As an illustration of the assertion that all the aspects of experience are present in
each event, thing, or person we encounter in our human journey, let’s consider the
birth of a baby – a first baby in the family. It is one baby – and that is quite
enough for the first time! The space it occupies is recorded on film and published in the
announcement. Movement characterizes it constantly, as does its evident physical
constitution. But more delightful yet, it is clearly alive! It has feelings and an
unabashed tendency to express them without regard to parental convenience. While logic is
not evident at this point, the baby certainly provokes a great deal of head scratching on
the part of its parents. It is added to the census and becomes an infinitesimal addition
to its country’s history. Language is there – inchoate but predictable. Its
social attachment to its mother is no longer physical but no less evident than before.
Economically, it brings significant changes into the family’s life; changes more than
compensated for by the aesthetic delight of parents and grandparents in its presence. The
birth certificate testifies to a jural aspect, parental love to the ethical aspect, and
dedication or baptism to the confessional or faith side of this new human being.
The aspects under which we know created reality in daily experience are not "things
" but God-given sides to the way we perceive reality. The realization that each phase
or mode is directly given to us by God’s all-powerful Word infuses the most ordinary
experience with an awesome sense of God’s Presence. Like Jacob we say, "Surely
Jehovah is in this place and I knew it not . . . How dreadful this place! This is none
other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." (Gen. 28:16-17 ASV) We
echo the psalmist’s reverence for God’s Word "Forever O Jehovah, Thy word
is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations; Thou hast established the
earth, and it abideth. They abide this day according to thine ordinances; for all things
are thy servants." (Psalm 119:89-91) We hear a bit more clearly the impact of
Paul’s declaration to the Athenians " . . . for in Him we live, and move, and
have our being." (Acts 17:28)
Because God made and upholds each aspect of our experience – and us in our perception
of them – each aspect has a standing of its own and is not subservient to any other.
This is what Kuyper called "sphere sovereignty." It is complemented by the
principle of "sphere universality," which identifies the rich inter-relatedness
whereby each aspect has echoes all the way up and down the scale. For example, a magazine
article, which is basically a matter of language and logic, has aesthetic, economic,
legal, social, ethical, and confessional echoes in it as well. United in their creation by
the Word of the Lord, the aspects of experience are at the same time richly diversified
and as full of inter-relationships as the jungle undergrowth.
When people deny God his creator status by assuming that experience is purely the result
of matter, time, and chance, they do not thereby escape the grip of their inbuilt need for
some "absolute" to give meaning to their experience. That need, inherent in man
because of his creation in God’s image, takes its revenge by compelling them to
absolutize some of the aspects at the expense of all the others. For example, Marxists
idolize the economic aspect and skew all the other sides of the experience to fit the now
distorted "picture." Freudians do it with the sensitive aspect, liberated
moderns with a thoroughly relativized view of history, etc. Only the Word of God is big
enough to carry the weight of human experience in its ordered breadth and length. Marxism,
Freudianism, historicism, etc. are merely modern forms of the idolatry described in Romans
1:25.
The most significant thing about the aspects of experience is that God is speaking to us
each of them, just as He does in all the rest of creation (Romans 1:20; Psalm 19 etc.).
The fact that we can count and be counted is one more way in which the Lord addresses
Himself to us in the deepest compassion and care. Our use of number is intended to be an
answer to Him, as is our involvement in each of the other aspects of reality. This brings
us to one final aspect of knowledge in this series.
(22) Knowledge is Responsible
One of the startling but little known distinctives of the Biblical concept of knowledge
as contrasted with that of the ancient Greeks or modern Westerners, is that it always
embodies responsible action. Truth is something that must be done to be known. The idea of
truth as an objective facility which can be comfortably contained in the mind without
issuing in an active response to God is absent from the Bible. "If we say that we
have fellowship with Him and walk in the darkness, we lie and do not the truth." (I
John 1:6) "Outside (i.e. excluded from the membership in the New Jerusalem, the
redeemed people of God) are . . . the idolaters, and every one that loveth and doeth a
lie." (Rev. 22:15 margin) Os Guinness calls this responsible knowledge, and the name
is a good one.
An excellent exposition of the topic is found in Shaping School Curriculum, edited
by Geraldine Steensma and Harro Van Brunmmelan. In a chapter on "The Scriptural View
of Knowledge and Truth" Steensma traces in detail the contrast between the Greek and
the Biblical thought patterns at this point. She says:
"The Old Testament Israelite grew in knowledge as he listened to God’s
proclamations and then committed himself to live in accord with those proclamations. Every
event was understood as an act of God or of men who acted either obediently or
disobediently to a living, powerful God of grace and love." (see footnote 1)
If experience is a gift from God, who speaks to us in every aspect of it and calls on
us for a response to Him in covenant faithfulness and love, then it is clear that
knowledge can never be neutral, devoid of responsibility. That modern man, driven to
distraction by the avalanche of media impact which rushes upon him day in and day out, has
learned to regard it as neutral does not make it so. It does little to help explain why
there is so little of real comfort in the newscasts. Knowledge in Biblical terms is always
responsible; it always calls for a response in thought, feeling, or action.
(23) Aesthetics Is Important
Dorothy Sayer’s complains that the church has never developed a philosophy of
creativity. (see footnote 2). Unhappily, she is correct. Like an over-tired mother with a
petulant child, we have found it easier to shout "No," than to understand
aesthetic energy and channel it. Art, except for Biblical illustration, church decoration
and innocuous wall hanging, has been banished. That there have been and still are creative
Christian artists, musicians, poets, playwrights, and authors is not because the church
has encouraged them. The toll in turned off artists and impoverished Christian lives is
probably far greater than anyone dreams.
God made man with an aesthetic ache, a deep need for beauty which first stretched its
wings when Adam named the animals, appreciated the beauty of the companion God led to him,
called her "bone of his bone," and composed her wedding hymn. Lewis speaks of
this need as a "desire for our own far off country," "the inconsolable
secret in every one of you," which we dismiss as beauty but continue to experience as
longing. (see footnote 3).
The Greeks thought reason was the divine element in man. The Westminster Catechism,
following the Scripture defines man’s chief end as "to glorify God and to enjoy
Him forever." Glory and beauty are synonymous, and the Catechism has caught the
Biblical emphasis. It does not exclude reason; it is far more aesthetic than logical. It
is not the Bible, but enlightenment rationalism, which has put math, science, and
technology at the head of the class, made aesthetic expression and appreciation into
extras easily dismissed from the school program at the first economic pinch, and taught to
regard musicians, artists, and writers as eccentric people. If recent research may be
trusted, the whole right half of the human brain, controlling the left side of the body,
is characteristically creative as contrasted to the logical and scientific trend of the
left half. Experiments in what is called "superleading" utilize classical music
to relax and occupy the right brain while learning goes on in the left brain. The
procedure, based on the learning principles of Dr. Georgi Lozanov of Bulgaria, is said to
enable students to absorb four times more foreign language vocabulary in a given time
period than conventional method.
A healthy appreciation for the aesthetic dimension of life is another mark of the
Christian mind. It is important for a variety of reasons. Man is an image bearer of God.
One of his principal functions and responsibilities is to behold the face of God in Jesus
Christ and to reflect in his life (all parts of it) the beauty there encountered. (II
Corinthians 3:18 and 4:6) The modern Western world, for all the genius and intricacy of
its technological marvels, lives an appallingly empty life. The reduction of humanness
that has accompanied the scientific revolution is probably unparalleled in history. A
demonstration of the beauty of a life rich with relationship to men and to God through
Christ’s redemption could be deeply healing medicine for modern man. Aesthetics is
also the carrier of the joy of God, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And it is a
fundamental element in all true service to God, which human life is intended to be in its
entirety. (Romans 12:1-2)
This is not a place for an elaboration of the aesthetic dimension of the Christian mind,
but it is the place to call for an intensive exploration of that dimension. It could be a
veritable lighthouse for a world drifting in the storm and driven ever closer to the rocks
of utter meaninglessness.
Editor: Al Greene
Alta Vista College
Footnotes:
- Sayers, D., The Whimsical Christian, Harper. p. 73
- Lewis, C.S., The Weight of Glory, Eerdman, 1965. P. 4-5.
- see Ostrender, Sheila and Schroeder, Lynn, Superlearning. Delta, NY, NY 1979.
