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The Philosophy of Revelation Author(s): Bavinck, Herman (1854-1921) Publisher: Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library Description: In 1908-1909, Princeton Theological Seminary invited Her- man Bavinck to deliver the renowned L.P. Stone Lectures. This volume contains these lectures, all of which concern theories of divine revelation. He details the importance of God's revealing himself in history, thought, nature, personal experience, and religious tradition, hoping to show that people cannot make sense of the world without acknowledging the divine revelation as foundational. The lectures remain relev- ant today, and give a more concise insight into early 20th century Reformed thought than some of Kuyper's and others' lengthier works. Kathleen O©Bannon CCEL Staff Subjects: Doctrinal theology God Revelation i Contents Title Page 1 Lecture 1. The Idea of a Philosophy of Revelation 2 Lecture 2. Revelation and Philosophy 18 Lecture 3. Revelation and Philosophy (cont.) 34 Lecture 4. Revelation and Nature 50 Lecture 5. Revelation and History 68 Lecture 6. Revelation and Religion 87 Lecture 7. Revelation and Christianity 106 Lecture 8. Revelation and Religious Experience 126 Lecture 9. Revelation and Culture 151 Lecture 10. Revelation and the Future 168 Indexes 197 Index of Scripture References 198 ii This PDF file is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, www.ccel.org. The mission of the CCEL is to make classic Christian books available to the world. • This book is available in PDF, HTML, ePub, Kindle, and other formats. See http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bavinck/revelation.html. • Discuss this book online at http://www.ccel.org/node/20602. The CCEL makes CDs of classic Christian literature available around the world through the Web and through CDs. We have distributed thousands of such CDs free in developing countries. If you are in a developing country and would like to receive a free CD, please send a request by email to [email protected]. The Christian Classics Ethereal Library is a self supporting non-profit organization at Calvin College. If you wish to give of your time or money to support the CCEL, please visit http://www.ccel.org/give. This PDF file is copyrighted by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. It may be freely copied for non-commercial purposes as long as it is not modified. All other rights are re- served. Written permission is required for commercial use. iii Title Page Title Page The Philosophy of Revelation The Stone Lectures for 1908-1909 Princeton Theological Semiary BY Herman Bavinck Doctor of Theology; Professor in the Free University of Amsterdam 1 Lecture 1. The Idea of a Philosophy of Revelation Lecture 1. The Idea of a Philosophy of Revelation PHILOSOPHY OF REVELATION Lecture 1 - The Idea of a Philosophy of Revelation The well-known Assyrian scholar, Hugo Winckler, some years ago boldly declared that “in the whole of the historical evolution of mankind there are only two general world-views to be distinguished, —the ancient Babylonian and the modern empirico-scientific” ; “the latter of which,” he added, “is still only in process of development.”1 The implication was that the religion and civilization of all peoples have had their origin in the land of Sumer and Akkad, and more particularly that the Biblical religion, in its New Testament no less than in its Old Testament form, has derived its material from that source. This pan-Babylo- nian construction of history has, because of its syncretistic and levelling character, justly met with much serious opposition. But there is undoubtedly an element of truth in the de- claration, if it may be, taken in this wider sense,—that the religious supra-naturalistic world- view has universally prevailed among all peoples and in all ages down to our own day, and only in the last hundred and fifty years has given way in some circles to the empirico-sci- entific. Humanity as a whole has been at all times supra-naturalistic to the core. Neither in thought nor in life have men been able to satisfy themselves with the things of this world; they have always assumed a heaven above the earth, and behind what is visible a persistently ignored in Romanist and liberal circles, and the Reformation movement systematically represented as the origin and source of the Revolution. Cousin and Guizot agree in this judgment with De Bonald and De Maistre.2 French Protestantism finds it acceptable, and puts forward and praises the “Declaration of the Rights of Man” as a blessed fruit of the labors of Luther and Calvin. And in Germany, by men like Paulsen and Julius Kaftan, Kant is glorified as a second Luther, the true philosopher of Protestantism.3 No doubt between these two mighty movements of modern history certain lines of re- semblance may be traced. But formal resemblance is not the same as real likeness, analogy as identity. Between the freedom of the Christian man, on behalf of which Luther entered the lists, and the liberty, equality, fraternity, which the Revolution inscribed on its banner, the difference is fundamental. Luther and Voltaire are not men of the same spirit; Calvin and Rousseau should not be named in the same breath ; and Kant, with his epistemological 1 H. Winckler, Himmels- und Weltenbild der Babylonier. Leipzig, 1903, p.9. 2 Groen van Prinsterer, Ongeloof en Revolutie. 1862, pp.138 ff. 3 Fr. Paulsen, Philosophia militans. Berlin, 1901, pp.31 ff. J. Kaftan, Der Philosoph des Protest. Berlin, 1904. Theodor Kaftan, Moderne Theol. des alten Glaubens. 1901, pp.76, 102. 2 Lecture 1. The Idea of a Philosophy of Revelation and moral autonomy, was not the exponent of the Reformation, but the philosopher of Rationalism. This is implicitly acknowledged by all who accord the honor of emancipating the mind of man in the sixteenth century to Erasmus rather than to Luther, and who rank the Renascence in importance and value above the Reformation.4 According to this view Erasmus and his like-minded fellow-workers attempted a regeneration of Christianity, but sought this not, like Luther, in a repristination of the teaching of Paul, but in a return to the Sermon on the Mount. He is to be thanked, then, that supranaturalism has slowly given way to materialism, transcendence to immanence, Paulinism to the religion of Jesus, dogmatics to the science of religion. Luther remains the father of the old Protestantism; to Erasmus belongs the glory of having been the first exponent of modern Protestantism. In this historical judgment there undoubtedly lies an element of truth. Erasmus and his kindred spirits, no less than the Reformers, aimed at a simpler and more interior type of religion to be attained through contact with the Person of Christ But the fact is lost sight of that all these men, in their conception of the essence of religion, remained entangled in mediaeval dualism, and were thus in no position to effect a fundamental reformation of the doctrine and worship of the Church of Rome. The whole mental attitude of humanism was such as to render it, above everything, afraid of tumult, and bent upon preserving the “am- abilis ecclesiae concordia.” “Summa nostrae religionis pax est et unanimitas,” said Erasmus. But altogether apart from this, humanism was and remained one of the many “Aufklarungs- bewegangen” which have periodically emerged in the Roman Church, and will not fail to reappear in the future. The experience of sin and grace which came to Luther in the monas- tery of Erfurt fixed itself in these two conceptions; the humanists felt no need of the liberty and joy which flow from the sinner’s justification in the sight of God through faith alone and without the works of the law. Humanism, therefore, was nothing more nor less than the Reformed-Catholicism of the sixteenth century; in the end it not only broke with Luther, but came to the help of Rome and the Counter-Reformation.5 4 Busken Huet, Het Land van Rembrandt. F. Pijper, Erasmus en de Nederl. Reformatie. Leiden, 1907. Paul Wernle, Die Renaissance des Christ. im 16 Jahrh. Tubingen, 1904. 5 Lezius, Zur Charakteristik des relig. Standpunktes des Erasmus. Güterslohe, 1895. H. Hermelink, Die relig. Reformbestrebungen des deutschen Hamanismus. Tübingen, 1907 (comp. the review of this work in Theol. Lit. Zeitung, Jan. 4, 1908). Max Richter, Desiderius Erasmus und seine Stellung zu Luther auf Grund ihrer Schriften. Leipzig, 1907. Hunzinger, Der Glaube Luthers und das religions-geschichtliche Christentum der Gegenwart. Leipzig, 1907. Hunzinger strikingly observes that the laudation of Erasmus at the expense of Luther is in keeping with the attempt perceptible elsewhere to go back from the Christ of the Bible to the so-called historical Jesus, the Jesus of the Synoptics or the Sermon on the Mount. The line repre sented by Christ, Paul, Augustine, Luther, and Calvin is abandoned in favor of that represented by Jesus, Pelagius, Abelard, Erasmus, the Enlightenment. 3 Lecture 1. The Idea of a Philosophy of Revelation Nevertheless, there is this much of truth in the view in question,—that Luther and Erasmus were two different men, and the old and the new Protestantism are in principle distinct. Confirmation of this has recently come from an unprejudiced quarter, namely, from Professor Troeltsch of Heidelberg, in an important study of Protestantism contributed by him to Die Kultur der Gegenwart.6 He acknowledges, of course, that the ancient world- view was modified by the Reformation, and enriched with a new conception of religion; but he none the less maintains that its general structure was preserved intact. In their view of the world and life, sin and grace, heaven and earth, church and state, faith and knowledge, Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were children of the Middle Ages, and revealed this fact at every point of their activity as Reformers.
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