While it wasn’t my intention to write a series, here is what may be viewed as the third installment in a series on work as an apologetic. My previous two entries documented the stories of apologist Wesley Huff who shared the gospel on Joe Rogan’s podcast and football coach Joe Kennedy who is the namesake of the now-famous Supreme Court case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. This third article is focused on two quite different people—19th-century theologian Herman Bavinck and Plato, whose ideas Bavinck builds upon to teach us something significant about our work.

I recently read the English translation of Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck’s work, Christian Worldview. In his sweeping overview of what he calls the Christian “world-and-life view”, Bavinck says the following:

Just as an artist lays down his idea in the marble, so God realizes his word in the world. Herein, however, lies this great distinction. Humans can make only works or art or instruments, which are always transcended—more or less—by the idea. God, however, creates beings that, while remaining instruments in his hands (Isa. 10:15), nonetheless absorb the idea and realize themselves through spontaneous activity.

Bavinck gives us a striking picture of the difference between human creation and divine creation. When we make things, we represent ideas. The artist reveals a picture of beauty. The data analyst reveals a reflection of order. The entrepreneur reveals a sense of creativity. But all of these are representations. The sculpted man is not truly a man. The spreadsheet is not order personified. They are images of something higher.

God alone creates with the things themselves. He does not model life. He gives it and sustains it. He creates with beauty, order, and creativity and gives those words meaning.

Finding Platonic Forms in Scripture

Bavinck admits this is appropriating “the Platonic-Aristolelian doctrine of ideas” or forms. The Greek philosopher, Plato (427-347 BC) described his “Allegory of the Cave” in his larger work called Republic.

My father, a former history teacher, first told me about the Allegory of the Cave when I was in elementary school. He explained that Plato would teach his students by sharing stories (allegories) with important lessons. If you’ve never studied this allegory, or you just want a refresher, here’s how I remember my father explaining it to me.

Plato described people living in a cave who had never seen the outside. They had never seen daylight or felt the warmth of the sun. They thought light and warmth only came from the fires they would see in the cave.

The fires inside the cave would cast shadows against the walls of the cave, and sometimes people from outside the cave would bring in statues representing various things from the outside world, such as animals and plants that the cave-dwellers had never seen. But the people who lived in the cave weren’t looking at the statues. They looked only at the walls where the shadows of the statues were cast, like people in a movie theater watching a screen. These people thought that the shadows were real objects and accurately depicted the world outside  the cave.

But occasionally a person would leave the cave. At first the light from the sun would be painful to him, because he was only used to the low-light of the cave. As his eyes adjusted, though, he would be able to make sense of what he was seeing. He would realize that not only were the shadows in the cave not real objects, but the statues that cast the shadows were themselves only representations of real objects. The real plants and animals that lived outside  the cave are so much more vibrant than he could ever have imagined when he was in the cave.

My father also explained to me that the Apostle Paul once said something similar. Paul wrote two letters to Greek Christians in the Mediterranean city of Corinth, and these readers would have been familiar with the writings of Plato and understood what Paul meant when he said the following:

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (1 Cor. 13:11-12)

What both Plato and Paul are describing is that the human condition begins in a place where we are unable to see and understand the true forms of things. Part of maturing into adulthood is for our mental “eyes” to adjust and begin to understand the true nature of things. Plato believed that each physical thing we experience is a copy or shadow of a perfect form. Each is a reflection of something more complete and lasting. Paul mentions the true forms of faith, hope, and love, in the verse immediately following the above.

Maturing as a Christian is also to understand that we only glimpse fragments of the real. We see partial reflections, but one day, we will see the fullness. We will encounter Beauty itself. We will see Love face to face. The ultimate form is not an idea or a concept. It is a person.

How Then Should We Work?

It is humbling to think that the work we do in this chapter of redemptive history is the equivalent of casting shadows. But how wonderfully shocking it is that God invites us to do so. My colleague, Dr. Art Lindsley puts it this way:

We, as image bearers of God, are given a central task in answering the call to creativity. We are told in Genesis 1:26-28 to “rule over” creation. God is the king, but we are his vice-regents. He is the creator, but we are sub-creators. While only God can create something out of nothing, we can create something from something—and are called to this creative task.

We are not the source of truth or beauty or goodness. But we are invited to participate in God’s creative work. When we teach with patience, design with wisdom, lead with integrity, or treat with compassion, we are doing more than performing mere tasks. We are reflecting the character of the Creator in a world that too easily forgets it was made with purpose.

Most of us will never stand in front of crowds (like Huff) or make headlines (like Kennedy). But every faithful act of work can point to something beyond itself. We can create in a way that carries “an aroma that brings life” (2 Cor. 2:15-16). And when we do that, our work becomes a quiet but steady defense of the faith.

If we see our work this way, we can understand what Paul means when he encourages us to “work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord” because “it is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Col. 3:23-24). Your work can point to the forms that only God comprehends and only God explains. In that way, your work is an apologetic.