Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader
Overview
Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) is one of the most remarkable men in the history of Reformed Christianity. He was eminent in Dutch public life for half a century and left a deep imprint on Dutch immigrant communities in the United States, Canada, and South Africa. A theologian, politician, journalist, university founder, and seminal thinker in the history of modern Calvinism, Kuyper offered an engaging critique of the nineteenth century that still has much to say at the end of the twentieth. This anthology, published in the centennial year of Kuyper’s famous Stone Lectures, gathers sixteen key writings by Kuyper never before available in English. Included in this volume are Kuyper’s definitive statements on politics, education, culture, and the religious currents and social problems of his time. Also included are Kuyper’s own conversion narrative, his critiques of modernism and of Holiness theology, his proposals on common grace and Calvinist politics, his reflections on a culture in thrall to pantheism and evolution, and his classic address on “sphere sovereignty.” Freshly translated and rendered in a clear, accessible style, these writings clearly display Kuyper’s wide-ranging and creative Christian mind. Editor James Bratt provides helpful explanatory notes and an introduction to each piece. Photographs, cartoons, and short excerpts from some of Kuyper’s better-known works also make this an attractive volume that will stand as the premier Kuyper reader for years to come.
Top Highlights
“Does not your indestructible folk-conscience tell you too that the original, absolute sovereignty cannot reside in any creature but must coincide with God’s majesty? If you believe in Him as Deviser and Creator, as Founder and Director of all things, your soul must also proclaim the Triune God as the only absolute Sovereign. Provided—and this I would emphasize—we acknowledge at the same time that this supreme Sovereign once and still delegates his authority to human beings, so that on earth one never directly encounters God Himself in visible things but always sees his sovereign authority exercised in human office.” (Page 466)
“Man in his antithesis as fallen sinner or self-developing natural creature returns again as the ‘subject that thinks’ or ‘the object that prompts thought’ in every department, in every discipline, and with every investigator. Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” (Page 488)
“Higher education and advanced research had enormous importance for him: religiously, for exploring and enhancing God’s creation; strategically, for (re)shaping society and culture; socially, for raising the self-respect and life-chances of common people.” (Page 462)
“To prevent misunderstanding we must pay express attention to a peculiarity in Holy Scripture. For we often get the clear impression that it condemns instead of commends human science or wisdom. As it says in Isaiah: ‘Your wisdom and learning have made you perverse’ [47:10]. The Preacher says: ‘He who increases in knowledge increases in woe’ [Eccl. 1:18]. Or as Paul writes to those in Corinth: ‘The wisdom of the world is foolishness to God’ [1 Cor. 3:19].… Add in the mocking tone with which men of science almost systematically speak against Scripture and what we call holy, consider too the way that the so-called results of science have destroyed many people’s faith, and the suspicion against science that has crept in among believers is easily explained.” (Page 447)
- Title: Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader
- Author: Abraham Kuyper
- Publishers: Paternoster, Eerdmans
- Print Publication Date: 1998
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Calvinism; Christian life; Conduct of life
- ISBNs: 9780802843210, 0853649227, 0802843212, 9780853649229
- Resource ID: LLS:BRHMKYPRCNTNRDR
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T22:19:56Z
Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) was the Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905. He founded the Free University in Amsterdam and served as a professor of theology. At the invitation of B. B. Warfield, Kuyper traveled to the United States to deliver the Stone Lectures at Princeton and address Reformed congregations in Michigan and Iowa.
Kuyper studied at the University of Leiden, and received his doctorate there in 1863. He became a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church in 1863, and consistently called for the separation of church and state. He also led a secession from the Dutch Reformed Church and united several disparate Reformed churches in the Netherlands.
Kuyper also led an active political life. He served as a member of Parliament in the Netherlands beginning in 1874 and served as prime minister from 1901–1905.
Abraham Kuyper was instrumental in the development of Neocalvinism, and is remembered for his articulation of common grace and for popularizing the notion of a Reformed worldview. He has influenced such notable figures as Francis Schaeffer, Cornelius Van Til, Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Chuck Colson.
Some of Kuyper’s publications, which are available in Logos, include Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art, The Antithesis between Symbolism and Revelation, and Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology: Its Principles.