Two-Kingdom Worldviews: Attempting a Translation

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Dordt College Volume 42 Number 3 Article 2 March 2014 Two-Kingdom Worldviews: Attempting a Translation Renato Coletto North-West University, Potchefstroom Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege Part of the Christianity Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Coletto, Renato (2014) "Two-Kingdom Worldviews: Attempting a Translation," Pro Rege: Vol. 42: No. 3, 8 - 15. Available at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege/vol42/iss3/2 This Feature Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at Digital Collections @ Dordt. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pro Rege by an authorized administrator of Digital Collections @ Dordt. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Two-kingdom Worldviews: Attempting a Translation Reformed individuals and communities seem to be inevitably and perennially attracted by all sorts of scholastic, pietist or para-liberal projects and positions.2 Can this be due, at least in part, to the fact that we often keep discussing these issues in a two-kingdom language? Many Reformed and Reformational authors regard the biblical worldview as constituted by the threefold motif of “creation, fall and redemption.” They assume that the Reformed worldview, at least ideally, strives to be in line with the threefold biblical motif, adopts a transformative approach, and therefore is not reducible or amenable to a by Renato Coletto two-realm approach. And yet, even authors who adopt this point of view often “translate” the bibli- In the past few years Pro Rege has published cal ground motive in the nature-and-grace idiom. several articles dealing with the nature and im- In Figure 1 below a couple of examples are sup- plications of two-kingdom approaches to soci- plied.3 ety, scholarship, church doctrine, and so forth. Figure 1 The article that struck me most was the one by Type: B.J. Van der Walt A.M. Wolters David VanDrunen, on “the Two-kingdoms and Reformed Christianity.”1 In South Africa, 1) “Liberal” grace within grace equals nature nature Professor Bennie Van der Walt has dedicated a lifetime to promoting an integral biblical world- 2) “Catholic” grace above nature grace perfects nature view and to fighting against dualist versions of Christianity. Albert Wolters has done the same in 3) “Lutheran” grace alongside grace flanks nature nature North America, and many others have contrib- uted to spread this message worldwide. And yet 4) “Anabaptist” grace against grace opposes nature nature 5) Biblical grace transforms grace restores Dr. Renato Coletto is Associate professor in the School nature nature of Philosophy, at North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus. 8 Pro Rege—March 2014 Probably this classification is reminiscent Whatever it implied, the wedge-interpretation of Niebuhr, who labels the reformed attitude continued to flow underground and to re-emerge with the formula “Christ transforms culture.”4 from time to time. For example, Strauss mentions Now, this strategy is not without advantages: for it in an article dealing with “reformed scholasti- example it allows comparing the biblical world- cism,”8 though only en passant, without addressing view with the most “popular” and widespread the questions mentioned above. The most exten- Christian worldviews. Nevertheless, it might cre- sive explanation, to my knowledge, is contained in ate the impression that the Bible (and Reformed an old contribution by Jim Olthuis.9 I would like, Christianity) proposes just a particular version therefore, to “re-visit” that old text where Olthuis of the nature-grace paradigm. Recently, Van der discusses the main Christian worldviews (he calls Walt, too, argued that the study of Christian them “theories”). worldviews should be disentangled from the na- Figures 2 and 3 below are my own simplified ture-grace language.5 Would it help if we could versions of Olthuis’ explanations (including his “translate” the nature-and-grace worldviews into graphic scheme).10 The acronym CFR represents the language of creation, fall, and redemption? the threefold biblical theme of creation, fall, and Could it help some of us to “see” better the limi- redemption. In the last row of Figure 2, I have tations and undesired consequences of the two- inserted a representation of the biblical worldview kingdom perspectives? (not present in Olthuis’ scheme) so that a com- In the following few pages I am going to try parison with the other paradigms is made easier. this “translation” and to supply some examples of Figure 2 the alterations produced by the two-kingdom ap- Type: Structure: proaches.6 In the light of these findings, in the fi- nal part of the article I will briefly re-visit some of 1) “Liberal” C >f R VanDrunen’s arguments and comment on them. 2) “Catholic” C >f R I apologize beforehand for the fact that some sec- 3) “Lutheran” c F > R tions of this article do not present totally new ar- 4) “Anabaptist” c F > R guments, but the fact that many still fail to realize 5) Biblical C F R that dualism is a threat to Christian life made me think that sometimes repetita juvant. Olthuis discusses the four “classical” Christian worldviews, not according to their historical ap- The “wedge interpretation” pearance but in systematic order. He clarifies In the Reformational tradition, there have been that each position represents a group of world- some attempts at translating the nature-grace views: there are indeed sub-versions of each group worldviews in terms of the biblical creation-fall- (though he does not discuss them in his text). It redemption motif. To my knowledge, however, should be noted that he does not use labels like there are only a few fragmented discussions of this “Lutheran” or “Liberal.” This lack of labels high- translation, and they took place many years ago. lights the fact that these worldviews should not I can recall, for example, Dooyeweerd arguing be too quickly associated with ecclesiastical or that different two-kingdom worldviews “place a confessional communities. I will nevertheless use wedge between creation and redemption.”7 What those labels (in quotation marks) because, even does that mean? As he believes that the “factors” though Olthuis’ intentions should be appreciated, of the biblical ground-motive are three (creation, in the end it is clear to which “communities” or fall, and redemption), does the “wedge” eliminate circles he refers. They are clear, for example, from the fall when it is placed “between creation and the authors he quotes. It is, however, important to redemption”? Alternatively, does the wedge group remember that, for example in a Roman Catholic together creation and fall, or fall and redemption? community, we are surely going to find individu- What can all this possibly mean in terms of un- als and groups holding to a worldview that is not derstanding Christian worldviews? typically Roman Catholic. Pro Rege—March 2014 9 The two “external” positions (1 and 4) con- crucial role. Since the creation factor is weakened, stitute the two most “radical” groups. The two “nature” means especially “fall” and is rather re- internal ones (2 and 3) are more “moderate.” garded as corrupted. Nature and grace are espe- The lower-case letters indicate the “element” cially interpreted in terms of fall and redemption, of the biblical motif that is weakened in each and the main dialectical interplay is between these particular worldview. The capital-bold letters two factors. Once this interplay is understood, the indicate the element acquiring excessive “pow- position of the wedge is not that important. The er” and thus playing the most relevant role in a growing distance between the two poles can be worldview. In all cases, the alteration of one ele- better explained by referring to the key ideas of ment has repercussions on the whole structure. each worldview (I will return on this topic below). However, not everything is clear in Olthuis’ The upshot of the scheme (in Olthuis’ words) scheme. On the one hand, he says, “theories of is that “it is impossible to fit three pins in two the first type place a wedge between Creation holes!” In the process, either the fall or the cre- and Fall-(Redemption), whereas theories of the ation must be weakened. As I said, this weakening second type place a wedge between (Creation)- affects the whole structure as well. Fall and redemption.”11 This is what I try to illus- trate in Figure 2 above. On the other hand, in his Some examples own graphic scheme (p. 120), the wedge is always I have now created a few formulas, rather than a placed between (creation) fall and redemption (as translation. Perhaps some readers would like to in Figure 3 below). In the same scheme, in addi- have a few more concrete examples of what these tion, a growing “distance” is inserted between the formulas mean for concrete Christian life and two “poles” of the worldview: this distance seems scholarship. Sometimes one might have the im- to indicate that the wedge does not always have pression that two-kingdom approaches influence the same “weight” or effect. topics like “religion and science” or “church and Figure 3 state,” while it is not always clear whether they have any influence in the sphere of church and Type: Structure: doctrine. 1) “Liberal” C f > R The following two examples concern the 2) “Catholic” C f > R fact that worldviews do also impact the confes- 3) “Lutheran” c F > R sional and theological elaborations of a certain 4) “Anabaptist” c F > R faith-community. The first example concerns Roman Catholicism and is provided by an Italian On these two issues (the position of the wedge Evangelical scholar.12 De Chirico relates the and the growing distance), I would say that the Catholic failure to realize the corruptio totalis of “translation” is not completely clear.

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