The most important label—one that cries out for acknowledgment from the thousands of pages of his mighty corpus—is follower of Jesus. Bavinck loved the God who saved him by grace, and amid the complexity and brilliance of his thought, there is always a doxological current. As Bavinck put it: A theologian is a person who makes bold to speak about God because he speaks out of God and through God. To profess theology is to do holy work. It is a priestly ministration in the house of the Lord.
Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) was the finest theologian of the neo-Calvinist movement—a Dutch movement that began under the initiative of Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), which has spread to many nations across the world over the last century. Kuyper was the most public figure of the movement and Bavinck the most precise theologian. We now think of them together, akin to the way the word Reformation recalls Luther and Calvin. As George Harinck explains, “We take the name Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck not as the name of two individuals but as a brand name . . . like Goldman and Sachs or Mercedes and Benz. Together they stand for neo-Calvinism.”
What is (or was) neo-Calvinism, and how does Bavinck fit? It is important to know a bit about Herman Bavinck to answer these questions. Bavinck was born to a Christian home, one that was full of the rhythms of Reformed spirituality. His family took part in the secession movement (the secession church separated from the state church in the Netherlands in 1834 for doctrinal and practical reasons). After Bavinck grew up, he attended the secession seminary in Kampen for a year and then left for Leiden University, seeking a prestigious and scientific education. He navigated an academic environment that can be labeled “modern”—a post-Enlightenment culture of discovery where traditional Christian confessions and creeds were less important and often neglected. Nevertheless, Bavinck remained Reformed and confessional in his theology through this season and into his career (we could use the term orthodox to describe this commitment).
As a young man, and through the multiple contexts he navigated, he developed a character of humility that led to an invaluable skill: the willingness to learn from anyone, especially modern philosophers, while remaining unwaveringly committed to the biblical faith that he learned as a covenant child. In the Netherlands, the Reformed church subscribed to the Three Forms of Unity: the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dort, and the Heidelberg Catechism. Bavinck was a confessional theologian and a master dogmatician who worked within the theological framework of the Three Forms of Unity, attempted to think and write according to God’s thoughts laid down in the Bible.