That's nothing new. But I'm saying with the authority of God's written Word, Psalm 19, that no follower of Jesus Christ need be uneasy about whether study of biology, psychology or aesthetics is full-time kingdom service for the Lord. According to Psalm 19 creation is a revelation of God's will; so if you are humbly studying plant creation, emotional or artistic creatureliness, and are busy trying to discern the will of God there to foster obedience and the blessing it brings, what more can one ask for a kingdom mission and full-time christian service? Of course, if your biological theory is Lamarckian or Teilhard de Chardinian and your psychology is soft-Skinnerian or Jungian, and your aesthetics is Crocean or a mixture of Hume and Dewey, you should be very uneasy as a Christian, because your study is supposed to be christian! (intrinsically doxological) scientific analysis. Otherwise you perjure: the plants, the emotional and artistic reality whose tongue-talk God finds good and wants translated into a true, praiseworthy interpretation.
We must not succumb to the temptation to use the Bible as an answer sheet to check out our biological taxonomy, as a chart of personality types, or like a Ouija board to determine "what now is art and music?” That would be a cheap misuse of the Bible and express an illegitimate, Immature desire for a ready-made, instant christian culture that shoves off on god what he entrusts us to do historically, generations mindful of the generations still to come. What we need is a richer grasp of creation in our christian philosophy and evangelical theology, and a new, urgent sense of doing scholarship as a community of saints, so that we can live with the spill-over of Christ's promise in John 14-17 that the Holy Spirit will indeed lead us who are faithful to the end in the way of Truth (of. especially 16:12-15).
Calvin Seerveld Rainbows for the Fallen World ch 1.
1 comment:
So true.
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