Ch 2 §2 History and sphere sovereignty pp 49-55
Sphere sovereignty is common property in the Netherlands and it has become divorced from a Christian ground motive. In this section, Dooyeweerd looks at how this misunderstanding has arisen.
The nineteenth century historical school in Germany influenced the antirevolutionary political thought. The founders’ thought, despite being Lutheran, was dominated by historicism.
In Historicism:
• reality is reduced to the historical aspect
• reality is a product of ceaseless historical development of culture
• everything is subject to continual change
• is the denial that the individual is always remains subject to the law.
The Historical School denied the validity of general laws, but replaced them with a substitute ‘divine providence’.
Fredrich Julius Stahl (1802-1861)
Stahl was a Lutheran Jew and the founder of the antirevolutionary political party in Germany. He attempted to incorporate this Romantic view of history into a scriptural approach without realising that it was a Trojan horse for a pagan ground motive. His idea was that the ten commandments provided a universally valid norm, but a secondary norm was provided by this norm for historical development.
The Historical School accepted the fruit of the French Revolution. The result was an attempt to harmonise the autonomy of the life spheres with the idea of the state. The spheres had to accommodate themselves to the requirement of the state.
Guillame Groen van Prinsterer
Groen van Prinsterer was doing a similar thing to Stahl in the Netherlands. He looked for an idea of the state along historical-development lines. He was the first to use the term ‘souveriniteit in eigen sfeer (sovereignty within its own sphere), but he did not view it as a creational principle.
Both Stahl and Groen van Prinsterer thought that the state should not interfere with the internal life of the other spheres.
Abraham Kuyper
Kuyper was the first to see sphere sovereignty as a creational principle. His first conception, however, confused sphere sovereignty with municipal and provincial autonomy. The latter are not sovereign spheres but rather autonomous parts of the state.
Many were unsure of Kuyper’s contention that sphere sovereignty was a creational principle and an attitude of caution ensued as they maintained that the Bible contained no texts about sphere sovereignty.
review questions
1. How has historicism distorted the view of sphere sovereignty?
2. What was the misconception of sphere sovereignty Dooyeweerd was addressing?
3. What was the result of Kuyper confusing municipals and provincial autonomy with sphere sovereignty?
study questions
1. Outline how the concept of sphere sovereignty developed from Stahl to Kuyper.
2. Can the Bible be used to develop principles such as sphere sovereignty?
