Archetypal and Ectypal: Undergirding Contextual Reformed Theology

Abstract This article supplements Ximian Xu’s efforts to draw on Abraham Kuyper’s neo-Calvinism to develop a Sino-Reformed theology. It does so noting Xu’s reliance on Kuyper’s views on (i) the tempo-spatiality of theology, and (ii) the manner in which theology progresses organically through cultures across history. The article supplements Xu’s argument by probing the layer of theo-logic that undergirds both points in Kuyper’s view of theology as inherently contextual: namely, the view that theology only exists in archetypal and ectypal forms. Setting neo-Calvinism in its critical reception of this distinction, which it received from early modern Reformed scholasticism, it argues that in its past and present, neo-Calvinism has drawn on the nature of human theologising as ectypal as a fecund resource in the task of contextual theology. In this neo-Calvinist theological framework, it is possible to develop both Dutch Reformed and Sino-Reformed theologies, affirming that both are ‘pilgrim theologies’ expressing the same notion of ‘true theology.’