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Theological Forum

Vol. XXI, No. 1, March 1993

 

 

John Cooper * 1

I. INTRODUCTION

 

A. The Calvin Connection

 

There is no better way for me to illustrate the significant connection between anthropology and ethics in Reformed thought than to quote John Calvin. In his Commentary on Genesis 9:6 he writes that "since [men] bear the image of God engraven on them...no one can be injurious to his brother without wounding God himself." In the Institutes he puts the same point positively. Even if the poor man in himself merits nothing, "the image of God, which recommends him to you, is worthy of your giving yourself and all your possessions."1

Calvin in these passages grounds the duties we have toward our fellow men in what they are as human beings. The reason why we must not injure them, but love and care for them is that they are images of God. Here, in other words, Calvin bases what we should do on what we are orthopraxis on human nature, ethics on anthropology.


The importance of anthropology for ethics in Reformed perspective is a theme with a rich history in Christian and Reformed thought, but it has not always been rightly understood or fully appreciated.


B. Reformed Concerns


At first it might be surprising to hear that Reformed ethics is shaped by anthropology. For Reformed people are taught that God's law, not human nature, is the norm for life. We are instructed to obey God's law because he commands it, not because it suits us. Similarly, traditional Reformed ethical writing has been based almost exclusively on the Ten Commandments, God's revealed law. Thus the Reformed approach is often classified as a deontological, divine-command ethics. Furthermore, we Calvinists are suspicious of linking ethics and anthropology, for this sounds too much like the modernist post-Kantian strategies of pragmatism, utilitarianism, existentialism, and relativism, all of which derive their norms for life from autonomous human nature, not from the will of God. In short, the Reformed tradition is suspicious of that approach which grounds our responsibilities in ourselves rather than in the Law of God. Reformed ethics is theocentric, not anthropocentric.2

These concerns are valid as far as they go. It is surely true that we are to obey God's commands and that God's commands are obligatory because he is the Sovereign Lord. But this is only part of the picture. If we stop here, we miss the crucial biblical-theological connection, noted by Calvin himself, between what God created us to be as human beings and what he commands us to do. This general theme is what I hope to explore.


C. Outline of the Presentation


Because of the time limit I must be content to outline some important dimensions of the relation of anthropology and ethics. First I will identify two formally related ways in which ethics is shaped by anthropology: natural law or creation order; and worldview. Then I will focus on the image of God and the body-soul relation, two anthropological doctrines that have undergone change in Reformed theology with consequences for ethics. Finally I will suggest how the relation between anthropology and ethics from a Reformed perspective implies a methodology and offers specific guidelines for reflecting on the ethical issues to be treated at this conference.3


II. FORMAL CONNECTIONS BETWEEN ETHICS AND ANTHROPOLOGY


A. Introduction: Natural Law and Worldview - Interrelated Connections


There are at least two important themes in Reformed thought which connect anthropology and ethics: natural law or "creation ordinances" and worldview. These themes are closely connected. For in natural law we see human obligations as correlated with human nature. Thus one can understand human obligations in general only to the extent that one understands human nature and vice versa. But one cannot understand human nature unless one understands its place within the whole of reality, i.e., in terms of a worldview or Weltanschauung. By implication, therefore, having a correct worldview is necessary for understanding human obligations. The worldview specifies the context or ultimate framework within which humans have to exercise their responsibilities.


B. Natural Law/Creation Order


 


One important way in which Calvin linked anthropology and ethics is through the concept of "natural law" or the "law of nature." Calvin writes: "It is a fact that the law of God which we call the moral law is nothing else than a testimony of natural law and of that conscience which God has engraved upon the minds of men."4

The idea of natural law is the view that there is an abiding, normative moral order to which human existence is subject and that this order is correlated with and structured into human nature. Human nature in turn has been designed by the Creator God, whose will is thus the ultimate basis for the human order, the moral order, and their perfect symmetry.


The idea of natural law is found in classical philosophy, especially in Aristotle and the Stoics, and was used to elaborate Christian ethics most fully by Thomas Aquinas. Calvin criticized certain features of both classical and medieval natural law ethics, but he repeatedly used the notion in a manner consistent with his own theology.5

The idea of natural law was employed to various degrees by Calvinist theologians and ethicists from the sixteenth into the nineteenth centuries.6

More recent Reformed thinkers such as Kuyper, Bavinck, Geesink, and Dooyeweerd, attempting to distance themselves from the problematic aspects of humanistic and Roman Catholic natural law ethics, have chosen instead to speak of "creation ordinances" or "creation order." By this term they intended to retain Calvin's view that the normative will of God for human life is perfectly correlated with God's will that human nature have a particular constitution. As the structure of creation, God's law is binding upon all people, not just those who love Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.


The precise way natural law connects anthropology and ethics lies in the notion of purpose. To be a human being is to be created for certain purposes. Basic among them are to image God, to love God above all and one's neighbor as one's self, to be fruitful and multiply, and to have dominion over the earth. These purposes inform the constitutive structure of human nature itself, including its physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions. These purposes are therefore evident in our basic human abilities, capacities, needs, and desires. If our purpose as humans is to image God, then the abilities and needs that we have as physical-mental-spiritual beings are all created so that we can image God. Doing so fulfills our existence; not doing so frustrates and harms human nature. Imaging God is our highest and fullest good. The optimal functional orders for all dimensions of lifepersonality, character, health, marriage, sexuality, family, work, interpersonal relations, social organizationsare all coordinated toward that end. Like a man-made machine, human life works well only when operated according to how it was designed.


At the same time these purposive designs constitute a set of norms for human existence. Because we have been created with these capacities and purposesto love God above all and our neighbors as ourselveswe ought to do so. That is God's will for our lives. Furthermore, because our neighbors are also created for these purposes and endowed with the requisite capacities, they have a value or worth in terms of which they deserve to be treated with love, respect, justice, and support. We owe our neighbors good because they too image God, says Calvin. In these ways, our moral responsibilities are rooted in our natureethics is grounded in anthropologyand both express the will of God. This is the heart of the Calvinist idea of natural law, creation order, or the ordinances of creation.


2. Natural Law and God's Revealed Law


But how does this fit with God's law expressed in Scripture? From the point of view of natural law or creation ordinances, the Ten Commandments are God's explicit restatement to his covenant people Israel of the universal law of nature which binds all people. We humans were created to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves. The central implications of the law of love are spelled out in the Ten Commandments, especially when construed positively, as in the Reformed tradition. In fact Jesus says that this law of love is the basis for all the law and the prophets. So the Ten Commandments and all the particular principles, precepts, and rules which the Lord gives in Scripture specify and apply in varying degrees of particularity for various situations the law of love (including justice and stewardship) which is the purpose of human existence. As the designer of a machine instructs the one who operates it, so the Lord tells us how we should live.


The most basic reason why it was necessary for God explicitly to reveal and specify the norms of creation law again to his people is the reality of sin. When our first parents rebelled against God and fell into sin, they damaged themselves doubly with respect to natural law. First, human nature itself with its essential purpose of imaging God was seriously damaged. Thus the objective basis for knowledge of natural law was distorted. Second, the subjective human capacity for knowing the law was also impaired. As a consequence, complete and accurate knowledge of God's will is available only through special revelation.


Nevertheless, Calvin and the mainstream Reformed tradition have always held that unbelievers are aware of and accountable for divinely-ordained norms. Because God graciously upholds the order of his creation and maintains a remnant of his image in fallen human beings, creation ordinances can in general and with some degree of accuracy be known by all humans through their consciences in spite of the fall and without the benefit of Scripture. In various ways natural law is understood and implemented in all societies and cultures, but never without sin and distortion.


In summary, then, the point of considering natural law is not to replace biblical commandments with an ethics based on anthropology done by reason alone. It is rather to demonstrate that Calvinism, following Scripture, has recognized that God's law expressed in the Bible reflects his will for human existence, i.e. that moral norms are structured into human nature as designed by God.


C. Worldview


1. Definition


The idea of creation order inevitably leads us to a second connection between anthropology and ethics: worldview, or "world and life view," as some Calvinists put it. For natural law, the ground of ethics, pertains not only to human nature, but relates humanity to God and the rest of the created order. Thus worldview is the context within which anthropology specifies and orients ethics. Let me explain.


All religions, philosophies, ideologies, and life-projects articulate or presuppose worldviews. A worldview is a comprehensive non-theoretical picture of reality considered as the structured context of human life.7

Thus a worldview focusses on the nature, place, role, and "story" of human existence in relation to the other realities which impinge on it and to which humans must relate: the physical cosmos, the earth and living things, the human community, the flow of time, the transcendent or spiritual realm, the realm beyond death, and God or the absolute. Its comprehensiveness does not preclude very specific directives about certain aspects of life such as food, sex, social relations, political authority, or worship of God. In short, a worldview depicts the nature, place, and purpose of human life in relation to the whole order of things. Thus it has a great deal to do with what in most cultures is called "wisdom," the capacity for living fully and effectively in terms of how human life fits into the cosmic order.


No religion, philosophy, or life-vision formulates its ethics apart from the anthropology contained in its worldview. For worldviews pertain to living, not just to understanding. They are practical, not just intellectual. Whether in primal animism, the theonomic orders of the ancient near east, the political eudaemonism of classical Greece, or in the modern ethics of utilitarianism, pragmatism, existentialism, and hedonism - the norms and prudential principles for human action always derive from the view of human nature and how it stands in relation to the rest of reality.


This is most clear in a natural law or cosmic order ethics. For since natural law itself reflects the nature and purposes of human existence in relation to other realities, worldview and natural law mutually imply each other. In the Christian view, the creation order correlates humanity and other creatures under God. Thus when Christians confess that God created humanity to image him by loving him, loving the neighbor, and exercising dominion over the earth, they thereby outline both the normative creation order and the biblical world and life view. 8

2. Worldview in Christian and Reformed Thought


Although the concept of Weltanschauung, wereldbeschouwing, or "world and life view" was not formulated until rather recently in the history of ideas, it has always implicitly functioned in biblical and Christian writings. If a worldview is a picture of how human life fits within the overall scheme of things - divine and spiritual reality, human society and culture, and the natural world - then Scripture and subsequent Christian writers have both expressed worldviews and criticized other worldviews. The Old Testament shares the ancient Near Eastern view that there is a divinely ordained cosmic order, but it constantly polemicizes against pagan concepts of God and the specific normative content of the cosmic order for virtually every area of human life. The New Testament contests the basic beliefs and practices of Greco-Roman paganism, state-cultism, and gnosticism, as well as elements of the Judaistic worldview. The church fathers, whether dealing with philosophy or popular culture, polemicized regarding the basic differences between the biblical view of reality and the various pagan mythologies of Greco-Roman and surrounding Indo-European cultures. Surely Calvin is a worldview thinker. For he both develops a comprehensive view of human life in the world before God, even including some aspects of our relation to nature, and he criticizes belief systems, both classical and contemporary, which depart from the biblical picture.


Developed mainly in German philosophy since Kant, the notion of worldview or world and life view remains current among philosophers of religion.9

It was borrowed and popularized in Dutch neo- Calvinism in the writings of Kuyper and Bavinck and their spiritual progeny. It still flourishes among those who live out of their vision of a vital, biblical, world-engaging Calvinism.10

But it is not limited to the Dutch Reformed tradition. Many North American Christians, for example, are currently interested in "the biblical worldview" or "the Christian world and life view."11

All are convinced that having such a worldview makes a difference in how Christians understand themselves and live in the world.


D. Summary


Thus far we have identified two ways in which Reformed thinkers have considered anthropology to shape ethics: first through natural law or the ordinances of creation, which understands moral norms as structurally correlated with human nature as created by God; and second via worldview, in terms of which human nature and its purposes are situated, contextualized, and oriented. Structurally, natural law or creation order can be understood as the normative dimension of a Christian worldview.


Understanding the purposes built into human nature in relation to itself, God, and the rest of creation helps us understand our responsibilities, including our moral responsibilities, and the reason why we have them. From a Reformed perspective anthropology in this way makes an important contribution to ethics.



III. REFORMED WORLDVIEW, ANTHROPOLOGY, AND ETHICS: THE IMAGE OF GOD AND THE BODY-SOUL QUESTION


A. Introduction


Since anthropology unavoidably shapes ethics, we must ask how this has taken place in Reformed thought. And how should it do so? To address these questions we will focus briefly on two central doctrines of humanity - the image of God and the body-soul question. We will explore the connection of both doctrines with worldview as well as their implications for ethics.


B. Anthropology and Worldview in the Reformed Tradition


Much of historic Calvinism rightfully owns its reputation as a creation-affirming, world-reforming expression of Christianity, especially in comparison to traditional Roman Catholicism and other strands of Reformation Protestantism.12

Nevertheless it is true that Reformed thinkers have found it necessary to work at progressively freeing their anthropology from the influence of the matter-spirit and nature- grace dualisms of the Greek and medieval worldviews so that a more fully biblical view of human life before God in the world could emerge.


Of all the Reformers Calvin most fully appreciated that participation in the social and cultural life of this world is part of the Christian vocation. Yet it is also true that Calvin favored the Platonic-Augustinian view of human nature as consisting of a material body and an immortal spiritual soul.13

And although his doctrine of the image of God did not identify the image exclusively with rationality or will as in some medieval scholastic theologies, he nevertheless located the image primarily in the soul and its divinely- endowed spiritual capacities in their proper, sinless exercise. The body is not part of the image but expresses the image as the instrument of the soul, thus containing "sparks" of the image. Calvin explicitly rejects the notion that the image consists in having dominion over the earth.14

Herman Bavinck presents an expanded version of Calvin. On the one hand he says that "the image of God is identical with man, is as inclusive as the humanity of man" and that "even the body is not excluded from the image of God." Yet he still holds that the image consists in man's spiritual nature: all the personal capacities which animals do not possess reason, will, self-consciousness, and even the passions. The image is located mediately in the human body in as much as it expresses and is "the instrument of the spirit." As a consequence, he denies that having dominion over the earth is "constitutive" of the image, although the image "comes to expression" in exercising dominion.15

Thus Bavinck also uses the body-soul, spirit-matter distinction to define and delimit the ways in which human beings image God.


The question arises, once again, whether classical Reformed theology has fully extricated itself from the influence of the Greek worldview in terms of which aspects of medieval theology and anthropology had been formulated. Further, if a subtle physical-spiritual worldview dualism is still present, what are its influences on the ethics of Calvinism? If the bodily, social, and earth-related dimensions of human existence are not essential aspects of the image, but only ways in which the image happens to come to expression, is it not possible for Reformed ethics to become too individualistic, spiritualistic, and other- worldly in spite of the social-cultural and world-transformative impulses of Calvinism? Does there not remain an inner tension between these two aspects of Reformed thought?


C. Anthropology and Worldview in Recent Reformed Thought


These questions have been raised by twentieth-century Calvinists. The continuing attempt to purge Reformed thought from all remnants of Greek and other non-biblical thought forms has been pursued by philosophers such as H. Dooyeweerd and D. Vollenhoven, theologians and biblical scholars such as G. Berkouwer and H. Ridderbos, and by like-minded Reformed scholars throughout the world. The project of regaining a fully biblical worldview, anthropology, and consequently a more biblical view of our human responsibilities has also been reflected in documents of the Reformed Ecumenical Council.16

Such efforts have resulted in continuing reform both of the doctrine of the image of God and of the body-soul question. These revisions, in turn, have contributed to a corrected perspective on the norms for human life, including ethical norms.


D. The Image of God


Recent thought has approached the image of God less from traditional theological concerns and more from biblical scholarship. What has resulted is the view that humanity images God directly in all the concreteness of its earthly existence, not just its higher spiritual capacities.


The first chapter of Genesis depicts God as a great ancient Near Eastern potentate whose word is law and whose judgment is definitive. This God has brought into existence the entire cosmos and ordered it as his earthly kingdom. On the first three days he creates the territories or regions of his kingdom the light and the dark, the waters above the firmament and below, and the green earth in the midst of the waters. On the second three days he populates these territories with his creaturely subjects the sun and the moon, the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and the animals on the green earth. Finally, having judged his entire kingdom to be very good, God pays special attention to the creation of humankind, the bearer of his image, the culmination of all his work. Male and female together bear the divine image; together they are blessed with the capacity to multiply their kind, to generate more images of God. Together they are commissioned with dominion over the earth and its creatures.


A number of features of the image of God are noteworthy. First, the image pertains to humans in their physical-mental-spiritual unity, not merely or primarily to their souls. In the ancient Near East rulers like the pharaohs and Nebuchadnezzar were often considered incarnations of the high god and in turn made physical images of themselves throughout their kingdoms.17

In a parallel sense humans are the bodily- earthly images of the heavenly king. It is not just their souls which image God.


Second, the core of the image consists in the authority or dominion with which God endows humanity. The image of the ancient kings was the sign of the authority. Their rulers and vassals bore their image on a ring or seal and gave judgment next to the king's image. Accordingly, Genesis 1 depicts humankind as God's royal steward or vassal, given authority to rule over his earthly kingdom on his behalf.18

Being God's steward of course presupposes that humans can hear, know, and obey the will of the divine King whom they serve and that they can understand the order of his creation. This interpretation of the image thus assumes that humans are rational and volitional agents. But, unlike scholastic theology, it does not locate the image in those capacities. The analogy between God and his image bearers has more to do with activities like being in covenant relationships, ruling, judging, having dominion, and doing so lovingly, justly, truthfully, and beneficently.


Third, the image of God is inherently social. While it is true that each human being bears God's image, it is the human race together that is called to image God.19

God created his image male and female in Genesis 1. While one cannot locate the image in our sexual mutuality, it is clear that both genders together image God. The loving, personal sexual intimacy of husband and wife images God. In their fruitfulness they multiply the divine image, so that Adam and Eve pass the image to Seth which God gave to them.20

This also means that all human beings image God. At bottom the different races and ethnic groups not only share the familial relationship of common parenthood. They also share in imaging God. Thus in the order of redemption it is the whole church, not just the aggregate of individual believers, which is the renewed image of God in Christ. In recognizing the social solidarity in the biblical idea of the image of God, some theologians have even suggested that this mirrors God himself, who is the eternal communion of persons Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.21

In summary, more recent Reformed discussions of the image of God conclude from biblical scholarship that the image includes the totality of human life.22

At its heart is the relationship of love, commitment, and obedience to God. It involves a stewardly relation with the earth and animals an agricultural mandate which implies a more general cultural mandate. It also involves the human community all people and both genders. This includes most of the major categories of a world and life view.

The worldview with which the image is correlated is that of kingdom. The world in which humans live is God's kingdom. In principle, then, it is not correct to suppose that we must reduce life in this world to an admission test or escape beyond this life to a more spiritual realm in order to dwell in God's kingdom. Sin has distorted how we image God in the world. The true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness which are restored to us in Jesus Christ, himself the perfect image of God, have everything to do with human life in God's earthly kingdom, not in a transcendent or primarily spiritual realm. Even in the eschaton, we are not transformed into unworldly beings, but we reign (have dominion; image God) with Christ in the new heaven and earth, his kingdom which has come down from heaven. Revelation 22 fulfills Genesis 1. This conclusion has a great deal to do with the orientation of the Christian life, including its ethical dimension. It is clear that the image of God as a topic of anthropology in the context of the biblical worldview does have a bearing on ethics.


E. The Body-Soul Distinction


The other anthropological topic which bears on ethics is the body-soul distinction. Under the influence of a Greek matter-spirit and medieval natural-supernatural dualism, it was possible for Christians to spiritualize the idea of God's kingdom. One could locate the image of God primarily in the mystical or rational soul and treat bodily-earthly existence as a temporary home for the soul, a challenge to manage but inessential to the kingdom of God. We have already noted an ambivalence in Calvin. On the one hand he advocates earthly vocations as kingdom callings. On the other he endorses Plato's dualism of a material body and an immortal spiritual soul and locates the image of God in the soul.


Subsequent Reformed theology has progressively attempted to overcome body-spirit dualism. Scholastic anthropology tended to follow a more Aristotelian-Thomistic line than Calvin, one which held that, although they could separate at death, body and soul are a substantial unity during life. More recent thought has sometimes become virtually monistic or holistic, completely rejecting the body-soul distinction as a Greek idea which is foreign to biblical anthropology. This development must be evaluated.


While recent holism is able to account for the unity and integrity of our existence as physical-mental- spiritual images of God in the world, it precludes the possibility of our being able to exist with Christ apart from earthly bodies between death and the final resurrection. But the reality of the intermediate state is part of our Reformed confession.23

 


And that is because it is taught in Scripture. Although the Hebrew words for "soul" and "spirit" (nephesh, ruach) are not used dualistically in the Old Testament, it is clear that persons were believed to continue existing after death in Sheol. In intertestamental Judaism we find clear evidence of belief in an intermediate state and final resurrection. We also find "soul" and "spirit" being used dualistically in this connection. These themes of Judaism are surely taken up in the New Testament. Modern biblical scholarship still acknowledges strong evidence that New Testament authors affirm an intermediate state with Christ between death and final resurrection. And it is clear that some of those authors use the words "soul" and "spirit" to refer to the dead.24

This is not monism or holism.


Thus we must retain the intention of the scholastic theologians, even if we must modernize their philosophical concepts and de-Platonize some of their formulations. That is, we must affirm an anthropology which does two things. It must be holistic regarding our life in this world as bearers of the divine image. But it must also include enough of an ontic body-soul or body-ego distinction so that the intermediate state is possible.25

We must not stress one biblical teaching at the cost of eliminating another.

Here again the role of worldview as mediating anthropology and ethics is crucial. The problem is not with the body-soul distinction per se but with understanding it in terms of a dualistic Greek matter-spirit worldview or a dualistic medieval nature-supernature worldview. A properly biblical body-soul distinction is interpreted in terms of the biblical worldview, which traces the history of God's kingdom from its creation through the fall to its redemption in Jesus Christ and beyond to its fulfillment on earth as it is in heaven. In this perspective there is no tension between affirming that God created us as integrated physical-mental-spiritual bearers of his image on earth and at the same time holding that God keeps persons in existence between bodily death and future resurrection.


In summary, the problem is not with the body-soul distinction itself, but with the unbiblical ways it has been interpreted. It is possible to dichotomize body and soul into separate substances with separate functions, as Plato and Descartes did. It is possible to hold that spirit is the principle of good and matter the principle of evil, thus setting up a tension between body and soul, as in Hellenistic thought. It is possible to hold with the medievals that supernatural grace attaches more to the soul than to the body, so that the Christian life has to do with inner, spiritual, and heavenly things rather than with engaging this world. But a biblical anthropology developed in the context of the biblical worldview would avoid all these mistakes, mistakes which distort the scriptural vision of the Christian life and thereby disorient Christian ethics. A biblical Reformed view both insists on a kingdom-focused vision of the Christian life and an adequate body-soul distinction.


F. Conclusion


We have seen that Reformed theology has made historical progress in revising its notions of the image of God and the body-soul distinction in the light of Scripture. Without rejecting the body-soul distinction or denying that human beings are in a significant sense like God, Reformed anthropology has made headway in overcoming the various dualisms of traditional philosophy and theology. It has emphasized the unity and existential integration of human beings as earthly creatures who bear God's image. In so doing Reformed anthropology has contributed to a vision of the Christian life which is more faithful both to Scripture and to human existence as we experience it. The contemporary relevance of the image of God for social life, human rights, gender issues, and stewardship of the earth is obvious and important. It remains for us to express some of these implications.


IV. CONCLUSION: IMPLICATIONS FOR METHODOLOGY AND FOR ETHICS


A. Introduction: Summary of the Argument


Let me summarize the thesis of this paper. Anthropology shapes ethics in terms of natural law/creation order and worldview. Thus properly understanding such notions of biblical anthropology as the image of God and the integration of body and soul enables us more adequately to articulate Christian ethics.


I will conclude with a general illustration of this thesis, some methodological implications for implementing it, and finally with a couple of direct applications to the ethical topics of this conference.


B. An Illustration


If anthropology does shape ethics, then different anthropologies should generate different understandings of the Ten Commandments. This is in fact demonstrable. If one approaches the Decalogue from the individualistic-spiritualistic anthropology characteristic of some Christian traditions, then it seems possible to fulfil the law by meditating alone in a monastery apart from human society. God is worshipped. No prohibitions regarding the neighbor are transgressed. But if one considers the Decalogue as restating God's will for his image bearers as revealed by the whole of Scripture, then one will see the far-ranging positive implications of the Commandments for human life and society, as John Calvin and the Heidelberg Catechism do. Having a proper anthropology is indispensable for ethics.


C. Methodology for Further Study


But how does one achieve a proper understanding of human nature and creation order given the reality of sin? The method follows from three key Calvinist doctrines we have encountered above.


 


 


 


In attempting to understand human nature, therefore, Reformed thinkers will proceed to construct theological and philosophical anthropology by explicating the picture of humanity which is revealed in Scripture. This scripturally-informed philosophical anthropology in turn provides the framework within which the results of the specific disciplines which study human nature are integrated. Although Scripture itself addresses neither philosophical nor scientific issues, it nevertheless provides the perspective from which these sorts of questions about human nature are approached.


With an elaborated anthropology of this sort one which takes seriously the unity and diversity of human nature, the reality of sin, and the fruits of human self-reflection it is possible to gain insight into particular ethical questions not directly addressed in Scripture from a biblical perspective.26

It is possible, for example, to understand the role of biological factors, personality disorders, and social dynamics in immoral inclinations and behavior without denying the reality of personal responsibility. This knowledge in turn guides decisions about how best to help people regain responsibility or why different people ought to be helped differently. It also clarifies the limits and possibilities of what can be done. An articulated Reformed anthropology must go beyond the formulation of doctrine without abandoning its influence.


The residual image of God, the abiding order of creation, and the reality of sin have another methodological implication. In attempting to understand the normative order, Reformed ethicists will take into consideration data derived from the human sciences and cross-cultural anthropology. God's laws for marriage and family can be obeyed in more than one way, for example. Recognizing this is especially important for avoiding the trap of identifying the patterns of a particular culture or of sinful and oppressive structures with the ordinances of creation, a mistake natural law ethicists have sometimes made. But Reformed ethicists will never relativize the principles genuinely taught in Scripture in terms of cultural anthropology or social trends. They will neither interpret Scripture in terms of the laws of the nations nor suppose that Scripture simply sanctions general human mores. Rather, they will judge the nations and cultures, including their own, by the final norm of Scripture. For the nations are fallible, but Scripture is not. This is a crucial point in the contemporary situation with its post-modernism, cultural relativism, and demands for the contextualization of the Gospel.


Given that we approach anthropology and natural law from a biblical perspective, however, these reflections can help us better understand the ethical norms for our lives, including those stated in the Scriptures. The importance of a proper biblical hermeneutics in all of this is self-evident.


D. Relevant Applications


I close with two examples of how biblical anthropology sheds light on specific ethical issues. The first has to do with abortion and euthanasia. Some Christians argue that the lives of embryos and people who have lost their higher human capacities are expendable because they do not possess the capacities for imaging God. We have seen, however, that the image of God is not just the capacity to have dominion over creation. It is also a communal reality, reflected by the human race as such, presumably including its unborn and incapacitated members. Coupling this fact with the biblical demand that we care for the weak and helpless raises suspicion about the validity of this argument for euthanasia and abortion. Further, if body and soul are integrated and the soul is the principle of life, then the presence of life indicates the existence of a human being, not just an organism. Terminating the lives of those without the higher functions is ethically impermissible, given these considerations of biblical anthropology.


Another current issue is the status of women, a volatile topic in many cultures. Whatever differences between men and women are affirmed in Scripture and identified by empirical studies, it cannot be forgotten that there is a fundamental equality as well. For Genesis 1 teaches that male and female together image God. Together they are fruitful and multiply; together they are given dominion over the earth. They stand side-by-side in their single office before God. It is a curse that the husband rule his wife (Gen 3:16). Too often we have acted as though God gave the man dominion over everything including the woman and merely told the woman to be fruitful and multiply. The fact that women bear God's image equally with men is as significant as male headship in marriage for a Reformed discussion of the gifts and roles of women in our different social-cultural contexts.


I hope these applications are helpful in illustrating the practical value of my thesis that Reformed ethics cannot be done apart from Reformed anthropology.

 

End Notes:

 

1 * Dr. John Cooper is professor of Philosophical Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, MI USA.
1 Institutes, III. vii.6.
2 Cf. James Gustafson, Ethics From a Theocentric Perspective, Vol. 1 (Univ. of Chicago, 1981).
3 I will not address the question regarding the precise domain of ethics, i.e. whether ethics loosely speaking is synonymous with right living in general or whether it includes only part of the whole range of duties and responsibilities we have as humans before God. The thesis of the paper is valid in either case.
4 Calvin, Institutes IV.xx.16. Cf. also Inst. II.ii.22 on Rom. 2 and his Commentary on Romans 1:21-27 and 2:14-15.
5 Cf. Allen Verhey, "Natural Law in Aquinas and Calvin," God and the Good, editors C. Orlebeke and L. Smedes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), pp. 80-92.
6 Cf. W. Geesink, "De geschiedenis der gereformeerde ethiek," Gereformeerde Ethiek, Bd. II (Kampen: Kok, 1931), pp. 453-511.
7 A worldview is not usually a system of clear and distinct ideas expressed in precise terminology. It is not a philosophy in the theoretical or academic sense. It is rather a comprehensive portrait or depictionmore imaginative than conceptualof the structure of reality which can be expressed in non-theoretical ways such as myths, rituals, symbols, narratives, architecture, and clothing as well as in non-technical statements of beliefs in ordinary language. A philosophy or theology usually presupposes and explicates a worldview rather than creating one. It is on the level of worldview that all people from academic philosophers to pre-literate animists have a basis for common discourse.
8 Cf. Oliver O'Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 25: "Love is the overall shape of Christian ethics, the form of the human participation in created order."
9 Cf. Ninian Smart, Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs (New York: Scribners, 1983).
10 Cf. Albert Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985); James Olthuis, "On Worldviews," Christian Scholar's Review (1985), pp. 153-64; and REC Theological Forum, "African and Other Worldviews," Vol. XIX, No. 3 (November 1991).
11 Cf. Arthur Holmes, Contours of a Worldview (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983). Holmes is Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College, the premier evangelical college in the United States. And James Sire, The Universe Next Door: A Basic World View Catalogue (Intervarsity, 1976, 1988). Sire is the senior editor of Intervarsity Press.
12 Cf. N. Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), Ch. 1, "World-Formative Christianity."
13 Institutes I.xv.6 where he refers to Plato with approval.
14 Cf. A. Hoekema, Created in God's Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1986), pp. 42-49, and especially Mary Potter Engel, John Calvin's Perspectival Anthropology (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), Ch. II "Imago Dei."
15 Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1956) (trans. by H. Zylstra of Magnalia Dei), Ch. XII, "The Origin, Essence, and Purpose of Man," pp. 211-15.
16 Cf. for examples The Church and Its Social Calling (1980) and RES Testimony on Human Rights (1983).
17 Cf. the image of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3.
18 Cf. Hans W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), Ch. XVIII, "God's Image - the Steward of the World." Cf. also John Stek, "What Says the Scriptures?," Portraits of Creation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), esp. pp. 250-62, "The Creation as God's Kingdom and Man as God's Royal Steward." Harry Kuitert, Signals From the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), In Ch. 9, "The Image of God," he calls us "rulers" and "managers of God's affairs on earth."
19 H. Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, II, p. 621, says "Not the individual man and not even the man and woman together, but mankind as a whole is the fully developed image of God." Quoted from Hoekema, p. 99.
20 Genesis 5:1-4.
21 Cf. Hoekema, p. 97.
22 Cf. Hoekema, Ch. 5, "The Image of God: Theological Summary." And Cornelius Plantinga, "Images of God," in Christian Faith and Practice in the Modern World, ed. M. Noll and D. Wells (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988).
23 Cf. Heidelberg Catechism, Q/A 57; Westminster Confession, Ch. XXXII.
24 John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), Chs. 2-7.
25 Cf. John Cooper, "The Body-Soul Question: Can We Be Both Confessional and Reformational?," Pro Rege, September 1991, pp. 1-12. Though not philosophically clarified, duality in unity is the position taken by such Reformed theologians as G. C. Berkouwer in Man: The Image of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), Chs. 6 and 7, and Anthony Hoekema in Created in God's Image, Ch. 11.
26 Geesink includes consideration of many such anthropological factors including heredity, physiology, conscious and unconscious mental processes, gender differences, the stages of life, differences in temperament, character, and personality type in his analysis of the ethical subject; Gereformeerde Ethiek, Vol. I.