I Look through My Window into Life: Kuyper’s Notion of Sphere Sovereignty (1870–1880)

The notion of sphere sovereignty as presented by Abraham Kuyper was not so much the cumulative result of his knowledge of the intellectual history of Calvinism, but to a large extent his own idea. Kuyper started using the term sphere sovereignty early in his career, at first in relation to the freedom of the church from the state, later on in a new, ontological sense. Kuyper referred to the Bible and to Calvin as the origin of his notion, but, basically, he found it by looking into life. The suggestion that he derived this notion from Althusius lacks any historical proof.