Essays on Religion, Science, and Society

Bavinck, Herman, Bolt, John, Boonstra, Harry, Sheeres, Gerrit

• Editorial: Baker Academic
• Año: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781441206329
• Categoría: Theology & Religion
• Categoría: Christian Theology

Herman Bavinck, the premier theologian of the Kuyper-inspired, neo-Calvinistic revival in the late-nineteenth-century Netherlands, is an important voice in the development of Protestant theology. Essays on Religion, Science, and Society is the capstone of his distinguished career. These seminal essays offer an outworking of Bavinck's systematic theology as presented in his Reformed Dogmatics and engage enduring issues from a biblical and theological perspective. The work presents his mature reflections on issues relating to ethics, education, politics, psychology, natural science and evolution, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion. This collection--Bavinck's most significant remaining untranslated work--is now available in English for the first time. Pastors, students, and scholars of Reformed theology will value this work.

1

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION (FAITH)

[9] The title of the subject briefly discussed here requires further explanation in order to avoid misunderstanding. One can understand the genitive (“of religion/faith”) in such a way that it is subjective, in which case “philosophy of religion/faith” is a philosophical view that finds its origin in religious faith, and is governed by it from beginning to end. But “of religion/faith” can also be an objective genitive, and then the reference is to a philosophical view about religion/faith itself—in the first place, about the essence and nature of religious faith [fides qua creditur]; and second, about the object or content of religious faith [fides quae creditur]. In this essay the title has the second meaning; the intent is to consider briefly the essence and object of religious faith.

Such a consideration of religion/faith has become especially necessary because the Reformation gave a different meaning to faith than was customary before that time. In Roman Catholic theology the view of faith was and is very simple: it generally is the acceptance of a witness on the basis of the trustworthiness of the spokesman, and it retains this meaning also in the religious arena. It is true that an operation of the Spirit is necessary to illumine the mind and to bend the will. Still, faith is and remains an activity of the mind. It exists in the acceptance of and agreement with God’s truth as contained in Scripture and tradition, on the basis of the inerrant authority of the church. That is why faith is not sufficient for salvation, for the reception of saving grace. Faith is only one of the preparations for baptism, in which grace is conveyed, and it must be completed by love and good works.

The Reformation, however, presented a completely different view of faith. [10] Even though faith could properly be called knowledge, it was, as Calvin said, still more a matter of the heart than of the mind. According to the Heidelberg Catechism, faith is not only a certain knowledge by which I hold everything that God has revealed to us in his Word to be true, but also a firm trust that not only others, but that I too have been given forgiveness of sins, eternal justification, and salvation, granted by God out of grace.[1] Faith thus received from the Reformers a unique, independent, religious meaning. It was distinguished essentially from the faith of which we speak in daily life, and also from historical and temporal faith, or faith in miracles. It was not just an acceptance of divine truth, but it also became the bond of the soul with Christ, the means of fellowship with the living God.

However, this view gave rise to various very difficult questions. What is the nature of this knowing that is mentioned first as an element of faith, and what is its content? What is the nature of the trust that, second, describes the essence of faith? Does this trust really and from the beginning include the assurance that God has granted me personal forgiveness of sins, eternal justification, and salvation? How can we make it clear to ourselves and to others that faith is knowing as well as trusting, that it is at the same time a matter of the head and of the heart? And what is the relationship between these two—do they just stand next to each other, or are they intrinsically connected? Do they both come from the same source and foundation? If so, what do they have in common? Which is the higher, or rather, the deeper synthesis that incorporates both of them? All these questions have been discussed at length in both scholarly and popular writings, but up to the present day the views about the essence of faith remain widely divergent in both scholarly and pious circles.

In everyday life a lack of a solution to these questions was even more sad. When the struggle of the Reformation was past and the enthusiasm had cooled, the two elements of faith were pulled apart more and more. On the one hand, a cold orthodoxy emerged that interpreted faith only in terms of doctrine, and on the other hand, a Pietism that valued devoutness above truth. This dualism in religion, church, and theology was strengthened by the twofold orientation of the newer philosophy that, after Descartes and Bacon, eventually ended up in dogmatism and empiricism.

[11] It was Immanuel Kant’s goal to reconcile this philosophic dualism. Although he was an adherent of the Enlightenment, he did undergo a remarkable change, especially under British influence. During his study of the natural sciences, he came under the allure of mechanical explanation of natural phenomena, especially as this was held as the ideal of science by Isaac Newton. In epistemology, Kant was especially influenced by the criticism in Britain, notably by David Hume, so that he turned his back on dogmatism and became convinced that rationalism in theology and metaphysics was untenable. From now on, according to Kant, genuine scholarship/science was possible only in the world of phenomena. The transcendental and supernatural world are inaccessible to the human mind; all proofs adduced for the supernatural end up in an antinomy.

However, Kant was too religious, or at least too moral, to be satisfied with the results of his theory. He could not surrender faith in himself: faith in the moral worth of each human person that transcends the whole world. If this faith was not to be a chimera, then it had to rest on another, firmer foundation than the cogent reasons and proofs of rationalism. Kant discovered such a better foundation for faith in the writings of Rousseau. Also a son of the Enlightenment, Rousseau for a time was friendly with the Encyclopedists. However, in 1749 a tremendous change took place in his life.

The Academy at Lyon had announced a writing contest with this question: Has scientific and artistic progress contributed to the impoverishment or the improvement of morality? During a walk, Rousseau learned about this contest in the Mercure de France, and suddenly a new light dawned on him. He saw another world, and he became another person. Suddenly he became conscious of the deep and sharp contrast between nature and culture that was evident in his time. From that point on he became the enthusiastic preacher of the gospel of nature and a living protest against the Enlightenment, as the father of Romanticism. In his teaching about society and state, education and religion, he turned from the corrupt culture of his time to the truth and simplicity of nature. In all areas, the historical had to make room for what was originally given, [12] [abandoning] decaying society for innocent nature, positive Christianity for natural religion, the false reasons of the mind for the impulse of feeling. Certainty about the truths of religion was also to be found in feeling. Rousseau does make use of rational arguments to prove the existence of God, the freedom of the will, and the immortality of the soul. However, for him these arguments are subordinate and of incidental worth. For him the final certainty of these truths of the faith are not to be found in the theoretical but in the practical sphere, in the original and immediate witness of feeling that is deeper and much more reliable than the reasoning mind. Each person is assured in his heart about a supersensory world.

Rousseau’s influence on his contemporaries and their descendants was overwhelming. Lifestyle and clothing were reshaped according to his example. His thoughts about inequality among people became the material from which communist and socialist systems were built. Without Rousseau, France would not have had a revolution. Modern teachings about religion, morality, and education are permeated by his spirit. The philosophy of Kant, Fichte, and Jacobi; the Romanticism of Schlegel and Tieck; the theology of feeling of Schleiermacher—all these have been influenced by his ideas. The practical orientation of Kant’s religious philosophy is especially reminiscent of the teaching about feeling on which Rousseau had built religion.

But Kant was not a person of emotions and therefore could not identify positively with Rousseau’s thoughts. He did, however, learn one thing from Rousseau, that religious truths possess a different certainty for people than truths of the mind or reason, of science or philosophy. For Kant this insight provided spiritual liberation, the freeing from an oppressive restraint. If religion and morality really contain their own certainty, then metaphysics does not need to provide all kinds of proofs for God’s existence, the freedom of the will, and the immortality of the soul. Moreover, science could then freely go its own way and be bound only by its own character and laws. Criticism also would have freedom to investigate the most sensitive topics, without having to fear negative results. Morality and religion would then have their own foundation and would be safe and secure from all attacks of science.

For Kant this foundation was not feeling (as with Rousseau), [13] but practical reason, the moral nature of man. In his conscience, man feels himself bound to a categorical, unconditional, absolute imperative. The “thou shalt” of the moral law supersedes all considerations and excuses, and demands the whole person for itself, always and in all circumstances. Here a power arises in man himself that is far above all other powers in nature. As a moral creature, man is therefore a citizen of another, higher order than nature; he belongs to a kingdom of invisible elements that exceeds all earthly treasures. If this moral world order is to be true reality and not an illusion, and if it is to triumph one day over all that is great and strong and mighty in this world, then man must be free in his actions and his soul must be immortal to receive his reward in the hereafter, and God must exist in order to reconcile in eternal harmony the terrible opposites between virtue and luck that exist on earth. These are not conclusions legitimately deduced from preceding scientific premises, but they are postulates put forth by man according to his moral nature. He cannot prove, he cannot demonstrate, that it is all true, but he is subjectively certain of it; he believes and acts as if it were true; he does not know, but he believes, and he has moral grounds for his belief. Kant therefore gladly relinquished knowledge about religious and moral matters, because he had found another, safer place for faith.

All those who join Kant in this transition from theoretical to practical reason go, as a matter of principle, in the direction that is usually called “ethical”[2] in religion and theology, in metaphysics and philosophy. First, they limit knowledge to what the senses can observe, and last, they see the only basis for faith to be in a supernatural order. However, “ethical” includes many differences of insight and views among the followers of this orientation. In his negative views, Kant agreed with Rousseau, but in his positive views he went in a totally different direction. In the same way Schleiermacher mainly agreed with Kant in epistemology, deducing that man cannot know the absolute psychologically because of the limitation of human knowledge, but with Fichte he also deduced this lack philosophically from the infinity of the absolute. Schleiermacher, in distinction from Kant, held that willing and acting and knowing do not disclose the supersensible world, because this willing also moves in opposites and never reaches unity. [14] This unity, this oneness, of thinking and being in the absolute can be experienced and enjoyed only in feeling, which precedes thinking and willing and is completely independent of absolute power. But whether one goes in Kant’s moral (ethical) direction or in Schleiermacher’s mystical direction, in both cases one is in direct opposition to Hegel. Elevating reason to a cosmic principle, Hegel recognized the essence of things in self-moving thought and considered religion, just like art and philosophy, to be a developmental stage in the movement of absolute spirit.

However, all these orientations, the ethical and mystical as well as the speculative, suffer from a significant one-sidedness. By limiting religion to one human faculty, they diminish man’s universal character. They divide man in two and separate what belongs together. They create a gulf between religion and culture, and they run the danger of reducing religion to moral duty or aesthetic emotion or a philosophic view. But according to the Christian, confession religion is other than and higher than all those views; religion must not just be something in one’s life, but everything. Jesus demands that we love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength. In our thinking and living, there can be no division between God and the world, between religion and culture; no one can serve two masters.

Therefore, if we want to do full justice to religion, we must return to the central unity in man that is the basis for differentiating his faculties and which in Holy Scripture is often designated the heart, from which proceed all expressions of life in mind, feeling, and will. Reformed theologians sought that central point for religion in (as Calvin called it) the seed of religion [semen religionis] or sense of divinity [sensus divinitatis], and in the Christian religion theologians went behind faith and conversion to regeneration, which in principle is a renewal of the whole man. When they took a position in this center of man, they saw opportunity to avoid all one-sidedness of rationalism, mysticism, and ethicism, and to maintain that religion is the animating principle of all of life.

In due time, under the operation of word and Spirit, conversion comes from this new life that is planted in regeneration. Conversion affects the will and emotions, and faith comes to the level of consciousness. [15] With this point of view, all reasons to rob faith of its genuine character and to change it into a mood or inclination disappear. One can then, without danger of error, describe faith as a habit or act of consciousness because it arises out of regeneration [and] is always a loving faith in principle distinguished from what is [popularly] called “faith.” Faith is the light that comes to one’s life, because it is born from this life. It is not a blind faith forced by authority, but a free deed from the new life that is born from God and reaches out to have fellowship with God.

The advantage of this view, which teaches that faith maintains its own character, is not trivial. It is noteworthy that the Christian religion, as taught by Holy Scripture, has called this action of regenerated consciousness “faith,” not feeling or experience. There must be a reason why the word “faith” is chosen for this activity of the Christian and is kept in all the confessions. That reason must be that the Christian faith is not a mood, inclination, or sensation, but binds us to an object and thus protects us from dangerous subjectivism.

That object to which the faith of the Christian is bound is, generally speaking, the revelation that God gives us of himself, the witness that proceeds from all his works, and the Word through which he speaks to us. Faith and revelation, revelation and faith belong together. Just as light and eye, sound and ear, the known object and the knowing subject correspond to each other—in the same way faith in our soul responds to God’s revelation in his works. They are made for and intended for each other.

This revelation of God to which faith responds is detected most fully in all the works of his hands, in all of nature, in all of history, in the totality of the universe. If we could see properly, we would be able to see God’s revelation everywhere, because he is and works everywhere; God is not absent anywhere. In him we live and move and have our being. The pious person sees God everywhere—within and outside of himself, in his heart and consciousness, in the leading of his life, in the blessings and catastrophes that come to him. There is nothing that is apart from God in our small and large worlds, nothing that does not ultimately carry the stamp of his glory.

However, this view does not deny that there are a variety of differences in the revelation of these all-encompassing works of God; the unity includes great and rich diversity. Centrally and finally this revelation comes to us in the person of Christ, and in the Word that testifies about him. Revelation then becomes a revelation of grace. In the Christian religion we do not just find revelation and faith in general, but grace and faith in a special sense that correspond to each other. [16] The Christian must believe everything promised in the gospel. Revelation, grace, and promise are the content of the gospel, and it is only a childlike faith that can gratefully accept and appropriate these benefits from God.

Thus the Christian faith has not only its own origin but also its own object: a word, a witness, a benefit, a gift, a promise from God to which it cleaves, by which it is encouraged, and to which it abandons itself with complete trust, in need and in death. This faith is not only a subjective mood or experience; it includes knowledge—knowledge of the one true God in the face of Jesus Christ, whom he sent. Such knowledge is life and light, grace and truth at the same time.

2

THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY

[17] The question about the essence of Christianity first arose in rather recent times. Until about the eighteenth century, no one felt the need to instigate a special search into the essence of the Christian religion. People enjoyed the possession of Christianity and felt completely at home in the singular view in which the church to which they belonged had formed itself within that Christianity. For everyone, Christianity was identical with the dogma, the worship, and the governance that was found in one’s own religious denomination. Whatever departed from that was impure and mixed with smaller or greater errors.

However, during and after the Reformation various confessions, churches, and sects continually increased, launching a different view about Christianity. Reformed and Lutheran orthodoxy soon made a distinction between fundamental and nonfundamental articles of faith. The theologians from Helmstad returned to the Apostles’ Creed. Biblical scholars claimed to find true Christianity in New Testament teaching which, according to their idea, was obtained by an exegesis independent of church doctrine. Deists and rationalists judged that the essence of Christianity was to be found only in the doctrines proclaimed by Jesus that corresponded to reason and were also discovered by reason, or at least could be discovered by reason.

In all these views, the essence of Christianity was sought especially or exclusively in doctrine. A change in this came through Schleiermacher. In accordance with his thought that religion is seated not in the mind and the will but in the emotions and in a feeling of complete dependence, he taught that Christianity was not knowledge or action but that its distinguishing mark was to be found in a singular relationship with Christ as Redeemer. Christ was our Redeemer, not through what he taught or did, but through what he was, through this complete and unremitting God-consciousness. [18] Christ felt complete dependence on God, the full fellowship with God was continually present, and thus the essence of religion was completely fulfilled. From this, Christ derived strength to create and strengthen in us that feeling of dependence, those religious feelings: by taking us up into his communion, he leads us to communion with God. In Schleiermacher’s construction of the essence of Christianity, one finds at least this positive element: the person of Christ again came to the foreground.

Actually, Kant had already perceived in the person of Christ the example, the symbol, the representative of the idea of a humanity pleasing to God. It is true that Kant held that faith in the historical appearance of this idea about Christ had no significance for salvation, but he did propose it and posited a certain connection between this idea and the person of Christ, although it was only a historical connection.

The historical appearance of Christ was of more significance in the philosophy of Schelling and Hegel. For Schelling, Christ was the one in whom the incarnation of God, begun in creation, came to its highest revelation and realization. And since Christ embodied the unity of divine and human, when he became the head of a congregation, all the members of the congregation had to embody this unity in the same manner. But while Schelling incorporated ...