Colin Gunton in The One, the Three and the Many offers this theological justification for culture:
The distinctive feature of created persons is their mediating function in the achievement of perfection by the rest of creation. They are called to the forms of action, in science, ethics and art – in a word, to culture – which enable to take place the sacrifice of praise, which is the free offering of all things, perfected, to their creator. Theologically put: the created world becomes truly itself – moves towards its completion – when through Christ, and the Spirit, it is presented perfect before the throne of the Father. The sacrifice of praise which is the due human response to both creation and redemption that takes the form of that culture which enables both personal and non-personal worlds to realize their true being.
To my mind, the foregoing is at the end of the day simply an exposition – albeit a brilliant one – of Ephesians 2:10:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
