Systematic Theology – Creation and Providence

Creation, Providence and Responsibility

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 15 of 17

Track: #15

Year:

Dictation Name: 15 Creation, Providence, and responsibility.

[Rushdoony] On the throne and that we can come into Thy casting our every care upon Thee, who carest for us. We pray our Father that as we face the flood tide of Humanism around us that Thou wouldst strengthen our hearts and our hand, that we might fight a good fight, and in Thy power and by Thy spirit prevail. We thank Thee that this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith. Bless us now as give ourselves to the study of the things that are of Thee. In Jesus name, amen.

Tonight we’re going to consider three different topics all connected with creation and providence as we conclude our studies in the doctrines of creation and providence. First of all we shall be dealing with creation, providence, and responsibility.

At the beginning of this century, 1900 to be specific, J. S. Mackenzie in his Manual of Ethics declared “to be free means to be that one is determined by nothing but oneself.” Now Mackenzie’s Manual of Ethics was used for a generation or two as a textbook in many parts of the world. It was a very influential work; it set forth in this sentence the basic doctrine of humanistic freedom, one which has greatly infiltrated the church. Let me repeat that statement, “to be free means that one is determined by nothing but oneself.” Now such a freedom is possible only for God. God according to our faith has aseity, self being. God is eternal, self existent, totally undetermined by anything outside of Himself. In other words you and I are responsible creatures because we do not have aseity. We are not free to do as we please because we are creatures created by God. We are responsible creatures. Now God is beyond responsibility because all things in creation are responsible to God as the Lord and sovereign. Thus only God has an absolute freedom to be what He chooses to be. But humanism wants man to have the same kind of freedom of God; freedom from all determination, freedom from everything outside of himself.

Now this view has been popular throughout the centuries with Humanism. But sooner or later it leads to disillusion. Practically speaking no man has this Godlike freedom. No man is able to be independent of all things. For one thing we eat every day; that indicates that we do not have aseity. We are dependent on the air we breathe, we are born and we can die, we do not have aseity; and so sooner or later disillusionment sets in. The other extreme from the doctrine of aseity again is a humanistic doctrine, and it is Karma. What happens with karma? The Hindu doctrine of Karma says that the whole of creation is bound up with an endless, impersonal, and abstract causality; so that all things move endlessly in terms of a multiplicity of causes, and you and I are simply links, minor sticks, in a vast chain of causality. And we have no freedom, a multiplicity of causes in our past created us, and we are not free.

Now these two doctrines seem to be at ultimate poles from each other; on the one man having aseity, being free and determined from nothing outside of himself; and on the other having no freedom, being totally determined, totally subject to causality of an abstract, impersonal, blind sort. And yet these two doctrines are both humanistic and both agreed at one point; man is not responsible, man is not a responsible creature. If you have aseity you’re answerable to no-one. If you’re a product of Karma you’re what the world made you, or the gods made you. In both cases man says with his doctrine “whatever happens to me is not my moral responsibility.” In both positions man refuses to see himself as a sinner. But when we turn to scripture these two doctrines become an impossibility, because the doctrine of creation tells us that first man is God’s creature, he is responsible to God. The universe does not move in terms of abstract causes, but to the will of God and His law.

This is why the science teaching in ungodly education is so evil, because it tells us that there are abstract causes, forces in the world, that all things move, the natural law is somehow abstract and impersonal. But if we are Christians we believe that there is not a single abstract, impersonal fact in all of creation. God, having made all things, stands immediately behind all things; so that at every point in our lives we have to do with the absolutely personal God. But whether it be the weather, or whether it be the air we breathe, or whether it be our lives and our nature, at every point God is there; that He is not a God afar off, but He is closer to us then we are to ourselves. So that we never deal with abstract causes, we live indeed in a universe of laws. We live indeed in a universe of cause and effect, but always a personal one behind which stands not a blind fate, or a blind determinism, but the absolutely personal God. You see what happens when you’re taught humanistically? You look at the world and see it as abstract and dead, and just causes and effects, and people are real, they’re personal, but most of the universe is impersonal from the humanistic perspective. But it cannot be so for us, because it is the personal creation of the personal God , and everything in it has a relationship to everything else in terms of the will of that personal God.

Let me illustrate. If you go into, well let us say into my study or pastor Jim Day’s {?} study, you’re going to see everything arranged there in terms of the way we want it. We create the order in terms of what we want to use. We’ll have books that we want perhaps on our desk; everything has a meaning in terms of our arrangement. Now everything in the universe, from the first day of creation to the last, is ordered and designed by God and therefore represents an absolutely personal meaning, and always the very present person of almighty God. So the doctrine of creation never allows us to see the world as impersonal or ourselves as irresponsible. We are never in an abstract or a neutral character; we are always on God’s ground responsible to God.

This then is the first great point. The doctrine of creation tells us that man is God’s creation, and second that man is created in the image of God. He is created to do God’s work. The image of God within Him is inescapable. We are created in the image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and dominion. We are created to be priests, prophets, and kings unto God in Christ. We can never escape that; we can pervert it, but we can never escape. Man is that being who is created by God to exercise knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and dominion as God’s priest, prophet, and king. Therefore man is a totally responsible creature. Responsible to the God in whose image he has been created. Humanism you see always works to undermine responsibility; it works to say that man does not have to be accountable to God, that he is a victim, a product of his environment, or that he exists in a morally neutral universe. But the Bible never gives us anyway of claiming such an excuse.

Now similarly the doctrine of providence has great implications for us. It gives us a personal God with total government. This is a fact we have already seen. This means that a universe of personal facts surrounds us. We’re never far from God wherever we are. Every moment is a part of His plan; every fact under the sun is a part of His purpose; so that we are never away from our home if our home is God. We can be at the far corners of the world, or on the battle field, or at home in our bed, but we are never away from God, we are always surrounded by Him and His creation, His total plan, His providence. We live, we move, we have our being in Him. From the moment man was created man was responsible, and God gave him a work to do, a choice with regard to the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because man having been created in God’s image, was created responsible, and therefore from the very moment he drew his first breath, he drew it in a universe in which there was not a single neutral fact, and the way he treated every single fact and every single moment dependent on his relationship with God. Thus at every moment the doctrine of providence teaches us that we are confronted by the living God.

Again and again scripture speaks very beautifully about this total providence of God. For example in Proverbs 16:4 we read “The Lord hath made all things for Himself, yeah even the wicked for the day of evil.” And again in Proverbs 20 verse 24 “Man’s goings are of the Lord, how can a man then understand his own way?” Jeremiah10:10 tells us “the Lord is the true God, He is the living God and an everlasting King, at His wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide His indignation.” Now if we are Humanist for us the universe is blank, it is dead. If there’s going to be any order or any providence in the universe it has to be man created, the state provides the providence; and this is what socialism is about. Socialism is the Humanistic doctrine of providence saying that God, being absent, the state is God walking on earth, and the state must provide for man. Before our meeting began we were discussing the IRS, the IRS sees itself as necessary to govern every area because there must be a providence upon earth. We have politicians talking about cradle to grave security, providence.

But as Christians we believe in another doctrine of providence. In Judges 5 one of the great sentences in the song of Deborah, does anyone know that verse? Great, great line in the song of Deborah; “the stars in their course fought against Cisera” magnificent, is it not? It’s the infallible word of God, and it’s the prophetess Deborah saying it. The tyrant Cisera thought he had all things his way because he was militarily powerful, but the very stars in their heaven move in terms of God’s plan, and all of history and every atom of creation, so the stars in their course fought against Cisera. And we had better say today that the stars in their course are fighting against the IRS, and against every humanist, and against everyone that raises his hand against the Lord, his school, and his people.

Thus the doctrines of creation and providence tell us that we are responsible. They tell us that that responsibility means that we live in a glorious world, a world which is totally God’s creation and which envelopes us so that man need never feel alone. “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” so that we may boldly say “the Lord is my helper, I shall not fear what man may do unto me.” Freud and others like him posited that man feels alone in the universe, and he has a desire endlessly to return to the womb, to have the security of being carried by his mother in a totally protected universe. And so man is always neurotic, these psychotherapists said, because he cannot return to the womb; and so he concluded all people are neurotic, without exception. “Oh” but someone said “what about Christians, those who really take their faith seriously? Do not have that desire; they do not have the neurosis you talk about.” And his answer was “they avoid the personal neurosis by accepting the cosmic neurosis, God.” Freud couldn’t answer that fact because the true Christian indeed has no need to return to the womb, he lives in a universe that gives him far more care throughout all of eternity, than any mother’s womb can provide. This is the strength of our faith, and why the doctrines of creation and providence are so important. Are there any questions now?

Well if there are no questions we’ll do our second subject, and then take brief break before we go on to our third and last.