This is the sixth part of a six part article series on Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism. He gave these lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary over a series of days in October 1898. Happy International Abraham Kuyper Month!
Here is an overview of Kuyper’s other lectures on Calvinism: Life-system, Religion, Politics, Science, and Art.
In this final lecture, Kuyper begins by summarizing his past lectures with these words: “[Calvinism] raised our Christian religion to its highest spiritual splendor; it created a church order, which became the preformation of state confederation; it proved to be the guardian angel of science; it emancipated art; it propagated a political scheme, which gave birth to constitutional government, both in Europe and America; it fostered agriculture and industry, commerce and navigation; it put a thorough Christian stamp upon home-life and family-ties; it promoted through its high moral standard purity in our social circles; and to this manifold effect it placed beneath Church and State, beneath society and home-circle, a fundamental philosophic conception strictly derived from its dominating principle, and therefore all its own” (p 171).
Kuyper then moves on to look at his current time and suggests where Calvinism can help in shaping and building for the future. He suggests that the topic of his final lecture is “A new Calvinistic development needed by the wants of the future” (p 171).
The Current Situation
Kuyper first looks at the current situation. He recognizes the many changes in the modern era. He says, “World-intercourse and communication are constantly becoming more rapid and widespread. Asia and Africa, until recently dormant, gradually feel themselves drawn into the larger circle of stirring life” (p 172).
He then describes the current ailment in western culture. He rightly sees that there is a spiritual darkness that is rising in the world. The solution then is to recover a robust understanding of the spiritual solution that our world is seeking. He says, “Our personal life as men and citizens subsist not in the comforts that surround us, nor in the body, which serves us as a link with the outward world, but in the spirit that internally actuates us…” (p 172). He then points to Nietzsche as a prime example of the darkness inside men: “…Nietzsche may give us offence by his sacrilegious mockery, still what else is his demand for the “Uebermensch”, but the cry of despair wrung from the heart of humanity by the bitter consciousness that it is spiritually pining away?” (p 173) Kuyper suggests that our time is very much like the golden age of Rome and the verdict is that we are “rotten to the very core” (p 173).
The solution that we need is not to be found in other sources. Kuyper says, “But this light did not arise through evolution; it shone from the Cross of Calvary” (p 174). Rejuvenation can come only through the old and yet ever new Gospel. Modern philosophy tries to suggest that it has out-grown Christianity. Kuyper acknowledges that “The responsibility of this degeneration undoubtedly rests in part with the Christian churches themselves, not excepting those of the Reformation” (p 175).
History of the Problem
Kuyper then turns to describe the history of the problem that surrounds us. He looks back at the French Revolution of 1789. That is where much of the philosophical and moral problems took root. Kuyper observes that this great revolution broke out from a Roman Catholic country (p 176). This revolution changed many things. Kuyper says, “Man as such, each individual henceforth, was to be his own lord and master, guided by his own free will and good pleasure” (p 176). He continues, “From France this spirit of dissolution, this passion of wild emancipation, has spread among the other nations, especially through the medium of an infamously obscene literature, and infected their lives” (p 177).
Kuyper then says, “The spirit of this modern life is most clearly marked by the fact that it seeks the origin of man not in creation after the image of God, but in evolution from the animal” (p 178). This desire to find the solution in evolution brings two results. First, it lowers man from being one who bears the image of God to man being nothing more than a materialistic being. Second, it denies the sovereignty of God, leaving everything in the hands of blind process (p 178).
With these evolutionary factors at work, the outcome is that “Money, pleasure, and social power, these alone are the objects of pursuit; and people are constantly growing less fastidious regarding the means employed to secure them. Thus the voice of conscience becomes less and less audible…” (p 179).
Kuyper comments that this endless restless process wearies the human soul. He says, “Deprived of the wholesome influence of rest, the brain is over-stimulated and over-exerted till the asylums are no longer adequate for housing the insane” (p 179).
The emphasis on evolution means that everything and anything can be changed. Kuypers says, “The cause of monogamy is not longer worth fighting for, since polygamy and polyandry are being systematically glorified in all products of the realististic school of art and literature” (p 179).
With the influence of evolution, “Gradually the conflict between the strong and the weak has grown to be the controlling feature of life, arising from Darwinism itself, whose central idea of a struggle for life has for its mainspring this very antithesis” (p 179).
Is Rome an Option?
Kuyper then turns to consider one possible solution to this wide-spread problem. He asks, can the church of Rome offer a solution to this dilemma?
Kuyper says, “Though the history of the Reformation has established a fundamental antithesis between Rome and ourselves, it would nevertheless be narrow-minded and shortsighted to underestimate the real power which even now is manifest in Rome’s warfare against Atheism and Pantheism” (p 183). He sees that the church of Rome is holding well against the work of these enemy forces. However, Kuyper does acknowledge many points that cannot be reconciled between Protestants and Roman Catholics: Ecclesiastical hierarchy, man’s nature, justification, the Mass, invocation of saints, worship of images, purgatory, and others. He says that we are as “unflinchingly opposed to Rome as our fathers were” (p 183).
Kuyper then suggests how the Roman church can be a helpful ally in the fight. He says that the lines of battle are drawn this way: Theism versus Pantheism, sin versus perfection, divine Jesus versus mere man, atonement versus example to imitate. In these kinds of fights, Rome can be a helpful ally (p 183). However, does this mean that our future should be sought in the work of Rome?
Kuyper offers a resounding no. He looks to South and Central America for what Rome can offer. He says, “But in vain do we look in those American Romish States for a life which elevates, develops energy, and exerts a wholesome influence outside” (p 184). He also looks are Europe and says, “In Europe, also, the credit of all the Protestant states is high, that of the Southern countries which are Roman Catholic, is at a painful discount” (p 185).
In this way, we can see that Rome does not have the answers that our society needs. In fact, Kuyper suggests to go to Rome for help, “…would be a step backwards in the course of history” (p 186).
Instead, Kuyper says that Protestantism is the truly forward looking work.
Kuyper acknowledges that some will scoff at this claim. He says that these ones will say, “…Ye yourselves have no right to make a stand on Protestantism; for after Protestantism came Modernism” (p 187) However, he objects to this by saying that Modernism was not a forward movement at all so it was not really the future of Protestantism. He says, “…what Modernism offers us is not modern, but rather very antique; not posterior, but anterior to Protestantism, reaching back to the Stoa and to Epicurus” (p 187).
Calvinism must be Restored
Kuyper then urges a return to Calvinism as the only true advancement because it truly proclaims the great work of inward renewal that must happen in every individual in order to reform society. Kuyper says, “[Jesus] healed the sick body, but He even more truly bound up our spiritual wounds” (p 188). Other philosophies, even Christian ones, often merely work to restore the bodily ailments with little to no look at the internal and spiritual needs of the man. In this way, Kuyper says, “Only in Calvinism can it be said that it has consistently and logically followed out the lines of the Reformation…” (p 190).
Kuyper then lays out four key steps to ensure that Calvinism will shape the Future. First, Calvinism should be supported more. Second, Calvinism must be a central subject of study. Third, Christians must apply Calvinism to our time. Fourth, churches that confess Calvinism must not be ashamed of their confession (p 192).
Kuyper reminds his American audience of the great Christian and Calvinistic roots in our country. He says, “And when your President proclaims a national day of thanksgiving, or when the houses of Congress assembled in Washington are opened with prayer, it is ever new evidence that through American democracy there runs even yet a vein which, having sprung from the Pilgrim Fathers, still exerts its power at the present day” (p 192-193).
From these and other fruits around us, we must see the true heritage we have in Calvinism. Kuyper says, “What I demand then, and demand with an historic right, is that this ungrateful ignoring of Calvinism shall come to an end” (p 193). Christian churches around the world and in American need to stop being ashamed of their Calvinistic confession (p 194).
Conclusion: Election not Selection
Kuyper wraps up this closing lecture by elaborating on the great threat of his day and ours: Evolution. He says, “Our generation turns a deaf ear to Election, but grows madly enthusiastic over Selection” (p 195). These are the two sides in the fight: Election versus Natural Selection. Is a holy and just God the sovereign judge over the world or is a naturalistic process of selection blindly grinding away?
Kuyper insightfully says that Natural Selection “attempts to solve this problem of problems” (p 196). He continues, “Even in the single cell it posits differences, weaker and stronger elements. The stronger overcomes the weaker, and the gain is stored up in a higher potency of being” (p 196). In this way, Selection is trying to be the answer to every question in the universe. In this way, there is no neutral ground to be found. Selection takes all or nothing.
Kuyper also reminds his audience that “…Calvinism dared to face this same all-dominating problem, solving it, however, not in the sense of a blind selection stirring in unconscious cells, but honoring the sovereign choice of Him Who created all things visible and invisible” (p 197). Calvinism is a life system as well and it submits to the sovereign election of God. Kuyper says, “The quickening of life comes not from men; it is the prerogative of God” (p 199).
Kuyper rightly declares that the battle lines have been drawn between Materialism and Christianity. There is no reconciling the two sides of Election and Selection. Everything hangs upon these two starkly opposite foundations.
Calvinism is a cry to rally the troops under the banner of God’s sovereign election. It is only there at the foot of God’s divine character can salvation be found. And this salvation in Christ, orients everything else in the world. Calvinism is the need of the hour. But it is not Calvinism that saves. It is Jesus that saves. Kuyper closes his lectures by reminding his audience that it is the election of God that brings about true revival. Nothing that man does can make a difference unless God is at work.
Kuyper says it this way: “Now, let Calvinism be nothing but such an Aeolian Harp–absolutely powerless, as it is, without the quickening Spirit of God–still we feel it our God-given duty to keep our harp, its strings tuned aright, ready in the window of God’s Holy Zion, awaiting the breath of the Spirit” (p 199).
May our Calvinistic harps be always ready and May the Spirit come quickly and make our lives resound again.
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