The Unity of Nature, Holistically Considered

In the development or explication of the ten commandments that unfolds in Exodus 21-23, we encounter a few series of rapid-fire commandments and prohibitions that at first glance might not appear to have a strong correlation. One example is the set of three laws in Exod 21:15-17. To be sure, these are correlated by their mutual application of the death penalty for transgression, but there is something deeper than the connection at the level of the civil aspect of these laws, namely the mutual respect for life beyond one’s pulse that flows from the dignity of humanity which has been made in the image and after the likeness of God himself. In Exodus 22, another set of rapid-fire regulations are presented that prompt us to consider their correlation. Exodus 22:18-20 appear only to be loosely connected by their mutual application of a deadly civil penalty for transgression. While the ESV entitles this section, “Laws for a Just Community,” it strains at our contemporary notions of justice and community to categorize sorcery (v18), let alone the worship of a false god (v20), as such. And yet, maybe it is our contemporary notions that need correction and not the ESV’s categorization. The balance of this reflection is focused on resolving the tension between these commands and their correlation with society.

To begin, it should be noted that each of these three verses relates to the underpinnings of social order, namely nature. Moreover, each of these three verses relates to nature in a slightly different way: verse 18 relates to the intersection of the spiritual and material; verse 19 relates to the natural order of relations; verse 20 relates to the use of nature in the expression of religious worship. To understand that these verses pertain to nature,  though, one must have a holistic view of nature. Herman Bavinck presents such a view when we writes,

Nature, as regarded in the Christian religion, is thus much more capacious and richer than the concept that dominates current-day natural science. In former days this was generally the case. Nature encompassed the entirety of creation, the spiritual as well as the material. … There was both a natura spiritualis [“spiritual nature”] and a natura corporalis [“corporeal nature”], and thus not only a physica corporis [“physics of the body”] but also a physica animae [“physics of the soul”].[1]

This more holistic view of nature means, according to Bavinck, that both material and spiritual substance, “although distinct in essence, were brought forth by one and the same divine wisdom and thus did not stand in opposition to each other.”[2] For our purposes, all of this helps us to appreciate how attempted manipulations of spiritual nature by way of sorcery have an impact on corporeal nature, attempted subversions of the physics of the body have an affect on the physics of the soul, and attempted substitutions of the spiritual or the material by way of idolatry cannot simply be matters of personal preference in how worship happens. The ties between spiritual and physical, body and soul, mean that a transgression in one aspect of nature affects the whole. It is only because secularism has partially triumphed in our contemporary moment by rending asunder the spiritual and physical that we might perceive these verses as out-of-place in an otherwise “physical” set of judgments.

Finally, this has a bearing on the social order because our social relations are nothing other than an outworking of the spiritual and physical interconnections between humans, the interrelationship of several bodies and souls. It is only because individualism predominates in our contemporary notions of society that we might wonder how what someone does “in their personal time with their own body” has a bearing on a just community, the social order. Because no man is an island, everyone is impacted to some degree or another by the cumulative weight of individual decisions and actions. Therefore, to permit sorcery, for example, to continue within Israel was to permit the subversion of the social order, not the free expression of an individual’s preferences. Therefore, verses 18-20 certainly do pertain to the preservation of a just community, to ensuring that the social order is maintained according to nature, holistically considered.

Now, with the coming of Christ, the general moral principle of these verses has not been abolished, even though the civil aspects no longer apply in the same way. It is beyond the scope of this reflection to say anymore except that wise civil legislation would consider the unity of nature in its physical and spiritual expressions and the social ramifications of subverting the natural order.

[1] Herman Bavinck, Christian Worldview, trans. Nathaniel Gray Sutano, James Eglinton, and Cory C. Brock (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 67.

[2] Bavinck, Christian Worldview, 75.