Developing a Christian Worldview: Acknowledging the Fall

God has made us His representatives on earth, and we are charged with the care and management of the world God made. We are accountable to the Creator for how we manage what rightfully belongs to Him. God gave us meaningful work to do in His world and we are participating in the ongoing development of creation. The material world is good, and we should never call something evil that God made and called “good.” But now we must acknowledge that something bad has happened to the good world that God created. The Christian worldview acknowledges that there was a great Fall (See Genesis 3.6-24). This Fall and the effects of it reverberate throughout the rest of the Bible. We cannot understand reality unless we understand something about the Fall as recorded in Genesis. Unfortunately, this part of the Bible and the Christian worldview has been hotly debated by Modern critics. The Modern, scientific worldview makes no allowance for a Fall or for the entrance of corruption and death into creation.

Sin and its Effects

Using the word “fall” implies that the world is at a lower state than before so that things are not what the original design intended. When we say that something falls short, we mean that it is clearly not a perfect thing. There is a defect. And while the thing may not be completely ruined or destroyed, there is clearly something wrong. God’s good creation has been marred, warped, and distorted.

When we say that the world is fallen, we are taking for granted that we know something about what it ought to be. We are making a distinction between what is normal and what is abnormal, or between something that is healthy and something that is sick. If we do not have some idea of what a healthy person looks like, then calling someone sick would be meaningless. The funny thing is, nearly everyone has some idea of what the world should be like and that the world is in fact not like that. This is true even of people who do not accept the Biblical worldview. There seems to be some collective, subconscious memory deep in the human soul about a perfect world that has been lost and that we desperately hope might be re-gained somehow. Even when we are not thinking about it, all our human energies are focused to try to regain a little bit of our lost paradise, if even for a moment.

We know that there is some invisible force in the world that is keeping us from being everything that we want to be. We never seem to be able to fully enjoy life. There may be momentary times of enjoyment, but these do not last and are replaced by moments of pain and suffering. And no matter what we might enjoy in life, we must all come to terms, sooner or later, with our own mortality. 

When all is said and done, we seem to accomplish very little with our lives. We are like a man on a treadmill who works very hard but never actually moves forward. This experience is universal and is captured in Scripture most vividly in the book of Ecclesiastes. That book should be read as a kind of personal commentary on the effects of the Fall. The author of Ecclesiastes uses the word “vanity” many times over to describe life in a fallen world. Because of sin, the world has been subjected to vanity, frustration, or futility. We seem to all be caught in a meaningless cycle that is going nowhere, like a dog chasing his tail. Life on earth has been compared to a giant wheel in the sky that just keeps on endlessly turning. We are born. We suffer in various ways, while perhaps enjoying a few momentary pleasures as well. And then we die, taking nothing with us out of the world. And then another generation is born and the whole cycle repeats. And there is no way out of the cycle! Any thoughtful and observant person can see that these things are true, even without reading the Bible.

However, only the Bible can correctly identify the cause behind the effect. The Fall was caused by sin, or disobedience to God’s commands. Here is where the Biblical worldview becomes controversial and diverges from other worldviews. Other worldviews can identify the effects, but not the underlying cause. And as anyone who tries to solve a problem understands, unless you can correctly identify the underlying cause there can never be a true solution to the problem. Human civilization, even with all its legitimately great achievements, has never been able to solve the underlying problem or even properly identify what the root of the trouble might be. Something is terribly wrong with the world. Something is terribly wrong with human beings.

We see how evil and twisted human society can be. The corruption and injustice are everywhere in the world and we all see it every single day. We can even recognize that our own lives are less than perfect. But only the Biblical world-view and those who accept it as true can identify what is wrong. All evil in the world is the direct result of mankind’s rebellion against the Creator and His will for human life on earth. We have been alienated from God and are suffering all the consequences of that broken relationship. Not only are we alienated or distanced from God we are hostile to God. We do not want God to rule our lives or to interfere with what we want to do.

The Extent of the Fall

We must acknowledge that the Fall has had an impact on every aspect of creation. Nothing is exempt. We would all like to think that perhaps there is some little island of goodness that has remained pristine and unaffected, but this is simply not reality. Reformed theologians coined the term “total depravity” to communicate the fact that there is nothing in all creation that has not been somehow tainted by sin. This can be a hard pill for us to swallow, especially for people who have high ideals and high hopes for a happy and fulfilled life. At some point, the reality of the Fall shatters our dreams for the perfect life. Here we see one of the great practical uses of the Biblical worldview. Adopting the Biblical worldview can keep us from becoming completely bitter and despairing of life. Christians know the world is fallen and that our ultimate source of happiness will never be found in this world. This helps us have realistic expectations for our lives in this world while we wait patiently with hope for the world that is to come. This fallen world must still be redeemed.

The ravages of sin have not just touched human life, the entire cosmos has been affected as well (See Rom. 8.19-22). Sin is like a disease that has spread throughout the entire world. We remember that when God created the world, He gave it into the hands and the dominion of mankind. When mankind fell, his dominion went down with him. Part of what makes our lives so frustrating is the fact that the creation will no longer completely submit to our dominion but is working against us. Instead of growing what we want, it produces thorns and thistles. Only with great exertion, by the sweat of our brows, can we make the created order serve our needs. Nature seems unconcerned with our safety and wellbeing. Unless we take great care and precautions, the natural world will kill us. The sky refused to rain, and we get drought and famine. Or, the clouds will not stop raining and we get a flood. Painful diseases invade our bodies. The animals that Adam once named in Eden now turn on us and injure or kill us. A person who thinks Mother Nature is kind has never stared down a tiger or swam with a shark!

However, the Fall did not obliterate creation and her glory, neither does the Bible identify creation as evil. Evil does not and cannot have the power to undo God’s purpose for the world. God’s will must be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Despite the entrance of sin and death, God did not write off the creation or abandon it. This is one of the great themes of the Bible and is clearly seen in the Genesis account. Even after Adam and Eve had sinned, God patiently sought them out, covered their shameful nakedness, and gave them a promise that the serpent would eventually be defeated (Gen. 3.15). Everything in creation retains a portion of its former glory and goodness, which can never be completely suppressed. Even a fallen world declares the glory of the Creator.

The Appearance of Evil

Christians are often depicted in popular culture as starry-eyed idealists who are out of touch with reality. But this is simply not true. Christians are the only people who really understand the nature of evil in the world. The Bible is completely realistic about evil and its devastating effects, but not to the point of utter despair. Christians are aware of evil, but we are always hopeful in the face of evil because we know that evil is not equal in power to the great, eternal Goodness that is at the center of all things. The pagan philosophy of Dualism teaches and believes that Good and Evil are equal but opposite Powers eternally locked in a struggle for dominance in the universe. But there is a serious fallacy in this kind of thinking.  Evil is distinguished from what is good because it is merely a distortion. The good thing is the ultimate reality. The evil thing is a flawed reflection, a twisted image, a crooked line. To call evil equal with good would be to remove all definitions of good and evil. Evil, therefore, must always be parasitic to the good, not equal to it.

In the New Testament, the term “world” is used to refer to this distortion of God’s good creation. The world is something that has been perverted and should be avoided by Christians (See Rom. 12.2; Col. 2.8; James 1.27; 4.4; 2 Pet. 2.20; 1 Jn. 2.15-17). In Paul’s writings, this term refers to “the totality of unredeemed life dominated by sin outside of Christ” (Herman Ridderbos). In other words, the World is sin-infected creation.

The trouble is that Christians often identify the world only as a certain area of polluted creation, which we call worldly or secular, rather than seeing how sin has permeated every aspect of the creation. We are warned about worldliness not only in certain aspects of creation but anywhere and everywhere it may be found, including our own affections. Sometimes the term “earth” or “earthly” is also used (Col. 3.2, 5; Phil. 3.9) as in direct opposition to the will of our Father who is in Heaven. To be worldly is to be in opposition to God and to His intentions for human life on earth. This opposition to God manifests itself in a thousand different ways, but at the heart of the world is rebellion against God.

Our freedom is found in a right relationship with God and where that right relationship is compromised there is bondage to sin. If we will not serve God, then we will serve sin, which also brings us under the domination of the Kingdom of Darkness that rules the world. Satan exercises control of people who are slaved to sin. The concept of bondage is foreign to the Modern mind, which values independence and autonomy. We are proud of our supposed freedom to be and to do what we want, all while failing to see that our freedom is an illusion. In this world, we must serve somebody. If we are not serving God, then we are serving sin and the Dark Power who rules this present, evil world.

The Sin of Idolatry

In Eden was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God allowed for the possibility of disobedience and for the man and the woman to depart from what He intended them to be. The original sin was a desire to put something other than God at the center of life. It did not matter that this was only a piece of fruit. The type of transgression is not important. The heart of sin is a turning away from God and taking something else in hand instead of His will for our lives. The eating of some forbidden fruit in Eden was the first instance of the sin of idolatry.

The forbidden fruit in Eden was only there to illustrate the nature of sin and to show the two alternatives that human beings must face. We may worship God, or we may worship something other than God. There are only two categories of things that we may worship: The Creator Himself, or some aspect of the creation (See Rom. 1.18-25). If we do not worship the Creator, that does not mean we are choosing not to worship. It only means we are worshiping something that God has made instead of worshiping God. Mankind is instinctively and incurably religious. Everything in creation is sacred and all of life becomes religious where we must choose what we will worship and serve. We will worship God, or we will worship a false god, which is an idol. Our lives will glorify God or express rebellion against God. Sin is idolatry and idols are at the root of our alienation from the Creator. Idolatry is not just one kind of sin but is the root of every other sin.

Sin is the declaration of independence from the Creator so that we might choose what we want to worship. The trouble with this is that it flies directly in the face of ultimate reality. The fact is that there is only one, true God. To deny this is to go against the very grain of the universe. We can shake our fist at Heaven and tell God to leave us alone, but life simply will not work without God at the center. An automobile was designed to run on gasoline. If we refuse to fill up the tank, the vehicle will cease to work. Human beings were meant to work a certain way and life falls apart when that design is ignored.

Idolatry has a devastating effect on human beings. We were meant to image God in our dominion over creation. When we turn from God to idols, God’s loving rule is no longer reflected in human society and something else begins to grow up that is perverted and ugly. The early world became so perverted and ugly, God decided to destroy it with a great flood and start over again. It is difficult to say just how corrupt human life can become when people turn away from the living God.

There is a good reason why the commandments of God begin with a warning against idolatry (Ex. 20.3-5). If this commandment is not kept, then everything else in our lives will become distorted as well. If we choose not to worship and serve the Creator, there can be no moral boundaries in our social relationships with other people. We each become our own little god, deciding for ourselves what is right and wrong. The result of this can only be social chaos. One of the ways God judges the world for its idolatry is to withdraw and allow us to suffer the inevitable consequences of our alienation. We cannot ignore God and come away unscathed any more than we can ignore the law of gravity and not get hurt! The way of obedience is life and peace, but the way of disobedience is death (Deut. 30.15-20). According to the Old Testament Wisdom literature, such as Proverbs, to disobey God is to foolishly go against the very laws of the universe, which can only cause self-destruction. Sin brings a curse which ultimately ends in death (Rom. 6.23). We have a very strong inclination to disbelieve this basic Biblical fact. Perhaps we think that God is exaggerating the truth just a bit and that the situation is not really all that dire. Some people tend to think that God is just a cosmic killjoy who is out to ruin all the fun that we might otherwise have in life by giving us unreasonable commands and boundaries.

These thoughts were placed in the mind of Eve at the very first temptation, and the Enemy of our souls still puts these lies in the minds of men and woman today. Satan has convinced the world that it is better not to serve God.

A Cosmic Conflict

With the appearance of the Serpent in Eden, this world became a place of conflict where God makes a claim on humanity and Satan make his counter-claims. We call Satan’s counter-claims temptations. Satan’s true objective is to incite rebellion on earth, as he apparently once did even in Heaven before the creation of the world. Satan has set up a rival kingdom on earth, one of darkness and deception (Col. 1.13), where he is able to exercise his dominion over those who remain alienated from God. Behind the scenes, there is a dark conspiracy of evil as spiritual powers seek to deceive and then to dominate human life on earth. Those with a Biblical worldview have some grasp on the truly cosmic nature of evil. It becomes difficult for the mind to explain some of the evil acts of human history unless we see the demonic source. We should not underestimate the powerful grip Satan exercises over this world.

Satan’s power is limited, and he is certainly not equal to God. But he promotes the distortion of God’s good creation and he incites rebellion against God Himself. He wants people to assert their independence from God, which ultimately destroys human life. God gives life, but Satan takes life. God creates, but Satan perverts and distorts. Satan has always been a liar who presents humanity with a false option. He suggests that we would be happier without God when the truth is that there is no possibility of anything good apart from God. Satan’s greatest power is making us believe in his lies about God.

We now live in a kind of war zone where a cosmic struggle is unfolding. Two rival kingdoms are clashing on earth and we must give allegiance to one or the other. God calls for our obedience and our worship while Satan incites us to go our own way and do our own thing. “There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan” (C.S. Lewis). Because the world listens to Satan, life in the world is frustrating. We struggle and never really get what we want out of life. Our rule over creation has been compromised and subjected to futility. Life does not submit to our will just as we have refused to submit to God’s will. Only when the children of God are fully redeemed will the creation itself become liberated (Rom. 8.19-23).

Developing a Christian Worldview: Based on Creation

The Biblical worldview begins with Creation, not with Jesus. We often make Jesus the leading salvo of our Gospel presentation, but there is no context for redemption in Christ apart from the foundational reality of creation and Creator. When Paul addressed the pagan idolaters in Athens, he began his sermon by talking about creation and Creator (See Acts 17.22-31). With the rising secularism of our own times, it would be wise to learn from Paul’s approach in Athens when sharing the Biblical message.

God has made a covenant with creation, to uphold it until His purpose is complete. God’s faithfulness to His covenant with creation is the backdrop for all His dealings with mankind (Jer. 33.20-21; 25-26). This means that we can trust God.

Creation and Sovereignty

Something that we must avoid from the outset is the unbiblical view called Deism. This is the belief that the universe is like a giant machine that runs by itself according to natural laws while the Creator is uninvolved and perhaps even uninterested in what He made.

The Biblical view is that the God who made the world is also keeping it in order (2 Pet. 3.5, 7). We live in God’s world, which must submit to His sovereign decrees (Psa. 95.3-5; 148.8; 119.91).  Theologically speaking, the concept of creation and sovereignty go together and cannot be separated. God’s care for the world He made has also been described as His providence.

To say that God is Creator is to say that God is sovereign over what He made. In fact, the created world was created, at least in part, to be a stage or a theater for God’s sovereignty to be put on display. The Bible hints at the fact that more than just human eyes are watching what God is doing in the world. God’s work is being done “on earth as it is in Heaven.”

Creation and Law

Scripture uses the term “law” to connect God’s creative will and His sovereign will (Psa. 33.9). Law is not just the specific commandments that God has revealed but is a much broader concept that concerns all of God’s sovereign will for the world and His purpose for human life in it.  Creation is governed and administered by the law of God. God is redeeming His fallen creation by grace, but He is upholding creation, even in its fallen state, by His law.

The Bible also connects God’s law and God’s word (Psa. 148.8; 33.6; 2 Pet. 3.5; Heb. 11.3). God created the world with just a word of command, and God’s word also upholds the world (Psa. 147.18; 148.8; Heb. 1.3). The most important connection between God’s word and creation is Christ Himself (John 1.3; Col. 1.16; Heb. 1.2; 2.10). The Son of God is also upholding the created order with just His word (Col. 1.16-17; Heb. 1.2-3).

The law of God works in the following two ways: 1. Directly, through God’s intervention, and 2. Indirectly, through human involvement (Al Wolters). In the natural world, God’s law is direct. God tells the earth to rotate on its axis, for example, and it does so. If God were to suddenly cease to uphold the natural world everything would return to a state of darkness and chaos. God’s law works indirectly in the world of human society. Human beings have been called upon to work with God in the realm of human affairs and the development of culture and society. So, there are laws that govern the world of nature and there are laws that also govern the world of human interactions.

There is an order in Creation that God ordained, and that God maintains. This created order is good for mankind. We are not to reject things that God created and that remains good and blessed (1 Tim. 4.3-4). For example, marriage and human government are both institutions created by God which are good for mankind (Rom. 13.1-2; 1 Pet. 2.13). Instead of seeing God’s law as a means of enjoying life and blessing, we tend to see God as an unnecessary restriction of our freedom and progress.

The laws of nature can easily be seen in operation. The law of God in the realm of human society is not so neat and tidy. The earth spins on its axis in obedience to the law of God. The natural world never ceases to obey the will of its Creator. But human beings are a different kind of creature. Mankind has been given the responsibility of executing God’s will and He holds us accountable for doing so. Unlike the earth, mankind can choose to ignore and to disobey the law of God. In Western thought, there is a great gulf of separation between the natural law and the social law of God. But the Bible does not separate these categories. The same God who orders creation also orders human life.

At times God intervened directly in human affairs and gave specific commands to specific people. There were also times when God circumvented the normal, natural laws in order to produce a miraculous sign. But God was always consistent with His own nature and character so that we can trust Him to be good, righteous, and faithful all the time.

Creation and Wisdom

Modern man is rather unique in separating the realm of nature and of mankind. The ancient worldviews all held that there was a natural law that governed all human affairs. The whole burden of ancient wisdom, or philosophy, was to discover the direction in which the grain of the universe was running and go with it. This same kind of thinking is seen in Biblical Wisdom literature, but with the one, true God of Israel as the proper object of worship and obedience (Psa. 147.15-20).

In the Old Testament, the law of God in creation is associated with wisdom. “Wisdom is ethical conformity to God’s creation” (James Fleming). On one hand, is the law of God woven into creation. On the other hand, there is our need for wisdom or conformity to that Divine Order (Prov. 1.22-23; 8.4; 22-23; 27-30; 9.6). The wisdom of God in Creation is available and knowable. All our scientific knowledge of the natural world is made available to us by the Creator and is the basis for human society and civilization. Even our knowledge of agriculture is something that God teaches through the wisdom in creation (Isa. 28.23-29). Discerning this wisdom takes time and reflection as well as teamwork with others.

The wisdom of God in His special revelation of Scripture can help us understand the general revelation in nature. John Calvin compared Scripture with a pair of glasses that bring the world into proper focus. Scripture is a light to our path (Psa. 119.105). We might think of Scripture as a verbal explanation from the engineer who had designed a complex piece of machinery.  

Creation and Mankind

Humans serve God in a unique way by ruling over creation. The Divine image in mankind is linked to our dominion over the creation. The ruling task is that of cultivation, like a farmer or a gardener. This is a communal undertaking as we image God corporately and not just individually. This cultural development is illustrated in its beginning phases in the Genesis account of creation (Gen. 2.4-4.26).

History is the development of man’s dominion over the creation. God does not support mankind’s wanton destruction of creation. We must acknowledge God’s covenantal relationship to the earth and our accountability to God. We are God’s caretakers. We are free to use and to develop but not to destroy nature. Mankind will be held accountable in the end for the stewardship of the world (Matt. 25.14-30). There will be a Day of universal accountability for how we handled God’s stuff. We are merely managers. Everything belongs to God and nothing really belongs to us. We are never free to just live for ourselves, independently from the Creator, though this kind of autonomy is the cornerstone of the modern, secular worldview.

The Creation is revelatory (Psa. 19.1-4) and this “general revelation” is available to everyone (Acts 14.17). Fallen man chooses not to acknowledge this revelation (Rom. 1.18-20), but we cannot escape the moral order God created, which continually presses its demands upon us through the universal witness of conscience (Rom. 2.14-15). Though man is fallen and worships idols rather than the Creator, the law and revelation of God woven into the created order presses in upon the mind of men everywhere and makes them accountable.

While God upholds the Creation, He has given over the care of it into the hands of human beings. God put an image of Himself on earth to care for and develop the Creation. The cultural evolution of Creation is the task of civilization given specifically into the hands of mankind (Gen. 1.28; Psa. 8.6). After God created the world the stage was set, and the drama of human history began. The history of civilization is the opening of the possibilities and the potentialities of creation. The man was placed in the Garden of Eden to care for it (Gen. 2.15).

This was the beginning of human society and civilization in which creation would be developed and cultivated. People would participate with God in the flowering of creation. History is the story of this development. Mankind’s management of the world was always God’s plan. The creation was supposed to grow and mature into something under mankind’s management. This meant that some type of cultural evolution would be required. Eden did not represent the final stage of God’s creation, but only the beginning of the world. Even the New Creation that is envisioned at the end of the Bible will not be a return to Eden but will somehow encompass all of mankind’s cultural achievements, minus the curse of sin and death (Rev. 21-22). In the New Creation, human life will be like the butterfly that develops out of the pupa (Herman Bavinck). Human history began in a garden, but it will end in a city (Al Wolters).

Creation is Good

The Creation was declared by God to be good and we should not take a dim view of the material world because God does not. As C.S. Lewis said, “you do not want to be more spiritual than God.” The ancient heresy of Gnosticism once threatened to take the Biblical view of creation from the early Church, and remnants of Gnostic thinking cling to us today. One of the great errors of nearly every unbiblical worldview is that they tend to single out one aspect of creation and make that the scapegoat for all of humanity’s woes (Al Wolters). We want to shift the blame for our problems to something in creation, which is tantamount to blaming God (Al Wolters).

Creation is a cause for joy and celebration in both mankind and the natural world, which is often personified as praising and obeying the Creator (Psa. 104.24; 139.14). God is worthy to be praised for what He has made. In fact, we need no other reason to praise, worship, and obey Him (Jer. 10.1-16). The creation was meant to give glory to the Creator (Isa. 45.18).

The position of creation towards the Creator is one of complete dependence (Psa. 119.89-91). The fact that we are creatures calls us to humility before God who is the source of everything in the world that is good.

Creation and our Work

We need to revisit a point made earlier in this lesson and find some personal application. I am indebted to Tim Keller and his book Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work for the following insights.

The Protestant Reformation brought a new focus on the importance of so-called secular work. The Reformers began to point out that all work is just as much a calling as being a priest of a monk. The Lutheran tradition has continued to teach that God uses our work to care for the world. People are acting as the hands of God when they do various kinds of work. The Calvinist tradition emphasized that our work is a way of creating a culture that glorifies God and provides for human flourishing. Writers like Abraham Kuyper believed that faithful work comes from operating out of a Christian worldview.

God’s original act of creation is described in Genesis as work. God was doing work at the end of which He rested. God then put the man and the woman in charge of caring for creation and developing its potential (Gen. 2.1-3, 15). There was work before the Fall and the entrance of the curse of sin and death. Work was not itself a curse, though the curse of sin would have an impact on work, along with everything else in creation.

A careful study of the Genesis creation account will show how unique it really is and how it differs greatly from all the other pagan mythologies about creation. According to pagan myths, the world was created as a result of warring deities. The Genesis account reveals the world was made by a loving Craftsman, who had no rivals, and who took pleasure in what He made. The Greek philosophers viewed the early world as a paradise in which both men and the gods did not have to do any work. But this clearly differs from the Genesis account where both men and God had work.

The work of God is shared by mankind under God’s provision and guidance. Human beings were created to work rather than to be idle. A sense of dignity and worth is attached to our work. We cannot live fulfilled lives with having meaningful work, along with times of rest. Work is not to be avoided. We serve God and we serve others through our work. Again, this differs from the ancient pagan view of work. The Greeks thought of physical work as demeaning. The philosophers sought to be as far removed as possible from physical things to engage in the “spiritual” life of contemplation, like the gods themselves. This idea continued through the Middle Ages with the separation of spiritual, sacred work, and secular work. Even in modern times, people tend to divide work into physical and mental, with the more physical trades taking a back seat to the more important work of the mind. There is no such distinction and division of work taught in the Bible.

Work reflects the Divine image in us. Animals live according to their instincts, but mankind was given a special mission and a unique job in creation. All kinds of work are necessary for human flourishing and that means all kinds of work have worth and dignity. When God Himself came into the world in human flesh, He was a carpenter!

According to the Biblical worldview, the physical world matters a great deal and is blessed by God. The idea that being truly spiritual means being removed from physical things is a pagan idea. The doctrine of Creation harmonizes with the doctrine of Incarnation, where God Himself enters the world that He created in order to redeem it. A Christian worldview acknowledged that the material world is good. When we work, we are partnering with God in the care and development of creation. That means every kind of work may be done for the glory of God and as an act of worship and service to mankind. Obviously, there are some activities that are against the law of God and destructive to both the creation and human life. But unless we are engaged in wickedness, we can take pleasure in our work.

Work is an act of cultivating God’s good creation. God put human beings in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it. Mankind was given this mandate. The act of civilization was a Divine command. God still owns the world, but He has given it to mankind to care for and to develop. We take what God has made, since we are not capable of making something from nothing like He is, and we form or rearrange it to create something more than what was there before. The world has potential that mankind must develop through work. All work is another act of creation.