Question about the Cultural Mandate
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Chengyi
Puritan Board Freshman
I am not sure if this will help however Vern Poythress wrote a book about science titled "Redeeming Science:A God-Centered Approach". You can download a free copy of the book as a PDF here http://www.frame-poythress.org/ebooks/
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Assessor
To the extent that studying science is bringing our labors to God for his glory, then yes it would include that.
Peairtach
Puritan Board Doctor
Modern science in the West wouldn't have got off the ground without the labours of Christian men who had faith in the God of the Bible and His rule over the natural world, which shows how the Great Commission and the Creation Mandate interact.
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That is a good book. Here is a quotation from pages 171 - 172 from that book:
"To be sure, the fulfillment of the creation (or cultural) mandate has arrived in a surprising form, namely through the achievement of a single man. But this single man is representative for the new humanity, and through union with him others also exercise universal dominion: “and [God] raised us up with him [Christ] and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). The language of being “seated” at God’s right hand implies authority and rule. The heavenly position of the seat implies that the rule is universal. Likewise in Revelation Christ promises a position of rule, but this time it is in the future: “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Rev. 3:21).
Taken together with Ephesians 2:6, the language of ruling in Revelation 3:21 shows the well-known already/yet-to-come pattern of New Testament eschatology. Because Christ has triumphed, his people share in the triumph already. But the implications of the triumph are still working out, so that we have hopes still to be realized in the future, hopes of what is yet to come. This characteristic two-pole fulfillment applies to the so-called cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28, the mandate to fill the earth and subdue it. The task has already come to completion in principle in Christ as representative head of the new humanity. But it has yet to come completely to realization in the individual members of the new humanity.
The issue of the cultural mandate is important for our purposes because it includes the call to exercise dominion. And this dominion, as we have seen, includes scientific investigation. But now, since Christ has fulfilled the cultural mandate, scientific investigation needs to be rethought. If the mandate had already been fulfilled in every respect, we would have to say that science is at an end already. Its task has finished. But the twofold idea of “already” and “yet-to-come” means that something may yet remain. What remains nevertheless flows out of what has already been accomplished. That is, the cultural mandate, and with it the task of scientific investigation, still applies to human beings, but it addresses them in a new way, since Christ has completed the mandate in his representative triumph."
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Doctor
RE the Cultural mandate—this is from Anthony Hoekema's article in CT, in "Heaven: Not Just an Eternal Day Off", adapted from his book on eschatology, The Bible and the Future (more excerpts here) :
In the beginning man was given the so-called cultural mandate—the command to rule over the earth and to develop a God-glorifying culture. Because of man's fall into sin, that cultural mandate has never been carried out in the way God intended. Only on the new earth will it be perfectly and sinlessly fulfilled. Only then shall we be able to rule the earth properly.
The possibilities that now rise before us boggle the mind. Will there be "better Beethoven" on the new earth, as one author has suggested? Shall we then see better Rembrandts, better Raphaels, better Constables? Shall we read better poetry, better drama, and better prose?
Will scientists continue to advance in technological achievement, will geologists continue to dig out the treasures of the earth, and will architects continue to build imposing and attractive structures? Will there be exciting new adventures in space travel? Shall we perhaps be able to explore new Perelandras? We do not know. But we do know that human dominion over nature will then be perfect. Our culture will glorify God in ways that surpass our most fantastic dreams.
This all means a lot for us now. If there is continuity as well as discontinuity between this earth and the new earth, we must work hard to develop our gifts and talents, and to come as close as we can to producing, in the strength of the Spirit, a Christian culture today. Through our kingdom service, the building materials for the new earth are now being gathered. Bibles are being translated, peoples are being evangelized, believers are being renewed, and cultures are being transformed. Only eternity will reveal the full significance of what has been done for Christ here on earth.
A scintillating future awaits us—not a future of disembodied existence (though this will be an earlier part of it), but everlasting life in glorified bodies on the new earth. Compared with the immeasurable span of eternity, this present life is but a passing moment, a fleeting sigh.
We look forward eagerly to that new earth, which will far surpass in splendor anything that we have ever seen before.
In the beginning man was given the so-called cultural mandate—the command to rule over the earth and to develop a God-glorifying culture. Because of man's fall into sin, that cultural mandate has never been carried out in the way God intended. Only on the new earth will it be perfectly and sinlessly fulfilled. Only then shall we be able to rule the earth properly.
The possibilities that now rise before us boggle the mind. Will there be "better Beethoven" on the new earth, as one author has suggested? Shall we then see better Rembrandts, better Raphaels, better Constables? Shall we read better poetry, better drama, and better prose?
Will scientists continue to advance in technological achievement, will geologists continue to dig out the treasures of the earth, and will architects continue to build imposing and attractive structures? Will there be exciting new adventures in space travel? Shall we perhaps be able to explore new Perelandras? We do not know. But we do know that human dominion over nature will then be perfect. Our culture will glorify God in ways that surpass our most fantastic dreams.
This all means a lot for us now. If there is continuity as well as discontinuity between this earth and the new earth, we must work hard to develop our gifts and talents, and to come as close as we can to producing, in the strength of the Spirit, a Christian culture today. Through our kingdom service, the building materials for the new earth are now being gathered. Bibles are being translated, peoples are being evangelized, believers are being renewed, and cultures are being transformed. Only eternity will reveal the full significance of what has been done for Christ here on earth.
A scintillating future awaits us—not a future of disembodied existence (though this will be an earlier part of it), but everlasting life in glorified bodies on the new earth. Compared with the immeasurable span of eternity, this present life is but a passing moment, a fleeting sigh.
We look forward eagerly to that new earth, which will far surpass in splendor anything that we have ever seen before.
D
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Science is part of man living out what he is by nature--a rational creature, designed to rule over God's creation. You don't need a doctrine of a creation mandate to have a natural-theological basis for doing science.
Andrew P.C.
Puritan Board Junior
Genesis 1:28
God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
This still applies today, which includes the scientific realm.
God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
This still applies today, which includes the scientific realm.
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