Reformed Icons

More from Robert Letham, Through Western Eyes (p160-1):

“There is a surprising area of agreement between the Reformed and the Orthodox. Reformed theology believes in icons too!... The whole idea of an image (eiko_n) is an obvious Biblical category – man made in the image of God. Christ as the image of the invisible God as the second Adam. However, it stretches beyond this. For the Reformed everything is iconic. God has imprinted evidence of his own beauty and glory throughout creation…. Ps 19:1-2…. Ps 8:9…. Rom 1:20. Every blade of grass, every tree and flower displays the glory of God. Every square inch belongs to Christ, the mediator of creation (Col 1:15-17; Heb 1:1-3). If icons are windows to draw us to God, opened books to lead us to heaven, so too is the entire order of creation – the beauty of the hills, the colours of the grass, sea and sky, the trees and plants, the changing of the seasons. See Barth, CD II/1, 650f.”

Similarly, Calvin, Commentary on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, argument and on 1:31, Institutes 1:14:21  

Merry, Worldly, Physical Christmas To You!

Commenting on the conclusion of Ecclesiastes, Jeffrey Meyers says:

“We need to stop compartmentalizing the world. God’s covenant with us is his covenant in Christ with all creation [Col 1:18-23]. In this biblical context, one shouldn’t even raise an eyebrow that Solomon sings the praises of work, wife, feasting, and drinking wine. If that seems too physical, worldly, or unspiritual, maybe it is time for us to get a grip on what the Bible says is truly spiritual.” (Table in the Mist, p205)

Doug Wilson calls it "appalling" to think that all we want for Christmas is a glass of lukewarm water with Jesus!

Feast to the glory of God, with grateful hearts.

Evolution Song

Human uniqueness, value and significance: you've got thumbs! Enjoy this song from Doug Wilson.

Images of Creation

Randall C. Zachman summarises:

Calvin has developed an increasingly rich set of visual metaphors by which to describe the ways in which the invisible God makes Godself somewhat visible in the universe. The universe may be described as a "mirror or representation of invisible things" (Heb 11:3). The world may also be described as the theater of God's glory, which, when we behold it, should lead us to the knowledge of God who created it. The universe is the living image of God, in which God represents Godself to us. The world is the clothing that the invisible God wears so that we might behold God therein. Because the invisible God appeares to us in the fabric of God's works, the world is also the school in which we should be taught to know the God who created us. Finally, the universe is the speechless proclamation or the mute teaching that would instruct us in the true knowledge of God, who is the Author of all things.

Image and Word in the Theology of John Calvin (Notre Dame, 2007) p39, emphasis added. This paragraph comes with 6 endnotes giving citations.

Sacramental Universe

Randall C. Zachman writes:

This metaphor [of the heavens preaching from Ps 19] recalls Calvin’s fondness for Augustine’s dictum that the sacraments are “visible words” of God, and indicates his willingness to extend this sacramental way of speaking to the self-disclosure of God in the universe. Calvin reinforces the theme of visible words in his interpretation of the fourth verse, in which he uses the metaphor of the orations of a teacher. He then combines this similitude of teaching and preaching with the metaphor of a written volume set forth for us to read.

Image and Word in the Theology of John Calvin (Notre Dame University Press, 2007) p37

This view of the "book" of the universe as sacramental might be strengthened if one were willing to think of God's other book, the Scriptures, as specially sacramental.

Exchanging creation for Creator

According to Ex 20:4 we are not to make an idol in the form of anything “in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” This language of heaven, earth and sea echos the categories of Gen 1:26 and covers all of the creation. We not to worship the creation rather than the Creator. Why would God image bearers want to worship anything else in creation? Man was created to rule the creation under God, not worship it, not to be ruled by it. Idolatry is an inversion of the created order of God-Man-Creation. It demeans men. It is foolish to exchange the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles (Rom 1:23) and to exchange the truth of God for a lie, worshiping and serving created things rather than the Creator – who is for ever praised (Rom 1:25).

The world as sacramental book

It is common in theology to think of the whole universe as sacramental. It is also common to think of creation as “God’s book”. If we also think of the Bible as God’s sacramental book, perhaps these two ways of thinking about the world and the Word may be combined.

A deist doctrine of Scripture

We are familiar with a deist doctrine of creation and would reject it. It is not that God made the world and set it going like some great watch, only to stand back and let its run its course according to some mechanism he had set up. Rather, God constantly sustains and governs the world he has made.

Similarly, we must reject what might be called a deist doctrine of Scripture. It is not just that God inspired the Bible and cast it out into the world: he continues to speak it today to his people by his Spirit. Our view of the Bible is not impersonal and mechanistic: the words of God come to us afresh on his Spirit-breath as his address to us.

Multiverse

On the Sunday programme on Radio 4 this morning Professor Bernard Carr argued that some people would say that "the theory of a multiverse is the last refuge of desperate atheists".

Our universe appears to be fine-tuned for (human) life, which implies a creator.

But if you imagine a huge number of universes, you can explain this universe by blind chance and so you don't need God.

Desperate indeed. In our universe there appears to be a God. In other universes, a God may not be necessary. Mmmm.