Hier is ‘n uittreksel van ‘n artikel wat ek vandag raakloop en waarin die rol van die Puriteine binne die Gereformeerde tradisie en hul mistieke instelling bespreek word. Dit is boeiende leesstof.
‘n Mens ontdek daarin ‘n massiewe klomp voorbeelde van Gereformeerde mistici wat ons in moderne tye nie meer van weet nie of nie meer van wil weet nie.
Die artikel begin met hierdie historiese oorsig:
The central contrast to be drawn concerns the role of experimental religion in the Reformed Faith. The scene of the Reformed Faith in the Netherlands exhibits a remarkable phenomenon: i.e. a sharp cleavage between Calvinists emphasizing, sometimes in an extreme fashion, experimental religion, even cultivating a kind of mysticism, and on the other hand the Kuyper-Calvinists, including the followers of Schilder as well as the leaders of the Gereformeerde Kerken, who tend to exhibit a marked aversion to experimental religion and to restrict their interests to the doctrinal and practical aspects of religion. The former, i.e. the Old Calvinist circles, in addition to the smaller communities named Oud-Gereformeerd, include the flourishing Gereformeerde Gemeenten, the Christelijk Gereformeerde Kerken, and a substantial orthodox element in the Hervormde Kerk represented by the Gereformeerde Bond. In these circles, the older Reformed writers are held in the highest esteem, not only Dutch writers such as R. Acronius, Th. and W. à Brakel, A. Comrie, J. Fruitier, Th. v. d. Groe, J. Koelman, J. van Lodenstein, W. Schortinghuis, B. Smytegelt, W. Teellinck, G. Udemans, G. Voetius, and H. Witsius, but also the Scottish Presbyterian and English Puritan writers such as I. Ambrose, Baxter, H. Binning, Boston, Brown of Wamphray, Bunyan, J. Durham, R. and E. Erskine, A. Gray, T. Hooker, C. Love, Owen, Perkins, Rutherford, T. Shepard and T. Watson. Although Kuyper himself and his immediate followers knew and loved the oude Schrijvers, there appears to have arisen a generation of the heirs of Kuyper that is ignorant of the great tradition of experimental and practical divinity to which Dutch as well as British Calvinists have made noteworthy contributions, or if not ignorant of its existence, regards it with indifference or scorn. The deplorable attitude of contempt all too often expressed with respect to the Puritans by representatives of the Kuyper movement contrasts sharply with the frequent favorable references to the Puritans in Kuyper's Stone Lectures, as well as with the attitude prevalent in the Old Calvinist circles.
The following passage from Spier's Inleiding, not appearing in the English translation, gives expression to the disparagement of experimental religion among members of the school of Dooyeweerd: "This is called 'experimental' (bevindelijk) preaching and aims more at preaching the Christian than preaching the Christ. This mysticism (mystiek) which is found as well in the so-called Old Calvinist as in the ethical camp, because both schools are subjectivistic, is in direct conflict with God's Word and always expresses itself in the following symptoms: more respect for the word of 'pious' men than for Holy Scripture, despising the sacraments, underestimating the offices, 'psychological' preaching, . . . setting 'psychological' self-analysis marks, etc. on the foreground."
A similarly unfavorable appraisal of the vital religion of the Puritans is found in P. Y. de Jong's otherwise valuable study, The Covenant Idea in New England Theology: "All this demonstrates that the Puritans never gave whole-hearted allegiance to the Calvinistic construction of the relation between nature and grace, creation and redemption. There was always a tendency towards Anabaptist dualism. The aversion to art and culture among many, the strong tendency toward a legalistic construction of ethics and the separation of religion from daily concerns may be mentioned as evidences. Furthermore, there was an unprecedented emphasis on the soteriological aspect of Christian doctrine so characteristic of all groups who do not grapple with the underlying issue of the connection of nature and grace."
This undeserved calumny, directed against the memory of the most consistent of Calvinists, rests on Ralph Bronkema's thoroughly misleading book, The Essence of Puritanism, the distortions of which, so far removed from Abraham Kuyper's praise of the Puritans, have contributed much to poisoning the minds of the past and present generation of the Gereformeerde Kerken in the Netherlands and the Christian Reformed Churches of North America with prejudice against the Puritans, and to encouraging an aversion to the deep experimental piety of the Puritans and their Dutch counterparts. De Jong goes so far as to say of the finest of the classical Dutch writers on covenant theology, Herman Witsius: "Because of his adoption of the Cocceian principles of interpretation, which were so vigorously attacked by Voetius and his disciples, and his emphasis on the place and methods of mysticism in Christianity, he can hardly be considered the defender of Reformed orthodoxy in the Dutch churches of that day." De Jong fails to mention that Voetius and his disciples, including Petrus van Mastricht (whose Theoretico-Practica Theologia was a favorite text of Jonathan Edwards), were champions of the practice of piety, and called Precisianists by the lax, but considered by A. Kuyper Jr. as representing a healthy mysticism.
The disparagement of piety and vital religion, even in the name of insistence on doctrinal orthodoxy, could boomerang and eventually issue in the undermining of that doctrinal Calvinism which the earlier generations of the Kuyper movement esteemed so highly. The charge that the Puritans over-emphasized soteriology betrays a tendency to make light of the gospel of salvation, whether out of preoccupation with other aspects of theology or out of a so-called 'organic' view of nature and grace alleged to be foreign to Puritanism and incompatible with revivals of religion. That the Puritans separated religion from daily concerns is a base slander, but the Puritans never succumbed to the error, pointed out by Dr. Patton, as quoted by Dr. Machen, of making much of applied Christianity without being concerned about having a Christianity to apply. They had their hearts fixed on the one thing needful, the Christian's great interest, as a Scottish worthy put it, and then faced the issues of life in all spheres in obedience to the commandments of God revealed in the written Word.
Among Neo-Calvinists in Holland, as in Anglo-Saxon religious circles where the acids of modernity have been eating away at the Calvinism bequeathed by the Covenanters and Puritans, decay of experimental religion has gone hand in hand with deterioration of practice in matters of worship and conduct. The tendency to aestheticize and liturgize the worship of a Reformed church betrays the loss of awareness of the regulative principle of worship, a principle clearly enunciated by Calvin, and taught in the Heidelberg Catechism no less definitely than in the Westminster Standards. The introduction of a flood of uninspired hymns into the Gereformeerde Kerken and the Christian Reformed Church has proved to be a symptom, as was the case in Scottish and American Presbyterianism, of incipient doctrinal deformation. In addition to the implicit nullification of the regulative principle, the elements of Pelagian, free-will religion and unhealthy mysticism pervading the conventional hymnody increasingly undermine what has remained of the doctrine and experience of sovereign grace. Antinomian doctrine and practice, particularly evident with respect to the observance of the Lord's Day, is another prominent feature of the Neo-Calvinism that joins with Jesuits and Secularists in raising against the Puritans the allegation of legalism.
Die artikel ways dan daarop dat die ortodokse verset teen bevindelikheid en mistiek nie kan roem op enige basis in sulke gereformeerde denkers soos Kuyper en selfs Dooyeweerdt nie! Ek lees die artikel in die opsig met verbasing, bloot omdat die inligting daarin oor Kuyper en Dooyeweerdt inderdaad uit pas is met die uitsprake en vaal dogmatisme van al die epigone van Dooyeweerdt en Kuyper aan wie ons in die ou dae blootgestel is.
Die artikel self het ‘n ondertoon van heftige polemiek. Dit is ‘n hele saak om in te gaan op die vele kante daarvan en insigte daarin. Maar hierdie paragraaf oor “bevindelike” godsdiens, of mistieke ervaring, is te boeiend om te mis. Die artikel vertel van sommige ortodokse, fundamentalistiese gereformeerde groepe se verset teen bevindelikheid en mistiek en wys dan uit hoe uit voeling hulle is met bekende skrywers soos Kuyper!
Hier is wat die artikel oor Kyper skryf:
As has already been mentioned, Kuyper's praise of the Puritans, to the extent of frequently using the words puritanic and Puritan as synonyms for Calvinistic and Calvinist, contrasts sharply with the scorn vented by many who claim to be in Kuyper's line. Furthermore, Kuyper does not write as an enemy of experimental religion or even of all mysticism. His devotional writings, To Be Near Unto God in particular, give eloquent expression to a deep appreciation of and a strong emphasis on the inner life of the godly man as an indispensable element of religion. He writes of "experimental knowledge of God, which comes to us personally from spiritual experience, from communion of saints and secret fellowship with God," and again, of "sacred, blessed mysticism" and the painful experiences of desertions of which the old Reformed writers knew much. Kuyper was no stranger to the experience of conversion, as the moving narrative of his Confidentie bears witness, and does not fail to emphasize that "the cool sympathy for God on the part of the unconverted differs from the warm attachment to God on the part of the redeemed, in that the unconverted always discount sin, while the redeemed always start out from the knowledge of misery, that by reason of the knowledge of sin they may arrive at the knowledge of God."
Boeiende leestof. ‘n Mens sou kan sê: as selfs Kuyper....
Dit is duidelik, ons het nog nie naasteby die nuwe gesprek oor Gereformeerde Spiritualiteit begin skryf nie. Daar is nog baie om te lees en om te bedink.... Maar een ding is seker: ons besef al hoe meer watter erfenis ons kwytgeraak het – nie altyd as gevolg van die groot name nie. Soms juis oor die kleineres, die benepenes, die skrifgeleerdes....
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