Constructing a Reformed Poetic
I submit that a Reformed poetic is one that sets forth the mutual knowledge of God and man in order to form a doxologic way of life. This form of thinking and speaking is, in my view, best exemplified in the opening chapters of Calvin’s Institutes. In fact, the opening sentences are representative for the poetic I have in mind: “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists in two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings for the other is not easy to discern.” This mutual knowledge of God and man, which I take to be original to Calvin and therefore Reformed theology, is the foundation of a Reformed poetic in that it forms a particular way of thinking and speaking that in turn produces a doxologic way of life and doing theology.
Marilynne Robinson has written a stimulating essay where she proposes that “Calvin’s metaphysics reduces reality to two terms: humankind and God.” She clarifies this proposal:
“When I propose that Calvin conceived of reality as centered in, and taking the whole of its character from, the mutual awareness of God and humankind, I do no wish to suggest that he has wandered away from the actual being of the actual world, but instead that he gave a centrality to God’s awareness of the world so profound as to be ontological.”
For Robinson, Calvin’s theology is “intensely this-worldly,” as it receives the givenness of the world rather than seeking to look through or beyond it. And as she argues that this mutual awareness of God and man is the foundation of Calvin’s metaphysics, I’m proposing that it is the most important part of a Reformed poetic. It is something distinctly Reformed and all-encompassing, capturing within it what Abraham Kuyper might call a life-system, or what Richard Mouw considers a worldview. It is not just a proposal for living coram Deo—that wouldn’t quite be distinctly Reformed, as something of the sort is found, for instance, in Book III of Augustine’s Confessions. Rather, it is the double idea that we are aware of God and that he is aware of us, always and everywhere, which constitutes the basis for this Reformed poetic.
A poetic consists in ways of speaking and of thinking and that produce a particular way of living, a kind of ethos. I’m calling this kind of living, and the theology associated with it, doxologic. A Reformed poetic produces a way of living that is a fitting expression of the knowledge of God as Creator and of us as creatures, of God as Redeemer and of us as sinners. It is a way of living that is under the total Lordship of Christ, saying Amen to his initiating power and grace, only and ever a response to grace.
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From a paper on Reformed theology.
