Debates over ethical questions abound in the church, particularly around the question of how we should engage in cultural activity in this present age. We can debate specific verses until the cows come home, but unless we recognize the fundamental role of Biblical Theology, we will never get anywhere. In this episode, I illustrate the usefulness of Biblical Theology for the debate between contemporary North American Neo-Calvinism and the Klinean Two Kingdoms paradigm of cultural engagement.
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I mentioned some of the crucial Biblical Theological distinctions made by Kline. Here are the quotes with more context:
On the refracted cultural mandate:
“Common grace culture is not itself the particular holy kingdom-temple culture that was mandated under the creational covenant. Although certain functional and institutional provisions of the original cultural mandate are resumed in the common grace order, these now have such a different orientation, particularly as to objectives, that one cannot simply and strictly say that it is the cultural mandate that is being implemented in the process of common grace culture. It might be closer to the truth to say that the cultural mandate of the original covenant in Eden is being carried out in the program of salvation, since the ultimate objective of that mandate, the holy kingdom-temple, will be the consummate achievement of Christ under the Covenant of Grace .... As brought over into the postlapsarian world, the cultural mandate undergoes such refraction that it cannot be identified in a simple, unqualified way with either the holy or common enterprises. Nevertheless, when dealing with postlapsarian functions and institutions, both common and holy-redemptive, it is important to recognize their creational rootage and the kind of continuities that do obtain between them and the terms of the original cultural mandate” (Kline, Kingdom Prologue [KP], 156-57).
On structural dualism after the Fall:
“We are in agreement with the neo-Dooyeweerdians when they account for the religious antithesis evident in the life of the city by treating it not in terms of the structural nature of the city but as belonging to the direction of the response given to the city-mandate in the fallen situation. By relating the religious antithesis to the directional aspect and not to the structural aspect, the institutional legitimacy of the city can be properly affirmed. Unfortunately, however, in a philosophical zeal for an abstract structural monism apparently, the neo-Dooyeweerdians commit themselves to a view of historical reality within which the Creator himself would not be allowed to respond to the Fall with appropriate modifications of the institutional structuring of the original creation. Specifically, he would not be free to introduce a structural dualism in which there coexisted legitimately both holy kingdom institution and non-holy institution. Or, stated in other terms, the cosmonomic philosophy does not seem able to do justice to the impact of historical-eschatological developments on the created world-order” (KP 170).
On subjective sanctification of culture:
“We have considered the priestly mission of sanctifying culture as it comes to expression in the building of the holy people-house of God, but what would it entail with respect to the common city of man? Positively, it must be recognized that the whole life of God’s people is covered by the liturgical model of their priestly identity. All that they do is done as a service rendered unto God. All their cultural activity in the sphere of the city of man they are to dedicate to the glory of God. This sanctification of culture is subjective; it transpires within the spirit of the saints. Negatively, it must be insisted that this subjective sanctification of culture does not result in a change from common to holy status in culture objectively considered. The common city of man does not in any fashion or to any degree become the holy kingdom of God through the participation of the culture-sanctifying saints in its development. Viewed in terms of its products, effects, institutional context, etc., the cultural activity of God’s people is common grace activity. Their city of man activity is not ‘kingdom (of God)’ activity. Though it is an expression of the reign of God in their lives, it is not a building of the kingdom of God as institution or realm. For the common city of man is not the holy kingdom realm, nor does it ever become the holy city of God, whether gradually or suddenly. Rather, it must be removed in judgment to make way for the heavenly city as a new creation” (KP 201).