Date of Award
2018
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
First Reader
Lyle D. Bierma
Second Reader
John Bolt
Third Reader
Matthew L. Tuininga
Fourth Reader
Erik DeBoer
Abstract
This study investigates why the Dutch reformer Guido De Bres believed that the law should restrict religious liberty. In other words, why did De Bres believe that political rulers should not tolerate religious liberty? The answer developed in this dissertation is that De Bres’s restrictive view of religious liberty was largely the result of his vision of an alliance between law and religion. De Bres’s vision of an alliance between law and religion was his theological response to the acute challenge of his concrete historical (political, social) context. De Bres’s vision offered a solution to the desperate plight of the Reformed in their political context in the Netherlands: an alliance between the Dutch Reformed churches and the Dutch nobles would protect the Reformed believers against the intense persecution by royal Catholicism. However, the theological and practical dimensions of De Bres’s vision of an alliance coordinated the political protection of true religion with the political restriction of false religion. Thus, some of De Bres’s political theological perspectives tended to tighten the connection between protection of true religion and the political restriction of false religion. Also, practically, in De Bres’s quest for an alliance, circumstances like the inertia of the Dutch nobles and the competitive political dynamics of the confessional struggle encouraged De Bres to stress the need for political restriction of forms of religion like Anabaptism and especially Catholicism. Likewise, De Bres attempted to provide what the nobles expected the allied church leaders to deliver: enhancement of social order and the legitimization of political rule. The strategies by which he did so, however, reinforced the traditional view that rulers should use the power of the law to restrict false religion and idolatry.
Recommended Citation
Theron, Antoine, "Law and Religion in Alliance: Guido De Bres and the Restriction of Religious Liberty" (2018). CTS PhD Doctoral Dissertations. 50.
https://digitalcommons.calvin.edu/cts_dissertations/50