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Showing posts from October, 2020

The Power of the Image of God! Lessons Herman Bavinck can teach us.

  23 rd 10 2020 Humanity did not start at the bottom of the rung make its way up the animal and plant ladder.   This cannot be the case. Adam and Eve were created good.   Then the fall happened… generically or literally, a Fall took place and humanity fell into an Autumnal abyss.   Only through the second Adam (Jesus Christ) could humanity look to the Springtime again with the promise of eternal life which is a gift (cannot be earned).   Let us find out then how the Christian view is different to these worldly philosophical views. On pages 42 to 43 in Bavinck’s ethics we find the conclusion to this debate and reflection on what the standard of Ethics should be.   At the end of page 42 Bavinck writes;   ”… that which is considered to be ‘normally’ human cannot truly serve as the standard of ethics ”. I think the word ‘normally’ is a defining word.   It may even be related to the sociology term ‘Norm’.   If this is the case that it means; ‘ They are most commonly defined as

Pantheism, Panentheism, and idealism in relation to the nature and progress of the Human Being ; An explanation by Bavinck

We now move on to secular views of what a human being is and how he/she develops into the potentiality of what it means to be human.   Right from the start I have to say I don’t agree with these views and neither does Bavinck.   Bavinck is explaining what these philosophies are although he doesn’t agree with them. Here are some names Bavinck mentions on pages 37 - 38 1.      J.G. Fichte; (1762 - 1814) Founding Father of German Idealism (Ideas developed from Kant’s writings) 2.      Schleiermacher; ( November 21, 1768 – February 12, 1834) Father of modern Liberal theology 3.      R.Rothe;   Theologiische Ethik; (28 January 1799 – 20 August 1867) He saw himself as a theosophist. 4.      Hegel; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831); Fundamental figure of philosophy. For more background information on some of these seminal figures you can read it on the wikis. The Philosophy of the Age which contradicts the Biblical witness Bavinck starts with; J. G. Fichte (1762-1814) taug

Religious views; So how does the image of God exist in us?

  So how does the image of God exist in us? 1.      In the essence of our humanity: with soul and body as substrate. 2.      In the capacities and abilities of that essence: knowing, feeling, willing and acting. 3.      In the properties and gifts of that essence and their capabilities; holiness knowledge and righteousness. Page 36 So we have three bullet points from Bavincks ethics.   At first I was confused with ‘body as substrate’ but now I understand that the soul and body coexist.   The conundrum seemed to be that the soul has a ‘forever’ dimension and the ‘body’ has a mortal dimension.   Bavinck touches on substrate in Bavinck Review 9 (2018) John Bolt translated Bavinck here and I am grateful that I was able to download it;    bavinckinstitute.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/08/BR9_Foundations.pdf I knocked the https:// off the front of the address so it won’t pickup in the html but that is the address. So what of our human essence and what do scholars think about it?