Our favorite Byzantine-rite Calvinist (how many fish can there be in that pond?), David Koyzis, has written another post (July 28) critical of the two-kingdom/spirituality of the church views advocated here. In the piece he brings up the common retort of neo-Calvinists that all other so-called Christian outlooks are guilty of affirming neutrality if they don’t follow a Reformed world-and-life-view. In this case, our debate has concerned the contemporary academy and remedies for the secularism that afflicts it. (Actually, banality may be the bigger problem of the modern university, except of course during March Madness.)
Leaving aside finding solutions to what afflicts contemporary academic life, the neo-Calvinist pattern of falling back on charging non-neo-Calvinists with neutrality is getting old (and worse than being called Lutheran) and fails to see how much neo-Calvinism actually resembles fundamentalism at a deeper level.
The fundamentalism on which I cut my soul was constantly splitting the world in two, between the sacred and the profane, as if some shared existence was not possible for believers and non-believers inhabiting the same neighborhood, working in the same office, pledging allegiance to the same flag. Kuyperians may have a more sophisticated version of the fundamentalist mindset – think of all that epistemology and post-Kantian idealism – but the position still strikes me as one that fails to recognize the common arenas of the created order such as the state, marriage, and education. Do Christians and non-Christians pursue these matters differently? From an ultimate perspective, yes. The former strive to engage in these activities to the glory of God, the latter do not. (But let’s remember the filthy rags that afflict even the pursuit of God’s glory.) From a penultimate perspective, it’s hard to see how a history prof teaching the survey of the United States at Cow College U. is doing the job any worse than the prof at Consistently Calvinist College. The standards for that evaluation are not Scripture or the creeds; they are set by the American Historical Association and the leading graduate departments of history.
It is also hard to see how neo-Calvinists make any sense of the Westminster Standards’ teaching on the Lord’s Day, as in the distinction between sacred duties of worship and rest, profaning the Lord’s Day by doing that which is explicitly sinful, or even breaking the fourth commandment by doing common work on the Sabbath that is actually lawful on other days. In other words, the Standards assume that three categories of moral evaluatoin – the sacred, profane, and the common, and these spheres actually shift depending on whether the day is holy or ordinary (as in common).
So someone like myself who affirms the common is not asserting neutrality. God is Lord over all things. But that Lordship is not always redemptive. Sometimes it is merely creational or providential. As I like to say, Christ was Lord in Iraq even before U.S. forces invaded.
This distinction is also important for two-kingdom folks who worry about neo-Calvinism invariably turning theologically liberal. Koyzis objects to my apparent fallacy of saying neo-Calvinism is flawed because it has so often resulted in churches more concerned about working out a Reformed view of math or television than communions that hold on to the Cannons of Dort. He may have a point regarding the logic of my historical observation. At the same time, I wonder if neo-Calvinists have the capacity to observe that their project has not worked out well in either the Old World or the New one and that adjustments may need to be made.
But aside from the merits of historical trends, the distinctions among the holy, common, and profane are actually important for the way neo-Calvinism has played out in theologically suspect results. By trying to redeem the culture, or the state, or the house, neo-Calvinists feel good about denying the sacred-secular distinction, thus asserting Christ’s Lordship over every single cubit millimeter. Yet, I have not seen a neo-Calvinist recognize that one of the chief features of Protestant modernism was a similar denial of the sacred-secular distinction in order to Christianize everything, to affirm God’s rule over all areas of life, not just in the religious or holy ones. Again, fundamentalism is the flipside of this impulse, and differs by refusing that the culture or the state can be Christianized (of course the home is sacred, family values and all that). By failing to acknowledge that part of existence is good even apart from redemption because it is created, neo-Calvinists want to redeem things that do not need to be saved. And it is this expansive view of salvation – because of the missing category of the common or created – that leads to liberal theology.
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Darryl, you mentioned my computer set for redemption, something you’d attribute to neo-calvs. So I read your statements life the Bible, i.e., even though ‘trinity’ isn’t in the bible we can find references to it, and even though ‘neo-calv’ wasn’t in your last post I find reference to it. Anyway, I saw the term ‘fundie’ pop up a lot in your Machen bio and your Deconstructing Evangelicalism. Guess we both got the language down.
I am aware that when people are caught being inconsistent they frequently claim that they don’t mind being inconsistent, but so what. We both know that’s a crock because for some reason they keep looking both ways when crossing the street; or, when you apply some other self-referential incoherency to them, showing them that they are inconsistent, they will continue to say that they don’t care, which means they’re acting pretty consistent.
I have no clue what you mean by saying “I seem to care more about the way we know and the way our knowledge hangs together is more important than other kinds of knowledge.” You’re fixated on finding what other people find important, even if you need to force it to fit. I also never said anything about my epistemology, or anything, really, for you to keep drawing these sloppy claims from.
My comments about the Christian physicalist and the libertarian action theorists apply to you. It’s meant to apply to the pastors and teachers you’re churning out. Anyway, yes a Christian can persevere by the work of the Spirit, and they all do. But of course the Spirit uses means. And of course, just because you can’t answer the questions but nevertheless find bliss in ignorance or ignoring doesn’t mean that it’s going to go that way all the time. Some people actually take defeaters to their knowledge claims seriously. Both laity and specialist (though unfortunately the laity are catching up and in many cases surpasing the specialists given the access we have to top quality work). Arguments are not sufficient to cause people to repent, that’s the work of God. But you are confusing causes of belief with reasons for belief (a mistake G. Clark made all the time). Arguments have many different functions. They can work to strengthen a doubting believer, or the Spirit may use them to bring people to repentence. They can serve as defeater-defeaters too. Not only that, they are sufficient to convince some people. Being convinced that Christianity is true is not the same as bending the knee. I convinced my brother by argument. He says he believes that Christianity is true. But he says he just doesn’t want to go to church, read a Bible, or have any “change of mind and living.” Stinks when your assertions crash on the rocks of empirical evidence to the contrary, doesn’t it?
Oh, BTW, G. Clark was all about arguments meaning squat. Van Til, on the other hand, bought that second cup of coffee. Clark was all about finding presuppositions and then sticking fingers in ears because, after all, we all have presuppositions. Clark never tried to prove Christianity and said it couldn’t be done since you can’t prove axioms. So much for the power of history in being able to relativize and synthesize worldviews. That would, at least, require studying the names you’re going to drop. I know it’s not glory-story enough, but I opt for the baseness of God’s use of means. Yeah, sometimes he brings in one of his elect through the means of hard work of years of toil a believer might give dealing with someone’s questions about Christianity. It’s boring and not the Damascus road, but it’s how God has chosen to work in many cases.
Okay, Paul M.(nudge, nudge, wink, wink), since you don’t think a worldview is important, no reason to keep this exchange about how we perceive (know? knowledge? epistemology) the world going.
Darryl, did I say that I “don’t think worldview is important?” You have a habit of claiming that I am saying that one thing is more important than another. When I point out that I never said that, you then claim that I don’t think that thing “is important.” Surely you can see the leap in logic? We’ve come full circle. See how much learning critical thinking would have helped. Surely you could have took time away from memorizing catechisms and used it to memorize rules of inference? This kind of illogic is what we see in the laity and hear, unforunately, from the pulpit all the time, unfortunately. Hey, who cares if the pastor is making illogical inferences and invalid arguments, not to mention violating all manner of informal fallacy, right? I mean, he memorized the Confession.
Might as well end on a good note. In general I agree with most of what you write and what you’re doing, I own most of your books and have profited from them. I am no longer a theonomist or a “culture warrior” who equates good theology with belonging to the Republican party–though I am a conservative, mainly because of the logic of the position and the common arguments for it. However, I don’t have a problem arguing for all of the beliefs I hold, especially if I’ve been given a defeater for them. So, thanks. Padres and Chargers rule.
I am wondering, what about Science? Should Christians follow the perceived consensus on the origins of the universe and man, or should they insert their interpretations of Scripture into Science? Should we in our secular callings, particularly those who are scientists, engage in science without letting our interpretation of the creation accounts or anything else modify our views? I agree with what Michael Horton said once, sometimes the theologians get it right, and sometimes the scientist get it right.
I’m a bit off topic, but the issues raised in this blog just made me think of this.
Thanks for the link. I’ll do some reading.
Hard to see how a secular history prof will teach differently? You have to be joking. The secular curriculum will barely, if at all, mention Witherspoon, Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos, or the views of Stonewall Jackson.
And even where things are covered, the difference in attitude can be vast. Aquinas is primitive and boring while the multiple universe hypothesis is interesting and worth discussing, for instance.
When you say, “The standards for that evaluation…are set by the American Historical Association and the leading graduate departments of history,” you can only mean the de facto standards. Do you really mean to suggest that we should simply follow the group? When the APA declares homosexuality to be healthy, for instance, do we just accept that as our norm for counseling? Is it not basic to Christian discipleship not to be conformed to the de facto (Rom 12:2), and to liberate our judgment (1 Cor 2:15)?
Tim, do you really think they’re teaching Witherspoon and Stonewall Jackson at Calvin College?
Not every decision or requirement a professional organization makes is good. But neither is the federal government’s or various state’s. So does legalized gambling in Pennsylvania invalidate Gov. Rendell? Does unjust war invalidate the U.S.A.? Are you a pefectionist — authority is only valid when it conforms absolutely and at all times to God’s law.
Where exactly did you study theology?
Hardly a substantive point, but I’m amazed at your collaborative revision of the canonical spelling of the word “canon.”
oops.
Hiya!. Thanks for the blog. I’ve been digging around looking some info up for shool, but there is so much out there. Google lead me here – good for you i guess! Keep up the good work. I will be coming back in a couple of days to see if there is any more info.
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[...] Common is Not Neutral and Secular is Not Dirty Posted on August 14, 2009 by R. Scott Clark So says Darryl at Old Life. [...]
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