Ch 3 Sect 1 Science and Thought (Principia)

After a brief tour through the history of Dogma, Bavinck in chapter 3 is now returns to the Foundations of Dogmatic Theology . Again, Bavinck wants to treat theology as a science, not as a speculative philosophy. As a science, theology has a certain subject, method, and object. The subject is God, as Bavinck says “Theology is a science about God, not religion or faith. The aim of theology is nothing other than that the rational creature know God, and, knowing him, glorify him.”The method as Bavinck briefly explained is the synthetic-genetic method (see Ch1 Sect 4 Faith and Method)

Now the object of study, the medium through which the theologian can gain information, and knowledge about the subject, is revelation. The object, “is revelation that which proceeds from faith, and revelation will articulate its own first or foundational principles ( principia )”. (p49) God by way of revelation makes himself known as the primary and efficient cause of all things. Here Bavinck breaks down three “principia”. This “principia”, can be broken down into three fundamental principles.

Principia Essendi – God is the essential principal for knowledge.

Principium Cognoscendi Externum – Scripture is the external cognitive foundation.

Principium Cognoscendi Internum – The Holy Spirit is the internal principal foundation.

God as the essential principal of knowledge gives us his word in the Bible which is outside of us, an external knowledge, that can only be internalized and understood by man through the internal work of the Holy Spirit illuminating the truths of scripture. Bavinck sums it up beautifully on page 59, “The foundations of theology are thus Trinitarian: The Father, through the Son as Logos, imparts himself to creatures in the Spirit.” Amazing Trinitarian Theology at work!

Here Bavinck is emphasizing and advocating a full fledge, no holds barred, Revelational Epistemology. Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge. How man can know things, what are the limits of knowledge, and how man can be certain that what he knows is true. So Bavinck is maintaining that everything man knows, and everything that man can know, is only knowable as God reveals such knowledge to man. And as Bavinck is advocating this Revelational Epistemology, he also wants to maintain that the things God reveals to us are real. Simply stated, Bavinck is saying, God makes known to man, by way of revelation, things in this world such as, plants, dogs, trees, love, goodness, justice, hate etc…, and these things are real, they truly exist.

This principle of God revealing things in this world to man also gives us a fully consistent Christian metaphysic. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with reality. Metaphysics poses questions such as, what is reality, what kinds of things exist, is there a God, what is love. Also, as it turns out, Metaphysics and Epistemology are interdependent. You can’t know things, having a theory of knowledge apart from a theory of reality. For instance if the atheist has an epistemology that says we know and learn things by observation, but has a view of reality that says we live in chance universe, there is then a real inconsistency between his metaphysical and epistemological position.

Now before Bavinck puts his Revelational Epistemology in philosophical terms, , he gives a us a very quick run down of two schools of thought concerning epistemology, rationalism, and empiricism.

Rationalism basically states knowledge consists of what’s in the mind, and therefore reality is not what’s out in the world; reality is what my thoughts of the world are. Rationalism holds that man has certain innate ideas and these ideas form the foundation of reality. So reality is how my mind interprets the world and understands it in my own thought.

Empiricism wants to maintain the mind is not active in the knowing process at all. All that is known is just a collection of experiences and sensations. Man can only acquire knowledge through the faculty of perception. Empiricism has no way of accounting for things like love, hate, law etc …

So Bavinck will want to declare pox on both these houses and express how we can know things in the world are real and really exist. He will use a form of common sense realism to accomplish this task.