Calvinism and Six Lectures Delivered in Theology Seminar

 

Calvinism

Six Lectures Delivered in the Theological Seminary of Princeton.

1.      Calvinism as a life system

            There is no doubt then that Christianity is imperiled by great and serious dangers. Two life systems are wrestling with one another, in mortal combat. Modernism is bound to build a world of its own from the data of the natural man, and to construct man himself from the data of nature; while, on the other hand, all those who reverently bend the knee to Christ and worship Him as the Son of the living God, and God himself, are bent upon saving the “Christian Heritage.” This is the struggle in Europe, this is the struggle in America, and this also. is the struggle for principles in which my own country is engaged, and in which I myself have been spending all my energy for nearly forty years.

These conditions demand in the first place, that from a special principle a peculiar insight be obtained into the three fundamental relations of all human life:(1) our relation to God, (2) our relation to man, and (3) our relation to the world.

2.      Calvinism and Religion

            Calvinism and Religion, first of all, It is about illustrate the dominant position occupied by Calvinism in the central domain of our worship of the Most High. The fact that, in the religious domain, Calvinism has occupied from the first a peculiar and impressive position, nobody will deny. As if by one magical stroke, it created its own Confession, its own Theology, its own Church Organization, its own Church Discipline, its own Cultus, and its own Moral Praxis.

            First, then, we must consider Religion as such. Here four mutually dependent fundamental questions arise:
1.  Does Religion exist for the sake of God, or for Man?
2. Must it operate directly or mediately?
3. Can it remain partial in its operations or has it to embrace the whole of our personal being and existence? and,
4. Can it bear a normal, or must it reveal an abnormal , i.e., a soteriological character?
To these four questions Calvinism answers:
1. Man's religion ought to be not egotistical, and for man, but ideal, for the sake of God.
2. It has to operate not mediately, by human interposition, but directly from the heart,
3. It may not remain partial, as running alongside of life, but must lay hold upon our whole existence. And,
4. Its character should be soteriological, i.e., it should spring, not from our fallen nature, but from the new man, restored by palingenesis to his original standard.

3.      Calvinism and Politics

In the view of Calvinism and Politics, we should consider of three subjects:

-          The Sovereignty in the State;

-          The Sovereignty in Society.

-          The Sovereignty in the Church.

4.      Calvinism and Science

            There are four points of it only I submit to your thoughtful consideration.

-          First, that Calvinism fostered and could not but foster love for science.

-          Secondly, that it restored to science its domain.

-          Thirdly, that it delivered science from unnatural bonds.

-          Fourthly, in what manner it sought and found a solution for the unavoidable scientific conflict.

5.      Calvinism and Art

            To view therefore from a higher platform the significance of Calvinism to art, lets try to consider  of these three points:

-          Why Calvinism was not allowed to develop an art-style of its own;

-          What flows from its principle for the nature of art.

-          What it has actually done for its advancement.

6.      Calvinsim and Future

            Calvinism did not stop at a church-order, but expanded in a life system, and did not exhaust its energy in a dogmatical construction. hut created a life- and worldview, and such a one as was, and still is, able to fit itself to the needs of every stage of human development, m every department of life. It raised our Christian religion to its highest spiritual splendor: it created a church order, which became the preformation of state confederation it proved to be the guardian angel of science; it emancipated art: it propagated a political scheme, which gave birth to constitutional government, both in Europe and America; it fostered agriculture and industry, commerce and navigation; it put a thorough Christian stamp upon homelife and family-ties; it promoted through its high moral standard purity in our social circles and to this manifold effect it placed beneath Church and State, beneath society and home-circle a fundamental philosophic conception strictly derived from its dominating principle, and therefore all its own.