Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer was a Dutch politician, historian and statesman who lived from 1801 to 1876. He remained a member of the state church in the Netherlands throughout his life in spite of many revival movements in Christianity that he had connections with like the Scottish Reveille and the Dutch Affscheiding. One of his prominent students was Abraham Kuyper who later broke from the state church to begin the Gereformeerde Kerken with a group of churches from the Affscheiding.
In his book on Unbelief and Revolution, van Prinsterer is not only a historian and a statesman, but also a prophet. I refer to him as a prophet, not only in the sense that he foresaw the cultural and political consequences of unbelief, but more in the sense that he spoke Biblical truth to power, even though he was neither clergy nor a pastor. He was a political figure who was firmly grounded in the Word of God and strove to ground Europe in the Word of God as the French Revolution (1789-1799) continued to make ripples across Europe so many years later. His poignant observations and Biblically grounded teachings still speak today as the fruit of unbelief continues to manifest itself.
His thesis about revolution in history is built around the central antithesis between belief and unbelief. As such, unbelief manifests itself in revolution. Of course, this revolution is far more extensive than the revolt of the people against the civil authority. This revolution is the revolt of both the people and the civil authority against God. In opposition to revolution, the fruits of belief in God is that all comes into submission to His authority and power.
The book is a series of 15 lectures that were published in writing. They lay out some of the contributing factors that led up to the French Revolution and then some of the lingering effects of the French Revolution on the modern world. Van Prinsterer demonstrates how some of these lingering Revolution principles play into or could play into some of the future regimes and tyrannies of the modern world. In this, he does not lay the blame specifically on the people or the civil authority, but on the principle of unbelief when it takes over a society and blatantly rejects the gospel.
In this book, Van Prinsterer discusses anti-revolutionary principles, the Biblical history of authority, historic forms of government, perversions in constitutional law, principles from the Reformation, an analysis of unbelief, the conflict with nature and law. With some terms and basic rules defined, he goes through the history of the phases of the French Revolution and finally the Reign of Terror. He then moves to an overview of the following reign of Napoleon Bonaparte. He concludes with a number of observations for the modern times and the future, including an astute observation that international law is built on revolutionary principles.
In lecture III, he explains that the principles of the Revolution “… can be attributed neither directly nor indirectly to shortcomings in principles which are as eternal and unshakable as the being of God and which will always remain, though men should depart from them in order to build on sand, the pillars of freedom, justice, and order – for the state, the church, and for the whole structure of society.” The Revolution builds authority, human rights, constitutions on the sand. But Christianity builds all on the foundation of submission to God.
His lectures in chapter VII are uniquely fitted to the widening gap between those in the modern church who might tote liberty and those who tote submission to the civil authority. He writes on the principle of the reformation on p. 73: “It [the Reformation] did preach liberty, but as the Gospel does: a liberty that is grounded in submission. Submission to God’s Word and Law. Submission, for His sake, also to men. Submission to every truth drawn from God’s Word, to every authority derived from Divine authority. Freedom to perform one’s duty. Freedom from the whim of men, to submit to the will of God.”
There is a lot of meat to chew on in this book and I would love to quote it extensively. But that might hinder you from reading the book.
What is fascinating is how Van Prinsterer exposes how the tyranny of the French Revolution began with the majority supressing the God-given rights of the minority. The natural order was overthrown by appeals to “public safety” and the “will of the many” which even ended in the execution of princes in the name of “public safety.”
Solzhenitsyn once observed that all the cruelties of Soviet Russia were orchestrated because men have forgotten God. I don’t know if he read Van Prinsterer (probably not), but Van Prinsterer basically lays out Solzhenitsyns theory in a very sophisticated historical and philosophical analysis of another revolutionary movement (the French Revolution). They join a variety of prophetic voices in the 1800s and 1900s including Kuyper, Machen, Schaeffer who warned against a society that rejects the divine rule of Jesus Christ and the eternal principles of Scripture which are demonstrated in the natural order of the universe.
Above all, this work does an incredible job of tying the holy gospel into his challenge against the root of unbelief and the fruit of revolution. Van Prinsterer concludes “Faith overcomes the world. If we wish to overcome the world it is needful first of all to cast down in our minds all imaginations and every high think that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Let us always remember that cry, ‘Help thou mine unbelief!’ is preceded by the shout of joy, ‘Lord, I believe!’ Let us never forget that all activity, also in history and politics, is of no value in the estimation of HIm who knows the heart if it is not sanctified by the twofold prayer that expresses the common need of philosopher an child alike: ‘Be merciful to me a sinner,’ and ‘My soul cleaves to the dust; quicken thou me according to thy word.’
We too can hope that through faithful submission to the Word of God, God in His sovereign power will begin to realign spheres of authority in our times. His Word will continue to shake the very foundations of this world as men and women are called from unbelief to faith in Him and His Son Jesus Christ.
In other words, Van Prinsterer’s book holds many timeless principles that can be applied to the present day. So take and read!
Guillaume Groen Van Prinster, Unbelief and Revolution (trans. Harry Van Dyke). Lexham Press, Bellingham, 2018.
Rev. Nathan Zekveld is the pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Grande Prairie Alberta and blogs at https://irrelevantmag.wordpress.com/
