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).
