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Theological Forum

Vol. XXI, No. 4, December 1993

 

 

THE APPEAL TO CREATION ORDINANCES: A CHANGING TIDE

A. van Egmond and C. van der Kooi * 1

I. Introduction

In judging a theology it is important not only to state carefully what is said and written but also to pay attention to that which is no longer being said. Certain words or concepts, to use an expression which is often used in social intercourse, "glitter by their absence." We use this expression to indicate that some person in the group is missed, someone who usually is present. The more a person is considered a part of a circle of friends, the more striking is his/her absence.

Something similar has been happening with the concept creation ordinance. In the theology that has developed within the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands during the last two decades one scarcely finds a reference to this concept, and if one does, it is a negative reaction. Obviously there is something involved in this term that is to be avoided.

Proceeding from the decreasing use of the concept of creation ordinance, the purpose of this paper is two-fold. In the first part we will mention what has happened to the concept. We hope to explain how the theme had its days of high tide in the theology of Abraham Kuyper (1837- 1920) and W. Geesink (1854-1929). Mention is made of the struggle which arose during the period between the two World Wars in German theology concerning creation ordinances. After the Second World War there developed in a broad area a definite desire to take distance from the word and the appeal to creation ordinances. The ethics of Dr. G. Brillenburg Wurth (1898- 1963) is an example. The low-tide was reached in the generation which began in the 1960s. Dr. Harry Kuitert (1924-) and Dr. G. Rothuizen (1926-1988) openly rejected the appeal to creation ordinances. We shall mention briefly how this development has been directly applied in the church discussion concerning women in office and homosexuality. Whether the reality to which the concept creation ordinance pointed has also disappeared is in the nature of the case another question. In any event it is important to note the underlying motives that played a role in the use as well as in the rejection of the concept.

In the second section we will present a number of systematic theological viewpoints which should be kept in view in any further discussion concerning the content of the idea of creation ordinances.

II. Historical Overview

A. High tide

Traditionally Reformed dogmatics has taken for its main articulation of the history of salvation the distinctions of creation, fall, and redemption. Everything which can be said concerning the relation of God and humankind and the world fall under the denominator of one of these themes. But the question immediately arises how these three are related one to the other. Can an appeal be made to the creation when confession is made that the human ability to know has been affected? In other words how radical has the effect of sin been? and, Is the creation still knowable? From the history of dogma it is clear that the church has always confessed that the Father of Jesus Christ is also the Creator and Sustainer of this world. But at the same time it appears that it is not always equally simple to place these two elements of the Christian confession in their mutual relation. Mention is made of a changing accent: at one time this receives more attention, at another time, that.

In the beginning of his articles which were later published under the title, Common Grace, Abraham Kuyper did not always direct equal attention to creation and preservation of the world. He recalls that in his series of articles in The Heraut (1878) he began with the title, "That Grace is Special." In other words in a time in which Kuyper pushed for the revival of the Reformed confession and the restoration of the church he directed attention to the importance of the doctrine of election, the heart of the church, in which God's absolute power concerning the salvation of every person is confessed. But a quarter century later the accents had shifted. At the turn of the century his attention was directed more to the existence of humanity in the world and their necessary cooperation with people with different ways of thinking. Man does not exist solely as an individual who is completely dependent upon God for his salvation, but he exists also, by virtue of his birth, in relation with other people in the broader life relationships of family, society, and the state. It is precisely these relationships which are involved in the teaching concerning creation ordinances.

It is worthy of note that now Kuyper does not connect these life relationships solely with the theme of creation but mentions them under the heading of common grace. We may summarize this teaching by saying that there exists not only a grace of God which relates to eternal salvation, but that outside of the church there functions a grace which God has given in part to the entire world. Kuyper calls common grace that by which God guarantees the continuation of temporal life and restrains the affects of corruption that hides in sin. Kuyper connects this grace particularly with the Noachic covenant; and it is within this framework that the concept ordinance receives its full significance. The promises which are given in Genesis 8: 22 and elsewhere bear the character of an ordinance of which the origin is in God. That the world continues, that day and night and summer and winter follow each other, are not the result of chance, but are a form of grace; the preservation of the world has its origin in God. The preserving grace works through in the hierarchial relationship of humanity and animals, in the permission to slaughter animals for human consumption, in the institution of capital punishment, and in the authority of government. These are ordinances, that is, they are not dependent on human approval for their validity. They are pre-provided ordinances within which human beings exist and with which they must comply for their own well-being.

Through the inner connection with common grace, the ordinances, according to Kuyper, are in fact emergency measures which must make the continuation of humanity on earth possible and must protect them against the destructive effect of sin. The idea of emergency measures applies in a lesser measure for marriage or family because this is the only ordinance that in the strict sense rests in the creation. But here the creation has to be considered as involved in the field of tension of common grace. The disintegration with which family and marriage are threatened is resisted herein that common grace affects relationship between man and woman, and between parents and children.

The teaching of common grace and the ordinances connected to it occupy a large place in Kuyper's theology. This means that for him not everything in systematic theology is seen from the viewpoint of salvation. Creation and preservation are not lost behind salvation but constitute the continuing background of it. In the Scriptures creation and God's providential ordinances are knowable. The relations in which the society of human beings gets its form, such as marriage and family, school and education, work and industry, state and government are not reduced by Scripture and founded in a naturalistic way as if they arise directly out of reality. They are ordinances which are given by God to humanity for its well-being.

One may question why Kuyper found it necessary to speak so extensively concerning ordinances or life-spheres. The motive that drove him is obvious. He developed this teaching, "that there would be a general consciousness that one knows where one stands; and that the relationships could be determined with a firm hand in which one finds himself placed over against the life of the world."1

Kuyper saw in the society of his day all forms of disintegration. He sought to achieve that the relationships of family, marriage, school, labor, and government would be understood as ordinances that are willed by God in a world in which an open marriage was propagated, in which the education of children was in danger of being given over entirely to the state, and the purpose of the government was the romantic ideal of anarchism.

When in 1901 Kuyper began his term as Prime Minister, he gave to W. Geesink the task of preparing the editorials in The Heraut and at the same time indicated what he should do: "The ordinances are orders of the Lord, which the Scripture presents to us, and by which all creaturely being and life are received. As we Calvinists see it, nothing of its greatness nor any small part of it may be withdrawn from the management of the exalted God."2

In the writing of Geesink the concept of ordinance is expanded even more and applied. One can say that here in his ethics the high-tide of the idea of creation ordinances was reached. The entire created reality and the moral order were described as ordinances, as proceeding from God's direction. He has given to everything it own law of life. "The ordinance applies as well for the life of nature, for sun, moon and stars, for plant and animal, for your body, and in that body for the course of blood and the process of digestion."3

The ordinances are not arbitrary nor are they foreign to the matter to which they apply; they are laws of life which cannot be broken without ill effect. When the gardener does not let himself be led by these laws, the tree will suffer. The ordinances are decisions of the living God according to which he himself is active and which he preserves with his almighty power from moment to moment.

There is a deep and important difference in the way in which the ordinance rules in the creation on the one side and in the moral order on the other side. The created reality obeys God's law without question; in the moral order God wills that human beings agree to them in their autonomy in regard to this law. In that agreement the law is recognized as a norm for human activity. Here also it applies that the law cannot be violated without ill effect. In Kuyper, but even more so in Geesink, we read that one can return to the creation, and that the order that is given there both for created reality and for the moral sphere is knowable in the Scriptures.

B. Spring tide

It sometimes happens that with an accumulation of factors the water level in the incoming tide reaches an unusual height. We call this spring tide, and if this tide is aggravated by a storm, pieces of the dunes which provide a natural protection from the sea may be washed away. It may also mean that a special watch upon the dikes must be made. But it sometimes happens, as in the flood of February 1953, that the force of nature is so great that portions of the countryside are flooded. In a certain sense one could apply this image to the Lutheran theology in Germany in the 1930s when an appeal was made to creation ordinances. Lutheran theologians agreed to the legitimation and even sanctioned the Nazi regime. Since that time every appeal to ordinances carries a bad odor. The dikes have been strengthened and the penetration of this concept must be avoided.

It will be well, however, to look at this development somewhat more closely. The possibility to arrive at a theology of creation ordinances in Lutheran theology lies in their fundamental distinction of law and gospel. In their view law and gospel are not, as is often thought, two areas which have nothing to do with each other. They are two methods in which God deals with humanity. By the law we must think not only of the Ten Commandments but everything that involves what God has willed, including created reality. The creation in its multiplicity and variety is in a certain sense an expression of God's will, and in that sense must be understood as law. In the second place the law involves everything by which God maintains his will and makes life on earth possible. Here we would think of the laws of nature and the course of history. They are the means which God uses in a mysterious way to lead humanity in their history. They are the masks of God. Finally, the law in the Old Testament is a revealed law. The gospel never confronts man in the abstract but always in a concrete situation in which mankind find themselves and by which God in one way or another deals with humanity. They are the points of contact by which the gospel can find entry.

In this way E. Hirsch (1888-1972) made known in 1933 that God has revealed himself in two ways: First in the living word of the gospel and later in historical reality. Faith in Christ must be taken up and given concrete form in a believing way in the particular historical circumstance and the believing acceptance and forming of the specific historical situation must be done in faith in Christ. Something similar was expressed by F. Gogarten (1887-1967). He distinguished between the hidden and the revealed or naked will of God. In the first commandment we confront God's sovereignty without a mask. In the laws concerning the state, or in the law concerning the people it comes to us in a hidden way. The law of God confronts us in special commands and in the demands of the state, the people, and morality.4

More and more reality is viewed as law that is expressed in terms of people, nationality, blood, and earth.

This development was already apparent for a considerable time before 1933 when it was protested and articulated in the Barmer Theses. These theses betray in their entirety the hand of Karl Barth (1886-1968) who had great influence in the writing of this confession. The first thesis takes a position against every appeal to the givenness which does not expressly coincide with the special revelation in Jesus Christ: "Jesus Christ, according to the testimony concerning him in the Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God to whom we must listen, upon whom we must trust in life and in death, and to whom we are obliged to give obedience. We reject the false teaching that the church may recognize, as a source of its proclamation, outside of or alongside of this one Word of God, other events and forces, and forms and truths, as God's revelation." This thesis is of particular significance in principle. The Lutheran distinction of law and gospel has disappeared completely. The theological judgment may appeal only to Jesus Christ as the one Word of God. Whereas Barth in his ethics prior to Barman definitely made a positive use of the concept of creation ordinances, after Barman he has treated every appeal to creation ordinances with distrust. The motive for this sharp change of position is clear. The appeal to a natural order or to historical situation leads to this result that other voices can also speak and may even dominate in what Christians understand the Word of God to mean.

Certain prominent Lutherans, among which the most well-known are W. Elert (1885-1954), P. Althaus (1888-1966) and E. Hirsch, whom we mentioned earlier. They protested against the Barman Theses which they considered a definite clipping of the wings of biblical truth. In The Ansbacher Verklarung which was a reply to the Barmen Thesis, the third thesis in particular is especially significant: "The law, the laws, that is the unchangeable will of God, we meet in the total reality of our life, as they are brought to light by the revelation of God. They bind everybody to the situation in which he is called by God and oblige us to the natural orders to which we are subjected, such as, family, people, and race (blood relation). We belong to a particular family, a particular race, and a particular people. Because the will of God touches us constantly in the here and now, he binds us also to these particular historical moments of that family, that people, and that race; that is to say to a particular moment of history." Natural ordinances and the historical moment are set on the same level in this thesis. In the fifth thesis the identification is concretized: "In this knowledge, we believing Christians thank God the Lord that he has given us people in their need the leader (Führer) that 'frommen und getreuen Oberheern,' who and in the national socialistic order of the state will prepare a good Regiment, government with 'law and order.' We therefore realize we are responsible to God to participate in the work of our leader in our calling and our position." This identification of ordinance, historical situation, and the will of God have given to every mentioning of ordinances a bad name.

C. Receding Tide

After the Second World War there has been an increasing hesitation in theology to use the concept of creation ordinance. We would mention first of all the name of Brillenburg Wurth. In the first volume of his ethics, The Christian Life, he begins with the sovereignty of God. All things have their origin in God, including every thing that may be called law. Wherever there is reference to law we are concerned with God's will, with his absolute sovereignty. Of that will our world order is the expression. It is a law for the universe. He expresses appreciation here for the philosophy of the cosmonomic idea which was developed by Herman Dooyeweerd (1894- 1977) and Dr. D. H. Th. Vollenhoven (1892-1978) in which the idea of sphere sovereignty is developed. In short, it is the thought that in reality there are various life spheres, each of which has its own law of life to which it is subject. The similarity among all laws, as well for the creaturely as for the moral niveau, is that they are laws for life against which no transgression can be made without great detriment to the individual in community.

At the same time we find in Brillenburg Wurth a hesitation to make an easy appeal to the concept of creation ordinance. In the second volume of, The Christian Life, he comments that we should maintain the concept, however burdened it has become. He opposes in particular E. Brunner's vision of the creation ordinances because it too easily leads to the acceptance of the given situation. An appeal to ordinances can lead to the immunization of the sharp criticism of the gospel.5

His hesitation toward a too direct appeal is indicated when he states that it is important to hold fast "something like the creation ordinances,...life relationships of which we on the basis of Scriptures believe that they...refer back to something like a divine institution." As such they possess no normative significance for our activity. The reality itself can never be a norm for activity. Further, reality has been disturbed by sin. The only thing from which moral norms can be derived is the Word of God, which is the revealed will of God. This calls us to take our place within the ordinances, although the Christian life is not exhausted therein. There continues to be a kind of estrangement. Brillenburg Wurth asks whether we should not speak of the ordinances of providence or even ordinances of sin rather than ordinances of creation. In any case the maintainance of the concept may never lead to the sanctioning of the status quo. We conclude that in Brillenburg Wurth a direct appeal to the creation is problematic. The existence of life relationships, of spheres of law and ordinances is recognized. They have a more than human origin, and God's will is closely related to these ordinances, but the knowability of God's will is less self-evident with him than it was with Geesink.

 

D. Ebb Tide

The low tide for the concept of creation ordinances, has been reached in the thinking of the ethicist Harry Kuitert. Already in his inaugural address he moved in another climate of thought. Kuitert wants to ask of the Reformed tradition, What is God's relation with the "institutions?" He refers to family, state, and labor. He is consciously aware of the word "ordinances." But the word creation ordinances, he says, has caused too much misery and has in addition the connotation of something that is eternal and super-temporal. Kuitert chooses for the concept "institution" because this word makes clear that an institution is a historically developed social regulator of activity which makes communal life and the survival of humanity possible.

In particular Kuitert develops the theme of the historical limitation of institutions or ordinances. Repeatedly he points out that a direct appeal to Scripture is not possible in ethics. What theologians say concerning man and his nature appears according to him to be more and more a time-bound filling of contemporary concepts concerning, for example, man and wife. "If a Christian view of humanity takes into itself too greatly detailed data, it will later have to spit them out or they together with their content will be rejected" as he says in one of his lastest books.6

He does not conclude that Christian theology on the basis of this insight must refrain from saying anything concerning man and the relationships in which he lives. To the contrary, the historical limitation of knowledge concerning man and his world is recognized and integrated as the basis for what is said in theology concerning man and his life in social relationships. The church and its theologians must listen carefully to what biologists, psychologists, philosophers, and anthropologists have to say concerning humankind. The theologians must remain in the neighborhood of what a man, seen as a phenomenon, is and can be."7

This means that all sorts of traditional opinions concerning man and wife, what is acceptable and what is not permitted sexually, rests upon older ideas of what the "nature" of mankind is. The Christian faith and God the Creator, says Kuitert, do give a framework for the more or less hard data which the sciences provide concerning humankind. So faith life is understood as a gift and a promise. The fact that humans are born either as man or woman and are made to be social beings, and are developers and makers of culture from a world that is given and exists in the world they connect with the will of God. But Kuitert refuses to appeal directly to any explicit content of what it means to be husband or wife, a social being, and a maker of culture. The will of God is not found in tradition, as has repeatedly been said. That, says Kuitert, denies the proper subjectivity of humanity. The component of humankind's proper subjectivity is construed by Kuitert to be independent and creative, more so than in Kuyper or Geesink. They understood the moment of the acceptance of the reality as essential to the moral order. Kuitert emphasizes strongly that the recognition of proper human subjectivity is the acceptance of a moral code that always contains a creative component. Thanks to this creative component, the concrete moral code appears to be subject to change, and it is not difficult to find examples of changes in the code in the Scriptures as well as in the history of the church. Paul considered it a shame for a woman to wear her hair short, and to appear before the Lord with an uncovered head (I Cor 11:13). In the following verse he makes an appeal to "nature" for his assertion that it is a shame for a man to wear his hair long. We can point also to the prohibition still defended in the middle-ages to charge interest on biblical ground, but was considered no longer prohibited by the Reformers. So too we can point to the changeability of the mores as well in the mode of expression in which at one time it is unacceptable for a woman to wear long trousers, whereas in another time and in another culture this is considered entirely normal. Kuitert appeals for the changeability of the moral code to the distinction that Calvin has made between the ceremonial law and the moral law. The will of God according to Calvin coincides with the moral law to which every man by virtue of his conscience has access. Kuitert therefore states that seeking for the will of God proceeds along the way of the natural light of reason.

We conclude that Kuitert avoids the concept creation order because of the association that it has with super-temporality. At the same time he maintains that there are limits within which man can prosper. The will of God coincides with what is good for man, and one can do nothing else than to find a general moral consultation.

 

E. Searching in the Open Area: The Ecclesiastical Discussion

Much of that which has been mentioned above concerning creation ordinances has found its way into reports which have appeared during the last twenty years within the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. In first instance we mentioned the report God With Us, concerning the authority of Scripture. The report began with the relational concept of truth, which aroused the impression in numberless critics that hereby the door has been opened as wide as a carriage way for an unbridled relativism. What has not been sensed is that here an effort has been made to proceed along a path which leads between subjectivism and objectivism. In listening to Scripture one is from the start a person addressed and related to it. It was much rather the intention to describe how the reading of Scripture takes place and how in the reading the reader plays, not a decisive but nevertheless a constitutive role. To be faithful to the Scripture implies then that one gives due account to the historical conditionedness of both the Scripture and the listener, and expounds the Bible from the center of God's revelation in the history of Israel and Jesus Christ. The core of biblical truth is God's covenantal dealing with people. The attention given to the historical condition of the Scripture implies that in God With Us and in other documents of pastoral and ethical nature a nuanced assessment has been made concerning the questions about women in office, homosexuality, and nuclear armaments.

It strikes one repeatedly that the church documents stress that institutions, such as marriage and family, are means to serve the welfare of humanity. The background of such declarations is, in the nature of the case, that the actual methods in which the society of people, of men and women, are regulated within marriage or within the church are experienced as irksome and curtailing. In that light it should be understood that an appeal to abiding creation ordinances is not highly valued. They have all too often been used to force men back into a situation in which they they could not prosper. The motive not to speak any longer in terms of creation ordinances must therefore be found in the experience that this concept has in fact been identified with a specific formation of the relation of man and woman, or with a concept concerning homosexuality which immediately stigmatizes and isolates the homosexual person. We might say that among large groups the need has arisen for space to experiment. The pamphlet which appeared in 1983 called Faithful in Love is a good example of this development. In it the concept of creation ordinance is missing entirely as a positive position to which an appeal can be made. For new forms of relationships the normative dimension is sought in notions which are related to the covenantal dealing with men and with peoples in mutuality: reciprocity, durability, freedom, and security.

We may conclude that a heavy emphasis has come to fall on the content and the quality of the relationship and perhaps the wholesome and nurturing quality of the ordinances and institutions has been underexposed. The question whether there exist certain ordinances and limitations in the creation which may not be violated except to the detriment of the person who violates them is driven into the background in the discussion concerning the forms of relationships within and outside of marriage in favor of speaking in terms of covenant.

As soon as the discussion centers on the mileau and the conservation of the earth, however, we see another image appearing: now there is a much greater readiness to appeal to the creation and to recognize that there are limits which cannot be violated. The notion of the covenant is central, but it appears that there is no resolution without the notion of creation and ordinance. In dealing with the world, with themselves and with others, humans confront possibilities and impossibilities, in short, the limits or perhaps the ordinances which can not be transgressed without detriment. The theological question, which on the basis of what we have said has developed, may be stated is: How do the creation and the covenant interrelate? We have hereby come to the second part of this essay.

III. Creation Ordinance and Covenant

To answer the question whether creation ordinances exist and whether moral judgments and concrete directives for actions can be derived from them, we must first address certain fundamental systematic theological issues. These issues are both epistemological as well as dogmatic in nature. As we have noted before, they cannot be separated the one from the other.

The first question concerns the creation itself. How do we know that the "creation" exists? Naturally there has arisen also outside of the Christian tradition the notion that not everything that exists has originated of itself. Both in other religions and in philosophical reflection we find mention of a first cause or a creation. But this does not mean that on the basis of our observation and with the help of our logical ability, or preceding from our religious experience, we can come to a knowledge of "creation" and of God the Creator in the Christian sense. Both on the basis of logical deduction and from religious experience people reach opposite conclusions.

Is it clear that our natural notion of "creation" is insufficient to describe that which in our Christian circle bears the name of creation. For our knowledge of creation we are completely dependent on Scripture. That which we call creation, the religious experience, and our thinking have all been darkened by sin. How strongly this has become true appears when we compare the rich data of Scripture with the concept of creation which is based upon religious experience or human reason. In the Reformed, and surely in the Calvinist tradition, we have always maintained that in matters that pertain to our knowledge of God and man, or of God and the world, sin is a strong disturbing factor. In Calvin this applies more directly to the knowledge of God than to the knowledge of good and evil, but on both points he also holds that to arrive at the Christian viewpoint it is necessary first of all to orient one's self to Scripture.

When we in our tradition turn to the biblical witness it immediately appears that the Scripture's word concerning God the Creator and the creation far excels that which human reason and religious experience can produce. God the Creator is Israel's covenant God and the Father of Jesus Christ. There is a deep unity of creation and redemption, at least of creation and well- being. From a biblical theological viewpoint this appears, for example, from the fact that the creation of light occurs first. This datum should not be separated from Jesus' statement concerning himself as the light of the world (John 8:12), nor from the amazing information in the book of Revelation that the New Jerusalem will have no need of the sun or the moon because God himself and the Lamb is the light thereof (Rev 22:5). It is also striking to note the correspondence between elements in Genesis 1 and 2 and the story of the Exodus. For example, the separation between the dry land on the one side and the life-threatening water on the other side is a prelude to the Exodus story. So is the word given in Revelation, "And there was no more sea" (Rev 21:1). It is particularly Von Rad who has noted this connection. Although he later recognized that creation "is not entirely an extrapolation of the Exodus and that there was definitely also wisdom literature which has similar elements with those that appear in Genesis 1 and 2, at least it must be said that no concept that does not take creation as a prelude to salvation, has no right to make an appeal to Scripture.

Theologically this has been expressed with the words, "Jesus Christ is the mediator of creation"; the creation is then seen as the work of the entire Trinity. And to express it in somewhat more technical language: in the doctrine concerning the order of the decrees of God, supporters of supra-lapsarainism conclude that God's decision to elect preceded the other decisions.

Since the beginning of the Christian tradition this relationship between creation and salvation has been recognized. Following Lactantius it has repeatedly been pointed out, for example in the theology of Hendrikus Berkhof and Karl Barth, how the creation of God and his salvation are not strangers to each other. There were many efforts to express a relationship between the salvation that is experienced in the creation, and the well-being that one participates in redemption. The Reformed tradition has adopted this thought. In his dogmatics Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) took over the thought of the ancient church that the eschaton is not only a restoration of the creation which has been affected by sin, but far excels it.

To escape these speculations, including those of an evolutionistic nature, which have developed an insight into the relationship of creation and salvation, Barth modestly proposed his well known twofold thesis: the creation is the external ground of the covenant and the covenant is the internal ground of the creation. This is to say that in its finest details the creation is designed to make the covenant between God and man possible. The safest way for us to take is to agree with him.

The answer to the question whether or not there are creation ordinances will have to follow the same path. Of course it is possible by empirical and logical deduction to arrive at certain regularities and orders. Of this we find testimony not only in Kuyper, who speaks of the tree and the gardener, and Geesink, who speaks of the orders in the physical sphere which impact on the moral and religious area, but also in Harry Kuitert, who says that every society discovers by way of trial and error that moral rules are of vital importance for life and survival. But one should be cautious when he recalls that at the end of the previous and the beginning of this century representatives of popular Darwinism derived moral directives from natural regularities. It was said that "all life lives at the expense of other life" and from this it was concluded that war is God's judgment over those who are unable to sustain life. But here also it applies: both the creation as well as our insight into it have come under the yoke of sin. Therefore: back to the Bible.

According to the biblical testimony, there are definite ordinances in the creation which are directed to make God's covenant with man possible. These ordinances also provide for the life of people in social relationships and of humanity with their world. In Genesis 9, after the flood, ordinances such as the succession of day and night, of the seasons, and of the fruitfulness of earth and humanity are wholesome ordinances. These are the same things which one finds in Genesis 1 and 2. It is striking to note the joyful undertone of the way in which the creation of heaven and earth is related. The Christian concept of creation therefore implies the recognition that the formation and the ordering of this world bears the character of a gift, and displays the goodness of the Creator. More clearly than in the Noahic covenant, in the first three chapters of Genesis the interrelationship of people represented by man and woman in their fundamental otherness belong to the creation order. The same holds for the Sabbath as a day of rest in the week of seven days.

Distinction must be made between these orders and other ordinances which are necessary to make human life in the time of sin possible. For example, in the passages mentioned there is no mention of a people and a state. But it should expressly be stated that the creation itself appears to be for the covenant, and so do the ordinances. When people thus derive moral directives, principles, from these ordinances, it must be clear that these serve the covenantal life of humanity with God, and of people with people, and people with animals and plants. Creation and creation ordinances have no independent value apart from the covenant. Fruitfulness, for example, is for the sake of the covenant. When it is valued as a thing in itself it degenerates, as appears from the entire Old Testament narrative of the cults of Baal and Astarte; and in Egypt and Babylon the light becomes an occasion for idolatry. The hierarchy of covenant and creation, and of covenant and creation ordinances comes to expression in all the Old Testament stories in which human productivity is said to be for the sake of the covenant and is restored to honor when it repeatedly said that "the Lord opened her womb."

It is also clear in the New Testament that there are no independent moral principles in the creation orders of fruitfulness and a duty to reproduce apart from the covenant. Sometimes just because of the covenant, it was necessary that ordinances were eliminated. There are many examples in the New Testament. Jesus had no children. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. People became eunuchs for the Kingdom of God (Matt 19:12). Everyone who "does the will of my Father who is in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matt 12:50). We hear that the Sabbath is for man and not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). We learn from Paul that to marry is good but that it is better not to marry, and he admonishes those who are married to be as those who are not married (I Cor 7:29). The eschatological perspective provides a powerful relativizing of the creative orders: in the Kingdom according to the word of Jesus, people will neither marry or give in marriage (Mark 12:25). The most striking statement of all is the message in Revelation that even the succession of day and night, which is a creation ordinance of the first order, does not have an eternal character.

When we therefore consider the moral codes or judgments which are derived from creation ordinances it must immediately be stated that they exist for the sake of the covenant. That is to say that their wholesome and life-giving value for the relation between God and man and between people mutually is the ultimate criteria. At the same time the ordinances may not be simply pushed aside: in principle they exist to serve human life before the face of the Eternal One. It is therefore impossible to push the notion of ordinances aside with an appeal to eschatological perspective. A direct appeal to the creation or the proton is impossible because of the sin which has come between, nor it is appropriate to make a simple appeal to the eschaton. The search for the will of God in relationship with the ordinances of human life transpires within the knowledge of the covenant that God has brought to its full light in the history of Jesus Christ. Within the circle of the covenant the notion of creation and re-creation must always continue to resound. We no longer live in the proton nor yet in the eschaton; we live in the present in which the way to God must continually be sought, as in Psalm 25:4, "Lord to me your ways make known."

This means that the idea of a wholesome ordinance within the thinking of the covenant cannot be missed, but it is not always immediately clear when the limits have been transgressed to the detriment of humanity. Thus we can say that the succession of day and night belongs to the wholesome ordering of human life, but at the same time it is clear that the creation ordering is not limited to ethical evaluations. In many kinds of business and industry, such as in fishing and in gardening, and in shift work, labor takes place at night; and this is acceptable. Obviously, there is a greater good which justifies this, but the opening of stores 24 hours a day is considered in the Dutch situation as unnecessary and without human benefit.

In general one can say that the weighing must be done in a still more careful way when inter- human relations are concerned, as in the discussion concerning the relationship of man and woman, homosexuality, and genetic manipulation. A self-evident appeal to creation ordinances, how scriptural these in themselves may be, is incorrect. The same holds for their negation. They exist for the sake of the covenant. That is their value. And therein lies their relativity.

 

End Notes:

1 * A. van Egmond is head of the Department of Dogmatics at the Free University of Amsterdam. C. van der Kooi is Assistant Professor in Dogmatics at the Free University of Amsterdam.

1 Gemene Gratie I, p. 103.
2 W. Geesink, Van' _' Heeren Ordinantien (Volume I, Introduction), Kampen.
3 W. Geesink, op.cit., 3.
4 For a brief overview of this development, cf. H. Fisher, Systematische Theologie (Stuttgart: Verlag Kohlhammer), 1992, 84-90.
5 Het christelijk leven II, 17.
6 The Universal Doubted Christian Faith, (Kampen: Kok) 1992, 93.
7 Ibid., 93.