This book was originally published in 1909 by Longmans, Green, and Co. The ten chapters were prepared for the L. P. Stones Lectures 1908-09 in Princeton Theological Seminary. But only six lectures (first seven chapters in the book) were delivered. This book was also published in Dutch and in German at the same time. The copy I read was published in 2013 by Wipf and Stock Publishers, and it was an exact reprint without any editing. A newer edition (new typeset, original notes moved to the bottom of pages, new notes added by editors Brock and Sutanto) was published by Hendrickson Academic in 2018. Free online versions based on the 1901 edition are also widely available.
This book was a dense reading, even compared to other Bavinck’s writings. Bavinck interacted with leading scholars across extensive subjects. Most of the scholars were no longer important in our current debates, and some of the dominant secular views at that time became obsolete later. But that does not diminish at all the value of this book and its significance to our time. His insights into theology, philosophy, history, science, psychology, politics, and culture were surpassed by few, if any, since then. His ability to see the totality of the world through a consistent and unified Christian worldview was exemplary. He stood firmly on the special grace of God in Christ, but he was not dismissive of the common grace of God in unbelievers. On the other hand, he always perceived the fatal weakness of the unregenerate mind in whatever discipline that mind touched on. He demonstrated throughout the book that the demarcation between the Christian worldview and the non-Christian worldview, and how in every subject of knowledge did man need the revelation and grace of God. The revelation of God presupposes everything. One could see how Van Til developed this idea later on.
Ch. 1 is titled The Idea of A Philosophy of Revelation. Bavinck traces the paradigm shift from supernaturalism to naturalism in the 18th century, from an age when supernaturalism was universally acknowledged to an age when supernaturalism was almost universally rejected. He talks about French revolution, Hegel, Darwin, and Marx, then he points out the return of old pantheism after the emptiness of natural-materialism. However, “as a form of religion, monism hardly deserves serious consideration. A religion which has nothing but an immanent God, identical with the world, may for a while aesthetically affect and warm man; it can never satisfy man’s religious and ethical needs. … This is the reason why transcendence, supernaturalism, revelation, are essential to all religion.” (p. 16-17) At the end of this chapter, he discusses the dynamic between general revelation and special revelation (reappears in almost every chapter). “Precisely because Christianity rests on revelation, it has a content which, while not in conflict with reason, yet greatly transcends reason; even a divine wisdom, which appears to the world foolishness.” (p. 25) “In every moment of time beats the pulse of eternity; every point in space is filled with the omnipresence of God; the finite is supported by the infinite, all becoming is rooted in being. … The foundation of creation and redemption are the same.” (p. 27)
Ch. 2 and Ch. 3 are on Revelation and Philosophy. Again, he first does a survey on recent development of philosophy, evaluating the merits and weakness of various schools. The discussion on pragmatism, a view popular then and even more now, is specially interesting. “The real core of pragmatism: it has abandoned all hope of knowing anything that bears any absolute character, – not only God, but all ideas and names.” (p. 54) After his critique of idealism, he speaks of Augustine, “Augustine was the philosopher of self-examination, and in self-consciousness he discovered the starting point of a new metaphysics.” (p.64) Then Bavinck speaks of the self-consciousness of man “with its double testimony to dependence and freedom.” (p. 77) “This testimony of self-consciousness, combining dependence and freedom in one, is further the basis of religion, and likewise of morality.” (p. 78) This inherent dynamic in man is the imprint of a creature made in the image of God. As a man, he has both but as a fallen man, he has neither. At last, he talks about revelation as foundation of epistemology from p. 79 onward. “The reliability of perception and thought is not assured unless the forms of thought and the forms of being correspond, in virtue of their origin in the same creative wisdom.” (p.79) Outside Christian theism, no one can explain the validity of man’s thought. To deny God, man must stand on the revelation of God.
Ch. 4 is on the study of nature, thus physics. Firstly, he talks about the unity of reality and of man, and in modern time, “a chasm is thus created, objectively, in the sphere of reality, between God and the world, and subjectively, in man, between his intellect and heart, between his faith and knowledge.” (p. 83) Nature is part of reality, and natural science is part of man’s knowledge of reality. Therefore, it has inherent limitations. But in modernity, “natural science leaves her own domain and passes over to that of philosophy.” (p. 85) Man tries to get an exhaustive explanation of reality based on natural science alone. Bavinck then discusses the fallacy of natural explanation of reality. “If the world is eternal, it is no machine; if it is a machine, it cannot be eternal.” (p.98) The answer to the world is not in the world. “There must be a unity, which lies at the bottom of all diversity. But his unity cannot be found within the world, for matter and force, spirit and matter, … cannot be reduced to one another; they do not exist after each other, but each with its own concept and valuation, side by side with each other.” (p. 106, emphasis original) All human ideologies endeavor to find unity within this diversity, which must deny this diversity at the same time. He must be blind in order to see. “Thus physics calls for metaphysics; nature itself shows, in the core of its existence, that it does not exist of itself, has not been originated by evolution, but is grounded in revelation.” (p. 107, emphasis original) He then expands on the comparison between existence “after one another” and existence “side by side with each other” (reappears later).
Ch. 5 is on history. The methodologies of various schools are reviewed, then Bavinck’s verdict on them, “But all efforts to comprehend historical personages and occurrences exclusively from mechanical, physical, biological, psychological, social, or economic factors, have only succeeded in making evident the richness of life and the complication of conditions.” (p.121) The reality is, “we stand in history before a complex of causes and operations which are utterly unknow to us in their essence and interrelations, and cannot be comprehended in one single word.” (p.122) This is the fallacy of their methodology, but there is something deeper. The separation between historical facts and historical ideas cannot be sustained. There is no such thing as “facts only”. There must be a standard to judge the facts in one way or another. “Just as there is no physics without metaphysics, there is no history without philosophy, without religion and ethics.” (p.133-34) “If history is to remain what it is and must be, it presupposes the existence and activity of an all-wise and omnipotent God, who works out his own councils in the course of the world.” (p.135) Picking up the diversity and unity theme above, he continues, “a person alone can be the root of unity in difference, of difference in unity.” (p.136, emphasis original) Van Til later points out that the key to the unity-diversity of the world is the Tri-Unity of God. The personal explanation is in sharp contrast with the monistic abstract principle. The two unities are beautifully compared on p. 139. In the last two pages (p.140-41), he introduces the glory of Christian view of history as revealed in the Scripture. These pages of prose read like a hymn.
Ch. 6 is on religion. The modern religious study again confuses the “after-one-another” with the “by-the-side-of-one-another”. Bavinck is unhesitant to reject the consensus of secular scholars, “Primitive man accordingly is a worthy counterpart of the animated atoms, the personified powers of nature, the apotheosized natural law, the deified evolution idea. In reality he has never existed; he is nothing but a poetical creation of monistic imagination.” (p.156) Bavinck is not confused by their presentation of “evidence” since he clearly sees the hollowness of their reasoning. Just hope more Christians, especially Christians leaders, have such insight and conviction. The evolutionary hypothesis does not work for religion, any more than for history or natural science. “They [primitive religions] are not ‘a lower stage or a first step of a religious development, but undercurrents of real religion.’” (p.167) Christians must understand that the non-Christians are interpreting facts and weaving the facts into their framework of religion/history. Facts are not against Christianity, but the non-Christian interpretations are. The difference is basic and critical.
Ch. 7 traces the testimony of religions in early civilizations, to Old Testament, and then to New Testament. Primitive religions “all point back to a divine origin”. (p.188) There is a unity between general revelation and special revelation, between God’s work in humanity and in Israel. “Israel belongs to the human race, remains in relation to all peoples, and is chosen not at the cost, but for the benefit of the whole human race.” (p.191) Then he talks about the unity between OT and NT. “Election, gracious forgiveness and true, perfect communion, are the great thoughts and the spiritual gifts which Israel has received from God and in the fullness of time has communicated to humanity.” (p.200) “The central facts of the incarnation, satisfaction, and resurrection are the fulfilment 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. Without these facts history breaks into fragments. … This [sovereign, merciful, and almighty] will of God forms the heart of pure religion and at the same time the soul of all true theology.” (p.201)
Ch. 8 is on religious experience, psychology. By focusing on a “pure” religious experience without involving any religious/moral judgement, the modern religious study again paralyzed itself, as what happens in other disciplines. He talks about artificially induced trance for religious studies. “It is easy to say, on the one side, that all is suggestion or hallucination, or , on the other side, that a real intercourse with spirits takes place; but nothing is really certain. By intentionally supressing reason and will, and by going back from this world of revelation to a land of darkness, we lose all guidance and make all control impossible.” (p.219, wise advice also for Christians who seek to find similar experience.) What happens next? Occultism, “a peculiar combination of Darwinism and Buddhism, evolution and theosophy, Western intelligence and Eastern wisdom.” (p.220) This is exactly what happens now. The only antidote to this idolatry and superstition is Christianity. In Christianity, all elements of reality are in the right positions and in their right relations. “It is not the least merit of Christianity that it includes such a harmonious whole of representations, which reconcile subject and object, man and world, nature and revelation.” (p.240)
Ch. 9 discusses the role of culture. First section is on the view of culture, from separatism (various forms in church history) to humanism. Bavinck tries to articulate a balanced approach to culture, in the world but not of the world. The Christian man is neither “shallow optimism” nor “weak pessimism”. (p.256) “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.” (p.257) Only in Christianity is there true culture. “Either humanity, with all its culture, is a means for the unconscious, unreasonable, and purposeless world-power, or it is a means for glorifying God.” (p.264) Man must first become again a son of God before he can be, in a genuine sense, a cultured being. (p.266) “The gospel gives us a standard by which we can judge of 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.” (p.268-69)
Ch. 10 is about future. The popular view of future then and now is that man builds his utopia while rejecting his sinfulness. Evolution reigns the day, somehow and some time in the future man will enter into paradise on earth. “The doctrine of evolution thus takes the place of the old religion in the modern man. It 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 children of faith. … Just as the pagan treats his old, so modern man acts with the idea of revolution.” (p.291) “But whatever evolution thinks about the future, it affords no rest for the mind and none for the heart, because it takes away from us the Lord of the world.” (p.295) “An optimism which is exclusively built on evolution is always transmuted into pessimism if one ponders a little more deeply.” (p.297) On pages 300-01, he discusses the effects of technology and civil law on man and his future. Only Christianity gives man the knowledge and security of future. “This one equally sovereign and almighty, holy, and gracious will of God, which meets us and speaks to our conscience in the person and work of Christ, is the firm basis of our certainty, of our certainty concerning the past, the present, and the future.” (p. 309)
For those who are not familiar with Bavinck’s writings, this book is certainly not a good starting point. But for those who have read his dogmatics, this book will bring you a deeper understand of his thoughts and provide you material for formulating your own worldview.
