Greetings Everyone,

Welcome to the first post of the year. I hope that students will find these updates helpful for review, and parents will enjoy getting a sneak peek into the classroom. Perhaps these updates can help you continue the conversations we have at school at home if you so wish.

One of the main goals of the year involves understanding our own system of government, how it functions, and what we value. To best do that we want to begin at the beginning, and that means not 1776 or 1620, but with the created order. When we understand the world God made and note the crucial emphases God gives us in Geneis, we can then see how to interpret our experience of creation and how to best live within it. As Romans 1 states, when we properly understand the created order, we can better know God, and the same is of course true in reverse.

With that in mind we looked at Genesis 1 and 2, making a few important observations::

1. Unity and Distinction–Creation has an inherent unity, as all comes from God, and everything arises from the formless waters. But from this unity, God then makes distinctions between night and day, sea and land, male and female, etc. This expression of the one and the many has its roots in the nature of God Himself, who is one God in Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The relationship between the one and the many has occupied the mind of many theologians and philosophers, but also has significant implications for how we think about political order.
2. Names–God creates through speaking and naming, and in giving various aspects of creation names, He gives them an identity apart from other things. This is how God makes order out of what was once “formless and void” (Gen. 1:2).
3. Mankind–There are many, many implications for mankind being made in God’s image that we cannot unpack here. For our purposes, however, we can say that having the image of God means that we are made like God (at least in some ways) and should pattern our actions after Him. Scholar Meredith Kline has suggested that the first three days of creation involve God “subduing” creation, with days four through six about “filling” creation. Mankind are given the same task. We are meant to mimic God. So Adam names the animals, and Adam and Eve are to “fill” the earth.

This has implications for how we view the purpose and role of governments in the world.

We can interpret Scripture in a linear fashion, from Genesis to Revelation, and this certainly has importance. But at least as important (if not more so), is viewing history and Scripture Christologically. In chapter one of his gospel, the Apostle John obviously references Genesis 1 (“In the beginning was the Word . . . ) and reframes our view of the world. In some ways, the Incarnation is the creation event, of which Adam and Genesis 1 and 2 are images, or reflections. We can thus read scripture and history forwards and backwards through Christ, for all things cohere in Him (Col. 1:16).

This has enormous implications far beyond my ability to comprehend, let alone apply fully to our class this year. However, for our purposes we can note a few implications for thinking about political order. For one, we see the primacy not of the world, or civilization, but of the human person (i.e., “the sabbath was made for man”). A human being is one person, mirroring the unity of God. But we are also composite creatures, (body and soul), which perhaps dimly reflects the distinction in the Godhead.

As I mentioned at Orientation, my goal for the class is not so much to change anyone’s opinion, but to help students unpack why they reach their conclusions. To that end, what one believes about proper powers and roles of government has its roots in how we see government in relation to the fall. Christians have disagreed about this question for many centuries, but we need to see the downstream implications of our view. On the one hand,

• Augustine (and others) see government as a byproduct of sin, and would have no reason to exist without sin. Thus, government’s role should primarily involve dealing with the problems caused by sin. Some who believe in “limited government” look to Augustine for inspiration.
• Thomas Aquinas (and others) see government existing before the fall, and part of our role as image bearers of God. Just as God governs the cosmos, so we, being like Him, bring order to our world. Thus, those of this school would not necessarily limit government’s functions to dealing with sin, but perhaps want to expand its functions into the promotion of harmony and the “good life.”

Both sides have good arguments, and we will continue to unpack them next week.