chapter 3 Reformed Ethics Bavinck’s Concept of and Its Implications for Ethics

Willem van Vlastuin

Participating in the of the is not a neutral act as the complete personality is involved. Therefore, reading the Scriptures, listening to the ser- mon, praying, singing, participating in the and confessing faith has a formative influence on our moral character and understanding.1 This implies that participating in liturgy increases our conformity to ’s acts and plans and our desire to do so. Also participation in the public of the apostolic faith is an es- sential part of . The text of this confession is not a dogmatic text but, as it was originally, a liturgical text. This means that confessing and praying the is a true existential act in which the believer expresses his union as the bride of with Him as bridegroom.2 Therefore, it is also a performative act in which believers express their desire to change the world by presenting the world as already changed.3 In this illocutionary speech-act promise and commit themselves to serve the confessed reality. This implies that liturgy and ethics are intrinsically related. In Christian liturgy, believers all over the world confess their belief every Sunday in the holy of Christ. Given the fact that confessing catholicity is not merely a ritual, but an expression of the deepest convic- tions and commitment of the heart, the practice of confession clarifies that catholicity is interwoven with an understanding of the life of the church. The existential attitude of confessing catholicity implies that there is a rela- tionship between catholicity on the one hand, and ethics on the other. This means that confessing catholicity in liturgy is a lens through which we can

1 Oliver O’Donovan, Liturgy and Ethics (Nottingham: Grove, 1993), 4–6, 8, 14. 2 Compare for the treatment of this metaphor, Arnold A. van Ruler, “Perspectieven voor de gereformeerde theologie” (Perspectives for Reformed theology), in Theologisch Werk (Theo- logical Works), Vol. 2 (Nijkerk: Callenbach, 1971), 78–100, here 88. 3 Nicholas Lash, Believing Three Ways in One God: A Reading of the Apostles’ Creed (London: SCM Press, 2002), 16–18.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356528_005 66 van Vlastuin understand the world4 and that Christian shapes the moral life of Christians.5 In this article I want to focus on Bavinck’s concept of catholicity, because he is explicit about his concept of catholicity and developed a new understanding of catholicity. A striking feature of Bavinck’s concept of catholicity is his inclusion of creation and his understanding of the relationship between church and cosmos. This feature of his concept of catholicity raises an intriguing question: What does this concept mean for ? This question will not be overtaxing for Bavinck, because the approach he adopted in his PhD dissertation on the ethics of Zwingli gives us a clear indication of his special interest in, and focus on, ethics.6 If further were needed, he also wrote—besides several booklets—an unpublished treatise entitled Reformed Ethics.7 This essay investigates the implications of Herman Bavinck’s understanding of catholicity and what this means for ethics. It begins by describing and analyzing Bavinck’s concept of catholicity and then evaluates the concept by comparing it with Calvin’s concept (a concept which Bavinck himself explicitly refers to). A creative application of Bavinck’s concept of catholicity to ethics follows and the article closes with a conclusion.

4 Brian Brock has showed how worship in Augustine relates to participating in the dynamics of God’s working in the world, Singing the Ethos of God: On the Place of Christian Ethics in Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 163. In this study are several points where the relationship between liturgy and ethics is apparent, see 179, 187, 357. For the relationship between the Lord’s Supper and the understanding the world, see 210–232. 5 Brian Brock underlines his conviction that God transforms believers by worship, not that ethics is to be understood as a human response to the Word, Singing the Ethos of God, 242, 251. 6 Herman Bavinck, De ethiek van Ulrich Zwingli (The Ethics of Ulrich Zwingli) (Kampen: Zals- man, 1880). 7 Compare Dirk van Keulen, “Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics: Some Remarks about Un- published Manuscripts in the Libraries of Amsterdam and Kampen,” The Bavinck Review 1 (2010), 25–56. See also John Bolt, “Christ and the Law in the Ethics of Herman Bavinck,” Calvin Theological Journal 28 (1993), 45–73; A Theological Analysis of Herman Bavinck’s Two ­Essays on the Imitatio Christi (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 2013); James Eglinton, “Bavinck, Dogmatics and Ethics,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 29 (2011), 1–3; “On Bavinck’s Theology of Sanctification-as-Ethics,” in K.M. Kapic (ed.), Sanctification: Explorations in The- ology and Practice (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2014), 167–185; Dirk van Keulen, “Her- man Bavinck on the ,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 29 (2011), 78–91.