ICs Institute for Chris tia n Studies

Institu tio na l Repos ito ry

Seerveld, Calvin. “When Does Christian College Teaching Celebrate the Reformation Initiated by Luther
and Calvin: What do a Reformational Christian Philosophy and Christian Reformed Theology Have to do
With One Another in Developing Christian Scholarship?" Dordt College Faculty Lecture, October 29,
2001 .

Used in accordance with the publisher’s copyright and self-archiving policies.

When does Christian college teaching
celebrate the Reformation,
initiated, by Lu ther and Calvin

What do a R e form ational Christian philo sop hy

and Christian Ref or med theology
have
to do wi t h one another
in developing Christian scholarship?

introduction
(1) What is the Bible?
(2) Who is academic boss at a Christian college?
(3) What good is a college education?

Calvin Seerveld, Toronto

Dordt College faculty di sc ussion
29 Oc to ber 2001 A.D.
If there were an underground booklet which profiled the "P r es ­
byterian and Reformed educational institutions" which regularly
hold discussions for R UNA (Reformed University of North America),
like one of those stapled sheet collections put out by students
at certain colleges which give you the brutal-truth lo w-down on
which profs to avoid and which to choose in a terse, hum orous
paragraph: would you be aware of how Dordt stacks up next to The
Kings, Calvin, Trinity Christian, Redeemer and others? They are
all "Reformed," l e t ’s say; they are all sheep, no goats; but each
one, because of its history, location, timing and leadership--
"The B.J. Haan y e a r s "--stands on its legs a little d iff ere nt ly as
far as being "Reformed" goes. I ’m not talking PR, "Best Buys,"
or picking favourites (although our three children are Dordt
graduates). I am simply stating, to begin our discussion, that
being "Reformed" shakes out a little differently in various
C h r i s t i a n colleges whose f a i t h - t h o u g h t tradition goes back to the
Reformation, especially the Calvi nia n brand. That is to be
expected.
So as not to bear false witness in advertising and because
passing on and keeping alive, if not lively, a R e f o r m a t i o n t r a d i ­
tion in the complex matter of highe r education is a diffi cul t
endeavour, it is also critically important for a college to be
conscious of just what the p ers pec ti ve is wh ich shapes its ed u c a ­
tional identity. Calvin College asked Nick Wo lte rs to r ff in 1989
to give a series of talks for new faculty on the d ist inc ti ve
character of Calvin College as an institution in the lived t r a d i ­
tion of the Reformed community. Its title, K e e p i n g Promises,
invites new faculty to enter into a living f ai th -t hou ght t r a d i ­
tion which acknowledges that cr eation is good--the worl d belongs
to God--that sin deeply p erm eat es human his tor ic al cul tiv at io n of
the world, and that members of the body of Chris t are c al le d to
participate in the cosmic, societal redemption afoot und er the
provident God and working Holy Spirit in a n t i c ip at io n of Jesus
C h r i s t ’s Rule being completed when he comes a g a i n in glory.
Wolterstorff invites new faculty who are not white Dutch-
American Christian Reformed males to live into an d di alo gi ca l ly
modify but keep the promises of being "a college co m m i t t e d to the
project of integral Christ ian learning" (48). Ca lv in Col leg e n ow
requires new faculty to a tte nd a series of seminars wh ich assumes
a reading list to be vig orously discussed in a serious attem pt
not to prescribe thought pat t er ns but to flesh out roug hly what
for th e m as a college community "Reformed" C h r i s t i a n educa tio n
means. (I will leave a copy of these assigned readings with D e a n
John Kok for your perusal. You could probably draw up you r own
list for faculty seminars, as many colleges in the C hr is tia n
Coalition are beginning to do.)

When I began teaching p h i lo s op hy at a brand n ew Trinity C h r i s t i a n

College in Chicago in 1959 (Seerveld 2000b: 30-32), a three
semester sequence of co njo in ed h i st o ry of p h i l o s o p h y (2 hours
each semester) and cultural h is tor y (3 hours each semester)
courses were required of all fr esh men and so ph om or e students, so
they would get a Western C iv kno w le dg e from read ing p r im ar y texts
in "The Great Books" from Hom er and Plato t h r o u g h Augustine,
Aquinas, Descartes and Kant to Sartre, along w i t h the d e v e l o p m e n t
of Greek and Roman, Medieval, and Modern E u r o p e a n inst itu ti ona l
history. Prior to that sequence, along with r e qu ir ed courses in
 Seerveld presentation at Dordt College October 2001 2

English composition and literature (3 hours each) and two cour ses
in Reformed Doctrine (2 hours each) was an introductory
philosophy course.
Philosophy 101 was conceived to give a C h r i s t i a n p h i l o s o p h i ­
cal orientation, in baby language mixed with jargon, to these
high school graduates who thought they already knew everything
needful to live and die happily in suburban Chicago life, that
would winsom ely stretch their vision for serving Jesus Christ in
any and all of their impending s t u d i e s - - s c h o o l - t e a c h i n g , law,
laboratory science, nursing, artistry, medicine or home-making.
After facing them with Bertrand R u s s e l l ’s tract, "Why I am not a
Christian," we examined why thinking, even scientific thinking,
cannot be neutral with respect to a human p e r s o n ’s fundamental
stance (pou sto) assumed on where the buck ultimately stops, w h a t
does e v e r y t h i n g mean anyhow, and what kind of world do we
inhabit.
Collateral reading for Philosophy 101 included p ro leg om enal
sections of John C a l v i n ’s Ins titutes of the Christian R e l i g i o n ,
the section from Abraham Ku y p e r's E n c y c lo pe di a of Sacred T h e o l o g y
on "Logic impaired by s i n ," Oscar C u l l m a n n ’s dramatic lecture on
"Immortality of the Soul or Resur rec ti on of the Dead," de sc ri bi ng
why Socrates took the hemlock with poise while Jesus was afraid
of death in G e t h s e mane and sweat blood. One of the too-hard
texts for this introductory course was He r m a n D o o y e w e e r d ’s little
book, In the Twilight of Western Th o u g h t. Near the end of this
Philosophy 101 first year first semester course (3 hours) we he l d
"modal" seminars on how different spe ci ali zed studies in m a t h e ­
matics, biology, psychology, sociology, economics, political
science, theology or educational theory, were shaped by di f f e r e n t
p h i l o so ph ie s. Profs from these various fields joined in the
modal seminars with their prospective majors in trying to f igu re
out why there are Bayesian and no n- Ba ye si an statistical theori es ?
what di fference does P a v l o v ’s psy chology make next to F r e u d ’s for
treating neuroses? Is a Capitalistic macro-ec ono mi cs theory more
normative than a Socialist economics? How significant is the
difference between a John Dewey theory of schooling from a
Thom ist one? It was a lot of fun because we were discovering
things we d i d n ’t quite know the answers for, and knew it was
important for being a follower of Jesus Christ in the world
around us.
And I should mention in a footnote that in the beginning we
Trinity Christian College faculty held a series of week-night
lectures for our supporting constituency on how the Christian
faith shaped each of our conceptions in the field of our
specialization--this is 1960. Those early lectures in the a r e a s
of math, biology and psychology were not matrure like Karen de
Mol's essay on music and Simon du T o i t ’s recent Pro R ege pi e c e
on theatre, because some of us back then with a Ph.D from a
secular un iversity d i d n ’t have a clue on how to show the b i b l i c a l
faith was integrally shaping the contours of our discipline. We
all knew our Christian faith was not an additio n to our s c h o l a r ­
ship, was not just to be parallel to our sci entific reflection,
or that we could be satisfied with an earnest prayer before yo u
neutrally examined Edgar A l len Poe's short stories; but how to
have the biblical vision make a diff er enc e in the study of
3 Reformation and Christian college character

snails, learning German, examining psychosomatic trau ma ?-- nob od y

was losing face because we were all searching together, helping
each other.
As for claiming there were discernible contours for a
Christian philosophy and that a Christian philosophy and a
specific biblical sense of historical narrative ware at the hub
of a "Reformed" Christian college of interrelated disciplines
(cf. diagram): this was news in a way to Chicago. "Dooyeweerd"
was also a curse word in certain circles of Reformed people at
the time, unsettling. When asked what we were doing in
philosophy, I said, " W e ’re just being Reformed, biblically
R e f ormational, you might say. That is, not "Reformed" as past
tense, b u t - - t h a t ’s where I defined the term--as an active, on g o ­
ing Reformation of life, including thought, word and deed, h oni ng
it all to be true to the Scriptures.
"Reformational" identifies (1) a life that would be deeply
committed to the scriptural injunction not to be conformed to
patterns of this age but to be re-formed by the renewal of
our consciousness so that we will be able to d is ce rn what G o d
wills for action on earth (cf. Romans 12:1-2); and (2) an
approach in history to honour the genius of the Re f or ma ti on
spearheaded by Luther and John Calvin in the sixteenth
century, developed by Groen van Prinsterer and Abra ha m Ku yper
in the nineteenth century, as a pa rti cular Ch ri s ti an t r a d i ­
tion out of which one could richly serve the Lord; with (3) a
concern that we be com munally busy reforming in an ongoing
way rather than standing pat in the past tense (ecc l es ia
reform ata semper r e f o r m a n d a est)" (Seerveld 1980a: 46 n ) .
I personally am deeply grateful to be "Reformed," to be a
member of this "biblically R e formational" community over the
centuries up to today, and want to serve my Lord and our n e i g h ­
bours by being bib lically R e formational in tr anslating and r e a d ­
ing the Bible, in experiencing artistry, in constructing p oli cy
for economic and political life, in communally (institutionally)
educating a next generation, in conceiving and doing theology,
and whatever. Since I think this is what Dordt C o ll e ge ed uc ati on
is all about, let me lead you to consider a few p e r en ni al p r o b ­
lems that have distur be d and probably will continue to trouble
any given generation of C h r i s t ’s followers who at te mp t to keep
the promises of the hi storical Re fo rm at ion vital in our ter ri bly
p r a g m a t i c i s t i c , secularizing, te chn oc ratically d eh um an iz i ng age.
I ’m afraid most of what I will say now is old hat for you,
but I ’ll try to put my three points provocat iv ely so as to s t i m u ­
late your response and discussion.

The first point (1), wh ic h may seem tangential to a college

faculty, hits the sciatic nerve of every person who confesses
Jesus Christ: what is the Bible?
My R e formational an swe r is: we should nor ma lly sing psalms
rather than gospel choruses.
What do you mean?

The holy Scriptures are Go d-s pe aki ng literature gi ve n to us h i s ­

torically for our learning by faith the one true stor y of the
L o r d ’s Rule acoming and the contours of our ob edient response.
An academic (university)
flower in God’s world

A committed world-and-life vision

A way-of-life
 Se er vel d presentation at Dordt College October 2001 4

The Bible is G o d ’s Word booked telling us the m agnal i a Dei with a

Holy Spirited power that can convict hearers to repent of our
sin, drive us to plead for ad option by the sovereign LORD into
Jesus C h r i s t ’s body, and teach us to carry steadfastly our ne i g h ­
b o u r s ’ burdens (Romans 8:14-17 & 10:14-17, Galatians 6:1-3). The
Bible is a Holy Spirit-packed script to be spoken which works
faith in p e o p l e s ’ hearts and generates human life in community,
who then thankfully congregates to search the Scriptures together
for wisdom to be obedient to God in whatever we are gifted to do
on earth (II Timothy 3:16-17, Proverbs 1:1-7, Romans 12:3-9, I
Corint hi ans 12, Acts 17:10-12).
The historic European Re fo rm at io n of the 1500s asked Bible
readers to meet the text fresh. Luther and Calvin were three-
language people, Greek and He bre w as well as Latin. Augustine
and Aquinas did not know the original biblical languages! So
Luther and Calvin purposefully got to the sources behind the vul-
gate transl ati on of the Bible in use. L u t h e r 's moving letter
thanking his professor John Staupitz (30 May 1518) exclaims
L u t h e r ’s joy when he found out that po enitentia agere for
m e t a noeite in Matthew 4:17 meant not to do the penances s t i p u ­
lated by the clergy but to become penitent in your heart,
repentant: m etanoeite which Jesus preached asked for a f u nd a me n­
tal turnaround, a change of heart, a pivotal conversion to your
who le consciousness. Instead of a bitter word, writes Luther,
po e n i t e n t i a now became a sweetest word of the Bible for me.
That scholarly discovery in the Bible sparked a new-old idea
of "church." Church is not the clergy, the administrative
clerics, the papacy in charge because they are the only one
single, true apostolic autho rit y succeeding from Simon Peter.
Th e "church" is the communion of ordinary, sinful saints who have
repented! the faithful people (ho l aos, the laity) of God, the
b e lie ve rs sealed in the b ap tis m of Jesus Christ and stamped,
an oi nt ed by the Holy Spirit, ord ained to live out and mediate the
gospel to others. T h a t ’s a Ref or mat io n con cep tio n of the c hur ch
as body of Ch rist at large.
The H e i d e l b e r g Catechism (1563) in Qu est io n and Answer #32
ex plains what it means to be a Christian without even mentioning
the (at the time often misconceived) word "church."
Why are you called a Christian?
Because by faith I am a member of Christ and so I share in his
anointing.
I am ano in ted to confess his name,
to present myself to hi m as a living sacrifice of thanks,
to strive with a good con science against sin and the devil in
this life,
and a fte rwa rd to reign with Christ
over all cr eat ion for all eternity.

A n ot he r key contribution of the 1500s Re f or m at io n is John C a l ­

v i n ’s me tap horical linkage of the Bible and human knowledge of
G o d ’s world. Scripture states clearly that creation, creatures,
reveal God who made them (Psalm 19:2-5, Isaiah 28:23-29, Acts
14:17, Romans 1:18-25), but it takes human eyes with Scriptural
vision to find the traces of the LORD G o d ’s merciful order we are
to follow in cultivating G o d ’s world in our ge neration and in
5 Reformation and Christian college character

The Bible, says Calvin (1559), is a special gift from the

LORD, like a pair of eye-glasses, spectacles, which help
unconfuse and bring into correct focus our coming to know the
saving Creator of the universe (Institutes of the Christian R e l i ­
gion, 1,6, l).1 The Bel g ic Confession of the Re formation aut hor ed
by Guido de Bres (1561-1566) reinforces C a l v i n ’s point when it
says (article 2a) that creation is like a lovely book in wh i ch
all creatures are letters to make us ponder G o d ’s powerful,
provident governance, and that the Bible, a l l of whose matters we
believe without a doubt because the Holy Spirit testifies in our
hearts that they are from God (article 5), makes God known to us
more openly than creational revelation does, with its intimations
of the L o r d ’s glory and the riches of our salvation (article 2b).
The Reformation leaders understood Psalm 119 about G o d ’s law
(torah ), ordinances (hoqqim ) , Word ( da bar ), commands {p i q q u d ) ,
judgments (m ish ph at) of creational mercy to be retold, ce lebrated
and illuminated by the Scriptures: the Bible gives followers of
the Christ the wherewithal to interpret intelligibly the glos-
solalia of the creatural voices (Seerveld 2000a: 159-163; 2000b:
46-48). No wonder the Ref or mat io n leaders enjoined the princes
and magistrates to school children, also girls (1528 in Witte n-
b u r g ), because the whole world is declaring the wonder of God,
and if education be Scripturally directed we will be able to d i s ­
cern G o d ’s will not only in doctrines, but also G o d ’s will for
married life, charging interest or not in commercial life, f o r ­
mulating just protocols for civic life, establishing regulations
for treating the sick and hel plessly weak. The R e f o r ma ti on of
the 1500s stands for sustained, on-going, intelligent redemptive
work in G o d ’s world at large under the searchlight of the Bible,
perceiving what disobeys the Lord too, expecting the l a n d o w n e r ’s
return to review our trustee shi p (Matthew 21:33-43 & 25:14-46).

And now the crux of this point on the Bible for teaching: if the
Bible serves as 20-20 eye-glasses, lenses (Benny va n der Walt),
or like a focussing searchlight: if you just stare at the
glasses, the source of light, you will miss its enlig hte ni ng p u r ­
pose. How does one put on the armour of the view-finding, p e n e ­
trating Word of God (Ephesians 6:10-17) without just coming to
look bespectacled?
Christians who are dedicated professionally to serve students
need, I believe, to become thoroughly at home in the Bible,
honouring its historical, literary, proclamational nature. We
need to become familiar with its names, times and places which
locate concretely the true story running from Gene sis to the
Apocalypse of John so that, like a lover, we will know its
nuanced crevices of comforting promises and fulfillments and
warnings inside out. For example, by immersion one comes to
understand how Genesis 50:20 connects with the toledoth of
Genesis 2:4 to unite the diverse episodes of the whole book into
a brilliant symphony of the LORD G o d ’s com passionate care for our
difficult, bumbling believing forebears, and us, through v i c i s ­
situdes of war and peace; how Exodus 20, Leviticus 19 and
Deuteronomy 5-9 are not criminal statutes to club y o u into s u b ­
mission, but embraces by God to keep us out of h a r m ’s way and to
norm our thankfulness; how Psalms 1 and 2 sound the keyno te chord
 Seerveld presentation at Dordt Coll eg e Oct obe r 2001 6

of wisdom and messy Messianic politics as the sound which r e v e r ­

berates thro ugh both the laments and p rai se of the whole c o l l e c ­
tion of songs; how the accent in the book of Esther to the key
verse in 4:14 is not "Who knows whether you have come to the
kingdom for such a time as this?" making Esther a heroine, so
much as M o r d e c a i's message, "If you keep silent now, deliverance
for G o d ’s pe ople will come from some other quarter!"
That is, to be a teacher in the tr adi ti on of the
R e form ation--L uth er translated the whole Bible into German; C a l ­
vin persisted until he produced a complete Psalter into singable
French so that the illiterate people could themselves voice G o d ’s
Word--you become steeped in the God-s pe aki ng literature the Bible
is. So the Bible is not a source book of proof texts, but a
network of connected passages colouring the Lord in a rainbow of
awful glories. (Tha t’s why I think we should not neglect the
habit of singing a whole psalm, which better hono urs the gritty
complexity of the Bible than do many a re petitive Bible chorus
quoting a few words.) If you are sensitive to the unfinished,
enthym em ic style of Mark next to the a ir br ush ed complete gospel
of John, and if you can appreciate how M a t t h e w ’s account is
attuned to Je wish traditionalism and catch the poignant, ob served
detail of L u k e ’s gospel, you are not tempted to wast e time to
rationalize so-called inconsistent details in the synoptic
gospels but to revel in the multifarious G o d - b r e a t h e d truth d i s ­
closed about Jesus C h r i s t ’s pas sionate healing ministry, r e s u r ­
rection and ascens ion which fulfill, among others, I s a i a h ’s
striking prophecies (Isaiah 54-62). And once the book To the
Hebrews grips your soul, veritably a midr as h on Ps a lm 95, yo u get
a palpable sense of the intricate mesh of the Ol d er and Newer
Testaments as G o d ’s one compelling Word to us from the LORD
revealed in Jesus Christ who is the source of grace, mercy and
peace for us who have faith in the time when we n e e d rescue
(Hebrews 3-4).
Teaching is an occupation in which one often needs rescue,
and where a chief hazard is death by millst one becau se of m i s ­
leading a little one of the next generation (Luke 17:1-4, James
3:1). To have our teaching consciousness mould ed by faithful
intimacy with the Scriptures--good exe ge tic al pastoral preach in g
helps, reading the Bible at home in sto ry te ll in g fashion to the
children helps--to know convers at ion all y the B i b l e ’s very idiom
(if not its languages), so that one has been outfit ted with a
biblical mentalitd, constantly surprised anew, emb oldened and
comforted by G o d ’s prickly, exciting Word, so that the Bible
provides the apriori for searching the worl d we live in, and one
does not let the present culture set the s ta nd ard s for us to take
up a defensive posture: making work of ha vi ng the Bible so
ingrained in our habit of thinking, speaking, and getting things
done, makes one a good heir, in my judgment, of the Re fo rma tio na l
praxis of Martin Luther and John Calvin.

The second and main point is more contentious. In Abraham

K u y p e r ’s day (1837-1920) in the Netherlands, a R e fo rm e d Ch r i s t i a n
school was known as e t school met de B i j bel (the school wi th the
Bible). But how does the Bible operate in the actual schooli ng --
7 Reformation and Ch ris tia n college ch a ra ct er

in our setting--in college education, where one h as numerous d i f ­

ferent fields of study? The Gideons, so to speak, have virtually
put a Bible in the chemistry lab, in the Black Box theatre, and
on the basketball court, but (2) who is academ ic boss at a
Christian college? My R e fo r m ational answer, p r i m e d for your d i s ­
cussion, is: there is no pa p al di scipline in a R e fo rm ed college
curriculum (Matthew 20:20-28).
The diagram (p.153) pic tures what I should like to present as
a Reformational look at the probl em of relating Christian
philosophy and historiography, Christian theology, and Christian
teaching in any academic discipline. I need to single out t h e o l ­
ogy and maybe aesthetics in my limited time b ec aus e t h a t ’s esp e­
cially where the rub comes for certain Ref or me d pe op le (theology)
and is my field of special a tt en tio n (a esthetics). (I’ll try not
to repeat much of what I hope some of you read in the short piece
handed out on "Philosophy as schooled memory.") (2000b: 84-89).
But I am not delineating wh at should go on at a Bible College,
which has its own restricted legitimacy, to stu dy just the Bible,
plus some church music perhaps, and training in leading church
youth groups. A Bible College is basically a pro fes si on a l school
which is oriented toward p ra ct is ing an ho n ou ra bl e profession,
turning out graduates who are pra ctitioners like church workers,
executive secretaries, r eg ist ere d nurses, ce r t i f i e d teachers.
I am also not getting into the pr ob le m of wh at a seminary
should be, which is also pro fe s si on al training, an institution
set up to produce pastors for churches who are grounded in the
Scriptures, able to preach the gospel, kn ow le dg ea bl e of church
history, committed to edifying the faithful and to reach out to
any disbelieving neighbours, all developed and p r a c ti se d within
the definite limits of a sp eci fic confessional stand, whether it
be Orthodox, Roman catholic, Reformed, Anabaptist, a liberal
United Christian or, for that matter, a Judaic or Muslim standard
of belief. Seminaries are a proper source for preachers,
pastors, evangelists, even thoug h they rightly do not have a
monopoly in Ref or med churches on church c ong reg at ion al lea d­
ership, witness ruling elders and deacons, who are not usually
seminary trained. It wo u ld be a mistake, in my judgment, to
think that a Christian coll ege should be a Bib le college or a
denominational seminary. There can be h is t ori cal connections and
should be on-going supportive relations between church, church
seminaries and Christian colleges, yet their tasks are different,
as different as between ch ur ch Sunday school or catec his m and a
regular five-day-a-week school for reading, wr i t i n g and ar i th ­
metic, studying American literature, history-keeping, and various
sciences.

I need to be prec ise now so that whether you agre e with me or not
you will u nd ers ta nd what I intend to say.
I consider what I ta lke d about in point 1 to be the calling
of every believer in the R e f o r ma t io n tradition (the und er gr ou nd
in the d i a g r a m ) : become so intimate with the Bib le as G o d ­
speaking literature with its true story of the LORD creating the
whole world, our his torical fall into sin, Jesus C h r i s t ’s making
r ed em pti on graciously a v a il ab le for those who resp ond by faith to
disc ipl esh ip as we live in love, sorrow and hope for the comple-
 Seerveld presentation at Dordt Coll ege Octo be r 2001 8

tion of C h r i s t ’s kingdom Rule a c o m i n g : become so intimately at

home with that Reformation take on the Older and New er Testament
gospel that o n e ’s consciousness subconsciously! assumes that
heart-depth commitment in o n e ’s w ay- of- li fe and finds it shaping
o n e ’s world-and-life vision of things (c f . diagram).
This is my way of saying what I think corres pon ds with Syd
Hi e le ma ’s focus on wisdom as the lynchpin for rel ating God
revealed in Jesus Christ, God revealed in the Scriptures, and God
revealed in creation (Hielem a 153-155): as the Holy Spirited
Scriptures convict you of the L o r d ’s com pas si ona te redemptive
hold on the heart of your very life and all things, you have the
beginnings, you begin to bud in wi sd om (Proverbs 1:7, 15:33).
Such an outlook and demeanor, in the variant p e cu li ar to the
Reformation strand of the Christian faith, has been descri bed as
having G e r rfotrmeerde voelhorens (extra-strength R e formational
antennae); that is, such people are like snails whose quivering
antennae can detect what is subliminal, they smell it when a
deed, word, or thought is wholesome, unbiblical, or off-colour
with what is true to the Re fo r mat ion brand of the Ch ris tia n
faith. T h a t ’s the antennae u n ed uca te d R ef or me d p eop le had--I
know from experience--who lived close to the Scriptures, before
TV entered their homes.
This is the way, as I un derstand it, the Bi bl e enters a
Christian college which takes its cue from the Reformation:
faculty members have G e r e f o rmeerde voe lh or en s , n a t u r a l l y at d i f ­
ferent stages of seasoned maturity, but w il l i n g l y seeking for and
working toward that Bible-rooted, su bt er an ean con s en su s f i de li um
Reforma torum (an underlying consensus of fa ithful Re for mation-
oriented saints) beginning to blossom in w isd om wh ich d i s t i n ­
guishes their Christian college as a "Reformed" c om m u n i t y from a
T h o m ist Christian college, a S h i'ite Muslim co m p a n y of mullahs in
a m adrassa, or a US secular state und er g ra du at e colle ge with
individual profs resting mostly on a bed of tr u s t in scientific
Reason.
Many evangelical Chris tia n colleges are content, I think, to
rest the communality of their academic e nd ea vou r at the basic
level of patterns of life that are moral, church-g oin g, perhaps
with a few tabus against drinking wine or we a r i n g jewelry.
Reformed Christian colleges may add the d im e n s i o n that faculty
must subscribe to certain churchly confe ssi on al "forms of unity"
or belong to a certain ch urch de nom ination so that it is clear
you support infant ba pt ism as a promise of G o d ’s cov ena nt with
believers, or a common statement of w o r l d - a n d - l i f e - e n v i s i o n i n g
purpose to try to insure not uni for mi ty but at lea st a certain
conformity to the p a r ti cu la r common objective of this C hri st ian
college which will mean concord, harm on y among di ve rs e teaching
faculty, administrators and the over-all a s s i s t a n t staff so
important to the feel of a college.
A R e formational p er sp ec ti ve woul d say: since col leg e e d u c a ­
tion like all human c ul tu rin g happens communally, can we follow
through on the unity we have in Christ, past a ho l y da i ly life
style (way of life) and an ov er vi e w ( wo rl d- and -l ife -vi si on) that
we cultivate in G o d ’s w o r l d for C h r i s t ’s sake, fo ll ow through on
those expressions of unity and wi sd om into the v e r y fabric of our
vocation--considered r e f l ec ti on on what, how an d why things mean
9 Reformation and Christian college character

what they do, should be done, and have taken place? That wou ld
mean for Christian academics of the Reformation that they also
find a studied way to interact across disciplines and to c o r r e ­
late awareness of the historical developments behin d the stat e of
each o n e ’s art or science as it now is so that we really act like
a genuine th ink ing -i magining-talking-together commu nit y of
scholarly teachers.

If you have ever listened to an argument between, l e t ’s say, a

vigorous Roman catholic and a dy ed- in -the-wool Marxi st on the
topic of "knowledge," or tried yourself to communicate w i t h so me ­
one across faith-thought paradigms on something important, like
" n or ma tiv ity ," you know how difficult, if not exasperating, it
can be. Well, it takes almost as much patience, ingenuity, and
good will to share knowledge across disciplinary lines in the
different fields we specialize in. Can people who talk an d dream
isotopes and those for whom the wrench of a ninth chord speaks
volumes, can they understand one a n o t h e r ’s passion? Can those
who know the crucial difference between certain he r bi cid es and
pesticides and those for whom the optative mood of a verb is
critical, can they catch each o t h e r ’s spark? And ev eryone would
be immeasurably more united as teachers if one grasped that 1848
and 1968 like 11 September 2001 are not just chr onological dates,
culturally speaking--at least if the college faculty is a working
reflective community in their teaching the student body together.
Our resident American in dividualism militates against taking
the time and making the effort to go this wise second mile to
mesh our diverse, often pr o fe ss ion al ly technical ex am in at io ns of
reality. Does one with a Ph.D. still need to continue to be ed u ­
cated outside o n e ’s di sci plinary specialty? Busy faculty can
easily rest with a college u ni fie d by chapel, a wholes ome
Christian ethos on campus, and a curriculum which allocates
required courses fairly, and spells out major and minor c o n ­
centrations for sound graduation. Also not every C h r i st ia n c o l ­
lege for whom a unified faculty in its teaching pe r s p e c t i v e and
practice is important is aware of or feels kindly to ward a c o n ­
ceptual framework and a po si ti on taken on hi storical de ve l op me nt
that comes out of the R ef o rm at io n which is specially ge ar ed to
facilitate such encyclopedic interaction of the various d i s ­
ciplines along with a critical eye for what is fruitful and
wasteful in the development of societal human culture t h r o u g h the
ages .
Already Augustine in De civita te Dei (c.413-426 AD) ske tc he d
horizons in which the hi storical struggle of the wom an w i t h child
(ci vitas Dei) and the dragons of J o h n ’s Apocalypse (civitates
mundi) is seen as the only genuine war on earth. Groen va n
P r i n s t e r e r ’s R e vol u tie e n o n g el oo f (1847) u pd at ed A u g u s t i n e ’s
vision to pose the sanity of faithful constructive insti tut ion -
building for humankind which ho nou re d God versus the c a t a cl ys mi c
violence of the French R e v ol ut io n in the name of the de i ty of
Reason. And then D.H.Th. V o l l e n h o v e n ’s (1872-1978) m et ho d of
historiography refined the same Scripturally dir ected a p p r o a c h to
history by showing how all human leaders were caught in epoch-
forming dynamics and enhanced or ruined their pa rt icu la r
inheritance from out of a typical perspective usually a k i l t e r to
 Seerveld presentation at Dordt C o l leg e O c t obe r 2001 10

G o d ’s directives for normal creatural life. So there is in

embryo a par ticular historiographic p o s i ti on focussed on history-
keeping (cf. Seerveld 1991) which is gener ate d by a R e formational
Christian approach.
And there is a systematic philoso phi ca l conc ept io n prompted
by John C a l v i n ’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) on
the LORD G o d ’s amazing sovereignty ordering all creatures and
societal institutions when Calvin dropped the remark that the
office of municipal judge is a highest hu m a n calling for a
responsible follower of Christ to prepare for (IV,20,1-7).
Abraham K u y p e r ’s S o uvereiniteit in eigen k r i n g (1880) and
attendant political, educational and journalist leadership p r e ­
sented a theory of societal institutions that showed how school
and government, commerce and media, as well as home and
ecclesiastic communions, could serve as r e de mpt iv e vehicles of
G o d ’s grace. And then Dooyeweerd in A Ne w Critiq ue of T h eo re ti ­
cal Thought followed up C a l v i n ’s le a d2 and K u y p e r's societology
by sketching a philosophical cosmology an d a r ef ine d analysis of
societal structures that simply begs to be worked out by s u c c e e d ­
ing generations of scholars who specialize in va ri ous fields of
study, to thi nk- im agi ne -ta lk things through pr of es sio na lly in
concert as our "reasonable service" to br ing insight.
So it wo u l d be natural, it seems to me, for a Christian c o l ­
lege grateful for its debt to the Reform ati on for an operative
(fallible) Christian philosophical systematics a nd an
(unfinished) redemptive hi storiographic method to parlay that
legacy into the blessing of strengthening and un if yin g a faculty
m e m b e r ’s sense of being part of and knowing how to contribute to
a genuine commu nio n of Christ ia n academic work a nd teaching that
will be wise. I do not mean there is a re a dy -m ad e Ch ristian
philosophy an d method of h i s t o r i ographic na rr at iv e all set, and
once you learn the jargon, presto! we solve all our theoretical
problems, and teach, talk and think happ ily ever after. No, but
if a Christian college makes earnest with the th ru st of the
Reformation that we faculty members of the body of Christ are to
wash each o t h e r ’s educational feet with the conceptual, i ma gi na ­
tive, verbal and enabling gifts one has at o n e ’s disposal (Seer­
veld 1980b: 142-145), and if there is a p h i l o s op hi c al systematics
deepening a Ref ormed w or ld -a nd -li fe -vi si on that ca n help a c o l ­
lege teacher test the basic categories one uses in o n e ’s field,
points you to ward intersecting cruxes of meaning for several d i s ­
ciplines, provid es a precise vocabulary to export the results of
o n e ’s special studies that leads to more r ed em pti ve strength in
presenting o n e ’s material becau se you sense you are one voice
within a whole reflective communal chorus of te ac h in g saints:
imagine what such a cross-disciplinary, r es on ati ng message from
different classrooms will make upon students!

I c a n ’t say everything needful in ten more minu tes on po in t 2,

but I can say enough to get into trouble and to suggest maybe why
the R e formational gambit for Christian p h i l o s o p h i c a l and h i s ­
toriographic mediation w it hin and between and amon g what we as
faculty teach is worth consideration.
Every di scipline has a history, and every art and science
sets limits to its task and draws implications f r o m its practice.
11 Reformation and Christ ian college character

Such prolegomenal and pos tlegomenal de cisions as well as

"legomenal" narration are ph ilo sop hi cal by nature, I dare say,
because they are decisions on int errelational m e an ing which, in
the province of theory and reflection, are m e t a - d i s c i p l i n a r y , are
setting categorial foundations and pa rameters wh i c h determine the
over-all contours of what gets c onc ei ved in that universe of d i s ­
course, and recognizes whether its d at ed / lo ca te d results are
blessed and cursed with ne ig hbo ur ing matters b o t h before, p r e ­
sently, and a c o m i n g , or are cons ide red only a b st rac tly by t h e m ­
selves .
Now I may think that Vo ll en hov en and Dooyeweerd, Zuidema,
Me kk es , Sm it and K ..
J Popma, Johan van der Hoeven, Bob
Goudzwaard, Sander Griffioen and a hos t of other witnesses are
good, professional academic janitors wh o give precise, nu an ce d
Christian wisdom on inter-faculty matters and do not just leave
connections over-viewy (as Ezra Pound wou ld say). But no
tribunal from the Free Un iv er sit y of A m s te rd am provides your a n s ­
wers. The needed philosophical and hi st o r i o g r a p h i c decisions
have to be wormed out of the teacher who thor ou ghl y knows the
special field of study. And a faculty member can basically
accept and maybe quibble with the ruling secular par ad igm current
in o n e ’s field (or the pa tt er n of two generat io ns ago, as Heine
joked most Dutch writers and thinkers always d i d ) , try something
idiosyncratic--do it your own Sinatra way- -or tap into a Reforma-
tional philosophical and h i s to ri og ra ph ic habit, try it on for
size, or whatever. But faculty members as scholars and teachers
are wil lynilly loaded, better, primed ph il os op h i c a l l y and his-
t o r i o g r a p h i c a l l y , despite any disclaimers.

For example, Reformed theology epi st omi ze d by Louis Be rk hof's

Systematic Theology adopts a traditional six loci: (1) the Being
of God, (2) Man, (3) the G od - m a n Jesus C h r i s t --C ur Deus H o m o?--
(4) Redemption, (5) Church, (6) Last things. W i th ou t apology
Berkhof begins by saying, "Reformed the olo gy regards the e x i s t ­
ence of Go d as an entirely re asonanble assumption" (21), even
though one cannot demonstrate it by a r g u m e n t a t i o n . 3 John Cooper
(Calvin Seminary, Grand Rapids, 1993) states that "Standard
Reformed t h e o l o g y ...affirms a u niv er sal ly av alable standard for
knowledge, truth, and moral order" (21). "In affirming general
revelation and common grace, the C a lvi nis t tra di ti o n points to
the existence and cognitive avai la bil ity of the Go d-revealing
cosmic order as the universal frame wor k of meaning and condit ion
of truth." "...Guided by its theology, R e fo rm ed epistemology
articulates what I would call a fideistic pers pec ti val rational
r e a l i s m . .." (22).
Karl Barth, however, was so adama ntl y o pp ose d to taking over
even a smidgem of the Enl igh te nme nt as su mp ti on that sound,
scientific (wissenschaftliche) knowl edg e must be religiously
neutral in its reasoning that Barth conce ive d dogmatic th eology
to be simply Kirchliche Dog mat ik (1932-1967), a churchly r e d e s ­
cription of the c h u r c h ’s confession of what G o d ’s Word says ab out
(1) G o d ’s Word, (2) God, (3)Creation, (4) V e r s o h n u n g , R e c o n c i l i a ­
tion through Jesus C h r i s t ’s action, an d (5) E r l o s u n g - - salvation,
deli ve ran ce --w hic h last section Barth did not live to write.
Barth denies having any "philosophical" orienta ti on to his church
 Seerveld pre sentation at Dordt College O c t o b e r 2001 12

dogmatics: no theology but G o d ’s Word (like "no creed but

Christ"). And for Barth Trinity and the i n c a r na ti on of Jesus
Christ, a divine human, are not subject to the logic of n o n ­
contradictory reasonableness, but are n e v e r t he l es s simply
realities.
By contrast to both Be rkh of/Cooper and Karl Barth, Gordon
S p y k m a n ’s Reformational T h e o l o g y : A new p a r ad ig m for d o i n g d o g ­
matics (1992) says "theology and philosophy fo r m a partner sh ip in
the sense that the best pr ole gom en a to Ch ri s ti an theology, more
specifically to Reformed dogmatics, is a C h r i s t i a n philosophy"
(13,107; cf. Bartholomew 33-35). "Dogmatics is too important to
be left to theologians who are unclear about t h e i r philosop hi cal
underpinnings" (97). The upshot of S p y k m a n ’s C h ri st ia n
philosophical orientation is that he adopts a c o n f e ss io na l focus
in theology which takes do g ma (confession o ff i c i a l l y declared
binding by an ecclesial assembly) most serio usl y as breat hin g in
concentrated form what a cert ain company of faithfu l followers of
the Christ assert they b e li ev e (103-107,110). T h e n in a
Christian dogmatic theology we will examine the Ho ly Scriptures
as to their interconnected beliefs, and the h i s t o r i c a l d e ve lo p­
ment of the human race in the formation of the (earlier elected
Israel) and confessing church, its nature, plac e and task in
fidelity and apostacy, relatively distinct from all other so ci e­
tal institutions, as a caret ake r of the faithful w h i c h ' G o d p r o ­
vided, Christ set up, and the Holy Spirit p r e se rv es to the end of
the present age. Spykm an then organizes R e for m a t i onal dogmatic
theology along the hi st or ic al -r ed em pt iv e lines of the A p o s t l e ’s
creed, braided with a ( pe r i c h o r e t i c ) tr in ita ria n awareness (135-
137), into (1) the good creation, (2) sin and evil, (3) the Way
of salvation, (4) the consummation.
Attractive to me about S p y k m a n ’s R e forma ti on al do gma ti c
theology is its systematic thetical sureness on C a l v i n i a n tenets
explicated with a c on ve rs at ion al t o n e , 4 rather than its assumi ng
an argumentative posture wh e re the round creedal w a r m t h of
Re for med doctrines gets pa r ed by Occam's razor back to the bone
of "propositions," whose fi xe d "truth-value" can be c o l d ­
bloodedly debated in a uni ve rs al logical f ra m e w o r k and con sti tu te
the indubitable test for wh a t is essentially R e f o r m e d or th od ox y
or h er es y. 5
I think that a di ff er en ce I detect between wha t is "standard
Reformed theology" and a " R e formational dog mat ic theo log y, " viz.,
that Reformed dogma ta seem to appear with almost ex cat hed ra
finality and autho rit y to "lead" ph il oso ph ica l d i s c u s s i o n with
logical certainty, while the R e formational f o r m u l a t i o n of d o c ­
trines breathes a spirit of supple, trusting c e rt ai nt y in o f f e r ­
ing to serve other fields of inquiry with its im por ta nt limited
contribution of co nst r uc ti ng regulae fide (guidlines for e x p r e s s ­
ing obedient faith): that di fference depends upo n the u n de rl ay
of a general theistic "rational realism" for "Reformed" theology,
and having "a bi bl ic all y induced Christian p hi lo so ph y" u n d e r n e a t h
"Reformational" theology.
And it may be impor ta nt in a Christian colle ge to not let
Reformed theology (or a C h ri st ia n philosophy!) slip into taking
the role of being "the fai th once for all h a n d e d do wn to the
saints" (Jude 3). Not only functional creedal te st i m o n i e s but
13 Reformation and Christian college character

especially the systematized theological reflection on what we

(churchly) confess are structurally different from though c o n ­
nected to the fundamental matter the Bible calls faith (pistis) ,
that existential attachment of us with certain trust at being
fixed in the true God (or hear t-c om mit ted to an idol) by the gift
of regenerating grace in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2 : 8 - 9 ) . 6 What
keeps a Christian college alive in the Re for ma tio n biblical
faith-thought tradition, I believe, is whether the spirit at work
in the Scripturally led philosophy, theology, history-telling,
and scholarly contours of all the teaching disciplines be
earthily redemptive and interdisciplinarily diaconal in bearing
fruit worthy of repentance (poenitentia) (I John 4:1, R oma ns 12-
14, I Corinthians 12, bear fr u i t ) . 7

One o th er e x a m p l e of the d i f f e r e n c e it m ak es for a C h r i s t i a n c o l ­

lege and C h r i s t i a n s c h o l a r s h i p to h a v e a R e f o r m a t i o n a l C h r i s t i a n
p h i l o s o p h y a n d h i s t o r i o g r a p h y be the c o h e r i n g d i s c i p l i n e s or, as
in many e v a n g e l i c a l C h r i s t i a n co ll eg es , to h a v e t h e o l o g i c a l s t u d y
be the d i s c i p l i n e which giv es the lie to its C h r i s t i a n ca che t, is
the f r u s t r a t i n g c o n un dr um for me of the d i f f e r e n t t a c k t a k e n by
"t he olo gy of the arts" in s t e a d of "a C h r i s t i a n p h i l o s o p h i c a l
a e s t h e t i c s ."
When "theology" is uncri tic all y taken to mean Ch ri s ti an
theology (as if Jews and Muslims have no theology), and Ch ris ti an
theology is loosely taken to mean "faith in Jesus Christ" (as if
secular Rationalists have no bonafide faith in Reason), so that
theological reflection is undi st ing uis he d from the Holy S p i r i t ’s
existential grip on our hearts; and further, when the co ngr e ga te d
church and its institutional task to nouri sh us humans as b e l i e v ­
ing followers of Jesus Christ is confused with the ki n g d o m Rule
of God in history and the body of Jesus Christ at large who are
not simply clerics or parishoners but servants of the LORD fu l­
filling multiple tasks in G o d ’s world: then it becom es quite a
jumble to untangle, from a Ref ormational standpoint, so that one
can try to appreciate these fellow Christ ia n attempts to give
artistry a place and task in G o d ’s world, yet be tr ou bl e d by what
seems to be askew.
It is a mistaken project, in my judgment, to p e r f o r m and a n a ­
lyze music, for example, to illustrate the (trinitarian) nature
of God. Rathe r than give folk music, symphonic or ch es tr al music,
improvisatory jazz, its due as a glorious creatural gift from G o d
for us humans in which to laugh and weep r e d e m p t i v e l y , t h a n k ­
fully, or to be stolen as an idolatrous escape from the Lord,
music is misconceived as ancilla the o lg ia e . Mus ic is r e a d/ he a rd
allegorically and used a pol oge ti cal ly or e va ng e l i s t i c a l l y (Begbie
19 -2 0,125-127)--"we should let music do some of the t heo log ic al
work for us" (198). Jeremy Begbie goes this r o u t e- -" th eo l og y
through the a r t s "--because u n d er ne a th his a p pr oa ch is a
philosophical position of an alogia e n tis which holds "that crea-
turely reality participates in the r ati on ali ty of God" (276;
255,278).8 T h a t ’s a problem. I respect D r. Be gbi e an d his m i n ­
istry very much, but cannot share his adopt ed me ta ph ys ics which,
though time-honoured, has t ra ns gre ss ed o n t o l o g i c a l l y , it seems to
me, the human a r t i s t ’s cr eaturely status and has tra di t io na ll y
bound art to a sacred servitude.
 Seerveld presentation at Dordt College October 2001 14

The idea that "fait h” is always Christian fa i t h , 9 and that

t ides g uae re n s i n tellectum is properly and singularly "t h e o l o g o -
cal" activity, inevitably twists theorists of physics, political
science, economics, as well as aesthetics, into contor tio ns to be
theologicians if we would subject our theoretical analyses
through faith into "christian" service for God and neighbour.
This is more than hassling about a term like "theology." Such a
theologistic straight-jacket is harmful, I think, beca us e it is
often bound up with the old idea that art, for example, can p e r ­
form, a kind of secular sacramental service: by its great beauty
art lifts us up beyond the mundane world; art gives us a sense of
transcendence, a taste of "religious life" (Brown 55,58-61; c f .
Seerveld 1980b: 121-125).
Again, such a deep-going, concerted attempt to enlist a r t ­
istry for the "christian life" is laudable, but its semi-myst ic al
bent overrates artists as prophets, and misprizes, as I see it,
ordinary aesthetic activity which can enrich human life but does
not occasion epiphanies of illuminating glory. The ph ilo so ph ic al
Monarchian Aristotelian framework behind such a theolog ica l
aesthetics is exemplified by Gerardus van der Leeuw, Sa c r e d and
Profane Beauty: the Holy in A r t , and was in full force at the
University of Chicago Divinity School in the 1960s under the
leadership of Nathan A. Scott, J r . 10 Its "incarnational the olo gy
of art" po sition is commending itself to educated ev ang e li ca l
Christians nowadays who are taking more kindly to A n g l i c a n ritual
or Eastern Orthodo x Christian reliance on icons as an entree to
"spiritual experience."
My own theoretical aesthetics, conceived in the wo mb of a
R e f o rmational Christian phi los op hic al systematics, tries to
honour aesthetic life as an imaginative moment integral to our
whole corporeal human existence; as a facet of G o d ’s good c r e a ­
tion, aesthetic activity is to be received and ex erc iz ed wi th
holy joy inside o n e ’s speaking, thinking, feeling, voting, mo ne y
spending, and prayer life (modal aesthetics). As far as a r t i s t r y
goes (theory of art and literature) in its many sp l e n d o u r e d v a r i ­
eties, incapsulations and f u n c ti on s— to enhance wonder,
entertain, instruct, celebrate: since the crux of the a e s t h e t i c
is allusivity and n u a n c e f u l n e s s , normat ive art may not be b e a u t i ­
ful but could be puzzling, tragic, even ugly, so long as the
oblique artistic presentation of meaning keeps an im agi n at iv e
symbolific quality defining its result or event. My a p p r e c i a t i o n
of the aesthetically grotesque is a significant d if f e r e n c e f r o m
the usual "theology of beauty" that has been for ce nt u ri es a
dominant traditional, to my thinking, blight on u n d e r s t a n d i n g
art. And to upgrade the dim en si on of aesthetics whi ch b r i d g e s
theory with praxis (principles of art and literary critici sm ),
claiming hermeneutics lies in the pr ovi nce of aesthetics, c o u l d
really startle theologians. If col leges and seminaries wh e r e
theology is taught would u n d e r s t a n d that biblical h e r m e n e u t i c s
needs to consider that reading b i bl ic a l text assumes y o u k n o w h o w
to read literature, artistic texts, with G r e form eerde v o e l h o r e n s
sharpened by an aesthetics of nuance, such trained t h e o l o g i a n s
might write different kinds of sermons.
This sketchy outline of a R e f o rmational Chr i s t i a n t he or y of
aesthetics I once called a "d ox ol ogi cal aesthetics," b ec a u s e its
15 Reformation and christian college character

whole thrust is to praise the LORD and to glory thankfully in the

gift of imaginative knowledge of nuances in the world. My col­
league Adrienne Dengerink-Chaplin designates such a philosophical
aesthetics most insightfully, perhaps better, a "creational
aesthetics." T h a t ’s a defining mark of the biblically Re fo rma ­
tional Christian philosophical stance: take creation seriously
as G o d ’s revelation which, despite the perversions we sinners
bring into history, is still G o d ’s world, and is to be studied in
the light of Scriptural revelation when we are a communion of
saints redeemed by Jesus Christ (Seerveld 2000b: 206-208).

I ’ll be very brief here on my third and last point (3): What
good is a college education? My Reformational answer to both a
teacher and student would be: take time to be a holy scholar.
By "scholar" I d o n ’t mean you have to cite at least two dozen
chemical abstracts in your brief report, or add footnotes to your
Trext— short story, or get a major concentr at ion in philosophy. To
be a scholar means to be schooled in studying something, d i s ­
ciplined, thoughtfully thorough in coming to know what you are
doing or are discovering. "Higher education" at college is a
special opportunity for a younger ge neration to taste and for an
older generation to show-and-tell scholarship together, to be
engrossed with the musical capability of the huma n voice, the
intricate biosphere and genetic code of weeds, or the relative
power of images and words for convincing people what is important
or true: some reality of G o d ’s world fascinates you, and now you
have the opening to spend life time in probing, examining,
researching, practising and testing your growing und ers tan di ng of
whatever this wo nder be in all its marvelous in ter connected r i c h ­
ness until you gain the beginnings, as the Dordt Educational Task
document states (11), of "serviceable insight."
"Higher education" is substantially differ en t from
"elementary" and "secondary" schooling, I think, because pupils
have made a discretionary choice (presumably) to become, for a
time, students, to listen and watch scholars, p r o f s — p ro fe ss io n al
students— report their researched "serviceable insights" and to
be led as newcomers into catching the joy of the scholarly
endeavour and giving away its fruits. Scholarly res earch is not
always cut from the same cloth but is approp ria te to the subject
matter: biologist Harry Cook (The Kings College, Edmonton)
investigated for years! under microscopic la boratory conditions
the pituitary gland of the snail in order to se ct ion an or ganism
and analyze the nature of biotic growth; an art hi st or ia n may
need the grace to sift through countless dusty, un use d books and
print archives in the B i b l i o t h e que N a tionale in Paris to get the
key to unlock the meaning of W a t t e a u ’s subtle a rt w o r k so that
people today might second-think the crass boy -m ee ts - gi rl in back
car seat or disco scene; or when James Schaap spends weeks alone
in a pup tent amid the endless waste grasses of the Dakota b a d ­
lands, to recreate the setting of his next work, and Hugh Cook
(Redeemer College, Ancaster) has a two-hour coffee session eve ry
week with a retired head cop in Ontario because there is p ro b a b l y
going to be a crime in his next novel, that all is research, to
produce stories that give you pause and nuggets of wisdom.
 Seerveld presentation at Dordt College October 2001 lb

College is the time of your life to be an ap prenticed

scholar, even if you do not want to be a scholar for life. And
for us who teach in post-secondary education I think it is
vitally Christian to convey the assurance that study time has its
own peculiar service to God and neighbour. Students should not
be hurried, must not have to be in a pellmell hurry to get a job
to make money. That practically is the hypnotic crooked idea of
time America n culture breathes--time means money. No! according
to the Bible: time is a gift of God to be red eemed (Ephesians
5:15-20; van der Hoeven, 65).
Consecrated studious thinking, imagining, speaking and w r i t ­
ing, reading, learning skills is doing something and doing so m e­
thing as important as a pregnancy: preparing with "serviceable
insight" for the birth of "insightful s e r v i c e . ” Christ ia n c o l ­
lege time is seedtime; the harvest comes later. In this amazing
academic crucible we know as an institution of "higher learning,"
mentor and novice have the busy, tiring "leisure" to build up a
treasury of knowledge and und erstanding that will stand you in
good stead when the lean years and the hard times come. Academic
time allows teacher and student to meander ar ound topics, to
explore following your nose, to chew and gnaw on b o o k s , to delve
into backwater eddies of histo ry that deserve to flow fresh in
our stream of consciousness, to experiment in essay and lab and
make mistakes! which become "holy" mistakes when the overview
the mentor provides gives the student encouraging, forgiving,
redemptive guidelines in whi ch to "do it again."
I t ’s a good thing Moses, after his Eg yp tia n training, could
spend 40 years in the grazing land of Midian tending sheep before
he had to tend twelve huge tribes of petulent people. Only four
years at Dordt tending virtual problems is fairly short by c o m ­
parison; so we should cherish this Christian college time of
planting and watering good seed, the precious gestation time for
setting po lic ies on counseling neuroses or for correcting m i s c a r ­
riages of justice before you have to do it in the press of actual
emotional breakdowns and vi ol en t cases of racial injustice. Dur­
ing this seeding time Christian profs make the best manure.
I co nsi der the emphasis on taking o n e ’s time to study to be
Ref or mat io nal --L ut her and Calvin were scholars before they were
populace l e a d e r s - - a n d , I suppose, it is an emphasis due to my
European educational experience where h is tor y-k ee pin g and several
languages are not so discounted as in America. So I am wary of
the turn in W olters to rff, seconded by Fernhout, to promote "more
p r ax is -or ien te d scholarship" (Wo l te rs to rff 56; Fernhout 115-116
n.8). The pragmatist American narrowing down of higher e du c a t i o n
to prep rof es sio nal training (tied into both governmental and c o r ­
porate commercial i n t er es ts ’ wanting e du ca tio n more attuned to
political and business projects), plus a d et er min at ion to give
"the pr im ac y of experiential k no wi ng- in- re lat ion " (Fernhout 125)
to higher ed ucation instead of (?) re cog niz in g the abiding c e n ­
tral role of books for Christian learning by maturing students,
strikes me as unwise.
Chr i st ia n educators today certainly need a sharper aw are nes s
of non-Wes ter n world cultures, the fact that technology is mo vi ng
us into a post-literate society, and that "justice" (not the
Shylock variety) and "keeping promises" (Micah 6:8) must be in
17 Reformation and Christian college character

the foreground of our Christian learning. But those concerns

should not be addressed in a way that jeopardizes the no rm that
academic learning is to be one step removed from the s t r e e t s . 11
Credo it is better to fight battles for the LORD in the library,
where the amunition is also live! as a soldier of Jesus Christ
still being outfitted with holy armour (Ephesians 6:10-20),
before you engage an enemy in unmediated combat, tempted to use
unsanctified weapons and fight fire with fire.

Everything I presented here is in accord, I think, with what I

know about Dordt C o llege and find in your E d u c a tional Task and
Educational Framework documents, albeit tweaked a little d i f ­
ferently. My hope is not that you move "beyond" forging "serv­
iceable insight" (Fernhout 125), but that you deepe n its R e f o r m a-
tional integrality, to use Robert Sweetma n ’s good term (14-16).
And do it with your own p ar tic ul ar historical strengths which
have accrued from a decided, fruitful working use of the bi b l i ­
cally R e formational Christian philosophy for o r i e n t a t i o n 12 (which
I would prefer to call "A phil os oph y of G o d ’s structuring
W o r d ) .13
One must not allow the Wetsidee philosophy (or R e f o rmed
theology) jargon ever to become mouthed shibboleths denoting
kosher faculty rather than to serve as winsome servants, pregnant
ideas which do make a difference in conceiving and teaching a
field of study which will contribute to e v e r y o n e ’s joining in to
be members of the lived com mu nal ity as C h r i s t ’s body of teachers.
Only Jesus Christ deserves disciples, not Luther and John Calvin;
but repossessing a faith-thought tradition once it has gone miss­
ing is almost futile. So I pray that you Dordt faculty keep the
tradition of the Reform ati on alive, not let it become past tense,
living the faith brokered phil os oph ic all y and h is to rio gra ph ica ll y
in your disciplined field of study, teaching c on ge nia ll y together
by re-minting and ramifying, in the R e formational way, God-
honouring "serviceable insights."

Endnotes

1 ...nempe sicuti senes, vel lippi, & quicunque oculis

c a l i g a n t ...specillis autem interpositis a d j u t i , disti nct e legere
incipient: ita Scriptura con fus am alioqui Dei n ot it ia m in
mentibus nostris colligens, dis cus sa caligine liquido nobis verum
Deum ostendit. ("Just as old or bleary-eyed men and those with
weak v i s i o n ... with the aid of spectacles will begin to read d i s ­
tinctly; so Scripture, gathering up the otherwise co nfu se d k n o w l ­
edge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly
shows us the true God"--Ford Lewis Battles translation.)

2 "Why a radical Christian ph il os oph y can only de v elo p in the

line of C a l v i n ’s religious starting-point," Herma n Dooye we erd in
De Wijsbegeerte der W e t s i d e e , 3 volumes (1935-36), translated
David Freeman and William Young, A New Critique o f Theoretical
Thought (Philadelphia: The Pres byt eri an and Ref or med Publishing
C o . . 1953). 1:515-527.
 Seerveld presentation at Dordt College October 2001 18

3 Berkh of almost sounds like Anselm in the Proslogium on aliquid

quo nihil maius c o g i t a n (c.2): since God is that than which
nothing greater can be thought, God must exist. C f . Spykman 135.

4 G. B e r k o u w e r ’s multiple volumes of D o g m a tische S tu di en (1949-

1972) which deftly explicate major Ref orm ed doctrines amid many
other positions current is very valuable, but the series seems to
me to be episodic, missing a linking systematic character.

5 Mike Vande n Bosch notes the difficult role this conception of

the Bible as a source book of propo si tio ns to be believ ed played
in the tr oub led struggle of being "Reformed" at Dordt College
during the 1968-1974 period (146-148). My own approach would be:
"It makes all the difference in the world whether you take a p e r ­
son to be a living soul who could be x -r aye d to di sc er n the
skelton, or treat him like a skeleton wi th certain other
accoutrements. It makes all the difference in the w or ld whether
you take Scripture as God-speaking literature narrating a true
story, which can be x-rayed to get at the doctrinal skeleton, or
treat it like a book of dogmatic prop os iti ons with certain other
interesting features" (1980b: 94).

6 K.J. P o p m a ’s treatment of D e taak der theologie (1946)

explained the danger of treating confessional matters like the
creeds of a church communion as if they needed to be
t h e o l o g i c a l i z e d . For Popma theology is special ize d theoretical
analysis of the (pr e- th eo re ti ca l ) fa it h-f unc ti oni ng side of huma n
life, how people be lievingly un de rs tan d G o d ’s word (especially
64-71); but, Popma says, theology must not usurp the author it y of
primary faith and confessional life.
John van der Stelt is wrestling too with the double meaning
of pistis/geloveni (1) "the gracious gift of faith, whic h cannot
be studied in theology" (1981:131,128) and (2) consci ous acts of
confessing the faith worked in o n e ’s heart, wh ich surely can be
carefully scrutini ze d and ordered.
It would be very good for someone to deline at e the family of
terms used loosely with resulting confusion: saving faith,
f a i t h - c o m m i t m e n t , the function of ult i ma te trust, c on fes si on of
o n e ’s underlying faith, church creeds, doctrines, dogmas, b i b l i ­
cal hermeneutics, academic dogmati c theology, catechism....

7 "...a sense of organic cohere nce is of the esse nc e for R e f o r m e d

higher education, just as it is for a soci ety that Ch ristians
would call good" (Bratt 1993: 38).

8 A l W o l t e r ’s inaugural address at Red ee me r Coll ege gives a t e l l ­

ing correction to the usual tr an sl at io n of II Pe ter 1:4, in
"Partners of the Deity: a cov enantal read ing of II Peter 1:4,"
Calvin Theological J o u r n a l , 25 (1990): 28-44.

9 The Robert Sw e e t m an and George M a a r s d e n 2001 exc han ge in P e r ­

spectives shows that the sleepy use of the term "faith" is ver y
subtle and far-reaching.

10 The New Or ph eu s collection of essays ed ite d by N a t h a n m A.

19 Reformation and Christ ia n college character

W i m satt, Jr., Preston T. Roberts, Jr., Amos N. Wilder.

11 "Perhaps it would be fruitful to turn the tables, with

elementary or secondary educat ion serving as a model for p o s t ­
secondary" (Fernhout, 125 n.19). Such a turnabout would run the
danger, it seems to me, of being pa tronizing toward the older
students, if "modeling" (so important to this conception of
education) used to form primary school children w ou ld be taken as
the model for forming teenagers and college students. A reaso n
Ke n B a d l e y ’s book, Worldviews, The Challenge of Choice (Toronto:
Irwin Publishing, 1996), is so stimulating for high school s t u ­
dents, I think, is that the book treats them more like college
students who may have the need to jostle with others and try wh at
is out of the ordinary to forge a mind of their own.
At this point I also am doubtful whether wisdom can be
taught. Wisdom can only be caught, after a person comes to k n o w
and understand t h i n g s .

12 I find chapters 9 and 10 of The Memoirs of B . J H aan

strikingly honest and hi st or ic al ly relevant to this very day
(153-191).
L i n d b e c k ’s comment applies here too: "...provided a r e li gi on
stresses service rather than domination, it is likely to c o n ­
tribute more to the future of hu man it y if it preserves its own
distinctiveness and integrity than if it yields to the h o m o g e n i z ­
ing tendencies associated with liberal e x pe ri en tia l- exp re ssi vis m "
(128) .

13 C f . "D o o y e w e e r d ’s legacy for aesthetics," in The Legacy of

Herman Do oye we erd , Re f l ections on critical phil os oph y in the
Christian t r a d i t i o n , ed. C.T. M c Intire (Lanham: Uni ver si ty Press
of America, 1995), p . 62.
 @@rv©id presentation at Dordt College O c t o be r 2001 20

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