Abraham Kuyper's Organicism

From ::Colored Opinions:: Fri Feb 28 2014, 23:12:00

In october Tracy Kuperus wrote on Abraham Kuyper's inheritance: 'Some might argue that Kuyper's philosophical and theological contributions to our understanding of politics are esoteric or outdated. Some of them are questionable (for example, his borrowing liberally from organicist philosophy to undergird sphere sovereignty), but much of his work extends a Reformed understanding of politics that, to my mind, contributes positively to discussions about the role of politics in society'. Jeremy George Augustus Ive writes 'in working out what 'sphere sovereignty' actually means, Kuyper is still deeply influenced by 19th century currents of thought, namely historicism and organicism'.

I personally don't believe it to be possible to understand either Kuyper or Bavinck outside of this organicist context. In the introduction to the book Abraham Kuyper's Commentatio (1860): The Young Kuyper about Calvin, a Lasco, and the Church, Jasper Vree and Johan Zwaan write: 'The work also offers the initial impetus for the idea with which Kuyper would later exert great influence on Dutch nation and society: the Church as a free, democratic society of Christians, which manifests itself as a living organism in all spheres of life.' This quote indicates, unsurprisingly, a link between Kuyper's democratization project, the reformed understanding of the clarity of Scripture and his organic understanding of the Church.

In his 2012 dissertation Jeremy George Augustus Ive writes 'in the later 1920s and 1930s Dooyeweerd saw historicism, with its organic conception of society, leading to the rise of Fascisim and Nazism. The extreme emphasis on history as the self-attesting basis of norms and values, such as was held by the different forms of historicism, seems to have led Dooyeweerd in reaction to seek a non-historical, supra-temporal vantage point, free of the relativising tendencies of the historicistic approach.' To a superficial observer this might seem laudable.

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