"The absolute need of a spiritual supremacy is at present the strongest of arguments in favour of the fact of its supply"

Bart Jan Spruyt bespreekt in een column in het Nederlands Dagblad het gegeven dat bepaalde gereformeerden weigeren hun kinderen te laten vaccineren.

Refo’s kleden zich ook anders. Waarom? Omdat God heeft gezegd, zeggen zij, dat vrouwen zich niet mogen kleden als mannen (Deuteronomium 22:5). Zou het waar zijn? Zou het niet eerder zo zijn dat de omringende cultuur op een gegeven moment is veranderd (bevallige dames die pantalons gingen dragen en een sigaretje opstaken), dat die verandering is geïnterpreteerd als iets van een opstand tegen een heilige en dierbare orde, en dat het verzet tegen die opstand tot een bepaald gedrag heeft geïnspireerd, dat daarna Bijbels gerechtvaardigd is?

Zeer waarschijnlijk. Maar m.i. krijgt Spruyt in de rest van zijn column toch niet echt de vinger achter het probleem. Ons schoot onmiddelijk een op dit weblog reeds aangehaald stukje van John Henry Newman in gedachten (uit: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, hoofdstuk 2, sectie 2, paragraaf 13):

Surely, either an objective revelation has not been given, or it has been provided with means for impressing its objectiveness on the world. If Christianity be a social religion, as it certainly is, and if it be based on certain ideas acknowledged as divine, or a creed, (which shall here be assumed,) and if these ideas have various aspects, and make distinct impressions on different minds, and issue in consequence in a multiplicity of developments, true, or false, or mixed, as has been shown, what power will suffice to meet and to do justice to these conflicting conditions, but a supreme authority ruling and reconciling individual judgments by a divine right and a recognized wisdom? In barbarous times the will is reached through the senses; but in an age in which reason, as it is called, is the standard of truth and right, it is abundantly evident to any one, who mixes ever so little with the world, that, if things are left to themselves, every individual will have his own view of them, and take his own course; that two or three will agree today to part company tomorrow; that Scripture will be read in contrary ways, and history, according to the apologue, will have to different comers its silver shield and its golden; that philosophy, taste, prejudice, passion, party, caprice, will find no common measure, unless there be some supreme power to control the mind and to compel agreement.
There can be no combination on the basis of truth without an organ of truth. As cultivation brings out the colors of flowers, and domestication changes the character of animals, so does education of necessity develop differences of opinion; and while it is impossible to lay down first principles in which all will unite, it is utterly unreasonable to expect that this man should yield to that, or all to one. I do not say there are no eternal truths, such as the poet proclaims, which all acknowledge in private, but that there are none sufficiently commanding to be the basis of public union and action. The only general persuasive in matters of conduct is authority; that is, (when truth is in question,) a judgment which we feel to be superior to our own. If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties, between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You may be tolerant or intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have. By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an infallible chair; and by the sects of England, an interminable division. Germany and Geneva began with persecution, and have ended in scepticism. The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the object, while it gives definiteness and force to the matter, of the Revelation.