Creation Regained

Creation Regained
Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview
Albert M. Woters, professor of religion and theology and of classical languages at Redeemer University
College, Ancaster, Ontario.
Sine qua non/ condicio sine qua non – Latin legal term for “[a condition] without which it could not be
I. What is a Worldview?
Church Fathers: Irenaeus and Augustine, Reformers: Tyndale and Calvin
This scripturally informed worldview is sometimes called “reformational”, after the Protestant
Reformation, which discovered afresh the biblical teaching concerning the depth and scope of sin and
redemption. The desire to live by Scripture alone, rather than Scripture alongside of tradition, is a
hallmark of the Reformers. We follow their path in this emphasis as well as in wanting an ongoing
reformation, in wanting to be re-formed by the Scriptures continuously (see Acts 17:11, Rom. 12:2)
rather than living by unexamined traditions.
Reformational reflection on worldview in the twentieth century, Dutch leaders; Abraham Kuyper,
Herman bavink, Herman dooyeweerd, D.H.T. Vollenhoven.
The term worldview cane into the English language as a translation of the German Weltanschauung.
“Philosophy”, “world-and-life view”, “life perspective”, “confessional vision”, “principles”, “ideals”,
“ideology”, “system of values”.
Worldview will be defined as “the comprehensive framework of one’s basic beliefs about things.”
Our worldview shapes, to a significant degree, the way we assess the events, issues, and structures of
our civilization and our times.
We need some creed to live by, some map by which to chart our course, the need for a guiding
perspective is basic to human life, perhaps more basic than food or sex.
What, then, is the relationship of worldview to Scripture?

The Christian answer to this question si clear: our worldview must be shaped and testeb by Scripture. It
can legitimately guide our lives only if it is scriptural.
As Christians we confess that the Scriptures have the authority of God, which is supreme over
everything else – over public opinion, over education, over child-rearing, over the media, and in short
over all the powerful agencies in our culture by which our worldview is constantly being shaped.
However, since all these agencies in our culture deliberately ignore, and in fact usually reject outright,
the supreme authority of Scripture, there is considerable pressure on Christians to restrict their
recognition of the authority of Scripture to the area of the church, theology, and private morality – an
area that has become basically irrelevant to the direction of culture and society as a whole. That
pressure, though, is itself the fruit of a secular worldview, and must be resisted by Christians with all the
resources at their disposal.
Distinctiveness of the reformational worldview

Christian faith by Herman Bavinck: “God the Father has reconciled His created but fallen world through
the death of His Son, and renews it into a Kingdom of God by His Spirit.”
Each is understood to apply to only one delimited area of the universe of our experience, usually named
the “religious” or “sacred” realm. Everything falling outside this delimited area is called the “worldly,” or
“secular,” or “natural,” or “profane” realm. All of these “two-realm” theories, as they are called are
variations of a basically dualistic worldview, as opposed to the integral perspective of the reformational
worldview, which does not accept a distinction between sacred and secular “realms” in the cosmos.
“Grace restores nature”, the redemption in Jesus Christ means the restoration of an original good
creation. (By nature I mean “created reality” in these contexts.) In other words, redemption is re-
creation.
II. Creation
The word creation has a double meaning. When we talk about “the story of creation” we are referring to
God’s activity of making the world; when we speak of “the beauties of creation” we are referring to the
created order as the resulting cosmos (Greek word for “ornament,” “beautiful arrangement”). Creating
activity and created order ought not to be confused.
“the revealed will of God” or God’s opera ad extra
The word of the Sovereing is law, and it is often quite appropriate to translate the Hebrew dabar
(“word”) as “command” when ti refers to God’s speaking.
We cannot strictly speak of creatio ex nihilo in the case of God’s creative fiats in the six days. Instead,
creation here has the character of elaborating and completing the unformed state of earthly reality. This
is what the theologians have called creatio secunda, as distinct from the first and primordial creation of
heaven and earth out of nothing, the creatio prima.
There is nothing in human life that does not belong to the created order. Everything we are and do is
thouroughly creaturely.
Relativism – de gustibus non disputandum est – Latin maxim “In matters of taste, there can be no
disputes”.
III. Fall
First of all, we must stress that the Bible teaches plainly that Adam and Eve’s fall into sin was not just an
isolated act of disobedience but an event of catastrophic significance for creation as a whole.
IV. Redemption
V. Discerning Structure and Direction
Tow “orders” Structure and Direction.

Sturcture is anchored in the law of creation, the creational decree of God that constitutes the nature of
different kinds of creatures. It designates a reality that the philosophical tradition of the West has often
referred to by such words as substance, essence, and nature.
Direction, designates the order of sin and redemption, the distortion or perversion of creation through
the fall on the one hand and the redemption and restoration of creation in Christ on the other. Anything
in creation can be directed either toward or away from God – that is , directed either in obedience or
disobedience to his law.
This double direction applies not only to individual human beings bu also to such cultural phenomena as
technology, art, and scholarship. To such societal institutions as labor unions, schools, and corporations.
And to such human functions as emotionality, sexuality, and rationality.

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What is the relationship between worldview and Scripture according to the passage?

What are the key differences between a dualistic worldview and a reformational worldview mentioned in the passage?

Creation Regained

Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview

Church Fathers: Irenaeus and Augustine, Reformers: Tyndale and Calvin

What, then, is the relationship of worldview to Scripture?

Distinctiveness of the reformational worldview

“the revealed will of God” or God’s opera ad extra

V. Discerning Structure and Direction

Tow “orders” Structure and Direction.

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