He Shall Have Dominion

16 He Shall Have Dominion
theology as the fruit stands to the tree: it is by reason of its essence
a veritable theological tree of life. 36
Although I will not flesh out a full philosophy of history, we must at
37
least be generally aware of its significance. Basically, three approaches
to history are significant to our inquiry, as presented by Reinhold Niebuhr
38
and Arthur F. Holmes. These views are the pagan cyclical view, the
Christian linear view, and the secular evolutionary view.
A Brief Historical Sketch
Studying history is a complicated task. The difficulty of arranging all
the evidence we have (which gives us but a fraction of all that occurred)
is truly imposing. Tolstoy once commented that “History would be an
36. Vos, Pauline Eschatology, 61.
37. For a helpful introduction to some of the elements of a Christian philosophy
of history, see: Rushdoony, Biblical Philosophy of History (1969) and Berkhof,
Christ the Meaning of History (1966). See also: Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of
Culture (1959). Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (1996). Dooyeweerd, Christian
Philosophy and the Meaning of History (1996). Nash, The Meaning of History (1998).
For an historical study see: Bebbington, Patterns in History (1979). For helpful
material on the worldview implications of Christianity as a corollary to a
philosophy of history, see: Hoeffecker, Universe, Society, and Ethics, 2 vols. (1986)
and Hoeffecker, Revolutions in Worldview: Understanding the Flow of Western Thought
(2007).
38. Niebuhr, Faith and History, 17. Holmes, Contours of a Christian Worldview
(1983).