عنوان

Toward a Kuyperian Ethic of Public Life

LA116936

انگلیسی

Toward a Kuyperian Ethic of Public Life

[Article]

Dylan Pahman

Leiden

Brill

This article examines the sphere of ethics in the thought of the Dutch Calvinist statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper. The first section establishes that Kuyper did consider ethics to be a sphere and what he believed it to be. The second section uses this outline of the sphere of ethics to elucidate the relationship between ethics and the state for Kuyper. It teases out three theses in Kuyper's work: (1) Ethics and the scope of the state stand in inverse (or negative) relationship. (2) Ethics and legal advancement stand in direct (or positive) relationship. (3) Ethics needs the state to help facilitate its own development throughout society. Taken together, I argue that the spheres of ethics and the state thus stand in mutually dependent (or reciprocal) relationship to, rather than "hermetically sealed off" from, one another. This article examines the sphere of ethics in the thought of the Dutch Calvinist statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper. The first section establishes that Kuyper did consider ethics to be a sphere and what he believed it to be. The second section uses this outline of the sphere of ethics to elucidate the relationship between ethics and the state for Kuyper. It teases out three theses in Kuyper's work: (1) Ethics and the scope of the state stand in inverse (or negative) relationship. (2) Ethics and legal advancement stand in direct (or positive) relationship. (3) Ethics needs the state to help facilitate its own development throughout society. Taken together, I argue that the spheres of ethics and the state thus stand in mutually dependent (or reciprocal) relationship to, rather than "hermetically sealed off" from, one another. This article examines the sphere of ethics in the thought of the Dutch Calvinist statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper. The first section establishes that Kuyper did consider ethics to be a sphere and what he believed it to be. The second section uses this outline of the sphere of ethics to elucidate the relationship between ethics and the state for Kuyper. It teases out three theses in Kuyper's work: (1) Ethics and the scope of the state stand in inverse (or negative) relationship. (2) Ethics and legal advancement stand in direct (or positive) relationship. (3) Ethics needs the state to help facilitate its own development throughout society. Taken together, I argue that the spheres of ethics and the state thus stand in mutually dependent (or reciprocal) relationship to, rather than "hermetically sealed off" from, one another. This article examines the sphere of ethics in the thought of the Dutch Calvinist statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper. The first section establishes that Kuyper did consider ethics to be a sphere and what he believed it to be. The second section uses this outline of the sphere of ethics to elucidate the relationship between ethics and the state for Kuyper. It teases out three theses in Kuyper's work: (1) Ethics and the scope of the state stand in inverse (or negative) relationship. (2) Ethics and legal advancement stand in direct (or positive) relationship. (3) Ethics needs the state to help facilitate its own development throughout society. Taken together, I argue that the spheres of ethics and the state thus stand in mutually dependent (or reciprocal) relationship to, rather than "hermetically sealed off" from, one another.

2018

413-431

Journal of Reformed Theology

12/4

1569-7312

Abraham Kuyper

Christian social thought

ethics

political theology

sphere sovereignty

Dylan Pahman

10.1163/15697312-01204001

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y