Kuyper on Creation

In reading Abraham Kuyper's Lectures on Calvinism, I have been impressed not only by the amazing depth of insight which he brings to the topic of worldview, but also the poetic style of his communication. Here is a wonderful quote from the lecture on Calvinism and Religion which displays both elements. He is addressing the dualistic nature of the Anabaptist outlook and providing a basis for the ever important "structure/direction" distinction that must be employed when dealing the goodness of creation and the subsequent effects of the fall:

It is not true that there are two worlds, a bad one and a good, which are fitted into each other. It is one and the same person whom God created perfect and who afterwards fell, and became a sinner - and it is this same "ego" of the old sinner who is born again, and who enters into eternal life. So, also, it is one and the same world which once exhibited all the glory of Paradise, which was afterwards smitten with the curse, and which, since the Fall, is upheld by common grace; which has now been redeemed and saved by Christ, in its center, and which shall pass through the horror of the judgment into the state of glory. For this very reason the Calvinist cannot shut himself up in his church and abandon the world to its fate.

Not only does this view of the creation order make the most sense when looking around at the beauty and goodness that is so evident in all aspect of life on this earth despite of the marring effects of our sin, which are also so evident, but it contains such a glorious promise. It tells us that the potential that we see - the potential that we see in others, that we see in ourselves, as well as the possibilities for the things we can do in this earth - will not not always go unfilled. There will be a day when all is put right; we won't have to start from scratch, and our labors in the here and now won't be fruitless. And what's most astounding is that this wonderful day on which we will clearly see the fulfillment of these amazing promises will also be the day on which we see Christ face to face.