Pontiaan van Hattem

Pontiaan van Hattem (born January 16, 1641 in Bergen op Zoom ; † September 1706 ibid) was a Dutch theologian and religious philosopher of the "golden age" . Initially working as a Calvinist pastor , from 1680 - influenced by the theses of the philosopher Baruch de Spinoza - he left the main church ideologically and was finally removed from office by it. As a result, he succeeded in winning numerous followers, who were called hattemists , with his religious views . After his death, they faced increasing persecution and repression, so that van Hattem's movement disappeared in the mid-18th century.

Life

Origin, education and professional work

He was the son of Diederik van Hattem and Johanna Muyshondt. At the age of 20 he enrolled to study theology at the University of Leiden . He later also attended lectures at the Huguenot Académie de Saumur in France and the University of Oxford in England .

On July 31, 1672 he was elected the new pastor of the parish of Sint Philipsland in the province of Zeeland . He took office on October 11th of the same year. The local church had only been built four years earlier. Van Hattem was considered a peaceful and humble church servant. He preached passionately - even on Ascension Day , which was unusual before - and was very involved, which made him very popular in the church. In 1676 he founded a branch church in Brouwershaven on the neighboring island of Schouwen-Duiveland .

Dismissal and living as a free preacher

After rumors of this kind had been circulating for a long time, on July 2, 1680 the Classis - a kind of regional church administration - first publicly raised allegations against van Hattem that he was falling away from general teaching. This initially assumed a misunderstanding and suspected that his accusers had false information. Therefore he asked for a control visit from a delegation of church representatives, which took place on July 9th and 10th. At the visitors' request, Van Hattem gave 14 lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism and the Kort concept , which is a simplified and abbreviated form of the same, in order to exemplify his conception of faith. However, the presentation was to his disadvantage and the Classis suspended him on October 2, 1680 from his office as pastor.

The local Ambachtslehnsherr , who had a considerable say in the selection of pastors, intervened in favor of van Hattem with the secular authorities ( Gecommitteerde Raden ) of Zeeland. Seeing little religious damage done, they lifted the suspension and referred the case back to the classis . Thereupon he sought technical advice from the theological faculties of the University of Leiden and the University of Utrecht . The Utrecht professors in particular rated van Hattem's views as heterodox . Thereupon the nomination committee - in which both spiritual and secular representatives sat - suspended him on February 27, 1681 again.

Again the secular authorities reversed and reinstated the decision. On May 27 or 29, 1683 van Hattem was finally suspended and banished from Zeeland by the Provincial Coetus in Middelburg - which included two Classis members and two officials . He reacted with passivity and reluctance to the decision, which was also a characteristic of his apprenticeship, and returned as an exile to his nearby hometown of Bergen op Zoom , where he enjoyed the protection of the city council.

He held numerous conventicles over the next 23 years . In Zeeland his work was banned in 1692 and both printing and distribution of his writings were prohibited. A little later, the States General confirmed this decision, which, however, had hardly any further negative consequences for van Hattem. He undertook extensive preaching trips to The Hague and Amsterdam and was able to gain a noteworthy following, which became known as hattemists , through various correspondence . Pontiaan van Hattem died in September 1706 at the age of 65 and was buried on September 13th.

Religious teaching

Due to its mystical character, Spinoza's teaching appealed to Protestant free spirits in particular - the Amsterdam philosopher Willem Deurhoff (1650–1717) and the pastor Frederik van Leenhof († 1712) , for example, were van Hattem's contemporaries who also developed ideological concepts based on Spinoza To call Zwolle .

Pontiaan van Hattem was particularly influenced by Spinoza's ideas regarding autonomous reason and also allowed mystical and pietistic elements to flow into his sermons . The main reason for his dismissal was that he believes the churchwardens pantheistic common considerations and by the official doctrine regarding apology and atonement differed. According to van Hattem's antinomist theology, Christians do not live under God's law but under His grace. Accordingly, he opposed the fact that salvation could be achieved by submitting to divine law. Furthermore, humans have no free will, which is why they cannot harm themselves, and moreover they cannot act against the will of God, which is why they are not a sinful being. Derived from these theses, van Hattem did not believe in original sin . He was against legalistic sermons and insisted that Christians should take liberation ideas more seriously. He also spoke out against denominationalism and in favor of complete tolerance for all believers, and took the view that prayers would not give believers any benefit from God. For the Calvinists his ideas equated to libertinism or even atheism .

In later years van Hattem had a more ambivalent relationship to the teaching of his model. Among other things, he developed an epistemological criticism of Spinoza's assertion that man can be conscious of himself, of God and of nature at the same time. This criticism can be seen as a radicalization of Spinoza's criticism of Descartes' thesis that there are - correlating to unconditional substance - relative substances that have a temporary certainty about their own being through their ability to think. Van Hattem epistemological refinement of manner, as Spinoza Descartes' ontology criticized, can be interpreted in the assumption that anyone who seeks to gain knowledge of the infinite substance of God, his belief in the certainty of judgment forces of finite selves store should and should deny that one's finite impressions are in some way essentials. According to van Hattem, the self must be negated in order to grasp the absolute.

In this way van Hattem tried to solve a much criticized problem in Spinoza's Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata : the validity of the claim that it is possible to show how the limited mind can experience the infinite (holy) spirit .

Aftermath

According to van Hattems death his teachings were circulated by some stalwarts - to name particular his former housekeeper Dina Jans composed for their faith Zierikzee was exiled, Jacob Bril, Marinus boom (shoemaker from Middelburg ) and as a pastor in Schore acting Gosuinus van Buitendijk. Those who sympathized with his ideas faced frequent persecution and harassment. The best-known advocate of this religious movement is the navigator and explorer Jakob Roggeveen , who between 1718 and 1723 published van Hattem's De val van 's werelds afgod ( de .: "The fall of the idols of the world") in four parts. The first part was confiscated and burned directly by the Middelburg city council. As early as March 29, 1714, various writings of van Hattem were burned in the same city. After the first writings by Roggeveen had appeared, the church council even asked the States General for stronger measures, especially against the mayor of Arnemuiden , where Roggeveen was granted protection. In Middelburg, the pastors Carolus Tuynman, Jacobus Leydekker and Petrus Immens particularly agitated against van Hattem's teaching.

Over time, the movement lost its importance, and in the 1740s it finally dispersed completely.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Pontiaan van Hattem in Sint-Philipsland . On June 2, 2015 on zeeuwseankers.nl . Retrieved July 29, 2017.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Herman Johan Selderhuis ( Ed. ): Handbook of Dutch church history . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen , 2015, ISBN 978-3-647-55787-8 , page 295.
3. ↑ Michiel R. Wielema: The March of the Libertines. Spinozists and the Dutch Reformed Church (1660-1750) . Uitgeverij Verloren, Hilversum , 2004, ISBN 90-6550-777-9 , page 163.
4. ↑ Angela Roothaan: Pontiaan van Hattem - Een vroege kentheoretische criticus van Spinoza . In: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie , Vol. 50, № 3, September 1988, pages 525-535.