Restored to Our Destiny: Eschatology and the Image of God in Herman Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics 9789004207196, 2011034515

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Restored to Our Destiny

Studies in Reformed Theology Editor-in-chief

Eddy Van der Borght, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Editorial Board

Abraham van de Beek, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Martien Brinkman, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Alasdair Heron, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg Dirk van Keulen, Protestant Theological University, Leiden Daniel Migliore, Princeton Theological Seminary Richard Mouw, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena Gerrit Singgih, Duta Wacana Christian University, Yogjakarta Conrad Wethmar, University of Pretoria

VOLUME 21

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/srt

Restored to Our Destiny Eschatology & the Image of God in Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics

By

Brian G. Mattson

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mattson, Brian G. Restored to our destiny : eschatology & the image of God in Herman Bavinck’s Reformed dogmatics / by Brian G. Mattson. p. cm. — (Studies in Reformed theology, ISSN 1571-4799 ; v. 21) Based on the author’s thesis (doctoral)—University of Aberdeen, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. ISBN 978-90-04-20719-6 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Bavinck, Herman, 1854–1921. Gereformeerde dogmatiek. 2. Eschatology. 3. Image of God. 4. Covenant theology. 5.Reformed Church— Doctrines. I. Title. BT821.3.M38 2012 230’.42—dc23 2011034515

ISSN 1571-4799 ISBN 978 90 04 20719 6 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.nl/brill-typeface. Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhofff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

For Christopher, Συστρατιώτην μου “Then we will fight in the shade.”

CONTENTS List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................... Acknowledgments  .......................................................................................... Preface  ................................................................................................................

ix xi xiii

Introduction: Herman Bavinck (1854–1921)  ............................................

1

I. Metaphysical Foundations  ......................................................................

19

II. Adam & Covenant  ...................................................................................

65

III. Adam & The Imago Dei .........................................................................

113

IV. The Fall & Loss of the Image  ..............................................................

153

V. Christ & The Imago Dei  ..........................................................................

167

VI. Christ & Covenant  ..................................................................................

203

Conclusion: Restored To Our Destiny  ......................................................

237

Bibliography  .....................................................................................................

245

Index  ...................................................................................................................

251

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS RD GD ORF MD PR WO CW CCC CCG CG CTJ CWSDL PRRD SCJ WTJ WCOF

Reformed Dogmatics Gereformeerde Dogmatiek Our Reasonable Faith Magnalia Dei Philosophy of Revelation Wijsbegeerte der Openbaring Chrielijke Wereldbeschouwing “The Catholicity of Chriianity and the Church” “Calvin and Common Grace” “Common Grace” Calvin Theological Journal “Covenant of Works and the Stability of Divine Law” Po-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics Sixteenth Century Journal Weminer Theological Journal Weminer Confession of Faith

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Spending a number of years studying theology in Scotland is hardly an individual undertaking, so it is appropriate to recognize and thank a number of people who made this project possible. First and foremost are my fijinancial supporters: Jim and Kitty Routson’s exceedingly generous contributions have been invaluable. That I am only one of what seems a great multitude to benefijit from their open-handed generosity is a great testimony to their faithful stewardship of the resources with which God has blessed them. We have benefijitted from and wish to thank, further, one other person who has desired to remain anonymous, whose reward for generous and sacrifijicial giving is securely stored up in heaven. Many thanks belong to my supervisor, Dr. Donald Wood, who patiently shepherded me through an agonizing number of fijits and starts to this project. (My initial time in Aberdeen could be described as being “offf to a flying stop.”) Nevertheless, he perceptively honed in on a number of my areas of interest and encouraged me to write on those topics. Don is a careful reader and perceptive inquirer, and I am aware that not all postgraduate students are so fortunate with their supervisors. I thank also Professor John Webster for presiding over a number of extremely helpful and enlightening seminars, from which I have greatly benefijitted. I would like to thank Dr. Richard B. Gafffijin, Jr., for his enduring interest in and encouragement of this work; the influence and imprint of his own theological work, represented in his short but powerful studies in Pauline theology, Resurrection & Redemption, and By Faith, Not By Sight, is nowhere more evident than in the topic of this study. Where would I be without my wife, Tara, and my daughters, Olivia, and our “Aberdeen Addition,” Bailey? I shudder to think, and stand amazed that one would follow me to the ends of the earth. Thanks to all my girls for their love and support. Tara and I would both like to thank our parents, Richard and Susan Mattson and Jerry and Deborah Jacobs also for their sacrifijices of time and resources which contributed to the completion of this project and this phase in our lives. On a practical note, I would like to thank Dr. Rick and Starr Stevens for the use of their wonderful, secluded cabin on the banks of the Bighorn River, from which I put the fijinishing touches on this manuscript. Such a setting from which to write cannot be easily obtained, and I am grateful

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to be in a place that, were it well-known, would be the envy of authors the world over. At least those who love fly-fijishing. Finally, my warmest thanks to one person without whom my postgraduate experience would have been miserably impoverished, without whose continual encouragement (over many drams of the “noble spirit”) this project would never have seen completion, and to whom this is dedicated: Christopher Richardson.

PREFACE This book is based on my doctoral thesis, which was successfully sustained at the University of Aberdeen in 2008. Most of the revisions are stylistic in nature, in hopes of providing a more readable work. A minor modifijication is that Chapter Three has been divided into three separate chapters. More major is the actual expansion that occurs in several places: some biographical material has been added to the Introduction; an excursus has been added to the discussion of the covenant of works in Chapter Two; and what is now Chapter Six includes a further brief discussion of Bavinck’s pneumatology in relation to his covenant theology, hopefully serving to provide a more rounded and satisfying picture of Bavinck’s theology. Until very recently the English speaking world of theology has been impoverished by not having access to Herman Bavinck’s four-volume Reformed Dogmatics, and the secondary scholarly literature on Bavinck’s theology in English has remained either unpublished or, if published, diffijicult to obtain. Although Bavinck was beloved by his Dutch Reformed intellectual descendants, widely admired in the portion of the 20th century theological world with access and ability to consult his original Dutch works (e.g., Karl Barth), respected by all those of difffering persuasions, he has still not yet begun to enjoy the attention he deserves. This is changing, now that the Dogmatics has been fully translated into the present lingua franca. This book is among the fijirst produced in the English language since the completion of the translation, and it will not be the last. This is not primarily because it is inadequate (and it is certainly not the fijinal word), but because of Bavinck himself. It is no exaggeration to suggest that his Reformed Dogmatics is the crowning achievement, an enduring capstone, of the lengthy tradition of historic Reformed orthodoxy; for that reason alone, historical theologians will be busy mining its riches for generations to come. But it is more than that. It is a self-conscious attempt to bring Reformed orthodoxy into conversation with theological themes and trajectories that continue to make themselves felt into the 21st century. Part of the attraction to Bavinck is just how relevant he continues to be. As such, he will remain a productive conversation partner for a new generation of theologians. This book seeks to contribute to this end.

INTRODUCTION

HERMAN BAVINCK (1854–1921) One might justly feel that Herman Bavinck had the unfortunate lot of being Abraham Kuyper’s closest colleague. Since their deaths, Kuyper’s in 1920 and Bavinck’s in 1921, many have assumed, not unreasonably, that the names go together. Sometimes “Kuyper,” very often “Kuyper and Bavinck,” but very rarely just “Bavinck.” In their own day, the flamboyant Kuyper was always the center of attention, and he has remained so in treatments of Neo-Calvinism ever since. Bavinck was, on the other hand, quiet, mild-mannered, and, for the most part, content to avoid the limelight. Subsequent scholarship has largely obliged him this unjust modesty. Yet after a hundred years, the wider world is beginning to realize what the Dutch have often sensed more keenly: of the two men, it was Bavinck, not Kuyper, who was the true theologian of Dutch Neo-Calvinism. With the publication of Bavinck’s magnum opus, his Reformed Dogmatics, in English, Bavinck’s name is now being uttered as it should: less relegated to the shadow of Kuyper and more as an independent authority.1 Herman Bavinck’s overriding, life-long concern explains his association with Kuyper’s Neo-Calvinism.2 That concern, which at times for him was nothing less than an existential crisis, was the relationship between Christianity and culture. What is the Christian’s proper place in the world? Is there a third way between extreme asceticism and world-rejection, on the

1  Henry Dosker, in his 1921 eulogy of Bavinck, refused to compare Kuyper and Bavinck, writing that the “law of perspective forbids it.” But then he immediately writes, “We might be surer of our ground had Kuyper left a well-worked out magnum opus on theology. It was in his mind to do so, but he never accomplished the task.” Perspective or not, consider the comparison complete. C.f., “Herman Bavinck: A Eulogy by Henry Elias Dosker,” in Herman Bavinck, Essays on Religion, Science & Society, ed. John Bolt, trans. Harry Boonstra and Gerrit Sheeres (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 13–14. 2  Rather than provide a typical biography here, I will highlight the aspects of his personal history I fijind most relevant to the present topic. For an accessible and outstanding biographical sketch, see Eric D. Bristley, Guide to the Writings of Herman Bavinck (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008), 9–27; also Ron Gleason, Herman Bavinck: Paor, Churchman, Statesman, and Theologian (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2010). For a helpful introduction to the historical context of Neo-Calvinism, see Justus M. van der Kroef, “Abraham Kuyper and the Rise of Neo-Calvinism in the Netherlands,” Church Hiory 17 (1948): 316–34.

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one hand, and worldliness on the other? Is the choice between monastic withdrawal versus nominal Christianity? These seem, often, to be the only choices available, and Bavinck felt it deeply, due in some measure to his own biography. The son of a successionist minister, his upbringing was in the more pietist branch of the Dutch Reformed church (the Afscheiding). After a year of schooling at the small, denominational seminary in Kampen, he shocked his entire family and church community by declaring his intention to study at the University of Leiden, which was a hot-bed of theological liberalism, led by such eminent fijigures as J.H. Scholten and Abraham Keunen. Over the objections of many, Bavinck went to Leiden, excelled in his studies, and kept his faith, although he lamented that his experience spiritually impoverished him. For him, Leiden heightened the question of the relation between Christianity and culture, between nature and grace. One could perhaps psychologize it this way: is it either Kampen or Leiden, or can one have elements of both, and remain faithful to God?3 He expresses the importance of the question this way in his lecture on common grace: At the bottom of every serious question lies the self-same problem. The relation of faith and knowledge, of theology and philosophy, of authority and reason, of head and heart, of Christianity and humanity, of religion and culture, of heavenly and earthly vocation, of religion and morality, of the contemplative and the active life, of sabbath and workday, of church and state—all these and many other questions are determined by the problem of the relation between creation and re-creation, between the work of the Father and the work of the Son. Even the simple, common man fijinds himself caught up in this struggle whenever he senses the tension that exists between his earthly and heavenly calling.4

Bavinck, by no means a simple, common man, felt himself pulled between two constituencies: more narrowly, his church, to which he sought always to be faithful, and more broadly, the world of academic theology, which he always viewed charitably even when fijirmly critiquing it (to the chagrin of Kuyper, who thought he was at times too soft on liberalism). It is rarely pointed out that this tension only arises from the blessing (curse?) that he was so accomplished in both: he was a faithful churchman, dedicated

3  It will shortly become clear that I am not sympathetic to those who use this “tension” as leverage to fijind any number of inner contradictions in his thought, i.e., so-called “two Bavincks” approaches. Nevertheless, this was a life-long struggle for which he sought, and found, unity. 4  “CG,” 55–56.

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to defending and promoting the Reformed faith, and he was an academic theologian par excellence.5 Others may subtly feel the pressures, but very few Reformed churchmen actually attain the stature Bavinck enjoyed. It is easy for the unaccomplished to retreat from the academy and to withdraw into smaller, more comfortable, confijines. But Bavinck authored one of the most signifijicant systematic theologies in the history of the Reformed tradition, for twenty years succeeded Kuyper as the chair of systematic theology at the Free University of Amsterdam, sat as a member of the Upper Chamber of the Dutch government, was knighted by the Queen of Holland into the Order of the Dutch Lion, made a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and was even hosted by President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House.6 Thus, he was not interested in the relationship between Christianity and culture as a theoretical exercise; his life-long pursuit of this question was nothing less than a life-long pursuit of faithfulness to God in his own personal and professional calling.7 Scholarship has long recognized that this relationship between Christianity and culture, or, alternatively, nature and grace, is the “central motif ” of his theology. It was Bavinck’s conviction that the western theological tradition has often misconstrued the relationship in dualistic directions (either nature or grace) because of a sometimes latent and often explicit alliance with Neoplatonic Greek philosophy, and his entire theological enterprise can be broadly viewed as his attempt to overcome this philosophical dualism. As John Bolt, editor of the English edition of the Dogmatics, notes, Bavinck sought and found unity for his thinking in Kuyper’s Neo-Calvinism, particularly in its world-afffijirming, yet no less resolutely

5  C.f., John Bolt, “Grand Rapids Between Kampen and Amsterdam: Herman Bavinck’s Reception and Influence in North America,” CTJ 38 (2003): 267. 6  There is little information on the circumstances surrounding this last, surprising, note. Valentijn Hepp indicates that Bavinck was a member of the Nederlandsche Comite voor de Hudsonfestreen (Dutch Committee for the Hudson Celebration), and that the committee was hosted by Roosevelt on his second visit to America in 1908; Valentijn Hepp, Dr. Herman Bavinck (Amsterdam: Ten Have, 1921), 303. The Hudson-Fulton Celebration, a commemoration of the 300th anniversary of Hudson’s historic voyage, was a very newsworthy event in 1909. There does not appear to be independent confijirmation that Bavinck was actually a member of the committee; the Holland Society Yearbook for 1908 does not list him as a member. Regardless, he must have had a signifijicant connection with the group to be invited, with them, to the White House. It must have been an amusing scene. Jovial Teddy, of course, spent a few moments sharing his plans for an African safari. 7  For a truly outstanding portrait of Bavinck’s spiritual quest for unity between Christianity and culture, see George Harinck, “‘Something That Must Remain, If the Truth Is to Be Sweet and Precious to Us,’: The Reformed Spirituality of Herman Bavinck,” CTJ 38, No. 1 (April 2003): 248–62.

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antithetical, Trinitarian worldview.8 While this is certainly true, the overarching purpose of this book is to highlight another, long-neglected, key to understanding Bavinck’s view of nature and grace. Bavinck defends his “organic” relation between nature and grace not only on Trinitarian terms, but also (and, arguably, more importantly) on the grounds of Reformed covenant theology. The Aim of This Book: Rationale and Method In volume two of the Dogmatics, following a discussion of the “broader” and “narrower” senses of the image of God, Bavinck makes this somewhat cryptic comment: Soon an additional distinction arose that was especially worked out in the doctrine of the covenant of works. This distinction answered the question what Adam had to become, not what Adam was. It is only in these three areas, the image of God in the broad sense, the image of God in the narrow sense, and the development or destination of the image of God—that is, in the doctrine of the covenant of works—that the locus of the image of God can be treated to the full extent.9

In its context, the almost offf-hand character of this remark threatens to obscure what is, in fact, an argument worth exploring: anthropology requires eschatology. Bavinck asserts here that unless one’s theological examination of the divine image takes into account not just what Adam “was” in the beginning (i.e., protology) but, further, what Adam “had to become,” (i.e., eschatology) it will fall short of a full biblical account of the doctrine of the image of God. Or, to put the matter another way, “What is man?” cannot be answered without recourse to “For what is man?” This link between anthropology and eschatology is the point of departure for this book. This small comment actually offfers something of a window into the structure of Bavinck’s thought. He draws a clear relationship between the image of God and an eschatology rooted in the doctrine of the covenant of works, and this relationship forms the very rationale for what has been recognized in subsequent scholarship as his “central motif,” the organic or reorational relationship of nature and grace. It will be shown that it is Bavinck’s eschatology, rooted in his covenant theology,

8  Bolt, “Editor’s Introduction,” Reformed Dogmatics, Volume One: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 18. 9  RD, II, 550.

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that functions to preserve the organic relationship of nature and grace on the historical level. For Bavinck, the true genius of the Reformation, especially as pioneered by Calvin, is its replacement of Rome’s ontological or vertically hierarchical version of the nature/grace relationship (i.e., “higher” and “lower” realms of reality) with an hiorical or horizontal version of the nature/ grace scheme, starting with the state of integrity (nature) and ending in the state of glory (grace).10 It is primarily by means of covenant theology that the Reformed have articulated this divine economy, and Bavinck, as we will see, brilliantly uses this tradition to undergird his well-known synthesis that “grace restores and perfects nature.” This maxim is often thought to be, at its most basic, one that flows from Bavinck’s Trinitarian commitment that the world God created, now fallen, is restored by the work of the Son and perfected by the re-creating power of the Holy Spirit. This is surely true as far as it goes, but it is not the most basic rationale. Probing deeply underneath this motif, one fijinds a commitment to, and ingenious deployment of, Reformed covenant theology. While many of Bavinck’s Neo-Calvinist theological successors have, in fact, zealously defended and promoted his polemic against nature/grace dualism, they have not been equally zealous to defend the eschatology Bavinck believes that polemic requires.11 Many are those who, although favorably inclined to his anti-dualism, are less than enthusiastic about his adherence to Reformed orthodox “federal” theology. This book demonstrates—convincingly, one hopes—that within the orbit of Bavinck’s thought it is difffijicult to consistently embrace the one while rejecting the other. Failure to incorporate Bavinck’s eschatology—that is, human destiny or what Adam “had to become”—results in an anthropology that loses its rationale for the “organic” or restorational relationship of nature and grace. Think for a moment of a story. There are many elements to a good story, but there are two of particular importance for Bavinck: 1) “Once upon a time!.!.!.!.” and 2) “Lived happily ever after.” These are nature and grace, respectively. When Bavinck claims that there must be an “organic connection” between nature and grace, he is arguing something intuitive. Stories that end without an organic connection to the beginning are not

10

 C.f., “CCG,” 106–08.  E.g., G.C. Berkouwer’s rejection of the covenant of works is a prime example, and will be explored in Chapter Two. 11

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satisfying stories. They are, as the Greeks had it, deus ex machina, the “god of the machine” who magically drops in at the end and arbitrarily sorts out all the dramatic tension in ways not consistent with the internal framework of the story. The best stories often begin with a disrupted destiny or an interrupted eschatology. An heir, for example, is wrongfully denied his inheritance. Cinderella ought to be mistress of the house upon her father’s death, yet sleeps in the fijireplace. Faithful Job ought to be blessed by God, but sufffers unimaginable torment. The resolution of the story must be, at a minimum, a restoration of an already exiing potential. In the very best stories, it is an even better destiny than originally imagined, often precisely because of the sufffering involved in getting there. The heir receives vastly more than his entitlement; Cinderella doesn’t rule a house, but a kingdom; Job becomes twice as prosperous. These are stories whose “lived happily ever after” is organically related to the “once upon a time.” The alternative is deus ex machina and, while Bavinck never describes his theology in these kinds of narrative terms, it is ironic (but not at all coincidental) that he habitually labeled the alternatives to his organicism as mechanical relations. This book will demonstrate that a crucial means by which Bavinck accomplishes the “central motif ” of his entire theology, the tying together of nature and grace, the “Once upon a time” and “Lived happily ever after” is his covenant theology. Put at its most provocative: To reject Bavinck’s covenant scheme is to unwittingly jettison something of a raison d’etre of his entire theology along with it. Chapter One sets the stage by exploring Bavinck’s polemic against ontological nature/grace dualism more generally. The problem with dualism is that it conceives of nature and grace as architectural “storeys” on a building, not a narrative “story.” They are levels in the structure of the universe, gradations of “higher” and “lower,” more divine and less divine, not states of afffairs at diffferent points in a plot, what the Westminster Assembly usefully called the “estates” of man. Bavinck rests his polemic against this ontological dualism on the foundational doctrines God and creation, which establish a principle basic to everything that follows: an absolute ontological Creator-creature distinction. This distinction, which for him is an exclusively Trinitarian dogma, banishes from dogmatics all approaches that view God and the world on an ontological continuum of “higher” and “lower,” a monism that is the suspect legacy of Neoplatonism and which more or less results in the surrendering of Christian theism for pantheism. Dualistic ontologies invariably result in dualistic conceptions of re-creation as well as creation, with grace (eschatology) being conceived

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as opposed to or over against nature (protology) in God’s redemptive work. That is, ontological dualism results in a dualistic view of redemptive hiory. Chapter Two explores Bavinck’s anti-dualist polemic on this historical level by attending to his doctrine of the covenant of works, the basic provision of which, it is argued, is an intrinsic creational eschatology. In other words, the imago Dei itself included at the outset an historical telos or eschatology which, in turn, provides the architecture for Bavinck’s view of its restoration and glorifijication. In other words, the covenant of works supplies a basic creational teleology, a hypothetical “Lived happily ever after,” as it were, for the imago Dei. It supplies the disrupted destiny or interrupted eschatology to which its restoration and perfection in Christ answer. In this way it supplies the “organic” connection between protology and eschatology. Chapter Three demonstrates Bavinck’s consistency in his opposition to dualism in both ontological (vertical) and historical (horizontal) terms by attending to his doctrine of the image of God. With regard to the former, the ontological Creator/creature distinction, established in Chapter One, is the means by which Bavinck denies any notion of “lower” or “higher” realms of creation, if understood as more or less “divine.” With regard to the latter, Bavinck is insistent that many, if not most, false steps in anthropology stem from a misconstrual of eschatology and lack of appreciation that human destiny was already anticipated in the Garden of Eden. This critique also works in reverse: Many false steps in eschatology stem from a misconstrual of anthropology. The state of glory, now the result of God’s redemption of the imago Dei, is not an alternative of or supplement to that original destiny. It is even better than originally conceived, yes, but not a wholesale replacement. Chapter Four is a “bridge” chapter. Since Bavinck’s synthesis of ontology and eschatology has implications for both anthropology and Christology, creation and re-creation, the natural movement of the book is to attend to Christology. However, in Bavinck’s covenant theology there is a basic and crucial distinction that must be made between pre and po-fall eras, and therefore this chapter examines the attendant theological issues involved in the fall and loss of the imago Dei. Chapter Five explores Bavinck’s Christology and equally discovers there an emphasis on his ontological and historical concerns: namely, maintaining the Creator-creature distinction in the hypostatic union (the person of Christ) by way of a specifijically Reformed Christology, and the importance of an antecedent creational eschatology found in the covenant of works (the work of Christ).

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Finally, Chapter Six explores the work of Christ in restoring and perfecting the imago Dei, and demonstrates that Bavinck’s soteriology is intelligible only in light of the creational eschatology established in his doctrine of the covenant of works. That is, because the original violation of the covenant of works is humanity’s fundamental predicament, its “disrupted destiny,” the gospel answers to this predicament by Christ’s restoring the corrupted image of God and perfecting the image of God not to its original condition, but instead to its original eschatological telos; in other words, it explicates the title of this book, that Christ restores humanity to its destiny. The title of this book, “Restored To Our Destiny,” is not a phrase that appears in Bavinck; it my gloss intended to capture the sense of his organic synthesis of nature and grace, creation and re-creation. The book concludes with a summary of the importance of Bavinck’s synthesis of the image of God and eschatology within the structure of his own thought; namely, that it provides the very rationale for his signature emphasis, “grace restores and perfects nature.” Given this nexus in Bavinck’s theology, that he himself intended anthropology and eschatology to operate in tandem, I question whether subsequent Bavinck scholarship, which has arguably, on the whole, under-appreciated the eschatological underpinnings of his views on nature and grace, can consistently maintain the one without the other. Methodologically, this is essentially a close conceptual analysis of the framework of Bavinck’s own thought; it can therefore be fairly viewed as a work of historical theology, insofar as it seeks to faithfully represent elements of Bavinck’s views. However, it is not a work of historical research or theological biography. I do not primarily seek to locate or contextualize Bavinck in terms of his broader 19th century theological milieu, although obviously some attention to the context of Neo-Calvinism and 19th century developments in theology and philosophy is necessary and salutary.12 Instead, I will primarily attempt to view Bavinck with an eye to his subsequent reception. A number of scholars have written dedicated monographs on some aspect of Bavinck’s theology and others have included him as a substantial conversation partner in their own theological work.

12  As already noted, it is important to recognize that while earlier scholarship tended to habitually speak of “Kuyper and Bavinck,” there has been a progressive move toward reading Bavinck independently; and this book self-consciously reads Bavinck as an independent theologian. For a helpful analysis of the Kuyper-Bavinck relationship, see John Bolt’s thesis, “The Imitation of Christ Theme in the Cultural-Ethical Ideal of Herman Bavinck,” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of St. Michael’s College, 1982).

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In this respect, this is primarily a work of systematic theology, because not only is it being argued that Bavinck’s eschatology is critical to his anthropology, but also that this has implications for the discipline of theology as such, at very least insofar as theologians continue to appeal to and/or critique Bavinck in service to their own proposals. Finally, a word about the style of this work: Henry Dosker memorably called it a hallmark of Bavinck’s greatness that he never put an exclamation point wherever he sensed the need for a question mark. Readers will no doubt quickly notice that my temperament, on the other hand, tends toward the indicative rather than interrogative mood. I do not at all intend by this to suggest that my readings of Bavinck are beyond challenge. Quite the contrary. I offfer my interpretations here only in the hopes that they may challenge, stimulate, and sharpen to varying degrees the reflections of the broader guild of Bavinck scholarship, and I do so believing that interest to be best served by clearly expressed opinions. But I certainly do not pretend to provide the last word. The primary aim of this book is to offfer an insight into the structure of Bavinck’s thought with implications for how scholars should understand his view of the relation of nature and grace. Given that this is done with specifijic reference to Bavinck’s covenant theology, underlying all this is a related, but secondary and indirect contribution to a longstanding and unresolved question in Bavinck interpretation: that is, Bavinck’s relationship to the tradition of scholastic theology. Bavinck and Scholaicism One of the central issues of debate in Bavinck scholarship is one already raised, but which this book does not engage directly: broadly speaking, it is best expressed as what John Bolt calls “the annoying acknowledgment that there is not just one but rather two Bavincks.”13 That is, Bavinck is claimed by very divergent theological traditions; on one side, a more conservative or “fundamentalist” constituency, and the other more progressive and “modern.” This has been seen, not entirely without justifijication, as an inner tension between Bavinck the son of a successionist minister, with his pious Reformed upbringing, and Bavinck the learned student of liberal theology at Leiden; it often has been said that these 13  John Bolt, “Grand Rapids Between Kampen and Amsterdam: Herman Bavinck’s Reception and Influence in North America,” CTJ 38 (2003), 264–5.

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represent a tension between “two poles” in his thought which he struggled to reconcile.14 Bolt believes this portrait has largely been exaggerated; he is tempted, he writes, to say that the idea of the so-called “‘good,’ progressive, modern” Bavinck “was invented by Valentijn Hepp; celebrated by G.C. Berkouwer and his students; and, fijinally, shamelessly exploited by more recent Gereformeerden such as Harry Kuitert.”15 But he is only tempted to say this, because there are unmistakably elements of truth in the caricature, elements that must be faced if one is to understand developments in 20th century Dutch Reformed theology.16 Nevertheless, it remains true that in the 20th century much of the appeal to Bavinck has been done, as Bolt characterizes it, “by setting the scholastic Bavinck over against the good biblical, Christocentric, kerygmatic, Bavinck and then using the latter to sit in judgment on the former.”17 Again, this book does not inject itself directly into this highly controverted aspect of Bavinck’s legacy. It is hoped, however, that the kind of sustained and careful attention given to the primary source material represented here—above all, the magisterial four-volume Reformed Dogmatics—provides, indirectly, substantial insight that perhaps might aid in resolving the problem. The following introductory comments are designed to set the stage, in a more direct fashion, for this secondary benefijit of the book. First, in the secondary literature it is evident that the broader issue of the “two Bavincks” repeatedly fijinds its focal point in the more narrow question of Bavinck’s relationship to scholasticism. R.H. Bremmer’s influential diagnosis that the tradition of Neo-Thomism, a 19th century Roman Catholic renewal of medieval scholasticism, is a “dominant” foundation or “ground-motif” of Bavinck’s theological thought has been shared by many others, notably Dutch Reformed philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd, Jan Veenhof and G.C. Berkouwer.18 This is, as Bolt puts it, a “rather conven-

14  C.f., Bolt, “Editor’s Introduction,” RD, I, 12–15; see also his masterful portrait of these divergent influences in Imitation, 38–79. 15  Bolt, “Grand Rapids,” 266. 16  Bolt, “Grand Rapids,” 267. 17  Bolt, “Grand Rapids,” 268. 18  R.H. Bremmer, Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 386; C.f., Herman Dooyeweerd, “Kuyper’s Wetenschapsleer,” Philosophia Reformata 4 (1939): 193–232, cited in Bolt, “Grand Rapids,” 270; Bolt, “Grand Rapids,” 268–70; Veenhof, Revelatie en Inspiratie, 108–11; Veenhof, “A History of Theology and Spirituality in the Dutch Reformed Churches (Gereformeerde Kerken), 1892–1992,” CJT 28 (1993), 286; Al Wolters, “Dutch Neo-Calvinism: Worldview, Philosophy and Rationality,” in Rationality in the Calvinian Tradition, Hendrik Hart, Johan Van der Hoeven, Nicholas Wolterstorfff, eds. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983), 126.

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tional portrait.”19 As conventional wisdom, it often, if not always, assumes that such scholasticism is in itself incompatible with a truly scriptural theology, and it thus evaluates any number of Bavinck’s themes as so many pieces of unfortunate and harmful baggage that he simply failed to jettison.20 So, for example, in his dissertation, Herman Bavinck’s Eschatological Underanding of Redemption, Syd Hielema fijinds in Bavinck a “tension between a more relationally-oriented doctrine of God and a more abstract, philosophical one,”21 apologetically laments that the prolegomena volume is “more scholastic than the rest,”22 and routinely criticizes some formulations as “abstract” and speculative, and praises others for being, variously, “concrete,” relational and biblical. In his doctrinal survey, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Hendrikus Berkhof offfers a similar (and particularly harsh) assessment along these lines: For [Bavinck] the diffference between Reformed theology and ‘ethical theology’ did not lie in theocentricity versus anthropocentricity but in intellectualism versus personalism: Is faith submission to the authority of scriptural truths or is it the personal encounter with God through the person of Christ by which we are transformed into personalities? Bavinck opted for the priority of the scriptural principle, and in the prolegomena of his dogmatics he threw in his lot (with some Reformed corrections) with Neo-Thomism. For him faith was not in the fijirst place a yielding up of one’s life to a Person but intellectual assent and submission to Scripture.23

This would be a damning indictment, indeed, were it not for the fact that its characterizations do not remotely apply to Bavinck’s Prolegomena, in which he categorically rejects the very dichotomy between “intellectualism” and “personalism.”24 Indeed, the Prolegomena trumpets the irreducibly personal task of theology,25 and the importance of the personal faith commitment of the theologian;26 it rejects a deductive, a priori approach

19

 Bolt, “Grand Rapids,” 266, fn. 5.  This is clearly the case with the strand of Dutch Reformed thinking associated with Dooyeweerd, and, from another quarter, what Bolt calls the “Barth-Berkouwer axis.” Bolt, “Grand Rapids,” 269. 21  Hielema, Herman Bavinck’s Eschatological Underanding of Redemption (unpublished Th.D thesis, Wyclifffe College, Toronto School of Theology, 1998), 76. 22  Hielema, Eschatological Underanding, 77. 23  Hendrikus Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology: Report of a Personal Journey,” trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 114. 24  E.g., RD, I, 571–78; C.f., RD, II, 41–52. 25  RD, I, 43–46, 87, 89–93, 112, 268–269. 26  RD, I, 42, 78, 111–12. 20

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to dogmatics;27 it emphasizes the second-order, fallible character of dogmatics, as well as its social, communal character;28 it rejects both voluntaristic and positivistic construals of faith;29 it includes individual Christian consciousness as one of three essential factors in a good dogmatic method;30 and it concludes with a 120–page treatment of faith as the principium internum of theology, which expressly denies that faith is mere intellectual assent.31 Bavinck himself best answers Berkhof’s pitting of the “intellectual” versus the “personal”: “The idea that dogmatics is, has always been, and must be, personal, is so self-evident that it does not have to be expressly mentioned or demanded.”32 Another illuminating example of this phenomenon of anti-scholasticism in Bavinck studies is Eugene Heideman, whose work, The Relation of Revelation and Reason in E. Brunner and H. Bavinck, utilizes a virtually inscrutable method of source-criticism, almost reminiscent of Wellhausen, to determine which “Bavinck” wrote various passages: alternately, the “biblical” Bavinck or the “scholastic” and “idealist” Bavinck.33 The allusion to Wellhausen is meant as more than a rhetorical turn of phrase: often in source-criticism the ultimate standard of discriminating sources

27

 RD, I, 44.  RD, I, 45, 83–86. 29  RD, I, 50–54. 30  RD, I, 84. 31  RD, I, 571–73; C.f., RD, IV, 121: “[F]aith is not merely an intellectual act of accepting the witness of the apostles concerning Christ, but also a personal relation, a spiritual bond, with Christ who is now seated at the right hand of the power of God”; PR, 208: “The heart cannot be separated from the head, nor faith as trust from faith as knowledge.” 32  RD, I, 79. C.f., Muller, “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists,’ Part Two,” CJT, 31 (1996), 144: “[T]he generalization that the Reformers held a relational view of faith as trust or faithful apprehension of Christ, while the orthodox reduced faith to an assent to propositions, simply cannot hold: Both the Reformers and the Protestant orthodox insisted that faith consists both in assent to teachings and in trust.” The “Bavinck as rationalist” motif has gained some traction beyond the specialized world of Bavinck scholarship; one recent critic baldly and repeatedly accuses Bavinck of “thoroughgoing rationalism” and alternatively, when his writings (inconveniently) belie this judgment, of being “schizophrenic”: Malcolm B. Yarnell, III, The Formation of Chriian Doctrine (Nashville: B&H, 2007), 50–59. Bavinck’s systemic emphasis on the divine mystery and incomprehensibility, his absolute rejection of univocal human reasoning in favor of an analogical model, his relentless deploying of the archetypal/ectypal distinction, his unambiguous locating of faith as the principium internum of human knowledge of God, his explicit rejection of that faith as mere intellectual assent, his inclusion of the role of the “heart” as well as the “head” in faith—all this appears to elude Yarnell. 33  C.f., e.g., Heideman, The Relation of Revelation and Reason in E. Brunner and H. Bavinck (Assen: Van Gorkum, Prakke & Prakke, 1959), 131–2, 138, 142, 144, 156–7, 177–79, 183, 189fn.1; John Bolt’s critique of Heideman’s allegation of “Idealism” in Bavinck as “conceptually misleading”; Imitation, 163–71. 28

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seems suspiciously to coincide with whether or not the scholar happens to care for the content of the material at hand; so also Heideman invariably labels as the “scholastic” or “idealist line of thought” those things, conveniently enough, with which he appears to disagree. Moreover, just as source-criticism predictably brought about the discipline of redactioncriticism, so also the all-too-easy distinguishing between Bavinck’s socalled “abstract” lines of thought with his so-called “biblical” ones is bound to run into a question analogous to the one posed by redaction-critics to source-critics: namely, whether or not the latter requires a “mindless redactor.” One wishes to ask Bremmer, Dooyeweerd, Berkouwer, Veenhof, Berkhof, Heideman, Hielema, et al., why, after all, is Bavinck himself, universally regarded a towering intellect, so completely oblivious to these latent and systemic bifurcations in his own writings? The answer, which is indirectly illustrated in this book, is that Bavinck and his later interpreters have very divergent understandings of scholasticism. Each of these interpreters, regardless from what quarter or “axis” the criticism comes, has taken for granted the 20th century’s near-universal antipathy to Reformed scholasticism in general as a rationalistic departure from the biblical fijidelity of the early Reformers. This assumption is precisely what gives rise to the many attempts of critics, who otherwise wish to follow Bavinck in some measure, to distance certain valued aspects of his thought from what they see as more or less unfortunate scholastic surroundings.34 But 20th century assumptions about scholasticism will simply no longer do. Twenty-fijirst century scholarship must come to terms with a new era of historiography with respect to Reformed orthodoxy, ushered in by many scholars over the past few decades, preeminent among them, Richard A. Muller.35 In light of Muller’s long labors 34

 Richard B. Gafffijin, Jr., in his searching critique of Jack Rogers’s and Donald McKim’s book, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: A Hiorical Approach (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), notes that the authors base much of their interpretation of Kuyper and Bavinck on just this (erroneous) assumption; C.f., God’s Word in Servant Form: Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck on the Doctrine of Scripture (Jackson, MS: Reformed Academic Press, 2008), 3, 13–14, 83–84, 100. This book is a slightly updated version of his two-part article, “Old Amsterdam & Inerrancy?” WTJ 44 (Fall, 1982) 250–89 and WTJ 45 (Spring, 1983), 219–72. 35  C.f., Richard A. Muller, “The Myth of Decretal Theology” CTJ 30 (1995): 159–167; “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists,’ Part One” CJT 30 (1995): 345–375; “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists,’ Part Two,” CJT, 31 (1996): 125–160; Po-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 4 Vols (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003); see also Carl R. Trueman and R. Scott Clark, eds., Proteant Scholaicism: Essays in Reassessment (Exeter: Paternoster, 1999); Carl R. Trueman, “Calvin and Calvinism,” in The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, ed. Donald K. McKim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); particularly devastating to the “scholasticism equals rationalism”

14

introduction

in re-contextualizing Reformed scholasticism, one is no longer entitled to assume the older caricatures. It has taken truly prodigious amounts of research for him to conclude over against typical views, for example, that the Reformed orthodox cannot be viewed as rationalists simply by virtue of their using a characteristically scholastic vocabulary and method: to begin with, he notes, theologians of the 17th and 18th centuries viewed scholasticism as a method, a pedagogy, not a theology; further, notoriously “scholastic” teachers simultaneously authored many popular, devotional works.36 Given the labors involved in establishing even these rather innocuous and yet far-reaching observations, it may come as some surprise to fijind that Bavinck unambiguously shares Muller’s assessments, a full century beforehand. He writes, The sole aim of dogmatics is to set forth the thoughts of God that he has laid down in Holy Scripture. But it does this as it ought to, in a scholarly fashion, in a scholarly form, and in accordance with a scholarly method. In that sense, Reformed scholars in earlier centuries defended the validity of so-called scholastic theology (theologia scholaica). They had no objections whatever to the idea of presenting revealed truth also in a simpler form under the name of positive theology, catechetics, and so forth. But they utterly opposed the notion that the two differed in content; what diinguished them was merely a difference in form and method.37

He further goes on to praise the Reformed orthodox on just this score because, by using both popular and scholastic methods, they “as fijirmly as possible maintained the unity and bond between faith and theology, church and school.”38 Misunderstandings of Reformed scholasticism in secondary literature are apparent in other ways. Bremmer’s labeling of Bavinck’s dominant motif as Neo-Thomism is problematic not least because Bavinck’s explicit treatment of Neo-Thomism gives no indication whatsoever that he is favorably inclined toward it, but also because Neo-Thomism is simply not

caricature is Willem van Asselt’s “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology: Archetypal and Ectypal Theology in Seventeenth-Century Reformed Thought,” WTJ 61 (2002): 319–35. 36  Muller, “Calvin and the Calvinists, Part Two,” 126–9; 145. 37  RD, I, 83–4, emphasis added. 38  RD, I, 83–4. Bavinck himself provides a fijine example of just this kind of flexibility with his Magnalia Dei, a popular-level dogmatics that omits the historical and philosophical material found in his Gereformeerde Dogmatiek; Bavinck, too, wanted to maintain the connection between the school and the church. As Bolt puts it, Bavinck sought to be an academic theologian and a churchly dogmatician; Bolt, “Grand Rapids Between Kampen and Amsterdam,” 267.

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equivalent to Reformed orthodox scholasticism.39 One might (and should) ask: can a Neo-Thomist reject Thomas’s analogia entis, reject natural theology, reject a natural/supernatural metaphysical hierarchy, reject the doctrine of the donum superadditum, and reject the traditional arguments for God’s existence as “proofs”? If so, then what, exactly, does the term mean? If it merely denotes a scholastic form and method, then calling it Neo-Thomism is to engage in a basic fallacy: a scholastic method says very little about the actual content of the theological system being articulated. Neo-Thomism is but one instance of scholasticism, and, as it happens, it is manifestly not the scholastic tradition on which Bavinck drew. For that, he self-consciously drew from the tradition of Reformed orthodoxy.40 It is hardly adequate, with Berkhof, to describe Reformed orthodoxy, with the major doctrinal divergences just noted, as Neo-Thomism “with some Reformed corrections.” All told, then, the attempt to distance Bavinck from his own scholasticism, while assuming a concept of scholasticism that he does not share, is to do violence to the unity and integrity of his theological work. It is to foist upon him a dilemma he simply does not recognize: either biblical/ relational or scholastic/abstract. Further, this dichotomy too often takes for granted that rejecting form and method is an adequate substitute for arguments against theological content: when writers chafe at Reformed “scholasticism,” it often seems their real target is the Reformed orthodox content; but an offf-hand dismissal of the former does not stand as a critique of the latter.41 It is benefijicial, then, with an eye to applying Muller’s insights, to distinguish between Reformed “scholasticism,” a pedagogical method, and Reformed “orthodoxy,” the positive doctrinal content being

39  RD, I, 156–7. Wolters paints with an extremely broad brush in this regard. Neoplatonism, primarily characterized by its “great chain of being” and cosmic hierarchy of differing grades of ousia, is “virtually equivalent to the history of Christian orthodoxy in the West.” And, further, early Neo-Calvinists, Bavinck included, were “no exception to this rule.” Al Wolters, “Dutch Neo-Calvinism,” 126–7. These are remarkable claims, the last of which in particular will be efffectively dismantled in the chapters to follow. 40  To be fair, Bremmer himself does elsewhere recognize this, however inconsistently; C.f., Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 313–14: “Bavinck attempted to come to a new determination of the position of Reformed theology and dogmatics in the culture-world of his time. It is against that background that his Dogmatics is to be viewed. It was a self-conscious attempt to come to a renewal of historic Reformed theology and dogmatics [.!.!.].” 41  Speaking generally, when scholars write offf, for example, the doctrine of God’s absolute decree of election and reprobation as “scholastic,” it stretches credulity to believe that it is really the scholaicism that offfends them.

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communicated—often, surely, but not always, in a scholastic form.42 One is bound to cause confusion by objecting to the method as though it were the material doctrine. While it is possible to occasionally distinguish in Bavinck between more or less scholastic passages (though the extent to which Bavinck is “scholastic” tends to be highly exaggerated; he is as far from the method of, say, Francis Turretin, as can be imagined!), what can no longer be simply assumed is that these represent divergences in doctrinal emphases or trajectories. Not only did the Reformed orthodox “utterly oppose” that notion, but so did Bavinck himself.43 An accurate historical understanding of Reformed scholasticism, indeed Bavinck’s own, mitigates, perhaps decisively, against this assumption. Since Bavinck’s own view of the tradition is far closer to Muller’s than, say, that of Barth, what is at present needed in Bavinck interpretation is an explicit reassessment of the “two Bavincks” problem, one that resists reading erroneous 20th century historiographic preoccupations back into Bavinck himself. Although the present work does not do this explicitly, it does indirectly make signifijicant headway toward such an evaluation. In the chapters that follow, what becomes abundantly clear in reading Bavinck on his own terms, taking his sometimes scholastic features (e.g., Aristotelian vocabulary) at face-value, is that his theology is, for better or for worse, indissolubly rooted in the tradition of Reformed orthodoxy, as that orthodoxy was articulated by the Reformed scholastics.44 Particularly 42  C.f., Richard A. Muller’s inaugural address, Scholaicism and Orthodoxy in the Reformed Tradition: An Attempt at Definition (Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1995). Muller defijines Reformed “orthodoxy” as “the confessionally defijined teaching of the Reformed churches and the era, ca. 1565–1700 or 1720,” and Reformed “scholasticism” as “the method characteristic of the classroom and of the more detailed systems of theology during the era of orthodoxy,” 26. 43  RD, I, 83–4. Muller’s thesis is, of course, debatable, and not even he would want to say that the separability of form and content is absolute. Sympathetic though it is, the point being made here does not trade on the inviolability of Muller’s thesis. Rather, the question here is the legitimacy of assuming (as much Bavinck criticism has) that scholasticism implies a sub-biblical rationalism, an assumption Bavinck does not share. At very least, in a post-Muller era, one must argue a divergence between the “scholastic” and the “biblical.” 44  An illuminating piece of evidence is Bavinck’s own editorial assessment of the Leiden Synopsis: “This surpasses every other handbook of the time in acuity and precision of argument, shines not rarely in excellence of insight (διανοίας μεγαλορεπεί\), is itself fully conscious of the truth of Scripture and the Reformed confession and is therefore completely informed, yet free of dry, futile and insipid scholaic arguments and imaginations,” “Praefatio,” Synopsis purioris theologiae (Donner: 1881), vi. Author’s translation. This is said of a book of scholaic disputations. In addition, note the words to his Introduction the fijirst edition of the Gereformeerde Dogmatiek: “This work of dogmatic theology is especially tied to the type of Christian religion and theology that arose in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, notably in Switzerland. Not because this tradition claims to be an exclusively true

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with respect to the doctrine of the imago Dei and the eschatological structure of creation, one simply cannot understand his views without recognizing at its root the notoriously “scholastic” tradition of Reformed orthodox covenant theology, particularly the federal theology of the 17th century. When, for example, Hielema mentions the doctrine of the covenant of works on three entirely incidental occasions, in a 314-page thesis devoted to Bavinck’s understanding of eschatology and redemption, each time brushing it offf as Bavinck’s more “scholastic tendency” in contrast to the more biblical, relational tendencies he wishes to highlight, the result is deeply misleading. This is because Bavinck’s understanding of the eschatology of creation is fundamentally defined by and therefore inseparable from its recourse to the doctrine of the covenant of works, as Chapter Two will amply demonstrate.45 In this and other ways, this book indirectly establishes that the very structure of Bavinck’s theology is provided—not by way of pure repristination, but provided nonetheless—by the scholastic tradition of Reformed orthodoxy. Bremmer thus has at least this much right: scholasticism is indeed a “ground motif” or foundation of Bavinck’s thought, but he has identifijied the wrong form of scholasticism (Neo-Thomism). He and others also seem to believe that one can use Bavinck in piece-meal fashion, separating some supposedly good dogmatic content from other themes (characteristically Reformed orthodox themes) that are then pejoratively dismissed as “scholastic.” But Bavinck’s dogmatic content is, again, indissolubly rooted in just the kind of older Reformed orthodoxy Bremmer, and many others, fijind troubling. This broader practice of afffijirming some aspect of Bavinck more congenial to the contemporary theological climate while downplaying other aspects fijinds specifijic manifestation in the narrower interest here: many wish to keep his anti-dualism but reject the covenant theology on which it is based. But any claim to constructively build on the dogmatic system of Bavinck while presumptively downplaying, bifurcating, marginalizing or ignoring his “scholasticism” is a highly suspect, if not spurious, enterprise.

expression of the truth but because the author is convinced that it is relatively the purest statement of the truth.” This translation is John Bolt’s, and was provided to the participants of the international Bavinck conference, “A Pearl and a Leaven: Herman Bavinck for the 21st Century,” held in Grand Rapids on September 18–20, 2008. 45  C.f., Hielema, Eschatological Underanding, 100, 283, 297. Readers will note substantial critical interaction with this thesis in the footnotes, mainly because among the secondary literature it is (refreshingly) unique in its attempt to interpret Bavinck’s eschatological framework.

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introduction

It is arguably akin to a civil authority condemning the foundation of his own house yet continuing to dwell on the premises—indeed, while even planning improvements to the property.46 However one conceives of the “two Bavincks,” the distinction is not between what Bolt calls the “cartoon caricature” of the “scholastic” versus the “biblical.”47 Bavinck saw no such dichotomy; and in that respect, there is only one Bavinck: the one who sought to articulate a scriptural theology in the context of, and with recourse to the categories of, Reformed orthodoxy. There is no “other” Bavinck to be found. One should not operate on the assumption that the tension he personally felt between his confessional commitments and his worldly fascination was, at the end of the day, an unresolved tension. Bavinck’s life-long labors toward a unifijied worldview were not entirely futile and unrewarded. And it is to an explanation of his unifijied view of nature and grace that this book now turns.

46

 Although Cornelius Van Til to some extent shares dubious assumptions about Reformed scholasticism (C.f., Jefffrey K. Jue, “Theologia Naturalis: A Reformed Tradition,” in Revelation & Reason: New Essays in Reformed Apologetics, K. Scott Oliphint and Lane G. Tipton, eds. [Phillipsburg: P&R, 2007], 168–189), he nevertheless senses this problem in his skepticism toward Bremmer’s desire to “work in Bavinck’s spirit by going beyond him,” Van Til, “Bavinck the Theologian,” WTJ 24, No. 1 (Nov. 1961), 1–17. 47  Bolt, “Grand Rapids,” 267.

CHAPTER ONE

METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS Introduction From the very fir moment, true religion diinguishes itself from all other religions by the fact that it conrues the relation between God and the world, including man, as that between the Creator and the creature.1

For Herman Bavinck, the Christian doctrine of creation provides a foundational account of reality that ultimately serves to irreducibly distinguish Christian theism from its anti-Christian alternatives. It therefore represents his most basic ontological alternative to dualistic ontologies. This chapter will explore Bavinck’s doctrines of God and creation in order to lay the metaphysical foundations for his unitive, holistic, or “organic” account of nature and grace.2 “Creator of Heaven and Earth” Following an analysis of what he views as the only religious alternatives to the Christian doctrine of creation, Bavinck declares, “Against all these movements the Christian church unitedly held fast to the confession: ‘I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.’”3 By this confession the church forever guards itself against all forms of materialism and pantheism, and instead maintains that God, by an act of his sovereign will, “brought the entire world out of nonbeing into a being that is distinct from his own being.”4 This confession of the Creator-creature distinction is not only the logical starting point, it is also the distinguishing characteristic of “true religion.”5

1

 RD, II, 407.  Bolt, Imitation, 118–19: “[I]t is the doctrine of creation that provides the theological foundation for Bavinck’s anti-dualistic emphasis upon catholicity.” 3  RD, II, 416. 4  RD, II, 416. 5  RD, II, 407. 2

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This is so much Bavinck’s conviction, and so often repeated in various ways, that one would not be far offf the mark to argue that the Creatorcreature distinction itself is the “central motif ” of his theology.6 It is no coincidence that the “independence” or “aseity” of God is the fijirst attribute of God treated by Bavinck. There he asserts that “[t]he fijirst thing Scripture teaches us concerning God is that he has a free, independent existence and life of his own that is distinct from all creatures.”7 This is a ubiquitous emphasis in the Dogmatics; the very fijirst words of his theology proper are devoted to the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God, an axiomatic dogma based on the ontological distance between the Creator and the creature,8 and it reappears throughout. In his section on the importance of the Trinitarian confession, for example, he argues, in two separate paragraphs, in almost identical terms, that the doctrine of the Trinity alone properly construes the Creator-creature relationship.9 Most importantly for present purposes, when the topic turns to the image of God, Bavinck self-consciously sets his views over against alternatives that reduce to

6  It is something of a broad consensus that the restorational relationship (however conceived) between nature and grace is the central theme of his theology; c.f., J. Veenhof, Revelatie en Inspiratie (Amsterdam: Buijten & Schipperheijn, 1968), 345–6: “Bavinck’s view of the relationship of nature and grace is a central part—indeed, perhaps we must even say: the central motif, of his theology”; John Bolt, “Editor’s Introduction,” RD, I, 18: “The evidence for ‘grace restores nature’ being the fundamental defijining and shaping theme of Bavinck’s theology is not hard to fijind.” I agree with this consensus, but this chapter will demonstrate that one crucial component of his opposition to nature/grace dualism is the Creator-creature distinction. A dissenting voice is Ronald N. Gleason, who argues that the “true hub” of Bavinck’s theology as a whole is the doctrine of the unio myica, “The Centrality of the Unio Myica in the Theology of Herman Bavinck,” (unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Westminster Theological Seminary, 2001), 1. This is idiosyncratic, and would be defensible had he argued for its centrality in Herman Bavinck’s soteriology. Having promised to explicate it as the “true hub around which his theology turns,” he then shifts focus signifijicantly: “I shall demonstrate how vital the unio is for Bavinck’s doctrine of redemption, his conception of the ordo salutis in that doctrine, and the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper,” 45. These two promises are not the same. The latter, as an exposition of the unio myica with respect to soteriological concerns is defensible and arguably correct; the former is not, since there are loci in Bavinck that cannot be subsumed under soteriology and therefore do not rest on union with the incarnate Christ (e.g., God, creation, humanity imago Dei). 7  RD, II, 150. 8  RD, II, 29–52. Bavinck occasionally uses the term “distance” to describe the ontological transcendence of God, in keeping with a common Reformed orthodox usage (e.g., WCOF, 7.1; 16.5), and it is not intended to diminish in any way God’s immanence; to be sure, in God creatures “live and move and have their being” (Acts 17:28). But perhaps what is meant is better captured by “ontological difference.” C.f., RD, II, 169–70: “[God] is not far from any of us. What alone separates us from him is sin. It does not distance us from God locally but spiritually (Isa. 59:2).” 9  RD, II, 331–33.

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either materialism or pantheism; that is, views that undermine the foundational Christian afffijirmation of the Creator-creature distinction. Broadly speaking, then, the Christian doctrine of creation is for Bavinck the starting point in giving an account of the relationship between God and the universe; it provides a foundational account of reality in its widest possible scope. This is not to suggest that Bavinck seeks to give an account of God based on “creation,” as a kind of natural theology with its “natural” truth and “supernatural” truth dichotomy, but rather that the Creator-creature relationship by defijinition has its inception in creation and is thus the logical starting point for reflection.10 But to say something about creation is to say something about the Creator, who has an antecedent existence, or “free, independent existence and life of his own.” Bavinck, keeping with the spirit of his Reformed heritage, is unapologetically theocentric, even in areas of theology that pertain to the creature. [I]t is all mystery with which the science of dogmatics is concerned, for it does not deal with fijinite creatures, but from beginning to end looks past all creatures and focuses on the eternal and infijinite One himself. From the very start of its labors, it faces the incomprehensible One. From him it derives its inception, for from him are all things. But also in the remaining loci, when it turns its attention to creatures, it views them only in relation to God as they exist from him and through him and for him [Rom. 11:36]. So then, the knowledge of God is the only dogma, the exclusive content, of the entire fijield of dogmatics. All the doctrines treated in dogmatics—whether they concern the universe, humanity, Christ, and so forth—are but the explication of the one central dogma of the knowledge of God.11

Bavinck’s own stated desire is that all dogmas—anthropology included— be focused on the infijinite and eternal One himself, and so it is appropriate to begin precisely there. The doctrine of creation may be a “starting point” for Bavinck, but it is, fijirst and foremost, a doctrine about the One who creates: the triune God revealed in Scripture. The Triune God John Bolt rightly emphasizes the extent to which Bavinck’s theology is explicitly oriented around Trinitarian theology.12 Both the works of creation

10  See Bavinck’s trenchant critique of the “natural/supernatural” divide in RD, I, 303–12; since all of God’s works are “supernatural” by defijinition, he believes the terms “general” and “special” are subject to far less confusion. 11  RD, II, 29; C.f., RD, I, 112. 12  John Bolt, “Editor’s Introduction,” RD, II, 18; Imitation, 162–255.

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and re-creation, protology and eschatology, are of a triune character in Bavinck’s thought.13 In fact, he argues that the Trinity provides nothing less than an epistemic prerequisite for the doctrine of creation itself. The doctrine of creation can only be maintained “on the basis of a confession of a triune God.”14 For him, it is the scriptural teaching that the Triune God is the author of creation that distinguishes and guards Christian theism from the ever-present twin errors of Deism and pantheism, or, in their manifestations more specifijically relating to creation, Arianism and Gnosticism: The doctrine of creation out of nothing, in fact, gives to Christian theology a place between Gnosticism and Arianism, that is, between pantheism and Deism. Gnosticism knows no creation but only emanation and therefore makes the world into the Son, wisdom, the image of God in an antiquated sense. Arianism, on the other hand, knows nothing of emanation but only of creation and therefore makes the Son into a creature. In the former the world is deifijied; in the latter God is made mundane. But Scripture, and therefore Christian theology, knows both emanation and creation, a twofold communication of God—one within and the other outside the divine being; one to the Son who was in the beginning with God and was himself God, and another to creatures who originated in time; one from the being and another by the will of God. The former is called generation; the latter, creation.15

One’s understanding of the Trinity, then, necessarily determines one’s understanding of creation itself, and vice-versa; the doctrines of Trinity and creation “stand and fall together.”16 Gnostic notions of emanation cannot but deify the creation, and Arian notions of creation cannot but render “God mundane” by making the Son a creature. Bavinck suggests in an earlier context that Deism and pantheism are not “pure opposites,” but “rather two sides of the same coin; they constantly merge into each other and only difffer in that they address the same problem from opposite

13  E.g., “The creation thus proceeds from the Father through the Son in the Spirit [creation] in order that, in the Spirit and through the Son, it may return to the Father [recreation],” RD, II, 426. 14  RD, II, 332. In fact, the Trinity has signifijicance not just for a doctrine of creation, but for all of life: “The Christian mind remains unsatisfijied until all of existence is referred back to the triune God, and until the confession of God’s Trinity functions at the center of our thought and life,” RD, II, 330. 15  RD, II, 420; C.f., 332–3. It may appear here that the concept of ex nihilo is the key to distinguishing Christianity from its alternatives. Rather, it is the “twofold” communication of God that is doing the work here; without eternal generation, there is no creation. 16  RD, II, 422.

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directions.”17 Here he fleshes out this observation by noting that both Gnosticism and Arianism, which he takes to be species of pantheism and Deism, result in essentially the same assessment of creation, for surely there is no great diffference between making the world divine and making the divine a creature: both violate the Creator-creature distinction. And the root of the error, according to Bavinck, is a failure to appreciate God’s triune character.18 The confession of God’s eternal ontological unity of essence, on one hand, entails that all of God’s works ad extra are common and indivisible; on the other hand, his eternal ontological diversity of persons entails, correlatively, a diversity in God’s ad extra works. “All opposition to the trinitarian work of creation,” Bavinck writes, “is proof of deviation in the doctrine of the Trinity.”19 Arianism, no less than Gnosticism, cannot but fail to observe a proper Creator-creature distinction, because it cannot account for the fact that Scripture ascribes the act of creation to the Son and Spirit, as well as the Father. Thus, it necessarily concludes that the creator (i.e., the Son) is himself a creature. Bavinck summarizes: The crucial point here is that, with Scripture and church fathers, like Athanasius, we make a sharp distinction between the Creator and the creature and avoid all gnostic mingling. If in Scripture the Son and the Spirit act as independent agents (principia) and ‘authors’ (auctores) of creation, then

17

 RD, II, 412.  It should seem strange that Bavinck couples Gnosticism and pantheism, since prima facie Gnosticism is based on a radicalized Platonic dualism opposing God and the world— God is unknowable and inefffable. This appears to resemble Deism more than pantheism. However, Bavinck points out that the kind of dualism posited by, say, the Middle Platonism of Philo, requires intermediaries (in his case, the Logos and Wisdom) that are neither divine nor creaturely. Thus, the supposed “opposition” between the divine and creaturely is, in actuality, a continuum that “erase[s] the boundary that in the Old Testament always separates the creature from the Creator,” and, further, “pave[s] the way for the philosophy of Gnosticism and the Kabbalah,” RD, II, 267. Jewish theology as construed by Philo and developed by others “offfers an ever-increasing array of intermediate beings. It is a series of emanations comparable to the aeons in Gnosticism. There is no end to the consequences of the dualism on which it rests,” 268. This is an example of what Bavinck means by Deism and pantheism “constantly merging” with each other: difference (Platonism) becomes identity (Gnosticism); rationalism becomes mysticism; or, for a more recent example, the subjective rationalism of Kant’s noumenal/phenomenal divide becomes the objective rationalism of idealism in Fichte, Schelling and Hegel (RD, I, 214–219, esp. 217–18: “Accordingly, the dualism of thinking and being from which idealism proceeds in the case of Plato, Descartes, and Kant always, as in the case of Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, ends up in an identity of the two. Subjective rationalism leads to absolute and objective rationalism.” 19  RD II, 422. 18

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chapter one they are partakers of the divine being. Furthermore, if they are truly God, then they truly take part in the work of creation as well.20

This “crucial point” is a consistent theme for Bavinck. He writes elsewhere, “The moment monotheism is no longer supported by belief in the Trinity, it risks losing its purity, being threatened by pantheism or monism, on the one hand, and by polytheism or pluralism, on the other.”21 This “sharp distinction” between the Creator and the creature is, in fact, a fundamental defijining principle of what Abraham Kuyper describes as the “allembracing life-system” of (neo) Calvinism.22 In keeping with this, among Bavinck’s central concerns is the need to resist prevailing 19th century versions of pantheism.23 Trinitarian theism, specifijically, is what enables him to consistently maintain this Creator-creature distinction. The doctrine of the Trinity maintains two important distinctions that provide for Bavinck unique ontological conditions for his account of the God-world relationship: fijirst, that between God’s triune ontological existence and God’s outward economic works of space and time (e.g., creation); that is, between the works of God ad intra and ad extra. Second, the equal ultimacy—the divine “fullness”—of unity and plurality in the Godhead. Bavinck puts it provocatively: “If God were not triune, creation would not be possible.”24

20

 RD, II, 422.  RD, II, 119. 22  Kuyper, Calvinism: Six Stone Lectures (Amsterdam: Höveker & Wormser, 1898), 16–19. Of special interest is that this conviction is held simultaneously with another: that the “decisive idea,” the “mother-thought” of Calvinism is that “the whole of a man’s life is to be lived as in the Divine Presence,” 24–5. As will become clear in what follows, this simultaneous emphasis on God’s transcendence and his immanence is equally stressed by Bavinck. With respect to the “neo,” Kuyper viewed his “life-system” as simple Calvinism; critics used the prefijix to stress, perhaps rightly, that Kuyper’s professed theological lineage is not nearly as straightforward as his rhetoric might suggest; c.f., John Bolt, A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper’s American Public Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001) 444, fn. 4. 23  Hegel and Schelling are the obvious targets; e.g., RD, I, 166–7; RD, II, 114–115. Bavinck’s cultural assessment is occasionally so striking one needs reminding that he wrote at the end of the 19th—not the 20th—century. From his vantage point in 1897, he observed a reaction against Enlightenment materialism in the form of “spiritism, which not only acknowledges the existence of deceased spirits but also admits the possibility of communion between them and human beings on earth. By its sensational seances and extensive literature spiritism has won thousands upon thousands of adherents,” RD, II, 446–47; perhaps the shelves of Bavinck’s local bookstore resembled typical “self-help” or “new age” sections at the present time; C.f., PR, 220–21; Bolt’s introduction to RD, II, 21; James A. Herrick, The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Weern Religious Tradition (Downers Grove: IVP, 2003). 24  RD, II, 420. 21

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Ontological (Ad Intra) and Economic (Ad Extra) The afffijirmation of independent, intratrinitarian “immanent” relations in the being of God—that is, of the “ontological Trinity”—is a necessary inference from God’s antecedent being.25 God’s “free, independent existence and life of his own” is placed at the fore in Bavinck’s doctrine of divine incomprehensibility, the very fijirst motif of his theology “proper” (i.e., doctrine of God). There he begins with a memorable phrase: “Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics.”26 Mystery, because the moment we dare to speak about God the question arises: How can we? We are human and he is the Lord our God. Between him and us there seems to be no such kinship or communion as would enable us to name him truthfully. The distance between God and us is the gulf between the Infijinite and the fijinite, between eternity and time, between being and becoming, between the All and the nothing. However little we know of God, even the faintest notion implies that he is a being who is infijinitely exalted above every creature.27

The doctrine of God’s incomprehensibility is theology’s acknowledgment of God’s absolute self-existence; he is infijinite, eternal and not subject to change (i.e., “being,” not “becoming”).28 God is a se: He “does not need the creation. He is life, blessedness, glory in himself.”29 In his transcendence, then, God is “a person, a conscious and freely willing being, not confijined to the world but exalted highly above it.”30 In a very real sense, by virtue

25  The following will prefer the less confusing term “ontological” Trinity over against “immanent” Trinity, because the latter term is often used to describe God’s presence in the world—the exact opposite of what the “immanent Trinity” is meant to afffijirm. 26  RD, II, 29. 27  RD, II, 30; C.f., RD, IV, 93. 28  Bavinck is fully aware that 19th century philosophy renders the advisability of using the term “absolute” questionable. The philosophy of idealism is characterized by its search for the “Absolute” or “Concrete Universal” by way of abstraction and negation. Nonetheless, he believes that “religion and theology cannot dispense with the concept of the absolute...” RD II, 123. Far from the procedure of idealism, however, Bavinck’s notion of “‘Absoluteness’ [is] not obtained by abstraction, deprived of all content, and the most general kind of being, but true, unique, infinitely full being, precisely because it [is] absolute, that is, independent being, belonging only to itself and self-exience. ‘Absolute is that which is not dependent on anything else,’” RD, II, 123, emphasis added. “Absolute” is thus, for Bavinck, simply theological shorthand for God’s independence: “[A]bsoluteness cannot be dispensed...since in this connection everything depends on describing God as God and on distinguishing him from all that is not God,” RD II, 120–22; C.f., 413. 29  RD, II, 332. Here ad intra is broadly synonymous with a se; elsewhere, it has a more restrictive referent; C.f., RD, II, 342. 30  RD, II, 30.

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of the “unsearchable majesty and sovereign highness of God,” there “is no knowledge of God as he is in himself.”31 Yet, Bavinck just as forcefully (and, it may appear, paradoxically) afffijirms God’s knowability.32 For him, Scripture presupposes God’s knowability, since it never attempts to prove God’s existence, and, moreover, because God has in fact revealed himself in nature and history, prophecy and miracle, and by ordinary and extraordinary means.33 Together these two themes, God’s incomprehensibility and his knowability, disqualify both Deistic and pantheistic concepts of God: his transcendence rules out any identifijication of God with the world, and his immanent, condescending self-revelation rules out any absolute separation of God and the world. These afffijirmations are emphatically not, on Bavinck’s account, selfcontradictory, but rather together form “an adorable mystery.”34 It is not self-contradiction because human knowledge of the divine being is never a univocal, one-to-one, or exhaustive comprehension of the divine reality.35 Given the Creator-creature distinction, human knowledge of God can only ever be analogical—that is, in distinction from God’s absolute and infijinite self-knowledge, it is derivative and fijinite; in a word, it is creaturely knowledge. God “can be apprehended; he cannot be comprehended.”36 As Bavinck puts it, in describing the attributes of God, “[I]t must not be overlooked that we have no knowledge of God other than from his revelation in the creaturely world. Since on earth we walk by faith and not by sight, we have only an analogous and proportional knowledge of God.”37 The number of alternatives to this analogical conception of human knowledge (grounded in divine revelation) is limited. In view of the human quest for univocal, exhaustive knowledge, one may either despair of any true knowledge of God via a Deistic-rationalistic separation between God and the world (e.g., Kant), or one may equate knowledge of the absolute with various human conceptual faculties via a pantheistic fusion between

31

 RD, II, 47.  RD, II, 30. 33  RD, II, 30. 34  RD, II, 49. 35  Bavinck sometimes expresses “univocal” with “fully adequate.” E.g., RD, II, 48. 36  RD, II, 47; Bavinck quotes Augustine in this regard: “We are speaking of God. Is it any wonder if you do not comprehend? For if you comprehend, it is not God you comprehend. Let it be a pious confession of ignorance rather than a rash profession of knowledge. To attain some slight knowledge of God is a great blessing; to comprehend him, however, is totally impossible,” 48; C.f., Augustine, Lectures on the Gospel of John, Tract. 38, VII, 217–21. 37  RD, II, 130; C.f., RD, I, 212–14; 310; PR, 26. 32

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God and the world (e.g., Spinoza, Hegel).38 This illumines why Bavinck insists on targeting Deism and pantheism: for him, they are the only alternatives. Non-Christian thought, for Bavinck, invariably reduces to one or the other; very often the one becomes the other; and, in the fijinal analysis, the two “options” are “two sides of the same coin,” and reduce to metaphysical monism.39 Bavinck is aware that dualism represents another option that has a long pedigree in ancient Near Eastern paganism and Greek philosophy, but in his estimation its inevitable attempt to reconcile its own antitheses degenerates into another species of pantheism: the commingling of the creaturely and the divine.40 In other words, analogical reasoning (that is, true yet inexhaustive knowledge grounded solely in divine revelation) is a necessary epistemological implication of the Creator-creature distinction, eschewing, as it does, both Deism and pantheism.41 This doctrine of divine incomprehensibility necessarily gives rise to a distinction between God’s ontological “immanent” trinitarian relations and his “economic” ad extra manifestations. If God is truly incomprehensible—that is, infijinitely transcendent—then by defijinition

38

 RD, II, 47–48.  RD, I, 367–372: “The worldview that is opposed to Scripture and must in principle oppose all revelation can best be labeled monism. Monism, both in its pantheiic and in its materialiic form...” 367. C.f., RD, II, 438; on 515–16, Bavinck observes that the untenability of materialism “paved the way for the pantheism of Spinoza or Hegel and exerted such influence that even Haeckel could not escape it, prompting him to elevate his materialistic monism to the level of a new religion.” 40  C.f., RD, II, 409–426. 41  In his doctrine of the knowledge of God Bavinck draws on the distinction made by Reformed scholasticism between “archetypal” and “ectypal” knowledge, the former being God’s exhaustive self-knowledge and the latter, an analogical, derivative knowledge: “It is [God’s] good pleasure, however, to reproduce in human beings made in his image an ectypal knowledge that reflects this archetypal knowledge (cognitio archetypa) in his own divine mind. He does this...by displaying [it] to the human mind in the works of his hands,” RD I, 233; c.f., RD, I, 212, RD, II, 107–10. The archetypal/ectypal distinction is therefore nothing less than the metaphysical Creator-creature distinction applied to epistemology; C.f., Willem van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology: Archetypal and Ectypal Theology in Seventeenth-Century Reformed Thought,” WTJ 64 (2002), 319–35; Richard A. Muller, Po-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume One: Prolegomena to Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 225–238: “Thus, the theology of the Reformation recognized not only that God is distinct from his revelation and that the one who reveals cannot be fully comprehended in the revelation, but also that the revelation, given in a fijinite and understandable form, must truly rest on the eternal truth of God: this is the fundamental message and intention of the distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology,” 229. For an outstanding assessment of Bavinck’s use of the archetypa/ectypa scheme, see Hendrik van den Belt, Autopiia: The Self-Convincing Authority of Scripture in Reformed Theology (Diss., University of Leiden, 2006), 266–73. 39

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this incomprehensibility includes his intratrinitarian relations. To put it diffferently, God is not exhausted in his works of creation and redemption; given his transcendence, his external revelation of himself in creation does not—indeed, cannot—exhaustively coincide with the fullness of his being: “The creation of the world does not exhaust the riches of God’s knowledge and wisdom. The infijinite being of God is infijinitely more abundant than the whole world in all its dimensions could ever present to our view.”42 This is what Scripture teaches, according to Bavinck: The Father eternally gives to the Son, and with him to the Spirit, to have life in himself (John 5:26). And the community of being that exists among the three persons is a life of absolute activity. The Father knows and loves the Son eternally—from before the foundation of the world (Matt. 11:27; John 17:24)—and the Spirit searches the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:10). All these works of God are immanent. They bear no relation to anything that exists or will exist outside of God, but occur within the divine being and concern the relations existing among the three persons. However, they are also very important to us inasmuch as they make God known to us as the allsufffijicient and blessed Being, who is ‘not served by human hands as though he needed anything’ (Acts 17:25). God does not need the world for his own perfection. He does not need the work of creation and preservation in order not to be unemployed. He is absolute activity within himself.43

God’s incomprehensible ontological being is, in other words, “selfcontained.” In his triune divine existence, he is “absolute activity” without reference to his works of creation and redemption. The theological import of this for Bavinck is easy to predict: it guards Christian theism from pantheism. If creation exhausted God’s internal resources, so to speak, then either God is not infijinite, or the world is; the Creator and creature would then be either identical or correlative realities. If God is not self-contained, the world is necessary for him, an extension of his own being, and thus, divine.

42  RD, II, 342–3; C.f., RD, I, 349: “[R]evelation and religion, are absolutely not identical, nor the two sides of, or two names for, the same thing. This identity can be asserted only on the position of pantheism, according to which God has no existence of his own distinct from the world but achieves self-consciousness and self-revelation in that world, specifijically in humanity”; PR, 19: immediately after calling the identifijication of the infijinite and the fijinite as the προτον φευδος, the “fijirst lie” of Hegel’s philosophy, he writes, “As in science one must distinguish between ideas which God has deposited in his works, and the errors which constantly are being drawn from them as truth, even so revelation and religion are not two manifestations of the same thing, but difffer as God difffers from man, the Creator from the creature.” 43  RD, II, 342.

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The language of “self-contained,” which Bavinck does not use, offfers a clarifijication with respect to his understanding of pantheism.44 Much of what he terms pantheism is in contemporary discourse, of course, referred to as panentheism; the diffference between the two is that the latter actually maintains a distinction between God and world, whereas pantheism technically identifijies (exhaustively) God and the world.45 This diffference is unlikely to impress Bavinck because the distinction panentheism draws between God and the world is a relative or quantitative one (i.e., God is more than the world) rather than an absolute or qualitative one (i.e., the world is not God). But the Creator-creature distinction, while important and necessary, is not to be conceived as a complete separation, however, as though God were completely “incommunicable.” That would entail what Bavinck describes as (quoting truly Gnostic terms popular in his day) God being “absolutely hidden, ‘cosmic depths,’ ‘absolute silence,’ ‘the unconscious,’ ‘the groundless.’”46 In other words, the God of Deism, not Christian theism, results. The ontological Trinity is not a deus absconditus, a “hidden deity.”47 On the contrary, the infijinite and eternal God works toward his creatures, those who “exist outside of his being.”48 This ad extra working of God is the so-called “economic” Trinity, and Bavinck afffijirms that God’s economic works are intimately connected to his ontological being: “It is always one and the same God who acts both in creation and in re-creation

44  Readers may recognize the language as characteristic of Cornelius Van Til, who wrote often of the “self-contained ontological Trinity.” Van Til’s own systematic theology was so deeply indebted to Bavinck that it often bears its distinctive imprint; indeed, it is with obvious conviction that he wrote, “Herman Bavinck has given to us the greatest and most comprehensive statement of Reformed systematic theology in modern times,” Van Til, An Introduction to Syematic Theology (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1978), 43. On the other hand, Van Til was sometimes unnecessarily critical of Bavinck; C.f., Brian G. Mattson, “Van Til on Bavinck: An Assessment,” WTJ 70 (Spring, 2008): 111–127. 45  C.f., John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers—From Plato to the Present (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 38–9, 42–3. 46  RD, II, 332–3. For the Gnostic roots of these terms, C.f., Irenaeus, Again Heresies, Book I. 47  The critical side of Bavinck’s “critical appreciation” of the apostolic fathers and apologists (e.g., Justin, Tertullian) is generally their tendency, to varying degrees, to describe God in these terms; RD, II, 280–85. Bavinck credits Athanasius and especially Augustine for overcoming this “hidden God” motif. For instance, whereas before the Old Testament theophanies were considered revelations of the Logos, “inasmuch as the Father was hidden,” Augustine ascribed the theophanies also to the Father and Spirit, who are no less “hidden” than the Son, 287; C.f., Augustine, De Trinitate, II–III. 48  RD, II, 332–33.

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[....] the ‘ontological’ Trinity is mirrored in the ‘economic’ Trinity.”49 The eternal ontic relations of the three persons of the Trinity, that is, in their distinguishing “personal properties” (i.e., paternity, fijiliation and procession), form the archetype for the manifestations of the three persons in the divine economy. Bavinck afffijirms that all of God’s works ad extra are the common work of all three persons of the Trinity and are thus indivisible. At the same time, the ad extra works are performed through a “cooperation” of the three persons, as each has a unique role and special task— both in creation and re-creation.50 These economic “roles” are appropriate to each person and are grounded in their ontological relationships. Thus, for example, “The incarnation of the Word has its eternal archetype in the generation of the Son, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a weak analogy of the procession from the Father and the Son.”51

49  RD, II, 318; C.f., RD, I, 111: “[Scripture] posits no split, much less a contrast, between God’s ontological existence and his ‘economic’ self-revelation”; RD, II, 209: “Now in the case of God, there is complete correspondence between his being and his revelation (Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). It is impossible for God to lie or deny himself.” However, this “complete correspondence” is itself analogical, not univocal; C.f., fn. 52 below. 50  RD, II, 319. This is important to note, given that Bavinck occasionally ascribes to the Father the work of creation, the Son, redemption, and the Holy Spirit, sanctifijication; he clearly does not mean this in an absolute sense, since he afffijirms elsewhere that there is no “division of labor” between the three persons (RD, I, 109–10; RD, II, 423). Hielema strongly criticizes a similar formulation in Bavinck’s lecture on common grace, writing, “This tension [between the works of the Father and Son] is, however, an anomaly in Bavinck’s theology,” Syd Hielema, Eschatological Underanding, 192. He further adds, “One would be hard pressed to fijind such a confusing and problematic formulation in Bavinck’s Dogmatics,” (192, fn. 216). However, in the Dogmatics Bavinck explicitly maintains a certain “taxis” or order in the divine economy (citing in support, Gregory of Nazianzus and Augustine): “Just as in the ontological Trinity the Father is fijirst in the order of subsistence, the Son second, the Spirit third, so also in the history of revelation the Father preceded the Son, and the Son in turn preceded the Holy Spirit. The ‘economy’ of the Father was especially that of the Old Testament (Heb. 1:1); the ‘economy’ of the Son started with the incarnation; and the ‘economy’ of the Holy Spirit began on the Day of Pentecost (John 7:39; 14:16–17),” RD, II, 320; C.f., RD, III, 570; Gregory of Nazianzus, Theological Orations, V, 26; Augustine, Lectures on the Gospel of John, Tract. 6; The Trinity, II, 5; IV, 20; Bolt, Imitation, 116–17, 235–36. At the same time, Bavinck avoids pantheistic construals: “Over and over, from Montanus to Hegel, the notion arose that the three persons represented three successive periods in the history of the church. In that way the ‘economic’ Trinity was detached from its metaphysical foundation; God’s being was dragged down into a stream of becoming, and cosmogony was converted into theogony. It was precisely the struggle of the church fathers to banish this paganistic, pantheistic element from Christian theology, to separate God as the One who is from the evolution of becoming, and accordingly, to conceive the Trinity as an eternal movement of life in the divine being itself,” 320. Notably, Hielema makes very little of Bavinck’s distinction between the ontological and economic dimensions of trinitarian theology. 51  RD, II, 320–321.

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By the distinction between the Trinity in its ontological sense and its economic sense, then, Bavinck maintains both the distinction between God and the world and yet the genuine relationship between the two. The Creator-creature distinction implies, equally importantly, a Creatorcreature relationship. The denial of the ontological Trinity (that is, God’s self-contained antecedent existence) results in pantheism; denial of the economic Trinity (that is, God’s works in space and time) results in Deism. A robust Trinitarian theology that afffijirms ontological ad intra relationships and economic works ad extra avoids both errors. God is absolutely transcendent, yet free to condescend toward creatures. This is a metaphysical correlate to the twin epistemological notions of God’s incomprehensibility and knowability.52 As one might expect of a Reformed theologian, for Bavinck the bond or connection between God’s eternal being and his external, outward works is supplied by the doctrine of God’s decrees, or the “divine counsel.” God’s decrees ensure the continuity between God’s being ad intra and his ad extra works.53 The decrees have three important characteristics, according to Bavinck. First, as has already been indicated, they do not exhaust God’s knowledge; “possibility and actuality do not coincide [....] With God all 52  This observation generates another: just as divine incomprehensibility renders human knowledge of necessity “analogical” (“analogische”—II, 48), so one might also consider the relationship between the Trinity’s ontological self-existence and economic manifestations as “analogical” rather than univocal (e.g., not identity in the way some take “Rahner’s rule”). It appears that this is Bavinck’s position. It is implicit in his reference to the Son’s eternal generation as the eternal “archetype” of the incarnation (utilizing the archetypal/ectypal scheme of Reformed scholasticism) and the “outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a weak analogy (“zwakke analogie”—II, 320) of the procession from the Father and the Son.” In other words, incarnation is analogically related to eternal generation, not identical to it; that is, nothing in the eternal generation of the Son necessitates incarnation, but, given God’s decree to “send the Son,” that sending is an ad extra work that cannot but be an analogy of the ad intra ontological relation between Father and Son. Bavinck makes this more explicit when he writes, “[Christ’s] human nature, certainly, was not a fully adequate [i.e., univocal] organ for his deity....Still the fullness of the deity dwelt in Christ bodily: those who saw him saw the Father. It is not contradictory, therefore, to say that a knowledge that is inadequate [i.e., not univocal], fijinite, and limited is at the same time true, pure, and sufffijicient,” RD, II, 107. Bavinck elsewhere notes the intimate connection between an analogical epistemology and the ontological/economic distinction in ORF, 35 (C.f, MD, 27): “The revelation of God in His creatures, both objectively in the works of His hand and subjectively in the consciousness of His rational creatures, can comprise, always, only a small part of the infijinite knowledge which God has of Himself. And not only we human beings on earth, but the saints and angels in heaven also, and even the Son of God in His human nature, have a knowledge of God which is diffferent in principle and essence from the selfknowledge of God. All the same, the knowledge [of God]...limited and fijinite as it is and will in all eternity remain, is nevertheless a real and sound knowledge.” Emphasis added. 53  RD, II, 342.

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things are possible (Matt. 19:26), but they are not all actualized.”54 Second, the decrees flow out of God’s absolute sovereignty; Bavinck notes the scriptural emphasis that it is only by God’s will that all things exist, and that nothing compels God to create or to act in the world of his creatures.55 Even though the decrees are eternal, not qualifijied by temporal characteristics, and thus coincide with the “decreeing God,” Bavinck suggests, demonstrating his extreme care and consistency, that one must nevertheless logically distinguish between God’s self-knowledge and his knowledge of the world; that is, between God’s infijinite being and the object of his decrees.56 Finally, the decrees imply that they will, in the course of time and space, be fully realized. Presumably what Bavinck intends by this is that time and space in its entirety is bound to manifest God’s decrees; creation is an utterly dependent reality contingent on God’s decree. He summarizes the import of these three aspects: In the counsel of God the theism of Scripture posits a connection between God and the world, simultaneously maintains the absolute sovereignty of God and the complete dependence of his creatures, thus avoiding both the error of pantheism and that of Deism. The things we see are not made out of the things that appear (Heb. 11:3), but owe their causation to God’s thought, his will, that is, to his decrees.57

Thus always and everywhere, whether it be a question of metaphysics or epistemology, Bavinck is concerned to maintain the Creator-creature distinction over against pantheistic commingling of the divine and creaturely and the Deistic separation of God from the world, and throughout his Dogmatics he uses a variety of formal categories to invoke this distinction: archetypal/ectypal, absolute/relative, infijinite/fijinite, being/becoming, eternity/time, and so forth.58 The Trinity, in its ontological and economic dimensions, establishes the concrete distinction to which these more formal and abstract terms refer. Moreover, for Bavinck the distinction can

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 RD, II, 343.  RD, II, 343–347. 56  RD, II, 343. Not observing this logical distinction is again to make the non-divine world a necessary aspect of God’s eternal being, thus efffectively denying God’s freedom and sovereignty; Bolt, Imitation, 214. 57  RD, II, 343. 58  With regard to Heideman’s view of the “Idealist” Bavinck, Bolt writes, “How far Bavinck’s thought in fact is from idealism and neo-Platonism is clear from his relentless attacks on monism and pantheism [...],” Imitation, 180; and, again, “Bavinck’s extreme jealousy in protecting the radical transcendence of God clearly sets him apart from all neo-Platonic and pantheistic-idealistic thought,” 183. 55

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only be maintained if the Creator is completely non-contingent, but rather the source and ground for all possibility. That is, if the confession of the Creator-creature distinction is to avoid pantheism it requires the afffijirmation of God’s eternal, absolute, and thus comprehensive, decree (i.e., the counsel of God). This is because without such a decree then God, along with the world, is contingent, and correlatively both Creator and creatures are subject to some other “unconscious blind fate.”59 Thus, the doctrine of the divine counsel maintains the Creator-creature distinction with respect to the dimension of history. A God who is not ontologically, epistemologically and eternally “self-contained” is, for Bavinck, no God at all.60 None of this should imply that for Bavinck the Trinity is simply a useful apologetic “limiting concept” that avoids theological errors. That is, it is not purely a matter of apophaticism (not Deism, not pantheism), but, rather, God’s triune character positively—one might say, cataphatically— provides the ontological ground for creation itself: “[Creation] can be maintained only on the basis of a confession of a triune God.” In seeking to relate these two things, Trinity and creation, Bavinck approaches from two diffferent perspectives. Under his locus of the Trinity, he argues that the Trinity is the precondition for the act—or perhaps even better, fact—of creation itself. The center of gravity of this argument is squarely on God’s immanent divine life; it seeks to explain something about God. Under his locus of creation, he argues that the Trinity is the precondition for the nature or character of creation. The center of gravity here, while obviously still dependent on his trinitarian theology, actually falls on the created order; the argument explains something about creation. Because this shift in the center of gravity moves away from theology proper to cosmological considerations, this second argument will await the fijinal two sections of this chapter. What follows here is an account of why Bavinck believes that the “act” or “fact” of creation can only be maintained on the basis of trinitarian theology. A “Bath of Deadly Uniformity” The struggle of the early church fathers, according to Bavinck, was to “separate God as the One who is from the evolution of becoming, and 59

 RD, II, 435.  RD, II, 372: “Among Christians, accordingly, there can be no disagreement over the existence of a divine counsel. Only pantheism, which does not acknowledge that God has a life and consciousness of his own that is distinct from the world, can raise objections to that idea.” 60

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accordingly, to conceive the Trinity as an eternal movement of life in the divine being itself.”61 As already seen, this is a recurring theme in Bavinck’s theology: God has “a free, independent existence and life of his own.”62 This life “is divinely rich: it is fecund; it implies action, productivity.”63 In his ontological being, “[h]e is life, blessedness, glory in himself.”64 God is an absolute, “infijinitely full” being.65 It is a hallmark of the pantheism and materialism the early church fathers faced, and which the later church perennially fought down to Bavinck’s own day, that it attempts to explain the world, in its richness and diversity, by means of a single principle. As Bavinck sees it, pantheism attempts to do so dynamically, and materialism mechanically. The principle of the former is the divine soul animating the world as a living organism, the latter, the world as a unifijied material mechanism.66 Nevertheless, in both systems an unconscious blind fate is elevated to the throne of the universe. Both fail to appreciate the richness and diversity of the world; erase the boundaries between heaven and earth, matter and spirit, soul and body, man and animal, intellect and will, time and eternity, Creator and creature, being and nonbeing; and dissolve all distinctions in a bath of deadly uniformity.67

This “deadly uniformity” is the inevitable product of monism, which Bavinck identifijies as “the worldview that is opposed to Scripture and must in principle oppose all revelation.”68 Monism is a metaphysical genus that manifests itself in species of materialism and pantheism, both of which are, in the fijinal analysis, “driven by the same urge, the urge and drive toward unity.”69 Materialism fijinds this unity in omnipotent and omnipresent impersonal natural law, and pantheism fijinds unity in a single, impersonal dynamic substance. All monistic accounts of reality deny, in efffect, that it is a “universe.” It either manifests unity or diversity, but not both; one is bound to devour the other. According to Bavinck, all non-Christian thought—lacking as it does the Christian theistic Creator-creature

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 RD, II, 320.  RD, II, 150. 63  RD, II, 332. 64  RD, II, 332. 65  RD, II, 123. 66  RD, II, 435. 67  RD, II, 435. As a very minor point, it should be noted that this last phrase, “bath of deadly uniformity” represents some translational liberties. 68  RD, I, 367. 69  RD, I, 367. 62

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distinction—tends toward monism, as the history of the “problems” of philosophy shows. Philosophy devotes itself to the seemingly intractable relationships between the one and many, being and becoming, continuity and change, and unity and diversity, and displays a near-constant pendulum swing from one pole to the other. Heraclitus sacrifijiced the one to the many, being to becoming, continuity to change, unity to diversity, and Parmenides did the opposite; but both equally advanced a monistic account of reality. Bavinck obviously opposed all monism by way of a Christian-theistic Creator-creature distinction. But what is occasionally, and superfijicially, less than clear in this oft-repeated apologetic is why a Chriian theistic distinction is necessary; it sometimes appears as though all one needs to avoid monistic pantheism is a more generic theistic Creator-creature distinction (e.g., the monotheism of Islam or Judaism). Why is trinitarian (i.e., Christian) theism essential to this anti-monist polemic? The apparent ambiguity is in some measure due to the theological method Bavinck has chosen; rather than treat the doctrine of the Trinity before the locus of the attributes of God, he does the reverse.70 This is not objectionable for him because he presupposes that each attribute exists necessarily “in a three-fold manner.”71 And further, as a pedagogical point, “In order for us to understand in the locus of the Trinity that Father, Son, and Spirit share in the same divine nature, it is necessary for us to know what that divine nature comprises and in what ways it difffers from every created nature.”72 Thus, it is important to realize that when, for example, Bavinck critiques materialistic and pantheistic forms of monism with respect to each divine attribute (e.g., immutability), he does so with a full-fledged trinitarian theism that, while methodologically deferred, is nevertheless unambiguous.73 And when, accordingly, Bavinck actually treats the locus of the Trinity, it has decidedly retroactive efffects for his treatment of the divine attributes.74 When Bavinck describes God as an “infijinitely full” being, having a 70  RD, II, 149–50. He makes clear that this is not in order to “gradually proceed from ‘natural’ to ‘revealed’ theology,” but rather because it follows the more genetic character of Scripture itself, which gradually reveals God’s trinitarian existence. 71  RD, II, 150. 72  RD, II, 150. 73  The fact that Bavinck engages materialism and pantheism under each divine attribute again highlights the central importance of the Creator-creature distinction in his theology as a whole. 74  E.g., A point missed by Karl Barth: “Or listen to a modern theologian, to Bavinck, whose presentation of the Trinity is in itself one of the most careful and instructive that I know. He tells us that the whole of Christianity stands or falls with the doctrine of the

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“rich,” “fecund,” “productive,” and “active” independent life and existence of his own, he presupposes God’s ontologically trinitarian existence. In fact, for him the latter is the precondition for the former. Bavinck essentially argues that if God were not triune, he could have no antecedent and independent life.75 This is why he writes that the doctrine of the Trinity “makes God known as essentially distinct from the world, yet having a blessed life of his own.”76 By inference, a generic or “bare” monotheism is not adequate for this task. Bavinck argues that the Trinity is the precondition for the God-world relationship as such. In examining this, it should be observed that Bavinck does not think the doctrine of the Trinity can be based on “rational grounds,” by which he means arguments based on trinitarian analogies (e.g., thought, love, goodness, perfection); on the contrary, “we owe our knowledge of this doctrine solely to God’s special revelation.”77 In light of the self-revelation of God, rational argumentation can “at most” clarify the doctrine a poeriori. The Trinity is not logically derivative, the conclusion of a rational argument; it is, rather, logically primitive. That is, one cannot infer or derive the Trinity from various creaturely analogies or divine attributes; instead, the analogies and attributes themselves only have meaning in light of the Trinity: “Apart from [the Trinity], they are mere names, sounds, empty terms.”78 One does not fijirst understand God as independent, eternal, love, etc., and then infer his trinitarian character, but “only by the Trinity do we begin to understand that God as he is in himself—hence also, apart from the world—is the independent, eternal, omniscient, and all-benevolent One, love, holiness, and glory.”79 The Trinity is therefore the presupposition of Christian thought about God, not vice-versa. But given this strict denial that rational argument can establish the doctrine, why, and, more importantly, how and on what grounds, does Bavinck insistently argue for the (presumably logical) necessity of the Trinity for God’s antecedent, independent life and genuine relationship with the world?80 He surely believes that his claim, “[Creation] can be maintained

Trinity [....] [B]ut this high estimation does not come to expression in his arrangement,” Göttingen Dogmatics, Vol. I (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 97. 75  RD, II, 331. 76  RD, II, 331. 77  RD, II, 329. 78  RD, II, 329. 79  RD, II, 329, emphasis added. 80  In other words, Bavinck belies his own pessimism toward logical and rational argument.

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only on the basis of a confession of a triune God,” is more than a mere assertion. It is framed, after all, as an argument. This argument appears to have a quasi-transcendental character; that is, for Bavinck the Trinity is the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of the God-world relationship. Transcendental arguments, in distinction from deductive or inductive argument forms, are indirect; that is, the preconditions being argued are necessarily presupposed in the argument itself, and thus established by logical negation. They demonstrate that a particular state of afffairs (e.g., the God-world relation) of necessity presupposes some general precondition (in this case, God-as-Trinity).81 Such arguments demonstrate the logical impossibility of alternatives, often by reductio ad absurdum. That Bavinck adopts this argument form is evident from his remark that the doctrine of the Trinity “alone makes possible— against Deism on the one hand—the connection between God and the world, and—against pantheism on the other—the diffference between God and the world.”82 By implication, a non-trinitarian concept of God renders the God-world relationship impossible. Pressing on, Bavinck proceeds to logically rule out what he views as the only two alternatives to trinitarian theism: Deism and pantheism. The Deistic concept of God, a divine, undiffferentiated monad, is essentially an “abstract entity, a pure being,” having “mere monotonous and uniform existence.”83 Independence from the world such a god might have, but not an independent life. That is, there is “God” and “world,” but no God-world relationship. Bavinck discerns this theme in Athanasius: “Those who deny the Trinity reduce God to a lifeless principle or end up with the doctrine of the eternal existence of the world.”84 On the other hand, as this quote

81  C.f., “Transcendental Arguments,” Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed., Ted Honderich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 878; Immanuel Kant provides a classic defijinition in his Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (London: MacMillan, 1950), B765: “[A transcendental proposition], though it needs proof, it should be entitled a principle, not a theorem, because it has the peculiar character that it makes possible the very experience which is its own ground of proof, and that in this experience it must always itself be presupposed.” Among North American theologians strongly influenced by Bavinck, it was Cornelius Van Til who rigorously developed this “transcendental” motif; see Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1998) 1–24, and esp. Don Collett, “Van Til and Transcendental Argument,” WTJ 65 (Fall, 2003), 289–306. 82  RD, II, 332, emphasis added. For Bavinck, Deism and pantheism are the only alternatives. 83  RD, II, 332. 84  RD, II, 286; C.f., Athanasius, C. Arian, I, 14, arguing that the Father without the Son is a light without radiance, or a fountain barren and dry.

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suggests, pantheism’s “god,” as it were, is equated with the dynamic, full life of the world, but has no independent life; i.e., there is no distinct “God” and “world,” and therefore, again, no God-world relationship.85 Bavinck makes frequent use of critiques of this kind: God is no abstract, fijixed, monadic, solitary substance, but a plentitude of life. It is his nature (ο'σια) to be generative (γεννητικη) and fruitful (καρπογονος). It is capable of expansion, unfolding, and communication. Those who deny this fecund productivity fail to take seriously the fact that God is an infijinite fullness of blessed life. All such people have left is an abstract deistic concept of God, or to compensate for this sterility, in pantheistic fashion they include the life of the world in the divine being. Apart from the Trinity even the act of creation becomes inconceivable.86

This is a provocative claim, and another in a clearly transcendental mode: the act of creation itself cannot be conceived unless God be triune. This gets to the heart of Bavinck’s claim that creation must be grounded in the confession of the Trinity. The difffijiculty, as Bavinck frames it, is how creation has its foundation in God, “yet [is] not a phase in the process of his inner life.”87 In other words, how does one give an account of creation that avoids pantheistic, emanationist schemes?88 Creation is not a mere extension of God’s being or a process of his own life because his antecedent, self-existent life is one of absolute activity and productivity; that is, God’s triune being entails the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit. Bavinck notes, “Both of these acts are essentially distinct from the work of creation: the former are immanent relations, while the latter is work ad extra. The former are sufffijicient in themselves: God does not need the creation.”89 An assumption latent in Bavinck’s argument is that a divine-world relationship requires an antecedent “relationality” or “reciprocity” in God’s being or essence; or, at very least, there must be an innate capacity

85  C.f., RD, IV, 108: Here Bavinck explicitly notes that Deism precludes “true communion with God,” and that pantheism does likewise: “for such communion presupposes an essential distinction between the two.” 86  RD, II, 309–10. 87  RD, II, 332. 88  While Bavinck’s more immediate concern is obviously pantheism, it should be noted that Deism’s tendency toward the eternal self-existence of the world is just as unacceptable for him; in fact, as has already been noted, Bavinck sees no great diffference between pantheism and Deism. They are “two sides of the same coin,” RD, II, 412. 89  RD, II, 332.

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for relationship.90 This is really the crux of his transcendental claim, an assumption regrettably implicit rather than explicit. If God is not triune, existing in the one divine essence as three persons-in-relationship, then in himself he necessarily has an unfulfilled relational capacity (given the God-world relationship). The creation of the world is, therefore, the actualization or fulfijillment of a divine potentiality: God cannot be fully God without the world. The implication follows that any account of creation that does not presuppose a self-contained, intradivine relationality results in an essentially pantheistic view; God somehow needs the world as a process of actualizing an innate—yet unrealized—capacity.91 More positively, for Bavinck the Trinity itself provides the archetypal ground for God’s ad extra work of creation: The dogma of the Trinity, by contrast, tells us that God can reveal himself in an absolute sense to the Son and the Spirit, and hence, in a relative sense also to the world. For, as Augustine teaches us, the self-communication that takes place within the divine being is archetypal for God’s work in creation [....] Generation and procession in the divine being are the immanent acts of God, which make possible the outward works of creation and revelation.92

This last sentence again confijirms the transcendental character of Bavinck’s argument: Generation and procession (divine “self-communication”) are the necessary preconditions (“make possible”) for the state of afffairs of creation and revelation. Since Bavinck specifijically identifijies God’s ontological “self-communication” as the precondition of creation as such, 90  It is by no means obvious that “relationality” is what Bavinck is after when he uses words such as “action,” “productivity” or “fecundity.” However, these terms are later clarifijied—indeed, defijined—by relating them to eternal generation and procession, summed up as an ad intra divine “communication” (RD II, 332). This suggests that his concepts of “action,” “productivity,” and so forth precisely are the intratrinitarian relations. This is further confijirmed when Bavinck later explicitly describes the “absolute activity” of the Triune being as “the relations existing among the three persons,” RD, II, 342, emphasis added. For a helpful treatment of the concept of God’s intratrinitarian “productivity” in the early fathers, see Michael R. Barnes, The Power of God: Δυναμις in Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian Theology (Lanham, MD: Catholic University Press, 2001), esp. Ch. 6, “the ProNicean Doctrine of Divine Productivity,” 220–259. 91  While the transcendental claim for ontological relationality in God is on one level complex, on another level it is something of the equivalent of the Sunday-school child who answers the question, “Why did God create?” with, “Because he was lonely.” On Bavinck’s terms, unless one presupposes the ontological Trinity, one is bound to give—with wide variations, undoubtedly—a species of that answer: the God-world relationship fulfijills an unrealized relational capacity in God. 92  RD, II, 333. Note again that “self-communication” (i.e., relationality) is the archetype. Bavinck provides no citation for Augustine here.

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some explanation of his understanding of the intratrinitarian relations is warranted.93 As already noted, Bavinck believes the struggle of the early church fathers against paganism was to separate God’s self-existence as the “One who is” from the movement and change of history. This was accomplished by maintaining an “eternal movement of life” in the divine being.94 He describes this “movement” in terms of the immanent relations of the divine persons—that is, in terms of their distinguishing “personal properties” of paternity, fijiliation and procession. The Father’s “generation” of the Son is analogical language that must be carefully distinguished from creaturely generation. First, Bavinck maintains, generation is spiritual, not “physical, sensual, and creaturely.”95 It is therefore not to be conceived of as producing separation, division or divergence in the divine being; rather it is “simple, without division (Xρρευστως) or separation (Xδιαιρετως).”96 Generation is not inimical to, but consistent with, the simplicity of God. Second, the generation of the Son is out of the divine being. He does not derive his existence from something other than the divine nature; neither was he “generated” ex nihilo, as the Arians contended. That, Bavinck argues, citing John of Damascus, is creation, not generation.97 The Son is not a creature but he is ‘God over all, forever praised!” (Rom. 9:5). Accordingly, he was not brought forth by the will of the Father out of nothing and in time. Rather, he is generated out of the being of the Father in eternity. Hence, instead of viewing ‘generation’ as an actual work, a performance (^νεργεια), of the Father, we should ascribe to the Father ‘a generative nature’ (ϕυσις γεννητικη).98

Bavinck’s third and fijinal observation regarding the Son’s generation is that it is eternal. With clear dependence on Athanasius, he argues that since “Father” and “Son” are divine names in a “metaphysical” sense, then this relation, and the generation that produces it, must be eternal. If the Son is not eternal, then neither is God the eternal Father.99 Thus, generation

93  Only the subject of “generation” will be treated, since it will be sufffijicient for purposes here. Moreover, Bavinck’s salient points apply equally well to “procession,” with only minor qualifijications. 94  RD, II, 320. 95  RD, II, 309, contra the Arians, who presumed corporeal notions of generation. 96  RD, II, 309. 97  RD, II, 309. C.f., John of Damascus, The Orthodox Faith, I, 8. 98  RD, II, 309. 99  RD, II, 310.

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is simply not qualifijied by temporal characteristics.100 Bavinck uses a common patristic analogy: Just as it is natural for the sun to shine and for a spring to pour out water, so it is natural for the Father to generate the Son. The Father is not and never was ungenerative; he begets everlastingly. “The Father did not by a single act beget the Son and then release him from his ‘genesis,’ but generates him perpetually” [Origen]. For God to beget is to speak, and his speaking is eternal. God’s offfspring is eternal.101

God’s simple, divine and eternal “productivity”—conceived in terms of eternal generation and procession—entails his self-sufffijiciency, or, as described earlier, his “self-contained” character. As such, this trinitarian “fullness” is the presupposition of God’s ad extra work of creation; it alone makes possible genuine creation without pantheistic notions of emanation. Without the ad intra, there can be no ad extra; without the archetypa there can be no ectypa; without eternal generation, there can be no creation. Bavinck puts it succinctly: “if the divine being were not productive and could not communicate himself inwardly (ad intra), then neither could there be any revelation of God ad extra, that is, any communication of God in and to his creatures.”102 This comports well with a passage already cited: “Without generation, creation would not be possible. If, in an absolute sense, God could not communicate himself to the Son, he would be even less able, in a relative sense, to communicate himself to his creature. If God were not triune, creation would not be possible.”103 It should now be apparent that Bavinck believes that the Creatorcreature distinction, or the God-world relationship as such, is an exclusively trinitarian dogma. That is, for an articulation of the Creator-creature relationship to not reduce to some form of Deism or pantheism (each, in turn, implying metaphysical monism), the Trinity must be presupposed. It is specifijically as Trinity that God makes himself known as “the 100  RD, II, 310: “It is not something that was completed and fijinished at some point in eternity, but an eternal unchanging act of God, at once always complete and eternally ongoing.” 101  RD, II, 310. C.f., Origen, On Fir Principles, I, 2, 2. 102  RD, II, 332. The Arian or Deistic notion of God, with its implicit denial of generation and procession, entails, according to Bavinck, a doctrine of God’s incommunicability. This, in turn, “carries within itself the corollary of the existence of a world separate from, outside of, and opposed to God. In that case God is absolutely hidden, ‘cosmic depths,’ ‘absolute silence,’ ‘the unconscious,’ ‘the groundless.’ The world does not reveal him; there is no possibility of knowing him,” RD, II, 333. Once again, Deism sows the seeds of Gnoic concepts of God; rationalism becomes mysticism. 103  RD, II, 420; C.f., Athanasius, Again the Arians, I, 12; II, 56, 78.

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all-sufffijicient and blessing Being who is ‘not served by human hands as though he needed anything (Acts 17:25).104 Bavinck claims, then, that because non-trinitarian notions of God ultimately lack relational aseity or self-sufffijiciency (i.e., they are, in themselves, necessarily impersonal), they reduce to some form of pantheism, making God and the world correlative, mutually conditioning realities. So, for Bavinck, the precondition for afffijirming the Creator-creature distinction—what he elsewhere describes as the distinguishing feature of “true religion”—is the Trinity.105 Bavinck is open to at least three criticisms. First, he gives no explicit justifijication for his move from descriptive theology (i.e., the afffijirmation that God is triune) to the robust kind of prescriptive theology he offfers here (i.e., God mu be triune). Given his strong emphasis that humans are utterly dependent on God’s self-revelation in order to think and speak about him, it is unlikely that Bavinck makes this move from autonomous (i.e., setting out demands for what God mu be) or purely speculative motivations. However, lacking any explicit rationale, his argument is susceptible to the impression that he has moved outside the sphere of divine revelation in order to provide a priori rational justifijication for a divinely revealed truth. This is unfortunate because the reality is exactly the opposite. For Bavinck, divine self-description (i.e., revelation) is itself necessarily prescriptive for the way in which creatures think about God.106 If God discloses himself as the Triune One, it is necessary for creatures to acknowledge him as such in their thinking and reasoning. That is, his quasi-transcendental claims for trinitarian theology follow directly from and can be made precisely because of God’s prior self-disclosure.107 104

 RD, II, 342.  RD, II, 407. As mentioned above (fn. 81), Cornelius Van Til appropriated and expanded this “transcendental” emphasis found in Bavinck. For example, Lane Tipton summarizes but one implication of Van Til’s own theology: “[I]t is precisely because God is ‘essentially and eternally self-relational’ that he can enter into relationship with creatures. Hence, God is essentially relational in his eternal being, independent of and prior to relations with creatures, and this fact makes possible meaningful historical relations with creatures by means of covenantal condescension,” The Triune Personal God: Trinitarian Theology in the Thought of Cornelius Van Til (unpublished Ph.D. diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 2004), 139. Bavinck’s formative influence is obvious here, a fact signifijicantly downplayed by Tipton, choosing as he does to highlight the influence of A.A. Hodge and Charles Hodge on Van Til’s trinitarian theology. 106  “Until now we have discussed God’s being as such—not, of course, in the sense that we thought and spoke about God apart from his revelation in nature and Scripture. The truth is, we cannot speak of God except on the basis of his self-revelation,” RD, II, 341–2. 107  Important in this regard is Bavinck’s lengthy treatment of “faith” as the principium internum of theology, RD I, 497–621; C.f., 592: “Just as the human eye, seeing the sun, is immediately convinced of its reality, so the regenerate person ‘sees’ the truth of God’s 105

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Second, Bavinck presumes without argument that Deism and pantheism are the only non-Trinitarian alternatives. Viewing this taxonomy from the wide vantage-point of the history of philosophy, this is not altogether unreasonable. But there are alternative religious views that would not admit to being either Deistic or pantheistic. Surely a Jewish Rabbi or Muslim Imam would be surprised to learn that their respective doctrines of God render him “sterile” and “lifeless.” What is needed, but Bavinck fails to provide, is something approaching an actual argument that Jewish and/or Islamic forms of monotheism actually do reduce, in the fijinal analysis, to either Deism or pantheism. Bavinck’s argument relies on his general taxonomy without providing particulars. He was clearly familiar with Jewish and Muslim theology, and some interaction beyond the mere assumption that they fall into his categories would greatly bolster his argument.108 As it stands, without such detailed argument, his controversial and sweeping claims are unlikely to be persuasive. A third and related problem—granted, one shared by every orthodox trinitarian theologian from the earliest centuries on, as the filioque controversy highlights—is how Bavinck explains the Holy Spirit; why three, and only three divine persons? Does not a “bi-nity” or “quadrinity” theologically secure the intradivine relationality Bavinck insists upon? Had Bavinck been content with mere theological description, the problem does not arise; however, he is making a prescriptive move, a would-be transcendental argument that the Trinity is the precondition for the God-world relationship as such. By failing to demonstrate that alternative forms of intradivine relationality necessarily fail as adequate preconditions, Bavinck’s quasi-transcendental argument remains exactly that: quasi. While it is clearly not his purpose to engage with abstractions, positions that revelation [....] [b]elievers cannot relinquish this faith anymore than they can relinquish themselves.” Van Keulen describes this approach to theological reflection (specifijically in reference to Bavinck’s doctrine of Scripture, but applicable more generally) as an “inside perspective” (“binnensperspectief”); see Dirk van Keulen, Bijbel en Dogmatiek (Kampen: Kok, 2003), 101, 116; C.f., Van den Belt, Autopiia, 251. 108  C.f., fn. 18 (above) for an example of interaction with Jewish monotheism. Bavinck’s closest and life-long friend, Snouck Hurgronje, with whom he carried on regular correspondence, was an “Arabist” scholar and intimately acquainted with Islam; as Henry Dosker reported in 1922, Hurgronje “is widely known as one of the very few Christians, who, in disguise, have succeeded in penetrating the holy precincts of Mecca and lived to tell the tale.” Dosker, “Herman Bavinck,” The Princeton Theological Review, Vol. 20, No. 3 (1922), 451–2; this article, Dosker’s classic eulogy, is reprinted in Bavinck, Essays on Religion, Science & Society, 13–24. For correspondence between the two friends, see H. Bavinck and C. Snouck Hurgronje, Een Leidse vriendschap: De briefwisseling tussen Herman Bavinck en Chriiaan Snouck Hurgronje 1875–1921, ed. J. DeBruijn and G. Harinck (Baarn: Ten Have, 1999).

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have no actual adherents (e.g., binities and quadrinities), using terms like “inconceivable” and “impossible” invites a burden of proof he cannot legitimately ignore. This is a signifijicant lacuna in Bavinck’s argument that, while not necessarily falsifying it, certainly points up the need for further reflection and expansion.109 As it is, Bavinck contents himself with appeal to the early church fathers to the efffect that since the Holy Spirit fully completes the Trinity, the divine being does not become an infijinite regress of “generative movement.”110 These limitations notwithstanding, Bavinck is exemplary in his attempt to be faithful to his starting commitment, that all doctrines, “whether they concern the universe, humanity, Christ, and so forth” are to serve the purpose of the knowledge of God: they start with him, are subsumed in him, and are traced back to him.111 Arguing that the self-contained, triune God is the presupposition of and precondition for the existence of the universe is, at very least, a bold efffort at making good on this pledge. “The World is A Theater” The foregoing has shown that for Bavinck the doctrine of the Trinity, in its ontological and economic dimensions, serves to free Christian theism from the monistic “bath of deadly uniformity” on the vertical or ontological plane; there is a Creator-creature diinction. Reality is not ultimately “one,” but two: God and everything else. But, additionally—or perhaps precisely because of this—the Trinity is also the archetype for unity and diversity within the created order itself; that is, on the horizontal planes of time and space. In God’s infijinite fullness, “there is unity in diversity, diversity in unity.”112 This is archetypal of the unity and diversity in the created order, but “in the case of creatures we see only a faint analogy of it.”113 This is because, unlike the divine persons, creatures do not exist in perichoretic union, but rather in time and space, side by side.114 So, whereas

109  The controversial history of the merits (or lack thereof) of transcendental arguments is illustrated by a 1971 symposium in Nous, a philosophical journal. There Moltke S. Gram began his paper: “The problem about transcendental arguments is whether there are any.” Cited in Collett, “Transcendental Argument,” 306. That is to say, Bavinck’s difffijiculties are not unique. 110  RD, II, 313; C.f., Basil, Again Eunomius, V; Athanasius, Again the Arians, I, 18. 111  RD, II, 29. 112  RD, II, 331. 113  RD, II, 331. 114  RD, II, 331. C.f., RD, II, 305–6.

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in the created order there are varying degrees of unity or diversity given diffferent types of relationships, in God these are equally ultimate: “[I]n God both are present: absolute unity as well as absolute diversity.”115 Latent here, again, is Bavinck’s presupposition and use of the Reformed scholastic distinction between theologia archetypa and ectypa.116 God is absolute and infijinite, creation is derivative and fijinite; however, because God is the creator, his creation analogically, on a creaturely level (i.e., “ectypally”), displays his archetypal attributes, including, in this instance, unity and diversity. For example, he writes: “Just as God is one in essence and distinct in persons, so also the work of creation is one and undivided, while in its unity it is still rich in diversity.”117 This may not on the surface appear to be a major theme in Bavinck’s Dogmatics, but it underlies a variety of his theological formulations. He describes the three epistemic principia (by which he organizes his prolegomena) as being rooted in the trinitarian being of God: “It is the Father who, through the Son as Logos, imparts himself to his creatures in the Spirit.”118 Likewise, God’s revelation as such is trinitarian.119 Even the very laws of human thought presuppose a trinitarian basis.120 A trinitarian account of the Creator-creature distinction,

115  RD, II, 332. Thus, for Bavinck, the consubstantiality (homoousia) of the divine persons is theologically axiomatic: the “one” and “three” are equally ultimate. The term “absolute diversity” is liable to misunderstanding. It may suggest that the distinction between the persons is “absolute,” meaning they bear no relationship with each other. This is obviously not the case. Bavinck is simply articulating the trinitarian dogma that the Father with his distinguishing personal properties is not the Son or Spirit with their distinguishing personal properties, and vice-versa. This is not to deny unity of essence or the doctrine of perichoresis. 116  C.f., Fn. 41 (above). The sources for Bavinck’s use of certain theological motifs presents a recurring question, including that of the archetypal/ectypal distinction, and especially his (related) use of “principia” for the organization of his prolegomena. With respect to the latter, R.H. Bremmer writes that Bavinck “[F]ound rest for his thought in the critical realism of neo-Thomistic philosophy, naturally a Protestant version,” Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 315, and suggests that Thomism is a dominant theme especially with respect to Bavinck’s treatment of the God-world relation, 386. E. Heideman concurs, Relation of Revelation and Reason, 144; similarly, van Keulen claims that Bavinck’s “ectypal” is synonymous with Thomas’s concept of analogy, Bijbel en Dogmatiek, 161, a questionable suggestion given Bavinck’s criticisms of Rome’s analogia entis (Thomas included) as Neoplatonic (e.g., RD, II, 190–91, 539, 541, 553). Hendrik van den Belt rightly locates as a preeminent source the tradition of older Reformed scholasticism. It will become relevant below that Bavinck edited an edition of the Synopsis purioris theologiae, a compendium of Reformed scholastic theology, an exercise that greatly influenced his theological reflection; H. van den Belt, Autopiia, 257–73. 117  RD II, 422. 118  RD, I, 214. 119  RD, I, 233. 120  RD, I, 231.

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exemplifijied in his use of the archetypal/ectypal scheme, is characteristic and fundamental to Bavinck’s theology, a fact of special importance when one considers, again, the proliferation of interest in monism and pantheism in much 19th century Dutch theology.121 Moreover, the notion that God’s trinitarian being forms the archetype of creation greatly contributes to his basic and most fundamental afffijirmation about the nature of created reality; namely, that all things are “organically” related. He writes, In virtue of this [ectypal] unity the world can, metaphorically, be called an organism, in which all the parts are connected with each other and influence each other reciprocally. Heaven and earth, man and animal, soul and body, truth and life, art and science, religion and morality, state and church, family and society, and so on, though they are all distinct, are not separated. There is a wide range of connections between them; an organic, or if you will, an ethical bond holds them all together.122

In context, this represents both a negative and a positive statement. On the one hand, Bavinck is contrasting what he calls the “worldview” of Christianity with the worldviews of pantheism and Deism; as seen above, it is his trinitarian theology that cuts both approaches offf at the root. Positively, then, it follows that the ontology of creation argued here cannot but be rooted in his trinitarian theology; since God, the eternal archetype, is himself absolute unity and absolute diversity, then creation itself, as the ectype, is analogically both unity and diversity; and the word Bavinck chooses to describe this is “organic.”

121  C.f., Hendrikus Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, 97–108; Scholten’s Idealism, Opzoomer’s search for a monistic “higher unity” in materialism, Pierson’s self-description as a “monist in hope,” Daniel Chantepie de la Saussaye’s mediating theology which spoke of “humanizing God”—it is to these basically pantheistic approaches that Bavinck’s trinitarian Creator-creature distinction is aimed. Indeed, although Bavinck admired De la Saussaye, his issue of basic concern, the “root error” (gronddwaling) was “the obliteration of the distinction between the Creator and creature,” cited in Veenhof, Revelatie en Inspiratie, 564; C.f., 561–69; Bolt, Imitation, 72. Veenhof (Revelatie, 564) and Berkhof (Two Hundred Years, 110) suggest that Bavinck misunderstood Chantepie’s concept of “mediation.” In John W. Cooper’s recent and thorough work on the history of panentheism, he briefly suggests that Kuyper’s Neo-Calvinism, as a self-conscious cultural (i.e., “this” worldly) engagement, is specifijically designed as an alternative to the prevailing monism of the 19th century; John W. Cooper, Panentheism, 340. Indeed, Cooper’s treatment of Hegel, Schelling, and 19th century developments remarkably vindicates Bavinck’s own understanding of his times; C.f., 90–147. 122  RD II, 436.

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Excursus: The Concept of The “Organic” and its Sources But here a serious issue arises in the interpretation of Bavinck. Scholars have sought to explain just why and how Dutch Neo-Calvinism, as represented by Kuyper and Bavinck, latched on to this particular word, “organic,” and its related vocabulary, “development,” “growth,” “process,” “unfolding,” and so on. The difffijiculty presents itself in that it has all the markings of a favorite emphasis in the Idealism of Hegel and Schelling, the German “history of religions” school, and the Dutch Ethical theologians, not to mention the explosive rise of such language in the natural sciences following in the wake of Darwin’s evolutionary hypothesis. It cannot be denied that the simultaneity of Neo-Calvinism’s “organic” emphasis with these wider cultural and intellectual movements is indeed striking. What accounts for this? Are Kuyper and Bavinck influenced by these trends? If so, the question arises whether they are self-consciously co-opting the language or whether they are somewhat unwitting “children of their time.” Jan Veenhof, in his truly monumental and influential 1968 dissertation, Revelatie en Inspiratie, admits that the organism motif has deep roots in Christian reflection on the divine economy. He nevertheless concludes that the primary sources for Kuyper and Bavinck’s use of the organic metaphor were, in fact, Idealism (particularly Schelling), the history-ofreligions school and the Ethical theologians.123 For him, the philosophical background of the terms, for which he provides a nearly twenty-page treatment, renders this conclusion inescapable. This raises the question: have Kuyper and Bavinck, who are ever so vigilant to publicly maintain an antithetical posture to what they view as anti-Christian philosophy, unwittingly allowed that very philosophy to defijine so critical a motif as the “organic” metaphor? Or are they, perhaps, knowingly and self-consciously co-opting the language and putting it to diffferent use? If the former is true, it seems difffijicult to account, on Bavinck’s part, at least, for his consistent and relentless critique of Idealism, the history-of-religions school, and, indeed, to a lesser extent, even the Ethical theology. If the latter is true, then Veenhof’s conclusion that “Kuyper and Bavinck employed the concepts of ‘organism’ and ‘organic’ in the universal sense of the time” cannot be accurate.124 Veenhof’s analysis is flawed. He attempts to explain the meaning of the language, as used by Kuyper and Bavinck, by tracing its historical and 123

 Veenhof, Revelatie en Inspiratie, 267–8.  Veenhof, Revelatie en Inspiratie, 268.

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philosophical background.125 While a fascinating study in its own right, from Aristotle to Kant, the Romantics, and, fijinally, Hegel and Schelling, it is nevertheless to engage in the genetic fallacy. That is, one does not explain the meaning of words by tracing their historical origins.126 This is not to deny that their language is that of the late 19th century “cultural moment”—it manifestly is. But one does not explain a particular use of a term by noting its use by others and throughout history.127 In his Stone Lectures Bavinck himself warns of this precise mistake on—strangely enough—this precise topic; diffferentiating Reformation theology from post-Enlightenment philosophy, he writes, “No doubt between these two mighty movements of modern history certain lines of resemblance may be traced. But formal resemblance is not the same as real likeness, analogy as identity.”128 Moreover, the actual historiography is incorrect. Relying on the work of a number of late 19th century fijigures,129 Veenhof assumes that one may draw a straight historical line from Cocceius to Bengel, and from there, to Böhme and Oetinger, to J.T. Beck and the German Idealists. The assumptions latent here are common; namely, that the interest in the historical (or “organic”) development of divine revelation began with Cocceius and moved in a direction that was the antithesis to orthodox scholasticism, which, as Schrenk alleges, “merely used the Bible as a storehouse of references for a dogmatic system.”130 That is, whereas later Reformed scholasticism allegedly eschewed the notions of “development” and “growth” in favor of abstract, rationalistic and deductive systems of truth, there was another line of thinkers altogether who embraced dynamic, developmental or “organic” concepts. This historical trend fijinds its full flower in the

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 Veenhof, Revelatie en Inspiratie, 252–66.  James Barr’s classic warnings about linguistic etymologies apply equally to language of historical concepts; c.f., The Semantics of Biblical Language (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 107–100; 158–160. 127  One might imagine an historian a century from now seeking to understand the thought-world of a late 20th century theologian. He might note the almost excessive use of terms like “narrative,” “metanarrative,” “drama,” “contextual” and so forth, and seek to explain the terms by relating their history. No matter how thorough the investigation, however, it would not justify the conclusion that the theologian understands the terms in the same way as late-20th century French Deconstructionism. In fact, the similarity would only reveal a theologian speaking to his time; it says virtually nothing about his ance toward those historical movements. In fact, a theologian using terms popular in postmodern thought may, in fact, be the staunchest critic of postmodernism. 128  Bavinck, PR, 4 (WO, 4), emphasis added. 129  Rudolf Eucken, Wilhelm Maurer, J. Kromsigt and G. Schrenk. 130  Veenhof, Revelatie en Inspiratie, 256. 126

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post-Enlightenment world of German Idealism. While this has a surface plausibility (indeed, it reigned supreme for over a century), note that what this historiography efffectively does is rule out Reformed orthodox scholasticism itself as a possible source for Neo-Calvinism’s use of the organic metaphor. It is this very historiography that has been thoroughly discredited in recent years, particularly by the work of Richard A. Muller.131 But Veenhof assumes, relying as he does on his late-19th century sources, that any interest in organic “unfolding” or “development” must have its source in something other than the tradition of Reformed orthodoxy; if that were the case, then indeed, there is no better candidate than post-Kantian philosophy, particularly Hegel and Schelling. However, contra the late-reigning view of Reformed orthodoxy as a rationalistic, a-historical dogmatic system, it in fact manifested a strong interest in historical development and the gradual unfolding of God’s salvifijic purposes for creation. Muller gives a characteristically dispassionate summary of what he calls the “overarching organization” of Reformed systems of doctrine: [T]he Reformed orthodox relied on...teleological and historical issues. Typically, they move from the statement of principia, through creation, fall, and redemption, to the last things with an emphasis on the covenant as the historical or economical form of the divine work of salvation. Apart from this patterning, however, we fijind virtually no interest in deducing one doctrine from another but, instead, a desire to place exegetically established doctrinal loci at their proper points along the historical-teleological line of the system.132

It ought to be noticed that this description marks precisely Herman Bavinck’s own dogmatic method, down to the details. This raises the possibility that the source of Neo-Calvinism’s organic metaphor is not primarily 19th century German philosophy at all, but rather a fresh appropriation of its own tradition. Granted, the overall climate of the 19th century certainly provided its own situational motivations for using the terms, but it is at least possible that Kuyper and Bavinck were speaking to the critical issues

131  Richard A. Muller, PRRD, e.g., Vol. 4, 382–391; “The Myth of ‘Decretal’ Theology,” 159–67; “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists,’ Part One,” 345–75, and “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists,’ Part Two,” 125–60. 132  Muller, PRRD, Vol. 1, 447; C.f., “The Myth of ‘Decretal’ Theology,” 162: “[O]ne might ask why the Reformed systems follow a ‘deductive’ rather than a ‘biblical’ order. The answer to this query is quite simple: The order of system that runs from God and creation, to human nature and sin, promise and covenant, law and gospel, Christ and salvation, church and last things, looks suspiciously like the order of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.”

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of their day out of resources internal to their own historical-theological tradition. In fact, this hypothesis makes for a far more satisfying account. First, it has the advantage of doing justice to Bavinck’s own selfconscious and relentless critique of Idealism, particularly as manifested by Hegel and Schelling.133 The thesis that Bavinck, while persistently resisting Idealism (which he argued was merely a sophisticated form of pantheism), nevertheless borrowed wholesale from it the conceptual materials for what is his most important motif (the “organic” nature-grace relationship), is counter-intuitive, to say the least. The same could be said of the “history-of-religions” school and the Ethical theology.134 Granted, as is universally acknowledged, it is a hallmark of his theology that he always seeks the “grain of truth” in other systems; but, keeping in mind his doctrine of common grace, those “truths” are always borrowed caricatures from what he views to be a biblical system of theology, and not vice-versa.135 Second, it accounts for the fact that Bavinck is self-conscious of the historical “line” drawn from Cocceius to Schelling, via Bengel, Böhme, Oetinger, Beck—in fact, he outlines it in that order—and nowhere does he place himself in this particular historical stream.136 On the contrary, he is extremely critical of Cocceius, to the point of declaring that he “undermined the whole doctrine of the covenant.”137 Likewise, to Böhme, Oetinger and Beck he attributes a “mystical theosophy” largely responsible for the resurgence of pantheism in the 19th century, fijinding its culmination in Hegel and Schelling, against whom, of course, he has no shortage of words. It is true that on occasion he may express (critical) appreciation for the organic motifs in many of these thinkers, but this is not conclusive evidence that they are, in fact, sources for his own use of the concepts. Third, this in turn gives much fuller weight to Bavinck’s own indebtedness to the tradition of Reformed scholasticism. Hendrik van den Belt

133  E.g., RD, I, 254–258; 290–295; RD, II, 114–115; 155–156; 230–233; 295; RD, III, 52–53; 177–178; 260–261; 275; 351–352; 547–550; RD, IV, 591–93. Bavinck goes so far as to write that Schelling and Hegel elevated pantheism to “the system of the nineteenth century,” RD, II, 410. 134  Note his criticism of De la Saussaye, that he undermines the Creator-creature distinction and tends in a pantheistic direction; Veenhof, Revelatie et Inspiratie, 564. 135  C.f., “CCG,” 119; “CG,”, 51; PR, 10; RD, I, 320: “What in paganism is the caricature, the living original is here [in Christianity]. What is appearance there is essence here. What is sought there can be found here.” 136  RD I, 64. 137  Interestingly, because it destroyed the organic unity of God’s purposes, RD III, 211; C.f., Anthony A. Hoekema, Herman Bavinck’s Doctrine of the Covenant (unpublished Ph.D diss: Princeton, 1953), 40–41.

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calls attention to Bavinck’s recourse to and unique application of the Reformed scholastics in the organization of his prolegomena, particularly his use of the three principia of theology.138 But the imprint of Reformed scholasticism is everywhere in the Dogmatics, as already seen, for example, in his use of the archetypal/ectypal scheme.139 In this regard one dare not overlook a signifijicant detail from very early on in Bavinck’s career: in 1881, prior to his fijirst academic post at Kampen, Bavinck edited the sixth and fijinal edition of the Synopsis purioris theologiae, a compendium of Reformed scholastic works. In a letter to his friend, Snouck Hurgronje, he writes, “I am better at home with [Reformed theology] now than before and it has had quite an influence—and I believe a positive influence—on my theological view.”140 Even more interestingly, this took place at a time, immediately following the completion of his studies in Leiden, when Bavinck, reflecting on his liberal education, underwent something of a crisis of faith.141 It was precisely in reaction to his education that he sought— and found—unity for his thought, not in 19th century German philosophy, but in historic Reformed orthodoxy.142

138

 Van den Belt, Autopiia, 257–271.  John Bolt notes: “From Bavinck’s numerous citations of key Dutch Reformed theologians such as Voetius, de Moor, Vitringa, van Mastricht, Witsius, and Walaeus as well as the important Leiden Synopsis purioris theologiae, it is clear he knew that tradition well and claimed it as his own,” “Editor’s Introduction,” RD II, 12. 140  Cited in Valentine Hepp, Herman Bavinck (Amsterdam: Ten Have, 1921), 113; C.f., Bavinck and Hurgronje, Een Leidse Vriendschap, 100. 141  George Harinck, “Something That Must Remain, If the Truth Is to Be Sweet and Precious To Us: The Reformed Spirituality of Herman Bavinck,” CJT 38 No. 1 (April, 2003), 252–255. 142  One might note, in this regard, an illuminating parallel: it was in 1881 that Bavinck undertook to study Reformed orthodoxy by editing the sixth edition of the Leiden Synopsis, precisely at a time when he was struggling to get his theological bearings in reaction to his liberal education at Leiden. In Reformed orthodoxy Bavinck found the theological resources by which to mount his assault on Protestant liberalism. In 1924, another young theologian had a similar experience: having made a decisive break with liberalism, Karl Barth found himself “as it were, alone in the open, without a teacher.” His search for a “teacher” led him serendipitously to Heinrich Heppe’s Reformed Dogmatics, through which he was introduced to the broader Reformed orthodox tradition. Barth was “amazed” and “astonished” at “its wealth of problems and sheer beauty of its trains of thought.” Mesmerized as he was, he writes, “At the same time I was also aware that a return to this orthodoxy (in order to remain at its side and to compete with it!) could not be contemplated [...].” Quite possibly, one could argue, every theological diffference between Bavinck and Barth can ultimately be traced to this momentous juncture: Barth “found” Reformed orthodoxy and concluded that it simply would not sufffijice in articulating a robust, scriptural theology in a world dominated by liberalism; Bavinck “found” Reformed orthodoxy and concluded precisely the opposite. C.f., Karl Barth, “Foreword,” in Heinrich Heppe, 139

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Finally, secondary literature on the discussion of organic language in Bavinck has overlooked a potentially fruitful connection: Geerhardus Vos, professor of biblical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.143 Bavinck and Vos were well acquainted; the latter had spent his doctoral period in Europe, making contact with the leading Reformed theologians in Holland.144 The two exchanged correspondence throughout their careers, and Vos (along with B.B. Warfijield) undertook to translate Bavinck’s Wijsbegeerte der Openbaring into English following the Stone Lectures—delivered at Princeton—in 1908.145 He is particularly relevant because in his work in Reformed biblical theology he regards of paramount importance the organic unfolding of God’s revelation in history. In 1894, the year prior to Bavinck’s publication of the fijirst volume of the Dogmatics, Vos delivered his inaugural address to the faculty and board of Princeton Seminary, suggesting therein that “[t]he fijirst feature characteristic of supernatural revelation is its hiorical progress.”146 He proceeds to use the terms “organic” and “organism” twenty-eight times, and metaphors for growth, development and unfolding innumerably more. In his inaugural lecture, in other words, the notion of organic unity and historical development is set out as the very essence of Vos’s life’s work: “Biblical Theology, rightly defijined,

Reformed Dogmatics, Ernst Bizer, rev. and ed., G.T. Thomson, trans. (Grand Rapids: Baker, reprint 1978), v–vii. 143  There is no reference to Vos in Veenhof, Revelatie en Inspiratie; R.H. Bremmer, Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, and Herman Bavinck en zijn tijdgenoten, in addition to one mention in a Kuyper letter (see fn. 145, below), contains only one other incidental reference to Vos; no references are found in S. Meijers, Objectiviteit en Exientialiteit (Kampen: Kok, 1979), E. Heideman, The Relation of Revelation and Reason, John Bolt, Imitation of Chri Theme, Syd Hielema, Herman Bavinck’s Eschatological Underanding of Redemption, Ron Gleason, “The Centrality of the Unio Myica” (Vos appears repeatedly in the bibliography but is actually cited only once, 237), and Dirk van Keulen, Bijbel en dogmatiek (Kampen: Kok, 2003). H. van den Belt alone notes, on one occasion, Bavinck’s dependence on Vos, Autopiia, 304. 144  Gafffijin, “Introduction,” Redemptive Hiory and Biblical Interpretation, ed., Richard B. Gafffijin, Jr. (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980) ix. 145  For a number of letters from Vos to Bavinck, C.f., The Letters of Geerhardus Vos, James T. Dennison, ed. (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2006). Vos additionally translated Bavinck’s article, “Calvin and Common Grace,” for the Princeton Theological Review, 7, 437–465, also published in Calvin and The Reformation: Four Studies (Edinburgh: Revell, 1909). That Vos was on intimate terms with Kuyper and Bavinck is obvious by his correspondence (which contains numerous letters to Kuyper), but is also evidenced by Kuyper’s letter to Bavinck in January, 1894, in which he expresses pleasure at the news that Vos was moving to Princeton; C.f., R.H. Bremmer, Herman Bavinck en zijn tijdgenoten (Kampen: J.H. Kok, 1966), 291. 146  Vos, “The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline,” Redemptive Hiory and Biblical Interpretation, 7.

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is nothing else than the exhibition of the organic progress of supernatural revelation in its hioric continuity and multiformity.”147 That Bavinck took a keen interest in Vos’s work in this regard is evidenced by his citation of this very lecture in the fijirst edition of volume one of his Dogmatics, published just the following year.148 It is, of course, possible that Vos is himself reflective of the popular late 19th century trends of continental philosophy; after all, he did spend his doctoral period in Strassburg. However, this hypothesis faces the same problem as encountered with Bavinck: how does one account for the fact that Vos self-consciously criticizes a biblical theology under the sway of rationalistic idealism and “Evolutionistic Philosophy”?149 It is far more likely that for Vos, as well as for Bavinck, there is self-conscious awareness that the organic metaphor might lead to a misleading identifijication of their theological approaches as Idealistic (an obviously well-founded concern!); this explains the great pains both men underwent to set their theologies apart from, in Vos’s case, rationalistic versions of biblical theology, and in Bavinck’s case, Deistic and pantheistic forms of dogmatic theology.150 In his introduction to the biblical theology of Vos, Richard B. Gafffijin, Jr. makes a telling comment: In a word, Vos is signifijicant because he is the father of a Reformed biblical theology, or, as he much prefers to describe the discipline, ‘History of Special Revelation.’ This is certainly not to say that prior to him in the Reformed tradition there was no awareness or appreciation of the historical character of revelation. Attention to the historical progress of revelation is given with

147

 Vos, “The Idea of Biblical Theology,” Redemptive Hiory, 15.  GD, I (1st ed., Kampen: J.H. Bos, 1895), 283–4; he cites Vos’s marvelous play on Kant’s famous dictum: “[W]ithout God’s acts the words would be empty, without His words the acts would be blind.” C.f., RD, I, 366. It is not being argued here that Vos directly influenced Bavinck’s views on the “organic” metaphor—Bavinck wrote on the theme long before Vos did. However, their relationship represents, as noted, a potentially fruitful connection worthy of further study; there was likely some measure of (to use an organic metaphor) “cross-pollenization” between the two men. 149  Vos, “The Idea of Biblical Theology,” Redemptive Hiory, 15–18. 150  William Young, in a somewhat hyperventilating diatribe against Neo-Calvinism, writes: “What [Kuyper] did not realize was that his acceptance of the organic analogy not only at this point but as a pervasive feature of his outlook led to a re-interpretation of covenant theology, the metaphysical presupposition of which would entail a fundamental rejection of the sovereignty of God, and issue in pantheism. If the organic analogy were pushed (as by Schelling and Hegel) to include the relation between God and the world, we could only conclude with Schleiermacher: “Ohne Gott kein Welt; ohne Welt kein Gott,” “Historic Calvinism and Neo-Calvinism,” WTJ 36 (Fall 1973), 56–57. Leaving aside Kuyper for the moment, if its intent is to encompass Bavinck as well, this critique is absurd. 148

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chapter one the Reformed concentration on the idea of the covenant and is present in such dissimilar fijigures as Coccejus and Jonathan Edwards.151

This assessment becomes even more weighty when considered alongside Muller’s exposition of Reformed scholastic theological method: an emphasis on the historical diffferentiation of divine revelation, that is, the progressive or organic unfolding of God’s purposes in history is “given” with Reformed covenant theology. It is therefore simply not necessary for Kuyper and Bavinck to enlist the aid of German Idealism to form their concept of the “organic,” because it is already latent in their own tradition. This is not to say that 19th century philosophical preoccupation with teleological concepts of history play no role; it likely provided them the motivation to draw on these internal resources to provide a biblical and Reformed answer to what they viewed as the pantheistic and evolutionary thought-forms of their day. In a word: Kuyper and Bavinck did not speak from their times to their tradition; they spoke from their tradition to their times.152 The Ontology of Creation When Bavinck turns his attention from the Creator to consider the creation as such, he recedes almost instinctively back to his central theme, the Creator-creature distinction.153 He now considers the creature side of this relationship, and follows his introductory comments with eight pages critiquing, again, pantheism and materialism. Not only must the biblical doctrine of God be defended against pantheism and Deism (of which materialism is a necessary correlate), but also the biblical doctrine of creation must be so defended. The “vertical” (Creator-creature) shapes the “horizontal” (space and time); pantheism and Deism’s theologies entail specifijic cosmologies. Or, as Bavinck puts it, “From one’s understanding of the act [of creation] flows one’s view of the product.”154 If the doctrine of the Trinity played a major role in answering the challenges of pantheism and Deism with respect to the divine, so also with

151

 Gafffijin, “Introduction,” in Redemptive Hiory, xv, emphasis added.  Hendrikus Berkhof writes that Kuyper and Bavinck had “the conviction that classic orthodoxy had to be further articulated in conscious confrontation with the questions of the modern period,” Two Hundred Years of Theology, 109. For a recent and far more robust evaluation of Veenhof’s account of Bavinck’s organicism, c.f., James Eglinton, “Bavinck’s Organic Motif: Questions Seeking Answers,’ CTJ Vol. 45, No. 1 (April 2010): 51–71. 153  RD, II, 407. 154  RD, II, 435. 152

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respect to the creature. But when considering the ad extra works of God he enlists the aid of two further considerations, creation ex nihilo, and creation’s theocentric teleological destiny; that is, protology and eschatology, the “what” and the “for what.” Whereas God, in his eternal, ontic being is not subject to time, has no origin or end (and thus, the doctrine of the Trinity simpliciter sufffijices) any discussion of space and time-bound creatures must incorporate the historical considerations of origins and destiny.155 Bavinck’s understanding of a trinitarian creational ontology will be considered at present, and creational eschatology will await the following section. As already suggested, the doctrine of the Trinity, specifijically God’s archetypal unity-in-diversity, and diversity-in-unity, provides the grounds for the ectypal unity and diversity evident in the created order. Christian theism avoids the “bath of deadly uniformity” inherent in monistic philosophy because the Creator is the triune God. This is a “unity that does not destroy but rather maintains diversity, and a diversity that does not come at the expense of unity, but rather unfolds it in its riches.156 It is this, he immediately suggests, that enables the world to be described, metaphorically, as an “organism.”157 Ontologically, the particulars that make up the whole of the cosmos are diverse, distinct and independent, yet are connected and mutually influencing. This unity and diversity is “ectypal” and therefore analogous to the intratrinitarian unity and diversity; created things do not enjoy perichoretic union, they do not “mutually indwell” each other. Nonetheless, they do, each together, form an “organic” whole. This ontology not only plays a signifijicant role in Bavinck’s concept of nature and grace, between which there is an “organic” connection, but, among other things, also serves to resolve the epistemological conundrum of universals and

155

 C.f., Bavinck’s discussions of time and eternity, RD, II, 159–64; 426–30.  RD, II, 435–6. 157  RD, II, 436. Again, contra Veenhof, who argues that the “organism concept, as it is employed by Kuyper and Bavinck, is marked by the idealistic philosophy made famous by Schelling,” Revelatie en Inspiratie, 267–68. Bavinck believes the “organic” metaphor flows naturally from his basic trinitarian ontology. This is made clear in his most comprehensive treatment of organicism, Chrielijke Werelbeschouwing (Kampen: J.H. Kok, 2nd ed., 1913) 56fff. Ironically, Ron Gleason writes, “It can be convincingly argued that Bavinck would have done better to get this unitive notion [of the “organic”] from the Bible. He could have located it in the doctrine of the unity of the Trinity [...],” “The Centrality of the Unio Mystica,” 356. But that is precisely what Bavinck does; Gleason is far too reliant on Veenhof’s account of the “organic”; C.f., PR, 136: “[T]he confession of the unity of God is the foundation of the true view of nature and also of history”; Bolt, Imitation, 199, 205–232. 156

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particulars that perennially plagues philosophy. One may assume a real connection between the mind and external reality because between the two there is an organic connection, arising from the fact that both have been created by God. This conviction can only rest “in the belief that it is the same Logos who created both the reality outside of us and the laws of thought within us and who produced an organic connection and correspondence between the two.”158 That this is reflective of Bavinck’s basic trinitarian ontology is made evident when he, again, places it in context of the archetypal/ectypal distinction: It is [God’s] good pleasure, however, to reproduce in human beings made in his image an ectypal knowledge that reflects this archetypal knowledge (cognitio archetypa) in his own divine mind. He does this, not by letting us view the ideas in his being (Malebranche) or by passing them all on to us at birth (Plato, the theory of innate ideas), but by displaying them to the human mind in the works of his hands.159

Bavinck is epistemologically a critical realist because he is, more foundationally, a trinitarian. This trinitarian creational ontology is therefore the external foundation for all science, not just theology.160 Unlike monism, it does not seek to erase the distinctions between God and the world, and between created things, but rather Christian theism “seeks to discover the harmony that holds all things together and unites them and that is the consequence of the creative thought of God.”161 Not identity or uniformity, but “unity in diversity” is the aim.162 While materialism knows not what to do with unity, pantheism knows not what to do with multiplicity.163 Trinitarian theism provides the answer: All these elements and forces [of nature] with their inherent laws, according to the theistic worldview, are from moment to moment upheld by God, who

158  RD, I, 231, emphasis added. In terms of epistemology, Bavinck argues for a “moderate” or “critical” realism that, as John Bolt notes (RD, I, 590, fn. 73), anticipates by decades the contemporary reflections of Alvin Plantinga. C.f., Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorfff, eds., Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1983); K. Scott Oliphint, “The Old-New Reformed Epistemology,” in Revelation & Reason: New Essays in Reformed Apologetics, Scott Oliphint and Lane G. Tipton, eds. (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2007), 207–219. 159  RD, I, 233. 160  C.f., PR, 81–112. 161  RD, I, 386. 162  RD, I, 386. 163  C.f., RD, I, 218: “The rock on which all pantheism runs aground is multiplicity; there is no discoverable passage from the abstract to the concrete, from the general to the particular.”

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is the fijinal, supreme, intelligent, and free causality of all things. As creatures, they have no stability or durability in themselves. It is God’s omnipresent and eternal power that upholds and governs all things. In him, in his plan and also in his rule, originates the unity or harmony that holds together and unites all things over the entire range of their diversity and leads them to a single goal.164

This “organic” view, Bavinck declares, has always been the worldview of Christian theology. The world has been metaphorically described, from the church fathers on, as one body with many members. The unity, order, and harmony exhibited in the world operates as a powerful testimony to God’s existence and unity.165 That is, the cosmos itself and as such is a revelation of God. It is to this extent that he can cite with approval Pseudo-Dionysius’s Celeial Hierarchies, a work he elsewhere criticizes: the portrait of God at the center with all creatures grouped in concentric circles around him points to the theocentric character of creation.166 Thomas describes the orderly connection of things as stringed instrument, in which each string serves the other reciprocally.167 Bavinck cites a favorite quote from Calvin: “There is not a spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of his glory,”168 and elsewhere provides his own (arguably better) variation on the theme: “[T]o the believer all things speak of God; the whole universe is the mirror of his perfections. There is not an atom of the universe in which his everlasting power and deity are not clearly seen.”169 For Christian theology, the “world is a theater,” writes Bavinck, “a splendidly clear mirror of his divine glory.”170 This conception of creation is obviously at odds with a number of religious alternatives. All non-Christian ontologies are either dualistic, pantheistic or materialistic. The bulk of Bavinck’s critique of these need not be re-stated here, other than to point out just how forcefully he returns to his trinitarian polemic here with regard to the ad extra, just as he did with respect to the ad intra.171 But he now adds an additional strand to his apologetic: the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. The reason for this is that 164

 RD, I, 370.  RD, II, 437. 166  RD, II, 437. While Pseudo-Dionysius emphasizes the unity between God and the universe (i.e., the analogia entis), Bavinck’s critique is that he undermines the Creatorcreature diinction; C.f., RD II, 188, 409. 167  RD, II, 437; C.f., Thomas, Summa theologica, I, qu.25, art. 6. 168  RD, II, 437; C.f., Calvin, Initutes, I.5.1. 169  RD, II, 90. 170  RD, II, 438. 171  C.f., RD, II, 420–426. 165

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all pagan cosmogonies bear at least two features in common: fijirst, they all “assume the existence of a primordial stufff, whether it is construed as chaos, a personal principle, a cosmic egg, or something like it.”172 Second, they are either emanationistic (the world emanates from the divine being), evolutionistic (the world becomes divine—emanationism “in reverse”), or dualistic (the world is the product of two antagonistic principles). It is against all these movements that the Christian creed, “I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth” resounds. While the phrase ex nihilo is admittedly an extra-biblical one, Bavinck argues that the term was “eagerly preserved” in Christian theology because “it was admirably suited for cutting offf all sorts of errors at the root.”173 Contrary to the fijirst feature of paganism, the act of creation did not begin with eternal, formless matter; nor, contrary to the second feature of paganism, is its product an extension of God’s being. Rather, “by his sovereign will, [God] brought the entire world out of nonbeing into a being that is distinct from his own being.”174 The doctrine of pre-existent matter undercuts God’s absolute sovereignty and creation’s absolute dependence: “if only a single particle were not created out of nothing, God would not be God.”175 The doctrine of emanation (and pantheistic evolution, for that matter) entails an essential identity between God and the world. Returning to his central concern, then, Bavinck argues that it is the doctrine of creation ex nihilo that “maintains that there is a distinction in essence between God and the world.”176 In view of God’s ontologically trinitarian being (with its intra-divine “communication”), creation ex nihilo avoids both divine emanation and the eternality of matter; it provides Christian theology a place “between Gnosticism and Arianism, that is, between pantheism and Deism.”177 172

 RD, II, 408.  RD, II, 418. 174  RD, II, 416. 175  RD, II, 419. 176  RD, II, 419. 177  RD, II, 420. Bavinck’s doctrine of creation therefore opposes, in principle, all Idealism, which presupposes some form of identity between God and the world. Eugene Heideman describes Idealism this way: “Idealism is thinking within the circle of the I; it is a monologue. Its highest wisdom is not a ‘Gegenüber’, [i.e., “over against”] but an identity. The basic conviction of Idealism is the oneness of essence between God and man,” Relation of Revelation and Reason, 23. Given Bavinck’s unequivocal afffijirmation that creation has a being distinct from God’s own being, which he further supports by his view of covenant (i.e., “I-thou” dialogue) as constitutive of the God-world relationship (see Chapter 2, below), not to mention his relentless assault on the Idealism of Hegel and Schelling, Heideman’s repeated assertions, invariably backed by innuendo rather than actual argument 173

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The ontological nature of the created order, then, is that of a unifijied, yet diverse “organism.” It represents a magnifijicent diversity analogous to the manifold perfections of the Triune creator himself.178 God is the absolute archetype for the organic: “He, the triune God, shows us in himself the completely perfect system; the origin, type, model and image of all other systems.”179 In his discussion of the divine counsel, Bavinck describes this archetypal/ectypal relationship this way: In short, the counsel of God and the cosmic history that corresponds to it must not be pictured exclusively—as infra- and supralapsarianism did—as a single straight line describing relations only of before and after, cause and efffect, means and end; instead, it should also be viewed as a systemic whole in which things occur side by side in coordinate relations and cooperate in the furthering of what always was, is, and will be the deepest ground of all existence: the glorifijication of God. Just as in any organism all the parts are interconnected and reciprocally determine each other, so the world as a whole is a masterpiece of divine art, in which all the parts are organically interconnected. And of that world, in all its dimensions, the counsel of God is the eternal design.180

Creation is thus a “theater of God’s glory.” But notice that creational diversity here, as the unfolding of the divine plan, expresses itself not only in the ontological diversifijication of created things, but also historically; that is, not only in space but in time. This was already hinted at in that he fijinds the unity and diversity of creation upheld in the plan and rule of God, which “holds together and unites all things over the entire range of their diversity and leads them to a single goal.”181 The organic worldview, he maintains, is “teleological through and through.”182 Elsewhere, reflecting on the lexical terms with which Scripture describes the creation, he notes

or citation, that Bavinck has an Idealist “line of thought” running throughout his theology (138, 144, 178–9, 183, 189, 216) and has a doctrine of creation that precludes a genuine “Gegenüber” and therefore “I-thou” God-world relationship (177) simply ring hollow; C.f., Bolt, Imitation, 195. 178  C.f., RD, II, 577: “Just as the traces of God (veigia Dei) are spread over many, many works, in both space and time, so also the image of God can only be displayed in all its dimensions and characteristic features in a humanity whose members exist both successively one after the other and contemporaneously side by side”; Calvin, Initutes, I.5.1–10, 14.1–2, 20–22. 179  Bavinck, Kennis en Leven (Kampen: Kok, 1922), 59; C.f., CW, 56–7. He goes on to describe this trinitarianism as the basis of Kuyper’s—and, therefore, Neo-Calvinism’s— organic view of human institutions. 180  RD, II, 392. 181  RD, I, 370. 182  CW, 65.

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that not only are words like kosmos and ktisis used, but also ôlām and aiōnes. The former stress the beauty and harmony of the world, the latter stress “duration, or age, that a history takes place in it which culminates in a specifijic goal.”183 This has profound implications for Bavinck, and in fact it shapes the contours not only of his doctrine of creation in general, but, as will be seen, of anthropology specifijically: Just as Paul simultaneously compares the church to a body and a building and speaks of a growing temple (Eph. 2:21), and Peter calls believers living stones (1 Pet. 2:5), so also the world is both a history and a work of art. It is a body that grows and a building that is erected. It extends itself in the ‘breadth’ of space and perpetuates itself in the ‘length’ of time.184

Creation should be regarded, then, both vertically in its relationship to God and horizontally as it “moves forward to a God-glorifying end.” As he puts it in another context, “The works of God form a circle which strives upward like a spiral; they are a combination of the horizontal and the vertical line; they move forward and upward at the same time.”185 Intrinsic to creation, for Bavinck, is both an ontology (it is a “work of art”) and a teleology (it is a “history”); protology entails eschatology. In addition to an origin (ex nihilo) and an essence (organism), creation has a telos or destiny. “For The Embellishment of His Majey” Bavinck fundamentally agrees—with one caveat—with his Princeton contemporary Geerhardus Vos, who identifijied as the “genius” of Reformed theology the recognition of the “preeminence of God’s glory in the consideration of all that has been created.”186 Vos wrote that this theocentric emphasis “is what is written at the entrance of the temple of Reformed theology.”187 For what reason did God create the world? Various forms of pantheism which argue for creation out of God’s “poverty,” or anthropocentric humanism which argues that man is his own end (Selbzweck) and all else (God included) is a means, all obliterate the Creator-creature distinction by making humanity necessary for God: “God alone is Creator;

183

 RD, II, 436.  RD, II, 436. 185  MD, 129; C.f., ORF, 144. 186  Vos, “The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology,” in Redemptive Hiory and Biblical Interpretation, 242. Bavinck cites this article, RD, II, 568. 187  Vos, “The Doctrine of the Covenant,” 242. 184

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man is a created being, and for that reason alone he cannot be the goal of creation. Inasmuch as he has his origin in God, he can also have his destiny only in God.”188 Scripture teaches, according to Bavinck, that “all of nature is a revelation of God’s attributes and a proclaimer of his praise.”189 Christian theology, accordingly, is nearly unanimous in teaching “that the glory of God is the fijinal goal of all God’s works.”190 This was emphasized in the church fathers. Tertullian remarks that God created the world “for the embellishment of his majesty.”191 This motif is prominent in the Medieval period. Most notably Anselm made God’s honor the fundamental principle of his doctrine of the atonement.192 When it comes to the diffferences among the various forms of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, Bavinck appears to take issue with Vos. Vos believed that “[a]ll other explanations of the diffference between the Lutheran and Reformed traditions in the end come down to this, that the former begins with man and the latter with God.”193 Bavinck apparently fijinds this a bit too much, and will only say that it is a matter of the thoroughness and consistency with which the Reformed worked out this principle: It is rather that the Reformed tradition made the honor of God the fundamental principle of all doctrine and conduct, of dogmatics and morality, of the family, society, and the state, of science and art. Nowhere was this principle of the glory of God more universally applied than among the confessors of the Reformed religion.194

Bavinck recognizes a two-fold objection to placing God’s glory and honor as the fijinal goal of creation. First, it seems an afffijirmation of “divine narcissism.” God is “self-centered, self-seeking, devaluing his creatures,

188

 RD, II, 433.  RD, II, 433. 190  RD, II, 433; C.f., RD, I, 346. 191  RD, II, 433; C.f., Tertullian, Apology, 17. 192  Bavinck further cites Lombard, Thomas, and Bonaventure in this respect. 193  Vos, “The Doctrine of the Covenant,” 242. 194  RD, II, 434. While as an ideal one might concur with Bavinck’s enthusiastic portrayal here, in practice the reality is not nearly so glorious. Can it seriously be argued that the Reformed pursued the glory of God in the arts, for example, more thoroughly than the Lutherans? Any Reformed impulse toward the arts, it would seem, was largely stifled by the iconoclastic concerns found, say, in Scottish Presbyterianism. Reformed contributions to the arts, compared with that of the Lutherans, remain something of a disgrace. Kuyper would doubtless disagree; see his lecture on “Calvinism and Art,” where he argues that Calvinism elevated art to a higher stage of development, Calvinism, 189–230. 189

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specifijically human beings, into means.”195 But if God is the absolute, perfect Good, then he can be satisfijied in nothing other nor less than himself. Just as human rulers require the honor due their capacity, God’s character as the summum bonum entails that all his works seek his own honor as their end. Given his absolute—i.e., not derivative—character, this self-seeking has nothing in common with human egotistical self-interest; indeed, God will with complete justice “urgently claim” that honor from his creatures, either willingly or unwillingly: “Obedience in love or subjection by force is the fijinal destiny of all creatures.”196 A second objection is that it entails that God needs the creature after all, as an instrument for self-glorifijication. Bavinck calls this objection seemingly “irrefutable.”197 But it nevertheless assumes that the mere use of instruments implies their necessity. Certainly humans labor because they are compelled by necessity. “But,” Bavinck adds, “the more refijined the work becomes, the less room there is for need or coercion. An artist creates his work of art not out of need or coercion but impelled by the free impulses of genius.”198 And that which is merely an analogy in humans is present in God in “absolute originality.” God therefore did not create out of his own poverty: “He is and always remains his own end. His striving is always—also in and through creatures—total self-enjoyment.”199 Creation, as a “work of art” and as a “history,” has a built-in destiny: the glory of God. Whereas monism, with its “bath of deadly uniformity,” cannot point to either a cause or destiny for the created world, the doctrine of creation in Christian theism emphasizes both the divine origin (protology) and destiny (eschatology) of all things.200 Not only is reality to 195

 RD, II, 434.  RD, II, 434. 197  RD, II, 434. 198  RD, II, 435. 199  RD, II, 435. Heideman aligns this theocentric goal of creation with Bavinck’s alleged “Idealistic strain” and asserts that it undermines the genuine “I-thou” God-world relationship: “God and His creation are seen as standing in a vertical line. God cannot be satisfijied with less than Himself and hence He does not enjoy the creation, but Himself through the creation. He is His own goal,” Relation of Revelation and Reason, 177. Surely God’s ultimate satisfaction in himself is not intrinsically opposed to satisfaction and enjoyment of his own creation; either God enjoys himself or he enjoys the world? That dualism seems to have more in common with (dare one say?) Platonic idealism than Bavinck’s completely mainstream Calvinism. 200  Bavinck’s repeated emphasis on humanity’s capacity and need for “development” should be understood in light of his pervasive polemic against the “staticism” of materialism and the “dynamism” of pantheism. Just as God, as the absolute, antecedent being, is triune, and therefore “pure actuality (actus purissimus), an infijinite fullness of life, blessed in himself ” (RD, II, 428), so also his creation, ectypally and therefore analogously, is both 196

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be considered in its vertical, “God-ward” relationship, but also as it “moves forward to a God-glorifying end.”201 In this way, Bavinck suggests, “it displays the attributes and perfections of God, in principle already at the outset, to an increasing degree as it develops, and perfectly at the end of the ages.”202 Eschatology, far from being merely the doctrine of the “last things,” is essential to understanding the fir things.203 It is important to note, however, that this description of creation as having a “built-in” destiny does bear superfijicial resemblance to German Idealism. Whereas for Hegel and Schelling the teleology of nature is an immanent principle working itself out dialectically along the plane of history, for Bavinck it is a teleology rooted in the transcendent eternal counsel of God and worked out by God’s action in history; whereas for Hegel and Schelling the teleological principle is essentially abstract and impersonal, for Bavinck it is irreducibly personal, having its origin and culmination in personal communion and fellowship with the holy Trinity; fijinally, whereas for Hegel and Schelling the eschatological is the synthesis of antagonistic “particulars” inherent in the historical process—and thus the end scarcely resembles the beginning—for Bavinck creation manifests God perfections already at the creation. Creation and re-creation, nature and grace, are not ontological antitheses requiring a Hegelian synthesis. This holistic view of creation, ontologically as a “uni-verse,” and teleologically as a history developing toward a God-glorifying end, has the salutary and ingenious result of overcoming both the contempt of nature

being and act, a “growing temple,” “living stones,” a “body that grows and building that is erected” (RD, II, 436). Bavinck writes that “[n]either the mechanical principle of materialism nor the dynamic principle of pantheism is sufffijicient to explain it. But whatever is valid in both is recognized in the doctrine of the world as the Scriptures teach it [....] [Creation] displays the attributes and perfections of God, in principle already at the outset, to an increasing degree as it develops, and perfectly at the end of the ages” (RD, II, 436). Thus, Bavinck’s theistic metaphysics is not to be confused with Neoplatonism’s antithetical yet correlative poles of being and becoming, a continuum with a gradated universe in-between; God is archetypally and eternally “active being,” and creation temporally and ectypally (analogically) so. Bavinck seeks to undermine alternative ontic reductionisms: pure asis (Parmenides, rationalism, idealism) and pure dynamis (Heraclitus, irrationalism, pantheism); C.f., RD, II, 308–9. 201  RD, II, 436. 202  RD, II, 436. 203  At this point one may wonder at this “theocentric” description of the eschatological telos of creation, especially given Hielema’s thesis that Bavinck’s thought—eschatology especially—is “decidedly Christocentric”; Syd Hielema, Eschatological Underanding, 192; C.f., 93fff. Disagreement here with Hielema’s thesis that for Bavinck creation is situated “squarely within the history of redemption” and is, in fact, “formed Christologically” (140), will become increasingly evident.

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characteristic of all Neoplatonism and Gnosticism and the deifijication of nature characteristic of materialism and Deism. Humanity’s relationship to the rest of creation (horizontal) is rooted in its relationship to God (vertical): In paganism a human being does not stand in the right relationship to God, and therefore not to the world either. Similarly, in pantheism and materialism the relation of human beings to nature is fundamentally corrupted. One moment man considers himself infijinitely superior to nature and believes that it no longer has any secrets for him. The next moment he experiences nature as a dark and mysterious power that he does not understand, whose riddles he cannot solve, and from whose power he cannot free himself. Intellectualism and mysticism alternate. Unbelief makes way for superstition, and materialism turns into occultism.204

But the Christian, on the other hand, looks upward toward God, outward at nature and history, and forward to the eschatological telos. This enables a genuine love and admiration for nature, but both contempt and deifijication is excluded: “Here a human being is placed in the right relation to the world because he has been put in the right relation to God.”205 Bavinck’s trinitarian, eschatologically-oriented creational ontology here intersects with his theological anthropology. To understand human beings is not only to fathom human nature, but to understand, more foundationally, humanity’s relationships. Very naturally, this leads to a consideration of Herman Bavinck’s doctrine of the covenant.

204  RD, II, 438; C.f., CG, 55: “Nature, formerly praised for her beauty and revered as a temple, is now a somber stage fijilled with confusion and conflict; her raging elements and threatening powers place man’s very life in danger. The world could not be worse; no work of a good and Supreme Being, it is the product of blind fate and arbitrary chance.” These are deeply profound insights relevant to the 21st century. The most radical materialist of the present day, Richard Dawkins, begins his book The Blind Watchmaker quoting his colleague Peter Atkins, “I shall argue that there is nothing that cannot be understood, there is nothing that cannot be explained, and that everything is extraordinarily simple,” Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: Norton, 1986), 14. Yet by book’s end Dawkins equally describes reality as a “graduated scale of improbabilities” so mysterious and inscrutable that—no jest—a marble statue waving at a passerby is not outside the realm of possibility (161, 159)! Intellectualism and mysticism “alternate,” indeed. Bavinck’s analysis was counterintuitive but exactly right when he suggested in his Stone Lectures that it should bring no sense of wonder that “Darwinism successively brings us into company with Swedenborg and Jung Stilling, David and Kardec, Madame Blavatsky [...] with all the theosophists and spiritualists of recent times” (PR, 294). Dawkins would of course not identify himself as a “spiritualist,” but he has no trouble trading in speculation about extra-terrestrial higher life forms and Francis Crick’s “pan-spermia” theory for the origin of human life. 205  RD, II, 438.

CHAPTER TWO

ADAM & COVENANT Introduction [I]f there is truly to be religion, if there is to be fellowship between God and man, if the relation between the two is to be also (but not exclusively) that of a maer to his servant, of a potter to clay, as well as that of a king to his people, of a father to his son, of a mother to her child, of an eagle to her young, of a hen to her chicks, and so forth; that is, if not ju one relation but all relations and all sorts of relations of dependence, submission, obedience, friendship, love, and so forth among humans find their model and achieve their fulfillment in religion, then religion mu be the character of a covenant.1

Having outlined the broader metaphysical foundations of the God-world relationship, we now narrow to consider the historical and relational context to which the creaturely image of God belongs. Humanity’s relationships with God, the created world (space) and history (time) together provide the context for understanding the character and purpose of humans being imago Dei. The theological concept that best captures these relationships, for Bavinck, is that of covenant. This chapter proceeds in four sections. The fijirst explores how Bavinck’s use of the covenant idea recapitulates the basic contours of his Creatorcreature ontology. That is, a covenant relationship between God and humanity is not something added to or other than the Creator-creature distinction he has already labored to establish; it is a diffferent, and more closely scriptural vocabulary tasked to secure the same theological distinctions. The three sections that follow each concern the covenant established by God with Adam in the state of integrity, that is, the so-called covenant of works.2 Section two of this chapter argues that Bavinck’s enthusiastic embrace of the doctrine is far from incidental and not a lingering relic of scholastic rationalism he failed to excise. His self-conscious and thoughtful appropriation of the Reformed orthodox tradition is illustrated by

1

 RD, II, 569.  Bavinck’s treatment of the “covenant of grace” will be taken up in chapter four.

2

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examining his treatment of the intersection between law, grace and covenant.3 It begins to emerge that the covenant of works is essential to understanding not only his view of biblical anthropology, but biblical soteriology as well. It is an essential foundation for the “architectonic” structure of Bavinck’s understanding of redemption.4 Because the covenant of works is so strongly emphasized, it should be noted that a number of signifijicant scholars, each influenced by Bavinck and sympathetically situated in the stream of his theological heritage, have expressed reservations about the doctrine. While the representatives of Old Princeton, notably Charles Hodge and Geerhardus Vos, energetically commended the doctrine of the covenant of works, others were more reluctant: John H. Stek and Anthony A. Hoekema of Calvin Theological Seminary, and John Murray, the preeminent systematician of Westminster Theological Seminary, each object on semantic and conceptual grounds, questioning whether the term “covenant” can be applied to the prelapsarian state of afffairs.5 If these theologians have difffijiculty with the language of “covenant,” G.C. Berkouwer and others object to the language of “works,” apparently convinced that the doctrine exalts a legal, “nomological” human existence over a God-human relationship of grace and fellowship. Because space forbids lengthy expositions of each of these theologians, major discussion is limited to one representative example.6 Having demonstrated Bavinck’s basic adherence to the Reformed orthodox tradition of the covenant of works, the two sections that follow more narrowly focus on two issues of special emphasis in which Bavinck makes explicit what is perhaps more latent in the tradition. Section three illumines why and how the covenant of works forms the structural framework for Bavinck’s “creational eschatology.” In other words, the eschato-

3  The “Reformed orthodox tradition” refers to the broad consensus achieved in the post-Reformation period of codifijication of Reformed theology; see Richard A. Muller’s periodization of this tradition in PRRD, Vol. 1, 30–32. The use of “Reformed orthodoxy” at present corresponds to the period of “high orthodoxy,” ca. 1640–1725. 4  The need to emphasize this structural importance of the covenant of works, as noted in the introduction, is indirectly highlighted by its near-absence in Syd Hielema’s lengthy dissertation on the structure of Bavinck’s understanding of redemption. 5  It seems that for Hoekema and Murray the question is merely a semantic one, since they otherwise wish to afffijirm the basic content of the doctrine; C.f., Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 121; John Murray, The Epile to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, reprint 1975), 178–210; The Imputation of Adam’s Sin (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1977). 6  Notable responses to the former group of critics are noted in the footnote discussion below. The exception is made for Berkouwer, whose rejection of the covenant of works is evaluated at the end of section two, the “Covenant of Works.”

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logical destiny or telos inherent in the created order is explicitly provided by the doctrine of the covenant of works. In section four, the structural implications of the doctrine are brought to bear on Bavinck’s theological anthropology proper, as he himself argues that the doctrine of the divine image cannot be treated to its full extent without reference to the eschatology implicit in the covenant of works.7 As a preliminary matter, two methodological issues are immediately striking about Bavinck’s doctrine of the covenant, the fijirst of which confronts the reader with the question addressed in the Introduction—that is, the alleged tension between the “scholastic” Bavinck and the “scriptural” Bavinck. His doctrine of the covenant parallels in signifijicant ways his doctrine of the Trinity, where, the reader may recall, Bavinck’s somewhat scholastic (others might say “speculative”) method gave the initial impression that his doctrine of God’s attributes was abstracted from the doctrine of the Trinity, as though God could fijirst be known as to his one, undivided essence, and only later concretely as an intra-relational, Triune being. But his treatment of the Trinity was not an expendable appendage to a more foundational account of the divine attributes; rather, his trinitarian theology was presupposed in and meant to be read retroactively back into his entire treatment of theology proper. Likewise, with respect to the covenant, he has labored extensively to articulate the ontology of the God-world relationship, and yet he does not introduce the concept of “covenant” until nearly halfway through his four volumes.8 When the covenant idea fijinally does appear, he suggests that it is constitutive of the God-human relationship. This raises two related questions: where has this doctrine been all along, and how is it related to the lengthy ontological analysis that has preceded it? Tardy though it may be, the covenant idea is intended to be read retroactively over the course of his account of the God-world relationship generally, just as his trinitarian reflections were intended to be read retroactively into his discussion of the divine attributes. This is indicated only obliquely, but careful analysis bears it out. In his theology proper he describes the characteristic feature of “true religion” as the distinction between the Creator and creature; now, as he moves to describe the covenant, he calls it “the essence of true religion.”9 So, he argues, if there is to

7

 RD, II, 550.  The doctrine is fijirst formally treated under “Human Destiny,” RD, II, 564fff. 9  RD, II, 569. 8

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be genuine religion—that is, a God-human relationship—then “religion must be the character of a covenant.”10 Reiterating the conditions of the God-world relationship, namely, the ontological distance (or diffference) between the Creator and the creature and the corresponding condescension of the former to the latter, he remarks, “[T]his set of conditions is nothing other than the description of a covenant.”11 He is not, in other words, moving to a diffferent doctrinal locus, separable from preceding material, but his change in vocabulary marks a conceptual narrowing. The Creator-creature distinction, when it is now applied to the human being as a rational and moral creature, bears the character of a “covenant.” And this latter concept is not unrelated to, but bound up with the general ontology of the God-world relationship Bavinck has already established. The Creator-creature relationship when applied to humanity is nothing less or other than a description of a covenant, which he now elaborates in more closely scriptural language rather than philosophical.12 The second striking feature of his doctrine of the covenant, especially for contemporary readers, is how non-Christological it is, as some later 20th century theologies would understand the term. Bavinck does not begin with Jesus Christ and move from there to a Christologically-circumscribed description and defijinition of “covenant.” Rather, an antecedent covenant—grounded in the Triune God and creation (not incarnation)—is presupposed by Christology itself.13 The God-world relationship, grounded in creation and progressively revealed in the narrative of Scripture as a whole, provides the context for understanding the person and work of Jesus Christ, not vice-versa. In fact, Bavinck remarks that the incarnation has its “presupposition and foundation” both in the trinitarian being of

10

 RD, II, 569.  RD, II, 569. 12  In addition, one should notice that Bavinck only raises the doctrine of the covenant in the context of treating the covenant of works, that is, where and when it is appropriate in terms of the teleological-historical method he has chosen. This is no “abstract” philosophical or propositional treatment of the covenant, but one prompted by the scriptural narrative. 13  This methodological move is not merely the inevitable byproduct of his 19th century context; rather, Bavinck self-consciously and explicitly rejects a Christological method that makes the person of Christ the epistemic foundation and source of dogmatics. Contra Hielema, who asserts that for Bavinck Jesus Christ is the “starting point and foundation” of God’s revelation (Hielema, Eschatological Underanding, 31), and, further, that Bavinck’s theology contains a “Christological priority” (5) and is “Christocentric” (43), Bavinck expressly states that though Christ is certainly the focus and main content of Scripture, he “cannot be the starting point,” RD, I, 110; C.f., RD, I, 380. 11

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God and creation.14 Covenant, for Bavinck, is not synonymous with, nor intrinsically related to, reconciliation. This is obvious in that in his understanding of the state of integrity there is no relational rupture to be “reconciled,” and it is explicit in his descriptions of the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.15 Covenant, the “Essence of True Religion” Bavinck begins with a general description of what a covenant is, and he asserts that it is constitutive of life among rational and moral creatures.16 “Love, friendship, marriage, as well as all social cooperation in business, industry, science, art, and so forth, is ultimately grounded in a covenant, that is, in reciprocal fijidelity and an assortment of generally recognized moral obligations.”17 If this is true of the more mundane aspects of human life, he argues a fortiori, “[I]t should not surprise us [...] that also the highest and most richly textured life of human beings, namely, religion, bears this character.”18 Generally speaking, a covenant, according to Bavinck, is an agreement between persons who voluntarily obligate themselves to each other for the obtaining of some good or the fending offf of some evil.19 In scripture, the “fijixed form” used to describe the relationship between God and his people is “covenant.” And, importantly, this is true whether or not the word is used: [W]e nevertheless always see the two parties, as it were, in dialogue with each other, dealing with each other, with God calling people to conversion, reminding them of their obligations, and obligating himself to provide all that is good [....] Even if the term ‘covenant’ never occurred in Scripture for the religious relation between Adam and God, not even in Hosea 6:7, still the religious life of man before the fall bears the character of a covenant. Reformed scholars were never so narrow as to insist on the word ‘covenant’ since the matter itself was certain: one may doubt the word, provided the matter is safe (de vocabulo dubitetur, re salva).20

14  RD, III, 274, 277. C.f., the discussion in Chapter Three on creation as a “preparation” for incarnation. 15  E.g., RD, II, 570: “The covenant of works and the covenant of grace do not difffer in their fijinal goal but only in the way that leads to it. In both there is one mediator: then, a mediator of union; now, a mediator of reconciliation.” Emphasis added. 16  RD, II, 568. 17  RD, II, 568–9. 18  RD, II, 569. 19  RD, II, 568. 20  RD, II, 569.

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Why this insistence? He immediately suggests that behind much opposition to the word lay opposition to the matter itself, “[a]nd this must never be surrendered inasmuch as covenant is the essence of true religion.”21 It must never be surrendered because “covenant” consistently maintains the foundational ontological features of the God-world relationship he articulated in his doctrine of God and re-articulated in his doctrine of creation; and just as the specter of Deism and pantheism were the twin alternatives in that account, so also here. Bavinck is concerned that objections to the material content of a God-Adam covenant betrays either a latent Deism or pantheism. But why should the relationship between God and Adam necessarily be conceived as a covenant? Why is covenant the “essence of true religion”? His argument contains three distinct parts: fijirst, covenant articulates both the Creator-creature distinction and relationship; second, covenant accounts for both the sovereign majesty of God and the ability of creatures to assert certain “rights” before him; and third, it accounts for the relative independence and responsibility of human beings as rational and moral creatures. First, in what is now an almost expected argument from Bavinck, he maintains that covenant uniquely expresses a sine qua non for the God-world relationship generally; it alone observes the Creator-creature distinction while at the same time recognizing the genuine, reciprocal relationship between them. Without a covenant there can be no religion, in the sense of mutuality between God and creatures: “If God remains elevated above humanity in his sovereign exaltedness and majesty, then no religion is possible, at least no religion in the sense of fellowship.”22 Just as it was with his treatment of God and creation, the only two alternatives to the covenant concept actually vitiate both the bonds and the boundaries between God and his creation: This is what no religion has ever understood; all peoples either pantheistically pull God down into what is creaturely, or deistically elevate him endlessly above it. In neither case does one arrive at true fellowship, at covenant, at genuine religion. But Scripture insists on both: God is infijinitely great and condescendingly good; he is Sovereign but also Father; he is Creator but also Prototype. In a word, he is the God of the covenant.23

21

 RD, II, 569.  RD, II, 569. 23  RD, II, 569–70; C.f., RD, IV, 108; PR, 254–55 (WO, 218–19). 22

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Thus, the notion of “covenant” preserves God’s sovereign freedom; his relationship with humanity is under no compulsion deriving from either his own nature or that of the creation (pantheism); but neither is he under any limitation (Deism). Divine initiative—monergism—is here maintained, and thus also a monopleuric defijinition of covenant. If there is to be any fellowship between God and humanity, God has to come down from his lofty position, condescend to his creatures, impart, reveal, and give himself away to human beings; then he who inhabits eternity and dwells in a high and holy place must also dwell with those who are of a humble spirit (Isa 57:15). But this set of conditions is nothing other than the description of a covenant.24

Here it is obvious that Bavinck has simply narrowed his focus, and whereas before the perhaps more philosophical notions of ontological/ economic, ad intra/ad extra performed the work of maintaining both the Creator-creature distinction and relationship, now with respect to human beings the notion of covenant takes over; the transcendence (ontological/ ad intra) and immanence (economic/ad extra) of God “is nothing other than the description of a covenant.” Second, the covenant concept establishes the integrity of creatures and their works. On the one hand, it is obvious that creatures cannot assert any “rights” before God; the creature owes its very existence to God, cannot make any claims or demands of any kind, and the very concept of “merit” is “radically and once-for-all” ruled out by the very nature of the Creator-creature distinction.25 On the other hand, writes Bavinck, [Human beings] have the freedom to come to him with prayer and thanksgiving, to address him as ‘Father,’ to take refuge in him in all circumstances of distress and death, to desire all good things from him, even to expect salvation and eternal life from him. All this is possible solely because God in his condescending goodness gives rights to the creature. Every creaturely right is a given benefijit, a gift of grace, undeserved and nonobligatory. All reward from the side of God originates in grace; no merit, either of condignity or congruity is possible. True religion, accordingly, cannot be anything other than a covenant: it has its origin in the condescending goodness and grace of God.26

24

 RD, II, 569.  RD, II, 570. 26  RD, II, 570. 25

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The Creator-creature distinction with its implicit notion of divine sovereignty, which he feels compelled to maintain over against pantheism and deism, is not a fatalistic or totalitarian view of religion where creatures have all obligation and no rights, are slaves rather than sons, because God condescends to make promises by way of covenant.27 This emphasis on creaturely rights established not ex condigno but ex pacto (arising from a covenant) segues into his third point: it establishes the integrity of human freedom. In the covenant God does not deal with human beings as “irrational creatures, as plants or animals, as blocks of wood,” but rather “goes to work with them as rational, moral, self-determining beings.”28 In the covenant God acts, “not coercively, but with counsel, admonition, warning, invitation, petition,” and humans “serve God, not under duress or violence, but willingly, by their own free consent, moved by love to love in return.”29 God created human beings as rational and moral beings, and it is only by way of covenant, with its (as he put it elsewhere) “reciprocal fijidelity” and moral obligations, that he interacts with them. And yet, human works are not meritorious contributions to God with an intrinsic right to reward. Human beings, as creatures, can only be indebted to God, and he, as Creator, can never be indebted to them. On God’s part there is only gift; on humanity’s part, there is only gratitude.30 Because the notion of covenant alone maintains these three characteristics, the Creator-creature distinction, the integrity of creatures and their works, and the integrity of human freedom, it is the “essence” of true religion: “religion is conceivable only in the form of a covenant and comes to its full realization only in that form.”31 Covenant, therefore, for Bavinck, is constitutive, a sine qua non, of the God-human relationship. If this is 27

 These covenant “rights” establish what Bavinck elsewhere acknowledges as “merit” ex pacto (arising from a covenant), RD, II, 544; C.f., RD, IV, 729; RD, II, 570: creatures have these rights, established by divine promise, “before as well as after the fall. For religion, like the moral law and the destiny of man, is one.” This is important as it bears on his exposition of a bi-covenantal “Federal” theology; the covenant of works and grace do not represent two kinds of religion, two kinds of faith or two kinds of duty; religion “is always the same in essence; it only difffers in form.” 28  RD, II, 570. 29  RD, II, 571. 30  It is interesting to read Bavinck’s treatment here alongside G. Vos’s article (cited by Bavinck in this very context, 568), “The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology.” Vos makes three basic points that contain considerable overlap with Bavinck’s, maintaining God’s absolute sovereignty, the integrity and necessity of human works, and the integrity of creaturely freedom. 31  RD, II, 571.

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true, it necessarily follows that the God-Adam relationship in the state of integrity was a covenant relationship. Excursus: Is Covenant a Conitutive “Essence”? While this concept of the “constitutive” character of covenant has a lengthy history in Reformed covenant theology, it has nevertheless recently been criticized by Dutch Reformed Old Testament theologian John H. Stek as “covenant overload.”32 Singling out Bavinck as representative of one form of the tradition, he writes that [i]t must be duly noted that in this tradition ‘covenant’ had become a theological concept utilized to conrue the nature of the God-humanity relationship, and was necessitated by the ontic distance between Creator and creature. As such, it had been abstracted from and cut loose from the narrative (and historical) specifijicity of the biblical covenants.33

Stek believes that a biblical understanding of covenants calls into serious question the assertion that covenant is constitutive of a relationship: “The wide practice of defijining ‘covenant’ as this or that kind of relationship [...] is misguided. Covenants in the Bible function within relationships but do not constitute relationships.”34 Three specifijic features of ancient Near Eastern covenants render the traditional view problematic, according to Stek: (1) There were many personal relationships that included mutual obligations in ancient Near Eastern society that were not considered ‘naturally’ to

32  John H. Stek, “‘Covenant’ Overload in Reformed Theology,” CTJ 29 (1994): 12–41; c.f., the responses by Craig Bartholomew, “Covenant and Creation: Covenant Overload or Covenantal Deconstruction?” CTJ 30 (1995): 11–33, and John Bolt, “Why the Covenant of Works Is a Necessary Doctrine: Revisiting the Objections to a Venerable Reformed Doctrine,” in By Faith Alone: Answering the Challenges to the Doctrine of Juification, Gary L.W. Johnson and Guy Waters, eds. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007): 171–189. Much of the following critique of Stek applies also to Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 117–21, and John Murray, “The Adamic Administration,” Collected Writings, Volume 2, (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1977), 49–50. 33  Stek, “Covenant Overload,” 15; C.f., fn. 12 (above), calling into question whether Bavinck’s procedure can accurately be described as “abstracted” from the biblical narrative. Bolt calls Stek’s charge of “abstraction” a “rhetorically prejudicial formulation” whereas the more charitable analogia Scripturae is more appropriate (Bolt, “Why the Covenant of Works is a Necessary Doctrine,” 181). 34  Stek, “Covenant Overload,” 39. Related to this is his assertion that covenants are instruments of “kingdom administration,” not “kingdom-founding” documents (39); Bartholomew, citing Sinai as an example par excellence, declares this simply “wrong” (Bartholomew, “Covenant and Creation,” 25).

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chapter two be ‘covenants’: parent-child, master-slave, neighbor-neighbor, elder-townsfolk, chief-clan, king-subjects, people-people. In fact, as far as we know, there was no relationship between persons that normal life would have given rise to what was considered ‘naturally’ to be of the nature of a ‘covenant.’ (2) In the living out of the various personal relationships found in ancient societies, promises and commitments of many kinds, both implicit and explicit, were woven into the very fabric of daily life without being reinforced by giving them the status of covenants. Covenants were called into play only when circumstances occasioned doubts concerning desired or promised courses of action. The specifijic purpose of ‘covenants’ was to add a guarantee of fulfijillment to commitments made. (3) The guarantee devised was the strongest conceivable in the ancient social order. It brought the stated commitment under the scrutiny of the gods. A ‘covenant’ was a specifijied commitment reinforced by a selfmaledictory oath.35

These observations lead Stek fijinally to conclude that a covenant is a commitment ratifijied explicitly under a self-maledictory oath, and, further, arises only when circumstances “occasioned doubts” about promised courses of action. He believes this greatly undermines Bavinck’s understanding of covenant: Hence, biblical covenants do not belong to the fundamentals of the Godcreature relationship [....] Covenant does not bridge the ontic distance between God and his image-bearing creature (L. Berkhof, et al.). Covenants served rather to offfer assurances, bolster faith, and reinforce commitments. In a world not invaded by sin, there would be no need for adding oaths to commitments, no need for ‘covenants’—no more than in such a world would oaths be necessary to establish the truth of one’s ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (see Matt. 5:34–37; Jas. 5:12; c.f., Heb. 6:16). Biblical covenants were ad hoc emergency measures occasioned by and ministering to human weaknesses— until the kingdom of God has fully come.36

Stek’s arguments have been subjected to searching and efffective criticism both in terms of the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern material (Bartholomew) and systematic-theological concerns (Bolt), but three further observations are warranted.37 First, Stek does not seem to appreciate that mutual obligations, promises, threats of sanction, etc., can be implicit as well as explicit. In efffect,

35

 Stek, “Covenant Overload,” 25–6.  Stek, “Covenant Overload,” 40. 37  With respect to the OT and ANE contexts, Bartholomew shows that the reductionism of Stek’s view of covenant cannot be sustained from the evidence; with respect to dogmatic issues, Bolt dismantles Stek’s “methodological biblicism” as arbitrary and unworkable. 36

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he denies that there is or can be such a thing as a de facto covenant relationship; in order for a covenant to be a covenant, it must be de jure. This assumption is undermined by his own language, insofar as he repeatedly describes covenant as “reinforcing” promises and/or commitments. The “reinforcing” of promises or obligations presupposes that those very same promises or obligations are in some sense already in force. Only if Stek is willing to restrictively defijine covenant as a public, self-maledictory oath (in distinction from the actual commitment the oath ratifijies) can he deny to such de facto arrangements the designation “covenantal.” Moreover, when Stek makes the bald claim that there was no relationship between persons in normal life that would naturally give rise to a “covenant” in the ancient Near East, marriage is conveniently excluded from his list, as both Bartholomew and Bolt point out.38 What they fail to note is that even marriage, which is an obvious and well-attested covenant relationship, can be both implicit and still binding. In fact, common law marriage (i.e., marriage not formally ratifijied by oath) was explicitly recognized and enforced in Middle Assyrian and Hittite law, and, as Allen Guenther suggests, is that to which the mixed-marriages in Ezra and Nehemiah refer.39 The notion that one’s actions can legally bind one to covenant obligations even without an explicit oath thus existed in the ancient Near East; an analogous concept grounds what became enshrined in the western legal tradition as “implied contracts.”40 Second is the observation—noticed by neither Bartholomew nor Bolt— that Stek’s own arguments actually prove the opposite of what he intends. Because covenants are allegedly ad hoc formal legal arrangements that

38  Bolt, “Why the Covenant of Works is a Necessary Doctrine,” 182; Bartholomew, “Covenant and Creation,” 21. 39  Allen Guenther, “A Typology of Israelite Marriage: Kinship, Socio-economic and Religious Factors,” Journal for the Study of the Old Teament, Vol. 29, No. 4 (2005), 401–2. For a thorough overview of the laws and customs on marriage in the ANE, see Victor H. Matthews, “Marriage & Family in the Ancient Near East,” in Marriage and Family in the Biblical World, ed. Kenneth M. Campbell (Downers Grove: IVP, 2003), 1–32. 40  Interestingly, a current debate among legal theorists concerning the essence of a contract parallels in many ways this theological debate over the essence of a covenant; C.f., e.g., David Ibbetson, “Implied Contracts and Restitution: History in the High Court of Australia,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, 314, notes that while implied contracts were “sanctifijied” by incorporation into Blackstone’s Commentaries, he considers them nothing but “pure legal fijiction.” On the other hand, Hedley’s comment in support of the doctrine applies just as well to biblical covenants: “[T]he truth is that ‘contract’ is itself a flexible and permeable notion, with the metaphorical ‘implied contract’ being one tool for dealing with its outer edges,” Steve Hedley, “Implied Contract and Restitution,” Cambridge Law Journal, 63(2), July 2004, 436.

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(1) necessarily include oath-ratifijication,41 and (2) only obtain in circumstances where doubt is occasioned as to a certain course of action, the God-Adam relationship could not have been that of a covenant. However, even these reductionist terms lead to the opposite conclusion. Genesis 2:17 contains, in fact, an oath, and a maledictory one at that: “for when you eat of it you will surely die” (‫ ֽמֺֹת ֨תּ ֽמוּת‬lit: “dying, you shall die”).42 This is analogous to a suzerain-vassal maledictory oath; the unique phrase specifijically functions as such later in 1 Samuel 14:44 and 1 Kings 2:37, 42. Moreover, the same infijinitive absolute construction is used repeatedly, with the inflected verb in the passive Hophal form (as a “third party” is in view as carrying out the sanction), as the formulaic capital sanction in ֽ֨ ‫“—מוֹת‬shall surely be put to death”; the “Book of the Covenant” (‫יוּמת‬ c.f., Ex. 21:12, 15, 17; 22:19). God’s faithfulness to this oath is the very thing directly challenged by the serpent (“You will not surely die,” Gen. 3:4); the sanction threatened in Genesis 2:17 is by oath imposed on a vassal, and the question in Genesis 3 is whether the King will make good on his promised sanction.43 Further, far from being a situation in which “human weaknesses” or the need for oaths are inapplicable, the Edenic probationary command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil positively highlights, in itself, the “uncertain” or “doubtful” character of God’s “desired course of action,” namely, Adam’s obedience. Thus, even on Stek’s own reductionist terms, a God-Adam covenant can be seen as a formal legal arrangement, complete with a maledictory oath, that “reinforces” Adam’s obligations in circumstances of uncertainty.44

41  Stek seems to mistakenly assume that covenant oaths necessarily take the form of self-malediction; ancient Near Eastern suzerain/vassal treaties, aside from the fact that they do not even require stipulating oaths (Bartholomew, “Covenant and Creation,” 30), often have maledictory oaths; that is, while a suzerain may sovereignly institute, by oath, a sanction on the vassal, he is under no obligation to place himself under sanction. 42  A point especially missed by Bartholomew, who writes, “Certainly if one defijines covenant as Stek does in terms of a specifijied commitment and a maledictory oath, then Genesis 1 and 2 are clearly not covenantal,” Bartholomew, “Covenant and Creation,” 28. 43  The threat of a sanction is the suzerain’s oath-commitment; C.f., Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue, (Overland Park, KS: Two-Age Press, 2000), 1, 18: “[I]n a divine covenant the divine sanctions coalesce with the commitments made by God as one party to the covenant, for here, uniquely, the covenant suzerain is himself the divine witness and enforcer of the sanctions of the covenant.” 44  This is not to say that his description of an “ad hoc emergency measure” is accurate, but nonetheless it does “minister to human weaknesses,” (Stek, “Covenant Overload,” 40) insofar as Adam, righteous and holy as he was, had the ability to sin and fall under the sanction of death.

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Third and fijinally, Bartholomew and Bolt both call attention to Gordon Spykman’s rhetorical question whether those who demand oathratifijication for covenant relationships are “reading a more explicit feature of later redemptive covenant renewals back into the preredemptive covenant given with creation?”45 Spykman and his allies believe the answer to be an unqualifijied “yes,” but often give the impression that the rhetorical question itself settles the matter. A related concern, also voiced by Spykman, is that the demand for oath-ratifijication in biblical covenants reflects an “exaggerated reliance” on archaeological sources, like the Hittite “suzerainty treaties.”46 Two ironies emerge here: (1) Stek (and, one might add, Murray and Hoekema) essentially argues that those who fijind a “covenant of works” in the prelapsarian state are guilty of abstracting a notion of covenant and importing it into Genesis 1 and 2; yet it is precisely his procedure to abstract a certain element from later biblical covenants (e.g., self-maledictory oaths) and anachronistically expect it to appear, in a certain form, in the early chapters of Genesis. (2) Contrary to Spykman, perhaps Stek and others do not rely enough on archaeological sources; the history of covenant-making in the ancient Near East shows nothing if not the flexibility in covenant forms between diffferent regions and historical periods.47 One should not automatically expect the primeval history (Genesis 1–11) to display the features of later 2nd millennium B.C. covenants (e.g., Hittite treaties, Sinai); rather, one might expect such covenants to reflect their own historical “moment,” (i.e., at least 3rd millennium and earlier).48 And, remarkably, a signifijicant strand of 3rd millennium treaties (i.e., the north Syrian regions of Ebla and Abarsal) exclude oaths altogether, opting for a simple arrangement of a geographical prologue, initial curses, a stipulation, and fijinal curses.49 What Spykman asks rhetorically

45  Gordon Spykman, Reformational Theology: A New Paradigm for Doing Dogmatics, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 260–61; C.f., Bolt, “Why the Covenant of Works is a Necessary Doctrine,” 180, Bartholomew, “Creation and Covenant,” 15–16. 46  Spykman, Reformational Theology, 261. 47  C.f., Kitchen’s discussion on ANE covenants generally, K.A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Teament, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 283–94. 48  Assuming, as each of these theologians do, that there are genuine historical sources (whether oral or written) and genuine historical context behind Genesis 1–2 (i.e., not mere myth, saga or legend). 49  Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Teament, 286. Genesis 2:15–17 may well reflect just this kind of simplicity: Geographical prologue (“the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden”), commission (“to work it and take care of it”), stipulation (“and the LORD God commanded the man...”) and an oath/curse (“for when you eat of it you will surely die”).

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can therefore be answered at very least tentatively: When Stek, Murray, and Hoekema require a distinctive feature of later covenants to appear in Genesis 1 and 2, they may well be demanding an historical anachronism. Accordingly, Stek’s critique fails to decisively undermine Bavinck’s insistence, along with the older Reformed orthodox tradition, that the nature of the God-Adam relationship is to be understood as a covenant. And the nature of that covenant was, for Bavinck, a “covenant of works.”50 The Covenant of Works If one were tempted to think that the covenant of works is an anomaly in Bavinck’s theology, and a somewhat embarrassingly scholastic one at that, he leaves little doubt of its importance when he declares that it “must never be surrendered.”51 He admits that by the late 19th century it had fallen on hard times. The doctrine was taught materially in many early Reformed confessions, and was codifijied explicitly in the Irish and Walcheren Articles, the Helvetic Consensus and the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms.52 Bavinck believes that later development of the doctrine is open to criticism for being “overly detailed” and “treated too scholastically,” and these limitations made it an easy target, resulting in its loss of “signifijicance and theological and religious importance.”53 Notwithstanding this, Bavinck sounds a note of hope that “in modern times the doctrine of the covenant of works [was] again understood and explained by a number of theologians in its true signifijicance.”54 In other words, Bavinck views himself as comprising, along with Charles Hodge, Abraham

50  For very recent scholarship that vindicates Bavinck’s view that Genesis 1 and 2 represent, in fact, a “covenant” relationship, see Peter J. Gentry, “Kingdom Through Covenant: Humanity as the Divine Image,” The Southern Bapti Journal of Theology, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring 2008), 16–42. 51  RD, II, 569. 52  He cites articles 14 and 15 of the Belgic Confession, Q&A 6–11 of the Heidelberg Catechism, chapters III & IV of the Canons of Dordt as teaching the essence of the doctrine. Murray cites many of the same confessional standards as proof that covenant theology does not require the Adamic administration to be characterized as a “covenant,” in keeping with his commitment to a semantic reductionism similar to that of John Stek; John Murray, “Covenant Theology,” in The Collected Writings of John Murray, Volume 2 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1978), 218. 53  RD, II, 568. 54  RD, II, 568. He did not put it this strongly in his fijirst edition, where he simply noted that the doctrine was “taken up” by Kuyper, Hodge and Vos; GD, I (1st ed.) 551; C.f., GD, I (4th ed.) 529.

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Kuyper and Geerhardus Vos, a cadre dedicated to a renaissance of the doctrine, working to demonstrate its “eminent value” for theology.55 The prospect of a rebirth of the doctrine in the 20th century was, however, woefully optimistic and destined for failure. Bavinck could not have anticipated the extent and power of Karl Barth’s rejection of Federal, bicovenantal theology on the grounds of a radical priority of grace over law, which signifijicantly contributed to a generation of theologians and historians alike who viewed Reformed orthodoxy’s covenant theology as a retrograde move away from the original kerygma of the early Reformers.56 In a 1994 article, Richard A. Muller seeks to redress this erroneous historiography with particular reference to the doctrine of the covenant of works; he concludes that “[t]he concept of the covenant of works that we have outlined [...] bears little resemblance to the caricature of Reformed federalism presented by writers like Rolston, Torrance, and Poole.”57 Unfortunately, it was caricatures of this kind that prevailed for much of the 20th century. For his part, at the turn of the century Bavinck seems completely undisturbed by prevailing 19th century pictures of Federal theology and obviously incapable of anticipating later 20th century views.58 But that he was intimately familiar with and positively animated by the tradition of Federal theology is evident in how his own interest in the doctrine is in some ways indistinguishable from the theological uses of the covenant of works highlighted in Muller’s exposition. But, as this

55

 RD, II, 568.  C.f., Richard A. Muller, “The Myth of Decretal Theology,” 160–61; “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists,’ Part One,” 353; “Part Two,” 147–51; PRRD, I, 46–52; Robert Letham, “The Foedus Operum: Some Factors Accounting for Its Development,” SCJ, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Winter, 1983), 459–60; Peter A. Lillback, “Ursinus’ Development of the Covenant of Creation: A Debt to Melancthon or Calvin?” WTJ Vol. 43 No. 2 (Spring, 1981), 247–259; Carl R. Trueman and R. Scott Clark, “Introduction,” Proteant Scholaicism: Essays in Reassessment, xii–xv; Carl R. Trueman, “Calvin and Calvinism,” 225–228; Lyle D. Bierma, “Law and Grace in Ursinus’ Doctrine of the Natural Covenant,” in Proteant Scholaicism, 97–8, 110; Willem van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology,” 319–20; John Halsey Wood, Jr., “Merit in the Midst of Grace: The Covenant with Adam Reconsidered in View of the Two Powers of God,” International Journal of Syematic Theology, 10 No. 2 (April 2008) 135–40. This is consistent with the anti-scholasticism that accompanies much of 19th and 20th century historiography in general, but with particular attention to the Reformed orthodox doctrine of the covenant, in addition to Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.1, 54–66, consult Muller’s bibliographic list of his “usual suspects,” Holmes Rolston III, James B. Torrance and David N.J. Poole, in his “The Covenant of Works and the Stability of Divine Law,” 79, fn. 11. 57  Richard A. Muller, “The Covenant of Works and the Stability of Divine Law in Seventeenth-Century Reformed Orthodoxy: A Study in the Theology of Herman Witsius and Wilhelmus à Brakel,” CJT 29 (1994): 75–101, 99; hereafter cited as “CWSDL.” 58  He dismisses Heppe’s “Melancthon” thesis and others with brevity; RD, III, 209–212. 56

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suggests, there are some ways in which it can be distinguished. The following section highlights one way in which Bavinck’s treatment of the doctrine adheres to what Muller calls the “theological content and implication of the fully developed continental Reformed orthodox concept of the covenant of works,”59 specifijically the relationship between law and grace, after which we will examine ways in which Bavinck eclipses the tradition by uniquely emphasizing and exploiting the doctrine’s inherent eschatological potential. Law, Grace & Covenant The key purpose of Muller’s article is to demonstrate that the doctrine of the covenant of works does not represent a triumph of law over grace, the legal over the fijilial, but that it is an attempt to articulate the basic harmony of God’s attributes of justice and grace (or “goodness”).60 As suggested above, both historians and theological interpreters alike have argued that the doctrine essentially represents a departure from Calvin’s emphasis on divine grace, reintroducing a “legalistic” concept of redemption. Examining two late-17th century Dutch Reformed advocates of the covenant of works, Herman Witsius and Wilhelmus à Brakel, Muller ably demonstrates the vacuity of caricatures of this type.61 These mature Reformed orthodox theologians sought to describe the God-Adam relationship as consisting in law and love, a relationship that is at once both legal and fijilial, and, moreover, that no tension exists between the two dimensions. As the doctrine relates to soteriology (a relation of arguably central concern, given its primary exegetical grounding in the Adam-Christ parallel in Romans 5:12fff) its purpose is to maintain what Muller calls the “stability”

59

 Muller, “CWSDL,” 80.  It is crucial to distinguish at the outset between the character of God’s grace prior to and after the fall; when Bavinck, and the Reformed orthodox tradition generally, speaks of “grace” in the state of integrity, he means the “giftedness” or sheer gratuity of all God’s benefijits to divine image-bearers who know no sin. This is not to be prematurely confused with redemptive grace, which is God’s response to the positive demerit of sinful humanity. Sin changes the character of divine grace, from love toward a friend to the love of one’s enemy; C.f., RD, I, 342; RD, II, 547; RD, III, 225, 573–79; “CG,” 40, and esp. 58: “After the fall, God’s revelation takes another form on account of man’s sinful state; it flows forth entirely from God’s grace [....] And all this knowledge which man before sin may have had from nature or from revelation becomes soteriologically changed”; Bolt, Imitation, 241–47. 61  Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man, 2 vols. (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1990), and Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Chriian’s Reasonable Service, trans. Bartel Elshout, 4 vols. (Ligonier, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1992); both are cited by Bavinck, e.g., RD, II, 550. 60

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of divine law. That is, God’s requirement of obedience from his creatures is not arbitrary, but natural and intrinsic to the Creator-creature relationship as such, and therefore cannot be set aside by or opposed to God’s condescending love and gratuity. This stability of God’s moral law is a presupposition for the necessity of the Second Adam’s crucifijixion and satisfaction for human sin. This is a Reformed version of Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo? On the other hand, the presence of God-initiated promise in the prelapsarian divine-human relationship ensures that eschatological beatitude is and remains an act of divine grace; if there is “merit,” it is by way of God’s gracious, condescending covenant (i.e., ex pacto). Muller summarizes: The stability of the law, guaranteed in the divine maintenance of the terms of the covenant of works, points not to a legalistic view of salvation, but to the fullness of Christ’s work of satisfaction and to the totally unmerited character of the salvation provided by grace through faith to believers.62

While the whole of Muller’s treatment is worth consulting, for present purposes it is only necessary to demonstrate that Herman Bavinck, like his predecessors Witsius and à Brakel, self-consciously deploys the covenant of works to secure, rather than polarize, the ultimate harmony of law and grace. Bavinck carves a “middle path” between two extremes that would alternately over-emphasize the legal or gracious aspects of God’s covenant with Adam. On the one hand, he recognizes that the Reformed view of Adam’s “original righteousness” (i.e., that it is “natural,” not a donum superadditum) is susceptible to a legalistic—and what he calls a “naturalistic”— twist (e.g., Pelagius, Kant, Socinus, etc.) whereby humans strictly merit divine favor out of their own voluntaristic will. To this extreme, Bavinck argues that Adam was positively and originally righteous (not morally indiffferent), and that this was itself a divine gift.63 One might think that the opposite extreme, for Bavinck, is Roman Catholic “supernaturalism,” with its view that Adam’s original righteousness is a super-added (gracious) gift; but the donum superadditum, on his analysis, does not represent a triumph of grace over law, but, rather, it too ends in legalism.64

62

 Muller, CWSDL, 97.  C.f., Bavinck’s critique of naturalistic views of human nature, RD, II, 534–539. 64  C.f., RD, II, 542–48. This legalism is built on (1) the Neoplatonic notion of an intrinsic opposition between spirit and matter, and thus a dualistic view of the “natural” and “spiritual” man, and (2) Rome’s merit theology. 63

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This is because between Adam’s initial endowment of grace and his ultimate destiny of glory there is constructed a “bridge of meritoriousness” whereby everything the human being receives, including eternal life, is a “fijitting, worthy, proportionate reward for work done.”65 Rome actually undermines grace, despite appearances to the contrary; he writes, “On the one hand, [Rome] transforms everything into grace and so ensures that there is no longer any grace at all.”66 But after an initial endowment of grace, strict merit is immediately re-introduced, and grace becomes the power to perform meritorious works. Bavinck gives this a dim assessment, concluding that it is, ultimately, no diffferent than the legalistic extreme of Pelagian theology: “It is just as the Pelagians put it in ancient times: the enablement (posse) is from God, the will (velle) from man.”67 So Bavinck does not really have a representative of the opposite extreme (i.e., grace over law) ready at hand; one might suggest that what Muller and others term neo-orthodoxy (i.e., Barth) fijits the bill, with both its priority of grace and its tendency toward universalism. Nevertheless, for Bavinck two perennial enemies to a conceptually clear understanding of divine-human relations are legalism (all law) and antinomianism (all grace). God is neither a legalistic tyrant who dominates his creatures as slaves nor a cosmic enabler who cannot but pamper his children. The covenant of works is designed to describe law and grace as simultaneous dimensions of God’s dealings with his creatures.68 Perhaps surprisingly, Bavinck afffijirms what Rome intended to guard in the doctrine of the donum superadditum: that eternal life is and remains an unmerited gift of God’s grace.69 The problem with Rome is that it inferred from the supernatural, “elevated” character of eschatological life (i.e., the “beatifijic vision”) that the image of God itself is the supernatural “super-additive” that answers to this destiny, and, further, inserted grace as the supernatural power by which supernatural image-bearers merit their

65

 RD, II, 544; C.f., 539–40.  RD, II, 544; C.f., RD, II, 571. 67  RD, II, 544; C.f., “CCC,” 229: “The Roman principle, at bottom Pelagian, is an ‘add-on’ or supplementary system.” 68  John Bolt’s concise formulation, “Law is gracious; Grace is legal/forensic” uniquely captures this intent; Bolt, “Why the Covenant of Works is a Necessary Doctrine,” 185. 69  RD, II, 571. Or perhaps not surprisingly: C.f., Muller, CWSDL, 91: “[V]irtually all of the Reformed theologians of the era recognized, albeit in varying degrees, that there could be no relationship between God and the fijinite, mutable creature apart from grace. This was also the burden of the medieval doctrine of the donum superadditum, particularly in its fully Augustinian form, a doctrine most probably at the root of the idea of the covenant of works.” 66

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supernatural destiny.70 In contrast, Reformed theology desired to retain this unmerited, gracious character of eschatological blessedness, and to simultaneously afffijirm that Adam, as the divine image-bearer, “could know as well as keep the moral law without supernatural power [...].”71 That is, Adam had a natural, intrinsic obligation to God’s law, and yet was the recipient of a divine promise of eternal life; and—this is key—there is no natural connection between the two, between the work “rendered” and the reward to be “tendered.”72 Now Bavinck intriguingly adds this comment: “And they [The Reformed] combined these two ideas in their theory of the covenant of works.”73 That is, the covenant of works is designed to account for obligation and promise, law and grace. At this point in his treatment, Bavinck suddenly obscures the picture by introducing a very diffferent conceptual pairing to make his point. Rather than obligation/promise, law/grace, he reverts to speaking of God’s sovereignty and human freedom, themes he had just expounded regarding the character of covenants generally. Bavinck writes, [The covenant of works] is rooted in a free, special, and gracious dispensation of God. It proceeds from God and he decrees all the parts of it: condition and fulfijillment, compliance and reward, transgression and punishment. It is monopleuric (unilateral) in origin, and it is added to the creation in God’s image. On their part, the fijirst human beings, being created in God’s image, rested in it and saw in this covenant a revelation of a way to a higher blessedness.74

While he began with a conceptual combination of natural human obligation (law) and divine promise (grace), he now articulates a combination of God’s initiative and human response. But how do these latter two explicate the legal and gracious aspects of the covenant relationship? Surely 70

 The wrong step here, according to Bavinck, is the inference that a supernatural fijinal state implies a supernatural original state; this move is made “[B]ecause Rome does not know the doctrine of the covenant of works [...]” RD, II, 571. It is consistent with Rome’s Neoplatonic ontology, with its dualism between “lower” (nature) and “higher” (grace) realms; C.f., RD, II, 551–53. 71  RD, II, 572. 72  Adam could in no way naturally (i.e., apart from a special revelatory promise) expect that doing his duty should merit eschatological life; C.f., RD, II, 571: “[...] God was in no way obligated to grant heavenly blessedness and eternal life to those who kept his law and thereby did not do anything other than what they were obligated to do. There is no natural connection between work and reward.” The English translation (without any warrant) italicizes “is” here, although the emphasis is clearly on “natural.” There is a connection, forged by a special, covenant promise (i.e., ex pacto), but it is not a “natural” connection. 73  RD, II, 572, emphasis added. 74  RD, II, 572.

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God is sovereign both in imposing holy requirements (law) and in making promises (grace); likewise, surely the freedom of human beings is defijined as both their obedience to the law and trusting God’s promises.75 It does not seem that either can be assigned to only one side of the “ledger.” Just what the correlation is, for Bavinck, remains difffijicult to say. Seeking to clarify, he writes: The covenant of works, accordingly, does justice to both the sovereignty of God—which implies the dependency of creatures and the nonmeritoriousness of all their works—and to the grace and generosity of God, who nevertheless wants to give the creature a higher-than-earthly blessedness. It maintains both the dependence as well as the freedom of mankind. It combines Schleiermacher [dependence] and Kant [freedom].76

This is a confusing taxonomy: Sovereignty (obligation) = dependence, and Grace (promise) = freedom. On these terms, the legal aspect of the covenant emphasizes God’s sovereignty in terms of human obligation, and the gracious aspect of the covenant emphasizes God’s promise in terms of human freedom to attain a “higher-than-earthly blessedness.”77 The way in which Bavinck rather casually pairs these simply does not work, because God’s sovereignty extends to his promises as well as to his imposition of law; and human freedom does not exclusively correspond to eschatological hope, but also to the means to that end, namely, obedience.78 The attempt to overlap these motifs should be understood, on the other hand, against the broader background of Bavinck’s opposition to his twin alternatives, “naturalism” and “supernaturalism.” Against the former

75  As à Brakel points out, “(1) The law is love (Mat. 22:37–39). If Adam had perfect love, he necessarily had the perfect law. (2) The law is liberty. ‘...the perfect law of liberty...’ (James 1:25). Being in a state of holy liberty, Adam was thus subject to the law of liberty,” Reasonable Service, I, 358. 76  RD, II, 572. 77  Earlier Bavinck had spoken of the “rights” God gives to the creature, consistently formulated as creatures “having the freedom” to address God, expect all good things, etc., RD, II, 570. 78  The presence of Schleiermacher and Kant here (added in the second revised edition) simply confuses matters. They are clearly ciphers, standing for what Bavinck sees as the elements of truth in their respective positions, but they hinder rather than help. Schleiermacher is rarely, if ever, associated with legalism, and Kant has never been accused of having room for divine grace! It is rather quite the opposite: Schleiermacher’s “absolute dependence” is a dependence on grace, and Kant’s “freedom” is strictly circumscribed by an autonomously self-legislated moral duty and law (e.g., the categorical imperative). Kant is a pure philosophical Pelagian; C.f., Immanuel Kant, “Religion within the boundaries of mere reason,” in Religion and Rational Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 39–216; C.f., RD, II, 535; RD, III, 71–2.

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(e.g., Kant), he wishes to deny libertarian moral indiffference, yet afffijirm that there is something towards which humanity, in freedom, strives to attain (i.e., a “higher-than-earthly blessedness”); that is, humanity was not created already in a state of eschatological perfection.79 Against the latter (e.g., Rome), he wishes, in efffect, to afffijirm the donum but deny the superadditum; that is, he acknowledges the gracious “gift” nature of both the image of God and eschatological life, but nevertheless insists that the image is natural and “given” with human existence as such. What is at issue here, then, is the relation, not only between law and grace, but between the original state and the state of glory. Naturalism assumes that since humanity is naturally under obligation to obey God’s moral precepts, then the resultant “higher state” is strictly legal (and thus legalistic) in character. Supernaturalism, as construed by Rome, assumes that since eternal life is of grace, then humanity’s original state is strictly gracious in character.80 Each ends where they begin; protology and eschatology are inextricably tied and mutually interpreting. Naturalism’s strictly legal protology produces a legalistic eschatology, and supernaturalism’s strictly gracious eschatology produces a purely gracious protology. The Reformed view, as Bavinck articulates it, refuses to align at the outset (as both these options do) either law or grace with only one or the other of the two states, and then to grant that alignment conceptual and interpretive control.81 While that is standard procedure for dualistic concepts of nature and grace that presuppose a competitive relationship between the two, for Bavinck divine-human relations are always, both in the original state and in the eschatological state, covenantal, and that means both legal and gracious.

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 C.f., RD, II, 537.  Sam Mussabini’s quip to Harold Abrahams in Chariots of Fire would seem to apply to the atus integritatis for all theological proposals: “You cannot put in what God left out.” For Pelagians, he “left out” grace; for supernaturalists, he left out “nature” in any meaningful sense; C.f., Bavinck, “CG,” 53: “The Socinians misconstrued the gratia specialis [special grace] and retained nothing besides nature; the Anabaptists scorn the gratia communis [common grace] and acknowledge nothing besides grace”; RD, II, 538: “Scripture, accordingly, teaches that both in creation and re-creation holiness is a gift from God. One who has this gift can further develop it in word and deed; but one who lacks it can never acquire it.” 81  In my estimation, this tendency continues to plague debates over this question. The Kline/Murray debate in North American Reformed circles is simply the latest instantiation, with devotees of Murray, in defense of grace, hurling the “Pelagian” epithet at followers of Kline, who, in turn, in defense of law, return fijire with the dreaded “Roman Catholic” volley. They both misunderstand their own tradition from opposite directions. 80

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Bavinck explains what he views to be a direct relationship between the probationary command and the moral law, on the one hand, and between the covenant of works and image of God, on the other: The probationary command relates to the moral law as the covenant of works relates to man’s creation in God’s image. The moral law stands or falls in its entirety with the probationary command, and the image of God in mankind in its entirety stands or falls with the covenant of works. The covenant of works is the road to heavenly blessedness for the [fijirst] human beings, who were created in God’s image and had not yet fallen.82

It appears that for Bavinck the moral law and image of God both belong to the natural order of things as general revelations of God; human beings are, by nature, intrinsically the image of God and thus obligated to “image” his character, i.e., the moral law. He suggests, on the other hand, that the probationary command and the covenant of works are special revelations of God that are “added to” the natural order of things. For example, the probationary command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, though not intrinsic to the moral law as such, once given is nonetheless bound up with it. Just two pages later he expresses it thus: In addition to the commandments, whose naturalness and reasonableness were obvious to Adam, this command was in a sense arbitrary and incidental. In the probationary command the entire moral law came to Adam at a single throw, confronting him with the dilemma: either God or man, God’s authority or one’s own insight, unconditional obedience or independent research, faith or skepticism. It was an appalling test that opened the way either to eternal blessedness or eternal ruin.83

Likewise, recall how Bavinck described the covenant of works as “monopleuric (unilateral) in origin, and [...] added to the creation in God’s image.”84 The state of integrity, then, included both the natural obligation for Adam, as imago Dei, to live, move and have his being under God’s law, while the probationary command and covenant of works together formed a special divine promise held out to Adam for a higher blessedness. The moral law and the image describe Adam (and Eve) as characters, while the probationary command and the covenant of works introduces the narrative or historical plot. Both obligatory and promissory elements are therefore natural to the created order (moral law/image of God) and, in

82

 RD, II, 572.  RD, II, 574. 84  RD, II, 572, emphasis added. 83

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addition, specially revealed (probationary command/covenant of works). Once the probationary command and the covenant of works are introduced, they are inseparably bound to the moral law and the image of God. The latter “stands or falls” with the former. That is, the entire moral law, a natural obligation, “stands or falls” with the probationary command, a special requirement; and the entire image of God, Adam’s natural state, “stands or falls” with the covenant of works, a special revelation.85 The point is that here both the legal command and gracious promise operate in tandem as revelations of God to bring Adam from his natural, created condition to fulfijillment in eschatological beatitude. It is therefore obvious, on this scheme, that the state of integrity cannot be restricted to either a purely legal or gracious dimension. That Bavinck is drawing on the broader tradition in tying together the natural and specially revealed aspects of the legal/promissory elements of the covenant is illustrated by Muller: In the theology of Witsius and à Brakel, the intrinsic relationship between law and covenant and the identifijication of the law revealed under the covenant of works with both the law of nature and the Mosaic law are assumed, given that ‘knowledge of the law and conformity to it is a perfection of man’s nature’ and given, moreover, the very ‘nature of God’ as Lord and sovereign over his creation. Thus, the law stands prior both to the fact of sin and to the fact of any covenant. When considered as the prescribed condition of the covenant of works, the law is ‘twofold,’ consisting in ‘the law of nature, implanted in Adam at his creation (Lex Naturae Adamo increata)’ and ‘the symbolical law (Lex Symbolica), concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.86

Bavinck’s view that both the state of integrity and the subsequent covenant of grace (i.e., the basic division between pre and post-lapsarian states) are each characterized by both law and grace (rather than one or the other) is further illumined by reaching back to two places in which Bavinck refers to the covenant of works in volume one, the prolegomena of his Reformed Dogmatics. Both instances provide an early signal that a distinction between prelapsarian and postlapsarian covenant arrangements

85

 Either Adam, in accordance with his character as imago Dei, actually “images” God by conforming to his character and will, or he necessarily loses the privilege; rather than being confijirmed in righteousness, he becomes positively unrighteous. 86  Muller, CWSDL, 90; C.f., Witsius, Economy, I.iii.1; à Brakel, Reasonable Service, I, 358– 59: “In addition to the law of nature God gave Adam a command which in His sovereignty He could or could not have given: the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [...]”

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is something basic to his theological paradigm, but they indicate more than just that. In treating the “foundation and task” of theological prolegomena Bavinck calls attention to the approach taken by two 19th century theologians, Alexander Schweizer and J.H. Scholten, specifijically to their identifying of natural theology or religion—presumably a “natural” knowledge of God—with the covenant of works, or the state of integrity.87 Their view of the process of divine revelation treats the covenant of works as a natural “preparation” for revealed religion, which comes to expression in the covenant of grace. But this was not the intent of the doctrine, Bavinck asserts: “The covenant of works before the fall is not a preparation for, but a contra to, the covenant of grace, which arises in history only after the violation of the covenant of works by sin.”88 The distinction between natural and revealed theology, on the other hand, is “not a historical distinction of periods but one that still and always exists and continues to be applicable in theology.”89 In other words, Bavinck attacks a basic category confusion; natural and supernatural revelation always historically coincide, whereas the covenants of works and grace represent two distinct historical epochs, the former belonging to the state of integrity, the latter to the state of sin. This signifijicantly aids in understanding his linkage of (1) the moral law (general revelation) with the probationary command (special revelation), and (2) the image of God (natural revelation) with the covenant of works (special revelation).90 Not only do the two forms of revelation historically coincide, but their specifijic contents, (1) emphasizing the legal dimension and (2) emphasizing the promissory dimension, also historically coincide in the Garden. A similar theme emerges in his second mention of the covenant of works. He again maintains that the covenant of works/grace distinction cannot be equated with the natural/supernatural revelation distinction, because “supernatural” revelation is present already in the state of integrity: The God-human relation in the state of integrity is depicted as one of personal contact and association. God speaks to human beings (Gen. 1:28–30), gives them a command they could not know by nature (Gen. 2:16), and, as by his own hand, brings to the man a woman to be his helper (Gen. 2:22).91 87

 RD, I, 109; C.f., “CG,” 39–40. Τhis is, of course, consistent with Scholten’s Hegelianism.  RD, I, 109, emphasis added. 89  RD, I, 109; C.f., RD, III, 358–9. 90  RD, I, 308: “Also the covenant of works is not a covenant of nature in the sense that it arises from a natural human proclivity but is a fruit of supernatural revelation.” 91  RD, I, 308. The whole of his treatment of natural and supernatural revelation is worth consulting. While he does distinguish between an “established natural order” and “super88

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Thus, “natural” and “supernatural” coincide in the Garden, and the covenant of works is a special (i.e., supernatural) revelation of God, and a gracious revelation at that, insofar as it holds out to Adam the possibility of eschatological perfection. In fact, Bavinck’s own shorthand defijinition of the “covenant of works” here is essentially the revelation of the Godappointed means for Adam to achieve his eschatological destiny, a means grounded in Adam’s “graced” nature as divine image-bearer and his corresponding legal obligation to obey God’s moral law. This is seen in this highly compressed and almost offf-hand summary: And inasmuch as the covenant of works is nothing other than the form of religion that fijits the human beings created in God’s image who had not yet achieved their ultimate destiny, we can [safely] say that Scripture cannot conceive of pure religion without supernatural revelation.92

The covenant of works is thus a supernatural or special revelation of God to his human image-bearers, as yet pure from sin; and, “[o]n their part, the fijirst human beings, being created in God’s image, rested in it and saw in this covenant a revelation of a way to a higher blessedness.”93 As the connection between human obedience and eschatological life is established solely by unilateral, God-initiated, covenant condescension, this divine promise, in which Adam and Eve were to rest, is a promise of unmerited grace. All told, this conception of the state of integrity is diametrically opposed to the caricature that the covenant of works celebrates a priority of law and human merit—it is designed, at least in part, to deny the concept of a purely “natural” (works-based) religion, a notion that, for Bavinck, ironically emerges both in modernist, naturalistic accounts of humanity (e.g., Kant’s voluntarism) and “supernaturalist” accounts (e.g., Roman

natural” revelation, he underscores that all revelation is “supernatural,” and thus the distinction “general” and “special” is preferable. The distinction is not even one of the means God employs to reveal himself: “In natural revelation his divine and eternal thoughts have been deposited in creatures in a creaturely way so that they could be understood by human thought processes. And in supernatural revelation he binds himself to space and time, adopts human language and speech, and makes use of creaturely means [....] Hence, in the state of integrity, according to the teaching of Scripture, natural and supernatural revelation go together. They are not opposites but complementary. Both are mediate and bound to certain forms,” RD, I, 310; C.f., “CG,” 40. In keeping with his archetypal/ectypal distinction, all revelation is anthropomorphic, according to Bavinck (C.f., RD, II, 29–30; 47–52). 92  RD, I, 308. 93  RD, II, 572.

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Catholicism’s donum superadditum).94 Accordingly, as Bavinck insists already against Schweizer and Scholten, it is not as though the original state was a purely natural/legal form of religion that prepares for the purely gracious form of religion in either the covenant of grace or the eschatological state. The state of integrity consists both in Adam’s “essential” or intrinsic righteousness (obligation to law) and God’s special, condescending, and gracious revelation of an eschatological destiny. An additional observation and/or qualifijication is necessary here: the legal and fijilial, law and grace, while being distinguishable, are not separable in the state of integrity; it is not as though Adam’s relationship to God could be divided up between various “spheres,” some of which were legal and others gracious. Since Bavinck emphasizes the specifijically promissory (gracious) character of the specially revealed covenant of works, one might be tempted to conclude that, absent that promise (that is, in Adam’s “natural state” as image-bearer conforming in holiness to God’s law), grace is entirely lacking. Here one should recall that in his very defijinition of a covenant relationship, which is, again, constitutive of the GodAdam relationship, everything received from God by humans is a result of his condescending, unmerited goodness, and that includes the law: A creature as such owes its very existence, all that it is and has, to God; it cannot make any claims before God, and it cannot boast of anything; it has no rights and can make no demands of any kind. There is no such thing as merit in the existence of a creature before God, nor can there be since the relation between the Creator and a creature radically and once-and-for-all eliminates any notion of merit. This is true after the fall but no less before the fall.95

That God made human beings in his own image is an act of divine gratuity; that he created them originally righteous and holy, to conform and to perform—and thus to display—God’s moral character in and to the cosmos is unilateral divine gratuity. Humanity has no right or expectation to be so included in God’s historical work of self-glorifijication: “Every creaturely right is a given benefijit, a gift of grace, undeserved and nonobligatory.”96 As John Bolt puts it, “Creation itself must be understood as evidence of grace

94

 C.f., RD, II, 534–48.  RD, II, 570, emphasis added; C.f., RD, II, 227–8: “All laws and rights, whatever they may be, have their ultimate ground, not in a social contract, nor in self-existent natural law or in history, but in the will of God, viewed not as ‘absolute dominion’ but as a will of goodness and grace. God’s grace is the fountainhead of all laws and rights.” 96  RD, II, 570. 95

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and favor because creation is not necessary but contingent; its very existence is based on a posture of divine grace or undeserved favor.”97 Adam’s conformity to God’s character, i.e., moral law, therefore, is itself gracious: law is gracious. But the converse, that “grace is legal/forensic,” is also true, as Bolt argues in his essay; this motif is essentially what Muller describes as the “stability” of divine law in a context of redemptive grace. However, Bolt’s demonstration is not quite to the point, in that he contrasts the covenant of works with Adam with the covenant of grace with Abraham; that is, the redemptive grace promised to Abraham is predicated on legal or forensic factors.98 The question here is whether, on Bavinck’s terms, grace in some sense bears a legal or forensic character in the pre-redemptive covenant of works; the answer is an obvious and unqualifijied afffijirmative, in that the covenant of works (a gracious promise) was revealed to Adam by a proscriptive, legal command. Writes Bavinck: We must completely set aside the fragmentary development of this doctrine. The matter itself is certain. After creating men and women after his own image, God showed them their destiny and the only way in which they could reach it. Human beings could know the moral law without special revelation since it was written in their hearts. But the probationary command is positive; it is not a given of human nature as such but could only be made known to human beings if God communicated it to them.99

So, for Bavinck, the covenant relationship between God and Adam is a multifaceted one in which law and love, law and liberty, law and grace, legal and fijilial perfectly cohere; the law is itself a gracious condescension, and the gracious promise of eschatological life is predicated on keeping the law. This multifaceted character of the divine-human relation had been hinted at in Bavinck’s fijirst reason to view religion generally as a “covenant”: [I]f the relation between [God and man] is to be also (but not exclusively) that of a master to his servant, of a potter to clay, as well as that of a king to his people, of a father to his son, of a mother to her child, of an eagle to her young, of a hen to her chicks, and so forth; that is, if not just one relation but all relations and all sorts of relations of dependence, submission,

97

 Bolt, “Why the Covenant of Works is a Necessary Doctrine,” 184.  E.g., “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness,” (Gen. 15:6; Rom 4:3). 99  RD, II, 571. Gender-neutral translating meets its limitations here. There were no “men and women” in the Garden; Bavinck’s “de mensch” refers, at most, to “the man and woman.” 98

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chapter two obedience, friendship, love, and so forth among humans fijind their model and achieved their fulfijillment in religion, then religion must be the character of a covenant.100

God is not simply a master—he is a father, and much else besides. This fijits well with Muller’s summary, that for the older Reformed writers “the clear implication of the doctrine [of the covenant of works] is the ultimate parity of the divine attributes of righteousness and mercy or graciousness and the resultant balance of righteousness or justice (iuitia) with mercy and grace in the plan and work of God.”101 In light of Bavinck’s labors to make clear the mutual coherence of law and grace in the God-human covenant relationship, as well as the careful and clear reasoning of such eminent traditional fijigures as Ursinus, Witsius and à Brakel, it seems that the common misunderstanding of the covenant of works, that it represents an original legal relationship that only later becomes a “graced” relationship in the “covenant of grace,” appears to be a facile interpretation based on little more than the terms “works” and “grace.”102 It is therefore genuinely surprising to fijind such confusion in the work of one steeped, not just in the Reformed orthodox tradition generally, but in Bavinck’s thought-world specifijically: G.C. Berkouwer.103 Before embarking on an evaluation of his treatment of the covenant of works, it should be noted that Berkouwer’s synthetic style leads him very often to “moderate,” as it were, ongoing theological conversations without making

100  RD, II, 569. Regarding the notion of grace in Eden, in addition to Muller, “CWSDL,” see Bierma, “Ursinus’ Doctrine of the Natural Covenant”; note esp. his summary on 106–7: “This is a relationship surrounded by grace. That the law was ‘known by human beings by nature’ in the natural covenant was rooted in the fact that God had created human beings in his image, that is, with a ‘true knowledge of God and the divine will.’ In addition, meeting the requirement of obedience in the natural covenant was possible, once again, only because God had created human beings in his image, in a state of righteousness and holiness that reflected these qualities in his own being. He had graciously equipped them with the ability to keep the law, with the inclination and desire to worship him with their whole lives. This knowledge, ability, and desire were ‘gifts’ (gaben) from God’s hand. Indeed, as Ursinus puts it in a parallel passage [...] when Adam and Eve fell, ‘they robbed themselves and all their descendants of that grace of God.’” (Bierma’s internal in-text citations removed.) 101  Muller, CWSDL, 99. 102  This is at least true of the signifijicant strand of the tradition on which Bavinck relies; it is not necessary here to establish whether it is historically accurate to describe this as a universal consensus in the Reformed tradition. But scholarship of recent vintage points in the direction of far greater continuity between the Reformed orthodox and the early Reformers than older historiography admits, and further indicates later consensus on issues related to the covenant of works; C.f., Wood, “Merit in the Midst of Grace,” 139–40. 103  G.C. Berkouwer, Sin, trans. Philip C. Holtrop (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 207–09.

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his own positions clear—at least not unambiguously clear. What follows should therefore be understood somewhat tentatively as a possible reading of Berkouwer. On the one hand, Berkouwer’s brief rationale for rejecting the doctrine of the covenant of works insists that the Reformed emphasis on law “is no evidence of the darkening of the Gospel, and is no recognition of a ‘legal order’ above or before the ‘order of grace.’”104 Rather, “Man’s original life under God’s rule cannot be regarded, for even a moment, apart from God’s love and communion.”105 This is clearly in line with Bavinck’s own emphases. But he then appears to undermine this afffijirmation of the tradition, writing, “we can never construe an antithesis between the covenants of ‘works’ and ‘grace.’”106 And further, We err if we interpret this distinction [covenant of works/grace] as though God’s original covenant had to do with our work or our achievement or our fulfijillment of his law, while the later covenant of grace has reference to the pure gift of his mercy apart from all our works. If we assume this we are compelled to say that God’s original relation to man was strictly ‘legal,’ or that the structure of that relation was determined by man’s merit....Therefore S.G. DeGraaf has rightly said that the concept which sees God’s favor only at the end of man’s way of obedience is open to serious dispute.107

Continuing to summarize (with approval) DeGraaf’s line of thinking, he writes, “If we view that term [the covenant of works] in contrast to the covenant of grace [...] we have no option but to say that God preferred— at least at fijirst—to hold himself aloof and not to commune with men.”108 Finally, [W]hoever burdens the so-called ‘covenant of works’ with the notion of achievement and presumes that we gain God’s favor in that way, must endorse the idea of a ‘nomological’ ur-existence of man and must cut asunder the law of God from the fellowship of God. In that way he isolates and hypostasizes the law. It is not clear how this infusion of meritum can leave

104

 Berkouwer, Sin, 206.  Berkouwer, Sin; C.f., Bavinck, “CG,” 39: “The relation of God and man in the atus integritatis is portrayed as personal fellowship.” 106  Berkouwer, Sin, 207; C.f., Bavinck, RD, I, 109, “The covenant of works is [...] a contra to [...] the covenant of grace”; “CG,” 40: “[Adam’s] life, work, food, clothing come to him no longer on the basis of an agreement or right granted in the covenant of works but through grace alone.” 107  Berkouwer, Sin, 207. 108  Berkouwer, Sin, 207. 105

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chapter two room for a genuine criticism of Rome concerning the question of the meritoriousness of works.109

Berkouwer’s portrayal here is questionable. Before dealing with the basic hinge on which the whole turns (improper relation of creation and eschatology), it must be observed that a substantial strand of the very tradition he exonerates from the charge of legalism at the outset not only taught the very contrast he now denies between the covenant of works and grace, but they did so emphatically.110 Not only did they conceive of Adam’s confijirmation into eschatological blessing in the covenant of works as based on the condition of his obedience, and, hence, by way of ex pacto “merit,” but they did so emphatically.111 That this is non-negotiable is illustrated by Witsius: The second thing, which we said [...] was immutable in the covenant of works, was this; that eternal life was not obtainable on ony [sic] other condition but that of perfect obedience: as may thus be invincibly proved: for, by virtue of this general rule, it was necessary for Christ to be made under the law, Gal. iv.4. and fulfill all righteousness, and that for this end, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled, Rom. viii.4. But if this righteousness had not been sacred and inviolable, Christ would have been under no necessity to submit to the covenant of the law, in order to merit eternal life for his people. This therefore is evident, that there ought to be a merit of perfect obedience on which a right to eternal life may be founded.112

Likewise, à Brakel summarizes the structural importance of ex pacto merit: Acquaintance with this covenant is of the greatest importance, for whoever errs here or denies the existence of the covenant of works, will not understand the covenant of grace, and will readily err concerning the mediatorship of the Lord Jesus. Such a person will very readily deny that Christ by His active obedience has merited a right to eternal life for the elect. This is to be observed with several parties who, because they err concerning the covenant of grace, also deny the covenant of works. Conversely, whoever denies

109

 Berkouwer, Sin, 208.  E.g., Bavinck, RD, III, 225: “In diinction from and contra to the covenant of works, God therefore established another, a better, covenant, not a legalistic but an evangelical covenant.” Emphasis added. C.f., also the confessional material found in WCOF, VII.1–2; WLC, Q.22, 30; WSC, Q.12–20; that the covenant of works offfered eternal life on condition of Adam’s obedience, Bavinck cites in further support: Boston, Brahè, Cloppenburg, Coccejus, Comrie, de Moor, Gomarus, van den Honert, Junius, Marck, Mastricht, Olevianus, Polanus, Trelcatius, Trelcatius Jr., Ursinus, Vitringa, Walker and Wollebius, RD, II, 567. 111  E.g., Witsius, Economy, I.iii; à Brakel, Reasonable Service, I, 356–360. 112  Witsius, Economy, I.ix.16. 110

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the covenant of works, must rightly be suspected to be in error concerning the covenant of grace as well.113

And, to put the matter completely beyond dispute whether Bavinck concurred: All claims to reward can therefore flow only from a covenant, a sovereignly free and gracious disposition of God, and hence is a given right. That is how it was in the covenant of works and is even much more so in the covenant of grace. For Christ has fulfijilled all the requirements; he not only sufffered the penalty but also, by fulfijilling the law, won eternal life. The eternal blessedness and glory he received was, for him, the reward for his perfect obedience.114

Berkouwer is critical of viewing the covenant of works as comprising “our work, our achievement, our fulfijillment of [God’s] law,” and juxtaposing this with the pure gift of mercy under the covenant of grace. But Adam’s original obligations to “work, achieve and fulfijill” are not at all the same thing as fallen—that is, guilty and corrupt—sinners (i.e., “our”) attempting to “work, achieve and fulfijill” the law’s demands; Adam was an unfallen image-bearer, and he and his posterity, post-fall, are not. Thus, Bavinck, along with such fijigures as Ursinus, Witsius and à Brakel, certainly did construe the covenant of works as requiring sinless Adam’s obedience to his Father as a condition for eschatological life, just as much as the sinless Second Adam’s obedience was a prerequisite for his eschatological life.115 In neither case is it ever contemplated that sinners can merit or “earn” favor with God, and so Berkouwer’s characterization is misleading; rather, it is contemplated that the two (and only two) sinless representatives of humanity do, in fact, have the very same eschatological life offfered to them on condition of the very same law, namely, faithful obedience.116

113

 À Brakel, Reasonable Service, I, 355.  RD, IV, 729. 115  Because death is the “wages of sin” (Rom. 6:3), the eschatological resurrection unto incorruptible life of a sinful Messiah is inconceivable; C.f., Heb. 4:15; also, Bavinck, “CG,” 49: “The doing of good works to merit blessing was quite appropriate for man created after the image of God in the foedus operum; but with the advent of sin, such merit became quite impossible.” 116  C.f., e.g., à Brakel’s argument that the “eternal felicity” offfered to Adam and actually obtained by Christ are identical, Reasonable Service, I, 360–363; Witsius, Economy, I.ix.23: “In a word, the same law which was to man in innocence a commandment to life, and is to man in sin, the law of sin, becomes again in the Redeemer the law of the spirit of life, testifying that satisfaction was made to it by the Redeemer, and bestowing on man, who by faith is become one with the Redeemer, all the fruits of righteousness for justifijication, sanctifijication, and glorifijication.” 114

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As the failure of the fijirst Adam results in condemnation and death for his posterity, the success of the Second Adam results in unmerited mercy and grace (apart from works) for God’s sinful elect.117 So, Muller observes of Witsius and à Brakel: Arguably, both theologians here manifest the central reason for the doctrine of the covenant of works and its fundamental relationship to the doctrines of justifijication by grace through faith and Christ’s satisfaction for sin: The issue is not to hammer home a legalistic view of life and salvation but precisely the opposite, while at the same time upholding the stability of divine law.118

The one insight which generated Reformed reflection on the covenant of works more than any other, namely, the antithetical parallel between Adam and Christ exhibited in texts like Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, is absent from Berkouwer’s treatment of the doctrine.119 At very least, the precise contrast drawn and relentlessly pursued by the Apostle Paul in the former text between Adam (disobedience-condemnation-death) and Christ (obedience-righteousness-life) calls into question Berkouwer’s complaint that “[v]ainly do we search the Scriptures for any such antithesis in the covenants of works and grace.”120 It is no accident that Bavinck himself begins his discussion of the doctrine of the covenant of works with an exegetical analysis of 1 Corinthians 15:45–49, which, he believes, compares and contrasts “the two covenant heads, Adam and Christ,” and that the comparison “here reaches its greatest depth and penetrates to the root of the distinction between them.”121 It seems the main thrust of Berkouwer’s critique rests on a faulty view of the relationship between creation and eschatology. If eschatological

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 Witsius distinguishes between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace by describing the former as a compact or agreement made with Adam, the image of God in a state of innocence, and the latter as a “compact or agreement between God and the elect sinner,” Economy, I.ii.4, II.ii.5. 118  Muller, CWSDL, 95. 119  Muller, CWSDL, 94: “[I]t should not be surprising that a central issue addressed in the Reformed doctrine of the covenant of works was the issue of federal headship and, therefore, the parallels between the fijirst and the second Adam, the federal heads of the covenants of works and of grace.” Sufffijice it to say here that in the history of the doctrine, contrary to popular belief, Hosea 6:7 rarely, if ever, played a major exegetical role; Muller, CWSDL, 90; C.f., à Brakel, Reasonable Service, I, 365, where he relegates Hosea 6:7 to an “additional proof ” verifying the validity of the doctrine. 120  Berkouwer, Sin, 208; C.f., John Murray, Romans, 178–210. 121  RD, II, 564. Bavinck credits Paul’s parallel between Adam and Christ with prompting the initial move toward the covenant of works, RD, II, 567.

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blessing is in any sense grounded in obedience, whether by Adam, Christ, or anyone else, “we are compelled,” he writes, to view the original Godhuman relation as “strictly legal,” that God preferred “to hold himself aloof and not to commune with men,” and that the state of integrity represents a “nomological ur-existence of man” that “must cut assunder the law of God from the fellowship of God.” In light of the preceding exposition of Bavinck’s understanding of the covenant of works, conforming as it does with mainstream fathers of the Reformed orthodox tradition, this conclusion is mistaken, and fueled—by his own admission, even—by potential problems suggested by the “terminology of these ‘two covenants.’”122 These consequences, to which one is allegedly compelled, misconstrue the distinction between the probationary and the eschatological states. As Berkouwer’s representation has it, if fellowship is offfered to Adam as a future (eschatological) blessing, it necessarily follows that he lacks fellowship in his sub-eschatological state (or his “ur-existence”). If Adam is offfered this future on a condition of obedience, it therefore follows that his present state is “nomological,” i.e., “graceless.” But the diffference is not—and does not appear to ever have been—between estrangement in the one arrangement and fellowship in the other, or between law in one arrangement, grace in the other. The mere offfer of what Bavinck describes as a “higher blessedness” in no way compels one to undermine the genuine blessedness Adam already enjoyed. This non-sequitur proceeds from the same presuppositions Bavinck critiqued in Schweizer and Scholten; namely, that the covenant of works represents a primitive, legal relationship that prepares for “genuine” religion in the covenant of grace. In other words, Berkouwer’s presentation creates a false antithesis between the state of integrity and the state of glory—if fellowship in the latter, then not in the former, if grace in the latter, then not in the former, et cetera. A more charitable read of Berkouwer at this point might suggest that he is self-consciously targeting false caricatures of the covenant of works, much as Bavinck did with Schweizer and Scholten. In light of his repeated use of the words “if we,” care should be exercised to not automatically assume that he thinks these characterizations of the covenant of works are fair. Indeed, this would attractively account for his initial claim that the doctrine does not “recognize a ‘legal order’ above or before the ‘order of grace.’”123 This reading, however, is difffijicult to square with Berkouwer’s

122

 Berkouwer, Sin, 208, fn. 53, emphasis added.  Berkouwer, Sin, 206–7.

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text as written. He expressly denies that Adam was promised life on condition of obedience,124 maintains that it is “impossible, de facto,” to eliminate an antithesis between merit and grace in the bi-covenantal system,125 and credits the very notion of “merit” or reward in the Adamic situation with necessitating a “nomological” or legalistic notion of the original state, even suggesting that it is powerless to oppose Rome’s merit theology.126 These claims are difffijicult to reconcile with his assertion that the postReformation tradition did not elevate a legal order over an order of grace, given that Reformed orthodoxy (at least those representatives appealed to by Bavinck) positively insisted on that which Berkouwer appears to reject. It is precisely here that Bavinck’s own unique interests in the doctrine of the covenant of works come to the fore; whereas the earlier tradition emphasizes the stability of divine law, that is, how God could both maintain his non-arbitrary and absolute requirement of obedience in a postfall era and yet still extend redemptive mercy to fallen sinners incapable of the requisite fijidelity, Bavinck sought to highlight (while afffijirming these aspects, of course) the doctrine’s latent eschatological potential. Bavinck uses the covenant of works as a means of conceiving how God’s good creation yet anticipated a future destiny far better; it is the architecture that provides creation’s eschatological “horizon” or telos. Future “blessedness” for Adam in paradise does not imply a present lack of blessing; future eternal life promised to Adam does not imply a present lack of life; and future fellowship with God does not imply a present estrangement. Rather, the diffference is between creational blessedness, life, fellowship (“Once upon a time”) and all God’s gifts brought to eschatological perfection—an eschaton graciously opened up for humanity and revealed to Adam and Eve in the covenant of works (“Lived happily ever after”). The covenant of works, properly understood, does not raise the concerns found in Berkouwer’s critique; it intends to uniquely answer those concerns.

124  Berkouwer, Sin, 207, fn. 52. He seems emphatic on this point: “The way of works is condemned by God because it is not the way of God,” 208. In context, he appears to mean it is never the “way of God,” not even in the state of integrity. 125  Berkouwer, Sin, 207. 126  Berkouwer, Sin, 208: “[W]hoever burdens the ‘so-called’ covenant of works with the notion of achievement [...] mu endorse the idea of a ‘nomological’ ur-existence of man and mu cut assunder the law of God from the fellowship of God.” Emphasis added.

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The Covenant of Works & Creational Eschatology “Paradise was not heaven.”127 Terse as it is, these four words profoundly encapsulate what Bavinck believes to be the fundamental import of the doctrine of the covenant of works. The beginning of the story is not the end. The state of integrity, although created very good, was oriented to a better perfection, a “higher blessedness.” The primarily eschatological function of the covenant of works is why he fijirst treats the doctrine under his chapter entitled, “De Bestemming van den mensch,” the “Deiny of Humanity.” Moreover, his fijirst mention of the covenant of works in his anthropological section (the point of departure for this book) underscores that it carries precisely this eschatological import. Having discussed the classic Reformed distinction between the “broader” and “narrower” senses of the image, he writes, Soon an additional distinction arose that was especially worked out in the doctrine of the covenant of works. This distinction answered the question what Adam had to become, not what Adam was. It is only in these three areas, the image of God in the broad sense, the image of God in the narrow sense, and the development or deination of the image of God—that is, in the doctrine of the covenant of works—that the locus of the image of God can be treated to the full extent.128

Whereas Reformed theology used other distinctions to describe Adam’s nature (e.g., broader/narrower), the covenant of works answers what Adam “had to become.” For Bavinck, the reader may recall, creation is a “theater of God’s glory,” and therefore a drama that expresses itself both in space, the ontologically organic diversity of created things, and time, the historically organic unfolding of the plan and rule of God, which unites and holds all things together and “leads them to a single goal.”129 That “single goal” is for creation to rest in incorruptible, eschatological fellowship with its creator, the Triune God, a “state of glory in which God will impart his glory to all his creatures and be ‘all in all’ [1 Cor. 15:28].”130 It is abundantly clear 127

 RD, II, 573.  RD, II, 550, emphasis added. 129  RD, I, 370. 130  RD, II, 588. One weakness of Hielema’s thesis, Herman Bavinck’s Eschatological Underanding of Redemption, is that he vaguely treats eschatology and redemption as synonymous terms, i.e., the eschatological goal of creation precisely is “redemption,” (e.g., 140–163). Because of his Christological convictions, he cannot conceive of a “creational 128

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from this that Adam and Eve were not created in eschatological perfection; hence, his fijirst words on human destiny: Although Adam was created in God’s image, he was not that image immediately in the full sense, nor was he that image by himself alone. The image of God will only present itself to us in all of its many-splendored richness when man’s destiny, both for this life and the life to come, is included in it.131

Adam stood “on a lower level,” and his natural body had “not yet fully become an instrument of the spirit.”132 Adam “stood at the beginning of his ‘career’ not at the end,” and his condition “had to pass on to higher glory or to sin and death.”133 He did not have eschatological, “eternal” life, but “still had to acquire it.”134 Adam and Eve, created in God’s image, “did not yet possess the highest possible blessing” or the “highest kind of life.” The image of God “therefore had to be fully developed.”135 The state of integrity is “a preparation for the state of glory,” not the state of glory itself.136 Creation “displays the attributes of God, in principle already at the outset, to an increasing degree as it develops, and perfectly at the end of the ages.”137 He returns to this theme in the fijirst words of volume three, on sin and salvation:

eschatology.” Indeed, he argues that while one stream of Neo-Calvinism constructs “an ontology of creation, within which it describes redemption history,” Herman Bavinck “holds a diffferent view.” Namely, “his eschatological understanding of redemption is not rooted in an eschatological ontology [i.e., “creational eschatology”—bgm]. Rather, he afffijirms the priority of the person and work of Jesus Christ and construes the signifijicance of creation, history and eschaton on the foundation of this Christological priority,” 5. Admirable as this Christological focus may be, it is unconvincing as a presentation of Bavinck’s views. Bavinck believes that creation’s eschatological destiny is not in principle synonymous with redemption. Adam’s fall is not a necessity of creation and neither, therefore, is Christ’s redemptive work. For example: “The state of integrity—either through the fall or apart from the fall—is a preparation for the state of glory,” and “however the fir human being should choose, creation could not miss its destiny,” RD, II, 588, emphasis added. In other words, on Adam’s obedience, creation could have achieved its telos non-soteriologically, apart from the Incarnation, the cross, redemption, etc. This should not be taken to imply that the telos Christ achieved is strictly identical to the telos hypothetically offfered to Adam. The soteriological character of Christ’s work makes it far more glorious, as a revelation of God’s mercy. 131  RD, II, 564. 132  RD, II, 564. 133  RD, II, 564. 134  RD, II, 567. 135  RD, II, 573. 136  RD, II, 588. 137  RD, II, 436.

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When God had completed the work of creation, he looked down with delight on the work of his hands, for it was all very good (Gen. 1:31). Granted, at that moment the world was only at the beginning of its development and hence enjoyed a perfection, not in degree but in kind. Inasmuch as it was something that was positively good, it could become something and develop in accordance with the laws God had set for it.138

Thus, this is a systemic emphasis, not an occasional casual remark. Bavinck asserts that Reformed theology was able to make “sound judgments” on a wide variety of issues concerning the paradisal state precisely “because it was deeply imbued with the idea that Adam did not yet enjoy the highest level of blessedness.”139 Bavinck is so captivated by this concept that it becomes redundant. At one point, immediately after describing the covenant of works as “the road to heavenly blessedness” for Adam and Eve, he repeats that the covenant of works—calling it “still another beautiful thought”—“gives expression to the fact that humanity before the fall, though created in God’s image, did not yet possess the highest possible blessing.”140 It is clear that this emphasis is at least latent in the Reformed orthodox tradition on the covenant of works, and at least three aspects of Bavinck’s particular stress on it here should be examined: fijirst, Bavinck’s exegetical and biblical-theological rationale for his eschatological conception of the covenant of works; second, the wider systematic or dogmatic value of this doctrine for his theological system; and, third, the precise character of Adam’s sub-eschatological state as compared and contrasted with the eschatological state of glory. As already mentioned, Bavinck begins his discussion on human destiny, not with a description of the doctrine of the covenant of works, but with a concise yet insightful exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15:45–49. This text serves to validate his initial claim that “[a]lthough Adam was created in God’s image, he was not that image immediately in the full sense [....]”141 His reason for highlighting this passage, as opposed to, say, the locus classicus of Romans 5:12fff, is that here Paul describes the relationship between Adam and Christ “not so much in terms of what they did as in terms of their nature and person.”142 In fact, the Adam-Christ comparison

138

 RD, III, 28.  RD, II, 576. 140  RD, II, 572, emphasis added. 141  RD, II, 564. 142  RD, II, 564. 139

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here “reaches its greatest depth and penetrates to the root of the distinction between them,” because “[t]he whole Adam, both before and after the fall, is contrasted to the whole Christ, after as well as before the resurrection.”143 What Bavinck recognizes here is the peculiar fact that Paul does not just contrast fallen Adam with the redeeming Christ, but, rather, the resurrected Christ with unfallen Adam, in his original state. Paul contrasts the creation of the fijirst Adam as a “living soul,” a psychical, “earthy” existence (v.45a, 47a), with the resurrection of Christ, the last Adam (i.e., re-creation) as “life-giving spirit,” a pneumatic, “heavenly” existence (v.45b, 47b). Bavinck concludes from this that Adam’s original psychical body thus in its original, created state anticipated a “higher” or better existence, the pneumatic.144 Thus, Adam at his creation “did not yet have a glorifijied spiritual body on a level transcending all [his ‘earthy’] needs.”145 His “natural body had not yet fully become an instrument of the spirit.”146 Bavinck summarizes: [...] Adam, by comparison to Christ, stood on a lower level. Adam was the fijirst; Christ the second and the last. Christ presupposes Adam and succeeds him. Adam is the lesser and inferior entity; Christ the greater and higher being. Hence, Adam pointed to Christ; already before the fall he was the type of Christ. In Adam’s creation Christ was already in view. The whole creation, including the creation of man, was infralapsarian. The natural came fijirst, the spiritual second.147

Thus, on the basis of 1 Corinthians 15:45–49 (along with a brief summary of the material in Genesis 1 and 2), Bavinck concludes that “the fijirst man, however highly placed, did not yet possess the highest humanity. There is a very great difference between the natural and the pneumatic, between the ate of integrity and the ate of glory.”148 There is, in other words, an eschatology already in the Garden, a telos of higher glory for which Adam was created, a pneumatic existence to which his psychical existence pointed. It was, according to Bavinck, precisely this pneumatic life in the state of glory, summarized in the whole of Scripture as “eternal life,” that awaited

143

 RD, II, 564, emphasis added.  A feature neglected by Bavinck that furthers his case is that the whole of this contrast is in service to the argument of verse 44b: “If there is a natural body, there is a spiritual body.” 145  RD, II, 564. 146  RD, II, 564. 147  RD, II, 564; c.f. Ch. 5 (below) for the implications of Bavinck’s infralapsarianism here. 148  RD, II, 564, emphasis added. 144

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Adam and his posterity upon his obedience: “Both in the covenant of works and that of grace, Scripture knows but one ideal for a human being, and that is eternal life (Lev. 18:5; Ezek. 20:11; Ps. 9:13; Matt. 19:17; Luke 10:28; Gal. 3:12).”149 This is all further reinforced, according to Bavinck, by Paul’s comparison between Adam and Christ in Romans 5:12–21: “As the obedience of one man, that is, Christ, and the grace granted to humanity in him, brought acquittal, righteousness, and life, so the one transgression and misdeed of the one man is the cause of condemnation, sin, and death for humanity as a whole.”150 The biblical-theological import of all this for Bavinck is sweeping, and difffijicult to overstate. It means, fijirst of all, that Adam “stood at the beginning of his ‘career’ not at the end.” His condition was, given its eschatological destiny, inherently “provisional and temporary and could not remain as it was. It either had to pass on to higher glory or to sin and death.”151 Second, the structural and soteriological implication (to be further explicated later in this book) is that Christ’s work of redemption is itself structured by the prior original eschatological horizon of creation; redemption is “eschatological” in character precisely because it is, in an important sense, subordinate to a prior, creational eschatology.152 This “creational eschatology” is provided by the covenant of works, conceived as eschatological life offfered to Adam: Christ does not [merely] restore his own to the state of Adam before the fall. He acquired and bestows much more, namely, that which Adam would have received had he not fallen. He positions us not at the beginning but at the end of the journey that Adam had to complete. He accomplished not only the passive but also the active obedience required; he not only delivers us from guilt and punishment, but out of grace immediately grants us the right to eternal life.153

Since it is being argued here that there is an eschatological horizon to creation that is not in itself soteriological in character, this is the appropriate place to comment on a sentence exploited by Hielema to the contrary:

149  RD, II, 565. This exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15 remarkably anticipates the later seminal treatments in the biblical theology of Geerhardus Vos, e.g., The Pauline Eschatology (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1994), 166–71, Herman Ridderbos, e.g., Paul: An Outline of His Theology, trans. John R. DeWitt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 541–51, and Richard B. Gafffijin, Jr., Resurrection & Redemption (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1987), 78–92. 150  RD, II, 565. 151  RD, II, 564. 152  Again, contra Hielema. 153  RD, II, 573.

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“Eschatology, therefore, is rooted in Christology and is itself Christology.”154 At fijirst glance, this does appear to be a reversal of the argument here. The question is, however, whether the eschatology Bavinck has in mind here is soteriologically qualifijied; it is not in question whether, given sin, the eschaton is rooted in Christology—of course it is. The question is whether there is, in the pre-fall context, already an eschatology not in itself characterized as redemption. The answer is not only clear, but it is clear in the second half of this very sentence, which Hielema neglects to cite: “Eschatology, therefore, is rooted in Christology and is itself Christology, the teaching of the final, complete triumph of Chri and his kingdom over all his enemies.”155 The fijinal clause clearly indicates that Bavinck has in mind eschatology in its po-fall context (i.e., enemies). Remarkably, he immediately goes on to explicitly draw a distinction between Christology in the pre-fall (mediator of union) and post-fall (mediator of reconciliation) contexts, a distinction Hielema has difffijiculty making on his terms.156 The wider systematic or dogmatic theological value of this creational eschatology via the covenant of works is that it provides the root idea from which his hallmark emphasis flows: “Grace restores and perfects nature.” The dualism that ascribes a competing or antithetical relationship between nature (i.e., the original creation) and grace (i.e., the eschatological kingdom of God) stems from conceiving the latter as a replacement, a supplement or a supernatural “elevation” of the former. As I suggested in the introduction, this is deus ex machina because the end resolution is fundamentally dissonant from the beginning, rather than providing a resolution to an already existing potential. But because eschatological “directedness” was itself constitutive of Adam and Eve’s existence in the covenant of works, their “Lived happily ever after” cannot be conceived as contrary to or supplementary of their “Once upon a time.” Jan Veenhof, in his seminal—and defijinitive—treatment of nature and grace in Bavinck’s thought, puts his fijinger on this “nerve-center” of Bavinck’s theology: The fact must not be neglected, however, that this higher glory constitutes the goal to which the earth had been directed from the beginning. Therefore it is certainly not added to the creation as a foreign component. For that

154  RD, IV, 685; C.f., Hielema, Eschatological Underanding, 114; Gleason, “The Centrality of the Unio Myica,” 37, 337f. 155  RD, IV, 685, emphasis added. 156  RD, IV, 685. Hielema’s identifijication of eschatology and Christology raises the signifijicant question whether the world was made in order to be redeemed. He is at best unclear whether this is, indeed, a necessary implication.

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reason, Bavinck’s thesis that reformation through grace is more than mere repristination is no denial of his foundational principle that grace restores nature.157

Thus, the implicit eschatology of the covenant of works explains why redemption is both a restoration and a perfection of creation: it restores the corrupted imago Dei, and, further, it brings the original—and now corrupted—imago Dei to its eschatological destiny. It recovers what Adam was (restoration) and accomplishes what Adam “had to become” (perfection).158 It brings about the end of Adam’s journey, not the beginning. “Remember further that Christ not only acquired what Adam lost but also what Adam, in the way of obedience, would have gained.”159 Here one begins to see why Bavinck is so animated by the doctrine of the covenant of works, claiming that it “must never be surrendered.”160 It is valuable because it provides a basic theological rationale for the NeoCalvinist vision: the bringing of all of life under the eschatological, perfected Lordship of Christ. Creation (including family, state, society, art, scholarship; in a word, culture) cannot be treated with contempt if it was always intended (“from the beginning,” as Veenhof emphasizes) to share in eschatological glory, whether through Adam or Christ. God’s very creational intent is that his image-bearers and all their accomplishments in “subduing the earth” (Gen. 1:28) might “enjoy the eternal heavenly Sabbath”161 and “glitter in imperishable glory.”162 Bavinck writes: Belonging to [redeemed] humanity is also its development, its history, its ever-expanding dominion over the earth, its progress in science and art, its subjugation of all creatures. All these things as well constitute the unfolding of the image and likeness of God in keeping with which humanity was created.163

Because Christ, as the fijirstfruits (1 Cor. 15:20), has brought about the eschatological kingdom of God which Adam forfeited, all of life—human

157  Veenhof, “Nature and Grace in Bavinck,” trans. Al Wolters (from Revelatie en Inspiratie, 345–365), Pro Rege (June, 2006), 22. 158  RD, II, 550. 159  RD, II, 543. 160  RD, II, 569. 161  RD, II, 574; C.f., Bavinck’s lecture, “Revelation and Culture,” PR, 242–69. 162  RD, II, 573. 163  RD, II, 577.

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culture and accomplishment—is to be brought once again under divine authority. This is the very heartbeat of Dutch Neo-Calvinism.164 Veenhof, while perceptively noting the intimate connection between Bavinck’s eschatology and his thesis that grace restores and perfects nature, contends that the nature/grace motif “is constitutive for Bavinck’s eschatology.”165 But this actually inverts the relationship: Bavinck’s eschatology—rooted in the covenant of works—is conitutive for his perspective on nature and grace. This is because the eschatology beautifully explains the nature/grace motif, not the other way around. Why is redemption not merely restoration, but also a “perfecting”? Grace “perfecting” nature is completely superfluous unless reoration alone leaves creation short of its original eschatological goal. Simply put, in Bavinck’s formulation “restoration” answers to the original, sub-eschatological order corrupted by sin, and “perfection” answers to the eschatological order God originally promised in the covenant of works.166 On this extremely elegant rationale, the end and the beginning, the telos and the origin, the “Lived happily ever after” and the “Once upon a time” are organically related. It is precisely this unity that provides for Bavinck the resources to overcome the contempt or disregard for creation inherent in all dualistic systems, because the end of Adam’s journey is not and cannot be a rejection of its beginning, but is rather a fulfijillment of its latent potential. This unitive notion that overcomes nature/grace dualism is the very thing that has inspired Neo-Calvinist cultural engagement on many fronts for generations. But using “grace restores and perfects nature” without appreciating

164  Memorably expressed in the quote for which Abraham Kuyper is perhaps most famous: “[T]here is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 488. 165  Veenhof, “Nature and Grace,” 22. 166  Compare this with Hielema’s claim, that “[Bavinck] employs both restoration and glorifijication language in the same breath, resulting in formulations that are both confusing and contradictory,” Eschatological Underanding, 190. He cites Bavinck, GD, IV, 207 (c.f., RD, III, 226), “Gratia reparat et perficit naturam,” (117), but misses the interpretive key in the immediately preceding sentence: “Het genadeverbond is niet, gelijk Coccejus leerde, de successieve afschafffijing, het is veeleer de vervulling en herelling van het werkverbond.” [“The covenant of grace is not, as Cocceius taught, the successive abolition of the covenant of works but its fulfillment and reoration.”] C.f., “CG,” 59: “The original order will be restored. But not naturally as if nothing had ever happened, as if sin had never existed and the revelation of God’s grace in Christ had never occurred. Christ [....] does not simply restore us to the atus integritatis of Adam; he makes us, by faith, participants of the non posse peccare and of the non posse mori,” 59. This is what he means by the “organic way of relating nature and grace,” 60.

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or even denying the covenant theology on which it rests is like enjoying the utility of a beautiful suspension bridge while thinking that architectural engineering is an unimportant, misguided, or even dangerous discipline. Astute readers have surely noticed by this point that this entire discussion has begged an important question: is it true that Adam was promised a “higher blessedness” in the Garden? Does the negative probationary command, in fact, imply a corresponding positive obligation and promise?167 One reason the question has received little attention is that it is entirely uncontroversial for Bavinck; he takes for granted the perspective of Reformed orthodoxy, which unanimously viewed the tree of life as “sign and seal of the covenant of works,” that is, as symbolic of a potential greater eschatological life.168 Further, Bavinck believes it to be a necessary conclusion of his exegetical examination of Paul’s Adam-Christ parallels in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5. And, fijinally, as will be demonstrated in the following section, in a basic sense, for Bavinck, it is a view universally held in the western theological tradition. What, precisely, is the character of Adam and Eve’s sub-eschatological condition in the covenant of works?169 How can creation be “very good” and yet not “perfected”? On the one hand, describing the diffferences between this world and the world to come is a mysterious question for which Bavinck often contents himself with the general observation that re-creation does not replace or displace the original creation: [Redemption] is never a second, brand-new creation but a re-creation of the existing world. God’s honor consists precisely in the fact that he redeems and renews the same humanity, the same world, the same heaven, and the same earth that have been corrupted and polluted by sin.170

On the other hand, he does signifijicantly describe this transition with respect to human beings, whom he describes as the “unity of the material and spiritual world, a mirror of the universe, a connecting link, compendium, the epitome of all of nature, a microcosm, and, precisely on that 167  That this is often the case with Hebrew prohibitive commands, see Ex. 20:2–17, Dt. 5:6–21. 168  RD, II, 575. Regardless of whether Adam was allowed to partake of the tree of life prior to his expulsion from the Garden (an open question), Genesis 3:22 makes clear the eschatological character of the life it signifijied: “He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 169  Veenhof’s “interimskarakter” (i.e., “temporary character”) is equivalent to “subeschatological”; C.f., his full discussion of this theme, Revelatie en Inspiratie, 365–374. 170  RD, IV, 717.

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account, also the image and likeness of God, his son and heir, a microdivine being (mikrotheos).”171 Because humanity is the crown of creation, highlighting its transition from the Garden to eschatological glory carries with it implications for creation more generally. Here Bavinck’s doctrine of the covenant of works intersects most explicitly with his theological anthropology; as he puts it, the “image of God will only present itself to us in all of its many-splendored richness when man’s destiny, both for this life and the life to come, is included in it.”172 The Covenant of Works & Theological Anthropology Among the more striking features of Bavinck’s presentation is his insistence that the covenant of works is a genuinely catholic doctrine. In fact, he asserts that despite varied descriptions of the state of integrity in the history of the church, “[s]till, everyone acknowledges that Adam did not yet possess the highest humanity, a truth implicit in the probationary command, the freedom of choice, the possibility of sin and death.”173 Even more, he essentially claims that the Reformed doctrine is the consistent culmination or fulfijillment of centuries of reflection on the matter: Materially, therefore, the doctrine of what was later called ‘the covenant of works’ also already occurs in the church fathers. Included in Adam’s situation, as it was construed by the Scholastics, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran theologians, lay all the elements that were later summed up especially by Reformed theologians in the doctrine of the covenant of works.174

This is hyperbole because he later explains that Lutheranism (alone among major traditions) does not afffijirm the basic elements of the covenant of works. Nonetheless, Bavinck’s confijident rhetoric here stems from his conviction that the covenant of works is simply Augustinian anthropology at its most consistent. The western theological tradition has always sought to be Augustinian, to varying degrees, and it happens that for Bavinck the distinction between Adam’s sub-eschatological condition and his eschatological destiny is nowhere better captured than in Augustine’s famous 171

 RD, II, 562.  RD, II, 564. 173  RD, II, 566. 174  RD, II, 567. On an incidental note, already in the 2nd century Irenaeus seems to view Adam’s relationship with God a covenant, although there is some ambiguity whether he has the pre-fall scenario in mind: “This is why four covenants were given to the human race: the fijirst before the deluge in the time of Adam...” Again Heresies, III.11.8. 172

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distinction between posse non peccare, posse non mori and non posse peccare, non posse mori: Especially Augustine made a clear distinction between the ability not to sin (posse non peccare) and not to die (posse non mori), which Adam possessed, and the inability to sin (non posse peccare) and the inability to die (non posse mori), gifts that were to be bestowed along with the glorifijication of the fijirst man in case of obedience and now granted to the elect out of grace.175

Formulations along this line of thinking are legion in Bavinck’s writing, and by now familiar. The provisional character of Adam’s status as imago Dei is “a truth implicit in the probationary command, the freedom of choice, [and] the possibility of sin and death.”176 Given Adam’s possibility of falling, “his condition was provisional and temporary and could not remain as it was. It had to pass on to higher glory or to sin and death.”177 Adam did not, by virtue of his creation, “have this reward of eternal life but still had to acquire it; he could still err, sin, fall, and die. His relation to God was such that he could gradually increase in fellowship with God but could also still fall from it.”178 The “highest kind of life is the material freedom consisting of not being able to err, sin, or die. It consists in being elevated absolutely above all fear and dread, above all possibility of falling.”179 Adam, accordingly, “was therefore still in some fear and dread. His was not yet the invariable perfect love that casts out all fear.”180 Reformed theologians, in light of this provisional understanding of Adam’s condition, were quick to maintain that this possibility of falling is not itself a component part of the image of God, but “its boundary, its limitation, its circumference.”181 This is because in eschatological perfection it is precisely this “provisional” character that is jettisoned:

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 RD, II, 566–7; C.f., 560, where posse non and non posse are an “essential” diffference.  RD, II, 566. 177  RD, II, 564. 178  RD, II, 565. 179  RD, II, 573. He immediately adds: “This highest life is immediately bestowed by grace through Christ upon believers.” Hielema suggests that “Bavinck does not develop this claim that Adam lacked ‘absolute certainty’ in Paradise [....] What are the implications of lacking absolute certainty? Was Adam’s relationship with God characterized in some measure by fear or doubt? Bavinck does not explore the implications of his claim,” Eschatological Underanding, 288. Bavinck does explore its implications in connection with the provisional character of the covenant of works. 180  RD, II, 573. 181  RD, II, 573. 176

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chapter two The image of God therefore had to be fully developed—thereby overcoming and nullifying this possibility of sin and death—and glitter in imperishable glory. In virtue of this view of the state of integrity Reformed theologians, in distinction from others, were able to observe a commendable sobriety in their account of the paradisal state. Adam was not Christ. The natural was not the spiritual. Paradise was not heaven.182

The “others” from which Bavinck distinguishes Reformed theology here provide a fruitful counterpoint to his view; and, perhaps surprisingly, it is not primarily Roman Catholicism he has in mind. Rather, the one theological tradition that fails to appreciate Augustine’s anthropological insight is Lutheranism. For Lutheranism, writes Bavinck, [C]reation in God’s image was the realization of the highest idea of man. In Adam that ideal was fully attained, and a higher state was not possible. Adam did not have to become anything; he only had to remain what he was, namely, a participant in the full gracious indwelling of the holy Trinity. Accordingly, he was not subject to a law that commanded him to do anything positive.183

The state of integrity is here equated with the state of glory. Light is shed by this upon two peculiar features of Lutheran theology; fijirst, salvation completely coincides with forgiveness and justifijication. There is no need for a doctrine of perseverance, the Christian life, good works or sanctifijication; just as Adam needed to remain as he was, so also with believers.184 Second, Lutheranism’s view that Adam was ex lex, or that the imperative of the probationary command was strictly negative, flows directly from the fact that its conception of the state of glory, presently enjoyed by believers, is likewise ex lex.185 Since on its view of justifijication believers in a state of grace are in no sense under the law as a positive command,186 and given that they are restored to Adam’s original condition, it then follows that Eden was, likewise, without law.187 Interestingly, as Bavinck himself points out, it is Lutheranism’s eschatology that defijines its protology; and one root of the problem is that it fails to account—as the Augustinian

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 RD, II, 573, emphasis added.  RD, II, 572. 184  Bavinck draws out the implication that “Perseverance is not a higher good granted in Christ to his own,” RD, II, 586. 185  C.f., RD, II, 586. 186  Granted, the “third use” of the law in Lutheran theology remains debated. 187  Note the antithetical character of Reformed orthodoxy: it stresses the continuity (or “stability”) of law throughout the ages and its universal applicability to human ethics as such, even in the eschatological kingdom as a rule for human conduct (i.e., the “third use”). It therefore follows that Adam must have been subject to the moral law. 183

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tradition does—for the sub-eschatological character of the original state. “For the Reformed,” on the other hand, “who walked in the footsteps of Augustine, things were diffferent.”188 The life provided by Christ to believers on the Reformed orthodox eschatological scheme means that the life obtained is necessarily incorruptible life, life “to the full” (John 10:10). In an eschatological “already” sense, believers “can no longer sin (1 John 3:9) and they can no longer die (John 3:16) since by faith they immediately receive eternal, inamissable life. Theirs is the perseverance of the saints; they can no longer be lost.”189 Thus, for Bavinck the structure provided by the covenant of works represents the most consistent expression of Augustinian anthropology. Given the fall from posse non peccare (able not to sin) to non posse non peccare (not able not to sin), the only way for humanity to achieve the original eschatological intention of non posse peccare (not able to sin), Bavinck’s “higher blessedness,” is for the last Adam to accomplish what the fijirst Adam could not: “[W]hen Adam falls Christ stands ready to take his place. The covenant of grace can replace the covenant of works because both are based on the same ordinances.”190 The covenant of works, accordingly, provides an eschatological horizon revealing the “road to heavenly blessedness” for not yet fallen, image-bearing Adam and Eve. At the fall, this destiny was disrupted, the eschatology interrupted. It provides, then, the plot contours by which fallen humanity may yet be saved and brought to eschatological fulfijillment in a way consistent with or organically related to God’s original intent for his creation. Bavinck summarizes and concludes this way: The world, the earth, humanity are one organic whole. They stand, they fall, they are raised up together. The traces of God (veigia Dei) in creation and the image of God in humanity may be mangled and mutilated by the sin of the fijirst Adam; but by the last Adam and his re-creating grace they are all the more resplendently restored to their destiny. The state of integrity—either through the fall or apart from the fall—is a preparation for the state of glory in which God will impart his glory to all his creatures and be ‘all in all’ (1 Cor. 15:28).191

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 RD, II, 573.  RD, II, 573. 190  RD, II, 588. This is stated with respect to federal unity, so he further concludes: “If we could not have been condemned in Adam, neither could we have been acquitted in Christ.” 191  RD, II, 588. Note two things: fijirst, eschatology is prior to soteriology (i.e., “either through the fall or apart from the fall”), and the key phrase: “restored,” not to their original condition, but “to their deiny.” 189

CHAPTER THREE

ADAM & THE IMAGO DEI Introduction Thus man forms a unity of the material and spiritual world, a mirror of the universe, a connecting link, compendium, the epitome of all of nature, a microcosm, and, precisely on that account, also the image and likeness of God, his son and heir, a micro-divine being (mikrotheos). He is the prophet who explains God and proclaims his excellencies; he is the prie who consecrates himself with all that is created to God as a holy offering; he is the king who guides and governs all things in juice and rectitude. And in all this he points to One who in a ill higher sense is the revelation and image of God, to him who is the only begotten of the Father, and the firborn of all creatures. Adam, the son of God, was a type of Chri.1

The previous two chapters established two solid pillars of Bavinck’s antidualist polemic. Ontologically, Neoplatonism’s version of a gradated universe of higher versus lower, more spiritual and divine versus less spiritual and divine is cut offf at the root by Bavinck’s rigorous trinitarian theology. In terms of redemptive history, all dualistic or mechanistic systems that conceive of redemption as a supplement to or discontinuation of the original state is demolished by Bavinck’s ingenious deployment of a rigorous covenant theology. The present chapter will now explore Bavinck’s doctrine of the image of God, demonstrating his consistent emphasis on these two themes. Bavinck’s views thus far on ontology and history lead one to expect that the image of God can be viewed fijirst in specifijically ontological terms: as an ectypal creaturely analogue of the infijinite and eternal God, a “work of art” revelatory of his perfections. But it can also be viewed in historical terms: humanity is intended to manifest God in space and time in a rich history oriented toward the goal of eschatological perfection. Under Bavinck’s influence, Anthony Hoekema very helpfully captures these ideas by suggesting that the divine image is both a noun and a verb; human beings

1

 RD, II, 562.

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“are” the image, and as such, they are “to image” God.2 In Bavinck’s basic doctrine of creation, ontology and history, being and act, while distinct, are inseparable; they are, one might say, related organically.3 This implies that there is no dichotomy between ontology and any other dimension of human existence (e.g., ontic vs. relational, structural vs. functional). This is a perennial temptation for theologians, especially those in the 21st century who are enamored with postmodernism’s rejection of metaphysics.4 A further implication is that the ontological dimension is not reducible to a “static” notion of being. Humanity, precisely as the ontic image, has a telos, the potential for development, a commission to achieve, or (in 21st rather than 19th century parlance) a narrative or drama, and, in that sense, is dynamic.5 Thus, humanity is a work of art with an active purpose; in a word, designed with destiny.6 Human destiny has been explored in the previous chapter. Presently, we will now focus attention on Bavinck’s presentation of human nature, the ontology of the image. Given the foundationally systematic nature of these topics, they have implications not just for anthropology, but also Christology, not only for Adam and the state of integrity, but for the last Adam and the state of glory. Accordingly, while this chapter explains the ontology of the image of God with reference to Adam, Chapter Five will do so with reference to Christ. The stage will then be set

2

 Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 28. Bavinck’s abiding interest in integrating eschatology with protology, the “for what?” with the “what?” is exhibited in the opening words of his virtually unknown 1884 address, “De Mensch, Gods Evenbeeld” (Unpublished MS. Amsterdam: Historisch Documentatiecentrum voor het Nederlands Protestantisme), where he asserts that the most serious and highly practical issue for all people is the answer to the question (singular): “Where are we from and for what purpose are we here?” He goes on to say that the “from where stands inextricably connected to the ‘to where?’ and the direction and goal will always be determined by the origin.” 3  C.f., RD, II, 436, where “organic” is all but defijined as “distinct, yet inseparable.” 4  Bavinck often endorses dualities, never dualisms; he seeks multiformity, or, specifijically in this case, “many-splendored richness.” This holistic approach is so characteristic that one could justly view much of Bavinck’s theological agenda with two words: avoid reductionisms. Berkouwer’s reminder is helpful: “It is important to make the simple observation that duality and dualism are not at all identical, and that a reference to a dual moment in cosmic reality does not necessarily imply a dualism [....] Duality [...] becomes a dualism only when there is a polar tension, an inner separation, which destroys the unity between the terms,” Man: The Image of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), 211–212. 5  CW, 48–9: “Maar deze opvatting is zoo dualistisch, dat zij niemand op den duur bevredigen kan. Natuur en geschiedenis kunnen niet op die wijze gescheiden naast en vijandig tegenover elkander staan.” (“But this view is so dualistic that it can satisfy no one in the long term. Nature and history are not separated from and hostile to each other in this way.”) 6  Corresponding to Bavinck’s two chapters, “Human Nature” and “Human Destiny.”

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to consider, in Chapter Six, how the image of God is assumed in Christ’s incarnation, redeemed in his death on the cross, and perfected to its destiny in his resurrection from the dead. Adam, The Image of God Bavinck again brings into view creation as intrinsically revelatory of God’s perfections, and further suggests that Adam, as imago Dei, is the preeminent revelation of God. He writes, “The essence of human nature is its being [created in] the image of God. The entire world is a revelation of God, a mirror of his attributes and perfections [....] But among creatures, only man is the image of God.”7 Following a brief rehearsal of the scriptural witness with respect to the divine image, Bavinck connects this motif again with the archetypal/ectypal scheme: “[T]his creation in God’s image is in no way restricted, either on the side of the archetype or on the side of the ectype.”8 He expands this, unsurprisingly, with recourse to the familiar trinitarian notions of ad intra and ad extra: whereas the Son, in his eternal, ontic existence, is the “absolute” image of God, humanity is the created, derivative, i.e., “ectypal,” image of God.9 Nevertheless, “within his limits” (i.e., “creaturely” limits), “man is the image and likeness of God.”10 Bavinck’s rehearsal of the scriptural material on the image of God is brief. He recognizes that neither Old or New Testaments provide extended reflection on the topic. Yet he believes the Bible does sufffijiciently defijine the image in order that one may negatively rule out various misunderstandings of it.11 Positively, Bavinck notes that in the creation narrative 7  RD, II, 531. The editorial insertion of “[created in]” while understandable, is misguided. Bavinck’s sentence reads: “Het wezen van den mensch ligt daarin, dat hij Gods beeld is,” C.f., GD, II, 1st ed., 508, 4th ed., 491. As becomes clear, Bavinck’s preeminent concern is to emphasize that human beings, ontologically speaking, are the image of God, not simply that they possess, have, or bear the image. In fact, just a few paragraphs later he writes, with emphasis in the original of all Dutch editions: “[Man] does not just bear but is the image of God,” RD, II, 533. Bavinck thus stresses here the ontology of the human person, but the editorial addition emphasizes God’s creative act. Additionally, it should be noted that Bavinck makes a distinct choice in maintaining that only human beings are the image of God; whereas some Reformed theologians describe both angels and humans as imago Dei (e.g., Wollebius; c.f., Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John W. Beardslee, III, [NY: Oxford, 1965], 56), Bavinck follows the view of the Leiden Synopsis that the designation belongs solely to humanity; C.f., Synopsis purioris theologiae, 108. 8  RD, II, 533. 9  RD, II, 533. 10  RD, II, 533. 11  His rehearsal of the scriptural data is found in RD, II, 531–532.

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human beings are singled out by God’s “intentional deliberation” prior to their creation (i.e., “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness,” Gen. 1:26–27); further, citing Psalm 8 and Ecclesiastes 7:29, two clear implications of the imago Dei are its manifestation in dominion over all creation and humanity’s original moral uprightness. The New Testament explicitly designates man as the image of God in 1 Corinthians 11:7 and James 3:9, but of greatest importance, albeit “indirectly,” are the Apostle Paul’s reflections on the “new man” that believers must “put on” in Ephesians 4:24 and Colossians 3:10. This “new man” is said to have been created “according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness,” and “renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.” Bavinck concludes from this that this “new man” is created by God in conformity with him, and this conformity emerges specifijically in righteousness and holiness. Bavinck maintains that Paul derives the language directly from the Genesis creation account, suggesting that redemption is the renewal of the original image.12 The “new man” is not a “creation from nothing,” but instead a “renewal of all that existed; and since the anakainouhai (Col. 3:10) of the believer clearly describes this creation as a renewal.”13 The implication of Paul’s teaching, according to Bavinck, is that “[u]nderlying Ephesians 4:24 and Colossians 3:10, therefore, is the idea that humankind was originally created in God’s image and in the re-creation is renewed on that model.”14 This is a tacit approval of Calvin’s claim that one gains a fuller understanding of the image of God by attending to its renewal in Christ.15 A brief lexical analysis of the biblical words “image” and “likeness” is given and—again, with Calvin—he denies any material distinction between the terms, because they are “used interchangeably, and alternate for no specifijic reason.”16 His conclusion concerning ṣelem (image) and dĕmût (likeness) is that the former term indicates that “God is the archetype, man the ectype,” and the latter term is an intensifijication and complement that “adds the notion that the image corresponds in all parts to

12

 RD, II, 532.  RD, II, 532. 14  RD, II, 532. 15  John Calvin, Initutes of the Chriian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, in Library of Chriian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), I.xv.4; C.f., RD, II, 533: “[T]he meaning of image of God is further explicated to us by the Son, who in an entirely unique sense is called the Word (logos); the Son (huios); the image (eikōn), or imprint (charaktēr), of God (John 1:1, 14; 2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3).” 16  RD, II, 532; C.f., Calvin, Initutes, I.xv.1. 13

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the original.”17 Similarly, Bavinck denies any material distinction between the prepositions “in” (b) and “after” (k) for the same reason: they are used interchangeably.18 Genesis 5:1 and 3 is the converse of Genesis 1:26: k is used with ṣelem and b is used with dĕmût. Likewise, in the New Testament kata (“after, according to”) is used with both image (eikōn—Col. 3:10) and likeness (homoiōsis—James 3:9).19 Bavinck derives three introductory points from his overview of the scriptural and lexical data, the fijirst of which is his dogmatic claim that the words “image” and “likeness” refer to the human creature, not to anything in God, “not to the uncreated archetype but to the created ectype.”20 “The idea is not,” Bavinck writes, “that man has been created after something in God that is called ‘image’ or ‘likeness,’ so that it could, for example, be a reference to the Son; but that man has been created after God in such a way that humankind is his image and likeness.”21 He calls this clear, although he provides no specifijic argument for why this is the case.22

17

 RD, II, 532. Heideman badly misreads this: “[L]ikeness adds to this that the image is only partially at one with the original,” Relation of Revelation & Reason, 168. 18  With regard to the prepositions, Bavinck would surely be pleased with the very recent work of Old Testament theologian Peter J. Gentry, who offfers a detailed argument that b can legitimately be translated “as” in Genesis 1:26a, “Kingdom Through Covenant,” 30–33. He concludes, “God indeed created man as the divine image. Humans do not conform to a representation of God, they are the divine image,” 31. This is not an insignifijicant exegetical endorsement of Bavinck’s main contention. 19  One might add that the LXX of Gen. 1:26 makes no distinction, using kata for both. In his work, The True Image: The Origin and Deiny of Man in Chri (Eugene: Wipf & Stock), 21, Philip E. Hughes singles out Bavinck, criticizing his insistence that human beings are the image of God; on Hughes’s view, the image refers to something on the divine side (i.e., the eternal Son) to which humans correspond (a position Bavinck explicitly denies, RD II, 533, 554). Strangely, having acknowledged the interchangeability of the prepositions “in” and “after” in Genesis 5 (4), he then, following approvingly Philo of Alexandria, argues that humanity and the divine image are not identical on the basis of the prepositions: “It is not without signifijicance that man is described as having been created in the image of God, and not as being himself that image; for if he were himself the image it would be pointless to speak of him as a creature constituted in or according to the divine image [....] [Philo] rightly drew attention to the fact that Moses did not say that the Creator made man the image of God but ‘after the image’ [....].” Hughes’s presentation appears to rest the unsustainable weight of a species of Platonic idealism on Hebrew prepositions. Bavinck also rejects Eduard Böhl’s similar view that b (in) indicates that the image is an “atmosphere or element in which man was created,” RD, II, 532. Bavinck comfortably maintains that “image” refers to humanity, not to something in God (Hughes) or a tertium quid (Böhl). 20  RD, II, 533. 21  Contra Hughes, C.f., fn. 19 (above). 22  Given that this comment immediately follows his critique of Böhl, it is possible Bavinck believes that all proposals that take “image” to refer to an attribute of the subject rather than the object of creation must rest on an overreading of the prepositions b and k. Further, Genesis 5:3 seems problematic for such views: if the language of

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Second, in a fairly momentous and consequential move considering the history of discussion on the imago Dei, Bavinck refuses to reduce or restrict in any way the referent on either the divine or human side: Further, this creation in God’s image is in no way restricted, either on the side of the archetype or on the side of the ectype. It is not stated that man was created only in terms of some attributes, or in terms of only one person in the divine being, nor that man bears God’s image and likeness only in part, say, only in the soul, or the intellect, or in holiness. The case is rather that the whole human person is the image of the whole Deity.23

This is his overriding concern in his anthropology generally. The image of God “extends to the whole person,” and “nothing in a human being is excluded from the image of God.”24 The history of interpretation is in his view largely characterized by competing reductionisms, whether identifying the content of the image as the body, rationality, freedom of the will, dominion over creation, or moral qualities like love or justice.25 Completely in tune with his broadest theological interest, Bavinck’s view is nothing less than a complete rejection of Neoplatonic dualism, which invariably identifijies rational, intellectual or spiritual capacities as the image in distinction from other aspects of human nature (e.g., corporeality); in other words, Bavinck rejects an inherent tension or conflict between spirit and matter, the “natural” and the “supernatural.” Indeed, his fundamental critique of the Roman Catholic donum superadditum is that it rests on a Neoplatonic metaphysic, exhibited most clearly by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the Celeial Hierarchies.26 Third, he further expands this holistic understanding of the image with reference to the Son, whom he acknowledges bears the names Word (John 1:1), Son (2 Cor. 4:4), Image (Col. 1:15) or Imprint (Heb. 1:3) because of his eternal equality with his Father; he bears them because “he is ‘God of God’ and ‘Light of Light,’ having the same attributes as the Father. He is not called thus on account of some part of his being but because his

Gen. 1:26 demands that “image” refer to something in God, e.g., the Logos or Son, then Gen. 5:3 could not have the (intuitive) reading that Seth is the “image” of his father, but that he corresponds in some way to one particular aspect of Adam called “image.” 23  RD, II, 533. 24  RD, II, 555. 25  RD, II, 533. 26  RD, II, 533, 541, 545–47; C.f., Bolt, Imitation, 188: “It is thus apparent that the regulative principle in Bavinck’s critique of scholastic Roman Catholic theology is his adamant opposition to blurring the radical distinction between God the Creator and man the creature.”

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nature absolutely conforms to that of God.”27 Just as the eternal Son fully images God, so also humanity fully images God: “He does not just bear but is the image of God.”28 Lest one think he is engaging in the very theological error he everywhere condemns, the commingling of the divine and creaturely,29 he qualifijies himself by invoking again two familiar motifs: the ontological/economic Trinity and its correlate, the archetypal/ectypal distinction: There is this diffference, of course, that what the Son is in an absolute sense, man is in only a relative sense. The former is the eternal only begotten Son; the latter is the created son of God. The former is the image of God within the divine being, the latter outside of it. The one is the image of God in a divine manner, the other is that in a creaturely manner.30

The crucial point to grasp is that Bavinck does not guard against pantheistic identity by denying to human beings the designation “image,” nor by allowing that some of humanity’s attributes have connection with the divine (e.g., spirituality, rationality) to the exclusion of others. On the contrary, the whole human being is an ectypal image, a creaturely replica, and thus, analogically speaking, a “micro-divine being (mikrotheos).”31 Since the archetypal/ectypal distinction entails that all revelation, including

27  RD, II, 533. This formulation exhibits a recurring ambiguity in Reformed trinitarian thought: namely, on the one hand, following Calvin, Reformed theologians wish to accent the autotheotic character of the eternal Son; that is, he is, in himself, essentially divine and thus his deity is in no sense derivative. On the other hand, many—as Bavinck does here—continue to understand the appellations “Son,” “Image,” etc. as language of essence rather than language of personal diinction. This is at root a question of what to make of the language of eternal generation: is “generation” language that pertains to the undivided divine essence or to the personal distinction and relationship that obtains between Father and Son? Maintaining the Son’s autotheotic nature while speaking of the “generation” of his essence, while a mainstream Reformed position, nevertheless invites confusion: is the Son the image of the divine nature (ousia, essence) or the image of the Father (hypoatic distinction)? It is at least questionable whether, as Bavinck has it here, the Son is called these names “because his nature absolutely conforms to that of God.” Rather than being attributions that call attention to the Son’s “eternal equality of essence with his Father,” they more likely call attention to the Son’s eternal, personal relationship with and distinction from the Father; in other words, they possibly articulate not so much that the Son is homoousios, but rather that the Son is the monogenes of the Father. 28  RD, II, 533. 29  This seems to be Hughes’s concern in denying to human beings the ontological character of “image.” Since Christ is called the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), then surely this terminology is reserved for and only appropriately applied to deity; applying the term to God and humans seems to engage in a univocal equation of the divine and creaturely. 30  RD, II, 533. 31  RD, II, 562.

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God’s preeminent creational revelation in the created imago Dei, is of necessity a divine condescension and therefore analogical, all univocism or identity between God and the world, or to be more specifijic, the Son and Adam, is eliminated at a presuppositional level.32 The theologian is authorized to analogically apply human attributes to God (as scripture does) precisely because God already created human beings as an analogical image of himself.33 Bavinck views his task as pointing out the image of God in man “in its entirety,” which indicates his dissatisfaction with reductionist views that have variously competed for supremacy in the tradition of the church.34 Before moving on to those alternatives, an apparent ambiguity in his presentation ought to be noted, that the three observations he makes on the basis of the scriptural witness do not seem altogether consistent. On the one hand, he insists that humanity is the image of the whole deity, yet on the other hand he does wish to maintain that the eternal Son is the “absolute” image and humanity is the “creaturely” (analogical) image. This makes it seem as though humanity is, after all, modeled after the person of the Son, to the exclusion of Father and Spirit. This is not the case. To say that Adam is analogically “like” the Son is not equivalent to saying 32  C.f., Ch. 1, fns. 44, 55. Indeed, for Bavinck there is not even univocal identity between the Son’s divine nature and his human nature in the hypostatic union; in the one person the divine remains divine (i.e., archetypal), and the human remains creaturely (i.e., ectypal), RD, II, 107; C.f., ORF, 35, MD, 27; C.f., the discussion of the communicatio idiomatum later in this chapter. 33  RD, II, 555; C.f., RD, I, 110–12, RD, II, 50–52, 104–5 for more on anthropomorphism. This formulation would seem dangerously close to Feuerbach’s maxim, “the secret of theology is anthropology,” but Bavinck elsewhere contends that it is precisely Feuerbach’s univocism (i.e., the lack of an archetypal/ectypal distinction) that produces his antithesis between theology and philosophy in the fijirst place, RD, I, 255. It is particularly striking that a theologian as dedicated as Bavinck to avoiding pantheistic confusion between God and the world feels so comfortable with the “presuppositional” force of analogical reasoning that at one point, citing Calvin, he goes so far as to write, “[A]s a microcosm, a human being as such is an excellent workshop for the innumerable works of God [...], but this is also true of the entire realm of nature, which, speaking reverently, we may even call God,” RD, II, 67! C.f., RD, II, 103; Calvin, Initutes, I.v.5; also Heideman, Relation of Revelation & Reason, 200: “[A]ll activity of God in creation involves a certain anthropomorphization, not to say incarnation, of God. Thus it is that Bavinck can on the one hand insist that finitum non e capax infiniti and on the other hand show so little interest in placing limits upon reason. Reason cannot rise to know the infijinite God; that is beyond its capacity. Nevertheless, just because God has entered into history, reason does know God.” As a technical matter, the English edition contains a slight mistranslation in volume two, page 555. It reads, “Scripture could not [contain anthropomorphism] [...] as if God had not fijirst made man totally in his own image,” RD, II, 555. This only makes sense if Bavinck’s original “indien God niet” is rendered, “if God had not [...]” rather than “as if.” 34  RD, II, 555.

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he is the “image” of the Son. Rather, he is like the Son in that they both image the whole deity. The analogy serves to reinforce his “holism,” not detract from it. Accordingly, he writes that the person of the Son is the image of God “because his nature absolutely conforms to that of God,”35 presumably meaning that it exhaustively coinheres with the one, undivided divine essence.36 Likewise, Adam’s nature, on fijinite and creaturely level, exhaustively (i.e., the “whole human person”) corresponds to the whole divine nature. Bavinck’s initially confusing analogy, read closely, is consistent. Bavinck’s “Two Alternatives” Polemical Method Following his overview of scripture, Bavinck turns to the doctrinal history. Immediately, two alternatives present themselves, broadly designated (perhaps overly so) “naturalism” and “supernaturalism.” Both are rooted in an early (and mistaken, Bavinck thinks) patristic distinction drawn between “image” and “likeness,” but each taking a divergent path. One school of thought, noticing that Genesis 1:26 expresses God’s intent to create man after his image and likeness, but that verse 27 only mentions the image, supposed thereby that having been created in the divine image (understood as a rational being) man was to acquire God’s “likeness” by way of obedience and to receive it later as a reward. Clement of Alexandria and Origen are Bavinck’s examples of this view.37 Others, Irenaeus and Athanasius for example, asserted that the likeness was given to humans at creation, but, having lost it in the fall, they would regain it again in Christ.38 The former view Bavinck describes as a “naturalistic” view, a truly broad designation that encompasses a dizzying array of theological schools of thought with their family resemblances all more or less found in a Pelagian emphasis on the freedom of the will.39 In the latter view Bavinck discovers roots for the Roman Catholic donum superadditum, which

35

 RD, II, 533.  Assuming again the questionable view that “image” language applied to the Son is language of essence rather than of personal distinction; C.f., fn. 27, (above). 37  RD, II, 534; C.f., Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, II, 22; Origen, On Fir Principles, III, 6. 38  RD, II, 534 fn. 8; Irenaeus, Again Heresies, V, 16, 2; Athanasius, Again the Arians, II, 59; Again the Heathens, 2. 39  Bavinck links in this regard Socinians, Anabaptists, Remonstrants, Rationalists, supernaturalists and “numerous modern theologians.” See his lengthy bibliographic lists, RD, II, 534–5, fns. 13–17; C.f., RD, III, 90–91. 36

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is primarily in view when he describes supernaturalism as an alternative doctrine of the image.40 Readers are bound to notice that this is not the fijirst occasion that Bavinck has presented this particular taxonomy of alternative views; indeed, it is common for him to present his positive doctrinal case over against what he calls naturalism and supernaturalism.41 One further senses that this presentation is not altogether unrelated to his other ubiquitous “two views,” namely materialism (Deism) and pantheism.42 Before moving to a description of what he has in mind by naturalism and supernaturalism here, a few observations about this particular polemical mode of argument (i.e., taxonomy of alternatives) may prove helpful. Recall that for Bavinck the two—and only two—religious alternatives to Christian theism are Deism, which he more commonly refers to as “materialism,” and pantheism. The former is essentially a perversion of the Christian concept of the transcendence of God, and the latter a perversion of the concept of God’s immanence. Deism radicalizes God’s transcendence and thus denies his genuine immanence in the world, and pantheism radicalizes divine immanence and thus denies God’s absolute transcendence over the world. Non-Christian thought, lacking a foundational trinitarian metaphysic, is unable to avoid these alternatives; in fact, stemming as they do from the same root, namely, monism,43 Bavinck often points out examples of how materialism (i.e., Deism) and pantheism frequently merge into each other.44 This is because neither, on its own, is capable of providing a coherent and satisfying account of existence.45 Materialism, recognizing its lack, cannot but turn to pantheism for support, and vice-versa.46 One must appreciate that these are extreme

40

 C.f., Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 68.  C.f., Ch. 2 (above). 42  C.f., Ch. 1 (above). 43  RD, I, 367–372. 44  RD, II, 412; C.f., e.g., RD, I, 263, 465–69, 517–559; RD, II, 438, 515–16; PR, 44; Ch. 1, fn. 18 (above). In RD, I, 474 Bavinck observes: “The most highly spiritual mysticism has over and over turned into the most vulgar rationalism; and ‘enthusiastic’ spiritualism has often ended in the crudest materialism.” 45  RD, II, 412. C.f., RD, IV, 75; PR, 16–17: “As a form of religion, however, monism hardly deserves serious consideration. A religion which has nothing to offfer but an immanent God, identical with the world, may for a while aesthetically afffect and warm man; it can never satisfy man’s religious and ethical needs.” 46  E.g., RD, I, 222: “If however, the pursuit of science is both subjectively and objectively restricted, the only outcome will be that people will seek the satisfaction of their metaphysical needs in other ways. Kant took the road of practical reason; Comte introduced the cult of humanity, consecrating himself as its high priest; and Spencer humbly bowed 41

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portraits, and the fact is that Bavinck never paints any one particular thinker as a “pure” or consistent materialist or a “pure” or consistent pantheist. Each view is inherently unstable and complete fijidelity to either one is hardly possible. But that does not deter him from pointing out that all less-than-biblical views, on a wide variety of issues, cannot help but tend toward one of these two basic alternatives.47 Materialism and pantheism provide Bavinck’s basic, or root taxonomy of human unbelief, and views are judged by whether they tend, more or less, as the case may be, in the one direction or the other. If these are the basic religious alternatives to Christian theism, it follows that they present themselves in many permutations, depending on the issue at hand. So, for example, if the topic is the doctrine of revelation or epistemology, Bavinck does not speak immediately of materialism and pantheism, which are broad metaphysical terms, but instead of rationalism and mysticism, or idealism and irrationalism.48 These terms are more appropriate to the epistemological question, and the views they reflect are species of the broader genus. They are unacceptable to Bavinck for precisely that reason: rationalism (in its broadest form including empiricism as a subset) aligns itself along materialistic lines, mysticism along the lines of pantheism. Despite the immense variety of religious and theological views, they are always viewed by Bavinck in terms of these alternatives, and they essentially present “the same patterns and tendencies.” So, in the Reformation period Socinianism, for example, is rationalist and materialistic, and Anabaptism is mystical and pantheistic, and with respect to the ordo salutis nomism is driven by “its Deistic principle” and antinomianism “fundamentally arises from pantheism.”49 What accounts for the frequency and force of Bavinck’s polemic against Roman Catholicism is that, by virtue of its dualism between nature and grace, the natural and supernatural, Rome has essentially two faces, one a rationalistic scholasticism and the other an irrational mysticism (e.g., the monastic ideal).50

before ‘The Unknowable.’ In one way or another—including even spiritism, magic, and theosophy—they all seek compensation for what science will not give them.” 47  For example, while Bavinck appreciates Schleiermacher’s emphasis on the subjective feeling of absolute dependence, it is of little use to him because of its pantheistic character, RD, I, 242; C.f., 264–266. 48  C.f., RD, I, 214–219; 288–97, 309, 359–65; that this is not always the case, see RD, I, 355, where he writes that the doctrine of revelation “has been misconstrued in two ways in the Christian church: by supernaturalism as well as by naturalism (rationalism).” 49  “CG,” 52–55; RD, III, 568. 50  “CG,” 47–48; C.f., RD, I, 148–49, 304, RD, II, 545–6, RD, III, 359–61.

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He writes, “Scholasticism and mysticism are branches of one trunk. They do not really stand over against one another. On the contrary, they mutually support one another, are based on the same principle, and frequently go together.”51 According to Bavinck, Rome’s natural theology provides ample room for scholars to content themselves with materialistic “natural truths,” and at the same time holds out the mystical monk as the Christian ideal, as one proleptically “elevated” to the supernatural level in the present age.52 Bavinck wields his basic “two alternatives” taxonomy as an efffective heuristic tool throughout his theological work. This is the case when, at present, Bavinck presents “naturalism” and “supernaturalism” as alternatives to his view of the image of God. “Naturalism” & the Image In this context, naturalism is again a species of materialism; it rests on an antithesis between God and the world, denies God’s sovereignty over and determination of the world, and is thereby invariably accompanied by its characteristic attribute: a voluntaristic or libertarian view of human freedom. It was especially Pelagius who identifijied human essence as the formal freedom of moral choice and moral indiffference.53 The image of God is the natural “God-given possibility of perfection” that cannot be lost; or, as Augustine summarizes it, “God bestows the ability (posse), but the will (velle) is up to us.”54 The state of integrity—at least among those who believe in such a thing—is, on this view, one of “child-like innocence.”55 Those who reject the concept of an original state locate the image of God “solely in man’s free personality, his rational or moral nature, in a religious-ethical bent, in man’s vocation to enter communion with God.”56 This amounts to an evolutionistic doctrine of humanity, “according to which the essence of man is situated not in what he was or is but in what he, in an endless process of development and by his own exertions, may become. Paradise lies ahead, not behind us.”57 While Bavinck makes clear 51

 “CG,” 48.  C.f., RD, I, 147–48, 304, 359–61; RD, II, 187–91, 541–548, 551–553; RD, III, 95–7, 123; “CG,” 45–49; “CCC,” 228–229. 53  RD, II, 534; appealing to patristics who argued that humanity had yet to acquire the “likeness.” 54  RD, II, 534. C.f., Augustine, On the Grace of Chri, I, 3fff. 55  RD, II, 535. 56  RD, II, 535. 57  RD, II, 535. 52

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that both Pelagianism and the theory of evolution are unacceptable for his system of theology, it is crucial to note the following critique of their indeterminacy: In actual fact [humanity] was nothing; potentially he was everything, pious and wicked, holy and unholy, good and evil. The disposition and ability (posse) originated by creation, but everything constructed on that foundation of potentiality was developed by man’s own work and volition. Now, as we will note in the following section, there is an element of truth in this picture insofar as the fir humans had not yet attained the highe good and hence ill had to develop.58

This remarkable comment suggests that naturalism, in its own distorted fashion, rests on the recognition of the sub-eschatological character of creation, and broadly represents an attempt to describe the way from the original state to the state of perfection. Defijicient doctrines of God, creation, human nature and human freedom preclude a satisfactory answer, as one might expect, but it is important nevertheless to recognize that for Bavinck naturalism’s protology, its doctrine of the divine image (the indeterminacy of human nature) determines its eschatology: whatever telos human beings achieve, they do so by their own effforts. “Supernaturalism” & the Image: Roman Catholicism The converse is true for the supernaturalism Bavinck has in mind. For Rome’s eschatology, according to Bavinck, determines its protology. The doctrine of the donum superadditum is forged in a “mistaken view of man’s fijinal destiny,” one that tends toward the opposite extreme: not separation from God, human autonomy, libertarian free will, etc., but instead a “Neoplatonic vision of God and a mystical fusion of the soul with God.”59 This is a supernatural “elevation” of humanity above the mere creaturely into a mode of divine participation. In another context, Bavinck puts it this way: A corollary of vision of God in his essence would be the deifijication of humanity and the erasure of the boundary between the Creator and the creature. That would be in keeping with the Neoplatonic mysticism adopted by Rome but not with the mysticism of the Reformation, at least not with that of the Reformed church and theology. For in Catholic theology human beings are raised above their own nature by a supernatural gift (donum supernaturale),

58

 RD, II, 537, emphasis added.  RD, II, 542.

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chapter three thus actually making them diffferent beings, divine and supernatural humans (homo divinus et supernaturalis) [....] A divinization (θεωσις), such as Rome teaches, indeed fijits into the system of the Pseudo-Dionysian hierarchy but has no support in Scripture.60

While naturalism works forward from its conception of the original state in order to reach conclusions regarding the eternal state (Pelagian works and merit in the former, so also in the latter), Roman Catholic supernaturalism reasons from its conception of the eternal state and works backward in order to reach conclusions regarding the original state. The supernatural, ontologically “elevated” state of glory likewise necessitates a supernatural, ontologically elevated state of integrity: the doctrine of the “super-added gift,” or donum superadditum.61 Adam was bestowed with a gift of supernatural righteousness and holiness, a supernatural grace (i.e., gratia gratum faciens, “the grace that renders one engraced or pleasing to God”) that renders him capable of doing “such good works as are in accord with [his] fijinal destiny.”62 In Rome’s view, it is strictly this supernatural, superadded gift that is the image of God. This implies, accordingly, that when Adam sinned he lost the donum and reverted to what was his “natural” state: Roman Catholic theology has a dual conception of humanity: humankind in the purely natural sense, without supernatural grace, is indeed sinless but only possesses natural religion and virtue and has his destiny on earth; humankind endowed with the superadded gift of the image of God has a supernatural religion and virtue and a destiny in heaven.63

60  RD, II, 190–91. His citation for the teaching of “homo divinus et supernaturalis” is to Bellarmine, “De justitia,” Controversiis, V, 12. 61  C.f., RD, II, 543 on Rome’s reasoning from eschatology to protology. 62  RD, II, 540. 63  RD, II, 541; C.f., 551: “In Rome’s view a human being can lose the ‘supernatural righteousness’ and still be a good, true, complete, sinless human, with a natural justice that in its kind is without any defect.” Bavinck suggests that this dualistic notion of humanity further divides into a further dimension once one begins to explain what gifts or virtues belong to which aspect of human nature, the natural or supernatural. Soon there became need for another category: the preternatural. Rome’s attempts to make sense of three different kinds of “justice,” (the natural, supernatural and preternatural), the proper place and role of concupiscence, the nature of the gratia gratum faciens and its relations to the Holy Spirit, the soul, virtues, good works, etc., lead Bavinck to conclude: “All this is enough to show that the Roman Catholic doctrine of the image of God is inherently incomplete and in part for that reason fails to satisfy the theological mind,” RD, II, 542; in addition, c.f., Bavinck’s unprecedentedly long footnote, added in the second revised addition, interacting with Dutch Roman Catholic theologian Fr. Bensdorp regarding original righteousness, RD, II, 552–3, fn. 69.

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The heart of Bavinck’s critique of Rome is this hierarchical, Neoplatonic ontology, where “we encounter the contrast between the natural and the supernatural, between the human and the divine, between the terrestrial and the celestial, and within each of these categories a host of gradations.”64 He believes this Neoplatonism to be the root of the division between Rome and Reformation theology: It was against this Neoplatonic Areopagite philosophy that the Reformation, taking its stand in Scripture, took action. Scripture knows of no such contrast between the natural and the supernatural. It knows only one idea of humanness, one moral law, one fijinal destiny, and one priesthood, which is the portion of all believers.65

Bavinck’s critique is wide and comprehensive, but running throughout are consistent indications that Rome’s ontology is the problem.66 It implies a natural opposition between spirit and matter, not that the latter is inherently sinful, as in Manichaeism, but opposed to the spiritual nonetheless. He cites a striking statement by Cardinal Bellarmine to that efffect: [F]rom the beginning of creation divine providence, in order to apply a remedy to this sickness or weakness of human nature that arises from its material condition, added to man a certain noteworthy gift, namely original righteousness, so as to hold, as though by a kind of golden bridle, the inferior part to the superior, and [to hold] the superior part, which is easily subjected, to God.67

Grace is thus not a divine response to sin but an elevation above nature. Christianity may be a religion of redemption, but “preeminently it is not a reparation but an elevation of nature; it serves to elevate nature above itself, that is, to divinize humanity.”68 This logic further compels one to

64

 RD, II, 545; C.f., Bavinck’s helpful summaries of Rome’s position in “CG,” 45–9, “CCC,” 228–35, and “CCG,” 104–7. 65  RD, II, 546; C.f., RD, I, 359–61; RD, II, 409–10; RD, III, 577. These statements at very least call into question the extent to which Bavinck’s theology may be fairly characterized as dominated by an idealist, neo-Thomist ontology, as Bremmer (influentially) alleges, Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 386. Bremmer himself undermines his own assessment, noting that, at least here (the doctrine of the divine image and the covenant of works), “Hier is een scherpe controverse met de thomistische theologie,” 228. Indeed. 66  RD, II, 551: “Between the Roman Catholic doctrine of the image of God and that of the Reformation there is a profound diffference that makes itself felt over the whole fijield of theology”; C.f., RD, II, 553–54, where his critique of Lutheranism is that it is as dualistic as Rome’s view. 67  RD, II, 547, emphasis by Bavinck; C.f., Bellarmine, De gratia primi hominis, 5; “CCC,” 229fff. 68  RD, II, 547.

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conclude that the incarnation was necessary before the fall, irrespective of the entrance of sin into the world.69 Bavinck summarizes, “For Rome the point of gravity does not lie in satisfaction for, and the forgiveness of, sin but in the humanization of God and the divinization of man.”70 But Rome, like naturalism, is fundamentally right to see a connection between protology and eschatology. The substantial element of truth in its case is the recognition that the state of glory far surpasses the state of integrity, and that the path from one to the other must be the result of a gracious condescension of God: “The state of grace and of glory [...] is most splendidly described in Holy Scripture as the state of the children of God, as eternal life, as heavenly bliss, and so forth. On this issue there is no disagreement between Rome and us [....].”71 For eternal life to be the “reward” for human beings doing what they were designed to do (i.e., their duty) can only be because of God’s covenant promise: “There is no natural connection here between work and reward.” To which Bavinck adds immediately, and, given his polemics, perhaps surprisingly, “And that is the truth that inheres in Rome’s doctrine of the added gift (donum superadditum).”72 These two alternatives, naturalism and supernaturalism, form the negative backdrop for Bavinck’s presentation of the doctrine of the image of God; the former misconstrues protology and therefore also eschatology, and the latter misconstrues eschatology and therefore also protology. The root of each is an error in metaphysics, in naturalism a Deistic-materialistic ontology, resulting from its commitment to human autonomy and thus a divine-human separation in the atus integritatis, and in supernaturalism a Neoplatonic ontology, resulting from its commitment to a pantheistic divine-human fusion in the atus gloriae.73 In this way they overlap with 69

 RD, II, 548; C.f., RD, III, 278–280.  RD, II, 548. 71  RD, II, 542. 72  RD, II, 571, emphasis in original. It all goes wrong, according to Bavinck, because “between ‘grace’ and ‘glory’ [Rome] constructs a bridge of meritoriousness and proceeds by applying it also to Adam,” RD, II, 544. 73  These critiques are broad, and clearly meant in principle. Bavinck’s appreciation for medieval theology is unquestionable and he believes that mysticism, for example, can take more or less orthodox forms as well as pantheistic forms; thus, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugo and Richard of St. Victor, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Gerson and Thomas à Kempis are examples of the former, and Meister Eckhart the latter, C.f., RD, I, 148–49; C.f., Bolt, Imitation, 99. Further, there is an asymmetry between the errors of naturalism and Rome’s supernaturalism; the former tends to be an openly anti-theistic view, and the latter is more or less an attempt at broadly Chriian theology. So, for example, one cannot fijind an instance of Bavinck supporting any form of naturalistic or Pelagian theology, yet, in spite of his criti70

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Bavinck’s more basic set of alternatives: “This is what no religion has ever understood; all peoples either pantheistically pull God down into what is creaturely, or deistically elevate him endlessly above it.”74 Important to note here is that the failure of both to properly construe the Creatorcreature relationship, from opposite directions, directly contributes to the failure to properly relate nature and grace on the historical level. Both views attempt to tie together beginning and end, the road from Eden to glory, but are hampered in their effforts by a basic dualistic ontology, one Deistic and the other pantheistic. Thus, Bavinck believes that a properly construed Creator-creature distinction on the ontological level, in conjunction with his covenant theology on the historical level, far better articulates the scriptural teaching on the image of God. Bavinck’s “Whole Person” Anthropology Neoplatonism, then, understood as an ontological dualism and hierarchical continuum between God and creation is denied admittance at the start of Bavinck’s theological labors and continues to be refused entry throughout. The Creator-creature distinction entails that myery is “the lifeblood of dogmatics.”75 That is, there can be no univocal, one-to-one correspondence between the Creator and creature. By grounding his concept of analogical reasoning in the trinitarian being of God ad intra and his works ad extra (the archetypal and ectypal), Bavinck preserves the myery of God by ruling out a priori any univocal referentiality between the divine and creaturely.76 Precisely because univocism is impossible in his system, and the creature cannot be confused with the Creator, he has unfettered freedom to insist on his recurring holistic motif “that a human being does not bear or have the image of God but that he or she is the

cisms of Rome he feels free to to occasionally side with her; e.g., in the debate between creationism and traducianism, C.f., RD, II, 587. The actual practice of these “alternatives” are not equal and are never wholly self-consistent. 74  RD, II, 570. 75  RD, II, 29. Interestingly the following sentence reads: “To be sure, the term “mystery” (μυστηριον) in Scripture does not mean an abstract supernatural truth in the Roman Catholic sense.” He thus goes on to explain that by “mystery” he means God’s infijinite “archetypal” self-knowledge in distinction from creaturely, fijinite, “ectypal” knowledge. Elsewhere, Bavinck additionally recognizes that Scripture’s use of “mystery” most often refers to God’s as-yet unfulfijilled redemptive purposes, RD, I, 619–21. 76  Incidentally, it should be noted that the Reformed orthodox scholastics explicitly grounded their archetypal/ectypal theology precisely in the distinction—derived directly from Duns Scotus—between theologia in se and theologia nora; see van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology,” 322–23.

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image of God.”77 He does not feel, as so many do, the need to restrict the image in some way out of fear that some human characteristic is unworthy of being identifijied with the divine. All such identifijications are analogical from the start. The Creator-creature distinction, as Bolt puts it, serves as a “regulative principle” for Bavinck.78 Thus, in volume one he criticizes various views on the “seat of religion.” It is not the mind (Descartes), nor the will (Kant), nor the heart (Schleiermacher); “religion is not limited to one single human faculty but embraces the human being as a whole.”79 This is because it is the whole person that is constituted the image of God in creation, the whole person spoiled and ruined by sin, and the whole person restored in Christ.80 On this foundation Bavinck contends that the entire deity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the archetype for the creation of humanity.81 The image is not a reflection of one virtue or perfection to the exclusion of others, nor exclusively of the person of the eternal Son. While Bavinck admits that many have taught that “man has specifijically been made in the image of the Son or of the incarnate Christ,” he denies any such scriptural support. Rather, Scripture repeatedly tells us that humankind was made in the image of God, not that we have been modeled on Christ, but that he was made [human] in our likeness (Rom. 8:3; Phil. 2:7–8; Heb. 2:14), and that we, having been conformed to the image of Christ, are now again becoming like God (Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:49; 2 Cor. 3:18; Phil. 3:21; Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10; 1 John 3:2). It is therefore much better for us to say that the triune being, God, is the archetype of man, while at the same time exercising the greatest caution in the psychological exploration of the trinitarian components of man’s being.82

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 RD, II, 554.  Bolt, Imitation, 188. 79  RD, I, 268; C.f., 254–269, 277–279. He adds, “We must love God with all our mind, all our soul and all our strength. Precisely because God is God he claims us totally, in soul and body, with all our capacities and in all our relations.” 80  RD, II, 554; C.f., RD, IV, 91; Synopsis purioris theologiae, 112. 81  RD, II, 554–55. 82  RD, II, 554–55. Bavinck is criticized for resisting this view most recently by David Garner, who alleges that Bavinck “fails to do justice to the archetypal implications of Colossians 1:15 and to the explicit parallels of the fijirst and Last Adam (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:20–49) [....],” David B. Garner, “The First and Last Son: Christology and Sonship in Pauline Soteriology,” in Resurrection and Eschatology: Theology in Service of the Church: Essays in Honor of Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Lane G. Tipton and Jefffrey C. Waddington, eds. (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2008), 259. Garner fails to provide reasons for this conclusion, never noting that Bavinck, in fact, devotes substantial attention to precisely these texts. Garner himself, it should be pointed out, never provides in his essay an actual argument—exegetical or otherwise— for his thesis that Adam was created as an “image of the archetypal Son”; rather, it is a 78

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Just as this does not involve any restriction on the side of God, the archetype, neither is there any such restriction on the side of the ectype. “Likeness,” after all, adds the intensive notion that “the image corresponds in all parts to the original.”83 So, he writes, [w]hile all creatures display veiges of God, only a human being is the image of God. And he is such totally, in soul and body, in all his faculties and powers, in all conditions and relations. Man is the image of God because and insofar as he is truly human, and he is truly and essentially human because, and to the extent that, he is the image of God.84

Bavinck’s unflagging insistence on this motif is evident; having made the point, his work is all but fijinished. In fact, the very brief (and anticlimactic) description of the aspects of the image of God that follows evidences that his underlying presuppositional point is far more important to him.85 Bavinck dedicates barely seven pages to outlining various aspects of the image. There is no need for us to linger on them, save to point out some of the ways in which he takes the opportunity to distinguish his views from dualistic alternatives. One important qualifijication emerges, however, with regard to Bavinck’s rejection of Neoplatonism: that there is no hierarchy or continuum between the divine and creaturely does not imply that there is no organizational hierarchy or continuum within creation itself. In the very same contexts in which he rejects the notion of an ontological continuum he nonetheless continues to speak of “higher” and “lower” forms of existence. Bavinck admits, for example, that in the “organism” of human beings the image of God emerges more visibly in some parts than others, more, say, in the soul than the body, in the virtues than in physical powers. This is an repeated assertion. He seems to believe that this is a crucial and non-negotiable dogma needed to maintain that Adam was created in a status of “sonship.” If that were the case, one wonders how Bavinck and others manage to deny the dogma, and yet still view Adam as a son of God? If humanity’s “sonship” is dependent upon its being exclusively created in the image of the archetypal Son, one might ask Garner what human fatherhood is modeled after? Bavinck’s instincts are wise to avoid this particular reductionism. 83  RD, II, 532. 84  RD, II, 555. 85  In fact, this is almost certainly intentional, given that he published his book, Beginselen der Psychologie, a study of psychology, in 1897, the same year as the volume under review here. Thus, volume two of the Dogmatics seems designed to lay a broader foundation for his work elsewhere, a fact further evidenced by his footnote, new to the revised addition, specifijically referring readers to his psychology volume, RD, II, 557, fn. 76; C.f., his major discussion of the psychological study of religious experience, also added in the revised edition, RD, III, 556–564; his discussion of how the doctrine of the image of God impacts educational philosophy, Paedagogische Beginselen (Kampen: Kok, 1904), 85–87.

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analogy of the cosmos itself, which reveals God’s attributes more clearly in some than in other creatures.86 He speaks of higher and lower faculties, higher and lower “levels” and “ranks” of creatures and psychic capacities.87 But “[n]one of this, however, detracts in the least from the truth that the whole person is the image of God.”88 This certainly has the potential to be confusing and is no doubt one source of confusion in the secondary literature with regard to Bavinck’s alleged commitment to Neoplatonism. This is not, however, one of his alleged “two irreconcilable themes in tension.”89 The continuum Bavinck endorses is not a Dionysian (or even Thomistic) analogia entis between God and creation; the supernatural or spiritual is not more “divine” than the natural or material, the soul more divine than the body, the invisible more divine than the visible: “In the teaching of Scripture God and the world, spirit and matter, are not opposites. There is nothing despicable or sinful in matter.”90 What is at issue is not a question of being, for creation is and always remains creation; it is “ectypal,” never archetypal. It is not accidental that Bavinck’s lengthy chapter on “The Spiritual World” falls under his doctrine of creation. There he begins, “According to Holy Scripture, creation is divided into a spiritual and a material realm [...].”91 The spiritual world is just as created, and therefore just as fijinite, as the material world. Angels, in fact, in Bavinck’s (very non-Dionysian) hierarchy, are in some senses lower than human beings.92 Instead, what Bavinck has done is transform, at the very least, the hierarchy of “being” into a hierarchy of created being, with human beings, not God, at the summit. This is explicit in other contexts; for example, he writes, “[N]ot all creatures are of equal rank: there is a hierarchy in the realm of creatures [....] All creatures express some aspect of God’s being, but from among all of them, human beings are at the top.”93 And again, “The highest creature, therefore, is the human being.”94

86

 RD, II, 555.  RD, II, 556–7. 88  RD, II, 556–7. 89  Berkouwer, cited in Bolt, “Grand Rapids Between Kampen and Amsterdam,” 265. 90  RD, II, 561. 91  RD, II, 444. 92  RD, II, 460–463; C.f., RD, II, 557: With regard to psychic capacities, “[A]ngels are of a lower rank than humans.” 93  RD, II, 103; C.f., 578–9. 94  RD, IV, 614. 87

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A complementary perspective is that Bavinck’s hierarchy is one of “revelatory potentiality.” Given the organic nature of creation, certain created realities reveal the perfections of God more clearly than others. In fact, in places where Bavinck uses the language of “higher” and “lower,” it nearly always, if not always, refers to revelatory capacities; the greater the organic complexity or organization of the created thing, the more revelational it is of God’s innumerable attributes.95 So, for example, reflecting on the diversity and abundance of ways that humanity “images” God, he writes, “Precisely because man is so wonderfully and richly endowed and organized, he can be conformed to and enjoy God in the fullest manner— from all sides, as it were, in all God’s virtues and perfections.”96 Bavinck ceaselessly emphasizes the ontological equality of the material and immaterial, spiritual and corporeal, placing them both in the context of creation, with human nature as “supreme and most perfect,” the goal and crown of creation. But humanity is that precisely as the supreme and most perfect revelation of God, a concept inherent in the term “image.” The spiritual aspect of the image of God is important for Bavinck, but not at the expense of humanity’s corporeality; together they make up the one image of God. In the context of creation, man is “a being existing between angels and animals, related to but distinct from both. He unites and reconciles within himself both heaven and earth, things both invisible and visible. And precisely as such he is the image and likeness of God.”97 This ontological hierarchy opposes, he thinks, all forms of Platonic dualism. No matter how highly regarded in terms of creational hierarchy, [H]umans should never be detatched from the realm of nature; neither may any creature or any part of the universe ever be put on a par with, or in opposition to, God. Nothing exists outside of or apart from God. This truth, it must be said, has over and over been violated: Plato’s dualism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Manichaeism—they all put a limit to God’s revelation and posited a material substance hostile to God over against him. And in all sorts of ways these dualisms have for centuries impacted theology.98

95

 It should be noted that for Bavinck no created thing is non-revelational; C.f., RD, II, 90: “There is not an atom in the universe in which [God’s] everlasting power and deity are not clearly seen.” 96  RD, II, 557; C.f. esp., 561. 97  RD, II, 556; C.f., 562. 98  RD, II, 103; he further singles out Kant’s noumenal/phenomenal divide as a prime example.

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Thus, in addition to his emphasis on the whole person being the image of God and the ontological equality and unity of human attributes, he nevertheless afffijirms an organizational hierarchy between them. This emphasis on organic unity, as noted in chapter one, is characteristic of Dutch Neo-Calvinism. The influential spiritual and literary movement that formed the seedbed for Kuyper’s vision, the Réveil (and particularly one of its most prominent and celebrated poets, Willem Bilderdijk), strongly emphasized the concept of organic unity. John Bolt writes, “Over against the fragmentation, disorder, and social anarchy resulting from rationalist individualism and revolutionary ideology, Bilderdijk passionately craved and promoted unity, order, harmony, along with creational diversity.”99 Bavinck wrote an entire monograph in praise of Bilderdijk, and he there remarks that the “key to [Bilderdijk’s] whole worldview” is that he sought “always unity, unity that is found in God and unity that he has imprinted on creation. Unity in the moral, the natural, the spiritual realms; and from this unity spreading out to all spheres and orders.”100 And yet, as Bolt pointedly observes, this notion of unity is in Bilderdijk strongly distanced from “romantic pantheism,” openly mocking the latter’s monism, and is rooted in (no surprise) a “Creator-creature distinction that acknowledges the creature’s utter dependence.”101 Bavinck himself draws attention to this characteristic of Bilderdijk’s worldview, in a passage distinctly reminiscent of his own theological emphases: Bilderdijk rightly, on the one hand, maintains that the Creator and creature are distinct in nature over against pantheism, and so he also holds, over against Deism, that neither are they separated for a moment, and so he also cuts offf all rationalism and Pelagianism in principle and at the root.102

Viewing Neo-Calvinism in terms of these literary and poetic roots,103 it seems clear that Kuyper and Bavinck were promoting a distinctly Christiantheistic worldview of organic unity in precise opposition to the prevailing forms of pantheism (Hegelian and otherwise) dominating the intellectual

99  John Bolt, A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper’s American Public Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 52. 100  Bavinck, Bilderdijk als Denker en Dichter (Kampen: J.H. Kok, 1906), 42; the translation is Bolt’s, A Free Church, A Holy Nation, 52. 101  Bolt, A Free Church, 52–3. 102  Bavinck, Bilderdijk, 57. Author’s translation. 103  Bolt suggests that a proper interpretation of Kuyper must understand him as a “movement leader, a ‘poet’ who efffectively utilized a ‘Christian-historical imagination,’” A Free Church, xviii.

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scene in the 19th century.104 This background highlights just why Bavinck, in his doctrine of the divine image, is so zealous to guard against any form of Neoplatonism; there is no ontological “higher and lower” in the sense of an analogia entis between God and the created world; the aspects of the image of God form a unity, are thus ontologically equal, and yet there remains, nonetheless, an organizational complexity and hierarchy within the created order itself.105 These themes continually emerge in Bavinck’s treatment of the various aspects of the image of God. Aspects of the Image The Soul With respect to the human soul, Bavinck suggests that the biblical teaching accords to man a “unique and independent place of his own,” and thereby avoids pantheism and materialism.106 Humanity was formed from the dust of the ground (contra pantheism) and a divine investiture of life (contra materialism).107 While he recognizes that Scripture often uses “soul” and “spirit” interchangeably, he still believes them to be distinguishable.108 “Spirit” refers to the unique and divinely-originated “life-principle” in man that gives him a “spirit of his own, distinct from the Spirit of God,” in distinction from the animals who came forth from the earth. “Soul” implies that humanity’s spiritual component is, from the beginning, “adapted to and organized for a body and is bound, also for his intellectual and spiritual life, to the sensory and external faculties.”109 Bavinck concludes that “the spirituality, invisibility, unity, simplicity, and immortality of the human soul are all features of the image of God. This image itself emerges

104  C.f., Cooper’s outstanding treatment of the wide variety of pantheistic (or panentheistic) views in the 19th century, Panentheism, 120–47. 105  This is a good place to commend Bavinck’s seminal treatment of his organic ontology with respect to its internal organization in CW, 50–68. Ontological “equality” does not mean chaotic disorderliness; C.f., 51; also James Eglinton, “Bavinck’s Organic Motif: Questions Seeking Answers.” 106  RD, II, 555. 107  Bavinck categorically rejects trichotomism, the view that “spirit” and “soul” refer to two separate aspects of human nature, and suggests that such views are rooted in Plato’s dualism and are generally gnostic or theosophic in character. 108  RD, II, 556; C.f., RD, IV, 87–88. 109  RD, II, 556. One might well concur with Bremmer’s comment here: “Helemaal duidelijk is dit alles niet” [“This is all not altogether clear”], Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 221. The idea is found in the Synopsis purioris theologiae, 109.

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in the fact that he has a spirit (pneuma), which was from the beginning organized into a soul (psychē).”110 Two things are evident in this extremely brief discussion: fijirst, the spiritual aspect of the image of God is not ontologically more “divine” and thus more “image” than the sensory and external faculties; they are together the image of God. Second, there is nevertheless organizational hierarchy: the soul is man’s spiritual nature organized and adapted to a body. In some sense, then, the soul has a priority over the body; it can—contrary to its design, of course—live without a body in an unnatural condition, but a body cannot live without the soul.111 Ontological equality and yet organizational complexity and hierarchy are both afffijirmed. The Faculties So also with the various human faculties. Already noted is his rejection of various proposals for the “seat of religion,” in which the mind (Descartes), will (Kant) or heart (Schleiermacher) has ontological priority over the others.112 Bavinck’s basic concerns for ontological equality and yet organizational hierarchy are evident also here. Particularly, although he teaches that each of these faculties is equally part of the divine image, he still maintains that the heart has a certain priority. It is, “in a metaphorical sense, the seat and fountain of man’s entire psychic life, of emotions and passions, of desire and will, even of thinking and knowing.”113 This is an organizational priority. As Bavinck puts it, “From the heart flow ‘the springs of life’ (Prov. 4:23). This life, which originates in the heart, then splits into two streams, the intellectual faculties of the mind and the emotional faculties of the will.”114 With respect to these two streams, he argues that the passions “have to be led by the mind (nous) and express themselves in action.”115 This order is important. With reference to Augustine’s view that the faculties of heart, mind and will (memoria, intellectus, voluntas) are an analogy of the triune being of God, he likewise argues that just as the persons of the Trinity are equally ultimate in their ontological unity, yet have an “order” or “taxis” in the economy, so also the human faculties are both ontologically equal yet

110

 RD, II, 556.  RD, II, 559. 112  RD, I, 254–269, 277–279. 113  RD, II, 556–7. 114  RD, II, 557. 115  RD, II, 557. 111

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“ordered” so that the heart “gives birth and being to the intellect and the will, and specifijically places the will second in order to the intellect.”116 It was particularly Western theology that appreciated this close nexus between theology and anthropology.117 While it is true that Bavinck advocates exercising “the greatest caution” in psychological exploration of the trinitarian analogies in humanity,118 he does fijind a fruitful one here. He suggests that the error of rationalism is to detach and absolutize the intellect and will from the heart, the error of mysticism is to despise the will and retreat into the depths of the mind, and the error of Greek Orthodoxy is to place head and heart side by side. Detaching the faculties of mind and will from the unity found in the human heart is analogous to detaching the persons of the Trinity from their unity of essence and perichoretic relations to each other. So, Bavinck concludes, “In the doctrine of the Trinity, therefore, [Western theology] held onto the unity of the being, the diinctiveness of the three Persons, and the filioque.”119 Or, to put it in other words, unity, diversity, and yet a particular order: from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.120 So also in the human faculties there is unity and order: the soul fijinds expression in both cognitive and conative capacities, and the latter are “led and guided by the former.”121 The Virtues Bavinck realizes that this discussion of the faculties might lead to the misunderstanding that these are merely formal and without content.

116

 RD, II, 557; C.f., RD, IV, 153.  RD, II, 557. 118  RD, II, 555. 119  RD, II, 557, emphasis added. 120  The reference to the filioque seems strange here, outside of the context of his treatment of the Trinity. There he argues that on Eastern Orthodoxy’s view the unity of the divine persons does not arise from the divine nature as such, but from the person of the Father; this is, he writes, “a last lingering remnant of subordinationism.” Thus, if the Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son, this principle of unity is broken and, on Orthodoxy’s terms, a kind of ditheism results where Father and Son are coordinate. Therefore, the Orthodox prefer to coordinate both Son and Spirit, who, respectively, are begotten and spirated from the Father. This entails that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. Particularly shedding light here is this conclusion: “The Son does not reveal the Father in and through the Spirit; the Spirit does not lead [believers] to the Father through the Son. The two are more or less independent of each other: they both open their own way to the Father. Thus orthodoxy and mysticism, the intellect and will, exist dualistically side by side. And this unique relation between orthodoxy and mysticism is the hallmark of Greek piety,” RD, II, 317, emphasis added. 121  RD, II, 557. 117

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However, he treated them abstractly merely for the purpose of a “wellordered arrangement.”122 Over against naturalistic views of the image, he insists that the faculties were not created morally neutral or indiffferent, but immediately furnished with “knowledge in the mind, righteousness in the will, holiness in the heart.”123 On the other hand, goodness is a unifijied concept for human beings, consisting in moral perfection in harmony with God’s law: he concludes from this that “Scripture knows of no two sorts of human beings, no double moral law, no two kinds of moral perfection and destiny. If man was created good, he must have been created with original justice.”124 This is a salvo against the inherent dualism of the donum superadditum; clearly, both alternatives, naturalism and supernaturalism, are again at the forefront of discussion: “On the one hand, this [human creation] is not to be conceived as childlike innocence, but it must not be exaggerated either, as though the original state of integrity (atus integratis) were already equal to the state of glory (atus gloriae).”125 “Childlike innocence” is how naturalism conceives the state of integrity; supernaturalism conceives it as the equivalent of the state of glory. Once again the ontological (vertical) issue raises the historical (horizontal) question of the relationship between the original and eschatological states. He recognizes that his view of the virtues are objectionable by both naturalism and supernaturalism. Against the former, Bavinck emphasizes that Adam’s virtues were “his from the beginning, for otherwise he could have never done any good work.”126 For him, the concept of a purely formal, libertarian and morally indiffferent will is an absurdity, whether taught by Pelagius, Socinus, or Kant. Against supernaturalism, Adam’s knowledge was not the beatifijic vision, but limited, capable of growth, a “walking” by faith (not sight), and his righteousness and holiness likewise needed to be “kept, developed, and converted into action.”127 In other words, “Good fruits presuppose a good tree; one must fijirst be before he can do (operari sequitur esse).”128

122

 RD, II, 557.  RD, II, 558; Bavinck’s treatment of these virtues should be read alongside his treatment of knowledge, holiness and righteousness as communicable attributes of God; C.f., RD, II, 192–96, 216–28. 124  RD, II, 558. 125  RD, II, 558. 126  RD, II, 558. 127  RD, II, 558. 128  RD, II, 558. 123

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The supernaturalist will surely claim that Adam’s “natural” possession of the virtues necessarily entails human autonomy; that is, if Adam was already endowed with the knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (the roots) needed to conform to God’s moral character (the fruits), then he had no need of God’s communion or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Is this not Pelagianism after all?129 This is certainly how Roman Catholic theologians have heard (wrongly, in his view) the Reformed insistence that Adam’s original righteousness was “natural” rather than supernatural. He now provides an illuminating clarifijication.130 Rome interprets the word “natural” exclusively in terms of its already presupposed ontology, a hierarchy of nature and grace (i.e., supernatural). So, if something is “natural,” this means by definition something devoid of supernatural influence or supplementation. Bavinck, of course, rejects this entire contrast, replacing Rome’s basic dichotomy between the “lower” state of nature and its supplementation by the “higher” state of grace with the hiorical contrast between the state of integrity and the state of sin, that is, between pre-fall and post-fall eras. Rome’s vertically conceived “lower” and “higher” is, in other words, replaced by a horizontal “before” and “after,” not “storeys” on a building, but states of afffairs in a narrative “story.” Nature and grace are not ontological opposites, but because of Adam’s historical fall, they most certainly become ethical opposites. This means that calling Adam’s original righteousness “natural” does not imply in the least that somehow Adam lacked God’s presence or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and was expected to “go to work apart from

129  It is of some interest that a recent fijissure among conservative North American presbyterians—the so-called “Federal Vision” controversy—features one party that rejects the covenant of works with precisely this rationale. C.f., James B. Jordan, “Merit versus Maturity: What Did Jesus Do for Us?” in The Federal Vision, Steve Wilkins and Duane Garner, eds. (Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2004), 153–155: he calls the Reformed covenant of works “fundamentally Pelagian in character.” C.f., also, Rich Lusk, “A Response to ‘The Biblical Plan of Salvation,’” in The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros & Cons: Debating the Federal Vision, E. Calvin Beisner, ed. (Ft. Lauderdale: Knox, 2004), 124–26. That Lusk understands neither the covenant of works nor Bavinck is evident in his patently erroneous belief that Bavinck shares his rejection of the notion of merit. Lusk maintains, in the exact converse of reality, that the covenant of works falls prey to Rome’s nature/grace dualism (126), whereas Bavinck—with far more sophistication—maintains that it is precisely the genius of the covenant of works that only it avoids Rome’s hierarchical dualism (i.e., the burden of this book). Jordan’s and Lusk’s exact mirroring of the Roman Catholic critique of the Reformed doctrine of original righteousness (that it is Pelagian, after all) seems prima facie to undermine their claim to represent a legitimate or well-established stream of Reformed orthodoxy. 130  For his full response to Rome over original righteousness, C.f., RD, II, 542–553.

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God.”131 On the contrary, “No truly good and perfect human being is even conceivable apart from the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.”132 Adam’s virtues were free gifts of God constantly maintained by his providence, that is, his indwelling. The diffference between the natural and supernatural, then (if those terms are to be used at all), is not that between estrangement from God (the “natural” man) versus the indwelling of God (donum superadditum); it is, rather, between the distinct character of divine indwelling before and after the fall: Granted between the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in man before sin and in the state of sin, there is a big diffference. Now that indwelling, after all, is ‘above nature’ (supra naturam) because the Holy Spirit has to come to humans as it were from without and is diametrically opposed to sinful nature. In the case of Adam that entire contra did not exi; his nature was holy and did not, as in the case of believers, have to be made holy; it was from the very beginning fijit for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.133

Again, the “nature” in Bavinck’s nature-grace scheme does not involve Adam’s original state being one purely of “works” and estrangement from God, contrasted with a state of grace and glory, i.e., fellowship with God. It is the distinction between sub-eschatological law and grace and indwelling and fellowship with God (posse peccare, posse mori), contrasted with eschatological law, grace, glory, divine indwelling and fellowship (non posse peccare, non posse mori).134 This distinction, as contrasted with a natural/supernatural hierarchical ontology, allows Bavinck to reject both Pelagianism (autonomy, pure “nature”) and Roman Catholic supernaturalism (dependence, pure super-added “grace”). Adam was given the virtues of knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, was to use them by the presence and providence of God (i.e., not autonomously) and yet, these were not eschatological gifts (i.e., donum superadditum) but were capable of being kept, developed, converted into action, and, most signifijicantly, lost. The virtues are thus all aspects of Adam’s nature as imago Dei, and thus, with Adam himself, are characterized by their sub-eschatological contingency rather than the eschatological necessity promised under the terms of the covenant of works. Bavinck again escapes the problematic

131

 RD, II, 558.  RD, II, 558; C.f., RD, III, 292. 133  RD, II, 558, emphasis added. 134  C.f., Ch. 2 (above). 132

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ontological dualism between the natural and supernatural by stressing in its place the ethical-historical contrast between the natural and the sinful.135 The Body One might expect, given Bavinck’s antipathy to any commingling of the divine and creaturely, that he would follow much precedent in church tradition by downplaying any corporeal aspect to the divine image. Instead, one fijinds him confijidently declaring that “the human body belongs integrally to the image of God.”136 His trinitarian, archetypal/ectypal ontology enables him to positively revel in such a theme precisely where alternative metaphysical views shrink back in the face of insurmountable problems.137 With an eye, again, to Neoplatonism, he writes, “The body is not a prison, but a marvelous piece of art from the hand of God Almighty, and just as constitutive for the essence of humanity as the soul.”138 It is, he adds, “so integrally and essentially a part of our humanity that, though violently torn from the soul by sin, it will be reunited with it in the resurrection of the dead.”139 Clearly aware of its potential problems, he warns against construing this as though God has a material body (e.g., Audians), or that in creating human beings God assumed a human body (e.g., Eugubinus), nor even that humans were created in the image of the “still-to-be-incarnated” Christ (e.g., Osiander).140 The creaturely image of God is analogical, not univocal, in character; saying that anything is part of the image of God, whether spirituality, faculties, or virtues is not to make a univocal statement, a one-to-one correlation between God and his creation. There is

135  Bavinck actually believes that it is Rome that introduced the novelty, rather than vice-versa: “Rome replaced the antithetical relation of sin and grace with the contrast between natural and supernatural religion,” “CG,” 45; C.f., “CCC,” 229. 136  RD, II, 559; C.f., Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 230: “[The] afffijirmation of the body’s worth has always been a skandalon to every dualistic theory of gradation between higher and lower elements in man.” 137  C.f., fn. 33 (above). Bremmer comments: “Bavinck zat enigszins met de moeilijkheid, welke plaats het lichaam in zijn mensbeeld zou ontvangen, nu hij dit zo sterk verbonden had aan het archetype-ectype schema” [“Bavinck had some difffijiculty with what place the body was to receive in his portrayal of man, since he had such a strong commitment to the archetypal-ectypal scheme”], Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 225. On the contrary, the archetypal-ectypal scheme is precisely what mitigates the difffijiculty, because of its insistence that all such language is analogical. 138  RD, II, 559. 139  RD, II, 559. 140  RD, II, 559.

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and remains always a qualitative diffference between divine attributes and creaturely attributes, and it is no diffferent with the human body.141 The body is the earthly dwelling for the human soul, the “organ or instrument of service, our apparatus (1 Cor. 12:18–26; 2 Cor. 4:7; 1 Thess. 4:4).”142 It is the instrumental means by which the human spirit is manifested in and acts upon the material world. The soul sees with the eyes, thinks with the brain, grasps with the hands and walks with the feet; the relation between soul and body is so intimate that “one nature, one person, one self is the subject of both and of all their activities.”143 If there is a divine-human analogy to be drawn, what is it, if God has no material body? Citing a number of patristic, medieval and Reformed scholastic writers, he begins with his most important claim: “The human body is part of the image of God in its organization as instrument of the soul, in its formal perfection, not in its material substance as flesh (sarx).”144 That is, it is not materiality as such, but the structure (“organization”) and function (“instrument”) it serves in its union with the soul. Keeping the idea of structure and function in mind, as opposed to corporeality as such, helps when reading his next claim: Just as God, though he is spirit (pneuma), is nevertheless the Creator of a material world that may be termed his revelation and manifestation, with this revelation coming to its climax in the incarnation, so also the spirit of man is designed for the body as its manifestation.145

This does not mean that God is subject to some internal compulsion or necessity to create a material world for his own self-manifestation in the same way that the human spirit needs a body for self-manifestation.146 There is a signifijicant disanalogy: God’s self-manifestation in a material world is absolutely free, but human beings, as “spirit,” necessarily (i.e., by God’s design) need the body for material manifestation.147 The human body (necessarily) is to the human soul what the whole of creation (freely)

141  At the same time, it should be pointed out that neither does Bavinck wish to dissolve a qualitative distinction between spirit and matter; C.f., RD, II, 459. 142  RD, II, 559. 143  RD, II, 559. 144  RD, II, 559–60. He cites, Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Aquinas, Petavius, Gerhard, Calvin, Polanus, Zanchius, Becanus and Mastricht, C.f., 560, fn. 79. 145  RD, II, 560. 146  Bavinck’s critique of the pantheism of Hegel and Schelling positively rules this out. 147  Note in the above quote that God’s creative act is simply asserted (“God is the Creator of a material world”) and the human spirit is described as “designed” for the body.

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is for God, namely, an organized materiality designed for the function of revelation and manifestation. Further, the issue whether the body properly belongs to the image of God is put beyond all question by the fact of the incarnation. Human beings, created in God’s image, were “fijit for the highest degree of conformity to God and for the most intimate indwelling of God. God could not have been able to become man if he had not fijirst made man in his own image.”148 We will examine this important motif later in his teaching on the incarnation, but sufffijice it to say at this point that he does not mean that God created Adam in his own image in order to become incarnate, making the incarnation a creational necessity. Rather, that God so created Adam that, should he fall, he is able to graciously intervene and himself become a divine-human mediator to restore him and fallen creation. The human body as created also participates in immortality, since death is only a consequence of sin. Here again Bavinck’s historical construal of nature and grace takes center stage. Adam’s state did not consist, he writes, of non posse mori, the “inability to die,” but rather in a state of posse non mori, “the condition of not going to die in case of obedience.”149 Adam’s immortality was conditional, not absolute, resting as it did on an ethical precondition. Naturalism, represented in this respect by Pelagians, Socinians, Remonstrants—and, he adds a pregnant “etc.”—is therefore wrong to suppose that death is a natural and normal state of humanity.150 But supernaturalism, on the other hand, is just as wrong when it blurs the distinction by neglecting “an essential diffference between Adam’s not-going-to-die as long as he remained obedient and the not-being-ableto-die, which he was to receive as the reward for his obedience.”151 Just as Adam’s virtues lacked the gift of perseverance, so also his immortality “was not yet totally integrated into inamissable eternal life.”152 Bavinck again appeals to the locus classicus from which he derives his nature-grace scheme: 1 Corinthians 15:45fff. The fijirst Adam was a man of dust, from the earth; only Christ is the Lord from heaven, the eschatological life-giving Spirit. The last Adam has obtained for his own, by his resurrection, the state of glory, of non posse mori.

148

 RD, II, 560.  RD, II, 560. 150  RD, II, 560. 151  RD, II, 560. 152  RD, II, 560. 149

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Finally, human corporeality is necessary to fulfijill the commission to exercise dominion over the created, material order. Scripture clearly teaches that dominion is closely tied to creation in God’s image; at the same time, those who, like the Socinians, reduce the image of God to dominion go “much too far.”153 Dominion “is not an external appendix to the image; it is not based on a supplementary special dispensation; but being the image of God, man is thereby at the same time elevated above all other creatures and appointed lord and king over them all.”154 Habitation in Paradise One of Bavinck’s more intriguing suggestions on the various aspects of the divine image is also, unfortunately, the one left most undeveloped. In a mere three sentences he explains that humanity’s “habitation in paradise” belongs to the image of God. This appears strange, since paradise describes something of humanity’s created environment rather than of humanity itself. By this he wishes to argue for a natural congruity between being imago Dei and belonging to the place of blessedness and fellowship with God: Holiness and blessedness belong together; every human conscience witnesses to the fact that there is a connection between virtue and happiness; the ethical dimension and the physical dimension, the moral and the natural order in the world, being and appearance, spirit and matter—these may not be opposites. Congruent with a fallen humanity, therefore, is an earth that lies under a curse; a place of darkness therefore awaits the wicked in the hereafter; the righteous will one day walk in the light of God’s countenance; the not-yet-fallen but still earthy man makes his home in a paradise.155

Two brief things to note: fijirst, this is again an alternative to ontological dualisms that divide as “opposites” the ethical and the physical. He argues instead that in the state of created integrity the two naturally go hand in hand. In fact, not just in the state of integrity, but in the state of sin as well, since fallen humanity now resides in an earth that “lies under a curse.”156 Second, Bavinck again emphasizes the distinction between

153

 RD, II, 560.  RD, II, 560–61. 155  RD, II, 561; while impossible to say with any certainty, a possible source for this motif is the Synopsis purioris theologiae, 113–14. 156  This is, of course, qualifijied by Bavinck’s doctrine of common grace, in which neither humanity nor its environment is abandoned to utter evil and destruction; C.f., “CG,” 51; ORF, 211; RD, III, 218. 154

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Adam’s created, not-yet-fallen, sub-eschatological “blessedness” and that awaiting the righteous “one day.” This is simply another way of saying that as good as it was, “Paradise was not heaven.”157 Relationality? It is unclear why Bavinck does not include here one other important aspect, one especially of interest to 21st century readers: the attribute of relationality, or humanity’s constitutively social nature. Its absence is puzzling, not because he was unaware of it, nor because interest in communities, contexts or relations are exclusively late-20th century phenomena, but because Bavinck manifestly does believe that “horizontal” social relationality is constitutive of the image of God. He simply neglects to mention it in his doctrine of human nature proper. It emerges in his discussion of the covenant of works and human destiny and is, in fact, obliquely indicated in the fijirst words of that chapter: “Although Adam was created in God’s image, he was not that image immediately in the full sense, nor was he that image by himself alone.”158 Following his lengthy apologia for the covenant of works and therefore sub-eschatological character of the state of integrity, he again takes up the theme, writing that Adam was not “yet the fully unfolded image of God.”159 As one might expect, he now includes the woman, along with the man, as the image of God. But he is not fijinished there: “Not the man alone, nor the man and woman together, but only the whole of humanity is the fully developed image of God, his children, his offfspring.”160 He infers this from the fact that upon Adam and Eve was immediately pronounced the blessing of multiplication. Contemplated in the very nature of imago Dei, then, is the idea of multiplication, family and community. Bavinck reasons thus: The image of God is much too rich for it to be fully realized in a single human being, however richly gifted that human being may be. It can only be somewhat unfolded in its depth and riches in a humanity counting billions

157

 RD, II, 573.  RD, II, 564, emphasis added. 159  RD, II, 577. 160  RD, II, 577, emphasis added. Hoekema notes this as an “interesting and signifijicant” element in Bavinck’s doctrine of the imago Dei, but does not elaborate on why it is either; Hoekema, “Herman Bavinck’s Doctrine of the Covenant,” 81–2. Signifijicantly, the Synopsis purioris theologiae likewise includes Adam and Eve’s progeny as part of the created image, 114–15. 158

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chapter three of members. Just as the traces of God (veigia Dei) are spread over many, many works, in both space and time, so also the image of God can only be displayed in all its dimensions and characteristic features in a humanity whose members exist both successively one after the other and contemporaneously side by side.161

Three things stand out in Bavinck’s presentation of relationality: First, it highlights the “organic” character of creation. Humanity cannot be considered as a “heap of souls on a tract of land, not as a loose aggregate of individuals”—it is truly the human race, created out of one blood. It is as one household and one family that humanity is the image and likeness of God.162 Only in its entirety, “as one complete organism,” is humanity the “fully fijinished image, the most telling and striking likeness of God.”163 Conceiving humanity in this organic fashion allows him to account for unity and diversity, corporate and individual: “[E]very human person is an organic member of humanity as a whole, and at the same time, in that whole, he or she occupies an independent place of his or her own.”164 An unusual enthusiasm emerges in Bavinck’s writing here: Human beings are not specimens, not numbers of a kind, nor are they detatched individuals like angels. They are both parts of a whole and individuals: living ones of the temple of God. Creationism preserves the organic—both physical and moral—unity of humanity and at the same time it respects the mystery of the individual personality. Every human being, while a member of the body of humanity as a whole, is at the same time a unique idea of God, with a signifijicance and destiny that is eternal! Every human being is himself or herself an image of God, yet that image is only fully unfolded in humanity as a whole!165

Second, this organic relationality is eschatologically oriented. The image is not a “static” entity, but rather a “gift (Gabe) and a mandate (Aufgabe).” As given to Adam and Eve it was intended, as a “grounding principle and 161  RD, II, 577. Notice that the issue is, again, one of revelatory potential. As an aside, Bavinck’s notion of the veigia Dei and the imago Dei is something of a correlate to creation and covenant; veigia is a universal term describing the revelatory character of all of creation, and imago is the particular term as it relates to humanity. The two are analogous, but not identical. 162  RD, II, 577. C.f., Kuyper’s almost identical language describing the organic unity of humanity and its implications for politics and statecraft in a fallen world, Calvinism, 100fff. 163  RD, II, 577. 164  RD, II, 587. 165  RD, II, 587. As this indicates, this quote comes in the context of defending creationism over against traducianism, one reason being that it best preserves the organic unity of humanity.

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germ,” to unfold in an “altogether rich and glorious development.”166 Its telos was to be the whole organism of humanity acting as a prophet proclaiming the truth of God, a priest dedicating itself to God, and a king and ruler of the entire creation. This is an outworking of his doctrine of creation generally. Creation’s independent ontological existence and organic character entails that it is not just a “work of art” but a “history.”167 As a creaturely analogue of God’s trinitarian essence as a fullness of life or “pure actuality,” creation’s “being” is not static but created to become, unfold and develop to ever greater fijinite manifestations of the infijinite perfections of God. Human beings above all, as the crowning revelation of God (a microcosm, as he puts it) display this unity, diversity and development in a corporate and organic unity. This idea is grounded, for Bavinck, in the eschatological picture of the church as scripture presents it: it is the bride of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit, the dwelling of God and the New Jerusalem.168 Granted, this telos can now only be attained “through the thickets of sin,” but nevertheless humanity’s eschatological destiny is the same: “religion, the moral law, and man’s fijinal destiny are essentially the same in both the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. In both the goal and end is a kingdom of God, a holy humanity, in which God is all in all.”169 Finally, this emphasis uniquely highlights for Bavinck the importance of Adam and Christ as “heads.” He writes, “Humanity cannot be conceived as a completed organism unless it is united and epitomized in one head. In the covenant of grace Christ has that position, and he is the head of the church; in the covenant of works that position is occupied by Adam.”170 This unity of humanity is “above all” indicated in Paul’s opposition of Adam and Christ in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, and most signifijicant is the fact that physical unity does not alone account for scripture’s portrayal: Christ is not the ancestor of the church; it did not (biologically) descend from him. In that sense, Adam and Christ are not alike, but the similarity “consists in the fact that in a juridicial and ethical sense humanity stands

166

 RD, II, 577.  C.f., Ch. 1 (above). 168  C.f., Bavinck’s use of the mixed metaphors of the New Testament picture: a “growing temple” and “living stones,” RD, II, 436, 587. 169  RD, II, 577–8. Again, this is decisive evidence that Bavinck does not in any way equate eschatology and redemption, contra Hielema; C.f., Ch. 2, fn. 130, (above). 170  RD, II, 578. 167

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in the same relation to Adam as to Christ.”171 Just as Christ is the cause of righteousness and life, so Adam is the cause of condemnation and death: “God considers and judges the whole human race in one person.”172 Conclusion Bavinck’s “holistic” anthropology rigorously coheres with his basic ontological and covenantal commitments. It is, in the highest sense, “systematic” theology. The “vertical” analogical system flowing from his trinitarian theology (expounded in Chapter One) and the “horizontal” eschatological structure of creation grounded in his doctrine of the covenant of works (expounded in Chapter Two) together form for Bavinck the positive Reformed replacement for the ontological dualism he everywhere seeks to banish from dogmatics. It is no exaggeration for him to write that “[b]etween the Roman Catholic doctrine of the image of God and that of the Reformation there is a profound diffference that makes itself felt over the whole fijield of theology.”173 The Reformation’s replacement of Rome’s hierarchical “lower” (nature) and “higher” (grace) with the organic and historical relation between nature (atus integritatis) and grace (atus gloriae) is, in fact, a prevailing theme in Bavinck’s dogmatic works.174 Note particularly the way in which the the latent eschatological potential of the covenant of works influences anthropology. Time and again, the doctrine of the imago Dei devolves into some form of reductionism precisely because it lacks a sufffijicient theological account of the subeschatological character of the state of integrity and its “built-in” historical telos in eschatological glory. Ironically, the illegitimate “vertical” ontological dualisms on which they operate have the efffect of blurring legitimate “horizontal” or historical distinctions. Naturalism blurs any distinction between the state of integrity and the state of sin.175 Supernaturalism blurs any distinction between the state of integrity and the state of glory.176 It is

171

 RD, II, 578.  RD, II, 578. 173  RD, II, 551; C.f., “CCC,” 235: “The Reformation collides with this powerful Roman position on almost every point.” 174  C.f., “CCC,” 229–36; “CG,” 44–49; “CCG,” 104–110; ORF, 209, MD, 227–8; PR, 3–5 (WO, 2–4); Bremmer, Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 218–19. 175  RD, II, 539, where naturalism’s view of moral indiffference “erases the boundaries that exist between the state of integrity and the state of corruption, and allows man to keep intact the image of God, which exists in something purely formal, even after the fall.” 176  RD, II, 543–548. 172

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abundantly clear, then, that Bavinck’s seemingly offf-hand inclusion of the doctrine of the covenant of works under the locus of the divine image is self-conscious. He means it when he writes that the image of God can only be treated to the full extent when it includes the “development or destination of the image of God—that is, in the covenant of works.”177 By now it has been thoroughly demonstrated why Bavinck tethers the image of God to the covenant of works, but a summary at this point will help to crystalize it. We have been deep into examining trees, and it may prove helpful for the reader to step back and get an overview of the forest at this point. If eschatological beatitude is not built-in “from the beginning,” as Veenhof puts it, then the telos of glory and grace will invariably be conceived as fundamentally discontinuous with or (again, with Veenhof) a “foreign component” to creation. Nature and grace are then inevitably related “mechanically” (i.e., “superadded”) rather than “organically.”178 Using my own illustration, the “Lived Happily ever after” does not meaningfully relate to the “Once upon a time,” but instead bears the character of the deus ex machina. Or to use another illustration: to make a slug fly, one would need to attach wings, necessarily in an artifijicial and therefore “mechanical” fashion. To make a caterpillar fly, on the other hand, requires no such artifijicial additive; it is designed to become a butterfly. On dualistic “higher” and “lower” ontologies, to make a created human being the image of God requires that he be given supernatural gifts, either in paradise or in glory, as an artificial superadditive. But Bavinck brilliantly argues that humanity is already designed with a built-in destiny. In that way nature and grace, the passage from Eden to glory, creation and recreation, are related organically.179 Grace is not intrusive upon nature as 177

 RD, II, 550.  Veenhof, “Nature and Grace,” 22. Geofffrey Bromiley notes a forerunner to this emphasis in the view of the Reformers with respect to the resurrection of Christ: “The immortality that humanity acquires in Christ is something for which God destined it by creation. There is thus no intrinsic contradiction between humanity and immortal glory. The contradiction came with sin, which brought humanity under the conditions of afffliction and mortality,” Geofffrey W. Bromiley, “The Reformers and the Humanity of Christ,” in Perspectives on Chriology: Essays in Honor of Paul K. Jewett, Marguerite Shuster and Richard Muller, eds. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 95–6. 179  Berkouwer complains that Bavinck “never explains exactly what he means by such an organic relationship,” and that he “did little to develop this idea,” Man: The Image of God, 53, 61. C.f., the discussion of the broader/narrower senses of the image, immediately below. But John Bolt perceives Bavinck’s point well: “[T]he relation between the atus integritatus and the atus gloriae is not a vertical one of nature and supernature, but a horizontal, historical one in which the natural simply reaches, in time, its highest but fully 178

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a “foreign component.” It is ethically intrusive over against sin, cleansing and restoring creation, not just to its pristine original condition, but to its ultimate destiny. Grace restores nature from its sinful corruption and perfects it to its eschatological destiny. The covenant of works therefore provides the framework or logic of Bavinck’s organic “before” and “after,” creation and re-creation; and, in his fijinal analysis, its only real alternative is the dualism of “lower” and “higher.”180 This is in large measure the genius of Neo-Calvinism, with its political and cultural implications. Human dominion, development of culture and advancement in the various societal “spheres” is part of the created human design. They cannot be opposed by grace, but are restored and perfected by grace. It is worth reiterating and expanding on a conclusion from the previous chapter: Bavinck’s “designed with destiny” anthropology provides a basic theological rationale for the Neo-Calvinist social vision of reclaiming and renewing all of life (every “square inch,” as Kuyper would say) under the Lordship of Christ to the glory of God. Since human culture, understood broadly as humanity’s “imaging” God, is the plan from the beginning, Christian identity may not legitimately result in dualistic “world-flight,” but must, rather, result in the kind of concerted, organized cultural renewal envisioned by Kuyper. Bavinck writes, The entirety of the rich life of nature and society exists thanks to God’s common grace. But why should he continue to preserve such a sinful world by a special action of his grace? Does he squander his gifts? Is he acting purposelessly? Is it not because natural life, in all its forms has value in his eyes in spite of sin’s corruption? The love of family and kin, societal and political life, art and science are all in themselves objects of his divine good pleasure. He delights also in these works of his hands. They all together constitute,

natural potential,” Imitation, 189fff. However, Bolt immediately uses this to emphasize the reorational relationship, and downplays the aspect of eschatological perfection. 180  Given his minority status, perhaps it should be said that Bavinck presents a real alternative to hierarchical dualisms. This is certainly Gordon Spykman’s enthusiastic view: “This approach by Bavinck offfers a real alternative to other major modern theologies. It corrects the persistent dilemmas arising out of Kant’s impact on modern thought. It reaches beyond the old dualisms. It is leads to a radical redefijinition of the age-old problem. It opens up new directions in theology. It alters refreshingly the very contours of dogmatics,” Reformational Theology, 70. It should be noted, however, that while Spykman takes a cue from Bavinck, his own “new paradigm” for dogmatics is grounded in notions decidedly other than those of Bavinck; e.g., his need for what he calls a “three-factor” outlook (his alternative to dualism) compels him to set up a structural or normative “word of God” (“creational norms”) to act as mediator between God and creation. The need for a third “mediating” factor presupposes, strangely enough, an inherent dualism or conflict between the two; C.f., 70–75.

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not in their mode of being but in their essence, the original order that God called into being at creation and that he still preserves and maintains, sin notwithstanding. Contempt for this divine order of creation is thus illegitimate; it flies in the face of experience and conflicts with Scripture. Here all separatism or asceticism is cut offf at the roots. All world-flight is a repudiation of the fijirst article of our Apostolic Creed. Christ indeed came to destroy the works of the devil. But more than that, he came to restore the works of the Father and so to renew man according to the image of him who fijirst created man.181

It is thus easy to see how Bavinck’s insistent rejection of Neoplatonic dualism throughout his account of the divine image supports the NeoCalvinist vision. All dualisms that ascribe to one aspect of created reality or another a higher, more “divine” importance result in, conversely, denigrating or downplaying the importance of other realms or spheres of nature. The perennial temptation, as Bavinck sees it, is to conclude that God is indiffferent not just to “square inches” but to wide swaths of human experience (i.e., so-called “secular” realms), thus fail to appreciate the antithesis between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world (1 Cor. 1:18–21), and, in turn, freely conform to the “basic principles of this world” (Col. 2:8). Or, alternatively, concluding that God despises the socalled “lower,” one might draw the antithesis in precisely the wrong place (grace opposing nature itself, not sin) and take flight from the world that God has created and maintains. Rome engages in both errors simultaneously (i.e., the worldly scholar and the monk) because they are in reality “branches of one trunk” and “based on the same principle,” namely, the dualism of “lower” and “higher.”182 Bavinck rejects any such dichotomy. One might say, to form a KuyperBavinck paraphrase, that there is not “one square inch” of creation in which God’s glory is not clearly seen, not one square inch about which God has ceased to care and maintain by common grace, and not one

181  “CG,” 60. Heideman, seeking to downplay the role of common grace in Bavinck’s theology and to distance him from Kuyper, suggests, alongside his bewildering declaration that the doctrine is incompatible with the trinitarian “grace restores nature” motif (note Bavinck’s explicit conjunction of the two in the immediate quote), that Bavinck “never developed it to a great principle in his system,” Relation of Revelation and Reason, 178, fn. 3. In view of the present treatment of Bavinck’s anthropology as a whole, this particular attempt to distance Bavinck from Kuyper is simply mistaken; c.f., Bolt, Imitation, 4–6; 163–71, esp. 77: “It is therefore precisely [...] to protect the trinitarian emphasis that grace restores nature [...] that Bavinck articulates his doctrine of common grace.” 182  “CG,” 48; this results in a dual morality that is arguably Bavinck’s greatest concern in his ethical thought; C.f., Bolt, Imitation, 88.

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square inch that is left unredeemed and unclaimed by Jesus Christ (i.e., Kuyper’s emphatic, “Mine!”); and, therefore, there is not one square inch of God’s creation about which followers of Christ can, to justify either an act of world-embrace or world-flight, regard him as either indiffferent or opposed.183 Bavinck’s anti-dualist anthropology, with both its ontological and historical dimensions, thus contributes the engine that drives NeoCalvinism’s program of world engagement in every sphere. Kuyper, with his inspiring rhetoric as the “movement leader, a ‘poet’ who efffectively utilized a ‘Christian-historical’ imagination,”184 provides the fuel.

183  C.f., RD, IV, 38: “The call, by law and gospel, restrains sin, diminishes guilt, and stems the corruption and misery of humankind. It is ‘repressive grace.’ It is proof that God is God, that he is indiffferent toward nothing, and that not only the world beyond but also this world has value to him”; the conjunction of Kuyper and Bavinck here should not obscure that there are arguable diffferences in their cultural-ethical ideal; C.f., Bolt, Imitation, 322–33. Bolt argues that Bavinck’s Neo-Calvinism, as distinct from Kuyper, is a more consistent reflection of Calvin’s ethic. 184  Bolt, A Free Church, xviii.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE FALL & LOSS OF THE IMAGE The Broad and Narrow The whole being, therefore, and not something in man but man himself, is the image of God. Further, sin, which precipitated the loss of the image of God in the narrower sense and spoiled and ruined the image of God in the broader sense, has profoundly afftected the whole person, so that, consequently, also the grace of God in Chri reores the whole person, and is of the greate significance for his or her whole life and labor, also in the family, society, the ate, art, science, and so forth.1

It is scarcely possible, within the confijines of this book, to do justice to Bavinck’s doctrine of sin, 160 pages covering sin’s origin, essence and punishment.2 Yet it is also scarcely possible for a book on the doctrine of the divine image to pass over Adam and Eve’s fall into sin and its consequences for their image-bearing. The most profijitable way to attempt an alleviation of these impossibilities is to briefly focus on the one remaining, central issue for Bavinck’s doctrine of the image of God: the distinction between the “broader” and “narrower” senses of the image, which, after all, together with the eschatology or destiny of the image comprise Bavinck’s “full” treatment of the doctrine.3 In distinction from the latter, the broader/narrower distinction only emerges in light of the fall. It represents the way in which Reformed theology has sought to articulate the continuities and discontinuities between the state of integrity and the state of sin. Having promised that the broader/narrower distinction is essential to the doctrine of the image, however, Bavinck surprisingly devotes little attention to it.4 This does not render Berkouwer completely justifijied in writing that Bavinck “did little to develop” the idea of the broader and

1

 RD, II, 554.  RD, III, 28–190. 3  RD, II, 550. 4  In fact, this is one instance where making recourse to his later one-volume work yields signifijicant dividends; C.f., MD, 225–29; ORF, 207–211. 2

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narrower senses of the image, or in his (as we will see, somewhat selfserving) conjecture that perhaps Bavinck sensed that such a distinction results in an inevitable ontological dualism.5 Rather, one reason so little explicit attention is given to the distinction is that it is necessarily implied in his doctrine of the image as a whole. Bavinck presumes that if one follows him this far, there is no alternative than to make the distinction. Vindicating this assumption, as will be seen, is that those who wish to avoid the distinction (e.g., Heideman, Berkouwer) are forced to reject Bavinck’s more basic metaphysical point that the image of God is constitutive of human nature; if the latter is true, then something like a broader/narrower distinction is inescapable. Bavinck gives a basic introduction to the concept: Reformed theologians continued to speak of the image of God in a broader and a narrower sense. In Holy Scripture they read that man, on the one hand, is still called the image of God after the fall and should be respected as such (Gen. 5:1; 9:6; Acts 17:28; 1 Cor. 11:7; James 3:9); and that, on the other hand, he had nevertheless lost the primary content of the image of God (i.e., knowledge, righteousness, and holiness) and only regains these qualities in Christ (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10).6

On this basis, then, the Reformers acknowledged that there is some sense in which the image of God is both lost (narrower) and retained (broader) by human beings after their fall into the state of sin.7 This is further underscored by Bavinck’s insistence that the “essence” of man is incorporated in the image of God.8 If the divine image is constitutive of human nature, as Bavinck is everywhere zealous to maintain, then human beings remain the image insofar as they remain human: “If human beings have the image of God, they do not become angels, and if they lose it, they do not become animals. Always and forever they remain human and to that extent are always and forever the image of God.”9

5

 Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 53, 61.  RD, II, 550. 7  Berkouwer, following Klaas Schilder, rejects traditional interpretations of these passages, denying that human beings are the image of God in their fallen state; C.f., Man: The Image of God, 56–9; see Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 17–19, 58–65, for a thorough response; note especially his pointed analysis of James 3:9 on p.20, where he argues that the perfect participle γεγοντας clearly indicates that the μοωσις is an abiding characteristic. 8  RD, II, 550; Bavinck adds that “Heppe is wrong when he asserts that Calvin and Zanchius did not teach this; C.f., H. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, rev. and ed. E. Bizer, trans. G.T. Thomson (reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), 232–33. 9  RD, II, 585. 6

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Conceiving the image in broader and narrower senses is not without difffijiculty, and it is important at the outset to recognize that the distinction only arises because of the advent of sin. Heideman’s comment is certainly worth bearing in mind: “In Bavinck’s doctrine of sin, then, one meets for the fijirst time something irrational. Sin cannot be made reasonable; to explain it is to deny it.”10 Its very irrationality renders a rationally satisfying explanation of its efffects on human nature impossible. Berkouwer comments that “it has proved impossible to bring any real clarity to this duality in the image [.%.%.%.] Despite all attempts to overcome the ‘antinomy’ involved and to develop a unifijied view of the image, the ‘twofold image’ remains stubbornly dualistic.”11 But the demand for “real clarity,” the resolution of an “antinomy” and the development of a “unifijied view” of the image seems, at very least, to under-appreciate the rationally inexplicable character of the subject matter. We are talking about sin, after all. Nevertheless, Berkouwer does raise a perennial difffijiculty: does not a “two-fold” image imply some kind of ontological dualism between two separable aspects of human nature? Does humanity lose “half%” of the image, and retain the other “half%” after the fall? Is the broader sense of the image the equivalent of abstract and formal human faculties (retained), and the narrower sense likewise the equivalent of the material content of knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (lost)? Has Bavinck’s attempt to avoid ontological dualism faltered precisely here? He himself speaks of the broader and narrower aspects of the image as “two components [that] together make up the full image of God,” a formulation that clearly implies that each aspect, distinct in content, comprises only a part of the whole.12 On the other hand, in the very same sentence he insists that the image in the narrower sense is “intimately bound up with” the image in the broader sense.13 That certainly lacks any real precision. Or again, using older scholastic terminology, he writes, “His [man’s] nature in the sense of substance or essence remained, but the moral qualities naturally belonging to his nature were lost.”14 The distinction is further complicated in that the terms “broader” and “narrower” are extremely flexible terms, and it is not intuitively obvious—

10

 Heideman, The Relation of Revelation & Reason, 164.  Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 61; C.f., Bremmer, Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 227. 12  RD, II, 554. 13  RD, II, 554. 14  RD, II, 553. 11

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nor does any particular method of discrimination suggest itself—which “aspects” of human nature belong to which “sense” of the image.15 Heideman takes the distinction as a rough parallel to Emil Brunner’s formal/ material distinction, in which fallen humanity strictly retains the former (human faculties) but loses the latter (human virtues).16 Anthony Hoekema, likewise, speaks of the distinction as encompassing structural (noun) and functional (verb) aspects of human nature, and argues that in the fall humanity retains the former and loses the latter.17 Similarly, Bremmer writes that for Bavinck, “The image of God in the broader sense is actually a formal condition for the function of the image of God in the narrower sense.”18 These articulations are all susceptible to the charge of ontological dualism, rather than mere duality, in that there is, as Berkouwer puts it, an “inner separation, which destroys the unity between the terms.”19 What inner unity is there, after all, if the loss of the narrower, material, functional, or “verbal” (however defijined) leaves the broader, formal, structural or “nominative” untouched and unafffected? These difffijiculties lead Berkouwer and Heideman to attempt a circumvention of the entire problem, redefijining the divine image along activistic, dynamic and “relational” lines rather than in the more traditional ontological, “constitutive” terms.20 As long as the image of God is considered to be constitutive of human nature, something resident in humanity, so to speak, then the fall openly exposes a latent ontological dualism between two distinct “parts” of human nature that are impossible to distinguish in anything but an arbitrary fashion. Moreover, it implies that some aspect of the divine image in humanity is necessarily unafffected by sin, which seems to resemble, strangely, Rome’s “natural man” absent the donum superadditum. In the views of Berkouwer and Heideman, only by denying 15

 One of Berkouwer’s criticisms is just this arbitrariness, Man: The Image of God, 60.  Heideman, Relation of Revelation & Reason, 171–2. 17  Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 72. Note the loose equivalence in his question, posed on page 70: “But, one may ask, what belongs to the image of God in the broader, formal, or ructural aspect?” Emphasis added. 18  Bremmer, Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 226: “Het beeld Gods in ruimer zin is eigenlijk formele voorwaarde voor het fungeren van het beeld Gods in enger zin.” 19  Berkouwer, Man, 212. 20  Berkouwer’s thirty-page “preliminary orientation” is almost entirely dedicated to calling into question the broader/narrower distinction and the ontology it presupposes; C.f., Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 37–66. Likewise, Heideman prefers the so-called “biblical” formulations over Bavinck’s allegedly Idealist, Neoplatonic and scholastic views, and proposes a “more fluid” view of the image of God; Heideman, Relation of Revelation & Reason, 171–75. 16

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that the image of God is something ontologically constitutive does one avoid this basic formal/material dualism. Heideman self-consciously reworks Bavinck’s doctrine so that the divine image is God’s presence and revealing activity rather than the constitutive “make-up” of humanity, which is itself a product of “the more idealistic line” in Bavinck’s thought.21 This allows the question of the presence or absence of the image to be more “fluid”: “To the extent that God is present to the natural man, the image is present. No longer is it a question concerning a constant remnant of the image in man, but instead it is a matter of how God is present to men and nations at various times and in various places.”22 This divine presence is what enables human reason (and, presumably, other faculties) to function properly, or to “fulfijill its offfijice.”23 Structure or ontology (the noun) is completely replaced by the relational and functional (the verb): “Insofar as God is present to reason and insofar as reason fulfijills its offfijice [.%.%.], the image has not been lost. Insofar as God is not present and insofar as reason does not fulfijill its offfijice, the image is lost.”24 Heideman justifijies this rather momentous redirection by supposing it a “possible development within the framework of Bavinck’s thought.”25 He admits that Bavinck “never fully developed this line of thought,” but offfers the rejoinder that he never fully developed the broader/narrower distinction either.26 As will be seen, this is something less than the truth. At any rate, because Heideman’s creative proposal completely vitiates what is incontestably of highest importance for Bavinck, i.e., the constitutive character of the image of God, it cannot be considered a legitimate development within the framework of his thought. Moreover, it involves

21

 Heideman, Relation of Revelation & Reason, 174, 185, 189 fn. 1.  Heideman, Relation of Revelation & Reason, 174. 23  Heideman, Relation of Revelation & Reason, 185. 24  Heideman, Relation of Revelation & Reason, 185. This emphasis on the strictly “offfijicial” character of the image is echoed by Spykman, who, having just lauded Bavinck’s insistence on the holistic and constitutive (i.e., “ontic”) character of the image, strangely concludes: “The biblical idea of imago Dei is therefore a relational, referential concept. It is not to be sought in some ontic quality within us. It has rather a dynamic, active, functional meaning [.%.%.%.] It is not a structural but a directional idea,” Spykman, Reformational Theology, 228. An ironic set of antitheses, given Spykman’s own rather virulent anti-dualism. 25  Heideman, Relation of Revelation & Reason, 183. He also relies on the work of H. Woelderink and H. Van Oyen. 26  Heideman, Relation of Revelation & Reason, 183. 22

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the notion, completely foreign to Bavinck, that God’s revelation can, at various times or places, be less than fully present to the natural man.27 Berkouwer, in contrast, seems to recognize that his rejection of the broader/narrower distinction is a departure from Bavinck’s view. He also believes that ontological construals of the image of God are inevitably caught up in a dualism between the formal human capacities (human nature) and the material human virtues (human action, or conformitas). In every attempt to delineate the “essence” or “nature” of humanity, “man’s relation to God is not considered, and it can only be added later, after we have described man’s essence; and it is then impossible to develop any ‘organic relationship’ between the two.”28 In other words, ontological accounts of the image necessarily abstract human nature from its relatedness to God, and thus the “ontic” cannot be integrated with functional conformity, resulting in a “stubborn” dualism.29 Berkouwer’s main concern seems to be that the two-fold view of the image implies that, subsequent to the fall, some ontic aspect of human nature remains untouched and unafffected by sin. Surely this is a valid concern, especially for Reformed theologians intent on observing the doctrine of total depravity, and it is one in substantial keeping with Bavinck’s own concerns regarding Rome’s donum superadditum, namely, the notion that fallen humanity simply reverts to its “natural” (or ethically “neutral”) condition. Indeed, many portrayals of the broader/narrower distinction, some of which were noted above, can appear to articulate little more than a Protestant version of Rome’s homo naturalis: Brunner’s formal-material, Hoekema’s structural-functional, or even, Berkouwer suggests, Kuyper’s imago essentialis-exientialis.30 He recognizes that in all of these conceptions, “the main point at issue is the problem of man’s humanitas, that

27  C.f., RD, I, 30, 321: “[F]rom the creation, from nature and history, from the human heart and conscience, there comes divine speech to every human. No one escapes the power of general revelation”; C.f., RD, II, 558–59; RD, III, 292. 28  Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 61. 29  Why this must be is rather obscure, because Berkouwer often presents historical description (what has, at times, been the case) as a kind of argumentative prescription (what logically must be the case). Here, he simply asserts repeatedly that ontological accounts necessarily subordinate the God-human relationship, which ignores that for Bavinck—whom Berkouwer is critiquing at precisely this juncture—a covenant relationship between the Creator and creature is itself conitutive of created exience. C.f., Bavinck’s opening paragraph in his doctrine of God: “[W]hen [theology] turns its attention to creatures, it views them only in relation to God as they exist from him and through him and for him,” RD, II, 29. 30  Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 39–41.

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which makes fallen man still man, together with the problem of the meaning of this humanum in relation to the image of God.”31 This is certainly Bavinck’s conviction: since the imago Dei is ontologically constitutive of humanity, insofar as humanity remains human it remains the image of God. Berkouwer’s solution to what he views as inevitable dualism, following Klaas Schilder, is to reject any ontological construal of the image of God, and instead to view it as nothing other than humanity’s active, dynamic relationship or communion with God.32 Hoekema reads this as substituting the verb for the noun: “For Berkouwer the image of God is only a verb: man ought to image God; since fallen man no longer images God, he is no longer an image-bearer of God.”33 This seems to be a correct reading, although he is under the illusion that this stands as a criticism of Berkouwer’s position, when it is likely the latter would gladly afffijirm it and invite Hoekema to join him in this rejection of “ontologism.”34 Regardless of his disagreement, Berkouwer recognizes that Bavinck himself cannot be accused of a crass dualism of “formal” and “material,” in which fallen humanity somehow retains the former in unpolluted integrity and yet loses the latter. Bavinck’s broader and narrower are not reducible to a Protestant version of Rome’s “natural man,” because the fall afffected not only the loss of human virtues (the “narrow”), but also “corrupted and devastated” human faculties (the “broader”).35 Moreover, it should be observed that Berkouwer’s entire move appears to be a case of semantic redirection. Having restored the divine image to what he views as its proper place, that of active divine-human communion (conformitas), he goes on to address the question of how human beings, having lost the image, remain human beings. It amounts to the suggestion that a distinction must be drawn between “humanness,” man’s “actual being,” and

31

 Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 52.  Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 56–63. This is consistent with his aversion to metaphysics generally; on his re-telling, Reformation history proceeds from an originally pure view of the image of God “as a relation” to a regrettable scholastic “orthodox ontologism,” 137. 33  Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 65. 34  Hoekema lacks appreciation for just how serious certain theologies are (Berkouwer included) in rejecting, variously, metaphysics, ontology, “onto-theology” or “ontologism” in favor of dynamic, actualistic characterizations of not only anthropology but theology proper. 35  Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 41. Of course, he then wishes to know the utility of retaining the distinction at all, 41fff. 32

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his “true humanity,” i.e., conformitas, the image of God.36 With no sense of irony Berkouwer suggests, “Scripture gives us no rational synthesis of this frightful duality.”37 In other words, the rejection of an ontological view of the image has not alleviated the problem of “duality” in the slightest, but simply relocated it; and, in fact, every objection Berkouwer raises against the two-fold image can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to his own two-fold notion of humanness. At this point, returning to Bavinck’s treatment proves instructive. First, the very reason he insists on the broader/narrower distinction is to avoid dualism, not foster it. His entire anthropology rests on the conviction that if the image of God is separable or disconnected from human nature, as both Heideman’s and Berkouwer’s more dynamic proposals do, then there is or was originally (even theoretically) such a thing as a “natural,” “image-less” human being; far from avoiding dualism, this is a virtual—if not literal—concession to Rome’s “natural man” and the donum superadditum. While the image may not be an ontological and superadded substance, it remains, whether conceived as divine presence and relation or proper human action and conformity, something nevertheless distinct and separable from human nature as such. Berkouwer laments that Bavinck never explicitly explains how the ontic and active aspects of the image are related “organically” rather than mechanically, but it is clear that replacing it with a distinction that explicitly displaces the one for the other (redefijining the image as active rather than ontic), is even more certain never to arrive at an organic synthesis.38 And, given the vigor of his previous argument that the broader and narrower distinction cannot “bring any real clarity,” “overcome the antinomy,” “develop a unifijied view”

36

 Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 64–5.  Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 65. Heretofore his entire problem with the broader/narrower distinction has been, of course, the inability to synthesize the two aspects, e.g., 61. One is left to wonder whether he has any reason, aside from an obviously self-serving interest, for labeling his distinction between humanness and true humanity a “duality” while insisting that the broader and narrower view is “dualism.” 38  Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 61. As already seen, Bavinck is not as cryptic as Berkouwer suggests; notably, in his entire monograph on the image of God, Berkouwer never integrates into his discussion the covenant of works or eschatology, beyond the more narrow question of the immortality of the soul. His apparent insensitivity to the underlying eschatological structure of Bavinck’s thought—which he seems to reject, in any event—is a possible root of his misunderstanding. C.f., RD, II, 543: “Remember further that Christ not only acquired what Adam lost but also what Adam, in the way of obedience, would have gained. The salvifijic benefijits of the covenant of grace, therefore, far surpass the reach of all our thoughts; but nothing in Scripture even hints at the notion that it is all a ‘superadditive’ that originally did not belong to our human nature.” Emphasis added. 37

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or work out “any synthesis between the two aspects,”39 it is surely special pleading to now invoke Scripture’s reserve and “lack of rational synthesis” when confronted with the duality of his own position.40 Second, as Berkouwer himself notes, Bavinck’s view is not the equivalent of a formal/material distinction.41 He emphasizes the unity of structure and function, the human faculties and human virtues. Over against a naturalistic view of human nature, he writes, “Man was not created as a neutral being with morally indiffferent powers and potentialities, but immediately made physically and ethically mature with knowledge in the mind, righteousness in the will, holiness in the heart.”42 Here faculties (physical) and virtues (ethical) are inseparably related; head, hands, and heart are inconceivable without knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. This echoes an earlier critique of naturalism’s moral indiffference, that it “erases the boundaries that exist between the state of integrity and the state of corruption, and allows man to keep intact the image of God, which exis in something purely formal, even after the fall.”43 In other words, it is precisely because there is an inner unity (that is, not a separable dualism) between the broader human faculties and the narrower human virtues that the loss of virtue (e.g., original righteousness) cannot possibly leave the former untouched by sin. The loss of the one entails the corruption of the other. In this vein, Bavinck writes, By observing this distinction [i.e., broader/narrower] in Scripture and incorporating it in their theology, Reformed theologians have maintained the bond between the physical and the ethical nature of man, and thereby at this point (the relation between nature and grace) kept themselves from falling into various errors.44

This is a repeated emphasis. He contends that the Lutheran view that the image is totally lost after the fall entails that the “connection between nature and grace, between creation and re-created is totally denied. The supernaturalist view is still at work here; the image of God stands alongside nature, is detatched from it, and is above it.”45 By contrast, Reformed

39

 Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 61.  Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 65. 41  Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 41. Contra Heideman, Relation of Revelation & Reason, 171–2, and Bremmer, Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 226. 42  RD, II, 557–8; C.f., RD, IV, 91–92. 43  RD, II, 539, emphasis added. 44  RD, II, 550. 45  RD, II, 554. 40

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theology, by maintaining the broader/narrower distinction, “has most soundly maintained the connection between substance and quality, nature and grace, creation and re-creation.”46 It is in this context that he admits that the distinction has often been conceived “too mechanically and needs to be further developed organically.”47 Presumably, he means by this that the distinction is susceptible to being treated as the equivalent of form/matter dualism; but, “Nevertheless, Reformed theology has most vividly brought out the fact that the image of God in the narrower sense is most intimately bound up with that image in the broader sense, and that the two components together make up the full image of God.”48 What this means practically is that the loss of human virtue does not leave human faculties formally untouched by sin; Reformed theologians taught that the virtues, particularly original righteousness, are inseparable from the idea of man as such and that it referred to the normal state, the harmony, the health of a human being; that without it a human cannot be true, complete or normal. When man loses that image of God, he does not simply lose a substance while still remaining fully human. Rather, he becomes an abnormal, a sick, a spiritually dead human being, a sinner. He then lacks something that belonged to his nature, just as a blind man loses his sight, a deaf man his hearing, and a sick man his health [.%.%.%.] There is no intermediate state between man as image of God and man as sinner. He is either a son of God, his offfspring, his image, or he is a child of wrath, dead in sins and trespasses.49

The loss of the narrower image, therefore, also “spoiled and ruined” the image of God in the broader sense and “profoundly afffected the whole person.”50 Human beings do not lose “half%” of the image on account of sin and retain the other “half,” as though faculties and virtues are somehow separable. A head without knowledge of God, a heart without the worship of God, and hands without service to God are not normal but spiritually dead faculties. Bavinck elsewhere vividly draws the connection between faculties and virtues this way: “[S]in [.%.%.] has robbed man of innocence, righteousness, and holiness [i.e., virtues], has corrupted his heart, darkened his underanding, inclined his will [i.e., faculties] to evil, turned his

46

 RD, II, 554.  RD, II, 554. 48  RD, II, 554. 49  RD, II, 551. 50  RD, II, 554. 47

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inclinations right-about-face, and placed his body and all its members in the service of unrighteousness.”51 What service does the distinction provide, if this is the case? It serves to highlight that although the faculties of mind, heart, and will are profoundly corrupted, they remain human faculties nonetheless. This is the import of Bavinck’s insistence that “Man lost none of his substance as a result of sin [.%.%.%.] His nature in the sense of substance or essence remained, but the moral qualities naturally belonging to his nature were lost.”52 It is here that scholars like Berkouwer think that the weakness of scholastic terminology, “substance” and “essence,” emerges. Describing the broader sense of the image as something ontological that humanity, in itself, retains after the fall, seems not only to do violence to the doctrine of total depravity, it also, perhaps more importantly, does not seem to take into account divine action, or the God-human relationship in speaking of humanity’s continued existence.53 However, it is important to remember that for Bavinck the divinehuman relationship, by way of covenant, is itself constitutive of human existence. There is not, nor has there ever been, a human being “in itself%” apart from its relationship to God; there is no such thing as homo naturalis in either the Pelagian or Roman Catholic sense. In fact, “No truly good and perfect human being is even conceivable apart from the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.”54 If this is true, then that relationship must, in fact, remain even after the fall, if humanity in any sense remains human. Wholly consistent with this emphasis, Bavinck accounts for the “retaining” of the image of God by directly relating it to his doctrine of common grace.55 The conception of a broader and narrower sense of the image “acknowledges the grace of God which, after the fall, too, permitted man to remain man and continued to regard him and deal with him as a rational, moral, and responsible being. And at the same time, it holds that man, bereft of the

51  ORF, 207–8; C.f., MD, 225, emphasis added; C.f., RD, III, 367. This is further reinforced when, in his soteriology, Bavinck underscores that regeneration radically afffects not only human actions, but human faculties; C.f., RD, IV, 90–92: “Sin [.%.%.] is an inner moral corruption of the whole person, not only of one’s thought, words, and deeds but also of one’s intellect and will [.%.%.%.] And for that reason, according to Scripture, regeneration consists and can exist in nothing less than the total renewal and re-creation of human beings”; 93–94. 52  RD, II, 553. 53  Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 61fff. 54  RD, II, 558. 55  Bolt, Imitation, 168: “The distinction between the image of God in a broader and narrower sense is directly related to the doctrine of common grace.”

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image of God, is wholly corrupted and inclined to all evil.”56 Thus, both the doctrine of total depravity and the concept of an ever-present divine grace—which is nothing less than God’s continuing action to maintain humanity in relationship to himself—are preserved and articulated in the broader/narrower distinction. Summarizing the genius of Calvin in his lecture on common grace, he writes: God did not leave sin alone to do its destructive work. He had, and, after the fall, continued to have a purpose for his creation; he interposed common grace between sin and the creation—a grace that, while it does not inwardly renew, nevertheless restrains and compels. All that is good and true has its origin in this grace, including the good we see in fallen man. The light still shines in the darkness. The spirit of God makes its home and works in all the creation. Consequently, traces of the image of God continue in mankind. Understanding and reason remain, and he possesses all sorts of natural gifts.57

Note that here, fijirst, common grace is explicitly described as the divine action of the Holy Spirit continuing to “make its home” in the fallen world as the source of all good things; he is the light still shining in the darkness. Second, humanity’s retaining of “traces” of the image of God— and specifijically human faculties are mentioned here—is consequent, not on an autonomous ontological aspect of human nature untouched by sin, but on the work of God the Spirit refusing to allow sin to do its “destructive work.” Common grace, by enabling even corrupted minds to think, corrupted hearts to desire, and corrupted wills to act, ensures that there remains in history a humanity capable of being saved. It is “interposed” in history between fallen Adam and Eve and the eschatological judgment. God did allow the Gentiles to walk in their own ways, writes Bavinck, “but he did not leave them; he did not leave himself without witnesses to them but revealed himself to them through the works of his hands.”58 Depraved and sinful as it is in its fallen condition, humanity was thus “led by this grace” prior to the coming of the one who would redeem it, and common grace thus “prepared for his coming” in the fullness of time.59 For Bavinck, then, the broader/narrower distinction does not privilege or isolate some 56

 ORF, 211.  “CG,” 51, emphasis added; C.f., RD, III, 218: “Everything that after the fall is still good even in sinful humans in all areas of life [.%.%.] is the fruit of God’s common grace”; RD, IV, 34. 58  RD, III, 218; C.f., 197. 59  RD, III, 218–19. 57

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autonomous corner of the human constitution, but rather attempts, in perhaps an ultimately unsatisfying fashion, to rationally articulate both the depths of human depravity and the still deeper mystery of God’s continuing grace, a grace that prepares the way for one who would, conquering sin and death, restore and perfect humanity to its original destiny of glorious, incorruptible fellowship with God. To Bavinck’s account of this Redeemer we now turn.

CHAPTER FIVE

CHRIST & THE IMAGO DEI Introduction The world was so created that when it fell, it could again be reored; humanity was organized under a single head in such a way that, sinning, it could again be gathered together under another head. Adam was so appointed as head that Chri could immediately take his place; and the covenant of works was so set up that, broken, it could be reored in the covenant of grace.1

Before directly considering Bavinck’s Christology, several preliminary remarks are appropriate. As we have seen, in order to counter the prevalent 19th century forms of pantheism, Bavinck articulates his doctrine of the image by fijirst stressing the Creator-creature distinction and rejecting wholesale any Neoplatonic commingling of divine and human natures (Chapter One), and, second, by arguing for a creational eschatology (Chapter Two), which undermines ontological dualism on the historical plane. His anthropology is built from two perspectives, then: an ontological, “vertical” axis and an historical, “horizontal” axis. Chapter Three explored the implications of these for Adam’s image-bearing, and we will now consider their implications for Christology. One might expect to fijind here an equally heavy emphasis on the vertical and horizontal, the Creator-creature distinction and creational eschatology. This is indeed the case, and therefore, rather than an exhaustive exposition of Bavinck’s entire treatment of Christology (which includes lengthy critiques of modern liberal Christologies and “searches” for the “historical Jesus,” among other things) discussion will be limited to several key issues that serve to highlight the implications of his theological foundations on his doctrine of the person of Christ. Secondly, the direction this approach runs, from theological foundations to Christology, raises another important observation: Bavinck’s treatment of God, creation, covenant and image sets the overall architecture of his theological system, and provide the foundations on which he builds and develops his Christology. The arrangement and method of his 1

 RD, III, 278.

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Dogmatics should make it obvious that Bavinck’s system is not congenial to various 20th century “Christological” arrangements of dogmatics. His doctrines of God, creation, covenant and image do not in any visible way flow from prior Christological commitments; it is, rather, quite the opposite.2 Any doubt that this is the case should be erased when his treatment of the incarnation begins by considering three “preparations” for the coming of Christ: not surprisingly, they are essentially those just considered in this book, the Triune God, creation, and the history of revelation (e.g., covenant). In other words, volume two of the Dogmatics, on God and creation, precedes volume three, on sin and salvation in Christ, not simply in terms of chronological sequence, but by logical design. In his prolegomena he writes, [T]hough Christ is quite certainly the central focus and main content of Scripture, he cannot be its starting point. Christ presupposes the existence of God and humanity. He did not make his historical appearance immediately at the time of the promise [in Eden] but many centuries later. It is, moreover, undoubtedly true that Christ revealed the Father to us, but this revelation of God through the Son does not nullify the many and varied ways he spoke through the prophets.3

At the beginning of his treatment of the incarnation, he reiterates the point, that the doctrine of Christ, while “not the starting point” of dogmatics, certainly is the central point of the whole system of dogmatics. All other dogmas either prepare for it or are inferred from it. In it, as the heart of dogmatics, pulses the whole of the religious-ethical life of Christianity. It is the ‘mystery of godliness’ (1 Tim. 3:16). From this mystery all Christology has to proceed.4

2  This should not be understood as saying that Bavinck’s theology is not Christ-centered. Given humanity’s great need and God’s even greater grace, the mediatorial person and work of Jesus Christ is of paramount importance in his dogmatic system. What this does mean is that Bavinck believes a truly scriptural dogmatic method will begin where Scripture begins, and that is not soteriology. 3  RD, I, 110. To his credit, Hielema senses that his assertion that Bavinck’s theological method is Christological runs into problems, at one point writing, “It would appear that this discussion [...] belies the assertion that Bavinck’s theology is Christocentric,” Eschatological Underanding, 72. But the persuasiveness of his positive argument is undermined by his fijirst suggested constructive thesis building on Bavinck, which attempts to squeeze him into a more Barthian version of Christocentrism: “Thesis one: the person and work of Jesus Chri, centered on the cross and the empty tomb, provide the ontological foundation for both the goal of redemption and the relationship between God and the creation,” 295. Bavinck is here admittedly not Christocentric enough, on Hielema’s read, because he does not ground the God-world relationship in Christology. Hielema’s case is further weakened by never citing or interacting with Bavinck’s explicit rejection of a Christological starting point. 4  RD, III, 274.

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Although it is a mystery, the incarnation is not, for Bavinck, a complete novum; while on the one hand it is utterly unique, extraordinary, and therefore without precedent, it is nevertheless not without what he calls, variously, “presuppositions,” “foundations” and “preparations.” If the person and work of Christ is truly the center and focal point of history, then it cannot be, from the historical perspective, an “accident” but instead “must have been prepared from before the ages and have its efffects throughout eternity.”5 The history of redemption itself, from the fall onward, Bavinck argues, is God’s extended preparation for his own coming.6 Yet, with an eye surely to German Idealism, Bavinck writes, “[T]hough in his incarnation Christ connected with preceding revelation and prepared his own coming by way of nature and history, he is not a product of the past nor the fruit of Israel or humanity.”7 Thus, the three “preparations” for the incarnation he articulates are not Hegelian necessities for God or the inevitable outworkings of history. They are rather more like “preconditions for the possibility” of incarnation.8 One senses here a reemergence of a central concern. Throughout his Christology he opposes any notion of “necessity” applied to the incarnation of Christ. It is not a divine necessity, not a creational necessity and not an historical necessity. And yet, it remains the central focus of scripture and the central point of dogmatics. Given this centrality, and that at one and the same time the incarnation can be neither a divine necessity nor an “accident” of history, Bavinck deems it of utmost importance to carefully consider the grounds of both its ontological possibility (vertical) and historical signifijicance (horizontal).9 This he does by relating the incarnation to the Trinity, creation, and the history of revelation. Incarnation & “Preparatio” The fijirst of Bavinck’s “preparations” for the incarnation is a discussion of how God’s triune character opens up the possibility of the hypostatic union. Because this leads directly into the subject matter of the following section, “The Personal Union of Two Natures,” the present exposition of his “preparations” will proceed in an order the reverse of his: fijirst, the

5

 RD, III, 274.  RD, III, 280. 7  RD, III, 282. 8  C.f., Bolt, Imitation, 246. 9  C.f., RD, III, 277: “The incarnation [...] is not a necessity as in pantheism, but neither is it arbitrary or accidental as in Pelagianism.” 6

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history of revelation, second, the doctrine of creation, and third, the doctrine of the Trinity.10 One hopes, given the narrower focus here, that the re-arrangement does little violence to the substance of Bavinck’s treatment. As just suggested in the quote from his prolegomena above, the theologian is obligated to give an account of just why there were, if the incarnation of Christ is the central focus and main content of scripture, in fact many intervening centuries between God’s initial promise in the Garden of Eden and Christ’s actual historical appearance. Scripture’s own account is provided, on Bavinck’s read, in its speaking of the “fullness of time (Eph. 1:10; Gal. 4:4).” This language suggests “that this delay was not an accident or an arbitrary thing, but thus determined by God in his wisdom.”11 The intervening history was not a result of God’s idleness but rather his preparing the way, “[B]y all sorts of means and ways,” for the incarnation.12 And the action of God by which this preparation took place is identifijied by Bavinck as revelation. Taking his cue from John’s prologue, Bavinck views the work of revelation as taking place from the beginning of creation and continuing after the fall: Not only was the Logos in the beginning with God and himself God and not only were all things made by him, but from the moment of creation this Logos also communicated his life and light to creatures. For in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. Even after the fall, this revelation did not stop. On the contrary, the light of that Logos shone in the darkness and enlightened everyone coming into the world.13

Bavinck sees two things of signifijicant import in John’s prologue: fijirst, a temporal sequence. The terms “life” and “light of all men” (John 1:4) are, he believes, pre-incarnate predicates of the eternal Logos, who created all things; this is because the light “shines in the darkness” (v.5), a phrase further expanded when John goes on to write (as Bavinck reads it according to his more dubious translation) that the Logos was the true light which “enlightened everyone coming into the world” (v.9).14 This indicates that 10  Given this re-ordering, the reason for his original arrangement should be noted: Bavinck self-consciously proceeds along a temporal sequence from eternity (Trinity) to the beginning of time (creation) to the fullness of time (incarnation). 11  RD, III, 280. 12  RD, III, 280. 13  RD, III, 280. 14  Taking ρχμενον as having τ φς τ !ληθινν as its antecedent rather than 'νθρωπον is actually the stronger translation in support of his position. If the true light that (already)

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the divine action of giving light, i.e., revelation, was ongoing from creation to incarnation. Second, Bavinck not so much explicitly notes but assumes a distinction between Jew and Gentile in the text. Immediately after describing the light as enlightening “everyone” he adds: “He revealed himself particularly in Israel, which he had chosen for his own inheritance and led and blessed as Angel of the covenant.”15 Although he does not spell it out here, this is derived from the distinction in the text between κοσμος (world) and =δια (his own), the universal and the particular: “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (vv.10–11).16 This rather nicely corresponds with Bavinck’s understanding of general and special revelation: [T]he Son prepared the whole world, including Jews as well as Gentiles, for his coming in the flesh. The world and humanity, land and people, cradle and stable, Bethlehem and Nazareth, parents and relatives, nature and environment, society and civilization—these are all components in the fullness of the times in which God sent his Son into the flesh. It was the Son himself who thus immediately after the fall, as Logos and as Angel of the covenant, made the world of Gentiles and Jews ready for his coming.17

The incarnation, Bavinck contends, “links up” with all preceding revelation, general (i.e., as “Logos”) and special (i.e., as “Angel of the covenant”), and, moreover, “[i]t stands and falls with them.”18 As a preparation for the incarnation, the importance of the whole of God’s revelation of himself in world history generally and in the history of his covenant relationship with Israel specifijically is twofold. First, this accents the decidedly “non-accidental” character of the incarnation. By way of revelation, Christ was “in the process of coming from the beginning of time and in the end he came for good, by his incarnation making his home in humankind.”19 In this way Christ, though not the “starting point,” is certainly the main

gives light to every man is what is referred to as “coming into the world,” then it is clear that “giving light” precedes the incarnation. 15  RD, III, 280. 16  C.f., ORF, 284–5; RD, IV, 51: “Even before his incarnation, after all, Christ worked in the world as Logos (1:1–13). As light he shone in the world, but the world did not recognize him (1:5, 9–10). He came to his own, to Israel, but his own did not receive him (1:11).” 17  RD, III, 280; RD, IV, 33–34, 40. 18  RD, III, 280. Interested readers should consult Bavinck’s full discussion on general revelation, RD, I, 302–22. 19  RD, III, 280.

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point. Yet this purposeful work of historical preparation is not, on the other hand, an historical necessity, but is grounded in an antecedent divine determination.20 Second—and this is crucial—it serves to bind together nature and grace on the horizontal level. The rich signifijicance of general revelation is that “it keeps nature and grace, creation and re-creation, the world of reality and the world of values, inseparably connected.”21 God’s revelation in creation, nature and history, the human heart and conscience, insufffijicient though it is because of sin and its non-redemptive character, nevertheless “preserves humankind in order that it can be found and healed by Christ until it is.”22 In other alternatives, religious life “exists in detachment from and alongside of ordinary human existence. The image of God then becomes a ‘superadded gift’ (donum superadditum).”23 On the contrary, general revelation maintains the unity of nature and grace, the world and the kingdom of God, natural and moral orders, creation and recreation, ϕυσις and ethos, virtue and happiness, holiness and blessedness, and “in all these things the unity of the divine being.”24 Therefore, one implication of Bavinck’s notion that in the incarnation the Son “links up” with preceding revelation speaks directly to the question of historical signifijicance: precisely because the eternal Son prepared for himself a home

20

 Bavinck’s doctrine of the pactum salutis will be briefly discussed in Chapter Six.  RD, I, 322. 22  RD, I, 322. General revelation here, it seems, is virtually synonymous with Bavinck’s doctrine of common grace; C.f., RD, I, 319; RD IV, 33; PR, 190–93. Given that Bavinck’s doctrines of common grace and general revelation are explicitly designed to hold together— and ultimately bring together in Christ—creation and redemption, Jeremy Begbie’s view is surprising: “The end result of working with such a legislative and determinative theology of creation is that a damaging gulf opens up between the orders of creation and redemption, ironically the very rift which the Neo-Calvinists are so anxious to heal. The notion of common grace only deepens the split, for it is usually rendered in impersonal and abstract terms as an expression and enactment of God’s will in the world at large, in contrast to special grace which reveals God’s unmerited love in saving his chosen people,” Begbie, “Creation, Christ and Culture in Dutch Neo-Calvinism,” in Chri In Our Place, Trevor Hart and Daniel Thimell, eds. (Exeter: Paternoster, 1989), 126, emphasis added. Begbie’s analysis as a whole has at least two problems: fijirst, he frequently assumes that a critique of Dooyeweerd is a critique of Kuyper and Bavinck, when it is highly questionable whether the former’s philosophically-oriented “cosmonomic idea” is suited to describe the views of the latter; second, Begbie assumes a priori the legitimacy of Barth’s critique of Reformed scholasticism’s federal theology, and thereby reads Bavinck’s defense of the covenant of works as a defense of a “thoroughly legalistic doctrine of creation,” 123–4. As demonstrated in chapter two, little could be further from the truth. 23  RD, I, 322. 24  RD, I, 322. Contra Begbie’s assertion that Bavinck’s view “destroys” the unity of God’s being, “Creation, Christ and Culture,” 126. 21

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in the world (by not leaving himself without a witness) his incarnation has signifijicance for the world.25 Moreover, the possibility of incarnation itself is another implication of God’s revelation; in fact, “the possibility of incarnation is inherently included in [...] revelation.”26 This is because, he suggests, revelation and incarnation, though certainly not identical,27 are based on the same principle, that of the communicability of God, both ad intra (generation) and ad extra (creation), the latter of which is, conveniently enough, the next “preparation” to consider. Creation itself is a preparation for (or better, for reasons that will become clear, precondition for the possibility of) incarnation. The doctrine of creation entails that God is able to communicate himself, that is, give existence to, fijinite creatures within the bounds of space and time.28 The reader may recall from the lengthy discussion in Chapter One that, according to Bavinck, God does so without that created world being either an extension of his own being or a process in his own inner life; this implies that in his creatures God “has, as it were, limited his eternal thoughts and infijinite power.”29 God, as archetype, has created a fijinite, creaturely, analogous ectype. The reader is immediately reminded of the importance of the distinction between Creator and creature precisely here, because, Bavinck writes, “[u]nder the influence of a pantheistic doctrine of identity

25  This conceptual and temporal distinction between the eternal Son and the incarnate Christ will reappear, but here it should be noted that Begbie believes that it is a “curious type of Nestorianism in Neo-Calvinist christology,” Begbie, “Creation, Christ and Culture,” 127. Rather, he desires a “thorough integration of creation and redemption by means of the headship of Chri as man,” emphasis his. First, the distinction is not unique to NeoCalvinism; Calvin himself taught, in addition to the so-called extra-calviniicum, a distinction between the eternal Son as mediator of creation and the incarnate Son as mediator of redemption (Initutes, II.xii, 5,7), as did many others in the Reformed orthodox tradition (C.f., RD, III, 279). Second, it is difffijicult to see how the Son’s headship over creation can be conceived exclusively in terms of his humanity, for he who created was not a man; he became flesh in space and time. John’s prologue does not begin with verse 14. Finally, Begbie claims that Bavinck’s conception of Christ’s lordship over the world is “not as the crucifijied and risen Man in whom the created order is reconciled to its Maker,” 127. He cites ORF, 384; sufffijice it to say, little on that page or the surrounding context justifijies this claim, and the governing chapter title should provide a clue that Bavinck’s view is precisely the opposite: “The Work of Christ in His Exaltation.” The distinction Bavinck does make on page 384 is between two manifeations of Christ’s power (as the exalted God-Man) over the universe: a “sovereignty of grace” to his church, and a “sovereignty of power” over his enemies. 26  RD, III, 281. 27  RD, III, 278: “[W]hile the incarnation is certainly diffferent from all other revelation, it is also akin to it: it is its climax, crown, and completion.” 28  RD, III, 277. 29  RD, III, 277. C.f., Ch. 1 (above).

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[...] modern theology has greatly abused this reality.”30 Modern theology replaces the old rule, finitum non e capax infiniti, with a new one, homo divinae naturae capax (“man is capable of the divine”), which, Bavinck admits, does point to the natural kinship between God and humanity, yet “wipe[s] out the distinction between the two and proceed[s] from the idea that the incarnation (humanization) was necessary for the perfecting of both.”31 While both of these options are prohibited to Christian theism, Bavinck nonetheless argues that humanity is “akin to God,” his image, his son and offfspring: When God creates humans in his image and dwells and works with his Spirit in them, exerts influence on their heart and head, speaks to them, and makes himself known to them and understood by them, that is an act of condescension and accommodation to his creature, an anthropomorphizing of God and so, in a sense and to that extent, a humanization of God. Given with and in creation is the possibility of revelation and also of incarnation.32

Moreover, Bavinck goes on to argue, since the possibility of incarnation is “given with” creation itself, denial of the incarnation is tantamount to— and is often explicitly accompanied by—denial of creation: “Those who accept the latter [creation] have fundamentally lost the right to combat the former [incarnation].”33 This is reminiscent of his treatment of creation under the locus of the Trinity. There, he argues that the intratrinitarian relations ad intra provide the archetypal possibility for God’s creation ad extra.34 Now he takes this argument a signifijicant step further: not only does eternal generation entail the possibility of creation, but it entails the possibility of incarnation: “Now we must add that if God was able to create (and could reveal himself to) beings essentially distinct from him, then he must also be able to become human. For while the incarnation is certainly diffferent from all other revelation, it is also akin to it: it is its climax, crown, and completion.”35 Drawing this kind of close connection between the ad intra

30

 RD, III, 277.  RD, III, 277. 32  RD, III, 277. 33  RD, III, 277. 34  C.f., Ch. 1 (above). Bavinck here notes the similarity: “Earlier we saw that the possibility of creation is given with the generation of the Son,” RD, III, 277. 35  RD, III, 278. 31

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generation of the Son and the ad extra works of creation and incarnation without further qualifijication would seem to come perilously close to the kind of pantheism against which Bavinck has just warned: namely, that eternal generation, as an aspect of God’s inner life, somehow necessarily results in creation and incarnation, thus obliterating the foundational maxim finitum non e capax infiniti. Predictably, then, Bavinck offfers an important caveat: “Generation, creation and incarnation are closely related, even if the latter ones do not necessarily flow from the preceding.”36 This is, indeed, a crucial qualifijication, for it underscores Bavinck’s aversion to any notion of necessity attaching to the incarnation, which (according to him)—perhaps inevitably—involves one in a pantheistic commingling of the Divine and creaturely; therefore, Bavinck is zealous to maintain that incarnation is rictly a redemptive and soteriological event.37 With exactly this interest in mind, he now adds this: “But there is more. Creation itself already must be conceived in infralapsarian fashion, and Adam was already a type of Christ.”38 He argues that this view is unacceptable “from the standpoint of those who think that God proceeded to the work of creation without a plan or decree and at the creation passively awaited to see what humans would do.”39 Careful readers may be initially confused by this. This last allegation, that God created without a pre-ordained plan, is precisely what supralapsarians have historically argued again infralapsarians. What could Bavinck possibly mean when he asserts that infralapsarianism secures rather than loses divine predetermination for creation? This seems to be directly inverse to the historical debate; after all, it is supralapsarianism that argues that God proceeded to creation (and fall) with the decree of election and reprobation (i.e., divine purpose) already settled. The key to unraveling this conundrum is to realize that Bavinck has lifted the terminology of the lapsarian debate from its native soil and redefijined it for related, though quite diffferent purposes. Historically, the issue addressed in the order of God’s decrees was precise and technical, narrowly centering around whether the decree of election and reprobation preceded (supra) or followed (infra) the decree of the fall. Here Bavinck

36

 RD, III, 278, emphasis added.  C.f., Bolt, Imitation, 248–9: “[T]he reality of revelation as a kind of incarnation, even as preparation for the incarnation of the Logos, does not imply the absolute necessity of the incarnation of the Logos itself.” 38  RD, III, 278. 39  RD, III, 278. 37

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has changed the referents substantially: here he is concerned with whether the decree to create (note, the material question is not election) preceded (supra) or followed (infra) the decree of the fall. On this scheme, Bavinck is not arguing the lapsarian question with respect to election and reprobation at all, but rather with respect to creation.40 Thus, he advocates that God’s decree to create followed (infra) the decree to permit the fall into sin (lapsum). In this sense, “In the act of creation, God already had the Christ in mind. In that sense the creation itself already served as a preparation for the incarnation.”41 By understanding creation in this infralapsarian sense, Bavinck can maintain (consistent with the scriptural witness) that Adam was a “type” of Christ; not that creation renders God already committed to the incarnation irrespective of sin (a move he believes tends toward pantheism, as will be seen), but that creation’s fall and restoration was already in view when God created. He explains, The world was so created that when it fell, it could again be restored; humanity was organized under a single head in such a way that, sinning, it could again be gathered together under another head. Adam was so appointed as head that Christ could immediately take his place; and the covenant of works was so set up that, broken, it could be restored in the covenant of grace. People were therefore wrong in thinking that the incarnation of the Son of God would also have taken place without sin.42

The intimate connection between creation and incarnation does not commit him to a relationship of logical or ontological necessity precisely because the soteriological signifijicance of the incarnation is already contemplated in God’s creation of the cosmos. Viewing creation as infralapsarian allows him to afffijirm the connection between the creation of Adam

40  It should be noted here that his treatment of the classic question of supra and infralapsarianism is vintage Bavinck: a strong resistance to reductionism, in which he denies that either view provides an ultimately satisfying explanation, and recognizes both elements of truth and, at the same time, elements of one-sidedness that ought to be avoided. He concludes that the question of logical order in God’s singular decree ought to move one to modesty. C.f., RD, II, 361–366; 382–392. He explicitly notes that one element of truth in classic supralapsarianism is that “from the very beginning the creation was designed to make re-creation possible; and that even before the fall, in the creation of Adam, things were structured with a view to Christ,” 391; see also J. Mark Beach’s editorial introduction to Saved By Grace: The Holy Spirit’s Work in Calling and Regeneration (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008), xvi–xx, for an outstanding summary of Kuyper’s and Bavinck’s respective views on the lapsarian question. 41  RD, III, 278. 42  RD, III, 278, emphasis added.

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and the incarnation of Christ (Adam was a “type”) without suggesting that God’s creation of Adam made the incarnation necessary. This is confijirmed when he proceeds to address the question directly whether the incarnation would have taken place without sin. He notes that the question has a lengthy history in medieval scholasticism, and he exhibits a genuinely surprising amount of appreciation for the view.43 Regarding all its standard rationales—the non-accidental character of the incarnation, the inviolability of God’s purposes, that religion is the same before and after the fall, that a mediator is always necessary, that Christ’s work is not exhausted in the work of atonement and that he is not merely a means but an end in himself—“These considerations contain so much truth that the agreement elicited by the hypothesis of the incarnation of God apart from sin is not surprising.”44 Further, it is an attractive hypothesis to those holding a Pelagian view of the freedom of the will, because it allows one to reconcile human freedom with the divine will by suggesting that the incarnation of Christ was already determined and that sin— which is a genuine accident and disappointment for God—only modifijied the divine plan on a subordinate point.45 Nevertheless, Bavinck suggests, “On the basis of Augustine’s standpoint and more specifijically on that of Reformed theology [...] there is no need for this entire hypothesis.”46 There is, in fact, only one counsel of God, one plan and decree; accordingly, there “is no room for any reality other than the existing one.”47 And in this decree, sin—however much the result of creatures—is included and not at all contingent or unforeseen. Therefore, included in this eternal decree is also the incarnation of Christ on account of sin. Furthermore, Reformed theology (following Calvin) deflects the criticism that this somehow devalues or de-centers Christ by maintaining

43  Among those who argued for the incarnation apart from sin, Bavinck lists Rupert von Deutz, Duns Scotus, Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, John Wessel, Catharinus, Phighius, Suárez, Osiander and Socinus. It appears that he has missed the fijirst theologian to explicitly articulate the view: Maximus the Confessor (580–662); C.f., Georges Florovsky, Creation & Redemption (Belmont, Mass: Nordland, 1976), 167–8. Not coincidentally, Maximus was an early advocate of Neoplatonism, especially its notion that the incarnation is necessary for the divinization of humanity; C.f., Isaac Dorner, The Doctrine of the Person of Chri (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1876) II.1:188, fn. 3. 44  RD, III, 279. 45  RD, III, 279. 46  RD, III, 279. Bolt argues that Bavinck’s Augustinian view of the decree is of decisive importance here; Imitation, 246. 47  RD, III, 279. C.f., Geofffrey W. Bromiley, “The Reformers and the Humanity of Christ,” 87. The entire essay, 79–104, is well worth consulting.

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that “the Son was also the mediator of union for humanity apart from sin.” The second person of the Trinity is the mediator of human communion with God both before and after the fall. In other words, understanding incarnation as a strictly soteriological reality does not, in itself, detract from the Son’s mediatorial work.48 Bavinck notes that among Reformed orthodox theologians only Comrie advocated the position that the predestination of the incarnation of the Son was antecedent to the decree of the fall, and this was due to his rigorous supralapsarianism.49 “For the rest,” Bavinck writes, “most theologians stuck to Scripture, which always and exclusively connects the incarnation of Christ with sin and regards it as the most magnifijicent proof of God’s compassion (Matt. 1:21; 9:13; 20:28; Luke 1:68; 2:30; John 1:29; 3:16; Rom. 8:3; Gal. 4:4–5; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 2:14; 1 John 3:8; etc.).”50 Bavinck closes this discussion by returning to his main concern; namely, that if the incarnation is in any sense “necessary,” it may well lead to pantheism: the doctrine of incarnation apart from sin “very readily leads to the idea that the incarnation as such was appropriate and necessary for God, that is, to the pantheistic teaching of the eternal selfrevelation of God in the world.”51 Before moving on to consider the fijinal “preparation” for the incarnation (Bavinck’s fijirst), it is worth lingering over his summary that the Reformed almost universally viewed the incarnation as “the most magnifijicent proof of God’s compassion,” because it gets to the heart of Bavinck’s aversion to the notion of necessity. With Calvin and the later Reformed tradition more broadly,52 Bavinck resists the notion of incarnational necessity because it appears to undermine, correlatively, the gravity of the fall and human sin on the one hand, and the sheer gratuity and sovereignty of God’s grace on the other. With respect to the fijirst, if God were already 48

 RD, III, 279; C.f., 365.  RD, III, 279. That is, supralapsarianism in the classic sense, wherein redemption (election) logically precedes the decree of the fall. 50  RD, III, 279. 51  RD, III, 279–280; C.f., Bolt, Imitation, 241fff. Bolt thinks that Bavinck’s argument that incarnational necessity leads to pantheism is “spurious,” (249), but he does not note the care taken in Bavinck’s language, that the idea “very readily leads” to pantheism. The door remains open for the possibility of such a position that avoids pantheistic conclusions, but the history of the idea seems to indicate that it is very difffijicult to maintain and not somehow make God and the world correlative. Bavinck’s concern is that once incarnation is viewed as “necessary,” it is difffijicult not to project this necessity into the very being of God, and thus conclude that the world is something God needs for divine self-expression. This is abundantly illustrated for Bavinck in modern theology po Hegel and Schelling; C.f., RD, III, 262–3. 52  C.f., Muller, Chri and the Decree, 28. 49

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committed to incarnation irrespective of sin, then the fall was not, in fact, the appalling disaster scripture seems to portray; it is an obstacle, perhaps, but one in which the possibility of eschatological judgment in the Garden of Eden is necessarily precluded. It implies that God’s threat of judgment for disobedience was at best disingenuous; he was committed already to incarnation (and thus, glorifijication) of humanity regardless of Adam’s disobedience. This further seems to imply, second, that God’s grace is less than free: it is bound to a necessity that does not take sin into account (this is, after all, the view that the incarnation was necessary apart from sin). God becomes incarnate and saves humanity, not primarily because of his compassion, but because he had, as it were, a “prior” commitment. And if God was bound to it simply by virtue of creating, then (putting aside the notion that God would or could become incarnate without saving actual human beings) he is obligated to save humanity. One can easily see how Reformed theology, with its emphasis on divine sovereignty, would vigorously oppose this conclusion. And so Bavinck, with Calvin, argues that the sole cause of the incarnation is the free decision of God, on account of human sin, to save humanity. It is a manifestation of God’s sovereign grace and compassion, not a necessity, conceived variously as intradivine (in an ontological sense), creational, or historical. Above all else, in keeping with his consistent emphasis, Bavinck wishes to avoid any commingling or correlativity between divine and creaturely, thus, his resistance against “the pantheistic teaching of the eternal self-revelation of God in the world.”53 That this is, in fact, his overriding theme is further evident in his fijirst “preparation” for the incarnation of the Son: the trinitarian being of God. The Personal Union of Two Natures With his fijirst “preparation” theme, Bavinck is in somewhat familiar territory, the ontological implications of Trinity and creation. He begins, “In Deism and pantheism there is no room for an incarnation of God.”54 Again, the problem with these twin alternatives is that Deism’s hypertranscendence rules out the kind of divine immanence the incarnation requires (i.e., it is in-carnation), and pantheism’s hyper-immanence rules out the kind of divine transcendence it requires (i.e., in-carnation). Rather, “Only the theistic and trinitarian confession of God’s characteristic essence 53

 RD, III, 280.  RD, III, 274.

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opens the possibility for the fact of the incarnation. For here God remains who he is and can yet communicate himself to others.”55 Familiar as it is, this passage is not, in fact, the equivalent of his earlier argument that intratrinitarian divine “relationality” or “communicability” is the ontic prerequisite for the possibility of creation.56 What Bavinck argues here is considerably more subtle: If, as Vinet says, one must fijirst possess oneself to be able to give oneself, then absolute love is only conceivable as the perfection of a triune divine being. In that case alone there is a distinction between ‘being’ and ‘person’ and therefore communion of a human being through the person with the being of God, without this being being identifijied with the human or flowing over into that human. In a word, the Trinity makes possible the existence of a mediator who himself participates both in the divine and human nature and thus unites God and humans.57

This is not an argument that Trinity makes creation possible on account of absolute divine relationality; it is a terse argument that Trinity makes hypoatic union possible. Unfortunately, the English translation obscures this line of thought, a result of strictly keeping with its policy of rendering generic masculine nouns in a gender-neutral fashion. Here the translator renders Bavinck’s “mensch” as “human being,” yet in Bavinck’s text there is only one word that corresponds to “being” (wezen), and it refers only to the divine nature, or ousia. Bavinck moves from a distinction in trinitarian theology between “being” (wezen) and “person” (persoon), and this distinction makes possible “gemeenschap van den mensch door den persoon aan het wezen Gods, zonder dat dit wezen met den mensch vereenzelvigd wordt of in hem overvloeit.”58 Bavinck then summarizes his point: “However aberrant the theosophy of Böhme and Schelling may be when it attempts to infer the incarnation from the essence of God, yet God’s trinitarian essence is the presupposition and condition of the incarnation of God.”59

55

 RD, III, 275.  C.f., RD, II, 332–3. 57  RD, III, 275. 58  GD, III, 255; The point is that Bavinck’s “den mensch” is not meant to refer to one “human being” (male or female) among others, but solely to the specifijic human nature assumed by the mediator. One might paraphrase this more accurately than the given English edition by, in addition to rendering den mensch as “the human” (rather than “human being”), rendering wezen more technically as ousia: “[...] communion of the human through the person with the ousia of God, without this ousia being identifijied with the human or flowing over into the human.” 59  RD, III, 275. 56

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Bavinck is introducing here the characteristic emphasis in Reformed Christology that the mediation of the two natures, divine and human, is a personal rather than essential union; the latter view, he believes, has the tendency to mix or confuse the two natures.60 And this very distinction between “personal” and “essential” is intrinsic to and rooted in, he argues, trinitarian thought. Because in the Trinity there is a distinction between divine essence (ousia) and divine persons (hypoases), this entails (“therefore”) that human communion with God is not a pantheistic identity of divine and human natures (ousia) or an overflow of the one to the other. This is because, one must surmise from his all-too-brief phrase “through the person,” divine-human communion is a personal union, not a communion of natures. For Bavinck, the simple fact that there is a distinction between the three divine persons and the one, undivided divine essence implies that the person of the Son can assume human nature without a necessary ontological fusion with the divine nature as such. His concern is to safeguard the divine essence or ousia, over against pantheism, as something decisively incommunicable: the Creator cannot, in his essence, become the creature, nor vice-versa. And yet, because within the divine essence there is a distinction of persons, there is opened the possibility of human communion or participation with the divine essence “through the person,” without the specter of an ontological confusion of essences. There is thus made possible “the existence of a mediator who himself participates both in the divine and human nature and thus unites God and humans.”61 This concern to avoid ontological confusion is highlighted in his next proposition: “It is also important, therefore, to maintain that not the divine nature as such but specifijically the person of the Son became a human.”62 Failure to make this distinction runs perilously close to the patripassianism inherent in all pantheistic systems, especially that of Hegel, Schelling, Hartmann, and others, who conceive the absolute not as being but as becoming and who allow the divine to pour itself out in the world and to fijinitize itself. In that case the world and humanity with all its sorrow and misery is a moment in the life of God, and the history of revelation is the history of God’s sufffering.63

60  C.f., RD, III, 259: “[I]n Greek, Roman, and Lutheran theology the emphasis always fell on the incarnation of the divine being, the divine nature. If that nature does not become flesh, the work of salvation, communion with God, seems to be at risk.” 61  RD, III, 275. 62  RD, III, 275; C.f., Berkouwer, The Work of Chri (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 280. 63  RD, III, 275. An admirably perceptive comment, so prescient that the fijinal sentence could serve, duly abstracted, as an endorsement on the back cover of any number of

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Scripture ascribes the incarnation specifijically to the Son; indeed, the Reformed even emphasized, over against the Lutherans, “that the person of the Son, rather [than] the divine nature in the Son” became human.64 This emphasis was not intended to deny the full deity of the Son, nor even to deny that the divine nature in the person of the Son had assumed human flesh; rather, it was “against every tendency to mix the two natures” that the Reformed “emphasized that the person of the Son, in whom the divine nature existed in a manner of its own, had assumed human nature.”65 Maintaining the Creator-creature distinction is clearly the paramount concern in the Reformed conception of the incarnation. Yet, remarkably, Bavinck writes that the diffference between the Reformed and Lutheran views “is certainly not very important.”66 While his truly catholic and charitable impulse is evident here, it may be doubted whether he is truly serious. The Lutheran view is, he notes, “no doubt connected with their basic idea.”67 That is, their characteristic view of the communicatio idiomatum, or “communication of properties,” which makes possible (in service to their doctrine of consubstantiation) the ubiquity of Christ’s human nature, and which appears to be grounded in an essential union of divine and human natures. But the Reformed preferred the formulation that “the person of the Son was immediately united with the human nature, and the divine nature was [therefore] mediately united with it.”68 This was, Bavinck writes, the teaching of the sixth Synod of Toledo (AD 638): “[The Synod] declared that although the entire Trinity are inseparable, nevertheless ‘only (the Son) assumes human nature in the singularity of the person, not in the unity of the divine nature: in what is peculiar to the Son, not what is common to the Trinity.’”69 Bavinck is

contemporary “crucifijied God” Christologies; e.g., Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Chri as the Foundation and Criticism of Chriian Theology, trans. R.A. Wilson and John Bowdon (New York: Harper & Row, 1974). 64  RD, III, 275. 65  RD, III, 275. 66  RD, III, 276. 67  RD, III, 276. 68  RD, III, 276, emphasis added. 69  RD, III, 276; Bavinck refers to the sixth Synod of Toledo (638), but does not cite it. The most thorough and accessible compendium of creeds does not contain the text of this synod but does present the eleventh Synod of Toledo (675), which uses identical language: “Also, we must believe that the entire Trinity accomplished the incarnation of the Son of God, because the works of the Trinity are inseparable. However, only the Son took the form of a servant in the singleness of his person, not the unity of his divine nature; in what is proper to the Son, not in what is common to the Trinity [...],” Creeds and Confessions

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quick to qualify—as did the synod—that although subjectively and “as it pertains to its end,” the incarnation is peculiar to the Son, “still with respect to its origin, beginning, and efffectiveness, it is a work of the whole Trinity.”70 This formulation is made possible in Reformed theology by the doctrine of the pactum salutis, or “covenant of redemption,” in which the Triune God freely and consciously decreed the work of redemption in eternity. This “consultation” of persons in the divine being ensures that redemption generally, and incarnation specifijically, is a personal, “not a natural,” work.71 This line of reasoning allows Bavinck to maintain the non-accidental character of the incarnation (it is rooted in God’s eternal purpose) and still to deny that it is something essential to the nature of God: “The incarnation was prepared from eternity; it does not rest in the essence of God but in the person. It is not a necessity as in pantheism, but neither is it arbitrary or accidental as in Pelagianism.”72 More needs to be said about Bavinck’s Christology, but it is helpful to step back for a moment to more broadly consider his use of the Reformed orthodox tradition. With respect to the person of Christ, Bavinck again exhibits his ability to draw on the tradition, not in the interests of pure repristination,73 but in order to apply its theological insights to the particular challenges of his own time. This has been seen a number of times already: in Chapter One it was argued that Kuyper and Bavinck made recourse to the Reformed view of the organic unfolding of God’s purposes latent in its covenant theology in order to provide an alternative to the prevalent idealisms of German philosophy; likewise, in Chapter Two Bavinck was seen appealing to the doctrine of the covenant of works, not primarily in the interest of maintaining the stability of divine law, as was the purpose of earlier thinkers, but rather to exploit the doctrine’s inherent eschatological potential as a counter to, among other things, German historicism’s views of human progress, potential, and historical inevitability. Now Bavinck tasks Reformed Christology, which was clearly forged in of Faith in the Chriian Tradition: Volume I, Jaroslav Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss, eds. (New Haven: Yale, 2003), 719. 70  RD, III, 276. 71  RD, III, 276. 72  RD, III, 277, emphasis added. 73  A point emphasized by John Bolt in each of his introductions to the four volumes of the Dogmatics; e.g., RD, III, 14. The following are specifijic examples of Bolt’s general observation. Note Bavinck’s lament that in his own day the theology of the Leiden Synopsis had “been gradually reduced to oblivion,” and viewed his new edition as “not unsuited” for his own time, Synopsis purioris theologiae, vi.

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particular polemical contexts (e.g., Socinianism, Arminianism, Lutheranism), to speak to new challenges. More specifijically, while the Reformed view of the hypostatic union, with its emphases on the mediating role of the divine person of the Son, the so-called extra calviniicum, the anhypoatic character of Christ’s human nature, the munus triplex, and the atus duplex, was designed to answer the challenges of earlier centuries, Bavinck fijinds in its formulations powerful answers to the 19th century resurgence of pantheism. Thus, Bavinck is not slavishly following and defending the earlier Reformed tradition; he is enthusiastically leveraging the tradition in an offfensive against various heterodoxies of his own era. He does so precisely because he fijinds in the older doctrines resources profoundly suited to his contemporary situation. This is seen again in the present context when he presents the Reformed concept that the divine and human natures are mediated by virtue of their union in the person of the Son not so much as an antidote to Lutheranism’s view of the communicatio idiomatum (though it certainly is that), but rather to the pantheistic commingling of the creaturely and divine in 19th century Hegelian forms of theology. In earlier times, the notion that the human nature is “immediately” united to the person, and “mediately” united to the divine essence per se was used as a counter to Luther’s ubiquity doctrine.74 Bavinck fijinds it equally suited to cut offf all forms of “immediate” union between the Creator and the creature.75 Indeed, Bavinck’s sharp distinction between orthodox and pantheistic forms of theology, which has in many ways been the raison d’etre of his dogmatics as a whole, fijinds its most heightened application in the hypostatic union of Christ’s two natures. This is only natural, for the temptation to confuse, and thus dissolve, the basic ontological distinction between the Creator and the creature is clearly at its most intense in Christology. Bavinck writes that the Greek idea of deifijication “could not but have an impact on Christology, for in Christology human nature is more tightly united with the deity than any other creature.”76 Thus, the hypostatic

74  This is how the Reformed used it; as already seen in the 11th Synod of Toledo, it was formally articulated as early as the 7th century. 75  These historical exigencies perhaps explain Bavinck’s otherwise inexplicable minimizing of its application vis-à-vis Lutheranism as “certainly not very important.” Bremmer suggests that Bavinck’s tasking of Christology in the directions he does is what makes him “modern,” that is, of contemporary relevance; Bremmer, Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 251. 76  RD, III, 256.

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union has been and remains hotly contested. It is “precisely this distinction between ‘nature’ and ‘person,’ however, that encounters mo resistance in both the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of Christ and is therefore also the curse of most errors in both of these doctrines.”77 And, in fact, modern theology “has a profound aversion” to the doctrine of the two natures, and replaces it with a variety of formulations that bear some resemblance to more recent Christological approaches “from above” or “from below.”78 Just as, for Bavinck, there are a very limited number of options one may take in theology—i.e., Deism, pantheism or dualism—so also the options are few in Christology: Now whether, as was done in the past, one lets the human nature change into the divine, or, as is done today, one lets the divine nature empty itself down to the level of the human, or lets the two natures merge in whole or in part into a third, a mixed something—always, in pantheistic fashion, the boundary between God and humanity is erased and the idea of the ‘Godman’ falsifijied.79

For Bavinck, the Reformed view of the personal union of the divine and human natures, which in turn entails a number of theological implications, consistently navigates Christology in a way that avoids doctrinal heresies to the right or to the left; it alone does not “falsify” the idea of the God-man. In other words, Reformed Christology is the most consistent expression of Chalcedonian orthodoxy.80 What follows is an examination of Bavinck’s argument for how this is so. A more global overview may prove helpful at the outset: In Bavinck’s mind, Reformed Christology is distinguished by two unique and interrelated emphases. The fijirst, as already noted, is that the two natures of Christ fijind their union in the person of the Son. One basic implication

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 RD, III, 256, emphasis added.  RD, III, 299. Bavinck does not use the terms, Christology “from above” and “from below,” but these terms—common in contemporary parlance—appear to be what he means when he speaks of Christologies that develop in “either a more theistic or a more pantheistic direction.” The “more theistic” bears resemblance to Christology “from above,” as “all the emphasis falls on the uniqueness of Jesus’ person, sometimes so strongly that the revelation that comes to us in nature and history is denied and religion is rigorously divorced from all metaphysics,” (RD, III, 299). This view is “under Kantian influence.” On the other hand is the view, under the influence of Hegel and Darwin, that “the person of Christ is put in the context of evolution, which offfers a view of the whole world and sees him as the flower and crown of humankind,” (RD, III, 299); C.f., Bolt notes the “above” and “below” correspondence; Imitation, 71. 79  RD, III, 303. 80  RD, III, 258–9; 304–316. 78

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of this dogma is that the Creator-creature distinction is zealously maintained even in—or, perhaps better, especially in—the hypostatic union. This leads to the second unique emphasis: the Reformed construal of the communicatio idiomatum, which ensures that each nature in the person of the Son participates in his singular work in a manner appropriate to it, without merging or confusing the one with the other. The second emphasis, flowing directly from the fijirst, fully afffijirms the integrity of Christ’s human nature; it is truly human, participating in and constituted as an historical reality, with its contingency and capacity for sequence and progress, from—most importantly—humiliation to exaltation. The fijirst emphasis, along with its implications, actually secures the second; they are of a piece, and mutually determining. It is precisely because the ontological Creator-creature distinction obtains even in the hypostatic union that, in turn, the genuine, historically-conditioned humanity of Christ is ensured. In other words, as will be seen, because in the Reformed view Christ’s human nature is not swallowed up by his divine nature, whether by infusing it with divine attributes (e.g., Lutheranism) or by gracing it with supernatural gifts (e.g., the beatifijic vision, Roman Catholicism), the human nature of Christ truly comes into its own. Notice, further, how this Christology coheres with Bavinck’s basic impulses to maintain the Creator-creature distinction (Chapter One) and preserve the integrity of history (Chapter Two). Christ truly is the Godman: theanthropos. The one does not somehow cancel out the other, and not only the unity (by virtue of the Son’s person) but the distinction is maintained. Moreover, the assumed human nature of Christ, precisely because it is human, is historically conditioned; Jesus develops, grows, hungers, thirsts, weeps, sufffers, and dies. He is subject to the infijirmities to which fallen humanity has been subjected, yet personally without sin. Further, because Jesus is a human being, he requires for his work the assistance of the Holy Spirit. It is because of this genuine, historicallyconditioned human nature that the Son is qualifijied to function as the “Last Adam,” the one to whom Adam typologically pointed, the one who could represent humanity anew, satisfy the sanctions of the broken covenant of works, fulfijill its positive demands, and thereby achieve the eschatological glory for which Adam and his race have been created. With that overview, each of these emphases will be expanded in turn. It is paramount for Bavinck to accent the distinction between the two natures of Christ. This is illustrated by the fact that his discussion of modern Christology is book-ended by two very similar passages that highlight

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the dangers of confusing the two natures.81 He admits that although in the early church “there may have been diffferent conceptions as to how one and the same subject could be simultaneously Son of God and a human being, this nevertheless was how all Christians from the beginning saw Christ.”82 Whereas in the early centuries there were vast diffferences in language and terminology used to describe the relationship between Christ’s two natures, the Council of Chalcedon (451) was designed to draw “clearcut boundaries [...] within which the church’s doctrine of Christ would be further developed.”83 Chalcedon afffijirmed belief in one and the same Son and Lord, “the same perfect in Godhead, the same perfect in humanhood, truly God and truly man [...] one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, made known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”84 Still, even this did not achieve unanimity, and certain formulations in the East and West, according to Bavinck, fundamentally undermined the intent of the symbol precisely by undermining its careful Creator-creature distinction. Bavinck alleges that the “basic idea” in the East remained “that God himself had to become a human so that human beings might become partakers of the divine nature, immortality, eternal life, divinization (θεωσις).”85 This preoccupation with divinization results in the center of gravity being placed on the deity of Christ, “on the penetration of the divine into the human nature, on the union of the two, on Christ’s essential being more than on his historical appearance, on his incarnation rather than on his satisfaction.”86 In keeping with the eschatological vision of ontological union with the divine nature, what is of utmost Christological importance is ontic union; there was therefore no particular need for a sharp distinction to be drawn between the two natures. Monophysitism was therefore a “power in the East,”87 and no matter how much it was condemned and suppressed, it continually resurfaced in its doctrinal step-children, in the teachings of the “Theopaschites, the Aphthartodocetists, the Aktistetai,

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 RD, III, 253–59; 298–310.  RD, III, 254. 83  RD, III, 255. 84  RD, III, 255; C.f., Pelikan and Hotchkiss, Creeds and Confessions, 180–81. Bavinck notes that the Eastern church operates with a “corrected” version of this symbol, replacing “in two natures” with “out of two natures.” 85  RD, III, 255. 86  RD, III, 255. 87  RD, III, 255. 82

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and the Monothelites.”88 The perennial temptation these heresies brought to the East was the tendency “to erase the boundary line between the divine and the human [....]”89 On the other hand, the West made a sharp distinction between the divine and human natures of Christ, and the emphasis was therefore much more on its ethical rather than physical signifijicance, on satisfaction, sufffering and death than on the incarnation. Nevertheless, and not suprisingly, given his consistent notice of Neoplatonism in Western theology, Bavinck believes that the mysticism of the East made substantial inroads into the Western church: “[T]he idea of a deifijication of the human also penetrated the Latin church and Latin theology. Mystical contemplation, the doctrine of the superadded gifts, the theory of transubstantiation, all rest on the idea that the fijinite is capable of participating in the infijinite.”90 Through the teaching of John of Damascus in particular, this mysticism made inroads into medieval scholasticism and Roman Catholic theology, and led to the conclusion that although the communication of divine attributes to the human nature is not to be conceived “realistically, yet the divine nature completely permeates and sets aglow the human nature, as heat does iron, and makes it participatory in the divine glory, wisdom, and power.”91 Perhaps the inference was inevitable that Christ, as a human being, thus already possessed the beatifijic vision, and walked not by faith but by sight. And all the gifts and capacities of his human nature were not given to him gradually, but immediately at his incarnation.92

88  RD, III, 255. All these are variants of monophysitism. Theopaschitism—God sufffers; Aphthartodocetism—Christ’s body was incorruptible; Aktistetism—Christ’s body was, from the moment of incarnation, uncreated; Monothelitism—Christ had one will. 89  RD, III, 255. 90  RD, III, 256. 91  RD, III, 256; C.f., John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, III, 3, 7, 17, 19. It would be more accurate if Bavinck were to say that certain readings of John of Damascus led to the notion of ontological deifijication. John himself is an excellent example of this latent ambiguity in the Western tradition; even though he speaks of a perichoresis or permeation of the two natures, he still could not be more emphatic about the essential distinction between the two natures: “We say that [the union] is essential, Moreover, not in the sense of two natures resulting in one compound nature, but in the sense of a true union of them in one compound subsistence [i.e., person] of the Son of God, and we hold that their essential diffference is preserved. For the created remaineth created, and the uncreated, uncreated: the mortal remaineth mortal; the immortal, immortal: the circumscribed, circumscribed; the uncircumscribed, uncircumscribed: the visible, visible; the invisible, invisible. ‘The one part is all glorious with wonders: while the other is the victim of insults,’” (3, this last quote from Leo the Great). As an aside: what does “uncircumscribed” mean if not the so-called extra-calviniicum? 92  RD, III, 256.

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Lutheranism was not immune to these influences, either, but in some ways went even further down this doctrinal path than the Christologies of Greek orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Whereas the latter two taught a communication of divine gifts, Lutheranism taught a communication of divine attributes to the human nature.93 Lutheran doctrine is particularly unstable because it grants in practice what it denies in principle.94 On the one hand, Lutheranism expressly denies that the two natures are ever “mixed or transmuted into each other, but that each remains itself in perpetuity and preserves its essential attributes and never receives the attributes of the other nature as its own.”95 On the other hand, a distinction is drawn between quiescent and operative attributes, and the latter, which include omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience, are “immediately and directly a possession of the human nature.”96 For Bavinck, Rome and Lutheranism materially agree: “[B]oth elevate the human nature above the boundaries set for it and dissolve into mere appearance both the human development of Jesus and the state of humiliation.”97 Notice that in each of these critiques of the Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran Christologies the ontological error (the confusion of the divine and human natures) directly results in a down-playing of the signifijicance of history. The center of gravity does not lie in Jesus’ death and resurrection in Eastern thought, but in the incarnation itself as the ontological union of the divine and human. Jesus did not “develop,” according to Rome, for he enjoyed the entire donum superadditum (e.g., beatifijic vision) from his incarnation; similarly, Lutheranism’s distinctive version of the communicatio idiomatum rendered any human growth, development or historical transition in the life of Jesus Christ problematic. Lutheran theology, in fact (perhaps because it is distinctly Protestant theology) was acutely aware of this problem; this is why it offfered a distinction between incarnation and exinanition (i.e., humiliation). If the incarnation as such implies a communication of divine attributes to the human nature, “not only the distinction between the divine and the human nature was in danger of being lost but also that between the state of humiliation and

93

 It was on this basis, Bavinck notes, that Rome could consistently oppose the Lutheran doctrine of ubiquity. 94  This is not endemic only to Lutheranism (see the footnote above on John of Damascus), but the dichotomy is particularly clear in Lutheran Christology. 95  RD, III, 257. 96  RD, III, 257. 97  RD, III, 257.

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that of exaltation.”98 Thus, a logical (not temporal) second “moment” had to be added, that of humiliation or exinanition, wherein Christ as human divested himself of the attributes just imparted to his nature. This led to a debate in later Lutheran scholasticism not unlike more recent kenosis controversies. One side of the debate, represented chiefly by Johannes Brenz and the early 17th century theologians at the University of Tübingen, argued that in the exinanition Christ emptied himself or divested himself of divine attributes by not using them publicly.99 On the other hand, Martin Chemnitz and the theologians at the University of Giessen argued that exinanition entailed a renunciation of the use of divine attributes; that is, Christ did not use them at all in the state of humiliation. Neither of these Lutheran options contemplates that Christ’s humanity does not possess divine attributes; it is a question over the human use or non-use of the divine attributes with which it has been endowed. Either view is clearly susceptible to Bavinck’s critique that “the state of exaltation is nothing other than a visible display of what existed invisibly already from the hour of his conception. In this fashion, however, Jesus’ whole human development, his growth in knowledge and wisdom, his hungering and thirsting, sufffering and dying, became mere appearance.”100 On the “hidden use” view, writes James Wagner, “the exaltation would signify a revelation or public manifestation of the use of divine attributes which Christ according to his human nature formerly employed in a secret or hidden way.”101 On the Lutheran kenosis view, in the exaltation “now for the fijirst the human nature enters upon the full and manifest use of the attributes given to it as [a] possession from the fijirst moment of the incarnation.”102 Much later in his chapter, Bavinck returns to this motif, with this remarkable allegation: “[A]s a serious objection to the two-natures doctrine, it is forever being advanced that it fails to do justice to the human nature of Christ and makes any human development in him an impossibility. Both Catholic and Lutheran Chriology, in fact, give some ground for this objection.”103 Or, put even more starkly: “Both Lutheran and

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 RD, III, 258.  C.f., the outstanding work of James Benjamin Wagner, “Ascendit ad Coelos: The Doctrine of the Ascension in the Reformed and Lutheran Theology of the Period of Orthodoxy,” (Th.D. thesis, University of Basel, 1964); RD, III, 431fff. 100  RD, III, 258. 101  Wagner, “Ascendit ad Coelos,” 4. 102  Wagner, “Ascendit ad Coelos,” 4. 103  RD, III, 308, emphasis added. 99

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Catholic Christology [...] contain within them a docetic element.”104 This is due, in Bavinck’s analysis, to their respective views of the communicatio idiomatum. Originally, on Bavinck’s telling of the history, the communication of attributes “implied that in the incarnation the two natures along with all their attributes were communicated to the one person and the one subject who can therefore be described with divine and human natures.”105 Most important in this description is that the attributes are predicated of the “one person” and the “one subject.” The attributes of the one nature are not, in other words, predicated of the other nature. This is essentially a “logical and grammatical” point.106 The same subject, the Son, can be described with qualities appropriate to either his deity or his humanity; but this is not the same thing as attributing to his deity human qualities, or, more importantly in this case, vice-versa. This centers the union of the two natures in the person of the Son, and it therefore implies that all of the works of the Son bear a theanthropic character; all the works of the mediator “have as their efffijicient cause the one undivided personal subject in Christ; they were all performed by Christ with the cooperation of his two natures and with a double working (νεργεια), and in the result nevertheless again form an undivided unity inasmuch as they are the work of one person.”107 Important here is that in the one, undivided work of the person, each nature works in accordance with its own attributes or characteristics, by a “double working”; that is, each nature works in a manner appropriate to it. This view of the union of the two natures further allows that “from the fijirst moment of its existence the human nature of Christ was adorned with all kinds of splendid and copious gifts of the Holy Spirit.”108 Bavinck argues that Lutheran Christology fundamentally abuses the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum, taking it “to mean that not only the attributes of the two natures were communicated to the one

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 RD, III, 309.  RD, III, 308. So, for example, one can speak of the Son of God being born, sufffering and dying, and of the man Jesus Christ as being eternal and having descended from heaven. C.f., John of Damascus, The Orthodox Faith, III, 3: “Hence it is that the Lord of Glory is said to have been crucifijied, although his divine nature never endured the cross, and that the Son of Man is allowed to have been in heaven before the passion, as the Lord himself said.” 106  RD, III, 309. 107  RD, III, 308. 108  RD, III, 308. 105

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[divine] person but those of the divine nature were also communicated to the human nature.”109 In other words, unquestionably in service to their desire to ascribe “ubiquity” to the body of Christ (in order to maintain their doctrine of consubstantiation), they wished to predicate divine attributes (e.g., omnipresence) of Christ’s human nature: “By its union with the divine nature, the human nature was elevated to a position of divine omnipotence and omnipresence.”110 This has the result of rendering Christ’s charismata superfluous. Why, after all, would Jesus need the “gifts”—or, perhaps more pointedly, why would he need the Holy Spirit at all if his human nature already possessed divine attributes? Bavinck notes, “While Lutheran Christology still speaks of gifts, it actually does not know what to do with them and no longer has room even for Christ’s anointing with the Holy Spirit.”111 Rome resists Lutheranism’s view of ubiquity, and therefore its idiosyncratic understanding of the communicatio. Rome teaches the charismata and Christ’s anointing by the Holy Spirit. But it is not for that reason in a more favorable position, according to Bavinck, because Rome teaches an intrinsic, substantial coinherence, perichoresis or interpenetration of the two natures. While divine attributes do not formally become properties of the human nature, they do inwardly impact human nature; flow over into human nature as a result of their excess energy; take that human nature to its apex; equip it with a plenitude of grace and truth, with all spiritual gifts and virtues; and thus make it a participant in the divine dignity, glory, and power and worthy of divine worship and veneration.112

Once again, one sees in this view hiory being eclipsed by a pantheisticleaning ontology. This is Bavinck’s root critique: “Both Lutheran and Catholic Christology, consequently, contain within them a docetic element. The purely human development does not come into its own in them. In reaction, theologians in the nineteenth century swung over to the other extreme and denied the deity of the Lord.”113 109  RD, III, 308. Bavinck argues that modern doctrines of kenosis have their origin in Lutheranism’s communicatio idiomatum, as it was developed by Zinzendorf and, later, the philosophies of Schelling and Hegel; C.f., RD, III, 303. 110  RD, III, 308. 111  RD, III, 309. 112  RD, III, 309. This does follow, as was seen, a certain line of thought in John of Damascus. 113  RD, III, 309; C.f., Berkouwer, The Person of Chri (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), 272–75.

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Here Reformed theology makes its unique contribution, for its theologians were, “from the very beginning, in a much more favorable position. They had fundamentally overcome the Greek-Roman and Lutheran commingling of the divine and the human, also in Christology.”114 This alleged triumph of Reformed theology is not unrelated to its perhaps more basic overthrow of hierarchical nature-grace dualism (note Bavinck’s “also in Christology”). Bavinck does not explicitly make this connection, but in the course of his treatment he does note that “[t]he denial of the true and complete human nature [i.e., docetism] always results from a certain dualism. The sarx, ‘matter,’ is then by nature sinful and cannot be a constituent of the true Christ.”115 This is the familiar ontology of Platonism, whether “Middle” (Philo) or “Neo” (Dionysius), with its ontological gradation with God at the top and matter at the bottom. As noted already,116 while on the one hand it appears that this hierarchy would mitigate against a “commingling” of the divine and creaturely, since they occupy opposite ends of a spectrum, the very fact that reality is a spectrum, inclusive of God and creatures, already places them on a continuum; it presupposes, in other words, the erasure or at least blurring of an absolute ontological Creator-creature distinction. This is why Bavinck can describe this same metaphysical dualism as “integral to the modern pantheistic philosophy, which loves to trick itself out with the name monism.”117 On the one hand, 19th century philosophy maintained the absolute incommensurability of “God and humans, eternity and time, holiness and fijiniteness.”118 On the other hand, it proceeded to dissolve these dichotomies, much like ancient Gnosticism, in an idealistic and pantheistic world-process. Against this dualistic view, Bavinck argues, God comes “not in appearance but in reality. There is one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human (1 Tim. 2:5). But for that very reason his true and complete humanity is as important as his deity.”119

114

 RD, III, 258.  RD, III, 297. He has specifijically in mind Apollinarianism here; Rome does not consider matter as such sinful, but, as already seen, its doctrine of concupiscence is rooted in a Neoplatonic view of matter. 116  C.f., Ch. 1, fn. 18, (above). 117  RD, III, 297, emphasis added. And no, as much as I might wish he had, Bavinck does not write the eerily hip phrase, “trick itself out”—it is, of course, possible that this is a good idiomatic translation of “loves to adorn [siert] itself,” but that seems unlikely. This observation that monism can be rooted in dualism is again a demonstration of Bavinck’s view that Deism and pantheism are opposite sides of the same coin. 118  RD, III, 297. 119  RD, III, 298. 115

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In contrast to this dualism, which conceives of the Creator and the creature on an ontological continuum, the Reformed rigorously applied their maxim, finitum non e capax infiniti also to the hypostatic union; further, they maintained it not only in the state of humiliation, but also in the state of exaltation.120 The beauty of this from Bavinck’s perspective is that “Reformed theology secured a space for a purely human development of Christ, for a successive communication of gifts, and for a real distinction between humiliation and exaltation.”121 That is, just as the erroneous ontologies of Greek, Roman, and Lutheran Christologies more or less entail various forms of docetism, the ontology of Reformed Christology entails that Christ’s human nature has hiorical integrity. Thus far we have described Bavinck’s account of Reformed Christology with broad reference to its Lutheran, Roman, and Eastern alternatives. Bavinck’s polemic will become even more clear if we now examine his understanding of the Chalcedonian debate itself. Bavinck’s Chriology & Chalcedon As noted, the ground for incarnation is already at hand in the intratrinitarian distinction between essence, or “nature,” and “person.” The inability to grasp this distinction, in fact, is the root of the basic Christological errors. Bavinck writes that “Neither Nestorius nor Eutyches was able to appreciate this distinction [...].”122 Orthodox—that is, Chalcedonian— Christology maintained that Christ is two natures in one person. Nestorius reasoned from the fact of the two natures, and concluded that there must be two persons. Eutyches, on the other hand, reasoned from the fact of one person, and concluded that there must, in fact, be one nature. These both misconstrue a weighty distinction made in Christian theology both in the doctrine of the Trinity and in the doctrine of the hypostatic union. Whereas the unity of the divine persons is “in the full sense natural, consubstantial, coessential,” the unity of the two natures in Christ “is personal.”123 There is but one subject in the incarnation: the eternal Son

120

 RD, III, 258.  RD, III, 259; C.f., Bremmer, Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 249–51, where he suggests that the basic value of Bavinck’s Christology is that it holds open the way for a human development of Christ. 122  RD, III, 306. John of Damascus makes the identical point: “But this is what leads the heretics astray, viz., that they look upon nature and subsistence [i.e., person] as the same thing,” The Orthodox Faith, III, 3. 123  RD, III, 306. 121

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of God, the Logos, who assumed human flesh. “It is always the same person, the same subject, the same ‘I’, who lives and thinks, speaks and acts through the divine and human nature.”124 Even though scripture ascribes all kinds of predicates to Christ, these are predicated “always to one and the same subject, the one undivided ‘I’ who dwells in him and speaks out of him. [Scripture] also says, not that the Logos dwelt in a human being, but that the Logos became flesh (John 1:14).”125 There is thus but one subject, one person, in view in the incarnation. Against Nestorius Bavinck writes, “[I]f the human subject in Christ was another than the Logos, Scripture could never have said that the Logos became, and therefore is, flesh.”126 Nestorius argued for a “moral union,” one not qualitatively but only quantitatively distinct from God’s union with other creatures; it was a union of persons, like a marriage, a contract, or a communion of love.127 This kind of “moral union” is unacceptable: “It only difffers in degree from God’s union with other people; that is, Christ loses his wholly unique place: he is only a person in whom God manifests himself more than in others. The idea of the ‘God-man’ is lost, and the work of redemption is undermined. Nestorianism is akin to Deism and Pelagianism.”128 It was precisely against this view that Chalcedon afffijirmed, “without division” and “without separation.” In reaction to Nestorius’s view that the union was a “moral” one, or matter of agreement, some orthodox fathers, like Athanasius and Cyril, emphasized that the union was “natural” or “substantial.” Bavinck himself at one point describes the ontic union of the two natures as “a natural union (_νωσις φυσικη).”129 He excuses Cyril’s use of this terminology because at the time the language of person (προσοπον), substance (`ποστασις) and nature (φυσις) were not yet doctrinally fijixed. Insofar as Cyril intended to argue against Nestorius, such language could be construed accurately. But this use of language requires the qualifijication that Eutychianism is not thereby intended: “This is not to say that that union was necessary and 124

 RD, III, 307.  RD, III, 302. 126  RD, III, 302. 127  RD, III, 302; C.f., 305. 128  RD, III, 302. This illumines why Bavinck believes the modern philosophical dichotomy, drawn by Kant, Hegel, and others between the “ideal” Christ and the “historical” Christ is a recent version of Nestorianism—Jesus is a mere human who revealed the idea of the true Christ, perhaps, but “absolutely did not coincide with him and is not one with him,” RD, III, 296. The afffijinity between Kant and Pelagius has been noted earlier; C.f., Ch. 2, fn. 78, (above). 129  RD, III, 305. 125

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automatically resulted from one of the two or from both natures; rather, it is so called because it is not moral in nature, but a union of natures in the person of the Son, not a natural but a personal union.”130 However, when Cyril spoke of Christ becoming “one nature (μια φυσις),” it was liable to misunderstanding. In fact, it was precisely this langauge that Eutyches exploited in order to argue that the divine and human natures lost their own peculiar qualities and were transformed into a new divine-human nature. According to Bavinck this monophysitism has its modern permutations, among them modern doctrines of kenosis. All forms of monophysitism are equally unacceptable to him, because they quite obviously require the denial of an absolute, ontological Creator-creature distinction. Moreover, this ontological fusion of natures has grave soteriological implications: Even the very idea of a ‘God-man’ in whom the union of two natures has been replaced by the mingling of the two is an anomaly, with which no one can make any association whatsoever. Such a being cannot be the mediator between God and humankind, since he is neither. He cannot bring about union, reconciliation, and communion between the two, since by the mixing of the two natures, he himself is diffferent from both and a ‘third kind’ of being (tertium genus).131

The union of the two natures of Christ, accordingly, was not a union of persons (Nestorius) nor a fusion of natures (Eutyches), but a union of natures in the person of the Son. “And the result of that union,” Bavinck writes, “is not a new nature [i.e., contra Eutyches], nor even a new personality [i.e., contra Nestorius], but only the person of Christ as Christ. He who existed in the form of God from that time on existed also in the form of man.”132 The doctrine of the union of two natures in one person is for Bavinck simply scriptural doctrine: “Granted, all opposition to the deity of Christ begins with an appeal to Scripture against the confessions. But this illusion only lasts a very short time.”133 And perhaps no one more succinctly summarizes the sweep of biblical data:

130

 RD, III, 305. Notice the similar caveat offfered by John of Damascus: “We say that [the union] is essential, moreover, not in the sense of two natures resulting in one compound nature, but in the sense of a true union of them in one compound subsistence of the Son of God, and we hold that their essential diffference is preserved,” Orthodox Faith, III, 3. 131  RD, III, 303. 132  RD, III, 305, material in brackets added. 133  RD, III, 283.

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Every moment in Scripture, divine as well as human predicates are attributed to the same personal subject; divine and human existence, omnipresence and [geographical] limitation, eternity and time, creative omnipotence and creaturely weakness. What else is this but the church’s doctrine of the two natures united in one person?134

If the two natures have their union in one person—that is, if the eternal Son is the one, undivided “I,” then a necessary and important corollary is that the human nature is subordinate to the Son’s divine nature. The person of the Son is divine by essence; he is co-equal and co-essential with the Father and Spirit. He did not need the incarnation to become a person, for he was that from eternity. He is human, on the other hand, by assumption. The human nature is “not coordinated with the Logos by a personality of its own” but is “subordinated to the Logos.”135 The incarnation means “that the human nature that was formed in and from Mary did not for an instant exist by and for itself, but from the very fijirst moment of conception was united with and incorporated in the person of the Son. The Son increated it within himself and, by creating, assumed it in himself.”136 The human nature is thus anhypoatic—lacking a distinct personality. Bavinck is aware that Nestorius maintained on that account (as did Isaac Dorner) that the human nature was therefore incomplete. This is a false conclusion because the human nature is simultaneously enhypoatic—it was “from the start personal in the Logos, who as subject lived, thought, willed, acted, sufffered, died, and so on in and through it with all its constituents, capacities, and energies.”137 Christ was the eternal Son of God in the flesh; he is the “one person,” the subject; the incarnation means that “He who existed in the form of God from that time on existed also in the form of man.”138

134  RD, III, 299; It is impossible to rehearse Bavinck’s exegetical work here; readers are encouraged to consult the massive amount of Scripture he marshals in support of his argument for the hypostatic union; C.f., e.g., RD, III, 240–53; 282–83; 286–94; 296–98; 312–18. 135  RD, III, 307. 136  RD, III, 307. 137  RD, III, 307. Moreover, if the Son had assumed a human nature with its own distinct personal existence, then Christ would be one individual among others: “He, however, could not be an individual beside others. His work did not consist in bringing back to communion with God the one individual person with whom he united himself; on the contrary, his assignment was to assume the seed of Abraham, to be head of a new humanity and the fijirstborn of many brothers. To that end he had to assume an impersonal human nature,” RD, III, 305; C.f., Berkouwer, The Person of Chri, 284, 310–11. 138  RD, III, 305.

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Because the two natures are coordinated or united in the person of the Son, and, moreover, because Reformed theology uniquely stressed this view of personal union by maintaining that it was specifijically the person of the Son that became human rather than the divine nature, it represents a genuinely unique Christology. This is because the Reformed were able to maintain the Creator-creature distinction even in the hypostatic union; the maxim finitum non e capax infiniti applies even there. This entails, accordingly, a distinctly Reformed view of the communicatio idiomatum that, while refusing to commingle or confuse divine and human attributes, nevertheless maintains their unity in the Son’s person; that is, attributes of each can be ascribed to, as Chalcedon put it, “one and the same Son.” Bavinck writes, “In virtue of this splendid doctrine of the communication of proper qualities, Reformed theology was able, better than any other, to maintain in addition to Christ’s deity also his true and genuine humanity. In this regard it renders excellent service.”139 In a moment it will be observed that this maintenance of Christ’s genuine humanity is of paramount importance for Bavinck, but he is also aware of the potential (indeed, actual) objection that this runs the risk of Nestorianism: does the application of finitum non e capax infiniti to the hypostatic union entail that what one has in actuality are two distinct persons?140 Bavinck flatly denies it. Immediately after noting that the strong Creator-creature distinction in Reformed theology “secured space for a purely human development of Christ, for a successive communication of gifts, and for a real distinction between humiliation and exaltation,” he writes:

139  RD, III, 310. David Wells’s summary of Calvin indicates that Bavinck is, on the whole, in tune with his tradition: “[...] Calvin always afffijirmed the full integrity of each nature within the unity of the person. To say that is to say no more than that Calvin was Chalcedonian. The truth is, however, that it was possible to be Chalcedonian in theory but to formulate principles concerning the relation of the natures which in practice subverted the orthodoxy which was believed. Where Luther insisted on the unity of the person, Calvin was unyielding on the integrity of the natures. This he did, as much as anything, to protect the divinity of Christ, for any suggestion of an interpenetration of one nature by another could only mean the elevation of the human to a position in which it was no longer human and a degradation of the divine to a position in which it was no longer divine. It was possible to destroy both natures by an undue insistence on the unity of Christ’s person. For this reason, he opposed the use of the communicatio idiomatum. No conversion of humanity into divinity or divinity into human occurred, but each retained the properties native to them.” David F. Wells, The Person of Chri: A Biblical and Hiorical Analysis of the Incarnation (Westchester, Ill: Crossway, 1984), 124–5. 140  Recall Begbie’s allegation of a “curious type of Nestorianism” in Neo-Calvinist Christology; C.f., fn. 25, (above).

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Still, in the process, [Reformed theology] seriously avoided the Nestorianism of which it was always accused. The reason for this is that in Greek, Roman, and Lutheran theology the emphasis always fell on the incarnation of the divine being, the divine nature. If that nature does not become flesh, the work of salvation, communion with God, seems to be at risk. But Reformed theology stressed that it was the person of the Son who became flesh— not the subance [the underlying reality] but the subsience [the particular being] of the Son assumed our nature. The unity of the two natures, despite the sharp distinction between them, is unalterably anchored in the person.141

Again, observing the careful and technical distinction between “nature” and “person,” avoids the heresies of both Nestorius and Eutyches. The hypostatic union entails the union of two natures in one person, without division, without separation, without change and without confusion. The emphasis on the one person in Reformed Christology avoids division and separation (Nestorius), and the emphasis on the inviolable Creatorcreature distinction (two natures) avoids change and confusion (Eutyches). Thus, for Bavinck, Reformed Christology best maintains the spirit of Chalcedon. Conclusion On Bavinck’s Christology, accordingly, Christ’s human nature is not divinized, not infused with divine attributes, nor interpenetrated with divine energies. It is precisely because he is human—albeit in an entirely unique manner (i.e., theanthropos)142—that Christ required divine gifts and the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Just where Lutheranism runs into insoluble problems, not knowing how to account for the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Bavinck impressively ties together Christology with Pneumatology. The Holy Spirit’s activity began with the conception in Mary’s womb, “but it did not stop there. It continued throughout his entire life, even right into the state of exaltation.”143 Bavinck incorporates a vast swath of scriptural data in support of this:

141

 RD, III, 259; C.f., Berkouwer, The Work of Chri, 281–87.  RD, III, 292: “If humans in general cannot have communion with God except by the Holy Spirit, then this applies even more powerfully to Christ’s human nature, which had to be unifijied with the Son in an entirely unique manner.” 143  RD, III, 292. 142

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chapter five Prophecy already announced that the Messiah would be anointed in a special sense with the Holy Spirit (Isa. 61:1), and the New Testament tells us that Christ received the Spirit without measure (John 3:34). Not only did he receive the Spirit, but the Spirit descended on him at the baptism (Matt. 3:16), completely fijilled him (Luke 4:1, 18), led him into the wilderness and to Galilee (Matt. 4:1; Luke 4:14), gave him power to cast out demons (Matt. 12:18), to offfer himself up to God without blemish (Heb. 9:14), to be designated Son of God in power by his resurrection as Lord with a glorifijied body (Rom. 1:4), just as he had become Son of David in the way of the flesh, thus to vindicate himself as such before the eyes of all (1 Tim. 3:16), to leave the earth and to ascend to heaven (1 Pet. 3:19, 22), and to manifest himself to his own as life-giving Spirit who is the Spirit and who works by the Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17–18).144

One might have expected that the Reformed emphasis on the anhypostatic—and thus subordinate—character of Christ’s human nature (i.e., that the human person of Jesus is none other than the eternal Son) would result in the same difffijiculties besetting Rome and Lutheranism; that is, that the person of the eternal, divine Son renders the humanity superfluous in docetic fashion. This misses the point; precisely because the divine and human natures united in the person are not commingled, or put another way, because finitum non e capax infiniti applies just as strongly to Christology as to any other aspect of the God-world relation, the human nature of Christ is not swallowed up by his divinity, that is, it is not deifijied (Eastern Orthodoxy), not infused with divine attributes (Lutheranism) and not endowed with the beatifijic vision (Rome). It is, rather, in keeping with its created character, historically conditioned, and therefore in need of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, capable of growth, development, and a transition from a humiliated state to an exalted state.145 Bavinck draws out at length several implications of this genuine “human development” in Jesus: that he was susceptible to sufffering and death;146 He grew and developed in his intellectual faculties of knowledge and wisdom;147 he exhibits moral and ethical development;148 and his power

144

 RD, III, 292.  C.f., Berkouwer, The Person of Chri, 295: “The confession of the communication of gifts is a direct result of the confession of the church in Chalcedon. Christ was genuinely man, and assumed the likeness of sinful flesh—human nature in its weakness. We witness here that the human nature of Jesus Christ is not consumed in the union by the divine nature but that it was really united with that divine nature for the fulfijillment of Christ’s offfijice,” emphasis added. 146  RD, III, 309–11. 147  RD, III, 311–13. 148  RD, III, 313–15. 145

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undergoes a genuine transition upon his resurrection, namely, “By his resurrection Christ—also as a human being—became Lord over the living and the dead, received a name that is above every name and power over all creatures.”149 But most importantly for purposes here, it only remains to note what he views as a fijinal great benefijit of Reformed Christology, and thereby introduce the basic subject matter of the following and fijinal chapter of this book: “Reformed theology secured space [...] for a real distinction between humiliation and exaltation.”150 In other words, Reformed Christology has direct implications for Reformed soteriology. Bavinck’s fijinal summation of his doctrine of human nature closed with the telling words: “Adam, the son of God, was a type of Christ.”151 This is an admirable foreshadowing of what Bavinck does with Christology, for it highlights that whatever else might be afffijirmed with respect to the person of Christ, he is certainly not less than the second and “last Adam.” In the incarnation, the eternal Son of God assumed a real human nature, was truly a human subject in time and space, susceptible to death, and was in that way qualifijied to become the progenitor of a new, re-created human race. This assumption of true humanity, which, according to Bavinck only “comes into its own” in Reformed Christology, opens the way for a restoration of humanity imago Dei (humiliation) and a perfection and glorifijication of humanity imago Dei (exaltation). The signifijicance of Reformed Christology, then, as Bavinck indicates, is that between humiliation and exaltation is a genuine historical transition, one that represents, as will be seen in the chapter to come, both the restoration of the broken covenant of works and its fulfijillment.152 In the person and work of Christ, the Last Adam, humanity as imago Dei is reored to its deiny.

149

 RD, III, 315–16, emphasis added.  RD, III, 259, emphasis added. 151  RD, II, 562. 152  C.f., Wagner, “Ascendit ad Coelos,” 21: In the Reformed view, “[t]he states, therefore, are not viewed statically, as referring to properties of either nature of Christ, but rather dynamically, in that they provide the background or setting for the administration of the mediatorial offfijices.” 150

CHAPTER SIX

CHRIST & COVENANT Introduction Chri is the second and la Adam who reores what the fir Adam had corrupted and takes over what he had neglected. He is the mediator of the covenant of grace, the head of the new humanity. To this idea of Scripture, Reformed theology in its doctrine of the covenant has done more juice than any other.1

The introduction to Chapter Three promised an exploration of how, according to Bavinck’s thought, the redemptive work of Jesus Christ assumes, restores, and perfects the image of God. The assumption of the creaturely imago Dei should be clear from the preceding discussion: in the incarnation the eternal Son fully assumed and took on a true and genuine human nature, but did not thereby become two “persons” (Nestorius) or a new “divine-human” mixture (Eutyches). This chapter explores how, according to Bavinck, the divine image is restored and perfected. We will do so under the two broad rubrics Bavinck himself chooses: Christ’s humiliation and his exaltation. It should be stressed here that this book is not designed to explore Bavinck’s soteriology in detail. It is, rather, a conceptual analysis designed to tease out the synthesis between Bavinck’s anthropology and eschatology, which together provide the framework for how his soteriology should be understood. The center of gravity has therefore been on the objective accomplishment of God’s plan of redemption rather than on the ongoing application of redemption to believers. In keeping with this, the focus here will largely be on the way in which the work of Christ objectively accomplishes the restoration and perfection of the imago Dei, in distinction from its subjective, ongoing application to humanity prior to his return. In other words, to borrow terms coined later by Herman Ridderbos, the following analysis will be focused on issues of hioria salutis (history of redemption) rather than ordo salutis (application of redemption), or, as Bavinck puts it, the “objective” side of redemption as 1

 RD, III, 226–7.

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opposed to its “subjective” side.2 Here, in the work of Christ, the eschatological structure of Bavinck’s anthropology, as expressed in his covenant theology, becomes most clear. It is only in the context of the relationship between the covenants of works and grace that Bavinck’s view of Christ’s humiliation, broadly considered as his vicarious sufffering and death, and his exaltation, his resurrection and entrance into eschatological glory, can be properly and fully understood. We will proceed by fijirst examining Bavinck’s understanding of the covenant of grace. This will contain brief comments on the pactum salutis, or what has become known as the “covenant of redemption,” which is a signifijicant, yet somewhat lightly treated element in Bavinck’s thought and thus need not be treated extensively. On the other hand, the contrast the covenant of grace provides to the covenant of works reveals that for Bavinck the violation of the latter places upon humanity what he calls a “double demand,” namely the just payment and subjection to its death sanction, and the requirement of perfect, active obedience to God’s moral requirements. This results in what Bavinck calls a “fundamental law” for fallen creatures: that sufffering precedes glory; humiliation must precede exaltation. Thus, the discussion moves to consider how Christ’s fullorbed obedience answers to this basic double demand, thereby restoring humanity (satisfaction of judgment) and perfecting humanity (acquisition of eschatological beatitude); that is, he restores humanity imago Dei not to the “beginning” of Adam’s journey, but to its end; restoration not to its original state, but to its destiny. Moreover, as the obedience of Christ has this two-fold efffect (restoration and perfection) answering to the two-fold demand (satisfaction and positive obedience), this arguably does more justice to the doctrine of the atus duplex than is possible on Roman Catholic or Lutheran views of Christ’s work. Therefore, the Christological and soteriological implications of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation will be explored with a view to highlighting precisely how it consistently works out the eschatological structure of Bavinck’s anthropology.3 Finally,

2  Herman Ridderbos, When the Time Had Fully Come: Studies in New Teament Theology (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2001), 48–49; RD, III, 344; c.f., Richard B. Gafffijin, Jr., By Faith, Not By Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2006), 18–19. 3  Humiliation and exaltation are large topics, and the need for pointed focus is obvious given space limitations. An initial observation here may point up the need for the present analysis: Berkouwer’s treatment of the work of Christ, while in many ways indebted to Bavinck’s Dogmatics and ostensibly built on its foundation, all but completely ignores the covenant architecture of Bavinck’s soteriology—that is, Christ’s work as a restoration and fulfijillment of the covenant of works. This is not surprising, given Berkouwer’s apparent

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this chapter will conclude with some observations on how Bavinck’s covenant architecture, that is, his eschatologically-oriented anthropology, fundamentally serves his larger and ultimate goal of undermining, once and for all, the nature/grace dualism that has plagued much of western theology. The Covenant of Grace Little has been said to this point about the covenant of grace, a perhaps surprising fact given the extraordinary attention paid to this doctrine in the tradition of Reformed theology. One reason for this is that Reformed interest in the covenant of grace has historically—from Zwingli onward— to a great extent centered on the relationship between the old and new covenants, that is, the relationship between the Old Testament and the New, particularly with respect to issues of continuity and/or discontinuity.4 The present treatment of Bavinck’s anthropology has taken a more global or comprehensive perspective; there is, in his thought, a deeper covenantal architecture that lies antecedent to the later historical issues related to God’s covenant with Abraham, Moses, David, etc. This is above all evident in his emphasis on the doctrine of the covenant of works. The most basic “covenantal” question to be answered is not the relation between, say, the Abrahamic or Sinaitic covenant and the New Covenant, but, rather, the relation between God’s covenant with all of humanity in

antipathy for the doctrine of the covenant of works; yet the lack of this architecture in fact leaves substantially muted and ambiguous the properly eschatological character of Christ’s work, i.e., that it is not only the restoration but also the glorifijication of the creaturely imago Dei. Just as his Man: The Image of God fails to account for eschatology on the anthropological side, so also his Work of Chri fails to account for it on the soteriological side. And the absent link in both cases is covenant theology. 4  Thus, Hoekema’s dissertation on “Herman Bavinck’s Doctrine of the Covenant” is largely taken up with perennial issues in the Reformed tradition concerning the doctrine of infant baptism and its relation to circumcision, the relationship of Israel to the church, and so forth; C.f., RD, III, 209–10; likewise, Gleason treats Bavinck’s doctrine of the covenant exclusively in terms of the issues of the continuity of God’s (one) covenant of grace, “The Centrality of the Unio Myica,” 139fff, to the point of even writing as a sub-heading: “The God who acts in hiory has one covenant.” If he means by this that the covenant of grace is one, fair enough. But it is false that there is only one historical covenant in Bavinck’s thought. The fact that the covenant of works is not particularly congenial to Gleason’s thesis—insofar as it contemplates divine-human fellowship not rooted in union with the incarnate Christ, which is a soteric necessity—perhaps might explain its absence in his thesis.

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Adam and his covenant with the elect in Christ.5 That the relationship between the covenant of works and grace is, indeed, foundational for Bavinck is indirectly seen in his opposition to the covenant theology of Cocceius; the latter’s view that the covenant of grace is the “gradual, historical, and successively unfolding abolition of the covenant of works” in fact “undermined the whole doctrine of the covenant.”6 Rather, the covenant of grace, Bavinck writes, is the fullfijillment and restoration of the covenant of works: this forms the rationale for his signature thesis that “grace repairs and perfects nature.”7 God’s covenant of grace does not begin with the calling of Abraham, or even the covenant made with Noah, but rather, “The covenant of grace already begins immediately after the fall.”8 This is evident in that the sanction of death God had promised does not go into efffect; if it had, it would have entailed that “in that fijirst human couple the whole human race would have been annihilated, the earth laid waste, and the cosmos would have returned to chaos or to nothingness.”9 This would mean, to put a fijine point on it, “Satan would have been victorious and God defeated.”10 It is for this reason that immediately after the fall “another principle went into efffect,” and that principle is grace, a grace that “restrains, opposes, and

5  This is, arguably, a Pauline emphasis; C.f., Richard B. Gafffijin, Jr., By Faith, Not By Sight, commenting on Paul’s terminology of the “second Adam”: “In [...] the sweep of Paul’s covenant-historical outlook, the overarching hierarchy of his concerns here is such that no one comes into consideration but Adam and Christ—not David, not Moses and the law given at Sinai, not even Abraham as the promise-holder, not Noah, nor anyone else. Fairly utilizing the language of Romans 5:14 here in 1 Corinthians 15, Adam is a ‘type’ or ‘pattern’ (τυπος) of ‘the one to come,’ Christ, and of no one in between [....] [W]ithin the overall context of Paul’s theology, Israel’s story in its unfolding subserves the larger story, that larger covenant-history which here [1 Cor. 15:45–49] is given its ultimate profijiling: creation and the new creation, the original creation and its consummation, each beginning with and determined by an Adam of its own,” 47–8. Readers interested in Bavinck’s view of the relationship of Christ to the narrower question of the Mosaic law should consult John Bolt, “Christ and the Law in the Ethics of Herman Bavinck,” CTJ 28 (1993): 45–73. Bolt exposes an undercurrent in Bavinck’s ethics related to the more “global” perspective argued here: namely, in his desire to reject any ethic that lacks universal applicability, Bavinck grounds Christian ethics, not primarily in the Mosaic economy, but in Christ’s restoration of creational norms. 6  RD, III, 211. 7  RD, III, 226. 8  RD, III, 197. The word “begins” should be noted: whatever the character of God’s covenant with Adam prior to the fall, it is essentially distinct in character from the relationship after the fall. 9  RD, III, 197. 10  RD, III, 197.

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overcomes sin.”11 God’s covenant promise to overcome Adam and Eve’s sinful rebellion enters history in germinal form in his judgment on them; they had made, as it were, a “covenant” with the evil power that used the serpent as an instrumentality: With this power humanity had made a covenant and for its sake broken the covenant with God. God graciously annuls it, puts enmity between the seed of the serpent and the woman’s seed, brings the seed of the woman— humanity, that is—back to his side, hence declaring that from Eve will spring a human race and that that race, though it will have to sufffer much in the conflict with that evil power, will eventually triumph.12

The “judgment” of Adam and Eve is, therefore, simultaneously an act of grace and mercy. Sin and death will not be triumphant; Bavinck reads Adam’s reaction as an act of believing faith: “Leaning on God’s promise, Adam calls his wife Eve: life, source of life, mother of the living [....] Though they deserved death and decay, God’s blessing makes the woman fruitful and causes her to bring forth the humanity that, in her greatest son, the Son of Man, will conquer the evil power of sin.”13 Present in Genesis 3, then, is “in substance the whole gospel, the entire covenant of grace [....] All that follows is the development of what has been germinally planted here.”14 Reformed theology was not content to simply observe the historical appearance of a new covenant principle of grace immediately after the fall; it desired to further root the covenant of grace in the eternal, unchangeable counsel of God. That is, it sought to relate God’s redemptive works ad extra to his eternal counsel ad intra, and they achieved this by introducing the concept of the pactum salutis, or “covenant of redemption.” The Pactum Salutis Bavinck is critical of the Reformed development of the pactum salutis, writing that it was “not free of scholastic sublety.”15 In fact, he does not consider persuasive any of the classic exegetical arguments for the doctrine. Nevertheless, he does believe it to be rooted in a scriptural idea:

11

 RD, III, 197. Bavinck further distinguishes this grace into common and special grace, in order to make clear that God’s very maintenance of pagan humanity is an act of gracious intervention, though not necessarily salvifijic; C.f., RD, III, 216fff. 12  RD, III, 199. 13  RD, III, 200. 14  RD, III, 200. 15  RD, III, 213.

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namely, that the work of the Son as mediator, in obedience to the will of the Father, is “not fijirst initiated at the time of the incarnation, for the incarnation itself is already included in the execution of the work assigned to the Son, but occurs in eternity and therefore also existed already during the time of the Old Testament.”16 There is, in other words, clearly an eternal purpose that lies behind the historical appearance of Christ for the salvation of humanity, one which enables the Son to act as mediator in history even prior to his incarnation (e.g., the “Angel of Yahweh”).17 And in this purpose, what the Reformed called the “pact of salvation,” the irreducibly trinitarian and unilateral character of redemption comes to the fore: The pact of salvation makes known to us the relationships and life of the three persons in the Divine Being as a covenantal life, a life of consummate self-consciousness and freedom. Here, within the Divine Being, the covenant flourishes to the full. Whereas the covenant between God and humankind—on account of the infijinite distance between them—always more or less has the character of a sovereign grant (διαθηκη), here, among the three persons, it is a pact (συνθηκη) in the full sense of the word. The greatest freedom and the most perfect agreement coincide.18

This means that redemption, no less than the act of creation, is a thoroughly triune and thoroughly free act; it is “the divine work par excellence.”19 Just as God intentionally consulted with himself in creating humanity (Gen. 1:26), as Bavinck draws the analogy, “so, in the work of re-creation, each of the three persons even more clearly acts in his own distinct character, is [sic] a work of God alone: of, through, and unto him are all things [....] It is the triune God alone, Father, Son, and Spirit, who together conceive, determine, carry out, and complete the entire work of salvation.”20

16

 RD, III, 214.  C.f., Bavinck’s summary of scriptural teaching in this regard, RD, III, 214. 18  RD, III, 214–15. This last qualifijication, that freedom and agreement perfectly coincide, is an important one, because calling the relationship between the persons of the Trinity a “covenant” can have the negative tri-theistic connotations that within the divine being there are somehow “negotiating” parties. His use of the term συνθηκη here arguably has the merit of avoiding this connotation. 19  RD, III, 215. 20  RD, III, 215. Bavinck describes the intratrinitarian work of humanity’s creation imago Dei this way in his 1884 unpublished address: “But as he will now create human beings, there is fijirst a silence and a mysterious pause. God performs a council with himself and holds an elevated monologue: ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness,’” “De Mensch, Gods Evenbeeld,” MS 3. 17

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At root, the pactum salutis is a necessary application of the Reformed doctrine of the counsel of God to the specifijic question of soteriology. Recall that for Bavinck, the doctrine of the counsel of God maintains the connection between God and the world, the sovereignty of God, and the complete dependence of creatures, “thus avoiding both the error of pantheism and that of Deism.”21 In fact, Bavinck goes so far as to write that “[a]mong Christians, accordingly, there can be no disagreement over the existence of a divine counsel. Only pantheism, which does not acknowledge that God has a life and consciousness of his own that is distinct from the world, can raise objections to that idea.”22 Resistance to the doctrine of the eternal counsel is perennial, and foremost in Bavinck’s mind is the tendency to view the decrees as univocal of, or identical to, “the facts of history.”23 But with this view, “the whole distinction between eternity and time, between God and the world, is erased, and theism is exchanged for pantheism.”24 The pactum salutis, for Bavinck, undercuts its implied determinism, precisely by maintaining the Creator-creature distinction: “The entire work of re-creation [...] is rooted in the free and conscious consultation of the three persons. It is a personal, not a natural, work.”25 And again, “The incarnation was prepared from eternity; it does not rest in the essence of God but in the person. It is not a necessity as in pantheism, but neither is it arbitrary or accidental as in Pelagianism.”26 Redemption can in no sense be described as a necessity for God. Moreover, while the pactum salutis avoids the collapse of the distinction between eternity and time, God and creation, it nevertheless secures the connection between God’s ad intra counsel and the ad extra execution of that counsel: “this pact of salvation, however, further forms the link between the eternal work of God toward salvation and what he does to that end in time.”27 The covenant of grace “revealed in time does not hang in the air but rests on an eternal, unchanging foundation. It is fijirmly grounded in the counsel and covenant of the triune God and is the

21

 RD, II, 343; C.f., Ch. 1, 31–2.  RD, II, 372. 23  RD, II, 370. The obvious impetus for singling out this view is its Hegelian character. 24  RD, II, 370. This might well serve as a warning signal for contemporary theology’s penchant for collapsing the ontological and economic Trinity by strictly (univocally) identifying the two. 25  RD, III, 276. 26  RD, III, 277. 27  RD, III, 215. 22

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application and execution of it that infallibly follows.”28 As such, it is completely a work of God’s sovereignty: “human beings are not the active and acting initiators, but it is again the triune God who, having designed the work of re-creation, brings it about.”29 In addition to making more clear the trinitarian nature of the plan of redemption,30 the pactum salutis provides for redemption a “stable, eternal foundation.”31 Above all, Bavinck emphasizes this “stability” and “unchangeability.” Because this eternal covenant provides a foundation for the covenant of grace initiated in history, the covenant of grace itself shares this stable, unchanging character: “this covenant [of grace] has an unwaveringly fijirm foundation. It can no longer be broken: it is an everlasting covenant.”32 This provides for the covenant of grace an essential distinction from the covenant of works; the latter was not stable and certain, because it rested in the “insecure and unstable” will of Adam.33 The former, on the other hand, rests “with the man Christ Jesus, who was [the Father’s] own only begotten, muchbeloved Son. And in him, who shares the divine nature and attributes, this covenant has an unwaveringly fijirm foundation.”34 The Covenant of Works & the “Double Demand” It has been apparent throughout this book that basic to Bavinck’s theology is a sharp distinction drawn between the pre-fall and post-fall states of afffairs. Whereas the theologians under whom he sat in Leiden (e.g., Scholten) argued that the diffference between the two lies in the concept of revelation; namely, the atus integritatis is a natural preparation for “revealed” religion in the covenant of grace, Bavinck denies that this is the

28

 RD, III, 215.  RD, III, 215. 30  RD, III, 215: “In the decrees, also in those of predestination, the one will of God occupied the foreground, and their trinitarian character was still blurred. But here, in the pact of salvation, the work of redemption stands out in its full divine splendor.” 31  RD, III, 212–13. 32  RD, III, 225. 33  RD, III, 225. 34  RD, III, 225. This serves as an answer to a perhaps lingering question: why is the covenant of works any less stable and unchanging, given Bavinck’s own analogy between God’s self-consultation in creation (i.e., “Let us make man...”) and the pactum salutis? The latter is a covenant made with the eternal Son, the former, with Adam in his subeschatological (i.e., posse non peccare) state. Moreover, one might observe that since (as will soon be seen), for Bavinck, the covenant of works is still operative in the crucial sense that its stipulations remain in force, and that the covenant of grace reores rather than replaces it, in that sense the covenant of works is inviolable. 29

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case.35 The covenant of works itself rested on special revelation. Rather, the diffference is found in the character of that revelation: whereas before God’s revelation came to human beings created imago Dei, and thus morally upright, [n]ow revelation comes to guilty man, who merits death, as a revelation of grace. Now when God—in spite of the transgression—calls man, searches him out, and sets enmity in place of the defunct friendship, a totally new element appears in his revelation—namely, his compassion and mercy. Life, work, food, clothing come to him no longer on the basis of an agreement or right granted in the covenant of works but through grace alone.36

While in his lecture on common grace Bavinck draws the distinction this way, he elsewhere understands that, taken in an unqualifijied fashion, this is subject to some confusion.37 In fact, the distinction, in a crucial sense, can rather be drawn between grace considered in two ways. He writes elsewhere, “Granted, it is also true of the covenant of works that God was not obligated to introduce it. It was his condescending goodness, and thus also grace in a general sense, that prompted him to grant this covenant to human beings.”38 Viewed in this light, the distinction is one between God’s “condescending goodness” to created human beings as the image of God, and the divine disposition which, after the fall, “changes in character and receives a diffferent content.”39 Namely, the diffference is between God’s disposition toward a friend and his disposition toward an enemy; the latter contains a wholly new element: “compassion and mercy.”40 Bavinck further describes this characteristic change in God’s revelation this way: “[I]n that covenant of works God came to humanity with the demand of obedience and—only in that way and upon the accomplishment of it—promised to grant them the blessedness of heaven, eternal life, and the enjoyment of the beatifijic vision.”41 This was perfectly appropriate, he argues, for human beings fashioned imago Dei: “The doing of 35

 “CG,” 39; C.f., RD, I, 109.  “CG,” 40. 37  In fact, this formulation has generated widespread confusion; C.f., the discussion on Berkouwer’s rejection of the covenant of works in chapter two, where he views it as entailing a “nomological ur-existence” of man; C.f., Berkouwer, Sin, 208. Moreover, Veenhof believes Bavinck’s notion of a pre-redemptive “grace” to be in conflict with his view that the incarnation is an exclusively soteriological reality, a concern ably answered by Bolt, Imitation, 241–51. 38  RD, III, 225, emphasis added. 39  “CG,” 40. 40  “CG,” 40. 41  RD, III, 225. 36

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good works to merit blessing was quite appropriate for man created after the image of God in the foedus operum; but with the advent of sin, such merit became quite impossible. Now forgiveness, sonship, righteousness, and blessing are ours only if God grants them in his grace.”42 As this already indicates, one basic distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace is that the latter is no longer based on the achievement of its recipients: “The covenant of works, accordingly, factored in the free will of the fijirst human pair; in part it depended on them and was therefore insecure and unstable. In fact, therefore, it was broken, not by God, but by [the fijirst] human pair.”43 The inference can thus be drawn that the covenant of grace does not factor in the free will of those to whom it is intended, but is rather granted freely out of divine grace: It rests not in any work of humans but solely in the good pleasure of God, in the work of the Mediator, in the Holy Spirit, who remains forever. It is not dependent on any human condition; it does not confer any benefijit based on merit; it does not wait for any law keeping on the part of humans. It is of, through, and for grace.44

The very genius of the Reformed covenant scheme, however, and one which Bavinck himself presently draws out, is that in addition to this categorical distinction between the covenants (human ex pacto merit in the covenant of works; no merit in the covenant of grace), there is a fundamental and inviolable underlying unity between the two.45 It is this more than anything else that forms the rationale for and basic covenantal architecture of Bavinck’s doctrine of redemption: the stipulations of the two covenants remain the same: “God stands by the rule that those who keep the law will receive eternal life.”46 He elaborates, After the covenant of works had been broken, God did not immediately conceive a totally diffferent covenant unrelated to the preceding one and that has a diffferent character. That simply could not be the case, for God is unchangeable; the demand posed to humans in the covenant of works

42

 “CG,” 49.  RD, III, 225. 44  RD, III, 225–6. 45  This is what Muller is after with his phrase the “stability of divine law”: “The stability of the law, guaranteed in the divine maintenance of the terms of the covenant of works, points not to a legalistic view of salvation, but to the fullness of Christ’s work of satisfaction and to the totally unmerited character of the salvation provided by grace through faith to believers,” CWSDL, 97. 46  RD, III, 225; C.f., RD, II, 579: “The covenant of works and the covenant of grace stand and fall together. The same law applies to both.” 43

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is not arbitrary and capricious. The image of God, the law, and religion can by their very nature only be one; grace, nature, and faith cannot or may not nullify the law.47

But human beings, being guilty and corrupt, are incapable of keeping the law, and are thus “no longer able to acquire life by keeping it. By the works of the law no human can be justifijied.”48 God’s non-arbitrary stipulation that obedience will result in eschatological life provides the unity between the covenants of works and grace and yet (at the same time) paves the way for the distinction between them. Thus, Bavinck elaborates that in distinction from and contrast to the covenant of works, God established a better, not legalistic but “evangelical,” covenant.49 It is not better because obedience is somehow not required in the latter, but because it is a covenant made with Chri.50 The primary diffference between the covenants of works and grace, Bavinck maintains, is that “Adam is exchanged for and replaced by Christ.”51 The stipulations are fundamentally the same: God still requires of human beings complete and unwavering loyalty and obedience to his will. And whereas that obedience was not rendered by Adam, thus precipitating the ruin of humanity, Christ’s mediatorial work is nothing less than the obedience God originally required of his creaturely image-bearers. It is not fundamentally the what of the covenant that constitutes the diffference (for “the image of God, law, and religion can only be one”), but the with whom of the covenant that represents the deepest distinction between them.52 Notwithstanding this continuity between God’s stipulations for humanity in the state of integrity and continuing into the state of sin, there is yet a further important diffference that is essential to keep in mind, especially as it bears on Christ’s mediatorial work: Given Adam’s disobedience, God’s positive demand of obedience has been coupled with another, inviolable, “negative” demand: “the law that the violation must be paid for by punishment.”53 Consequent on the fall of humanity, God lays what Bavinck calls a “double claim” on humans: both the payment of the penalty (i.e., death) and the positive, perfect compliance with his law; he summarizes 47

 RD, III, 226.  RD, III, 225. 49  RD, III, 225. 50  RD, III, 225. 51  RD, III, 226. 52  This is, arguably, the entire point of Paul’s Adam-Christ parallel in Romans 5:12fff, as Bavinck further maintains, RD, III, 226. 53  RD, III, 226. 48

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these as “satisfaction” and “obedience.”54 It was just noted that for Bavinck the essential diffference between the covenants of works and grace is that in the former, human beings merited, ex pacto, eschatological life, and in the latter, that life is granted out of pure grace. This is a basic distinction, but one viewed from the vantage point of the beneficiaries of the covenant blessings. But there is another perspective, from that of the two representative heads of the two covenants. And from that angle, Bavinck writes, The diffference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace therefore consists in the fact that in the latter God asserts not one but a double demand, and that with this double demand he approaches not humanity in Adam but humanity in Christ. The covenant of works and the covenant of grace primarily difffer in that Adam is exchanged for and replaced by Christ.55

This double demand results in nothing less than what Bavinck earlier describes as a “fundamental law that God [...] proclaims before the entrance into the kingdom of heaven.”56 This law is that the “road for the human race will pass through sufffering to glory, through struggle to victory, through the cross to a crown, through the state of humiliation to that of exaltation.”57 There must be both payment for the violation of God’s will and positive obedience to that will in order for humanity to achieve eschatological beatitude; put in the terms of Psalm 23, in a fashion of which Bavinck would undoubtedly approve, the road to “dwelling in the house of the Lord forever” runs squarely through “the valley of the shadow of death.”58 Bavinck’s covenant architecture, built on both the unity (i.e., stipulations and promises) and distinction (i.e., diffferent “heads,” “double demand”) between the covenants of works and grace, leads to the conclusion that the mediatorial work of Christ cannot be understood apart from this “fundamental law” of humiliation and exaltation, of the necessity of both satisfaction and positive obedience. In other words, Christ’s mediatorial work necessarily consists of an all-encompassing obedience, one that makes complete satisfaction to the negative sanction for humanity’s

54

 RD, III, 226.  RD, III, 226, emphasis added. 56  RD, III, 199. 57  RD, III, 199. This “fundamental law” seems vividly portrayed in Genesis 3:24, where God places cherubim with a flaming sword to specifijically guard the way to the tree of life; the route to the latter is only through the former. 58  C.f., RD, III, 390. 55

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disobedience in Adam and performs the perfect compliance with God’s will as the prerequisite for entrance into eschatological beatitude. That is, to use the more historic terms, Christ’s obedience is both “passive” and “active.” Chri’s Obedience & the Status Duplex Bavinck is careful to maintain that while the obedience of Christ can be viewed in both a “passive” sense, corresponding to his sufffering, and an “active” sense, corresponding to his life of active obedience to his Father’s will, the two cannot, on that account, be divorced from each other. He writes, “The work of Christ accomplished for his own consisted in general in his absolute and total obedience to the will of God (Matt. 3:15; 20:28; 26:42; John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38; Rom. 5:19; Gal. 4:4; Phil. 2:7–8; Heb. 5:8; 10:5–10; etc.).”59 However, often in the history of the church, Christ’s sufffering has been “separated from the act of obedience expressed in it and thus made into an object of pious reflection.”60 Martyrs, monks, beggars, and flagellants viewed asceticism and self-torture as preeminent Christian virtues; Anselm viewed satisfaction as consisting only in Christ’s sufffering and death; in the Protestant tradition mystics and Anabaptists often viewed the sufffering of Christ as “something objective,” and all these views “fail to do justice to [Christ’s] active obedience.”61 Even a Reformed fijigure like Piscator argued that although Christ, as a human being, was obligated to obey his Father, this obedience was not a constituent part of his satisfaction accomplished in the place of sinners.62 All these tendencies elevate the “passive” or sufffering aspect of Christ’s work above his active, life-long obedience to his Father. By contrast, the Reformed generally, while they agreed with Piscator that Christ, as a human being, “was certainly obligated to keep the law, to love God above all, and to love his neighbor as himself,”63 nevertheless could not, with him, separate this obedience from Christ’s satisfaction. This is because, according to Bavinck, “Scripture views the entire life and work of Christ as a single whole and never makes a dichotomy between an obedience of life (obedientia vitae), which he accomplished for himself, and an obedience of death (obedientia mortis), which he accomplished for us. It is one single work that the Father 59

 RD, III, 377.  RD, III, 377. 61  RD, III, 377; C.f., Bolt, Imitation, 86, 92. 62  RD, III, 377; C.f., RD, III, 347. 63  RD, III, 377. 60

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assigned to him and that he fijinished in his death.”64 The case is “that Christ’s entire life and work, from his conception to his death, was substitutionary in nature.”65 This last emphasis on the substitutionary character of Christ’s work leads to another important point: [W]hile it is true that as a human with reference to himself Christ was subject to the law, it must be emphasized that his incarnation and being human occurred not for himself but for us. Christ never was, and may never be regarded as, a private person, an individual alongside and on the same level as other individuals. He was from the very beginning a public person, the second Adam, the guarantor and head of the elect.66

This substitutionary aspect, or the fact that Christ is never to be contemplated in abstraction from those whom he represents, is tightly connected to the covenant framework Bavinck has labored to establish: As Adam sinned for himself and by this act imposed guilt and death on all those he represented, so Christ, by his righteousness and obedience, acquired forgiveness and life for all his own. Even more, as a human being Christ was certainly subject to the law of God as the rule of life; even believers are never exempted from the law in that sense. But Christ related himself to the law in still a very diffferent way, namely, as the law of the covenant of works. Adam was not only obligated to keep the law but was confronted in the covenant of works with that law as the way to eternal life, a life he did not yet possess. But Christ, in virtue of his union with the divine nature, already had this eternal and blessed life. This life he voluntarily relinquished. He submitted himself to the law of the covenant of works as the way to eternal life for himself and his own.67

Here Bavinck is explicit: the redemptive work of Christ, the covenant of grace, is viewed in terms of the antecedent covenant of works, and it is precisely because of this that Bavinck draws out, in the above quote, the implication that Christ’s positive, “active” obedience is essentially the original prerequisite for eternal life promised to Adam. It should be remembered that all this is argued in the context of those who would deny any “active” aspect to Christ’s satisfaction; on the contrary, argues Bavinck, the

64

 RD, III, 378.  RD, III, 378. 66  RD, III, 379. 67  RD, III, 379, emphasis added. Here one should note that Berkouwer cites with approval Bavinck’s rejection of Piscator, yet overlooks this equally important emphasis that Christ’s obedience was related to the law as a covenant of works for the attainment of eternal life; C.f., Berkouwer, The Work of Chri, 323. Berkouwer adopts Bavinck’s view of active and passive obedience, but not the covenant structure on which it is based. 65

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covenant stipulation originally given to Adam, and subsequently violated, continues to demand its fulfijillment. Therefore, satisfaction must also be made for the sanction of death: God’s people must have “the forgiveness of sins and eternal life,”68 answering to the “double demand” consequent of the broken covenant of works. Redemption is neither strictly the forgiveness of sins nor strictly deliverance from the dominion of sin, but rather both.69 The above block quote contains another insight, one that can be highlighted by noting his phraseology: Christ “submitted himself to the law of the covenant of works as the way of eternal life for himself and for his own.” That clause, “for himself,” raises the pointed question: why would the eternal Son need to acquire “eternal life,” when, as the second person of the Trinity, he already enjoyed divine beatitude in the very essence of his person? The key is found in the immediately preceding sentence, which serves to keep in mind that the person of Christ cannot be separated from his work: “This life he voluntarily relinquished.” That is, the incarnation of the eternal Son, his becoming one with humanity as the second Adam and God-Man, entails that the Son personally entered into humanity’s place (e.g., “born of a woman,” Gal. 4:4), is therefore personally subject to the stipulations of God’s moral requirements (e.g., “born under law,” Gal. 4:4), personally became a subject of the law’s curse (e.g., “becoming a curse for us,” Gal. 3:13), and therefore also personally became a recipient of an eternal inheritance (e.g., those “in Christ” are “heirs according to the promise,” Gal. 3:29; c.f., Heb. 1:2; Rom. 1:4; 8:17: “co-heirs with Christ”). According to Bavinck’s thought, the incarnate Son, the God-Man, entered into the sub-eschatological existence of created humanity, and, even more, into the state of fallen, cursed humanity, and therefore, as the incarnate GodMan had both to sufffer the death sanction due for disobedience and, by way of obedience, to enter into eschatological glory. In another context, defending the doctrine of imputed righteousness against the objections of Rome, he makes this astonishing statement: “[I]n Scripture Christ is very defijinitely named and treated according to his extrinsic form. It is even said that he was made to be sin for us and became a curse for us. In a legal or juridicial sense Chri can be called a sinner, though to avoid the antinomian misunderstanding this practice is not to be recommended.”70

68

 RD, III, 379, emphasis added.  RD, III, 380. 70  RD, IV, 213, emphasis added. 69

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The emphasis on the “personal” here should not be played offf of the corporate or solidaric aspect of Christ’s work: Christ cannot be separated “from his own.” Just as it is “for us” that Christ sufffered, so also is his resurrection unto glory “for us.” But Bavinck’s formulation indicates, just the same, the importance of not obscuring the personal character of Christ’s mediation: although in his very essence God, the Son voluntarily became a man, and, as the God-Man, was personally able to sufffer and die; accordingly, he was also personally able to “acquire” life “for himself and for his own.” On Bavinck’s analysis, if one were to object that it makes no ontological sense for Jesus himself to acquire, merit, or “enter into” eschatological beatitude because, on account of his eternal divine nature, he already possessed that life, then it is no less ontologically problematic for Jesus, the eternal Son, to sufffer and die. The solidarity involved in Christ’s mediatorial work entails that the historical appearance of the eternal Son as the second Adam enables both his sufffering the sanction of death and entering into (i.e., “acquiring”) eternal life by his resurrection. Bavinck goes on, in a lengthy passage worth quoting in full, to still more clearly articulate his view that although Christ’s obedience is “one,” it can still be distinguished by passive and active aspects, and that, further, these are directly tied to the covenant of works: [The] will of God is one, as was the obedience with which Christ submitted to it and the righteousness he accomplished in it. Still, with reference to the obedience he showed, one can distinguish a passive and an active side. For the demand posed by God to fallen humanity was twofold: one, that humans would keep the law perfectly, and two, that they would redress the violation of it by punishment. Twofold also are the benefijits that Christ obtained for us, namely, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The two are not identical; justifijication cannot be automatically equated with heavenly blessedness. Though before his disobedience Adam was righteous, he still had to secure eternal life in the way of works. To bear a punishment is absolutely not as such identical with the observance of the law. A criminal who is punished but who in being punished hardens his heart fulfijills the demand of the law but by no means meets the entire demand of the law. In addition, Christ was the second Adam. He came not only to bear our punishment for us but also to obtain for us the righteousness and life that Adam had to secure by his obedience. He delivered us from guilt and punishment and placed us at the end of the road that Adam had to walk, not at the beginning. He gives us much more than we lost in Adam, not only the forgiveness of sins and release from punishment but also and immediately—in faith—the notbeing-able-to-sin and not-being-able-to-die.71

71

 RD, III, 394–5.

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This passage again makes explicit that Bavinck’s understanding of the work of Christ is grounded in his view of the covenant of works in the atus integritatis; most notably, as should be expected, given how the covenant of works forms for him an intrinsic creational eschatology, the covenant of works provides the framework by which the Mediator can deliver humanity to the state of non posse peccare et mori. Here the integration of anthropology and eschatology becomes most explicit; for Bavinck, Augustine’s four-fold view of the difffering anthropological states, from the ability to not sin to the inability to sin, is consistently maintained in a Reformed eschatology rooted in a bi-covenantal framework. It is because Christ fulfijilled the demands of the original covenant of works that the image of God in humanity is both restored and brought to its destiny of incorruptible fellowship with God. Note that here “justifijication cannot be automatically equated with heavenly blessedness” precisely because Adam’s original state of being “just” was itself sub-eschatological: he “still had to secure eternal life in the way of works.” In other words, a return to original righteousness is for Bavinck not the same thing as being brought to eschatological righteousness.72 One begins to see clearly what Bavinck has in mind when he maintains that the imago Dei can only be fully treated by including human deiny—that is, eschatology. The atus integritatis cannot be, because of its sub-eschatological character, the exhaustive context for the imago Dei. Adam’s original righteousness and holiness are not, and in the nature of the case cannot be, the complete picture of the image of God. As Bavinck argues here, failure to account for this leads one to under-appreciate the eschatological character of Christ’s work. Although he fijinds it useful to distinguish “passive” and “active” aspects to Christ’s obedience, Bavinck nevertheless denies that the two can be separated. The passive and the active always coincide in the life and death of Christ: “Not a single act nor any single incident in the life or sufffering of Christ is exclusively reducible to one or the other.”73 In fact, “[h]is activity was sufffering and his sufffering an action.”74 This does not undermine the distinction, however, because the term “passive” is intended to highlight 72  C.f., RD, IV, 98, where he contrasts natural or creational life with eschatological life this way: “the spiritual life originates in God as Savior, is acquired by the resurrection of Christ, and is eternal life that can neither sin nor die,” emphasis added. 73  RD, III, 395. Bavinck takes a similar view of the “offfijices” of Christ: Prophet, Priest and King are perspectivally related; his prophetic voice is the voice of a priest and king; his kingly rule is prophetic and intercessory; his priestly offfering is the offfering of the king and prophet; C.f., RD, III, 367–68. 74  RD, III, 395.

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that aspect of Christ’s mediatorial work in which sufffering and death is something done to him, judgment placed upon him—willingly and voluntarily (actively), to be sure. His sufffering was thus both the bearing (passive) of punishment and the fulfijilling of the law (active).75 Likewise, Christ’s active, life-long obedience to his Father, his fulfijilling of the law, culminated in his being put to death (passive) on the cross. Thus, “active” and “passive” obedience are not two distinct types of action, but rather perspectives on the one, undivided obedience of Christ. He summarizes: The satisfactory nature of Christ’s obedience, accordingly, does not consist in that Christ by his blood satisfijied a vengeful deity and stilled his hatred and spite by a quantity of sufffering; it consists in that, from the beginning to the end of his life, he submitted his will to the complete, perfect, holy, and loving will of God and consecrated himself, with body and soul and all his powers, to being a perfect offfering to God. But, according to the teaching of Scripture, that will of God encompassed not only the life but also the suffering of Christ; and that offfering consisted not only in his ‘moral vocation’ but also in his death on the cross. Dying, he completed his obedience and consummated his sanctifijication.76

It should be evident by this point that Reformed theology’s bi-covenant structure, with its insight into the “double demand” placed on fallen humanity, paves the way for a peculiarly Reformed understanding of the work of Christ. More specifijically, according to Bavinck, Reformed theology is able to do justice to the two states of humiliation and exaltation in a way that Rome and Lutheranism cannot. Because they fail to properly account for the historical contrast of nature and grace (i.e., the subeschatological character of creation as distinct from the atus gloriae), and are thus built instead on an ontological dualism of nature and grace, a signifijicant problem is created. The work of Christ tends to be understood in ontic rather than historical terms. The center of gravity rests on the ontic person of Christ at the risk of eclipsing the historical work of Christ. Because, in Rome’s view, the hypostatic union itself achieves the supernatural “elevation” of the natural human nature, its theology struggles to account for the humiliation of Christ. At one and the same time Rome wishes to view the human nature of the Son as “being endowed with various extraordinary gifts and powers,” for instance, as one who already from conception enjoyed the beatifijic vision, yet “that same human nature had to be conceived as being so weak and lowly that it not only remained 75

 RD, III, 395.  RD, III, 395.

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purely human but could even sufffer and die.”77 Bavinck none too generously describes this as an “antinomy.”78 Lutheranism, Bavinck maintains, “later entangled itself in even much greater difffijiculties.”79 They went even further than Rome by attributing to Christ’s human nature divine attributes, and, “[a]s a result, they were even less able than the Catholics to do justice to the distinction between Christ’s state of humiliation and his state of exaltation.”80 Realizing this, they were bound to arrive at something of a kenosis doctrine (exinanition) whereupon the incarnate Christ divested himself of the use of divine attributes in the course of his earthly life.81 Because the center of gravity is one of ontic union between God and man, the elevation of the natural by the supernatural, and because this is foremost achieved in the incarnation and hypostatic union as such, the distinction between humiliation and exaltation therefore ceases to be an historical distinction. For Rome, Christ enjoyed the glorifijied state of the beatifijic vision from the moment of conception. In Lutheranism, “the state of exaltation cannot be anything other than a resumption of the use or the public use of the divine attributes laid aside earlier. Hence at his exaltation Christ received nothing he did not have already.”82 Humiliation and exaltation, on the terms of both Rome and Lutheranism, are ontologically simultaneous, though in Lutheranism they are not visibly so. Bavinck summarizes the similarity in their views: If one now recalls that all these attributes were communicated to Christ’s human nature at the moment of his incarnation and that he indeed put aside the use but never the possession of these attributes, it is evident that according to the Lutheran view nothing is communicated to Christ in the state of exaltation that he did not already possess from the moment of his conception. Immediately at the moment of his incarnation, Christ is that which he could become. All at once, also according to his human nature, he is complete, fully matured (τελειος). In his case no development is possible. The exaltation was already present at his conception and hence cannot be regarded as a reward. At this point Lutheran doctrine is akin to that of

77  RD, III, 426. Bavinck similarly observes of much modern theology: “Under the influence of Hegel’s philosophy [....] many modern theologians [...] locate the redemptive deed in the incarnation and regard the reconciliation by his sufffering and death as its completion. Christ saves us not so much by what he does as by what he is,” RD, III, 380. 78  RD, III, 426. 79  RD, III, 427. 80  RD, III, 427. 81  RD, III, 431–32. 82  RD, III, 428.

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chapter six Rome, which already has Christ be ‘one with full knowledge’ (comprehensor) here on earth and has all the gifts of which human nature is capable communicated to him at his incarnation. And it serves to defend the very same religious interest: the bodily presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.83

Reformed theology, according to Bavinck, was from the beginning in a much more favorable position with regard to the two states of Christ for two specifijic reasons. First, over against views that considered, variously, that Christ was only a mediator according to his divine nature (Osiander), or only according to his human nature (Stancarus), Reformed theology maintained that Christ was a mediator in accordance with both of his natures.84 Rome’s view, according to Bavinck, is that both natures were “the principle that performed the works of the mediator,” but that only the human nature “accomplished” them. Yet, “against the Catholic view, [Reformed theology] objected that the two natures were not only necessary with a view to qualifying the person but equally with a view to describing the very function of the offfijice of the mediator.”85 Again, Rome’s accent is on how the two natures qualify the person, to the neglect of how they both operate in the work of mediation (i.e., the “offfijice”). After all, Bavinck notes that if the offfijice of mediator can only be fijilled by the human nature, then it follows that persons other than Christ are qualifijied

83  RD, III, 429. It may be of some interest that Karl Barth’s view of the hypostatic union results in precisely this conclusion: humiliation and exaltation are simultaneous ontic realities. Interestingly, Bavinck interacts with a number of critical scholars who, in service to their view that Jesus was only human and not divine, replace the doctrine of the two natures with the doctrine of the two states of humiliation and exaltation, and thereby redefijine Scripture’s ontic categories as purely hiorical categories; C.f., RD, III, 300. Barth does the exact opposite, replacing the doctrine of the two states with the doctrine of the two natures, thereby construing Scripture’s hiorical categories in purely ontic terms: Jesus is simultaneously and always the “humiliated God” and the “exalted man.” C.f., Church Dogmatics, ed. G.W. Bromiley, T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956) Vol. IV/1, 133. On these terms, humiliation never ends and exaltation never begins, for they are not historical ates but ontic qualities. This seems to be why Barth resists any historical transition from humiliation to exaltation, and appears to have difffijiculty accounting for this language in Scripture; e.g., 1 Cor. 15:45 does not, on his view, teach that the resurrection entails any change for Christ (i.e., “became life-giving Spirit”), The Resurrection of the Dead, (New York: Revell, 1933), 197–8; additionally, his denial that the word “therefore” (dio,) in Phil. 2:9 entails any causation or even temporal sequence, The Epile to the Philippians, (London: SCM, 1962), 66. Bavinck highlights the difffijiculty of maintaining an historical understanding of humiliation and exaltation outside of the context of the Reformed bi-covenantal system, and it should come as no surprise that Barth, the 20th century’s most influential critic of that covenant system, explicitly abandons and rewrites the distinction in ontic rather than historical terms. 84  RD, III, 430. 85  RD, III, 431; C.f., 364.

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to act as mediators. This is unacceptable, because “the works of the mediator [...] are of such a nature that they can only be accomplished by one who is simultaneously truly God and truly human.”86 Rome’s view in this regard fails to maintain the unity of the person: Reformed theology, accordingly, had the advantage that in the doctrine of the two states, it could maintain to the end not only the duality of and the distinction between the two natures but the unity of the person. In both states it was one and the same subject who was humiliated and exalted. Not only the human but also the divine nature participated in both states.87

Lutheranism’s difffijiculty, as one might expect given its peculiar view of the communicatio idiomatum, is distinguishing between the divine and human natures at all; thus, the introduction of a second “moment” in the incarnation, the exinanition or self-emptying of the human nature of its divine attributes. This move is more or less made, in Bavinck’s view, in order to give back precisely what the communicatio initially takes away: a meaningful human nature that can be susceptible to sufffering and death. The Reformed always rejected Lutheranism’s view of the communicatio idiomatum, and therefore always construed the human nature “as a nature that was weak, susceptible to sufffering and death, like us in every respect barring sin, and not glorifijied until the resurrection.”88 Accordingly, Bavinck maintains, with Reformed theology generally, that “the moment the Logos had assumed human nature, he became the subject, in both natures, of the humiliation and exaltation that followed.”89 Bavinck is not unaware of the deep complexity this brings; yet complexity is for him preferable to actual antinomy. From the side of humiliation, the challenge is to explain how Christ’s divine nature participates, for it is obvious how his humiliation in his human nature culminates: he is scourged, beaten, and put to death. From the side of exaltation, the question is how Christ’s human nature participates, because it is obvious how his exaltation in his divine nature culminates: he enjoys the glory he had before the foundations of the world. To the former question, the Reformed resisted kenosis theories that Christ relinquished his divine attributes; Christ “remained who he was even when he became

86  RD, III, 431. It is interesting how the tables are turned here; it is often the Reformed who are accused of Nestorianism, yet it is Rome’s view that only the human nature accomplished redemption that is, according to Bavinck, incipiently Nestorian. 87  RD, III, 431. 88  RD, III, 431. 89  RD, III, 432, emphasis added.

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what he was not.”90 Notwithstanding this, they maintained that the Son’s humiliation in his divine nature comprised his voluntary mediation for fallen creatures (in the pactum salutis), his assumption of a fallen human nature, his laying aside and concealing of his divine majesty and glory by becoming the form of a servant, and, fijinally, his relinquishing the use of his divine power or attributes “to please himself and to defeat his enemies. He fought and won with no other weapon than the cross. Self-denial was the secret of his life.”91 Likewise, the exaltation involves both natures, and it “consisted in the fact that now Christ caused also his human nature— to the extent it was capable of it—to share in the glory that he as the Son had with the Father from all eternity.”92 Perhaps this might be summarized in these terms: in his humiliation Christ voluntarily allowed his divine nature to share in the suffferings of his assumed human nature to the full extent capable, and in his exaltation he allowed his human nature to share in the glory of his divine nature to the full extent capable—that is, in a way consistent with the maxim finitum non e capax infiniti. Accordingly, a second advantage of this Reformed view of the atus duplex, according to Bavinck, is that it does not confuse the ontological question of the two natures with the historical issue of the two states; it is thus capable of maintaining the historical character of humiliation and exaltation. They are not simultaneous ontic realities, but temporally successive states. The Reformed view enables one to “conceive the exaltation itself as an exaltation in the true sense of the word.”93 As temporally successive states, humiliation really ends and exaltation really begins for Christ, according to both his natures, in his death and resurrection. What follows is an exploration of each of these states, with particular focus on how each corresponds to his covenant-eschatological framework; humiliation is, broadly speaking, the restoration of the imago Dei, the satisfaction of the judgment of the broken covenant of works, and exaltation is the perfection or glorifijication of the imago Dei, the acquisition of the eternal life or eschatological beatitude for which humanity was created. In keeping with the “fundamental law” for fallen creation, these two, judg-

90  RD, III, 432. This implies the so-called extra-calviniicum, which is clearly not the invention of Calvin. It was articulated by John of Damascus as a summary of patristic teaching (C.f., Ch. 5, fn. 91, above), and clearly by Augustine before him; C.f., Augustine, Letters, 137. 91  RD, III, 432. 92  RD, III, 432. 93  RD, III, 432.

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ment and glory, cross and crown, death and life, in the nature of the case, do not historically coincide; it is judgment to glory, cross to crown, and death to life. Humiliation as the Reoration of the Imago Dei The foregoing summary should not be understood as though the work of Christ can be easily captured or summarized; the phrase “broadly speaking,” should be noted. “Like the person,” Bavinck writes, “the work of Christ is so multifaceted that it cannot be captured in a single word nor summarized in a single formula.”94 In his view, this is amply illustrated in the wide variety of theological views in church history: “The truth is Scripture is so many-sided in its description of [Christ’s] work that in the history of theology there has emerged an array of views on the work of Christ, all of which contain a core of truth.”95 Characteristically, Bavinck wishes to avoid here, as elsewhere, any unwarranted reductionism in the doctrine of the work of Christ. Also characteristically, his criticisms of various views amount to the charge of one-sidedness; that is, making everything subservient to one scriptural motif to the exclusion of others. This “multifaceted” picture should not give the impression, however, that “Scripture does not contain a clear, authoritative, and decisive doctrine of the sufffering and death of Christ.”96 It should come as no surprise that, for Bavinck, underlying all the varied scriptural descriptions of the humiliation of Christ, there is a “striking unity,”97 a unity found in its decisively soteric signifijicance. The death of Christ is always in some fashion linked to human sin, and the objective meaning is attributed to it that “by it Christ secured for us the benefijits of the covenant of grace, forgiveness, and eternal life.”98 Bavinck summarizes the objective link between sin and the death of Christ this way: “This Scriptural doctrine concerning the connection between Christ’s death and our salvation comes into its own only when his full and complete obedience is viewed as vicarious satisfaction.”99 Bavinck has already made clear that the whole of Christ’s work is

94

 RD, III, 383; C.f., Berkouwer, The Work of Chri, 12.  RD, III, 340. 96  RD, III, 382. 97  RD, III, 390. 98  RD, III, 390. 99  RD, III, 393, emphasis in original. 95

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substitutionary in character, and as this substitution relates to his death, it is at its most basic the fulfijilling of the negative side of God’s double demand on humanity: that is, the just payment for the guilt of, and freedom from the corruption of, Adam’s sin—and through him, that of his posterity.100 The diffferent perspectives on the death of Christ in scripture are at root complementary, each serving to illumine and supplement the other to enrich the believer’s knowledge.101 The task of the theologian is to not neglect any scriptural data, but to “unite them into a single whole and to trace the unity that underlies them in Scripture.”102 That unity is the link between the death of Christ to the idea of satisfaction for sin.103 Although the idea of satisfaction is often challenged, Bavinck believes that impartial investigation “always leads to the admission that the doctrine of satisfaction is grounded in Holy Scripture.”104 Paul was not the fijirst to make the connection, as 1 Corinthians 15:3 demonstrates; further, “Jesus himself described his death as a ransom and a covenant offfering and the idea of a vicarious atonement was so obvious in connection with the sin offferings and the sacrifijice of the great Day of Atonement that ‘to the popular mind it must have seemed almost unavoidable.’”105 In fact, Bavinck notes that the idea of substitution is implicit in all expiatory offferings: “In the place of the offferer, who is deserving of the wrath of God, it puts something else, something that can placate him.”106 This can be seen in Abraham’s “test,” where God substitutes a ram as a burnt offfering in the place of Isaac, and especially in the Old Testament cult with its transfer of sins to the animal: “From beginning to end, the animal has taken [the offferer’s] place and thus made atonement for him and restored him to communion with God.”107 It is from this cultic activity that Isaiah borrowed the features for his portrayal of the Servant of the Lord, most climactically in Isaiah 53:

100  As this formulation indicates, Bavinck should not be misunderstood as saying that Christ’s death is exclusively forensic or judicial; on the contrary, for him Christ’s death both satisfijies the judicial sanction and frees humanity from sin as a dominating power. It solves the problem not only of guilt, but also corruption; C.f., RD, III, 570–71; RD, IV, 176–272. 101  RD, III, 383–84. 102  RD, III, 385. 103  C.f., his summaries of scriptural teaching in this regard, RD, III, 390–91. 104  RD, III, 394. 105  RD, III, 394, the last clause is from Holtzman, Lehrbuch der Neuteamentlichen Theologie. 106  RD, III, 396. 107  RD, III, 396.

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The Servant of the Lord has borne our diseases and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was stricken for the transgression of the people. He made himself an offfering for sin. Himself righteous, without wrongdoing or deceit, he bears the iniquities of his people, making them righteous. The sufffering of the Servant of the Lord is not ‘merely a confessor’s or martyr’s sufffering, like that of the persecuted church, but a representative and atoning sufffering, a sacrifijice for sin [...] Chapter 53 returns perpetually to this mediatorial sufffering; it is never weary of repeating it.’108

Although the terms “vicarious satisfaction” do not appear in scripture (no more, Bavinck notes, than the terms “Trinity,” “incarnation,” “God-man,” etc.), it is intended in the clearest possible terms: For when it says that Christ though personally without sin, has been put forward as an expiation to show God’s righteousness (Rom. 3:25), has been made to be sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21), became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13), bore our sins in his body on the tree (1 Pet. 2:24); that God condemned sin in his flesh (Rom. 8:3) and punished him with the accursed death on the cross and that through him we now receive reconciliation and forgiveness, righteousness and life, indeed total and complete salvation—then we can construe the interconnection between all these pronouncements in no other way than that Christ put himself in our place, has borne the punishment of our sin, satisfijied God’s justice, and so secured salvation for us.109

There is much that could be explored in Bavinck’s treatment of vicarious satisfaction (for one example, his explanation of how God’s love is fully consistent with the idea of requiring a just satisfaction) but for present purposes it will sufffijice to point out that in just this context he relates the death of Christ to the anterior covenant framework provided by the covenant of works. Consistent with Paul’s own teaching (e.g., Rom. 5:12fff), the widest profijile or context for Christ’s obedience is its relationship to Adam’s disobedience, condemnation, and death. Scripture regards the entire work of Christ as a satisfaction of God’s demand.110 Although he will immediately afffijirm, in keeping with his view of redemption’s eschatological signifijicance, that Christ “gives us much more than we lost in Adam,” Bavinck is clear that he also gives no less than what was lost in Adam—that is, the

108

 RD, III, 396, the fijinal quote from Franz Delitzsch, Prophecies of Isaiah, II, 307.  RD, III, 398. 110  RD, III, 394. 109

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“forgiveness of sins and release from punishment.”111 And this relationship between Adam’s disobedience and Christ’s obedience, together with their respective consequences, can only be consistently described in a “federal” sense: the mystical union between Christ and his own “can only be maintained in conjunction with the objective atonement of Christ’s sacrifijice, when Christ is fijirst of all viewed as the head of the covenant, who took the place of his own in a federalistic sense.”112 This “federal” or representative relationship between Christ and his own establishes an indissoluble link between Christ’s death and resurrection and their salvation: His sufffering, therefore, was not only an atonement for our sins and a ransom for our redemption, but in his death the believing community was crucifijied with him, and in his resurrection this community itself arose from the grave. Christ was never alone; always he stood in fellowship with the humanity whose nature he had assumed. Just as all die in Adam, so they are again made alive in Christ and called to follow in his footsteps.113

The rationale for Christ’s substitutionary death in place of humanity is not found in the covenant of works itself—for there was no redemptive provision in that covenant: “[Christ’s] vicarious satisfaction cannot even be grasped on the basis of the covenant of works. While it is not against the law (for it established the law), it is nevertheless above the law and far exceeds all our thoughts and ideas.”114 Christ’s work is instead eternally grounded in the pactum salutis and historically prepared in the covenant of grace. Nevertheless, as Bavinck already makes clear in his earlier treatment, “the covenant of grace can replace the covenant of works because both are based on the same ordinances.”115 He now explains at length how Christ’s satisfaction is related to the covenant of works: Both Christ and Adam occupy a special place in humankind. They alone are heads of the entire human race; their influence and impact is extended to all times and places. And Christ, in turn, is superior to Adam. For while Adam was the representative of humankind, Christ is its substitute. Adam acted in our name but did not take anything over from us; Christ came to us, put himself in our place, bore our guilt and punishment, and secured our righteousness. Adam was head of a covenant of works that was unstable; Christ is head of a better covenant that cannot be shaken. Adam was a

111

 RD, III, 395.  RD, III, 405. 113  RD, III, 384–85; C.f., 591. 114  RD, III, 406. 115  RD, II, 588. 112

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human, though without sin, of the earth; Christ is the incarnate Word, the begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, the Lord from heaven. Adam corrupted what was good; Christ restored and perfected what was corrupt. To the extent the covenant of grace surpasses the covenant of works, and the gospel the law, to that extent Christ surpasses Adam [....] [Vicarious satisfaction] is not reducible to a universal rule, nor can it be explained by reference to a universal law, for it is not one phenomenon among others. On the contrary, it is a concrete fact, wholly unique in the annals of humankind, explained by nothing, but itself explaining everything, rooted in a special ordinance of God. And this ordinance is not an isolated decree but bears a covenantal character. Vicarious satisfaction has its foundation in the counsel of the Triune God, in the life of supreme, perfect, and eternal love, in the unshakable covenant of redemption. Based on the ordinances of that covenant, Christ takes the place of his own and exchanges their sin for his righteousness, their death for his life. ‘Oh, the sweet exchange! Oh, the unfathomable accomplishment! Oh, the unexpected benefijits!—that the wickedness of the many should be hidden in the One who is just; and that the righteousness of the One should justify the wicked many!’116

Christ’s “self-emptying,” Bavinck writes, consisted, in an “ever-deeper entering into the communion of our sin and an ever-advancing selfremoval from the joys of heaven.”117 This self-removal culminated in his death, which he experienced as nothing less than the eschatological judgment of his Father, tasting it “in its true essence and character as the wages of sin.”118 In his cry of dereliction, Bavinck maintains, “we are dealing not with a subjective but with an objective God-forsakenness: He did not feel alone but had in fact been forsaken by God. His feeling was not an illusion, not based on a false view of his situation, but corresponded with reality.”119 Christ took the cup into his hand and—voluntarily—emptied it to the last drop. By the power of love, he laid down life itself and, fully conscious and with a fijirm will, entered the valley of the shadow of death. There he was, and felt, forsaken by God, so that in precisely that fashion he might be able to taste death for everyone (Heb. 2:9).120

116

 RD, III, 406; the fijinal quotation is from the Epile to Diognetus, 9.  RD, III, 408. 118  RD, III, 389. 119  RD, III, 389. Bavinck is zealous at this point to maintain that the Father was never personally angry with his Son, because the very giving up of his life was the culmination of his obedience to his Father; on the other hand, as the second Adam, the Son nevertheless bore full judicial wrath as the wages of (our) sin. 120  RD, III, 390. 117

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Christ’s death was therefore nothing less than eschatological; he took the cup of God’s wrath and emptied it “to the last drop.” Jesus thus “tasted death in all its bitterness in order to completely deliver us from the fear of death and death itself. Thus he destroyed him who had the power of death and by a single offfering perfected for all time those who are sanctifijied (Heb. 10:14).”121 The eschatological (that is, once for all, fijinal) character of Christ’s death is the fulfijillment of the negative demand posed by the broken covenant of works, the satisfaction due for disobedience. The forgiveness of sins obtained in it is the result of its redress of Adam’s disobedience.122 Obvious though it is, it still bears repeating that Bavinck’s almost habitual characterization of Christ’s work as doing “much more” than restoring humanity to the state of Adam before the fall must not be understood as though Christ does something less or other than such restoration. Thus, he writes in his chapter on human destiny: Hence, Christ does not [merely] restore his own to the state of Adam before the fall. He acquired and bestows much more, namely, that which Adam would have received had he not fallen. He positions us not at the beginning but at the end of the journey that Adam had to complete. He accomplished not only the passive but also the active obedience required; he not only delivers us from guilt and punishment, but out of grace immediately grants us the right to eternal life.123

Here, restoration is clearly correlated to Christ’s “passive” obedience, which is then further defijined as deliverance from guilt and punishment.124 The satisfaction of Christ, in other words, is the removal of the original judgment and curse on Adam and his posterity. Moreover, this satisfaction is accomplished; that is, it has a fijinal, once-for-all, eschatological signifijicance, indicated perhaps nowhere better than in Christ’s fijinal words, “It is fijinished.” Christ’s humiliation, which culminates in tasting death on the cross, far from being an ontological state of being, is an historical work with a defijinite terminus; the wrath of God is truly satisfijied and exhausted in the perfect obedience of Christ on the cross. By the cross he defeated sin and death, and thus the second Adam delivered the fijirst Adam and his

121

 RD, III, 417.  RD, III, 394–95. 123  RD, II, 573. 124  And, further, it will become important to keep in mind that perfection or glorifijication is correlated to active obedience and the granting of eternal, eschatological life. The relationship of Bavinck’s “grace reores and perfects nature” to his covenant theology begins to come into focus. 122

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posterity from the guilt and punishment that was theirs under the broken covenant of works. However, as Bavinck consistently maintains, the work of Christ entails “much more” than the removal of guilt and punishment. The same covenant that became Adam’s curse also offfered the promise of eschatological life. And Christ not only removed the negative sanction, he obtained that eschatological promise. Exaltation as the Perfection of the Imago Dei As might now be expected, Christ’s exaltation, which has its historical inception in his resurrection from the dead, is, in fact, Bavinck’s eschatological “much more.” It is the fulfijillment of the “end” of Adam’s journey. The exaltation, for Bavinck and the Reformed tradition more broadly, is, in contrast to Rome and Lutheranism, an exaltation in the “true sense of the word.” That is, put at its most basic, “By his resurrection Christ in fact entered a new state.”125 Further, this entrance into a glorifijied state is the result of his obedience in his state of humiliation; that is, his obedience was, in fact, meritorious. Bavinck writes that “the entire state of exaltation from the resurrection to his coming again for judgment is a reward for the work that he accomplished as the Servant of the Lord in the days of his humiliation.”126 This is not an ambiguous theme: And, given the teaching of Scripture, no other answer is possible. For over and over it presents the state of humiliation as the way and the means by which alone Christ can attain his exaltation (Isa. 53:10–12; Matt. 23:12; Luke 24:26; John 10:17; 17:4–5; Phil. 2:9; Heb. 2:10; 12:2). The preposition διο (therefore) in Philippians 2:9 refers not to the order and logic but specifijically to the meritorious cause of the exaltation. Because Christ humbled himself so deeply, therefore God has so highly exalted him. Especially the Letter to the Hebrews repeatedly puts a heavy accent on this meritorious connection between Christ’s humiliation and exaltation (1:3; 2:9–10; 5:7–10; 10:12; 12:2). Christ himself was ‘sanctifijied’ by sufffering. This does not mean that he was consecrated to God or made morally perfect; it means ‘perfected, brought to full wisdom and maturity,’ made τελειος, which consists in his now being crowned with honor and glory (2:9), being seated as high priest at the right hand of Majesty in the highest heaven (8:1), having attained the joy for which he endured the cross and despised the shame (12:2), and becoming the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.127

125

 RD, III, 435.  RD, III, 433; C.f., RD, IV, 729. 127  RD, III, 434. 126

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It was in reaction to Socinianism, Bavinck believes, that some theologians reacted negatively to describing Christ’s obedience as meritorious, for the Socinians argued that Christ merited the “rank of deity” itself in his exaltation—and clearly the Son’s eternal deity must be fijirmly maintained.128 What Christ obtained cannot have consisted in the divine nature or rank of deity, for he was that from all eternity. Notwithstanding this, however crucial is that qualifijication, the exaltation was, in fact, something new: a mediatorial glory “to which he was raised in both natures. He did not possess that glory beforehand but obtained it at his exaltation.”129 Resurrection, ascension, seating at God’s right hand and the return for judgment are all things that the incarnate Christ did not possess in his humiliation. And, importantly, neither was the preincarnate Son resurrected and exalted as the God-Man. His exaltation, then, contrary to Rome and Lutheranism, “was not mere appearance, no mere manifestation of what he already was internally before, but the attainment of what he did not yet possess in the state of humiliation: an exaltation in an objective and real sense.”130 Further, this was the unanimous view of Reformed theologians, who knew “that with this position they stood on the fijirm foundation of Scripture.”131 There is in Christ’s one unifijied work, therefore, a decisive transition, one that takes place in his resurrection: “[I]n the moment of the resurrection, [Christ’s work] was divided into two parts. Then it was sufffering; now it is entering into glory. Then it was a descent to the nethermost parts of the earth; now it is an ascent on high.”132 This basic profijile is evident in Bavinck’s reading of Romans 1:3–4: “[the gospel] regarding his Son, who descended from the seed of David according to the flesh [κατ+ σμα @γιωσ^νης] from his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”133 Surprisingly, he does not interpret these verses according to the majority view of Reformed exegetes, who argue that the distinction between κατ+ σμα @γιωσ^νης highlights the two natures of Christ, human and divine.134 Rather, he understands them as indicative of Christ’s two ates of humiliation and exaltation:

128

 RD, III, 434.  RD, III, 434. 130  RD, III, 434. 131  RD, III, 434. 132  RD, III, 475. 133  Author’s translation. 134  C.f., Charles Hodge, Syematic Theology, Vol.2 (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1965), 385; B.B. Warfijield, The Person and Work of Chri (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1950), 78–90. This view is 129

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Birth and resurrection are opposed to each other here. By his birth Christ became the offfspring of David (Rom. 9:5), assumed ‘the likeness of sinful flesh’ (Rom. 8:3), became weak (2 Cor. 13:4), but by the resurrection he was openly designated Son of God. That is not to say and cannot mean that at that moment he fijirst received the divine nature or the rank and name of God, for the opposite is clear from Romans 1:3; 8:3, 32; Galatians 4:4; and others. Rather, whereas at his incarnation he exchanged the ‘form of God’ (μορφη θεου, Phil. 2:6) for the ‘form of a servant’ (μορφη δουλου, Phil. 2:7), at the resurrection he received the glory that according to his Godhead he already had before (John 17:2, 24), became the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8), the power of God (1 Cor. 1:24), obtained a name above every name, that is, the name of ‘Lord’ (κυριος) (John 20:28; Acts 2:36; 1 Cor. 12:3; Phil. 2:9–10), and thereby the κυριοτης, the right, the authority, and the power to exercise lordship over all creatures as mediator, prophet, priest, and king, to subdue his enemies, to gather his people, and to regain the fallen creation for God (Pss. 2, 72, 100; Matt. 28:18; 1 Cor. 15:21fff; Eph. 1:20–23; Phil. 2:9–11; Heb. 1:3f.; 1 Pet. 3:22; Rev. 1:5; etc.) In the resurrection God openly appointed him Son of God, Lord, King, Mediator, saying to him, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’ (Acts 2:33, 36; 3:15; 5:31; 13:33; 17:31; Heb. 1:5).135

The resurrection thus marks the terminus of Christ’s humiliation, his sojourn in the “form of a servant” and simultaneously the inception of his exaltation and appointment as—put in Paul’s terms—“Son of God in power.” In further explicating the text, Bavinck goes on to articulate that although Christ was surely divine, He was flesh, and by virtue of the weakness of the flesh, he was killed on the cross (2 Cor. 13:4). But in death he put aside that weakness and broke offf his connection with sin and death. God, who gave his own Son for us in death and therein executed his judgment on sin, by his Spirit—who as the πνευμα @γιωσυνης dwells in Christ and also in all believers (Rom. 8:11)—raised him from the dead in order that he would no longer live in the weakness of the flesh but in the power of the Spirit.136

This resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit entails that “Christ has now been raised so far above all fleshly weakness that [...] he has become a life-giving Spirit (πνευμα ζωοποιουν, 1 Cor. 15:45).”137 This should be a familiar text for Bavinck’s readers. It was with an exegesis of 1 Corinthians

forced to argue the untenable notion that πνε>μα |γιωσ^νης is a reference to Christ’s divine nature. On the contrary, as Bavinck goes on to explicitly maintain, “Spirit of holiness” is clearly a reference to the person of the Holy Spirit. 135  RD, III, 434–35. 136  RD, III, 435. 137  RD, III, 436.

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15:45–49 that he opened his fijirst discussion of human destiny,138 and his purpose there was to primarily indicate the sub-eschatological character of the fijirst Adam; that is, that Adam’s body had a psychical existence which anticipated a pneumatic or “Spiritual” existence (i.e., characterized as “fully an instrument of the Spirit”). Now he helpfully returns to this text to primarily indicate the eschatological character of the second Adam; that is, that Christ has in fact obtained that pneumatic existence: “[Christ] has the same σωμα with which he was raised, but it is now a σωμα πνευματικον (spiritual body). In the place of the corruption, dishonor, and weakness, which marked his natural body (σωμα ψυχικον), and the flesh (σαρξ), that spiritual body has very diffferent attributes, namely, imperishability, glory, and power (1 Cor. 15:42fff; Phil. 3:21).”139 Nowhere can the eschatological character of Christ’s exaltation be made more clear than in this juxtaposition of Bavinck’s two treatments of this text. In the former, with respect to anthropology, he highlights the provisional, temporary, and thus subeschatological character of Adam in the state of integrity. In the latter, with respect to soteriology, he highlights the fully non-provisional, permanent, and thus eschatological character of the second Adam in the state of glory. This sufffijiciently demonstrates the purpose of this book, namely, that Bavinck’s covenant theology provides the architecture for his thesis that grace restores and perfects nature. While much more remains to be teased out from the remainder of Bavinck’s work, for example, its implications for the ordo salutis, it is impossible to pursue in detail any further issues in the present work. One further motif does deserve further comment, however, and that is the pneumatological implications of Bavinck’s covenant theology.140 It was just observed that for Bavinck Christ’s exaltation results in a new and diffferent kind of Spiritual appropriation, and one should note the consistency of his emphasis on how Reformed Christology preserves the genuine representative humanity of Christ. Just as Christ, as a human being, submits himself to the form of a servant and endures an

138

 C.f., RD, II, 564; Ch. 2 (above).  RD, III, 436. 140  I suggested in the introduction that the importance of Bavinck’s covenant theology should not be considered at the expense of his rigorous Trinitarian theology in explicating his organic relation between nature and grace, and this emerges clearly in Bavinck’s account of the work of the Holy Spirit in redemption. The economic role of the Spirit, as just seen, is grounded in his intra-divine relationships to the Father and Son and conditioned by the redemptive, covenant-historical signifijicance of Christ’s eschatological resurrection. 139

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hiorical existence that progresses from humiliation to exaltation, so also, in accordance with a consistent Trinitarian theology, the Holy Spirit’s economic role in redemption necessarily follows this covenant-historical pattern. Christ’s endowment of the Spirit operates in ways appropriate to and in accordance with the historical states of humiliation and exaltation.141 Christ’s genuine humanity decisively implies, according to Bavinck, his own personal need of the Holy Spirit for his work. It is generally true that no true human being imago Dei is even conceivable without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.142 Given that Christ’s human nature had to be specially prepared for union with the eternal Son of God, that necessity, a fortiori, is even more necessary with respect to the incarnation. Bavinck writes, “If humans in general cannot have communion with God except by the Holy Spirit, then this applies even more powerfully to Christ’s human nature, which had to be unifijied with the Son in an entirely unique manner.”143 In his earthly ministry, then, Christ positively needed the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to accomplish his mission, as scripture amply testifijies: He himself was enabled and equipped by that Spirit to do the work he had to accomplish on earth. By that Spirit he was conceived in Mary’s womb (Luke 1:35), anointed at his baptism (Matt. 3:11), guided in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1); and by that Spirit he returned to Galilee (Luke 4:14), spoke his word (Mark 1:22), preached the gospel (Luke 4:18fff), healed the sick and cast out unclean spirits (Matt. 12:28). Hence the Holy Spirit was at work in the power of his word and works, but also in his patient gentleness (Matt. 12:17–20), holy indignation (Mark 11:14–17), and heavenly joy (Luke 10:21). He was always full of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1) and accomplished all his work by the Spirit’s power, for God was with him (Acts 10:38). By that Spirit he offfered himself up in death (Heb. 9:14) and was declared to be the Son of God with power when he was raised from the dead (Rom. 1:3–4). In the forty days between his resurrection and ascension, he issued instructions to his disciples by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:3).144

However, Christ’s own relationship with the Holy Spirit is decidedly different given his own states of humiliation and exaltation. The resurrection and exaltation marked a decisive transition for Christ as the God-Man precisely because of a new and diffferent kind of appropriation of the Spirit,

141  In other words, the endowment of the Spirit in the state of humiliation is decidedly not equivalent to Rome’s beatifijic vision. Rather, the Spirit enabled Christ to walk by faith, not sight; C.f., RD, II, 256. 142  RD, III, 292. 143  RD, III, 292. 144  RD, III, 498–9.

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namely, an eschatological one. At the ascension, Bavinck remarks, he “fully received the Holy Spirit along with all his gifts.”145 Bavinck’s rehearsal of this eschatological appropriation is worth quoting in full: This appropriation of the Holy Spirit by Christ is so absolute that Paul can say in 2 Corinthians 3:17 that the Lord (i.e., Christ as the exalted Lord) is the Spirit. In saying this Paul is not trying to wipe out the distinction between the two, for in verse 18 he again immediately speaks, as he does in other passages (Rom. 8:9; Gal. 4:6), of the “Spirit of the Lord” and thereby describes him as the Spirit who belongs to Christ and proceeds from him. But on the occasion of the ascension, the Holy Spirit became Christ’s possession to such a high degree that he himself can be referred to as the Spirit. In his exaltation he became life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). He now possesses the seven Spirits, the Spirit in all his fulness, just as he has the seven stars (Rev. 3:1). The Spirit of God the Father has become the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Christ, who proceeds from both the Father and the Son, not only within the Godhead but, in keeping with this, also in the dispensation of salvation, and is sent forth as much by the Son as by the Father (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7). The Spirit, who during his stay on earth had been poured out without measure on Christ, has now in his exaltation fully become the fijirst principle of his life. He has laid aside all the life that is merely natural and psychological: now, as the life-giving Spirit, he will lead his church to glory by the same route.146

Christ, the Second and Last Adam, has now acquired eschatological life. By the power of the Holy Spirit he has become the non posse peccare, non posse mori that was originally promised but forfeited by the fijirst Adam. From his throne at the right hand of the Father, he now pours out this same eschatological Spirit on his church and leads them, not back to Eden, but onward to eternal glory: “[T]he image of God in humanity may be mangled and mutilated by the sin of the fijirst Adam; but by the last Adam and his re-creating grace they are all the more resplendently reored to their deiny.”147

145

 RD, III, 499.  RD, III, 499. 147  RD, II, 588, emphasis added. 146

CONCLUSION

RESTORED TO OUR DESTINY This book has sought to explore the implications, within his own thought, of Herman Bavinck’s assertion that the doctrine of the image of God can only be treated to the full extent when its “development or destination,” which he identifijies as the doctrine of the covenant of works, is taken into account.1 In this brief comment we discovered a thesis: according to Bavinck a true account of anthropology cannot exist without simultaneously giving a true account of eschatology. What remains is to summarize, in light of the foregoing chapters, why this marriage or synthesis of anthropology and eschatology is not merely one of novelty or convenience. Why is this important for Bavinck, and why is it important for students of Bavinck today? It is now fairly well established in circles of Bavinck scholarship that the central motif of his theology is his view of the organic relation of nature and grace; that is, that grace “restores and perfects” nature. The ultimate motive of this is to undermine once and for all the latent Neoplatonic dualism that Bavinck diagnoses in the western theological tradition.2 This dualism, with its hierarchical ontology of nature and grace, its oppositional relating of “spirit” and “matter,” produces all too easily (and all too often) pantheistic forms of theology. Dualistic anthropologies invariably identify the “real” image of God in some aspect of humanity that is “more divine” than others and thus denigrate the material world. The “spiritual,” according to Bavinck, cannot be considered as ontologically “higher,” an elevation of, or superadditive to, the material in any sense. These concepts devalue the material created realm, and thus conceive of grace as intrinsically opposed to nature. Chapter One explained Bavinck’s basic metaphysical rejection of this dualism by demonstrating the constitutive place of the Creator-creature distinction in his theology. His theology, specifijically by virtue of its Trinitarian character, precludes any and all attempts to view God and the world on any kind of continuum (i.e., Platonism);

1

 RD, II, 550.  And thus, surely, to provide an impetus for the kind of cultural engagement characteristic of the Dutch Neo-Calvinist school of which he was the preeminent theologian. 2

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yet, although there is an absolute distinction, there is nevertheless a genuine connection both ontologically (Trinity, ontological and economic) and epistemologically (incomprehensibility and knowability) by virtue of God’s perspicuous revelation. This Creator-creature distinction secures Bavinck’s anti-dualist polemic on the ontological, “vertical” plane. The whole of creation is an ectypal revelation of the Triune creator, and therefore all univocism, whether ontic or epistemological, is precluded from his theology in principle. This means, among other things, that all forms of theology that view the telos of humanity as an ontic fusion of the divine and human necessarily, in principle, depart from the biblical picture of the God-world relation and move inexorably in the direction of pantheism. Dualism becomes, in the fijinal analysis, monism, a dissolving of the Creator-creature distinction in a “bath of deadly uniformity.” This ontological critique of nature/grace dualism has further been evident throughout Bavinck’s account of human ontology; Chapter Three highlighted that, with regard to every aspect of the divine image, he is zealous to maintain the Creator-creature distinction, and, on the other hand, to afffijirm a holistic picture that humanity, in its entirety, is nevertheless an ectypal creaturely replica revelatory of God’s perfections. In other words, humans do not “have” or “bear” the image of God; they are the image of God. As the image, human beings, in their original created condition, were therefore in no need of supplementation; the natural needs no “supernatural” to impart to it qualities suited for communion with God. Rather, human beings imago Dei are already, in creation itself, “very good,” recipients of divine revelation (general and special) and thus already in fellowship and communion with their Creator. In Bavinck’s view, there is no such thing as Rome’s homo naturalis, the “natural man” devoid of supernatural, superadded gifts. As crucial as this “vertical” ontological critique is in Bavinck’s theology, it further became apparent in Chapter Two that there is another “axis” along which his critique of nature/grace dualism runs: the historical. As concerned as he is about dualistic ontology, he is also concerned to oppose schools of thought that relate nature (creation) and grace (broadly considered, re-creation or eschatological destiny) on the historical level in a “mechanical” rather than an “organic” fashion, no doubt due to a prior commitment to some species of Neoplatonism. It is not enough for him to deny dualism on the ontological level; that denial must encompass not only space but also time, continuing throughout one’s account of the whole of history. In a word, not only is grace not opposed to nature, it is never opposed to nature.

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Bavinck’s view is that the Reformation fundamentally replaced this “Neoplatonic Areopagite philosophy,” that is, a hierarchical dualism of “higher” and “lower,” with an organic or historical relationship between the state of integrity and the state of glory. This means that the question of dualism is not merely an ontological question, it is further an eschatological question. This is an emphasis throughout his entire career in dogmatics, from his early Kampen rectoral address in 1888, “The Catholicity of Christianity and the Church,” to his address, “Common Grace” in 1894, to two later works from 1909, “Calvin and Common Grace” and Magnalia Dei.3 The “vertical” dualism of “higher” and “lower” is replaced in his thought with the “horizontal” duality of nature (atus integritatis) and grace (atus gloriae). On this scheme, his utmost interest is to deny that the state of glory, or human destiny, is in any way discontinuous with or “over against” the state of integrity, grace over against nature. The state of glory is not an elevation or supplemental addition to nature, notions that are necessarily “mechanical” rather than “organic.” It is not deus ex machina, but an organic fulfijillment of God’s purposes. The “Lived happily ever after” of humanity is intimately and organically related to its “Once upon a time.” Thus, rather than supplementing or elevating the created order, the grace of re-creation restores or renews the created order. As he puts it most succinctly: “Christianity does not introduce a single substantial foreign element into the creation. It creates no new cosmos but rather makes the cosmos new. It restores what was corrupted by sin. It atones the guilty and cures what is sick; the wounded it heals.”4 So far this is familiar territory for serious students of Bavinck, who are all in some measure attracted to his teaching precisely because of his pervasive anti-dualist polemic. What has far less often been observed, however, is that in Bavinck’s thought this “organic” relation of nature and grace stands or falls with a particular eschatology. And that eschatology— for better or worse—is identifijied explicitly and exclusively as the doctrine of the covenant of works. In order for the state of glory to be organically related to the state of integrity, there must be, in the nature of the case,

3  C.f., CCC, 229–36; CG, 44–49; CCG, 104–110; ORF, 209 (MD, 227–8); PR, 3 (WO, 2–3); C.f., Bremmer, Herman Bavinck als dogmaticus, 218–19. Thus, Al Wolters’s assertion that Bavinck was “no exception” to the Neoplatonic view of difffering grades of “ousia” is mistaken; “Dutch Neo-Calvinism,” 126–7; C.f., Bolt, Imitation, 191: “Bavinck does insist upon a diffference in the atus integritatus and the atus gloriae, but this diffference is seen horizontally and historically rather than vertically. The language Bavinck uses does not reflect his afffijinity with idealistic or neo-Platonic thought [...].” 4  “CG,” 61.

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already an eschatology in the Garden of Eden itself. Paradise must not already be conceived as heaven; it must be a sub-eschatological reality moving toward an eschatological telos. Unless this eschatological “directedness” is already constitutive of Adam and Eve’s ontological existence, then the state of glory cannot but be conceived as ontologically “over against” or a superadditive to the state of integrity. It has already been noted that Jan Veenhof perceptively identifijies this feature of Bavinck’s thought: The fact must not be neglected, however, that this higher glory constitutes the goal to which the earth had been directed from the beginning. Therefore, it is certainly not added to the creation as a foreign component. For that reason, Bavinck’s thesis that reformation through grace is more than mere repristination is no denial of his foundational principle that grace restores nature.5

As insightful as this point is, what Veenhof fails to point out is that the conceptual architecture of this creational eschatology is provided explicitly by Bavinck’s covenant theology. This is nowhere more evident than in the immediate citation of Bavinck to which he appeals to justify his own observation: [Grace] does not grant anything beyond what Adam, if he had remained standing, would have acquired in the way of obedience. The covenant of grace difffers from the covenant of works in the road, not in its fijinal destination. The same benefijits are promised in the covenant of works and freely given in the covenant of grace. Grace restores nature and raises it to its highest fulfijillment, but it does not add a new, heterogeneous component to it.6

In other words, the eschatological destination that is a constitutive component of creation “from the beginning” is, in fact, a component precisely (and only) because of the existence of the covenant of works, which was the “road to heavenly blessedness for the [fijirst] human beings, who were created in God’s image and had not yet fallen.”7 Creational anthropology (image of God) is here wedded, necessarily, to a creational eschatology (covenant of works). The importance of a creational eschatology is also recognized by John Bolt.8 But he, likewise, does not account for it with recourse to Bavinck’s view of the covenant of works; rather, he views creation’s intrinsic destiny

5

 Veenhof, “Nature and Grace,” 22, emphasis in the original.  Veenhof, “Nature and Grace,” 22; the quote is from Bavinck, RD, III, 577. 7  RD, II, 572. 8  Bolt, Imitation, 192fff. 6

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in terms of the eternal, heavenly Sabbath and, further, the economic work of the Holy Spirit. Most revealingly, when he comes to explore this theme in Bavinck, he turns his attention to a completely diffferent author in order to describe how a “theology of glory” is consistent with Bavinck’s trinitarian theology.9 While interesting, the fact remains that when Bavinck articulates the eschatological destiny of humanity, he does not primarily speak of the heavenly Sabbath or of trinitarian theology (important as they are) but rather the covenant of works. Bolt’s understanding of the relationship of eschatology to nature and grace is skewed by viewing it exclusively in terms of Bavinck’s trinitarian theology to the neglect of Bavinck’s covenant theology.10 This emphasis on the “economic” activity of the Spirit actually mutes the eschatological character of redemption, because while it obviously supplies a rationale for nature’s reoration by grace, less obvious is a rationale for nature’s eschatological perfection. So, at the one point in his thesis where Bolt seeks to account for Bavinck’s “more than” restoration, he supplies a trinitarian rationale, not by appealing to Bavinck but instead to Herbert Richardson. Whatever the merits of Richardson’s view of the heavenly Sabbath and the work of the Spirit, this is not how Bavinck structures his creational eschatology. Therefore, the theological power of this synthesis of anthropology and eschatology for Bavinck’s thought has been at best substantially underappreciated. What it means is that the very rationale for, or the “engine” that drives Bavinck’s signature emphasis, “grace restores and perfects nature,” is nothing less or other than the doctrine of the covenant of works, both in its articulation of creation’s sub-eschatological state and its “built in” (Veenhof’s “from the beginning”) eschatological destiny. It is this covenant framework that alone explains why redemption is both a restoration and a perfection of creation; it restores the corrupted image of God and perfects it to its eschatological destiny. It accomplishes “what Adam had to become,”11 bringing about the end of his journey, not the beginnning.12 The organic relationship between nature and grace is, in fact, inexplicable apart from this eschatology; it is the reason why the “perfection” of nature is not superfluous to its “restoration.” Restoration ill leaves creation short of its eschatological goal. Or, to put it in terms of the point of departure for this book, the image of God can only be treated 9

 Herbert Richardson, Toward an American Theology (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).  Bolt’s more recent article, “Why the Covenant of Works is a Necessary Doctrine,” should be viewed as a substantial redress to this problem. 11  RD, II, 550. 12  RD, II, 573. 10

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conclusion

to its full extent when human destiny, that is, the eschatology latent in the covenant of works, is included. This eschatological framework therefore illumines, as explored in Chapters Five and Six, the person and work of Christ as restoring humanity imago Dei, not to the state of integrity, but “to their destiny.” This issue of the relationship between “restoration” and “perfection”— or “elevation,” as Bavinck sometimes puts it, is therefore a needlessly contested issue among Bavinck scholars. Hielema helpfully presents the state of the question this way: The issue of terminological inconsistency in Bavinck serves as a preliminary to the heart of the debate: is redemption to be understood as a restoration of the creation, or does it, in some way, elevate the creation? If the former is the case, one may speak of a creational or protological understanding of redemption. In the latter scenario, by contrast, the end result of redemption is in some signifijicant measure greater than the original creation, and one may speak of an eschatological understanding of redemption.13

In light of the eschatological horizon already revealed in the covenant of works, however, for Bavinck this is a false dilemma. Redemption restores what was corrupted in creation’s original, sub-eschatological, state (“restoration”), and it elevates or perfects creation to its eschatological, incorruptible destiny (“restoration-plus”). Given that Bavinck’s creational eschatology provides the rationale for the notion that grace “restores and perfects” nature, it can be suggested that Bavinck’s opposition to nature/grace dualism is unintelligible apart from his covenant theology. Without the intrinsic eschatology it provides, the grace of re-creation will inevitably be viewed as competing with, antithetical to, a replacement of, a supplement to, or an elevation of God’s original creation. For Bavinck, lacking this organic relation of nature and grace on the historical plane results in either the dualism of Lutheranism’s pure restoration or that of Rome’s pure glorifijication.14 But for Bavinck, in Reformed theology, armed with its consistently Augustinian picture of the original state under the covenant of works, this dualism is once and for all uprooted and redemption can be conceived as both restoration and glorifijication.

13

 Hielema, Eschatological Underanding, 175.  I.e., Lutheranism and Rome view the telos of the imago Dei as separable from humanity as such. 14

restored to our destiny

243

Working from his one, small comment that anthropology must incorporate eschatology, this book has demonstrated—by evaluating his doctrine of the image of God as a whole from creation to its objective destiny in the exaltation of Christ—that the eschatology Bavinck has in mind forms the very core of his replacement of nature/grace dualism on the historical level. That anti-dualist polemic is both near-universally regarded as the raison d’etre of his entire dogmatic enterprise and, further, universally lauded by his followers. Far less universally lauded among Bavinck’s followers, much less even noticed, is the doctrine of the covenant of works. In light of the eschatological framework the doctrine provides for Bavinck’s anti-dualist polemic, as analyzed throughout this book, it ought to now be highly questionable whether one can, in fact, have the one without the other. Given Bavinck’s own synthesis of a holistic doctrine of the image and his organic eschatology via the covenant of works, he certainly intended the two to go in tandem; and given the present widespread antipathy to the latter, that intention has so far not been sufffijiciently honored and appreciated by subsequent scholarship.

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INDEX

à Brakel, Wilhelmus79–81, 84, 87, 92, 94–96 absoluteness25 abstraction25, 43, 73, 216 accommodation174 acquisition (of redemption)204, 224 acquittal103 acquitted111 actualistic (ontology)156, 159 actualization (divine)32, 39 ad intra24–25, 31, 39, 41, 57–58, 67, 71, 115, 129, 173–174, 207, 209 Adam4–5, 65–66, 69–70, 73, 76, 78–84, 86–87, 89–111, 113–115, 118, 120–121, 126, 128, 130–131, 138–140, 143, 145–148, 153, 160, 164, 167, 175–177, 179, 186, 201, 203–204, 206–207, 210, 213–219, 226–229 Adamic (administration)73, 78, 98 additive (grace as)82, 149 advent (of sin)95, 155, 212 Afscheiding2 Aktistetism187–188 Albert the Great177 Alexander of Hales177 Amsterdam3, 9, 13–14, 20, 24, 51, 114, 132 Anabaptism85, 121, 123, 215 anachronism77 analogia entis15, 45, 57, 132, 135 analogia scripturae73 analogical12, 26–27, 30–31, 40, 45–46, 63, 119–120, 129–130, 141, 148 Angel (of Yahweh)171, 208 angels31, 115, 132–133, 146, 154 anhypoatic184, 197, 200 anointing192, 199– 200 Anselm of Canterbury61, 81, 215 anthropocentricity11, 60 anthropology99, 110, 205, 219 anthropomorphism89, 120, 174 antinomianism82, 123, 217 antinomy155, 160, 221, 223 antithesis48, 93, 96–98, 120, 124, 151 antithetical4, 47, 63, 96, 104, 110, 141 Aphthartodocetism187–188 Apollinarianism193 apologists (early)29 apophaticism33

Aquinas, Thomas15, 45, 57, 61, 128, 142, 148 archetypal (theology)12, 27, 31–32, 39, 41, 44–46, 55–56, 59, 89, 115, 119–120, 129–132, 141, 174 Areopagite118, 127 Arianism22, 37, 40–41, 44, 121 Aristotle16 Arminianism184 asceticism1, 151, 215 aseity20, 42 Assyrian75 Athanasius23, 29, 37, 40–41, 44, 121, 139, 195 atonement61, 177, 226, 228 Audians141 Augustine of Hippo82, 108, 110–111, 177 autotheotic119 baptism200, 205 Barnes, Michael R.39 Barr, James48 Barth, Karl11, 16, 35, 51, 79, 82, 168, 172, 222 Bartholomew, Craig73–77 Basil of Caesarea44 beatifijic vision82, 138, 186, 188–189, 200, 211, 220–221 beatitude81, 87, 149, 204, 214–215, 217–218, 224 Beck, J.T.48, 50 Begbie, Jeremy172–173, 198 begotten, 113, 119, 137, 187, 210, 229 Belgic Confession78 Bellarmine, Cardinal126–127 benefijiciaries (of covenant)214 Bengel, Johann A.48, 50 Berkhof, Hendrikus11–13, 15, 46, 54 Berkhof, Louis74 Berkouwer, Gerrit C.5, 10–11, 13, 66, 92–98, 114, 122, 132, 141, 149, 153–156, 158–161, 163, 181, 192, 197, 199–200, 204, 211, 216, 225 Bernard of Clairvaux128 Bethlehem171 bicovenantal79 Bierma, Lyle D.79, 92

252

index

Bilderdijk, Willem134 Blavatsky, Madame64 blessedness25, 34, 83–86, 89, 95, 97–99, 101, 107, 111, 144–145, 172, 211, 218–219 Bonaventure61, 128 Bremmer, R.H.10, 13–15, 17–18, 45, 52, 127, 135, 141, 148, 155–156, 161, 184, 194 Bristley, Eric D.1 Bromiley, Geofffrey149, 177, 222 Brunner, Emil12, 156, 158 Böhl, Eduard117 Böhme, Jakob48, 50, 180 Calvin, John5, 12–14, 16, 49, 52, 57, 59, 66, 79–80, 116, 119–120, 139, 142, 152, 154, 164, 173, 177–179, 198, 224 Canons of Dordt78 catechetics14 causality32, 57, 222 Celeial Hierarchies57, 118 Chalcedon (Council of)187, 194–195, 198–200 charismata192 Chemnitz, Martin190 Christianity1–3, 22, 35, 46, 50, 127, 168 Christocentrism10, 63, 68, 168 Christological method68, 99–100, 168 Christology7, 68, 104, 114, 130, 167–169, 181, 183–186, 189, 191–194, 198–201, 204 circumcision205 Clement of Alexandria121 Cocceius48, 50, 54, 94, 106, 206 Collett, Don37, 44 commingling (divine and creaturely)27, 32, 119, 141, 167, 175, 179, 184, 193 communicatio idiomatum120, 182, 184, 186, 189, 191–192, 198, 223 communication (divine)22, 38–39, 41, 58, 182, 188–189, 191, 194, 198, 200 compassion (divine)178–179, 211 Comte, Auguste122 concupiscence126, 193 condescension (divine)26, 42, 68, 70–71, 81, 89–91, 120, 128, 174, 211 condign merit71–72 conformitas158–160 congruent merit71, 144 conscience144, 158, 172 consciousness12, 28, 31, 33, 208–209 constitutive (covenant as)58, 67, 69, 72–73, 90 constitutive (eschatology as)104, 106 constitutive (image as)141, 145, 154, 156–157, 159, 163

consubstantiality (of divine persons)45, 194 consubstantiation182, 192 contingency (of covenant of works)91, 140 contingency (of creation)32–33 contingency (of redemption)177, 186 Cooper, John W.29, 46, 135 cooperation (divine and human)69 cooperation (intradivine)30 cooperation (of two natures)191 corporeality (as image)118, 133, 142, 144 cosmogony30, 58 cosmology33, 54 cosmonomic172 covenant4–9, 17, 49–50, 53–54, 58, 64–84, 86–99, 101, 103–109, 111, 113, 127–129, 139–140, 145–150, 158, 160, 163, 167–168, 171–172, 176, 183, 186, 201, 203–214, 216–220, 222, 224–229 creation2, 6–8, 17, 19–25, 28–30, 32–33, 38–41, 45–46, 49, 54–55, 57–64, 68–71, 77, 83, 85–87, 91, 94, 96, 98–109, 111, 114–118, 120–121, 125, 127, 129–134, 138, 141–144, 146–152, 158, 161–164, 167–177, 179–180, 206, 208–210, 220, 224 creationism129, 146 Creator-creature distinction20, 31, 41, 57, 129, 199 crucifijixion81, 173, 182, 191, 228 culture1–3, 15, 105–106, 150 Cyril of Alexandria195–196 Darwin, Charles47, 185 Darwinism64 Dawkins, Richard64 De La Suassaye, Daniel Chantepie46 Deconstructionism48, 73 decree (divine)15, 22, 31–33, 83, 175–178, 183, 209 Deism22–23, 27, 29, 31–33, 37–38, 41, 43, 46, 54, 58, 64, 70–71, 122, 134, 179, 185, 193, 195, 209 Deistic26, 32, 37, 41, 43, 53, 123, 128–129 deity29, 31, 57, 119–121, 130, 133, 182, 184, 187, 191–193, 196, 198, 220 Delitzsch, Franz227 deliverance217 demerit80 demons200 dependence32, 40, 52, 58, 65, 84, 91, 123, 134, 140, 209 depravity158, 163–165 dereliction (cry of)229

index Descartes, Rene23, 130, 136 destiny5–8, 55, 60–63, 67, 72, 82–83, 89–91, 98, 100–101, 103, 105, 108, 111, 114–115, 125–127, 138, 145–147, 149–150, 153, 165, 204, 219 determinism209 deus absconditus29 deus ex machina6, 104, 149 development4, 47–49, 52, 61–62, 78, 91, 99, 101, 105, 114, 124, 147, 149–150, 155, 157, 189–190, 192, 194, 198, 200, 207, 221 dichotomy11, 15, 18, 21, 114, 139, 151, 189, 195, 215 Diognetus229 Dionysius the Areopagite57, 118, 126, 132, 193 directedness (of creation)104 disobedience96, 179, 213, 215, 217–218, 227–228 dispensation83, 144 divinization126, 128, 177, 187 docetism191–194, 200 dogma6, 20–21, 39, 41, 45, 131, 186 dogmatics6, 11–12, 14–15, 21, 25, 61, 68, 129, 148, 150, 168–169, 184 dominion90, 105, 116, 118, 144, 150, 217 donum superadditum15, 81–82, 85, 90, 118, 121, 125–126, 128, 138, 140, 156, 158, 160, 172, 189 Dooyeweerd, Herman10–11, 13, 172 Dordt (Canons of)78 Dorner, Isaac177, 197 Dosker, Henry1, 9, 43 dualism3, 5–7, 17, 20, 23, 27, 62, 83, 104, 106, 114, 118, 123, 129, 133, 135, 138–139, 141, 148, 150–151, 154–162, 167, 185, 193–194, 205, 220 duality114, 155–156, 160–161, 223 Duns Scotus129, 177 duplex (status)184, 204, 215, 224 dynamism62 Eastern (Ancient Near)27, 73–74, 76 Eastern (Orthodoxy)137, 187, 189, 194, 200 Eckhart, Meister128 ectypal12, 27, 31–32, 45–46, 51, 55–56, 59, 89, 113, 115, 119–120, 129, 132, 141, 173 Eden7, 77, 92, 110, 129, 149, 168, 170, 179 Edwards, Jonathan54 Eglinton, James54, 135 election15, 175–176, 178 emanation22–23, 38, 41, 58 emotions136

253

empiricism123 emptying (self)190, 223, 229 endowed126, 133, 139, 190, 200, 220 enhypoatic197 Enlightenment24, 48–49 epistemology27, 31–32, 45, 56, 68, 123 eschatological8, 17, 63–64, 80–85, 87, 89–91, 94–101, 103–111, 113, 125, 138, 140, 143, 145, 147–150, 160, 164, 179, 183, 186–187, 204–205, 213–215, 217–219, 224, 227, 229 eschatology4–9, 17, 22, 55, 60, 62–63, 66–67, 85, 94, 96, 99–100, 102–106, 110–111, 114, 125–126, 128, 147, 153, 160, 167, 203, 205, 219 essence23, 31, 38–39, 45, 50, 52, 58, 60, 67, 70, 72, 75, 78, 115, 119, 121, 124–125, 137, 141, 147, 151, 153–155, 158, 163, 179–181, 183–184, 194, 197, 209, 217–218, 229 estrangement (divine-human)97–98, 140 eternity25, 31–32, 34, 40–41, 55, 71, 169–170, 183, 193, 197, 208–209, 224 ethics110, 206 Eutyches194–196, 199, 203 evolution30, 33, 58, 125, 185 ex nihilo22, 40, 55, 57–58, 60 ex pacto72, 81, 83, 94, 212, 214 exaltation186, 190, 194, 198–199, 201, 203–204, 214, 220–224 exinanition189–190, 221, 223 expiation227 faculties26, 131–132, 135–138, 141, 155–157, 159, 161–164, 200 faith2–3, 11–12, 14, 26, 42–43, 51, 72, 74, 81, 86, 95–96, 106, 111, 138, 188, 207, 212–213, 218 faithful2, 12, 44, 95 faithfulness3, 76 fate33–34, 64, 72 fatherhood131 federal theology5, 17, 72, 79, 96, 172, 228 fellowship63, 65–66, 70–71, 93, 97–99, 109, 140, 144, 163, 165, 205, 219, 228 Feuerbach, Ludwig120 Fichte, Johann G.23 filioque43, 137 finitum non e capax infiniti120, 174–175, 194, 198, 200, 224 fijirstborn197 fijirstfruits105 Florovsky, Georges177 foedus operum95, 212

254

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forensic82, 91, 226 forgiveness110, 128, 212, 216–218, 225, 227–228 forsakenness229 freedom32, 71–72, 83–85, 108–109, 118, 121, 124–125, 129, 177, 208, 226 friendship65, 69, 92, 211 fulfijillment65, 106 fundamentalist9 Gafffijin, Jr., Richard B.53, 103, 204, 206 Garner, David130–131, 139 Gentry, Peter J.78, 117 Gleason, Ronald N.1, 20, 52, 55, 104, 205 glory5, 7, 25, 34, 36, 57, 59–62, 82, 85, 95, 97, 99–105, 108–111, 114, 126, 128–129, 138, 140, 143, 148–151, 186, 188, 192, 204, 214, 217–218, 223–225 Gnosticism22–23, 58, 64, 133, 135, 193 gospel8, 49, 152, 207, 229 gracious81–85, 87, 89–91, 95, 110, 128, 207 gradation (ontological)6, 63, 113, 127, 141, 193 gratuity80–81, 90, 178 Gregory of Nazianzus30 Gregory of Nyssa39, 142 groundless29, 41 Guenther, Allen75 guilt103, 152, 216, 218, 226, 228 habitation144 Haeckel, Ernst27 happiness144, 172 Harinck, George3, 43, 51 harmony56–57, 60, 80–81, 134, 138, 162 headship96, 173 heaven19, 31, 34, 58, 99, 107, 110, 126, 133, 143, 145, 191, 200, 211, 214, 229 heavenly2, 83, 86, 101–102, 105, 111, 128, 218–219 Hegel, G.W.F.23–24, 27–28, 30, 46–50, 53, 58, 63, 142, 178, 181, 185, 192, 195, 221 Hegelianism63, 88, 134, 169, 184, 209 Heidelberg Catechism78 Heideman, Eugene12–13, 32, 45, 52, 58, 62, 117, 120, 151, 154–157, 160–161 Helvetic Consensus78 Hepp, Valentijn3, 10, 51 Heppe, Heinrich51, 79, 154 Heraclitus35, 63 heresies185, 188, 199 Herrick, James A.24 heterodoxies184

Hielema, Syd11, 13, 17, 30, 52, 63, 66, 68, 99, 103–104, 106, 109, 147, 168 hierarchy15, 126, 131–136, 139, 193, 206 historicism183 historiography13, 48–49, 79, 92 HodgeCharles42, 66, 78 Hoekema, Anthony A.50, 66, 73, 77–78, 113–114, 145, 154, 156, 158–159, 205 holiness36, 85, 90, 92, 116, 118, 126, 138–140, 154–155, 161–162, 172, 193, 219 holistic19, 63, 114, 118, 129, 148, 157 Hughes, Phillip E.117, 119 Hugo of St. Victor128 humanism60 humanness127, 159–160 humiliation186, 189–190, 194, 198, 201, 203–204, 214, 220–225 Hurgronje, Christiaan Snouck43, 51 hypostatic union7, 120, 169, 184, 186, 194, 197–199, 220–222 Idealism12, 23, 25, 32, 46–47, 49–50, 53–54, 58, 62–63, 117, 123, 169 identity23, 28, 31, 48, 56, 58, 119–120, 150, 173, 181 imago Dei7–8, 17, 20, 65, 86–87, 105, 109, 115–116, 118, 120, 140, 144–146, 148, 157–159, 201, 203–205, 208, 211, 219, 224 immanence20, 24, 71, 122, 179 immanent25–28, 33, 38–40, 63, 122 immortality135, 143, 149, 160, 187 immutability35 imputed217 incarnate20, 130, 143, 170, 173, 179, 205, 217, 221, 229 incarnation30–31, 68–69, 115, 120, 128, 142–143, 168–183, 187–191, 194–195, 197, 199, 201, 203, 208–209, 211, 216–217, 221–223, 227 incommunicable29, 41, 181 incomprehensibility12, 20, 25–28, 31 incorruptible95, 99, 111, 165, 188, 219 individualism134 indwelling110, 139–140, 143, 200 infralapsarianism102, 175–176 infused199–200 iniquities227 innocence95–96, 124, 138, 162 intellect13, 34, 118, 137, 163 interpenetration192, 198 intratrinitarian25, 28, 39–40, 55, 174, 180, 194, 208 investiture135

index invisibility135 Irenaeus of Lyons29, 108, 121 irrationalism63, 72, 123, 155 Islam35, 43 Israel169, 171, 205–206 judgment10, 12, 164, 179, 204, 207, 220, 224–225, 229 judicial226, 229 juridicial147, 217 justice50, 62, 80, 84, 92, 118, 126, 130, 138, 153, 190, 204, 215, 220–221, 227 Kabbalah23 Kampen2–3, 9, 14, 43, 51–53, 55, 59, 131–132, 134 Kant, Immanuel23, 26, 37, 48, 53, 81, 84–85, 89, 122, 130, 133, 136, 138, 150, 185, 195 kenosis190, 192, 196, 221, 223 kerygma10, 79 Keunen, Abraham2 kingdom6, 73–74, 104–105, 110, 147, 172, 214 Kline, Meredith76, 85 Kuitert, Harry10 Kuyper1–3, 8, 10, 13, 24, 46–47, 49, 52–55, 59, 61, 78–79, 106, 134, 146, 150–152, 158, 172, 176, 183 lapsarian87, 175–176 legalism80–82, 85, 94, 96, 98, 172, 212–213 Leiden2, 9, 16, 27, 51, 115, 183, 210 Letham, Robert79 liberalism2, 51 libertarian85, 124–125, 138 liberty84, 91 lifeblood25, 129 likeness48, 105, 108, 113, 115–118, 121, 124, 130, 133, 146, 200, 208 Lillback, Peter79 Logos23, 29, 45, 56, 118, 170–171, 175, 195, 197, 223 Lombard, Peter61 Lordship105, 150 Luther184, 198 Lutheranism61, 108, 110, 127, 184, 186, 189, 192, 199–200, 220–221, 223 maledictory74–77 Manichaeism127, 133 marriage69, 75, 195 martyr215, 227

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Mary197, 199 materialism19, 21, 24, 27, 34–35, 46, 54, 56, 62–64, 122–124, 135 materiality142–143 Maximus the Confessor177 mechanical6, 34, 63, 113, 149, 160, 162 mediation46, 181, 218, 222, 224 mediator69, 104, 143, 150, 173, 177–178, 180–181, 191, 193, 196, 203, 208, 222–223 mediatorial168, 178, 201, 213–214, 218, 220, 227 medieval10, 82, 128, 142, 177, 188 Melancthon, Philip79 mercy92–93, 95–96, 98, 100, 207, 211 merit71–72, 81–83, 89–90, 93–95, 98, 126, 139, 208, 212, 218 metaphor47, 49, 53, 55 metaphysical15, 19, 27, 30–31, 34, 40–41, 53, 65, 122–123, 141, 154, 193 metaphysics32, 63, 114, 128, 159, 185 microcosm107, 113, 120, 147 microdivine108 monad37–38 monastic2, 123 monergism71 monism6, 24, 27, 32, 34–35, 41, 46, 56, 62, 122, 134, 193 monk124, 151, 215 monophysitism188, 196 monopleuric71, 83, 86 monotheism24, 35–36, 43 Monothelitism188 Montanus30 morality2, 46, 61, 151 mortality149 Mosaic87, 206 Moses117, 205–206 Muller, Richard A.12–16, 27, 49, 54, 66, 79–82, 87, 91–92, 96, 149, 178, 212 multiformity53, 114 munus triplex184 Murray, John66, 73, 77–78, 85, 96 mystery12, 21, 26, 129, 146, 165, 168–169 mysticism23, 41, 64, 122–125, 128, 137, 188 narrative6, 48, 68, 73, 86, 114–115, 139 naturalism84, 121–126, 128, 138, 148, 161 negation25, 37 Neo-Calvinism1, 3, 10, 15, 24, 46–47, 49, 53, 59, 61–62, 100, 106, 134, 150, 152, 172 Neoplatonism3, 6, 15,45, 63–64, 81, 83, 113, 118, 125–135, 141, 151, 156, 167, 177, 188, 193

256

index

Nestorianism173, 194–199, 203, 223 nomological66, 93, 97–98, 211 noumenal23, 133 oath74–77 obedience65, 76, 81, 84, 86, 89, 92–98, 100, 103, 105, 109, 121, 143, 160, 204, 208, 211, 213–220, 225, 227–229 obligation72, 76, 83–87, 89–90, 107 occultism64 omnipotence189, 192, 197 omnipresence189, 192, 197 omniscience189 ontological5–7, 19–20, 23–25, 27–34, 39, 44, 59, 63, 67–68, 70–71, 113–114, 119, 129, 131, 133–136, 138–139, 141, 144, 147–148, 152, 154–156, 158–160, 163–164, 167–169, 176, 179, 181, 184, 186–189, 193–194, 196, 209, 218, 220, 224 ontologism159 ontology7, 46, 55–56, 60, 64–65, 67–68, 83, 100, 113–115, 127–129, 135, 139–141, 156–157, 159, 192–194 ordo salutis20, 123, 203 organic4–5, 7–8, 19, 46–50, 52–57, 59, 99, 106, 111, 114, 133–135, 146–150, 158, 160, 183 organicism6, 54–55 organism34, 46–47, 52, 55, 59–60, 131, 146–147 organization45, 49, 51, 133, 135, 142 Origen41, 121 orthodoxy13, 15–18, 49, 51, 54, 66, 79, 82, 98, 107, 110, 137, 139, 185, 189, 198 Osiander141, 177, 222 outpouring30–31 pact208–210 pactum salutis172, 183, 204, 207, 209–210, 224, 228 paganism27, 40, 50, 58, 64 panentheism29, 46 pantheism6, 19, 21–24, 27–29, 31–35, 37–38, 41–43, 46, 50, 53–54, 56, 58, 60, 62–64, 70–72, 122–123, 134–135, 142, 167, 169, 175–176, 178–179, 181, 183–185, 193, 209 paradise98, 144, 149 Parmenides35, 63 paternity30, 40 patripassianism181 patristic41, 121, 142, 224 Paul (Apostle)60, 96, 101–103, 107, 116, 147, 149, 204, 206, 213, 226–227

Pelagianism81–82, 84–85, 121, 125–126, 128, 139–140, 163, 177, 183, 195, 209 Pentecost30 perichoresis45, 188, 192 perseverance110–111, 143 personalism11 personality124, 146, 196–197 Philo of Alexandria23, 117, 193 philosophy2–3, 8, 23, 25, 27–28, 35, 43, 45, 47–49, 51, 53, 55–56, 120, 127, 131, 183, 193, 221 Plantinga, Alvin56 Plato23, 29, 56, 133, 135 Platonism23, 32, 193 polytheism24 posse non mori106, 109, 140, 143, 219 posse non peccare106, 109, 111, 140, 210, 219 posterity95–96, 103, 226 postlapsarian87 postmodernism48, 114 potentiality39, 125, 133 poverty60, 62 precondition33, 36–37, 39, 42–44, 143, 173 predestination178, 210 predetermination175 prelapsarian66, 77, 81, 87 preparation69, 88, 100, 111, 169–173, 175–176, 178–179, 210 Presbyterianism61, 139 presupposition36, 41, 44–45, 53, 68, 81, 180 presuppositional120, 131 priest(hood)122, 127, 147, 219 principia23, 45, 49, 51 principium internum12, 42 probationary76, 86–88, 91, 97, 107–110 productivity (divine)34, 38–39, 41 prolegomena11, 45, 51, 87–88, 168, 170 promissory86–88, 90 prophet113, 147, 219 Protestant(ism)12, 45, 51, 61, 158–159, 189, 215 protology4, 7, 22, 55, 60, 62, 85, 110, 114, 125–126, 128 providence127, 140 psychology131 Rahner, Karl31 rationalism12–13, 16, 23, 41, 63, 65, 122–123, 134, 137 reciprocity38 reconciliation69, 104, 196, 221, 227

index recreation22, 149, 172 redeem95, 102, 104–105, 107, 115, 164–165 redemption7, 17, 20, 28, 30, 49, 63, 66, 80, 99–100, 103–106, 113, 116, 127, 147, 168–169, 172–173, 178, 183, 195, 203–204, 207–208, 210, 212, 223, 227–229 reductionism(s)63, 74, 78, 114, 118, 131, 148, 176, 225 Reformers12–13, 79, 92, 149, 154, 177 regeneration163 relational11–12, 15, 17, 39, 42, 65, 67, 69, 114, 156–157 relationality38–39, 43, 145–146, 180 Remonstrants121, 143 renewal10, 15, 116, 150, 163 replacement5, 7, 104, 148 representation97, 117 repristination17, 105, 183 reprobation15, 175–176 restoration6–7, 105–106, 176, 201, 203–206, 224 restrains152, 164, 206 resurrection95, 102, 115, 141, 143, 149, 189, 200–201, 204, 218–219, 222–224, 228 revelation26–28, 30–31, 34, 36, 39, 41–43, 45, 48, 52–54, 57, 61, 68, 80, 83, 87–91, 100, 106, 113, 115, 119–120, 123, 133, 142–143, 147, 158, 168–175, 179, 181, 185, 190, 210–211 richness34, 100, 108, 114 Ridderbos, Herman103, 203–204 righteousness81, 87, 90–92, 94–96, 103, 116, 126–127, 138–140, 148, 154–155, 161–162, 212, 216–219, 227–229 Roman Catholicism61, 90, 110, 123, 125, 186, 189 Réveil134 salvation49, 71, 81, 96, 100, 110, 168, 181, 199, 208–210, 212, 225, 227–228 sanction74, 76, 204, 206, 214, 217–218, 226 Satan206 satisfaction62, 81, 95–96, 122, 128, 187–188, 204, 212, 214–217, 224–229 Schelling, Friedrich23–24, 46–50, 53, 55, 58, 63, 142, 178, 180–181, 192 Schilder, Klaas154, 159 Schleiermacher, Friedrich53, 84, 123, 130, 136 scholasticism10–18, 27, 31, 45, 48–51, 79, 123, 172, 177, 188, 190 Scholten, J.H.2, 46, 88, 90, 97, 210 Schweizer, Alexander88, 90, 97

257

scripture69, 120–121, 147, 169–170, 179, 195, 226–227 separatism151 Sinai73, 77, 206 sinful80, 95–96, 127, 132, 140–141, 150, 164, 193, 200, 207 sinless95, 126 Socinianism81, 85, 121, 123, 138, 177, 184 solidarity218 sonship131, 212 soteriology8, 20, 66, 80, 100, 103, 111, 163, 168, 175–176, 178, 196, 201, 203–205, 209, 211 soul34, 46, 102, 118, 125–126, 130–132, 135–137, 141–142, 160, 220 sovereignty32, 53, 58, 72, 83–84, 87, 124, 173, 178–179, 209–210 Spinoza, Baruch23, 27 spiritism24, 123 spiritual3, 12, 40, 81, 102, 107, 110, 113, 118, 122, 127, 132–136, 192, 219 Spykman, Gordon77, 150, 157 static114, 146–147 staticism62 atus integritatis85, 93, 106, 128, 148, 210, 219 Stek, John H.66, 73–78 stipulations210, 212–214, 217 sub-eschatological148, 210, 220 subordinationism137 subsistence30, 188, 194, 196 substitutionary216, 226, 228 summum bonum62 superadded126, 149, 160, 172, 188 superadditum15, 81–82, 85, 90, 118, 121, 125–126, 128, 138, 140, 156, 158, 160, 172, 189 supernaturalism81, 84–85, 121–126, 128, 138, 140, 143 superstition64 supplement7, 104, 113, 226 supralapsarianism59, 175–176, 178 suzerain76 Synopsis purioris theologiae16, 45, 51, 115, 130, 135, 144–145, 183 synthesis5, 7–8, 63, 160–161, 203 systematic3, 9, 29, 74, 101, 104, 114, 148 taxonomy43, 84, 122–124 teleology7, 49, 54–55, 59–60, 63, 68 telos7–8, 60, 63–64, 67, 98, 100, 102, 106, 114, 125, 147–149 temporal32, 41, 170, 173, 190, 222 tertium quid117, 196 Tertullian29, 61

258

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theanthropos186, 199 theism6, 19, 22, 24, 28–29, 32, 35, 37, 44, 55–56, 62, 122–123, 174, 209 theocentricity11, 21, 55, 57, 60, 62–63 theogony30 Theopaschitism187–188 theophanies29 theosophy50, 64, 123, 135, 180 Thomism10–11, 14–15, 17, 45, 127, 132 Tipton, Lane18, 42, 56, 130 traducianism129, 146 transcendence20, 24–26, 28, 32, 71, 122, 179 transcendental37–39, 42–44 transgression83, 103, 211, 227 transubstantiation188 trichotomism135 trinitarian23, 27, 30, 33, 35–37, 41–43, 45–46, 55–58, 64, 67–68, 113, 115, 119, 122, 129–130, 137, 141, 147–148, 151, 179–181, 208, 210 typology186 ubiquity182, 184, 189, 192 unbelief64, 123 uncertainty76 unchangeability41, 207, 210, 212 uncircumscribed188 unconditional86 uncreated117, 188 undeserved71, 90–91 undivided45, 67, 119, 121, 181, 191, 195, 197, 220 unfolding38, 47, 49, 52, 54, 59, 99, 105, 183, 206 ungenerative41 uniformity34, 44, 55–56, 62 unilateral83, 86, 89–90, 208

universalism82 universe6, 21, 34, 44, 57, 63, 107, 113, 133, 173 univocal12, 26, 30–31, 119–120, 129, 141, 209 unmerited81–83, 89–90, 96, 172, 212 unredeemed152 unrighteousness163 Ursinus, Zacharias79, 92, 94–95 vacuity80 Van Asselt, Willem14, 27, 79, 129 Van Den Belt, Hendrik10, 27, 45, 50 Van Keulen, Dirk43, 45, 52 Van Til, Cornelius18, 29, 37, 42 Veenhof, Jan10, 13, 20, 46–50, 52, 54–55, 104–107, 149, 211 vicarious204, 225–228 violation8, 88, 204, 213–214, 218 virtues126, 131, 133, 138–141, 143, 156, 158–159, 161–162, 192, 215 vocation2, 124, 220 voluntarism12, 81, 89, 124 Vos, Geerhardus52, 60, 66, 79, 103 Walcheren Articles78 wisdom11, 22, 28, 58, 151, 170, 188, 190, 200 Witsius, Herman51, 79–81, 87, 92, 94–96 Wolters, Al10, 15, 105 worldview4, 18, 27, 34, 46, 56–57, 59, 134 worship92, 162, 192 wrath162, 226, 229 Yarnell, Malcolm12 Zwingli, Ulrich205