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Herman Bavinck: the Man and His Theology1 by David J Editor’s Notes This issue of the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal is a special issue. It is devoted to the life and theology of Dr. Herman Bavinck (1854-1921). Bavinck was a towering figure among the Dutch Reformed in the Netherlands during the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He taught first at the Theological School at Kampen (1883-1902); the rest of his career he spent as Abraham Kuyper’s successor at the Free University of Amsterdam, from 1902 until his death in 1921. Of great significance for our understanding of Bavinck is the publication of Bavinck’s magnum opus, the four- volume Reformed Dogmatics (2003-2008), in English by the Dutch Reformed Translation Society. Although a few of Bavinck’s works had found their way into English, in the Reformed Dogmatics the English- speaking world has access to the breadth of Bavinck’s teaching on all the main topics of Reformed theology. On March 6, 2012 Classis West of the Protestant Reformed Churches held an Officebearers’ Conference in Redlands, California. We are grateful that Prof. David Engelsma and Rev. James Laning graciously complied with our request and submitted their speeches at the conference for publication in PRTJ. Their articles will give the broad sweep of Bavinck’s theology, as well as point out weaknesses and even errors in Bavinck’s teaching. The Protestant Reformed Churches have a special interest in Herman Bavinck. That interest is due to the fact that there can be no doubt that our founding fathers were influenced by Bavinck. In their seminary training and in their studies they read Bavinck. What was true of the men generally, was true of Herman Hoeksema in particular. His Reformed Dogmatics, not just in name, but also in content, reflects a definite similarity to Bavinck in certain fundamental ways. Particu- larly did Hoeksema build on Bavinck’s doctrine of the covenant. And yet, Hoeksema also corrected Bavinck in places where correction was needed. Included in this issue is a review article, “Another Defender of Shepherd (and the Federal Vision),” by Prof. Engelsma. This article is an analysis of Not of Works: Norman Shepherd and His Critics, by Protestant Reformed Theological Journal the Canadian Reformed minister and theologian Ralph F. Boersema. The review exposes the faulty doctrine of justification by faith and works, on the basis of a conditional covenant of grace and works, embraced by Boersema, Shepherd, and the proponents of the Federal Vision. Boersema openly acknowledges that Shepherd and the Federal Vision embrace the Liberated doctrine of a conditional covenant, a covenant that does not originate in and is not governed by election. A most revealing book! Besides the articles on Bavinck that are the meat of this issue and the review article, be sure to read Prof. Dykstra’s review of Ron Gleason’s biography of Bavinck, Herman Bavinck: Pastor, Church- man, Statesman, and Theologian. And while you are at it, read the other book reviews that are included in this issue. At the end of this issue is an advertisement for the upcoming conference, which is being planned by the seminary faculty. The conference will mark the 450th anniversary of the publication of the Heidelberg Catechism—precious creed of the Reformed churches. The conference theme is: “Our Only Comfort: Celebrating the 450th Anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism.” This promises to be a very worthwhile conference and we encourage as many of our read- ers as possible to make plans to attend the conference, which will be held the evenings of October 18 and 19, 2013, and Saturday morn- ing, October 20, 2013. We look forward to seeing many of you at the conference. We hope you enjoy reading the articles and reviews in this issue of PRTJ, and that what you read you find informative, intellectually stimulating, and edifying. Soli Deo Gloria! —RLC l 2 Vol. 46, No. 1 Bavinck: the Man and His Theology Herman Bavinck: The Man and His Theology1 by David J. Engelsma With the publication of Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics in English for the first time, by the Dutch Reformed Translation Society (the fourth and last volume appeared in 2008), there has occurred a kind of Bavinck-renaissance in North America. This would be a good thing, if the Reformed churches and theologians would pay attention to the sound and solid Reformed doctrines in Bavinck’s dogmatics, allowing these doctrines to critique, correct, and inform the teachings of the churches and theologians. What has happened, however, is that the sound doctrines in the Reformed Dogmatics have largely been ignored, or deliberately misrepresented, particularly Bavinck’s doctrine of the covenant of grace. Also, churches, theologians, and educational institutions have seized upon erroneous doctrines in the Reformed Dogmatics, and have emphasized these false teachings, especially the doctrine of a common grace of God. Similarly, the notable Bavinck conferences have largely ignored the Reformed doctrines of Bavinck, as set forth in the Reformed Dog- matics, and have devoted themselves instead to Bavinck’s views on ecumenicity, psychology, and culture. This was true of the Bavinck conference sponsored by Princeton Seminary soon after the publica- tion in English of the last volume of the Reformed Dogmatics. The same was true of the Bavinck conference sponsored jointly by Calvin Theological Seminary and the Dutch Reformed Translation Society. Very few, indeed almost none, of the speeches concerned a distinctively Reformed doctrine. Most of the speeches were about church union and the “Christianizing” of culture. This was ironic in view of the fact that the Dutch Reformed Translation Society had 1 The expanded text of an address at a conference of Protestant Re- formed officebearers in Redlands, CA on March 6, 2012. November 2012 3 Protestant Reformed Theological Journal just spent more than $100,000 and innumerable hours translating and publishing Bavinck’s dogmatics. Bavinck is himself partly responsible for this neglect of his dog- matics. Alongside his dogmatical work was always a powerful cultural urge. During the last ten years of his life and ministry, this concern for culture became virtually his only interest. And he wrote two tracts propounding a common grace of God that is supposed to enable the church to cooperate with the ungodly in transforming culture.2 But the main explanation of the widespread ignoring of Bavinck’s theology in favor of his cultural writings by the Presbyterian and Reformed institutions and theologians is that these institutions and theologians have little interest in the sound doctrines of the Reformed tradition as they are confessed and defended in Bavinck’s four volumes of dogmatics, whereas these institutions and theologians are obsessed with culture and ecumenicity. The conference that I am addressing may well be the first Bavinck conference that is devoted, not only chiefly, but also exclusively to the Reformed doctrines of the Reformed Dogmatics and, thus, to the 2 Herman Bavinck, “De Algemeene Genade” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans- Sevensma, n.d.). This booklet has been translated into English by Raymond C. Van Leeuwen as “Common Grace,” Calvin Theological Journal 24, no. 1 (April 1989). The other work by Bavinck on common grace is “Calvin and Common Grace,” tr. Geerhardus Vos. The booklet contains no publishing data, but does indicate that the occasion of the work was the “celebration of the four hundreth anniversary of the birth of John Calvin.” This booklet is part of this writer’s library. In this latter work, ominously, Bavinck acknowl- edges that the theory of common grace qualifies the doctrine of reprobation. Attributing this qualification of reprobation to Calvin, but propounding his own view, Bavinck declares that “reprobation does not mean the withholding of all grace” (117). The effects of this common grace, according to Bavinck, include that unregenerate “men still retain a degree of love for the truth” and retain “the remnants of the divine image” (119, 120). Bavinck does not see in common grace a love of God for all humans that desires the salvation of all without exception, regardless of predestination. That is, Bavinck does not draw from his doctrine of common grace the theory of a “well-meant offer” of salvation to all. For Bavinck, as for Kuyper, common grace is limited to the realm of the earthly and natural. 4 Vol. 46, No. 1 Bavinck: the Man and His Theology real significance of the monumental Reformed Dogmatics, if not the real significance of Bavinck himself. At this conference, we are concerned with the theology of Herman Bavinck. Nor is our concern merely academic. We desire to learn and profit from the glorious truths of the Reformed faith as they are confessed, explained, defended, and developed in Bavinck. Where they are present to spoil Reformed theology, the weaknesses and er- rors must be exposed and rejected. Our purpose is to maintain and develop further the sound doctrines of the Reformed Dogmatics for the benefit, especially, of the Protestant Reformed Churches. In this first address, I am to introduce “the man and his theol- ogy.” I do not intend simply to tell you the outstanding features of the life and personality of Herman Bavinck and then summarize his theology—the content of the Reformed Dogmatics. But I will relate the man and his theology, the life and the dogmatics. For my knowledge of the man and his life, I rely especially on the three most important biographies, or studies, of Bavinck in Dutch: Dr. Herman Bavinck, by V. Hepp;3 Herman Bavinck als Dogmaticus, by R. H. Bremmer;4 and Herman Bavinck en Zijn Tijdgenoten, by R. H. Bremmer.5 I have also read the only full biography of Bavinck in English, Herman Bavinck, by Ron Gleason.6 Although acclaimed by reviewers, Gleason’s biography has serious weaknesses.
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