This essay written by Matthew Tuininga is the third in a series seeking to explain the heart of the new movement known as “natural law and two kingdoms” (NL2K, R2K, or simply 2K). It remains to be seen, however, whether his numerous qualifications designed to safeguard his position and to effect rapprochement with worldview Calvinism will offer genuine clarity or generate more confusion.
After describing ways in which the Christian witness to Christ’s lordship will affect our vocations, communities, and presumably our culture, Tuininga summarizes his point this way: “About all of these cultural affairs, in which believers engage in common with unbelievers, Scripture has much to say.”
In light of that summary statement, then, read carefully the following paragraph:
This point, of course, clashes with the rhetoric of some two kingdoms advocates who want to emphasize how little Scripture says about political or cultural engagement. And to be sure, there is distinct danger at both extremes here. On the one extreme are those Christians who find the need to seek explicit Scriptural justification for every little thing that they do, an approach that creates the enormous temptation to read into Scripture things that simply aren’t there, or to apply passages in ways they were never meant to be applied. But it is just as problematic to overreact to that mistake by pretending that Scripture has nothing to say about Christians’ vocations, social life, or political engagement, or by requiring pastors to refrain from teaching what Scripture clearly teaches (italics added).
I draw your attention to the italicized phrases, and offer the following observations.
1. It is clear that the author seeks to be even-handed in criticizing the extremes of the positions in question, almost to a fault. However, I have yet to meet any Christian participating in this debate who “find[s] the need to seek explicit Scriptural justification for every little thing that they do.” This statement constructs a straw man, and has the regrettable effect of diminishing the force of his correct observation that some users of Scripture misapply passages of Scripture.
2. The author appears to present a forceful repudiation of the position that tends to reduce what both Scripture and pulpit teach regarding the Christian’s cultural engagement. I hasten to remind readers, however, that we’re not out of the woods just yet. For by adding to the last sentence the phrase, “what Scripture clearly teaches,” the author has simply carved out for himself a refuge, an oasis, a safe place—since the debate currently raging involves precisely the scope of what Scripture clearly teaches about political or cultural engagement. As the author notes, some NL2K advocates insist that Scripture’s explicit teaching about these matters consists of very little. Others of us insist that in various ways (guide, guard, compass, and example) all of Scripture furnishes the child of God for every good work—including cultural obedience (2 Tim. 3.16-17; Ps. 119.105).
3. By the end of the paragraph, then, it is not at all clear that the author’s point “clashes with the rhetoric” of the extreme NL2K advocates he has tried to identify! In fact, his final sentence seems to echo rather clearly exactly what these advocates have been telling us on this blog.
This is why the author’s next paragraph is essential reading:
Far better is to determine (and preach!) the principles revealed in Scripture, some of which I have outlined above, while maintaining humility consistent with our call to be servants (and therefore refraining from preaching) about the way in which those principles might apply to concrete circumstances, organizations, or policies. All of the major Reformed confessions contain rigorous affirmations of general revelation or natural law, in part relying on the broad Christian consensus about the meaning of Romans 2:14-15. And while Christians should never seek to interpret natural law without using the lens of Scripture, they should also be careful not to confuse the lens with what we see through that lens. It is one thing to humbly seek to articulate a worldview based on Scripture. It is another thing arrogantly to assume that the worldview we have articulated is the teaching of Scripture itself. Most of what we know about mathematics, science, or history is not derived from Scripture, although Scripture shapes how we interpret it. We should expect the same when it comes to our understanding of culture, economics, or politics (italics and bold added).
Again, several observations.
1. Finally, someone has “picked up” on the difference between preaching and applying the Scriptures directly to our current culture, and preaching and applying the principles of Scripture to our current culture. This difference is crucial and essential to this part of the debate. Thank you!
2. It is not very clear, however, what is meant by “refraining from preaching about the way in which those principles might apply to concrete circumstances, organizations, or policies.” Does this mean that the church should never preach about the concrete application of those biblical principles? That claim requires far more nuance to be helpful.
Consider this example. In 1936, as German tanks were rumbling across Europe, the synod of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands declared that membership in the National Socialist Movement or in the Pacifist Movement was incompatible with membership in Christ’s church. From what this author has written, it would appear that such a decision, and preaching consistent with it, would be illegitimate. Similar examples could be cited, examples of the church speaking concretely to specific circumstances, organizations, and policies.
This very matter is becoming a pressing issue, in view of the current political restrictions of religious liberty in connection with nationalized health care.
All of which is to say: this qualification doesn’t supply the needed clarity.
3. We come next to the author’s comments on general revelation and natural law.
3.1 Surprisingly, the author identifies and equates these two, when he insists that the Reformed confessions rigorously affirm “general revelation or natural law.” This imprecision is unhelpful because it renders the issue unclear. For in identifying these two, what is being overlooked is that “natural law” is somebody’s formulation of the moral requirements embedded in creation. To follow the author’s own advice (this is tongue in cheek), we really should not identify the product of human reflection (natural law) with the object of that reflection (general revelation).
3.2 Finally, attention is being given, in this debate, to the role of Scripture as the spectacles through which creation revelation is interpreted. Thank you!
3.3 Unfortunately, however, what is given with the right hand is then retracted with the left hand. This exhortation not to identify what is seen through the spectacles (worldview) with the spectacles themselves (Scripture) is, well . . . a nasty boomerang! This is the very argument that has been used to disconnect the church’s dogma from Scripture, in order to denigrate the authority of “human formulations” (can you say Confessions?). To illustrate the point, substitute the word “confession” for the word “worldview” in the following sentences—“It is one thing to humbly seek to articulate a worldview based on Scripture. It is another thing arrogantly to assume that the worldview we have articulated is the teaching of Scripture itself.”
Would it be “arrogant” to assume that the confession we have articulated is the teaching of Scripture itself? If not, why is it “arrogant” to assume that the worldview articulated from Scripture is the teaching of Scripture itself?
Now, before anyone gets agitated, I understand the complaint about giving the so-called “Christian worldview” confessional status. I’m neither pleading for that, nor defending that. I am simply issuing the caution that the distinction being employed here, warning us not to identify what-we -describe-as-being-seen with the spectacles-through-which-we-see, is a knife that cuts more than one way.
3.4 Regrettably, like so many others advocating today’s version of NL2K, the author has chosen to ignore, while speaking enthusiastically about “general revelation or natural law,” the biblical and confessional teaching about the intellectual, moral, and spiritual extent of human depravity with respect to rightly apprehending and employing both general revelation and natural law. Amid all the strident huffing and puffing about this criticism of the NL2K position, perhaps people will settle down enough to examine rationally where the Confessions end up in their treatment of things “natural.” A good place to begin is with Canons of Dort 3/4.4—all of it.
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Postscript: Lest you imagine that the NL2K/R2K/2K debate is a tempest in the North American Reformed/Presbyterian teacup, think again. This insightful interview from Australia will help you do that careful thinking.
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