Christ Above Culture (*A Church of the Center)

Part III. Synthesis in Question

synthesis is attractive to man's desire for unity
Synthesist feels GOD'S RULE IS ESTABLISHED IN THE NATURE OF THINGS AND MAN MUST BUILD ON THE ESTABLISHED FOUNDATIONS
what distinguishes the synthesis of Thomas' sort (from Augsutinians and Luthers who also acknowledge the importance of civic virtues and just social institutions) is his concern to discover the bases of right in the given, created nature of man and this world
conduct of life among the redeemed cannot fall short of life under law, however high it must rise beyond it
law not a human invention, but contains the will of God.

PROS & Defense
the synthesist alone seems to provide for willing and intelligent co-operation of Christians with nonbelievers in carrying on the work of the world, while yet maintaining the distinctiveness of Christian faith and life
But must remember it also tells that the gospel promises and requires more than the rational knoweldge of the Creator's plan for the creature and willing obedience to the law of nature demand and asssure. ----VERY EXHAULTED VIEW OF THE LAW AND GOAL OF LOVE
more not an afterthought as it often is with the cultural christian culture also indepted to this type whom "have been mediators of Greek wisdom and Roman law to modern culture"

PROBLEMS
"tends perhaps inevitably, to the absolutizing of what is relative, the reduction of the infinite to a finite form, and the materialization of the dynamic"
no synthesists answer so far given in Christian history has avoided the equation of a cultural view of God's law in creation with that law itself
conservation of a culture and thus becomes a cultural christian
on other hand the effort to synthesize leads to the instiutionalization of Christ and the gospel
These objections all meet in one point...that integrity and peace are the eternal hope and goal of the Christian, and that the temporal embodiment of this unity in man-devised form represents a usurpation in which time seeks to exercise the power of eternity and man the power of God
authoritative statement about the way things fit together in the kingdom of God
other criticisms of dualists, conversionists and radicals is that it tends to distinguish grades of Christian perfectionl with all the mischief that results from the division of Christians into those who obey lower and higher laws....etc
THE MAJOR OBJECTION (which all but cultural Christians raise) is ....that they DO NOT FACE UP TO THE RADICAL EVIL PRESENT IN ALL HUMAN WORK Terms/vocab

Go to: Christ AboveCulture | Introduction | Part I: The Church of the Center | Part II. The Synthesis of Christ and Culture | Part III. Synthesis in question |

More