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The outline of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics

View Bavinck’s original outline for the Gereformeerde dogmatiek (PDF; 89 KB) A reader of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume recently asked me how to correlate the text of the abridgement with the unabridged translation. After mulling it over, I concluded that combining the subparagraph numbers and Bavinck’s original outline for the Gereformeerde dogmatiek (PDF; 89 KB) provided both a good answer to this practical question and a boon to understanding the Dogmatics as a whole. The outline itself is refreshingly simple: three main points, traditional loci, traditional order. I share it here with the simple hope that it might provide a useful tool for enjoying the abridged or unabridged Dogmatics as an organic whole, a body of divinity.1

  1. For more on Bavinck’s view of dogmatics as a synthetic whole, see his “The Pros and Cons of a Dogmatic System,” translated by Nelson D. Kloosterman, Bavinck Review 5 (2014): 90–103. ↩
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The outline of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics

View Bavinck’s original outline for the Gereformeerde dogmatiek (PDF; 89 KB) A reader of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume recently asked me how to correlate the text of the abridgement with the unabridged translation. After mulling it over, I concluded that combining the subparagraph numbers and Bavinck’s original outline for the Gereformeerde dogmatiek (PDF; 89 KB) provided both a good answer to this practical question and a boon to understanding the Dogmatics as a whole. The outline itself is refreshingly simple: three main points, traditional loci, traditional order. I share it here with the simple hope that it might provide a useful tool for enjoying the abridged or unabridged Dogmatics as an organic whole, a body of divinity.1

  1. For more on Bavinck’s view of dogmatics as a synthetic whole, see his “The Pros and Cons of a Dogmatic System,” translated by Nelson D. Kloosterman, Bavinck Review 5 (2014): 90–103. ↩
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“Herman Bavinck on Catholicity” by Barend Kamphuis

Prof. Dr. Barend Kamphuis
Prof. Dr. Barend Kamphuis

Prof. Dr. Barend Kamphuis delivered the following lecture at the 2008 Pearl and Leaven Bavinck conference: “Herman Bavinck on Catholicity” (MP3).

The lecture is published as Barend Kamphuis, “Herman Bavinck on Catholicity,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 24 (2013): 97–104.

Related elsewhere

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Bavinck: “Love Is the Law of His Kingdom”

Bavinck: “Love is the law of his kingdom”We are seeing a universal pursuit of equality, a yearning to eliminate all distinction based on birth or property and not on personal value, a strong push for independence and freedom. In church and state, in family and society, in vocation and business, each person wants to see their own rights defined, wants to cast their own vote, and wants to stand up for their own interests.

Continue reading at Letters to the Exiles. . . .

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“Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck” — VanDrunen, Kloosterman

Nelson Kloosterman
Nelson Kloosterman
David VanDrunen
David VanDrunen

Rev. Prof. David VanDrunen and Rev. Dr. Nelson Kloosterman delivered the following lecture (MP3) at the 2008 Pearl and Leaven Bavinck Conference. Their papers appeared in published form:

  1. David VanDrunen, “‘The Kingship of Christ Is Twofold’: Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck,” Calvin Theological Journal 45, no. 1 (April 2010): 147–64.
  2. Nelson D. Kloosterman, “A Response to ‘The Kingship of Christ Is Twofold’: Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in the Thought of Herman Bavinck by David VanDrunen,” Calvin Theological Journal 45, no. 1 (April 2010): 165–76.

Professor Bolt added a Society discussion guide and an essay on this same topic:

  1. The VanDrunen-Kloosterman Debate on Natural Law and Two Kingdoms in the Theology of Herman Bavinck
  2. “Herman Bavinck on Natural Law and Two Kingdoms: Some
    Further Reflections,”     Bavinck Review 4 (2013): 64–93.

Though not directly related to the VanDrunen-Kloosterman lecture, it is worth noting Dr. Theodore G. Van Raalte’s prize-winning essay from the same conference: “Unleavened Morality? Herman Bavinck on Natural Law,” in Five Studies in the Thought of Herman Bavinck, A Creator of Modern Dutch Theology, ed. John Bolt (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2011), 57–100.

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Dissertation published: Eine Theologie des Lernens by Hanniel Strebel

Hanniel StrebelThe Bavinck Institute congratulates Society member Hanniel Strebel, whose fine Olivet University PhD dissertation on Herman Bavinck’s philosophy of education has been published:

Hanniel Strebel, Eine theologie des lernensEine Theologie des Lernens: Systematisch-theologische Beiträge aus dem Werk von Herman Bavinck [A theology of learning: systematic-theological contributions from the work of Herman Bavinck] (Bonn: VKW, 2014).

Dr. Strebel provides the following abstract:

This study is the first German dissertation on Herman Bavinck (1854-1921). Thematically, it builds on the place where Bavinck research took its beginning in the 1920s and 30s: with his educational philosophy. Starting with his “Principles of Pedagogy” (1904), three key questions regarding learning are examined: What is the purpose of learning? Who can learn? How does one appropriate human knowledge?

See also Strebel’s recent articles on the same topic:

Germanophone Bavinckians will be interested as well in Strebel’s German Bavinck bibliography.