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Herman Bavinck – Agnosticism Serves Pantheism

22 Jul

Not a single agnostic is prepared in the end to restrict himself or herself to saying that the matter [whether there is a God] is unclear (non liquet). Spencer, for example, keeps saying that we do not know the Absolute; at the same time he has an idea of it, demonstrates its existence, and assigns an array of properties to it. He asserts that it is not a negative but a positive concept; that it is the cause of everything; that is is a power mostly analogous to our will, infinite, eternal, omnipresent (etc.). This certainly is no longer agnosticism, but a very specific kind of knowledge and a rather well-defined God-concept. Agnosticism, inherently untenable and afraid of atheism, serves in the end to justify a pantheistic God-concept.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2: God and Creation (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2004) p. 51-52.

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Herman Bavinck – A Middle Way Between Knowing God Fully and Not Knowing Him At All

19 Jul

What we know of God we know only of his revelation and therefore only as much as he is pleased to make known to us concerning himself and as much as finite humans can absorb. Knowledge of God, accordingly, can be true and pure, but it is always most relative and does not include but excludes comprehension.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2: God and Creation (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2004) p. 51.

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Herman Bavinck – Is It Really Possible to Speak of God In Our Human Ways?

28 Jun

If as humans we may not speak of God in a human and analogical manner, we have no choice but to be silent. To think and speak divinely of God is beyond us. But then all religion implodes. If God cannot be known, neither can he be felt and, in that feeling, enjoyed. Feeling is as finite as the intellect and finitizes and humanizes God in the same way. No possibility then exists either of God revealing himself objectively in his creatures or of us subjectively perceiving him by any organ. All religion, then, is sacrilege and all theology blasphemy.

Given this outcome, the question concerning God’s knowability has been reduced to another question, namely, whether God has willed and found a way to reveal himself in the domain of creatures.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2: God and Creation (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2004) p. 50.

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Herman Bavinck – God: Personal and Absolute

6 Jun

The same God who in his revelation limits himself, as it were, to certain specific places, times, and persons is at the same time infinitely exalted above the whole realm of nature and every creature. Even in the parts of Scripture that stress this temporal and local manifestation, the sense of his sublimity and omnipotence is not lacking…

Throughout the Old Testament these two elements occur hand in hand: God is with those who are of a contrite and humble spirit, and nevertheless is the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity (Isa. 57:15)…

in Scripture the personality and the absoluteness of God go hand in hand.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2: God and Creation (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2004) p. 33-34.

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John Calvin – Standing on the Word of God

31 May

Let us know, as faith can be grounded nowhere else than in the Word of the Lord, so we must only stand to the testimony thereof in all controversies.

~John Calvin~







Calvin’s Commentaries – Acts (Spokane, WA; Olive Tree Bible Software; http://www.olivetree.com) Commentary on Acts 17:1-4

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Herman Bavinck – The Infinite God is Knowable!

4 Apr

The moment we dare to speak about God the question arises: How can we? We are human and he is the Lord our God. Between him and us there seems to be no such kinship or communion as would enable us to name him truthfully. The distance between God and us is the gulf between the Infinite and the finite, between eternity and time, between being and becoming, between the All and the nothing. However little we know of God, even the faintest notion implies that he is a being who is infinitely exalted above every creature. While Holy Scripture affirms this truth in the strongest terms, it nevertheless sets forth a doctrine of God that fully upholds his knowability. Scripture, one must remember, never makes any attempt to prove the existence of God, but simply presupposes it. Moreover, in this connection it consistently assumes that human beings have an ineradicable sense of that existence and a certain knowledge of God’s being. This knowledge does not arise from their own investigation and reflection, but is due to the fact that God on his part revealed himself to us in nature and history, in prophecy and miracle, by ordinary and by extraordinary means. In Scripture, therefore, the knowability of God is never in doubt even for a moment. The fool may say in his heart, “There is no God,” but those who open their eyes perceive from all directions the witness of his existence, of his eternal power and deity (Isa. 40:26; Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:19-20). The purpose of God’s revelation, according to Scripture, is precisely that human beings may know God and so receive eternal life (John 17:3; 20:31).

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2: God and Creation (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2004) p. 30.

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Herman Bavinck – A Specific, Limited, Yet Well-Defined and True Knowledge of God

7 Mar

If God cannot be known, neither can he be felt or experienced in any way. All religion is then empty. But modern philosophical agnosticism makes the same error as ancient Gnosticism. By reducing God to “inexpressible depth” and “eternal silence,” they make the universe godless, in the most absolute sense of the word. What it all comes down to is whether God has willed and found a way to reveal himself in the domain of creatures. This, the Christian church and Christian theology affirm, has indeed occurred. Thanks to revelation, we have a true knowledge of God, knowledge that is relative and finite rather than comprehensive. Incomprehensibility does not imply agnosticism but an ingredient of the Christian claim to have received by revelation a specific, limited, yet well-defined and true knowledge of God. In the words of Basil, “The knowledge of God consists in the perception of his incomprehensibility.”

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2: God and Creation (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2004) p. 28-29.

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Herman Bavinck – In Defense of Theology

31 Dec

After all, if revelation consisted only in the communication of life and religion, only in emotional states, there would be no room for real theology. But revelation is systematic disclosure of the words and deeds of God; it encompasses a world of thoughts and has its center in the incarnation of the Logos. And religion is not feeling and sensation alone but also belief, living for and serving of God with both heart and head. And that revelation of God can therefore be intellectually penetrated in order that it may all the better enter into the human consciousness. In that connection one cannot even take it ill of theology if it aims at clarity in thought, at making lucid distinctions and at precision in articulation. Such precision is pursued and valued in all the sciences; it is equally appropriate in theology. The danger of its degenerating into hairsplitting exists equally in other sciences, say, in jurisprudence and the study of literature. But no one would for that reason deny to these other sciences the right to exist. Also theology has its periods of florescence and decay. But it is misguided to condemn theology itself on account of the bad use that has been made of it. The abuse of it does not cancel out the use of it (Abusus non tollit usum).

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 605.

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Herman Bavinck – The Incarnation

19 Dec

The incarnation of God is the central fact in special revelation, the fact that sheds light upon its whole domain. Already in creation God made himself like human beings when he created them in his image. But in re-creation he became human and entered totally into our nature and situation. In a sense God’s becoming human starts already immediately after the fall, inasmuch in his special revelation God reached back deeply into the life of the creation, linked up with the work of his own providence, and so ordered and led persons, situations, and events, indeed the entire history of a people, that he gradually came close to the human race and become ever more clearly knowable to it. But it reaches its culmination only in the person of Christ, who therefore constitutes the central content of the whole of special revelation. He is the Logos who made and sustains all things (John 1:3; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3) and may be considered the angel of YHWH who led Israel (Exod. 14:19; 23:20; 32:34; 33:2; Isa. 63:8,9), and the content of prophecy (John 5:39; 1 Pet. 1:11; Rev. 19:10); and in the fullness of time he became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Thus Christ is the mediator both of creation and re-creation. “It was his part and his alone, whose ordering of the universe reveals the Father, to renew the same teaching.” In creation and in providence (John 1:3-10), and in the leading of Israel (John 1:11), he prepared his own coming in the flesh. Special revelation in the days of the Old Testament is the history of the coming Christ. Theophany, prophecy, and miracle point toward him and reach their fulfillment in him. He is the manifestation, the word, and the servant of God. He shows us the Father, explains to us his name, and does his work. The incarnation of God is the end of Israel’s history and the center of all human history. “Up until now, and from that point on, history proceeds on its course” (Joh. von Muller). The incarnation is the central miracle: “It is the wonder of all wonders when the divine enters into direct contact with the human.”

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 344.

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Herman Bavinck – The Threefold Testimony of the Holy Spirit

8 Dec

This threefold testimony is one and from the same Spirit. From Scripture, through the church, it penetrates the heart of the individual believer. Still, in each of these three forms, it has a meaning of its own. The testimony of the Holy Spirit in Scripture is “the primary motive toward faith or the principle by which, or the argument on account of which, Scripture become regulative (κανονικον) and non-apodictic (άναποδεικτον).” The testimony of the Holy Spirit in the church is “the other motive or instrument though which we believe. It is introductory (εισαγωγικον) and supportive (ύπουπγικον).” The witness of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer is the “efficient cause of faith, the principle by which or through which we believe. It is originating (άπχηγικον) and effecting (ένεργητικον).”

Given these distinctions, also the charge of circular reasoning usually advanced against the testimony of the Holy Spirit is invalidated. For, strictly speaking, the testimony of the Holy Spirit is not the final ground but the means of faith. The ground of faith is, and can only be, Scripture, or rather, the authority of God, which comes upon the believer materially in the content as well as formally in the witness of Scripture. Hence the ground of faith is identical with its content and cannot, as Herrman believes, be detached from it. Scripture as the word of God is simultaneously the material and the formal object of faith. But the testimony of the Holy Spirit is the “efficient cause,” “the principle by which,” of faith. We believe Scripture, not because of, but by means of the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Scripture and the testimony of the Holy Spirit relate to each other as object truth and subjective assurance, as the first principles and their self-evidence, as the light and the human eye. Once it has been recognized in its divinity, Scripture is incontrovertibly certain to the faith of the believing community, so that it is both the principle and the norm of faith and life.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 597-598.

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