Clark Rainey

Chapter One 

The Genesis account of creation is pregnant with the language of imagery; language which is very visual in its style.  There’s the face of the deep, the face of the earth, the face of the ground, there’s light and darkness, waters that seperate, a sun that rules, moving creatures, things that creep, and then there’s man – the image of God.  The creation narrative is more than a mental proposition to which men give rational assent, but rather these images are corporeal testaments to the character of God.  To live in God’s created world is to live in the reality of symbols.  For example, what is really real about a rainbow?  What is the most real thing about it? Is it the things that we can empirically study?  Perhaps what’s most real are things like the refraction of light, the weight of the water molecules, or even the temperature of those water molecules in which the rainbow consists. While each of these things may very well be useful, it must be realized that everything regarding the physical world that should be said hasn’t been — even if every empirical observation has been fully exhausted.  The Greek notion of the eternal nature of matter relegates the possibility of symbolic interpretation to a position of being arbitrary at best.  If Genesis chapter one is true then this cannot be the case.  Jordan quotes from Romans 1, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” The problem isn’t that the world no longer symbolizes God, but rather our sight must be restored, in order that we see creation through new eyes.

Can a symbolic view of the world be sustained outside of a Biblical worldview?  What are the conditions which must be true in order for symbolism to have any relevance? 

Jordan begins by stating his presupposition, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.”  This starting point gives a foundation capable of sustaining a world of meaning.  Beginning with this point, It must be that every symbol is a created symbol.  Understood in light of creation, symbolism can no longer be seen as arbitrary, or as  being subjectively imposed by the mind of man.  

It seems to me that Jordan’s first principles closely align with the epistemological position taken by Cornelius Van Til.  Van Til held that every fact is a created fact; these facts are never separated from interpretation.  As the sovereign, God has both created and given interpretation for every fact; man is then responsible to think God’s thoughts after him in obedience. Denying God out the outset is destructive to the knowing process. Knowledge is tied to covenantal faithfulness; as the God of the covenant he speaks first.  Knowledge is understanding that God has indeed spoken, we then answer in obedience. Knowledge is like the back and forth of the liturgy, when God speaks we respond by saying amen.   

This position is directly opposed by the empirical approach which seeks to prove the reality of facts while denying the context of creation. In this perverse liturgy it’s man that speaks first, by attempting to bind together the particulars of experience prior to acknowledging that God has spoken.

This is a self conscious separation between covenantal faithfulness and knowledge.  Man becomes the ultimate context which produces factuality.  This stance destroys any linkage between facts and creation; the replacement connection becomes the mind of man.  The human mind takes on the task of preserving the link between symbol and reality.

Symbols aren’t grounded in the act of man imposing rational connectivity on the world.  Symbols are destroyed when they are taken out of the condition of creation.  To say that symbolism is subjective is to reject that idea that creation reflects its maker. 

Men cannot move from symbol to God; this puts the symbolic in the position of being ultimate.  Such ultimacy cannot maintain the very condition which is required for symbolism to function.  The condition must be one of unity.  Man must move from God to symbol, as creation is the fabric in which symbolism operates.  Starting with God as ultimate, each act is related.  Behind the diversity is the unity of the Creator.

The first section of chapter one contrasts man, as originally created, with post fall man.  

Calvin writes, “Since our fall from life unto death, all knowledge of God the Creator. . . would be useless, were it not followed up by faith, holding forth God to us as a Father in Christ.  The natural course undoubtedly was, that the fabric of the world should be a school in which we might learn piety, and from it pass to eternal life and perfect felicity.“

All of this is to say, that the content of natural revelation is different before and after the fall of man.  

Calvin continues, “But after looking at the perfection beheld wherever we turn our eye, above and below, we are met by the divine malediction, which while it involves innocent creatures in our fault, of necessity fills our own souls with despair. . . we cannot, from a mere survey of the world, infer that he is a Father.  Conscience urging us within, and showing that sin is a just ground for our being forsaken, will not allow us to think that God accounts or treats us as sons.”

Here are some thoughts on revelation, pre and post fall.  To try to get at the topic, I am looking to my notes from Cornelius Van Til’s book Common Grace.  Van Til’s understanding of this topic I found helpful, as he works out the significance of the fall and its impact on general revelation. 

Man was created in the image of God, Calvin distinguishes between the broad and the narrow sense of being an image bearer.  This is a needed distinction, as there are passages which seem to indicate that man is no longer the image of God, then there are other passages which state that man still is the image of Gad.   Rushdoony gives a good definition, “the narrow sense. . . applies to the true knowledge, true righteousness, and true holiness which man possessed when created by God.  The fall destroyed this image, whereas the image in its broader sense, man’s rationality and morality, his intellectual and emotional life, remain still in God’s image, but with limitations.”

Man, as originally created, was positively righteous.  What does this mean for the content of general revelation?  The Spirit’s testimony to man, regarding the truth of general revelation, revealed through conscience, included favor and acceptance of man in general.  The content of this revelation was void of condemnation.  In the original state, man could look to general revelation and rightly know that God was a Father as Calvin puts it. 

This is no longer the case, why not? To answer this question, we must see how the relationship between God and man has changed in history.  The Calvinist position, treats the fall as a devastating historical tragedy, dealing a death blow to mankind.  Thus the fall was a real fall from life unto death.  Originally, man related to God in upright righteousness, man now relates to God as a sinner that actively suppresses the truth of God.  With a change in relationship comes a change in revelation.  No longer can the content of natural revelation contain favor towards man in general.  Now such natural revelation reveals wrath toward man in general.  

Calvin’s point, in the first quote listed above, is an important one, as man is no longer fit to follow general revelation towards piety.  This general revelation, which promised “eternal life and felicity,” no longer reveals favor, rather it reveals condemnation towards man in general.  The state of the rebellion is made clear upon the realization that we are creatures created by God, placed is his universe and governed by his laws.  Each of these things reveal something about the Creator, thus the rebellion isn’t passive, man in general actively corrupts the knowledge of God and his world.  This treatment, of the character of man before and after the fall, is helpful when trying to understand how the content of general revelation changed in history.

When Adam looked at the world, he looked at it through the eyes of faith, this after all is a requirement of righteousness.  Fallen man looks at the world through the grid of autonomy, lacking any faith in Christ. The necessity of faith is shown by Calvin when he writes that general revelation is a,  “magnificent theatre of heaven and earth replenished with numberless wonders, the wise contemplation of which should have enabled us to know God. . . It is certain that after the fall of our first parent, no knowledge of God without a Mediator was effectual to salvation.”

The fall from life unto death, wasn’t a fall from positive righteousness into a state of neutrality.   Else it couldn’t be said that natural revelation reveals wrath in general.  The content of such revelation would be undecided, to reflect man’s undecided nature.