Today’s blog was pulled from Henry Van Til’s book The Calvinistic Concept of Culture. It was so good, and fundamental, I thought I would try pass along a summary of some of his thoughts. To be clear, the content is Van Til’s and not mine. I have added a closing comment at the end.

Culture is a social enterprise; it is not achieved in isolation, but through the interaction and cooperation of men in communion. Of course, it is possible for some lone Robinson Crusoe to fashion things and have a form of civilized life, but he was able to set up shop because of his past cultural training and the many cultural objects salvaged from the shipwreck.

Culture, then, takes in the whole man, not merely as an individual, but as member of the human organism, and therefore, in various relationships to other men, and in different institutions that are thus called into existence, the institution of home, of society, with its relationships between employer and employee, capital and labor, commerce and industry, education and science, politics and government.

Culture is human and social, and therefore, as individuals within the cultural stream, we are formed by it. Culture is the secondary environment by which we are formed, and it is inescapable. This is involved in the fact that culture and social existence are inseparable. Culture influences the individual through custom, which is the social aspect of habit. However, no man is totally determined by custom in his culture, since he is himself a moral agent, able to act and to form the culture, to impregnate it with new ideas and ideals, and to reinvigorate its languishing spirit. Furthermore, the variety of cultural patterns is not merely a reflection of the varying times and climes but also of man’s freedom as cultural agent and subject.

Culture is never neutral, but it must be patent to all that culture is concerned with ends. Culture is concerned with the world of values, and all cultures are irreducibly value-oriented. For by culture, we do not merely understand the historical action of man and his moulding power in subduing the earth and bringing it to the fullest fruition, but culture also comes to expression in definite patterns of life which portrays certain ideals.

We may say that apostate culture in all its forms is concerned with the temporal and material realization of values. Man seeks to realize in this world that which is good for himself as a being within time. He transforms nature, he uses animals and cultural objects not merely to satisfy his basic needs, but also to impress his idea and ideals upon matter.

Biblically, however, culture is the fulfillment of purposive moulding of nature in execution of the creative will of God. Man as cultural creature is an analogue of the great Architect and Artist of the universe. Man as creature, therefore, is co-worker with God in bringing creation to its fulfillment. He is not, of course, a collaborator, but neither is he a blind fool. Man is an instrument who is conscious of what he is doing. But due to the fall of man into sin, he is no longer willing to admit the claims of his Creator or to serve God.

Culture is a gift of God to man as well as an obligation. The cultural urge, the will to rule and to have power is increated. This is not demonic, or satanic, but divine in its origin. True, men may misuse and abuse power after the entrance of sin into the world, but to say that all absolute power corrupts absolutely is not wisdom but folly and confusion. For power belongs to man by virtue of his creation as a cultural creature. He was made to function in the realm of power and to develop his power to its highest potency – for God, of course! There’s the rub! Men continually forget the divine original in Paradise and take the condition of Paradise lost for granted as being normative.

It may be observed that when the works of man lose their ultimate goal, they don not lose their cultural character, but they may be designated as apostate culture, since the true direction of man’s labor under the sun has been lost. Through sin man has lost the love and motivation to execute the creative will of God, and therefore, culture has been perverted. Instead of serving God, he now serves himself. Yet God is working, in Christ, to reconcile all things, including culture, to Himself. Culture then, in the words of T.S. Elliot is “lived religion” and this is being restored in Christ.

End of Van Til, now I will add my closing comment. I hope you can see where this is going. This talk on culture puts the entire gospel and Christian life into perspective. It reveals how we are to live all of life to the glory of God – no exceptions. If we understand the dominion mandate, the fall, the antithesis, and the redemptive work of Christ, we should understand that the Church itself becomes a counter-culture to the world’s fallen culture. If the Church is not a culture in antithesis with the world’s where then will be the salt and light. How then we make sense of this will and apply it to our lives will be the topic of future posts.