Webster’s dictionary defines dualism simply as;
a doctrine that the universe is under the dominion of two opposing principles one of which is good and the other evil.
This definition can be found among hard Anabaptists who compartmentalized life into the separated Anabaptist community and the evil world. Dr. Herman Bavinck gives a quick low down on Anabaptist dualism.
That R2K makes this move to dualism is seen in the words of R2K devotee Dr. D. G. Hart;
It strikes me that admitting this complicated outlook is basic to being human as opposed to living up to some sort of super-spiritual ideal of a life dedicated and consecrated to Christ 24/7.
1.) In this quote Dr. Hart demonstrates, once again, how his religion bleeds into his identity. His religious conviction is that religion is not so basic to a person identity. Now, inasmuch as that statement is a religious conviction that statement of his religious conviction creates for him his “hyphenated life,” where there are official zones where religious impact must be considered and official zones were religion must not be considered. But, make no mistake, it is his religion of compartmentalized religion that is basic to Darryl’s identity. His whole reason for existence is characterized by his zeal for his religion.
2.) The implication of Hart’s last sentence above is that there are some areas where the Christian individual must consider Christ and other areas where the Christian individual can dispatch with considering Christ. For example, according to Darryl, why should a Christian have to consider Christ when he is cheering for the Detroit Tigers at a Tigers ballgame? I suppose this means that when Darryl attends a Tigers game he can scream invective at the Umpires for bad calls since that is part of the ballgame. After all … it is a hyphenated life and what does Christ have to do with rooting as a fan at Tigers games?
3.) It is true that Christians have many roles in life but to suggest that any of those roles can be taken up apart from consideration of Christ is just not Biblical.
Hart is not unusual in this advocacy for the “hyphenated life” (i.e. — Dualism). R2K “theologians” routinely speak of the realm of grace (church) and the realm of nature (common).
There are several problems here before we even get to passages like Ephesians 5
1.) How do we know what “Traditional” is in “Traditional Marriage.” It simply is the case that in order to get to Traditional Marriage you need Christian categories to begin with. One can’t get to Christian categories without the Scriptures. Therefore the common in R2K’s “common realm” is only common as common secures its definition from the realm of grace, and if that is true the common realm is not a distinct realm from the realm of grace.
2.) There is an appeal here by Van Drunen to a “Human thing.” And yet, apart from Scripture how do we know what it means to be Human? In point of fact I would contend that those who are outside of Christ are doing all they can to put off genuine humanness in favor of putting on beastliness. Man loses his manishness the further he goes in sin. So, all appeals to a “human thing” are question begging if we can only consistently determine what Human is using Christian categories.
3.) The fact that pagans embrace marriage has more to do with their being inconsistent with their own Christ hating presuppositions than it has to do with “being human.” Would Lamech have denied he was being “Human” when he took two wives? Does Justice Anthony Kennedy (he who penned the Majority opinion in the overturning of DOMA) believe that sodomites are less human for being coupled?
4.) The very fact that we are moving in the opposite direction regarding “getting marriage policy correct,” (i.e. — sodomite marriage) is evidence that all people do not have an interest in getting marriage policy correct. And what of this idea of getting marriage policy correct? Correct by whose or what standard?
5.) It is true that marriage is a creational institution but the mistake here on VD’s part is forgetting that grace restores nature. Creation itself has fallen and part of the effect of redemption is to restore creation to its original design. Redemption does so by leaving creational creational while at the same time restoring creational to what it would be minus sin.
Of course all this explains why recently well known Westminster California Seminary Professors have suggested that they could accept sodomite civil marriage. If marriage belongs to the Creational realm — a realm that is completely compartmentalized from the Redemptive realm –then why should the Church pronounce on it?
So, we have established that R2k with its common realm vs. grace realm are practitioners of dualism. R2K creates two airtight compartmentalized realms (grace vs. nature) and then tells Christians to “go live the hyphenated life,” communicating that there is an inherent dichotomy to living as a Christian.
Now to add to this we have the proof for R2K dualism from the mouth of their chief prophet;
David Van Drunen, “
A Biblical Case for Natural Law,” p.40.
David Van Drunen
“A Biblical Case for Natural Law”, (p. 53)
So, we see that in the common realm there is different set of imperatives (Thou Shalts) that exist for the unregenerate than the Thou Shalts that we find in God’s Law-Word and so are applicable for the regenerate living in the grace realm. This is straight up dualism. This is Hart’s “hyphenated-life.”
And if any doubt still exists about the dualism of R2K we offer;
Then there is this dualism gem from the guru of Escondido;
“Our earthly bodies are the only part of the present world that Scripture says will be transformed and taken up into the world-to-come. Believers themselves are the point of continuity between this creation and the new creation.”
David Van Drunen
Living in God’s Two Kingdoms — p. 66
This R2K declamation despite God’s testimony that in the New Jerusalem;
Revelation 21:26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.
The Dualism is seen in the fact that everything in R2K’s common realm belongs to such a realm of discontinuity that it cannot enter into the grace realm that will be found as fulfilled in the New Jerusalem. Two realms. Two realities. Dualism.
This brings us to the inevitable conclusion that R2K is inherently Gnostic. For R2K those realities that exist in the common realm are not as important as those realities that exist in the grace realm. We see that this is true if only we find it the case that nothing from the common realm is important enough to enter the eschaton — the fulfillment of the current grace realm. Nothing else from the common realm can be glorified and so enter the new Jerusalem.
This brings us back to the observation made earlier in the chapter that R2K is guilty of linguistic deception when it tags the things of this world as “common” as opposed to the more stringent label of evil as labeled by the Anabaptists. It seems the difference here is that for Anabaptists that which is evil can’t be common for the Anabaptist faithful, whereas that which is evil can be common for the R2K faithful. In both cases there is a whole realm wherein no redemption is possible and wherein there is no possibility wherein grace could restore nature. For R2K like the Anabaptists grace does not restore nature. So, what is the difference between the dualism of Anabaptists and the R2K? Anabaptists call the nature realm “evil” and insist that their acolytes can’t participate in it whereas R2K call the nature realm “common” and insist that their acolytes can participate in it as long as they don’t participate in it in a “uniquely Christian fashion.” Color me disappointed if that doesn’t strike anybody else as odd beyond all expression.
I’m not the only one who has made the observation about R2K being cloaked dualsim.