God talk

  We now consider our odyssey into the dark waters of the fall.   In the first chapter we saw that humanity through Adam and Eve were created perfect which goes in the opposite direction to a lot of philosophies.    The main question is; What went wrong?  Concerning Eve on page 80 Bavinck starts to look at how Eve was influenced to sin. Her consciousness was manipulated by the Serpent allowing her to take on board a delusion.   Bavinck says that she saw herself becoming ‘other’; through pride she denied the consequences of sin ‘that she wouldn’t die’; She denied the sin itself by thinking   ‘her eyes would be opened’;   she would ‘become like God’; With pride she turned to the tree and wanted the ‘wisdom’ that comes with eating the fruit. So then for Bavinck in a moment Eve falls into sin (last paragraph page 80).   This is a real deep sentence from the Master theologian;     “ We see then that sin gains entrance through the...

  The Relationship of Dogmatics to Ethics ‘In dogmatics it is what God does for us and ethics is what God expects from us now’. The above quote is very helpful from Bavinck.   Believing and doing are not separated by him.   Faith is not a one-way road there are two sides.   In ethics there is a reciprocity that grows from faith.   This is something that could not be worked out by Barth.   Yes, in his later manuscripts He touched on ethics, but he died before it could be fully worked out.   My subjective opinion is that he would never have ever been able to complete such a task.   For Barth it was all about God or the emphasis was there.   Barth was an amazing theologian because he was able to break out of the straight jacket of the liberal tradition that he was brought up in.   Bavinck was also a master theologian, but he grew up in a Calvinistic tradition.   He was no one’s puppy not even Kuyper’s puppy.   When he st...

   20th November 2020 I was originally impressed with Bavinck when he spoke about 'The fruit of faith is love'. If I was your religious educator I would make Bavincks words a standard text.  The relationship of faith and love is very important.  I orignally used this quote in 1 Corinthians 13 at my other site. What Herman Bavinck Says The following quotation is taken from; Herman Bavinck, Reformed Ethics, created and fallen and converted Humanity, edited by John Bolt. I hope John Bolt doesn’t mind me using this quote but I seriously would urge anyone to read it who is interested in the relationship of faith and love.   Page 68   The fruit of faith is love: The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good Conscience and a sincere faith. (1 Tim. 1:5) Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is pe...