Die wysiging van artikel 36 van die Nederlandse Geloofsbelydenis aan die begin van die
twintigste eeu onder leiding van die Neo-Calvinistiese teoloë Abraham Kuyper en Herman
Bavinck geniet wydverspreide waardering binne die Gereformeerde tradisie. Neo-Calviniste
het daarin geslaag om die 1905-Sinode van die Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland te oortuig
om die omstrede frase aangaande die owerheid se plig “om te weer en uit te roei alle afgodery
en valse godsdiens, [en] om die ryk van die Antichris te gronde te rig” uit hierdie artikel te
verwyder. Kerke van Gereformeerde belydenis in beide die VSA en Suid-Afrika het gevolglik
ook in dieselfde gees wysigings aan hierdie artikel aangebring. Binne die bestaande literatuur
word klem gelê op die Neo-Calvinistiese hermeneutiese raamwerk as bekragtiging van hierdie
afwysing van die teokratiese inslag van artikel 36 van die Nederlandse Geloofsbelydenis.
Hierdie bydrae beklemtoon egter dat bestaande interpretasies in hierdie verband onvoldoende
is, en bevraagteken veral die neiging om die leer van Twee-Koninkryke aan Bavinck of Kuyper
toe te skryf. Aangesien beide enige skeiding tussen gesag in die kerklike en politieke lewe
ten sterkste afwys, bepleit hierdie artikel ’n hernude waardering van Kuyper en Bavinck se
epistemologie as deurslaggewend vir hul afwysing van die teokrasie. Aan die hand van
die primêre bronne, word die Neo-Calvinistiese kennisleer, en met name dan die belangrike
onderskeid tussen “geloofskennis” en “natuurlike kennis”, beklemtoon as die raamwerk waarbinne
die noodsaak van pluralisme in die openbare sfeer deur Kuyper en Bavinck benadruk is.
Eersgenoemde word normatief geag vir die kerklike en persoonlike lewe van die gelowige,
terwyl laasgenoemde, bemiddel deur die algemene genade, beklemtoon word as normatief vir die openbare lewe asook beide gelowiges en ongelowiges se deelname daaraan. Nogtans
word die leer aangaande die heerskappy van Christus oor elke faset van die lewe, ook die sosiopolitieke
sfeer, deurgaans gehandhaaf.
By virtue of the endeavours of leading Neo-Calvinist theologians such as Abraham Kuyper
and Herman Bavinck, the Synod of Reformed Churches in the Netherlands accepted a revision
of article 36 of the Belgic Confession of Faith in 1905. Neo-Calvinists convinced the synod to
remove a controversial phrase in the article which stated that it was the duty of civil magistrates
“to remove and destroy all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist”. Whereas this article
of the confession had historically been understood as demanding Christian theocracy, Neo-
Calvinists, by virtue of this historic revision, reframed it as proposing a Christianised pluralism
in the public or political domain. This Neo-Calvinist contribution has enjoyed broad scholarly
recognition and appreciation within the Reformed tradition, and synods in South Africa,
Canada and the United States have also followed suit by accepting similar revisions.
The existing scholarship places great emphasis on the Neo-Calvinist hermeneutic framework
as sanctioning this rejection of the theocratic constituent of article 36 of the Belgic Confession.
Many scholars attribute this to Kuyper’s and Bavinck’s supposed adherence to a form of Two-
Kingdom theology, wherein particular grace revealed through Scripture operates as sanctifying
force in the church, whereas natural law is the authoritative operating principle in the public or
political domain. However, even the most ardent proponents of the Two-Kingdom interpretation
have been forced to admit that Kuyper’s and Bavinck’s views in this regard are characterised
by a number of ambiguities, which have in turn manifested in a variety of contradicting
interpretations thereof. Kuyper himself, after all, strongly emphasises the active Lordship of Christ over every domain of human existence while Bavinck even distinctly rejects any Two-
Kingdoms doctrine which threatens to disregard the intrinsic connection between nature and
grace or creation and redemption. Furthermore, on a number of occasions throughout his career
Bavinck expressed the conviction that Old Testament law remains perpetually normative for
all civil governments.
In the light of the primary sources, this article therefore shows existing interpretations to be
insufficient and critiques the tendency to attribute a Two-Kingdom theology to either Kuyper
or Bavinck. In the light of the fact that these Neo-Calvinist pioneers so vehemently rejected
any dichotomy between the nature of authority in the ecclesiastical sphere on the one hand and
the socio-political sphere on the other, I propose a renewed appraisal of their epistemology as
fundamentally underlying their rejection of theocracy.
Neo-Calvinist epistemology was distinctly characterised by a sharp distinction between
“natural knowledge” and “the knowledge of faith”, which shaped the theological framework
by which Kuyper and Bavinck advocated pluralism in the public domain. Bavinck ranks natural
knowledge above the knowledge of faith in terms of objective evidence. He bases this in the
Kantian distinction between the object of knowledge external to human consciousness and the
representation thereof within consciousness itself. Even if God, the object of the knowledge of faith, is infinite, theological knowledge is still limited by conscious representation in a way
that natural knowledge is not. For Bavinck this has profound implications for both the calling
of the civil government as well as the role of religion in the public domain, since the distinction
between true and false religion can only be subjectively revealed to the individual through the inworking of the Holy Spirit and can therefore never serve as objective normative framework
for civil government.
Kuyper goes even further in distancing himself from the traditional position of orthodox
Calvinism in which the light of Scripture is regarded as necessary framework of interpretation
for the light of nature. Kuyper turns this around, arguing that the revelatio specialis cannot be
understood apart from the framework provided by the theologia naturalis. Like Bavinck, he
also regards natural revelation as taking evidential precedence in human consciousness. Thus,
in addition to the orthodox Calvinist distinction between the unregenerate life of sin and the
regenerate life of grace, Kuyper invents a third category: life through common grace. It is by
means of common grace that socio-political life and its institutions are to be maintained. He
sees the church as an institution of special or particular grace while the state is an institution of
common grace. The civil requirement of an independent judiciary, for Kuyper, necessitates
establishing and maintaining the civil sphere through common as opposed to particular grace.
The Neo-Calvinist rejection of the theocratic component of article 36 of the Belgic Confession
therefore needs to be understood in the light of the epistemic precedence of natural knowledge
over the knowledge of faith. Dutch Reformed critics of the Neo-Calvinist position, such as
Philippus Jakobus Hoedemaker (1839‒1910), also argued that the Neo-Calvinist position
effectuates a false dichotomy between natural and revealed knowledge, while epistemologically speaking, there can be no contradictions between natural and special revelation. Whereas
Hoedemaker views human consciousness as only emerging within the context of given and
revealed realities outside that consciousness, Kuyper and Bavinck emphasise natural
knowledge as unmediated common ground between believers and unbelievers in contrast to
the mediated knowledge of faith. Indeed, this distinctly Neo-Calvinist dichotomy was central
to their rejection of theocracy.
Both Kuyper and Bavinck therefore maintain that natural knowledge, acquired within the
framework of common grace, is more epistemically certain, objective and universally evident
than the knowledge of faith. The former is therefore normative for the public or political life
of both believers and unbelievers alike. While participation in the public domain ought to be
shaped in terms of this natural knowledge, the Lordship of Christ over every facet of life,
including the socio-political domain, is maintained by both Kuyper and Bavinck throughout.
In contradistinction to Two-Kingdom theology, however, they also maintain that particular
grace and special revelation ought to have a sanctifying effect on public life by which common
grace can be guided to its highest and truest development. This sanctifying effect must be
limited, however. This is because they view the nature of human society as such that it would
be inappropriate to maintain Biblical revelation as the ultimate standard for public life to the
degree that other religious convictions would thereby be excluded, since the distinction between true and false religion can only be subjectively and not objectively determined. In the
Neo-Calvinist view this would not only be epistemically problematic but also constitute a form
of government tyranny.
