"Historic Calvinism and Neo-Calvinism" was published in the Westminster Theological Journal, vol. 36 (1973-74). Editorial revisions by Sherman Isbell of this article and of its footnotes are not to be distributed to other web locations for retrieval, published in other media, or mirrored at other sites without written permission of Sherman Isbell.
Calvin and Kuyper may be taken as the initiators of two movements, historic Calvinism and Neo-Calvinism. Whether Neo-Calvinism is to be viewed as opposed to historic Calvinism or as constituting a legitimate development may not be determined in the present article. What may be established by examination of the texts, however, is that there are significant differences at least of emphasis, tending to develop into differences of religious principle and practice.
The central contrast to be drawn concerns the role of experimental religion in the Reformed Faith. The scene of the Reformed Faith in the Netherlands exhibits a remarkable phenomenon: i.e. a sharp cleavage between Calvinists emphasizing, sometimes in an extreme fashion, experimental religion, even cultivating a kind of mysticism, and on the other hand the Kuyper-Calvinists, including the followers of Schilder as well as the leaders of the Gereformeerde Kerken, who tend to exhibit a marked aversion to experimental religion and to restrict their interests to the doctrinal and practical aspects of religion. The former, i.e. the Old Calvinist circles, in addition to the smaller communities named Oud-Gereformeerd, include the flourishing Gereformeerde Gemeenten, the Christelijk Gereformeerde Kerken, and a substantial orthodox element in the Hervormde Kerk represented by the Gereformeerde Bond. In these circles, the older Reformed writers are held in the highest esteem, not only Dutch writers such as R. Acronius, Th. and W. à Brakel, A. Comrie, J. Fruitier, Th. v. d. Groe, J. Koelman, J. van Lodenstein, W. Schortinghuis, B. Smytegelt, W. Teellinck, G. Udemans, G. Voetius, and H. Witsius, but also the Scottish Presbyterian and English Puritan writers such as I. Ambrose, Baxter, H. Binning, Boston, Brown of Wamphray, Bunyan, J. Durham, R. and E. Erskine, A. Gray, T. Hooker, C. Love, Owen, Perkins, Rutherford, T. Shepard and T. Watson.(1) Although Kuyper himself and his immediate followers knew and loved the oude Schrijvers, there appears to have arisen a generation of the heirs of Kuyper that is ignorant of the great tradition of experimental and practical divinity to which Dutch as well as British Calvinists have made noteworthy contributions, or if not ignorant of its existence, regards it with indifference or scorn. The deplorable attitude of contempt all too often expressed with respect to the Puritans by representatives of the Kuyper movement contrasts sharply with the frequent favorable references to the Puritans in Kuyper's Stone Lectures,(2) as well as with the attitude prevalent in the Old Calvinist circles.
The following passage from Spier's Inleiding, not appearing in the English translation, gives expression to the disparagement of experimental religion among members of the school of Dooyeweerd: "This is called 'experimental' (bevindelijk) preaching and aims more at preaching the Christian than preaching the Christ. This mysticism (mystiek) which is found as well in the so-called Old Calvinist as in the ethical camp, because both schools are subjectivistic, is in direct conflict with God's Word and always expresses itself in the following symptoms: more respect for the word of 'pious' men than for Holy Scripture, despising the sacraments, underestimating the offices, 'psychological' preaching, . . . setting 'psychological' self-analysis marks, etc. on the foreground."(3)
A similarly unfavorable appraisal of the vital religion of the Puritans is found in P. Y. de Jong's otherwise valuable study, The Covenant Idea in New England Theology: "All this demonstrates that the Puritans never gave whole-hearted allegiance to the Calvinistic construction of the relation between nature and grace, creation and redemption. There was always a tendency towards Anabaptist dualism. The aversion to art and culture among many, the strong tendency toward a legalistic construction of ethics and the separation of religion from daily concerns may be mentioned as evidences. Furthermore, there was an unprecedented emphasis on the soteriological aspect of Christian doctrine so characteristic of all groups who do not grapple with the underlying issue of the connection of nature and grace."(4)
This undeserved calumny, directed against the memory of the most consistent of Calvinists, rests on Ralph Bronkema's thoroughly misleading book, The Essence of Puritanism,(5) the distortions of which, so far removed from Abraham Kuyper's praise of the Puritans, have contributed much to poisoning the minds of the past and present generation of the Gereformeerde Kerken in the Netherlands and the Christian Reformed Churches of North America with prejudice against the Puritans, and to encouraging an aversion to the deep experimental piety of the Puritans and their Dutch counterparts. De Jong goes so far as to say of the finest of the classical Dutch writers on covenant theology, Herman Witsius: "Because of his adoption of the Cocceian principles of interpretation, which were so vigorously attacked by Voetius and his disciples, and his emphasis on the place and methods of mysticism in Christianity, he can hardly be considered the defender of Reformed orthodoxy in the Dutch churches of that day."(6) De Jong fails to mention that Voetius and his disciples, including Petrus van Mastricht (whose Theoretico-Practica Theologia was a favorite text of Jonathan Edwards), were champions of the practice of piety, and called Precisianists by the lax, but considered by A. Kuyper Jr. as representing a healthy mysticism.(7)
The disparagement of piety and vital religion, even in the name of insistence on doctrinal orthodoxy, could boomerang and eventually issue in the undermining of that doctrinal Calvinism which the earlier generations of the Kuyper movement esteemed so highly. The charge that the Puritans over-emphasized soteriology betrays a tendency to make light of the gospel of salvation, whether out of preoccupation with other aspects of theology or out of a so-called 'organic' view of nature and grace alleged to be foreign to Puritanism and incompatible with revivals of religion. That the Puritans separated religion from daily concerns is a base slander, but the Puritans never succumbed to the error, pointed out by Dr. Patton, as quoted by Dr. Machen, of making much of applied Christianity without being concerned about having a Christianity to apply. They had their hearts fixed on the one thing needful, the Christian's great interest, as a Scottish worthy put it, and then faced the issues of life in all spheres in obedience to the commandments of God revealed in the written Word.
Among Neo-Calvinists in Holland, as in Anglo-Saxon religious circles where the acids of modernity have been eating away at the Calvinism bequeathed by the Covenanters and Puritans, decay of experimental religion has gone hand in hand with deterioration of practice in matters of worship and conduct. The tendency to aestheticize and liturgize the worship of a Reformed church betrays the loss of awareness of the regulative principle of worship, a principle clearly enunciated by Calvin, and taught in the Heidelberg Catechism(8) no less definitely than in the Westminster Standards. The introduction of a flood of uninspired hymns into the Gereformeerde Kerken and the Christian Reformed Church has proved to be a symptom, as was the case in Scottish and American Presbyterianism, of incipient doctrinal deformation. In addition to the implicit nullification of the regulative principle, the elements of Pelagian, free-will religion and unhealthy mysticism pervading the conventional hymnody increasingly undermine what has remained of the doctrine and experience of sovereign grace. Antinomian doctrine and practice, particularly evident with respect to the observance of the Lord's Day, is another prominent feature of the Neo-Calvinism that joins with Jesuits and Secularists in raising against the Puritans the allegation of legalism.
The question arises whether the deviations of the Kuyper-Calvinists from the experimental piety and scriptural practice of the historic Reformed faith are to be traced back to Kuyper's own principles. A distinction must be made between Kuyper's own views and the consequences of a certain line of thought emphasized by him. It must also be remembered that Kuyper was a theologian of genius and of a genius more than theological, while his epigones have often been men of lesser stature. A similar observation may be made in the case of Dooyeweerd, except that Dooyeweerd would disclaim being a theologian. In a number of important respects Kuyper did not set an example followed by his successors, while at one crucial point he fell into an error, magnified by them with the result of increasing the gap between their Neo-Calvinism and the historic Calvinism from which Kuyper appears to have deviated at only one major point. The point of deviation is the doctrine of presumptive regeneration, with the related re-interpretation of the classic Reformed doctrine of the covenant of grace.
As has already been mentioned, Kuyper's praise of the Puritans, to the extent of frequently using the words puritanic and Puritan as synonyms for Calvinistic and Calvinist, contrasts sharply with the scorn vented by many who claim to be in Kuyper's line. Furthermore, Kuyper does not write as an enemy of experimental religion or even of all mysticism. His devotional writings, To Be Near Unto God in particular, give eloquent expression to a deep appreciation of and a strong emphasis on the inner life of the godly man as an indispensable element of religion. He writes of "experimental knowledge of God, which comes to us personally from spiritual experience, from communion of saints and secret fellowship with God,"(9) and again, of "sacred, blessed mysticism"(10) and the painful experiences of desertions of which the old Reformed writers knew much. Kuyper was no stranger to the experience of conversion, as the moving narrative of his Confidentie bears witness,(11) and does not fail to emphasize that "the cool sympathy for God on the part of the unconverted differs from the warm attachment to God on the part of the redeemed, in that the unconverted always discount sin, while the redeemed always start out from the knowledge of misery, that by reason of the knowledge of sin they may arrive at the knowledge of God."(12)
Notwithstanding Kuyper's recognition of the importance of Christian experience, of conversion and communion with God, there is a strain in his teaching that pulls in a contrary direction. In one of its aspects, this strain may be considered naturalistic in character, and humanistic in another. Theologically, this strain, which has been one-sidedly accentuated by many of Kuyper's followers, becomes evident in the reconstruction of the doctrine of the covenant of grace, and the elaboration of the hitherto subordinate theme of common grace into a locus of systematic theology,(13) pregnant with far-reaching consequences for Calvinist theory and practice.
For the most part Kuyper followed the Reformed fathers in matters of doctrine, commonly opting for high Calvinism where the fathers were not unanimous, as on the questions of supralapsarianism and the ordo salutis.(14) Only on the question of the authority of the magistrate with respect to the first table of the law did Kuyper avowedly reject the historic Reformed view, charging the fathers and the Confession with unfaithfulness to the genuine Reformed conception.(15) Yet in propounding the thesis that the children of the covenant are to be presumed to be regenerated and dealt with as such, Kuyper adapted a view possessing the tenuous support of a highly controversial disputation by Voetius, a tempting view in connection with the controversy over paedobaptism, but one alien to the line of Calvinism known to the English-speaking world and, in Dutch Calvinism, foreign to Comrie no less than to à Brakel. Whatever varying opinions had been expressed by Reformed divines as to the condition of infants of Christian parents, a system of doctrine and practice based on presumptivism is the invention of Kuyper-Calvinists, who alone have made bold to incorporate it, as well as disputable theses on common grace, among the binding doctrinal articles of the church.
Notes
(1) This list is a selection from Bibliotheek van oude Schrijvers (Rotterdam: Lindenbergs Boekhandel en Antiquariaat, 1968).
(2) Abraham Kuyper, Het Calvinisme (Amsterdam: Höveker and Wormser, 1898).
(3) J. M. Spier, Een Inleiding tot de Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, fourth ed. (Kampen: Kok, 1950), pp. 109-10. The caricature of experimental religion in the passage quoted is a sample of the ignorance and arrogance too often displayed by Neo-Calvinists in their criticism of the older Calvinism.
(4) Peter Y. De Jong, The Covenant Idea in New England Theology, 1620-1847 (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1945), pp. 151-52.
(5) Ralph Bronkema, The Essence of Puritanism (Goes, the Netherlands: Oosterbaan and Le Cointre, 1929).
(6) De Jong, Covenant Idea, p. 30.
(7) Abraham Kuyper Jr., Johannes Maccovius (Leyden: D. Donner, 1899), p. 240: "In het bloeitijdperk der Gereformeerde Theologie kan voor de gezonde Mystiek gewezen worden op Teelinck – op Udeman – ja zelfs op Voetius en zooveel anderen, bij Lodensteyn en Koelman al minder zuiver wordende." The "gezonde Mystiek" of the Reformed faith is described, p. 239, as "door de Gereformeerde Theologen gegrepen in hun leer van Gods 'persoonlijke bemoeienis', van de onmiddellijke wedergeboorte, van de inplanting in het Mystieke Lichaam, van de mystieke werking der Sacramenten, van het mystieke Testimonium Spiritus Sancti, van de mystieke inwoning des H. Geestes." In defense of Jakobus Koelman, mention may be made of his Neerlands Plicht en Voorbeeld of 1689 (Goudriaan, the Netherlands: W. A. de Groot, 1966), in which a plea is made for further reformation in the Dutch churches in such matters as observance of holy days other than the Christian Sabbath, the singing of other than Scripture psalms and songs (such as the ten commandments, the Apostle's creed and the Lord's Prayer), the playing of the organ before, during and after singing, indiscriminate baptism of children, and desecration of the Sabbath, sometimes defended by lax doctrine. "Minder zuiver" is scarcely the expression to be employed in speaking of Koelman's standpoint!
(8) Heidelberg Catechism, question 96: "What doth God require in the second commandment? That we in no wise represent God by images, nor worship him in any other way than he has commanded in his word." In question 98, the rejection of images in the church "as books to the laity," on the ground that "we must not pretend to be wiser than God, who will have his people taught, not by dumb images, but by the lively preaching of his word," is plainly contrary to the use of pictures of Christ as teaching aids. For the opposed Lutheran view see August Pfeiffer (superintendent at Lübeck in 1698), Anti-Calvinism (Columbus, Ohio: Printing House of the Joint Synod of Ohio, 1881), pp. 398-99: "The Reformed censure us for ornamenting our churches with good pictures and beautiful statuary. . . . We are nowhere forbidden to use pictures as salutary memorials." The plea "we are nowhere forbidden" has proved to be the standard excuse for deformation of the worship of Reformed churches, while the regulative principle remains the guarantee of true Christian liberty in opposition to the imposition of doctrines and commandments of men.
(9) Abraham Kuyper, To Be Near Unto God (New York: Macmillan Company, 1925), p. 224.
(10) Ibid., p. 44.
(11) A. Kuyper, Confidentie (Amsterdam: Hoeveker en Loon, 1873). Note the intense feeling with which Kuyper writes, p. 40, of the influence of Charlotte Yonge's romance The Heir of Redcliffe ("This masterpiece has been for me the instrument of the breaking of my self-sufficient, resisting heart"), and, p. 45, of the "pious Reformed people" of his first pastorate: "Well now, dear brother, I have not set myself against them, and I still thank my God that I made this choice. Their tenacious perseverance has been the blessing of my heart, the rise of the morning star for my life. I was indeed grasped, but had not yet found the word of reconciliation. That they have brought to me, brought with their fragmentary language in this absolute form in which my soul alone can find rest: in adoring and glorifying a God who works all things, both willing and doing according to his good pleasure!"
(12) Ibid., p. 226.
(13) A. Kuyper, De Gemeene Gratie, 3 vols. (Amsterdam: Hoeveker and Wormser, 1902-04). The practical part (vol. 3) develops consequences for politics, church and state, family, education, society, science and art, while the doctrinal part (vol. 2) contains a defense of vaccination and insurance in opposition to the views prevailing among the Old Reformed people in the Netherlands.
(14) On Kuyper's supralapsarianism, cf. De Gemeene Gratie 2:95ff., in which a cosmic reinterpretation of the High Calvinist view is propounded. On the ordo salutis, see Kuyper's Het Werk van den Heiligen Geest (Amsterdam: J. A. Wormser, l888), Tweede Deel, 32: "Gerechtvaardigd van eeuwigheid," and 33: "Gewisheid onzer rechtvaardigmaking."
(15) Cf. Kuyper's lecture on Calvinism and politics in Het Calvinisme.
Go to the next installment:
Historic Calvinism and Neo-Calvinism: Part II