by Joshua Shaw

In the Prolegomena to his dogmatics Bavinck treats at various junctures the relationship between science and religion. In the eighth chapter of his work (“Religious Foundations”), he examines Science’s (in the sense of Wissenschaft) prerogative to judge religion according to its own standards, an endeavour he deems to have failed by the nature of the case. Religion is a qualitatively different and equally objective phenomenon, which, however, always has as its corollary divine Revelation. This immediately limits the sphere of reason and requires the use of faith (though, as Bavinck notes later on, these are not opposed in some binary fashion: faith, he says, is the sanitas mentis, ‘health of the mind’). That we should therefore presuppose faith a delusion is just that: a presupposition. It requires that we consider the majority of humanity as not only deluded in fact (their gods were demons or no gods at all) but, worse still, in principle: the very desire to see the divine at work in life and in the world is a mark of psychological instability. There can be no conciliatory language of ‘feeling after God.’ This very feeling or desire or sense is a priori false. (For more on this see the previous posts, here and here).

In this post we look briefly at a couple of errors related to or stemming from this unjust subjection of the discipline of theology to that of philosophy. Both errors rest on a kind of false dualism. A total rejection of the claims of reason leads to a infertile ‘heart only’ religion; a rejection of the body (and thus matters pertaining to the heart) may lead to cold elitism and sterile religion.

Dead Intellectualism

One of the elitist errors which often underlies such a presupposition—so Bavinck—rests on a kind of dualism of mind and body (and preference for the mind), which always entails disregard for those whose life is not spent cultivating “the life of the mind”: in Aristotle’s and Plato’s terms ‘blue-collar workers’ (οἱ βάναυσοι). Certain moderns took the general disregard for ‘blue-collar workers’ found in Aristotle and Plato and pushed it much further. Because the body does not partake of the human essence (or at least makes up a very unimportant part of it), those who spend their lives toiling with and for it must be of a lower rank and class.

For this reason they need religion (i.e., faith not knowledge), which, according to Hegel, is the embodiment of the highest things in pictures for the un-philosophical hordes. It must be outgrown. The philosopher is the one who outgrows it, rising to the ideal through his mind and leaving the masses behind. By thought he becomes conscious of God and God becomes conscious of himself. This, Bavinck writes, has been a move not-uncommon for the intellectual elite through the ages.

From time to time in earlier ages, e.g., in the case of the Muslim philosopher Averroes, someone launched the opinion that religion was meant only for the common people, that the scholar had no need for it, and that all religions were the same.

(Reformed Dogmatics, I. 245)

Another historical data point for the phenomenon Bavinck is talking about can be found in Book III of De Civitate Dei:

I might be asked, “do you believe [the many adulterous affairs of the gods] are true?” I for one do not believe them. For even Varro, one of there most learned, says that these things are false, although not boldly nor confidently; nevertheless, he does admit it. But he says that it is useful for city-states that the great (fortes) men believe that they are born of the gods, even if it is false, in order that in this way the human soul wearing, as it were, the confidence of divine progeny might undertake great deeds more boldly, that it might act more fiercely and on account of this fulfill its duties more happily and care-free.

(III.4; trans. mine)

Augustine plays here with Varro’s timid admission that traditional religion is mere bunk that brave men need to do bold deeds. For him, religion is useful and there is a kind of truth behind it, but, for the masses, myth and superstition will do. All this, however, according to Bavinck, is a flawed view of religion based on a flawed view of human nature (these mistakes are akin). Religion takes up the whole person as body and soul, mind and feeling and will (Matthew 22:37-40): “Head, heart, and hand are all equally—though each in its own way—claimed by religion; it takes the whole person, soul and body, into its service” (268). Just as fatal, however, is the opposite mistake.

Fruitless Moralism

To say that the human body partakes of the human essence (and thus cannot be disregarded in matters of religion or otherwise) is not to deny, however, a hierarchy of the parts of Man. “Knowledge is primary,” says Bavinck. “‘I do not desire anything I do not know (Ignoti nulla cupido).’ To be unknown is to be unloved” (268). And thus faith, because it is knowledge of God, is primary. (616-17) Neither cold intellectualism nor again fruitless moralism (such as he finds in liberal Protestantism) are satisfying or true.

His point about liberal Protestantism’s “fruitlessness” is supported by this mysterious Latin quotation—not marked by the editors—which in fact comes from Ovid’s Amores, Book Three: a book about the nature of erotic love and how to successfully navigate its tempestuous squalls:

Quod latet, ignotum est: ignoti nulla cupido:
Fructus abest, facies cum bona teste caret.

What lies hidden is unknown; of this there can be no desire:
fruit fails when a fair (bona) face unwitnessed hides.

(trans. mine: online here)

As with most great writers, something is missed when a citation lies unknown; when the quotation thus lacks a witness, the fruit of the planted allusion falls to the ground unused—or rather, the bud itself wilts and dies (fructus abest). Here the second line (the rest of the sentence) not quoted by Bavinck reinforces the point he is is making at this very moment. Moreover, Bavinck was not the first Reformed systematician to make use of Ovid in his systematics (and here perhaps he is nodding to a tradition). As often, however, tradition is given a twist. He does not cite Metamorphoses I (as Calvin and others) but rather the Amores, a book, as I have said, on love and its vagaries. This, too, may be not without point.

The sweep of this whole chapter impresses on the reader that the primary opponent is the group which would locate religion in the will, in pure morality, since knowing God with the mind is impossible (following Kant and others). But again, just as the intellectual elites often fail to recognize the place of the body and so get a colorless and tasteless religion, befitting an abstract(ed) God, so too do the moralists fail of their goal because they do not know him. Their love is infertile. If love is born of God through nearness to him we must first know him to have the fruit of his Love in our lives. In short, we require Revelation that we might know him with our minds to be able to love him with our hearts.

Here Bavinck’s choice of citation (Amores, not Metamorphoses) is appropriate : the answer is in fact love for God with all of our mind, heart, soul, and strength. He does not, as one might be tempted to do, denigrate the emotions, feelings, or loves of the human person. Instead, he argues that they presume knowledge of the object and so require proper direction towards that object.

When the “good face” (bona facies) of God lacks the “witness” (testis) of Holy Scripture and is thus “unknown” (ignotum), it cannot be appropriated by the human mind and heart. So the “fruit” (fructus) of his love for us and our response of love to him and neighbor will certainly “fail” (abest).