Announcing the Bavinck Collection Grand Opening

Heritage HallJohn Bolt, Jean and Kenneth Baker Professor of Systematic Theology at Calvin Seminary, cordially invites you to attend the grand opening of the Bavinck Institute Special Collection.

The Bavinck Institute Special Collection is housed in Hekman Library’s Heritage Hall. It contains some 1,750 books including copies of original and unpublished Bavinck manuscripts as well as scholarly essays by and about Bavinck, Abraham Kuyper, and Dutch neo-Calvinism. It is available to faculty, students, and visiting scholars.

The grand opening is open to the public. No need to RSVP.

When: 2 May 2017 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: the Calvin Seminary auditorium (map)

Questions: Prof. Bolt’s office: (616) 957-6010; [email protected]

Bavinck Review 7 Published

The Bavinck Institute at Calvin Seminary is pleased to release The Bavinck Review 7 (2016) (1.2 MB PDF). See the editorial for an update on the Reformed Ethics project, two additional pending publications, and the formal establishment of the Institute.

Editorial

Articles

Knowledge according to Bavinck and Aquinas by Arvin Vos

In Translation

Herman Bavinck’s Modernisme en Orthodoxie: A Translation by Bruce R. Pass

Pearls and Leaven

An Excerpt on Prayer from Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics by John Bolt

Bavinck Bibliography 2015

“The Context of Bavinck’s 1908 Princeton Stone Lectures” by James Bratt

James Bratt
James Bratt

Professor Emeritus James Bratt delivered this plenary lecture at the the 2008 Bavinck Conference at Calvin Seminary.

In the lecture Professor Bratt unpacks the historical context of Herman Bavinck’s 1908 Stone Lectures.

He builds upon a twofold motif first suggested by Professor George Harinck as a summary of the tensions evident in Bavinck’s life and thought: movement from the outside world to the inside, and from the inside to the outside. This double movement highlights a key note in Bavinck’s Reformed catholic theology generally and within the Stone Lectures in particular: the conciliation between modern life and ancient faith.

The lecture was published as “The Context of Herman Bavinck’s Stone Lectures: Culture and Politics in 1908,” Bavinck Review 1 (2010): 4–24 (PDF).

“Herman Bavinck and the Pearl-Leaven Imbalance in Contemporary Youth Ministry” — Syd Hielema

Prof. Syd Hielema
Prof. Syd Hielema

Professor Syd Heilema delivered this lecture on how Bavinck might have approached contemporary youth ministry at the the 2008 Bavinck Conference at Calvin Seminary.

Related publications

Syd Hielema, “Herman Bavinck’s Eschatological Understanding of Redemption,” ThD diss., Toronto: Wycliffe College, Toronto School of Theology, 1998 (PDF).

“Herman Bavinck and Reformed Epistemology” by Nicholas Wolterstorff

Nicholas Wolterstorff
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.

“Herman Bavinck Speaks Today” — John Bolt, Gordon Graham, J. Mark Beach

Professor John Bolt
John Bolt

This plenary session panel discussion (MP3; 70 MB) with Professors John Bolt, Gordon Graham, and J. Mark Beach is from the 2008 Bavinck Conference at Calvin Seminary.

  • Professor Bolt’s lecture, “Herman Bavinck’s recipe for theological cake,” begins at ~16:00.
  • Professor Graham’s lecture, “Bavinck’s Philosophy of Revelation,” begins at ~42:00.
  • Professor Beach’s lecture, “Can’t We All Just Get Along? Herman Bavinck as a Pastoral Polemicist,” begins at ~59:15.

Related publications

Gordon Graham
Gordon Graham

Bavinck, Herman. Saved by Grace: The Holy Spirit’s Work in Calling and Regeneration. Edited by J. Mark Beach. Translated by Nelson D. Kloosterman. Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008.

Beach, J. Mark. “Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, and ‘The Conclusions of Utrecht 1905’.” Mid-America Journal of Theology 19 (2008): 11–68.

———. “Can’t We All Just Get Along? Herman Bavinck as a Pastoral Polemicist.” Mid-America Journal of Theology 24 (2013): 73–79.

Bolt, John. “The Bavinck Recipe for Theological Cake.” Calvin Theological Journal 45, no. 1 (2010): 11–17.

J. Mark Beach
J. Mark Beach

Graham, Gordon. “Bavinck, Nietzsche, and Secularization.” In The Kuyper Center Review, Volume 2: Revelation and Common Grace, 14–26. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011.

———. “Bavinck’s Philosophy of Revelation.” Calvin Theological Journal 45, no. 1 (April 2010): 44–50.

Neo-Calvinism and Islam, Istanbul: Call for papers

The KabaConference: “Another Religion? Neo-Calvinism and Islam”

When: 25–26 August 2016

Where: Istanbul, Turkey

Plenary speakers:

  • Prof. George Harinck, Theological University Kampen
  • Prof. Kees van der Kooi, VU University Amsterdam
  • Prof. Richard J. Mouw, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena

Sponsors:

  • The Historical Documentation Centre at the Free University Amsterdam
  • The New College, University of Edinburgh
  • The Theologische Universiteit Kampen

See the conference brochure (PDF 127 KB) for more on the conference theme and instructions for paper propsals.

“Religion, Mission, and Kingdom: A Comparison of Herman Bavinck and Johan Herman Bavinck” by Paul Visser

Ds. Paul Visser
Ds. Paul Visser

The Rev. Ds. Paul J. Visser, pastor of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (Amsterdam) and chairman of the Foundation for the Promoting of Reformed Missiology and Ecumenics, delivered the following lecture at the 2008 Bavinck Conference: “Religion, Mission, and Kingdom: A Comparison of Herman Bavinck and Johan Herman Bavinck” (MP3).

Visser’s lecture was published as “Religion, Mission, and Kingdom: A Comparison of Herman and Johan Herman Bavinck,” Calvin Theological Journal 45, no. 1 (2010): 117–32.

The respondent is the Rev. Dr. Allan Janssen. Starting at ~66:00, Janssen provides an intriguing foray into the recently published lectures of A. A. van Ruler on natural and revealed theology as an additional point of comparison between H. and J. H. Bavinck.

Related resources

  1. Paul J. Visser, Heart for the Gospel, Heart for the World: The Life and Thought of a Reformed Pioneer Missiologist, Johan Herman Bavinck, 1895-1964 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2003).
  2. Johan Herman Bavinck, The J. H. Bavinck Reader, ed. John Bolt, James D. Bratt, and Paul J. Visser, trans. James A. De Jong (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013); see also “Announcing the J. H. Bavinck Reader.”
  3. Paul J. Visser, “Reformed Principles as Remaining Roots,” in Shirley J. Roels, ed., Reformed Mission in an Age of World Christianity: Ideas for the 21st Century, 37–44 (Grand Rapids, MI: Calvin Press, 2011).
  4. Paul J. Visser, “Religion in Biblical and Reformed Perspective,” Calvin Theological Journal 44, no. 1 (2009): 9–36.