Bekker, the Sabbath, and Dutch Reformed Confessionalism

Abstract

Balthasar Bekker’s participation in the spirit controversy was the culmination of a life of intellectual and spiritual development that led him away from traditional norms in philosophy and theology and ultimately set him in opposition to the confessional hierarchy of the Dutch Reformed church. The two intellectual pillars upon which The World Bewitched would be built, Cartesianism and anti-confessional theology, were set in place early in Bekker’s career. His interest in Cartesian philosophy started to develop after his first exposure to this philosophy when he entered the University of Groningen. The theological position that placed Bekker in opposition to Calvinist confessionalism and thus involved him in a religious controversy that would envelop his entire adult life also began to develop during his university days in Groningen and Franeker. His early theological views were nourished by an enduring friendship with Jacobus Alting, his Groningen professor of Hebrew, and were first highlighted in an unfortunate clash with the church hierarchy occasioned by the death of his first wife.