God talk

  So, on page 82 we have seen a change of condition and now we found ourselves separated from God.     Bavinck raises the question of whether or not this condition is permanent and whether or not we as humans have the power to change our human condition in relation to God.   This is a very important question because if it is permanent then we would be separated from God for all eternity.   In this situation according to Bavincks interpretation of Pelagius the heretic we are of our own accord able to change our condition. For Pelagius ‘sin only has power because of habit’.   So, all you have to do is break the habit of sin.   Bavinck then proves from the Scriptures that this is completely impossible. As Bavinck says, “The will has lost its real, material freedom”.   This is the traditional and right view for me as well.   I know for example that Martin Luther in a huge disagreement with Erasmus wrote the Bondage of the Will that the ...

  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...