Systematic Theology – Creation and Providence

Creation, Providence and Eschatology

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 16 of 17

Track: #16

Year:

Dictation Name: 16 Creation, Providence, and Eschatology.

[Rushdoony] Now we’ll deal Providence, creation, and Eschatology. Eschatology of course is the doctrine of last things, what’s going to happen to the world? How will everything end? First of all I’d like to read from Psalm 25 verses 1-5 “Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.2 O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me. 3 Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed: let them be ashamed which transgress without cause. 4 Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths. 5 Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.” This is David’s prayer in the face of enemies. As he faces his enemies he prays to the Lord to show him His way, to lead him in His truth; and he says “on Thee do I wait all the day long.” David in the face of enemies knew that more was at stake than merely deliverance, although he prayer for that, he wanted to know the meaning of his life and of all that he was undergoing in terms of God, and God’s purpose, and God’s truth as it was to be manifested in his life.

Man is created in the image of God. Man has in his entire being and life an inescapable purpose, he must live in terms of the meaning that God gives to life. Man has a nature given to him by virtue of his creation in the image of God. His nature is that He is a creature created in God’s image. The fall cannot alter that fact, it perverts it, but it cannot take away the facthood, we are still created in the image of God in terms of knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and dominion; to be God’s priest, prophet, and king. What the ungodly do is to exercise knowledge for the kingdom of man. They seek to create another concept of holiness and righteousness by saying man is his own law and will determine for himself what constitutes good and evil. They seek to exercise dominion in terms of humanistic goals, and they create a tyrant state, they seek to be priest, prophet, and king in terms of their humanism. Because fallen man cannot evade his own being; he can pervert it but all he does is to substitute his own eschatology for God’s, he must have one.

An eschatology is a practical concern, it answers the questions of “What’s the end of it all, what’s the meaning, what’s the purpose?” The eschatology looks at the last, eschatos means “last”, what’s at the end? At the end the meaning is unveiled; we’re told that the books are opened so that the meaning of everything that we might not fully see now, and cannot fully see now even though we may know every word of scripture, will be made plain for us. Eschatology is the unveiling of the fullness of the meaning of life. Man cannot live without meaning or without purpose, he dies. And civilizations die when they lose faith, and when their purpose and their meaning is destroyed, even the humanists are now writing and saying that our civilization is crumbling because we have no sense of meaning anymore. Humanistic eschatologies are doomed; they seek to give a man-made meaning to a meaningless world. If you believe Darwin then you believe there is no meaning to the universe, it’s an accident. Then how is meaning going to come into life? Why it’s a do-it-yourself thing. Well if it’s a do-it-yourself thing how much meaning does it have when you are one person in the face of a universe?

At one college where I was part of a forum, a Johns Hopkins graduate school professor was very upset when I spoke about the universe being a universe of total meaning. And he said “No, no it’s a meaningless universe, there’s only a thin razor edge of meaning in all of creation.” Where’s that thin razor edge? In the mind of man, and the rest is a blank. Is it any wonder he was a pessimist, is it any wonder that the modern world is collapsing after a century of Darwinism? If you take meaning out of the life of man, as Humanism does, you destroy life. Then there is no goal, no eschatos, no eschatology, no last thing that you’re looking forward to. For us the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and forever.

Humanism is in a blind search for meaning, but every time it says “the meaning is here” or “the meaning is there” it crumbles. Humanism took the doctrine of providence and called it progress, but very soon this doctrine collapsed. And today the Humanist today are denying the doctrine of progress. Progress for them cannot exist, it’s a myth. Humanist created the sexual revolution. Why? Freedom was to come in being liberated from all the hang-ups of Puritan sexuality. But the sexual revolution is now failing, and the Humanist themselves are saying that the very people who are most active in have become the mental shipwrecks filled with neurosis and problems. Socialism of course is a great example of a humanistic eschatology, but socialism too is collapsing. I thought it was very grimly ironic that Solzhenitsyn should remark as he did this last month that socialism is dead in the Soviet Union, no-one believes it anymore. The only place where they really believe it in it anymore is in the United States, and they haven’t seen yet what a failure it is.

Man requires an eschatology, a goal. It is the mandate of the image of God. As Augustine said in the very first page of his confessions “Our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.” Our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee, man cannot find rest, he cannot find peace in terms of any man-created goal, he can only find rest in terms of God’s purpose, God’s eschatology. Of course that same point comes, that Augustine made, from Psalm 139, the impossibility of escaping from God, and one of the greatest poems, I think perhaps the greatest poem ever written, was written by a poet in terms of own experience about running away from God and finding where-ever he turned, whether it was to nature or friends, to find a substitute for God he found God staring him in the face, he could not escape. Does anyone know the name of that poem? The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson, yes.

Creation because it comes from the hand of God has purpose. Romans 8 verse 19-23 we are told that all things move; they groan and travail, the ground underneath our feet, the natural universe, looking for that eschatology, the end in terms of God’s purpose. Similarly the doctrine of providence tells us that God’s purpose rules and overrules in all things so that God never lets an iota of creation waver from his ordained purpose. As Psalm 34:7 says “the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.” And Psalm 91 verse 11 speaking of Christ and all believers also “For He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all Thy ways. But the goal of creation, of providence is not man centered; we are not kept for our sakes, but for God’s purposes. David to know God better prayed “Lord make me to know mine end, and the measures of my days when it is; that I may know how frail I am” This is in Psalm 39 verse 4. David pray that he might know his frailty, to know his place, to know himself as a creature and humbly to find himself in terms of God’s purpose, and then he went on to say in verses 6 and 7 “Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. 7 And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee.” The eschatology of the ungodly David says are a vain show. Death overwhelms them and God prevails, and all that they heaped up goes to serve God’s purpose, God’s people, God’s kingdom. The goal of history cannot be sought within history, but only in God himself and in His eternal kingdom.

If our doctrine of creation and of providence is weak, then our eschatology will be weak, and vice versa. Scripture is a seamless garment, it cannot be rent without the destruction of it all. Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Audience member] you bring up the point of dominion and are you relating this to the point where man, or specifically God’s people,{?} have a mandate to exercise dominion over the entire earth?

[Rushdoony] Yes, all men inescapably have this urge to dominion and the ungodly exercise it as they have from Nimrod and the tower of Babel to the present in very evil ways. It means that the Godly having been restored now are called to exercise that under God, and to be priests, prophets, and Kings over all creation under God. So we do have a call to exercise dominion.

Yes Ed?

[Audience member] I was just thinking, isn’t the idea of manifest destiny, it was a privilege {?} to the later part of the last century, the secularization of the Puritan by mere {?} having dominion and having a new Jerusalem in this country?

[Rushdoony] Yes, a very good point. The Puritans as they established this country said that it was to be the kingdom of God, God’s new Zion from whence the word was to go out to all the earth, summoning all men and nations to Jesus Christ. Now manifest destiny was a secularized Humanistic form of that same doctrine.

Any other questions, yes?

[Audience member] Invariably then it comes down to the question of your particular eschatology verse the world getting maybe three, the postmillennialism versus amillennialism and premillennialism.

[Rushdoony] Could you restate that?

[Audience member] Well I’m saying of the three major ones, in terms of exercising dominion then, the only one that would fit that as I see it would be postmillennialism then.

[Rushdoony] Yes, I would agree. Yes, I think postmillennialism does justice to the image of God. Amillennialism least of all.

Yes?

[Audience member] Do premills ever argue that they believe in dominion?

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, there are more than a few who say that our Lord has commanded us to “occupy till I come” and so some of them are very strong in emphasizing that. However I believe postmillennialism has always been the strongest in stressing that aspect.

Any other questions?

Well if not we’ll take a five minute or ten minute break now and we’ll have our last subject.