Status Updates From Dogmática Reformada Volume ...

"It is much more honest and much more scientific to state in advance what convictions have guided us in undertaking the investigation."

"Corresponding to the objective revelation of God, therefore, there is in human beings a certain faculty or natural aptitude for perceiving the divine. God does not do half a job. He created not only the light but also the eye to see it."

"Though science may tell him THAT God is and WHAT God is, it is only by religion that he knows that God is also HIS God and HIS Father. Science May teach him that sin and Grace exist, but it is only by religion that he takes part in the blessedness of religion in the sonship of God."

"We are dependent in the manner and sense that we simultaneously remain rational and moral creatures who are akin to God, are his offspring and his image. We are absolutely dependent in such a manner that the denial of this dependence never makes us free, while the acknowledgment of it never reduces us to the status of a slave."

"Prior to all reflection and reasoning, everyone is in fact fully assured of the real existence of the world. This certainty is not born out of a syllogism, nor is it supported by proof; it is immediate, originating spontaneously within us along with perception itself"

"There is indeed no room for philosophical theory of fundamental principles that must first lay the foundation for the study of theology and has the right to justify this pursuit."

"There is clearly no rosy future for Calvinism in America"

Chapter on Lutheran dogmatics. Bavincks perspective is quite sad: "Philosophy completely triumphed"

Whole chapter on RC Dogmatics.

Bavinck on Augustine:

"He is the most Christian as well as the most modern of all the fathers; of all of them he is closest to us. In dogmatics we owe our best, our deepest, our richest thoughts to him. Augustine has been and is the dogmatician of the Christian church."

"It is true that in its [the Reformation] public pronouncements it spoke harsh words against Aristotelian philosophy and medieval philosophy. But in principle, it was opposed not to all but only to a false and corrupted tradition. It accepted the Apostles Creed and The Creedal statements of the first four councils. It also took advantage of the Theology of the church fathers, especially Augustine."

"The method that arose in Scholasticism... of first treating the natural knowledge of God and then all the historical and rational proofs supporting revelation, must be rejected. At the very outset it abandons the viewpoint of faith, denies the positive character of dogmatics, moves on to the opponent's ground, and makes dogmatics dependent on philosophy."

Shots fired!

10 pages at a time haha. Dense but rich. Interestingly, Bavinck totally predicts the rise of postmodernism in a Lewis-esque way. Ive seen 2 or 3 comparisons between Lewis and Bavinck in the last week in various places. Very different men in very different contexts, yet bith with a foot in the past and an eye to the future.

"Theologians never come to Scripture from the outside, without any prior knowledge or preconceived opinion, but bring with them from their background a certain understanding of the content of revelation and so look at Scripture with the aid of the glasses that their church has put on them."