Neo-Calvinism
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Total Depravity
TULIP: A FREE GRACE PERSPECTIVE PART 1: TOTAL DEPRAVITY ANTHONY B. BADGER Associate Professor of Bible and Theology Grace Evangelical School of Theology Lancaster, Pennsylvania I. INTRODUCTION The evolution of doctrine due to continued hybridization has pro- duced a myriad of theological persuasions. The only way to purify our- selves from the possible defects of such “theological genetics” is, first, to recognize that we have them and then, as much as possible, to set them aside and disassociate ourselves from the systems which have come to dominate our thinking. In other words, we should simply strive for truth and an objective understanding of biblical teaching. This series of articles is intended to do just that. We will carefully consider the truth claims of both Calvinists and Arminians and arrive at some conclusions that may not suit either.1 Our purpose here is not to defend a system, but to understand the truth. The conflicting “isms” in this study (Calvinism and Arminianism) are often considered “sacred cows” and, as a result, seem to be solidified and in need of defense. They have become impediments in the search for truth and “barriers to learn- ing.” Perhaps the emphatic dogmatism and defense of the paradoxical views of Calvinism and Arminianism have impeded the theological search for truth much more than we realize. Bauman reflects, I doubt that theology, as God sees it, entails unresolvable paradox. That is another way of saying that any theology that sees it [paradox] or includes it is mistaken. If God does not see theological endeavor as innately or irremediably paradoxical, 1 For this reason the author declines to be called a Calvinist, a moderate Calvinist, an Arminian, an Augustinian, a Thomist, a Pelagian, or a Semi- Pelagian. -
Neo-Calvinism” Is an Expression Which Was First Used by Max Weber in His Contributions to the Sociology of Religion
Christian Social Thought in the Dutch Neo-Calvinist Tradition Bob Goudzwaard From: Walter Block and Irving Hexham (eds) Religion, Economics and Social Thought: Proceedings of an International Conference Vancouver, Fraser Institute 1986 pp. 251-279 (Chapter Seven). “Neo-Calvinism” is an expression which was first used by Max Weber in his contributions to the sociology of religion. He used it to describe the revival of the social and political teachings of John Calvin which took place, especially in the Netherlands, during the last part of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The roots of that revival lie mainly in the so-called Réveil movement, which had its origin in the first half of the nineteenth century in Protestant - not only Calvinistic - circles in Switzerland. That movement stressed the significance of a living Christian faith: biblical studies, and prayer for the reformation of the Church and the renewal of society. The most important Dutch representative of that Réveil was Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801- 1876). Deeply influenced by German thinkers Von Haller and Julius Stahl, who were primarily within the Romantic tradition, Groen gradually developed his own approach to the social and political problems of his time, although he always remained a true “son of the Réveil!” His main published work was a major study of the spirit of the French Revolution, Unbelief and Revolution. He saw the Revolution and its ideals as the driving force behind the modern unbelief of his age. However, Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) must be seen as the founding father of Dutch neo-Calvinism. -
Abraham Kuyper
abraham kuyper De Vrije Universiteit op weg naar de samenleving A. Kuyper (1837–1920) was van 1880 tot 1901 hoogleraar in de Faculteit der Godgeleerdheid en buitengewoon hoogleraar Nederlandse taal- en letterkunde in de Faculteit der Letteren. George Harinck Abraham Kuyper is zo’n twintig jaar actief geweest als hoogleraar van de Vrije Universiteit. In zijn geval kunnen we gerust zeggen: maar twintig jaar. Want als we deze periode vergelijken met de jaren dat hij mede leiding gaf aan de andere instituten waarvan hij als de voor- naamste architect kan worden aangemerkt, dan valt de korte duur van zijn universitaire betrekking op. De in 1892 gevormde Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland laat ik buiten beschouwing, ook al was hij een belangrijke vormgever van deze denominatie: formeel gaf hij er geen leiding aan. Maar zijn kerkelijk weekblad De Heraut redigeerde hij een halve eeuw, vanaf 1870 tot op zijn sterfbed in 1920. Van het antirevolu- tionaire dagblad De Standaard was hij bijna vijf decennia hoofdredac- teur, van 1872 tot 1919. Hij had, om het in zijn eigen woorden te zeggen, ‘een halve eeuw’ (vanaf 1869) leiding gegeven aan de antirevolutionai- re actie toen hij het voorzitterschap van de Antirevolutionaire Partij per 1 januari 1919 neerlegde. Kuypers kracht werd soms zijn zwakte: hij organiseerde, bond samen en dreef voort als geen ander en slaagde daarin beter dan wie ook, maar het leiderschap kreeg hem in de greep: hij kon de teugels niet of niet tijdig uit handen geven. En zelfs waar openlijk weerstand werd geboden tegen zijn leiding, zoals in de Antire- volutionaire Partij, bleef hij dwarsliggen en tegenspel bieden, zodat hij binnen zijn eigen partij eindigde als de opposant die hij aanvankelijk naar buiten toe was geweest — al ontbeerde hij inmiddels de kracht van de stormram die hij in zijn jonge jaren was. -
Kuyper and Apartheid: a Revisiting
Kuyper and Apartheid: A revisiting Patrick Baskwell (Brandon, Florida, USA)1 Research Associate: Department of Dogmatics and Christian Ethics University of Pretoria Abstract Was Abraham Kuyper, scholar, statesman, and university founder, the ideological father of Apartheid in South Africa? Many belief so. But, there are others, amongst them George Harinck of the Free University in Amsterdam, who don’t think so. The article argues that there is an element of truth in both opinions. Kuyper did exhibit the casual racism so characteristic of the Victorian era, with its emphasis on empire building and all that it entailed. Kuyper was also directly responsible, ideologically, for the social structure in the Netherlands known as “verzuiling” or “pillarization” in terms of which members of the Catholic, Protestant, or Socialist segments of society had their own social institutions. This pillarizing, or segmenting, of society was, however, always voluntary. This is not true of the pillarizing or segmenting of South African society known as Apartheid. While there are similarities between Apartheid and “verzuiling”, especially in their vertical partitioning of the individual’s entire life, the South African historical context, the mediation of Kuyper’s ideas through South African scholars, the total government involvement, and therefore, the involuntary nature of Apartheid, point to their inherent dissimilarity. Apartheid was simply not pure Kuyper. Hence, while the effects of Kuyper’s ideas are clearly discernable in Apartheid policy, the article aims at arguing that Kuyper cannot be considered the father of Apartheid in any direct way. 1. INTRODUCTION In a recent article, George Harinck, director of the Historisch Documentatiecentrum voor het Nederlands Protestantisme (1800-current) at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, describes the beginnings of his research for a book on Abraham Kuyper. -
Irresistible Grace
TULIP: A FREE GRACE PERSPECTIVE PART 4: IRRESISTIBLE GRACE ANTHONY B. BADGER Associate Professor of Bible and Theology Grace Evangelical School of Theology Lancaster, Pennsylvania I. INTRODUCTION Can God’s gift of eternal life be resisted? Does God’s sovereignty require that He force selected people (the elect) to receive His gift of salvation and to enter into a holy union with Him? Is it an affront to God to suggest that the Holy Spirit can be successfully resisted? Calvinist or Reformed Theology, will usually reason that since God is all-powerfully sovereign and since man is completely and totally unable to believe in Christ, it is necessary that God enforce His grace upon those whom He has elected for eternal life. We will now consider the Calvinistic view and the Arminian response to this doctrine. II. THE REFORMED VIEW OF IRRESISTIBLE GRACE Hughes concisely says, Irresistible grace is grace which cannot be rejected. The con- ception of the irresistibility of special grace is closely bound up with...the efficacious nature of that grace. As the work of God always achieves the effect toward which it is directed, so also it cannot be rejected or thrust aside.1 Steele, Thomas, and Quinn present a slightly longer explanation—the doctrine of “The Efficacious Call of the Spirit or Irresistible Grace” say- ing, In addition to the outward general call to salvation which is made to everyone who hears the gospel, the Holy Spirit ex- tends to the elect a special inward call that inevitably brings them to salvation. The external call (which is made to all 1 P. -
Friday Evening Keynote Address Mark A
Friday Evening Keynote Address Mark A. Noll Journal of Markets & Morality Volume 5, Number 1 (Spring 2002), 137–156 Copyright © 2002 A Century of Christian Social Teaching: The Legacy of Leo XIII and Mark A. Noll Abraham Kuyper Wheaton College Looking back as we can now, at the end of the twentieth century, to the end of the nineteenth century, we are able to see much more clearly why the Christian social teachings of Abraham Kuyper and Leo XIII were themselves so insight- ful.1 It is not just that the pope’s Rerum Novarum of 1891 and the many other social encyclicals of his long and distinguished pontificate were words in sea- son from and for a Catholic Church wracked by more than thirty-five years of revolution, strife over dogma, Kulturkampf, and local Italian crises. Nor was it only that Abraham Kuyper’s great lecture in November 1891 on “The Social Problem and the Christian Religion” or his consideration of “Calvinism and Politics” in his 1898 Stone Lectures at Princeton offered what was, for Protestants in the 1890s, that rarest combination of sensitivity to the dispos- sessed with fidelity to a confession. It was not only, to repeat, that these were timely interventions. They were also prescient pronouncements. Their address to current events contained foundational reasoning that has been profitably extrapolated during the century that followed and in conditions and circum- stances that no one in the 1890s could have foreseen. Of course, what Kuyper and the pope said was not flawless; each had his blindspots and his weak- nesses. -
Journal of Markets & Morality Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 1998)– Vol. 15, No. 2 (Fall 2012)
Journal of Markets & Morality Vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring 1998)– index Vol. 15, no. 2 (Fall 2012) Journal of Markets & Morality Volume 15, Number 2 (Fall 2012): 571–572 Copyright © 2012 Comprehensive Contributors Index Contributors Index Journal of Markets and Morality Vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring 1998)– Introduction Vol. 15, no. 2 (Fall 2012) To commemorate the fifteenth year and thirtieth issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality, the following index was conceived as a way to take a step back to survey what has been built upon a rather humble foundation. From its beginnings as a forum for scholarship and controversy on the morality of the marketplace, the Journal of Markets & Morality has grown to include symposiums on a variety of theological and social topics as well as translations of seminal works of early modern economics and law in our Scholia section and of important engagements between religion and society in the last two centuries in our Status Quaestionis section. We have had theme issues on a range of subjects from urban planning to economic personalism to modern Christian social thought. We entered the information age with online content and recently launched a new website with a searchable database of our archives, among other features. Taking back the scaf- folding of years of work and surveying the edifice hidden beneath has revealed an achievement that simultaneously humbles and evokes a sense of pride, but not a single wall of this building could have been built apart from the research, scholarship, and labor of our many contributors. This index, then, is especially a tribute to all those without whom the Journal of Markets & Morality could not be what it is today. -
Subsidiarily in Her/His Own Sphere. Women and Christian Politics1
< é Subsidiarily in her/his own sphere. Women and Christian politics1 Bruce C. Weame Honorary Research Associate in Sociology Monash University AUSTRALIA Email: [email protected]. edu.au Abstract Subsidiarity in her/his own sphere. Women and Christian politics This article is a discussion of the attitude of Christian social thought to women. In 1891 two influential Christian documents addressed this issue. Pope Leo XW's Rerum Novarum and Abraham Kuyper’s Het sociaale vraagstuk der Christelijke religie were responses to industrialization and subsequent Christian responses to feminism have had to face the legal, cultural and political aspects of the enhanced female participation in commerce which assumes equality for all consumers in the market-place. Catholic and Protestant political initiatives in Europe in the early 20th century, in line with these two approaches, assumed that the vocation of Christian women, inside and outside the domestic sphere, has to be that of a bulwark against materialism and liberalism. In line with this point o f view they helped to counter the domination of market-place values over all spheres of social life. These documents are also part o f latter-day efforts to reconsider women’s place. Female involvement in industry and public life around the world increases unabated as "affirmative action ” re-structures the public status of women. The ambiguous legacy of "economic rationalism " poses new threats since the burden of social welfare falls again onto the shoulders of overworked women. A sociological account which would be Christian must address historical, social and economic ambiguities. This article explores the issue, noting typical ways in which these two prominent Christian contributions will be interpreted. -
Abraham Kuyper and the Continuing Social Question
Journal of Markets & Morality Volume 14, Number 2 (Fall 2011): 641–646 Copyright © 2011 Abraham Kuyper and the Continuing Harry Van Dyke Professor Emeritus in History Social Question Redeemer College “It is our firm conviction that the Savior, if he were still on earth, would again align himself with the oppressed and against the powerful of our age.” Abraham Kuyper made this bold claim in his newspaper on the eve of the general elec- tions of 1894. What was the issue that made him write this? Why did his fellow churchman and political ally of many years, Alexander de Savornin Lohman, feel compelled to write him that this statement had hurt him deeply? The issue was whether to vote for or against extension of the franchise. Kuyper was for, Lohman against. Lohman (1845–1924) was a landowner, a jurist, and a member of parliament. Kuyper (1837–1920) was a university professor, a newspaper editor, and the chairman of the Antirevolutionary Party. The two men had fought side by side a decade earlier in the battle over church properties that secessionists claimed but that the national church held onto. The question that now divided the friends had exercised the Dutch parliament off and on for decades and had intensified greatly in recent years. It all began when the liberal government introduced an electoral bill regulating eligibility for the right to vote. Its sponsor, Tak van Poortvliet, presented it as the definitive solution to a thorny question that should once for all be put to rest. His proposal interpreted the relevant constitutional provision with the greatest possible lati- tude. -
Herman Bavinck and Adolf Schlatter on The
Edinburgh Research Explorer Scientific Theology? Herman Bavinck and Adolf Schlatter on the Place of Theology in the University Citation for published version: Eglinton, J & Brautigam, M 2013, 'Scientific Theology? Herman Bavinck and Adolf Schlatter on the Place of Theology in the University', Journal of Reformed Theology, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 27-50. https://doi.org/10.1163/15697312-12341275 Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1163/15697312-12341275 Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Published In: Journal of Reformed Theology Publisher Rights Statement: ©Eglinton, J., & Brautigam, M. (2013). Scientific Theology? Herman Bavinck and Adolf Schlatter on the Place of Theology in the University. Journal of Reformed Theology, 7(1), 27-50doi: 10.1163/15697312-12341275 General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 27. Sep. 2021 Journal -
Common Grace
CONTENTS The Communication Problem Sostf,1enes Topic of the Issue COMMON GRACE A Hole in our Thinking? C. G. Martin 3 Is there a Biblical Doctrine of Common Grace? H. Barlow 9 Common Grace in the Reformed Faith D. R. Hanson 15 A Philosophical Enquiry-a discussion Paul Hirst, 0. R. Johnston and A. E. Willingale 32 Applications C. G. Martin 43 Members' Contributions Review. The New Scofield Reference Bible Ward Gasque 47 Correspondence. Mr. Clines replies on Liturgy 49 The N.T. Use of the O.T .. 53 From the Monitors. Humanist C. G. Martin 54 Copyright © 1968 The Christian Brethren Research Fellowship THE COMMUNICATION PROBLEM Perhaps the second successive issue of the Journal to be devoted to a heavily technical subject is hardly the best issue in which to raise the matter of Christian communication. But the subject of Common Grace itself leads us to consider the part which the Christian has to play in that sphere which is the sphere of its operation-the ordinary life of mankind. And that in turn brings home to the thoughtful the extraordinary difficulty of communicating the Christian ideal to the masses of men and women conditioned by modern life. One does not need to be a disciple of McLuhan to recognise that there are wide areas of contemporary society where the printed word is becoming of decreasing importance in communication. Instead, it is the radio and-more particularly-television which today make the most vital impact on men and women. It is an impact very different in its nature from that of the printed word: simply because the visual means of com munication produce an entirely different effect upon the person receiving the communication. -
Irresistible Grace – Ephesians 2:1‐10
The Five Points of Calvinism Irresistible Grace – Ephesians 2:1‐10 INTRODUCTION – Total Depravity will lead to the doctrines of Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement and the irresistible Grace of God when God saves a sinner from his sin. Diminished Depravity will lead to Abrogated Election, Impersonal Election and Sedentary Grace when God saves a sinner from his sin. The former is the Calvinistic understanding of salvation whereas the latter is that of an Arminian. The concept of a sedentary grace is a grace that can be resisted by sinful man. It is sometimes called Resistible Grace. The starting point is key to one’s understanding of the doctrine of salvation. If the person begins with the view that man contributes to his own salvation in terms of his acceptance of Christ, then he will be Arminian. If he begins with the understanding that he is totally depraved and is not able to save himself and accept Christ without Christ’s help, then he is Calvinistic. Irresistible Grace is defined as the blessings which believers receive from God that they do not deserve. Grace in general is defined as unmerited favour. The covenant of Grace began the moment man fell into sin. God gave man the first gospel in Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” I. Evaluating Sedentary or Resistible Grace – “Universal Atonement – Jesus died for everyone. His death opened the door for salvation. It provided access for “whosoever will” to come to Him and receive eternal life.