The directives given to Adam and Eve in the garden to have dominion and multiply are often called the cultural mandate. Why is called the cultural mandate? Nancy Pearcy in Total Truth states:
"In Genesis, God gives what we might call the first job description: 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.' The first phrase, 'be fruitful and multiply' means to develop the social world: build families, churches, schools, cities, governments, laws. The second phrase, 'subdue the earth,' means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, compose music. This passage is sometimes called the Cultural Mandate because it tells us that our original purpose was to create cultures, build civilizations-nothing less."
While subduing and multiplying involve building culture, was building culture the goal or was it the means to a different goal. I would content that the goal in bringing order and structure to the world outside the already structured garden was to bring God’s presence to the whole world. The garden itself is God’s temple, like Noah’s ark which bears the same design as Ancient Near Eastern temples and which carried the plants and animals living in harmony as a figure of recreation, and the Israelite tabernacle/temple which was adorned with trees/fruit and animals, the garden was representative of God’s dwelling place. The place where he rested his feet – that ark was not a throne but a footstool. Adam and Even were created as God’s images, much like the images that pharaohs (or in a modern context, Sadaam, Mao, Stalin) would place all over their kingdom in order to mark off where they have dominion. In multiplying, spreading, and subduing Adam and Eve would be expanding God’s kingdom and placing God’s image throughout the world. Culture is the means by which we subdue and give meaning to nature and creation. However, Adam and Eve sinned and as a result the mandate becomes more difficult. Subduing will now be by the sweat of the brow, one will have to work for ones food. Multiplying will be more difficult and painful. If one continues to sin and reject God you will be removed further from God’s kingdom and protection. Cain kills Able and is removed from the protection of God’s presences. He is forced to replace God by building a city. The mandate continues under Noah and Abraham. The two promises of the Abrahamic covenant are the land (dominion) and descendants (multiply). In the Mosaic covenant this continues sin results in loss of the land, captivity and barrenness. Obedience brings about possession of the land, peace, and fruitfulness.
Then in the New Testament we have the great commission. We are called to make disciples (multiply) and are to go to the uttermost parts of the earth (subdue). What is the role of culture in all this? I would argue that God intended culture as a job and as a gift. Adam and Eve were given the task of developing culture, but because of sin we are given the task of transforming culture for the purpose of the gospel and God’s kingdom. Not that we are establishing God’s kingdom here and now but in transforming culture we provide a sign/type/shadow of the kingdom that is to come. This was the purpose of Christ ministry – miracles of the bread/fish, wine, healing, raising of the dead – were all images and signs of God’s kingdom promised in the Old Testament.
We are not beholden to anything in the culture as anything necessary to God’s kingdom – we have to be willing to let a job, movement, ministry or whatever go when it begins to replace the kingdom or becomes corrupted. Our allegiance is to God’s kingdom. He intended cultures to develop differently with different languages and perspectives – unlike Babel which limited culture, corrupted it and used it against God. The multiplicity of languages was not a bad thing (Gen. 10 they each developed their own language), it was what God intended from the beginning. Unlike Babel, God unites us in our diversity as people of every tongue. That is why at Pentecost everyone heard the gospel in their own native language – it was not in Greek or in some angelic language but they were bound together in their diversity by the Spirit.
Part of it is a question of what is the purpose of salvation. I think that salvation is often reduced to I’m saved for the purpose of being saved. Rather we are saved for the purpose of participating in God’s plan of redemption, in proclaiming the gospel through our word and actions – and both of these involve culture. What are the words that we use? What actions does this include, all of the m in all of our engagements with culture, whether at work and at play. How do they provides signs - I would say types – of the coming kingdom. We are types and shadows of the kingdom and of Christ.
The question that I haven’t answered is “How does culture effect us?” I’ve used culture here more closely to its original definition of doing something with nature. How are we transforming the world? What I haven’t asked is closer to the current use – what does culture do to us, or what do we do to each other.
