A Summary of Bavinck’s Critique of Schleiermacher

According to Schleiermacher, true religion consists exclusively in devout states of consciousness and feeling.   According to Bavinck, Schleiermacher’s very premise is philosophically untenable. Religious feeling necessitates an object from which that feeling derives its significance. Therefore, not every state of consciousness and feeling is religious in nature, but only those that are triggered by a unique metaphysical force.  Bavinck then concludes that religious feeling plays a penultimate role in pointing back to the ultimacy of a more transcendent reality, which gives the feeling a uniquely religious quality.  Consequently, religious feeling can never be severed from the domain of metaphysics.

Faith rests upon knowledge and knowledge arouses trust. Faith, knowledge, and trust all pre-suppose a certain conception of God, and conceptions of God rest upon metaphysical premises, the very thing Schleiermacher wished to banish from his religious system.

Revelation-Based Normativity and the Church

I’ve started up my reading of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics now that I have some more time on my hands, and spent the majority of my afternoon reading chapter 2: The Method and Organization of Dogmatic Theology.  In the introduction to the chapter, Bavinck discusses the relationship between dogmatics and the church, doctrine and confessionalism, the fallible and the infallible.  He begins the introduction pointing out that “From the beginning, Scripture served as the rule of faith and the foundation of all theology.  As the church spread into and engaged the broader world, it became necessary to clarify and firm up the rule of faith against false teaching (p. 59).”  The genuine desire to further clarify apostolic teaching in the midst of heresy and error led “to the rise of strong epsiscopal teaching authority and an increased dependance on the authoritative church tradition.  Reaction after reaction eventually gave birth to an antischolastic reversal in philosophy and theology, represented by Kant, Schleiermacher, and Hegel.  Experience replaced knowledge, ethics replaced metaphysics, and dogma was re-defined along subjective, personal, and “spiritual” lines.  After looking at these trends in philosophy and theology, Bavinck reaches the conclusion that:

“Neither scientific objectivity nor complete subjectivity are possible.  All knowledge is rooted in faith, and for faith to be real it must have an object that is knowable.  This requires a divine revelation that is more than a fulfillment of subjective desire.  Religion must be true and provide its own distinct path to knowledge and certainty.  Christian theologians must place themselves within the circle of faith and, while using church tradition and experience, take their stand in the reality of revelation (p. 59).”

An unrelated issue here, but a very important one, is the distinct path to knowledge and certainty that Bavinck speaks of.  This profoundly conflicts with strong and moderate foundationalist approaches to apologetics in the tradition of Descartes and 17th century rationalism in that Christian epistemology can never be severed from the “reality of revelation” that Bavinck speaks of.  Foundationalism finds its primary epistemic principle in objective foundations of truth discovered through reason. Christian apologetics, in the tradition of theologians like Bavinck, Vos, and Van Til, finds its basic epistemic principle in the “reality of revelation” and refuses to proceed on any other grounds.

Consequently, Schleiermacher’s proposed subjectivism grounded in the Christian conciousness has no place whatsoever in Church Dogmatics.  Neither does Hegel and his dialectical process, or Kant and his  anti-metaphysical moralism.  Dogmaticians are bound to Scripture alone.

Bavinck continues his discussion and beautifully explains the relationship between dogmatics and the church.  Out of a genuine concern that dogmaticians might use sola Scriptura as a license for individualism in the process of method and organization, he re-states the necessity of including confessional and cultural factors in the practice of Church Dogmatics.

“The concern for revelation-based normativity in dogmatics must not be construed to serve as a reason to overlook or deny the importance of confessional and cultural factors in dogmatic treatises.  No one is free from the biases of church upbringing and particular environmental contexts.  We are always products of our background, including our ecclesiastical upbringing.  Awareness of this reality led some to attempt divesting themselves of their confessional identities and returning to the more confused and ‘pure’ gospel situation of the New Testament and the early church.  So-called ‘biblical theology’ is then opposed to ‘scholastic theology’ as though the latter were not at all biblical.  But setting Scripture over against church teaching is as wrong as separating heart and mind, feeling and knowing.  The sole aim of dogmatics is to set forth the thoughts of God that he has laid down in Holy Scripture.  Dogmatic theology is possible only for one who lives in the fellowship of a Christian church.  While Scripture is logically the only foundation of church and theology, pedagoically, the church is prior to Scripture.”

Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 1: Prolegomena, p. 60 (emphasis mine)

I’ll conclude by saying that anti-scholasticism will always end up conceding to the very evil it proposes to solve.  At first glance, this tendency doesn’t seem all that bad.

We don’t want to be bound by church tradition, right?  Aren’t confessions, creeds, and dogmatic treatises attempting to usurp the primacy of Holy Scripture?  Isn’t that what Rome believes?  I’ll adhere to no creed but the Bible!

This kind of thinking ultimately distorts truth and hinders its progress by elevating individual autonomy to a place of supremacy.  We end up with thousands of different interpretations of Scripture, no way to safeguard truth against error, and an individualistic conception of Christianity devoid of the church and its ministry of word and sacrament.  As Bavinck writes “Dogmatic theology is possible only for one who lives in the fellowship of the church (p. 59).”  Biblically, the church is invested with the authority that the modern evangelical consensus gives to the individual mind.

That’s all I’ve got!  Stay tuned for more Bavinck!

“Theism Furnishes the True Solution”

In context Bavinck is critically addressing the post-Kantian trend in the universities of his day to separate the science of religion and the study of dogmatics by relegating dogmatics to the seminary, while keeping the “scientific study of religion” in the universities.  The science of religion was basically a positivistic examination of religion with no theological commitments of any sort.  In the positivistic schema, unbiased science was the only proper intellectual commitment. Following Kant, dogmatics only possessed value as they related to the moral and practical dimensions of life.  The issues of truth or objectivity were completely left out of dogmatic study since the human intellect was completely incapable of entering the noumenal, and thus was left to the unbiased observation of the phenomenal.  Here Bavinck defends dogmatics as the most important of scientific studies by appealing to its nature and end.  Like Aquinas before him, Bavinck unashamedly asserts that theology is the “queen of sciences.”

For in an absolute sense, neither the intellect nor the will, the true or the good, can be an end in itself; were this the case, they would be elevated to the level of the divine, and we would relapse into paganism.  A “creature” can never be an end in itself, neither individual nor society nor the state, and neither can abstractions like the true, the good, and the beautiful be ends in themselves.  For every creature as such exists by, and hence, for God.  Science exists also for God’s sake and finds its final goal in his glory.  Specifically, this then is true of theology; in a special sense it is from God and by God, and hence for God as well.  But precisely because its final purpose does not lie in any creature, not in practice, or in piety, or in the church, amidst all the [other] sciences it maintains its own character and nature.  Truth as such has value.  Knowledge as such is a good.  To know God in the face of Christ- by faith here on earth, by sight in the hereafter- not only results in blessedness but is as such blessedness and eternal life.  It is this knowledge dogmatics strives for in order that God may see his own image reflected and his own name recorded in the human consciousness.  And for that reason theology and dogmatics do not belong, by the grace of a positivistic science, in a church seminary, but in the university of the sciences.  Furthermore, in the circle of the sciences, theology is entitled to a place of honor, not because of the persons who pursue this science, but in virtue of the object it pursues; it is and remains- provided this expression is correctly understood- the queen of sciences.

Dogma and Ethics: Examining Liberalism and Post-Modern Chrisitanity

One interesting observation gleaned from examining the current post-modern trends in Christianity is the striking resemblance it bears to the classic forms of 20th century liberalism.  While the emerging church decries all things “modern”, including modernistic Christianity itself, it can’t help but be recognized that the inevitable conclusions of both systems are very similar, if not the same.  This inevitable conclusion, or maybe even the working pre-supposition, is the way in which both liberalism and post-modern Christianity work within an anti-metaphysical framework, grounding religion in experience and ethics to the exclusion of dogma.  Liberalism abandoned the historicity of Christianity and its objective character, replacing them with personal experience and moralistic agendas.  Post-modernism effectively works within the same paradigm by denying the objectivity of truth, the historical character of Christianity, and the logical and systematic precedence of dogma before ethics.  Both systems abandon the necessity and centrality of doctrine in favor of theologically man-centered agendas.  In the end, both systems produce a warped ethical schema precisely because both systems abandon the necessity of dogma in the life of the church.  These thoughts were spurred while reading Bavinck’s introduction to the Prolegomena in which he distinguishes between the dogmatic, ethical, and apologetic dimensions of Christianity.

“The task of dogmatic theology, in the final analysis, is nothing other than a scientific exposition of religious truths grounded in sacred Scripture.  Apologetic defense of this truth and ethical applications to Christian conduct both are based in and proceed from divine revelation and faith; they do not ground or shape faith.  Dogmatics and ethics are a unity, though they may be treated as distinct disciplines.  Dogmatics describes God’s deeds for and in us; ethics describes what renewed human beings now do on the basis of and in the strength of these deeds.”

Why A New Blog?

A great idea was recently proposed by Kevin Johnson over at Prophezei to systematically read Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics throughout the year, along with online interaction via the blogosphere.  I believe that the Reformed Dogmatics blog is still under construction.  In the meantime, I’ve decided to create another blog of my own with the intention of exclusively chronicling my study of Bavinck’s Dogmatics.  Plans are to include copious amounts of helpful quotations, personal analyses, theological reflection, and other material related to Bavinck and his work.  I’m no Bavinck scholar, so don’t expect anything too profound.  My hope is to grow in a more full-orbed understanding of Reformed theology and praxis through my reading of the Dogmatics.  I plan on posting once or twice a week as time allows. Since this blog primarily exists for personal reflection and analysis, I’ve disabled the comment box in light of Kevin’s blog which will allow for mutual interaction between the reading group.  Why the Bavinck Pupil?  Because I’m no expert, scholar, or academic.  I’m just an ordinary student eager to draw upon the wisdom of this genius Reformed domgatician.