Herman Bavinck, the premier theologian of the Kuyper-inspired, neo-Calvinistic revival in the late-nineteenth-century Netherlands, is an important voice in the development of Protestant theology. "Essays on Religion, Science, and Society" is the capstone of his distinguished career. These seminal essays offer an outworking of Bavinck's systematic theology as presented in his "Reformed Dogmatics" and engage enduring issues from a biblical and theological perspective. The work presents his mature reflections on issues relating to ethics, education, politics, psychology, natural science and evolution, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion.
This collection--Bavinck's most significant remaining untranslated work--is now available in English for the first time. Pastors, students, and scholars of Reformed theology will value this work.
Born on December 13, 1854, in Hoogeveen, Drenthe, Holland, Herman Bavinck was the son of the Reverend Jan Bavinck, a leading figure in the secession from the State Church of the Netherlands in 1834. After theological study in Kampen, and at the University of Leiden, he graduated in 1880, and served as the minister of the congregation at Franeker, Friesland, for a year. According to his biographers, large crowds gathered to hear his outstanding exposition of the Scriptures.
In 1882, he was appointed a Professor of theology at Kampen, and taught there from 1883 until his appointment, in 1902, to the chair of systematic Theology in the Free University of Amsterdam, where he succeeded the great Abraham Kuyper, then recently appointed Prime Minister of the Netherlands. In this capacity -- an appointment he had twice before declined -- Bavinck served until his death in 1921.
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