Common Grace and the Arts

Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, Lecture 5: Calvinism and the Arts:

And therefore I must still illustrate the second factor, which alone decides the case. I have already, more than once, called your attention to the important significance of the Calvinistic doctrine of “common grace,” and of course in this lecture on art I must refer to it again. That which is to be ecclesiastical must bear the stamp of faith, therefore genuine Christian art can only go out from believers. Calvinism, on the contrary, has taught us that all liberal arts are gifts which God imparts promiscuously to believers and to unbelievers, yea, that, as history shows, these gifts have flourished even in a larger measure outside the holy circle. "These radiations of Divine Light,” he wrote, “shone more brilliantly among unbelieving people than among God's saints.” And this of course quite reverses the proposed order of things. If you limit the higher enjoyment of art to regeneration, then this gift is exclusively the portion of believers, and must bear an ecclesiastical character. In that case it is the outcome of particular grace. But if, at the hand of experience and history, you become persuaded that the highest art-instincts are natural gifts, and hence belong to those excellent graces which, in spite of sin, by virtue of common grace, have continued to shine in human nature, it plainly follows that art can inspire both believers and unbelievers, and that God remains Sovereign to impart it, in His good pleasure, alike to Heathen and to Christian nations. This applies not only to art, but to all the natural utterances of human life, and is illustrated by the comparison in early times between Israel and the other nations. As far as holy things are concerned, Israel is chosen, and is not only blessed above all nations, but stands among all nations, isolated In the question of Religion, Israel has not only a larger share, but Israel alone has the truth, and all the other nations, even the Greeks and the Romans, are bent beneath the yoke of falsehood. Christ is not partly of Israel and partly of the nations; He is of Israel alone. Salvation is of the Jews. But just in proportion as Israel shines forth from within the domain of Religion, so is it equally backward when you compare the development of its art, science, politics, commerce and trade to that of the surrounding nations. The building of the Temple required the coming of Hiram from a heathen country to Jerusalem; and Solomon, in whom, after all, was found the Wisdom of God, not only knows that Israel stands behind in architecture and needs help from without, but by his action he publicly shows that he, as the king of the Jews, is in no way ashamed of Hiram's coming, which he realizes as a natural ordinance of God.