God talk

   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 perfected. By this we m

14th November 2020 The first paragraph gives us some wide brush strokes, then he will start looking at particular texts. Bavinck starts by saying: “In Holy Scripture there is no name for what we call religion.   After all we understand religion to encompass all human relations to God in their entirety and in all their connections . Piety, love, trust, adoration, hoping on God, all taken together, are therefore what we describe as religion, Holy Scripture always deals with some concrete element of religion. Thus, scripture uses various names because it is not furnishing scientific theology even though it provides the elements for such a science.” Reformed Ethics page 54 edited by John Bolt. At first, I thought that Bavinck was wrong but now I know he is right in this assumption.   Firstly;   ‘’The Greek word threskeia ( Θρεσκεια ), which was used by Greek writers such as Herodotus and Josephus, is found in the New Testament. Threskeia is sometimes translated as religion in today

   6 th November 2020 On page 53 Bavinck starts with saying; “Rationalists tear apart knowing from doing and simply place the one along the side of the other in disjointed fashion, as they also do with systematic theology and ethics.” Bavinck sums up each of the rationalists view, this is in the main paragraph of page 53.   What are Bavincks view on these rationalists? The statements in parentheses are my thoughts on this; ·         Kant; Religion becomes ethics (only doing).   ·         Fichte;   The moral world order is itself God   (Doesn’t work!). ·         Hegel; Religion is only a matter of knowing (No ethics!) ·         Scleiermacher: Religion is just a changing state of consciousness. (No ethics again!) This for Bavinck is simply not true as he says; Religion always rests upon the communion of God with humans as they are restored in Christ, established by God's revelation in word and deed. This is objective religion. We subjectively appropriate th