THE OUTLOOK takes some time to reach Australia so I hope that a comment on the January issue will not be considered out-of-date. I was struck by the conflict between Dr. Van Groningen‘s defence of societal sphere sovereignty and P. De Jong’s attack on the practical outworking of the principle by the AACS. Surely the contention that schools should be a separate “sphere” to the home and hence not under the control of parents is an outworking of “sphere sovereignty” as defended by Dr. Van Groningen.

I think the crux of the problem lies in one of the doctrines which Dr. Van Groningen claimed was Biblical. That is his particular understanding of “historical differentiation and cultural development.”

One should note first of all that while Dr. Van Groningen thinks he can discern a pattern of historical differentiation of societal spheres in the Bible there is no Biblical passage which itself teaches that. He gives us a number of examples which he sees as illustrating this idea but no explicit teaching of Scripture. Now while I am not insisting that everything we obtain from Scripture must be explicitly stated, there is a danger here. We may see examples in Scripture of an idea which we have imposed on Scripture from without.

A consideration of just the examples given will show that the situation is not as simple as portrayed. Certainly Moses served in the capacities of “lawgiver and ruler, priest and prophet.” The priesthood was given to a special tribe and others were not allowed to perform priestly offices. Yet there was not the sharp distinction between prophets and priests. Priests like Jeremiah were also prophets. Moses does involve the elders in the work of judging but this by no means implies the creation of a separate social category. Later in the Scripture judgment was also performed by kings (I Kings 3:9–12) and priests (I Sam. 4:18).

But more important than the fact that these different roles were not as completely separated as Dr. Van Groningen implies is the fact that the separation was not permanent. They are united together again in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we in Him function also as prophets, priests, kings and judges. If the Biblical text may be quoted for illustrations of the historical differentiation of cultural spheres then it can just as well be quoted for examples of their reintegration.

It seems to me that Dr. Van Groningen had in his mind an idea of cultural development and he saw things in the Scripture which could be fitted into that idea.

This is not to say that the Bible does not teach a separation between state and church, etc. It is to question whether the Bible teaches a one-direction on-going process of cultural differentiation and separation of more and more societal spheres.

Yours in Christ,

NOEL WEEKS