The Philosophy of Revelation

Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (1908–09 Stone Lectures, Princeton)

Herman Bavinck, professor at the Free University of Amsterdam

Unhurried, comprehensive, and willing to grant an opponent everything true in his position before showing what he built on top of it.

Catch rate: 62 / 255
Base research: 270
Stat total: 354

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina86

Contend92

Defend96

Popularity80

Total354

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 86

Delivered as six lectures at Princeton and printed the same year — dense, but built to be heard in an evening apiece.

Contend 92

Meets the whole nineteenth century by name — Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel, evolutionary science — rather than retreating from any of it.

Defend 96

Answers the move to feeling without dismissing feeling itself, which is a harder position to knock over than a flat denial would be.

Popularity 80

Fairly quick. Bavinck gave these as public lectures at Princeton, and they were printed in English straight away.

Cited for this book

Herman Bavinck gave these lectures at Princeton in 1908–09. His century had moved the foundation of religion to feeling, to reason or to evolution. Bavinck argued that revelation is God making himself known. He speaks through creation and conscience to everyone, and through his word to particular people at particular times.

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
1	A Fruitless Endeavor	Biblical Theology	Argument	96	100%	10
14	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
34	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
40	Kant’s Own Admission	Biblical Theology	Argument	84	100%	10
44	General and Special Revelation	Biblical Theology	Argument	88	100%	15
52	Thinking Lost Hold Upon Being	Rationality	Argument	88	100%	10
56	A System in Disguise	Presupposition	Argument	90	100%	10
58	Truth Bound to Reality	Rationality	Argument	86	100%	10
60	Christianity Is Itself History	History	Argument	90	100%	10
64	The Pulse Of Eternity	Biblical Theology	Argument	94	100%	10

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“Under the influence of Schleiermacher they strive to set religion free from all knowledge and assent, and conceive it as only trust in the heart. But this endeavor is a fruitless one.”
Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (1908–09 Stone Lectures), public domain.public domain

A Fruitless Endeavor

Biblical TheologyArgument · power 96 · 100% accurate

In the gameBavinck says plainly that it does not work. Religion cut off from knowledge and belief, reduced to trust alone, is not a purer faith. It can no longer say what it trusts in.

Strong against

×4On Religiona book · why?

Bavinck names it directly: trust with no knowledge in it cannot say what it is trusting. Feeling needs an object, and the object is not supplied by the feeling itself.

×4The Feeling of Absolute Dependencean argument · why?

Bavinck names it directly: trust with no knowledge in it cannot say what it is trusting. Feeling needs an object, and the object is not supplied by the feeling itself.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

“Kant himself set limits to knowledge in order to make a place for faith, and to find room, by reasoning on the nature and content of practical reason, for the reality of a moral government of the world.”
Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (1908–09 Stone Lectures), public domain.public domain

Kant’s Own Admission

Biblical TheologyArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameBavinck noticed what Kant did next. Having ruled God out of speculative reason, Kant went looking for God, freedom and a moral order another way, through practical reason. The limits were real, but Kant did not stay silent about God.

Strong against

×2Room for Beliefan argument · why?

Bavinck notes that Kant limited knowledge to make room for faith, and then built faith on practical reason. Even Kant could not leave the question of God closed.

×2The Critique of Pure Reasona book · why?

Bavinck notes that Kant limited knowledge to make room for faith, and then built faith on practical reason. Even Kant could not leave the question of God closed.

×2The Self-Sufficient Minda book · why?

Even Kant said reason reaches its limit and stops. The book quotes him and skips that chapter.

“The distinction between what has come to be called general and special revelation does not begin until the call of Abraham.”
Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (1908–09 Stone Lectures), public domain.public domain

General and Special Revelation

Biblical TheologyArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameBavinck’s answer to where religion starts: not a faculty found by looking inward, but God making himself known. He speaks first through creation and conscience, to everyone, and then through his word, beginning with the call of Abraham.

Strong against

×4Nein!an argument · why?

Bavinck agrees with Barth that God has to speak, and then says something Barth would not. God shows himself in creation first, to everyone, and then speaks particular words. Barth is right that nothing replaces the word. He is wrong that the world says nothing.

×4Room for Beliefan argument · why?

Kant clears room and then fills it himself, out of practical reason. Bavinck asks the question Kant never asks first: what if the room was already filled, from outside, by a word?

×4The Critique of Pure Reasona book · why?

Kant clears room and then fills it himself, out of practical reason. Bavinck asks the question Kant never asks first: what if the room was already filled, from outside, by a word?

×2.5The Self-Sufficient Minda book · why?

Bavinck: reason works on what God has already shown. A mind that cuts itself off from revelation cuts itself off from its own ground.

×2.5Totem and Tabooan argument · why?

Reason, then feeling, now the unconscious. Three faculties, one move — and Bavinck asks the same thing every time: did anybody check whether God had come down?

×2On Religiona book · why?

Bavinck answers that religion begins with God speaking, not with a feeling. God shows himself to everyone in creation, and then speaks particular words, beginning with his call to Abraham.

×2The Feeling of Absolute Dependencean argument · why?

Bavinck answers that religion begins with God speaking, not with a feeling. God shows himself to everyone in creation, and then speaks particular words, beginning with his call to Abraham.

“…it set out by breaking down the bridge between thinking and being, and thus created a chasm which, afterwards, no reasoning of the intellect could fill up nor any act of the will overleap. Thinking lost hold upon being.”
Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (Stone Lectures, Princeton 1908–09; public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain

Thinking Lost Hold Upon Being

RationalityArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameIdealism cut the link between the mind and the world, hoping to protect knowledge from the senses. Bavinck shows where that leads: once thinking has lost its grip on what is real, more thinking cannot get it back.

Strong against

×2.5Nothing Outside the Textan argument · why?

Bavinck saw that once mind is cut off from the world, thinking has nowhere to stand. Derrida’s endless chain of signs is that cut. His own sentences only work if a reader can reach past the words to what he means.

×2.5Room for Beliefan argument · why?

Kant limits knowledge to make room for faith, and Bavinck follows the cut to where it lands. Once thinking has no purchase on being, the room made for faith is a room with nothing in it that anyone could know.

×2.5The Complete Sceptican argument · why?

Bavinck saw what happens when thinking is cut off from the world. It has nothing to stand on and nothing to check itself against. The sceptic’s bewildered ape has no reason to trust its own conclusion that it is one.

×2.5The Critique of Pure Reasona book · why?

“While offering itself as a mere method, it soon appears to be a theory and a system. It brings to the investigation of things a preconceived judgment of its own, both as to reality and as to truth.”
Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (Stone Lectures, Princeton, 1908–09) (public domain).public domain

A System in Disguise

PresuppositionArgument · power 90 · 100% accurate

In the gameBavinck saw pragmatism coming and named its trick. It offers itself as a plain method for getting things done, and then turns out to carry a theory of what is real and what is true. Rorty’s grandfather claimed to have no theory. He had one.

Strong against

×4Truth Is What Works for Usan argument · why?

Rorty’s grandfather in the faith, William James, said pragmatism was only a method. Bavinck saw in 1908 that a method with no theory of truth does not exist. It offers itself as a plain tool and quietly carries a whole account of what is real. That account is what you are being asked to accept.

“In so far the truth is bound to reality, and finds its criterion in correspondence with reality.”
Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (Stone Lectures, Princeton, 1908–09) (public domain).public domain

Truth Bound to Reality

RationalityArgument · power 86 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe plain answer, in one sentence. A claim is true if it matches the world. It is not true because a group prefers it. Everything the Rorty raft says depends on denying this, and it says it while expecting to be believed.

Strong against

×3Truth Is What Works for Usan argument · why?

Truth is not what a room lets you get away with. It is a match between what you say and how things are. If that were not so, no one could ever be wrong in a way that mattered, and Rorty would have nothing to correct.

“Christianity is itself history; it makes history, is one of the principal factors of history, and is itself precisely what lifts history high above nature and natural processes.”
Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (Stone Lectures, Princeton 1908–09; public domain).public domain

Christianity Is Itself History

HistoryArgument · power 90 · 100% accurate

In the gameTold that his faith is a product of history, Bavinck answers that it is a maker of history. Christianity arrives, acts and changes things, and that is a claim the historical record can test.

Strong against

×3Beyond the Mytha book · why?

Bavinck: Christianity is not a product of history to be explained away. It made the history the book is trying to explain.

×3No Big Storyan argument · why?

Bavinck answers the man who says Christianity is a product of history: it is one of the forces that made history. A story that has shaped the world for two thousand years is not dissolved by being called one story among many.

×2.5The Life of Jesus Examinedan argument · why?

Strauss files the gospels as myth — a community’s ideas dressed as events. Bavinck answers that Christianity is not downstream of history being explained; it arrives, acts, and makes the history that later gets explained.

“In every moment of time beats the pulse of eternity; every point in space is filled with the omnipresence of God.”
Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (Stone Lectures, Princeton 1908–09; public domain).public domain

The Pulse Of Eternity

Biblical TheologyArgument · power 94 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe heart of Bavinck’s Stone Lectures. Revelation is not one item in the world, to be weighed against the others. The whole world stands on it, so there is no neutral ground, and the deeper any science digs, the more of God’s work it finds.

Strong against

×2.5A Uniform Experience Against Itan argument · why?

Hume weighs a miracle against uniform experience and the scales are built before anything is placed on them. Bavinck asks what the experience is resting on: if revelation is what the world stands on, a closed order was never the neutral starting point it claimed to be.

×2.5An Enquiry Concerning Human Understandinga book · why?

Read it: Not a Truth the Mind Already Carries

The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in English.

“Under the influence of Schleiermacher they strive to set religion free from all knowledge and assent, and conceive it as only trust in the heart. But this endeavor is a fruitless one.”
Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (1908–09 Stone Lectures), public domain.

“Kant himself set limits to knowledge in order to make a place for faith, and to find room, by reasoning on the nature and content of practical reason, for the reality of a moral government of the world.”
Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (1908–09 Stone Lectures), public domain.

“The distinction between what has come to be called general and special revelation does not begin until the call of Abraham.”
Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation (1908–09 Stone Lectures), public domain.

Notes

Princeton invited Bavinck to deliver the Stone Lectures for 1908–09, and he used them to answer the century that had just relocated religion’s foundation to feeling, to reason, or to evolutionary development.

His own claim is unfashionable and plainly stated: revelation is not a truth every mind already carries and merely uncovers by looking inward, but God disclosing Himself — and general and special revelation part ways at one particular call.