Unbelief and Revolution

Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer

Edited and Translated by Harry Van Dyke

Lexham Press

Bellingham, WA

Unbelief and Revolution

Copyright 2018 Harry Van Dyke

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

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This book is a revised edition of Groen van Prinsterer’s Lectures on Unbelief and Revolution, published by Wedge Publishing Foundation, Jordan Station, Ontario, Canada, 1989, pages 293–539.

Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. Public domain.

Print ISBN 9781683592280

Digital ISBN 9781683592297

Cover Art: Jean-Pierre Houël, “The Storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789,” 1789. Public domain.

Lexham Editorial Team: Danielle Thevenaz and Todd Hains

Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer on the occasion of the completion of his Handbook of Dutch History, some months after he had concluded his lectures on Unbelief and Revolution, fall 1846.

Contents

Translator’s Introduction

Preface

Preface to the Second Edition

Lecture I | Introduction

Lecture II | The Wisdom of the Ages

Lecture III | Anti-Revolutionary Principles

Lecture IV | Historic Forms of Government

Lecture V | Abuses

Lecture VI | The Perversion of Constitutional Law

Lecture VII | The Reformation

Lecture VIII | Unbelief

Lecture IX | Unbelief (Continued)

Lecture X | The Conflict with Nature and Law

Lecture XI | First Phase: Preparation (till 1789)

Lecture XII | Second Phase: Development (1789–94)

Lecture XIII | The Reign of Terror

Lecture XIV | Overview: 1794–1845

Lecture XV | Conclusion

Works Cited

Names Index

Subject Index

Scripture Index

Translator’s Introduction

Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer’s famous book Unbelief and Revolution is a classic work in public theology, first published over one hundred and fifty years ago. It is a manifesto of a prescient Christian statesman and has become an enduring statement of Christian political thought. A mature work, here offered in an abridged English translation, Unbelief and Revolution functioned as a “tract for the times” and marked its author as an astute critic of the spirit of the age.

The central message of the book is that the French Revolution is not actually over but lives on in its ideas, and these ideas are dangerous for society. The book makes a compelling case for challenging the “permanent revolution” in which Western civilization has engaged since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Our culture, according to Groen, is increasingly in the grip of an intellectual and spiritual revolution that has put secular humanism in the saddle and repeatedly wreaks havoc with the created order for humanity and society. Because this revolution has continued almost unabated to this day, the book’s message has only increased in relevance for the twenty-first century.