Taking Every Thought Captive

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch theologian, statesman, educator, and journalist.  He is an excellent example of a man who applied all of the Bible to all of life.  In an address at the Free University of Amsterdam (which he founded) he made the following famous statement, “…there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine.’”  For Kuyper, there was no compartmentalizing the faith.

In 1898 he spent some time in the United States and delivered a series of six lectures at Princeton University.  The fourth of these lectures deals with science. In this lecture, he speaks of God’s sovereignty and how that gives order to creation.  He also reminds us that the “book of nature” must always be read in light of God’s special revelation, the Bible.  Kuyper also speaks of the presuppositions of science.  Even the secular scientist exercises faith.  Kuyper explains:

Notice that I do not speak of a conflict between faith and science.  Such a conflict does not exist.  Every science in a certain degree starts from faith, and, on the contrary, faith, which does not lead to science, is mistaken faith or superstition, but real, genuine faith it is not.  Every science presupposes faith in self, in our self-consciousness; presupposes faith in the accurate working of our senses; presupposes faith in the correctness of the laws of thought; presupposes faith in something universal hidden behind the special phenomena; presupposes faith in life; and especially presupposes faith in the principles, from which we proceed; which signifies that all these indispensable axioms, needed in a productive scientific investigation, do not come to us by proof, but are established in our judgment by our inner conception and given with our self-consciousness. [1]

Science operates in terms of these presuppositions and it’s only in the context of the Christian worldview that these presuppositions make sense.  Naturalism, materialism, and atheism have no basis for these presuppositions.  Since God is the Creator, all truth is His truth.  Everything man could ever hope to learn and discover is already known by the Triune God.

Praise be to God for faithful men like Abraham Kuyper.  May we be inspired to love our great Creator God and serve Him, in every area of life.

[1] Kuyper, Abraham. Lectures on Calvinism. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1931. Pg 131.

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