Reformed Dogmatics Quotes

“Scientific information about the universe does not displace God. Some have said that they searched the heavens and did not see God. The universe with its measureless spaces remains a vast mystery to us, and those who do not find God in their immediate presence, in their heart and conscience, in the Word and the Christian community, will not find him in the universe either, even though they are equipped with the best telescopes that money can buy.”
― Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume

“The world after the fall is not “godless” nor deprived of all grace; avoidance, separation, and suppression are impermissible and impossible. We are human before we are Christian; becoming a Christian does not take us out of our humanity or elevate us above it: the Christian is nothing other than a reborn, renewed, and hence a truly human person. The incarnation of Christ involved the taking on of our full humanity, and he did not regard anything human and natural as strange or alien. Accordingly, the relationship that has to exist between the church and the world is in the first place organic, moral, and spiritual in character. Christ is prophet, priest, and king, and by his Word and Spirit he persuasively impacts the entire world. The”
― Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume

“The covenant of grace differs from the covenant of works in method, not in its ultimate goal. It is the same treasure that was promised in the covenant of works and is granted in the covenant of grace. Grace restores nature and takes it to its highest pinnacle, but it does not add to it any new and heterogeneous constituents. The re-creation is not a second, new creation. It does not add to existence any new creatures or introduce any new substance into it, but it is truly “re-formation.”
― Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume

“Grace is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the entire work of salvation; it is totally devoid of human merit.”
― Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume

“Christ does not bring us back to the point on the road where Adam stood but has covered the whole journey for us to the very end.”
― Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume

“Good apologetics is a blessing to the church and to the world; the early church proved this. A valid apologetic, however, follows faith and does not attempt to argue the truth of revelation in an a priori fashion. Christians need not hide from their opponents in embarrassed silence; the Christian faith is the only worldview that fits the reality of life. Apologetic intellectual labor should not lead to exaggerated expectations nor deny the genuine subjectivity of Christian truth. Relying on reason to convert or ground the faith on intellectual grounds alone will always disappoint.”
― Herman Bavinck; John Bolt, Reformed Dogmatics

“The heaven that he won for us by his atoning death presupposes a hell from which he delivered us. The eternal life he imparted to us presupposes an eternal death from which he saved us.”
― Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume

“Like all knowledge, knowledge of God is mediated to us through our senses, through speech and symbol, mediated to us by parents and others. If this were not the case, we would be unable to account for the great diversity of representations of God. If knowledge of God, of the moral order, of the beautiful—if these were all innate, they would be universally identical and acknowledged as such.”
― Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume

“The parallel, rather, is with human language. It is human to have the ability to speak, an essential part of the image of God in us. Nonetheless, concrete language, which exists in countless forms, is not native but acquired; it is learned.”
― Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume

“There is enough light for those who only desire to see and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition. There is enough clarity to illumine the elect and enough darkness to humble them. There is enough darkness to render the reprobate sightless and enough clarity to condemn them and to render them inexcusable.”
― Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume

“Wanting to hold on to some form of scriptural value, [modern] theologians modified their view of inspiration. One approach reduced its inspired character to religious-ethical matters only and allowed for all kinds of historical, geographical, and other error. The Word of God was to be distinguished from Scripture. Only doctrine is immediately inspired; in the rest error was easily possible. A split was created between “that which is needed for salvation” and “the incidentally historical.” This distinction is impossible; in Scripture, doctrine and history are completely intertwined.”
― Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics

“The doctrine of the divine authority of Holy Scripture constitutes an important component in the words of God that Jesus preached, and if he was mistaken on this point he was wrong at a point that is most closely tied in with the religious life and he can no longer be recognized as our highest prophet. We cannot take Jesus seriously as a teacher and reject his own teaching concerning Holy Scripture.”
― Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics