Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) was a Dutch Calvinist theologian and churchman. He was a significant scholar in the Calvinist tradition, alongside Abraham Kuyper, B. B. Warfield, and Geerhardus Vos. [Українська] [Русский]
Herman Bavinck Quotes
He cannot abandon his people because he has bound his own name and honor to them in pledge.
—Herman Bavinck
Knowledge is power—so much we can understand, at least to a certain extent. All knowing is a triumph of the spirit over matter, a subjection of the earth to the lordship of man. But that knowledge should be life—who can understand that?
—Herman Bavinck
People desire to make God a dead God, in order to be able to deal with him according to their pleasure. But the Holy Scripture calls to man: You have gone astray; God exists. He is the true God; he lives, now and forever.
—Herman Bavinck
Thus a man is worth more than the whole world.
—Herman Bavinck
God’s rest only means he has stopped creating new things. He is now actively working to preserve the world he fashioned.
—Herman Bavinck
God is the absolutely independent One, the perfectly sovereign One. He is dependent upon us in no single respect, but we, both as we are naturally and as we are rationally and morally, are absolutely dependent upon Him.
—Herman Bavinck
That which unites all true Christians is always more than that which separates them.
—Herman Bavinck
The triune God produces all things in creation and new creation by His Word and Spirit. All things thus speak to us of God.
—Herman Bavinck
Enlightened by the Spirit, believers gain a new knowledge of faith. Salvation that is not known and enjoyed is no salvation. God saves by causing himself to be known and enjoyed in Christ.
—Herman Bavinck
They are most to be feared who become very rich in book learning but remain unlearned as Christians.
—Herman Bavinck
God did not reveal himself, so that from his revelation we might construct a philosophical concept of God, but so that we might receive, acknowledge, and confess him, the one true, living God, as our God.
—Herman Bavinck
Time cannot exist in and by itself. God by his eternal power sustains time, both in its entirety and in each separate moment of it.
—Herman Bavinck
In dogmatics, God loves us; in ethics, we love him.
—Herman Bavinck
Christianity is no less than the real, supreme work of the Triune God, in which the Father reconciles his created but fallen world through the death of his Son and re-creates it through his Spirit into the kingdom of God.
—Herman Bavinck
The disciples of Jesus are not, according to His historical name, Jesuites, but, according to the name of His office, Christians.
—Herman Bavinck
God, and God alone, is man’s highest good.
—Herman Bavinck
All the works of God in nature and grace, in creation and re-creation, and in the world and history enable us to know something of the incomprehensible and lovely nature of God.
—Herman Bavinck
A theologian who is acquainted with all the latest issues of his science but who stands speechless at a sickbed and knows no answer to the questions of the lost sinner’s heart isn’t worthy of his title and office.
—Herman Bavinck
A theologian is one who in a real sense is a scholar taught by God, who speaks of God, about God, and for the sake of the glory of God’s name.
—Herman Bavinck
The Kingdom of God will include everything in heaven and on earth. By the blood of the cross, Christ has reconciled all things to himself and thus to each other (Col. 1:20). Under him as the Head, everything will be gathered into one and recapitulated in him (Eph. 1:10).
—Herman Bavinck
The Christian moral life has faith at its root, the law as its rule, and the honor of God as its goal.
—Herman Bavinck
Paul fights against dead works while James wages a campaign against a dead faith.
—Herman Bavinck
Christ is not the founder of Christianity, nor the first confessor of it, nor the first Christian. But he is Christianity itself, in its preparation, fulfillment, and consummation.
—Herman Bavinck
The LORD is dependent on nothing, but everything depends on him.
—Herman Bavinck
Christ is not the founder of Christianity, nor the first confessor of it, nor the first Christian. But he is Christianity itself… its preparation, fulfillment, and consummation.
—Herman Bavinck
The Sabbath is the best of days; no other day is like it. And the church is the meeting of God with His people; no other gathering can take its place or compensate for its loss.
—Herman Bavinck
God pervades time and every moment of time with his eternity. In every second throbs the heartbeat of eternity.
—Herman Bavinck
Theology is the science which derives the knowledge of God from His revelation, which studies and thinks into it under the guidance of His Spirit, and then tries to describe it so that it ministers to His honor.
—Herman Bavinck
In order for our hearts to find rest in God, naturally we must possess some knowledge of him, for the unknown is unloved.
—Herman Bavinck
God remains eternal and inhabits eternity, but uses time with a view to manifesting his eternal thoughts and perfections. He makes time subservient to eternity and thus proves himself to be the King of the ages (1 Tim. 1:17).
—Herman Bavinck