Five-minute digest
Lectures on Calvinism
Summary
Lectures on Calvinism are the six Stone Lectures that the Dutch theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary in October 1898, during a visit to the United States. Kuyper's aim was to present Calvinism not as a narrow church party or a set of doctrines about predestination but as a complete life-system, a view of the world able to shape every area of human life, comparable in scope to paganism, Islam, Roman Catholicism and the modernism that he saw spreading from the French Revolution of 1789. The first lecture, Calvinism in History, begins with a European traveller's impressions of the New World and argues that any true life-system must give its own account of three fundamental relations: to God, to other people and to the world. Calvinism answers with immediate fellowship between God and the believer apart from priest or church, the equal worth of every person as made in God's image, and a world in which God's common grace restrains the curse so that ordinary life may be honored. Kuyper traces this outlook through Geneva, the Netherlands, Scotland, England and America. The second lecture, Calvinism and Religion, describes religion as existing for God's sake, embracing the whole of life, and resting on the sovereignty of the Triune God; it also explains the Calvinist reserve toward cards, dancing and the theatre while affirming that imagination itself is a gift of God. The third lecture, Calvinism and Politics, is the most famous. Kuyper grounds all authority in the sovereignty of God, which he sees expressed in three spheres: the state, society and the church. Government exists because of sin and wields a mechanical power, but families, businesses, science, art and other social spheres possess their own God-given authority and do not derive their life from the state; this is his doctrine of sphere sovereignty. He also treats the church's freedom and liberty of conscience. The fourth lecture, Calvinism and Science, argues that belief in God's decree fostered love of learning, that common grace gave science its own domain free from church control, and that modern scholarship is divided between those who regard the present world as normal and those who regard it as fallen and needing redemption, each with its own science. The fifth lecture, Calvinism and Art, explains why Calvinism did not create a distinctive church architecture, yet holds that beauty is objective, that art is a gift of common grace, and that Calvinism freed art from church patronage, as Dutch painting shows. The sixth lecture, Calvinism and the Future, calls Christians to meet modern unbelief with a principled world-view of their own, while acknowledging that the renewal of life is the work of God. The lectures were printed in English in 1898–99 and have remained in print since.
Top Lessons
A world-view, not only a creed
Kuyper insists that every great movement in history rests on an account of three relations: to God, to neighbour and to the world. By describing Calvinism this way he invites students to ask what assumptions underlie any culture's politics, science and art, including their own.
Sphere sovereignty
In Lecture III Kuyper argues that the family, the business, the school, science and art each have an authority given by God within their own bosom, which does not come from the state. Government has a real task, to restrain sin and protect the spheres, but it may not absorb them. The idea has shaped Christian political thought far beyond the Netherlands.
Common grace and the goodness of ordinary life
Kuyper distinguishes the particular grace that saves from a common grace by which God restrains the curse on the world, so that science, art, government and the virtues of unbelievers can flourish. This allows him to honor the work of a scientist or painter as service to God without making it a church activity.
Two kinds of science
Kuyper argues that the deepest divide in modern scholarship is not between faith and reason but between two starting-points: one that treats the present world as normal and one that regards it as fallen. Each produces its own science, and he proposes that they be allowed to develop side by side in separate institutions.
Verified Quotes
“For our relation to God: an immediate fellowship of man with the Eternal, independently of priest or church.”
“First stands the confession of the absolute sovereignty of the Triune God; for of Him, through Him, and unto Him are all things.”
“In itself there is nothing sinful in fiction;— the power of the imagination is a precious gift of God Himself.”
“the family, the business, science, art and so forth are all social spheres, which do not owe their existence to the State, and which do not derive the law of their life from the superiority of the state, but obey a high authority within their own bosom, which rules, by the grace of God, just as the sovereignty of the State does.”
“not only the church, but also the world belongs to God and in both has to be investigated the masterpiece of the supreme Architect and Artificer.”
“the beautiful is not the product of our own fantasy, nor of our subjective perception, but has an objective existence, being itself the expression of a Divine perfection.”
“the quickening of life comes not from men, it is the prerogative of God”
Medical Lens
A series of lectures on religion, politics, science and art. Lecture IV mentions the Leiden physician Herman Boerhaave among Dutch scholars and discusses evolutionary theories of heredity, but medicine is not a subject of the lectures.