And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, "I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done."In this series of essays, The Christian Mind: Foundations in Genesis we are seeking to document the foundations and structures which control human life and history upon the planet. We are looking at constitutive institutions―that is, those institutions which ineluctably and inevitably shape all of life and existence. Some theologians call these “creation” structures or “creation ordinances”.
Genesis 8:21
If we as Christians are to think properly, to think God's thoughts after Him, it is vital that we see the world as it really is, not as we would imagine or speculate it to be. This means that we need to ensure that our thinking is framed by the structures of creation itself, and by the institutions which God has appointed to structure all human existence. It also means that we will view the world in a radically different way from Athenian Unbelievers. Since Athenian Unbelievers currently predominate in our culture, what our culture accepts as “normal” and true is likely to be profoundly untrue and abnormal. If Christians uncrtically accept the dominant consensus beliefs of our day they will end up thinking the Devil's thoughts after him.
The citizen of Jerusalem, then, has a duty self-consciously to sweep out the rubbish and mental detritus that are vestiges of Unbelief, and deliberately replace the furniture of the mind with biblical constructs, principles, truths, and institutions. As citizens of Jerusalem make progress in this housecleaning of the mind they become increasingly useful in God's service. They also become increasingly powerful and influential in the Creation, since they are increasingly living in the real world—as it really is—not in the false, makebelieve world of Unbelief.
The modern Unbelieving Athenian Mind more or less denies the basic creational institutions are structures at all. All Unbelivers most certainly deny that the creation ordinances were ordained and commanded by the Living God. They may acknowledge the central importance and constitutive character of marriage, for example, for the survival of the species, for the psychological well-being of mankind, or for the foundation of society―but not as an ordinance appointed by God.
Consequently, the Unbelieving Mind has a tendency to view these creation ordinances (when they acknowledge and respect them) as habituated practices, relative to their time and circumstance. From time to time it becomes fashionable within Athens to attempt to do away with them, improve them, declare them obsolete, replace them with “modern, enlightened alternatives” or substitutes. Nevertheless, all such attempts fail; the basic structural realities of creation keep being re-asserted in all societies that continue because God rules the cosmos and the earth, not humanist, unbelieving man.
Evil in the human heart, the perpetual enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, idolatry, marriage, man being in the image of God, the seventh day of rest―all these, and many more, shape, condition, make, and mould human existence through the ages. We have said that one of these creational ordinances was appointed after the Great Flood of Noah. The antediluvian world was one in which sin was not restrained, but was allowed to come to its fullest and most consistent expression. The postdiluvian world is one where God governs the world, so as to restrain sin. This was necessary if the world and human history were to continue.
When we are considering the nature, state and depravity of man, therefore, we need always to keep two realities in mind: that man is evil and utterly depraved in every respect―on the one hand―and God rules over mankind so as to restrain and hold back man's evil―on the other. It is natural that Athenians would distort these truths, reasoning from the empirical evidence to false, idolatrous conclusions. Seeing the relative good of mankind, from time to time, Athenian mythology proclaims the innate goodness, or the moral perfectability of man. The Unbelieving Mind is driven to this interpretation and conclusion for the opposite―whichis the actual truth―cannot be fitted into the Unbelieving Mind. It could not possibly be true. It is excluded from the outset. If man is the measure of all things―a belief which all Unbelievers cherish ever since the Fall―he must be innately good, by definition, insofar as good has any meaning at all.
However, the Scriptures repeatedly declare another, contrary, true view of man. In the antediluvian world, as it was about to come to an end, God declared that He had seen the wickedness of man; that it was great upon the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of the heart of man was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5) Note the generic term. God is describing mankind―humanity.
This incessant universal comprehensive wickedness of mankind did not end with the Flood. What ended with the Flood was God's allowing such comprehensive wickedness to be expressed and institutionalised within human history. Mankind did not somehow become more righteous and less sinful after the Flood. Rather, the Lord explicitly declares that this was not the case. In Genesis 8: 21 He promises that He would never again destroy the whole earth on account of man. Now one might be tempted to draw a conclusion from that declaration that this could only be because mankind somehow underwent a moral transformation as a result of the Great Flood. But not so. God again declares, in the same breath as His declaration that He will not destroy the whole earth again, that the “intent of man's heart is evil from his youth.”
The recorded history of mankind in Scripture is one of repeated sin and evil―even amongst the redeemed people of God. The Scriptures are relentless, if not ruthless, in recording the sins of the saints―almost matter-of-factly. David declares that sinfulness attended him from the moment of conception: “behold I was brough forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5)
Jeremiah declares that the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:10). Psalm 14 pronounces that the sons of men (note the universality of the phrase) have all turned aside; there is no-one who does good, not even one. Paul takes up this text in his description of the universal degradation and evil of the entire race: “both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one.” (Romans 3: 9―18)
Why then does evil not fill the earth, as it did before the Flood? Because God restrains it, preventing man from maturing in evil, preventing man from being consistently true to his nature. This divine ordinance of restraining evil theologians call Common Grace, or Creation Grace, or Restraining Grace. It is a complex, mulit-faceted astounding work of God that goes on all the time. It means that the wicked are made to serve God, despite themselves.
In some forms, Common Grace punishes the wicked through the judgments of the civil magistrate upon criminals, thereby restraining wickedness. In other forms, it allows the wicked to reap the fruit of their wickedness so that they lose cultural power and influence over themselves, others and the creation. So the drug addict destroys his own life. The self-absorbed abort their own children, or choose to stay childless, cutting off their lines of descent, thereby dying out. The wicked flee when no-one pursues, says the Proverb, and consequently many Athenian Unbelievers are imprisoned and emasculated by one phobia or another.
Moreover, the dissolute wealthy are reduced to poverty and, thereby, cultural weakness. Yet again, the Unbelieving world is currently fixated with a cult of victimhood—which serves to ennervate and weaken and emasculate Unbelieving culture. In addition, when envy stalks a culture, becoming regnant within it, men become afraid to excel, fearing the rejection and hostility that will result.
The cult of Feminism has radically reduced the cultural influence and power of Unbelieving women. It has also feminised Unbelieving men, leading to their cultural emasculation as well. Modern theories of education—which have drawn upon a radically unbiblical world view—result in the institutionalised transmission of ignorance, leading to growing illiteracy and innumeracy. Cultural ennervation is the outcome. Terribly fashionable “rights-based” ideologies such as multi-culturalism lead to a dissolution of common beliefs, a loss of social coherence, and fragmentation—which, in turn, causes a culture to whither or even die out.
These cultural patterns of reaping the consequences of sinful living are not universally true―there are always exceptions. They are not universally true, because the Lord has decreed that His hand will be held back in final judgment, so that His purposes in human history can be realised and the glory of His Son can be manifested throughout all nations. Nevertheless they are true often enough to restrain and debilitate the influence of evil. The book of Proverbs provides repeated examples of how Common Grace eviscerates wickedness by causing it to reap its own fruit.
In the meantime, the wicked are so restrained in the expression of their sinfulness that they are made to serve God in being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth. They hunger, and so work and struggle to get food. They suffer loneliness and thus long for a life-mate and are restless until they find one. They shiver in the cold, and so labour to get wealth to protect themselves.
Basic instinctual drives are maintained by the Lord such that the Unbeliever still cares for his children, still loves his extended family, still respects his lords and governors to a degree, still has an affection for mankind in general. Not always. Not universally―but enough to ensure that the world does not destroy itself, and mankind continues to work at subduing the creation. These things are vestiges, remnants of a long-ago first parent; they are echoes of the Garden of Eden. They are not consistent with the true spiritual state of all men―which is to be enslaved to evil all the day. But the Lord keeps them within mankind, in his instincts, hungers, drives, and longings in such a way that sin is restrained and prevented from taking over everything.
Common grace makes universal history possible. It allows the world to continue, without end. It sustains the phenomenon of cause and effect. It helps gives all human history a universal meaning.
Without this wonderful work of God, sin would surely triumph. Hell would come upon earth. Or if it does, for a time, it integrates into the void, destroys itself, and life begins again. The Soviet Union under Stalin, Pol Pot, the unrestrained warlordism of Iraq or Darfur—these provide glimpses of what the world would become if the Lord were to remove His restraining hand.
The institution of Common Grace teaches us that man is not as wicked as he would be, if the Lord did not stretch forth His hand to restrain evil in his heart. The second implication is that Athenian culture is a paper tiger. Jerusalem is far more powerful and will eventually triumph over Athens. That City is always feeding upon itself, gnawing on its own bones, practising self-immolation, and engaged in acts of auto-cannibalism. Jerusalem, however, is fed by living waters and its fruit does not fail.
This certainty of triumph does not lead Jerusalem to engage in crass jingoism, however. For Jerusalem knows to the very core of her being that she exists solely by the grace and mercy of the Lord. When Jerusalem looks at Athens, engaged in its self-destructive immolation, she involuntarily cries out: “There, but for the grace of God, go I. Once I was blind, but now I have been made to see. Once I walked in those wretched streets, but now God has made me to dwell in a fair and pleasant land.” And her heart breaks with compassion for the lost in that wretched city.
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