Regarding his cultural moment, Bavinck noticed in his era an “aversion to the common, Christian faith.” For this reason, he suggested that “before all else, what strikes us in the modern age is the internal discord that consumes the self.” Denying the fact of humanity’s subordination to God, of our standing as creatures before the Creator, leads, he argued, to a sickness in soul and body: “a disharmony between our thinking and feeling, willing and acting.” The modern human will, in other words, wrestles against the weight of the divinely revealed moral order.

Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) was the chief theologian of the Dutch movement known as neo-Calvinism—a movement toward confessional orthodox Christianity in a rapidly changing, modern world. In the post-Enlightenment era of industrial, political, cultural, and even spiritual revolution, T.C.W. Blanning suggests that for Bavinck’s generation “the ground [was] moving beneath their feet.”[1] Scientific materialism had especially dominated the intellectual imagination up to the turn of the twentieth century, and while failing to eradicate religion, historic Christianity was under suspicion. It was into such a context that Bavinck decided to lecture on and publish Christelijke wereldbeschouwing (Christian Worldview) in 1904.

As significant as Bavinck was in the Netherlands of the early twentieth century, he has of late become the Reformed theologian of the English-speaking world (as well as for Korean, Portuguese, and Mandarin speakers). He is biblically grounded, historically aware, philosophically trained, culturally prophetic, broadly catholic, polemical and yet balanced. He is worth revisiting over and over for the depths of insight, the exegetical prowess, and the devotional quality of each of his texts.

Regarding his cultural moment, Bavinck noticed in his era an “aversion to the common, Christian faith.” For this reason, he suggested that “before all else, what strikes us in the modern age is the internal discord that consumes the self.” Denying the fact of humanity’s subordination to God, of our standing as creatures before the Creator, leads, he argued, to a sickness in soul and body: “a disharmony between our thinking and feeling, willing and acting.” The modern human will, in other words, wrestles against the weight of the divinely revealed moral order. By acting in dissociation with the facts, humanity fights against its own deepest needs and desires. The modern human intellect baptized in the immanent frame of scientific materialism dissociates the head from the heart and physics from metaphysics.

It is into this context that Bavinck offers a reading of the importance of not merely a “worldview” but of a Christian world-and-life view. According to Bavinck, a world-and-life view means that, over time and in engagement with reality as it presents itself, one applies the first principles of Christianity to arrive at basic, primary answers to the fundamental religious and philosophical questions of existence while incorporating the wisdom of experiential life: What am I? Where did I come from? How does my mind relate to the world outside of me? Do I, and how can I, know? How should I act? And what is the point of life? To where am I going?

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