> AJ Culp Bible & Church History Case #71 Living with technology

Pentateuch and Public Theology†

December 19, 2024

Image: Izaak van Oosten -The Garden of Eden (1655-1661) commons.wikimedia.org

A.J. Culp

Some will wonder how the Pentateuch could contribute to public theology today. After all, these first five books of the Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—contain some of the strangest and most ancient parts of Scripture. Are we to believe that texts containing things such as talking donkeys, genealogies, and rituals are the basis for speaking into contemporary issues such as medical ethics, artificial intelligence, and identity politics? Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is a resounding ‘yes!’ The Pentateuch is, in fact, fundamental to the rest of the Bible and therefore fundamental to the Christian worldview as well. It does nothing less than set out the origins and destiny of humanity.

Key to understanding the Pentateuch’s contribution to public theology are what might be called the two ‘Rs’: humanity’s relationship with God and role in creation. Genesis 1–2 paints a beautiful picture of how these interact. To begin with, all of creation is depicted as God’s sanctuary. The Garden of Eden is the inner sanctum—the holy of holies—of creation, and Adam and Eve, God’s image, are placed there with the charge to ‘guard’ and ‘keep’ it (Genesis 2:15). This language is distinctly priestly; it is used elsewhere in the Bible to describe the priests’ role in caring for the tabernacle space (e.g. Numbers 3:7–8).

The language is also royal. Outside of the Bible, typically only kings were considered the image of gods. They were given special status and charged with extending a god’s presence through the kingdom. This meant spreading divine dominion throughout the land by embodying the characteristics of the particular god. Generally speaking, the Bible shares this view. Humans, as God’s image bearers, are responsible for spreading his life-giving presence. We find this clearly in the call for humanity to ‘fill and subdue’ the earth and ‘rule over’ its creatures (Genesis 1:28). This is unmistakably royal language.

Yet the Bible’s ‘divine images’ also differ in fundamental ways from those of other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. For one thing, the biblical view represents a ‘democratisation’ of the image of God.[1] Instead of one man, the king, serving as God’s representative on earth, all people do: men and women, old and young, rich and poor, able-bodied and disabled. All people have a part to play in imaging God in creation. Furthermore, it is not just a local kingdom in view, but all of creation. All people image God throughout all creation. And finally, this ruling and subduing is done as artisans or craftsmen rather than warriors. Since human rule is done in imitation of divine rule, it is vital to observe how cultures depict their gods establishing order. Here the Bible stands alone in the ancient world. In place of creation accounts in which the gods are depicted as warriors conquering chaos through violence, we find the biblical account, where God is pictured as a ‘craftsman or artisan’[2] who brings order through craftmanship.

Image: Editor Austen Henry Layard , drawing by L. Gruner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In imitating God, then, humans are called to rule over creation as artisans. This has been called the ‘cultural mandate’[3] for it envisions humans incarnating the character of God by creating culture: ‘Embedded in this human activity is (at least in germ form) the development of agriculture, the arts, economics, family dynamics, and everything that contributes to human flourishing, to the glory of God.’[4] Or as Herman Bavinck said, ‘And this dominion of the earth includes not only the most ancient callings of men, such as hunting and fishing, agriculture and stock-raising, but also the trade and commerce, finance and credit, the exploitation of mines and mountains, science and art.’[5] As image-bearers, the human vocation is one of ‘culture making’,[6] of cultivating ‘secondary environments’ in creation which reflect the goodness of the creator.[7] We find this impulse already in Genesis 4–11, where people participate in activities such as city-building (4:17; 11:1–9), livestock-herding (4:20), music-making (4:21), metallurgy (4:22), and technological innovation (11:3).

This calling, however, is corrupted in the Fall in Genesis 3, the first moment when humans choose to disobey their creator. When this happens, the twin strands of image bearing—the priestly and the kingly—become bent and twisted. St. Augustine captured the idea well when he said that, from Genesis 3 onwards, human love is directed inwards rather than upwards to God and outwards towards creation, and the desire to rule becomes the desire to dominate rather than to guard and keep. In Church history, these ideas were expressed elegantly in the Latin phrases homo incurvatus (the inward-curved human) and libido dominandi (the lust for domination).

From Genesis 3 onwards, humans continue to carry out the priestly-kingly calling, but now in ways that extend crookedly into creation. Instead of worshipping and mediating the one true God, humans now mediate the versions of false gods they hold in their hearts; and instead of ruling over creation like the artisanal God, they rule like tyrants.

Yet God does not abandon his creation, or his representatives. Instead, he doubles down on his intentions. With humanity having gone astray as a species, God now sets apart a select group of people to serve as model image-bearers. To these he will bind himself in covenant and reveal his ways, so that they might bear witness to him and bless his broken creation. This begins in earnest in Genesis 12 with the promise to Abraham, and it continues throughout not only the Pentateuch but the whole of Scripture.

What we find in the Pentateuch, then, is the foundation for public theology, for it outlines three essential elements: the original intentions for humanity (to serve as priest-kings who mediate and rule), the way in which the Fall corrupted these intentions (the mediation of false gods and ruling by domination), and how now God intends for his people, as ideal image-bearers, to live before him in this world. The Pentateuch therefore sets two realities in contrast: God’s intended mediation and ruling of creation, and the warped versions of these created by fallible humans. And, as such, it also invites commentary on the gap between these, which is where public theology can make a significant contribution.

Public theology is therefore a valuable tool in at least two ways: 1) in discerning the extent to which current cultural practices reflect the divine intentions, and 2) in developing practices and perspectives that are closer to the mark. This is true in both the so-called secular and sacred domains. Christian organizations and institutions, like secular ones, are governed by humans who also bear the scars of the Fall, which is to say, who also tend towards embodying false images of God and misusing power. Everything touched by humanity bears the marks of the Fall, and everything ought therefore to be brought into the light of the biblical witness.

Rev Dr A.J. Culp serves as Dean of Studies and Associate Director of CASE at New College, UNSW, and Associate Fellow for the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology.

† A longer version of this article is published on the Kirby Laing Centre website, kirbylaingcentre.co.uk.

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[1] J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Brazos Press, 2005), p121.

[2] Ibid., p266.

[3] For a brief, helpful introduction, see N. Gray Sutanto, ‘Cultural Mandate and the Image of God: Human Vocation under Creation, Fall, and Redemption’. Themelios 48.3.

[4] William Edgar, Created and Creating: A Biblical Theology of Culture (IVP Academic, 2016), p168.

[5] Herman Bavinck, Wonderful Works of God, trans. Henry Zylstra (Westminster Seminary Press, 2019), p189.

[6] See Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (InterVarsity Press, 2008).

[7] Henry R. van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture, 2nd ed. (P&R Publishing, 1972), p7.