Klaas Schilder on the Imago Dei

Schilder sees man’s creation as the pre-condition for the image, but not the image itself (Berkouwer 54).  The actual image lies in the officium created man receives (I don’t think this is the full picture, but there is some truth to this, especially if we connect the imago dei with man’s dominion, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism hints at).

• Thus, the image is dynamic and is rooted in the Covenantal God’s Relation with man.
• the word “image” implies “making visible.”
• Schilder resists any abstracting the image.
• The glory of the image shines forth in service to God (56).

There is much good with Schilder’s take. I have several concerns: The danger with Schilder’s approach is that it makes the image too “dynamic” with an emphasis on conformitas.  It is not a hard push from here to Arminianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and Eastern Orthodoxy.  Further, the narrative does not seem to make the distinction on pre-conditions that Schilder does.  Perhaps it could work if one argues that God’s act of creating is not itself the image of God.  That is certainly true enough.

 

Did Dutch Theology have to go liberal?

Something I’ve always wondered: why did some of the most robust Reformed philosophical schools, which sometimes bordered on the theocratic, go liberal in Holland?  Now, the Anchorites will say that because they are Reformed and are dialectically destined to go liberal.  If the study were simply limited to Holland its step-children in North America (Grand Rapids, Toronto), it appears they would have a point.

However, Kuyperian onlookers have always narrowed their field of vision.    Francis Nigel Lee, however, suggests something else.  Calvinist South Afrika over the past 300 years (pre-Mandela) was very conservative and very Calvinistic.  So much so that it was targeted for destruction by Satan’s institution on Earth–the United Nations.

There’s an element  of Kuyperian thought that appears troubling, though.  It’s North American tendency towards statism has already been noted.   Kuyper’s view of sphere-sovereignty is often criticized in that while there is a separate sphere for the state, the fact of the matter is that the State can do whatever it wants and can transgress (presumably with impunity) into the other spheres.    Admittedly, Kuyper didn’t seem to have an answer to this.  As I reflect on the matter, though, this really isn’t a problem for Kuyper’s view: it’s just a sad fact of life, whatever your worldview paradigm may be (Gary North has his own response:  God places sanctions on criminal states and destroys them.  I agree.  Kuyper wasn’t clear on that point).

The reason it appears to go “liberal” probably happens along these lines:  1) a young Kuyperian seminary student chants that Christ is Lord over all (which is true).  2) He wants to apply his theology to politics.   3) He is contacted (made?) by high ranking members within a political party.   4) He accepts, thinking he is applying his faith to politics.   5) He then wakes up one day and realizes he is speaking at Bilderberg Conferences.

Kuyperianism needs to be buttressed by a robust, Scottish-Puritan-theocratic worldview or it will go liberal.