In his discussion of evolution, Bavinck offers a modified theory of development, rooted not under a mechanistic and naturalistic worldview, as Darwin does, but under a ‘theistic-friendly’ framework. This paper argues that Bavinck’s discussion of evolution as whole endorses a modified Aristotelian/Thomistic framework in order to understand the theory of development, and thus overcoming the challenges raised by Darwin’s naturalistic worldview to biblical revelation.
Bavinck’s engagement with the theory of evolution is noteworthy. Unlike his general criticism to Darwinism in his discussion of human origins in RD §279-83, the essays studied here analyze the theory of evolution in a further in-depth fashion. While in “Creation or Development?” Bavinck approaches Darwinism as an interpretative system of scientific data, in his essay “Evolution,” Bavinck reclaims the notion of ‘development’ and ‘evolution’ under a modified Aristotelian-Christian account of ‘evolution.’ It is a framework that seems to be compatible with Scripture but rejects Darwinism as a whole and not only a particular feature of it. Current scholarship is partially right.
What this paper departs from modern scholarship is that Bavinck’s notion of ‘development’ is not merely a kind of christianized Darwinism or theistic evolution. It is true that Bavinck might allow certain changes in organisms, but only within their kinds without any notion of metaphysical change, improvement or retrogression such as the change of an organism of a kind evolving into another kind. When Bavinck speaks of ‘development,’ his use of the term is strictly in accordance to the Aristotelian metaphysics: being as becoming.
Modern readers must take into account that this Aristotelian position has traditionally been understood as opposed to evolution in the modern sense. Bavinck has modified the Aristotelian notion of development to allow certain changes in the material constitution of organisms but not in their essence. With this understanding of ‘development,’ Bavinck indeed overcomes the challenges on the intersection of evolution and biblical revelation but does not leave much room to appropriate evolutionary thinking.
*This is a summary of the paper published as “How Bavinck Responds to the Challenges of the Theory of Evolution,” Fides Reformata 26, no.1 (2021): 103-24. If you’d like to read this paper in full, please click here. All rights reserved by the publisher. Used by permission.
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