This post is part of a series walking through the third volume of Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace The first responsibility of upbringing belongs to the parents. Blood ties convey this obligation. Parents, in this sense, have duties, not rights. (The latter belongs to God alone.) Any rights parents have derive only from their duties. Duty always trumps authority and right alike. Once upon a time, parents did all the work of child-rearing, including gathering food. Now schools, states, church, etc, have divided the... Read more

Kuyper on the kinds of schools Read more

This post is part of a series walking through the third volume of Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace Continuing his discussion of the “upbringing” of children, Kuyper notes that raising children is natural because of their helplessness; the imitation that comes from example and custom. We must not equate “natural” with “instinct.” Raising children is an intentional activity on our part and requires thought and effort. That said, the majority of it is invisible, and as a result it is divinely... Read more

Kuyper on raising children Read more

This post is part of a series walking through the third volume of Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace To recap from the last post: marriage is the union of man and woman under the higher law and intersecting the spheres of “specific family,” “extended family,” church, and state. No married couple are atoms–all four spheres are involved and must cooperate to form a “true marriage.” (420-421) In the past such cooperation happened, albeit with specific exceptions that did not alter the... Read more