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Herman Bavinck and the Problem of New

Wine in Old Wineskins

BRUCE PASS*

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed a flowering in Bavinck studies and a new

focus on the synthetic character of Bavinck’s theology. Bavinck’s epistemologyrepresents a prime example of this synthetic character, as Bavinck recasts the

principia of Reformed Orthodoxy in a trinitarian framework, which in turn is

used to address a residual problem of post-Enlightenment philosophy. While

ingenious, certain inconsistencies emerge on account of the sheer complexity

of Bavinck’s principia. This article explores two inconsistencies that have been

identified in the secondary literature and the extent to which these

inconsistencies threaten the coherence of Bavinck’s epistemology as a whole.

Until recently, the writings of Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) were largely unknown

among Anglophones. This relative obscurity is reflected in the fact that until 2001

only six doctoral dissertations on Bavinck’s theology had been written in the English

language.1 In recent years, however, all this has changed. The English-speaking

world has witnessed a flowering in Bavinck studies, which can largely to be

attributed to the efforts of the Dutch Reformed Translation Society. Many of

Bavinck’s works are now readily available, including his principal theological work,

* 85 Roland Ave., Wahroonga, New South Wales 2076, Australia.

1 Anthony Hoekema, ‘Herman Bavinck’s Doctrine of the Covenant’ (ThD diss., PrincetonTheological Seminary, 1953); Bastian Kruithof, ‘The Relation of Christianity andCulture in the Teaching of Herman Bavinck’ (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1955);Eugene Heideman, The Relation of Revelation and Reason in E. Brunner and H. Bavinck (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1959); John Bolt, ‘The Imitation of Christ Theme in the CulturalEthical Ideal of Herman Bavinck’ (PhD diss., University of St Michael’s College,

Toronto, 1982); Syd Hielema, ‘Herman Bavinck’s Eschatological Understanding of Redemption’ (ThD diss., Wycliffe College, Toronto School of Theology, 1998); RonaldGleason, ‘The Centrality of the unio mystica in the Theology of Herman Bavinck’ (PhDdiss., Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 2001). See John Bolt, ‘HermanBavinck speaks English’, in Eric Bristley, Guide to the Writings of Herman Bavinck (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008), p. 36.

International Journal of Systematic Theology Volume 17 Number 4 October 2015doi:10.1111/ijst.12118

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd


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the four-volume Reformed Dogmatics.2 One of the notable developments in this

recent flowering has been a reconsideration of the prevailing general reading

of Bavinck’s theology, the so-called ‘two Bavincks’ hypothesis. This portrayal of

Bavinck as a conflicted, if not incoherent,3

figure draws attention to what areperceived to be irreconcilable tensions in Bavinck’s thought and orientation toward

the world. Accordingly, the orthodox and confessional Bavinck is viewed as being at

odds with his more philosophically inclined alter-ego, who, particularly in later life,

was increasingly attracted to the impulses of modernity.4 This prevailing general

reading has been brought into question by recent scholarship, which has drawn

attention to the essentially synthetic character of Bavinck’s theology.5 In particular,

John Bolt’s gracious acknowledgement of his mistranslation of the oft-cited remark

of Gerrit Berkouwer regarding the presence of onweersprekelijke motieven in

Bavinck’s writings has lent impetus to a new general reading that discerns thepresence of but ‘one Bavinck’.6 On this reading, the tensions created by Bavinck’s

onweersprekelijke motieven function as agents of unity in his synthesis, much like

2 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4 vols., ed. J. Bolt, trans. John Vriend (BakerAcademic: Grand Rapids, 2003–8) (hereafter RD).

3 ‘I am not convinced that Bavinck has left us with an entirely coherent portrait of Christians’ basic relationship to this world.’ David Van Drunen, ‘ “The Kingship of Christis Twofold”: Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck’,

Calvin Theological Journal 45 (2010), p. 162.4 See John Bolt, ‘Grand Rapids Between Kampen and Amsterdam: Herman Bavinck’s

Reception and Influence in North America’, Calvin Theological Journal 38 (2003),pp. 264–7.

5 Henk Van Den Belt summarizes Bavinck’s approach to theology in the statement thatBavinck ‘approached theological issues in a synthetic rather than antithetic manner’, seeHenk Van Den Belt, The Authority of Scripture in Reformed Theology (Leiden: Brill,2008), p. 250. George Harinck concurs: ‘Bavinck searched throughout his life for acertain synthesis between modernity and religion’, George Harinck, ‘ “Something thatmust remain, if the truth is to be sweet and precious to us”: The Reformed Spirituality of Herman Bavinck’, Calvin Theological Journal 38 (2003), p. 249; see also GeorgeHarinck, ‘The Religious Character of Modernism and the Modern Character of Religion:A Case Study of Herman Bavinck’s Engagement with Modern Culture’, Scottish Bulletinof Evangelical Theology 29 (2011), pp. 60–77. Similarly, James Eglinton describesBavinck’s approach to theology as ‘catholic in spirit and synthetic in nature’, JamesEglinton, Trinity and Organism: Towards a New Reading of Herman Bavinck’s Organic

Motif (London: T. & T. Clark, 2012), p. 171.6 See John Bolt, ‘Herman Bavinck on Natural Law and Two Kingdoms: Some Further

Reflections’, The Bavinck Review 4 (2013), p. 77. John Bolt publicly retracted histranslation of this phrase as ‘irreconcilable themes’ in response to Nelson Kloosterman’spaper on ‘Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck’

presented at the conference A Pearl and a Leaven: Herman Bavinck for the Twenty-First Century at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on 19 September2008. Kloosterman points out that the phrase onweersprekelijke motieven would be morereliably translated as ‘undeniable themes’. For the original citation, see GerritBerkouwer, Zoeken en Vinden: Herinneringen en Ervaringen (Kampen: Kok, 1989),p. 55.

An Analysis of Herman Bavinck’s Principia 433



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the cables of a suspension bridge.7 The recent direction of Bavinck studies therefore,

represents nothing short of a paradigm shift. Further work remains to be done,

however, with respect to the coherence of Bavinck’s synthesis, and in this regard,

Bavinck’s epistemology warrants particular attention. Bavinck’s epistemology isfoundational for his theology and forms the bridge with which Bavinck seeks to span

the gulf between Reformed Orthodoxy and modernity. It is this bridge, which, if

secure, enables theology to fulfil what Bavinck regards as its ‘marvellous calling’ of

preventing science and religion, the church and the academy, and the believing

community and the world from falling dualistically apart.8 Several studies have noted

both the importance, as well as problematic nature, of this bridge,9 although most

without exploring it in any detail.10 This article seeks to supply some of the missing

detail by examining two inconsistencies that have been identified in the secondary

literature, both of which concern Bavinck’s innovative adaptation of the principia of Reformed Orthodoxy. After exploring the basic structure and function of the

principia, it will be argued that these inconsistencies do not expose any fundamental

problem of coherence in Bavinck’s epistemology, but rather highlight the limitations,

if not inadequacy, of the classically Aristotelian categories of Reformed Orthodoxy

for the ambitious scope of Bavinck’s unitary theory of knowledge.

7 Recent contributions to the secondary literature have pursued this line of enquiry, payingparticular attention to the direction of Bavinck’s conversation with modernity. Building

on certain observations drawn in Brian Mattson, Reformed to our Destiny: Eschatologyand the Image of God in Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics (Leiden: Brill, 2012),James Eglinton has argued that even though organism is a prevalent category withinGerman Idealism, the Bavinckian conception of organism is rooted in patristic andReformed trinitarian thought. Thus, the frequently recurring organic motif is not anexample of conflict between the neo-Hegelian Bavinck and his conservative counterpart,but an example of how the ‘one Bavinck’ brings his orthodox heritage into conversationwith modernity. See Eglinton, Trinity and Organism, pp. 52–4, 60–2. Similarly, I haveargued that, while self-consciousness is a prevalent category in idealist philosophy,Bavinck trims self-consciousness of much of its Cartesian baggage and rehabilitates theconcept to its Augustinian roots. The frequently recurring motif of self-consciousnesstherefore, does not represent an example of conflict between the post-EnlightenmentBavinck and his pre-Enlightenment alter ego, but another example of where the ‘oneBavinck’ brings the Christian tradition into conversation with modernity. See Bruce Pass,‘Herman Bavinck and the cogito’, Reformed Theological Review 74 (2015), pp. 15–33.It is by no means entirely proven, however, that the direction of this conversation doesnot, at least in certain instances, run from modernity to Orthodoxy. Analyses such as thatof Adam Eitel warrant serious consideration and further examination. According to Eitel,Bavinck appropriates various tropes from Hegel’s speculative trinitarianism in service of his view of history. See Adam Eitel, ‘Trinity and History: Bavinck, Hegel, and 19thCentury Doctrines of God’, in John Bolt, ed., Five Studies in the Thought of Herman

Bavinck, A Creator of Modern Dutch Theology (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2011),pp. 101–28.8 RD I, p. 606.9 Cornelius Van Der Koii, ‘The Appeal to the Inner Testimony of the Spirit, especially in

H. Bavinck’, Journal of Reformed Theology 2 (2008), pp. 109–10.10 Van Den Belt, Authority, pp. 262 n.146 and 281.


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Bavinck’s principia: new wine in old wineskins

Herman Bavinck’s four-volume Reformed Dogmatics commences with an extensive

Prolegomena in which he sets out principia of both theological and generalepistemology. As such, Bavinck’s epistemology represents a remarkable example of

the synthetic character of his theology as a whole. Bavinck adopts the Aristotelian

framework he inherits from Reformed Orthodoxy, yet modifies this framework in

such a way that it can accommodate a more distinctly trinitarian description of

knowledge, as well as address one of the central problems of post-Enlightenment

philosophy. In order to achieve this synthesis, however, many of the older Reformed

Orthodox terms acquire new points of reference. In this regard the principia resemble

a pouring of new wine into old wineskins.

Bavinck retains the wineskins of Reformed Orthodoxy in his adoption of theclassical distinction between a foundation of being, the principium essendi, and a

foundation of knowing, the principium cognoscendi. Within the principium

cognoscendi, however, Bavinck draws a further distinction between an external

foundation of knowing, a principium cognoscendi externum, and an internal

foundation of knowing, a principium cognoscendi internum.11 This further

distinction between an internal and an external foundation of knowing is rare in

Reformed Orthodoxy.12 For this reason alone Bavinck’s innovation warrants

attention, but on closer inspection it soon becomes apparent that it plays a prominent

structural role in rendering Bavinck’s principia serviceable to both theological andgeneral epistemology. Several observations may be made with regard to the way

Bavinck achieves this.

The additional distinction between an external and an internal foundation of

knowing gives Bavinck’s principia a ternary rather than binary structure. This

ternary structure affords Bavinck the possibility of formulating a distinctively

trinitarian theological epistemology in which God the Father is the principium

essendi, God the Son is the principium cognoscendi externum, and God the Holy

Spirit is the principium cognoscendi internum. Bavinck writes: ‘these three principia,

distinct yet essentially one, are rooted in the Trinitarian being of God. It is the Fatherwho, through the Son as Logos, imparts himself to his creatures in the Spirit.’13 As

well as furnishing Bavinck with a structure capable of articulating a trinitarian

economy of knowledge, the expansion of the binary structure to a ternary structure

also affords Bavinck a means of addressing one of the residual problems of post-

Enlightenment philosophy, namely, the subject–object dichotomy. By identifying the

11 RD I, pp. 210–13.

12 Van Den Belt, Authority, p. 238. Notably, Van Den Belt argues that Richard Muller ismistaken in his identification of a principium internum in the works of Alsted andMaccovius, see Van Den Belt, Authority, pp. 144–6. See also Richard Muller, Post-

Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy,

ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), vol. I, p. 442 n. 147.13 RD I, p. 214.




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second person of the Trinity with the principium cognoscendi externum and the third

person of the Trinity with the principium cognoscendi internum, Bavinck grounds

the correspondence between knowing subject and known object within the unity of

the Divine essence. This unity of the real and ideal forms the bridge by whichBavinck will seek to span both the epistemological divide between noumenon and

phenomenon and the theological divide between grace and nature, insofar as it will

ground the correspondence requisite to creaturely knowledge, both of the creation

and the Creator.

In rendering his principia serviceable to both theological and general

epistemology in this way, Bavinck paves the way for a threefold application of the

principia to distinct species of knowledge: the knowledge of the world, the natural

knowledge of God and the redemptive knowledge of God. Concerning the first

species, the knowledge of the world, the cosmos functions as principiumcognoscendi externum and reason functions as principium cognoscendi internum.14

Concerning the second species, the natural knowledge of God, the cosmos still

functions as principium cognoscendi externum and human reason still functions as

principium cognoscendi internum, but importantly, reason only functions in this

capacity according to a religious disposition, which views the creation in relation to

God.15 Concerning the third species, the redemptive knowledge of God, the

principium cognoscendi externum is Scripture, to which the illumination of the Holy

Spirit corresponds as principium cognoscendi internum.16

Thus, the principia are structured in such a way that they relate the particularway in which we come to know the Creator to the general way in which we acquire

knowledge of his creation. As such, Bavinck’s principia represent an ambitious

proposal for a unitary theory of knowledge. Any structure of this level of complexity

will face challenges of consistency, and Bavinck’s principia are no exception. In

particular, two inconsistencies have been brought to light in the secondary literature,

both of which present the reader an opportune litmus test for the fundamental

coherence of Bavinck’s epistemology.

Principium cognoscendi internum as verbum principale

The first inconsistency concerns Bavinck’s description of the internal principle of

knowledge as theology’s primary principle. Henk Van Den Belt in his fine analysis

of the authority of Scripture in Reformed theology exposes this inconsistency when

he notes the tension Bavinck creates by maintaining that Scripture, theology’s

principium cognoscendi externum, is theology’s principium unicum, while

simultaneously describing theology’s principium cognoscendi internum as

14 RD I, p. 233.15 RD I, p. 341. This religious disposition corresponds to the Calvinist notion of the ‘seed

of religion’, see RD I, pp. 319–20.16 RD I, p. 213.


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theology’s verbum principale.17 This prompts the question as to how the internal

principle can be primary, if in fact the external principle is theology’s sole

foundation. A little historical background will elucidate both the nature of this

problem and the grounds on which Bavinck would strenuously deny any charge of inconsistency.

Van Den Belt notes that Bavinck is likely to have derived his further

externum–internum distinction within the principium cognoscendi from the

distinction between verbum externum and verbum internum in the writings of Johan

Alsted (1588–1638).18 Bavinck cites Alsted frequently throughout the first volume of

Reformed Dogmatics, but Van Den Belt demonstrates that on closer inspection

Bavinck does not use Alsted’s terms in exactly the same way. Whereas Alsted

uses the externum–internum distinction to account for the relationship between

inspiration and inscripturation, Bavinck uses this distinction to account for therelationship between revelation and illumination. Van Den Belt shows that, like

Alsted, Bavinck affirms that the verbum internum is theology’s verbum principale,19

yet on account of its new point of reference in Bavinck’s system, Bavinck invests

the verbum internum with an entirely new significance. When Alsted describes the

verbum internum as verbum principale, he is essentially affirming the chronological

priority of inspiration over inscripturation, but when Bavinck describes the verbum

internum as verbum principale, he is affirming the priority of theology’s internal

principle over its objective source. This is one of several points at which the new

wine threatens to burst the old wineskins. Van Den Belt rightly asks how Bavinck canlegitimately maintain that Scripture, the principium cognoscendi externum, is

theology’s principium unicum, if the principium cognoscendi internum is theology’s

verbum principale. The answer to this question lies in the fact that while Bavinck

does view the illumination of the Holy Spirit as a foundation of theology, he adopts

a very restricted definition of the term principium for his internal principle.

A restricted definition of principium

Bavinck carefully qualifies the sense in which he regards his internal principle of

knowledge as a foundation. In contrast with the principium cognoscendi externum,

Bavinck’s internal principle is not a principium in the sense of ‘source’ or ‘first

17 Van Den Belt, Authority, p. 247. The statements to which Van Den Belt refers are‘Scripture is the sole foundation ( principium unicum) of church and theology’, and ‘theinternal word (verbum internum) is the principal word (verbum principale)’, see RD I,pp. 86 and 213.

18 Van Den Belt, Authority, pp. 245–7. Bavinck cites Alsted frequently throughout the firstvolume of his Dogmatics, see RD I, pp. 87, 88 n. 44, 102 n. 66, 180, 241 n. 23, 306 n. 22,415 n. 53, 584 n. 62, 587 n. 71, 608 n. 19, 611 n. 26 and 618 n. 45.

19 RD I, p. 213. Van Den Belt identifies Johannes Alsted, Theologica Didactica 9, andPraecognitorum Theologicorum I.124–5 as Bavinck’s probable source, seeVan Den Belt, Authority, pp. 246–7.




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principle’.20 The internal principle rather functions as the ‘organ’ by which external

revelation is received.21 Bavinck is apparently sensitive to the charge of subjectivism

and states that such a charge would only be true when ‘the subjective condition by

which alone the object can be known were made the “first principle” of knowledge’.Confusing these two categories, Bavinck avers, is ‘precisely the error of idealistic

rationalism’.22 Bavinck insists that the internal principle is not a ‘first’ principle, yet

it is a principle, and even the ‘principal’ principle, but what does that mean, and why

would Bavinck attribute priority to the ‘organ’ rather than the ‘source’ of knowledge?

Much has to do with Bavinck’s desire to do justice to the subjectivity of

knowledge in general and the subjectivity of theological knowledge in particular. For

Bavinck, ‘the Christian faith is sheer religion, subjective religion’. 23 To this end, God

only reveals himself objectively for the purpose of engendering a subjective

knowledge of himself in his creatures. A subjective knowledge of God, therefore,constitutes the final cause of theology. Bavinck writes: ‘The aim of theology, after

all, can be no other than that the rational creature know God, and knowing him,

glorify God.’24 Bavinck’s doctrine of revelation is, therefore, both profoundly

teleological and eschatological. This teleological and eschatological view of

revelation holds particular relevance for the two particular reasons Bavinck offers for

prioritizing theology’s internal principle over its external source.

20 The English translation in certain respects muddies the waters at this point. The English

translation sometimes supplies the qualifier ‘first’ to clarify the particular sense in whichBavinck uses the term principium in the Dutch original. In Gereformeerde Dogmatiek Bavinck simply uses the term principium without further qualification. See ‘Dan eerstkrijgt zij recht, wanneer de subjectieve voorwaarde, waaronder het object alleen gekendkan wordentot principium der kennis verheven wordt.’ Herman Bavinck, Gereformeerde

Dogmatiek (Kampen: Kok, 1928) (hereafter GD), Part 1, p. 533. The correspondingpassage in the English translation reads: ‘It would be valid only if the subjective conditionby which alone the object can be known were made the “first principle” of knowledge.’

RD I, p. 564. What is important to remember is that Bavinck’s understanding of themeaning of the term principium does not preclude the meaning of ‘source’. Bavinck doesstate that he prefers the term principium to fons, but this is because fons suggests a‘mechanical’ relation between Scripture and theology, whereas principium is moreamenable to an ‘organic’ relation, see RD I, p. 89. What Bavinck understands under theterm ‘mechanical’, however, may not be entirely accurate. The editorial footnote to thispassage states that this censure of a ‘mechanical’ relation between Scripture and theologyis a criticism of Charles Hodge’s ‘empirical-inductive’ method. Paul Helm has recentlyargued that Bavinck has mistakenly derived his assessment of Hodge from RobertMcCheyne Edgar, ‘Christianity and the Experimental Method’, Presbyterian and

Reformed Review 6/22 (1895), pp. 201–23, and that Bavinck’s method is in fact a lotcloser to Hodge’s than he realizes. See Paul Helm, Faith, Form, and Fashion(Cambridge: James Clarke, 2014), pp. 185–9.

21 RD I, pp. 506, 564.22 RD I, pp. 564–5.23 RD I, p. 571.24 RD I, p. 213. Similarly, ‘in the knowledge of the truth lies the end of its revelation’.

Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation: The Stone Lectures for 1908–09,Princeton Theological Seminary (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1909), p. 82.


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Firstly, and somewhat remarkably, Bavinck regards the Holy Spirit, rather than

Holy Scripture, as theology’s formal cause. Bavinck states that the external principle

is merely instrumental, incidental and provisional,25 whereas ‘the internal principle is

the formal and primary principle’.26

In saying this, Bavinck is not describingScripture as formless matter, but is clarifying the sense in which he sees the Holy

Spirit functioning as the receptive organ of revelation. Bavinck writes: ‘God can only

be known by God’. Only the Holy Spirit can ‘prolong’ what has been revealed

externally and objectively in the knowing subject. For the creature to come to a

knowledge of its Creator, the Holy Spirit must function as the form of divine

consciousness in the consciousness of the knowing subject. As the external principle

functions only as the provisional instrument of this consciousness, it can only be

accorded penultimate significance. Ultimate significance must be reserved for the

enduring formal cause of a subjective knowledge of God. Secondly, Bavinck regardsthe Holy Spirit as theology’s efficient cause. This is the specific reason Bavinck

accords primacy to theology’s internal principle over its external source.

Bavinck writes: ‘The verbum internum is the verbum principale for it is this which

introduces the knowledge of God into human beings.’27 Because the Holy Spirit

actuates the knowing subject’s apprehension of God, he enjoys priority over Holy

Scripture as the principium principale of theology.

Taking these two reasons together, one can see that Bavinck prioritizes

theology’s internal principle over its external source because he views the Holy Spirit

as the perfecting cause of revelation.28

As theology’s formal and efficient cause, theHoly Spirit realizes theology’s final cause, namely, the subjective knowledge of God.

Bavinck can, therefore, maintain without contradiction the priority of the internal

principle while affirming that Holy Scripture is theology’s only source on account of

the restricted definition of principium which circumscribes his internal principle.

Bavinck secures the possibility of this restricted definition in his redistribution of the

fourfold causality across the expanded ternary structure of the principia. By

25 RD I, p. 213. It is worth noting that Bavinck can go so far as to include the incarnationin his description of objective revelation as instrumental, incidental and provisional.Bavinck writes: ‘the purpose of revelation is not Christ; Christ is the centre and themeans; the purpose is that God will again dwell in his creatures and reveal his glory in thecosmos’. RD I, p. 380. Thus, the incarnation does not hold ultimate significance inBavinck’s doctrine of revelation. What is ultimate is the final tabernacling of God, notmerely among his people in the incarnate Son, but in his people by the Holy Spirit:

the revelation of God was completed in Christ . . . but this revelation in Christ and inhis Word is a means, not an end. The end is the creation of a new humanity, whichwill fully unfold the image of God. Therefore the whole revelation must be

transmitted from Christ to the church, from Scripture to the [believer’s]consciousness. God seeks a dwelling place in humanity. ( RD I, p. 588)

26 RD I, p. 506.27 RD I, p. 213.28 See RD II, p. 319.




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expanding the principia in this way, Bavinck makes room for an internal foundation

which is not a material source. One might well quibble over the propriety of

Bavinck’s insistence that the internal principle is not a ‘source’, even though formal

and efficient causality are attributed to the internal principle, but conceptually thesense in which the internal principle does not function as a material source is clear,

as are Bavinck’s reasons for prioritizing theology’s internal principle over its

external source.

From the exploration of this first inconsistency it is important to note that the

specific reason Bavinck himself articulates for prioritizing the internal principle is

efficient causality. The internal principle, therefore, functions as an extension of the

principium essendi. God the Father is the causa efficiens principalis,29 but the Holy

Spirit functions as a secondary agent of theology’s principium essendi. This

observation will be drawn into sharper focus in the exploration of the secondinconsistency to follow and is closely connected to the underlying reason that the

traditional Aristotelian categories of the Reformed Orthodox principia struggle to

contain their new wine.

The Logos as both principium cognoscendi and principium essendi

A second inconsistency has been identified by K. Scott Oliphint concerning the

conflicting roles Bavinck ascribes to the Logos in his principia in connection with hisaccount of participation. In his exploration of the relationship between Bavinck’s

general and theological epistemology Oliphint draws attention to the way that

Bavinck identifies the Logos as principium cognoscendi, yet by attributing efficient

causality to the Logos in his account of participation simultaneously ascribes to the

Logos a role that properly speaking belongs to the principium essendi.30 According

to Oliphint, this inconsistency poses a serious threat to the coherence of Bavinck’s

system. By attributing efficient causality to the Logos, Bavinck vitiates any role the

Logos may have otherwise enjoyed as a genuine principle of knowing. Oliphint

summarizes this threat when he concludes:

The confusion in Bavinck may be this: it seems in the majority of cases, Bavinck

attributes to the Logos, not specifically the prìncipium cognoscendi, but the

prìncipium essendi . . . if what we say about the Logos is that he is the originator

of the intellect, and of reason, . . . all we have said thus far is that God, or the

Logos, is the prìncipium essendi of knowledge. He is the one who is the cause

of the knowledge that we have . . . But this is not a sufficient epistemological

29 RD I, p. 212 n. 13.30 K. Scott Oliphint, ‘Bavinck’s Realism, the Logos Principle, and Sola Scriptura’,

Westminster Theological Journal 72 (2010), pp. 359–90.


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principle. What we need for an epistemological principle is not simply a causal

principle (though that is necessary), but rather a principle of knowledge.31

Oliphint’s basic claim of inconsistency is well warranted. While Bavinck identifies

the Logos as the principium cognoscendi externum, he also attributes efficient

causality to the Logos on several occasions. Oliphint’s conclusion, however, that

Bavinck does not offer a sufficient epistemological principle, is disputable. So too is

the precise nature of the inconsistency that Oliphint’s observations uncover, but

before we begin our investigation a few brief remarks regarding Bavinck’s realist

general epistemology are warranted.

Bavinck’s realism may be described as naive insofar as he regards the

correspondence between universals and particulars as a ‘common notion’ or self-

evident truth.32 While Bavinck is content to appeal to the self-evident character of

correspondence, he also offers a theological description of correspondence in which

the Logos plays a prominent role. Bavinck writes:

But the conviction can, therefore, rest only 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. . . .

But insofar as things also exist logically, have come forth from thought, and are

based in thought (John 1:3; Col. 1:15), they are also apprehensible and

conceivable by the human mind.33

It is the Logos therefore, who grounds the correspondence between the knowing

subject and the known object, having produced an ‘organic connection’ between

knowing subject and known object in the act of creation. Bavinck implies in this

statement that there is an analogous relationship between divine and human

knowing. Bavinck accounts for this analogous relationship by way of the Thomistic

doctrine of participation.34 Bavinck writes:

31 Oliphint, ‘Bavinck’s Realism’, pp. 388–9.32 Geerhardus Vos was the first to note a resemblance between Bavinck’s realism and

Scottish Common Sense realism in his review of the first volume of Gereformeerde Dogmatiek , see Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), p. 484.

33 RD I, p. 231.34 David Sytsma advances the argument that Bavinck is likely to have acquired the

Thomistic elements of his epistemology from Reformed Orthodox sources rather thannineteenth-century Neo-Thomism, see David Sytsma, ‘Herman Bavinck’s ThomisticEpistemology: The Argument and Sources of His Principia of Science’, in John Bolt, ed.,

Five Studies in the Thought of Herman Bavinck, A Creator of Modern Dutch Theology(Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 2011), p. 47. This claim warrants further scrutiny given thatBavinck cites at key points of his argument Die Erkentniss-theorie des heiligen Thomasvon Aquina (Mainz: F. Kirchheim, 1861) by the Jesuit theologian and philosopher MatteoLiberatore (1810–92), as well as Philosophie der Vorzeit (Münster: Theissing, 1863) byJoseph Kleutgen (1811–83). Both Liberatore and Kleutgen were significant figures in




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God is the light of reason in which, by which, and through which, all things that

shine so as to be intelligible, shine . . . To be (esse), to live (vivere), and to

understand (intelligere) is the prerogative of God in respect of his being ( per

essentiam), ours in respect of participation ( per participationem).35

Participation is a concept that accounts both for the way in which our knowledge

resembles divine knowing and the way in which God is the cause of all our

knowing.36 The allusion to Augustine’s De Trinitate in the quotation above, nested as

it is within Bavinck’s appeal to the concept of participation, is wholly appropriate, as

the Thomistic concept of participation represents a development of Augustinian

epistemology.37 What is distinctive in Aquinas’ doctrine of participation is his

description of two analogous relationships between divine and human rationality.

The first of these, the analogy of proper proportionality, restricts the sense in which

human knowing might be said to resemble divine knowing in terms of essence. The

second, the analogy of intrinsic attribution, accounts for that resemblance in terms of

the causal dependence of human knowing upon divine knowing.38 All this stands in

the background of Bavinck’s passing remark that ‘to understand is the prerogative of

God in respect of his being, and ours in respect of participation’, but as will be

shown, the primary function of this appeal to participation is to explain how the

potential for correspondence produced by the Logos in creation is actualized. In

other words, participation accounts for how that which is ‘apprehensible and

conceivable’ is in fact apprehended and conceived by the knowing subject.

The inconsistency Oliphint detects essentially concerns the fact that the Logos is

ascribed one function in the principia and another in Bavinck’s account of

participation. In the principia Bavinck describes the Logos as the principium

cognoscendi externum, yet in his appeal to participation Bavinck attributes efficient

causality to the Logos, a property which properly speaking belongs to the principium

essendi. This is evident in statements such as ‘the Logos who shines in the world

must also let his light shine in our consciousness’,39 or ‘it is he [the Logos] who

causes this light [the light of reason] to arise in us and constantly maintains it’.40

Oliphint observes that in so doing ‘Bavinck attributes to the Logos, not specifically

the prìncipium cognoscendi, but the prìncipium essendi.’41 While Oliphint quite

rightly points out that Bavinck disregards the essendi–cognoscendi distinction, he

nineteenth-century Neo-Thomism. Regrettably, Sytsma does not offer any analysis of Bavinck’s engagement with these sources.

35 RD I, p. 232.36 See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1a §79 4.5 (Blackfriars: London, 1975),

vol. 11, p. 158.37 See Peter Hünermann, ‘Logos’, in Walter Kasper et al., eds., Lexikon für Theologie und

Kirche (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1993), vol. 6, pp. 1030–1.38 See Cornelio Fabro, ‘Participation’, in Faculty of the Catholic University of America,eds., New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), vol. 10, pp. 905–10.

39 RD I, p. 233.40 RD I, p. 232.41 Oliphint, ‘Bavinck’s Realism’, p. 388.


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misidentifies the precise way in which Bavinck does this. What Oliphint overlooks is

the way that Bavinck assumes the operation of the Holy Spirit in his description of

the illumination of the Logos. This is an example of Bavinckian shorthand which can

be attested in several places in Reformed Dogmatics and it points to the conceptualreduplication of the trinitarian structure of the principia for each species of

knowledge in Bavinck’s epistemology.

The relationship between the Logos and the Holy Spirit

Throughout Reformed Dogmatics the Holy Spirit is never far from whatever is said

about the Logos. As Bavinck himself states, ‘where the Logos is, there the Spirit is

also’.42

This is true even with respect to Bavinck’s appeal to participation. Only a fewparagraphs later Bavinck writes: ‘in the final analysis, it is God alone who from his

divine consciousness and by way of his creatures conveys the knowledge of truth to

our mind – the Father who by the Son and in the Spirit reveals himself to us’.43 The

question that ought to be asked in connection with the problem Oliphint identifies is

what relationship does Bavinck envisage between the Logos and the Holy Spirit with

respect to Bavinck’s account of participation. The answer may be found in a later

passage of the Prolegomena, in which he revisits the question of correspondence.

Bavinck writes:

All life and all knowledge is based on a kind of agreement between subject and

object . . .

It is the one selfsame Logos who made all things in and outside of human

beings. He is before all things, and they still continue jointly to exist through

him . . . In addition, Scripture makes known to us the Spirit of God as the source

and agent of all life in humanity and the world . . . this operation of the Spirit

assumes a higher form in the intellectual, ethical, and religious life of people. It

then takes the form of reason, conscience, and the sense of divinity, which are

not inactive abilities but capacities that, as a result of stimuli from relatedphenomena in the outside world, leap into action.

. . . [The truth] rests within itself, in the Logos, in which all things have their

existence . . . the truth turns those who know it into witnesses . . . entering into

our spirits [truth] brings its own witness along with it; it engenders that witness

in us by itself. Construed religiously, it is the Logos himself who through our

spirit bears witness to the Logos in the world. It is the one selfsame Spirit who

objectively displays the truth to us and subjectively elevates it into certainty in

42 RD II, p. 421.43 RD I, p. 233.




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our spirit. It is his witness given in our consciousness to the thoughts God

embodied in creatures around us. This witness of the Holy Spirit to the truth is

especially clear in religion. God has not left us without a witness. He reveals his

power and deity in creation and by his Spirit bears witness to their reality in ourmind (nous). All cognition of truth is essentially a witness that the human spirit

bears to it and at bottom a witness of the Spirit of God to the Word by whom all

things are made.

This witness of the human spirit to truth is the presupposition and

foundation, as well as an analogy, of the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Calvin

and others already pointed out this similarity.44

Bavinck introduces this further treatment of the problem of correspondence by first

reiterating his fundamental axiom that all knowledge is based on an ‘agreement’

between subject and object. Bavinck affirms the Logos as the ontological ground of

this agreement, but then makes a point of saying that correspondence does not obtain

automatically. ‘In addition’, Bavinck says, the Scriptures speak of the work of the

Holy Spirit, who brings this capacity for correspondence to ‘leap into action’. All

cognition, according to Bavinck, is effected by the Spirit who first brings the

knowing subject to bear witness to the external reality and then subjectively elevates

that witness to certainty.45 The crux of the matter rests in the statement that ‘it is the

Logos himself who through our spirit bears witness to the Logos in the world. It is

the one selfsame Spirit who objectively displays the truth to us and subjectively

elevates it into certainty in our spirit.’ There is an important shift of language here

which must be noted, as it informs how we should understand both what Bavinck

says regarding the efficient causality of the Logos and participation. What

Bavinck says about the Logos stands in epexegetical relation to the Holy Spirit’s role

44 RD I, pp. 586–7.45 In this passage Bavinck notes an analogous relationship between the testimony of the

Spirit in the redemptive knowledge of God and what could be described as a testimonyof the Spirit relevant to general epistemology. Cornelius Van Til notes that althoughBavinck left this observation relatively undeveloped, Bavinck’s successor at the VrijeUniversiteit, Valentine Hepp (1879–1950), developed the concept of a general testimonyof the Holy Spirit more extensively in his Het Testimonium Spiritus Sancti (Kampen:J. H. Kok 1914), see Cornelius Van Til, ‘Common Grace 3’, Westminster Theological

Journal 9 (1946), p. 47. It is also to be noted that Bavinck elaborates further on thisactuating power of the Holy Spirit in his discussion of the imago Dei in the secondvolume of Reformed Dogmatics. Bavinck affirms that even in the state of integrity human

knowing required the actuating power of the Spirit: just as the Son was already the mediator of union before the fall, so also the HolySpirit was even then already the craftsman of all knowledge, righteousness andholiness in humanity . . . man in the state of integrity only possessed the virtues of knowledge and righteousness by and in the Holy Spirit. ( RD II, p. 558)


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of displaying the truth and elevating it into certainty in the knowing subject. 46 For

Bavinck, the Logos bears witness by the operations of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, this

is not the first time that Bavinck has put things this way. In an earlier discussion of

the natural knowledge of God Bavinck identifies the illumination of the Logos withthe Holy Spirit in exactly the same way. Bavinck writes: ‘Also among pagans, says

Scripture, there is a revelation of God, an illumination by the Logos, a working of

God’s Spirit.’47 For Bavinck therefore, the Logos illumines by the personal agency of

the Spirit.

This enfolding of the operations of the Holy Spirit in Bavinck’s description of

the Logos’ illumination does not point to any confusion of categories, but rather to

a purposeful consideration of the relationship between the doctrine of God and the

doctrine of the knowledge of God, as evidenced in several comments Bavinck makes

concerning the epistemological significance of the filioque in the second volume of Reformed Dogmatics. Bavinck maintains that where the Spirit is viewed as

proceeding only from the Father and not from the Father and the Son, the door is left

ajar for mysticism. Unless one upholds the double procession of the Spirit, the Son

and Spirit open their own way to the Father more or less independently of each

other.48 These statements elucidate why Bavinck would speak of an illumination of

the Logos, when in fact it is the Holy Spirit who actuates the correspondence

between knowing subject and known object. Bavinck is reluctant to speak of any

‘subjective elevation of the truth’ on the part of the third person of the Holy Trinity

apart from the second person of the Trinity, but he can assume the operations of theSpirit under his description of the illumination of the Logos because the Holy Spirit

proceeds not only from the Father, but also from the Son. The relationship Bavinck

envisages between the Logos and Holy Spirit in his doctrine of the knowledge of God

therefore is a corollary of the double procession of the Holy Spirit in Bavinck’s

doctrine of God.

Bending the principia

At this point what becomes clear is that Bavinck does ‘bend’ the strict demarcation

of the classical Aristotelian structure of the principia by extending efficient causality

to the principium cognoscendi. Bavinck does not, however, extend efficient causality

to the principium cognoscendi externum (the Logos), but rather to the principium

cognoscendi internum (the Holy Spirit). In Bavinck’s general epistemology the

46 These statements concerning the Holy Spirit’s ‘displaying’ and ‘elevating’ ought also tobe read in connection with Bavinck’s earlier discussion of the intellectus agens, the

capacity of the intellect which isolates from sense perceptions that which is universal, andthe intellectus possibilis, the capacity which assimilates the universals abstracted fromsense perception. See RD I, p. 230. These specific Latin technical terms are absent in theEnglish translation, but are present in the Dutch original, see GD I, p. 203.

47 RD I, p. 318.48 RD II, pp. 317–18.




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Logos functions as an instrumental, or secondary, efficient cause. The Logos himself

does not illumine; the Logos illumines by the personal agency of the Holy Spirit.

Importantly, this reduplicates the relationship between Scripture and the Holy Spirit

in Bavinck’s theological epistemology. In Bavinck’s account of the redemptiveknowledge of God Holy Scripture functions as the instrumental efficient cause,49 and

the Holy Spirit functions as the efficient cause, albeit as a secondary agent of God the

Father, who is the principium essendi of the redemptive knowledge of God. In both

Bavinck’s general and theological epistemology, therefore, the Logos and Scripture

illumine, but they do so by the personal agency of the Spirit. Bavinck ‘bends’ the

essendi–cognoscendi distinction, but it is unlikely that he does this unwittingly. As

we have seen, a very specific concern of Bavinck’s realism is to show not only how

correspondence obtains potentially, but also how correspondence obtains actually.50

How much of a threat, then, does this ‘bending’ pose to the coherence of Bavinck’sepistemology?

Some ‘bending’, it might be thought, is entirely necessary if the Logos is to be

taken as a foundation of knowing, for the simple reason that God is one in all his

works. In this regard it is important to note that Bavinck was not the first Reformed

theologian to transgress the essendi–cognoscendi distinction. Already in Reformed

Orthodoxy the Logos was occasionally attributed with both material and efficient

causality.51 The real threat to the coherence of Bavinck’s epistemology, therefore, lies

not so much in the fact that he ‘bends’ the essendi–cognoscendi distinction, but in

that the way in which he does it precipitates a manifest ambiguity with regard to thereferent of the internal principle. Henk Van Den Belt notes this anomaly in his

analysis when he points out that Bavinck identifies multiple referents for the

principium cognoscendi internum.52 Apart from the Holy Spirit, faith and believing

reason also are identified as the principium cognoscendi internum of theology.53

49 Causa efficiens instrumentalis, see RD I, p. 213 n. 14.50 At this point it also needs to be pointed out that the actuating role of the Holy Spirit

answers directly a further question Oliphint poses in his article, as to ‘whether Bavinck’srealism assuming as it does that it is God-given, also assumes that the meaning of thingsis objectively accessible to every rational mind by virtue of our human potentiality’. SeeOliphint, ‘Bavinck’s Realism’, p. 376 n. 55. These concerns echo those of EugeneHeideman, The Relation of Revelation and Reason in E. Brunner and H. Bavinck (Assen:Van Gorcum, 1959), pp. 137–8. Bavinck extends efficient causality to the principiumcognoscendi internum precisely to show that this is not the case. It is the Holy Spirit,according to Bavinck, who brings the human capacity for intellection to ‘leap intoaction’. The meaning of things is objectively accessible, given the correspondence thatexists potentially between knowing subject and the external world on account of theLogos, yet it is only subjectively obtainable by the actuating power of the Holy Spirit.

51 Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, I, p. 442.52 Van Den Belt, Authority, p. 265.53 Bavinck, RD I, pp. 213–14, 565 and 616. In the last two passages cited ‘believing reason’

is a rendering of the Latin technical term ratio christiana, see GD I p. 517. ‘Believingreason’ is also identified as theology’s principium cognoscendi internum in the Englishtranslation at an earlier point in the Prolegomena, see RD I, p. 88, but here in the Dutch


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These three referents can be reduced to two, namely, the Holy Spirit and the knowing

subject, as, for Bavinck, faith is a disposition of reason.54 The ambiguity, therefore,

consists in the fact that Bavinck identifies both a divine and a human referent for his

internal principle. The cause of this double identification can be traced back to thedouble function that the additional distinction within the principium cognoscendi is

required to perform. The additional distinction between an external and an internal

principle of knowing does not just make room for a trinitarian economy of

knowledge; it also affords a resolution of the subject–object dichotomy. Ultimately,

this is why Bavinck encounters difficulty in identifying the referent of his internal

principle with any consistency. Bavinck identifies the internal principle alternately as

the Holy Spirit, or faith (or believing reason), according to which function of the

internal principle is in view. When the efficient and formal cause of the human

subject’s knowledge of God is in view, Bavinck identifies the Holy Spirit astheology’s principium cognoscendi internum, but when the correspondence between

what God has revealed and the knowing subject’s apprehension of that revelation is

in view, Bavinck identifies faith (or believing reason), as theology’s principium

cognoscendi internum. While this polyvalence would appear to pose a greater threat

to the coherence of Bavinck’s epistemology, it is, ironically, entirely consistent with

the correlation of participation with the principia. Participation involves more than

one subject. Bavinck’s internal principle, therefore, must encompass both divine and

creaturely subjectivity, if it is to account for the knowing subject’s participation in

divine self-knowledge. Therefore, while it would seem that the specific way in whichBavinck ‘bends’ the essendi–cognoscendi distinction precipitates a problematic

ambiguity in connection with the referent of the internal principle, it is in fact a

necessary consequence of his desire to offer an explicitly trinitarian account of

participation.

One might conclude that while Oliphint notes that Bavinck seeks to establish a

realism that is grounded and founded in the Triune God,55 he does not pursue the

implications of this observation far enough. Oliphint’s analysis rightly draws

attention to the fact that Bavinck ‘bends’ the essendi–cognoscendi distinction, yet he

misidentifies precisely where this ‘bending’ occurs. Bavinck extends efficientcausality not to the principium cognoscendi externum, but to the principium

cognoscendi internum. While this further level of complexity does not explain away

the basic inconsistency Oliphint detects, it does demonstrate that his conclusion does

not obtain. Oliphint acknowledges the material sufficiency of the Logos as an

epistemological principle,56 and also affirms that God is the efficient cause of all

original Bavinck does not use the term ratio christiana. ‘Beliving reason’ here is the

English rendering of geloovige rede, see GD I, p. 64.54 See RD I, p. 616.55 Oliphint, ‘Bavinck’s Realism’, p. 364.56 ‘That [sufficient epistemological] principle, we should now be able to see, is the Logos,

and the knowledge of God that he provides by virtue of his exhaustive activity in theworld that he has made.’ Oliphint, ‘Bavinck’s Realism’, p. 389.




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human knowing.57 It would seem, therefore, that Oliphint would allow that God

simpliciter could function as both principium essendi and principium cognoscendi,

but not the same person of the Trinity, as his argument concerning the formal

inadequacy of Bavinck’s epistemological principle consists in the specificobservation that Bavinck attributes to the Logos the role of principium cognoscendi

in the principia and the role of principium essendi in his account of participation. As

we have seen, this is not entirely accurate. The Logos in Bavinck’s epistemology

illumines by the personal agency of the Holy Spirit. This being the case, it would

seem that even according to Oliphint’s own criteria, Bavinck does in fact offer a

formally sufficient epistemological principle. In Bavinck’s theory of knowledge the

Logos functions as an instrumental efficient cause, who illumines by the personal

agency of the Holy Spirit.58

Conclusion

The results of the exploration of the two inconsistencies above would suggest that the

Aristotelian wineskins of Reformed Orthodoxy cannot contain Bavinck’s new wine

without a little leakage, and it would appear that the vulnerable seam is to be located

in Bavinck’s innovation of an internal principle. Specifically, in both examples the

appearance of inconsistency can be traced to Bavinck’s extension of efficient

causality from the principium essendi to the principium cognoscendi internum. In thefirst example this is what leads Bavinck to prioritize the internal principle over its

external source, and in the second it is at the root of Bavinck’s transgression of the

essendi–cognoscendi distinction. That explanations can readily be found and that

the reasons Bavinck offers for speaking in the way he does are consonant with

his epistemology as a whole would suggest that these moments of apparent

inconsistency pose less of a threat to the fundamental coherence of Bavinck’s

epistemology than they expose the limitations, if not the inadequacy, of the classical

Aristotelian categories for all that Bavinck demands of them. These limitations come

into particularly sharp focus when one observes the way that Bavinck’s correlationof the doctrine of participation with the principia precipitates a patent ambiguity

with respect to the referent of his internal principle. Even the most charitable reader

must concede that Bavinck simply demands more of the principia than they could

reasonably expected to deliver. That Bavinck also pursued his synthesis of

Orthodoxy and modernity in a context free of the strictures of Aristotelian wineskins

57 ‘This [God’s causal efficiency in human knowing] . . . is true enough. God controls

“whatsoever comes to pass,” and thus is the one who ordains all things.’ Oliphint,‘Bavinck’s Realism’, pp. 388–9.58 Oliphint is not, however, concerned simply with the formal sufficiency of Bavinck’s

epistemological principle. Much of the article is dedicated to demonstrating its materialinsufficiency, in that Oliphint considers Bavinck’s construal of the Logos principle to besomewhat alien to the biblical witness, see Oliphint, ‘Bavinck’s Realism’, pp. 375–88.


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would suggest, however, that he was not entirely unaware of these limitations.

Among the various onweersprekelijke motieven of Bavinck’s epistemology,

the category of self-consciousness is pervasive, and in later works, such as The

Philosophy of Revelation and the essay ‘The Unconscious’, Bavinck developedthe sense in which self-consciousness could be said to function as an epistemological

foundation.59 The relationship between Bavinck’s principia and the motif of self-

consciousness, therefore, warrants further research, as does the intriguing question as

to whether in self-consciousness Bavinck may have recognized a stronger cable with

which he could secure his bridge between Orthodoxy and modernity.

59 Herman Bavinck, ‘The Unconscious’, in John Bold, ed., Harry Boonstra and GerritSheeres, trans., Essays on Religion, Science and Society (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic,2008), pp. 175–99.



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Pass-2015-International Journal of Systematic Theology