“Herman Bavinck and Reformed Epistemology” by Nicholas Wolterstorff

Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale Divinity School, delivered this plenary lecture at the the 2008 Bavinck Conference at Calvin Seminary.

In the lecture Professor Wolterstorff

• explains what Reformed epistemology is,
• articulates the places in Herman Bavinck’s thought where related themes appear (at ~39:45),
• and points out the affinities between Bavinck’s thought and contemporary Reformed epistemology (at ~64:00).

The lecture was published as “Herman Bavinck—Proto Reformed Epistemologist,” Calvin Theological Journal 45, no. 1 (2010): 133–46.

Related publications

Michael S. Chen, “‘To See Darkness, To Hear Silence’: Herman Bavinck and Augustine on Epistemology,” Bavinck Review 2 (2011): 96–106.

Steven J. Duby, “Working with the Grain of Nature: Epistemic Underpinnings for Christian Witness in the Theology of Herman Bavinck,” Bavinck Review 3 (2012): 60–84.

Jacob Klapwijk, “Rationality in the Dutch Neo-Calvinist Tradition,” in Rationality in the Calvinian Tradition, edited by Hendrik Hart, Johan Van der Hoeven, and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983), 113–131.

Bruce R. Pass, “Herman Bavinck and the Problem of New Wine in Old Wineskins,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 17, no. 4 (2015): 432–49, doi:10.1111/ijst.12118.

Bruce R. Pass, “Herman Bavinck and the Cogito,” Reformed Theological Review 74, no. 1 (2015): 15–33.

Alvin Plantinga, “The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology,” in Rationality in the Calvinian Tradition, edited by Hendrik Hart, Johan Van der Hoeven, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, 363–83. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

David S. Sytsma, “Herman Bavinck’s Thomistic Epistemology: The Argument and Sources of His Principia of Science,” in Five Studies in the Thought of Herman Bavinck, A Creator of Modern Dutch Theology, ed. John Bolt (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2011), 1–56.

Arvin Vos, “Knowledge according to Bavinck and Aquinas,” Bavinck Review 6 (2015), 9–36.

Albert M. Wolters, “Dutch Neo-Calvinism: Worldview, Philosophy and Rationality,” in Rationality in the Calvinian Tradition, edited by Hendrik Hart, Johan Van der Hoeven, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, 113–31. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.