Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena

In our last post we introduced some of the high points in Bavinck’s definition of dogmatics and its relationship to the faith, creeds and members of the church. We continue our series with a few more significant elements in Bavinck’s prolegomena before exploring his thought in the doctrines of God, creation, fall, and redemption.

If the church is defined and lives by the Word, dogma demonstrates the truth of the faith and her confessions by scripture and not by, “what is conceived by philosophy.” Bavinck presupposes that scripture contains the truth that was with God in all eternity, and has been made known by its own power, “even after the fall, sin notwithstanding.” One of Bavinck’s compelling arguments shows that philosophers of religion (in this instance Ritschl and Troeltsch) proceed on an “unproven presupposition … that God exists” and can be known. With the rise of rationalism and the scholastic character of theology, prolegomena has taken a much more formal character, taking forever to get to the actual content of dogma. Bavinck’s analysis is quite demanding, but the payoff is a clear cut case for a dogmatics that corresponds with scripture and not one built on the speculation of ‘natural theology.’

Right here would be a good place to furnish a sample of Bavinck’s course of action from the doctrine of God, or other loci. But for all that Bavinck lays down for the firm and foundational guidance of scripture he has raised a lot of questions. Sure, everyone knows the term ‘theology’ is not used in scripture, and usually take it for granted; but some writers have pointed out the difficulty with the strict use of scripture terminology, especially during the Arian controversy. Further, I can imagine someone being uncomfortable with Bavinck’s analysis of the fall (Gen. 3), which holds that scripture doesn’t really explain the fall or the problem of evil, and for that matter merely records the event. On the other hand, he does hold to the historic character and unity of the Genesis narrative. Tensions like these are what give Bavinck’s work longevity.

These last two posts summarized some of the issues in part one of Bavinck’s prolegomena. We’ll hopefully continue to track his presuppositional claims of scripture in parts three and four (principia and principium externum) before moving into our study on the fall. A recent book well worth reading along side Bavinck is Daniel J. Treir’s Virtue and the Voice of God, Toward Theology as Wisdom (Eerdmans, 2006, 278 pps.). His introduction echoes many of Bavinck’s concerns with a philosophically driven theology in the current context.