Herman Bavinck Quotes

The resurrection is the fundamental restoration of all culture.

Man is an enigma whose solution can be found only in God.

The Gospel is temporary, but the law is eternal and is restored precisely through the Gospel. Freedom from the law consists, then, not in the fact that the Christian has nothing more to do with the law, but lies in the fact that the law demands nothing more from the Christian as a condition of salvation. The law can no longer judge and condemn him. Instead he delights in the law of God according to the inner man and yearns for it day and night.

In Illinois there is a group of men who call themselves The University of Illinois and who, for a couple of dollars, will award a degree in a particular science.

Without revelation religion sinks back into a pernicious superstition.

And these two things, the love of God and Christ's satisfaction, had to and could go hand in hand because we were simultaneously the object of his love as his creatures and the object of his wrath as sinners.

Scientific information about the universe does not displace God. Some have said that they searched the heavens and did not see God. The universe with its measureless spaces remains a vast mystery to us, and those who do not find God in their immediate presence, in their heart and conscience, in the Word and the Christian community, will not find him in the universe either, even though they are equipped with the best telescopes that money can buy.

Conversion is not the source of truth, but the source of certainty with regard to the truth.

The cross is the divine settlement with the divine condemnation of sin.

Christ is not the founder of Christianity, nor the first confessor of it, nor the first Christian. But he is Christianity itself, in its preparation, fulfillment, and consummation

To separate between religion and metaphysics, however often it may have been attempted, is impossible

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, as Augustine also declared, but they do not all seek Him in the right way, nor at the right place.

Beneath the head lies the heart, out of which are the issues of life.

conversion is a necessary and moral duty for every man.

The greatest thinkers of Greece — Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and later Plutarch and Plotinus — derived their ideas from ancient tradition, and further on from divine revelation.

The cross of Christ divides history into two parts — the preparation for and the accomplishment of reconciliation;

The highest ideal for the Christian is not to make peace with the world, with science, with culture at any price, but to keep himself from the evil one.

Where God’s Word is, there is God Himself, there God’s Spirit is at work, there God establishes His covenant, there He plants His church.

Theology is about God and should reflect a doxological tone that glorifies him.

it is highly doubtful that with the words, “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,” Paul was referring to baptism.

The task of dogmatics is precisely to rationally reproduce the content of revelation that relates to the knowledge of God.

Viewed properly, there is only one duty, that of love, which is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10). And there actually is only one object of that law- namely, God. Everything else- people, angels, nature, art, and so forth-may and must be only in God and for God. The sole end of all things, ourselves, our neighbors, the state, and the like- is God's glory. Pg. 101

In the doctrine of the Trinity,” wrote Herman Bavinck, “beats the heart of the whole revelation of God for the redemption of humanity.” As the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, “our God is above us, before us, and within us.” The doctrine of the Trinity — God as one in essence and three in person — shapes and structures Christian faith and practice in every way, distinguishing it from all world religions.

Religion is inconceivable apart from revelation, and revelation cannot occur apart from the existence of a spiritual world above and behind this visible world, a spiritual world in communion with the visible world.

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 re-created by the grace of the Holy Spirit into a kingdom of God.

The Gospel is sheer good tidings, not demand but promise, not duty but gift. But in order that as promise and gift it may be realized in us, it takes on the character of moral admonishment in accordance with our nature. It does not want to force us, but it wants nothing other than that we freely and willingly accept in faith what God wants to give us. The will of God realizes itself in no other way than through our reason and will. That is why it is rightly said that a person, by the grace He receives, himself believes and himself turns from sin to God.

In Christianity the heavens do open, and God descends to the earth. In the other religions it is man whom we always see at work, trying by the achievement of knowledge, by keeping all kinds of rules, or by withdrawal from the world into the secrecy of his own inner life to obtain redemption from evil and communion with God. In the Christian religion the work of men is nothing, and it is God Himself who acts, intervenes in history, opens the way of redemption in Christ and by the power of His grace brings man into that redemption and causes him to walk in it.

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, as Augustine also declared, but they do not all seek Him in the right way, nor at the right place. They seek Him down below, and He is up above. They seek Him on the earth, and He is in heaven. They seek Him afar, and He is nearby. They seek Him in money, in property, in fame, in power, and in passion; and He is to be found in the high and the holy places, and with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa. 57:15). But they do seek Him, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him (Acts 17:27). They seek Him and at the same time they flee Him. They have no interest in a knowledge of His ways, and yet they cannot do without Him. They feel themselves attracted to God and at the same time repelled by Him. In this, as Pascal so profoundly pointed out, consists the greatness and the miserableness of man. He longs for truth and is false by nature. He yearns for rest and throws himself from one diversion upon another. He pants for a permanent and eternal bliss and seizes on the pleasures of a moment. He seeks for God and loses himself in the creature. He is a born son of the house and he feeds on the husks of the swine in a strange land. He forsakes the fountain of living waters and hews out broken cisterns that can hold no water ( Jer. 2:13). He is as a hungry man who dreams that he is eating, and when he awakes finds that his soul is empty; and he is like a thirsty man who dreams that he is drinking, and when he awakes finds that he is faint and that his soul has appetite (Isa. 29:8). Science cannot explain this contradiction in man. It reckons only with his greatness and not with his misery, or only with his misery and not with his greatness. It exalts him too high, or it depresses him too far, for science does not know of his Divine origin, nor of his profound fall. But the Scriptures know of both, and they shed their light over man and over mankind; and the contradictions are reconciled, the mists are cleared, and the hidden things are revealed. Man is an enigma whose solution can be found only in God.

God is above the world, and is also above sin and all evil. He allowed it because he could expiate it. So he maintained through all centuries and among all men the longing and the capacity for redemption, and wrought that redemption himself in the fulness of time, in the midst of history, in the crucified Christ.

It is, moreover, of the greatest importance for every believer, particularly for the dogmatician, to know which Scriptural truths, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, have been brought to universal recognition in the church of Christ. By this process, after all, the church is kept from immediately mistaking a private opinion for the truth of God.

Manifest in this trade (commercial sale of indulgences via bankers) at the same time was a pernicious tendency in the Roman Catholic system, for the trade in indulgences was not an excess or an abuse but the direct consequence of the nomistic degradation of the gospel. That the Reformation started with Luther’s protest against this traffic in indulgences proves its religious origin and evangelical character. At issue here was nothing less than the essential character of the gospel, the core of Christianity, the nature of true piety. And Luther was the man who, guided by experience in the life of his own soul, again made people understand the original and true meaning of the gospel of Christ. Like the “righteousness of God,” so the term “penitence” had been for him one of the most bitter words of Holy Scripture. But when from Romans 1:17 he learned to know a “righteousness by faith,” he also learned “the true manner of penitence.” He then understood that the repentance demanded in Matthew 4:17 had nothing to do with the works of satisfaction required in the Roman institution of confession, but consisted in “a change of mind in true interior contrition” and with all its benefits was itself a fruit of grace. In the first seven of his ninety-five theses and further in his sermon on “Indulgences and Grace” (February 1518), the sermon on “Penitence” (March 1518), and the sermon on the “Sacrament of Penance” (1519), he set forth this meaning of repentance or conversion and developed the glorious thought that the most important part of penitence consists not in private confession (which cannot be found in Scripture) nor in satisfaction (for God forgives sins freely) but in true sorrow over sin, in a solemn resolve to bear the cross of Christ, in a new life, and in the word of absolution, that is, the word of the grace of God in Christ. The penitent arrives at forgiveness of sins, not by making amends (satisfaction) and priestly absolution, but by trusting the word of God, by believing in God’s grace. It is not the sacrament but faith that justifies. In that way Luther came to again put sin and grace in the center of the Christian doctrine of salvation. The forgiveness of sins, that is, justification, does not depend on repentance, which always remains incomplete, but rests in God’s promise and becomes ours by faith alone.

God’s will is one with his being, his wisdom, goodness, and all his other perfections. For that reason the human heart and head can rest in that will, for it is the will of an almighty God and a gracious father, not that of a blind fate, incalculable chance, or dark force of nature. His sovereignty is one of unlimited power, but also of wisdom and grace. He is both king and father at one and the same time.

For it is not we who call God by these names. We do not invent them. On the contrary, if it depended on us, we would be silent about him, try to forget him, and disown all his names. We take no delight in the knowledge of his ways. We tend continually to oppose his names: his independence, sovereignty, righteousness, and love, and resist him in all his perfections. But it is God himself who reveals all his perfections and puts his names on our lips. It is he who gives himself these names and who, despite our opposition, maintains them. It is of little use to us to deny his righteousness: every day he demonstrates this quality in history. And so it is with all his attributes. He brings them out despite us. The final goal of all his ways is that his name will shine out in all his works and be written on everyone’s forehead (Rev. 22:4). For that reason we have no choice but to name him with the many names his revelation furnishes us.

Creatures, because they are creatures, are subject to time and space, though not all of them are this in the same way. Time makes it possible for a thing to continue existing in a succession of moments, for one thing to be after another. Space makes it possible for a thing to spread out to all sides, for one thing to exist next to another. Time and space therefore began to exist at the same time as the creatures, and as their inevitable mode of existence. They did not exist beforehand as empty forms to be filled in by the creatures; for when there is nothing there is no time nor space either. They were not made independently, alongside of creatures, as accompaniments, so to speak, and appended from the outside. Rather, they were created in and with the creatures as the forms in which those creatures must necessarily exist as limited, finite creatures. Augustine was right when he said that God did not make the world in time, as if it were created into a previously existing form or condition, but that He made it together with time and time together with the world.

The family is not of man's making; it is a gift of God and full of life. Upbringing in the family bears a quite special character. No school or educational institution can replace or compensate for the family. "Everything educates in the family, the handshake of the father, the voice of the mother, the older brother, the younger sister, the baby in the cradle, the sick loved one, the grandparents and the grandchildren, the uncles and the aunts, the guests and friends, prosperity and adversity, the feast day and the day of mourning, Sundays and workdays, the prayer and the thanksgiving at the table and the reading of God's Word, the morning and evening prayer. Everything is engaged to educate one another, from day to day, from hour to hour, unintentionally, without previously devised plan, method or system. From everything proceeds an educative influence though it can neither be analyzed nor calculated. A thousand insignificant things, a thousand trifles, a thousand details, all have their effect. It is life itself that here educates, life in its greatness, the rich, inexhaustible, universal life. The family is the school of life, because there is its spring and its hearth.' In A.B.W.M. Kok, Herman Bavinck, Amsterdam, 1945, pp. 1819.]

All men are really seeking after God... but they do not all seek Him in the right way, nor at the right place. They seek Him down below, and He is up above. They seek Him on the earth, and He is in heaven. They seek Him afar, and He is nearby. They seek Him in money, in property, in fame, in power, and in passion; and He is to be found in the high and holy places, and with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa. 57:15)... They seek Him and at the same time they flee Him... In this, as Pascal so profoundly pointed out, consists the greatness and miserableness of man. He longs for truth and is false by nature. He yearns for rest and throws himself from one diversion upon another. He pants for a permanent and eternal bliss and seizes on the pleasures of the moment. He seeks for God and loses himself in the creature.

In this, Pascal so profoundly pointed out, consists the greatness and the miserableness of man. He longs for truth and is false by nature. He yearns for rest and throws himself from one diversion upon another. He pants for a permanent and eternal bliss and seizes on the pleasures of a moment. He seeks for God and loses himself in the creature. He is a born son of the house and he feeds on the husks of the swine in a strange land. He forsakes the fountain of living waters and hews out broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jer 2:13). He is as a hungry man who dreams that he is eating, and when he awakes finds that his soul is empty; and he is like a thirsty man who dreams that he is drinking, and when he awakes finds that he is faint and that his soul has appetite (Isa 29:8). Science cannot explain this contradiction in man. It reckons only with his greatness and not with his misery, or only with his misery and not with his greatness. It exalts him too high, or it depresses him too far, for science does not know of his Divine origin, nor of his profound fall. But the Scriptures know of both, and they shed their light over man and over mankind; and the contradictions are reconciled, the mists are cleared, and the hidden things are revealed. Man is an enigma whose solution can be found only in 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, as Augustine also declared, but they do not all seek Him in the right way, nor at the right place. They seek Him down below, and He is up above. They seek Him on the earth, and He is in heaven. They seek Him afar, and He is nearby. They seek Him in money, in property, in fame, in power, and in passion; and He is to be found in the high and the holy places, and with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa. 57:15). But they do seek Him, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him (Acts 17:27). They seek Him and at the same time they flee Him. They have no interest in a knowledge of His ways, and yet they cannot do without Him. They feel themselves attracted to God and at the same time repelled by Him. In this, as Pascal so profoundly pointed out, consists the greatness and the miserableness of man. He longs for truth and is false by nature. He yearns for rest and throws himself from one diversion upon another. He pants for a permanent and eternal bliss and seizes on the pleasures of a moment. He seeks for God and loses himself in the creature. He is a born son of the house and he feeds on the husks of the swine in a strange land. He forsakes the fountain of living waters and hews out broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jer. 2:13). He is as a hungry man who dreams that he is eating, and when he awakes finds that his soul is empty; and he is like a thirsty man who dreams that he is drinking, and when he awakes finds that he is faint and that his soul has appetite (Isa. 29:8). Science cannot explain this contradiction in man. It reckons only with his greatness and not with his misery, or only with his misery and not with his greatness. It exalts him too high, or it depresses him too far, for science does not know of his Divine origin, nor of his profound fall. But the Scriptures know of both, and they shed their light over man and over mankind; and the contradictions are reconciled, the mists are cleared, and the hidden things are revealed. Man is an enigma whose solution can be found only in God.

Herman Bavinck, en The Doctrine of God, cita un hermoso párrafo que ilustra la aplicación práctica de la doctrina de la omnipresencia de Dios. Cuando usted quiere hacer algo malo, se retira del público a su casa donde ningún enemigo puede verlo; de estos lugares de su casa que están abiertos y visibles a los ojos de los hombres usted se aleja a su propio dormitorio; incluso en su cuarto uno teme algún testigo de otro sector; se retira a su propio corazón, y allí medita: él está más interno que su corazón. Adondequiera, por consiguiente, que usted haya huido, él está allí. De usted mismo, ¿adónde puede huir? ¿No se seguirá usted mismo adondequiera que huya? Pero puesto que hay uno más dentro incluso que usted mismo, no hay lugar donde usted pueda huir de un Dios colérico sino a un Dios reconciliador. No hay absolutamente ningún lugar adonde usted pueda huir. ¿Va a huir de él? Huya hacia él.5

The parallel, rather, is with human language. It is human to have the ability to speak, an essential part of the image of God in us. Nonetheless, concrete language, which exists in countless forms, is not native but acquired; it is learned.

Like all knowledge, knowledge of God is mediated to us through our senses, through speech and symbol, mediated to us by parents and others. If this were not the case, we would be unable to account for the great diversity of representations of God. If knowledge of God, of the moral order, of the beautiful—if these were all innate, they would be universally identical and acknowledged as such.

Augustine realized that, even in an era when the Roman Empire teetered on the brink of collapse, the essence of human existence is that we stand in history and that this history is the revelation of God’s great plan.

The truth is of more value than empirical life: Christ sacrificed his life for it.

The heaven that he won for us by his atoning death presupposes a hell from which he delivered us. The eternal life he imparted to us presupposes an eternal death from which he saved us.

After all, when the covenant of grace is separated from election, it ceases to be a covenant of grace and becomes again a covenant of works.

People mistakenly oppose to each other the positions that have always existed side by side and become antithetical only by very one-sided overstatement

Schelling combined an assortment of theosophical notions. Theosophy always occupies itself with two problems: the connection between God and the world and that between soul and body.

For Kant, only the religion of autonomous reason is the true religion. But by his critique of reason, by his appeal to the moral consciousness, his rigorous view of morality—a view that even made him speak of radical evil in human beings and of the necessity of a kind of rebirth—he has had great influence on theology.

Schleiermacher has exerted incalculable influence. All subsequent theology is dependent on him.

In his Glaubenslehre (1840) he attempted to show that the history of every dogma is simultaneously its critique and dissolution.

The difference seems to be conveyed best by saying that the Reformed Christian thinks theologically, the Lutheran anthropologically.

We can indeed live as though there is a God or no God, as though there are norms or no norms, but ultimately we will want to know [weten] whether that great as though that we base our lives on can withstand the test of objective judgment. That is no game; it is not a hobby. It is alarming in its inevitability because otherwise, everything, our life itself, is a leap into the abyss. A certain self-denial is found in all philosophical thinking—the self-denial of a person who feels that the worldvision that his life’s practice is built on and that is connected to his nature and character could indeed be wrong. Therein lies honesty, depth, and majesty.

Good apologetics is a blessing to the church and to the world; the early church proved this. A valid apologetic, however, follows faith and does not attempt to argue the truth of revelation in an a priori fashion. Christians need not hide from their opponents in embarrassed silence; the Christian faith is the only worldview that fits the reality of life. Apologetic intellectual labor should not lead to exaggerated expectations nor deny the genuine subjectivity of Christian truth. Relying on reason to convert or ground the faith on intellectual grounds alone will always disappoint.

Christ, insists Calvin, is “not good and just, but goodness and justice,”23 and Herman Bavinck notes that Christ is most unlike other religious leaders because he “is not the founder of Christianity, nor the first confessor of it, nor the first Christian.” Rather, “he is Christianity itself, in its preparation, fulfilment, and consummation.”24

Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics Volume 3. Pg 215-216 "...the Old Testament is also to be viewed as one in essence and substance wth the New Testament. For though God communicates his revelation successively and historically and makes it progressively richer and fuller, and humankind therefore advances in the knowledge, possession, and enjoyment of revelation, God is and remains the same. The sun only gradually illumines the earth, but itself remains the same, morning and evening, during the day and at night. Although Christ completed his work on earth only in the midst of history and although the Holy Spirit was not poured out till the day of Pentecost, God nevertheless was able, already in the days of the Old Testament, to full distribute the benefits to be acquired and applied by the Son and the Spirit. Old Testament believers were saved in no other way than we. There is one faith, one Mediator, one way of salvation, and one covenant of grace." Page 221-222 "The benefits granted to Israel by God in this covenant (Sinai) are the same as those granted to Abraham, but more detailed and specialized. Genesis 3:15 already contains the entire covenant in a nutshell and all the benefits of grace. God breaks the covenant made by the first humans with Satan, puts enmity between them, brings the first humans over to his side, and promises them victory over the power of the enemy. The one great promise to Abraham is "I will be your God, and you and your descendants will be my people" *Gen 17:8 paraphrase). And this is the principle content of God's covenant with Israel as well. God is Israel's God, and Israel is his people (Exod 19:6; 29:46; etc.). Israel, accordingly, receives a wide assortment of blessings, not only temporal blessings, such as the land of Canaan, fruitfulness in marriage, a long life, prosperity, plus victory over its enemies, but also spiritual and eternal blessings, such as God's dwelling among them (Exod. 29:45; Lev. 26:12), the forgiveness of sins (Exod. 20:6, 34:7; Num. 14:18; Deut. 4:31; Pss. 32; 103; etc.), sonship (Exod. 4:22; 19:5-6, 20:2; Deut. 14:1; Isa 63:16; Amos 3:1-2; etc.), sanctification (Exod. 19:6, Lev. 11:44, 19:2), and so on. All these blessings, however, are not as plainly and clearly pictured in the Old Testament as in the New Testament. At that time they would not have been grasped and understood in their spiritual import. The natural is first, then the spiritual. All spiritual and eternal benefits are therefore clothed, in Israel, in sensory forms. The forgiveness of sins is bound to animal sacrifices. God's dwelling in Israel is symbolized in the temple built on Zion. Israel's sonship is primarily a theocratic one, and the expression "people of God" has not only a religious but also a national meaning. Sanctification in an ethical sense is symbolized in Levitical ceremonial purity. Eternal life, to the Israelite consciousness, is concealed in the form of a long life on earth. It would be foolish to think that the benefits of forgiveness and sanctification, of regeneration and eternal life, were therefore objectively nonexistent in the days of the Old Testament. They were definitely granted then as well by Christ, who is eternally the same....The spiritual an eternal clothed itself in the form of the natural and temporal. God himself, Elohim, Creator of heaven and earth, as Yahweh, the God of the covenant, came down to the level of the creature, entered into history, assumed human language, emotions, and forms, in order to communicate himself with all his spiritual blessings to humans and so to prepare for his incarnation, his permanent and eternal indwelling in humanity. We would not even have at our disposal words with which to name the spiritual had not the spiritual first revealed itself in the form of the natural.

All good, enduring reformation begins with ourselves and takes its starting point in one’s own heart and life.

science, which can make known only the interrelations of things, but never their origin, essence and end, will never be able to satisfy the needs of the human heart.

When we go back as far as possible to the origins we find a human nature which already contains everything which it later on produces out of itself.

The notion that all peoples are on the road to progress is as incorrect as that they are continuously declining and degenerating.

primitive man has never existed; he is nothing but a poetical creation of monistic imagination

157Openly or secretly all turn back to an inborn disposition, to a religio insita.

All religion is supernatural, and rests upon the presupposition that God is distinct from the world and yet works in the world.

it is impossible to begin investigation without assumptions, for they all are founded on ideas and canons which have their basis in the rational and moral nature of man.

as the pure knowledge of God disappears, nature too in its true character is disowned, and either exalted into the sphere of the Godhead or degraded to the sphere of a demoniacal power.

Reason in this newer philosophy took its starting point with childish naivete in its own integrity and trustworthiness.

Theology has, since Kant's time, become a theology of consciousness and experience and thus loses itself in religious anthropology.

No psychology of religion can teach us what conversion is and ought to be; the Scriptures alone can tell us that.

If there is no infallible Scripture "there can exist only a subjective and purely individual notion of what belongs to Christian faith." All ways are good, if they but lead to faith – not to what is contained in faith, for this differs endlessly.

empirical life is rooted in an a priori datum which does not come slowly into existence by mechanical development, but is a gift of God's grace, and a fruit and result of his revelation.

revelation always supposes that man is able to receive impressions or thoughts or inclinations from another than this phenomenal world, and in a way other than that usually employed.

whoever intentionally robs himself of self-consciousness, reason, and will, extinguishes the light which God has given to man, annihilates his human freedom and independence, and degrades himself to an instrument for an alien and unknown power.

The whole man is taken into fellowship with that one true God; not only his feelings, but also his mind and will, his heart and all his affections, his soul and his body.

the plan of salvation in the Christian religion determines the method of Christian theology.

The peculiarity of the Christian religion as has been so often shown and acknowledged even by opponents,248 lies in the person of Christ.

250Christianity is no mere revelation of God in the past, but it is, in connection with the past, a work in the midst of this and every time. All other religions try to obtain salvation by the works of men, but Christianity makes a strong protest against this; it is not autosoteric but heterosoteric; it does not preach self-redemption, but glories in redemption by Christ alone. Man does not save himself, and does not save God, but God alone saves man, the whole man, man for eternity.

Conversion is the sole and the absolutely peculiar way to heaven.

if sin bears an ethical character, then redemption is possible, and conversion is in principle the conquest of sin, the death of the old and the resurrection of the new man.

Men may differ as to the nature and the reach of conversion, but its necessity is established beyond all doubt; the whole of humanity proclaims the truth of the fall.

conversion means a religious and moral change in man, by which he gives up his sinful ways and learns to know, love, and serve with his whole heart the true God who has revealed himself in Christ;

In infant baptism it was confessed that conversion and regeneration differ, and conversion is ordinarily a coming to consciousness of that new life which has long before been planted in the heart.

262The Gospel is so rich, and the salvation purchased by Christ contains so many and diverse benefits, that the most varied needs of men are satisfied by it, and the richest powers of human nature are brought to development.

religious experience is neither the source nor the foundation of religious truth;

faith, which forms its positive side is at the same time cognitio and fiducia, a trustful knowledge and a knowing trust.

Culture in the broadest sense includes all the labor which human power expends on nature.

this nature is twofold; it includes not only the whole visible world of phenomena which is outside man, but also, in a wider sense, man himself; not his body alone, but his soul also.

It is supernaturalism, which in point of fact forms the point of controversy between Christianity and many panegyrists of modern culture.

Christian religion cannot abandon this supernaturalism without annihilating itself.

He accepted the social and political conditions as they were, made no endeavor to reform them, and confined himself exclusively to setting the value which they possessed for the kingdom of heaven.

the whole of culture — may be of great value in itself, but whenever it is thrown into the balance against the kingdom of heaven, it loses all its significance.

if the moral law or the ideal good indeed exists outside of us, then it must be grounded in and be one with the Godhead.

The absolute, immutable, and inviolable supremacy of that will of God is the light which special revelation holds before our soul's eye at the end of time.

173Augustine speaks of a Christianity which has existed since the beginning of the human race,

reason was cast down from this exalted pedestal by the philosophy of Kant, by the theology of Schleiermacher and with the rise of the Romantic school.

Philosophy arose out of religion,

What history gives us leaves upon us, on the contrary, the impression of decadence rather than of an advancing civilization.

The facts are that an essential difference exists between man and beast. Human nature is sui generis; it has its own character and attributes. If this be true, then the common origin of all men is a necessity;

Human nature is not an empty notion, no purely abstract conception, but a reality, a particular manner of being, which includes distinctive habits, inclinations, and attributes.

We have no historical testimony to the development of polytheism into pure monotheism;

205The segregation and the election of Israel served the sole purpose of maintaining, unmixed and unadulterated, continuing and perfecting, the original revelation, which threatened to be lost206so that it might again in the fullness of time be made the property of the whole of mankind.

gospel is in the Old and the New Testament alike the core of the divine revelation, the essence of religion, the sum total of the Holy Scriptures.

But the electing love of God is at the same time a forgiving love. God not only elects and calls, but gives himself to his people; he joins himself to them so intimately and tenderly that he charges their guilt and transfers it, as it were, to himself.

Man can as little make propitiation for his sin as he can forgive it himself. But God can do both, atone and forgive; he can do the one just because he can do the other.

Theology leads through soteriology to eschatology.

The central facts of the incarnation, satisfaction, and resurrection are the fulfillment of the three great thoughts of the Old Covenant, the content of the New Testament, the Kerygma of the Apostles, the foundation of the Christian Church, the marrow of its history of dogma and the centre of the history of the world.

one thread runs through the history of mankind, namely, the operation of the sovereign, merciful, and almighty will of God, to save and to glorify the world notwithstanding its subjection to corruption.

This will of God forms the heart of pure religion and at the same time the soul of all true theology.

All culture, whatever significance it may have, just as all education, civilization, development, is absolutely powerless to renew the inner man.

Thus the true, the good and the beautiful which ethical culture seeks can only come to perfection when the absolute good is at the same time the almighty, divine will, which not only prescribes the good in the moral law, but also works it effectually in man himself. The heteronomy of law and the autonomy of man are reconciled only by this theonomy.

either humanity, with all its culture, is a means for the unconscious, unreasonable, and purposeless world-power, or it is a means for the glorifying of God.

Ethical culture must be a philosophy of revelation or it cannot exist.

the subduing of the earth, that is, the whole of culture, is given to him, and can be given to him only because he is created after God's image; man can be ruler of the earth only because and in so far as he is a servant, a son of God.

Culture, therefore, sinks into the background; man must first become a son of God before he can be, in a genuine sense, a cultured being.

The truth and value of Christianity do not depend on the fruits which it has borne for civilization and culture: it has its own independent value; it is the realization of the kingdom of God on earth;

The superhuman task of transforming present society into a state of peace and joy requires more than ordinary human power; if God himself does not work the change, hope can be cherished only when human power is divinized.

In the same way, any ethical system which aspires to be true ethics and to bear a normative and teleological character, not falling into merely a description of habits and customs, is forced to seek the support of metaphysics.

By banishing metaphysics, materialism has no longer an ethical system, knows no longer the distinction between good and evil, possesses no moral law, no duty, no virtue, and no highest good.

Metaphysics, the belief in the absolute as a holy power, always forms the foundation of ethics.

The doctrine of evolution thus takes the place of the old religion in the modern man.320It is no science; it does not rest on undeniable facts; it has often in the past and in the present been contradicted by the facts. But that does not matter; miracle is the dearest child of faith.

If there ever is to be a blessed humanity it must be preceded by a radical change in human nature.

328An optimism which is exclusively built on evolution is always transmuted into pessimism if one ponders a little more deeply.

If the essence of things is unknowable, the misery of man cannot be fathomed.

Evolution is dismissive of the eternity of moral duty and moral laws.

The more deeply we live, the more we feel in sympathy with Augustine, and the less with Pelagius.

everything we value in this life is inseparably connected with the future.

All worldviews, therefore, end in an eschatology and all efforts at reformation are animated by faith in the future.

Revelation in nature and revelation in Scripture form, in alliance with each other, a harmonious unity which satisfies the requirements of the intellect and the needs of the heart alike.

there is great danger that modern culture, progressing in its anti-supernaturalistic course, will be stirred against the steadfastness of believers and attempt to accomplish by oppression what it cannot obtain by reasoning and argument.

Formerly men said that life was thought, but now we are told that life is will.

Society has already become a most artificial system of complicated relations, a gigantic organism, wherein all members are closely connected. All this demands help from the allembracing state.

311eschatology lives in the heart of all.

Race instinct, sense of nationality, enmity, and hatred, these are divisive forces between peoples. This is an astonishing punishment and a terrible judgment, and cannot be undone by any cosmopolitanism or leagues of peace, by any 'universal' language, nor by any world-state or international culture. If ever there is to be unity among mankind again it will not be achieved by any external, mechanical rallying around some tower of Babel or other, but by a development from within, a gathering under one and the same Head (Eph 1:10), by the peacemaking creation of all peoples into a new man (Eph 2:15), by regeneration and renewal through the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:15), and by the walking of all people in one and the same light (REv 21:24) The unity of mankind which can only be restored by an internal operation, beginning within and working out, is, therefore, a unity which in the internal operation of that first confusion of tongues was basically disturbed. The spurious unity was radically upset in order that room might be made for the true unity. The world-state was shattered in order that the Kingdom of God would come into existence on earth.

God does not say that He will be our God if we do this or that thing. But He says that He will put enmity, that He will be our God, and that in Christ He will grant us all things. The covenant of grace can throughout the centuries remain the same because it depends entirely upon God and because God is the Immutable One and the Faithful One.

The covenant is rooted in eternity. At that point it consisted not simply in the decree, like everything else can in that sense be said to have existed in eternity. Rather, the covenant existed at that point also in truth and in reality between the Father and the Son, and therefore immediately after the Fall the covenant could be made known to man and be established with man.

Conversion is a turning back to God, but at the same time a coming to one's self.

Christian ethics maintains that the whole man must be good in intellect and will, heart and conscience. To do good is a duty and a desire, a task and a privilege, and thus the work of love. Love is therefore the fulfilling of the law.

The condition in which the pagan world dwells outside of the special revelation is portrayed in Holy Scripture as darkness, ignorance, self-invented wisdom, and great unrighteousness. The preaching that addresses them is thus a calling to come out of darkness into the light; it is an invitation to be converted from idols and to serve the living and true God.

God is so good that in His electing and in the dispensing of His grace, He follows the line of generations and receives into His covenant both parents and their seed together. So the children of believers are to be viewed as holy, not by nature but through the benefit of the covenant of grace, in which they together with their parents are included according to God’s arrangement. Given this position, therefore, baptism is not administered to children of the church in order to make them holy, in order to make them partakers of sanctifying grace, but because they are sanctified in Christ and therefore as members of His church ought to be baptized. Baptism is no conduit through which grace flows to the baptized person, but a sign and seal of received grace, of the covenant, in which the child is included together with his parents.

When God binds Himself to being our God, then at the same time He binds Himself to be the God of our seed. With His grace He follows the line of the generations. He executes election along the route and pathway of the covenant. As Father of all mercies He walks the path that He Himself, as Father of everything, has drawn.

nature and grace stood over against each other like light and darkness, day and night, heaven and earth, like Creator and creature. For that reason, a radical separation had to emerge eventually between nature and grace, not only in doctrine but also in life, both in theory and in practice. By virtue of that opposition and separation, the Anabaptists taught that the first man Adam, because he was from the dust of the ground, could not yet have been the true image of God, could not have shared in true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness; the second Man, Christ, could not have received His human nature from the virgin Mary, but He must have brought it with Him from heaven; believers who had been born of God from above and had received a new, heavenly substance in that regeneration, were to be viewed not merely as renewed, but as new heavenly people in origin and essence, people whose position now was against the world, having nothing more to do with the world.

Therefore it is completely erroneous to place the church as organism and the church as institution in opposition to each other, to put the former high above the latter, and to play the former against the latter. The institution is particularly that organization, that one, necessary, indispensable organization undergirding the so-called church as organism. This latter has no other specific address than precisely that address of the institution. It comes to manifestation in no humanly invented society or corporation, but in its God-given institution.

Life often mocks every system; it is richer and fuller than the deepest thinker in all his wisdom can imagine.

The church’s holiness must not be sacrificed for its catholicity, and the church’s catholicity may not be surrendered in favor of its holiness. For in denying either, we lose both. Both attributes by nature characterize the one Christian church.

We must respect the catholicity of the church even to the extent that it has, according to God’s purpose, spread among the human race in corrupted forms. Christendom in its entirety is the people of God that in the days of the New Testament has taken the place of Israel. Thereby Scripture also directly opposes all those who, in over-emphasizing principles and craving for consistency, would rather see those who bear the name of Christ while denying the Christ of Scripture surrender the name Christian and return to paganism, purely in the interest of consistency. There are people who seem to take delight, with the broom of “necessary consequence,” in sweeping away the Ethicals into the company of the Modernists, and the Modernists into the company of the Socialists, and the Socialists into the company of the Nihilists —Page 126— and Anarchists. But the calling of the minister of the gospel is to rescue what can still be rescued, and to see people’s manifold inconsistencies as a blessing and a demonstration of God’s restraining grace.

The gospel gives us a standard by which we can judge phenomena and events; it is an absolute measure which enables us to determine the value of the present life; it is a guide to show us the way in the labyrinth of the present world; it raises us above time, and teaches us to view all things from the standpoint of eternity.

Herman Bavinck explains: On balance, however, the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages. For the denial of the clarity of Scripture carries with it the subjection of the layperson to the priest, or a person’s conscience to the church. The freedom of religion and the human conscience, of the church and theology, stands and falls with the perspicuity of Scripture. It alone is able to maintain the freedom of the Christian; it is the origin and guarantee of religious liberty as well as of our political freedoms. Even a freedom that cannot be obtained and enjoyed aside from the dangers of licentiousness and caprice is still always so to be preferred over a tyranny that suppresses liberty.4

God’s will is the will of the Creator of heaven and earth, who cannot repudiate his own work in creation or providence, and who cannot treat the human being he has created as though it were a stock or stone. It is the will of a merciful and kind Father, who never forces things with brute violence, but successfully counters all our resistance by the spiritual might of love. The will of God realizes itself in no other way than through our reason and our will. That is why it is rightly said that a person, by the grace he receives, himself believes and himself terms from sin to God.

God’s will is the will of the Creator of heaven and earth, who cannot repudiate his own work in creation or providence, and who cannot treat the human being he has created as though it were a stock or stone. It is the will of a merciful and kind Father, who never forces things with brute violence, but successfully counters all our resistance by the spiritual might of love. The will of God realizes itself in no other way than through our reason and our will. That is why it is rightly said that a person, by the grace he receives, himself believes and himself turns from sin to God.

From the start of its labors dogmatic theology is shrouded in mystery; it stands before God the incomprehensible One.

All the doctrines treated in dogmatics—whether they concern the universe, humanity, Christ, and so forth—are but the explication of the one central dogma of the knowledge of God. All things are considered in light of God, subsumed under him, traced back to him as the starting point. Dogmatics is always called upon to ponder and describe God and God alone, whose glory is in creation and re-creation, in nature and grace, in the world and in the church. It is the knowledge of him alone that dogmatics must put on display.

Language is the soul of a nation, the custodian of the goods and treasures of humankind, the bond that unites human beings, peoples, and generations, the one great tradition that unites in consciousness the world of humankind, which is one by nature.

His entire life is summarized by the church in the word: he who suffered. Through the cross alone, he has triumphed over the principalities and powers. That was his only weapon. Alone and never in anything other than in the sign of the cross, he has achieved victory. That is the point: all things are reconciled and reunified. Just as everything turned away from God through the tree of knowledge, so everything returns to God through the cross. After having accomplished reconciliation, he now proceeds to gather all things under him as the head in the fullness of time—everything that is in heaven and on earth [Eph. 1:10]. As king he will reign until all his enemies are laid under his feet. Considering all this now, the church once again raises its eye with vivacity and declares, I believe in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord.

Atheism is not proper to man by nature, but develops at a later stage of life, on the ground of philosophical reflection; like scepticism, it is an intellectual and ethical abnormality, which only confirms the rule. By nature every man believes in God.

Evolution is a great word but it turns its back on difficulties and sums up a rich and complicated reality under a vague formula.

Without God all things go wrong, both in our living and in our thinking. The denial of the existence of God means the elevation of the creature into the place of God.

If history is to be truly history, if it is to realize values, universally valid values, we cannot know this from the facts in themselves, but we borrow this conviction from philosophy, from our view of life and of the world — that is to say, from our faith. Just as there is no physics without metaphysics, there is no history without philosophy, without religion and ethics.

Every man lives in his own time, comes into being and passes away, appears and disappears; he seems only a part of the whole, a moment of the process. But every man also bears the ages in his heart; in his spirit-life he stands above and outside of history. He lives in the past and the past lives in him for, as Nietzsche says, man cannot forget. He also lives in the future and the future lives in him, for he bears hope imperishably in his bosom. Thus he can discover something of the connection between the past, the present, and the future; thus he is at the same time maker and knower of history. He belongs himself to history, yet he stands above it; he is a child of time and yet has a part in eternity; he becomes and he is at the same time; he passes away and yet he abides. This Christianity has made us understand.

G OD, the world and man are the three realities with which all science and all philosophy occupy themselves. The conception which we form of them and the relation in which we place them to one another determine the character of our view of the world and of life, the content of our religion, science, and morality.

There is enough light for those who only desire to see and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition. There is enough clarity to illumine the elect and enough darkness to humble them. There is enough darkness to render the reprobate sightless and enough clarity to condemn them and to render them inexcusable.

Theology requires disciplined preparation in the arts more broadly. There is no admission to the temple of theology except by way of the study of the arts. Indispensable to the practitioner of the science of theology is philosophical, historical, and linguistic preparatory training. This equips one for the task of building a theological system organically from the whole of Scripture in its literary diversity. Then follows the task of intellectually mining the material gathered from Scripture and recapitulating it into a meaningful system of thought in the language of the day.

Of the existence of self, of the world round us, of logical and moral law, ect., we are so deeply convinced because of the indelible impressions which all these things make upon our consciousness that we need no arguments or demonstration. Spontaneously, altogether involuntarily: without any constraint or coercion, we accept that existence. Now the same is true in regard to the existence of God. The so-called proofs are by no means the final grounds of our most certain conviction that God exits. This certainty is established only by faith: that is, by spontaneous testimony which forces itself upon us from every side.

Factually and objectively, however, nothing is indifferent, neither in nature, nor in the state, nor in science and art. All things, even the most humble, have their specific place and meaning in the context of the whole. Human beings are indifferent only to what they do not, or do not sufficiently, know; they automatically assess and appreciate what they do know. God, who knows all things, is not indifferent to anything.

We do not see God as he is in himself. We behold him in his works. We name him according to the manner in which he has revealed himself in his works. To see God face to face is for us impossible, at least here on earth. If, nevertheless,, God wills that we should know him, he must needs descend to the level of the creature. He must needs accommodate himself to our limited, finite human consciousness.

We do not see God as he is in himself. We behold him in his works. We name him according to the manner in which he has revealed himself in his works. To see God face to face is for us impossible, at least here on earth. If, nevertheless, God wills that we should know him, he must needs descend to the level of the creature. He must needs accommodate himself to our limited, finite human consciousness.

We do not see God as he is in himself. We behold him in his works. We name him according to the manner in which he has revealed himself in his works. To see God face to face is for us impossible, at least here on earth. If, nevertheless, God wills that we should know him, he must needs descend to the level of the creature. He must needs accommodate himself to our limited, finite, human consciousness.

When a church and theology prefer peace and quiet over struggle, they themselves trigger the opposition that reminds them of their Christian calling and task.

Moreover, Synod in agreement with our Confession maintains that “the sacraments are not empty or meaningless signs, so as to deceive us, but visible signs and seals of an inward and invisible thing, by means of which God works in us by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Article XXXIII), and that more particularly baptism is called “the washing of regeneration” and “the washing away of sins” because God would “assure us by this divine pledge and sign that we are spiritually cleansed from our sins as really as we are outwardly washed with water”; wherefore our Church in the prayer after baptism “thanks and praises God that He has forgiven us and our children all our sins, through the blood of His beloved Son —Page 172— Jesus Christ, and received us through His Holy Spirit as members of His only begotten Son, and so adopted us to be His children, and sealed and confirmed the same unto us by holy baptism”; so that our Confessional Standards clearly teach that the sacrament of baptism signifies and seals the washing away of our sins by the blood and the Spirit of Jesus Christ, that is, the justification and the renewal by the Holy Spirit as benefits which God has bestowed upon our seed. Synod is of the opinion that the representation that every elect child is on that account already in fact regenerated even before baptism, can be proved neither on scriptural nor on confessional grounds, seeing that God fulfils His promise sovereignly in His own time, whether before, during, or after baptism. It is hence imperative to be circumspect in one’s utterances on this matter, so as not to desire to be wise beyond that which God has revealed.

One arrives at metaphysics, at a philosophy of religion, only if from another source one has gained the certainty that religion is not just an interesting phenomenon—comparable to belief in witches and ghosts—but truth, the truth that God exists, reveals himself, and is knowable.

Such a scientific defense of the dogma, i.e., of the entire content of revelation and of Christianity as a whole, is possible for the reason that nature and grace, creation and redemption, coming as they do from one and the same God, are not and cannot be in conflict.

The task of dogmatics, however, is always the same. It is and can, from its very nature, be nothing other than a scientific exposition of religious truth, a detailed exposition and interpretation of the Word of God. It is a laying out of the treasures of sacred Scripture, a commitment to the standard of teaching (Gr. παραδοσις εἰς τυπον διδαχης, Rom. 6:17), so that in it we possess a form and image of the heavenly doctrine (forma ac imago doctrinae coelestis). Accordingly, dogmatics is not itself the Word of God. Dogmatics is never more than a faint image and a weak likeness of the Word of God; it is a fallible human attempt, in one’s own independent way, to think and say after God what he in many and various ways spoke of old by the prophets and in these last days has spoken to us by the Son.

In case a dogma is not based on divine authority, it is wrong to call it by that name, and it should not have a place in the faith of the church.

Without faith in the existence, the revelation, and the knowability of God, no religion is possible.

The law, which was added to the promise, did not render the promise of no effect or obliterate it, but rather took the promise up into itself in order to be of service to the development and fulfillment of it. The promise is the main thing; the law is subordinate. The first is the goal; the second is the means. It is not in the law, but in the promise, that the core of the Revelation of God and the heart of Israel's religion lies. And because the promise is a promise of God, it is not a hollow sound, but a word full of power, which is the expression of a will bent on doing all that pleases God (Ps. 33:9 and Isa. 55:11). Therefore, this promise is the propelling force of Israel's history until it gets its fulfillment in Christ.

Scripture knows no twofold religious veneration, one of a lower kind and the other of a higher kind. Roman Catholics, accordingly, admit that worship (latria) and homage (dulia) are not distinguished in Scripture as they distinguish them, and also that these words furnish no etymological support for the way they are used.

The doctrine of the divine authority of Holy Scripture constitutes an important component in the words of God that Jesus preached, and if he was mistaken on this point he was wrong at a point that is most closely tied in with the religious life and he can no longer be recognized as our highest prophet. We cannot take Jesus seriously as a teacher and reject his own teaching concerning Holy Scripture.

Wanting to hold on to some form of scriptural value, [modern] theologians modified their view of inspiration. One approach reduced its inspired character to religious-ethical matters only and allowed for all kinds of historical, geographical, and other error. The Word of God was to be distinguished from Scripture. Only doctrine is immediately inspired; in the rest error was easily possible. A split was created between “that which is needed for salvation” and “the incidentally historical.” This distinction is impossible; in Scripture, doctrine and history are completely intertwined.

God makes everything beautiful in His time, He makes everything happen at the right moment, at the moment He has fixed for it, so that history in its entirety and in its parts corresponds to the counsel of God and exhibits the glory of that counsel.

The central point of the gospel is not us poor humans and our pain and suffering; rather, its entire focus is aimed at the unique and powerful reality that God wants to reinstate his kingdom.

Wherever the revelation that is foundational to Christianity is to be found, the Christian dogmatician has to take his stance there. This is where he stands as a Christian, and this is where he must still take his stand as a dogmatician, for with it his dogmatics will stand or fall.

Christ is God expressed and God given. He is God revealing Himself and God sharing Himself, and therefore He is full of truth and also full of grace. The word of the promise, I will be a God unto thee, included within itself from the very moment in which it was uttered, the fulfillment, I am thy God.

Christ does not bring us back to the point on the road where Adam stood but has covered the whole journey for us to the very end.

Grace is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the entire work of salvation; it is totally devoid of human merit.

The covenant of grace differs from the covenant of works in method, not in its ultimate goal. It is the same treasure that was promised in the covenant of works and is granted in the covenant of grace. Grace restores nature and takes it to its highest pinnacle, but it does not add to it any new and heterogeneous constituents. The re-creation is not a second, new creation. It does not add to existence any new creatures or introduce any new substance into it, but it is truly “re-formation.

The world after the fall is not “godless” nor deprived of all grace; avoidance, separation, and suppression are impermissible and impossible. We are human before we are Christian; becoming a Christian does not take us out of our humanity or elevate us above it: the Christian is nothing other than a reborn, renewed, and hence a truly human person. The incarnation of Christ involved the taking on of our full humanity, and he did not regard anything human and natural as strange or alien. Accordingly, the relationship that has to exist between the church and the world is in the first place organic, moral, and spiritual in character. Christ is prophet, priest, and king, and by his Word and Spirit he persuasively impacts the entire world. The

Darwin was led to his agnostic naturalism as much by the misery which he observed in the world as by the facts which scientific investigation brought under his notice. There was too much strife and injustice in the world for him to believe in providence and a predetermined goal. A world so full of cruelty and pain he could not reconcile with the omniscience, the omnipotence, the goodness of God.

God is the truth in its absolute fullness. He, therefore, is the primary, the original truth, the source of all truth, the truth in all truth. He is the ground of the truth - of the true being - of all things, of their knowability and conceivability, the ideal and archetype of all truth, of all ethical being, of all the rules and laws, in light of which the nature and manifestation of all things should be judged and on which they should be modeled. God is the source and origin of the knowledge of truth in all areas of life.