Comments on a post by The Native Tourist
While his comments on art may be correct, and, having been to St. Peter's, I certainly empathize with his distaste for Romanist pomp and splendor, I find his central claim about worship problematic. The contrast between symbol and spirit, between outward for and inward truth, was a classic heresy of modernism, not a biblical doctrine. Case in point: the sacraments. The NT does not present a religion that "graduates from the symbolical into the clearly-conscious," but rather gives us symbols that are themselves made new, thus pointing to and embodying the new reality brought about by the Christ. I find his whole discussion throughout the Stone lectures marred by this sort of 19th century idealist evolutionism (i.e., Hegelianism).
Mr. Smith, I think you are correct that there is an excessive amount of Hegelianism looming in the thought of Kuyper, but there is a great deal of biblical thinking that predominates. I think there is a definite progression from the OT to the NT and in cultures generally.
The OT epoch was predominantly symbolical/cultic with an important emphasis on the word
while
the NT epoch is predominantly word centered with important symbolic elements (e.g. the sacraments).
I would agree with Kuyper, that visual/sensual-dominated cultures are immature and (usually) paganistic while theistic/mature cultures are word-centered. And as the reformation demonstrated, as the symbolical/sensualist Roman religion was jettisoned for a word-centered liturgy and culture, this allowed the physical aspects of life (art, sex, industry, etc.) to be truly embraced, develop and flourish.
This is the point that Kuyper is trying to make in Stone Lectures as I read it.
That's an appropriately generous reading of Kuyper which merits consideration, and I'm by no means dismissing his achievements or his insights.
I'm not sure that I agree, though, with even the milder form of OT/NT progression that you propose. The centrality of the Psalms, the ongoing work of the prophets, the foundational role of Torah--all these indicate that the word could be considered co-dominant with the symbols, and the NT inclusion of the Supper at every worship gathering (cf. Acts 2:42), along with the eschatological significance of the fellowship meal (e.g., Isa. 25:6-8; cf. 1 Cor. 15:54ff) indicates that the symbols were co-dominant with the word (as Calvin himself seemed to think). Again, the nature of the symbols is different, but the role and importance of symbols is not diminished.
Furthermore, especially with the OT to NT transition, and perhaps for cultures overall, it's not simply a continuous development, as Kuyper's language (again, reflecting the 19th century context) often seems to imply. Rather, a single event changed everything. So, the continuity and difference is that of Christ's body before and after the resurrection: the next "development" in one way, but a radical re-creation in another.
There are still symbols/the symbolic in the NT epoch. But they are much smaller part of covenant life. I would be hard pressed to call NT biblical religion "cultic" in its basic orientation; whereas the OT epoch was manifestly cultic.
A key point to ponder is the meaning of worshipping in "spirit and truth" (John 4). Kuyper elsewhere argues that spirit=non-corporeal/non-physical. Not only will worship become decentralized, but it we become characterized as "non-corporeal/non-physical". This is not to say that NT worship is entirely non-corporeal (it obviously isn't), but that the word takes a predomoninant role that in the OT epoch it did not have.
Commenting by HaloScan
