Herman Bavinck on the Doctrine of God and the importance of revelation
Let us walk by faith then we can see clearly!
As a child when I heard about walking on the narrow path, I didn’t really understand it. Life is full of ups and downs such as this morning. On my way to work we got hit by a blizzard. With about 6cm of snow on the road with desert like sand dune strips crossing our path. We could have been in the Sahara, but we weren’t; This is Finland at -2.
In the late 1990’s I remember close to the end of my theology degree that I read Herman Bavinck’s magnificent doctrine of God. This was before the translation that was edited by John Bolt. This is a major reason why I wanted to get my hands on Reformed Ethics by Herman Bavinck because we can learn so much from him. I’m still waiting for the second volume as I have had to order it a second time.
However, I want to move from the earth to the heavens. I want to move from humanity to God. Karl Barth a great theologian though he is, I still feel that Bavinck is just as important as the great Barth. I think Barth had a lot of respect for Bavinck as I haven’t found anything untoward said but on the contrary Barth on a couple of occasions certainly borrowed ideas from him. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was reciprocated.
However, one thing is certain both these theologians realized the greatness of John Calvin in their various spheres. Although Barth has his view on election, he obviously reflected on John Calvin’s teachings. Bavinck too felt it important to revaluate the medieval synthesis which tore Christendom apart. With the breakup of this synthesis and the secular onslaught of science. Calvin did not see the end effects of this, but Bavinck felt the full force and the onslaught of World War 1, yet he stayed true to his Trinitarian God to the very end.
Barth lived a little longer and saw the world through World War 2. He saw the clear devastation and the death of millions. He obviously saw his old teachers take the side of fascism and he wanted no part of it. He walked away from his teachers, their teachings and through his book on Romans wiped away his old theology. He needed to start afresh.
Both these men are important to me for understanding God and our neighbour. At the end of Dogmatics Barth had started his work on ethics and the Holy Spirit. He died before its completion, and we only have some fragments. Bavinck on the other hand had a deep understanding of ethics as we see in his Reformed Ethics, yet they were hidden for over 150 years.
I vaguely remember Colin Gunton say in the Barth lectures that he doesn’t think Barth would have been able to complete the Dogmatics on the Holy Spirit. This is to do with the nature of the weighting of content in Dogmatics. I’m still learning. I feel sad that such a great mind as Colin Gunton left too early to be with the Lord.
Reformed Dogmatics Volume 2 page 27
This section is about the knowledge of God and the incomprehensibility of God, as the introductory note starts:
“The knowledge of God is the central, core dogma, the exclusive content of theology. From the start of its labours dogmatic theology is shrouded in mystery; it stands before God the incomprehensible One. This knowledge leads to adoration and worship; to know God is to live. Knowing God is possible for us because God is personal, exalted above the earth and yet in fellowship with human beings on earth.” (From Reformed Dogmatics volume 2; God and Creation; By Herman Bavinck; edited by John Bolt; page 28)
We need to stop and pause and reflect on this. Why can we talk about God as mysterious and incomprehensible? Why does this knowledge lead to adoration and worship? How can we even know God? From my point of view the finite cannot grasp the infinite in the same way that when I play chess on the master levels I get beaten! The reason I lose is because the chess computer knows possibly every variation known to humanity. How much greater is God. He created the universe; he created life and he created humanity to share in his life. We seriously messed up because of the Fall. We need to remember that our God is a God of revelation. We have seen some of this when we went through much of Bavincks Ethics in book 1 and 2.
When we speak of infinity we talk of mystery; when we mention God, we have mystery. Mystery can be understood at many different levels, but my question is: What can the Master Theologian, Herman Bavinck teach us?
“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? 35 Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” Romans 11:33-36
Yes, Bavinck quotes from verse 36 found on page 29; volume two of his Dogmatics. Here Bavinck explains to us that ‘mystery’ is the life of Dogmatics and he is correct in his assumption. Bavinck says that God has revealed himself in ‘nature’ and the Scriptures although for salvation purposes the accent should fall on Scripture. Dogmatics then does not start from the creature but from God. After quoting Romans 11. 36 he writes:
“So then, the knowledge of God is the only dogma, the exclusive content, of the entire field of dogmatics. All the doctrines treated in dogmatics whether they concern the universe, humanity, Christ, and so forth are but the explication of the one central dogma of the knowledge of God. All things are considered in light of God, subsumed under him, traced back to him as the starting point. Dogmatics is always called upon to ponder and describe God and God alone, whose glory is in creation and re-creation, in nature and grace, in the world and in the church. It is the knowledge of him alone that dogmatics must put on display.”
Here we see clearly Bavinck’s epistemology. Everything rests on the knowledge of God. This knowledge however has to be based on facts. It is reciprocal in the sense that dogmatics breaks into our life and the world ethics.
When we look at his opening in his Reformed Ethics, he said the following:
“The distinction between dogmatics and ethics has become clear. The difference does not lie in the fact that the former deals with the understanding and knowledge, while the latter is concerned with the will and conduct. This would boil down to a division of human beings into two parts, of which one half is purely intellectual and the other purely ethical. No. In dogmatics we are concerned with what God does for us and in us. In dogmatics God is everything. Dogmatics is a word from God to us, coming from outside us and above us; we are passive, listening, and opening ourselves to being directed by God. In ethics, we are interested in the question of what it is that God now expects of us when he does his work in us. What do we do for him? Here we are active, precisely because of and on the grounds of God’s deeds in us; we sing psalms in thanks and praise to God. In dogmatics, God descends to us; in ethics, we ascend to God. In dogmatics, he is ours; in ethics, we are his. In dogmatics, we know we shall see his face; in ethics, his name will be written on our foreheads” (From Bavincks Reformed Ethics page 22. I covered this in one of my first Blogs on Bavincks Ethics published September 26th, 2020)
So, to summarize the above. In Dogmatics we are concerned with what God does for us and in ethics what God is expecting from us.
This is fantastic stuff from a master theologian. Although Karl Barth was a great theologian, I don’t believe for an instant that if he continued living with all his faculties to have been able to come up with such a magisterial Ethics.
Do you think I could be wrong?
I would love to hear from you to correct me!
Just a quick personal note. I need to say that both Bavinck and Karl Barth hit the evolutionist ideologies from the 19th century and earlier head on. In both theologians God’s revelation is seriously important. They both teach us that it ought to be faith seeking understanding. Both their epistemologies start from the Majesty of God. Barth reminds us through his reading of Anselm that we ought to presuppose God before we can talk about him.
Bavinck warns us not to ‘degenerate into a theology of rhetoric’. He also says that we ought to talk about ‘matters rather than mere words.’ From what I have seen in the world of politics. Politicians and public faces offer us wealth and prosperity but instead we get bubble and froth.
To find life and life more abundantly, the knowledge of God in Christ is ‘life itself’. What does Bavinck mean by this? He quotes some verses and then mentions Augustine and Calvin. He starts with the evidence:
In Your name they rejoice all the day,
And by Your righteousness they are exalted. Psalms 89:16
They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain,
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
As the waters cover the sea. Isaiah 11:9
They will not teach again, each man his neighbour and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Jeremiah 31:34
Based on these verses above Bavinck says that Augustine didn’t want to know anything but God and himself. He then reminds us that when in Calvin’s Institutes it he starts with the knowledge of God and ourselves. For Bavinck the Genevan catechism says “That human beings may know the God by whom they were created. “(Reformed Dogmatics page 30).
On page 30 Bavinck sounds a little like Barth or the other way around. We are encouraged to step into communion with God, but wait; How can we?
Here Bavinck shows us the chasm between God and man
- · Infinite and finite
- · Eternity and time
- · Being and becoming
- · The All and Nothing
God is infinite, eternal, pure infinite Being, the All (omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient).
Humanity is finite, has a little time on earth, a short existence, becomes at death dust and ashes!)
Scripture never tries to prove God but is simply ‘presupposed.’ (page 30). God can only be known through His own disclosure. The master theologian gives us some references!
“Lift up your eyes on high
And see who has created these stars,
The One who leads forth their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
Not one of them is missing.” Isaiah 40:26
"and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” Acts 14:17
“Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Romans” 1:19-20
“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” John 17:3
“But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” John 20:31
Even though there is a very large chasm that cannot be filled by our knowledge yet God Himself has chosen to reveal knowledge about himself. Even with the Fall we still have knowledge of God from nature, but it is not enough to bring us into complete communion with our Maker. The next couple of references turns the ‘new learning’ on its head!
“Thanks to that revelation, it is certain, first of all, that God is a person, a conscious and freely willing being, not confined to the world but exalted high above it. The pantheistic understanding that equates God and the world is absolutely foreign to Scripture.” (Reformed Dogmatics page 30)
These are the issues that Bavinck and Karl Barth agree on. God and the world should never be equated and when scholars do it, it is a disservice to the Trinitarian God and the Church.
Reflection
It is vital for the Christian to have a high view of Scripture. If he takes Scripture seriously then he will have a high view of God. The problem has been that over the ages with new discoveries (supposed discoveries at times) Scripture had been marginalised. The world is dependent on God because he created it. The world for its life is dependent on the goodness and love of God.
Just to make mention of pantheism. It fails on a few grounds. First of all, pantheism states the perceived logical ‘facts.’ The Bible is not a matter of logical facts rather God is relational and active. God takes an interest in our well being so much that God became a man in Jesus Christ.
A definition of pantheism from Wikipedia:
“Pantheism is the belief that reality is identical with divinity,[1] or that all things compose an all-encompassing, immanent god.[2] Pantheist belief does not recognize a distinct personal god,[3] anthropomorphic or otherwise, but instead characterizes a broad range of doctrines differing in forms of relationships between reality and divinity.[4] Pantheistic concepts date back thousands of years, and pantheistic elements have been identified in various religious traditions. The term pantheism was coined by mathematician Joseph Raphson in 1697[5][6] and has since been used to describe the beliefs of a variety of people and organizations.”
(From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism)
From my point of view whenever pantheism is preached instead of the Gospel there is heresy. There is heresy because it equates the material view to God that somehow, they are one. For example, Baruch Spinoza was kicked out of the synagogue for this belief. I am so happy with Calvin that he does not have much time for Aristotle. Pantheism can also become a grammar of certain theologies. Wolfhart Pannenberg used the Hegelian idea of thesis, antithesis synthesis for his systematic theology. Past facts move on an onward march churning out new synthesised historic facts into the glorious future. The problem with this is that the cross is the defining moment for the Gospel. We look back to the ‘Great Event’. This event does not need synthesizing as through it God judges all sin past, present and future in this one event.
The other problem with pantheism is that it is impersonal. It is a theory that the future will be bright for humankind as it reaches towards perfection. Hmm I can smell a rat here! Friedrich Nietzsche’s Zarathustra was the precursor to Hitler and the death of millions:
“The term Übermensch was used frequently by Hitler and the Nazi regime to describe their idea of a biologically superior Aryan or Germanic master race;[15] a racial version of Nietzsche's Übermensch became a philosophical foundation for National Socialist ideas.[16][17] The Nazi notion of the master race also spawned the idea of "inferior humans" (Untermenschen) who should be dominated and enslaved; this term does not originate with Nietzsche, who was critical of both antisemitism and German nationalism. In his final years, Nietzsche began to believe that he was in fact Polish, not German, and was quoted as saying, "I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood".[18] In defiance of nationalist doctrines, he claimed that he and Germany were great only because of "Polish blood in their veins",[19] and that he would "[have] all anti-semites shot." Nietzsche died long before Hitler's reign, and it was partly Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche who manipulated her brother's words to accommodate the worldview of herself and her husband, Bernhard Förster, a prominent German nationalist and antisemite.[20] Förster founded the Deutscher Volksverein (German People's League) in 1881 with Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg.[21]”
(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cbermensch )
He also talked about the ‘death of God’. In that sense Herman Bavinck was a prophet for the modern age. Through his dogmatics and ethics, he has shown us where these dangers are. As believers we need to stay close to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Hegel, Kant, Schleiermacher, Karl Bath’s teachers and Idealism, Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Hegelianism. If I was a social gardener, I would see pantheism as a serious destructive weed.
Since the days of Herman Bavinck and Karl Barth the world has changed. We have lived through two world wars and the threat of a third one which would be nuclear. Democracy, Socialism, communism, one state rule, pretend democracies, Religious enforced states; they have all failed.
For the West, which is my back yard it has been the secular experiment. God has been written out of the textbooks and evolution has been written in. In schools’ comparative religion is the be, and end all. As a Religious Educator I find this really boring and dull. Religion is so much more than a secular comparative view. People who live out their religious existences take their beliefs seriously, the Christian too. The Christian faith assumes a living and vital relationship with God first. The textbooks talk about the birth places of historical religion and winds a long evolutionary path through the ages until it finds itself today. A Christian can get in trouble if they talk about their faith. They can get in trouble if they speak about their ethics which is different to the world. They are accused of being ‘puritanical’. The plurality of gods or no gods is on the ascendancy and the Trinitarian Holy God is being trodden on. To what extent?
Something is seriously wrong ‘revelation’ should be looked at and talked about because it matters.
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