After understanding culture from a Biblical perspective, it is important to understand the implications of the Fall upon the originally good cultural activities commanded by God of mankind.  In his book – Creation Regained – Albert Wolters shares why it is vitally important for us to understand the relationship between sin and creation and culture:

The central point to make is that, biblically speaking, sin neither abolishes nor becomes identified with creation.  Creation and sin remain distinct, however closely they may be intertwined in our experience.  Prostitution does not eliminate the goodness of human sexuality; political tyranny cannot wipe out the divinely ordained character of the state…In short, evil does not have the power of bringing to naught God’s steadfast faithfulness to the works of his hands (pg. 57).

It is with this in mind that we now consider the Fall of mankind into sin, the scope of its effects upon humanity, creation, and culture, and how we – as Christians – are to distinguish between the “good” and “bad” of culture. 

A Quick Look at the Fall

After creating the first person ever (Adam), God placed him in the Garden of Eden in order to work and keep it (Genesis 2.15).  After placing Adam in the Garden, God said to him, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2.16-17). 

Sometime after this point (Genesis 3), Satan approached Eve – as a means of leading Adam astray – by planting seeds of doubt about God’s goodness and His word.  It was at this time that both Adam and Eve ate from the tree that they were forbidden to eat from (Genesis 3.6), which opened the floodgate of sin into the world. 

The Scope of the Fall

The presence of sin entered into the world through the disobedience of Adam, who served as its gatekeeper (Genesis 2.15-17; 3.1-7; also see Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pg. 220).  The entrance of sin not only impacted Adam and Eve, it had far reaching affects on all of humanity and creation. 

On Humanity

The entrance of sin through Adam has allowed for its presence to spread to all men, separating every person from God and poisoning us with its corruptive effects (Romans 5.12-19).  It is for this reason that people are conceived in sin (Psalms 51.5) and possess a sinful nature that leads us to do sinful things.      

Dr. Talbot and Dr. Crampton practically clarify this point by saying,

The problem is that fallen man does not have a neutral will.  He is conceived dead in sin.  That is, even though man is born with the freedom to choose what he so desires, he no longer has the ability to choose good (righteousness).  His every desire is to do evil in the sight of God (Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism, and Arminianism, pgs. 39-40).

This is not to say that people, both Christian and non-Christian alike, are not capable of doing good and noble deeds, for the presence of sin has merely distorted the image of God in man, not destroying. 

What I am saying is this, God not only evaluates our actions – such as refraining from stealing, giving to charity, and treating people nice – God considers our motives for doing these actions.  It has been said before that “the supreme motive required of everything we do is the love of God.”  Therefore, actions that proceed from a sinful nature that is alienated from God and a desire to love Him is not deemed good by God in the ultimate sense (R.C. Sproul, What is Reformed Theology, pg. 120). 

More on this later.

On Creation

Not only has sin effected humanity, it has impacted the very nature of creation itself.  We observe this to be the case immediately following the narrative of the Fall when God said, “cursed is the ground because of you” (Genesis 3.17).  These far reaching effects were observed by Paul as well, who said,

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now (Romans 8.20-22).

 What we can readily see is that mankind’s fall into see not only impacted each and every single person, it has also brought the entirety of creation into is evil throes. 

With this foundation we must now turn our attention to the effects of the Fall on Culture.    

The Effects of the Fall on Culture

In my first post I briefly addressed the difference between creation and culture, saying, creation is what God makes and culture is what we make.  Now that we live in a post-Fall era, what are we to make of the cultural activities of filling, subduing, working, and keeping?

The following will serve as a quick rundown of what sin does not and does do to culture.

Sin does not abolish cultural activities

Repeating what I said in my first post, cultural activities have not been done away with by the entrance and presence of sin.  These acts were repeated to Noah and his family in Genesis 9.1-7 and restored in the life and message of Jesus Christ (Matthew 28.18-20; Colossians 1.20). 

Since cultural activities, such as marriage, government, art, music, business, journalism, agriculture, etc…, were a part of God’s good created order, they are not to be done away with and/or shunned as “worldly” activities.  These activities are not inferior to worship services and prayer and must not be so easily dismissed by Christians.        

Sin does not abolish mankind’s cultural urges

Instead of attempting to come up with something myself, I felt that it would be best to quote Henry Van Til on this point:

“But man has not lost his cultural urge, his instinct to rule, his love of power, his ability to form and to mould matter after his will.  He continues to multiply, to replenish the earth with his kid; he loves to work and to exercise dominion over the works of God.  He uses the light of reason to discover the laws of the universe in order to capture the power of the sun’s rays and the life for his use…He builds houses, composes music, raises crops, and develops various specimens of domesticated animals for his service; he nurtures his offspring, flies through space and measures the stars, and plumbs the depths of thee seas, and astounds his fellowmen with the discoveries of modern science…All these productions are cultural (The Calvinistic Concept of Culture, pg. 58).

Sin does distort cultural activities

Since mankind is conceived in sin and possesses a sinful nature, cultural activities – apart from the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ – are distorted due to sins presence.  Since what we think and do is filtered through a sinful nature, the products of our thoughts and actions will naturally deviate from God’s perfect standards.  Besides, real life examples are not hard to come by (The following examples are from Albert Wolters).

•  
  • The demise of marriage is observed in widespread divorce and “same-sex” marriage. 
  • Families are under strain from a litany of societal factors from materialism, the breakdown of marriages, and the breakdown of community to name just a few.
  • Many governments in the world are tyrannical or ever expanding to the point of usurping the freedom of those whom they are to suppose to serve. 
  • The exploitation and waste of natural resources.
  • Immoral and perverse entertainment, art, and music.
  • Humanities moral degradation, from murder and adultery to blasphemy and lying. 

In the end, we’ve fallen a long way since God created an original good order. 

Now that we’ve addressed these points, let us now turn our attention to how we go about distinguishing between the “good” and “bad” of cultural activities. 

How do we distinguish between “good” and “bad” cultural activities?

Distinguishing between the “good,” “bad,” and perhaps “ugly” side of cultural activities is not an easy task.  In general, Albert Wolters suggests that “wherever anything wrong exists in the world, anything we experience as anti-normative, evil, distorted, or sick, there we meet the perversion of God’s good creation” (pg. 55).

So how are we to go about distinguishing between what is good and bad in culture? 

At this point it is beneficial to quote Wolters once again:

Sin introduces an entirely new dimension to the created order…It establishes an unprecedented axis, as it were, along which it is possible to plot varying degrees of good and evil.  Though fundamentally distinct from the good creation, this axis attaches itself to creation like a parasite (pg. 57).

In other words, cultural activities such as sex, marriage, government, art, science, agriculture, education, and business can be either directed towards (obedience) or away (disobedience) from God.

“To the degree that these realities fail to live up to God’s creational design for them, they are misdirected, abnormal, or distorted,” adds Wolters.  Moreover, “To the degree that they still conform to God’s design, they are in the grip of a countervailing force that curbs or counteracts the distortion” (pg. 59). 

The standard that we use is determining the good, bad, and ugly of cultural activities is none other than God’s word, the Bible (2 Timothy 3.16-17).  It is only by having our minds renewed and transformed by it that we’ll be able to discern God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will in all of life. 

In the end

As Christians we cannot and must not abandon cultural activities as we have done so readily in the past.  It is for this reason that Wolters believe Christians have themselves to blame for secularization of culture – especially in the West (pg. 65). 

Cultural activities are a part of God’s good created order and cannot be overlooked and not pursued.  Some of those like myself have been called to pursue of life of Pastoral Ministry (Ephesians 4.11-12); however, many more have been called to fulfill many other positions in life, from politicians, musicians, artists, laborers, carpenters, architects, chefs, teachers, and on and on and on. 

It is for this reason that I encourage those of you that have been called to non-Pastoral ministry to walk in the good works that the LORD has created you for before the foundations of the world (Ephesians 2.10).

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Tags: culture after the fall, original sin, sin