God and Knowledge | Reformed Theological Seminary

Nathaniel Gray Sutanto offers a fresh reading of Herman Bavinck’s theological epistemology, and argues that his Trinitarian and organic worldview utilizes an extensive range of sources. Sutanto unfolds Bavinck’s understanding of what he considered to be the two most important aspects of epistemology: the character of the sciences and the correspondence between subjects and objects. Writing at the heels of the European debates in the 19th and 20th century concerning theology’s place in the academy, and rooted in historic Christian teachings, Sutanto demonstrates how Bavinck’s argument remains fresh and provocative.

This volume explores archival material and peripheral works translated for the first time in English. The author re-reads several key concepts, ranging from Organicism to the Absolute, and relates Bavinck’s work to Thomas Aquinas, Eduard von Hartmann, and other thinkers. Sutanto applies this reading to current debates on the relationship between theology and philosophy, nature and grace, and the nature of knowing; and in doing so provides students and scholars with fresh methods of considering Orthodox and modern forms of thought, and their connection with each other.

This is an outstanding piece of work. It contributes to our knowledge of Herman Bavinck in a new and significant way, bringing previously unknown archival sources to the fore. It explores Bavinck’s epistemological concerns within a wider context of recent studies on his use of organicist thought, and makes a convincing argument that Bavinck’s account of human knowing also follows an organicist paradigm. On that front, God and Knowledge manages to bring Bavinck into conversation with important figures past (Aquinas), then contemporaneous (Abraham Kuyper), and present.

James Eglinton
The University of Edinburgh, UK

God and Knowledge is an important contribution to the retrieval of Herman Bavinck’s theology. Nathaniel Gray Sutanto confronts the ‘two Bavinck’ hypothesis that depicts him as torn between modernity and orthodoxy, then draws upon his organic motif to show that Bavinck’s epistemology is both fully modern and fully orthodox – united in one person, without confusion, without separation.

Kevin J. Vanhoozer
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, USA

This study reshapes our views of Herman Bavinck’s epistemology. He is neither simply modern nor simply Thomistic. For Bavinck, all true knowledge is organic; it rests in God’s revelation. We do not invent the truth, but recognize it by rethinking the thoughts of the triune God expressed in creation and Scripture.

Henk van den Belt
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Nathaniel Gray Sutanto convincingly argues that the epistemology of Herman Bavinck and his deployment of historical sources is structured by the organic motif. He thus succeeds, in a very lucid way, in presenting Bavinck as an eclectic and creative thinker, who opened new avenues for the Reformed theological tradition in modern times.

George Harinck
The Neo-Calvinism Research Institute, the Netherlands

The principle of unity in diversity was a vital organizing principle in Herman Bavinck’s theology. Here Nathaniel Gray Sutanto skilfully explores its epistemological application to the subjective act of knowing and to the unity of the sciences as an organic whole. This is an important addition to the burgeoning secondary literature on Bavinck’s work.

David Fergusson
University of Edinburgh, UK

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