REFORMED WITNESS
Volume VI, July 1998, Number 6
Antithesis, Synthesis and Dualism
by Herman Hoeksema
Reprinted from the May 1, 1928 issue of The Standard Bearer
It is not many years ago that it was a rather generally accepted principle with Reformed people, that in this whole life, in every sphere of life in the midst of the world, the Christian was called to assume an antithetical attitude towards the world of darkness. For what did righteousness and unrighteousness have in common? Or what concord is there between Christ and Belial? The natural man minded the things of the flesh, and the carnal mind is enmity against God, it is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can be. Hence, he (the natural man) cannot see the Kingdom of God and will not seek God, but loves the darkness rather than light. But the spiritual man, who has been renewed by the Spirit and grace of God, according to the inner man of the heart, lives from the new principle of regeneration and reveals himself as a child of light. It is, therefore, not his calling to leave the world, but to live the whole of life from a different spiritual-ethical principle than the natural man. He is in the world but not of the world.
Of late this principle of the antithesis has generally been denied or silenced into oblivion. For a time those that were not at all in favor of the antithetical life-view still pretended to defend it, only claiming, that in this present time the antithesis is never absolute but only relative in actual manifestation. It is absolute in spiritual principle, but by virtue of the operation of a common grace there is also a certain practical synthesis in this world between the children of light and those of darkness. But lately one does not hear any more, even of this so-called relative antithesis. The antithesis is forgotten, both in theory and in practice.
Of course, this change of views and convictions does not alter the facts. Light and darkness are still antithetical with relation to each other; righteousness and unrighteousness are still mutually exclusive; Christ and Belial still refuse to be combined and united in fellowship of friendship. Still, it is this principle of the antithesis that must needs dominate the entire life of the Christian in this world. He must fight the good fight even unto the end and it is given him of grace in the cause of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer with Him. Then, and then only, may he expect that he will also be glorified with Him.
What is meant by the antithesis? And, first of all, what is the antithetical lifeview in distinction from Dualism? The term antithesis as such signifies contrast, opposition. And as we use the term we have reference to the contrast, the opposition between light and darkness, between good and evil, between God and the devil, between the Church and the world. But it cannot be denied that there are not a few, who, while they speak of the antithesis in this ethical-spiritual sense of the word, really have a dualistic conception of the relation between God and the devil and, consequently, of the relation between the Christian and the world. Dualism is very old. It is already developed among the heathen nations, especially of Persia and Egypt. Neither is it surprising that dualistic philosophies and religions are developed among the nations. The existence of good and evil is a fact patent to all. The belief in some god is also as universal as the human race. Atheism was never seriously accepted by men, because in the heart of no man does God leave Himself without witness that He is. Thus, thinking people came face to face with the very serious question: how must we explain the relation between good and evil on the one hand and God on the other. The conclusion they drew was that there were two primal causes, the one the cause of good, the other of evil; two gods, a good and an evil. They could not find unity between the two. In what way the existence of good and evil, both physical and moral could be explained from one god, they did not see. And so they accepted the awful theory of a double deity. These two gods were at war with each other in the world. And the hope of these dualists was that they believed that the good god would ultimately triumph over all the forces of the evil god and the light would have the victory. Not so seldom they applied these dualistic views to the world as they saw it. Sin and suffering as they saw it, were inevitably connected with life in the flesh, with matter: while all that is good was connected with spirit. Thus, they arrived at the dualism between matter and spirit. The spirit was good and was created by the good God, matter was evil and was either itself the eternal source of evil, or was created by the evil god. Hence, salvation consisted in fleeing from things material, that the spirit might rule and have the victory. Asceticism offered the best practical rule of life. Crucify the flesh in that sense of the word, was the slogan. Flee from the present world, chastise the body, and you shall be saved. The more you deny life to the body and to the things of the body, the better and the more effectively you fight the evil god.
It cannot be denied, that at a very early date this dualistic view made an attempt to gain entrance into the Church of Christ. Already the apostle Paul warned against it in his epistle to the Colossians (11:20-22). He speaks of the rudiments of the world and of being subject to ordinances. He mentions these commandments and ordinances of men as expressed in the slogan: "Touch not, taste not, handle not." The same tendency became manifest somewhat later in the asceticism of men that withdrew into the desert and lived for years on lonely pillars, to seek the most absolute seclusion from the world conceivable and overcome the power of the flesh. And the same dualistic principles lie at the basis of Roman Catholic monasticism. They leave the world and recede into the solitude offered behind the walls of convent or monastery as the height of godliness in this world and the most effective way to save one's soul. Chastisement of the body was a matter of at least a means to sanctification. Celibacy was holier than the married life. All because the material world and the life of the body itself was conceived as the seat of all evil and the victory of the spirit was the triumph of the good.
Now, although it cannot be denied, there are even today many people who conceive of the opposition between God and the devil in this dualistic way and, therefore, create a dualistic relation between the Church and the world, while they imagine they are speaking of the antithesis, the latter has really nothing in common with the former except the appearance, the semblance of things. You know as well as I, that many people think in terms of dualism while they speak of the antithesis. They begin to speak of God and Satan as if the two were eternal and were two independent sources, the one of Good, the other of evil. God creates a good world; the evil makes it evil; for a time there is a battle, caused by the fact that God determines to regain the world and restore it to its original goodness and purity, and finally, after a long struggle, God has the victory over the devil and the latter is banished to everlasting punishment together with the wicked. Such is often the presentation of this matter. It is principally dualistic. And it is a poor and gloomy life-view. For, first of all, it is an attack upon, at least a denial of, the absolute Godhead of God, and postulates a power next to Him that works independently of Him. And secondly, this power of evil, the devil and his host, may ultimately be subjugated and defeated; in the meantime they accomplish much evil, cause much suffering and create a good deal of everlasting destruction in the work of God. The proper antithetical view differs from this dualism principally and in many respects. Dualism postulates two primal causes, two gods, the antithesis starts from the fundamental principle: God is God and He alone. There is no God beside Him. Dualism presents the present relation between the good and evil as a duel, in which the power of evil gains many temporary victories; the antithesis knows of no such thing, but maintains that God at all times executes His counsel and that the powers of darkness certainly serve His purpose and nothing else. Dualism conceives of the end of all things as merely the defeat of evil and a restoration of the original state of things; the antithesis emphasizes that all the operation of the powers of darkness must serve to lead all things to a state of glory and bliss that could otherwise never have been reached.
Let me, then, briefly draw the antithetical line.
God is a light and there is no darkness in Him. He alone is God and He is good. His very being is good, and evil cannot come forth from Him. He is righteousness, justice and truth, love and holiness and purity, the absolute Good in Himself. In Him there is no unrighteousness, no corruption, no lie, no evil. That is why God is beautiful and glorious. And as the Triune God He lives the life of the most glorious and blessed, eternal covenant-fellowship in Himself. He exists of Himself and by Himself, and apart from Him there is nothing that has any being. He is not the greatest among all gods, but He is God alone. He is not the supreme good in comparison with other good, but He is the sole Good and the Fountain of all good that is. God is God and God is good. There is no power apart and independent from Him. And there is no evil, no darkness in God. This is really the most fundamental principle of all the Word of God, the starting point of all true conceptions.
In the second place, we must remember, that God determined to reveal Himself unto the glory of His Most Holy Name. To reveal His glory is the motive and purpose of all His counsel, of His everlasting good pleasure. For He made all things for His Own Name's sake, even the wicked unto the day of evil. And He raises Pharaoh for no other purpose than to reveal His power and glory through Him. Hence, God in His counsel determines to reveal the glory of His Name antithetically, to manifest the glory of His Being on the dark background of, in contrast with, in opposition to evil. He determines from everlasting not only to reveal that He is Truth, but to do this in opposition to the lie; not only to manifest that He is Righteousness, but to accomplish this in opposition to Unrighteousness; to reveal that He is Holiness, but in contrast with corruption. In a word, God in His counsel conceives of the antithesis, that is, the revelation of His glorious light-Being, full of grace and truth, in antithesis to darkness full of horror and the lie. That He loves the truth and hates the lie, that He loves righteousness and holiness and hates unrighteousness and corruption, that is what the Most High determines in His everlasting counsel to make manifest. So that we must certainly maintain that in His eternal counsel God has willed the darkness and all that is connected therewith, but always in such a way, that He conceives of it as an object of His hatred and displeasure, that the glory of His Name may be extolled. Never does darkness appear in God's counsel as the object of His love and pleasure. He has no pleasure in sin and corruption. But neither may we explain the existence of evil as independent from God's eternal will and decree. For our God is in the heavens; He doeth whatsoever He pleases. And God's counsel shall stand, He shall accomplish all His good pleasure. And the evil which God conceives in His counsel always serves the purpose to enhance the glory of His Name.
In the third place, we must recall, that for this purpose God wills a people of His covenant, that shall exist to the glory of His Name and whose sole purpose is to shew forth His praises and to manifest His glorious virtues. They must be partakers of His nature and life, they must be bearers of His image, they must be vessels of His light, manifestations of His righteousness and truth, of His Holiness and grace and love. For the realization of the counsel of God, they must be of His party. And since it was God's eternal purpose to reveal this glory antithetically, as over against the darkness of the lie, unrighteousness and corruption, this power of darkness must be there in the vessels of wrath, and the children of light must be brought into closest connection with them in order that they may manifest the light and condemn the darkness, stand for the truth and condemn the lie, walk in holiness and love, and condemn corruption and enmity toward God. Thus God conceives of the vessels of mercy and those of wrath, that the former may reveal the glory of God's virtues over against and in opposition to the powers of darkness. Thus is God's eternal purpose. For He is the potter and we are the clay. And it is His sovereign prerogative to make known His power and glory in vessels of honour and of dishonour, and to raise Pharaoh for the purpose of revealing the glory of His infinite Name. Such is the counsel of election and reprobation. They are not two coordinate parts of God's council , but the latter serves the former. Reprobation serves both to bring out the glory of election and to lead in a way of opposition and sin God's covenant to highest conceivable glory.
Such is the idea of the antithesis.
Thus God executes it in time.
He creates Adam, the first man and makes him of His party, His covenant friend. He creates him in His own image, in order that He may truly know his God, live with Him in covenant-fellowship, and serve Him in love with all his heart and mind and soul and strength. He is God's prophet, to know Him and glorify Him in praise and adoration; He is God's priest, to love Him and to consecrate himself to Him with all things; and he is king under God to have dominion over all earthly things in the Name of his God and according to His ordinances. But he must be such antithetically. It is his calling to be of God's party over against darkness. Hence, the tree of knowledge of good and evil is placed in paradise the first. Hence, the devil is permitted to appear on the scene, whose name is slanderer and adversary, all according to God's counsel. Thus the forces of opposition were created, and it was Adam's calling to be God's covenant-friend, to maintain the name and glory of his God in opposition to the powers of darkness. Henceforth he could no longer serve God without also opposing the devil. But the first man falls and violates God's covenant, all according to the determinate counsel of God. By his fall in sin he becomes wholly corrupt and darkness, so that his mind and will is enmity against the living God. There is no good left in him. All is unrighteousness and corruption. And standing as the head and father and root of the entire race, he can nevermore bring forth a clean thing out of an unclean. His children, as he brings them forth, will be like him, dead in sin and misery, seed of the devil, who henceforth is their spiritual father. He will bring forth a race that consists of children of wrath by nature, and whose desire it is to do the will of their father the devil.
Yet, God maintains His covenant. For in His counsel He had chosen His people in Christ and determined that in the second Adam they should be perfected, after they had fought the good fight. This covenant God establishes immediately, for according to God's counsel, Christ, the second Adam, stands behind the first man. He establishes and maintains His covenant by putting enmity between this people in Christ and the seed of the devil. So it is that, although by nature Adam can bring forth only children of wrath, corrupt in sin, through the power of grace, he also becomes the father of a new race, the spiritual seed of the woman. But, again according to God's counsel and for the purpose of the antithesis, not all the natural children of Adam are also children of the promise and of grace. The covenant as maintained in Christ does not include all, but only those whom God has chosen and given to His Son from before the foundation of the world. The development of the race henceforth follows the line of election and reprobation, of the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Thus you have the beginning of the historical development of the antithesis. Adam becomes the progenitor of two peoples, the elect and the reprobate, the righteous and ungodly. From a natural point of view they have all things in common. They are both part of the natural organism in Adam, of the same flesh and blood. They have the same natural life, the same body and the same soul, the same mind and will, the same talents and powers. And they live in the same world. They till the same soil and receive the same rain and the same sunshine, they work in the same factory and often at the same bench. Not infrequently they live in the same home and are most closely related from a natural point of view. They develop the same institutions, are subjects of the same state, members of the same society, speak the same language as members of the same nation, and even are not so infrequently members of the same Church. In a word, from a natural point of view they have all things in common and live in the most close relationship conceivable. But all this is nothing more than the battleground upon which light and darkness clash, upon which the powers of sin and grace develop and come to manifestation. For, although these two peoples have everything in common from a natural point of view, they have nothing in common from a spiritual-ethical point of view. Although they are alike as long as you view them from the viewpoint of their relation to this world and to earthly things, they stand opposed as soon as you view them again in their relation to God. For the natural children of Adam live from the principle of enmity against God. They are children of darkness. And they reveal and develop their life from this spiritual point of view everywhere, in all spheres and with all the means of this present life. Their main spiritual principle is always that they set themselves against God, with all their powers and talents and means and institutions. They do not seek after God and they do not follow after righteousness. They are of this world, not seeking after the city that hath foundations, they seek to establish a kingdom of the world, separated from God and His Christ, in which the glory of sinful man may be enhanced. But the children of grace are principally different. They have a new life, the life of regeneration, the life of the risen Christ. And from the principle of this new life they develop and manifest themselves in every sphere of life. They serve God and they reject mammon. They love Christ and they hate the devil. They walk as children of light and they condemn the ungodly works of darkness. They shew forth the praises of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light. Such is their calling. It is God's purpose with them. It is not their calling to gain the whole world for Christ, neither is it their calling to leave the world, but to be in the world, in all the world, in every sphere of the life of this world, on the whole of its battleground, only living from the principle of grace and the life of regeneration, according to the Word of God. Such is the anthithesis. And living as children of light the darkness will hate them and will employ the powers and means of darkness to overcome them. Outwardly they may also seem to be submerged in the battle and to be defeated by the powers of darkness, even as Christ on Golgotha. But spiritually they have the victory. They are of God's party. God fights His battle through them. God through Christ will give them the ultimate victory in the day when all the powers of darkness shall only prove to have worked together for the most glorious revelation of the Name of the Most High!
Now this antithesis is denied in more than one way. It is denied first of all by the pernicious doctrine of Common Grace. Also this theory attempts to offer a life-view of the things of this present time. Its fundamental conception is, after all, that the devil struck a hole into the work of God as He originally formed it, and would have destroyed it were it not for the intervention of common grace. If God had not intervened through the power of common grace, so is the supposition, man would immediately have been sent into eternal death and destruction and the whole world would have returned to its original state of chaos, or perhaps been annihilated. But God prevents this devilish scheme. He carries through the original purpose of creation. This world must develop. The powers of this world must be brought to light, may not be destroyed by sin. Not until all the forces of the world have been developed and it has become manifest how beautiful a world God formed in the beginning, can the world be destroyed to be replaced by the final restoration of paradise lost. For this purpose God sends a twofold grace, a temporary grace and an eternal, a general and a particular. By virtue of the former, which is God's lovingkindness over all men, the righteous and the wicked alike, human life is preserved and not immediately destroyed, the curse is tempered in its tendency to destroy, and the earth and its fulness are preserved. Moreover, the power and progress of sin are checked. If this general grace had not come, man would have been wholly a child of darkness, a pronounced enemy of God, only committing sin and never doing anything good. He would have been wholly like the devil. But now it is different. True, it is maintained, the natural man of himself is only a sinner and cannot do anything good while he is inclined to all evil. But common grace improves upon him to such an extent that he can still do much good, even though it is no good that saves him. In all the spheres of life that pertain to this present world, in the home, in the state, in society, in business and commerce, in science and art, he lives from this principle of a common and general and temporal grace, and is able to will and to think and to accomplish much good. But by means of another, a special grace, God saves the sinner, uproots the evil principle within him and prepares him for final glory. So that while the ungodly live from the principle of this common grace in the world, the godly live both from this same principle of common grace and that of particular or saving grace.
It is not difficult to see where lies the fundamental error of this conception. It after all looks upon this entire present history as an interval which has been necessitated because of sin. God's purpose is to perfect this present creation, not to perfect and glorify His covenant through the deep way of sin and grace. For a time this purpose is frustrated through the power of the devil and sin. But God carries it through and reaches it in spite of the attempts of the devil. And not only that this world has its history and development according to an original purpose as it would have been without sin, but He also restores the original perfection of the whole creation. All this is accomplished by the power of common and special grace. Strange though it may sound, the theory of common grace is dualistic after all. It dares not conceive of sin as nothing but a means for the realization of God's covenant and the development of His counsel to the glory of His Name. Hence, it also confuses God's providence, whereby He maintains and preserves all things so that the sphere and battlefield for the principles of sin and grace may be provided, with grace. What is after all nothing but means for the ungodly to develop as ungodly and become ripe for destruction, and for the godly to reveal themselves and develop as children of light, is considered as grace and lovingkindness of the Lord, common to all. And what is after all only sin, as soon as it is judged in the light of the law of God, is called good.
But we are not so much concerned with the criticism and exposition of the errors of this conception as with the clear fact that it destroys the antithesis. If it is true that in this present life and with a view to their earthly development, God is gracious to all and has a covenant of friendship with all men, what business have we not to be friends with those to whom the Lord is gracious? Certainly, the outcry of the poet must be eliminated from Scripture: "Should I not hate, Lord, that hate thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred!" God is the friend of all, be it only for the present and with a view to the affairs of the present time. We have no business to be enemies of those that are in this life the friends of God. Besides, do we not live from a common principle of life in this world? The world does good. Not saving good, it is true, but good in the sight of God. It does so from the grace of God wrought in their hearts by the Holy Spirit of God. Shall we then separate ourselves and condemn the good and lovely works of the world? No, but we shall rather unite with them and do things in common. Together we can labor for the building up of the home, of society, of the state, of commerce and industry, of science and art. It is only a matter of tradition that we still have Christian schools. The school also belongs to the sphere of common grace. The calling of God's people to live from a different principle from the world is denied. The anthithesis is absolutely destroyed! We may be in the world and of the world both, for together we live of the power of common grace!
But this is not the only way in which the principle of the antithesis is destroyed. It is denied just as well by all those movements that would separate themselves from the world in the sense that they would go out of the world. It is Dr. Kuyper's repeated assertion that you must choose between his view and that of all Dualism that would live a separate existence and create a separate field and sphere of life for the godly and the ungodly. Yet, this is not the case. The dualistic philosophy confuses the battleground with the battle that must be fought on it. It conceives of the battlefield itself as evil. Sin is inseparably bound up with the things of this present time and with our life in the body. Hence, they that adhere to this view would leave the world as much as possible. They do not want to be in the world. They would like to gather the people of God on a separate island, in a separate state and separate them from all contact with the ungodly. They would flee out of the world. They would seek refuge in monasteries and convents in order to avoid all contact with sin. They would live in deserts and holes in order to be safe. But also this is wrong. Not only is it a mere delusion that we can escape conflict with the powers of darkness by separating ourselves literally and locally from the world for the simple reason that we carry the powers of darkness with us in our own flesh and heart - the antithesis is within us; but it is also a fleeing from the battlefield and an attempt to frustrate God's purpose with us. It is the purpose of God that light may shine in the darkness and that the light may condemn the darkness. That purpose cannot be reached by a dualistic flight from the world. All dualistic tendencies would have us not only not be of the world, but neither would they have us in the world!
Hence, we must maintain the antithetic view of life and the world. God establishes His covenant with us antithetically. We cannot serve Him without rejecting and fighting mammon. In the world and not of the world, living in all the domains of life, but from the principle of light, condemning the darkness, such is the purpose of God with His people and our calling, till the victory is won.
H. H.
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