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Confessing Faith: Freedom of Conscience, Actualized Confession of Faith, and Confessional Allegiance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 December 2022
Abstract
This paper draws on the Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck's (1854–1921) views of conscience and confession of faith to articulate a dynamic view of confessing faith with a free conscience. It will argue that a genuine ecclesial confession must be coupled with the believer's free conscience in the actualized confession of faith in Christ in obedience to the word of God. This dynamic view of actualized confession—that is, confessing faith in one's life as a whole—indicates that faith incorporates not only the life in the ecclesial community but also life in the world. As such, although different churches uphold different written forms of confession of faith, actualized confession of faith assimilates the differentiation of confessional texts—being made there and then—into the consensus of confessing faith in Christ being reached here and now. The emphasis of actualized confession of faith on “here and now” will benefit the contemporary ecumenical movement.
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References
1 Stanley J. Grenz, “Ecclesiology,” in Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 252.
2 Grenz, “Ecclesiology,” 258.
3 See Grenz, Stanley J., A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 15Google Scholar.
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5 “Consumerism is a type of spirituality,… a way of pursuing meaning and identity, a way of connecting with other people.” William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 36.
6 Bavinck, Herman, “The Pros and Cons of a Dogmatic System,” trans. Kloosterman, Nelson D., The Bavinck Review 5 (2014): 94Google Scholar.
7 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003–2008), 1.82 (hereafter RD).
8 The following are several recent monographs and doctoral theses on Bavinck's theology: James Eglinton, Trinity and Organism: Towards a New Reading of Herman Bavinck's Organic Motif (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2012); James Eglinton, Bavinck: A Critical Biography (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020); Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, God and Knowledge: Herman Bavinck's Theological Epistemology (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2020); Cory Brock, Orthodox Yet Modern: Herman Bavinck's Use of Friedrich Schleiermacher (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2020); Bruce R. Pass, The Heart of Dogmatics: Christology and Christocentrism in Herman Bavinck (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020); Jessica Joustra, “Following the Way of Jesus: Herman Bavinck and John Howard Yoder in Dialogue on the Imitation of Christ” (PhD diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 2018); Cameron D. Clausing, “‘A Christian Dogmatic Does Not Yet Exist’: The Influence of the Nineteenth Century Historical Turn on the Theological Methodology of Herman Bavinck” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2020); Ximian Xu, Theology as the Science of God: Herman Bavinck's Wetenschappelijke Theology for the Modern World (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2022).
9 See Sutanto, Nathaniel Gray, “Confessional, International, and Cosmopolitan: Herman Bavinck's Neo-Calvinistic and Protestant Vision of the Catholicity of the Church,” Journal of Reformed Theology 12 (2018): 22–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Bavinck, RD, 1.30. Another three conceptual features of dogma are: (1) concerning truth for living, (2) the combination of divine authority and ecclesial confession; (3) referring broadly to the whole articles of Christian faith (29–34).
11 Bavinck, “The Pros and Cons of a Dogmatic System,” 97; Bavinck, Herman, “Het voor en tegen van een dogmatisch systeem,” De Vrije Kerk 7 (1881): 458Google Scholar.
12 Bavinck, RD, 66. The figures that Bavinck has in mind here are Kant, Schleiermacher, and Hegel.
13 See Bavinck, Herman, “Confessie en Dogmatiek,” Theologische Studiën 3 (1891): 267Google Scholar. Therein, Bavinck refuses to call Holy Scripture “source” (bron), which seems to characterize the connection between Scripture and theology as being mechanical. Yet, the term “principium” shows that this connection is organic.
14 Bavinck, RD, 1.452–53. Holy Scripture's distinctively methodological status is woven into the three principia of dogmatics: God as the principium essendi, God's self-revelation being recorded in Holy Scripture as the principium cognoscendi externum, and the Holy Spirit's internal illumination as the principium cognoscendi internum (Bavinck, RD, 1.213).
15 See Bavinck, “Confessie en Dogmatiek,” 264.
16 Bavinck, RD, 1.85.
17 Bavinck, RD, 1.85–86; emphasis added.
18 Bavinck, RD, 4.372.
19 See J. Todd Billings, The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 122–23.
20 Billings, The Word of God for the People of God, 147.
21 Bavinck, RD, 4.323. Elsewhere, Bavinck maintains the intrinsic relationship between the catholicity of Christianity and diverse ecclesial confessions; see Herman Bavinck, “The Catholicity of Christianity and the Church,” trans. John Bolt, Calvin Theological Journal 27, no. 2 (1992): 250.
22 On Bavinck's enthusiasm about the union of the two churches, see Eglinton, Bavinck, 159–61.
23 See Bavinck, Herman, “De Wetenschappelijke Roeping Onzer Kerk,” De Vrije Kerk 8, no. 2–3 (1882): 89–90Google Scholar.
24 See Jan de Bruijne, Abraham Kuyper: A Pictorial Biography, trans. Dagmare Houniet (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 149–50.
25 Bavinck argues that “the two Churches united on the basis of doctrine and of the system of Church discipline”; Bavinck, Herman, “The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands,” The Princeton Theological Review 8, no. 3 (1910): 456Google Scholar.
26 See Herman Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, Eerste Deel, 4th ed. (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1928), 471.
27 Bavinck, RD, 1.593–94; emphasis added.
28 Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, Eerste Deel, 534. The English Reformed Dogmatics renders the Latin term “principium” as principle, which contradicts its adoption of the English equivalent “foundation” elsewhere; Bavinck, RD, 1.565.
29 Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, trans. Henry Zylstra (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1956), 102–03. Elsewhere, Bavinck writes: “The heart needs the mouth, for what fruit does it produce to believe with the heart without publicly confessing before men? The faith of the heart may justify, nevertheless, and confession lifts up this perfect salvation. Faith first shines when it declares itself in confession, and through this many are benefited. On the other hand, the mouth needs the heart, for there are many who confess Christ but whose hearts are far from him [Matt 15:8].” Herman Bavinck, The Sacrifice of Praise: Meditations before and after Admission to the Lord's Supper, ed. and trans. Cameron Clausing and Gregory Parker (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2019), 31.
30 Bavinck, RD, 1.597.
31 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 1.7.4.
32 Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume Two: Holy Scripture, The Cognitive Foundation of Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing, 2003), 267; Bavinck, RD, 1.597.
33 Bavinck, RD, 1.597.
34 See Bavinck, Herman, “Conscience,” trans. Kloosterman, Nelson D., The Bavinck Review 6 (2015): 113–26Google Scholar; Herman Bavinck, Reformed Ethics, Volume 1: Created, Fallen, and Converted Humanity, ed. John Bolt et al. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2019), particularly chapter 5 (hereafter RE1). I have demonstrated elsewhere the point that for Bavinck conscience brings to the spotlight: first, the relationship between God and humans and, second, human moral nature. This twofold dimension of conscience is clearly seen in Christ's silent conscience, which exhibits Christ's perfect relationship with God the Father; see Xu, Ximian, “Did Christ Have a Conscience? Revisiting the Debates on Christ's (Un) Fallen Humanity,” Theological Studies 82, no. 4 (2021): 583–602CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
35 See Herman Bavinck, Gereformeerde Ethiek, Eerste Deel, ed. Dirk van Keulen (Utrecht: KokBoekencentrum, 2019), 132. The English translation renders the Dutch bewustzijn as “awareness”; Bavinck, RE1, 173. The same translation occurs at Bavinck, “Conscience,” 117. Cory Brock demonstrates that the best English equivalent for bewustzijn should be consciousness; see Brock, Orthodox Yet Modern, 70.
36 Bavinck, RE1, 174; rev. trans.; Bavinck, Gereformeerde Ethiek, Eerste Deel, 132.
37 Bavinck, RE1, 174.
38 Bavinck, RE1, 174.
39 Bavinck, RE1, 189.
40 Bavinck, “Conscience,” 124.
41 See Bavinck, RD, 2.91.
42 Bavinck, RD, 3.594. Two other benefits of Christ are the human renewal after the image of God and receiving heavenly inheritance and eternal blessedness.
43 See Bavinck, RE1, 174.
44 Bavinck, RD, 3.594; emphasis added. Bavinck writes elsewhere similarly “that conscience is good and pure that is washed in the blood of Christ, that is sanctified through faith, and in which the Holy Spirit himself bears witness (1 Tim 1:19; 1 Pet 2:19; Rom 9:1).” Bavinck, “Conscience,” 118.
45 Bavinck, RE1, 176.
46 Bavinck, RE1, 174.
47 Bavinck, “Conscience,” 118–19.
48 Bavinck, “Conscience,” 126; emphasis added.
49 See Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.10.4.
50 See Bavinck, RD, 1.89–95.
51 Bavinck, RD, 4.394–95.
52 Bavinck, RD, 4.319; emphasis added. Bavinck's neo-Calvinist colleague Abraham Kuyper argues in a similar way while elaborating on the relationship between believers and the institutional church: “(1) [the believers’] freedom to assemble, deliberate, and decide; (2) their will and declaration to bind themselves in this formation; (3) agreement between their formative act and the demand of God's Word; and therefore (4) the duty and freedom to sever this bond personally as soon as such a bond would impede their obedience to God's Word.” Abraham Kuyper, On the Church, ed. Jordan J. Ballor et al., trans. Harry Van Dyke et al., Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016), 110.
53 Bavinck, RD, 4.314; emphasis added.
54 Also see Bavinck, RD, 4.307, 4.313.
55 Bavinck, RD, 4.312; emphasis added.
56 Torrance, T. F., “The Deposit of Faith,” Scottish Journal of Theology 36, no. 1 (1983): 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a helpful analysis of this article, see Paul D. Molnar, Thomas F. Torrance: Theologian of the Trinity (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2009), 36–38.
57 Bavinck, RE1, 193.
58 Bavinck, RE1, 195; emphasis added.
59 See Bavinck, Gereformeerde Ethiek, Eerste Deel, 149; cf. Bavinck, RE1, 203.
60 Bavinck, RE1, 213; emphasis added.
61 See Bavinck, RE1, 213–14.
62 See Bavinck, RD, 4.421–27.
63 Bavinck, “Conscience,” 124.
64 A remarkable example is the Westminster Confession of Faith. The Westminster Confession, which was approved by the Church of Scotland on August 27, 1647, was revised by the Presbyterian Church USA. A comparison between the original Westminster Confession and the one revised and inherited by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (descended from the Presbyterian Church USA) can be seen on “American Revisions to the Westminster Confession of Faith,” https://www.opc.org/documents/WCF_orig.html.
65 See Sexton, Jason S., “Confessional Theology in Public Places,” International Journal of Public Theology 10 (2016): 243CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
66 Bavinck, “De Wetenschappelijke Roeping Onzer Kerk,” 103–04.
67 Herman Bavinck, “Herman Bavinck's Religion and Theology: A Translation,” trans. Bruce Pass, Reformed Theological Review 77, no. 2 (2018): 129.
68 Bavinck, “Herman Bavinck's Religion and Theology,” 118.
69 For example, the Second Helvetic Confession (1566) elaborates on a Reformed view of magistracy in chapter 30, and the London Confession (1646) in Article 48. Although religion was not imposed on individuals in the Netherlands of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Protestant confessional texts at the time doubtlessly reflect the close connection between religion and civil life.
70 Michael Allen, “Confessions,” in Cambridge Companion to Reformed Theology, ed. Paul Nimmo and David Fergusson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 42.
71 Kuyper, On the Church, 110.
72 Karl Barth argues in a similar way with reference to the church: “I prefer to say ‘confessing church’ rather than confessional church, because a confession is only on paper, while confessing is an action!.” Karl Barth, Barth in Conversation, vol. 1, 1959–1962, ed. Darrell L. Guder and Eberhard Busch, trans. The Translation Fellows of the Center for Barth Studies, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 138.
73 Bavinck, The Sacrifice of Praise, 36–37; Herman Bavinck, De offerande des lofs. Overdenkingen vóór en na de toelating tot het heilige avondmaal, 10th ed., rev. trans. (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1920), 37.
74 In my view, this action of confessing squarely corresponds to Sexton's view of public Christianity: “Public Christianity is public then not as it propagates a better hegemony, but insofar as it ‘touches’ or carries potentiality to ‘touch’ others in every sphere of society and in any culture with the reality of its hope, shaped then by particular cultural expressions but also anchored in a revealed reality and translated by the Spirit. And here it makes way for being both a stumbling block and foolishness to others, and yet being the very power of God unto salvation for all who believe, entailing something that only the Holy Spirit truly enables.” Sexton, “Confessional Theology in Public Places,” 35.
75 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 3, The Doctrine of Creation, Part 4, ed. Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. A. T. Mackay et al. (London: Bloomsburry T&T Clark, 2004), 7475; emphasis added. Barth relates this history of the human being to the covenant between God and humans: “In other words, this is neither more nor less than a matter of man's service in relation to the history of the covenant which is the meaning and inner basis of creation. This history must not only take place; it must also be attested. God as the Lord of this history not only wants man to be the object of His action and the recipient of His blessings, but also to have him as a responsible partner” (75).
76 Bavinck, RD, 4.421. Immediately, Bavinck clarifies that “only it refuses and has to refuse to degrade itself into a debating club or a philosophical society in which what was a lie yesterday passes for truth today. It is not like a wave of the sea but like a rock, a pillar and foundation of the truth.”
77 Eduardus Van der Borght, Theology of Ministry: A Reformed Contribution to an Ecumenical Dialogue (Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2007), 154.
78 Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen, “Seeking Unity: Reflecting on Methods in Contemporary Ecumenical Dialogue,” in Ecumenical Ecclesiology: Unity, Diversity and Otherness in a Fragmented World, ed. Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2009), 37.
79 Bavinck, The Sacrifice of Praise, 64.
80 The Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church, The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification: 20th Anniversary Edition (Geneva: The Lutheran World Federation, 2019), 9, https://www.lutheranworld.org/sites/default/files/2021/documents/joint_declaration_2019_en.pdf.
81 Bavinck, The Sacrifice of Praise, 86; emphasis added.
82 Bavinck, The Sacrifice of Praise, 49.
83 Bavinck, The Sacrifice of Praise, 50.