Here is a Keynote slide that illustrates and explains Abraham Kuyper’s position regarding “sphere sovereignty.”
Much could be said about Kuyper’s view, and the wonderful Common Grace translation project will provide important clarity about the relationship between common grace and particular grace, and the correlative relationship between the institutional church (think: “means of grace” and “marks of the church”) and the church as organism. We offer some notes below the diagram.
Note the following:
1. The human heart is the “seat” of the Trinitarian activity of grace, the focal point and integration point of all Christian (i.e., fully human) personality and personal existence.But this is a heart-in-community.
2. It is the regenerate heart, the redeemed heart, that is occupied by King Jesus, who rules by his Word and Spirit.
3. The inner black dotted circle represents the activity and sphere of particular grace, namely, the institutional church. It is a dotted line because the influence and effects of the means of grace flow beyond the institutional church into all of life. Particular grace is the foundation and seasoning of common grace. Never, ever would Kuyper have separated, isolated, or disjoined particular grace from common grace. The proper functioning of the latter depends upon the effectual functioning of the former.
4. This “inter-penetrating” symbiotic functioning of particular grace and common grace (note the heavy bi-directional arrows) takes shape when God’s “gathered people” become God’s “dispersed people,” so that the activities of the church-as-organism begin to permeate the arena of common grace.
5. Notice that here, the institutional church is not just one sphere alongside all other spheres of human activity. The institutional church is sui generis (one of a kind), and as K. Schilder said, it is the hearth of all genuinely Christian cultural obedience. The other spheres of Christian (i.e., fully human) activity are arranged concentrically around the institutional church. Again, note the dotted line of the institutional church, indicating that the ministry of the institutional church has “something to say” about Christian (i.e., fully human) living in society.
6. Notice the solid green line at the outside of the illustration. This represents the world, encompassing all of human culture and activity.
7. The communal activity of Christians in various spheres of activity is connected by another (blue) dotted line, to indicate the missional character of Christian (i.e., fully human) cultural obedience. This must become in our generation the “new” feature of Calvinism, whereby Calvinist Christians realize that such communal activities and organizations are not pursued primarily, exclusively, and structurally “for us,” but really “for the world,” in the fullest proper biblical sense, as taught, for example, in Matthew 5:13-16.
I have been to led to believe in the past (via secondary sources) that Kuyper would not have centered the institutional church in this way. I’ve understood his view to be that the institutional church is simply one of the spheres alongside home and school, and that Scripture would be in the center. Your diagram is a great improvement over that; I simply didn’t think Kuyper would have drawn it in this way.
I believe that, when it comes to sphere sovereignty, the coordination of the institutional church alongside all the other spheres is a modification of Kuyper—one that you can find today, for example, in the recent book of Dr. Richard Mouw (and can find here). The centrality of the institutional church in Kuyper’s thinking can be substantiated from his work on Common Grace and a number of his soon-to-be published essays on the nature of the church. However, it has also been very common to speak of the “three-legged stool” of church—home—school as forming the heart of Christian society, which lends some credence to your observation.
Whether it is accidental or intentional does not matter. The fact that in this diagram the thin-long-arrows pointing out from the “heart” toward the subjects of the arena of Common Grace is a testimony that it is a matter of the heart how we deal with these. I do wonder if the thin-long-arrows should exclusively point to school, business, home and state (as it is in this diagram). Should they not also point toward the other subjects that are present in the arena of Common Grace? Or is that incidental?
Yes, there should be thin-long-arrows to each of the circles (= spheres), but in order to avoid making the drawing too “busy,” these were omitted.
This is so, so very helpful and essentially how I have understood Kuyper’s/The Bible’s understanding of the relationship between the institutional church and the culture as well as the church as organism. Love the diagram. Thanks for it. One question, are you familiar with Ed Clowney’s pyramid diagram of the special and general offices of the church? I have always understood his conception of the general offices (every believer is a minister of mercy/priest, a minister of the word/prophet and a minister of order/king) as more of functioning as common grace categories. Any thoughts?
Thank you for this encouragement!
I am not familiar with the diagram you mention, though it sounds very close to what the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 12, Q/A 32 teaches about the Christian sharing in Christ’s anointing and thereby being called to live in the world as prophet, priest, and king. To the extent that the diagram you mention reflects the activities of the church as organism, this calling roots in special grace and is exercised beyond the institutional church, in the world.