Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) was a renowned Dutch theologian and polymath, widely known and influential in Europe during his time but largely obscure in the English-speaking world until relatively recently. Once his major works were translated to English in the 2000’s, however, interest in Bavinck fairly exploded in Christian circles, both among academics and those interested in the devotional value of his thinking. James Eglinton’s Bavinck, A Critical Biography (Baker Academic, 2020) has the following goal: “to tell the story of a man whose theologically laced personal narrative explored the possibility of an orthodox life in a changing world.”
Another reason for the growing interest in works like Reformed Dogmatics and The Wonderful Works of God (Westminster Seminary Press, 2019) is Bavinck’s insight in engaging a modernizing, secularizing culture, an issue of obvious relevance today.
Bavinck came of age at a historical moment in the Netherlands when society and the church were transitioning from a period marked by tradition and stability to one of late modernism. Changing social relations due to a more democratic sensibility were apparent during Bavinck’s youth. Scientific breakthroughs played a role in changing the landscape. And the Seceder Church movement was transitioning from a position of some official persecution to one of being tolerated at minimum, and, if grudgingly, increasing respect. (Bavinck’s father was a prominent Seceder pastor; Herman Bavinck was a member of that church and trained to be a theologian and pastor as a Seceder.)
During the accounts of his academic years at the Kampen Theological School and Leiden University, one can sense that we are dealing with a first-class mind, and someone committed to Christian orthodoxy. (He both studied and taught at each, Kampen being the orthodox Christian institution, Leiden being the large, modernizing, mostly secular university). We see from these years the influence of Kuyper on Bavinck, a relationship that would become a key for Bavinck’s evolution as a theologian and thinker.
At Leiden, Bavinck struggled to fit in socially and theologically, but was still attracted to the idea of being where the action was. Afterward, he wrestled with the thought that perhaps his theological convictions had been compromised by his experiences there.
The early 20th century was marked by a new threat to Christianity and the culture of Europe and the Netherlands in particular: Nietzscheism. Nietzsche was a new type of atheist. He argued that since God was dead, all moral values should be reconsidered. Any moral values associated with theism were suspect and should be discarded. A new society was needed. Nietzschean thought rejected the previous connection between atheism and nihilism (the belief that, since there are no grounds for ultimate meaning, nothing matters), which was key to its gaining popularity. Proponents of Nietzsche preferred a framework of domination to concerns over personal happiness.
Bavinck clearly saw the power and threat of Nietzscheism and set out to vigorously oppose it by providing a rigorous defense of orthodox Christianity. He did this in part by writing his magnificent Reformed Dogmatics, a four-volume treatise of almost 3,000 pages that was Bavinck’s attempt to think Christianly about all of life.
In fact, Bavinck’s Calvinism had a primary theme of infusing the life of Christ in every part of one’s life. Points 6 & 7 of Bavinck’s “Propositions: The Concept and the Necessity of Evangelization” exemplify this theme:
6. In relation to the decline of the church, the first duty that rests upon believers is to reform it according to the Word of God.
7. This reformation, as a consequence, by means of the church, school, science, art, and so on, is to be spread out as far as possible through the entirety of the life of the people.
Bavinck consistently rejected the impulse to withdraw from culture and create a separate, insulated Christian society (a line of thought that had many forceful proponents his context). He rejected the idea that there was a previous golden age where the culture was ideally situated for Christianity. He believed that every society had to wrestle with the question of applying Christianity in the culture of the day.
We can learn much about Bavinck’s thinking regarding integrating orthodox Christian faith into a modernizing world from his writing on his first trip to America in 1892. His reflections on his journey were preserved in extensive notes entitled, My Journey to America, eventually published in 1998. (As an aside, the published document earned the Dutch Royal Library’s Award for Outstanding Travel Writing. It is recognized as having great influence on the travel writing genre.)
Bavinck believed faith should transform a culture. He thought deeply about culture and how his own society in the Netherlands and in Europe more broadly was evolving in a period of modernization. Things were changing fast, and he wanted modern culture to align more with Christian faith. His vision of healthy faith was one that could enable individual and social reform.
The Wonderful Works of God is something of a distillation of Bavinck’s magisterial Reformed Dogmatics. Still, it is over 500 pages, dense with insight, and should be read slowly. The following is a sampling from the book, with the intent of providing a sense of the depth of Bavinck’s thinking and style, which always relies on Scriptural context. Those wanting to dive into Bavinck’s theology would do well to start with this work.
Chapter 1, Man’s Highest Good, reminds us that we were made for God:
“The conclusion, therefore, is that of Augustine, who said that the heart of man was created for God and that it cannot find rest until it rests in his Father’s heart. Hence all men are really seeking after God…Men feel themselves attracted to God and at the same time repelled by Him.”
Chapter 2, The Knowledge of God, reminds us that God is the highest good of man, and that that is the message of all the Bible.
“Throughout the Scriptures, He repeats the fundamental truth that He is our God. And in response, the church says in gratitude and praise: Thou art our God, and we are Thy people, and the sheep of Thy pasture.”
“We can be children of God because God presented Himself to us so we could enjoy the Son of His love. The Father has given him power so the Son could give eternal life to as many as the Father has given Him. “Such eternal life consists of nothing other than the knowledge of the one, true God and of Jesus Christ who was sent to reveal Him (John 17:1-3).””
“Indeed, to know God does not consist of knowing a great deal about Him, but of this, rather, that we have seen Him in the person Christ, that we have encountered Him on our life’s way, and that in the experience of our soul we have come to know His virtues, His righteousness and holiness, His compassion and His grace.”
From Chapter 17, The Works of Christ in His Humiliation:
“The communion into which Christ, according to the Scriptures, has entered with us is so intimate and deep that we cannot form an idea or picture of it. The term substitutionary suffering expresses in only a weak and defective way what it means. The whole reality far transcends our imagination and our thought. A few analogies can be drawn of this communion…The kernel of grain must die if it is to bear fruit. In pain the mother gives birth to her child. But all of these are but so many comparisons, and they cannot be equated with the fellowship into which Christ entered with us. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, though one might conceivably die for a good man. But God commends His love towards us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:7-8).”
From Chapter 20, The Christian Calling:
“Faith is an approbation and an acceptance, therefore, and a knowledge of a testimony coming to a person; but it is an acceptance of that testimony in its application to oneself, a receiving of the word of the preaching of God, not as a human word, but as the word of God (1 Thess. 2:13). It is an approbation by the self of the gospel as a message which God sends to me personally.”
Herman Bavinck thought deeply about Scripture and how to live Christianly in a modernizing world. He has much to say to us in our 21st-century context.