Tag: Herman Bavinck

Herman Bavinck’s understanding of ethics

In his 1902 essay titled “Contemporary Morality,” Herman Bavinck starts by admitting that there is a lack of discussion regarding moral principles and issues in his society and his church. For him, the importance of paying attention to moral principles and moral issues is that by their own nature human beings have needs, which differ from visible things. In order to live their lives well, he says, people should know the rule by which they organize their lives. Bavinck claims that morality discussions can go from questions such as what is good and what is evil to practical matters such …

How Bavinck responds to the challenges of the theory of evolution?

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 …

Should we read Herman Bavinck’s The Philosophy of Revelation as an apologetics of despair?

In dealing with arguments against the Christian faith in his book The Philosophy of Religion, Bavinck uses a series of argumentative strategies. One of these strategies is the apologetics of despair. This study tries to figure out whether this strategy tends to be observed in most essays of the book or its use is only circumstantial. Bavinck does not reject at once and for all the ideas that may be detrimental to the faith, but instead, he engages with them in order to discover if they can offer some truth worth noting. In this respect, in the three essays discussed …

Healthcare chaplaincy series – A broad notion of the image of God

Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck presents a broader notion of the image of God, something important in health care chaplaincy. For him, human beings do not have the image of God. The image of God is not something or a characteristic that we all bear, have, or acquire. As human beings, we all are the image of God. Our body, soul, and spirit, represent integrally the image of God. So there is no difference between the image and likeness of God, since all aspects of the human being reflect God perfectly . All that is God is found in us in …