What I Can’t Understand About Today’s Neo-Calvinism

Abraham Kuyper and his successor Herman Bavinck are usually considered the “fathers of Neo-Calvinism.” I will spare you the details of what Neo-Calvinism is since more competent folks have already done so. But, I consider myself a Neo-Calvinist simply because I love the works of and adhere to the great majority of Kuyper and Bavinck’s theology (there’s always exceptions), which I think is (generally) biblical and respective of church history. I’m talking about Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism and The Work of the Holy Spirit (free online), and Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, Our Reasonable Faith (in theology recommended reading; it’s second best to Reymond for the best 1 volume systematic theology in English, in my opinion), and The Philosophy of Revelation.

I got my degree in theology (last year) from one of the foremost Neo-Calvinist institutions in the United States, Dordt College (the other major one is Trinity Christian College; Calvin College may loosely fit under this category as it is a sister CRC college to Dordt, but it is much looser and, indeed, more liberal). Both colleges are considered “Kuyperian” and “Dooyeweerdian” (from the philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd). I’ve had the unusual advantage of learning the ins and outs of Neo-Calvinist theology in the past five years. I’ve been a tutor in theology, a TA in the theology department, presented papers at two regional conferences on behalf of Dordt, had lunch and dinner with Dooyeweerd’s successor Roy Clouser, etc. Here’s what I’ve noticed, at least, in my experience:

1. Neo-Calvinists are very critical of mainstream fundamentalism. “Dualism” is an incredibly dirty word. Why? For two reasons: A) Dooyeweerd’s non-dualist and non-monistic, non-reductionistic philosophy of modal spheres, B) Kuyper’s insistence that all things be reclaimed under the Lordship of Christ, which means there is no such thing as a dualism between “sacred” and “secular.” All spheres of life should be reclaimed under the dominion of Jesus Christ. As such, mainstream evangelicals who assert the opposite – that we should completely avoid “non-Christian music” or just entire sectors of society and creation, etc. – get written off as “dualistic” and “non-Reformed” and a score of other derogatory/pejorative labels.
2. Neo-Calvinists are critical of the inerrancy of Scripture (i.e. Chicago Statement of Faith) because it is often championed by non-Kuyperians and often (eek!) conservative evangelical dirty right-wing fundamentalists. One only has to click here to see this in action in the 2007 editorial written by one of Calvin College’s religion professors (this short essay will be critiqued later on this blog). Neo-Calvinists have often claimed that Kuyper and Bavinck and even Calvin never held to the doctrine of inerrancy (as stated by Sproul, Vanhoozer, Grudem, etc.); it is simply an invention of American fundamentalism and fundamentalist Calvinists at Princeton during the turn of the 1900s.  Reformed theologians who believe in inerrancy are (supposedly) grossly mistaken, and not truly representative of Calvin or the Reformation or of the Bible’s teaching.
3. Neo-Calvinists not only believe, but actively pursue the proclamation of theistic evolution in the “mythic” account of Genesis. Calvin College professors are the most anti young-earth creationist Reformed Christians that I know of. Book after book, they make their argument against not just young-earth creationism, but, as a whole movement, against all forms of creationism in favor of theistic evolution (God used evolution to create the world). And of course, Bavinck and Kuyper (supposedly) have their back.

But, after reading Kuyper and Bavinck myself, I’ve learned that hardly any of this is true. That’s what I can’t understand about today’s Neo-Calvinism. Kuyper and Bavinck are anything but Neo-Calvinists, if we are to believe that today’s Neo-Calvinist institutions are representing them correctly.

1. Bavinck and Kuyper – in the line of Calvin – insisted that the Scriptures are inerrant in the very same sense (although less exhaustively) as Warfield at Princeton and today’s Reformed theologians (Sproul, Carson, Godfrey, Vanhoozer, Grudem, etc.) who adhere to the Chicago statement of Inerrancy (this argument will come in the next several blog articles, but the first in this series regarding Kuyper can be found here.).
2. Kuyper and Bavinck railed against Darwinian evolution, not made room for it in Genesis. One only has to read Kuyper’s lecture “Evolution” (1899), which contains (among dozens of other bombs) “Gentlemen, I do not hesitate one moment to brand such reckless play with the most sacred things as the most cowardly quasi-religious invention ever put into words. Why not be honest, have the courage of one’s conviction, and frankly admit that evolution is not only atheistic but antitheistic, and would ban all religion as human self-deceit?” I also noticed that in the same context where Kuyper distances himself from Neo-Orthodoxy and critics of the infallible Scriptures (Work of the Holy Spirit, 77), Kuyper goes against (today’s) Neo-Calvinist trend of using the label “myth” for Genesis (at least in the sense that it undermines historical narrative:

Of course, what’s amazing is that in this one paragraph (see the fuller thoughts of Kuyper here), Kuyper disassociates himself with virtually every major Neo-Orthodox and liberal perversion of the doctrine of infallibility/inerrancy, leaving him standing on only one possible island: the conservative orthodoxy today’s Neo-Calvinists seem to despise. Indeed, if Bavinck is so loose in regards to inerrancy (as so many of today’s liberal-leaning theologians insist, both Reformed and non-Reformed – i.e. McKim, Rogers, McGowan, etc.), it is, at the very least interesting, why someone like Bavinck’s editor (Bolt) would casually refer to the Chicago Statement in his affirmation (“The Bible is infallible. And it is inerrant…”) of inerrancy.

I’ve already documented Bavinck’s disgust with Darwinian evolution here and here.

It’s just confusing that today’s Neo-Calvinism is so incredibly warped from the view of Calvin, Kuyper, and Bavinck. It’s just as confusing, in my opinion, as to why such things like the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy are portrayed as a standard for “fundamentalism” and, why creationism (even old-earth) is dubbed just as “non-Reformed,”  as if anything in the written works of Calvin, Kuyper, or Bavinck leaned in such a direction. More to come…