James Perman Eglinton, Bavinck: A Critical Biography, Baker Academic, 2020, 450 pgs.
Bavinck: A Critical Biography is an invitation out of the frothy surf of modern evangelicalism and into the deep, sometimes stupefying, waters of Bavinck’s brilliant Reformed scholasticism.
Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) was a polymath—pastor, theologian, linguist, politician, philosopher, and all-around scholar. James Eglinton has written an important, elegant, and scholarly introduction in Bavinck: A Critical Biography. Though scholarly and critical, Eglinton writes with an appreciation and affection for Bavinck’s theology and projects.
THE BAVINCK CONUNDRUM
Herman Bavinck is a quandary for contemporary scholars—“a modern European, an orthodox Calvinist, and a man of science” (xxii). He was friendly with the intelligentsia of the Netherlands, wider Europe, and the United States; involved in developing the educational system in his country; and was the president of the Anti-Revolutionaire Partij and a member of the First Chamber. He was a seminary professor and pastor simultaneously. He wrote an important four-volume Reformed Dogmatics, made important written contributions to psychology, philosophy, and Eloquence, and trained generations of Dutch thinkers. He was also an unashamed believer in the authority of the Bible and historical Christianity.
Bavinck strived for two goals: to
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