Quotes from Herman Bavinck

Philosophy arose out of religion,

What history gives us leaves upon us, on the contrary, the impression of decadence rather than of an advancing civilization.

The facts are that an essential difference exists between man and beast. Human nature is sui generis; it has its own character and attributes. If this be true, then the common origin of all men is a necessity;

there is great danger that modern culture, progressing in its anti-supernaturalistic course, will be stirred against the steadfastness of believers and attempt to accomplish by oppression what it cannot obtain by reasoning and argument.

Human nature is not an empty notion, no purely abstract conception, but a reality, a particular manner of being, which includes distinctive habits, inclinations, and attributes.

Culture, therefore, sinks into the background; man must first become a son of God before he can be, in a genuine sense, a cultured being.

If history is to be truly history, if it is to realize values, universally valid values, we cannot know this from the facts in themselves, but we borrow this conviction from philosophy, from our view of life and of the world — that is to say, from our faith. Just as there is no physics without metaphysics, there is no history without philosophy, without religion and ethics.

When we go back as far as possible to the origins we find a human nature which already contains everything which it later on produces out of itself.

The absolute, immutable, and inviolable supremacy of that will of God is the light which special revelation holds before our soul's eye at the end of time.

It is supernaturalism, which in point of fact forms the point of controversy between Christianity and many panegyrists of modern culture.

Christian religion cannot abandon this supernaturalism without annihilating itself.

God's will is one with his being, his wisdom, goodness, and all his other perfections. For that reason the human heart and head can rest in that will, for it is the will of an almighty God and a gracious father, not that of a blind fate, incalculable chance, or dark force of nature. His sovereignty is one of unlimited power, but also of wisdom and grace. He is both king and father at one and the same time.

205The segregation and the election of Israel served the sole purpose of maintaining, unmixed and unadulterated, continuing and perfecting, the original revelation, which threatened to be lost206so that it might again in the fullness of time be made the property of the whole of mankind.

gospel is in the Old and the New Testament alike the core of the divine revelation, the essence of religion, the sum total of the Holy Scriptures.

The truth and value of Christianity do not depend on the fruits which it has borne for civilization and culture: it has its own independent value; it is the realization of the kingdom of God on earth;

He accepted the social and political conditions as they were, made no endeavor to reform them, and confined himself exclusively to setting the value which they possessed for the kingdom of heaven.

the whole of culture — may be of great value in itself, but whenever it is thrown into the balance against the kingdom of heaven, it loses all its significance.

But the electing love of God is at the same time a forgiving love. God not only elects and calls, but gives himself to his people; he joins himself to them so intimately and tenderly that he charges their guilt and transfers it, as it were, to himself.

if the moral law or the ideal good indeed exists outside of us, then it must be grounded in and be one with the Godhead.

Man can as little make propitiation for his sin as he can forgive it himself. But God can do both, atone and forgive; he can do the one just because he can do the other.

Theology leads through soteriology to eschatology.

Factually and objectively, however, nothing is indifferent, neither in nature, nor in the state, nor in science and art. All things, even the most humble, have their specific place and meaning in the context of the whole. Human beings are indifferent only to what they do not, or do not sufficiently, know; they automatically assess and appreciate what they do know. God, who knows all things, is not indifferent to anything.

Formerly men said that life was thought, but now we are told that life is will.

Conversion is a turning back to God, but at the same time a coming to one's self.