Reformed Dogmatics : Volume 1

Prolegomena

Bavinck, Herman, Bolt, John, Vriend, John

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781441206145
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

In partnership with the Dutch Reformed Translation Society, Baker Academic is proud to offer the first volume of Herman Bavinck's complete Reformed Dogmatics in English for the very first time.
Bavinck's approach throughout is meticulous. As he discusses the standard topics of dogmatic theology, he stands on the shoulders of giants such as Augustine, John Calvin, Francis Turretin, and Charles Hodge. This masterwork will appeal to scholars and students of theology, research and theological libraries, and pastors and laity who read serious works of Reformed theology.

1

THE SCIENCE OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY

The orderly study of the truths of the Christian faith has been described by many different terms. The designator “dogmatics” has the advantage of anchoring such study in the normative teachings or dogmas of the church. Dogmas are only those truths properly set forth in Scripture as things to be believed. A truth confessed by the church is not a dogma because the church recognizes it but solely because it rests on God’s authority. Still, religious dogma is always a combination of divine authority and churchly confession. Dogmas are truths acknowledged by a particular group. Though the church’s dogmas have authority only if they are truly God’s truths, church teaching is never identical with divine truth itself. At the same time, it is a mistake to devalue most dogma as impermanent aberrations from the pure essence of a nondogmatic gospel, as some modern theologians do. Opposition to dogma is not a general objection to dogma as such but a rejection of specific dogmas judged unacceptable by some. Thus, theology after Kant denies dogmas rooted in a science of God because of the modern dogma that God is unknowable. Dogmas rooted in morality or religious experience are then substituted in their place. However, from the viewpoint of Christian orthodoxy, dogmatics is the knowledge that God has revealed in his Word to his church concerning himself and all creatures as they stand in relation to him. Though objections to this definition in the name of faith often miss the mark, it must never be forgotten that the knowledge of God, which is the true object of dogmatic theology, is only obtained by faith. God cannot be known by us apart from revelation received in faith. Dogmatics seeks nothing other than to be true to the faith-knowledge given in this revelation. Dogmatics is thus not the science of faith or of religion but the science about God. The task of the dogmatician is to think God’s thoughts after him and to trace their unity. This is a task that must be done in the confidence that God has spoken, in humble submission to the church’s teaching tradition, and for communicating the gospel’s message to the world.

The proper place of dogmatics in the larger encyclopedia of theological study is not a matter of great debate. The main issue here has to do with the relation between dogmatic theology and philosophy. Neither the subjection of dogmatics to philosophical presuppositions nor the dualistic separation of confessional theology from the scientific study of religion is acceptable. Such a split fractures the lives of theology professors and pastors alike. Efforts to “rescue” religious studies from the acids of modernistic philosophy are a favor the church cannot afford to accept. All knowledge is rooted in faith and all faith includes an important element of knowing. The task of dogmatic theology, in the final analysis, is nothing other than a scientific exposition of religious truth grounded in sacred Scripture. Apologetic defense of this truth and ethical applications to Christian conduct both are based in and proceed from divine revelation and faith; they do not ground or shape faith. Dogmatics and ethics are a unity, though they may be treated as distinct disciplines. Dogmatics describes God’s deeds for and in us; ethics describes what renewed human beings now do on the basis of and in the strength of these deeds.

TERMINOLOGY

[1] The term dogmatics is of relatively recent date. In the past numerous other designations were in use. Origen entitled his main dogmatic work On First Principles (Περι Ἀρχων). Theognostus, one of Origen’s successors at the school in Alexandria, chose for his work—since lost—the title Outlines, and Lactantius spoke of The Divine Institutes. Augustine expanded the title of his Little Handbook or Enchiridion with the words On Faith, Hope and Love. John of Damascus published an Exact Treatise on the Orthodox Faith. First surfacing in the work of Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636), the term Sentences in the thirteenth century gave way to Summa Theologiae. Melanchthon spoke of Common Places (Loci Communes). The term loci was borrowed from Cicero and served to translate the Greek word τοποι. By τοποι Aristotle meant the general rules of dialectic that were known “of themselves” and “established” and could therefore serve as “elements of proofs.”1 Transferring this theory of the τοποι from dialectics to rhetoric, Cicero used the term for the general rules or places where a rhetorician could find the arguments he needed when treating any given topic. He defined the loci as “bases from which arguments are adduced, i.e., reasons which give credence to matters of doubt,” and referred to such sources as the idea, the definition, the division, the basic meaning of words and synonyms, and so forth.2 For centuries these topical loci, which made available to public speakers the means by which they could find the necessary material and proofs for their chosen topics, continued to be important in rhetoric. When these sedes argumentorum (debating databases!) bore a general character so that they could serve in relation to all subjects, they were called common loci; by contrast, the name proper loci served to designate the proof texts that could only be applied to a certain subject.

Melanchthon’s loci communes owe their existence to two lines of work he was pursuing in the same period: a series of critical comments on Lombard’s Sentences and a commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. In 1520, as a result of this twofold activity, he conceived the plan to write Locos Communes concerning “law, sin, grace, sacraments as well as other mysteries.” In other words, he sought to summarize and discuss under a number of general concepts—in the manner of rubrics, following the instruction of the rhetoricians—the scriptural material he derived from his study of the Letter to the Romans. These general rubrics or loci he borrowed from Lombard but filled them with content, derived not from scholasticism but from Scripture, specifically from Paul’s letter to the Romans. In Melanchthon, therefore, the term loci communes thus did not yet refer to fundamental truths but to the formal rubrics or schemata under which the truths of Scripture could appropriately be subsumed and discussed. Nor did the treatment of these loci aim at any scholarly goal but served only to introduce the unlearned to the knowledge of Holy Scripture. In terms of completeness and organization, the work therefore left much to be desired and was considerably expanded only in a later edition. Because Melanchthon himself characterized his loci communes by the phrase “theological outlines” and later even spoke of loci praecipui (principal loci), the formal meaning of the name, gradually and unnoticed, passed into a material one, and loci communes became the name for the principal truths of the Christian faith. Accordingly, Spalatin’s German translation of Melanchthon’s work perfectly reproduced the title in terms of content: “The main articles and chief points of Holy Scripture in its entirety.”3

This new name for the treatment of the truths of the faith, with rare exceptions, gained little acceptance among Roman Catholic theologians. While they use the expression loci, they do not employ it in the sense it had gradually acquired thanks to Melanchthon, but in the sense it had had from the days of Aristotle and Cicero. For them it refers not to the articles of the faith (articuli fidei) but to the principles or sources of theology.4 Melchior Canus’s famous work, which was published in 1563 under the title of Loci Theologici, does not deal with dogmatics itself but with its sources, of which there are ten: Scripture, tradition, pope, councils, church, church fathers, scholastics, reason, philosophy, history. On the other hand, numerous Lutheran and Reformed theologians, like Chemnitz, Hutter, Gerhard, Calovius, Martyr, Musculus, Hyperius, Ursinus, Maccovius, Chamier, and others, did adopt Melanchthon’s term loci communes.

Still, in time, as the need for a more systematic treatment of the truths of faith increasingly made itself felt, the name could not maintain itself. From the beginning of the Reformation, other names had already been in use as well. Zwingli had published dogmatic writings under the title of Commentary on True and False Religion: A Brief and Lucid Exposition of the Christian Faith.5 Calvin preferred the name Institutes of the Christian Religion.6 And later theologians of the Lutheran and Reformed churches returned to the ancient name of “theologia.” To distinguish it from other theological disciplines, which gradually increased in number and importance, this name “theologia” had to be qualified. To that end the adjectives “didactic,” “systematic,” “theoretical,” or “positive” were added, and since L. Reinhart (Synopsis theologiae dogmaticae, 1659) also that of “dogmatic.” This description made obvious sense since the truths of the faith had for a long time already been designated “dogmata” and the separation of dogmatics and ethics begun with the work of Danaeus and Calixtus required a distinct name for each of the two disciplines. Since then the addition “dogmatic” gained such dominance that, having banished the main term “theology,” it took over, found acceptance among theologians of various confessional stripes, and could not be ousted by the later names “doctrine of the faith,” “doctrine of salvation,” or “Christian doctrine.”

DOGMA, DOGMATICS, AND THEOLOGY

[2] The word dogma, from Gr. dokein (“to be of the opinion”), denotes that which is definite, that which has been decided, and is therefore fixed.7 In Scripture (LXX) it is employed to refer to government decrees (Esther 3:9; Dan. 2:13, 6:8; Luke 2:1; Acts 17:7); the statutes of the Old Covenant (Eph. 2:15; Col. 2:14); and the decisions of the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:28; 16:4). In the classic writers it has the meaning of a decision or decree, and in philosophy that of truths established by axiom or by proofs.8 The word in these senses was also adopted in theology. Josephus9 says that from childhood on Jews view the books of the Old Covenant as divinely given dogmata. In the same sense the church fathers speak of the Christian religion or doctrine as the divine dogma, of Christ’s incarnation as the dogma of theology, of the truths of the faith that are authoritative in and for the church as the dogmata of the church, and so forth. The word continues to have the same meaning in the Latin writers, like Vincent of Lerins in his Commonitory10 and among Protestant theologians like Sohnius, Ursinus, Hyperius, Polanus, and others.11

The use of the word dogma teaches us, in the first place, that a wide range of commands, decisions, truths, propositions and rules for living can be denoted by it. Nonetheless, the element that they all have in common is that dogma consistently stands for something that is established and not subject to doubt. Cicero, therefore, correctly characterizes it12 as something stable, fixed, reasoned and that no argument can shake. Still, there is nothing in the word itself that explains why something is a dogma and deserves credence. The authority or ground from which a dogma derives its firmness differs in accordance with the type of dogma it is. Political dogma rests on the authority of the civil government, while philosophical dogmas derive their power from self-evidence or argumentation. By contrast, religious or theological dogmas owe their authority solely to a divine testimony, whether this is perceived, as among pagans, from an oracle, or, among Protestant Christians, from Scripture or, among Roman Catholics, from the magisterium of the church. Some say, incorrectly, that dogma rests on personal authority or coincides with the theological construction of a devout scholar.13 Etymologically and historically there has always been a sharp distinction between δογμα and δοξα, between a doctrine based on a given authority and authoritative for a specific circle and in a specific area on the one hand, and the private opinion of a person, however renowned, on the other. Accordingly, no one would think of labeling, say, the ideas of Swedenborg on the spiritworld as “dogmas.” Nor is it correct to say, as Lobstein does, that in its historical sense a dogma is nothing other than “a conceptually apprehended statement of belief officially formulated by the proper authority.” Lobstein specifies this authority as “the church in collaboration with the state.” Dogma would then be “briefly, an obligatory statement of belief drawn up by the infallible church and sanctioned by the absolute power of the state.”14 This is incorrect since, in the first place, the authority of the state is not the sole basis on which the so-called political dogmas rest. Even the Roman Catholic Church professes and maintains its dogmas independently of and, if necessary, over against all state authority. Nor, in the second place, does the authority of a dogma rest on a pronouncement and determination of the church, as Schleiermacher and many others after him have taught us.15 Rome can teach this because it attributes infallibility to the church. But the Reformation recognizes no truth other than that which is given on the authority of God in holy Scripture. “The Word of God grounds the articles of faith and beyond that no one, not even an angel.”16 Dogmas, articles of faith, are only those truths “which are properly set forth in Scripture as things to be believed.”17 It is only those “propositions [sententiae] which must be believed on account of a mandate from God.”18 Among Reformed theologians, therefore, the following proposition returns again and again: “the principle into which all theological dogmas are distilled is: God has said it.”

In the second place, usage informs us that the concept of dogma contains a social element. From the character of authority that belongs to it, it naturally follows that as such a dogma is recognized in a certain circle. However well-established a truth may be, unless it is recognized, it is nothing more—in the eyes of people outside that circle—than the opinion of some teacher, and therefore a private opinion. The notion of dogma implies that the authority it possesses is able to command recognition and thus to maintain itself. A distinction has to be made, therefore, between dogma as it has to do with itself (quoad se) and dogma as it has to do with us (quoad nos). A given proposition is a dogma in itself, apart from any recognition, if it rests on the authority of God. Nonetheless, it is intended, and has an inherent tendency, to be recognized by us as such. Truth always seeks to be honored as truth and can never be at peace with error and deception. It is, moreover, of the greatest importance for every believer, particularly for the dogmatician, to know which Scriptural truths, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, have been brought to universal recognition in the church of Christ. By this process, after all, the church is kept from immediately mistaking a private opinion for the truth of God. Accordingly, the church’s confession can be called the dogma quoad nos (for us), that is, the truth of God as it has been incorporated in the consciousness of the church and confessed by it in its own language.

This means that the church of Christ therefore has a certain task to fulfill with respect to dogma. To preserve, explain, understand, and defend the truth of God entrusted to her, the church is called to appropriate it mentally, to assimilate it internally, and to profess it in the midst of the world as the truth of God. It is most definitely not the authority of the church that makes a dogma into dogma in a material sense, elevates it beyond all doubt, and enables it to function with authority. The dogmas of the church have, and may have, this status only if and to the degree they are the dogmas of God (δογματα του θεου). The power of the church to lay down dogmas is not sovereign and legislative but ministerial and declarative. Still, this authority has been granted by God to his church, and it is this power that enables and authorizes her to confess the truth of God and to formulate it in speech and writing. In this connection it must also be kept in mind that the dogmas have never been fully incorporated in the church’s creedal statements and ecclesiastically fixed. The life and faith that the church possesses is much richer than what comes to expression in its creedal statements. The church’s confession is far from formulating the entire content of the Christian faith. To begin with, a confession generally comes into being in response to specific historical events and arranges its positive and antithetical content accordingly. Furthermore, a confession does not make clear the inner coherence that exists among the various dogmas nor does it ever fully articulate the truth which God has revealed in his Word. The task of the dogmatician differs therefore from that of the student of the church’s creedal statements. The latter satisfies himself with the status of the dogmatic content of the creeds, but the former has to examine how the dogma arose genetically from Scripture and how, in accordance ...