Revelation and Reason in Herman Bavinck

By Bruce R. Pass

[Bruce Pass is an Anglican minister from the diocese of Sydney, currently completing a doctorate in systematic theology at the University of Edinburgh.]

ABSTRACT

In his seminal study, The Relation of Revelation and Reason in E. Brunner and H. Bavinck, Eugene Heideman claims that reason knows no limits other than the limits of revelation and that Bavinck was unable to place limits on reason. This article revisits Heideman’s account of the relation of reason and revelation in Bavinck, suggesting ways in which it might be augmented and modified. Particular attention is given to the place reason occupies in Bavinck’s philosophy of mind and to the concept of mystery. These aspects of Bavinck’s thought are explored in detail, in order to locate Bavinck’s account of this relation within the broader Christian tradition and to demonstrate that the axes on which Bavinck charts the relation of revelation and reason differ to those Heideman proposes.

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This question touches on the secrets of His Majesty.... It is not for us to enquire into these mysteries, but to adore them,” wrote Martin Luther in The Bondage of the Will.[1] Similarly, John Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, stated, “It is, indeed, true that in the law and the gospel are comprehended mysteries which tower far above the reach of our senses.... His wonderful method of governing the universe is rightly called an abyss, because while it is hidden from us, we ought reverently to adore it.”[2] There is an Augustinian trajectory within Protestantism which maintains that there is much in divine revelation that surpasses the human mind and that such mysteries inspire God’s children to worship. It is on this trajectory that the thought of Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) belongs. Divine revelation is the cornerstone of Bavinck’s theology, yet he firmly maintained that an exhaustive description of what has been revealed lies beyond our creaturely capacities. Eternity in time, immensity in space, immutability in change, cannot be comprehended, but remain for us an “adorable mystery.”[3] The notion of mystery occupies a pivotal position in Bavinck’s theological epistemology, both in bounding the limits of reason and in conditioning the properly doxological character of creaturely knowing. This category of Bavinck’s thought has, however, remained curiously unexplored. Although Bavinck’s theological epistemology has attracted considerable attention in the recent secondary literature,[4] mystery is notable for its absence.[5] Moreover, inattention to the category of mystery has precipitated notable inaccuracies in the presentation of Bavinck’s account of knowledge. In his seminal study, The Relation of Revelation and Reason in E. Brunner and H. Bavinck, Eugene Heideman asserts that reason in Bavinck “knows no limits other than the limits of revelation.”[6] At a minimum this statement is lacking in nuance and would seem to proceed from an under-appreciation of the role mystery plays in Bavinck’s theological epistemology. The Bavinckian concept of mystery, therefore, warrants close scrutiny, and the relation of revelation and reason offers a fruitful context for this. In many ways this relation sheds more light on the structural parameters of creaturely knowing than the principia, as it exposes the contours of the relation between divine and human thought, which is central to Bavinck’s theory of knowledge. In what follows, Heideman’s steps will be retraced, not merely to show that the axes on which Bavinck charts the relation of revelation and reason differ slightly to those Heideman proposes, but also to demonstrate that the notion of mystery is to be found at the heart of this relation. First, however, it is necessary to locate the place reason occupies in Bavinck’s philosophy of mind.

I. The Place of Reason in Bavinck’s Philosophy of Mind

“Precisely because Christianity rests on revelation,” writes Bavinck, “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. If revelation did not furnish such a content, and comprised nothing but what reason itself could sooner or later have discovered, it would not be worthy of its name.”[7] This citation from The Philosophy of Revelation, Bavinck’s Stone Lectures for the year 1908/9, is one of the very few places Bavinck directly contrasts revelation with reason.[8] Eugene Heideman notes this curiosity at the beginning of his study,[9] yet does not pursue the possible implications of this observation. This is unfortunate, as the fact that Bavinck does not directly address the relation of revelation and reason holds an important clue to ascertaining the relation between these two concepts in his thought. In short, Bavinck subordinates the relation of revelation and reason to another relation, namely, the relation of subject to object. In order to ascertain the relation of revelation to reason, therefore, it is first necessary to locate reason within Bavinck’s conception of subjectivity.

1. Reason, Faith, and Subjectivity

Bavinck protests that Christianity does not consist in the resolution of the subject-object dichotomy,[10] but its resolution is clearly of foundational importance for his theological methodology. Indeed, one of the striking aspects of Reformed Dogmatics is the way Bavinck uses the subject-object dichotomy to structure both the principia of theology and the Prolegomena as a whole.

As regards the principia, this can be seen in the additional distinction Bavinck draws within theology’s principium cognoscendi. In Reformed orthodoxy principia, or foundations, of theology generally bifurcate into a foundation of being, the principium essendi, and a foundation of knowing, the principium cognoscendi. Bavinck, however, draws a further distinction between the external foundation of knowing, the principium cognoscendi externum, and the internal foundation of knowing, the principium cognoscendi internum.[11] Although this additional distinction affords Bavinck the possibility of formulating a distinctively Trinitarian theological epistemology in which God the Father corresponds to the principium essendi, God the Son to the principium cognoscendi externum, and God the Holy Spirit to the principium cognoscendi internum, it also furnishes Bavinck with a means of resolving the subject-object dichotomy. By identifying the second person of the Trinity with the principium cognoscendi externum and the third person of the Trinity with the principium cognoscendi internum, Bavinck grounds the correspondence between knowing subject and known object within the unity of the divine essence.

As regards the Prolegomena as a whole, this can be seen in the division of its chapters. Following a general introduction which addresses the concept of dogmatics, the Prolegomena proceeds in three chapters. The first of these addresses principia in general and the two remaining chapters address the concept of revelation under the headings principium externum and principium internum.[12] The rationale for this division is most clearly articulated at the beginning of the third chapter. Bavinck writes,

Revelation ... divides itself in two grand dispensations. When the economy of the Son, of objective revelation, is completed, that of the Spirit begins. God is the author also of this subjective revelation, in other words, of this illumination and regeneration.... People do not [of their own accord] come to revelation to seek God; God searches for them. He seeks them in the Son; he seeks them also in the Spirit.[13]

For Bavinck, revelation is as much a subjective reality as it is an objective reality, and therefore any account of revelation that fails to address the subjective appropriation of that which has been objectively revealed remains incomplete.

The operative question therefore is, under which act of the mind does Bavinck conceptualize this subjective appropriation?

The answer to this question can be found in the third chapter of the Prolegomena, which deals with theology’s principium internum. For Bavinck, faith constitutes the subjective correlate of objective revelation. “Faith ... is the internal principle of knowledge of revelation and thus of religion and theology.”[14] Despite the apparently straightforward nature of this claim, here one encounters one of the more vexing interpretative problems of the Prolegomena. Bavinck has already identified the person of the Holy Spirit as the principium cognoscendi internum of theology.[15] The resolution of this problem lies in Bavinck’s acknowledgment of a double agency in all our knowing. Strictly speaking, God the Holy Spirit only functions as theology’s internal principle of knowing insofar as he “introduces the knowledge of God into human beings.”[16] Wherever the efficient and formal cause of the subject’s knowledge of God is on view, Bavinck identifies the Holy Spirit as the internal principle of knowing, but wherever the correspondence between what God has objectively revealed and the subject’s apprehension of that revelation is on view, Bavinck identifies faith.[17]

Faith therefore, constitutes the fundamental act of the mind under which the correspondence between subject and object obtains. For our purposes it is especially important to observe why Bavinck identifies faith, rather than reason. In the first place one might note that Bavinck describes revelation as bearing the character of a promise, and because revelation bears this character it can only be received by faith.[18] This, however, is not the only reason. Bavinck singles out faith as the fundamental act of the mind, because it preserves an organic link between theological and general epistemology. Bavinck writes, “The term faith deserves preference as the designation of this principle ... not only because faith is most prominently featured as such in Scripture but especially because the term faith situates us in the area of consciousness and so preserves the link with the way we gain knowledge in other areas as well.”[19] This organic link is essential to understanding both the principia and Bavinck’s epistemology as a whole. Bavinck structures the principia in such a way that they can be reduplicated for three different species of knowledge, namely, the redemptive knowledge of God, the natural knowledge of God, and knowledge of creation. Faith can function in this way because Bavinck associates faith with immediate noetic certainty. For Bavinck, faith’s certainty is like the pre-cognitive acceptance of first principles.[20] Thus, self-consciousness and the acceptance of the existence of an external world are acts of faith in the same way that the acceptance of the truth of the gospel is an act of faith, insofar as these mental acts too are characterized by an immediate certainty. Yet for Bavinck, faith is no mere “moral” certainty. The certainty of faith is a state of mind.[21] Thus, because all knowledge ultimately rests upon the aboriginal certainty of faith, faith is capable of securing the necessary subjective link between theological and general epistemology.

Faith, therefore, is prior to reason in Bavinck’s philosophy of mind, not only with respect to the knowledge of God, but also for knowledge in general. It is precisely for this reason that one finds a more extensive discussion of the relation of revelation and faith in Bavinck than of revelation and reason. This very circumscribed role that Bavinck attributes to reason is explicated in a number of places outside Reformed Dogmatics where Bavinck outlines his philosophy of mind in greater detail. For example, in Beginselen der Psychologie Bavinck writes,

Reason and understanding [make up] so little of the essence of man and so little of the entire content of our knowing capability, that they are merely particular activities of the knowing capability, which first begin their work after the basic elements of human understanding are laid down broad and deep in the unconscious. Understanding and reason are not thereby robbed of their value ... they must bring law and order to the chaos of representations. But they are limited to their own task and must therewith be satisfied.[22]

Similarly, in an essay discussing the relationship of the intellect to the will Bavinck asserts that

the intellect certainly is not total consciousness, not even the most important part of it, but only a certain function of cognition. In cognition we distinguish, for example, sensory perception, memory, imagination, conscience, reason, and then also the intellect. In our consciousness we encounter not only conceptions (with judgments and decisions), but also awareness, memory images, ideas, ideals. It is therefore very one-sided, even a total misunderstanding of reality, if one identifies consciousness or even thought itself with the intellect. In earlier times, when one normally had a broader conception of the intellect [intellectus], one could somewhat justify it, but today, when the intellect is usually described as the capacity for ideas, such identification is completely unjustified.[23]

Reason, therefore, although it performs a highly prized function in human consciousness, is not the sum total of human consciousness. Reason is a discursive process, by which one arrives at higher understanding, but even in this respect reason is by no means the primary way in which we acquire knowledge. “By far the greatest part of our knowledge, not only in religion and morality but also in ordinary life, is gotten not by reasoning, but by faith and intuition.”[24] This is not, however, to suggest that faith is an independent faculty or power of the mind. Faith is both an act and a disposition of the mind, and for that reason faith constitutes the disposition of the mind under which reason is operative.[25] Reason is thus naturally receptive to constructing knowledge from that which the mind acknowledges to be true; reason is the subjectum fidei receipiens, capax fidei.[26] Faith and reason, nevertheless, are distinct acts of the mind on account of the manner in which they arrive at certainty.

Hence, Bavinck does not frame his account of the appropriation of what has been revealed in terms of the relation of revelation and reason. To do so would be “very one-sided,” if not “a total misunderstanding.” Instead, Bavinck’s account of the appropriation of the knowledge of God proceeds on the axes of subject and object, and the fundamental act of the mind under which the correspondence between subject and object obtains is faith. Viewed in this way, the relation of revelation and reason can be regarded as a subsidiary of the relation of revelation and faith. The importance of this observation will become apparent as we turn to the relationship Bavinck posits between the divine mind and the human mind.

2. Reason as the Embodiment of Divine Thought

Heideman addresses the relationship between divine and human knowing at the outset of his study, employing the metaphor of embodiment to describe this relation in the programmatic statement: “For Bavinck, reason is the embodiment of revelation.”[27] The metaphor of embodiment is well chosen. Although it does not recur with any particular frequency, Bavinck’s metaphor of embodiment (belichaming) captures both the protological and eschatological contours of his doctrine of revelation as well as the close likeness Bavinck posits between divine and human knowing. Protologically, the whole of creation represents the embodiment of God’s eternal counsel in time[28] and the embodiment of divine thought.[29] Eschatologically, the metaphor of embodiment points not only in the direction of the incarnation, which constitutes the center of divine revelation, but also towards the telos of divine revelation, the new humanity, through whom God will reveal his glory into eternity.[30] The embodiment metaphor, therefore, is well chosen. Aspects of Heideman’s use of it are, however, problematic.

Heideman describes reason not as the embodiment of divine thought, but as the embodiment of revelation. The underlying motivation for this would seem to stem from Heideman’s desire to account for the particularity of reason. Heideman notes that in Bavinck reason is distinct from divine thought,[31] yet it comes “to occupy a position different from the world ... and ... in a certain sense, be said to stand outside the world.”[32] These instincts are sound, but describing reason as the embodiment of revelation is problematic for the way that it leaves reason twice removed from divine thought, as if reason were an embodiment of an embodiment. Heideman distances reason from divine thought in this way because he associates the embodiment metaphor exclusively with likeness. Thus, reason is described as the embodiment of revelation rather than the embodiment of divine thought in order to uphold the dissimilarity of reason and divine thought. Upholding the dissimilarity of reason and divine thought is commendable, yet it is this framing of reason as the embodiment of revelation that leads Heideman to the questionable conclusion that “reason ... knows no limits other than the limits of revelation itself.... Bavinck is not able to place limits before reason as does Brunner.”[33] It is necessary, therefore, to revisit Bavinck’s embodiment metaphor, not only because reason stands in closer relation to divine thought than Heideman’s appropriation of the metaphor would suggest but also because the metaphor itself is suggestive of limitations which preclude Heideman’s conclusion.

In the course of Heideman’s reflection on the particularity of reason he opines, “It is tempting to use the world ‘embodiment’ in connection with the revelation in creation and another word such as ‘partner’ with regard to the relation of revelation and reason.”[34] Although Heideman later returns very briefly to the idea of partnership, suggesting that the relation between man and God could be described as analogia participationis,[35] Heideman does not develop this thought. This is unfortunate, as Bavinck directly appropriates Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of participation.[36] In a key passage pertaining to the relation of divine and human thought Bavinck writes,

Says Thomas: just as we look into the natural world, not by being in the sun ourselves, but by the light of the sun that shines on us, so neither do we see things in the divine being but by the light that, originating in God shines in our own intellect. Reason in us is that divine light; it is not itself the divine logos, but it participates in it. To be (esse), to live (vivere), and to understand (intelligere) is the prerogative of God in respect of his being (per essentiam), ours in respect of participation (per participationem).[37]

The notion of participation is an important element in Bavinck’s understanding of the relationship between divine and human knowing.[38] In Thomas Aquinas participation accounts not only for the similarity of divine and human knowing, but also their dissimilarity. Participation rests on two analogies, the analogy of proper proportionality and the analogy of intrinsic attribution. The former upholds the qualitative distinction between divine and human knowing.

Although human knowing resembles divine knowing, it differs in kind. The latter upholds a causal relationship between divine and human knowing. Unlike God’s knowledge of himself, human knowing is not self-caused but is caused by God.[39] This qualitative distinction is particularly apparent in the illustration of the sun. Just as, when by the rays of the sun we see yet we are not for that reason “in” the sun, so too, in our participation in divine thought we do not for that reason come to know God as he knows himself, nor are we subsumed in his being on account of our participation in his knowledge. The concept of participation thus prevents the likeness Thomas Aquinas posits between divine and human thought from collapsing into mere emanation. Therefore, Bavinck’s appeal to participation accounts not only for the likeness of divine and human knowing, but also for distinct ontological and epistemological boundaries.

This balance of likeness and unlikeness is reflected in Bavinck’s use of the metaphor of embodiment. As previously mentioned, embodiment points strongly in the direction of the imago Dei. For Bavinck humanity, both individually and as a whole, images God. Humanity constitutes a mikrotheos, a recapitulation of the entirety of the divine ideas embodied in creation, for which reason humanity can also be described as a mikrokosmos.[40] Importantly, reason is one of the properties of the human being that reflects this recapitulation of divine ideas most clearly. Although Bavinck avoids defining the imago Dei in terms of rationality, he states that “just as the cosmos is an organism and reveals God’s attributes more clearly in some than in other creatures, so also in man as an organism the image of God comes out more clearly in one part than another, more in the soul than in the body, more in the ethical virtues than in the physical powers.”[41] For Bavinck reason is one of these higher developments of the soul that distinguish the consciousness of man from that of animals and plants.[42] Yet reason is also the mode of creaturely consciousness most alien to the divine mind.[43] Bavinck states this explicitly in his Beginselen der Psychologie:

With God then, there can be no talk of reason, but only of understanding, because he does not know things through reasoning, but he knows [things] immediately and at once, as if through intuition. Human beings, however, can certainly come to the knowledge of the truth, but only through reasoning.... Reasoning is the hallmark of a sensual, earthy, incomplete being; understanding and knowing are the hallmarks of an heavenly, complete being.[44]

Thus, for Bavinck reason is simultaneously the elevated mode of consciousness most proper to the divine image bearers and that which differentiates God’s knowing from that of his image bearers. It is therefore unnecessary to describe reason as the embodiment of revelation rather than the embodiment of divine thought, either to replicate the clear boundaries Bavinck places before reason or to preserve the particularity of reason. In and of itself the metaphor of embodiment implies both inferences. More importantly, however, it is necessary to describe reason as the embodiment of divine thought rather than the embodiment of revelation in order to ensure that the limitations Bavinck places on human knowing pertain to our appropriation of divine revelation. For Bavinck, divine knowledge ad intra constitutes the archetypical knowledge from which both revelation and reason proceed as embodiments of divine thought ad extra.[45] The decisive question is whether Bavinck’s embodiment metaphor offers reason untrammeled access to the revealed ectype, as Heideman claims. Is it really the case that Bavinck only limits reason with respect to divine thought ad intra, but does not limit reason with respect to divine thought ad extra? The description of reason as the embodiment of revelation rather than the embodiment of divine thought simpliciter is what opens up this very possibility. It suggests that the limitations Bavinck places on reason apply merely to the archetype rather than the ectype.

Bavinck’s use of the concept of mystery, however, removes any potential doubt as to how this question might be answered. Under the category of mystery Bavinck demarcates clear boundaries for reason’s appropriation of what has been revealed and in so doing demarcates the properly doxological character of all creaturely knowing.

II. The Place of Mystery in the Relation of Revelation and Reason

“Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics.”[46] These words stand at the beginning of Bavinck’s account of the doctrine of God and they are no mere rhetorical flourish. One of the characteristics of Bavinck’s theology is the way that mystery circumscribes whatever he may have to say. For Bavinck, the world is full of mysteries and is itself a mystery;[47] the origin of things is a mystery;[48] the power of nature is a mystery;[49] gravity and force are a mystery;[50] animals are riddles;[51] the union of body and soul is a mystery;[52] heredity is a mystery;[53] extraordinary personalities are a mystery;[54] the psychology of religion is a mystery;[55] the junction between nerve stimulation and the psychic event is a mystery;[56] epistemology is riddled with mystery;[57] every individual person is a mystery;[58] but an eternal uncreated person is especially a mystery;[59] the Trinity is a mystery;[60] the relationship between creation and providence is a mystery;[61] the origin of sin and evil is a mystery,[62] the incarnation is a mystery;[63] Christ’s resurrected humanity is mysterious;[64] the life of the church is a mystery;[65] the means of grace are a mystery;[66] Scripture especially is an enigma;[67] faith is a mystery;[68] regeneration is mysterious;[69] moral life is a riddle;[70] the connection between life and suffering is a mystery;[71] death is a mystery;[72] the state of final holiness is a mystery;[73] mortals being rewarded with immortality is a mystery;[74] freedom, responsibility, punishment, suffering, death, grace, atonement, reconciliation, and prayer are all mysteries;[75] and consciousness, language, freedom of the will, and religion are all enigmas.[76] In short, Christianity as a whole, and even existence itself, is a mystery.[77] Everything is a mystery,[78] yet for all this Bavinck is no negative theologian. Bavinck is not claiming that the tenets of faith are unknowable and inexplicable. Far from it. Bavinck’s determination to overcome the Kantian gulf points in the direction of a genuinely positive theology. In this regard, Bavinck’s citation of the second of the Modern-Positive Vorträge by Richard H. Grützmacher (1876–1959) at the end of the discussion of the term mystery towards the end of the Prolegomena sheds light on both the prevalence and the significance of the term.[79] In the course of this lecture Grützmacher characterizes negative theologians such as Ritschl, Harnack, and Bousset as exchanging a transcendent theology of revelation for an immanent theology of mystery. Grützmacher writes,

The more recent negative theology actually replaces the term revelation with that of mystery. If one makes the effort to look out for this term in the writings of anyone from this circle, one is astounded how often it is used, to the point that one could virtually deem it the central motif of their theology; in the very least it plays a comparable role to that of the Logos in the theology of the early church.[80]

Regardless of whether mystery may or may not be regarded as a central motif in Bavinck’s theology, what is remarkable about the preponderance of the term in his writings is the way in which Bavinck constructs a genuinely positive theology by means of the leading motif of his negative contemporaries. Under Bavinck’s pen mystery is rehabilitated to its Augustinian roots with a view to bringing orthodox theological commitments into conversation with modernity.[81] Bavinck’s emphasis on mystery, therefore, sounds a theological echo of the sentiments of Luther and Calvin cited earlier. Like Luther and Calvin, Bavinck firmly maintains that an exhaustive description of what has been revealed lies beyond our creaturely capacities. In what follows it will be shown that mystery in fact lies at the heart of Bavinck’s account of knowledge, and while not an exclusively epistemological category, mystery performs two very important epistemological functions as the lifeblood of dogmatics.

1. Mystery and the Limits of Reason

What makes Heideman’s conclusion that Bavinck is unable to place limits before reason all the more striking is the fact that Heideman notes the prevalence of mystery in Bavinck’s writings. “Mystery,” Heideman notes, “plays so large a role in [Bavinck’s] thought.”[82] Heideman is aware of the prominence of mystery, but it would seem that he has not attended to important nuances in Bavinck’s use. Heideman restricts the meaning of mystery to what he describes as the NT sense of the term. Hence, “Bavinck ... uses the word in the New Testament sense, and claims that a mystery ... is what was hidden by God, but later made known and understood by the faithful. Thus the mystery is not something that goes above, but is rather something that has been made known to and is understood by the believers.”[83] In certain respects, this is true. When Bavinck argues against the Roman Catholic notion of mysterium, he emphasizes the fact that the NT usage of the term does not denote an intellectually incomprehensible truth, but a truth that was formerly hidden and now made known.[84] In particular Bavinck regards the dualism that underlies the Roman Catholic understanding of the term mystery as alien to the witness of the NT. A dualism is certainly present, but it is ethical rather than metaphysical in character. The gospel, according to Bavinck, is not misunderstood because it is incomprehensible to human beings, but because the understanding of human beings has been darkened by sin.[85]

Bavinck makes much of the NT sense of the term mystery, but it is not the only way that Bavinck uses the term. In fact Bavinck more frequently uses the term in two further ways, which broadly reflect the taxonomy of Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider (1776–1848), whose Systematische Entwicklung aller in der Dogmatik vorkommenden Begriffe Bavinck cites among his sources.[86] In addition to the NT sense of the term, Bretschneider describes two further categories of mystery, namely, relative mysteries and absolute mysteries.[87] Bavinck’s second and third usages of the term mystery broadly track Bretschneider’s distinction between relative and absolute mysteries.

Bavinck’s second use of the term mystery concerns matters that are inherently apprehensible to human reason, yet it differs from the NT sense in one very important respect. Whereas mystery in the NT sense refers to a truth that was previously unknown yet now is known, mystery in this second sense pertains to what is presently unknown. Recurrently this second sense of the term mystery appears as an affirmation of the limits of scientific knowledge, often at the conclusion of Bavinck’s not infrequent rhapsodizing over the rapid progress of science over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Notably, Bavinck maintained a keen interest in a range of disciplines beyond theology, and his writings display a remarkable degree of familiarity with the latest developments in physics, chemistry, biology, and a host of other disciplines. Bavinck can often be heard waxing lyrical on the subject of scientific progress, yet almost without fail these paeans conclude with a confession that the world still remains a mystery. For example, while discussing the Kant-Laplace hypothesis Bavinck opines, “Indeed, in the natural sciences atoms, powers, and laws appear to be mysterious quantities that become more incomprehensible, the more closely they are examined.”[88] Similarly, towards the end of a discussion of the merits of empirical psychology, Bavinck concludes that “after all physiological investigation the mental act of perception remains as mysterious as before.”[89] Bavinck’s point is that scientific knowledge is asymptotic in character. “On the path of science, according to Pierre Loti who declared some years ago in the French Academy: there opens a door at every turn, which does not lead to the light, but to another, long, dark corridor, at the end of which you again find another door, and so it proceeds endlessly.”[90] Thus, the strivings of reason in the field of science are characterized by endless regress. As such this second use of the term indicates Bavinck’s verdict on the ongoing Ignorabimus controversy.[91] For every mystery solved, many more rise to take its place. Humanity’s knowledge of creation is limited by mystery, not because the object of enquiry is inherently unknowable, but because of the finitude of the human mind.

The third way in which Bavinck uses the term mystery differs fundamentally from the first two in that mysteries of this third variety defy reason altogether. Before such mysteries human reason is rendered completely powerless. Importantly, many of these mysteries are also mysteries in the NT sense of the word. These mysteries are realities that once disclosed can be known by faith, yet they remain indemonstrable to reason.[92] Typically, Bavinck uses the term mystery in this sense in connection with the point of contact between Creator and creature. For example, “in all that God reveals, we finally encounter an impenetrable mystery at the point where the eternal touches the temporal, the infinite the finite, the Creator the creature.”[93] Such mysteries concern not only the objectivity of what presents itself to be known, but also the inherent subjectivity of knowing. In this connection Bavinck often employs the term mystiek, which in Dutch can function as an adjective (mystical), a substantive adjective (mystic), or a noun (mysticism). Chief among these mystical mysteries is the personal communion of Creator and creature. Bavinck can go so far as to say that “the essence of religion is mysticism.”[94] Bavinck is always quick to clarify that whenever he speaks of mysticism he does not mean the mysticism of a John Scotus Erigena, or a Jakob Böhme.[95] Such mysticism is for Bavinck a counterfeit mysticism that misconstrues the reality of revelation, but there is a true mysticism which comprises the essence of religion.

Religion is communion with God.... That communion with God is a mystical union. It far exceeds our understanding. It is a most intimate union with God by the Holy Spirit, a union of persons, an unbreakable and eternal covenant between God and ourselves, which cannot be at all adequately described by the word “ethical” and is therefore called “mystical.” It is so close that it transforms humans in the divine image and makes them participants in the divine nature.[96]

The association of this third sense of the term mystery with divine communion raises some important issues. Although elsewhere Bavinck flatly denies that the mystical union is substantial,[97] here he insists that the unio mystica exceeds a merely ethical relation, that is, mere agreement of disposition, will, and purpose,[98] which would suggest that mystical mysteries entail an ontic dimension of some kind. Furthermore, Bavinck elsewhere describes the mystical union as a union “in being and nature.”[99] Bavinck may well be groping for personalist categories beyond the scope of his binary distinction between the metaphysical and the ethical, but it would seem that he prevaricates at this point, leaving unanswered the important question of what bearing the ontic dimension of these mystical mysteries might have on mystery as an epistemological category. What remains clear, nonetheless, is that mystery in this third sense of the term stands as an impenetrable barrier to reason. Mysteries of this kind cannot be explained, but only confessed and believed.

The notion of a disclosed secret, therefore, in no way exhausts Bavinck’s usage of the term mystery. Bavinck uses the term mystery to speak not only of things that are known, but also of things that are unknown. Mysteries of the latter class lie beyond the human understanding either relatively or absolutely,[100] but by failing to observe these nuances, Heideman passes over the way in which mystery functions as a limiting concept. The human mind may participate in the divine Logos, yet the asymptotic character of our knowledge of creation and the mystical dimension of divine immanence present reason with very real boundaries.

Importantly, attentiveness to the three ways in which Bavinck uses the term mystery illuminates passages which are vulnerable to misreading. Heideman’s conclusion that reason is co-extensive with revelation rests heavily on his reading of one particular passage drawn from Bavinck’s essay “Kennis en Leven.” In his exploration of Bavinck’s appropriation of the doctrine of divine ideas Heideman states, “All things are knowable because they have been thought by God. There is no dark, mysterious, irrational stuff in creation, for all stand in the light of the Word.”[101]As reflected in Heideman’s footnotes, the latter half of the statement derives from the following excerpt:

Everything, therefore, is based on thought and a logical existence. There is at the basis of creation no eternal, dark, incomprehensible matter. It has not elevated itself gradually from unconscious, dark matter to the heights of light and of life by its own power. But from the beginning on it stood in the light of the Word. It was naked and open before God’s all-seeing eye, and was seen by him through to the bottom. Insofar as it exists, it is knowable.[102]

Given his conclusion concerning the limits of reason, Heideman clearly takes the denial of there being any mysterious stuff in creation as a denial of there being mystery in anything other than the NT sense of the word. If reason knows no limits other than revelation, the entirety of creation is intelligible and simply awaits the uncovering of reason. Sensitivity to the various nuances of the term mystery, however, casts light on what Bavinck is and is not claiming in this passage. What Bavinck denies here, is that the world arises from a pantheistic “divine” unconscious, an idea which held some currency in the late nineteenth century.[103] What Bavinck affirms is that the world represents the embodiment of divine ideas and the counsel of God’s will. Of supreme importance is the fact that this affirmation of the intelligibility of the world in the first instance concerns God’s knowledge of creation. Bavinck states that the world stands naked before God’s eyes, not our own. This is even clearer if one takes into consideration the paragraphs leading up to the passage quoted above. On the previous page Bavinck writes,

If the Scriptures from God say that he is light, then they make known thereby that there is nothing hidden and nothing dark in his being; indeed for us, but certainly not for himself. There is no mystery of being, no puzzle of life.... Therefore, [God] knows himself in his whole being. In him there is no mystery of being and neither is there any mystery of evil, no dark basis for nature, no unfathomable depths of the unconscious and unknowable life. Rather, his whole life is light, clear and completely unconcealed before his own consciousness. Knowledge and life are one in him.[104]

Bavinck’s point, therefore, is that God is not a mystery to himself. God’s self-knowledge is infinite and co-extensive with his being. This is why the embodiment of divine thought cannot yield dark and mysterious matter. The world is ontologically intelligible because the world is not the embodiment of the dark recesses of a pantheistic unconsciousness. This does not, however, imply that either God, or the embodiment of God’s thought in creation, may not appear mysterious to us. In fact, Bavinck explicitly affirms that they do. “Indeed for us” God is a mystery. There is no dark, mysterious, irrational stuff in creation, because it has been thought by a conscious God. But this does not entail that the whole of his thoughts stand naked before human reason. Mystery remains, both in our knowledge of our Creator and in our knowledge of his creation.

Bavinck, therefore, does not offer reason untrammeled access to all that God has revealed. Mystery clearly functions as a limiting concept. Both Creator and creation are shrouded by mystery, albeit for different reasons. The world is ontologically intelligible, yet our knowledge of the world bears an asymptotic character. Reason may unfurl new vistas of scientific knowledge, yet with each of these discoveries reason encounters an ever receding horizon. God too is ontologically intelligible, yet reason’s attempts on this domain are bounded absolutely. God may be known, yet “the point where the finite touches the infinite and rests in the infinite is everywhere indemonstrable.”[105] As a limiting concept, however, mystery performs a further function. Mystery preserves what Bavinck conceives to be the properly doxological character of creaturely knowing. It is to this function that we finally turn.

2. Mystery and Worship

One might anticipate that Bavinck’s frequent reminders of the limitations of creaturely knowing might be followed by expressions of hope that in the future the mysteries we encounter now will be made plain. One may well expect to hear Bavinck conclude such discussions of mystery with the affirmation, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Cor 13:12). For Bavinck, however, the incomplete character of creaturely knowing is neither a lamentable consequence of the fall, nor an aspect of the human condition to be rescinded in the future glory. Faith will pass over into sight, but even in glory “full” knowledge remains finite knowledge. Apprehension will never pass over into comprehension, for the simple reason that this would erase any distinction between the finite and the infinite. Bavinck’s epistemological distinction between apprehension and comprehension parallels his ontological distinction between Creator and creature and is the central feature of the way in which Bavinck views mystery as conditioning the irreducibly doxological character of creaturely knowing.

“‘Vision as to essence’ and ‘comprehension,’” Bavinck writes, “are completely synonymous. God, moreover, is infinite, and human beings are finite and remain so also in the state of glory.” Comprehension is the knowledge that is proper to a divine knower. Apprehension is the knowledge that is proper to creaturely knowers. Comprehension concerns the knowledge of an object’s inner possibility; it is the knowledge that surpasses “knowing that” and “knowing what” penetrating to the “knowing how.”[106] Importantly, knowing how entails a particular relation between subject and object. In absolute terms, it pertains to the relation of the divine knowing subject to creaturely known object. Accordingly, “we comprehend only the things that are totally in our power, the things we can make or break.”[107] The collocation of making and breaking illustrates the way in which knowing how, in an absolute sense, is a divine prerogative. God has exhaustive knowledge of the inner possibility of the world, summoning it into being and sustaining it by the Word of his power. Divine knowledge instantiates the existence of its objects and because God comprehends the world in this absolute sense, he also possesses the authority to unknow the world, to pass judgment on it in destruction. Although creatures certainly do know objects in an analogous manner, things they make or break, such knowledge merely approximates comprehension. Bavinck writes,

There are few things we comprehend.... I comprehend, or think I comprehend, the things that are self-evident and perfectly natural. Often comprehension ceases to the degree a person digs deeper into a subject. That which seemed self-evident proves to be absolutely extraordinary and amazing. The farther a science penetrates its object, the more it approaches mystery. Even if on its journey it encountered no other object it would still always be faced with the mystery of being.[108]

Creaturely comprehension therefore, is ultimately only apparent. It recedes in direct proportion to reason’s penetration of its object. Hence, while in a restricted sense the engineer comprehends his design and the composer comprehends his symphony, ultimately they do not comprehend these objects. As creatures create nothing ex nihilo, creaturely comprehension of objects is always relative and subject to epistemological regress upon further inquiry. Comprehension therefore, in the strictest sense of the word, is metaphysically beyond creatures.[109] Thus, were human beings to comprehend God in the state of glory, it would amount to “the deification of humanity and the erasure of the boundary between the Creator and the creature.”[110]

Mystery therefore, is a necessary dimension of creaturely knowing. Creaturely knowledge is bounded by mystery for the simple fact that comprehension is the prerogative of the Creator and it is precisely because of this that mystery gives rise to worshipful knowing. Confronted by the limitations of their knowledge, creaturely knowers relinquish any claim to comprehension. Knowledge remains, yet the knowers recognize their merely incomplete and provisional knowledge for what it is, an experience which gives rise to amazement and wonder. Bavinck describes this process when he writes, “Comprehension excludes amazement and admiration.... Where comprehension ceases, however, there remains room for knowledge and wonder.”[111] Wonder is then reflected outwards, because creaturely knowers are not merely reminded of the limits of their understanding but also of the surpassing wisdom of their Creator; “faith turns into wonder; knowledge terminates in adoration; and their confession becomes a song of praise and thanksgiving.”[112] While this is especially true of the knowledge of God, this process is common to all fields of knowledge. In his monograph Christelijke Wetenschap Bavinck describes a similar dynamic in connection with scientific knowledge. “With the expansion of knowledge, adoration likewise grows. Because all science is the rendering of thoughts, which have been put by God in his works.”[113] Mystery therefore conditions creaturely knowers as worshipful knowers in the way it evokes wonder in the knowing subject, which, when directed toward the Creator, terminates in praise.

Mystery thus performs the further function of conditioning the properly doxological character of creaturely knowing. What remains to be explored is how the twofold function of mystery specifically pertains to the relation of revelation and reason. As we saw earlier, reason in Bavinck is not synonymous with the mind but is a discursive process by which the understanding penetrates beyond knowing that to knowing how. Such knowledge is reasoned, or scientific (wetenschappelijk), knowledge and is to be distinguished from the knowledge acquired by means of sense data, perceptions, and representations. “In every area there is a difference between ordinary, everyday, empirical knowing and true, advanced, scientific knowledge. Every human has some empirical knowledge of the sun, moon and stars, but this knowledge is a million miles removed from the scientific knowledge of the astronomer. The former only knows the facta; the latter the rationes.”[114] It is by the use of reason, therefore, that the mind acquires scientific, as opposed to merely empirical, knowledge. As concerns the knowledge of God, knowledge of the facta of revelation is acquired by faith, whereas knowledge of the rationes is acquired by the use of reason. Accordingly, the relation of revelation and faith concerns the acquisition of an “empirical” knowledge of God, whereas the relation of revelation and reason concerns the acquisition of a reasoned, or scientific, knowledge of God. Hence, in “secular science the watchword is: sense perception precedes understanding; there is nothing in understanding that was not first in the senses; in theology the slogan is: faith precedes understanding; there is nothing in understanding that was not first present in faith.”[115]

In this way, the relation of revelation and reason in Bavinck rests logically on the prior relationship of revelation and faith. Reason constructs knowledge from the data it receives from faith. It does not transcend the standpoint of faith for the simple reason that the mind accepts the data supplied by faith.[116] As with all scientific knowledge, reason is bound by mystery, but what is distinctive to theological science is its object. The object of theological science is the very One who moves the creaturely knower to wonder and praise when reason comes face to face with its limitations. Indeed, this is why Bavinck describes mystery as the lifeblood of dogmatics. Theology not only skirts the perimeter of a vast abyss and plumbs mysteries well beyond the depth of the theologian’s ability to comprehend; it is acquired in an encounter of mystical communion. Of course, reason is capable of constructing a scientific edifice of knowledge outside of this communion. Bavinck acknowledges that a “’theology of the unregenerate’ is possible in the same sense as a ‘historical faith,’ but it corresponds equally as little or as much to true theology as ‘historical faith’ does to ‘saving faith.’”[117]

Unfortunately Bavinck does not elaborate on the difference between a theology that has mystery for its lifeblood and the theology of the unregenerate. Would a theology of the unregenerate be formally identical with the theology reason constructs when the knowing subject is in mystical communion with its object? It is here that Bavinck’s paradigm will raise an eyebrow or two. Bavinck has built mystery into the very structure of his theological epistemology in such a thoroughgoing way, that the possibility of a knowledge that is not doxologically conditioned by the mysteries with which it engages remaining formally identical with the knowledge that is conditioned in this way strikes one as odd. This oddness is heightened by the fact that the mystical union for Bavinck carries ontic significance. If there is an ontic dimension to the believer’s union with Christ, it seems especially implausible that the knowledge of God generated beyond this union could remain formally identical with the knowledge of God generated within it. It is here that one wonders whether Bavinck’s definition of knowledge is still held captive to the post-enlightenment categories he decries. Nonetheless, the broadening of knowledge to embrace immediate perception and the emphasis on personal relation implicit in the notion of unio mystica clearly indicate trajectories that extend further into the twentieth century. One can only wonder how Bavinck’s thought may have developed had he lived just a little longer to be able to engage with Heidegger’s Being and Time or Buber’s I and Thou. Nevertheless, it is clear that a theology of the unregenerate is no “doxology to all God’s virtues and perfections, a hymn of adoration and thanksgiving.”[118] It is a mere cadaver. No praise pulses from its lifeless heart. True theology, however, vera theologia, is bound to its object in a mystical union. “The more it reflects on God, the knowledge of whom is its only content, the more it will be moved to adoration and worship.”[119]

Mystery therefore, stands at the heart of the relation of revelation and reason. One might even say that mystery is the lifeblood of that relation, given that theology constitutes the fruit of revelation and reason. Faith may posit “and maintains the relation that ought to exist ... between subject and object,”[120] but as reason proceeds from the facta to the rationes in its quest for scientific knowledge the knowing subject is not only bounded epistemologically by mystery, but in mystical union with the object of its enquiry the knowing subject is moved to wonder, adoration, and praise. The whole of life is to be λογικὴ λατρεία (Rom 12:1), yet the seat of reason especially is to be a sanctuary of praise, and of all the fields of enquiry that lie open to reason, none is more fittingly characterized as a worshipful enterprise of knowing than that of the knowledge of God.

III. Conclusion

Mystery occupies a pivotal position in the relation of revelation and reason in Herman Bavinck. Mystery functions as a limiting concept over and against Bavinck’s Logos metaphysic, which undergirds the metaphors of embodiment and participation. Importantly, Bavinck uses the term mystery in three distinct ways. According to the NT sense of the term, it affirms the fact that the creaturely knower is able to know God yet is dependent upon divine self-revelation for that knowledge. This first sense of the term primarily concerns what Bavinck describes as empirical knowledge. The second and third senses of the term, however, bear special reference to reason’s capacity to penetrate beyond what is known by faith to the inner possibility of things. The second sense of the term can be differentiated from the third sense of the term principally in terms of the object of knowledge. Reason is confronted by a relative mystery in its explorations of creation. Creation is ontologically intelligible, but the finitude of the human mind prevents the creaturely knower from ever comprehending it exhaustively. The third sense of the term concerns our knowledge of the Creator, inclusive of our knowledge of God in Christ. While the Creator too is ontologically intelligible, here reason encounters more radical limitations. Reason is capable of constructing a scientific knowledge of God, yet in this task it is ultimately bounded by absolute mystery. Here the knowing subject is confronted by mysteries which may be apprehended by faith. Such mysteries, however, remain indemonstrable to reason. In this capacity as a limiting concept, however, mystery performs the further function. Mystery is the wellspring of worship. Mystery conditions all species of creaturely knowledge doxologically, but in the domain of theology this function takes on special significance. Dogmatics is not merely bounded by mystery, but has mystery for its lifeblood. Although the scientific knowledge of God is a knowledge that can be constructed only in mystical communion with the object of its enquiry, a theology of the unregenerate remains a theoretical possibility. Such a knowledge might be formally identical with the scientific knowledge of God constructed by believing reason, yet such a knowledge is materially incomparable with the vera theologia which arises in covenantal union with Christ.

Hence, in certain places Eugene Heideman’s account of the relation of revelation and reason in Bavinck stands in need of amplification and modification. What we have seen concerning the role of mystery in Bavinck’s epistemology confirms that Bavinck does not view reason as co-extensive with revelation. Reason is limited with respect to both the divine archetype and the revealed ectype. Beyond this, two further modifications of Heideman’s account might be proposed as follows. First, the relation of revelation and reason is properly located within Bavinck’s more fundamental concern, namely, the subject-object dichotomy, which ultimately concerns the relation of revelation and faith. Further, because Bavinck regards reason as never transcending the standpoint of faith in its constructive appropriation of revelation, the relation of revelation and reason can be viewed as a subsidiary of the relation of revelation and faith. Second, in Bavinck reason is better described as embodying divine thought rather than embodying revelation. Appropriating the metaphor of embodiment in this way neither jeopardizes the particularity of reason nor suggests the absence of boundaries. While attention to the category of mystery sheds considerable insight on the relation of revelation and reason in Bavinck and can be used profitably to augment Heideman’s seminal study, much remains to be said on this subject. As we have seen, Bavinck’s epistemology is formally structured in such a way as to account for the claim that the knowledge of God exists in organic relation to the knowledge of self and knowledge of the world. Given that Bavinck devoted the last two decades of his life to demonstrating this organic relation in concreto both in his voluminous interdisciplinary writings and in his Parliamentary career, the writings that demonstrate the outworkings of this relation warrant further study.[121] Such research would undoubtedly encounter further talk of mystery and elucidate the way in which Bavinck considered that the divine mysteries which reason encounters ought to be adored.

Notes

1. Martin Luther, Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger (Garden City: NY: Anchor, 1961), 195.
2. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1960), 1:213 (1.17.2).
3. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003–2008), 2:49.
4. Henk Van Den Belt, The Authority of Scripture in Reformed Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 229–300; K. Scott Oliphint, “Bavinck’s Realism, the Logos Principle, and Sola Scriptura,” WTJ 72 (2010): 359–90; Michael S. Chen, “‘To See Darkness, To Hear Silence’: Herman Bavinck and Augustine on Epistemology,” Bavinck Review 2 (2011): 96–106; David S. Sytsma, “Herman Bavinck’s Thomistic Epistemology: The Argument and Sources of His Principia of Science,” in Five Studies in the Thought of Herman Bavinck, A Creator of Modern Dutch Theology, ed. John Bolt (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2011), 1–56; Steven J. Duby, “Working with the Grain of Nature: Epistemic Underpinnings for Christian Witness in the Theology of Herman Bavinck,” Bavinck Review 3 (2012): 60–84; Bruce Pass, “Herman Bavinck and the Cogito,” Reformed Theological Review 74 (2015): 15–33; Bruce Pass, “Herman Bavinck and the Problem of New Wine in Old Wineskins,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 17 (2015): 432–49; Arvin Vos, “Knowledge according to Bavinck and Aquinas,” Bavinck Review 6 (2015): 9–36.
5. The one exception to this, however, is James Eglinton’s consideration of mystery in his Trinity and Organism: Towards a New Reading of Herman Bavinck’s Organic Motif (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 95–100.
6. Eugene P. Heideman, The Relation of Revelation and Reason in E. Brunner and H. Bavinck (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1959), 236.
7. Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation: The Stone Lectures for 1908–09, Princeton Theological Seminary, trans. Henry E. Dosker, Nicholas M. Steffens, and Geerhardus Vos (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1909), 25.
8. The only publication which directly addresses this subject is a short popular-level article which approaches the relation of revelation and reason from the standpoint of contemporary politics; see Herman Bavinck, “Openbaring en rede,” De Bazuin 49, no. 43 (1901): 1–2 (English translation, “Revelation and Reason”; unless otherwise noted, translations from the Dutch and German are my own). Here Bavinck summarizes the relation of revelation and reason in three questions. What is the origin of the right, the good, the true, and the beautiful? God is their ground. If God is their ground, what is their epistemic source? They are known in revelation. But how then, are they to be derived from revelation? By believing reason. Reason, however, bears the scars of the effects of sin and must be freed by Christ. Hence, Bavinck concludes by stating, “Grace suppresses neither nature, nor human reason and understanding but elevates and renews it and stimulates it unto strenuous labour. Not doubt, but faith is the way to truth and also the way to freedom. Whoever sins, is a slave of sin, but wherever one is freed by the Son, they are free indeed. For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” The notion that grace restores nature, as is well known, is a prominent theme in Bavinck and derives from Thomas Aquinas, “gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit,” Summa Theologiae, 1.1.8 ad 2. In rendering the Latin perficit, however, Bavinck does not use the word volmaaken but opheffen, which is the Dutch equivalent of the German aufheben. Are we to hear an allusion to Hegel in Bavinck’s appropriation of Thomas?
9. Heideman, Relation of Revelation and Reason, 130.
10. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:559. Caveat lector: the English translation bears the typographical error, “revolution.” The original Dutch term is oplossing, i.e., “resolution.” Cf. Herman Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek (Kampen: Kok, 1928), 1:531.
11. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:210–13. Henk Van Den Belt argues that Bavinck’s internal principle of knowing does not find precedent in the works of Reformed orthodox predecessors, insofar as Bavinck’s internal principle concerns the illumination of the knowing subject rather than the inspiration of the biblical author; cf. Van Den Belt, Authority of Scripture, 144–46, contra Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academics, 2003), 1:442n147.
12. Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, vol. 1: table of contents, n. p. Cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:5–6. Unfortunately this division is obscured in the English translation, which divides the Prolegomena into five chapters. Another indicator of the incorporation of the subject-object within the principia is the two separate treatments of faith. Under the doctrines of grace Bavinck addresses the soteriological significance of faith, but in the Prolegomena he discusses faith’s epistemological significance, again representing a significant development from Reformed orthodoxy; cf. Van Den Belt, Authority of Scripture, 273.
13. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:505.
14. Ibid., 1:565.
15. Ibid., 1:213–14.
16. Ibid., 1:213.
17. Cf. Pass, “Wineskins,” 436–40, 446–48.
18. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:565.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., 1:567. Bavinck is very careful to distinguish the immediate certainty of this faith in this sense from the immediate certainty of fides specialis. Bavinck qualifies the analogy he draws between the immediacy of “general” and special faith. While saving faith yields an immediate certainty, the epistemological content of saving faith is, nevertheless, mediated to the knowing subject by the testimony of Scripture. This differentiates the self-authenticating character of testimony of the apostles from the self-authenticating character of the immediacy of self-consciousness.
21. Ibid., 1:576. Bavinck thus rejects Kant’s distinction between thinking, knowing, and believing. This distinction is rejected not in order to deny the existence of other forms of certainty, but rather to order the various forms of certainty one to another. Bavinck gives full credence to the existence of logical and empirical certainty, yet ultimately these forms of certainty derive from a prior certainty. “There is not a single thing whose existence is certain to us only on the basis of proofs” (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:90). One should, however, take note of the word “existence.” Bavinck reserves a special place for the formal sciences. Disciplines such as mathematics or logic do not rest on the certainty of faith, because their object is formal rather than material. Thus, Bavinck does not claim that all things depend on faith, but rather, many things. “Many things still remain the object of faith, such as, for example, the facts of history, which are all based on the testimony of people. Only with respect to the so-called eternal truths, which are treated in logic, mathematics, etc., is science, strictly speaking, possible. Apart from that, we never transcend faith, least not in theology” (Herman Bavinck, Christelijke Wetenschap [Kampen: Kok, 1904], 17–18). For further discussion of the issue of certainty, see Herman Bavinck, The Certainty of Faith (St. Catharines, Ontario: Paideia, 1980).
22. Herman Bavinck, Beginselen der Psychologie (Kampen: Kok, 1923), 97–98.
23. Herman Bavinck, “Primacy of the Intellect or the Will?,” in Essays on Religion, Science and Society, ed. John Bolt, trans. Harry Boonstra and Gerrit Sheeres (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 201.
24. Bavinck, Beginselen der Psychologie, 111.
25. Bavinck maintains the scholastic distinction between actus and habitus. The distinction between faith as an act and faith as a disposition is especially important for Bavinck’s discussion of assurance; cf. Reformed Dogmatics, 4:114–18, 150, 225–29.
26. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:616n41. Bavinck here cites Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1674), Selectae disputationes, 1.3, and actually muddies the water a little, as Voetius does not regard reason (ratio) as a function of the mind but as synonymous with the mind. Nevertheless, what Voetius and Bavinck are both affirming is that discursive thought is receptive to faith.
27. Heideman, Relation of Revelation and Reason, 137.
28. “Creation and recreation are works of God in time, but at the same time, they are the embodiment of his eternal counsel” (Herman Bavinck, Christelijke Wereldbeschouwing [Kampen: Bos, 1904], 30).
29. “The entire world is a revelation of God, a mirror of his attributes and perfections. Every creature in its own way and degree is the embodiment of a divine thought” (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:530–31). “Nature is ... a work of the hands of the Creator, an embodiment of the thoughts of God” (Herman Bavinck, Godsdienst en Godgeleerdheid [Wageningen: Vada, 1902], 42).
30. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:380; 2:577.
31. Heideman, Relation of Revelation and Reason, 160–61.
32. Ibid., 137n2.
33. Ibid., 236–37.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., 186.
36. The appeal to Thomas at this point of Bavinck’s argumentation has attracted attention in the secondary literature on account of the apparent contradiction concerning whether the Logos functions as principium cognoscendi or principium essendi (see Oliphint, “Bavinck’s Realism”). I have attempted to elucidate the problem by demonstrating that where Bavinck goes on to speak explicitly of the Logos illuminating the intellect, he presupposes under this illumination the secondary agency of the Holy Spirit. This connection is made explicit on a number of occasions and also reflects the epistemological implications Bavinck draws from the filioque (see Pass, “Wineskins,” 440–49).
37. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:232. I am grateful to Gerald Bray for pointing out to me that although Bavinck cites Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1. qu.79 art. 4, the triadic formulation esse-vivere-intelligere is reminiscent of Augustine’s De Trinitate, 6.10, and ultimately derives from Victorinus: “Etenim cum sint istae existentiae viventes intelligentesque, animadvertamus haec tria, esse, vivere, intelligere, ita tria esse, ut unum semper sint, atque in eo quod est esse” (Marius Victorinus, Adversus Arium, 3.4).
38. Cf. Wolter Huttinga, Participation and Communicability: Herman Bavinck and John Milbank on the Relation between God and the World (Amsterdam: Buijten & Schipperheijn, 2014).
39. Cf. Cornelio Fabro, “Participation” in New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), 10:905–10.
40. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:531, 562.
41. Ibid., 2:555–57.
42. Bavinck, Beginselen der Psychologie, 42.
43. It is interesting to note that for Bavinck, self-consciousness is the mental act that most closely resembles divine thought, as self-consciousness represents a creaturely analogue of the nexus of the real and ideal that constitutes divine self-knowledge. See Bavinck, Philosophy of Revelation, 61–62.
44. Bavinck, Beginselen der Psychologie, 110–11.
45. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:212–14.
46. Ibid., 2:29.
47. Ibid., 2:485, 496; Philosophy of Revelation, 87.
48. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:412, 506.
49. Ibid., 2:438.
50. Bavinck, Philosophy of Revelation, 93.
51. Bavinck, Beginselen der Psychologie, 42.
52. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:583.
53. Ibid., 3:113.
54. Bavinck, Philosophy of Revelation, 120.
55. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:586.
56. Bavinck, Beginselen der Psychologie, 90.
57. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:442; cf. Bavinck, Philosophy of Revelation, 72.
58. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:69.
59. Ibid., 2:429.
60. Ibid., 4:452.
61. Ibid., 2:608.
62. Ibid., 2:608; 3:53, 69, 72, 101, 109, 145.
63. Ibid., 3:274, 301, 304.
64. Ibid., 3:443.
65. Ibid., 1:384.
66. Ibid., 4:484, 532.
67. Ibid., 1:384.
68. Ibid., 1:503.
69. Ibid., 1:592; 4:51, 154, 636.
70. Ibid., 3:69.
71. Ibid., 3:176.
72. Ibid., 3:184.
73. Ibid., 4:636.
74. Ibid., 2:439.
75. Ibid., 2:618; cf. Bavinck, Philosophy of Revelation, 198.
76. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:519.
77. Ibid., 2:312; 1:368.
78. “Everywhere and in every area of life we finally run into mystery” (ibid., 2:106).
79. Richard H. Grützmacher, “Die Theologie der Offenbarung und die Theologie des Geheimnisses,” in Modern-Positive Vorträge (Leipzig: Deichert, 1906), 25–44; cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:621n55.
80. Grützmacher, Modern-Positive Vorträge, 38–39.
81. Hence, Bavinck utilizes mystery in a very similar fashion to the motifs of organism and self-consciousness. See Pass, “Herman Bavinck and the Cogito,” 31.
82. Heideman, Relation of Revelation and Reason, 214.
83. Ibid., 214–15.
84. James Eglinton offers a helpful analysis of the significance of Bavinck’s exposition of this sense of the term mystery over and against the Roman Catholic notion of mystery typified by Aquinas (Eglinton, Trinity and Organism, 95–99).
85. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:620–21.
86. Ibid., 1:621n55.
87. Karl G. Bretschneider, Systematische Entwicklung aller in der Dogmatik vorkommenden Begriffe (Reutlingen: Grözinger & Schauwecker, 1826), 1:171–73. Caveat lector: the English translation identifies Bavinck’s source as the 1841 Leipzig edition. Bavinck cites p. 168 without identifying which edition he consulted, but this page number does not correspond to the discussion of mystery in the 1819, 1826, or 1841 editions of Bretschneider’s Systematische Entwicklung.
88. Herman Bavinck, Modernisme en Orthodoxie (Kampen: Kok, 1911), 25.
89. Bavinck, Philosophy of Revelation, 72.
90. Bavinck, Modernisme en Orthodoxie, 9–10.
91. The Ignorabimus controversy was a controversy concerning the limits of scientific knowledge which had raged for decades following a provocative lecture delivered by Emil Du Bois-Reymond on August 14, 1872, at the forty-fifth Versammlung deutscher Naturforscher und Ärtze. Rather than extolling the powers of natural science, Du Bois-Reymond somewhat unexpectedly emphasized its limits. For Bavinck’s direct awareness of Du Bois-Reymond and his discussion of the issue in general, see n. 13 of Philosophy of Revelation, 321–22. For an excellent overview of this controversy, see Frederick Beiser, After Hegel: German Philosophy 1840–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 97–132.
92. For example, concerning the expression “the mystery of godliness” (1 Tim 3:16) Bavinck writes, “although unable to penetrate it, [Paul] still knew its content” (Bavinck, “Het Wezen des Christendoms,” in Almanak van het studentencorps der Vrije Universiteit voor het jaar 1906 [Amsterdam: Herdes, 1906], 274).
93. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:93.
94. Ibid., 1:172.
95. Ibid., 3:528–29.
96. Ibid., 3:304.
97. Cf. ibid., 1:262.
98. Cf. ibid., 4:250.
99. Ibid., 4:577.
100. Thus, Eglinton’s claim, “while Bavinck uses the term to protect God’s ‘otherness,’ he never uses the term μυστήριον to dull the sense of God’s knowability,” requires further qualification (cf. Eglinton, Trinity and Organism, 100).
101. Heideman, Relation of Revelation and Reason, 134.
102. Herman Bavinck, “Kennis en Leven” in Kennis en Leven: Opstellen en artikelen uit vroegere jaren (Kampen: Kok, 1922), 208.
103. Cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:193.
104. Bavinck, “Kennis en Leven,” 207; my italics.
105. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:586.
106. Ibid., 2:190; 1:619. Cf. Bavinck, Godsdienst en Godgeleerdheid, 54.
107. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:619.
108. Ibid.
109. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:69; Bavinck, “Kennis en Leven,” 225–26.
110. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:190–91; cf. “Kennis en Leven,” 224–26.
111. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:619.
112. Ibid., 1:621.
113. Bavinck, Christelijke Wetenschap, 58.
114. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:615.
115. Ibid., 1:614.
116. “Faith is the beginning and the enduring presupposition of all science” (Herman Bavinck, Het Doctorenambt [Kampen: Zalsman, 1899], 70).
117. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:615.
118. Ibid., 1:112.
119. Ibid., 2:29.
120. Ibid., 1:614.
121. Heideman (Relation of Revelation and Reason, 219–20) offers brief comments on four of Bavinck’s more substantial later publications, namely, Bibelsche en Religieuze Psychologie (Kampen: Kok, 1920); De Opvoeding der Rijpere Jeugd (Kampen: Kok, 1916); De Vrouw in de Hedendaagsche Maatschappij (Kampen: Kok, 1918); and De Nieuwe Opvoeding (Kampen: Kok, 1917). An understanding of the practical outworking of reason’s appropriation of revelation in disciplines beyond theology would require a major study. Any such research may need to proceed from first editions and manuscripts. Jack Vanden Born has helpfully pointed out that Valentin Hepp, Bavinck’s biographer and successor at the Vrije Universiteit, deleted many of Bavinck’s biblical references in the subsequent editions of Beginselen der Psychologie; see Jack Vanden Born, “Herman Bavinck’s Foundations of Psychology” (Master’s thesis, Calvin College, 1981), ix. The function of Bavinck’s proof texts would of course be crucial to any such study.