Reformed And Catholic? Assessing Nevin And Bavinck As Resources For Reformed Catholicity

By C. Ryan Fields

[C. Ryan Fields is a PhD candidate in theological studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, is ordained in the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA), and aspires to serve the church as a pastor-theologian.]

Abstract

Allen and Swain have made a somewhat eyebrow-raising proposal in their book Reformed Catholicity (2015): to be Reformed and catholic is not a contradiction in terms. Indeed, they insist that the Reformed tradition has always understood itself as a particular tradition within, rather than antithetical to or strictly identical with, the broader catholic church. It is thus particularly suited to forward the recent ressourcement trend in theology and deliver on the “promise of retrieval” for the sake of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. But, as they acknowledge, there’s a fly in the ointment of the American Reformed heritage in this regard: their nearest theological forebears, the Old Princetonians of Hodge and Warfield, were, at best, ambivalent about catholicity and tradition and, at worst, strongly opposed to these for fear they will trump biblical authority or distort its message. If Allen and Swain’s claim that catholicity is consistent with the best of the Reformed heritage is to be substantiated, other theologians than the Princetonians will need to be brought forth as evidence. This article argues that John Williamson Nevin (1803–1886) and Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) represent potentially fruitful resources for just such an enterprise. Though operating in distinct contexts and exhibiting differing theological impulses, both nineteenth-century theologians demonstrate a doctrine of catholicity and a catholicity of doctrine and practice that could inform a “Reformed catholicity” of the kind Allen and Swain promote. While both theologians are worthwhile to retrieve, after examining their historical and theological contexts and assessing their doctrine of catholicity and their catholicity of doctrine and practice I argue that Bavinck ultimately provides the superior resource in light of his more consistent identification with the Reformed tradition and his ecclesiological convictions (and their attendant notions of catholicity) that better align with the Reformed heritage.

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Michael Allen and Scott Swain have made a modest proposal: to be Reformed and catholic[1] is not a contradiction in terms. In their Reformed Catholicity (2015) they insist that the Reformed tradition has much to commend it as one which has always understood itself as a particular tradition within, rather than antithetical to or identical with, the broader catholic church. This stems from their central conviction that “to be Reformed means to go deeper into true catholicity, not to move away from catholicity.”[2] Swain posits an even stronger claim that “catholicity … has been central to the Reformed tradition from its inception,” pointing to evidence like William Perkins’s A Reformed Catholike (1597) to demonstrate the impulse of Reformed theologians to do theology with a “commitment to preserving and propagating the fullness of divine wisdom bequeathed to the church.”[3]

But as the authors sheepishly recognize at the beginning of Reformed Catholicity, the most influential of their nearest Reformed forebears, the Old Princetonians Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield, were, at best, ambivalent about catholicity and church tradition and, at worst, strongly opposed to these allegiances for fear they would ultimately trump biblical authority or distort Scripture’s unequivocal message.[4] They humbly acknowledge the sentiments of Hodge who casually remarked, “Tradition teaches error…. Both [Scripture and tradition] cannot be true. The one contradicts the other. One or the other must be given up. Of this at least no true Protestant has any doubts.”[5] They seem to cringe while confessing that Warfield infamously proposed a “gulf … between the apostolic and the immediately succeeding ages” which meant that “to pass from the latest apostolic writings to the earliest compositions of uninspired Christian pens is to fall through such a giddy height.”[6] They even confess that in such a Princetonian vision “to be Reformed means precisely to cease being catholic or, at the very least, to limit the extent of the catholic tradition that is valid and authentic.”[7] And, to their credit, they recognize the impact that the Princetonians have had, not just on the Reformed tradition (especially in the American context) but on much of Evangelicalism today, cultivating a vision of reform that tends toward primitive sectarianism over catholicity.[8]

The Princetonian problem of catholicity leaves Allen and Swain’s (commendable) project largely open to the question, Is their proposal really compatible with the Reformed tradition? If Allen and Swain’s claims that Reformed catholicity has been central to the Reformed tradition and that it is consistent with the best of the Reformed heritage are to be substantiated, it seems other theologians than the Princetonians will need to be brought forward to support these claims, particularly with regard to the Reformed tradition in the nineteenth century.[9] In this article I will argue that John Williamson Nevin (1803–1886) and Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) represent promising candidates for such an effort.[10] Both nineteenth-century Reformed theologians demonstrate a doctrine of catholicity and a catholicity of doctrine and practice that could further inform a “Reformed catholicity” of the kind Allen and Swain are eager to promote. While both theologians are worthwhile to retrieve in this regard, I will argue that Bavinck provides a superior resource considering his more consistent identification with the Reformed tradition and his ecclesiological convictions (and their attendant notions of catholicity) that better align with the Reformed heritage.

I. Reformed Catholicity From Calvin To The Nineteenth Century

Space constraints prevent me from offering any more than the briefest of sketches of the Reformed tradition and its default understandings of the church’s catholicity prior to the nineteenth century. That sketch must begin with what came to be recognized as the fount of the emerging Reformed tradition: the work of John Calvin. In the Institutes Calvin notes that when it comes to the confession that the church is “catholic” or “universal” what is meant is simply that “there could not be two or three churches unless Christ be torn asunder—which cannot happen.”[11] Calvin thus links catholicity (and unity) with the reality of the invisible church made up of all the elect in union with Christ. He notes, “All the elect are so united in Christ that as they are dependent on one Head … being joined and knit together as are the limbs of a body…. For they have been called not only into the same inheritance of eternal life but also to participate in one God and Christ.”[12] Here we see two very important aspects of Calvin’s doctrine of catholicity. First, he clearly sees catholicity as a descriptor of the elect, a united whole made up of those in union with Christ across dimensions of time, space, and people groups. The second is that for Calvin the distinction between the visible and invisible church is important but ought not to be too cleanly separated. Indeed, Calvin insists that “the article in the Creed in which we profess to ‘believe the church’ refers not only to the visible church but also to all God’s elect.”[13] Michael Bird can thus rightly conclude that for Calvin “where the Word is rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered, there you will find the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.”[14] Calvin also clearly demonstrated a catholicity of doctrine and practice throughout his career that was influential for the Reformed tradition downstream: he saw his ministry, his teaching, and his church as in the stream of the catholic tradition, and he worked tirelessly in rare ecumenical fashion to maintain unity within the early Reformed camp and with other emerging branches of Protestantism.[15]

The lines which Calvin laid down in terms of the catholicity of the Reformed tradition were ultimately confirmed and further developed in the Reformed confessions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One early example is the Belgic Confession (1561), which affirms: “We believe and confess one catholic or universal church, which is a holy congregation of true Christian believers … not confined, bound, or limited to a certain place or to certain persons, but it is spread and dispersed over the whole world.”[16] As Todd Billings insightfully points out, the Belgic Confession not only confesses a robust doctrine of catholicity but also exhibits a profound catholicity of doctrine and practice. He states, “In its doctrine of God, the Trinity, and Christ it draws deeply on patristic theology and early ecumenical statements of doctrine. In its significant attention to the sacraments, prayer, and worship, it continues the broadly catholic concern of making these practices central to Christian identity.”[17] The Second Helvetic Confession (1566) makes an influential statement in terms of how Reformed catholicity will be conceived downstream when it says that the church

consists not in outward rites and ceremonies, but rather in the truth and unity of the catholic faith. This catholic faith is … [taught] by the holy Scriptures, a compendious and short sum whereof is the Apostles’ Creed. And, therefore, we read in the ancient writers that there were manifold diversities of ceremonies, but that those were always free; neither did any man think that the unity of the Church was thereby broken or dissolved.[18]

The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) follows Calvin’s original grounding of catholicity in election quite closely by noting: “The catholic or universal Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect.”[19] And yet once again we cannot say that Reformed catholicity is concerned exclusively with the invisible church, for the article goes on (once again following Calvin’s lead): “The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel … consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, and of their children … out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation…. This catholic Church has been sometimes more, sometimes less visible.”[20] Westminster thus recognizes the complex interplay between the visible and invisible church when it comes to delineating a Reformed catholicity, one that has a very high view of the visible church while recognizing that it is interconnected with the invisible church grounded in election.[21]

II. The Reformed Catholicity Of Nevin[22]

Space constraints require that I point elsewhere in terms of background on Nevin[23] and the Mercersburg theology.[24] Bradford Littlejohn’s summary must suffice that Nevin’s brief heyday (roughly between 1843 and 1853) was highly productive and highly controversial, for while Nevin developed “a distinctively American yet cosmopolitan nineteenth-century theology—catholic, sacramental, both modern and ancient, Romantic, and Reformed” he also garnered a heresy trial within his own denomination (he was acquitted), the cold shoulder from neighboring institutions, and the blistering critique of the highly influential Princetonians.[25] Oliver Crisp helps us identify some vital ecclesiological background for our inquiry into Nevin’s doctrine of catholicity, particularly reminding us that for Nevin: (1) there is an intimate connection between the life of the church and the incarnation (especially manifest in the Eucharist), (2) the church exists in ideal/perfect and actual/concrete aspects (preferred over visible/invisible language), (3) the actual/concrete aspect is the imperfect, gradually unfolding externalization of the ideal/perfect church which can adequately represent the truth of Christianity to the world, and (4) there is an organic connection between Christ and the church that mirrors the organic connection between Adam and all humanity.[26] Walter Conser can thus note that against sectarianism Nevin posited “the Church—one, holy, and catholic—as the essential and true medium of Christianity. Not the Church divided and splintered but the Church unified, emerging out of its necessary organic development, encompassing its historical past, and pressing forward to its future accomplishments.”[27]

We see how these elements inform Nevin’s understanding of the catholicity of the church in his 1844 sermon on Eph 4:4–6 (published alongside Phillip Schaff’s The Principle of Protestantism in 1845 under the title “Catholic Unity”) preached to a gathering of (American) German and Dutch Reformed church leaders in hopes that their churches might pursue a common, “catholic unity.” The sermon was in two parts: (1) the nature of the church and its implications for a proper understanding of catholic unity (i.e., doctrine of catholicity) and (2) the duty of particular Christians and churches as it relates to pursuing that catholic unity (i.e., catholicity of practice). Nevin takes for granted that the Creed concisely expresses what Eph 4 teaches: the church is one and universal and as such challenges “all particularism … that seeks to maintain itself as such … in conflict with the general and universal, as embraced in the true idea of the body of Christ.”[28] He makes it clear that unity does not exclude the idea of difference and multiplicity but insists “the idea of oneness … does require that the different and manifold are comprehended in it.”[29] The nature of this comprehension is “strictly organic,” with individual members and diverse denominations held together “by the power of a common life … the person of Jesus Christ … root of the Church; and the Church through all ages is one, simply because it stands, in the presence and power of this root, universally and forever.”[30] And the payoff of this organic union with Christ is that we cannot understand the church as a mere aggregate of regenerated individuals; rather, “the Church does not rest upon its members, but the members rest upon the Church…. The whole is older and deeper than the parts…. All that we behold in the oak, lay hid in the acorn from the start.”[31] Relatedly, the life of church, while “in the first place inward and invisible” (starting as the acorn), most ultimately becomes outward as there is a true manifestation of a living being (becoming more and more the oak tree); thus, “It belongs to the proper conception of [the church], that the unity of the Holy Catholic Church should appear in an outward and visible way … never [to] be regarded as complete, where such development of its inward power is still wanting.”[32] Thus Nevin’s vision of catholicity is of a gradual, biological outworking of its creedal ideal in its actual existence, such that “all communions … [are bound] together as a greater spiritual whole” and even that “the various divisions of the Christian world are still organically the same Church.”[33] It is clear that, for Nevin, settling for external division by appeal to an invisible unity and catholicity is unacceptable. He can thus conclude by noting that the church of which the Creed speaks is not an invisible figment or a mere visible institution; rather, it speaks of the “Real Church” which is visible, catholic, historical, and life-giving.[34] Catholicity does not connote a spiritual aggregate of all the elect; it is the organic unity enjoyed through the whole, which inevitably includes all of creation and ushers it into the consummation of the new creation (with all its tangible glory) as the actual church gives way to the ideal church fully manifest.[35] This is, in sum, his doctrine of the church’s catholicity.

But what of Nevin’s catholicity of doctrine and practice? The former we see even in the sermon considered above, for though he begins with the biblical text itself, Nevin moves rather quickly to an examination of creedal content, grounding his textual observations within the catholic tradition as it has interpreted Scripture. This was an intentional move on Nevin’s part, aimed at combating the biblicism (negatively conceived) and sectarianism that he increasingly saw as the greatest danger to the church (at least in America). Conser nicely summarizes what is at issue here: “Sectarianism, for Nevin, prided itself on its love for the Bible. Neither creeds nor confessional statements held authority … [leading to, in Nevin’s view,] a diminution of the authority of the Church and a refusal to accord the faith of Christianity recorded in the life of the Church through all the ages.”[36] Nevin’s opposing value of the creeds and the development of the church’s doctrine led him to go so far as to say that those sects which “suppose that [the church] might take an entirely new start … [in] the sixteenth century, or any other time, springing directly from the Bible or from heaven … most assuredly … belie [their] existence as a real Church entirely … [manifesting a] heresy of a very serious and grievous order.”[37] The remedy to this schismatic and sectarian impulse, in Nevin’s mind, was to do what he called “theology within the creed.” This involved recognizing not only that “all true theology … grows forth from the Creed and so remains bound to it perpetually as its necessary radix or root” but also that “the great articles of Christian theology come from the Bible, but … they are mediated or brought to pass for the mind of the Church only through the presence and power of the primitive Christian consciousness.”[38]

But Nevin demonstrates a consistent catholicity of practice as well, a concern evident from his first major work, The Anxious Bench (1843). There he scathingly criticized the “new measures” introduced by Finney and the revivalist facilitators of the Second Great Awakening, especially contrasting the “system of the bench” with the “system of the catechism” and demonstrating that the latter was to be much preferred in terms of its theological depth, ecclesiological orientation, and traditional precedent.[39] Catholicity of practice is also a major concern of The Mystical Presence (1846). Nevin argued there that one’s view of the Eucharist was determinative of the solvency and trajectory for one’s entire theological system, and as such he believed that the Reformed tradition’s understanding of Christ’s presence in the elements as mysterious, spiritual, and real was absolutely vital.[40] Part of what Nevin saw as so attractive in the early Reformed sacramental theology was the fact that such a view of the Lord’s Supper, as he understood it, had great precedent within the larger Christian tradition and thus was sufficiently catholic (over and against what he viewed as recent innovations within the Reformed tradition which lacked a strong connection to catholic tradition).[41] This is yet another expression of his catholic spirit exercised on behalf of the Reformed church as a Reformed, catholic theologian.

III. The Reformed Catholicity Of Bavinck

We now move toward the end of the nineteenth century and across the Atlantic to Holland in order to examine the Reformed catholicity of Herman Bavinck.[42] Bavinck emerged as the preeminent dogmatician of the Dutch neo-Calvinist movement which straddles the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and owes its prominence to the theological reflection and political success of Abraham Kuyper. His lasting legacy has stemmed in large part from his capacity to mediate between “otherworldly pietism and this-worldly modernism” by positing “a trinitarian synthesis of Christianity and culture … [incorporating] what was best and true in both pietism and modernism, while above all honoring the theological and confessional richness of the Reformed tradition dating from Calvin.”[43] In terms of the ecclesiological backdrop for Bavinck’s doctrine of catholicity, James Eglinton has done much to draw attention to a very important theme in Bavinck’s dogmatics that has particular import for our study: the organic as an organizing principle.[44]This recognition pays immediate dividends when we begin to explore Bavinck’s ecclesiology, for Bavinck can note: “The ingathering of the elect must not be conceived of individualistically and atomistically. The elect … have all been born in due time from Christ as the body with all its members…. The church is an organism, not an aggregate; the whole, in [this] case, precedes the parts.”[45]

Bavinck’s doctrine of catholicity is strongly attested in his Reformed Dogmatics, especially volume 4 dedicated to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, church, and the new creation. Bavinck once again incorporates the organic motif in his discussion of the creedal marks of the church, noting that the “oneness of all the churches … [stems from being] an organism in which the whole exists prior to the parts; its unity precedes the plurality of local churches and rests in Christ.”[46] And he concludes from this that we should think of the universal church as preceding the local churches not historically but logically: “Every local church is the people of God, the body of Christ … because in that location it is the same as what the church is in its entirety, and Christ is for that local church what he is for the universal church. In the various local gatherings of believers, it is the one church of Christ that comes to expression.”[47] This is in contrast to what Bavinck understands as the “total reversal” which occurred in the church-historical development of the doctrine, where in response to emerging sects and heresies and the need to answer the question “Which is the true church?” there was a movement from seeing the universal church as logically prior to now seeing it as historically prior to the local churches.[48] This inevitably leads to what he understands and laments as the institutionalization of catholicity, “no longer conceived in spiritual terms against heresy but externalized and embodied in a visible institution…. It is no longer the local churches that together form a unity; now the catholic church with its episcopate has priority.”[49] After tracing the history of this development through the Middle Ages and Roman Catholic consolidations he recognizes that with the Reformation the conceptualities of the visible and invisible church came to have new, significant meaning. Bavinck is quick to side with the Reformers in claiming that “while ‘Roman’ and ‘Catholic’ are contradictory in terms, the Protestant conception maintains [the doctrine of catholicity’s] original intention of delineating a universal church, which embraces all true believers and … is meant for all peoples and places on earth.”[50]

But Bavinck’s most substantial reflections on catholicity come in an address given to the faculty of the theological school at Kampen in 1888 and published under the title “The Catholicity of Christianity and the Church.”[51] Bavinck inaugurates the essay by positing the interrelation of the two catholicities: “This catholicity of the church … presupposes the catholicity of the Christian religion. It is based on the idea that Christianity is a world religion that should govern all people and sanctify all creatures irrespective of geography, nationality, place and time.”[52] The essay then proceeds in three parts: the teaching of Scripture on the doctrine, the church’s understanding of the doctrine in its history, and finally what he calls the “obligations” catholicity places before us today. On the biblical material, Bavinck expresses awe at the broad scope of what Christ and the gospel affect, noting, “The Gospel is a joyful tiding, not only for the individual person but also for humanity, for the family, for society, for the state, for art and science, for the entire cosmos, for the whole groaning creation.”[53] From the lofty NT vision of the unity and catholicity of the church which follows directly from the unity-in-diversity of the Triune God himself, [54] Bavinck traces the gradual exchange of such a sublime catholicity for a Romanized one, ultimately expressed in the fact that “Rome … maintains the catholicity of the Christian faith in the sense that it seeks to bring the entire world under the submission of the church.”[55] But on Bavinck’s account Rome is not the only party to blame for the deterioration of Christian and churchly catholicity; fault also lies at the feet of “the other worldly pietism of Protestantism.”[56] Finally, Bavinck turns to catholicity’s obligations upon us, observing that in the Roman conception such obligations are oddly attached to a particular institution and even a particular person (the Pope) while in the Pietist conception any obligations to the church seem to disintegrate.[57] For Bavinck, the antidote to both these dangers (Roman and sectarian) is a dose of robust catholicity, the kind exhibited in the apostolic writings and embodied in the best of the Reformed tradition.[58]

But what of Bavinck’s catholicity of doctrine and practice? Beginning with the former, we may say in sum that his catholicity of doctrine is widely recognized. Eglinton makes the case that the overall structure of Bavinck’s Dogmatics is intentionally oriented around the Apostles’ Creed in part to gesture toward his intention for the work to be deeply catholic as well as distinctly Reformed. Eglinton thus notes, “In its name, Bavinck has identified his work with a particular theological tradition…. In its nature, however, it lays claim both macro- and microcosmically to a deep and wide catholicity. This is an exposition of a universal creed written a millennium before the Reformation … [proving that] Bavinck was a Reformed catholic.”[59] And the catholicity of Bavinck’s Dogmatics is not just evident in its overall structure, but also in its theological conversation partners. Again Eglinton draws this out with great clarity: “Ever present in Bavinck’s Dogmatics … is the reality that Christian orthodoxy predates Geneva and Wittenberg … evident from Bavinck’s thorough knowledge and use of … patristic theology. He regularly grounds his positions in the works of Augustine, the Cappadocian Fathers, Tertullian.”[60] Bavinck even identifies the catholic nature of doctrine as determinative of the theologian’s work, for “the task of the dogmatician is not to draw the material for his dogmatics exclusively from the written confession of his own church but to view it in the total context of the unique faith and life of his church, and then again in the context of the history of the whole church of Christ.”[61] But the scope of this catholicity of doctrine is not merely ancient in orientation; for Bavinck, not only should every attempt to highlight “the communion of saints” be extended to previous generations but also across denominational dividing lines. As he articulates in his preface to the first edition of Reformed Dogmatics, his effort to pay more attention “to Patristic and Scholastic theology than is often the case in a Protestant dogmatics” is motivated out of a deeply held conviction that “Irenaeus, Augustine, and Thomas do not belong exclusively to Rome; they are Fathers and Doctors to whom the whole Christian church has obligations.”[62] Bavinck goes on to recognize that the catholicity of doctrine requires not just listening to the past but laboring in the present for the sake of the future, valuing the modern voice as much as the ancient because it, too, belongs within the universal scope of Christ’s redeeming work.[63] Indeed, this is a defining mark of catholic doctrine: bringing the past into conversation with contemporary concerns, believing that the church across the ages to today has learned in the school of Christ.

But Bavinck’s catholicity of practice should also be noted, for he understood that in doing theology one is engaging in a catholic practice which is ultimately doxological: “Every dogmatics ought to be in full accord with and a part of the doxology sung to God by the church of all ages.”[64] In other words, Bavinck understood that theology was not just done from the catholic church but also for the catholic church, enabling it to better offer its living sacrifice of praise unto the God who is orchestrating so great a salvation. Thus, as Brock and Sutanto recognize, Bavinck could not limit himself to merely explicating the ontology of catholicity (as he did in his 1888 address); he also had to delineate the task of catholicity in action, “as an imperative in obedience to its indicative.”[65] Bavinck could not be content with merely thinking catholicly; he insisted on proceeding to ask what a dogmatician would do if in fact his doctrine of catholicity were to be enacted. Brock and Sutanto nicely summarize Bavinck’s apparent answer to this concern in three elements: (1) recognize a universal communion, (2) pursue an ecumenical polemics, and (3) hunt for abiding truth anywhere it could be found.[66] These emphases are seen in Bavinck’s statement that “the Christian life is too rich to unfold its full glory in only one form or within the walls of one church.”[67] But this sentiment was always balanced by a belief that the Reformed tradition was the best tradition from which to labor with regard to catholicity because, in his view, “Calvinism has a world encompassing tendency, being catholic in the best sense of the word. The Calvinist is fully conscious of this far-reaching tendency … [toward cosmic] glorification of [God’s] name.”[68] For Bavinck a proper (Reformed) doctrine of catholicity manifests in a catholicity of practice that seeks the good of the whole church, the life of the whole world, and the glory of the Triune God.

IV. Comparative Assessment And Conclusion

A full-orbed comparative assessment would begin with the recognition that there are many striking similarities between these two nineteenth-century Reformed churchmen, but space constraints require that we move straight to an examination of their differences.[69] The first difference of note revolves around their competing conceptions of how the Reformed tradition should understand the nature of the church and its catholicity. A comparison of Nevin’s and Bavinck’s conceptions of the church with the works of Calvin and the Reformed confessions reveals that while Bavinck embraced and incorporated the significant distinction between the visible and invisible that the Reformed forebears made so much of, Nevin seems to be constantly chaffing against that same distinction, preferring the delineation of an ideal and actual church that seems to be much closer to German idealism than Reformed orthodoxy. Nevin’s doctrine of catholicity is thus impacted in a way that tends to distance it from the impulses and emphases of the early Reformed tradition. Where Nevin speaks of the church’s catholicity as grounded in the incarnation and as marking out the ideal church’s manifestation in the actual, visible, institutional, whole Body of Christ, Bavinck follows Calvin and the Reformed forebears much more closely by grounding catholicity in the decree of election and understanding it to denote the unity that all believers and churches have in union with Christ across the dimensions of space, time, ethnicity, and even denomination. Indeed, Bavinck is obviously in the wake of the early Reformed voices by further insisting that catholicity cannot be limited to the invisible church alone; it also must be attributed to the visible church throughout the world, and this prevents us from the error (which Nevin was quick to decry) of pitting the visible against the invisible. Nevin, while able to persuasively argue that his incarnational and sacramental theology had deep roots in Calvin and the best of the Reformed tradition, was unable to do the same with regard to his doctrine of catholicity.

The second difference of note revolves around their understanding of the relationship between Scripture and tradition and how this understanding framed their sense of the merits (and demerits) of the Roman Catholic tradition. As has been acknowledged, one of Nevin’s greatest theological contributions was his engagement with and appreciation for the creeds and the perspective of the church fathers.[70] But, as Nevin’s study of Cyprian made clear, there was conflict in his system when he concluded that the data of the Patristic era might actually point toward more of a Roman than Reformed ecclesiology. This conflict (among other factors) led to Nevin’s serious entertainment of conversion to Roman Catholicism, a point of his biography not quickly forgotten by those assessing his Reformed bona fides. Bavinck, on the other hand, while always valuing Christian tradition and weighing the input of ancient voices quite heavily, was able to do so in a way that was always critically appreciative because he held fast to the final authority of Scripture that was so central for the early Reformed (embodied in the Reformational slogan sola Scriptura). This anchor allowed Bavinck to explore the riches of the church fathers, and even of the whole Roman Catholic tradition, with great freedom and without fear of what he would find. Bavinck acknowledges, with the main stream of the Reformed camp, that the creeds, while a wonderful and important rule of faith for interpreting Scripture, could, along with every merely human document, err (though, in his estimation, they had not). The possibility of errant thought was of course true of any particular theologian or even doctor of the church, Roman or Reformed. Thus Bavinck stands with the Reformed tradition in recognizing that doctrinal corruptions occurred long before the High Middle Ages, and can calmly return to Scripture for the means of assessing and correcting the same. Nevin, believing that the creeds and the church with them, mediate the content of Scripture to us, was unable to share Bavinck’s position, which has characterized the center of the Reformed stream and which motivated Reformational critiques of patristic and medieval theology, and Roman Catholicism, where there was evident departure from the norma normans of Scripture.

The third difference of note revolves around how they conceived their Reformed heritage relating to their projects of catholicity. There was for Nevin an evident tension between the Reformed tradition and the broader, catholic tradition. He argued essentially that the Reformed tradition ought to be more catholic despite itself, because to do so was to begin the very important work of recognizing how every tradition needs to be sharpened by the rebuke of the larger catholic tradition. But Bavinck was able to attain a higher ground, one that argued that the more Reformed a Christian was, the more catholic they would inevitably be. Eduardo J. Echeverría, a Roman Catholic, can thus observe that while “Bavinck’s confessional orientation shows a fundamental commitment to the Reformed theological tradition and its confessions” his career is simultaneously marked by “a deep appreciation for the catholicity of his Reformed faith.”[71] The power of Bavinck’s Reformed identity and catholic spirit comes from the fact that he views them as deeply interconnected.[72] He holds that “nowhere else is [the Christian faith] acknowledged as deeply and broadly, as widely and freely … as so truly catholic, as in the churches of the Reformed tradition.”[73] Sutanto is thus absolutely right to conclude: “For Bavinck, Reformed Christianity is the bedrock on which true catholicity and diversity flourishes.”[74] Being Reformed means being catholic on first principles.

And so we must conclude that while both Nevin and Bavinck make important contributions to the project of Reformed catholicity as envisioned by Allen and Swain, it is clear that Bavinck provides the better theological resource to retrieve for informing such a project and providing a pathway from the fount of the Reformed tradition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through the terrain of the nineteenth century to the present day. This is largely because while both Nevin and Bavinck advocate for the catholicity of the church, Bavinck does so with Reformed credentials intact where Nevin’s are somewhat in question. Bavinck’s catholicity will likely be more compelling to those with decidedly Reformed convictions, offering a Reformed catholicity where the Princetonians could not and a Reformed catholicity where Nevin did not. Bavinck is thus the nineteenth-century theologian whose work could do the most to fan into flame the admirable aspiration of a truly Reformed catholicity.[75]

Notes

1. For the purposes of this article, “catholic” (lower-case “c”) will indicate identification with the content of the broader creedal affirmation, while “Catholic” (upper-case “C”) will indicate identification with the Roman Catholic tradition (when not part of the title of a written work).
2. Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 4.
3. Scott R. Swain, “Wisdom from Above: A Reformed Catholic Vision of Theological Education,” Reformed Faith and Practice 2, no. 3 (2017): 60. For a contemporary theological embodiment of what they particularly have in mind, see Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, eds., Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016).
4. For this article I leave to one side the question of how fair a characterization this is of the Princetonians. For our purposes what matters is that Hodge and Warfield are perceived downstream in the Reformed tradition as potential enemies (rather than allies) of Reformed catholicity. Allen and Swain, while assessing the Princetonian legacy with appropriate nuance, simply assume this to be the case in their argumentation. It would require another article entirely to investigate the accuracy of this perception by engaging the work of the Princetonians themselves.
5. Quoted in Allen and Swain, Reformed Catholicity, 2.
6. Quoted in ibid., 1.
7. Ibid., 2.
8. Ibid., 2–3.
9. This article will largely be setting to the side the question of the extent of the Reformers’ catholicity, assuming the argumentation of Braaten and Jenson (among others) that the intention of the magisterial Reformers, especially Luther and Calvin, was reform of the Catholic Church rather than a schismatic effort as such. Recently this positon has been articulated quite compellingly in the work of Kevin Vanhoozer. See Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds., The Catholicity of the Reformation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996); and Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Biblical Authority after Babel: Retrieving the Solas in the Spirit of Mere Protestant Christianity (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016).
10. It should be noted here that Brock and Sutanto make the claim, “it is not surprising that in current discussions concerning Reformed catholicity and theological retrieval, Bavinck is often invoked as a paradigmatic model to follow.” They cite as evidence Allen and Swain’s Reformed Catholicity without providing page numbers, but in point of fact Bavinck is scarcely mentioned in the work and certainly not offered as a paradigm for Reformed catholicity. Allen and Swain mention Bavinck only in passing and offer up no real alternative to the Princetonians other than their own, demonstrating the necessity for other paradigms for Reformed catholicity to be identified within the Reformed tradition, especially from the all-important nineteenth century. The particular contention of the present article is that Reformed catholicity needs a clearer line of continuity through the nineteenth century than the Princetonians can provide, especially because of the paradigm shifts that occur in doing theology after Kant and the “Enlightenment” and in response to the particular challenges posed to Reformed orthodoxy by Schleiermacher and his progeny. See Allen and Swain, Reformed Catholicity, 3; and Cory Brock and Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, “Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Eclecticism: On Catholicity, Consciousness and Theological Epistemology,” SJT 70 (2017): 311.
11. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, LCC 20–21 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1014.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 1012–13, emphasis mine.
14. Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 740.
15. For more on Calvin’s catholicity of doctrine and practice, see Anthony Lane, “John Calvin: Catholic Theologian,” Ecclesiology 6 (2010): 290–314; I. John Hesselink, “Calvinus Oecumenicus: Calvin’s Vision of the Unity and Catholicity of the Church,” RefR 44 (1990): 97–122; and J. Todd Billings, “The Catholic Calvin,” ProEccl 20 (2011): 120–34.
16. Quoted in Joel R. Beeke and Sinclair B. Ferguson, eds., Reformed Confessions Harmonized (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 188.
17. J. Todd Billings, “Catholic and Reformed: Rediscovering a Tradition,” ProEccl 23 (2014): 139–40.
18. Quoted in Beeke and Ferguson, Reformed Confessions Harmonized, 194. Notice some critical claims being made at this juncture: catholicity consists in the unity of faith and not in its outward manifestations (liturgies), is taught not only by Scripture but also by the (commendable) summary of the Scriptures found in the Creed, and is testified to in “ancient writers” (the church fathers) as manifesting in diversity of church practice which, despite its variety, never compromised unity (i.e., was not perceived as schismatic). Once again there is both a strong doctrine of catholicity and a palpable catholicity of doctrine and practice testified to.
19. Quoted in Beeke and Ferguson, Reformed Confessions Harmonized, 189.
20. Ibid.
21. A fuller exploration of the early expressions of Reformed catholicity would also include an engagement with the Reformed scholastics. Francis Turretin (1623–1687) is in many ways characteristic in his articulation of a Reformed catholicity. In his Institutes of Elenctic Theology Turretin maintains that the unity of the church is not compromised by the fact that “there are many particular churches scattered through the world ... because the catholic church remains always one, composed of those various parts, which obtain the same name with the whole.” In direct contrast to the Roman Catholic conception of catholicity (as limited to the extent of and communion with the Roman Catholic institution), Turretin, citing Augustine and Gregory the Great (and by so doing demonstrating a catholicity of doctrine), argues that catholicity in point of fact “teaches not that an assembly ... can claim for itself the name of catholic church; but only that society which embraces all the elect [can do so].” Drawing implications from catholicity’s connection to orthodoxy, Turretin concludes with a recognition that because “heretics everywhere are accustomed falsely to ascribe to themselves the name of catholic church, it is rightly gathered that the name catholic cannot be a mark of the true church ... because it is often a title without the thing. Yet it does not follow on that account that catholicity is not a proper adjunct of a true and properly so-called church.” Turretin thus acknowledges that identifying catholicity is a tricky business; hence the need for the Reformational marks of the church demonstrated by a visible congregation (preaching the Word, administering sacraments, etc.) to supplement the creedal notes of the church’s spiritual identity. See Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1997), 3:29–32.
22. It is indeed a long jump from the era of the Reformed confessions to the nineteenth-century theological context of John Williamson Nevin, not least of which involves the fact that in between them came nothing less than a Copernican revolution in theology. The eighteenth century as the “age of reason” and era of “Enlightenment” set the scene for Hume’s skepticism and Kant’s accommodation, forcing theologians to grapple with what has been termed “the turn toward the subject.” Kant’s critiques, particularly his distinction between noumena and phenomena and his positioning of religion within the bounds of reason alone, were felt keenly; as a result Schleiermacher’s adherence to Christian orthodoxy came to an end and he sought to provide religion generally and Christian theology particularly a new foundation in the subjective realities of intuition and feeling. This matters tremendously for understanding Nevin and his views on Reformed catholicity, for as Oliver Crisp has rightly noted, “Nevin’s struggle to make sense of the nature of the Church was born from a deep engagement with German philosophy and theology.” See Oliver Crisp, Retrieving Doctrine: Essays in Reformed Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010), 158. For an excellent summary of both the “Enlightenment” and its implications for Christianity as well as the theological accommodations made by Schleiermacher and the accompanying rise of Protestant liberalism, see John D. Woodbridge and Frank A. James, Church History (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), vol. 2, esp. chs. 10 and 15.
23. I would particularly commend in this regard W. Bradford Littlejohn, series introduction in The Mystical Presence: And The Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord’s Supper, by John Williamson Nevin, Mercersburg Theology Study Series 1 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2012). Two biographies of note for further background are D. G. Hart, John Williamson Nevin: High Church Calvinist (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2005); and Richard E. Wentz, John Williamson Nevin: American Theologian (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
24. Howard Hageman in his article on Nevin succinctly defines the theological movement: “[It] sought to restore ecclesiological, sacramental, and liturgical elements to the Reformed tradition.” See Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith, ed. Donald K. McKim and David F. Wright (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992), 256. Particularly worth consulting for more information are W. Bradford Littlejohn, The Mercersburg Theology and the Quest for Reformed Catholicity (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2009); and James Hastings Nichols, Romanticism in American Theology: Nevin and Schaff at Mercersburg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), the latter of which is still generally considered to be the best articulation of Nevin’s thought and the Mercersburg theological program.
25. Littlejohn, introduction, xi.
26. Crisp, Retrieving Doctrine, 172.
27. Walter H. Conser Jr., “Nevin on the Church” in Reformed Confessionalism in Nineteenth-Century America: Essays on the Thought of John Williamson Nevin, ed. Sam Hamstra and Arie J. Griffioen (Lanham, MD: American Theological Library Association and Scarecrow Press, 1995), 97.
28. John Williamson Nevin, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: John Nevin’s Writings on Ecclesiology(1844–1849), ed. Sam Hamstra Jr. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2017), 113.
29. Ibid., 114.
30. Ibid., 118, 114. Other organic images reinforce the symbiotic relation: the union of Christ and his church is as close as branches to the trunk of a tree, as flesh and bones of a human body, as body and soul of a human person.
31. Ibid., 119.
32. Ibid., 120.
33. Ibid., 121.
34. Nevin’s view of the church’s catholicity is further developed in his 1846 sermon on Eph 1:23 (published under the title “The Church” in 1847) as he does more to unpack his distinction between the ideal church and the actual church, which manifests in the real church (One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, 150).
35. This is most clearly seen in Nevin’s 1851 essay “Catholicism,” published in the Mercersburg Review. It should perhaps be seen as no coincidence that such an essay giving sustained attention to the creedal note of catholicity should center as it does upon the institution of the Roman Catholic Church: it was exactly at this time that Nevin himself was considering “crossing the Tiber” and converting to Catholicism (he ultimately decided against such a move and remained in the German Reformed Church). By reflecting on what catholicity connoted in the Catholic tradition and comparing it with its manifestations in American Protestantism (which was drinking deeply, as he saw it, from the spirit of individualism and volunteerism), Nevin was able to pinpoint a significant problem in Protestant (including Reformed) catholicity to date. The problem was that suspicious Protestants have wrongly substituted “universal” for “catholic” in the creedal affirmation, when in point of fact “there are two kinds of generality and universality … all and whole … [and] only one of them answers to the true force of the term catholic” (John Williamson Nevin, “Catholicism,” Mercersburg Review 3, no. 1 [1851]: 2).
36. Conser, “Nevin on the Church,” 102. Accordingly, Nevin dedicated two works in particular to addressing the evils of sectarianism: Antichrist; or the Spirit of Sect and Schism (1848) and “The Sect System” (1849).
37. Nevin, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, 153.
38. John Williamson Nevin, “Theology within the Creed, ” in Mercersburg Theology, ed. James Hastings Nichols (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), 312–13. For Nevin this conviction meant not only a perpetual return to the Creed for proper (i.e., ecclesial) mediation of biblical teaching (seen in his repeating of the creedal content continually throughout his works), but also an extremely high estimation of patristic voices. This is seen perhaps most clearly in the weight Nevin gave to Cyprian’s ecclesiology as he was grappling with the question of whether the Roman or Protestant churches stood more faithfully in the tradition handed down from the fathers. We also do well to note here that Nevin’s catholicity of doctrine similarly manifested in an attentiveness to his Reformed forebears and the contours of the Reformed tradition in which he stood. For instance, it is important to realize that in his most significant work, The Mystical Presence (1846), Nevin was attempting to retrieve what he believed to be the historic position of the Reformed tradition as most powerfully articulated by Calvin himself; in his response to Hodge’s very critical review, he made extensive (and in most historians’ estimation, persuasive) appeals to the works of particular Reformed theologians (again Calvin, but also Bucer and Oecolampadius among others) as well as Reformed confessions and catechisms (including the Belgic and Second Helvetic Confessions and the Heidelberg Catechism) to make his case that he and the Eucharistic position which he articulated stood more centrally in the historic Reformed stream than Hodge and his Princetonian view of the Lord’s Supper. See Nevin, Mystical Presence, vi.
39. Conser, “Nevin on the Church,” 101.
40. See the very helpful analysis of The Mystical Presence and the exchange between Hodge and Nevin over its contents in Littlejohn, Mercersburg Theology and the Quest for Reformed Catholicity, 40–55.
41. The fact that Nevin was so concerned with the Eucharist as a church practice demonstrated that Nevin was not simply concerned that the church’s theology was catholic; he was just as concerned that its liturgical practices manifested a similar catholicity. We see this concern similarly manifesting in Nevin’s work (alongside Schaff) to reform the liturgy of the German Reformed Church so that it would be more church-historically connected by being more sacramentally oriented. For an example of a liturgy informed by the Mercersburg theology, see “An Evangelical Catholic Liturgy,” in Mercersburg Theology, 260–81. Even as late as 1867 Nevin was still laboring to see the German Reformed churches grounding their liturgy in historical forms and sacramental theology. In this regard, see John Williamson Nevin, “Vindication of the Revised Liturgy,” in Catholic and Reformed: Selected Theological Writings of John Williamson Nevin, ed. Charles Yrigoyen and George H. Bricker (Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1978), 311–403.
42. Again, space constraints prevent me from providing full biographical background for Bavinck. For an outstanding exposition of his historical and theological context, see James Perman Eglinton, Trinity and Organism: Towards a New Reading of Herman Bavinck’s Organic Motif (London: T&T Clark, 2012), esp. ch. 1. See also John Bolt, introduction to Reformed Dogmatics, by Herman Bavinck, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003–2008), 1:11–23; and the excellent work of Ronald N. Gleason, Herman Bavinck: Pastor, Churchman, Statesman, and Theologian (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2010).
43. Bolt, introduction, 15.
44. Particularly, Eglinton’s thesis is that, for Bavinck, “Trinity ad intra leads to organism ad extra,” arguing that Bavinck sees the organic nature of the created order (including re-creational entities such as the church) as emanating from the unity-in-diversity inherent in God’s triune life (Eglinton, Trinity and Organism, 80). Brock and Sutanto concur that this framework elucidates much of Bavinck’s theology, noting: “For Bavinck a trinitarian doctrine of God implies a creation that reflects an organic unity and diversity—an interconnected whole that resists both polyphonic diversity and static uniformity” (Brock and Sutanto, “Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Eclecticism,” 329).
45. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:524.
46. Ibid., 4:280.
47. Ibid., 4:281.
48. Ibid., 4:282.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., 4:323.
51. Kamphuis helpfully outlines the concerns Bavinck was seeking to address in the confessional environment of the seminary by noting, “In this context, Bavinck had two concerns: sectarianism and a dualism that separated the Christian life from the life of the world outside the church. Bavinck sensed a close connection between the two: both lacked an awareness of genuine catholicity. Sectarianism failed to respect the catholicity of the church; dualism did not honor the catholicity of the Christian faith itself” (Barend Kamphuis, “Herman Bavinck on Catholicity,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 24 [2013]: 97–98).
52. Herman Bavinck, “The Catholicity of Christianity and the Church,” CTJ 27 (1992): 221.
53. Ibid., 224.
54. Ibid., 226.
55. Ibid., 231.
56. Ibid., 244.
57. On the latter danger Bavinck expands with frightening accuracy on much of the mood in contemporary Evangelicalism today and merits extended quotation: “The rise of sectarianism that has accompanied the Protestant movement is a dark and negative phenomenon.... [There is] no longer an awareness of the difference between the church and a voluntary association. The sense that separation from the church is a sin has all but disappeared. One leaves a church or joins it rather casually. When something or other in a church no longer satisfies us, we look for another without any pangs of conscience. The decisive factor turns out to be our taste” (ibid., 247).
58. Bavinck notes that the Reformed tradition “while keeping the kingdom of heaven as a treasure, at the same time brings it out into the world as a leaven, certain that He who is for us is greater than he who is against us.... Is this not precisely what the catholicity of our Christian faith requires of us?” In contrast Roman Catholicism restricts the scope of the church in a way that undercuts the gospel as a treasure, while Pietism and sectarianism restrict the scope of redemption in a way that undercuts the gospel as leaven. Both forget, according to Bavinck, that the Christian faith “has the promise of overcoming the world. That faith is catholic, not restricted to any time, place, nation, or people. It can enter into all situations, can connect with all forms of natural life, is suitable to every time, beneficial for all things, and relevant in all circumstances” (ibid., 248–49).
59. Eglinton, Trinity and Organism, 92.
60. Ibid., 93.
61. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:86.
62. Herman Bavinck, “Foreword to the First Edition (Volume 1) of the Gereformeerde Dogmatiek,” CTJ 45 (2010): 9.
63. Thus he says, “To cherish the ancient simply because it is ancient is neither Reformed nor Christian. A work of dogmatic theology should not simply describe what was true and valid but what abides as true and valid. It is rooted in the past but labors for the future” (ibid., 10). Brock and Sutanto are thus right to conclude that Bavinck is no antiquarian, for “the Reformed Dogmatics ... is not a repristination of classical orthodoxy but a reappropriation of it in a modern context. Bavinck’s catholicity brings the ancient into conversation with the modern but never precludes the modern by inciting the ancient.... [It] precludes none as interlocutor and partner in ‘thinking God’s thoughts’” (Brock and Sutanto, “Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Eclecticism,” 314, 316).
64. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:86.
65. Brock and Sutanto, “Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Eclecticism,” 315.
66. Ibid.
67. Quoted in Eglinton, Trinity and Organism, 92.
68. Herman Bavinck, “The Future of Calvinism,” Presbyterian and Reformed Review 5 (1894): 6.
69. Certainly the most prominent of the similarities is their common expression of a robust doctrine of catholicity developed over many years and in several different works (especially when contrasted with the Princetonians). For both of these theologians, it is clear that their doctrine of catholicity has deep roots in a well-developed ecclesiology, and it is equally clear that the doctrine of the church was not a marginal locus but rather a central concern of theirs. Both men are similarly concerned with manifesting a catholicity of doctrine, straining to ensure they are listening closely to the testimony of the church fathers, especially in the creedal tradition, and incorporating insights gleaned into their larger dogmatic programs. Likewise, both theologians embody a catholicity of practice: for them, theology is for the church and should cultivate catholic unity and prompt a pattern of lament over schism and division, even as we recognize that our shared faith and our common acts of corporate worship (from the theological task itself to the taking of the bread and cup) give testimony to our mutual union with Christ. The similarities between Nevin and Bavinck even go beyond the contours orienting this article: it is witnessed in their appeal to an organic motif which plays a very significant role in their theological systems (and leads both to conclude that the church is no aggregate of individuals but an organic whole), in their desire to emphasize that there are not “two churches” but rather one church manifesting in different modes (local and universal, visible and invisible, ideal and actual, etc.), and in their insistence that confessional theologians of the nineteenth century must critically engage (rather than capitulate to or outright dismiss) the issues raised by modern theologians such as Schleiermacher and his ilk. Above all else for this article, however, we should notice that both theologians intentionally and consistently identified themselves as Reformed theologians out of a conviction (even if questioned from time to time) that Reformed catholicity was a particularly compelling manifestation of the creedal content that they both valued highly.
70. Nevin held that these ancient voices were not only compatible with the (best of the) Reformed tradition but also necessary for it, believing, in the words of Paul Avis, that “any reformation requires there already be a church in existence before it can be reformed. In that sense, ‘reformed’ is dependent on and subsidiary to ‘catholic’” (Paul Avis, “Catholic and Reformed?,” Ecclesiology 12, no. 2 [2016]: 139).
71. Eduardo J. Echeverria, “The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology: A Catholic Response to Herman Bavinck,” CTJ 45 (2010): 87.
72. Bavinck’s Scripture principle enables him to examine his own tradition critically, and he bemoans many of the same ills that Nevin identified in the Reformed churches of the nineteenth century (such as their becoming beholden to modernism and infected with a deep subjectivism). But he understands that these ills demonstrate not the inherent moribundity of the Reformed tradition but rather the “lack of progress and even deformation ... of its mission to catholicity.” Indeed, Bavinck consistently held his ground that the Reformed stream was the best one to be standing in because “it is relatively the purest statement of the truth. In no other confession does the Christian faith in its religious, ethical, and theological character come as clearly into its own” (Bavinck, “Foreword to Volume 1 of the Gereformeerde Dogmatiek,” 9–10).
73. Ibid.
74. Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, “Confessional, International, and Cosmopolitan: Herman Bavinck’s Neo-Calvinistic and Protestant Vision of the Catholicity of the Church,” Journal of Reformed Theology 12 (2018): 26.
75. We ought to give Bavinck the last word. He deftly points us to the significance and even urgency of such a project for our time: “The affirmation of the catholicity of the church and of the universalism of Christianity is of the greatest significance in our time, which is so rife with errors and schisms.... This catholicity of the church, as the Scriptures portray it for us and the early churches exemplify it for us, is breathtaking in its beauty. Whoever becomes enclosed in the narrow circle of a small church or conventicle, does not know it and has never experienced its power and comfort. Such a person shortchanges the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit and incurs a loss of spiritual treasures that cannot be made good by meditation and devotion. Such a person will have an impoverished soul” (Bavinck, “Catholicity of Christianity and the Church,” 22, 27).