Albert Wolters, Creation Regained

Understanding the Christian worldview is essential for Christians as they engage the world and be obedient to Scripture. So says Albert Wolters in Creation Regained. In this short book, Wolters sets out to explain what a worldview is, and therefore its importance, and then briefly outlines the major components of a specifically Christian worldview. He then concludes with a discussion of how this worldview can be put into action through using the categories of structure and direction to discern appropriate ways of life and action. He works from what he calls a “reformational” perspective—that is, a perspective that seeks to recognize the biblical concepts of sin and redemption as central to understanding life, as well as a perspective that recognizes the need for constant “reformation” of the Christian life as we seek to always conform more and more to God’s will.

(For a more complete review, seem my theology blog: http://developingtheology.blogspot.com/2007/01/albert-wolters-creation-regained.html.)

Wolters begins by defining worldview as “the comprehensive framework of one’s beliefs about things” (2). This careful definition points to a number of major themes that define what a worldview is: it is about things, that is, everything from politics to cosmology to God; it involves belief, that is, reasoned and committed assertions; and it is a comprehensive framework, meaning that it involves a system of interconnected beliefs that define how we see the world. Wolters goes on to assert that worldview is an essential field of study, because everyone has a worldview, whether they know it or not, and our worldview helps define how we see the world and understand ourselves in it. After laying this important groundwork, Wolters spends the next three chapters defining and elaborating on the three major components of a Christian worldview: creation, fall, redemption.

Wolters carefully investigates each of these areas, gaining important insights about how Christians should understand these central themes in our understanding of God, the world, and our place in it. He focuses especially on the assertion that all (earthly) things are God's good creation, are tainted by the fall, and are within the scope of redemption. He then puts this insight into practice through using the concepts of structure and direction. Structure is the good way in which God has created something, its essence, the way something is as part of the order of creation. Direction is the orientation of that thing, its use and development along the plane of sin and redemption. These two concepts will become the filters through which all things are seen, as Christians seek to determine what about a thing is structural, that is, what components or dimensions are part of God’s good creation, and what about a thing is directional, what is in conformity to God’s will and what is against God’s design and intention. Using this as a framework encourages Christians to see all things, from politics to social dance, as part of God's good creation, though fallen, and sees them as things Christians can seek to "redeem" through their action and reasoned participation in them.

Wolters has written an important study on what it means to be a Christian in the world. Worldview is an absolutely essential category for understanding the Christian life, and for understanding Christian interaction with all of life. His categories of structure and direction are especially illuminating as they help Christians to recognize and affirm the good that God has created in all areas of life, far beyond the church, but also help Christians to name those dimensions of reality that are distortions of God’s will and intention. It is a good introduction to these topics, written at a level that all intelligent readers will be able to appreciate and learn from. Wolters has done an admirable job of challenging Christians to be reformational Christians, God’s reforming representatives throughout all the world. It is an encouraging book that challenges us to look anew at the world around us, and how it does and doesn't conform to God's will, and how we can work to point all things toward God.