"If God is sovereign, then his lordship must extend over all of life, and it cannot be restricted to the walls of the church or within the Christian orbit." Abraham Kuyper Common Grace 1.1.
Trinity and Organism: Towards a New Reading of Herman Bavinck’s Organic Motif Abstract. This book provides a new reading of the organic motif as found in the works of the Dutch neo-Calvinist theologian, Herman Bavinck (1854–1921). Noting the recent collapse of the previously dominant ‘two Bavincks’ hypothesis, it explores the impact of this now defunct hermeneutic on the normative reading of Bavinck’s organic motif in the work of Jan Veenhof. In probing Veenhof’s general reliance on the failed ‘two Bavincks’ model and view of the motif through this lens, it becomes evident that a new general reading of Bavinck (which will be used to interpret specific portions of his theology) is required. One must ‘reunite’ the ‘two Bavincks’ by tracing the basis for conceptual unity in his thought.
This basis for unity is located in Bavinck’s doctrine of God. In handling the divine paradigm of unity-in-diversity via both triadic and non-triadic emphases, one argues that Bavinck attempts to understand all of nature and history as a broad sweep of Trinitarian divine self-revelation. The redemption and modification of the Augustinian notion of the vestigia trinitatis enables Bavinck to see the Trinity revealed in all of life. He thus commandeers the common organic language of nineteenth-century Europe and, in so doing, loads it with Trinitarian meaning. The working hypothesis developed is that, for Bavinck, a theology of Trinity ad intra leads to a cosmology of organism ad extra.
Such a hypothesis is probed in chapters on Bavinck’s doctrines of God, general revelation, Scripture and ecclesiology. In all of these, one finds that Bavinck invokes the organic motif to explain the sense in which the archetypal unity of the Godhead acts as the foundation for all consequent ectypal unity in the creation. As such, the organisch is understood to be Bavinck’s motif of choice when accounting for the triniformity which abounds in all created reality.
In this exploration, it becomes apparent that as Bavinck uses the organic motif, he draws on the heritage of both Patristic and Reformation theology. However, he does not merely repristinate this tradition. Rather, his use of the motif is a highly creative development in the intellectual context of the late nineteenth-century.Contents
“My pastor has no idea of the kind of world I live in six days a week.” That came from a prominent businessperson, a venture capitalist, during a lunch we had together when I visited the city where he works.
And even though that particular comment was clearly a complaint, it was expressed in a larger context in which he was speaking quite warmly about his involvement in the local church.
His congregation has good programs for his children, and he and his wife are involved in a small group they find spiritually nurturing. His pastor preaches good, biblically based sermons. All of that is very positive in his mind. What is missing, though, is any sort of connection to his actual daily work experience.
To engage in politics as a Christian meant for him ... not just to work from a personal inspiration based on the Bible, but to pursue a Christian politics, a Christian state, a Christian public school. For Groen, politics and government were not neutral, technical areas where Christians too, motivated by their personal beliefs, could be active. Politics, government, education were institutions that ought to fall entirely under the law of God.
For Groen van Prinsterer, the study of history was a matter of great importance as well as practical usefulness. "In the past lies the present," as Bilderdijk had said, giving voice to a common notion of the time that was also warmly affirmed by Groen. The study of history is a means of getting to know one's own time; it is a school for everyone who wants to become familiar with the processes and structures of human affairs. It also helps one to gain insight into the power of evil and the limits to what man can do. But besides these practical lessons, the study of history in particular had religious value for Groen. History realizes God's plan with the world. He guides earthly events to their appointed end, and along the way He does not withhold trials and hardship from his children. He also punishes those who go their own way—for those who depart from God can expect griefs and sorrows. History, therefore, is the story of God's guidance of and God's involvement with humankind; it is the confirmation of the promises and threats which Revelation has attached to His covenant with man. To study history, therefore, is for Groen not just a pleasant pastime that can yield many interesting things. It is an essential work for a Christian, who should leave no means unused to learn to know God better. It stands written! It has come to pass! That is how Groen loved to summarize his Christian-historical world-view. Notice how Groen's aphorism puts Holy Scripture first, as God's indisputable proclamation of the truth. But God also reveals himself in what comes to pass in history, although on that score human knowledge is limited and imperfect, which is why the book of history will always have to be read while constantly testing it against the written Word. What has happened is not good just because it happened. That was the view, basically, of many of Groen's contemporaries, the conservatives of the so-called Historical School. They accepted the existing order as having been realized in the historical process under God's providential rule and therefore as good. Those conservatives forgot about evil and about testing history against fixed norms. Thus they were often uncritical admirers of the status quo and, by the same token, terribly afraid of the continuation of the historical process. The distinctiveness of Groen's position was that he wanted to apply the standards of God's law to the historical process—in which, after all, anti-godly, diabolical forces are active as well.
In this way Groen in principle freed himself from many difficulties and took up a special place over against the conservative worshippers of the status quo as the product of a sacrosanct historical development. Groen would always be different. Neither conservatism nor progressivism appealed to him. While he fought a life-long battle against what passed for progress and renewal, on the other hand he shocked conservatives more than once by his surprisingly modern standpoints on all sorts of practical questions. That he took distance from a conservatistic wish to preserve everything as is, without change, is all the more striking because that attitude was widespread precisely among his Christian friends. But neither did he fall into the trap which, then and later, amounted to a belief in a progressive evolution of human society. Groen held that those who believed in progress might differ among themselves about the question whether economic developments alone determined the course of history or whether people of good will could exert some influence over it, nevertheless they too arrived at a misreading of historical reality.
Given his view of history, it was inevitable that an engaged historian like Groen should want to share the results of his journey into the past with as many people as possible, precisely for the sake of the present. He wanted to share his findings not just with fellow professionals who were able to read the Archives, but also with ordinary people.
