Human Rebellion and Education

Michael Goheen

Trinity Western University

Langley, B.C., Canada

Danger of minimizing sin

Believers often have “an inadequate awareness of their adversary or arch-enemy who is ‘near by’ and ‘crouching at the door’ (Genesis 4:7).”

Our tendency to minimize the gravity, scope, and power of sin reducing it to individual disobedience is “much more than an intellectually deficiency.” It puts us in “urgent peril” because sin “is a very vicious and mortal enemy, an irascible and persistent power, which must certainly be known in order to be overcome.” (Berkouwer)

Fall into sin

Tree of knowledge of good and evil (2.15-17)

‘Arbitrary’ command—why?Satanic temptation

– Doubt about divine source or fairness– Unbelief – Imaging life in disobedience to God’s word– Willful disobedience

Forfeiting the glory of creaturehood

Man has take leave of the relation of dependence. He has refused to obey and has willed to make himself independent. No longer is obedience the guiding principle of his life, but his autonomous knowledge and will. Thereby he ceases, in effect, to understand himself as a creature. (Von Rad)

In desiring to be ‘like God’ man thrusts himself into a dismal and self-defeating privation. In so doing he forfeits the glory of his creaturehood. (Berkouwer)

Characterising Sin: Against God

“Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:4 TNIV).

Characterising Sin: Idolatry

“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised” (Romans 1:25).

“If human beings are inescapably religious, driven always to seek an object of worship, then the fall cannot be characterised solely as revolt against the rightful Lord: It must be described further as exchange of religious allegiance.”

God or an idol

Human beings are inherently religious creatures. We cannot live without a god, even if it is one of our own making. We need a center, an ultimate focus, a point of orientation for our lives. We have in fact two alternatives. Either we serve the Lord and obey his will, or we practice idolatry and disobedience (Walsh and Middleton).

Sin as Idolatry

If human beings are inescapably religious, driven always to seek an object of worship, then the fall cannot be characterised solely as revolt against the rightful Lord: It must be described further as exchange of religious allegiance (Chaplin).

Idolatry as epitome of sin

Idolatry is essentially a declaration of autonomy and independence from our Creator, our rejection of his rightful kingship. . . . Idolatry is portrayed in the Bible not as merely one sin among many, but as the epitome of sin. It is the central act of disobedience which disrupts Yahweh’s rule over human life (Walsh and Middleton).

Sin as idolatry

FAITH CREATURE

Humankind

. . . and you shall earn the penalty for your sinfulidolatry (Exzekiel 23.49).

Idol GOD

Religious Nature of Human Beings

Relational dimension of sin

Not transgression of impersonal standard Marital analogy: Against exclusive loyalty of

marriage relationship (e.g.,Jeremiah 3, Hosea)

Paternal analogy: Against kindness, generosity, goodness of Father

Characterising sin: Against creation

Against human life, against shalom, against health, against prosperity, against wholeness, against human flourishing. “Am I the one they are provoking? declares the Lord. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?” (Jeremiah 7:19). “. . . disobedience goes against the very grain of creation itself. Sin is rebellion against both the structure and the Structurer of reality. Such rebellion is inevitably self-defeating and self-destroying.”

Wages of sin is death

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if you heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. . . . I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).

Sin as covenant rebellion

GODword

D e a th ,d e s t r u c t io n ,c u r s e

L i fe ,p r o s p e ri ty ,b le s s in g

Sin as a personal power

Romans 7.8-11 Sin: a “seductive power”, a “damning power”,

an “active dynamic and destructive force” (Berkouwer)

“Sin is a power that seeks to rule and ruin everyone and everything.” (Berkouwer)

Characterising the power of sin

Redirecting power: it redirects our allegiance to an idol.

Malevolent: idolatry aims at our destruction. Seductive: it deceptively conceals its

appalling nature and as it lures us to death. Disfiguring: it corrupts and distorts God’s

good creation.

Parasitic quality of sin

A parasite is an organism that lives off the life blood of another; it is an “uninvited guest that keeps tapping its host for sustenance.” (Plantinga)

“Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled.”(CS Lewis)

Sin “is nothing and can do nothing apart from the creatures and the powers which God has created; yet it organizes all these in open rebellion against him.” (Bavinck)

Structure-direction

Good creationalstructure

misdirectedby sin

redirected byredemption

Scope of Sin

Personal lives Communal expression Non-human creation (Romans 8.19-22)

Culture: Common way of life rooted in a shared core religious beliefs in form of story.

religiouscore

STORY

Heart of culture

Religious beliefs are an “organising dynamic” and “directing power” of the various elements of cultural life—economic, technical, scientific, artistic, social, and communal. (Brunner)

Three biblical rules

The first rule is “that every man is serving god(s) in his life.

Secondly, “every man is transformed into an image of his god.”

Finally, “mankind creates and forms a structure of society in its own image.”

Creating society in deformed image

In the development of human civilization, man forms, creates and changes the structure of his society, and in doing so he portrays in his work the intention of his own heart. He gives to the structure of that society something of his own image and likeness. In it he betrays something of his own lifestyle, of his own god (Goudzwaard).

Goudzwaard on Ideologies

Ideologies: Humanly constructed stories that fill the spiritual vacuum after the Enlightenment.

Make an end for human society absolute (e.g., material wealth and prosperity)

Certain social powers or forces identified as means by which the goal can be achieved (e.g., freedom of market); “saviours” or “powers which people put their faith in.”

Place ourselves under power of these saviours Transform whole of society

Ideology and Education

How has this ideology affected education? Focus on Neil Postman’s End of Education

Failure of the gods

“. . . the crisis in narrative the decline of once-sturdy gods.” (25)

“. . . both students and teachers lack a narrative to provide profound meaning to their lessons.” (51)

‘god’: “. . . a comprehensive narrative about what the world is like, how things got to be the way they are, and what lies ahead.” (6)

What god will your school serve?

“The truth is that school cannot exist without some reason for its being, and in fact there are several gods our students are presently asked to serve.” (27)

God of Economic Utility

“If you pay attention in school, and do your homework, and score well on tests, and behave yourself, you will be rewarded with a well-paying job when you are done. Its driving idea is that the purpose of schooling is to prepare children for competent entry into the economic life of a community.” (27)

Transformed into the image of our god

The narrative/god of economic utility “. . . tells us that we are first and foremost economic creatures, and that our sense of worth and purpose is to be found in our capacity to secure material benefits.” (28)

God of Consumership

“One may wonder, then, why this god [economic utility] has so much strength, why the preparation for making a living, which is well-served by any decent education, should be assigned a metaphysical position of such high station. I believe the reason is that the god of Economic Utility is coupled with another god, one with a smiling face and one that provides an answer to the question, If I get a good job, then what?” (33)

God of Consumership

“Devotion to the god of Consumership serves easily as the metaphysical basis of schooling because it is urged on the young early in their lives, long before they get to school—in fact, as soon as they are exposed to the powerful teachings of the advertising industry.” (33)

God of Technology

“. . . That people believe technology works, that they rely on it, that it makes promises, that they are bereft when denied access to it, that they are delighted when they are in its presence, that for most people it works in mysterious ways, that they condemn people who speak against it, that they stand in awe of it, and that, in the born-again mode, they will alter their lifestyles, their schedules, their habits, and their relationships to accommodate it. If this be not a form of religious belief, what is?” (38)

These gods will fail too!

“ . . . the narratives that underlie our present conception of school do not serve us well and may lead to the end of public schooling . . .” (61).

“My intention here is to offer an answer in the form of five narratives that, singly and in concert, contain sufficient resonance and power to be taken seriously as reasons for schooling.” (61)

Another story?

If the tale of capitalistic progress is beginning to fray at the edges then perhaps this is an evangelistically opportune time for Christian education to offer another story--one that replaces the self-salvation of economic progress with the tale of a coming Kingdom of redemption (Brian Walsh).