe about life’s biggest questions: What is God? What is man? Is there purpose and meaning to life? Etc.
There is hardly a more important task for a person than to recognize the worldview elements that they currently hold to and to test the explanatory power of their worldview (and alternative worldviews).
A competent worldview will be:
Holistic in Nature - An interpretation that illuminates all of reality.
Religious - Giving light to our ultimate commitments and presuppositions.
Unified - Worldviews should have a unity and coherence as it accounts for all aspects of existence.
As we remind ourselves of the foundations of a Reformed Christian Worldview, we will lay the basic building blocks out one at a time. There will almost-certainly be things that I overlook and/or take for granted. I apologize.
I really want to emphasize that this series is and will continue to be a “work in progress”. As I continue to add to this series, I may even go back into previously published entries and revise them as I see fit. Therefore, I encourage feedback.
Last Caveat:
One of my deep hopes with this series is to emphasize the harmony and consistency between 3 sources:
1. The 3 Forms of Unity
2. Herman Bavinck
3. Our Christian Reformed theological heritage
In order to do so, I will try to quote from these sources often. However, I might not always attribute these quotations as thoroughly as I should. My desire to simply put forth a positive, readable, straight-forward presentation of a Reformed worldview.
1. The Independent Triune God
A Christian worldview inevitably and understandably must begin with the existence of God.
1A. God is the only Being Who has life in Himself (John 5:26). He doesn’t need anything to sustain His existence. He is completely independent in being, nature, and existence.
“This independence of God is more or less recognized by all humans. Pagans, to be sure, degrade the divine by drawing it down to the level of the creature and teach a theogony; however, behind and above their gods they often again assume the existence of a power to which everything is subject in an absolute sense. Many of them speak of nature, chance, fate, or fortune as a power superior to all else; and philosophers tend to speak of God as the Absolute. In Christian theology this attribute of God was called his independence (αὐταρκεια), aseity, all-sufficiency, greatness.
“He is supreme (summum) in everything: supreme being (esse), supreme goodness (bonum), supreme truth (verum), supreme beauty (pulchrum). He is the perfect, highest, the most excellent being, “than whom nothing better can exist or be thought.” All being is contained in him. He is a boundless ocean of being.
(From Reformed Dogmatics Vol 2: God and Creation by Herman Bavinck)
1B. This God revealed Himself to us as Triune; one in essence, three in person.
Each person is distinct from the other, yet united in the divine essence.
That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,
neither blending their persons
nor dividing their essence.
For the person of the Father is a distinct person,
the person of the Son is another,
and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,
their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.
(Athanasian Creed)
This independent Trinity inter-dwells and communicates within Himself in perfect love and harmony.
2. The Triune God Created
2A. The Triune God, without “needing to”, imagined and created all things that exist, either by creating out of nothing (Isaiah 66:1-2) or by ordaining and guiding their creation through creational means.
“the Christian church unitedly held fast to the confession: “I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.” And by creation it meant that act of God through which, by his sovereign will, he brought the entire world out of nonbeing into a being that is distinct from his own being. And this is, in fact, the teaching of Holy Scripture.”
(from Reformed Dogmatics, Vol 2: God and Creation by Herman Bavinck)
Q. What do you believe when you say,
“I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth”?A. That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who out of nothing created heaven and earth
and everything in them,
who still upholds and rules them
by his eternal counsel and providence,
is my God and Father
because of Christ the Son.
(Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 26)
“God’s counsel in reference to the physical world is called “providence” and includes preservation and governance. That things exist and the way they exist, are grounded solely in God’s good pleasure.”
and
“The purpose and goal of creation is to be found solely in God’s will and glory. It is especially in the Reformed tradition that the honor and glory of God was made the fundamental principle of all doctrine and conduct. A doctrine of creation is one of the foundational building blocks of a biblical and Christian worldview. Creation is neither to be deified nor despoiled, but as the “theater of God’s glory” it is to be delighted in and used in a stewardly manner. It is God’s good creation.”
“Creation is the initial act and foundation of all divine revelation and therefore the foundation of all religious and ethical life as well.”
(From Reformed Dogmatics Vol 2: God and Creation by Herman Bavinck)
3. All Creation is Dependent
3A. All Creation is distinct from God as contingent, created things.
Every atom is its own distinct atom. Every person is their own distinct person.
Without the creating acts of God, there is nothing that would exist.
In addition, if the Triune God were to remove His upholding providence, all things would cease to exist.
“Now when God ascribes this aseity to himself in Scripture, he makes himself known as absolute being, as the one who is in an absolute sense. By this perfection he is at once essentially and absolutely distinct from all creatures. Creatures, after all, do not derive their existence from themselves but from others and so have nothing from themselves; both in their origin and hence in their further development and life, they are absolutely dependent.”
and
“From the very first moment, true religion distinguishes itself from all other religions by the fact that it construes the relation between God and the world, including man, as that between the Creator and his creature. The idea of an existence apart from and independent of God occurs nowhere in Scripture. God is the sole, unique, and absolute cause of all that exists. He has created all things by his word and Spirit (Gen. 1:2–3; Ps. 33:6; 104:29–30; 148:5; Job 26:13; 33:4; Isa. 40:13; 48:13; Zech. 12:1; John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2; etc.). There was no substance or principle of any kind to oppose him; no material to tie him down; no force to circumscribe his freedom. He speaks and things spring into being (Gen. 1:3; Ps. 33:9; Rom. 4:17). He is the unrestricted owner of heaven and earth (Gen. 14:19, 22; Ps. 24:1–2; 89:11; 95:4–5). There are no limits to his power; he does all he sees fit to do (Isa. 14:24, 27; 46:10; 55:10–11; Ps. 115:3; 135:6). “From him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36; 1 Cor. 8:6; Heb. 11:3). The world is the product of his will (Ps. 33:6; Rev. 4:11); it is the revelation of his perfections (Prov. 8:22f.; Job 28:23f.; Ps. 104:1; 136:5f.; Jer. 10:12) and finds its goal in his glory (Isa. 43:16ff.; Prov. 16:4; Rom. 11:36; 1 Cor. 8:6).”
(From Reformed Dogmatics Vol 2: God and Creation by Herman Bavinck)
3B. This great diversity all finds its unity, source, and historical place first in the mind of God and then in the single plan enacted by that omnipotent mind. (Isaiah 46:9-10, Eph. 1:4-6, 11, Romans 8:28)
“according to the Old Testament, it is already evident in the creation that all things owe their existence and preservation to a threefold cause. Elohim and the cosmos are not juxtaposed in dualistic fashion; on the contrary, the objective principle of the world created by God is his word, and its subjective principle is his spirit. The world was first conceived by God and thereupon came into being by his omnipotent speech; after receiving its existence, it does not exist apart from him or in opposition to him, but continues to rest in his spirit.”
and
“God’s counsel is both the “efficient” and “exemplary” cause of all that is. God’s counsel is also a single and simple decree, the world plan of a single “artistic” vision, though creatures can only see it unfolding in space and time as a multiplicity.”
(from Reformed Dogmatics Vol 2: God and Creation by Herman Bavinck)
For Scripture declares that there is a single good pleasure, purpose, and plan of God’s will, by which he chose us from eternity both to grace and to glory, both to salvation and to the way of salvation, which God prepared in advance for us to walk in.
(Canons of Dort, Article 8)
“He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven;
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.”
(Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 1)
4. Communicating Truth Analogously
4A. Everything we’ve described to this point is an analogous description.
While technically all descriptions are analogous,
the descriptions about God, His essence, His plan, and His actions
are even further removed from the reality they are describing.
We could never capture, in our human words or human thought, the mind or plan of God to the extent that He perfectly knows His own mind and plan.
“We, however, with reverent adoration of these secret things, cry out with the apostle: “Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways beyond tracing out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen” (Rom. 11:33-36).”
(Canons of Dort, 1, Article 18)
4B. But this does not make our human knowledge or human descriptions false or worthless. Instead, our analogous knowledge is exactly the kind of knowledge that God means for us to have and for which God has intentionally created us to have and use. God Himself uses this capacity for analogous knowledge when He reveals Himself to us, both through His creational (general) revelation and through his special revelation.
“all religions wish to be regarded as the fruit of revelation, not as an expression and form of a religious disposition. They derive their origin from God, not from a human. One may or may not regard this appeal to revelation as valid, but the fact itself comes across vigorously that it may not simply be disregarded as an illusion. It is indicative, rather, of the fact that the concept of revelation is inseparably bound up with religion. There is no religion without revelation. Scripture too derives subjective religion from revelation (Heb.1:1). It is, for that matter, perfectly natural that religion and revelation consistently go together and are most intimately connected. For if religion really contains a doctrine of God and of his service, it is self-evident that God alone has the right and ability to say who he is and how he wants to be served.”
and
“The essence and origin of religion cannot be explained by means of the historical and psychological method; its right to be and its value cannot be maintained with these means. It will not do to \[attempt to\] understand religion without God. God is the great supposition of religion. His existence and revelation are the foundation on which all human religion rests. Granted, it is considered unscientific, in attempting to explain any given phenomena, to go back to God; and indeed he may not be used as a last resort for our ignorance. Still it is a poor science that may not take account of God and seeks to explain all things aside from and without God. This is true in a double sense in the case of the scientific explanation of religion. For here God is the actual and immediate object. Aside from him religion is an absurdity. We have a choice only between two alternatives: either (1) religion is folly since God does not exist or is in any case strictly unknowable; or (2) it is truth but then demands and presupposes the existence and revelation of God in a rigorously logical and scientific sense. Those who cannot accept the former are compelled to assume the latter and to recognize God as the very principle of being, the essential foundation (principium essendi) of all religion.”
(from Reformed Dogmatics, Vol 1: Prolegomena by Herman Bavinck)
We’ll be building upon this essential foundation in the coming weeks.
Thanks for sticking with us here at Reformed Every Day!