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

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