Man’s Twofold Nature
Man’s nature is twofold – we are to be holy, and we are also to be skilled. We were made to pursue piety, but we are also made to take dominion. This is stated in both the creation mandate and the great commission. It must be stated as these two components, not one, because the way you pursue holiness is different (but not opposed) to how you take dominion. These components are related but distinct.
The problem
Recently, over the past few generations, only piety has been taught to matter to Christians. We have not been taught to value dominion, despite its presence in scripture and implementation throughout church history. Amongst popular Christian teaching today, you might find a few who do acknowledge the importance of the concept of dominion, but they have reduced it down to a variant of pursuing holiness.
Defining the two
So how do we define piety and dominion? And what are the differences in the pursuit of them and their ends? Piety is holiness, and how we pursue holiness is laid out in scripture and developed through church history. Things such as prayer, confession, repentance, the sacraments, knowing scripture, attending church and having fellowship with the saints, singing hymns, learning the creeds and confessions, being catechized, and other things along these lines. These are the things we prioritize as Christians to become holy, as God has commanded us. Now, God has also commanded us to take dominion of the Earth. He created it and put us here as vice-regents, or image-bearers, to steward it. It’s our job to develop wisdom and skills that lead to the cultivation of the earth. So, pursuing dominion looks like: pursuing excellence, acquiring skills, acquiring assets, being shrewd and discerning, having status, being healthy and strong, cultivating wisdom, and so on. These are not things people would typically classify as “Christian”, but they absolutely are. These represent dynamics related to one of the very first things instructed to us in scripture.
How do they interact?
There are three important ways in which piety and dominion are different but complementary.
Equality and Inequality
Intention and Execution
Universal and Particular
Equality/Inequality
When it comes to pursuing piety, we recognize the equality amongst all believers. We are all equally made in the image of God, equally condemned in our sin, and equally saved by our Lord Jesus Christ. We all have an equal obligation to pursue holiness – whether you are rich or poor, young or old, male or female, healthy or sick, you are commanded to be holy. So there is much equality and commonness we find with each other as believers in Christ.
However, when it comes to pursuing dominion, we find vast inequality amongst believers- but this is a good thing; it is by design. Your ego might be hurt when you realize someone else out there is way better than you at something. But then you realize this is a great thing. God has put that man there with those gifts to do a tremendous work and bless those around him. God has given us men with incredible talents, and they are meant to handle the weightiest of matters. Consider Abraham, God gave him many resources, servants, animals, and eventually offspring, to bless the nations. And consider the parable of the talents, there are one talent guys, all the way up to ten talent guys. All of the inflection points in history where things got better is due to ten-talent guys. The upward trajectory of creation is dependent on talented men exercising their skills for the good of their people.
A problem we have today is only ecclesial-centered gifts or skills are considered meaningful. Laymen’s gifts are nice, because they might make a bunch of money to give to the church, where the real stuff goes on. This is ultimately an anabaptist inclination many Christians have, and it is simply unbiblical and detrimental to the success of our culture, including both ecclesial and non-ecclesial realms. If we are to truly take dominion on earth, then it is all realms of society that matter. Every vocational industry has spiritual meaning because the original purpose of performing our jobs is to enrich the people around us.
Intention and Execution
In matters of piety, the intention behind an action is of utmost importance. When you pray, the posture of your heart is of higher concern than the specific words you might say. Fumbling your words, or not even finding words to say, is much better than the most eloquent prayer from a calloused heart.
But, in matters of dominion, it is the execution, or the results, of an action that matter. It’s good for the brain surgeons to go to church, receive the sacraments, and have their quiet time, but if they are operating on you, you really hope they finished at the top of their class in med-school. Obviously, this is not an either-or situation, we can be both skilled and holy, but when we wonder why those at the top of every industry are not Christians, we must understand that we have failed in encouraging Christians to spend more time developing skills and mastery associated with dominion, rather than piling on spiritual activities.
Universal and Situational
When it comes to piety, what is good is a universal good. It is good for everybody, and it should be done regularly. Pray without ceasing, practice the “daily” office, you are blessed by the iterations more so than the instances. Once you learn some basic spiritual disciplines, you aren’t supposed to spend too much time thinking about “what” to do, or “how” to do it – you just do it.
In matters of dominion, however, you don’t “just do it”. What you should do becomes very situational. You are dealing with dynamic situations, competing interests, and scarce resources, so you must weigh the concerns correctly.
The issue here is we often approach dominion issues as matters of piety. We become dogmatic about things that are simply tools, not ideology. Some people will identify with a certain diet as “the best one” when in reality, it depends on the time of the year, your current health status, and current location on earth to determine which “diet” is actually the appropriate one. The key is to see that certain diets are tools, and you need to become familiar with many tools to understand when is the right time to implement them.
Another obvious arena this plays out in is politics. Yes, we have certain universal values of which we always want implemented in our government, but government is dealing with real situations, so how you go about implementing them can be very situational. Sometimes governments need tight monetary policy, sometimes they need loose policy. These are, by definition, opposing policies, but they can both be used to serve the interests of a governments people.
Dealing with the status-quo
Observing the landscape today in Christianity, the idea of taking dominion is often viewed with skepticism, if not outright hostility. Some will say it is simply sinful to care about any earthly good. Others will concede some earthly good is appropriate, but not too much, and you must achieve it through pious means. This aversion to dominion by many conservative Christians is, in my opinion, the reason why many Christians were picked off by the woke, progressive agenda of the past decade. Most conservative Christians had no vision or category for dominion, but the woke left did, albeit a sinful and distorted one.
Dominion is hard-wired into us by our Creator; an essential part of our humanity. It is at the core of what it means to be an “image-bearer”. Many Christians will find themselves naturally wanting to take dominion in a righteous way, but it is often shot down or labeled as immature by their pastors or leaders. But as we continue to experience cultural decay, it only becomes more important for us to understand that taking dominion is essential to being a Christian.
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If I remember correctly, the command to take dominion had to do with the earth, not necessarily each other. And to reiterate a point made in the article, the purpose of our dominion is to be stewards of the earth, not exploiters.
And so what about taking dominion over our peers? Talking about dominion being hardwired in us without warning us about how our nature as created by God has fallen into sin, we will be too eager to boldly walk into the many traps that our sinful nature lays out for those seeking to take dominion. When James and John asked if they could be seated at Christ’s right and left hand, Jesus said something that may have gone against the dominion attribute that has been “hardwired” into us. Christ said that the greatest of his disciples will be those serve. And so why is this article emphasizing taking dominion rather than serving others?
There is a problem with the above article. While it talks about dominion being hardwired into us, it doesn’t include how we are also sinners. In this sense, Morris commits the same kind of error as those who say that their homosexuality was hardwired into them without mentioning the sinful nature that inhabits all people. What Morris does instead is to imply a certain scope of Christians having dominion over others without including what the Scriptures say about various related issues.
Finally, what is wrong with woke? What is wrong with equality among peers in society? What is wrong with what Jefferson said about oppression occurring when the majority doesn’t respect the equal rights of the minority? After all, we are all made in the image of God. Here we should remind ourselves of the many atrocities that have been so much a part of Church history because of our inclination to take dominion in exploitive ways. And what has allowed the Church to exploit others is an assumption of moral superiority over unbelievers that leads to feeling entitled to rule over them. And here we should emphasize the assumption of moral superiority over unbelievers, which is contradicted by Romans 2, and that feeling of entitlement to rule over others, which is contradicted by Jesus’s response to the request made by James and John and by his warning to us that we are not to be like unbelievers who lord it over others. Perhaps it is better that we have not been encouraged to take dominion over unbelievers.
And we shall let them continue to conquer us until we are trod under their foot, who’s in?
Andrew,
Yours is an example of black-white thinking which the foundational logic of authoritarianism. There is not 3rd or more possible outcomes?
Your magic words don’t work on me. There’s no third option when America is being invaded and drained of its resources.