Thank you Dr Dooyeveerd for reminding me why I home school
Editor: Moms, you will have to work hard here but the dividends are enomorous. Dr Dooyeveerd may have had a brain as large as an Elephant but he used every inch to teach us how we can understand God, ourselves this world, Christ and salvation past present and future. Have your heart warmed, your children in one eye and Christ in the other and you will worship after reading below. Suggestion: Summarize in your own words key thoughts ideas and place in a folder labeled Why I home school.
Creation, Fall, and Redemption
The second ground motive which shaped the development of western
culture is the motive of creation, fall, and redemption through Jesus
Christ in the communion of the Holy Spirit. The christian religion
introduced this motive in the West in its purely scriptural meaning as a
new religious community motive.
The Creation Motive
Already in its revelation of creation the christian religion stands in
radical antithesis to the religious ground motive of Greek and Greco-
Roman antiquity. Through its integrality (it embraces all things created)
and radicality (it penetrates to the root of created reality) the creation
motive makes itself known as authentic divine Word-revelation. God,
the creator, reveals himself as the absolute, complete, and integral origin
of all things. No equally original power stands over against him in the
way that Anangke and Moira (blind fate) stood over against the Olympian
gods. Hence, within the created world one cannot find an expression of
two contradictory principles of origin.
Influenced by its motive of form and matter, Greek philosophy could
not speak of a real creation. Nothing, the Greeks argued, could come
from nothing. Some Greek thinkers, notably Plato, did hold that the
world of becoming was the product of the formative activity of a divine,
rational spirit; but under pressure from the ground motive of culture
religion this divine formation could only be understood according to the
pattern of human cultural formation. With Plato, for example, the divine
mind, the Demiurge, was the great architect and artist who granted the
world its existence. The Demiurge required material for his activity of
formation. Due to the influence of the Greek matter motive, Plato
believed that this material was utterly formless and chaotic. Its origin
did not lie in divine Reason, since the Demiurge was only a god of form
or culture. The Demiurge does not create; he simply furnishes matter
with divine form. Matter retained the self-determining Anangke or blind
fate, which was hostile to the divine work of formation. In Plato's
famous dialogue Timaeus, which dealt with the origin of the world, the
divine Logos checked Anangke merely by means of rational persuasion.
The same principle was expressed by the great Greek poet Aeschylus.
In his tragedy Oresteia, Anangke persecuted Orestes for matricide;
Orestes had killed his mother because she had murdered his father.
Likewise, for Plato's great pupil Aristotle pure form was the divine mind
(nous), but Anangke, which permeated matter, was still the peculiar cause
of everything anomalous and monstrous in the world.
The earlier philosophers of nature gave religious priority to the motive
of matter. Plato and Aristotle, however, shifted religious priority to
the motive of form. For them matter was not divine. Nevertheless, the
god of rational form was not the origin of matter. The god of form was
not the integral, sole origin of the cosmos. Therein lay the apostate
character of the Greek idea of god.
The Greek notion of god was the product of an absolutization of the
relative. It arose from a deification of either the cultural aspect or the
movement aspect of creation. It thus stood in absolute antithesis to God's
revelation in the Bible and to God himself, the creator of heaven and
earth. Consequently, a synthesis between the creation motive of the
christian religion and the form-matter motive of Greek religion is not
possible.
God's self-revelation as the creator of all things is inseparably linked
with the revelation of who man is in his fundamental relationship to his
creator. By revealing that man was created in God's image, God revealed
man to himself in the religious root unity of his creaturely
existence. The whole meaning of the temporal world is integrally (i.e.,
completely) bound up and concentrated in this unity.
According to his creation order, Jehovah God is creaturely mirrored
in the heart, soul, or spirit of man. This is the religious centre and
spiritual root of man's temporal existence in all its aspects. Just as God is
the origin of all created reality, so the whole of temporal existence was
concentrated on that origin in the soul of man before the fall into sin.
Therefore, in conformity with God's original plan, human life in all of its
aspects and relations ought to be directed toward its absolute origin in a
total self-surrender in the service of love to God and neighbour. As the
apostle Paul said: "Whether you eat or whether you drink, or whatever
you do, do all to the glory of God." a Corinthians 10:31. The Revised
Standard Version is the translation used here and elsewhere, unless
indicated otherwise.
Scripture teaches us not only that the heart or soul is the religious
centre of the entire individual and temporal existence of man but also
that each man is created in the religious community of mankind. This is
a spiritual community; it is governed and maintained by a religious spirit
that works in it as a central force. According to the plan of creation, this
spirit is the Holy Spirit himself, who brings man into communion and
fellowship with God.
Not only the temporal existence of human beings but that of the
whole temporal world was concentrated upon the service of God in this
religious root community. God created man as lord of creation. The
powers and potentials which God had enclosed within creation were to
be disclosed by man in his service of love to God and neighbour. Hence in
Adam's fall into sin, the entire temporal world fell away from God. This
is the meaning of apostasy. The earth was cursed because of man.
Instead of the Spirit of God, the spirit of apostasy began to govern the
community of mankind and with it all of temporal reality.
In contrast to mankind, neither the inorganic elements nor the kingdoms
of plants and animals have a spiritual or religious root. It is man
who makes their temporal existence complete. To think of their existence
apart from man, one would need to eliminate all the logical,
cultural, economic, aesthetic, and other properties that relate them to
man. With respect to inorganic elements and plants, one would even
need to eliminate their capability of being seen. Objective visibility exists
only in relation to potential visual perception which many creatures do
not themselves possess.
Along these lines the modern materialists, overestimating the
mathematical, natural-scientific mode of thinking, tried quite seriously
to grasp the essence of nature completely apart from man. Nature, they
thought, was nothing more than a constellation of static particles of
matter determined entirely by mechanical laws of motion. They failed to
remember that the mathematical formulae which seem to grasp the
essence of nature presuppose human language and human thought.
They did not recognize that every concept of natural phenomena is a
human affair and a result of human thinking. "Nature" apart from man
does not exist. In an attempt to grasp "nature" one begins with an
abstraction from given reality. This abstraction is a logical and theoretical
activity which presupposes human thought.
In a similar fashion the scholastic chrisfian standpoint, influenced by
Greek thought, held that inorganic elements, plants, and animals possess
an existence of their own apart from man. The scholastics argued
that the so-called material "substances" depend on God alone for their
sustenance. But in the light of God's revelation concerning creation, this
too cannot be maintained. In the creation order objective visibility,
logical characteristics, beauty, ugliness, and other properties subject to
human evaluation are necessarily related to human sensory perception,
human conceptualization, human standards for beauty, etc. Both the
former and the latter are created. They consequently cannot be ascribed
to God the creator. God related all temporal things to man, the last
creature to come into being. Temporal reality comes to full reality in
man.
The scriptural motive of creation thus turns one's view of temporal
reality around. It cuts off at the root every view of reality which grows
out of an idolatrous, dualistic ground motive which posits two origins of
reality and thus splits it into two opposing parts.
Jehovah God is integrally, that is totally, the origin of all that is
created. The existence of man, created in the image of God, is integrally,
that is totally, concentrated in his heart, soul, or spirit. And this centre of
existence is the religious root unity of all man's functions in temporal
reality — without exception. Likewise, every other creature in temporal
reality is integral and complete. It is not closed off within the few aspects
abstracted by the natural sciences (number, space, motion), but in its
relation to man it is embraced by all of the aspects of reality. The whole
of the temporal world (and not just some abstracted parts) has its root
unity in the religious community of mankind. Hence, when man fell
away from God, so did all of temporal reality.
The Scriptural View of Soul and Body
In the years just prior to the second world war the question as to how we
are to understand the human soul and its relation to the body in the light
of God's Word was fiercely debated in Reformed circles. The arguments
surrounding this question can be understood only with reference to the
absolute antithesis between the scriptural ground motive and the religious
ground motive of Greek thought.
Perhaps some readers impatiently wonder why I devote so much
attention to the ancient ground motive of the Greeks. If it is true that our
modern western culture came forth out of the conflicts and tensions of
four religious ground motives, then it is simply impossible to enlighten
the reader concerning the significance of the antithesis for today if it is
not made clear that the present can be understood only in the light of the
past. The most fundamental doctrines of the christian religion, including
creation, fall, and redemption, are still influenced by the religious
ground motive of ancient Greece. The Greek ground motive still causes
strife and division among Christians today, and it is therefore imperative
that we devote our time and attention to it.
The reader himself must penetrate to the bottom of the problems
pertaining to the antithesis. In so doing he will gradually see that the
christian religion itself fights a battle of life and death against all sorts of
religious ground motives. In every fundamental issue of our times these
motives try to grip the soul of modern man. A battle rages against those
who consciously reject the christian ground motive and also against
those who time after time rob it of its intrinsic strength by accommodating
it to nonscriptural ground motives. It is a battle between the spirit of
the christian religion and the spirit of apostasy. It is also a battle that cuts
right through christian ranks and through the soul of the believer.
What is the soul? Is this a question that only psychology can answer?
If so, why has the christian church considered it necessary to make
pronouncements concerning the relation of "soul" and "body" in its
confessions? Perhaps, one might argue, the church confessions address
the soul's imperishability, the soul's immortality, and the resurrection of
the body in the last judgment, while philosophical psychology deals
with the question as to what the "soul" actually is. This, however,
places the christian church in a strangely contradictory position. What if
psychology comes to the conclusion that a soul in distinction from the
body does not exist? Or what if psychology gives an elaborate theory
concerning the "essence of the soul" that is completely oriented to the
ground motive of Greek philosophy or to the world view of modern
humanism? Does not the christian church build on sand if it honours
philosophical constructions of the soul predicated upon the concepts of
"immortality" and "imperishability"? From its beginning, scholastic
theology tried to push the church into this intrinsically contradictory
position by allowing the Greek conception of the soul into the roman
catholic confessions. But the radical antithesis between the ground motive
of Holy Scripture and the ground motive of Greek "psychology"
32 ROOTS OF WESTERN CULTURE
cannot be bridged. Any conception of body and soul that is determined
by the Greek form-matter motive cannot stand before the face of revelation
concerning creation, fall, and redemption.
The question as to what we are to understand by "soul" or "spirit" or
"heart" asks where human existence finds its religious root unity. It is
therefore a religious question, not a theoretical or scientific question.
Augustine once made the remark that in a certain sense the soul is
identical with our religious relationship to God. The soul is the religious
focus of human existence in which all temporal, diverging rays are
concentrated. The prism of time breaks up the light from which these
rays come.
As long as we focus our attention on our temporal existence we
discover nothing but a bewildering variety of aspects and functions:
number, space, motion, organic functions of life, functions of emotional
feeling, logical functions of thought, functions of historical development,
social, lingual, economic, aesthetic, jural, moral, and faith functions.
Where in the midst of these functions does the deeper unity of
man's existence lie? If one continually studies the temporal diversity of
the functions corresponding to the different aspects of reality investigated
by the special sciences, one never arrives at true self-knowledge.
One's gaze remains dispersed in the diversity. We can obtain genuine
self-knowledge only by way of religious concentration, when we draw
together the totality of our existence, which diverges within time in a
multiplicity of functions, and focus it upon our authentic, fundamental
relationship to God, who is the absolute and single origin and creator of
all that is.
Because of the fall, however, we can no longer attain this true
self-knowledge. Self-knowledge, according to scripture, is completely
dependent on true knowledge of God, which man lost when apostate
ground motives took possession of his heart. Man was created in God's
image, and when man lost the true knowledge of God he also lost the
true knowledge of himself.
An apostate ground motive forces us to see ourselves in the image
of his idol. For this reason Greek "psychology" never conceived of the
religious root unity of man and never penetrated to what is truly called
the "soul," the religious centre of human existence. When the matter
motive dominated Greek thought, the soul was seen merely as a formless
and impersonal life principle caught up in the stream of life. The
matter motive did not acknowledge "individual immortality." Death
was the end of man as an individual being. His individual life-force was
destroyed so that the great cycle of life could go on.
With orphic thought the soul came to be seen as a rational, invisible
form and substance. It originated in heaven and existed completely
ROOTS OF WESTERN CULTURE 33
apart from the material body. But this "rational soul" (in scholastic
theology: anima rationalis) was itself nothing but a theoretical abstraction
from the temporal existence of man. It embraced the functions of feeling,
logical judgment and thought, and faith which, taken together,
comprise only an abstracted part or complex of all the various functions.
Together they constituted man's invisible form, which, just like the
Olympian gods, possessed immortality. The material body, on the other
hand, was totally subject to the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
The "rational soul" was characterized by the theoretical and logical
function of thought. One finds many differences in the development of
this philosophical conception. Plato and Aristotle, for example, changed
their views throughout the different phases of their lives. I will not
pursue this here, but it is important to mention that their conception of
the rational soul was inseparably related to their idea of the divine. Both
Plato and Aristotle believed that the truly divine resided only in theoretical
thought directed to the imperishable and invisible world of forms and
being. The aristotelian god was absolute theoretical thought, the
equivalent of pure form. Its absolute counterpart was the matter principle,
characterized by eternal, formless motion and becoming.
If the theoretical activity of thought is divine and immortal, then it
must be able to exist outside of the perishable, material body. To the
Greeks the body was actually the antipode of theoretical thought. For
this reason, the "rational soul" could not be the religious root unity of
temporal human existence. Time after time the ambiguity within the
religious ground motive placed the form principle in absolute opposition
to the matter principle. The ground motive did not allow for a recognition
of the root unity of human nature. For Plato and Aristotle, just as
God was not the creator in the sense of an absolute and sole origin of all
that exists, so also the human soul was not the absolute root unity of
man's temporal expressions in life. In conformity with their Greek
conception, the soul's activity of theoretical thought always stood over
against whatever was subject to the matter principle of eternal becoming.
Greek thought never arrived at the truth, revealed first by Holy
Writ, that human thinking springs from the deeper central unity of the
whole of human life. Because this unity is religious, it determines and
transcends the function of theoretical thought.
Scripture says: "Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow
the springs of life" [Proverbs 4:23. "Biblical psychology" may not denature
this to a mere expression of Jewish wisdom or understand it simply
as a typical instance of Jewish language usage. Whoever reads scripture
in this way fails to recognize that scripture is divine Word-revelation
which can only be understood through the operation of the Holy Spirit
out of its divine ground motive.
34 ROOTS OF WESTERN CULTURE
The pregnant religious meaning of what the soul, spirit, or heart of
man actually is cannot be understood apart from the divine ground
motive of creation, fall, and redemption. Whoever takes his stand upon
this integral and radical ground motive comes to the conclusion that
there is an absolute and unbridgeable antithesis between the Greek
conception of the relation between the soul and the body and the
scriptural conception of the christian religion. The former is determined
by the apostate ground motive of form and matter while the latter
is determined by the scriptural ground motive of creation, fall, and
redemption through Jesus Christ. The former, at least as long as it
follows the Greek ground motive in its dualistic direction, leads to a
dichotomy or split in the temporal existence of man between a "perishable,
material body" and an "immortal, rational soul." The scriptural
ground motive of the christian religion, however, reveals to us that the
soul or spirit of man is the absolute central root unity or the heart of the
whole of his existence, because man has been created in God's image;
further, it reveals that man has fallen away from God in the spiritual root of
his existence; and, finally, it reveals that in the heart or focal point of his
existence man's life is redirected to God through Christ's redemptive
work.
In this central spiritual unity man is not subject to temporal or bodily
death. Here too the absolute antithesis obtains. In distinction from the
Greek-orphic belief in immortality that permeated scholastic theology
by way of Plato and Aristotle, scripture teaches us nowhere that man
can save a "divine part" of his temporal being from the grave. It does
not teach us that an invisible, substantial form or an abstract complex of
functions composed of feeling and thinking can survive bodily death.
While it is true that temporal or bodily death cannot touch the soul or
spirit of man, the soul is not an abstraction from temporal existence. It is
the full, spiritual root unity of man. In this unity man transcends
temporal life.
Fall, redemption through Jesus Christ, and the revelation of creation
are unbreakably connected in the christian ground motive. Apostate
ground motives do not acknowledge sin in its radically scriptural sense;
for sin can only be understood in true self-knowledge, which is the fruit
of God's Word-revelation. To be sure, Greek religious consciousness
knew of a conflict in human life, but it interpreted that conflict as a battle
in man between the principles of form and matter. This battle became
apparent in the conflict between uncontrolled sensual desires and
reason. Sensual desires, which arose from the life stream and ran
through the blood, could be bridled only by reason. In this view reason
was the formative principle of human nature, the principle of harmony
and measure. Sensual desires were formless and in constant flux; they
ROOTS OF WESTERN CULTURE 35
were beyond measure and limit. The matter principle, the principle of
the ever-flowing life stream, became the self-determining principle of
evil. The orphics, for example, believed that the material body was a
prison or grave for the rational soul. Whoever capitulated to his sensual
desires and drives rejected the guidance of reason. He was considered
morally guilty in this Greek conception. Nevertheless, reason was often
powerless before Anangke, the blind fate that was at work in these
boundless drives. Hence the state with its coercive powers needed to
help the average citizen grow accustomed to virtue.
Modern humanism recognized a battle in man only between sensual
"nature" (controlled by the natural-scientific law of cause and effect)
and the rational freedom of human personality. Man's moral duty was to
act as an autonomous, free personality. If he showed a weakness for
sensual "nature," he was considered guilty. Humanism, however, does
not show man a way of redemption.
The contrasts between matter and form in Greek ethics and between
nature and freedom in humanistic ethics were operative not in the
religious root of human life but in its temporal expressions. However, they
were absolutized in a religious sense. This meant that the Greek and
humanistic notions of guilt depend strictly on the dialectical movements
between the opposing poles of both ground motives. Guilt arose from a
devaluation of one part of man's being over against another (deified)
part. In reality, of course, one part never functions without the other.
We shall see that roman catholic doctrine circumvents the radically
scriptural meaning of the fall with the idea that sin does not corrupt the
natural life of man but only causes the loss of the supratemporal gift of
grace. It does admit that "nature" is at least weakened and wounded by
original sin. But the dualism between nature and grace in the roman
catholic ground motive stands in the way of understanding the real
meaning of sin, even if roman catholic doctrine far surpasses Greek
thought and humanism with respect to the notion of guilt.
Common Grace
In its revelation of the fall into sin, the Word of God touches the root and
the religious centre of human nature. The fall meant apostasy from God
in the heart and soul, in the religious centre and root, of man. Apostasy
from the absolute source of life signified spiritual death. The fall into sin
was indeed radical and swept with it the entire temporal world precisely
because the latter finds its religious root unity only in man. Every denial
of this radical sense of the fall stands in direct opposition to the scriptural
ground motive, even if one maintains the term radical, like the great
36 ROOTS OF WESTERN CULTURE
humanistic thinker Kant, who spoke of "radical evil" (Radikal-böse) in
man. Any conception which entails this denial of the biblical meaning of
radical knows neither man, God, nor the depth of sin.
The revelation of the fall, however, does not imply a recognition of an
autonomous, self-determining principle of origin opposed to the
creator. Sin exists only in a false relation to God and is therefore never
independent of the creator. If there were no God there could be no sin.
The possibility of sin, as the apostle Paul profoundly expressed it, is
created by the law. Without the law commanding good there could be
no evil. But the same law makes it possible for the creature to exist.
Without the law man would sink into nothingness; the law determines
his humanity. Since sin therefore has no self-determining existence of its
own over against God the creator, it is not able to introduce an ultimate
dualism into creation. The origin of creation is not twofold. Satan himself
is a creature, who, in his created freedom, voluntarily fell away from
God.
The divine Word — through which all things were created, as we
learn from the prologue to the Gospel of John — became flesh in Jesus
Christ. It entered into the root and temporal expressions, into heart and
life, into soul and body of human nature; and for this very reason it
brought about a radical redemption: the rebirth of man and, in him, of the
entire created temporal world which finds in man its centre.
In his creating Word, through which all things were made and which
became flesh as Redeemer, God also upholds the fallen world through
his "common grace," that is, the grace given to the community of
mankind as such, without distinction between regenerate and apostate
persons. For, also redeemed man continues to share in fallen mankind
in his sinful nature. Common grace curbs the effects of sin and restrains
the universal demonization of fallen man, so that traces of the light of
God's power, goodness, truth, righteousness, and beauty still shine
even in cultures directed toward apostasy. Earlier we pointed to the
meaning of Roman civil law as a fruit of common grace.
In his common grace God first of all upholds the ordinances of his
creation and with this he maintains "human nature." These ordinances
are the same for Christians and nonchristians. God's common grace is
evident in that even the most antigodly ruler must continually bow and
capitulate before God's decrees if he is to see enduring positive results
from his labours. But wherever these ordinances in their diversity
within time are not grasped and obeyed in the light of their religious
root (the religious love commandment of service to God and
neighbour), a factual capitulation or subjection to these ordinances remains
incidental and piecemeal. Thus apostate culture always reveals a
ROOTS OF WESTERN CULTURE 37
disharmony arising out of an idolatrous absolutization of certain aspects
of God's creation at the cost of others. Every aspect, however, is just as
essential as the others.
God's common grace reveals itself not only in the upholding of his
creation ordinances but also in the individual gifts and talents given by
God to specific people. Great statesmen, thinkers, artists, inventors,
etc. can be of relative blessing to mankind in temporal life, even if the
direction of their lives is ruled by the spirit of apostasy. In this too one
sees how blessing is mixed with curse, light with darkness.
In all of this it is imperative to understand that "common grace" does not
weaken or eliminate the antithesis (opposition) between the ground motive of the
christian religion and the apostate ground motives. Common grace, in fact,
can be understood only on the basis of the antithesis. It began with the
promise made in paradise that God would put enmity between the seed
of the serpent and the seed of the woman out of which Christ would be
born. The religious root of common grace is Christ Jesus himself, who is
its king, apart from whom God would not look upon his fallen creation
with grace. There should no longer be any difference of opinion concerning this
matter in Reformational-christian circles. For if one tries to conceive of
common grace apart from Christ by attributing it exclusively to God as
creator, then one drives a wedge in the christian ground motive between
creation and redemption. Then one introduces an internal split within the
christian ground motive, through which it loses its radical and integral
character. (Radical and integral here mean: everything is related to God in
its religious root.) Then one forgets that common grace is shown to all
mankind — and in mankind to the whole temporal world — as a still
undivided whole, solely because mankind is redeemed and reborn in
Christ and because mankind embraced in Christ still shares in fallen
human nature until the fulfilment of all things. But in Christ's battle
against the kingdom of darkness, Christ's kingship over the entire
domain affected by common grace is integral and complete. For this
reason, it is in common grace that the spiritual antithesis assumes its
character of embracing the whole of temporal life. That God lets the sun
rise over the just and the unjust, that he grants gifts and talents to
believers and unbelievers alike — all this is not grace for the apostate
individual, but for all of mankind in Christ. It is gratia communis, common
grace rooted in the Redeemer of the world.
The reign of common grace will not cease until the final judgment at
the close of history, when the reborn creation, liberated from its participation
in the sinful root of human nature, will shine with the highest
perfection through the communion of the Holy Spirit. God's righteousness
will radiate even in satan and in the wicked as a confirmation of the
absolute sovereignty of the creator.
38 ROOTS OF WESTERN CULTURE
Shown to his fallen creation as a still undivided totality, the revelation
of God's common grace guards scriptural Christianity against sectarian
pride which leads a Christian to flee from the world and reject without
further ado whatever arises in western culture outside of the immediate
influence of religion. Sparks of the original glory of God's creation shine
in every phase of culture, to a greater or lesser degree, even if its
development has occurred under the guidance of apostate spiritual
powers. One can deny this only with rude ingratitude.
It is the will of God that we have been born in western culture, just
as Christ appeared in the midst of a Jewish culture in which Greco-
Roman influences were evident on all sides. But, as we said earlier, this
can never mean that the radical antithesis between christian and apostate
ground motives loses its force in the "area of common grace." The
manner in which scriptural Christianity must be enriched by the fruits of
classical and humanistic culture can only be a radical and critical one.
The Christian must never absorb the ground motive of an apostate
culture into his life and thought. He must never strive to synthesize or
bridge the gap between an apostate ground motive and the ground
motive of the christian religion. Finally, he must never deny that the
antithesis, from out of the religious root, cuts directly through the issues
of temporal life.
ROOTS OF WESTERN CULTURE 39
TWO
Sphere Sovereignty
The scriptural ground motive of the christian religion — creation, fall,
and redemption through Christ Jesus—operates through God's Spirit as
a driving force in the religious root of temporal life. As soon as it grips a
person completely, it brings about a radical conversion of his life's stance
and of his whole view of temporal life. The depth of this conversion can
be denied only by those who fail to do justice to the integrality and
radicality of the christian ground motive. Those who weaken the absolute
antithesis in a fruitless effort to link this ground motive with the
ground motives of apostate religions endorse such a denial.
• But the person who by grace comes to true knowledge of God and of
himself inevitably experiences spiritual liberation from the yoke of sin
and from sin's burden upon his view of reality, even though he knows
that sin will not cease in his life. He observes that created reality offers
no foundation, foothold, or solid ground for his existence. He perceives
how temporal reality and its multifaceted aspects and structures are
concentrated as a whole in the religious root community of the human
spirit. He sees that temporal reality searches restlessly in the human
heart for its divine origin, and he understands that the creation cannot
rest until it rests in God.
