Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 84:2 (Fall 2022)
Article: “The Internal Word Is The Principal Word”: The Work Of The Spirit In Herman Bavinck’s Theological Epistemology
Author: Dan Schrock

“The Internal Word Is The Principal Word”:
The Work Of The Spirit In Herman Bavinck’s Theological Epistemology

Dan Schrock

Εmerging scholarship on the theology of Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) has increasingly recognized the way his pervasive organic motif enables his thought to hold together diversity and unity. Building on these insights, this thesis examines the way the Holy Spirit functions in the organism of God’s revelation as Bavinck related it to theological epistemology. It argues that, rather than eventuating in a disharmony or mechanistic dualism, which destroys the unity of object and subject, his account unifies the two through its attention to the work of the Spirit. It examines the way he frames the Spirit’s work in theological epistemology in a way that preserves a proper subjectivity rooted in Christian faith without also devolving into subjectivism. The thesis traces this out in relationship to several categories.

First, the function of the Holy Spirit and faith are examined in Bavinck’s realism, arguing that his realism is a dogmatic account of the epistemology of creation. This sheds light on why Bavinck could say of his realism that it was the presupposition and analogy of the inner testimony of the Spirit in salvation.

Second, the thesis traces out Bavinck’s way of relating the subjective capacity of the sensus divinitatis to general revelation, analyzing his understanding of how the Spirit ensures the spontaneous internalization of the content of general revelation in the mind. The Spirit’s work in the relationship between the unified organism of general and special revelation is shown to play a significant role in Bavinck’s explication of natural theology.

Third, his explanation of the Spirit’s work in the relationship between the principium externum and principium internum of special revelation is considered. Grasping the dynamism of this work is vital for a proper discernment of Bavinck’s teleological assertion that “the internal Word is the principal Word.”

Fourthly, this thesis examines Bavinck’s explanation of the Spirit’s work in doctrinal advancement and the need for a dogmatic method that operates under an imperative of ecclesial catholicity. Here too the Spirit brings unity to the organism of God’s revelation as it advances towards the goal of the Parousia.

Examination of all these facets of Bavinck’s thought leads then to the conclusion that his account of the subjective and objective aspects of theological epistemology finds its unification in his delineation of the work of the Spirit who ensures the internalization of the objective self-disclosure of God.