On Faith, Knowledge, and the Christian Tradition
E-Book, Englisch, 376 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-68359-809-1
Verlag: Lexham Academic
Format: EPUB
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Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) was professor of systematic theology at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, where he succeeded Abraham Kuyper.
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1 HOLY SCRIPTURE Sin began with doubt: unbelief in God’s word. And so it will always remain. The human being became fleshly and believes only what can be seen in the present. God’s special revelation, however, has for its content a word, a word of promise that concerns future, invisible, eternal things (Gen 3:15). Hence, there is conflict, enmity. But hence also the demand that human beings first put away their enmity and that they believe, for a promise cannot otherwise become our possession than by faith. In the Old Testament the term “faith” does not yet appear with any great frequency. The activity is indicated mostly by other words: “trusting,” “depending,” “sustaining,” “hoping,” “anticipating.”1 But practically it amounts to the same thing, namely, relying on God, on his word. We encounter faith in the Old Testament in the lives of the heroes of the faith (Heb 11), especially in Abraham, the exemplar and father of all who believe. But in the Old Testament, in Israel, there was also all manner of doubt and unbelief. There was doubt among the pious, not in God’s existence or revelation but in his righteousness. The physical lot of human beings and peoples appears not to conform to their religious and ethical predisposition. There is no harmony but rather conflict between ethos and physis, between virtue and felicity. The law—the law given by God to Israel—presented a blessing and a curse to the people. Do this and you will live. It nurtured the people in the conviction that it would go well with the one who fears the Lord and badly with the one who did not fear him (Deut 28; Josh 8:34; etc.). This revelation of the law stimulated consciousness, aroused a good as well as a bad conscience. The bad conscience caused sin to be recognized and banished any claim to righteousness, felicity, and blessing, inasmuch as the law increased sin (cf. Paul). Yet the good conscience [was aroused] too, inasmuch as the pious—convinced of their innocence—dared to hope for blessing, although here it is necessary to draw a distinction between the righteousness of their person and that of their cause. Personally, they know themselves to be guilty sinners, but their cause is righteous. Their cause is God’s cause, they stand on his side, glory in him, trust in him, and may thus demand that God uphold justice (Ps 17:4; 18:21–22; 34:16; 103:6; 140:13).2 But reality does not conform to this. The godless prosper in the world, and the pious are oppressed and afflicted and wait in vain for God’s deliverance. Hence, the question: O God, why do you stand from afar and do not come to my aid (Ps 10:1, 13)? Hence, the prayer that God would awake and arise (Ps 9:20). Hence, the soul struggle in Job and Psalm 73. Hence, finally, a postexilic book such as Ecclesiastes, which maintains faith in the divine government of the world and the moral order yet despairs in quiet resignation of any solution to the problem.3 Doubt extends much further among the godless. They set themselves not only against God’s government of the world but also against his revelation and existence. From the beginning, Israel was a stiff-necked and rebellious people (Exod 32:9; 33:3; 34:9; Deut 9:24). They did not believe in Moses (Exod 5:21; 6:8). They grumbled repeatedly and longed to return to Egypt (Exod 16:3; 17:3; 32:1; Num 11:1–5; 12:2; 14:2ff.). Now, the faith of Israel from Egypt until the Babylonian exile bore more the character of superstition, idolatry, and fetishism. But later on a faction of determined unbelief manifested itself. This was exacerbated by the disunity of the prophets. They all claimed to proclaim the word of the Lord, but with one this word had completely different content than it did with the other (as it is with the preachers of the Dutch Reformed Church).4 Micaiah son of Imlah stood with his message against that of the four hundred prophets of Ahab and Jehoshaphat (1 Kgs 22). Amos rejected the title “prophet” and renounced membership of the guild (Amos 7:10–15). Our prophets usually oppose such prophets and pronounce a severe judgment on them (Mic 3:5–7; Isa 28:7; 30:10; Jer 23:9; 32:32; etc.; Zeph 3:4; Ezek 13:1–14:11; 22:25; Zech 13:2–6). Jeremiah, called in his youth and appearing as a prophet in 629 BC or 627 BC (when Josiah had already begun his reformation) and who was active in Anathoth and then in Jerusalem, had at first a comparatively untroubled period of twenty-two years, but the year 605 BC (the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, the battle of Carchemish, and the beginning of the Babylonian rule of the Near East) marked a turning point, and he developed a prophetic agenda. Judah and Judea, like all the surrounding peoples, would fall into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. Opposition would be futile, willing submission is the best. But after seventy years the exile would finish: chapter 25. Then the opposition to Jeremiah began; under Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah his conditions became increasingly dire, particularly when Jeremiah deemed the hope of help from Egypt, the hope Zedekiah had so cherished (Jer 37:6–11), to be a vain hope. He was thrown into prison (Jer 37:11–21) and thereafter into a well (Jer 38:1–13). During this time, he prophesied of the new covenant (chapters 32–33). Jeremiah’s opponents were the priests, the prophets, the rulers, the people. They could not bear it that he preached the demise of the temple and the city (chapter 26ff.). Especially the prophet Hananiah opposed him, preached the breaking of the yoke of the Babylonian king within two years, and in this way made the people put their trust in lies (chapter 28). In the same way the people built their hope on the external privileges—the temple, the law, sacrifice, sabbath, circumcision, and so on—their prophets also articulated this explicitly and so reinforced their presumption. In principle, this was already the Pharisaic trend, which later separated itself, was dedicated to strict observance of the law and tradition, and formed the actual party of the orthodox and pious.5 Next to them there existed and developed among the people yet another party. There was also dissent and mockery of all faith in Israel.6 There were, according to Malachi, those who meant that the God of judgment could not be found and that it was pointless to serve him. Especially in the Psalms, a powerful party of spies, persecutors, enemies, party-men, workers of unrighteousness, the godless, sinners, scoffers stands opposed to the small group of the afflicted who placed their trust in the God of Jacob. They speak falsehood, flatter one another, find their rest in the world, and increase in wealth. They are free from the burdens common to man and are never plagued by human ills. From on high they look scornfully on the afflicted, they leap for joy at their sufferings (Pss 25:2; 38:17; 35:15). Indeed, their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth, and they ask: How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge? The sum of their thoughts is that there is no God (Ps 10; 14; 53). Contemptuously, they ask the pious: Where now is your God? (Ps 42:11). You trust in the Lord; let the Lord rescue you (Ps 22:9). They pay no attention to God’s law. They crushed God’s people. They oppressed his inheritance and they said: the Lord does not see; the God of Jacob pays no heed (Ps 94). Later, this developed into the party of the Sadducees, to whom the most prominent priests, aristocrats, and men of the world belonged. They rejected the tradition, believed in no angels and spirits, in no resurrection or recompense. They were Hellenistic, pagan in orientation, and quite indifferent toward matters of religion.7 How would God now make his revelation credible? Often, the appearance of divine speech was of such a manner that the person who reported this appearance or heard the speech could no longer doubt. Those who received revelation are themselves so certainly convinced that God has spoken to them that no doubt arises within them (cf. Adam: Gen 3:8ff.; Noah: Gen 7:1–5; Abraham: Gen 12:1ff.; Moses and all the prophets). Again and again they say, the Lord has spoken to me.8 Furthermore, the Lord often added signs to his revelation: the rainbow (Gen 9:13), circumcision (Gen 17:11). Moses received these signs: the transformation of the staff into a snake, a healthy hand into a leprous hand, and water into blood (Exod 4:1–9, 30). The plagues of Egypt were signs (Exod 10:1–2), the Sabbath was a sign (Exod 31:13, 17), Aaron’s blossoming staff (Num 17:10), and the earth swallowing up Korah and his associates (Num 26:10). Gideon asked for a sign in order to know that the angel of the Lord had spoken to him (Judg 6:17) and also the fleece (Judg 6:37). There were signs given to Ahaz (Isa 7:11), Hezekiah (Isa 38:22), and so on. Hence, all the prophets, in addition to God’s word, always make appeal to God’s deeds as well—to his works in nature and grace—above all to creation and the deliverance from Egypt. See, for example, the nature psalms and historical psalms (Deut 32; Pss 104–106). It is even indicated in Deuteronomy 13:1–5; 18:9–22 that this is how a false prophet is to be distinguished from a true prophet. A prophet who incites the worship of other gods is always a false prophet, even if he makes predictions or performs miracles. A prophet who invokes the name of the Lord is therefore a true prophet, if his message comes true.9 For it seems clear in the Old Testament that all of these signs and confirmations are not sufficient to bring...
