Van Til on "Culture"

Henry Van Til defines culture as:

that activity of man, the image-bearer of God, by which he fulfills the creation mandate to cultivate the earth, to have dominion over it and to subdue it. The term is also applied to the result of such activity, namely the secondary environment which has been superimposed upon nature by man’s creative effort. Culture, then, is not a peripheral concern but of the very essence of life. It is expression of man’s essential being as created in the image of God, and since man is essentially a religious being, it is expressive of his relationship to God, that is, of his religion.

Henry Van Til. The Calvinist Conception of Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001), xvii