“The sixteenth was a great century. It was the century of Raphael and Michelangelo, of Spenser and Shakespeare, of Erasmus and Rabelais, of Copernicus and Galileo, of Luther and Calvin. Of all the figures that gave greatness to this century, none left a more lasting impression than Calvin” (Harkness, Georgia, John Calvin, the Man and His Ethics, p. 258. Henry Holt and Co., 1931). Obviously, it is then of the greatest importance to ask, as the writer does in this article, “Where Are We Going – with Calvinism?” Rev. Peter De Jong is pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Dutton, Michigan.

“Historic Calvinism and Neo-Calvinism” is the title of an important article by Dr. William Young beginning in the Westminster Theological Journal for the Fall of 1973 and concluding in the Winter 1974 issue. Dr. Young, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rhode Island and one of the translators of H. Dooyeweerd’s major work, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, sees “significant differences at least of emphasis, tending to develop into differences of religious principle and practice” between the historic Calvinism of John Calvin and the “neo-Calvinism” of Abraham Kuyper and his followers. “The central contrast” between the two “concerns the role of experimental religion in the Reformed Faith.” This contrast appears especially in the Netherlands. There Young observes on the one side “Old Calvinists” or “Old Reformed” found in such groups as Gereformeerde Gemeenten, Christelijk Gerefonneerde Kerken, and orthodox elements in the State Church who, sometimes in extreme fashion, emphasize experimental religion, even cultivating a kind of mysticism and who esteem Older Reformed and Scottish Presbyterian and English Puritan writers; on the other side he sees the Kuyper-Calvinists including also the followers of Schilder, who tend to restrict their interests to the doctrinal and practical aspects of religion and who regard the Older Reformed, Presbyterian, and Puritan writers with indifference or contempt.

This rift between historic Calvinism and neo-or Kuyper-Calvinism Young does not find in Abraham Kuyper who loved the old writers and thought highly of the Puritans. Where did it start? The blame for this unfortunate development Young places particularly upon “Ralph Bronkema’s thoroughly misleading book, The Essence of Puritanism, the distortions of which . . . have contributed much to poisoning the minds of . . . the Gereformeerde Kerken in the Netherlands and the Christian Reformed Churches of North America with prejudice against the, Puritans and encouraging an aversion to the deep experimental piety of the Puritans and their Dutch counterparts.” This “disparagement of piety and vital religion” and deviation from the “Scriptural practice of the historic Reformed faith” the writer regards as explaining the breakdown of faith and life of modern followers of Kuyper.

   

WAS KUYPER RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RIFT?

Although in general Kuyper did not break with the historic Calvinism and with its later followers, including the Puritans, as Kuyper’s followers did, Young sees Kuyper deviating from the historic Calvinist line at one major point. That point was in his doctrine of “presumptive regeneration,” which brought with it a reinterpretation of the Covenant of Grace.

In spite of Kuyper‘s praise of the Puritans and his deep appreciation of the need of Christian experience, conversion, and communion with God, his presumption that children of the covenant are regenerated and to be dealt with as such pulled him in an opposite direction.

“HYPER–COVENANTISM”

This notion of presumptive regeneration Young sees as part of a “life-and-world view” which may properly be called “hyper-covenantism” since it is an exaggeration of the historic Calvinist doctrine of God’s covenant with man. This view includes such notions as the following:

1. All relations between man and God, man and man and man and nature may be viewed as covenantal, a speculative idea which, despite its pious sound, the writer observes “tends to lure the heart away from God to the world and man.” 2. This covenant was essential to man‘s creation in God‘s image, a notion Young sees as contradicted by the Genesis account and, as in practice, and tending to relativize and destroy ones appreciation for God‘s moral law (as it does notably in some AACS writing he mentions).

3. The covenant is not to be viewed first as saving but as cultural so that Genesis 1:28 is taken as a “cultural mandate,” an idea that Young sees downgrading the gospel to replace it by “cultural” concerns.

4. The covenant implies that children of believers are regenerated from infancy and are to be treated as such unless and until they reject the Covenant. Although Kuyper claimed that this was the historic Reformed doctrine taught by Calvin, Young advances a good deal of evidence to prove that it was not. 5. This “hyper-covenant” view holds that “doctrinal knowledge and ethical conduct according to the Word of God are sufficient for the Christian life without any specific religious experience of conviction of sin and conversion, or any need of self-examination as to the possession of distinguishing marks of saving grace.” Young sees this view as contrary to Scripture, to Calvin‘s teaching, and even to Kuyper‘s. This exaggerated covenant view which holds that children of believers do not need to be told, “Ye must be born again” falls readily into the pattern of liberal and evolutionary views. 5. A further error found in this view is that “the life of religion is seated in external institutions rather than in the communion of the soul with God.” This shift of emphasis from the sovereign grace of God in the salvation of the elect to preoccupation with cultural, political, and social activity all too readily begins to resemble the modern social gospel and radical secular theology.

And in Dooyeweerd (whose work Young translated) and in his followers Young sees a philosophical scheme playing “havoc with the faith once delivered to the saints” and “muting the gospel trumpet.”

7. Finally this view is seen as denying a clear distinction between nature and grace and becoming a wholesale rejection of Reformed systematic theology, including especially denial of the infallibility of the Bible and of God‘s sovereign election. Although Young expresses appreciation for the achievements of Kuyper and Dooyeweerd, he sees the aversion to experimental religions especially on the part of their followers as producing this rift between them and the older Calvinism and deforming the gospel itself.

A CRITICAL EVALUATION

This is Young’s case. How shall we evaluate it? At some points I, and I am sure many other readers, would have to disagree with him. Where he appears, for example, to restrict church music to the psalms (p. 52), I would ask why the Christian’s songs must be limited to those of the Old Testament! Regarding the main point of his article, although I would agree that the notion of “presumptive regeneration” is a piece of human presumption which the Bible nowhere teaches, I am just unwilling to subscribe to the opposite view of Archibald Alexander that “The education of children should proceed on the principle that they are in an unregenerate state, until evidences of piety clearly appear . . .” (p. 61; quoted from A. Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience, p. 26, p.13 later edition).

It seems to me that we need to maintain a more biblical balance nicely summarized in our baptism form, observing that our children are both “born in sin” and “received unto grace in Christ,” and that leaving the mystery of when and how the Lord regenerates up to God, we must confront them with both the call to repentance and faith and with the promise and comfort of the gospel, just as we do to others whenever the gospel is brought, adding that the extra covenant training and privileges bring extra responsibilities. This is what we everywhere find the Bible doing.

Whether or not we fully agree with Professor Young in the details of his argument, what I find especially intriguing in his article is that, from his peculiar vantage point, he has come to an assessment of what has been happening to Calvinism in our time remarkably similar to what I and others who come out of a more Kuyperian tradition have been making.

THE ESSENCE OF PURITANISM

Reading Dr. Young‘s essay suggests that it might be desirable to take an independent look at the old hook which he said was so influential in creating the rift between the Calvinism of Calvin and that of the followers of Kuyper. Does it appear to merit the harsh judgment of “poisoning the minds . . . with prejudice against the Puritans and encouraging an aversion to . . . experimental piety . . .”? (p. 50.)

The 200–page book of the late Ralph Bronkema (who died about a year ago), The Essence of Puritanism., printed in 1929, was the doctor‘s thesis which he submitted to the Free University in Amsterdam.

It is an imposing work with many footnotes evidencing a good deal of study. The first page startles the reader, however, by laying down the flat, basic assumption that “The essence of Puritanism is . . . that which is peculiar to it, that in which it differs from other movements.” That statement, the subject of the whole book, despite the amount of study that has gone into working it out, we must observe, is obviously wrong: The “essence” of anything is not that in which it differs from other, perhaps similar things. To say that it is, is like saying that the “essence” of Michigan is the border which separates it from Indiana. One might travel the whole length of that border and know virtually nothing about the State of Michigan.

The “essence” of anything is often much more than that which separates it from something else. To assume that the “essence” (what it really is) is only what separates it is apt to exaggerate differences and make them appear much greater than they are. Following this kind of assumption one can just as logically prove that the “essence” of Calvinism is that which distinguishes it from Christianity—which is what extreme critics have sometimes tried to do. The same kind of faulty assumption often takes the “essence” of Calvinism as the “five points” which distinguish it from Arminianism, instead of observing that Calvinism, as simply biblical Christianity includes far more than those points.

PURITANS NOT CALVINISTS?

Beginning with and pursuing this thoroughly faulty assumption, Bronkema’s book, for all its study, must and does give a distorted view of Puritanism. Despite the fact that the Puritans regarded themselves as Calvinists, that many historians have so regarded them, and that even Croen Van Prinsterer and Abraham Kuyper called them Calvinists (pp. 4, 5), Bronkema insists that they were not.

Why were these people who wanted to be, who thought they were, and whom almost everyone else thought were Calvinists, not real Calvinists? Bronkema’s explanation may be even more startling than the claim: The trouble with them was, as he states over and over again, that they were Englishmen! “This treatise contends that the specific characteristics of Puritanism can be traced back beyond Calvinism . . . to the English character itself” (p. 3, cf. pp. 8, 41, 78). “If Puritanism deviated from the orthodox line, this deviation can be traced back ultimately to the Anglo-Saxon character itself” (p. 82), “linked with the practical tendency of the English character” (p. 110), “rooted in the English character” (p. 194).

This remarkable thesis would undoubtedly carry more appeal and conviction to Dutchmen than to Englishmen! What must we say about it? Just dismiss it as a piece of outrageous national prejudice, as one might be inclined to do? Not necessarily. Bronkema brings us plenty of evidence for his idea and we must not forget that the Apostle Paul said that the gospel was “unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness” (I Cor. 1:23), seeming to acknowledge that national background had some effect on people‘s reactions to it. The trouble with the book‘s thesis is not so much that it is critical of the Puritans, pointing up some of their weaknesses, as that it is so blind to the criticisms that may be brought against the Dutch, Kuyperian Calvinism. If the English practicality may lead one into trouble, the Dutch and German love for speculation can just as effectively lead one away from the gospel in other directions!

WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE PURITANS?

What does Bronkema find to criticize in Puritanism in comparison with what he considers authentic (Dutch?) Calvinism? He deals with three general characteristics, (1) Biblicism, (2) Ethicism, and (3) Mysticism, devoting most attention to the first two.

1. “Puritan characteristics as revealed in history,” Bronkema asserts, “can be traced back to the Puritan view of the Bible,” which he calls “biblicistic.” It regarded “the Bible as the people’s Book,” which “the uneducated could read.” “All parts of the Bible were of equal validity . . . Much of what was meant to be for Israel only the Puritans made universal.” “Hooper . . . called the father of Puritanism, wished to have a divine warrant for every usage retained in divine worship and church order.” “Ames says . . . that the word of God, and nothing else. is the only standard in matters of religion” (p. 85).

This promoted interest in education. Yet it was a fault. They were “biblicistic,” which means that they “in agreement with their principle of the plain Word of God preferred not to formulate the Bible teachings into a system.” “All that was characteristic of the Puritans can be explained from their high regard for Scripture, but for Scripture as opposed to the logical productions of man” (p. 86). “The Puritan was not at all anti-confessional” “nor . . . even completely indifferent toward doctrine . . . but . . . he emphasized life to at least the partial neglect of doctrine” (p. 87). Ames, for example, “would center theological doctrine around the idea of its usefulness for Christian life . . . .” With no sympathy for the philosophers, “he takes his stands on Scripture and judges everything from the Bible as point of departure” (p. 90). In contrast with this emphasis, Bronkema held that Calvinism was not biblicistic, for “it never held that any doctrinal system is given in Scripture itself. But it did hold that Scripture gives the great truths which the Christian church must put into system” (p. 97). “Puritanism did not further dogmatic development” (p. 96).

Bronkema takes over a criticism of Dowden that the Puritans’ “cardinal error lay in a narrow conception of God as the God of righteousness alone, and not as also the God of joy and beauty and intellectual light” (p. 97). Bronkema sees Puritanism’s emphasis on salvation at least to the partial neglect of creation as “an important point of difference from Calvinism” (p. 99). Finding fault with the Puritan emphasis on justification by faith Bronkema states that it “occurs entirely outside of man . . . and is held by the Reformed to have taken place in eternity” (pp. 119, 120). Regarding regeneration he holds, with Vos, that “not even is the Word of God an instrument whereby regeneration is worked” (p. 123).

2. Puritanism is further criticized because of its emphasis on morality and law. “Puritanism, never theoretically perhaps, but certainly in practice, attributed to religious exercizes a certain merit, and so it became hardened in a legal bondage.” “Over against the immorality of the times the Puritan stressed the practice of piety” (p. 135).

Bronkema observes that (1) Puritanism had a too mechanical conception of the relation between sin and its punishment and virtue and its reward” and  (2) “that it failed to distinguish sufficiently between the temporal and abiding elements in lsraelitish law,” in particular in its view of the Sabbath (p. 139). The writer informs us that Calvinists have often been too legalistic but that the Puritans were so much worse in this respect “that only in a limited sense Puritans can be called Calvinists” (p. 140). The Puritans are criticized for making “natural phenomena depend on sin or virtue” (p. 147) with a citation of the opposing view of Walaeus that “the promises of miraculous preservation no longer exist, since they pertained only to Israel” (p. 150). The Puritans tried to apply Jewish laws in their own political situation. “They sought for principles of jurisprudence in the Mosaic law and for precedents to guide their ordinary conduct in the books of Judges and Kings,” as Macauley says (p. 151). The Puritans attempted this especially in Massachusetts where they had a free hand. Particularly, the Puritans‘ intolerant application of the harsh Old Testament death penalties for many crimes including blasphemy, murder, adultery, and heresy is deplored  as “misdirected by an excusably wrong view of Scripture” (p. 153).

The development of the strict Puritan Sabbath is explained primarily as a reaction against the immorality which was especially practiced on Sunday. The Puritans are accused of making the Sabbath moral and legalistic rather than religious (p. 175), a difference of emphasis that comes to expression in the difference between the Westminster Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism in their treatment of the fourth commandment.

The Puritans are charged with being ascetic, because “in submitting absolutely to the authority of the divine will as expressed in the Bible, a certain depreciation of nature and the natural entered” (p. 178), and so, “the joy is lacking by which man regards his daily task as a means for serving and glorifying God” (p. 179). They are accused of a “virtual denial of common grace” (p. 180), making “the separation between believers and unbelievers . . . so definite that no room is left for any good in the unbelievers” (pp. 182, 183). It is admitted that these criticisms are relative and that many Puritan leaders were men of learning and culture, but their movement did not as a whole promote these things.

3. Finally the Puritans are accused of falling into mysticism, of putting the feelings above the intellect (p. 190). They did not want to do this, but being Englishmen, practically rather than intellectually oriented, they became mystics anyway (pp. 194–195). At the conclusion of the book—since he from the beginning set out to expose the differences between Calvinism and Puritanism—the author concedes that there are man) good things in Puritanism and that his treatment emphasized “rather their errors than their virtues” (p. 205), but reaffirms the charges made against them.

STRIKING A BALANCE

One reads this extensive critique of Puritanism with mixed reactions. Much of what is said about their “Biblicism” and their earnest effort to be led in everything by the Bible, strikes one as being exactly the thing that John Calvin throughout his career tried to do, to teach neither more nor less than he found the word of God teaching. That is what gave him his tremendous conviction and appeal to the time of a Reformation when everything was shaken loose, when much that was wrong was obvious but many were uncertain as to what was right. Calvin, the Bible teacher, simply taught what he found in Scripture, the whole of it. That was also responsible for his catholic appeal to men from many different countries and backgrounds.

Bronkema uncritically assumed that Calvinism “never held that any doctrinal system is given in Scripture” but it held that the church creates the system with truths it takes from the Bible, and he criticized the Puritans for failing to believe this.

As I pointed out in previous issues of THE OUTLOOK (Feb., 1972 and April, 1973) that view of doctrine is open to serious criticism. Although the Bible does not present us with a formal confession of faith or a detailed dogmatics, it docs teach us the gospel truth in what Paul called a “pattern of sound (or healthful) words” which we must “hold” and “guard through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us” (I Tim. 1:13, 14).

Dr. Gerhardus Vas pointed out that the Church’s duty is not to make its own theology with materials it draws from the Bible, but simply to teach the same inspired, infallible revelation that Paul and the rest of the Bible teach. What Bronkema assumed as the standard of Calvinism at this point looks more like an error of Kuyper which his followers have made worse. That enslavement to Kuyper’s weaknesses as well as his strengths appears further when Bronkema condemns the Puritans for speaking of “justification by faith,” as the Bible consistently does, instead of speaking of “justification from eternity,” as Kuyper did and as the Bible does not.

The same kind of placing a Reformed tradition above the Scriptures appears when it is denied that the Word of God is an instrument whereby regeneration is worked even though the Bible teaches that we are “born again by the word of God” (I Pet. 1:23; James 1:18). This tendency of Kuyper to go off at certain points into philosophical speculation we may see now as one perhaps might not see so clearly forty-five years ago; instead of being a strength of the Calvinist movement, this turned out to be a fruitful source of trouble, error, and division. Bronkema’s claim that the Puritan views readily developed into modernism (pp. 68, 69, 208) as the real (Dutch) Calvinism never did, strikes the modern observer as preposterous, when the apostasy of many Dutch followers of Kuyper is undeniable and is being strenuously resisted by many in the Puritan tradition.

Regarding the criticism of the Puritans as tending to be moralists and legalists, Bronkema‘s book brings up a considerable amount of evidence for that weakness. Our criticism of Puritans at this point however also needs to be tempered by the recognition that too much of Kuyperian Calvinism has been degenerating into a lawlessness that lacks any clear boundaries to distinguish it from the immoral “situational ethics” of present-day liberals. While in the New Testament the Lord does indeed put His law in the believer‘s heart (Jer. 31:33; Heb. 10:16; 8:10), its unchanging validity as God’s law needs to be stressed. The Puritans did so; too many of the modern followers of Kuyper delight in relativizing it making it subject to change to suit their own opinions and convenience and the lawless spirit of the age, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness (Guide 4).

We recognize, as the Puritans also often did, that the civic laws given for the conduct of the Israelites are not directly transferable to many of our modern conditions. But when we observe the way in which modern notions of democracy and tolerance are rapidly destroying the remnants of law and order in our civilization and reducing public life, one is driven to ask whether those laws and penalties God gave to Israel long ago to curb exactly that kind of wickedness are as dated as Bronkema assumed. Has God changed His mind about the seriousness of murder and adultery, or have we just become so brainwashed by the indifferent spirit of our age that we can‘t imagine that crime should be taken that seriously?

WANTED: BIBLICAL, ECUMENICAL CALVINISM

Can we just dismess Bronkema’s book as a piece of naive Dutch prejudice against the English Puritans? Indeed not. Much of his criticism appears valid, but because of his erroneous thesis that he admitted made him stress the differences between the Puritan and  his and our tradition, and his own uncritical following of the weaknesses as well as the strengths of Kuyper, he did them much less than justice.

Now forty~five years later as we look at these problems, the time has come when we need a fresh and fairer evaluation of these things, one that takes into account both the strengths and the weaknesses of both Puritan and (Dutch) Reformed traditions. Let us as real Calvinists follow the approach of John Calvin to just such fundamental problems. Let us turn to the Scriptures and, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit who was promised to and who has led the believing church through the centuries, seek to “hold the pattern of sound words in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” Following that gujdance will make us, like the Apostle Paul and the Puritans, always “testify . . . repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” It will also in that Christian teaching and preaching make us, with the same Apostle and with the real followers of Kuyper, “not to shrink from declaring anything . . .” profitable including “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:20, 27).

Calvinism was an effort to grasp and to bring the whole gospel for the whole of life. For such a dedicated effort to preach the whole gospel, including as it does “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (II Pet. 1:3) there is great need and opportunity in (he world today. One reads of signs of a revival of interest in Calvinism and in the movement of Kuyper. Bible-believing Christians, Calvinist heirs of PuritanPresbyterian and Reformed traditions, should try to meet the need and opportunity together. Hasn’t the time come for us to put aside some of our national provincialisms and prejudices and to seek for ourselves and others, together with others who share the same concern, the guidance of God‘s Word and Spirit in bringing His gospel to the world. That is the real ecumenism for which our Lord prayed (John 17) and which He will bless.