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The Christian Citizen

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01
January

Calvinism and Art: Common Grace Does Not Solve All the Problems

By

Cornelius Van Til

ARTICLE

RECENTLY it was my privilege to be invited, with a few others, to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Rene D. Grove for a discussion of the relation of Calvinism to art. At the request of Mr. Grove, Dr. Leon Wencelius favored the group with a general introduction to the subject.

In the course of the afternoon Mr. Grove graciously permitted us to view a number of his paintings, among them the one pictured here. He said he was anxious to express his Protestant, and more particularly his Calvinistic convictions in his paintings. In the picture of the mother and child, for example, he had made the child rather than the mother the center of attraction. Moreover, he had placed a cross in the hand of the child, as though there were already a self-conscious awareness of the great mission before him.

Had he been at all successful, Mr. Grove asked, in conveying the Protestant rather than the Romanist view of the mother and child? And how could he bring out the specifically Reformed conception of life, in his future paintings?

A dreadful hush fell upon our little group. Here we were, Calvinists all of us, theologians some of us, anew reminded of Calvin's general view of art, furtively recalling Abraham Kuyper's famous lecture on Calvinism and Art, and yet apparently unable to answer a simple little question such as the one now proposed.

Mr. Grove assured us that he was not asking for help on the technique of painting. That was his business as an artist. Even this reassurance, however, did not help a great deal. In fact, it took away our last mask. None of us could now excuse ourselves by protesting absence of artistic gift. When we finally left, I felt that we had not been of much help to Mr. Grove. If the others who were there feel differently about this, they may, of course, express themselves. Will not some reader enlighten Mr. Grove?

Of course we told him something. We tried to save face. We told him about Common Grace. But his face did not light up at this. He seemed to know the phrase as well as we, and we seemed to know the proper meaning of the phrase as little as he.

Did "common grace" stand for the idea of an area of neutrality as between believer and unbeliever? If so, how should the Calvinist proclaim the message in this area. A neutral area would act like static to the messenger of God, as well as to the messenger of Satan. And was not Kuyper right when he claimed that it was the doctrine of predestination that really furnished the foundation for the liberation of art? The doctrine of predestination is but a specialized point of the general teaching that God by His plan controls whatsoever comes to pass. And this general principle of the all-comprehensive plan of God is required if any human effort is to have meaning at all. Moreover, the doctrine of predestination as based upon the idea of the all inclusive plan of God, implies that man is saved by grace and grace alone, and that when he is saved he is saved in the whole of his being and with the whole of his world. Is it not this doctrine, the doctrine that forms the heart of saving rather than of common grace, that enables the believer, if he be an artist, to feel justified in giving full vent to the spontaneity of expression that is his gift from God?

Still further, to think of common grace as furnishing a sort of museum where the unbeliever and the believer may alike exhibit their wares to one another without at the same time dashing for one another's throats would be to deny the doctrine of total depravity. The unbeliever is not merely sometimes, but always and in his every endeavor a covenant breaker.

In flat contradiction to Kuyper’s claim referred to above, we are told in an article in Life (Nov. 22, 1948, p. 105) that it was Romanticism that unshackled modern art. There we are informed, in effect, that it is modern irrationalism that has brought to light artistic spontaneity. This article agrees generally with the point of view adopted by several other interpreters of modern art and life in general. We mention F. T. C. Northrop in The Meeting of East and West, P. A. Sorokin in The Crisis of Our Age, and Paul Tillich in The Protestant Era, as examples.

Such writers frequently do not trouble to discuss in detail the relation of Calvinism to art. But the logic of their position would require them to say that Calvinism is—or was—art's chiefest foe. For Calvinism, in their minds, stands for determinism, for system hard and fast, for the dominance of abstract intellectualism, for the killing of all freedom, freedom of the human person in any field of his endeavor. It was not till modern times, these men would contend, when man finally had die courage to cut loose from all system, that art could give forth its witness unrepressed.

So then the covenant-breaker certainly seeks to preach his gospel, the gospel of liberation from God, through the medium of art. If we could have some Screwtape Letters written according to Reformed principles we would, no doubt, be forewarned of this. Even so, we know it well enough. Mr. Grove also knows it.

My guess then is that if you want to see his face light up, you will have to begin with special rather than with common grace. Of course, we did that, too, I suppose, by our assumptions. But we were far from clear on the matter.

I suppose that when you write your answer to Mr. Grove's question, you will start by pointing out (a) that man is saved by grace alone and (b) that when he is saved man is saved in the whole of his life and in the whole of his world. I suppose you will write him that only he who believes this can discover true spontaneity. Only he who believes will sense the facts of the universe for what they really are. Only he can portray sin as guilt against God and as pollution of His gifts. Only he knows redemption and what it does, may do, and will do to the face of a man, of society and of the world. Only he can safely engage in “abstraction" for his abstraction need not be false—false to true art as well as false to true religion.

I wonder if it is not after you have thus stressed the fact of the believer’s responsibility to present his message everywhere and always, and the fact that the non-believer's hatred of God is expressed in art as well as in religion, that you will begin speaking of common grace. Perhaps you will use it then to help explain how even unbelievers in spite of their basic covenantal allegiance to Satan, do produce marvelous works of art. Is it because of common grace that unbelievers are not always fully conscious of their own basic principle? Is it because they are not fully conscious of their own principles that they least express their hostility to ours? And is it when they seem least hostile to our principle of covenant obedience that they do their best work as artists? I suppose that you will add that in any case, even when unbelievers are most expressive in their hostility to God, their work may still be exceedingly beautiful, so completely self-frustrative are all the efforts of Satan and his servants in this world. The unbeliever must borrow, or rather steal, his capital from the believer. Thus do all the works of unbelieving artists always testify against the unbelief of their creators, in lesser or in greater degree. My guess is that if you could show Mr.Grove that only the Calvinist knows the true principle of spontaneity or freedom in any field, that any other spontaneity or freedom is the liberty of flapping one's wings in a void, the freedom of painting disorder without the background of order, the freedom of painting order without spontaneity, then his face would at least begin to light up.

‍

Notes

Cornelius Van Til

Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) served as Professor of Apologetics at Westminster Seminary until 1975. His work in presuppositional apologetics remains a hallmark of our institution.

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