The inability to know God’s essence is not a puzzle to be solved. It is instead the motive of worship and adoration. Bavinck saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness attempting to find God without the aid of sense-mediated signs and signifiers. For them the result was agnosticism steeped in a rejection of all metaphysical inquiry. So how does a dogmatician outfox the philosopher? Remain objectively certain, or as Bavinck says: stick to your guns.
Karl Barth said that “back to,” is not a good slogan for dogmatics. …

Last week Bavinck led us onto the negative path to knowing God. Even in the modern age, John Lloyd has humorously noted that we can’t see anything that matters. We know little about the world and we know even less about God. In Bavinck’s day the doctrine of God’s incomprehensibility tended to agnosticism (Hegel) or a theology equal to anthropology (Fichte). What is gained by the ‘recovery’ of God’s incomprehensibility? Peace that passes understanding? Inexpressible joy? Bavinck can’t wait to find out.
Theology since scholasticism lost the impact of God’s …

Dogmatics takes for its starting point the certainty of God’s existence. Everything else is details. For Bavinck the outset of Christian theology has one thing in common with the long history of critical reflection on God’s existence: he is unknowable. But nonattainability of the knowledge of God is not the same as nothing. As long as scripture remains objectively center we worship whom we know.
The greatest dangers to theology are words and a devaluation of mystery. If theology becomes an exercise of rhetoric or replaces its objective vision (revelation) for …

“Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics” are Bavinck’s opening words to the doctrine of God. Even when a confirmed believer moves past the sophomore debates of faith v reason and proofs for God’s existence faith, moving toward understanding, faces the incompressibility of knowing God. The great question here at the outset of our journey is: How is reading Bavinck anymore of a help?
The tensions between modern life’s this-world scientific orientation and the pietistic other-worldly contemplation was a concern Bavinck was a pains to address. These two worldviews have inherent dangers …

It’s been more than 2 months since we ended our year long series in Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics. We covered two of the volumes and some material from ‘Philosophy of Revelation’ and ‘The Certainty of Faith.’ As the new year takes shape it feels like the work is only half done. Personally I can’t read Bavinck without some sense of guilt for not sharing it.
So if we get ten positive  responses from those interested in more Herman Bavinck we will bring back the series. Please post “yes” to the comment …

I delivered a paper on Bavinck this year at the ETS annual meeting in New Orleans. It marked a full year spent in Bavinck’s theology. As our series on Bavinck comes to a close, we end on a personal note: Bavinck’s theology of certainty in the face of personal uncertainty and the trial of personal faith.
When the economy took a nose dive early last year so did we. I found myself out of work and our future plans decidedly uncertain. You can see where this is going. One of the …

Our last post looked at some of Bavinck’s opening words on regeneration. Self-awareness and self-improvement are to the spiritual life the first mile of a thousand. And, as far as east is from west, everyone has a little different idea of what the new birth is.

When it comes to decision making, tomorrow often never comes. For Bavinck and the Reformed, this adage is too true for the Pelagian doctrine of regeneration. Assuming the final cause of salvation (faith and belief in the Gospel) rests in the ability to accept or deny most people won’t bother; the quality of the message waffles, and those who cannot exercise choice (infants, etc) are simply discounted from the conversation. On the other hand how does God bestow his grace to an indifferent and hostile world? The answer, says Bavinck, …

There is a lot at stake in describing regeneration and coming to faith. Above all is the certainty that faith is genuine, leading to eternal life; its hope valid, its conduct legitimate. The reality of rebirth in Christianity is certain for one long and historical reason. Upon serious reflection, theologians from Irenaeus onward had a difficult time explaining the change: they found describing this new life in the Spirit elusive, living beyond the formula of baptism. Can Bavinck solve this complex riddle? We shall see.   
The New Testament presentation of …

We are now setting out in volume 4 of Bavinck’s Dogmatics. Part 1: The Holy Spirit gives New Life to Believers covers faith and calling, justification and regeneration before dealing with the community of the church in part 2. Readers should not feel intimidated by the massive size of this book (940 pps. w/index) for one reason: application. As these few remaining articles hope to show, the sum of Bavinck’s theology upholds the industry of the gospel. Christ is preached; not to the elect; not to the reprobate; but to …

Our ‘leap of faith’ here means that we have now jumped from mid-way of volume three (Sin and Salvation in Christ) into the beginning of volume four: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation in Bavinck’s magisterial Reformed Dogmatics. Some have suggested that faith is a ‘leap in the dark.’ In the movies, as in real life, this view of faith often comes down to the climatic moment that cuts the blue wire or dashes to the train station before she leaves forever. In Bavinck’s ongoing contest with modernism and the …

We’re taking some time off this summer but it’s impossible to put Bavinck down. A set of Bavinck is difficult to stuff in a backpack, or suitcase and taking it through airport security is a joke. Fortunately Westminster bookstore has reprinted a great little Bavinck title and it’s the ideal size for travel. In just under 100 pages The Certainty of Faith makes a deep impression on the value and importance of knowing and understanding theology for the pulpit and in visitation. Here is a short quote on the practical …

In the previous post Bavinck suggested that religion has more of a connecting point to real life than people give it credit. Sacrifice was the hinge on which the everyday working life and the door of salvation turned in the ancient world. For Bavinck this is the stock and trade of all theology: the vicarious atonement of Christ. Dogmatics has (historically) had a difficult time processing and presenting this momentous truth, yet there is no doubt to its certainty. The humility of Christ assuming human nature supports this. Believing it, …

The past three weeks have been spent on the Incarnation. All posts prior to these were an exciting prologue. The Incarnation is the very center of dogmatics and one must first understand the person of Christ before ascertaining what it is he does. Christ came to fulfill the law, establish grace, reveal the Father, send the Spirit, and atone for sin. And that just for starters. Bavinck says that this is an area which has seen little (satisfactory) treatment in dogmatics and for that we need to get busy.
 
There is …

Last week we attempted to follow Bavinck through the thick of Christology. He is an outstanding guide. Bavinck has insisted that the subtle nuance which takes Christ as a mere human personality steers him away from his place as the object of faith. This diminishes Christ’s teachings to formalities (and legalism) and constructs dogmatics as either a system of religious feeling or an ideal moral resource. This tendency does more than present formalities with little substance. For Bavinck it leads away from the life of God and renders the indwelling …

Christology is not a dense jungle of theories. Think of it instead as a densely populated region of ideas and traditions. One quarter is made up of Gnostics; another quarter is modernist and so on. Navigating the data takes time and energy and after a day’s work one may wonder if they accomplished anything, or whether it matters. It does. This is the area of dogmatics, Bavinck would say, one needs to know where not to be after dark.

We’ve paused to consider Bavinck’s discussion of eschatology as prologue to the incarnation. Its pretty serious stuff. It takes over the OT function of prophecy and recasts it according to fulfillment then sends it out into the world as the kingdom. How the kingdom looks depends on how one views the incarnation: they are inseparably linked. Through a careful discussion of modernist Christology Bavinck warns us against dividing up the kingdom by separating the historical Christ from the mystical Christ from the Synoptic Christ all the way down to the …

Last week we struck upon several pages on eschatology before proceeding into a jam packed Christology. It has caused some serious reflection on our part, extra reading and evaluation, and the results are a postponing of this week’s column.

Bavinck’s analysis of the covenant of grace is quite moving. He stops several times to marvel at the beauty, the continuity, and it’s hard not to get choked up with him. So far Bavinck has mapped out the groundwork needed to be done by a mediator to God on man’s behalf: guarantee an incalculable debt of moral righteousness to the sovereign, restore the old covenant promises (life, eternal life), and pay for it all with an impeccable life and death. Of all the applicants for the position …

The best of all free advice in the world is always read the fine print before signing . This has saved many from the pitfalls and headaches of purchasing everything from lemons to credit. Many not most. But with the Covenant of Grace one should pay special attention to the details for a different reason. There are more blessings and benefits in the details than one might expect. How many? How much? Bavinck himself would say you won’t believe the price .

There is much to be said in terms of praise for Bavinck’s Saved by Grace, the Holy Spirit’s Work in Calling and Regeneration (RHB, 2008). ‘Profound,’ ‘fine,’ and ‘superb’ are accurate descriptions of this volume and more can be said for Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics (Baker, 2008). Given the long list of fine comments by fine scholars, on a certain level mine is more honest: if I had this book at grad school, I would have had better marks on more than a few papers.
Is the debate …

There is still plenty of time to register for the Great Bavinck Giveaway! Subscribe by April 20 to be included in the drawing for a free copy of Bavinck’s ‘Saved by Grace’ (RHB, 2008). See the March 16 post for details. Our last post examined the outset of the Reformed ‘Covenant’ view of grace. Bavinck suggests it’s the middle way between the high Roman Church and the Anabaptist view on the opposite end.
There is a ‘cog’ between transmitting grace and receiving grace for salvation. It is …

Our last post touched on Bavinck’s theology of the covenant from his book Saved by Grace , (Reformation Heritage Books, 2008). From there we outlined the Reformed concept of salvation, rooted in God’s covenant, as the middle way when compared to the Romanist and Anabaptist concepts of receiving grace and salvation. We now pick the conversation back up in Bavinck’s RD (vol. 3, ch. 5), for some initial remarks on the covenant as both the nucleus and the dividing line of special revelation.

Bavinck’s theology is looking for life; to articulate it, to revel in it, and to encapsulate it especially as it is found in the certainty and context of divine revelation. One of the best characteristics of Bavinck’s work is that his polemics and theological controversy are never battles over words and the consistency of artificial constructions. He is looking for the theory that best explains and enhances our shared experience and has found it in the Reformed expression of faith and life.

Our last post summarized Bavinck’s definition of sin as a non-physical ethical force that is not exactly ‘non-being’ but certainly strives in that direction. Death, the result of sin, was pronounced as judgment in Genesis 2 but there is more mystery and complication to this ‘death sentence’ than there is certainty.

In our last few posts we’ve been plowing through Bavinck’s analysis of original sin and what was lost by the fall. Human beings did not become ‘sub’ creatures after breaking the covenant or works, but something changed. The original relationship and integrity with God was destroyed when sin took advantage of the commandment. Here is a brief look at Bavinck’s analysis of the nature of sin in what he describes as ‘mystery in variety’.

Our three part series on the superadded gift (SG) was pretty difficult and challenging. This was especially true in our small group study but we’re still friends despite any differences as we wrestle through Bavinck’s analysis and (to quote Thomas Watson) the treachery of our own hearts. This post briefly recaps and reflects on Bavinck’s main points on the superadded gift.

We’ve been looking at one of the toughest elements in Bavinck’s analysis, freewill and the origin of sin. The long debate between Augustine and Pelagius has seen many attempts at reconciling these views, most all of which fail to be convincing. Bavinck’s critique of Pelagius is masterful, but will his claims for original sin and the natural law prove convincing? We shall see.
Scripture is complicated. It places the origin of sin in the heart of humanity* despite all the provisions (donum superadditum) to maintain her original righteousness. God created …

Our last post looked at the fickle problem of the origin of sin. Bavinck’s analysis of Genesis 3 holds that sin’s origin is not explained by the narrative yet it is described in historical terms. The fall of humanity is not itself having the content of the knowledge of good and evil, but the manner in which they would obtain it: apart from God’s guidance and care. So what was lost by the fall? A preternatural gift of grace? The image of God? The answer may surprise you.
Sin is a …

Our last post hit the mid-point of Bavinck’s Prolegomena.* His dilemma was choosing between three schools of thought that best explained life; paving the way for scientific certainty. These schools are: rationalism, empiricism and realism. For Bavinck, realism goes hand in hand with the presupposition that God has revealed himself in the world, and the best place to find this revelation is scripture. There is, however, a slight complication.
Dogma has its object of study the revelation of God in scripture. It assures us that God has spoken and that the …