God’s Work in the World

How and at what levels is God at work in the world? The Christian world faces problems in formulating a reply to this question in our day. If theological liberals have allowed their replies to trail off into amorphousness, evangelicals have too frequently either sidestepped the issue or built an answer on much too narrow a base.

Nearly all who claim the name Christian will, when pressed, acknowledge that any belief in God implies belief in some participation by him in human affairs. And certainly all who take seriously the concept of Providence must acknowledge that this participation is purposive and that it is conditioned by a divine heart of love for the world. It is God’s relation to the wider affairs of the world and of our common life that calls for more precise articulation.

Any discussion of this matter faces the immediate question, is divine action in our world merely general and diffuse, or may it have specialized forms? The answer to this depends upon much broader issues that involve the very definition of Christianity. Many are tempted by the view that Christ, in his reconciling work, provided decisively for the ultimate sanctification of the temporal order, and that it remains for human society to realize this and to acknowledge increasingly that all that occurs in history is redemptive divine action. Those attracted to this view are intrigued by what others consider a woolly theological concept—that of a “new creation,” which, it seems, is inevitably to be manifested in earthly society.

This view—that all that occurs in history is somehow redemptive—implies that the redemptive action is more clearly visible at some points in man’s social and political life than at others. Such events as those that clustered around Selma are, it is assumed, nodal points in God’s salvific work in the human order. According to this view, the Christian should be able to perceive in such events the ultimate meaning of things—meaning that is present whether or not men understand what is occurring.

The deeper issues involved in the contemporary inclusion of all events in God’s redemptive action include the following: Are secular institutions within the realm of specific divine redemption? Is it the task and mandate of the Church to Christianize the secular order? Could this be done, within the limits of the sinful human situation, without a radical dilution of the concept of “Christianization”? May not this term be so attenuated as to become virtually meaningless?

The meaning of the term “redemptive” tends, in discussions of this sort, to be emptied of vital content so that it seems to refer to any action taken by men of good will. In reaction to such a view, evangelicals will understandably draw back; and they will contend that only in those activities in which individual redemption in Christ is secured, or in which there is clear “providential” intervention in human affairs, can it be said that God is at work. We submit that this definition is manifestly too narrow, as the one mentioned earlier is too broad.

Possibly the question would be clarified if a distinction between modes of divine action such as the following were made: There is a general providential movement of God in the affairs of men; and wherever the Word of God is proclaimed, there is a more specific redemptive action. It is unnecessary to regard these as watertight or mutually exclusive concepts. Rather, they become frames of reference within which events in history may be understood.

It is regrettable that the Christian world has failed to develop more fully the understanding of what Emil Brunner calls the “orders” (Ordnungen) by which God has structured society. Certainly this idea has received too little formal treatment from evangelicals in the years since the appearance of Brunner’s The Divine Imperative (the English translation of Das Gebot und die Ordnungen, 1932). Here the natural forms of human life-in-community are regarded as given by God, so that home, marriage, work, calling, and social groupings become spheres within which God meets men in terms of his providential will.

We need not give full assent to Brunner’s view of the essential and inevitable sinfulness of life within the Ordnungen to appreciate his insights into the divine concern for the Ordnungen and for man’s response to such elements as education, art, work, economics, and politics.

An important question today is this: Can forms of society be permitted to shape the life and ministry of the Church? Liberal thinkers seem to assume that it must be so. The contemporary idea of “involvement” (the latest “in-word”) is sometimes pressed so far that the Church, at least in its “parish” form, is considered redundant. The local congregation is downgraded as a center of both worship and evangelization. In its stead there should be, we are urged to believe, a “true people of God” discernible in its identification with, and submergence in, movements for the reform of visible society.

What underlies this movement away from personal and individual redemptive encounter with Jesus Christ and toward societal “redemption” as the Christian thrust? In brief, the movement is a revolt against the dualism of nature and grace. The confusion of God’s providential action in human life with his specifically redemptive activity stems from an unwillingness to face the biblical distinction between “natural man” and the twice-born, between the unregenerate and the regenerate.

Some churchmen look over their constituency and believe they see no evidence of any marked personal Christianization among their membership. This empirical observation is then used to obliterate the scriptural concept expressed in the words of our Lord, “Ye must be born again.” Seeing, apparently, no evidence of a specifically redemptive work of Christ as a result of their ministry, these churchmen conclude that no such thing is projected by the Gospel.

Thus, the erasing of all distinctions between the providential and the redemptive activity of God leads to a radical restructuring and redefinition of Christianity. Can the resulting product be identified with the Christian faith, or its promulgation squared with the mandate of the Lord of the Church?

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