Calvinism and Politics
Abraham Kuyper’s “Lectures on Calvinism”
Listen to the audio narration of this article here.
Introduction:
When most people think of Calvinism, they think of the five points and predestination. However, anyone who has read Calvin or the thinkers he influenced knows that Calvin’s thought extended far beyond those doctrines. In fact, as Abraham Kuyper argues in his “Lectures on Calvinism,” Calvinism is best conceived of as a life-system – a system of thought and belief that impacts not just theology and church life, but which also influences culture and country. Kuyper dedicates a number of lectures to discussing Calvinism’s relationship to these various areas, but the area I’d like to focus on here is Calvinism’s relation to politics. Within the realm of politics, we’ll look more specifically at three sub-areas, the first being…
Calvinism and Nationality:
Kuyper begins by arguing that Calvinism is “one of the principal phases in the general development of our human race,” but recognizes another factor outside the spiritual realm: “the commingling of blood as, thus far, the physical basis of all higher human development….” So if Calvinism is the main spiritual factor in human development, ethnic mixing is the main physical factor. He cites numerous examples of major empires incorporating multiple ethnicities (such as the Roman empire). He doesn’t address the obvious reply, which would be that a large and successful empire will of necessity incorporate many ethnicities due to its expanse, but this effect cannot be confused with the cause. And indeed, most of these empires began as monoethnic societies, and the original ethnicity retained dominance.
But he builds his theory further: “Now in fact history shows that the nations among whom Calvinism flourished most widely exhibit in every way this same mingling of races.” To buttress his argument, he cites Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, and America. However, though Switzerland houses Germans, Italians, and Frenchmen, ethnic Germans comprise the vast majority, and the Dutch are actually very monoethnic, being direct descendants of the early Franks. England and especially America are indeed more mixed, but two data points hardly amount to a solid trend.
In reality, the nations which embraced Calvinism were, on average, no more genetically mixed or pure than the nations which rejected it. Neither the pure-blooded Scandinavians nor the heavily mixed Latins embraced Calvinism. A better explanation of why Calvinism took stronger root in northern Europe is because of the political freedoms there. Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, and eventually Britain, all allowed some religious freedom, which allowed Calvinism to make inroads it couldn’t in more tightly controlled nations like France or Italy.
Calvinism and Constitutions:
This brings us to Kuyper’s study of Calvinism and political freedom. He says,
Every competent historian will without exception confirm the words of Bancroft: “The fanatic for Calvinism was a fanatic for liberty, for in the moral warfare for freedom, his creed was a part of his army, and his most faithful ally in the battle.” And Groen van Prinsterer has thus expressed it: “In Calvinism lies the origin and guarantee of our constitutional liberties.” That Calvinism has led public law into new paths, first in Western Europe, then in two Continents, and today more and more among all civilized nations, is admitted by all scientific students, if not yet fully by public opinion.
It is certainly true that the nations in which Calvinism took the deepest root (America, Britain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland) have a long tradition of political freedom. While the seeds of their freedom typically predate Calvinism (e.g., England’s Magna Carta from 1215), Calvinism generally increased this extant liberty. Kuyper explains “how these political conceptions sprang from its root principle.”
This dominating principle was not, soteriologically, justification by faith, but, in the widest sense cosmologically, the Sovereignty of the Triune God over the whole Cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible. A primordial Sovereignty which eradiates in mankind in a threefold deduced supremacy, viz., 1. The Sovereignty in the State; 2. The Sovereignty in Society; and 3. The Sovereignty in the Church.
Here, the sovereignty of the society means the family or the household.1 These three spheres of sovereignty, the state, church, and household, each receive their authorities directly from God (the sword, the keys, and the rod and staff, respectively), and thus are accountable to God for any abuse of their rights or failure to fulfill their responsibilities. Furthermore, since each of these spheres has God-given sovereignty, no institution can claim authority over another’s domain.
How does the idea of sphere sovereignty relate to constitutions? Kuyper explains it like this:
It [Calvinism] demanded for both [state and household] independence in their own sphere and regulation of the relation between both, not by the executive, but under the law. And by this stern demand, Calvinism may be said to have generated constitutional public law, from its own fundamental idea.
The Calvinist desire to bring all three spheres under law was no doubt influential in the rise of constitutionalism, but Locke’s social contract theory was surely just as – if not more – influential, and yet Kuyper doesn’t even address this second impulse towards a written constitution. I agree with Kuyper that Calvinism does lend itself to constitutionalism, but frankly, he spends far more time asserting that belief than arguing for it. And given the brief but vicious demolition job he does on social contract theory as he mentions it in passing, I’d be very interested to hear him opine on the practical differences between Calvin- and Locke-inspired constitutionalism.
Sphere Sovereignty and Law:
Kuyper, more succinctly and clearly than anyone else, defined and articulated the idea of sphere sovereignty, but I don’t think he went quite far enough. Kuyper was not a theonomist, but I would argue that sphere sovereignty dictates theonomy. To think that the household and church can have one God and obey one law-word from that God, but the state can have its own god(s) and law(s) is completely illogical. As R. J. Rushdoony said,
There cannot be two kings, two kinds of law, nor two lordships or sovereignties in one realm. To assume that a humanistic state can tolerate an alien law and sovereignty in its midst is insanity. No state ever has, except the dying ones.2
If, as Kuyper contends, each sovereign receives its power from the All-Sovereign, does it not follow that God would give them instructions for how to rightly use that power? God has given the household instructions on how to wield the rod and staff; he has given the church instructions on how to use the keys. Why would he not give the magistrate instructions on how to wield the sword? By what standard will God hold each office accountable? Rushdoony defines law thus: “Law is the word and will of a sovereign.”3 To deny that God has given a law to the civil magistrate is tantamount to denying that God has a word and will for them.
In our modern attempt to individualize and privatize Christianity, we shrink back from the demands God places on society at large and our conduct therein. This has rendered the modern church weak, impotent, and unable to meaningfully or powerfully address the wider society. Kuyper said that Calvinism produces a society in which all areas of life – including the magistrate – are under law. I agree with this, though I see the fulfillment of this desire not in the liberal constitutionalism I think Kuyper has an undue affection towards, but in obedience to God’s law. And I think if Kuyper were alive today, and could see the inability of manmade constitutions to preserve the liberty Calvinism so highly prizes, he would heartily concur.
He defines it thus: “In a Calvinistic sense we understand hereby, that the family, the business, science, art and so forth are all social spheres, which do not owe their existence to the state…” Or, to put it more elegantly, we could say this entails both the private and public household, that is, the right of the household to govern its own internal affairs but also to engage in commerce and social exchange externally. The biblical idea of the oikos is far more expansive and rich than our modern diminished, thin notion of the household. Kuyper retains this more full-orbed, multidimensional conception.
Rushdoony, R. J. Sovereignty. Chalcedon, 2007. Pg. 7.