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| Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) |
The
past few weeks, I’ve been slowly reading through the first volume of Herman
Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics. The
title may sound off-putting, but the warmth and scholarly depth of Bavinck’s
writing stirs both heart and mind. While I hope to write a review of each
volume eventually, I think it would be fitting to consider aspects of Bavinck’s
thought in the meantime.
Grace Restores
Nature
Herman
Bavinck was a Dutch Reformed theologian who along with Abraham Kuyper was instrumental
in the revival of Calvinism in the late nineteenth century. His theology, deeply
Trinitarian and conscious of culture, has often been summarised with the phrase
‘grace restores nature’. In Bavinck’s own words: ‘The essence of the Christian religion
consists in the reality that the creation of the Father, ruined by sin, is restored
in the death of the Son of God, and recreated by the grace of the Holy Spirit into
a kingdom of God’ (p. 112).
The
first volume of Bavinck’s Dogmatics
explores the method and organisation of dogmatic theology, the history and
literature of Dogmatics as developed in the early Church, Roman Catholicism,
Lutheranism, and Reformed Dogmatics, and considers the complex interaction
between theology and philosophy. Bavinck proceeds
to discuss religious foundations and the place of religion in the human psyche.
He considers various schools of thought concerning the location of religion in
the inner self, particularly relating to the intellect, will, and feelings,
before considering the foundation of religion in the whole person – ‘head,
heart, and hand’ (p. 268).
Religion as
Knowledge
Firstly,
Bavinck discusses religion as knowledge and its seat in the intellect. Within some sects of the
early Church, the heresy of Gnosticism considered gnosis or knowledge to be redemptive. The emancipation of the soul
from the body was obtained through knowledge, allowing the believer to escape
the world of particulars for a higher, spiritual world of forms. Ideas vastly
different to the Christian doctrine of resurrection and the psychosomatic unity of
body and soul.
Anticipating
the Enlightenment, Baruch Spinoza considered the love of God as arising from
knowledge of oneself in terms of intellectual love, though conceived
pantheistically. As Bavinck explains, ‘Inasmuch as our mind is part of the
infinite mind of God, the highest virtue our mind can achieve is knowledge of
God. And this knowledge of God, which is essentially one with the contemplation
of things under the aspect of eternity is “the highest possible peace of mind”’
(p. 254).
Similarly,
in Hegel’s philosophy, ‘the entire world is … a development of the mind (Geist), a logical unfolding of the
content of reason, a process in which the idea first objectivises itself in
nature and from there returns in the spirit to itself’ (p. 255). Religion is
seen as a phase in this development, but for Hegel such religion is a lower
form of knowledge when compared with philosophy – the love of wisdom. In
associating the human intellect so closely with the divine, Hegel effectively
equivocates God with man: ‘the mind of man in coming to know God, is just the
mind of God itself’ (p. 255). Theology is essentially reduced to anthropology.
Bavinck
concedes that the intellect is a crucial aspect of religion which ‘does not and
cannot exist … without a certain and specific idea of God’ (p. 256). According
to Bavinck, such religious ideas have transcendental significance for
believers, but are not merely abstract concepts. Philosophy may consider the
existence and nature of God, but by religion the believer comes to know God as
Father by way of ‘personal participation’ (p. 257). In other words, religion is
not merely an intellectual exercise, but consists in a personal
love-relationship with God.
Religion as
Morality
Secondly,
Bavinck discusses those who consider religion as a moral system observed by human
will. An enduring misconception of the Christian faith considers religion
exclusively as a socio-ethical system of morality, often as expressed in the
Decalogue or the Sermon on the Mount. Bavinck considers Pelagianism as
representative of this moralistic perspective in the early Church – noting
various subsequent forms such as Socinianism, Remonstrantism, and Deism.
According
to Bavinck, the reduction of religion to moral imperatives is seen especially
in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Although Kant concedes the existence of the
noumenal world or ultimate reality (das
Ding-an-sich), theoretical reason can say nothing of the metaphysical world
beyond perceptible phenomena. For Kant, although concepts such as God and
immortality are considered unknowable to science, they are nonetheless
necessary ‘postulates of practical reason for the fulfilment of the moral law
and the attainment of the highest good’ (p. 259). Faith in God, though
impossible to establish theoretically or empirically, is justified as a
practical necessity for establishing moral duties as divine imperatives. Kant
appears to push God out of the metaphysical realm, only to invite Him back in
by the ethical. ‘True religion,’ according to Kant, ‘is to consist not in the
knowing or considering of what God does or has done for our salvation, but in
what we must do to become worthy of it’. The idea of salvation by divine grace
is obscured and Christianity reduced to a system of works-righteousness.
Bavinck
certainly acknowledges the importance of morality to the Christian faith. Observing
that ‘Faith without works, without love, is dead,’ and that ‘love is the grand
principle that fulfils the entire law’ (p. 262). The greatest commandment in
the law is to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love one’s
neighbour as oneself. However, Bavinck argues, without the metaphysical and divine
revelation, what basis is there for absolute moral
imperatives? As Bavinck observes, ‘Morality loses the ground under its foot
when it is robbed of divine authority in the human conscience’ (p. 263).
However,
at the back of Christian morality, there is a personal God of love. As Bavinck
observes, ‘On a theistic position … human beings … stand in a unique and
distinct relation to God as a personal being … people, customs, morals cannot absolutely compel anyone’s conscience;
only God can’ (p. 263). The fulfilling of moral obligation is not merely an act
of human exertion, but a response of love and devotion to an infinite-personal
God.
Religion as
Feeling
Thirdly,
Bavinck considers religion as feeling – a concept anticipated in both Mysticism
and Pietism, but finding considerable hegemony as a consequence of Romanticism, the ‘reaction of the emotions’ to ‘all-regulating classicism’. In religion,
Romanticism was expressed as ‘a feeling for the true, the beautiful, and the
good … [an] admiration, love, and regard for the divine’ (p. 265). Schleiermacher’s
theology, according to Bavinck, should be seen within the context of such Romanticism.
Schleiermacher describes religion as ‘a feeling of absolute dependence’ (p.
265). God is not understood transcendentally, but immanently in the world ‘and
the faculty for the divine is not reason or conscience, but feeling’ (p. 266).
Bavinck
approves that ‘feeling occupies an important place in religion’ (p. 266). In
fact, he argues that true religion consists in an authentic
personal-relationship with God: ‘And such a personal relationship to God cannot
but have an impact on one’s feelings. It does not leave them cold and indifferent
but moves them in the depths of their hearts’ (p. 266). Such feelings however respond to the knowledge of God as
revealed in Scripture. Feeling by itself is vague and empty. ‘It reacts only to
what is brought into contact with it by the consciousness’ (p. 267). Faith
contemplates the content of the Christian faith and stirs the affections with
sorrow for sin and love toward God. ‘In religion, therefore, it is not feeling
but faith … that is primary; that faith, however, then also impacts feeling’ (p. 267).
The Whole
Person
Rather
than locating religion in any particular aspect of the human psyche, Bavinck
argues that ‘religion … embraces the human being as a whole’ – intellect, will,
and feelings. Knowledge, Bavinck admits, is primary, but not exclusive. ‘There
can be no true service of God without true knowledge … To be unknown is to be
unloved’ (p. 268). The mind reflects upon the content of the Christian faith –
the knowledge of God and of Christ as revealed in Scripture. From the
intellect, religion embraces the whole person:
That knowledge of God penetrates the heart and arouses there an
assortment of affections, of fear and hope, sadness and joy, guilt feelings and
forgiveness, misery and redemption … And through the heart it in turn affects
the will: faith is manifest in works, in love … Head, heart, and hand are all
equally – though each in its own way – claimed by religion; it takes the whole
person, body and soul, into its service (p. 268).
Rather
than locating religion in one faculty of the human psyche, Bavinck considers
the knowledge of God to embrace the mind, the will, and the affections – the
whole person. Interestingly, Bavinck considers religion in relation to culture
as ‘the foundation of the true, the good, the beautiful’, from which ‘science,
morality, and art derive their origin … and find their rest’ (p. 269). These triads
correspond with each other and are embraced within the sphere of true religion:
Religion is central; science, morality, and art are partial. While
religion embraces the whole person, science, morality, and art are respectively
rooted in the intellect, the will, and the emotions. Religion aims at nothing
less than eternal blessedness in fellowship with God; science, morality, and
art … seek to enrich this life with the true, the good, the beautiful (p. 269).
A model of religion in the life of the human psyche embracing all the faculties of the human dispositional complex, not
only the parts, but the whole person, indeed the whole domain of human existence.
Critique
Such
tripartite distinctions in relation to the human psyche are not unique to Bavinck.
Plato, for example, suggested three divisions within the soul: the appetitive,
the spirited, and the rational. Saint Augustine, similarly, considers mind,
knowledge, and love (also memory, understanding, and will) as psychologically
analogous with the Trinity – though the value of such Trinitarian analogies is
debatable. Moreover, Sigmund Freud’s model of the human psyche distinguishes
between id (the instinctive), ego (critical, moral faculty), and superego (realistic aspect, mediates
between the instinctive and the moral).
The
complexity of the human mind should perhaps not be reduced to simplistic
tripartite structures as these, as distinctions within the human psyche are
considerably more fluid and complex than such a well-ordered model would allow.
Nonetheless, the point that true religion should sanctify the whole person –
even every aspect of human culture – remains persuasive. Where theologians have
tried to locate religion within one aspect of human consciousness, it is
perhaps better to take Bavinck’s approach and consider religion as embracing
the whole person – heart, soul, mind, and strength. What other response could
there be to the great love of Christ crucified?
Love so
amazing, so divine,
Demands my
soul, my life, my all.
References
All
page numbered quotations are taken from Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, MI, 2003). This is
the first volume of Bavinck’s work as translated by John Vriend and edited by
John Bolt. The translation of Bavinck’s Reformed
Dogmatics (4 vols) was made possible by the Dutch Reformed Translation Society
(DRTS). Each volume has been published to a high and scholarly standard by
Baker Academic.