Inspirational Quotes by Herman Bavinck
“Conversion is a turning back to God, but at the same time a coming to one's self.”
“The central facts of the incarnation, satisfaction, and resurrection are the fulfillment of the three great thoughts of the Old Covenant, the content of the New Testament, the Kerygma of the Apostles, the foundation of the Christian Church, the marrow of its history of dogma and the centre of the history of the world.”
“one thread runs through the history of mankind, namely, the operation of the sovereign, merciful, and almighty will of God, to save and to glorify the world notwithstanding its subjection to corruption.”
“This will of God forms the heart of pure religion and at the same time the soul of all true theology.”
“Society has already become a most artificial system of complicated relations, a gigantic organism, wherein all members are closely connected. All this demands help from the allembracing state.”
“G OD, the world and man are the three realities with which all science and all philosophy occupy themselves. The conception which we form of them and the relation in which we place them to one another determine the character of our view of the world and of life, the content of our religion, science, and morality.”
“311eschatology lives in the heart of all.”
“The notion that all peoples are on the road to progress is as incorrect as that they are continuously declining and degenerating.”
“Without God all things go wrong, both in our living and in our thinking. The denial of the existence of God means the elevation of the creature into the place of God.”
“primitive man has never existed; he is nothing but a poetical creation of monistic imagination”
“157Openly or secretly all turn back to an inborn disposition, to a religio insita.”
“The superhuman task of transforming present society into a state of peace and joy requires more than ordinary human power; if God himself does not work the change, hope can be cherished only when human power is divinized.”
“The gospel gives us a standard by which we can judge phenomena and events; it is an absolute measure which enables us to determine the value of the present life; it is a guide to show us the way in the labyrinth of the present world; it raises us above time, and teaches us to view all things from the standpoint of eternity.”
“In the same way, any ethical system which aspires to be true ethics and to bear a normative and teleological character, not falling into merely a description of habits and customs, is forced to seek the support of metaphysics.”
“All religion is supernatural, and rests upon the presupposition that God is distinct from the world and yet works in the world.”
“Christian ethics maintains that the whole man must be good in intellect and will, heart and conscience. To do good is a duty and a desire, a task and a privilege, and thus the work of love. Love is therefore the fulfilling of the law.”
“Atheism is not proper to man by nature, but develops at a later stage of life, on the ground of philosophical reflection; like scepticism, it is an intellectual and ethical abnormality, which only confirms the rule. By nature every man believes in God.”
“The truth is of more value than empirical life: Christ sacrificed his life for it.”
“it is impossible to begin investigation without assumptions, for they all are founded on ideas and canons which have their basis in the rational and moral nature of man.”
“Reason in this newer philosophy took its starting point with childish naivete in its own integrity and trustworthiness.”
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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.