Overcoming the World:Bavinck on Faith and Knowledge

After a short biographical introduction, this article argues that Herman Bavinck’s Reformed theology displays his appreciation for the catholicity of the church. This attitude appears most strongly in his interest in epistemology. For Bavinck, faith and knowledge form an essential unity. He intends to avoid subjectivity while incorporating the modern epistemological turn to the human subject. This is his most original and most important contribution to theology. According to Bavinck, faith overcomes the world by viewing it as God’s fallen creation on its way to final restoration through Christ’s redemption. The appendix offers the first English translation of thus far unnoticed theses on faith and knowledge

Synodical powerlessness and mystical liberalism:Louis A. Bähler (1867-1941) and the Reformed League

The publication of Buddhist mission: ‘Christian’ barbarism in Europe, translated by Louis Adriën Bähler (1867-1941), a Christian anarchist and pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, led to the founding of the Reformed League in the Dutch Reformed Church (Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk). The classis censured Bähler, but Synod rehabilitated him and therefore the orthodox Reformed within the church charged that Synod’s actions revealed its powerlessness to maintain doctrinal discipline. Bähler’s Buddhist leanings have drawn much attention. This article places Bähler’s sympathy for pietism and mysticism in the broader context of his theology, one characterized by a spiritualizationand moralization of the Gospel

Revelation and the Unity of the Truth

In his assessment of Paul Tillich’s theology, Dirk Martin Grube states that revelation pertains to knowledge about knowledge instead of knowledge about the world. This concept of revelation raises two interrelated questions: 1) Can revelation be restricted to an epistemological metalevel without conveying propositional content?; 2) Does knowledge based on revelation potentially conflict with other forms of knowledge? This article denies the first and affirms the latter, thus arguing against Grube’s thesis and uses the importance of the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection as a litmus test

Global justice considerations for a proposed “climate impact fund”

One of the most attractive, but nevertheless highly controversial proposals to alleviate the negative effects of today’s international patent regime is the Health Impact Fund (HIF). Although the HIF has been drafted to facilitate access to medicines and boost pharmaceutical research, we have analysed the burdens for the global poor a similar proposal designed to promote the use and development of climate-friendly technologies would have. Drawing parallels from the access to medicines debate, we suspect that an analogous “Climate Impact Fund” will increase the already very high scientific and technological supremacy of the developed world over the Global South. We advocate countering this dominance on the ground that countries with scarce research and development capacities will be in a difficult position to reject technologies and will not have a say on how such technologies should look like. Further, addressing global hazards should be an inclusive endeavour and not only a privilege reserved for the developed world. Incentivizing grassroots innovation would be a major step to promote scientific and technological inclusion

The Spirit of Christ and the Christ of the Spirit:The Pneumatology of Cornelis van der Kooi

The article reviews Cornelis van der Kooi, This Incredibly Benevolent Force: The Holy Spirit in Reformed Theology and Spirituality (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018) and Gijsbert van den Brink, Eveline van Staalduine-Sulman en Maarten Wisse (ed.), The Spirit Is Moving: New Pathways in Pneumatology: Studies Presented to Professor Cornelis van der Kooi on the Occasion of His Retirement [Studies in Reformed Theology, 38] (Leiden: Brill, 2019) This article first sketches the contours of Van der Kooi's pneumatology in three lines and then offers a summary of his Warfield Lectures (Princeton, 2014), published in This Incredibly Benevolent Force. This is followed by a discussion of some of the responses to Van der Kooi's theology in the volume presented to him on the occasion of his retirement. The three sections end with a brief evaluation