Theocentric vs. Anthropocentic

Biblical Christians – which I consider synonymous with Reformed folks – have always been theocentric (God-centered) in their thinking. Indeed it is that which distinguishes them from those others we gladly embrace as Christians but of whom we insist are Christians who are embracing a sub-Christian Christianity.

We are passionately God centered… or at least try to be and when we fail in that we seek forgiveness for our thinking and behavior that was faithless in moving off that center. It breaks our heart when we see that sin or reflect on our past breaking of that conviction.

That we are a God centered people is seen in the fact that our by-word has always been the Sovereignty of God.

The Reformed mind, when it is humming consistent with its convictions takes seriously, “The Lord Omnipotent reigneth (Revelation 19:6).” The Reformed mind seeks to make concrete in his life the truth of Romans 11

36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

The Biblical Christian is intoxicated with God centeredness.

It agrees heartily with A. W. Pink when he said,

“Learn then this basic truth, that the Creator is absolute Sovereign, executing His own will, performing His own pleasure, and considering naught but His own glory. “The Lord hath made all things FOR HIMSELF. (Prov 16:4). And had He not a perfect right to do so? Since God is God, who dare challenge His prerogative? To murmur against Him is rank rebellion. To question His ways is to impugn His wisdom. To criticize Him is sin of the deepest dye. Have we forgotten who He is?” (p.30).

This mindset has its fingerprints all over our Confessions,

Q.) What is the Chief End of Man

A.) Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.

Man’s reason for being is to have God at his center.

This God-centeredness shows up in the BCF when right out of the gate the Belgic confession centers on God.

ARTICLE 1—THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD We all believe with the heart and confess with the mouth that there is only one God, who is a simple and spiritual Being; He is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good.

Let’s articulate this from a slightly different perspective.

Commonly it is said that there are two ways of doing theology. Those two ways are theology from above vis-a-vis theology from below.

Theology from above is the use of God’s revelation (Scripture) as the means of doing theology. We seek to understand all things from God’s speech in the text of Scripture. Theology from below tends to start with man and his needs. It seeks to make the scripture relevant so as to meet the felt needs of men.

Theology from above focus on God and his purpose, plans and ways of making mankind know his will. The Scripture stands as the basis of studying all the activities of God and is the only source of information about him. It is also the only basis for Christian faith and practice.

Theology from below is not always sinful. It is not sinful to for man to want to know how God’s word speaks to him in this or that situation. Theology from below can be helpful when we have first done

our work as theologians from above. Inevitably, theologians will be selective in their choice of the Biblical passages. They will focus on passages that they think people in particular context and culture will be able to understand.

This passionate God-centeredness that expresses itself in a preoccupation with “theology from above” is what sometimes makes it difficult to communicate with other Christians who are prone toward “theology from below,” as well as moderns whose weltanschauung begins and ends with man. Indeed there are times when the Christian who does theology from below will be more inclined to agree with the Christ-less modern man against the Biblical Christian instead of agreeing with his fellow Christian.

Illustration – Van Til, “Mr Black, Mr. Grey, & Mr. White”

For example if the question is whether or not man is free to refuse God’s irresistible grace both the non-Christian and the “theology from below” Christian will agree against the Biblical Christian that man is free to refuse God’s desire to bring man into the Kingdom. Man must have a right to say “no,” to irresistible grace.

The theology from below mindset and the mindset of modernity do not necessarily rule out the possibility of God but all possibility of God is to be understood only with the reality that man is the center of all thinking. This is because all their thinking starts with the premise that man is the basic given. Man is the measure of all things. The rights of man are the rights alone we need to consider.

As another example

Theology from below along with modern man talks constantly about the rights of man while the “theologian from above” thoughts turn to God’s rights. Those who are contrary to us insist that all men from Muslims to Atheist folks have a right to practice their God hating faith and beliefs.

But we pause to ask that If they have that right to do that where would that right come from? From the God who demands that there shall be no other Gods before Him? And if that right they insist upon doesn’t come from God then where else can it come but from man?

So we have this contrast, anthropocentric thinking vs. Theocentric thinking.

Further this contrast is not only as between those outside and inside the Church but exists within the walls of the visible Church. Within the Church are members who anthropocentric in their thinking and those who are theocentric.

Illustration — Machen and Henry Van Dyke

“Beginning in October, 1923, Machen served as stated supply at Princeton’s First Presbyterian Church. Soon after preaching a series of messages on the issues dividing liberals and conservatives,7 he met opposition in the person of Henry Van Dyke, an old family friend, who surrendered his pew at First Church rather than sit under Machen’s “bitter, schismatic and unscriptural preaching.”8 Van Dyke’s tirade was carried by major newspapers throughout the country. Even Machen admitted that Van Dyke had boosted the sales of Christianity and Liberalism!”

Machen was thinking theocentrically while Van Dyke was thinking anthropocentrically.

Finally this contrast exists within myself and all of us. This orientation is the difference between who we are in Adam and who we are in Christ and we all struggle and will fail in being theocentric in our thinking more often than we’d like. We call this failure selfishness, or self-centeredness, or self-preoccupation. When violate in this way it is because we not theocentric in our thinking.

This Anthropocentric mindset which all of Adam’s descendants own as original sin, is hard-baked into our culture so that we are constantly carpet bombed with messages whose intent is destruction to theocentric thinking. From the novels we read, to the films we view, to the radio talk shows we listen to, to the news we consume we repeatedly absorb anthropocentric thinking.


That this is true is seen by Scripture having to instruct us to “set our minds on things above

Col 3:2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

Contrary to the way this is often cited, this is not a call of being heavenly minded in the sense of it being better to think on systematic theology vs. getting the car fixed or bringing flowers to your wife.

Rather I believe what the Apostle is getting at here is the necessity as he says elsewhere to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. Dr. Meyer says it has to do with, “the whole practical bent of thought and disposition.” The Christian seeks to find the things above in all he does in this life on earth. If he fails in that he is then not setting his mind on things above.

Let’s spend just a wee bit of time here if only because recently I’ve listened to two lectures where I think the Ph.D., chaps citing Col. 3:2 were getting it dreadfully wrong. They were taking the passage in an almost Platonic – pietistic manner. Setting our minds on things above meant not being that concerned with politics, or philosophy, or economics, or Law, etc. Those are below things. The idea was that Christians have more important things to think about like spiritual things (whatever that might be).

This is a matter of “structure” and “direction.” The structure of all created life is good and so we can find the above in the created life. However, to often we set our minds on things below in the sinful direction which we take of the good structures. For example, philosophy is a structure that God created and if our minds are set above in the proper direction we can find the good. However if our minds are not set on above – if our minds are set on the wrong direction — then that which is a good structure will be corrupted.

All of our thinking must be theocentric – must be set on above — and so our Woldview must begin and end with God in all that we think about. We must find the above in all that think about and handle.

Too often our “Christian” thinking is like a vanilla ice cream cone dipped in chocolate. The vanilla ice cream represents anthropocentric thinking. The chocolate dip represents what we’d like to think isl theocentric thinking. We dip that anthropocentric thinking in the chocolate theocentric dip and we end up thinking that we are now God-centered in our thinking when all we really have is the thinnest of shell masquerading a thick substance of humanism. We slapped a prayer or a bible verse on thinking or behavior that is 100% consonant with pagan thinking or behavior and then called it Christian.

This kind of thing used to happen in College and Seminary Classrooms all the time. One would be studying, as random examples, Carl Rogers in a Psychology class, or Soren Kierkegaard in a philosophy class without exposing their anti-Christ thinking. Even though they were anti-Christ it was all good because we opened class in prayer. I had an existentialist as my main instructor for my philosophy degree in under-grad but he labeled his existentialism, “Christianity.” It took me some time to undo that damage.

The Biblical mindset that understands that God is sovereign and desires to think to the glory of God can’t be satisfied with the dipped ice cream approach.

This Biblical mindset we are talking about begins and ends with God.

We might add here that we cannot be theocentric without being theonomic in some expression. God’s character is His Law and so if we refuse to be theonomic we can hardly, without our noses going all Pinocchio, claim to be theocentric.

God’s Word is our final authority. It is our starting point. Our ending point. And God’s Word is our methodology that gets from starting point to ending point. Being theocentric and theonomic we do not use other disciplines to prove God without first starting with God in order to prove those disciplines. For example, we do not use Archaeology to prove the truth of Scripture without first appealing to the authority of Scripture for the legitimacy Archaeology. If we use anything else existing as independent of God to prove God’s authority is valid then whatever that anything else is, has become God’s source of authority and we have fallen into anthropocentric thinking.

And so the more successful we are in being theocentric the more we will be odd ducks in our anthropocentric culture. The more we are biblically theonomic, the more we will not feel at home among typical Americans or even typical American Evangelicals. We will often be theocentrically alone in the anthropocentric crowd. We will laugh at things that our anthropocentric compatriots find shocking. We will be in high dudgeon about matters that everyone else is shrugging their shoulders over. When everyone else is merely seeing with the eyes we are the ones seeing through the eyes.

“This life’s dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.”

Wm. Blake

And so as theocentric Christians we talk about God’s rights unlike the constant clamoring for ever increased ‘human rights,’ or if we do talk about human rights we anchor those rights in our duties to first God and then man. As theocentric if we dare ask “Why Me,” it is not related to why do bad things happen to me but rather it is why do good things happen to me. As theocentric we realize that not only our end but God’s end is God. God being the Summum Bonum (highest good) there is no end that can be higher or better than God. As theocentric we ache for the world made new, we desire for men to know the sweetness of this God centeredness, we delight in decreasing if it means that the God wherein the good, the true, and the beautiful find meaning increases.