Dates for Old Amsterdam?

[sgemmen9]

Hi friends,

Anyone know the dates for the Old Amsterdam school of thought? I'm thinking Free University of Amsterdam when Kuyper and Bavinck were there until it's conclusion. I know Bavinck died in 1921 and Kuyper a year earlier. Anyone know about when it started?

 

[Guido's Brother]

The Free University was opened in 1880. If you're going to identify "Old Amsterdam" with the Free University, that would be the date. If you're going to identify "Old Amsterdam" with Kuyper himself, a date would be harder to pin down. One candidate might be 1875, the year that he says he finally became fully Reformed.

 

[yeutter]

When did the Free University cease to be a distinctively Reformed institution? We pin the date of the demise of Princeton Seminary at 1929. Was the Free gone before Princeton?

 

[Guido's Brother]

I suppose the answer hinges on what you mean by "distinctively Reformed." If you mean "confessional" (adhering to the Three Forms of Unity), when the VU was set up, only the faculty of divinity was bound to the TFU. So, for the rest of the VU, the case might be made that it was never distinctively Reformed. The rest was "on the foundation of Reformed principles."

As for the faculty of divinity's departure from confessional orthodoxy, I don't know for sure, but I think you would be looking at the post-Second World War period -- probably the 1950s and 1960s. Signs of decay were in place before the Second World War, but the full-scale departure probably takes place after. Harry Kuitert began teaching at the VU in 1967, so I think that alone says something. He succeeded Berkouwer, who himself was starting to lose his grip on orthodoxy.