Although the postmodern constituency would have us do away with the modern world view, Western civilization still has the characteristics of modernity. Brian J. Walsh and J. Richard Middleton argue for the case that Western civilization serves three dominant idols which serve to make sense of modernity by orienting the dominant culture around a common set of goals. The three idols, or gods of our age, Walsh and Middleton propose are 1) scientism 2) technicism, and 3) economism.

Scientism

Scientism is the ability to understand and control nature. The modern world view believes human reason, especially operating within the scientific method, can achieve exhaustive knowledge. It is very much a faith in science as a tool of autonomous reason over against faith in a sovereign God. As Francis Bacon said “knowledge is power.”

…from the beginning of the modern era until today, the conscious purpose of science has been the utilitarian manipulation of the world-machine for human ends. By continuously applying science, the modern creed confesses, we progress steadily toward an earthly utopia, a millennial age of our own making.¹

Technicism

Technicism very much builds upon the foundation scientism creates. Technicism is the “formative, technological mastery of nature… It translates scientific discovery into human power.”² This idol is very much present in our society. In fact, we label other countries according to their level of technological advancement (i.e. “third world”, etc.). Technicism marks a shift from the hope of technological advancement to a belief in its inevitability. Progress is guaranteed and autonomous reason operates through scientism to produce technology used to master our environment.

While scientism holds out the promise of omniscience, technicism offers us omnipotence. Modern humanity has come to believe in the unlimited (and thus unnormed) advance of science and technology, regardless of the consequences - social, environmental or psychological. We have come to believe that if it can be known, it must be known; and if it can be made, it must be made.³

Economism

The third god of this age proposed by Walsh and Middleton is economism. Simply put, economism is the use of technology for profit maximization. To the corporation, the stock price is never high enough. There is no level that is satisfactory. It is an unending quest for wealth that never satisfies.

We believe in the promise of the golden god, and it has driven us to servile devotion because its promise is greatest of all. While scientism offered omniscience and technicism provided omnipotence, the god of economism (the absolutization of mankind’s good ability to make economic choices) extends to all who listen the breathtaking promise of full and glorious material prosperity - nothing short of secular salvation. “Consume and see that this god is good.”⁴

1. Walsh, Brian J. and J. Richard Middleton, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1984), 133.↩
2. Ibid., 133.↩
3. Ibid., 135. Emphasis original.↩
4. Ibid., 138. Emphasis original.↩

Video taken from an ultraviolet spectrometer of the sun’s chromosphere from the Japanese space telescope Hinode.

Consider that the temperature in the Chromosphere flexes from between 11,000 to 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit (the temperature at the center of the sun is about 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit).

In his book The Sufficiency of Scripture, Noel Weeks addresses the idea that exhaustive detail is required in order for something to be considered authoritative. Clearly the Bible is not exhaustive in all matters (one generally does not go to the Bible for physics laws and formulas), therefore, according to this proposed requirement, Scripture must not be authoritative. As a result, people seek to supplement or supplant the Bible with other “authorities.”

In the 9th century, Sa’adya Ga’on argued for the authority of the Rabbinic tradition based on an issue with the Jewish lunar year. God commanded the Jews to offer certain sacrifices at various festivals. Because a lunar year is about ten days shorter than a solar year, a problem quickly surfaced. Since God only specified which month the festival should take place, the use of the lunar month meant the specified sacrifices would not be ripe once the lunar months fell out of sync with the solar months.

Ga’on argued that the lack of Biblical detail demonstrated the need of another authority.¹ The question became: “how can the Bible be authoritative without being exhaustive?”² (Continue Reading…)

1. Weeks, Noel. The Sufficiency of Scripture (Banner of Truth, 1998) 7.↩
2. Ibid.↩

Because of John Calvin’s prestige as a great doctor of the Church attempts have from time to time been made to ‘capture’ him for some particular theological claim or agenda. Examples are Karl Barth’s appeal to Calvin in his conflict with Emil Brunner over the issue of natural theology, and Abraham Kuyper’s and Herman Bavinck’s claim that by his doctrine of common grace Calvin overturned the medieval nature - grace dichotomy or dualism.

In each case those appealing to Calvin have treated his ideas anachronistically (Each of these is discussed in Paul Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004)). In writing that book I discovered that if one uses Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae as a kind of template, then there are remarkable coincidences between Thomas’s thought and Calvin’s, even though there are obvious stylistic differences, and very little internal evidence in Calvin of a direct influence.

What does this coincidence show? At least, that Calvin was thoroughly at home in the thought world of the theology of late medievalism, taking on many of its ideas uncritically in areas where the issues of the Reformation were not at stake. Even though he had, from time to time, critical things to say of that theology, or rather of its speculative tendencies.
(Continue Reading…)