Christian Worldview - A Review
It is a rare thing for me to immediately re-read a book like a kid racing from the rollercoaster exit to the queue for its entrance. The recent translation of Herman Bavinck’s Christian Worldview made me do just that.
This is a book that I read quickly the first time to get the sense and begin to prepare a review, but I was so surprised and delighted by both how well the argument is constructed and how significant it is for our time that I went back through the short volume again, more slowly, with my pen in hand, marking deliberately and often as I went.
Bavinck was the successor to Abraham Kuyper as professor of systematic theology at the Free University of Amsterdam. Kuyper has been the better known name in some evangelical circles, but recent translation of Bavinck’s four volume dogmatics and, last year, of the first volume of his Reformed Ethics has increased Bavinck’s popularity.
Any popularity is well-deserved.
Christian Worldview is a masterpiece. The argumentation is precise, the language is beautiful, and the explanator power of this concise volume is invaluable. Many thanks to the translation team and to Crossway for ensuring this volume was made widely available in English.
A portion of the volume was originally presented as a lecture, which may explain its eloquence. This is a translation of a revised version of the earlier presentation, as well, which may have rounded off rough patches. However it came to be, it is excellent.
After the usual frontmatter by the translators and a brief introduction by the author, the book moves into three chapters. The first deals with the relationship between epistemology and reality, the second moves onto existence and change, and the third tends toward the ethical outcome of a Christian worldview.
Bavinck is mainly arguing against the scientific naturalism of the day. One of the common responses of even the faithful in his day was to separate the sacred and secular, since the laws of nature were deemed independent of the supernatural. In one sense, the entire project is an effort to show the unity of all knowledge and being in creation under one Creator. Along the way, Bavinck shows how failing to understand the transcendent nature of God and the value of the classic trascendentals—truth, beauty, and goodness—leads to human misery.
The whole book is a reach treatise explaining that Christianity is not merely one possible explanation for the way things are, nor is it merely the best. Christianity is the only possible comprehensive explanation for reality. Christianity does not contain a message of salvation, it is salvation. That is, to be (properly speaking) Christian is to be at peace with the Creator. All other worldviews lead to distress and eventual destruction.
Bavinck is effective at combatting many of the ills of his time without being combative. Although he does directly address some philosophies, the main focus of this short volume is to present a positive picture of Christianity. Negative examples are provided largely to show a contrast or to indicate where the lines of demarcation are.
One intriguing aspect of this book, which was first published in 1904 and revised in 1913, is that Bavinck effectively describes where the last century has taken us. He looks along the trajectory of modernity and calls most of the shots correctly. Certainly, he does not describe landing on the moon or iPhones, but he does note that naturalism puts society on a fast track to tyranny, because the autonomous moral self must exist within a society that is governed. When objective moral norms are rejected, the only options left are the tyranny of a majority through democracy or of the few through socialism, but the governance must be by force. There can be no grounds for cooperation and cohesion apart from an objective reality, in this case Christian theism, so governance must be by force.
From paragraph to paragraph, page to page, and chapter to chapter, I found substance, beauty, and wisdom. Even for those who disagree with some aspects of Reformed theology, this volume would be a beneficial resource. This is a book that will bear repeated readings and likely improve every time.
The way we talk about humans also has moral implications, which are more significant than how we treat our pets. In his 2011 book, Less than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others, David Livingstone Smith explores how language changes culture and leads to the justification of extreme violence against others, especially when they become perceived as less than human.