I earlier posted about how much I benefited from reading A New Heaven and A New Earth: Reclaiming a Biblical Eschatology by Richard Middleton, in our theology reading group. The book centres around elucidating the creation-fall-redemption-renewal narrative of the Bible.
This month we are reading and discussing the second half of the book.
The book can be viewed as an introductory text on biblical theology, as it attempts to provide a model for the narrative of the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.
It is helpful for me to consider what the essential message of the book is. In some ways, Middleton is elucidating what the Bible really does say about the theological concepts of creation, fall, redemption, and renewal. He considers that he is correcting common misunderstandings about these concepts.
What is creation?
Sometimes Genesis 1-2 is read solely as a description of material origins. Where did humans come from? When did it all begin? Where did the earth, animals, and plants come from?
According to modernism, humans and nature are distinct (but connected) entities [e.g., they have the same DNA], and both are just material. Consequently, creation is equated with nature, particularly what humans have not touched or used. "Creation care" is concerned with being good stewards of the natural environment and its resources. However, Middleton considers that a more Biblical perspective is that creation (and the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28) is broader. Creation is not just objects (humans and "nature") but much more. Creation is also what humans create by their interactions with one another and with the non-human world: agriculture and art, institutions and ideas,... Creation is the entire human socio-cultural order. The doctrine of creation is not only concerned with some single event in the past, but also the present and future: how God sustains the world, works in the world, and what God wishes the world would be.
What is the fall?
This has affected everything: humans, the earth, animals, plants,... Sin (the rebellion of humans) has not just broken the relationship of humans with God, but also humans with one another, humans with nature, and humans with themselves. The creation is no longer what God intended it to be, both what God created and the culture that humans now create.
What is redemption?
In Scripture, redemption is conceived most fundamentally as the reversal of the fall and the restoration of God’s good purposes from the beginning. By way of contrast, in our dualistic philosophical inheritance from Plato, redemption is conceived as transferal from a lower, inferior realm (variously understood as body, earth, matter, nature or the secular) to a higher, more valued or esteemed realm (understood as soul, heaven, spirit, the realm of grace or the sacred). This dualistic assumption is often simply superimposed over biblical texts that address redemption and so leads to a distortion of the Bible’s message. Whereas a dualistic understanding of redemption typically devalues the good world God created and encourages an aspiration to transcend finitude, the biblical worldview leads to an affirmation of the goodness of creation, along with a desire to pray and work for the redemption of precisely this world (including human, socio‐cultural institutions) that earthly life might be restored to what it was meant to be. Being aware of the distinction between these two conceptions of redemption helps clarify the significance of the creation‐fall‐redemption paradigm that is utilized by many who are interested in developing a Christian worldview.
This summary is taken from the paper by Middleton, that he developed into the book.
The human calling is not just to create culture but also to redeem culture, by participating in its transformation. I find it interesting that this redemptive view drove many of the founders of modern science, as chronicled by Peter Harrison in The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science.
What is the final renewal?
No comments:
Post a Comment