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27281 CTJ APR05 Text.Qxp BOOK REVIEWS Reformed Dogmatics. Vol. 1: Prolegomena by Herman Bavinck. John Bolt, general editor, John Vriend, translator. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003. Pp 685. $49.99 hardback. For those struggling with the most critical issue facing theology today, namely, the question of the truth of the Christian faith, this volume is a god- send. That seems like an outlandish claim because the book in question appeared in the Netherlands nearly a hundred years ago. Yet, what appears to be a drawback is one of the attractions of this work. To read it is to take a large step back from the theological currents that swirl around and through the the- ological academy. This book provides the reader a vantage point from the watershed where many contemporary currents originate. In this work, the reader is treated not only to Bavinck’s highly creative elab- oration of the foundations of the theological enterprise but also to his insight- ful engagement with the theological tradition. Doing his constructive work in continuous conversation with preceding and contemporary theologians, Bavinck takes the reader to the major eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sources of the contemporary Western theological enterprise. Adolf von Harnack, Albrecht Ritschl, and Friedrich Schleiermacher, as well as G. F. W. Hegel, Immanuel Kant, and Ernst Troeltsch are constantly in the picture. Reading Bavinck’s interaction with these theological-philosophical giants, one has the sensation of taking an exhilarating historical tour that is led by a highly seasoned and astute tour guide. Along the way, one cannot help but be struck by the way in which Bavinck combines astute summaries of their thought with trenchant critique. He treats even theologians and philosophers with whom he radically disagrees with a remarkable measure of respect. Time and again, Bavinck frequently credits theologians whose thought, he judges, leads to the bankruptcy of Christian faith and theology with crucial insights that must not be ignored. Bavinck’s thought constitutes, to borrow the title of a recent book, a truly “generous orthodoxy”—one in which generosity does not trump ortho- doxy but one in which orthodoxy is the fountain of generosity. Bavinck’s extremely rare sarcasm sets his generosity in stark relief. A rare instance of sar- casm only sets his generosity in high relief. Commenting on the “Congress of Liberal Protestants” held in Amsterdam, for example, Bavinck informs the 127 CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL reader that many of the participants had “abandoned a specifically Christian position in exchange for that of a universal religious one.” Then he notes, at the congress in 1903, however, Professor Cannegieter brilliantly managed to console himself over the lack of a modern dogmatics: it was caused not by poverty of thought but by wealth; only the destitute know what they possess!” (193) One expects a volume devoted to prolegomena to restrict itself largely to the prior words about theological method and foundations, the words that need to be said before substantial theological words are spoken. For some theologians, including this reviewer, the anticipation of strictly methodological and ency- clopedic considerations would be a reason to take a pass on this work and await the appearance of the next three volumes. That stratagem, however, would incur great cost. Woven in and through all the particularities of this prolegom- ena is Bavinck’s passionate pursuit of truth in its twofold sense: the truth of the Christian faith and the truth of the (Christian) faith. Bavinck’s constant con- cern is to keep in proper view both what he calls the unique “object” of the Christian faith and its distinctive faith appropriation by the human “subject.” In an ongoing and profound critique of the subjectivizing of Christianity, Bavinck at the same time resists the attempt to construct a rational-scientific scaffolding to counter this marginalizing and undermining of the Christian faith. There is no support, no foundation, and no faculty outside of faith that provides access to faith’s object. Nevertheless, faith includes a certain kind of knowledge. At the same time, Bavinck meets the critics head-on by challenging their purported objectivity and neutrality. In moves that are reminiscent of some postmodern and radical orthodox approaches to theology, Bavinck insists that all science is based on faith. In fact, all of daily life rests on faith. Appealing to Augustine, Bavinck avers that faith is the fundamental bond “uniting the whole of human society. If people accepted the proposition ‘I ought not to believe what I do not see,’ all the ties of family, friendship, and love would be ruptured” (567). Yet, precisely while positing the foundational role of faith for knowledge, he is adamant that all science, including theology, would collapse if the objective side is discounted in such a way as to be absorbed by the believing subject. Insisting that the foundation of theology and all knowledge and all science is faith has a twofold effect on his understanding of the place and role of the- ology. On the one hand, theology is a discipline whose natural home is the church. The church, however, does not govern the theological enterprise. Rather, because faith is not the expression of a solitary heart but is lived and confessed within community, “dogmatics is possible only for one who lives in the fellowship of faith with one Christian Church or another” (85). Yet, this intrinsic link between theology and church does not mean that theology can be banished from the academy to be cloistered within a special, sacred realm. This repudiation of the attempt to marginalize theology is the correlate of Bavinck’s argument that all knowledge and thus all science are rooted in faith. Theology, therefore, while linked to the church cannot be quarantined within “the 128 BOOK REVIEWS church.” Theology is as academic a discipline as any other. It deals with what Lesslie Newbigin calls “public truth.” As in the understanding of the relationship of theology and the sciences, Bavinck goes to great lengths to expunge all dualisms that split up God’s cre- ation and the reach of God’s redemptive work. Accordingly, a constant refrain resounds through this work. God’s grace restores nature, or in its expanded articulation, “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” (112). Accordingly, Bavinck is adamant in resisting the bifurcation of life into a lower “natural” realm and a higher “sacred” or ecclesial realm, as well as the substi- tution of the biblical antithesis between sin and grace for the purported oppo- sition between creation (or “nature”) and grace. Worthy of careful study is Bavinck’s profound discussion of general and spe- cial revelation, to which he devotes more than two hundred pages. He refuses to separate them, insisting that special revelation cannot exist without general rev- elation nor general revelation without special revelation. “Without general rev- elation, special revelation loses its connectedness with the whole cosmic existence . Christianity becomes a sectarian phenomenon and is robbed of its catholicity” (322). Although insufficient in communicating God’s presence in Christ, general revelation is not deficient as revelation. It is, Bavinck main- tains, no less “supernatural” than special revelation. He rejects many other sim- plistic distinctions between the two, such as the distinction between mediate and immediate revelation. All revelation, Bavinck holds, is mediated revelation. Scripture is a privileged mode of special revelation. Of special significance is Bavinck’s elaboration of “organic inspiration.” He distinguishes this from a mechanical, dictation concept of inspiration. Bavinck’s notion of organic inspi- ration allows him to do full justice to the immense range of genres that com- prises sacred Scripture. At the same time, his organic view entails an “instrumental” view of Scripture: “Scripture is the servant form of revelation” (380). Rather than employing the customary christological analogy to claim that Scripture, too, is fully human and flawlessly divine, Bavinck uses what might be called the kenotic analogy. The second person of the Trinity becomes not merely human but a servant, flesh: “and the word of revelation similarly assumes the imperfect and inadequate [something that is impossible to assert in a christological analogy] form of Scripture” (380). Emphasizing the servant character of Scripture in no way entails a denigration of Scripture. Bavinck can hardly find sufficient words to explain and extol the unique and indispensable status of Scripture. “Holy Scripture is . the ever-living, eternally youthful Word, which God, now and always, issues to his people. It is the eternally ongo- ing speech of God to us” (385). In Scripture, God “reveals himself, from day to day, to believers in the fullness of truth and grace” (385). The theology whose foundations are laid in this volume is distinctly Reformed. It is also fully ecumenical. Bavinck recognizes the fact that a the- 129 CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL ologian can find his or her confessional home only in a particular faith com- munity and thus within a particular ecclesial confession. Yet, Bavinck clearly rises above the sectarian spirit that so often mars distinctively confessional dog- matics. Only deep rootedness in a particular tradition allows the theologian to be genuinely ecumenical. Bavinck’s admonition in this regard is worth citing at some length. After pointing to the link that Christ himself forged between the church and theology, Bavinck writes, He promised his church the Holy Spirit, who would guide it into all truth. This promise sheds a glorious light upon the history of dogma. It is the expli- cation of Scripture, the exposition that the Holy Spirit has given, in the church, of the treasures of the Word.
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