Autonomous Man?: Part Four
Posted: November 2, 2007 Filed under: Andy Parker, Anthropology Leave a commentConclusion
So, is man an autonomous creature who evolved over billions of years with no purpose, no plan, and no meaning? Though introductory anthropology students are force fed this horrible filth year after year it is becoming ever more clear that the cries of the Reformation are just as relevant today as they were in the past.
If man is to find any meaning in a fallen, postmodern world that seeks to sap the intellect out of all thought he must first begin and end with Christ. Thus, Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, and Soli Deo Gloria must ooze from the very marrow of our bones. It is God and God alone who will be glorified. Any system of thought which seeks to bolster in man abilities making God a celestial helper at best not only is a representation of the absurdity of the fallen mind, but is a worldview that has no place in the Kingdom of God.
The autonomy of man is at the very core of our noetic structure and unless the almighty hand of God changes that disposition in the heart of man by the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel man is doomed. Jesus told his disciples in Matt. 16:24-26, “If anyone desires to come after Me, Let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Knowing that the souls of men are on the line and that they can only be saved through faith by grace and that that faith can only be obtained through the indwelt presence of the Holy Spirit and the preaching of the Word it thus becomes an imperative to preach the Word of God. In a culture consumed with comfort and pleasure it needs to be made known that there is no comfort and pleasure to be obtained outside of the glorious riches of Jesus Christ. Any such attempt is just momentary pain alleviation.
Man was created for one purpose and one purpose alone and that is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. As a result of sin man is unable to do this and he now only seeks self-glorification. Thus man’s endless pursuit for autonomy only leads him deeper into a pit of despair. Thus fallen man doesn’t need a celestial helper, rather he needs a glorious Savior. It is only through Christ that we can have life, but we must first seek to lose ourselves. Any system which fails to heed this point is not only misguided it is damned.
May Christ be proclaimed. Soli Deo Gloria!
Autonomous Man?: Part Three
Posted: November 2, 2007 Filed under: Andy Parker, Anthropology Leave a commentAutonomous Man
Man was created in a state of creaturely perfection. Man was not created with a tabula rosa. Man was created physically and ethically mature, with knowledge in his mind, righteousness in his will and holiness in his heart. Goodness, then consists of moral perfection in harmony with all of Gods laws (Lev. 19:2; Deut. 6:5; Matt. 5:48; 22:37; Eph. 5:1; 1 Pet. 1:15-16).[1] Though man was created perfect he was not created infinite. He was endowed with certain capacities to which he could use to will the will of God as vicegerent of earth. As man used these capacities in right relation to their created function (to glorify God) with joy and spontaneity he would grow in his understanding and knowledge of his perfect Creator.
Being appointed as vicegerent, Adam represented not only himself but the earth, his bride and all their progeny. When Adam sinned in the first act of disobedience against God he cursed all that was under his lordship. As a result, all of the earth now groans in pain (Rom. 8:21-22), and all of Adam’s offspring are born into a complete state of depravity before God (Rom. 3:9-20) so although they know the truth of God they suppress it for a lie (Rom. 1:21).
When Adam sinned the Holy Spirit left him. He was no longer perfect and was no longer able to commune with God. All of his progeny are now born without the Spirit upon them and as such they no longer bare the image of God in his moral excellency, namely in knowledge, righteousness and holiness. Though man has lost his ability to attain moral excellency he still retains the image of God in his created capacities. This means that man is still a moral creature because he retained his volitional capacity, he is still a thinking creature because he retained his mental capacity, and he is still a loving creature because he retained his emotional capacity. So, although man lost his ability to obtain moral excellency he still retains his moral agency.
At first glance this may appears to be similar to the Roman Catholic view, but it could not be further removed from such an abomination. Though man retains his capacities he can no longer use those capacities as they were originally created to function. Function follows form, or as our Lord put it, “A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear healthy fruit,” (Matt. 7:15-20). When Adam sinned it changed his disposition and thereby changed the way he would use his created capacities. He no longer can use his capacities to glorify God unless the indwelt presence of the Holy Spirit allows him to do so by the grace of God. So moral agency remains, but it can never be used for God outside of God and as such natural mans only inclination is towards self.
No one can be sure what was going through Adam’s mind the moment he sinned. We do know, however, that in Adam’s decision to eat of the tree he was specifically told not to he was judging for himself was best for him and, in effect, what was essentially determining what was true. Every sin has since manifested itself in the same way as man’s original sin. Thus, every sin stems from the desire to be autonomous.
Webster’s defines autonomy as, 1: the quality or state of being self-governing; esp: the right of self-government 2: self-directing freedom and esp. moral independence 3: a self-governing state. Thus, to claim autonomy is to claim ultimacy. It is an absolute state. Therefore, man is either autonomous or he is not. Man cannot be autonomous and at the same time be conditioned by God, as if God was some grandfather in the sky wanting to reach down to man but could only stretch down from his walker so far. Thus, man needs to lift himself up to God through proper choices and actions as the heretics hold.
Even this position is entirely inconsistent with their concept of autonomy. In autonomy they must take the place of God. Cornelius VanTil writes, “On the non-Christian basis man is assumed to be the final reference point in predication. Man will therefore have to seek to make a system for himself that will relate all the facts of his environment to one another in such a way as will enable him to see exhaustively all the relations that obtain between them. In other words, the system that the non-Christian has to seek on his assumption is one in which he himself virtually occupies the place that God occupies in Christian theology.”[2]
In the same respect God cannot be sovereign and be conditioned by man in any respect. God cannot be God and be reactionary. Therefore, in order for man to be autonomous God cannot exist. But if God does not exist than man cannot exist. Again, VanTil writes:
It was thus that man, in rejecting the covenantall requirement of God became at one and the same time both irrationalist and rationalist. These two are not, except formally, contradictory of one another. They rather imply one another. Man had to be both to be either. To be able to identify himself apart from God, man had to distinguish himself as an individual from all the relationships of the system of which he actually is a part. If he were not part of the God-ordained system of relationships, he would be an entity in a vacuum; he would not be distinquishable to himself from any one or anything else. In fact he would not be self-conscious at all.”[3]
Therefore, any system which postulates the autonomy of man whether it claims to be Christian or not is in fact distinctively heretical and is a sign of God’s wrath. The fallen reason of man left unto itself is a never-ending spiral of self and thus, outside of God man has no meaning and no purpose. David Wells writes, “The autonomous self is autonomous because it has liberated itself from an outside world of meaning, of obligation, of rules, rites, customs, and practices. Or, to be more accurate, what has happened is that the outside world seems to have evaporated and all reality has contracted into self. It is in the self that the business of life is all settled.”[4]
Any system that bolsters in man’s abilities either directly or indirectly minimizes the saving work of Christ. Wells writes, “It is about God reaching down in grace and doing for sinners what they cannot do for themselves. For if this is God’s Kingdom, his rule, the sphere of his sovereignty, then it is not for us to take or to establish. We receive, we do not take; we enter, but we do not seize; we come as subjects in his Kingdom, not as monarchs in our own.”[5]
It is all about God in creation and in re-creation. God in His perfect Triune character restores man and breathes new life into his dead and decaying lunges. God the Father draws sinners to Himself, God the Son redeems those sinners through His perfect and spotless life and His propitiation on the cross, and God the Holy Spirit reveals to the sinners the perfection and completion of God’s mighty plan and their place within that plan. Man is, and always will be a dependant creature. The Christian revels in this fact and fallen man despises it.
AUTONOMOUS MAN?: Part Two
Posted: October 31, 2007 Filed under: Andy Parker, Anthropology Leave a commentMan As Image
As was mentioned above, the doctrine of man is critical to understanding the doctrine of God, and in fact they must complement each other. For example, one cannot hold to the autonomy of man and still have a sovereign God, but I am getting ahead of myself. So the doctrine of man is crucial to understanding God. Where then do we begin to develop a doctrine of man? Again, the starting point for discovering the nature of man will be in unison with the starting point for discovering the nature God, namely the Holy Word of God. Cornelius VanTil writes:
The doctrine of Scripture as self-attesting presupposes that whatsoever comes to pass in history materializes by virtue of the plan and counsel of the living God. If everything happens by virtue of the plan of God, then all created reality, every aspect of it, is inherently revelational of God and of his plan. All facts of history are what they are ultimately because of what God intends and makes them to be. Even that which is accomplished in human history through the instrumentality of men still happens by virtue of the plan of God. God tells the stars by their names. He identifies by complete description. He knows exhaustively. He knows exhaustively because he controls completely.[1]
Thus, the only way to understand man is to understand him in relation to his place in the plan of God. For brevity sake, we will then begin with the presupposition that everything necessary for man to know about himself and God can be found in the revelation of God. Genesis 1:26-28 tells us that man was the hallmark of God’s creation.[2] In the last act of creation, God being in perfect Triune counsel with Himself created man in His likeness and image. Historically, many have split hairs over the distinction between image and likeness[3] First, we know that repetitions were common among the Hebrews, in which they express one thing twice; then in the things itself there is no ambiguity, simply man is called God’s image because he is like God. Accordingly, those who thus philosophize more subtly over these terms appear to be ridiculous.”[4] but Calvin helps to shed on this matter when he writes, “there is no slight quarrel over ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ when interpreters seek a nonexistent difference between these two words, except that ‘likeness’ has been added by way of explanation.
The question we then need to ask ourselves is not what is the distinction between image and likeness, but rather what does it mean to be created in the image of God? In answering this question we in turn will be laying the foundation for developing our entire theology. As such, the answer to this question is the logical antecedent to every one which follows. I cannot over emphasize this point enough. Your doctrine of man will determine your doctrine of the Fall and sin, the current state of man, man’s abilities to use his capacities, and most importantly it will determine the way one sees the person and work of Christ and the weight placed on the atonement.
As with many theological issues the Bible doesn’t explicitly state all of the attributes of man which represent God’s image. As such, several differing opinions have emerged as to what the image of God in man is. Not surprisingly, it would appear that these would fall on denominational lines. Although it is important to understand the different positions[5] it is more important to understand that there are really only two: Reformed and not Reformed. Cornelius VanTil helps to shed light on this mater when he writes, “We refer now to those Protestants who are usually spoken of as evangelicals as distinct from those who embrace the Reformed Faith. Under the term evangelicals we include all those who hold to the Remonstrant or Arminian view of man in his relation to God. We include also Lutherans. To be sure, Lutherans are not by any means to be identified as Arminian in every respect. But on the point at issue their view is basically the same as that of the Arminians. The point is that both Arminians and Lutherans maintain that man has a measure of ultimacy or autonomy. In this respect they resemble the Roman Catholics.”[6]
The Reformed view of the image of God in man is separate and distinct from these other views in that it approaches the Bible holistically, and as such is able to reap a fuller picture of God’s divine revelation. Where the Lutherans would claim that image is completely lost and would point to such passages as 2 Corinthians 3:18, Ephesians 4:24, and Colossians 3:10 the Roman Catholics and Pelagians would point to passages such as Genesis 5:1, 9:6, Acts 17:28, 1 Corinthians 11:7, and James 3:9 indicating that image was retained. The Reformed however, sees both the image of God in man both retained and lost. Herman Bavinck writes:
As a rule, however, Reformed theologians continued to speak of the image of God in broader and narrower sense. In Holy Scripture they read that man, on the one hand, is still called the image of God after the fall and should be respected as such (Gen. 5:1; 9:6; Acts 17:28; 1 Cor. 11:7; James 3:9); and that, on the other hand, he had nevertheless lost the primary content of the image of God (i.e., knowledge, righteousness, holiness) and only regains these qualities in Christ (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). By observing this distinction in Scripture and incorporating it in their theology, Reformed theologians have maintained the bond between the physical and ethical nature of man, and thereby also at this point (the relation between nature and grace) kept themselves from falling into various errors. Soon an additional distinction arose that was especially worked out in the doctrine of the covenant of works. This distinction answered the question what Adam had to become, not what Adam was. It is only in these three areas, the image of God in broad sense, the image of God in the narrow sense, and the development or distinction of the image of God – that is, in the doctrine of the covenant of works – that the locus of the image of God can be treated to the full extent.[7]
Only in understanding the image of God in man in the broader and narrower sense through the working of the covenant of works can we properly understand the effects of the Fall and the nature of the atonement. In order to fully understand this point we must then turn our attention to Adam’s sin.
[1] Cornelius VanTil, A Christian Theory of Knowledge, Phillipsburg, (N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1969), 28.
[2] Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
[3] The early Church Fathers were quite agreed that the image of God in man consisted primarily in man’s rational and moral characteristics, and in his capacity for holiness; but some were inclined to include also bodily traits. Irenaeus and Tertullian drew a distinction between the image and the likeness of God, finding the former in bodily traits, and the latter in the spiritual nature of man. Clement of Alexandria and Origin, however, rejected the idea of any bodily analogy, and held the word “image” denoted the characteristics of man as man, and the word “likeness,” qualities which are not essential to man, but may be cultivated or lost. This view was also found in Athanasius, Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, and John of Damascus. According to Pelagius and his followers the image consisted merely of this, that man was endowed with reason, so that he could know God; with free will, so that he was able to choose and do the good; and the necessary power to rule the lower creation. The distinction already made between image and likeness of God, was continued by the Scholastics, though it was not always expressed in the same way. Ibid., (Berhof), 202.
[4] John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, ed. John McNeill. (Louisville: Westminster Press, 2006, vol. 1), 35, 187-188.
[5] There are three major positions that should be mentioned: Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and Pelagian.
The Lutheran conception of the image of God differs materially from that of the Reformed. Luther himself sometimes spoke as if he had a broad conception of it, in reality he had a restricted view of it. While there were during the seventeenth century, and there are even now, some Lutheran theologians who have a broader conception of the image of God, the great majority of them restrict it to the spiritual qualities with which man was originally endowed, that is, what is called original righteousness. In doing this they do not sufficiently recognize the essential nature of man as distinct from that of the animals on the other hand. In the possession of this image men are like the angels, who also possess it; and in comparison with what the two have in common, their difference is of little importance. Man lost the image of God entirely through sin, and what now distinguishes him from the animals has very little religious or theological significance. The great difference between the two lay in the image of God, and this man has lost entirely. In view of this it is also natural that the Lutherans should adopt Traducianism, and thus teach that the soul of man originates like that of the animal, that is, by procreation. It also accounts for the fact that the Lutherans hardly recognize the moral unity of the human race, but emphasize strongly its physical unity and the exclusively physical propagation of sin. Ibid., (Berkhof), 208.
Roman Catholics hold that God at creation endowed man with certain natural gifts, such as the spirituality of the soul, the freedom of the will, and the immortality of the body. Spirituality, freedom, and immortality, are natural endowments, and as such constitute the natural image of God. Moreover, God “attempted” (adjusted) the natural powers of man to one another, placing the lower in due subordination to the higher. The harmony thus established is called justitia – natural righteousness. But even so there remained in man a natural tendency of the lower appetites and passions to rebel against the authority of the higher powers of reason and conscience. This tendency, called concupiscence, is not itself sin, but becomes sin when it is consented to by the will and passes into voluntary action. In order to enable man to hold his lower nature in check, God added to the dona naturalia certain dona supernaturalia. These included the donum superadditum of original righteousness (the supernatural likeness to God), which was added as a foreign gift to the original constitution of man, either immediately at the time of creation, or at some later point as a reward for the proper use of the natural powers. These supernatural gifts, including the donum superadditum of original righteousness, were lost by sin, but their loss did not disrupt the essential nature of man. Ibid., (Berkhof), 208.
The image of God, Pelagius taught, consists only in a neutral God-given possibility of perfection, which cannot be lost and is therefore still a part of every human being. God bestows the ability (posse), but the will (ville) is up to us. Later, this view found acceptance among the Socinians, who located the image of God solely in human dominion over nature; among the Anabaptists, who said that as a finite earthly creature man was not yet the image of God but could only realize that status by a rebirth; among the Remonstrants, the Rationalists, and the Supernaturalists, and numerous modern theologians, all of whom saw the state of integrity as a state of childlike innocence. As a rule these theologians still hold to the historical reality of such an original state. But in their view of the image of God in the first humans they materially agreee totally with those who, detaching the idea from the fact, deny the reality of integrity locate the image of God solely in man’s free personality, his rational or moral nature, in a religious-ethical bent, in man’s vocation to enter communion with God. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation, ed. John Bolt. trans. John Vriend, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004, vol. 2), 534-35.
AUTONOMOUS MAN?: Part One
Posted: October 30, 2007 Filed under: Andy Parker, Anthropology Leave a commentIntroduction
Every year the ivory halls of academia are bustling with new students. Bright and cheerful they are ready to establish their independence and find their place in the world. Some are looking to party, some to get a job, and then there are those who truly want to make a difference. In order to make a difference however, a gauntlet of professors is waiting to challenge and indoctrinate them. Over the next four years, and perhaps even more for some, many will be exposed to an introductory course in anthropology.
Anthropology is the study of man, and in such is inseparable for the study of God. In fact, John Calvin said, “Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.”[1] And Louis Berkhof writes, “The doctrine of the image of God in man is of the greatest importance in theology, for that image is the expression of that which is most distinctive in man and in his relation to God. The fact that man is the image of God distinguishes him from the animals and from every other creature. As far as we can learn from Scripture even the angels do not share that honor with him.”[2] If two such titans in the field of theology express such a concern in the study of man perhaps more Christians should be wise to what is being taught in secular universities.
In secular universities anthropology has been reduced to the study of what man does, not what man is. As a result of such a reduction, all morality is determined by watching mans actions. Therefore, what man ought to do is derived from mans doing. This may seem irrational, but fortunately it makes completes sense after being indoctrinated with Darwinian science and rationalistic and objectivistic philosophy. In such a philosophical and theoretical framework determining ought from ought seems logical when operating in a system of blind chance that is governed by the laws of logic and science.
Although it would give me great pleasure to do so the point of this paper is not to lambaste the secular universities and the worldviews which are taught therein. However, it is my intention to clearly show that there is a distinct difference between the Christian and the secular view of man.
Given the length and breadth of this paper, and the magnitude of the topic before me I simply wish to give a representation of the Reformed Christian view of man and thereby answer the question, what is man? From here, I will show the implications of conflicting views and there repercussions. With this, let us begin.
Tattoos and the Bible
Posted: December 15, 2006 Filed under: Anthropology, Tattoos, Theology 4 Comments
Gospel-Centered Musings 
