The Philosophy of Revelation Quotes

“The resurrection is the fundamental restoration of all culture.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“Without revelation religion sinks back into a pernicious superstition.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“Christ is not the founder of Christianity, nor the first confessor of it, nor the first Christian. But he is Christianity itself, in its preparation, fulfillment, and consummation”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“The cross is the divine settlement with the divine condemnation of sin.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“Conversion is not the source of truth, but the source of certainty with regard to the truth.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“To separate between religion and metaphysics, however often it may have been attempted, is impossible”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“The highest ideal for the Christian is not to make peace with the world, with science, with culture at any price, but to keep himself from the evil one.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“The cross of Christ divides history into two parts — the preparation for and the accomplishment of reconciliation;”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“God is above the world, and is also above sin and all evil. He allowed it because he could expiate it. So he maintained through all centuries and among all men the longing and the capacity for redemption, and wrought that redemption himself in the fulness of time, in the midst of history, in the crucified Christ.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“conversion is a necessary and moral duty for every man.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“Beneath the head lies the heart, out of which are the issues of life.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“The greatest thinkers of Greece — Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and later Plutarch and Plotinus — derived their ideas from ancient tradition, and further on from divine revelation.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“Every man lives in his own time, comes into being and passes away, appears and disappears; he seems only a part of the whole, a moment of the process. But every man also bears the ages in his heart; in his spirit-life he stands above and outside of history. He lives in the past and the past lives in him for, as Nietzsche says, man cannot forget. He also lives in the future and the future lives in him, for he bears hope imperishably in his bosom. Thus he can discover something of the connection between the past, the present, and the future; thus he is at the same time maker and knower of history. He belongs himself to history, yet he stands above it; he is a child of time and yet has a part in eternity; he becomes and he is at the same time; he passes away and yet he abides. This Christianity has made us understand.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“If history is to be truly history, if it is to realize values, universally valid values, we cannot know this from the facts in themselves, but we borrow this conviction from philosophy, from our view of life and of the world — that is to say, from our faith. Just as there is no physics without metaphysics, there is no history without philosophy, without religion and ethics.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“Evolution is a great word but it turns its back on difficulties and sums up a rich and complicated reality under a vague formula.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“Without God all things go wrong, both in our living and in our thinking. The denial of the existence of God means the elevation of the creature into the place of God.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“G OD, the world and man are the three realities with which all science and all philosophy occupy themselves. The conception which we form of them and the relation in which we place them to one another determine the character of our view of the world and of life, the content of our religion, science, and morality.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“The truth is of more value than empirical life: Christ sacrificed his life for it.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“Atheism is not proper to man by nature, but develops at a later stage of life, on the ground of philosophical reflection; like scepticism, it is an intellectual and ethical abnormality, which only confirms the rule. By nature every man believes in God.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“Darwin was led to his agnostic naturalism as much by the misery which he observed in the world as by the facts which scientific investigation brought under his notice. There was too much strife and injustice in the world for him to believe in providence and a predetermined goal. A world so full of cruelty and pain he could not reconcile with the omniscience, the omnipotence, the goodness of God.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“The absolute, immutable, and inviolable supremacy of that will of God is the light which special revelation holds before our soul's eye at the end of time.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“there is great danger that modern culture, progressing in its anti-supernaturalistic course, will be stirred against the steadfastness of believers and attempt to accomplish by oppression what it cannot obtain by reasoning and argument.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“Revelation in nature and revelation in Scripture form, in alliance with each other, a harmonious unity which satisfies the requirements of the intellect and the needs of the heart alike.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“All worldviews, therefore, end in an eschatology and all efforts at reformation are animated by faith in the future.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“everything we value in this life is inseparably connected with the future.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“The more deeply we live, the more we feel in sympathy with Augustine, and the less with Pelagius.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“Evolution is dismissive of the eternity of moral duty and moral laws.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“If the essence of things is unknowable, the misery of man cannot be fathomed.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“328An optimism which is exclusively built on evolution is always transmuted into pessimism if one ponders a little more deeply.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation

“If there ever is to be a blessed humanity it must be preceded by a radical change in human nature.”
― Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation