PHL 228: Reformational Philosophy

This is the first full-scale English-language biography of the highly influential and astonishingly multifaceted Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) -- theologian, minister, politician, newspaper editor, educational innovator, Calvinist reformer, and prime minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905. James Bratt is the ideal scholar to tell the story of Kuyper's remarkable life and work. He expertly traces the origin and development of Kuyper's signature concepts -- common grace, Christian worldview, sphere sovereignty, Christian engagement with contemporary culture -- in the dynamic context of his life's story.

Kuyper's remarkable legacy lives on today in the tradition of Dutch Calvinism that he developed. As his writings become more widely available, this tradition continues to find new adherents attracted by his comprehensive vision of Christian faith. But what defines the Kuyperian tradition? South African theologian and philosopher Craig Bartholomew has written the first systematic introduction to this tradition. Drawing on Kuyper's entire corpus, Bartholomew has identified the key themes and ideas that define this tradition, including worldview, sphere sovereignty, creation and redemption, the public square, and mission.

This anthology gathers thirty-one articles, some in print for the first time, from twenty-eight authors who use the Kuyperian framework to critique and to develop Christian perspectives on, among other things, the church, culture, gender, common grace, education, politics, scholarship, fashion, art, science, and evolution. This book provides an introduction to Kuypers life and thought through the eyes of others. The breadth and scope of these articles stand as testimony to Abraham Kuypers desire to see the lordship of Christ extend to every area of life.

Heslam begins by reviewing Kuyper's importance in the history of ideas and explaining why Lectures on Calvinism is still of special interest. In the main body of the book Heslam provides a probing analysis of each of the six lectures in turn. Central to Heslam's analysis is a discussion of the motivation of Kuyper's thought: why did he maintain the standpoints he did, and what did he hope to achieve by doing so? In answering this question, Heslam explores Kuyper's position relative to others of his time and in connection with the events of his own career. .

Richard Mouw was first drawn to Abraham Kuyper's writings about public life in the turbulent 1960s. As he struggled to find the right Christian stance toward big social issues such as the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, Mouw discovered Kuyper's Lectures on Calvinism -- and, with it, a robust vision of active Christian involvement in public life that has guided him ever since. In this "short and personal introduction; Mouw sets forth Kuyper's main ideas on Christian cultural discipleship, including his views on sphere sovereignty, the antithesis, common grace, and more. Mouw looks at ways to update -- and, in some places, even correct -- Kuyper's thought as he applies it to such twenty-first-century issues as religious and cultural pluralism, technology, and the challenge of Islam.

Abraham Kuyper's unique public vision of Christianity examines the Christian philosopher's ideas about how to apply religious ethics in society and public life. Original.

Students of Reformed theology recognize that Abraham Kuyper was one of the premier theologians of the last two centuries. He was also a notable politician, founding the Antirevolutionary Party and serving as a member of the Dutch Parliament and eventually becoming prime minister of the Netherlands. He produced a body of neo-Calvinist political thought that has enduring value for the political engagement of the Christian community in our time. His political theory stands in continuity with John Calvin's doctrine of the church and social reformation, even as the current James Madison's teaching on church and state impacted it.

This book is a critique of Abraham Kuyper's cultural theory of a common grace of God and of the grandiose mission of this grace, and of those who confess the theory and evidently intend to promote it so that it accomplishes the end Kuyper claimed. The book exposes Kuyper's biblical basis for his theory and its practical mission.