The Professor and His Manuscripts
On August 24, 1882, the synod of the Dutch Christian Reformed Church1 appointed Herman Bavinck to be a professor at its Theological School in Kampen. He began his duties with an inaugural address on January 10, 1883, “The Science of Sacred Theology.”2 His primary teaching responsibility was dogmatics or systematic theology and culminated in his four-volume magnum opus, the Reformed Dogmatics.3 This is the work for which he is best known and his major theological legacy.4
However, it is not well known that during the years of his professorate at Kampen, Bavinck also taught ethics. Several documents which Bavinck used for his lectures in ethics are stored in the Bavinck archives.5 For example, the archives contain a small lecture notebook which likely dates from the beginning of Bavinck’s career at Kampen (or even earlier).6 In this notebook, Bavinck arranges his ethics course into ten sections: (1) “Sin,” (2) “Human Beings as Moral Creatures,” (3) “Election (The Foundation of the Christian Life),” (4) “Faith (The Source and Organizing Principle of the Christian Life),” (5) “Penance (The Origin of the Christian Life),” (6) “Law (The Rule of the Christian Life),” (7) “Freedom (The Privilege of the Christian Life),” (8) “The Altruistic Character of Christian Life,” (9) “The Relation between Christian and Civic Life,” and (10) “The Christian Life in Community.”7
In addition to this small notebook, the archives contain an extensive manuscript of some 1,100 pages with the title Reformed Ethics.8 The numerous notebooks in which Bavinck wrote the manuscript have been severely damaged; many pages have been torn from each other, and the paper is crumbling. Furthermore, the manuscript is incomplete. It breaks off in the middle of a discussion about the Christian family. In the margins of the text, Bavinck has added notes and references to literature studied or published after he wrote the initial draft and repeated his series of lectures. It is this manuscript that serves as the basis for this volume and the two that will follow.
It is difficult to date the document. Because of its length and elaborate references to Holy Scripture as well as to Protestant theologians from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, Bavinck must have worked on it for years. Though incomplete and in rough form, there is sufficient material in this manuscript for a multivolume work on Reformed ethics. Although it is not possible to date the origin of the Reformed Ethics based on the data in the manuscript itself, there is correlative evidence which suggests that Bavinck used his Reformed Ethics manuscript during the academic years 1884–86 and 1894–95. This evidence is found in two other unpublished, handwritten manuscripts.
The first manuscript, “Reformed Ethics. Class Notes of Prof. Dr. H. Bavinck,” was written by Reinder Jan van der Veen (1863–1942), who studied theology at Kampen from September 1878 until July 1886 and whose signature is on the manuscript’s title page.9 Van der Veen’s manuscript of 327 pages originally consisted of two volumes, but unfortunately the first volume has been lost. On several pages in the second volume, van der Veen dates his class notes, providing evidence that these notes refer to Bavinck’s lectures in ethics of the years 1884–85 and 1885–86. The lost first volume likely contained notes on Bavinck’s lectures of the year 1883–84, the first year of Bavinck’s professorate at Kampen!
The second manuscript, “Reformed Ethics—Class Notes from Prof. Bavinck,” is a 406-page manuscript, registered at the Library archives of the Protestant Theological University at Kampen in 1983.10 Unfortunately, there is no information available about the manuscript’s author or origin. It is possible that the library obtained the manuscript in 1983 and failed to note its origin. But it is also possible that the manuscript was present in the library for many years and was not catalogued until 1983. Whatever the case may be, comparison with other manuscripts in Kampen’s library suggests that that the author may have been Cornelis Lindeboom (1872–1938), who studied theology at Kampen in the years 1889–95.11 The manuscript can, therefore, be dated tentatively to the year 1895.12
Both manuscripts offer a fine impression of Bavinck’s lectures on ethics. The text of the manuscripts is written down very carefully. Every sentence is completely written out and grammatically correct. The style is typically Bavinck’s. When, for instance, biblical references to a theme are listed, this is done exactly as biblical references are listed in Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics. The style of the manuscripts, therefore, gives the impression that Bavinck verbally dictated the text.10
Moreover, it is striking that the structure of van der Veen’s and Lindeboom’s class notes is almost identical to the composition of Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics manuscript. This similarity makes it likely that Bavinck gave these lectures on ethics in the school years 1884–86 and then again in 1894–95. If this inference is correct, the manuscript can be dated going back to the first years of Bavinck’s professorate at Kampen.
At the same time, there is evidence of some distance between Bavinck’s lectures and the texts from his students’ notebooks. This is suggested by passages that indicate either in-class or after-class engagement and even disagreement by students with their professor’s judgment. On page 150 of Lindeboom’s text there is a reference to John 6:29: “Faith is the work of God.” An accompanying observation follows: “This scripture passage was perhaps chosen wrongly by the professor; ‘of God’ is here an objective genitive.”13 A comment like this is most likely the sort that is added by a student after class. The student notes provide us with a clear impression of Bavinck’s lectures in 1895.
Lindeboom’s comment about John 6:29 is also a reminder that Bavinck repeatedly referred to Scripture and engaged in exegesis of biblical texts, along with his many references to Protestant theologians (Reformed and Lutheran) from the era of Protestant Orthodoxy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as more recent eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theologians. Since these are unlikely to have been added after class by students, it is reasonable to claim that the structure—the main lines as well as the details—must be attributed to Bavinck himself.
The Structure of Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics
As mentioned earlier, it appears that Bavinck worked on the manuscript of Reformed Ethics for years. This was the period in which he was also working on his Reformed Dogmatics. The four volumes of the latter were published successively in the years 1895, 1897, 1898, and 1901. It is not surprising, therefore, that Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics resembles his Reformed Dogmatics in several ways.
A good example of this resemblance is the similar structure of the two works. Bavinck begins the Reformed Dogmatics with an introduction to the science of dogmatic theology and its method and organization.14 He follows this with a chapter on the history and literature of dogmatics.15 The Reformed Ethics manuscript has a similar introduction, although Bavinck reverses the order by beginning with an outline of the history of Reformed ethics and its literature.16 He follows this with sections on terminology, organization, and methodology.17
Bavinck prefers the term “ethics” to “morality.”18 The task of ethics is to describe the birth, development, and manifestation of spiritual life in reborn humanity.19 In other words, “ethics is the scientific description of the grace of Jesus Christ in operation, i.e., his divine life-content in the Form of a person’s life.”20
Bavinck considers ethics and dogmatics to be closely related but also insists that they be distinguished. He put it this way in the Reformed Dogmatics:
Dogmatics describes the deeds of God done for, to, and in human beings; ethics describes what renewed human beings now do on the basis of and in the strength of those divine deeds. In dogmatics human beings are passive; they receive and believe; in ethics they are themselves active agents. In dogmatics, the articles of faith are treated; in ethics, the precepts of the decalogue. In the former, that which concerns faith is dealt with; in the latter, that which concerns love, obedience, and good works. Dogmatics sets forth what God is and does for human beings and causes them to know God as their Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; ethics sets forth what human beings are and do for God now; how, with everything they are and have, with intellect and will and all their strength, they devote themselves to God out of gratitude and love. Dogmatics is the system of the knowledge of God; ethics is that of the service of God.21
In his Reformed Ethics manuscript Bavinck describes the difference in identical terms:
In dogmatics we are concerned with what God does for us and in us. In dogmatics God is everything. Dogmatics is a word from God to us, coming from outside of us, from above us; we are passive, listening, and opening ourselves to being directed by God. In ethics, we are interested in the question of what it is that God now expects of us when he does his work in us. What do we do for him? Here we are active, precisely because of and on the grounds of God’s deeds in us; we sing psalms in thanks and praise to God. In dogmatics, God descends to us; in ethics, we ascend to God. In dogmatics, he is ours; in ethics, we are his. In dogmatics, we know we shall see his face; in ethics, his name will be written on our foreheads [Rev. 22:4]. Dogmatics proceeds from God; ethics returns to God. In dogmatics, God loves us; in ethics, therefore, we love him.22
The method of ethics, Bavinck argues, is the same as in dogmatics. The point of departure is God’s revelation; Holy Scripture is the principle of knowledge and the norm for ethics.23 Accordingly, three methodological steps must be distinguished: (1) collecting and systematizing biblical data, (2) describing how these data have been adopted in the church, and (3) developing these data normatively or thetically with a view to our own time.24 This threefold method in his Reformed Ethics manuscript follows exactly the way Bavinck proceeds in the Reformed Dogmatics.
With respect to the composition of his ethical theory, Bavinck first discusses the ethical frameworks of several other Protestant theologians, including Antonius Driessen, Willem Teellinck, Campegius Vitringa, Benedictus Pictetus, Petrus van Mastricht, August Friedrich Christian Vilmar, Hans Lassen Martensen, Heinrich Heppe, and Adolf von Harless. After observing that these theologians follow roughly the same general structure, Bavinck chooses a similar, traditional, tripartite structure himself:
I. Humanity before conversion, in the condition of sin, conscience, morality; this is the realm of natural ethics.
II. Converted humanity: the new life in its preparation, origin, aspects, circumstances, aids, blessing, marks, sickness and death, fulfillment; this is the realm of practical theology.
III. Regenerated humanity in the family, vocation, society, state, and church.
Bavinck indicates that he intends to end his ethics on an eschatological note with some reflections on the kingdom of God “in its origin, development, and completion.”25 Later in the manuscript Bavinck expands his structure by dividing the second part into two: Converted Humanity (Humanity in Conversion) and Humanity after Conversion.26 He then adds a fourth part: “The Life-Spheres in Which the Moral Life Is to Be Manifested.” In our edition, these four parts will be designated as Books I–IV.27
A Brief Overview of Book I
In the remainder of this introduction we will provide a general overview of the main themes and topics of Reformed Ethics. The tripartite structure described above clearly demonstrates the thoroughly dogmatic character of the work. Dogmatics precedes ethics, and ethics is completely dependent on dogmatics. This interrelationship is confirmed when we read the first part of Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics: “Humanity before Conversion.” This part is divided into three chapters and twelve sections. In the table below, the left-hand columns are the titles used in this volume; to their right are Bavinck’s original Dutch titles.28 The table also reveals that while we retained Bavinck’s basic fourfold division of the material, we divided the chapters differently, primarily to even out the length of each chapter as much as possible. In this section, Bavinck’s three chapters became our six.
| Book I: Humanity before Conversion | Deel 1: De Mensch voor de Bekering |
| Chapter 1: Essential Human Nature | Hoofdstuk 1: De Menschelijke Natuur, op Zichzelf Beschouwd |
| (The Essence of Humanity) | Het Wezen van de Mensch |
| §5 Human Beings, Created in God’s Image | De Mensch, Geschapen naar Gods Beeld |
| §6 The Content of Human Nature | De Inhoud der Menschelijke Natuur |
| §7 Human Relationships | De Levensvertrouwingen/Betrekkingen van den Mensch |
| Chapter 2: Humanity under the Power of Sin | Hoofdstuk 2: De Mensch in de Toestand der Zonde |
| §8 The Devastation of the Image of God in Humanity | De Oude/Natuurlijke Mensch |
| §9 The Organizing Principle and Classification of Sins | Beginsel en Verdeeling der Zonden |
| Chapter 3: The Self against the Neighbor and God | (continuation of Hoofdstuk 2) |
| §10 Sins of Egoism in the Narrow Sense | Zelfzuchtige Zonden in Engeren Zin |
| §11 Sins against the Neighbor | Zonden tegen den Naaste |
| §12 Sins against God | Zonden tegen God |
| Chapter 4: The Fallen Image of God | Hoofdstuk 3: De Zedelijke Natuur des Menschen in den Toestand der Zonde |
| §13 The Image of God in Fallen Human Beings | Het Beeld Gods in den Gevallen Mensch |
| Chapter 5: Human Conscience | (continuation of Hoofdstuk 3) |
| §14 The Conscience | Het Geweten |
| Chapter 6: The Sinner and the Law | (continuation of Hoofdstuk 3) |
| §15 The Law | De Wet |
| §16 Natural Morality | De Justitia Civilis |
In his first chapter, on “human nature considered on its own,” Bavinck begins with the crucial starting point for ethics: human creation in the image of God. He derives three basic principles from human creation in God’s image: (1) originally human beings were good; (2) it is impossible to understand human morality apart from God; and (3) human nature was corrupted by sin. Bavinck defends these basic principles against Fichte, Hegel, Rothe, and Darwin.29
Bavinck devotes the second chapter of Book I to the doctrine of sin, distinguishing those topics that properly belong in dogmatics from those that should nonetheless be discussed in ethics. He assumes and does not examine the dogmatic understanding of “the origin, essence, and nature of sin,” as well as “the changed relation to God brought about by sin, namely guilt and punishment of sin.”30 At the same time, theologians like Johann Franz Buddeus (1667–1729), Friedrich Adolph Lampe (1683–1729), August Friedrich Christian Vilmar (1800–68), and others, taught him that the doctrine of sin did need to be dealt with in theological ethics as well.31 In an extensive examination of biblical terminology for sin, Bavinck explores the many dimensions and varieties of sins. This is the proper task of ethics. Specifically, ethics considers the “appearances, forms, manifestations of the one sin,” and Bavinck asks, “Is it possible to construct a system from that variety and number, and is there a connection between them all? In other words, is there an organizing principle from which all sins can be objectively and substantively derived?”32
Bavinck, therefore, proceeds to develop a typology of sin. He agrees with writers who posit egocentricity or self-centeredness to be the “organizing principle” of sin, with the two important qualifications that this be understood “in a very broad sense and include the problems of haughtiness and unbelief,” and that “it is not understood as though all sins logically flow from this foundation.”33 Bavinck distinguishes three basic types of sins: (1) sins against oneself, (2) sins against one’s neighbor, and (3) sins against God. Each of these three types can be further divided into sensual sins and spiritual sins.34 Thus, sins against one’s neighbor are sins in which the neighbor or what belongs to the neighbor is used for oneself. These sins can be sensual in character: sins against the neighbor’s decency, property, or life. They also can be spiritual in character: sins against the neighbor’s good reputation or authority.35 Bavinck’s ethical doctrine of sin, therefore, is clearly a supplement to the doctrine of sin offered in his Reformed Dogmatics.
In his third chapter, on “the moral condition of humanity in the state of sin,” Bavinck describes the consequences of sin for human nature, for soul and body, and for reason, will, and feelings, and he concludes that the natural person lacks all capacity for doing good.36 God preserves humanity, however, by his general grace, which curbs the human inclination to do evil. Even fallen human beings retain a reasonable, moral nature which manifests itself in their consciences.37 The conscience is bound to God’s law, and Bavinck, therefore, follows his section on conscience with one on law (natural and moral) and another on the way in which law takes shape in individuals, society, and the state.38
A Brief Overview of Book II
Book II, “Converted Humanity,” offers a comprehensive analysis of the spiritual life of the Christian. Bavinck organized the material into a single chapter with ten sections.39 Here is a table with the divisions used in this volume on the left and those of the Dutch original to the right.40
| Book II: Converted Humanity | Deel 2: De Mensch in de Bekering |
| Chapter 7: Life in the Spirit | Hoofdstuk 1 |
| §17 The Nature of the Spiritual Life | De Natuur van het Geestelijk Leven |
| §18 The Origin of the Spiritual Life | Oorsprongen van het Geestelijk Leven |
| §19 The First and Basic Activity of the Spiritual Life | De (Eerste, Grond) Werkzaamheid van het Geestelijk Leven |
| Chapter 8: Life in the Spirit in the Church’s History | (continuation of Hoofdstuk 1) |
| §20 Mysticism, Pietism, and Methodism | Mysticisme, Pietisme, en Methodisme |
| Chapter 9: The Shape and Maturation of the Christian Life | (continuation of Hoofdstuk 1) |
| §21 The Shape of the Christian Life: The Imitation of Christ | De Vorm van het Geestelijk Leven (De Navolging van Christus) |
| §22 The Growth of the Spiritual Life | De Ontwikkeling van het Geestelijk Leven |
| Chapter 10: Persevering in the Christian Life | (continuation of Hoofdstuk 1) |
| §23 Security and Sealing | De Verzekering (en Verzegeling) |
| Chapter 11: Pathologies of the Christian Life | (continuation of Hoofdstuk 1) |
| §24 Diseases of the Spiritual Life and Their Roots | De Krankheden van het Geestelijk Leven en Hare Oorzaken |
| Chapter 12: Restoration and Consummation of the Christian Life | (continuation of Hoofdstuk 1) |
| §25 Means of Restoration | Middelen tot Herstel |
| §26 Consummation of the Spiritual Life; Meditation on Death | Volmaking van ’t Geestelijk Leven; Meditatio Mortis |
For Bavinck, the basic principle of ethics is loving God, a love that is accomplished by the Holy Spirit.41 Thus, regeneration is the origin of the spiritual life (§18), and faith is its fundamental activity (§19). Before setting forth his own constructive view of the spiritual life, Bavinck devotes a lengthy historical section to what he considers aberrations to a healthy Christian life in the history of Christian mysticism and pietism (§20). The heart of such a spiritual life is to be found in the imitation of Christ, a topic that intrigued and captivated Bavinck throughout his life.42 Christ is not only a king, a priest, and a prophet, he argues, but also a model, an example, and an ideal. This implies that we must follow Christ.43 The imitation of Christ does not mean that we are to duplicate his way of living literally or physically, not even his poverty, chastity, and obedience, as was taught in Roman Catholic monasteries.44 Nor does imitating Christ involve any kind of mysticism or a rationalistic obedience to Christ’s commandments.45 For Bavinck, rather, imitating Christ consists in “the recognition of Christ as a Mediator.” Christ must take shape in us inwardly, while outwardly our lives must be shaped in conformity with the life of Christ. The imitation of Christ becomes manifest in virtues like righteousness, sanctity, love, and patience.46
Bavinck continues this chapter with sections on the growth of the spiritual life, the assurance of faith, pathologies of the spiritual life (i.e., the struggle between flesh and spirit, temptations, and spiritual abandonment), remedies to restore spiritual life (prayer, meditation, reading God’s Word, singing, solitude, fasting, vigils, and vows), and finally the consummation of spiritual life after death.47
The very long section on assurance of faith48 is especially striking since one could well ask whether this theme is appropriate for ethics. After a long historical survey of the topic Bavinck pays special attention to the doctrine of the marks49 of a genuine believer, such as grief over sin, love of God’s Word, and serving God. This section undoubtedly reflects the situation of the Dutch Christian Reformed Church50 in Bavinck’s day, including Bavinck’s own responsibility as a seminary professor for this church. In the tradition of the Secession,51 the doctrine of the marks of grace was a difficult theme, one which directly influenced the spirituality of the local churches. Moreover, discussions about this doctrine could be linked to heated disputes over Abraham Kuyper’s theory of presumptive regeneration.52 It is telling, therefore, that we find in van der Veen’s and Lindeboom’s class notes on this section a reference to Bavinck’s own years as a minister in the congregation of the Christian Reformed Church at Franeker! The report is of a woman “in his former congregation who was sealed by Isaiah 27:1.”53 There are no other references to Bavinck’s pastorate in Franeker in either the van der Veen or Lindeboom texts.
It is also interesting that Bavinck twice criticizes Abraham Kuyper in this section, a critique also noted in both van der Veen’s and Lindeboom’s class notes.54 Kuyper’s views on so-called presumptive regeneration were highly controversial in his Christian Reformed denomination.55 Notwithstanding his important position as a leading teacher in that church, Bavinck was very careful to avoid public criticism of Kuyper.56 That he was willing to do so in the more private setting of a classroom indicates the vital importance Bavinck attributed to the doctrine of assurance and the marks of grace.
A Brief Overview of Book III
Since the translation of Books III and IV will be published in future volumes, our treatment here will be even briefer than it was for Books I and II. Book III has the title “Humanity after Conversion” and is composed of four chapters: (1) “Sanctification in General” (§§27–31);57 (2) “Duties toward God” (§§32–35); (3) “Duties toward the Self” (§§36–42); and (4) “Duties toward the Neighbor” (§§43–49). The operative term in this book is “duty.” After a general discussion on the relationship between the Christian and the law,58 Bavinck indicates why he rejects the Roman Catholic distinction between precepts and counsels of perfection,59 discusses the so-called adiaphora, or acts that are morally indifferent,60 and, finally, discusses the clash of moral duties.61 These topics are mentioned briefly in the Reformed Dogmatics,62 but their broad elaboration in the Reformed Ethics shows that Bavinck intentionally distinguished topics in dogmatics from those in ethics and also that he regarded his Reformed Ethics as a complementary companion to the Reformed Dogmatics.
In Book III, chapters 2–4, Bavinck connects the doctrine of duty to the Ten Commandments. In the second chapter, he analyzes the first four commands as duties toward God, including a lengthy section on the Fourth Commandment and the Sabbath.63 In the third chapter, duties toward ourselves, he discusses this duty in general (self-preservation, self-love, self-denial, §36), then toward our bodily life in general (§37), including food and drink (§38), clothing (§39), and life itself (§40). Bavinck then considers duties toward bodily life that flow from the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Commandments (§41). Our final duty to ourselves is the duty we have toward our soul (§42). Finally, in the fourth chapter Bavinck discusses Christian charity and links this duty to the Sixth through Tenth Commandments (§§43–49).
A Brief Overview of Book IV
In the fourth part of Reformed Ethics Bavinck planned to discuss how the Christian life should manifest itself in various spheres. The only extant chapter (§§50–58) is devoted to the family. Bavinck explains in detail the obligation to marry, impediments to marriage, degrees of consanguinity, engagement, the celebration of marriage, the nature of marriage, divorce, and the relationship between husband and wife.64 Then the document breaks off. Bavinck would likely have added sections on topics such as raising children, brothers and sisters, friendship, vocation, society, nation, and church. This much may be inferred from the introduction of the manuscript and from another unpublished document in the Bavinck Archives, which was likely used by Bavinck in his lectures on ethics and which most likely dates from the 1880s or possibly from the 1890s.65 As we shall see, these multiple manuscripts also provide a clue to the intriguing question: Why did Bavinck never publish a finished monograph on Reformed Ethics?
Intermezzo: The Question of Publication
As we have already noted, Bavinck must have worked on his Reformed Dogmatics and his Reformed Ethics at the same time for many years, and his clear demarcation between the subject matter of dogmatics and that of ethics suggests that his Reformed Ethics was intended as a companion to his Reformed Dogmatics. So, then, why did Bavinck not finish and publish his Reformed Ethics? This question is even more compelling when we realize that around 1900 there was an urgent need in the Dutch Reformed Churches for a Reformed ethics. In 1897, Wilhelm Geesink, professor of ethics at the Vrije Universiteit, delivered a rectorial address, “Ethics in Reformed Theology,” in which he complained about “the dearth of specifically Reformed ethical studies in our time.”66 Bavinck himself was fully aware of this need. In the preface to his 1902 published lecture, Morality Today, he wrote the following: “Our circles lack good literature that discusses and elucidates moral principles and applies them to the questions of the day. We suffer from a lamentable shortfall that will hopefully be overcome soon through the cooperative work of many.”67
With this “dearth” (Geesink) and “lamentable shortfall” (Bavinck),68 why did Bavinck not publish his Reformed Ethics? Possibly because he was reluctant to give an impression of upstaging his Vrije Universiteit colleague Geesink, who was responsible for teaching ethics in the faculty Bavinck had just joined. If so, Bavinck’s situation would have been comparable to the position in which Abraham Kuyper found himself with respect to dogmatics. Kuyper gave up on a plan to write a Reformed dogmatics after he completed his three-volume Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology in 1894 when he heard that Bavinck was working on such a project.69 Geesink did in fact write a Reformed ethics, but it was prepared for publication by Valentijn Hepp and published posthumously in 1931.70 Or did Bavinck have another reason for not publishing his Reformed Ethics?
Perhaps another manuscript gives a clue here.
The de Jong Manuscript on Reformed Ethics
The Bavinck Archives also contain another handwritten manuscript with the title “Reformed Ethics of Prof. Bavinck.”71 Like the van der Veen and Lindeboom manuscripts, the de Jong manuscript is composed of lecture notes. The manuscript’s author is Jelle Michiels de Jong (1874–1927), who began studying theology at Kampen in September 1901. In 1903 de Jong followed Bavinck to Amsterdam to continue his studies at the Free University.72 Subsequently, he worked as a minister in the small Frisian villages of Foudgum (1906), Wons (1913), and Duurswoude (1918–24).73 De Jong signed the title page of the manuscript and dated it “November 1902”—a few weeks before Bavinck moved from Kampen to the Free University on December 16, 1902.74 De Jong’s date explains why the manuscript is incomplete: Bavinck no longer gave lectures in ethics at Kampen after November 1902. Just like the van der Veen and Lindeboom manuscripts, the de Jong manuscript often gives the impression that the text comes from Bavinck himself. We even find a sentence with the verb in the first person singular.75
The de Jong manuscript, of 331 pages, begins with a general introduction about terminology, definitions of key terms like “habit,” “usage,” “custom,” and “morality,” along with key differences between them.76 As in the other manuscripts, Bavinck prefers to use the term “ethics” to describe this discipline rather than “morality” or the German Sittenlehre.77 The task of ethics is “to let us see and know the principle and the system of morality.”78 After this general introduction the manuscript is divided into two parts: philosophical ethics (pp. 18–139) and theological ethics (pp. 139–331). This order is something of a surprise considering what we noted earlier about Bavinck’s understanding of the relation between ethics and dogmatics along with his comments about the method of both disciplines. Bavinck stated the relation thus:
In dogmatics we are concerned with what God does for us and in us. In dogmatics God is everything. Dogmatics is a word from God to us, coming from outside of us, from above us; we are passive, listening, and opening ourselves to being directed by God. In ethics, we are interested in the question of what it is that God now expects of us when he does his work in us. What do we do for him? Here we are active, precisely because of and on the grounds of God’s deeds in us; we sing psalms in thanks and praise to God.79
The key point here is that the method of both disciplines must be identical. The point of departure is God’s revelation; Holy Scripture is the principle of knowledge and the norm for ethics.80 But now, Bavinck turns to philosophy!
Bavinck begins by raising the classic questions: “What is good?” and “Why is it good?”81 In Bavinck’s view ethics is grounded in philosophy; thus, “someone’s philosophical ethics,” he writes, “will be in accordance with the principles of his philosophy.”82 Bavinck proceeds as usual with an outline of the history of philosophical ethics, opting for a systematic approach.83 He describes and analyzes six philosophical systems that seek the principle and the norm for ethics in humanity itself.84 This survey is followed by an analysis of nine philosophical systems which seek the principle and the norm for ethics outside of humanity.85 Finally, Bavinck discusses what he terms “the despair of all morality or pessimism” (Eduard von Hartmann, Arthur Schopenhauer).86
For the most part these descriptions are stated in a neutral and instructional style, and Bavinck withholds his own judgments, making comments only a few times. At the end of the section on classical Greek philosophy, for instance, Bavinck observes that many Scholastic theologians adopted Aristotelian thought in their ethics. According to Bavinck, “in itself there is no great objection to this.”87 “We can profit,” continues Bavinck, “from Aristotelian thought, and without doubt, in its essentials, Aristotle’s Ethics is the best philosophical ethics available” because of its “agreement with Christian ethics that human morality involves developing all the gifts and powers given to us in harmonious agreement with our moral nature.” Aristotle’s “only error was to think that human beings could achieve this ideal in their own strength.”88 Bavinck is very critical of the ethics of evolutionism and severely opposes the theories of Darwin repeatedly.89 Present-day readers will find it striking that Bavinck hardly pays any attention to Nietzsche. Bavinck occasionally mentions his name,90 but compared with other philosophers the treatment of Nietzsche seems inadequate. This is understandable, however, when we realize that around 1900 Nietzsche was not well-known in the Netherlands.91
The second part of the de Jong manuscript is devoted to theological ethics. Two sections can be distinguished. On pages 139–60 we find a short outline of Bavinck’s theological ethics. It is possible that Bavinck began his 1901–2 lectures on ethics in September 1901 with philosophical ethics.92 Producing these lectures took so much time that Bavinck could not offer his students an elaborated theological ethics before the summer of 1902. For that reason, he confined himself to an outline.
Bavinck begins his outline with an introduction to the following topics: related terminology; the inadequacy of philosophical ethics (i.e., theoretically speaking philosophical ethics cannot find a norm for morality, and practically speaking it cannot overcome human selfishness); the relationship between dogmatics and ethics; and the history and organization of theological ethics.93 After the introduction Bavinck divides his theological ethics into three chapters: (1) “The Doctrine of the Moral Subject,” which is then divided into twelve sections;94 (2) “The Doctrine of the Law,” which has four sections covering broad topics related to law that are followed by ten sections, one devoted to each of the Ten Commandments;95 and (3) “The Purpose of Morality,” with nine sections.96
From this we can discern both similarities and differences between the de Jong manuscript and Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics manuscript. Both manuscripts begin with humanity created in the image of God and conclude with the kingdom of God. Furthermore, themes and contents of many sections are duplicated. But there are also noteworthy differences.
In the first place, the titles of the main parts differ. In the Reformed Ethics manuscript we have the dogmatic- and schematic-sounding “Humanity before Conversion,” “Converted Humanity,” and “Humanity after Conversion.” In the de Jong manuscript, we find the more philosophical-sounding “The Doctrine of the Moral Subject,” “The Doctrine of Law,” and “The Purpose of Morality.” In the second place, the first and the second parts of the Reformed Ethics manuscript have been fused together into the first chapter of the de Jong manuscript. In the third place, the third and the fourth parts of the Reformed Ethics manuscript have become the second and the third chapters of the de Jong manuscript. As a result, the composition of the de Jong manuscript corresponds roughly with the composition Bavinck sketched in the introduction of his Reformed Ethics manuscript. Finally, the doctrine of sin in the first part of the Reformed Ethics manuscript has been moved to the second chapter of the de Jong manuscript. Page 161 of the de Jong manuscript restarts its numbering at chapter 1, section 1: “Humanity as the Image of God.”97 Detailed sections follow on human vocation, fallen humanity, the organizing principle and classification of sins, stages and development of sin, and the image of God in fallen humanity. All of these are recognizable from Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics and from the student notes of those lectures. From this it seems safe to conclude that Bavinck had decided to deliver his lectures on theological ethics once more after the summer of 1902.98 Thus, the placement of the doctrine of sin in chapter 2 of the de Jong manuscript is striking, for Bavinck discusses sin again in the first part of his Reformed Ethics. This repetition may be explained as Bavinck—realizing that his forthcoming transfer to Amsterdam was taking more time than he liked—reusing his Reformed Ethics manuscript in the autumn of the year 1902.
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Ethics, and Philosophical Ethics
During his long career, Herman Bavinck was interested not only in dogmatics but also in ethics.99 This is evident from Bavinck’s other writings. Bavinck obtained his doctorate in 1880 at the University of Leiden with a dissertation on the ethics of Ulrich Zwingli.100 One year later he published two articles on the human conscience.101 In 1885–86 Bavinck wrote a series of three articles on the imitation of Christ.102 He revisited this topic in 1918 and published it as The Imitation of Christ and Life in the Modern World.103 We have already referred to his 1902 lecture/booklet Morality Today. We could also note Bavinck’s speech “Ethics and Politics,” which he delivered at a meeting of the Dutch Royal Academy of Science in 1915.104 And finally, we need to mention his writing on the question of war during World War I.105
We have also shown that Bavinck lectured extensively and repeatedly on ethics during his professorate at Kampen and that the parallels in method and contrasts in content of the Reformed Dogmatics and the Reformed Ethics indicate that Bavinck was working simultaneously on both projects and that he intended the latter to be a companion to the former. Comparison of the Reformed Ethics manuscript with the van der Veen and Lindeboom manuscripts shows that Bavinck, at least in 1884–86 and 1894–95, delivered his lectures on ethics from his Reformed Ethics manuscript. And, it is important to note, comparison of the Reformed Ethics manuscript with the de Jong manuscript reveals that Bavinck struggled with the composition of his ethics. In the introduction of Reformed Ethics he opts for a traditional composition in three parts. The subsequent, detailed elaboration, however, consists of four parts. The de Jong manuscript shows how Bavinck returned to a composition in three parts but bade farewell to the scheme “Humanity before Conversion,” “Converted Humanity,” and “Humanity after Conversion.” Perhaps he became dissatisfied with its dogmatic simplicity. The biggest difference between Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics manuscript and the de Jong manuscript is the place of philosophical ethics. In Reformed Ethics (and in the van der Veen and Lindeboom manuscripts) Bavinck pays hardly any attention to philosophical ethics. In the de Jong manuscript, however, the whole first part is devoted to it.
We should not conclude from this difference that Bavinck taught philosophical ethics for the first time in the academic year 1901–2. In an earlier section of this essay (“A Brief Overview of Book IV”) we referred to another unpublished manuscript, Ethiek, which probably dates from the 1880s (or possibly from the 1890s).106 In this document Bavinck discusses philosophical ethics in general, gives a brief outline of its history, and surveys contemporary views of it.107 Compared with the de Jong manuscript, the outline in “Ethics” is somewhat simplified, although Bavinck voices critiques more explicitly. The “Ethics” manuscript also shows that Bavinck paid attention to philosophical ethics in his lectures on ethics earlier than the academic year 1901–2. Possibly he taught ethics in a biennial program in which philosophical ethics alternated with theological ethics.
In the Bavinck Archives we find another manuscript, though a relatively small one, that probably dates back to Bavinck’s last years at Kampen.108 After an introduction the manuscript is divided into two parts: (1) philosophical ethics and (2) Reformed ethics. The first philosophical sections are briefly worked out. Compared with the de Jong manuscript, almost all the section titles are the same. The only changes in the philosophical part are two added sections, one on “Buddhism” and another on “Anarchism.” It is likely that Bavinck delivered his 1901–2 lectures in ethics with this smaller manuscript in front of him.
When we compare all these manuscripts, it becomes evident that Bavinck’s interest in philosophy increased during his years at Kampen.109 At minimum we must conclude that by 1902, philosophy had become a serious discussion partner for Bavinck. It seems that Bavinck had become convinced that Reformed ethics could no longer afford to neglect philosophy. We see this in his 1902 lecture/booklet Morality Today and in his 1915 speech “Ethics and Politics.” Philosophical engagement has an important place in both publications. At the same time we see a diminishing number of references to the writings of sixteenth- through eighteenth-century Protestant theologians. Frequent references to Protestant “fathers” in the Reformed Ethics manuscript (and in the van der Veen and Lindeboom manuscripts) have become rare in the de Jong manuscript. These differences between the Reformed Ethics and the de Jong manuscript may also explain why Bavinck did not publish the former: he was no longer satisfied with it. Its composition had to be changed, with likely more philosophical input. This is of course conjecture; we do not know beyond any reasonable doubt. Nonetheless, we believe it is a reasonable conjecture.
A final word concerning a conventional portrait in Bavinck scholarship about the last decade of his life at the Vrije Universiteit. It has frequently been alleged that during his years at Amsterdam, after the second edition of his Reformed Dogmatics had been published (1911), Bavinck lost interest in dogmatics and instead turned to questions in culture, philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy. While there is indeed a shift in Bavinck’s published work during these years along the general lines just sketched, the claim is vastly overstated and was corrected some years ago by George Harinck, Kees van der Kooi, and Jasper Vree when they published Bavinck’s notes on an ecclesiastical conflict in the Gereformeerde Kerken Nederland (GKN) surrounding the controversial views of a certain Rev. J. B. Netelenbos.110 The notes show that Bavinck did not lose his interest in dogmatics but was actively engaged in important questions before the synod of the GKN. And, on the other side of the coin, the ethical manuscripts in the Bavinck Archives that we have examined in this essay clearly show that Bavinck was already interested in philosophy and culture during his time at Kampen. We agree, therefore, with Jan Veenhof’s proposition that we should not exaggerate the distance between Bavinck’s first (Kampen) and second (Amsterdam) periods and that we should not interpret the differences between the two periods as a disjunction, creating “two Bavincks.”111
This introduction is the fruit of Dirk van Keulen’s research and was originally presented at the “A Pearl and a Leaven: Herman Bavinck for the 21st Century” conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in September 2008 and published as “Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics: Some Remarks about Unpublished Manuscripts in the Libraries of Amsterdam and Kampen,” TBR 1 (2010): 25–56. It has been adapted and revised for this volume by John Bolt with Dirk van Keulen’s concurrence and approval. The first-person judgments toward the end of this essay are originally those of van Keulen and based on his research but are shared by Bolt.
1. The Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerk.
2. Bavinck, De wetenschap der heilige godgeleerdheid.
3. Gereformeerde Dogmatiek. The volumes of the first edition (Kampen: Bos) appeared 1895–1901; a second, revised and enlarged edition (Kampen: Kok) was published 1906–11.
4. The emphasis on theological is deliberate. Although scholarly work on Bavinck the theologian did not begin until some thirty years after his death in 1921, significant attention, both in Europe and in North America, was paid to his educational philosophy and writings on pedagogy in the two decades immediately following his death: Rombouts, Bavinck, gids bij de studie van zijn paedagogische werken; Brederveld, Hoofdlijnen der paedagogiek van Dr. Herman Bavinck; van der Zweep, De paedagogiek van Bavinck; Jaarsma, Educational Philosophy of Herman Bavinck; and van Klinken, Bavinck’s paedagogische beginselen.
5. Archive no. 346 of the Historical Documentation Centre, Free University, Amsterdam (hereafter abbreviated as “Bavinck Archives”). Note: the numbers for the Bavinck Archives are revised from van Keulen, “Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics,” because of a recataloguing at the Historical Documentation Center.
6. This notebook may hark back to Bavinck’s days as a student in Leiden; the sections overlap perfectly with the ten chapters of his dissertation, De ethiek van Ulrich Zwingli.
7. Bavinck Archives, no. 184. DO: §1. De zonde; §2. De mens als zedelijk wezen; §3. De verkiezing (grondslag van het christelijk leven); §4. Het geloof (bron en principe van het christelijk leven); §5. De boete (ontstaan van het christelijk leven); §6. De wet (regel van het christelijk leven); §7. De vrijheid (voorrecht van het christelijk leven); §8. Het altruïstisch karakter van het christelijk leven; §9. De verhouding van het christelijk tot het burgerlijk leven; §10. Het christelijk leven in de gemeenschap.
8. Bavinck Archives, no. 56. DO: Gereformeerde ethiek.
9. DO: “Gereformeerde ethiek. Acroam. van: Prof. Dr. H. Bavinck,” Library of the Protestant Theological University at Kampen, shelf mark 101A20 (hereafter abbreviated as GE-Van der Veen); biographical information from van Gelderen and Rozemond, Gegevens betreffende de Theologische Universiteit Kampen, 1854–1994, 110.
10. DO: “Gereformeerde ethiek—Dictaat van Prof. Bavinck,” Library of the Protestant Theological University at Kampen, shelf mark E2 (hereafter abbreviated as GE-Lindeboom).
11. Cornelis Lindeboom (1872–1938), the only son of Kampen’s New Testament professor Lucas Lindeboom (1845–1933), studied theology at Kampen from September 1889 until July 1895 (van Gelderen and Rozemond, Gegevens betreffende de Theologische Universiteit Kampen, 1854–1994, 116). After one year of study at Lausanne he worked as a minister in Sprang (1896), Bolnes (1900), Apeldoorn (1905), Gorinchem (1908), and Amsterdam (1914–37). See Lindeboom and Lindeboom, In uwe voorhoven; Wielenga, “Ds. C. Lindeboom”; and Mulder, “Lindeboom, Cornelis.”
12. The manuscript refers once to volume 1 of the first edition of Bavinck’s Gereformeerde Dogmatiek (GE-Lindeboom, 38). Because this volume was published in 1895, the manuscript must be dated to this year or later. If it is true that Cornelis Lindeboom is the author of the manuscript, the date can be narrowed more precisely to 1895 because Lindeboom ended his studies at Kampen in the summer of that year. This date would also explain why the manuscript is incomplete. The notes break off in the middle of a discussion of the Ten Commandments. Bavinck probably continued this discussion after the summer of 1895, when Lindeboom no longer attended Bavinck’s classes.
13. DO: Deze tekst is wellicht foutief gekozen door den Prof: “Gods” is Gen. Obj. hier.
14. RD, 1:25–112.
15. RD, 1:115–204.
16. RE, §1.
17. RE, §§2–4.
18. RE, §2: “We choose ‘ethics’ [ethiek] because the word does not yet carry the negative associations [kwade reuk = “evil smell”] that ‘morality’ [moraal] has, at least as understood in terms of moral preaching [zedepreek]. In addition, a distinction is usually made between ‘morality’ understood as practical morality, rules for living, inductively describing what is externally done, and ‘ethics’ as the more strictly scientific and deductive expression of what is. Practical morality is the cluster of rules by which people live and is thus an inductive description of what people outwardly do. Ethics is thus deeper and normative.” Cf. GE-Lindeboom, 10.
19. GE-Lindeboom, 14; cf. RE, §2: “Ethics must concern itself with (a) how human beings as rational, responsible beings appropriate and use the gifts and powers of the first creation and accept the gospel of grace; (b) how humans are regenerated and how that life remains subject to sickness, temptation, and struggle; and (c) how, in ethical lives, human acts (of understanding, will, etc.) are directed toward God’s law, which is to be manifested in all circumstances of their lives. In other words, ethics is concerned with the preparation, birth, development, and outward manifestation of the spiritual person.”
20. RE, §2; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 14: “Ethics is the scientific description of the realization [verwerkelijking] of Christ’s grace in our personal human life; in other words, it describes the realization of God’s salvation [heil] in us.”
21. RD, 1:58.
22. Translated from GE-Lindeboom, 14–15; cf. RE, §2.
23. DO: kenbron, norma; RE, §4; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 21.
24. RE, §4; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 22.
25. RE, §3; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 18.
26. Cf. GE-Lindeboom, 23, 137, 256.
27. In our edition, volume 1 will contain Books I–II, volume 2 will contain Book III, and volume 3 will contain Book IV.
28. The divisions and titles are almost identical in the GE-Lindeboom manuscript.
29. RE, §5; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 25–30; cf. RD, 2:530–62 (chap. 12: “Human Nature”); Bavinck begins this chapter with these words: “The essence of human nature is its being [created in] the image of God.”
30. RE, §8; Bavinck discussues these topics in RD, 3:25–190.
31. RE, §8; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 49; Buddeus, Institutiones Theologiae Moralis; Lampe, Schets der dadelyke Godt-geleertheid; Vilmar, Theologische Moral.
32. RE, §9.
33. RE, §9.
34. RE, §§10–12; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 70–80.
35. RE, §11; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 75–79.
36. RE, §13; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 86.
37. RE, §§13–15; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 81–91, 124; RD, 3:32. We see here a prime example of Bavinck’s distinction between dogmatics and ethics. Bavinck pays little attention to the human conscience in Reformed Dogmatics, apart from this comment in 3:173 about Adam and Eve’s transgression in Gen. 3:
Immediately after the fall, the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened, and they discovered that they were naked. Implied here is that they knew and recognized that they had done wrong. Shame is the fear of disgrace, an unpleasant and painful sense of being involved in something wrong or improper. Added to the shame was fear before God and the consequent desire to hide from him—that is to say, the human conscience was aroused. Before the fall, strictly speaking, there was no conscience in humans. There was no gap between what they were and what they knew they had to be. Being and self-consciousness were in harmony. But the fall produced separation. By the grace of God, humans still retain the consciousness that they ought to be different, that in all respects they must conform to God’s law. But reality witnesses otherwise; they are not who they ought to be. And this witness is the conscience.
In addition to his extensive treatment of the subject in §14 (chap. 5 below), Bavinck published an article on conscience already in 1881: “Het geweten” (ET: Bavinck, “Conscience”).
38. RE, §§15–16; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 124–36.
39. RE, §§17–26; we have divided the material into six chapters in this volume.
40. This outline is virtually identical to that of GE-Lindeboom.
41. RE, §17; cf. GE-Van der Veen, 5; GE-Lindeboom, 139.
42. See Bolt, Theological Analysis; Bolt, “Christ and the Law.” Bavinck published two essays on the imitation of Christ, one at the beginning of his academic career, 1885–86, and the other in 1918; both are published in English translation in Bolt, Theological Analysis, 372–440.
43. RE, §21; cf. GE-Van der Veen, 41–42; GE-Lindeboom, 174.
44. RE, §21; cf. GE-Van der Veen, 56–58; GE-Lindeboom, 184–85.
45. RE, §21; cf. GE-Van der Veen, 57–58; GE-Lindeboom, 185; the outline here is practically identical to that used by Bavinck in his 1885–86 “Imitation of Christ” article, more evidence of the manuscript’s date. The essay appeared in the journal De Vrije Kerk (The Free Church), a monthly periodical “of Christian Reformed voices” that sought to bring the church out of its isolation in order to engage the cultural and scientific challenges of the day. One of its stated goals was “to oppose a superficial and unhealthy mysticism with a more biblical spirituality.” Bavinck served as its editor from 1881 to 1883 (Bolt, Theological Analysis, 80–81).
46. RE, §21; cf. GE-Van der Veen, 58–60; GE-Lindeboom, 185–87.
47. RE, §§22–26; cf. GE-Van der Veen, 60–160; GE-Lindeboom, 187–255.
48. RE, §23, “Security and Sealing” (chap. 10).
49. DO: kentekenen.
50. DO: Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerk.
51. The Secession of 1834 from the national Dutch Reformed Church (Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk), which led to the formation of the Christian Reformed Church (Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerk). This church established its own theological school in Kampen in 1854.
52. See Veenhof, “History of Theology and Spirituality in the Dutch Reformed Churches”; Veenhof, “Discussie over het zelfonderzoek.”
53. GE-Van der Veen, 89: “Prof. B. vertelde, dat een vrouw uit zijn vroegere gem. verzegeld was geworden door Jesaja 27:1!”; GE-Lindeboom, 208: “Ja zelfs heb ik in mijne Gemeente te Franeker—aldus verhaalde Prof. Bavinck—eene vrouw gekend, die verzegeld was met Jes. 27:1.” The reference to Franeker is missing in RE, and provides a rare instance of a Bavinck classroom pastoral ad lib. The exclamation mark in the van der Veen manuscript is telling; Isa. 27:1 is an extraordinary text by which one is sealed by the Holy Spirit: “In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.”
54. RE, §22; see GE-Van der Veen, 101–3, 113; GE-Lindeboom, 217, 226. We do not find Kuyper’s name elsewhere in the GE-Van der Veen and GE-Lindeboom manuscripts.
55. For an excellent introduction to this controversy and Bavinck’s own perspective on it, see Bavinck, Saved by Grace; the editor’s introduction is a superb overview of the historical and theological issues in the controversy.
56. The emphasis on “public” is deliberate; he did privately indicate such disagreement to his students, notably in his differences with Kuyper on the matter of theological encyclopedia and the nature of theology. In a letter to Kuyper (October 29, 1894) he expressed his reservations directly but then added this: “I am reluctant to discuss all this in public. The manner in which some discuss your work and judge it on the basis of isolated statements offends me. I do not wish to support such a critique in any way” (cited by Bremmer, Bavinck als Dogmaticus, 24).
57. Bavinck also discusses the topic of sanctification in RD, 4:230–72.
58. RE, §27; cf. GE-Van der Veen, 161–80; GE-Lindeboom, 256–66.
59. LO: praecepta, consilia; RE, §28.
60. RE, §29.
61. LO: collisio; RE, §30.
62. RD, 4:239, 260.
63. RE, §§32–35; cf. GE-Van der Veen, 268–327; GE-Lindeboom, 325–85.
64. Here are the topics of the nine sections: §50, the family in history; §51, marriage as an obligation; §52, impediments to marriage; §53, degrees of consanguinity; §54, engagement/betrothal; §55, consummation of marriage; §56, the nature/essence of marriage; §57, divorce; §58, husband and wife.
65. The document has the title Ethiek and can be found in the Bavinck Archives, no. 197. After an introductory section covering terminology, the “Ethics” document contains sections about philosophical ethics in general, principal schools of philosophical ethics, a brief history of philosophical ethics, and contemporary views of philosophical ethics. These sections are followed by a short sketch of Reformed ethics comprising three main sections: (1) an introduction (with subsections on terminology, the history of Reformed ethics, and the foundations of Reformed ethics); (2) the untitled first part, divided into (a) doctrine of sin, (b) the origin of spiritual life, (c) its development, (d) its consummation, (e) its resources, (f) its blessing, and (g) its norm; and (3) the second part, entitled “Revelation of That [Spiritual] Life in the World” and divided into (a) in the family (here Bavinck plans to speak of marriage; monogamy; the single state; second marriage; adultery; celibacy; divorce; the duties, aim, and blessing of marriage; parents and children; upbringing; education; brothers and sisters; shaping of character; servants; family friends; and friendship), (b) in vocation, (c) in society, (d) in the state, (e) in the church, and finally (f) a section on the kingdom of God.
66. Geesink, De ethiek in de gereformeerde theologie, 6: “Deze armoede van onzen tijd aan specifiek Gereformeerde ethische studie.”
67. Bavinck, Hedendaagsche moraal, 7.
68. DO: armoede, jammerlijk tekort.
69. Kuyper, Encyclopaedie der heilige godgeleerdheid; see Stellingwerff, “Over de bibliotheek en de boeken van dr. A. Kuyper.” Kuyper’s lectures on dogmatics to his Vrije Universiteit students between 1880 and 1902 did get unofficially published in a number of five-volume editions as Dictaten dogmatiek.
70. Geesink, Gereformeerde ethiek.
71. De Jong, “Gereformeerde ethiek van Profess. Dr. H. Bavinck,” hereafter abbreviated as GE-De Jong. The Library of the Protestant Theological University at Kampen preserves a handwritten duplicate of the GE-De Jong manuscript (shelf mark 187D15). This anonymous duplicate once belonged to G. C. Berkouwer, longtime professor of dogmatics at the Vrije Universiteit. He received the manuscript as a gift on the occasion of his inaugural address on October 11, 1940.
72. Van Gelderen and Rozemond, Gegevens betreffende de Theologische Universiteit Kampen, 122.
73. Gemeenten en predikanten, 316; see also van der Meulen, “Ds J. M. de Jong.”
74. Van Gelderen and Rozemond, Gegevens betreffende de Theologische Universiteit Kampen, 32.
75. GE-De Jong, 26.
76. DO: gewoonte, gebruik, zede, zedelijkheid; GE-De Jong, 1–12; cf. 153.
77. GE-De Jong, 12–17.
78. DO: “Ethiek heeft dus tot taak om ons te doen zien en kennen: Het Principe in de eerste plaats en het systeem van het zedelijke in de tweede plaats” (GE-De Jong, 17).
79. RE, §2; cf. GE-Lindeboom, 14–15.
80. DO: kenbron, norma. This results, as we have seen, in a threefold methodology: (1) collecting and systematizing biblical data, (2) describing how these data have been adopted in the church, and (3) developing these data normatively or thetically with a view to our own time (RE, §4).
81. GE-De Jong, 24.
82. GE-De Jong, 23, 142.
83. GE-De Jong, 25–26.
84. They are (1) the rational ethics of classical Greek philosophy; (2) the ethics of a special moral faculty, a semen virtutis or moral sense (Ralph Cudworth, Henry More, Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson); (3) the ethics of moral sentiment (Adam Smith); (4) the ethics of aesthetic formalism (Johann Friedrich Herbart); (5) the ethics of practical reason (Immanuel Kant); and (6) the ethics of intuitive cognition (Thomas Reid); GE-De Jong, 26–64.
85. They are (1) in God; (2) in nature (Heraclitus, the Stoa, Tolstoy); (3) in the government (Thomas Hobbes); (4) hedonism (Aristippus); (5) eudaemonism (Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius); (6) the ethics of self-improvement (zelfvolmaking, Spinoza); (7) utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill); (8) the ethics of evolutionism (Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer); and (9) positivism (Auguste Comte); GE-De Jong, 64–128.
86. GE-De Jong, 129–38.
87. DO: “Op zichzelf is hiertegen niet zoo groot bezwaar” (GE-De Jong, 36).
88. DO: “Ook met de gedachten van Aristoteles kunnen we onze winst doen en zonder twijfel is de Ethiek van Aristoteles de beste philosophische ethiek in hoodzaak; Want wat is het schone er in? Dat hij met de Christenen hierin overeenstemt dat de mensch in het zedelijke al de hem geschonken gaven en krachten harmonisch ontwikkelen moet in overeenstemming met zijne zedelijke natuur. Hij dwaalt alleen daarin dat dat ideaal voor den mensch in eigen kracht bereikbaar zou zijn”; GE-De Jong, 36.
89. See, for example, GE-De Jong, 18, 161, 166, 174, 205, 281, 291–92. In his other writings Bavinck sharply and frequently criticizes Darwin: see RD, 2:83, 511–20, 525–26, 535–37; Bavinck, “Evolution”; cf. de Wit, “Beeld van gorilla.”
90. See GE-De Jong, 24, 136–38, 176, 251, 267; there is also a paucity of references to Nietzsche in the Reformed Dogmatics: RD, 1:118; 2:44, 89, 210, 526; 3:59, 238, 531; 4:258, 647.
91. To the best of our knowledge, Abraham Kuyper introduced Nietzsche’s philosophy in the Netherlands in his 1892 rectorial address entitled De verflauwing der grenzen; ET: “Blurring of the Boundaries.”
92. Other evidence, however, suggests that Bavinck taught theological ethics during the academic year 1901–2 and again in 1902–3; see Handelingen der twee-en-zestigste vergadering, 26, and cf. Almanak van het studentencorps 1903, 37. During the year 1900–1901 Bavinck would have taught “Survey of the History of Ethics” (“Overzicht van de geschiedenis der ethiek”), which could be interpreted as philosophical ethics; see Handelingen der een-en-zestigste vergadering, 35, and cf. Almanak van het studentencorps 1902, 33. Perhaps de Jong attended Bavinck’s lectures in ethics one year before he officially started his theological studies.
93. GE-De Jong, 139–45.
94. DO: “Deel A: Leer van het zedelijk subject.” The sections are §1: humanity as image of God (“De mensch als beeld Gods”); §2: disruption of the image of God by humans (“Verstoring van het beeld Gods door de mensch”); §3: humans as moral creatures in the situation of sin (“De mensch als zedelijk wezen in de toestand der zonde”); §4: the content of human morality (“De inhoud van het zedelijke in de mensch”); §5: human moral qualities (doctrine of virtue) (“De zedelijke kwaliteiten van de mensch [leer van de deugd]”); §6: human moral activity (“De zedelijke handelingen van de mensch”); §7: inadequacy of natural morality (“Ongenoegzaamheid der natuurlijke moraal”); §8: special grace (“Bijzondere genade”); §9: the spiritual life (“’t Geestelijk leven”); §10: growth in the spiritual life (“Ontwikkeling van het geestelijk leven”); §11: connecting spiritual life and moral life (“Geestelijk leven in verband met het zedelijk leven”); and §12: special gifts (“Bijzondere gaven”); GE-De Jong, 145.
95. DO: “Deel B: Leer van de wet.” The four general sections are §13: the law as a rule of gratitude (“De wet als regel der dankbaarheid”); §14: the nature of the (moral) law (“De natuur der [zede]wet”); §15: division of the law (“Verdeeling der wet”); and §16: breaking the law (“Overtreding der wet”). Sections 17–26 comprise the ten sections on the Commandments.
96. DO: “Deel C: Het doel van het zedelijke.” The nine sections are §27: the purpose of morality (“Doel der zedelijkheid”); §28: the glory of God (“De eere Gods”); §29: the purpose of the moral good for individual persons (“Doel van het zedelijk goede van den enkelen mensch”); §30: the moral good of families (“’t Zedelijk goede van de familiën”); §31: the moral good in society (“’t Zedelijk goede in de maatschappij”); §32: the moral good in the sphere of social interaction (“’t Zedelijk goede in den kring van het gezellig leven”); §33: the state (“De staat”); §34: the church from a moral perspective (“De kerk uit zedelijk standpunt”); and §35: the kingdom of God (“Het rijk Gods”). In §32, the Dutch word gezellig is notoriously difficult to translate; it suggests settings and social interactions that are “enjoyable,” “pleasant,” “convivial,” “entertaining,” and, applied to homes, “cozy.” In view is the informal social life of human beings rather than formal or “official” interactions.
97. GE-De Jong, 161–80.
98. This conclusion is also warranted by information provided in the minutes of the Directors of the Theological School in Kampen concerning a course to be taught by Bavinck: “In the school year 1902/03, DV, Prof. Dr. H. Bavinck will cover [among others] Ethics: the doctrine of humanity’s moral nature in the situation of sin” (“Door Prof. Dr. H. Bavinck [zal D.V. in den cursus 1902/03 behandeld worden]: [ . . . ] Ethiek: De leer van de zedelijke natuur des menschen in den toestand der zonde”); see Handelingen der twee-en-zestigste vergadering, 26.
99. Cf. Bolt, “Christ and the Law.”
100. Bavinck, De ethiek van Ulrich Zwingli.
101. Bavinck, “Het geweten.”
102. Bavinck, “De navolging van Christus.”
103. Bavinck, De navolging van Christus en het moderne leven.
104. Bavinck, “Religion and Politics.”
105. See van Keulen, “Bavinck and the War Question.”
106. Bavinck, Ethiek, Bavinck Archives, no. 197.
107. The brief outline of the history of philosophical ethics is divided into three sections: (1) Greek philosophy; (2) newer times (Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza); and (3) newest philosophy: criticism and speculation (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schleiermacher). Furthermore, Bavinck discusses five “contemporary views of philosophical ethics”—namely, independent morality, positivism, utilitarianism, evolution theory, and pessimism.
108. Bavinck, “Gereformeerde Ethiek,” Bavinck Archives, no. 61.
109. For an overview of Bavinck’s attitude toward philosophy, see Veenhof, “De God van de filosofen.”
110. Harinck et al., “Als Bavinck nu maar eens kleur bekende.”
111. Veenhof, Revelatie en inspiratie, 101; cf. Harinck, “Eén uur lang is het hier brandend en licht geweest.”