Introducing Herman Bavinck's Reformed Ethics

Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) served as the professor of dogmatic theology at the Theological School of the Secession Christian Reformed Church in Kampen, The Netherlands, from 1883 to 1902, when he left Kampen for Abraham Kuyper's Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.  His primary teaching responsibility in dogmatic theology culminated in the two editions of his Reformed Dogmatics between 1895 and 1901 and 1906 to 1911 respectively.   However, during the twenty years in Kampen he also lectured extensively on ethics, with several full cycles in theological ethics along with lectures in philosophical ethics. 

These lectures were never published and an 1100-page handwritten manuscript on Reformed (theological) ethics (Gereformeerde Ethiek) languished unnoticed and untouched in the Bavinck Archives at the Vrije Universiteit for almost a century after Bavinck's death in 1921.  In 2008 my colleague Dirk van Keulen happened on the manuscript while doing research for a paper on Bavinck's understanding of the imitation of Christ.   Subsequently, the manuscript was transcribed into a digital format and since 2012 I have been overseeing and editing an English translation that will be published by Baker Academic in three volumes.  At the same time Dirk van Keulen is preparing a Dutch critical edition of the text with Bavinck's corrections, marginal notations, and bibliographic additions fully identified.  Our work is collaborative; Dirk is part of an editorial team that comes together for a week in the summer to go over every page and line of the translation.  The other members of the team are Dr. Nelson Kloosterman, veteran translator and editor, and Ph.D. students Jessica Driesenga (Fuller, Vrije Universiteit) and Antoine Theron (Calvin Theological Seminary).

It is a fair question to ask me why I am pouring so much of my time and energy into translating a work on ethics that dates back to the last two decades of the nineteenth century. After all, we are already in the twenty-first century and countless moral challenges we face were not even on the horizon of Bavinck's imagination then.  What could he possibly contribute to our concerns about nuclear weapons, genetic engineering, same-sex marriage, stem-cell research, the digital revolution, and the like?   The question deserves an answer and I shall try to provide it under three rubrics.

1. Pastoral/Practical: Ethics comes after dogmatic theology.

An important part of the answer is found in Bavinck's understanding of the role of ethics in the Christian life.   In modern thought after Immanuel Kant, the distinction between religion and morality becomes blurred; in the social gospel thinking of liberal German theologians like Albrecht Ritschl and Americans such as Walter Rauschenbusch, true religion is often identified with efforts to establish the kingdom of God on earth through social justice movements.  Bavinck insists that theological ethics and dogmatic theology are inseparable but distinct because religion and morality are.  According to Bavinck, "dogmatics describes the deeds of God done for, to, and in human beings; ethics describes what renewed human beings now do on the basis of and in the strength of those divine deeds."  Dogmatics covers what we "receive and believe" about what God has done for us; in ethics we are active moral agents. "In dogmatics, the articles of the faith are treated; in ethics, the precepts of the decalogue. . . . Dogmatics is the system of the knowledge of God; ethics is that of the service of God." (Reformed Dogmatics, 1, 58).  To the extent that evangelical Christians today are also confused about this-and I believe many are--Bavinck is an important guide.

Since this work was intended as a companion to his Reformed Dogmatics, Bavinck does not repeat himself needlessly, even when he deals with topics covered in the Dogmatics. Here's how he opens a section on the "Foundation and Classification of Sins": "Here we do not discuss what sin is, that is, in relation to God, the only way we can determine the nature of sin.  That issue is assumed here from our Reformed Dogmatics."  Instead, he tries to account for the variety of sins by tracing them to a foundational principle and finding a connection between them before going on to classify them.  After considering a range of possible answers, Bavinck concludes that at the heart of sin is a double move--away from God and toward the self.  Sin not only rejects God's order for creation, it also establishes another order which is, in fact, a disorder, an anti-order, a revolution.  After discussing a number of alternative typologies from a variety of nineteenth-century sources, Bavinck develops his own framework by describing self-centered conduct as sins of the spirit or sins of the body, both with respect to: a) creatures/material things; 2) the neighbor; and 3) God.   

I am less interested here in the details of Bavinck's classification than I am to point out the pastoral value of this material.  It is important for pastors to have a clear biblical doctrine of sin and the third volume of the Reformed Dogmatics provides a helpful overview.  But practical pastoral ministry requires some understanding of the dynamics of sexual temptation and sin, sins involving food and drink, and so forth.  Bavinck's treatment is strikingly relevant and includes topics like avariciousness with respect to knowledge, hunger for honor, along with laziness, anger, fornication, and spiritism, to name a few.  Bavinck's discussion of this is marked by biblical wisdom and practical psychology and will be a rich resource for pastors as well as scholars. 

2. Scholarly/Academic in General:  Ad fontes--"Back to the sources!"

Bavinck's method in the Reformed Ethics parallels that of the Dogmatics: solid overview of Holy Scripture's teachings, a look at history to see how a topic has been treated outside the Christian tradition as well as within it, and bringing the topic into constructive engagement with modern philosophy and the history as well as psychology of the world's religions.  My sense is that while modern evangelical ethicists work hard with biblical material, many fail to engage the Christian theological tradition as fully as they could, and, generally, most don't incorporate serious study of modern philosophy or phenomenology of the world's religions into their work.  As an example, in his section on "conscience," Bavinck introduces us to one of Plato's lesser-known dialogues (Hippias Major), mentions the Greek historians Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Diodorus Siculus, and provides passages from Seneca and Cicero.  He provides an extended overview of conscience in the Old Testament, utilizing Gustav Oehler's Theology of the Old Testament, and use of other nineteenth-century biblical scholars such as August Tholuck, Joseph König, H. Fr. Th. L. Ernesti, Hendrik Smeding, Martin Kähler, and Herman Cremer.   These sources will open a whole new world of helpful, biblical-theological, philosophical, phenomenological, practical resources for evangelical ethicists today.  Because most of these sources are now available online, as I am editing I am preparing a digital file with links to online sources used by Bavinck.  These will be available to students and scholars who want to make use of them.  

3. Bavinck Scholarship: New Insights and Nuances

Finally, the Reformed Ethics provides new insight into and helpful nuances with respect to Bavinck's own thought.  A fuller and richer portrait emerges. One example will have to do.  On p. 244 of his unpublished and undefended dissertation, "The Centrality of the Heart: A Study in Christian Anthropology with Special Reference to the Psychology of Herman Bavinck,"  my teacher Anthony A. Hoekema calls attention to the way in which biblical-theological investigations over one hundred years from J.T. Beck (1843) to Walter Eichrodt (1935) unanimously confirm what Bavinck said about the centrality of the heart in biblical psychology: "the heart is the center of human personality, the source of all man's mental functions, the determiner of his moral direction, and the seat of his religious life."  Hoekema then adds that many of these studies indicate "that the heart is called in Scripture the seat of the conscience," adding "as far as I know, however, this thought does not occur in Bavinck."  If the Reformed Ethics had been available to Hoekema, he would have been able to see that not only did the thought occur to Bavinck, he believed it to be true.  In the section on the conscience, already referred to above," Bavinck cites with approval Oehler's Theology of the Old Testament (p. 153): "The heart, therefore, is also the organ of the conscience."  Many more gold nuggets of amplification and nuance await Bavinck scholars who mine these volumes.

For these reasons and more, I believe that the publication of Bavinck's Reformed Ethics will serve as an important addition to his already valuable legacy for the church of all ages.

Tentative Outline of the Three Volumes:

I. Created, Fallen, and Converted Humanity

Introduction

Part One: Humanity before Conversion

Part Two: Converted Humanity

II. The Duties of the Christian Life

Part Three: Humanity after Conversion (10 Commandments)

III. The Life of the Redeemed in the World

Part Four: The Life-spheres in which the Moral Life must be Manifested (Family and

 Marriage)

Also included: 

Appendix A: Overview of uncompleted chapters on Society, Art and

 Science, the State, the Church, Humanity and the Kingdom of God.  

Appendix B: Bavinck on the Relation between Philosophical and

 Theological Ethics

Appendix C: Translation of Bavinck's book Hedendaagsche Moraal 

("Contemporary Morality," 1902)

 

Bavinck's Reformed Ethics (Gereformeerde Ethiek) manuscript