MIDWESTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

WHAT HATH THE NETHERLANDS TO DO WITH NEW ENGLAND?: IN

THEOLOGICAL AESTHETIC CONVERSATION WITH JONATHAN EDWARDS AND

HERMAN BAVINCK

A PAPER

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT

OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE

DR 01-37380 MODERN ERA

BY

SAMUEL G. PARKISON

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

APRIL 22, 2018

Introduction

What hath the nineteenth-century Netherlands to do with eighteenth-century New

England? Although answers to this question are likely to be few, one important answer—and one

that this paper will explore—is this: both claim theological giants, whose respective universally

encompassing, Trinitarian worldviews provide fodder for developing a robust aesthetic locus in

systematic theology. The two champions in question are Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and

Herman Bavinck (1854-1921). This paper will compare and contrast the theological aesthetic

thoughts of Edwards and Bavinck for the intended end of developing a theological account for

aesthetics that incorporates the strengths of both, while attempting to avoid the weakness of

both.1 To achieve this end, this paper will begin with a brief overview of Edwards’ theological

aesthetic, followed by a brief overview of Bavinck’s, along with a summary of their similarities.

We will then explore how, all things considered, either figure’s system is preferential to the

others with respect to developing an explicit theological aesthetic2—beginning with Edwards’

advantages over Bavinck, followed by Bavinck’s over Edwards.3 With this analysis established,

1 As such, it is appropriate to categorize this paper as primarily philosophical and theological, as opposed to strictly historical. The argument this paper advances is not primarily a historical one, rather, it is a methodological argument informed by two relevantly similar and dissimilar historical figures. In this respect, we are building upon, and taking for granted, sound historical analyses from works carried out with historical methodologies proper, and are moving beyond documentation to analysis, synthesis, and application.

2 It should be pointed out that this term “preferential” is relative to, and restricted by, this narrow exploration of theological aesthetics. These differences will be viewed as “advantages” or “disadvantages” with direct proportion to how highly one values theological aesthetics. To argue for the legitimacy of emphasizing aesthetics as a valuable locus within systematic theology is beyond the scope of this present paper, and will therefore be assumed. Jonathan King has recently argued this premise well in his dissertation, “With Unveiled Beauty: Christological Contours of a Theological Aesthetic Approach to Theology” (PhD diss., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2016).

3 The chiefest consideration that must be taken into account (included in the statement “all things considered”) is the element of Bavinck’s and Edwards’ respective historical contexts. Intrinsically looming over a project like this one is the threat of anachronism. Edwards and

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this paper will conclude by proposing a synthesis of Edwards and Bavinck as a method toward

future theological inquiry on the topic of aesthetics.

Edwards’ Theological Aesthetic: A Brief Overview

Of the two figures this paper examines, Edwards is by far has the most aesthetically

motivated.4 It would be difficult to understate how important aesthetics and beauty are as an

interpretive key to understanding Edwards.5 In their The Theology of Jonathan Edwards,

Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott write, “Edwards regarded beauty as

fundamental to his understanding of God, as the first of God's perfections, as key to the doctrine

of the Trinity, as a defining aspect of the natural world, as basic to the phenomenon of

conversion, as visible in the lives of saints, and as marking the difference between the regenerate

Bavinck occupied two relatively distinct spaces in Church History, and forcing them into a rigid conversation with one another is unfair. However, the great contribution of both figures is that (a) their thoughts draw from a common Reformation heritage, and (b) both offer meditations that tap into biblical, divine realities, which, as such, transcend the historical contexts from which they are offered. To the degree that their thoughts reflect both this common heritage and relative historical transcendence, this paper will cautiously and charitably allow them to dialogue with one another.

4 An unsurprising verdict, given that “Not many Protestant theologians have made beauty a central theme of their theology.” Kin Yip Louie, The Beauty of the Triune God: The Theological Aesthetics of Jonathan Edwards (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2013), 13. In fact, Edwards not only distinguishes himself from Bavinck in this respect; he quite possibly even stands alone as an aestheticentric Reformed theologian: “Yet if Edwards's treatment of beauty is distinctive, it is also unexpected. No earlier Calvinistic author had assigned such a pivotal role to beauty... Continental Protestantism had to wait two centuries longer than American Protestantism, until Karl Barth in the 1930s and 1940s began to reflected on the importance of beauty for theology.” Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 94.

5 Roland Andre Delattre writes, “Beauty is fundamental to Edwards’ understanding of being. It is the first principle of being, the inner, structural principle of being-itself, according to which the universal system of being is articulated. Beauty is also the measure and objective foundation of the perfection of being—of excellence, goodness, and value—and is therefore, the basis for Edwards’ way of affirming and construing the ultimate unity of being and good in God.” Beauty and Sensibility in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards: An Essay in Aesthetics and Theological Ethics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 1-2.

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and the unregenerate mind.”6 Given the centrality of aesthetics for Edwards, and the proliferation

of Edwards’ work, an exhaustive summary of his theological aesthetics—not to mention the

historical situation of the Enlightenment that informs his language7—is beyond the scope of this

paper. Qualifications notwithstanding, the primary contours of Edwards’ theological aesthetic are

difficult to miss. The aspects of his aesthetic most relevant to the discussion at hand can be

summarized in the categories of harmony (or consent), Trinitarian Beauty, and regenerative

sensibility. To these categories, we now turn.

Harmony

In his essay on “The Mind,” Edwards defines beauty or “excellency” (synonyms for

Edwards) by employing the concept of harmony or consent (also synonyms for Edwards). “This

is an universal definition of excellency:” writes Edwards, “The consent of being to being, or

being’s consent to entity. The more the consent is, and the more extensive, the greater is the

excellency.”8 This, in and of itself, does not make Edwards’ theory of beauty exceptional. He

does not stand alone when he insists that beauty is best understood in terms of proportion and

symmetry.9 What makes Edwards’ view unique, however, is his universal scope. For Edwards,

6 McClymond and McDermott, Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 93.

7 Kin Louie outlines this historical context helpfully in The Beauty of the Triune God, 17-63.

8 Jonathan Edwards, “The Mind” in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, vol.6, Scientific and Philosophical Writings, 1714, Ed. Wallace E. Anderson (Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, 2008), 337.

9 Edwards himself points this fact out: “Wherein is one thing excellent and another evil, one beautiful and another deformed? Some have said that all excellency is harmony, symmetry or proportion; but they have not yet explained it. We would know why proportion is more excellent than disproportion, that is, why proportion is pleasant to the mind and disproportion unpleasant.” Ibid., 111. Emphasis added. In addition to the Enlightenment thinkers of his day who employed these categories, one can find proportion and symmetry featured throughout Gesa Thiessen’s work, Theological Aesthetics. Most prominent is Bonaventure, who wrote that “proportion can be viewed in the likeness, insofar as it invalves species or form, and then it is called beauty since

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every single fact of the universe existed in some ontological relationship to every other fact of

the universe, because every single fact of the universe existed in ontologically derivative

relationship to God.10 Edwards writes, “But God is proper entity itself, and these two [i.e.,

consent to being in general and consent to God] therefore in him become the same… And the

more perfect created spirits are, the nearer do they come to their creator in this regard.”11 In other

words, the greater the capacity one has to consent to God, the greater such a one’s capacity is to

consent to everything else, which makes such a one more excellent and beautiful than that which

cannot consent to God beyond a superficial or impersonal way12 (e.g., people have the capacity

to be more beautiful than rocks).13

‘beauty is nothing other than harmonious symmetry’ or ‘a certain arrangement of parts with pleasing colour.’” Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen, ed. Theological Aesthetics: A Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 84-85.

10 In his biography of Edwards, George M. Marsden summarizes, “In contrast to the later notion that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ he took for granted that beauty originated from God who communicated various degrees of ‘excellency’ in creation… Things were excellent if they stood in proper relation to each other… So beauty or excellency consisted in right relationship to the whole picture, ultimately to the whole of being.” George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 78.

11 Edwards, “The Mind,” 337. Louie helpfully touches on the centrality of Edwards’ understanding of all beauty in relation to God when he writes, “From Edwards’ perspective, we cannot know anything is really beautiful until we have a picture of the totality of beings… We are driven by Edwards’ theory of beauty to the concept of God… If the totality of beings can have a purpose, then either this totality is in some sense intelligent, or the Creator of this totality gives it purpose. If the world is created by God, then we cannot truly appreciate the beauty of this world unless we know God’s purpose for the world…” Louie, The Beauty of the Triune God, 60.

12 “That which is beautiful… only with respect to itself and a few other things, and not as a part of that which contains all things—the universe—is false beauty, and a confined beauty.” Edwards, “The Mind,” 344.

13 “[For Edwards, T]here was a beauty that pertained to the ordinary, or natural phenomena that everyone might see… Edwards labeled this secondary, and though it is an ‘inferior’ beauty [in comparison to spiritual beauty], it too is characterized by proportion, symmetry, etc.” Terrence Erdt, “Aesthetics” in The Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia, Harry S. Stout, gen ed. Kenneth P. Minkema & Adriaan C. Neele, ass eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 7-8. See also, Edwards, “Miscellanies” no. 362 “Trinity” in Works of Jonathan Edwards

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A related concept in Edwards’ thinking that ties all of this together is his radically

theocentric ontology, which expressed itself in an altogether unique form of idealism.14

Edwards’s construction of idealism differed from that of individuals such as George Berkeley in

that, for Edwards, the sum of reality was not found in the consciousness of human beings, or in

the abstract concept of consciousness itself,15 but rather in the Mind of God.16 For Edwards, all

reality was contingent upon the will of God, and was necessarily the outworking of that which

was in the “Mind of God.”17 Further, this concept of the “Mind of God” was deeply personal for

Edwards. It was not simply that beauty could not be found in some philosophical abstraction, it

was also not merely found in the consciousness of the monistic deity of general theism or Deism

or in the non-consciousness of pantheism. Rather, the “Mind of God” and the society of the

Online, vol.13, The "Miscellanies": (Entry Nos. a-z, aa-zz, 1-500), 1722, Ed. Harry S. Stout (Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University 2008), 434.

14 “How is it possible to bring the mind to imagine? Yea it is really impossible it should

be, that anything should be, and nothing know it. Then you'll say, if it be so, it is because nothing has any existence anywhere else but in consciousness. No, certainly nowhere else but either in created or uncreated consciousness.” Edwards, “Of Being” in Works, vol. 6, 204.

15 See George Berkeley, “Of the Principles of Human Knowledge: Part 1” in The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. A.A. Luce and T.E. Jessop. eds., vol. 2 (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1948).

16 “The human mind, Edwards realized, was not ontologically sufficient to sustain the cosmos. There had to be a firmer foundation. The divine mind in its infinity knew all things at all times and in all in their specificity.” McClymond and McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 114.

17 On this Edwardsean idealism, Egbert C. Smyth writes, “The external world, ultimately, exists only mentally in God’s idea, yet it is not a mere act or state of the divine consciousness; it is God operating ad extra, expressing himself in finite modes, forms, creations, according to a stable purpose and by an established constitution.” Egbert C. Smyth, “Jonathan Edwards’ Idealism: With Special Reference to the Essay ‘Of Being’ and to Writings Not In His Collected Works” in The American Journal of Theology, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1897), 959.

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Trinity were two sides of the same coin for Edwards, and thus his conception of reality was

fundamentally relational—it was Trinitarian at the core.18

Trinitarian Beauty

It therefore comes as no surprise that Edwards’ conception of the Trinity’s intrinsic

beauty (the Trinity’s beauty ad intra) is intimately related to everything that has been explored to

this point.19 To speak of Edwards’ Trinitarian idealism (i.e., the concept that all created reality

exists so intimately contingent on God’s will that its ontology begins and ends in the divine,

Triune “Mind”), and to speak of his theory of beauty (i.e., beauty consists of being consenting to

being, ultimately in relation to God, who is metaphysically definitional for everything else), and

to speak of his conception of the Trinity’s ad intra excellency and perfection are all to speak on

the same subject.20 “In Edwards’s theological aesthetic,” Jonathan King writes, “the notion of

consent to being has as its basis the social ontology of God’s Being. His conception of beauty as

involving ‘consent’ and ‘agreement’ thus provides the key philosophical link for identifying

God’s divine beauty with God’s Trinitarian beauty.”21

18 On Edwards’s Trinitarian brand of idealism, Marsden writes, “What Edwards took from this tradition, following his Calvinist and Augustinian predecessors, was not a static Platonic idealism in which the material world was a copy of fixed ideals that existed in an ultimate Mind. Rather, his universe most essentially consisted of persons and relationships. The Creator was a personal acting God. God in this tradition was a trinity, a social being of interrelated persons. The doctrine of the trinity, which set Christianity apart from abstract Greek and Deist theism, was a subject of extraordinary interest to Edwards.” Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 77.

19 The fullest expression of Edwards’ Trinitarianism can be found in his “Discourse on the Trinity” in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, vol.21, Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith, 1740, Ed. Sang Hyun Lee (Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, 2008), but this aspect of Edwards’ theology permeates the whole of his corpus.

20 “Since God is the ground of all existence, God is also the ground of beauty.” Louie, The Beauty of the Triune God, 97.

21 Jonathan King, “Beauty” in Edwards Encyclopedia, 63-64.

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Although “the form of [Edwards’] doctrine of the Trinity is the subject of an ongoing

scholarly debate,”22 one aspect of Edwards’ Trinitarianism is indisputable: he roots his doctrine

of beauty preeminently and supremely in the doctrine of the Trinity—particularly in person’s

consent to person within the society of the Trinity.23 Importantly, Edwards insists that the ad

intra beauty of the Trinity must be definitional, and all other beauty24 is to be read as

consequential.25 In other words, the Trinity is not beautiful because proportion and symmetry

happen to be therein just like in every other beautiful thing (as if “symmetry and proportion” is

an abstract standard for beauty to which the Trinity is subject), rather, symmetry and proportion

is definitional for beauty because the Trinity—who is beauty par excellence—is symmetrical and

22 Oliver D. Crisp, Jonathan Edwards among the Theologians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 36. See also Amy Plantinga Pauw, “The Supreme Harmony of All”: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); Steven M. Studebaker and Robert W. Caldwell III, The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012); Sang Hyun Lee, ed., The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); and Oliver D. Crisp, Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). Crisp summarizes and interacts with all of these works and more in Edwards among the Theologians, 36-59. Much of the debate surrounds the issue of whether Edwards’ Trinitarianism primarily leaned toward the psychological (Augustinian) model of the Trinity, the social model, or some innovation that fits in neither category. Louie convincingly argues that Edwards uses both models in The Beauty of the Triune God, 104-115.

23 “But how much more ravishing will the exquisite spiritual proportions be that shall be seen in minds, in their acts: between one spiritual act and another, between one disposition and another, and between one mind and another, and between all their minds and Christ Jesus and the supreme mind, and particularly between the man Christ Jesus and the Deity, and among the persons of the Trinity, the supreme harmony of all.” Edwards, “Heaven” in Works, vol. 13, 327-328.

24 Which must be, on account of Edwards’ idealism and doctrine of creation, necessarily the Trinity’s ad extra beauty Studebaker and Caldwell, The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 191-211.

25 “Edwards’s distinctive emphasis on God’s beauty was predicated on the eternal consent among the persons of the Godhead. As the sum of ontological and moral perfection, the Trinity served as the pattern for all creaturely beauty.” Amy Plantinga Pauw, “Trinity” in Edwards Encyclopedia, 570.

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proportionate. The eternal one-and-three exists in harmonious, perichoretic relationship with one

another,26 and to the degree that creation resembles that relationship, it is beautiful.

Regenerative Sensibility

Having established Edwards’ theory of beauty and aesthetics in general, and its

definitional root in his Trinitarian theology in particular, it is now appropriate to shift focus to

the human subjective experience of this objective Trinitarian beauty.27 This subjective experience

is what Delattre describes as Sensibility. Delattre explains how Beauty and Sensibility are

“essentially and internally related not only as sense of beauty and object of that sense but also

together constituting the more objective and more subjective aspects of what Edwards calls the

‘inherent good,’ consisting in the possession and enjoyment of an ‘objective good.’”28

These two themes (beauty and sensibility) meet most explicitly and foundationally in

Edwards’ soteriology, where he in essence argues that conversion consists of a “divine and

supernatural light,”29 whereby a person perceives supreme beauty (objective), and receives such

beauty with joy (subjective).30 In other words, conversion, for Edwards, is nothing less than the 26 This is one of the central themes developed in Kyle C. Strobel, Jonathan Edwards’s

Theology: A Reinterpretation (London: T&T Clark, 2012).

27 Both of these concepts—i.e., the Trinity’s objective beauty and the subjective reception of his beauty by his creatures—are featured prominently throughout Edwards’ writing. Seldom will Edwards mention one without the other. “Edwards's teaching on beauty and aesthetics moved back and forth from an objective to a subjective pole... For Edwards, beauty was both objective and subjective. Beauty had an effect, and the effect was an affect (i.e., feeling). Yet Edwards balanced the objective and subjective aspects of beauty so that neither eclipsed the other.” McCymond and McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 99.

28 Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 3.

29 See Edwards, “A Divine and Supernatural Light” in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, vol. 17, Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733, Ed. Mark Valeri (Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University 2008).

30 “For Edwards, God presents divine beauty to our soul through our spiritual sense. Why does God present divine beauty? First, our souls are inevitably drawn to the greatest beauty, and

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Holy Spirit-enabled comprehension of divine beauty, and the subsequent Holy Spirit-wrought

apprehension of that beauty.31 A certain connection is thus anticipated. If the Triune God is

“infinitely excellent” and “infinite beauty,” and if Christ perfectly communicates this same God

in the incarnation (he is the “image of the invisible God,” after all. Col. 1:15; cf. Heb. 1:1-3), it

stands to reason that this incarnate Christ ought to exhibit infinite loveliness.32 Jesus Christ,

therefore, is the primary object of the convert’s apprehension of divine beauty—this is, in part,

what it is to have faith in Christ.33

In all of this, it becomes clear that Edwards’ theological aesthetic was all encompassing.

By virtue of its foundation in the Trinity, Edwards’ aesthetic shaped every doctrine and belief

touched by the doctrine of the Trinity (which is to say, his aesthetic touched his every doctrine

and belief). The Christian life, for Edwards, was all about being transfixed by the beauty of the

Triune God.34

God wants to draw our souls to Himself. Second, God is beauty itself.” Louie, The Beauty of the Triune God, 88.

31 “Since the saints have holy affections, they literally have the Holy Spirit within their

souls and partake in divine beauty… We are not made into God. The Holy Spirit is God’s affection for himself, and our affection remains our affections. However, if our affections are truly holy affections, then it must be by participation in the nature of the Holy Spirit.” Ibid., 89.

32 “The first foundation of the delight a true saint has in Christ is His own perfection; and the first foundation of the delight he has in Christ, is His own beauty; He appears in Himself the chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely.” Edwards, Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, vol.2, Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith, 1740, Ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University 2008), 250.

33 “If what is presented as the beauty of the apparent good in Christ is to be viewed as such, there must be in the perceiving subject the corresponding inherent good of primary beauty and spiritual sensibility, which consists in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit… The communication of divine beauty in Christ and of the divine beauty and sensibility in the Holy Spirit correspond to each other, for in each the beauty is the same—being’s cordial consent to being-in-general.” Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 160.

34 See Dane C. Ortlund, Edwards on the Christian Life: Alive to the Beauty of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014).

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Bavinck’s Theological Aesthetic: A Brief Overview

Although an explicit aesthetics did not occupy a major space in Bavinck’s theology,35 his

contribution to theological aesthetics is nevertheless significant.36 However, regardless of his

minimal usage of explicit theological-aesthetic terminology, Bavinck’s entire system may be

described as an aesthetic theology, insofar as his theology takes the shape of divine beauty. This

is certainly the case, though it is a fact understandably missed, due to Bavinck’s own intentional

terminology-shift:

Just as the contemplation of God’s creatures directs our attention upward and prompts us to speak of God’s eternity and omnipresence, his righteousness and grace, so it also gives us a glimpse of God’s glory. What we have here, however, is analogy, not identity. Speaking of creatures, we call them pretty, beautiful, or splendid; but for the beauty of God Scripture has a special word: glory. For that reason it is not advisable to speak—with the church father’s scholastics, and Catholic theologians—of God’s beauty.37

Bavinck’s reason for changing the terminology of God’s “beauty” to God’s “glory” comes from

his own desire to enunciate the Creator-creature distinction in no uncertain terms. For Bavinck,

earthly beauty differs from the divine beauty of God not only in degree, but in nature (“analogy,

not identity”). This means that all of Bavinck’s discussions on God’s glory can be understood in

terms of divine beauty, as long as the unique, archetypal nature of God’s beauty is retained. This

35 The concept of beauty is named and tackled at length only a couple of times by Bavinck. This paper will pull primarily from Bavinck’s 1914 for Almanak of the Vrije Universiteit entitled, “Of Beauty and Aesthetics,” published in Essays on Religion, Science, and Society, ed. John Bolt, trans. Harry Boonstra and Gerrit Sheeres (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) and Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2: God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 252–55.

36 Bavinck’s aesthetic has been aptly summarized and analyzed by Robert S. Covolo in his 2011 article “Herman Bavinck’s Theological Aesthetic: A Synchronic and Diachronic Analysis” in The Bavinck Review, 2 (2011), 43-58. Much of the discussion that follows is indebted to Covolo’s article. See also, James Eglinton, “Vox Theologiae: Boldness and Humility in Public Theological Speech” in International Journal of Public Theology, 9 (2015), 5-28.

37 Bavinck, RD 2.254. Emphasis added.

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makes divine beauty far more central to Bavinck’s system than one might think, on account of

the infrequency with which he uses the terminology. “Glory,” for Bavinck, was not merely one

of many attributes of God, it was the sum of all of his attributes: “The ‘glory of the Lord’ is the

splendor of brilliance that is inseparably associated with all of God’s attributes and his self-

revelation in nature and grace, the glorious form in which he everywhere appears to his

creatures.”38 Therefore, to the degree that Bavinck’s theology is a theology of God’s glory (and if

God’s glory is the sum perfection of all his attributes, then “a theology of God’s glory” is

tantamount to “a theology of God”), it is a theology of God’s beauty.

Further, Like Edward, Bavinck was a thorough and symmetrical thinker; his

understanding of any given topic was connected to every other topic by virtue of its origin in the

Trinity. “The Christian mind,” says Bavinck, “remains unsatisfied until all of existence is

referred back to the triune God, and until the confession of God’s Trinity functions as the center

of our thought and life.”39 In light of his self-expressed belief in the unifying doctrine of the

Trinity, and in light of the divine-glory-shaped theology of Bavinck, this paper will not only

examine what Bavinck wrote about aesthetics explicitly, but also what his other writings imply

about aesthetics as well.40 Specifically, this section will examine Bavinck’s theological aesthetics

within the following categories: beauty and revelation, and beauty and Triune Glory.

38 Ibid., 252.

39 Ibid., 330.

40 Of course, in such an endeavor, there always exists the danger of putting words in Bavinck’s mouth. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that much of this section is a synthesis of various areas of Bavinck’s theology that he does not explicitly synthesize. However, it will be shown that Bavinck’s lack of drawing the lines between his systematic-theological dots is owing not to the illegitimacy of their being drawn, but rather to Bavinck’s minimal explicit attention on this particular area. “Here again we see the truth that in this world nothing exists by itself: everything is interrelated.” Bavinck, “Of Beauty and Aesthetics,” 254.

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Beauty and Revelation

In his essay, “Of Beauty and Aesthetics,” Bavinck argues that earthly beauty (be it

natural beauty or the beauty found in art) is divine revelation—albeit general and secondary to

special revelation. “Both [natural and artistic forms of beauty] are revelations,” writes Bavinck,

“each in its own way, of true beauty, which is not sensory but spiritual—according to Plato [it is]

found in the ideal, and according to Holy Scripture [it is] found in God's splendor and displayed

in all the works of his hands.”41 We should not miss the significant epistemic implications in this

claim. Bavinck consistently upholds Calvin’s conviction that the Scriptures (i.e., special

revelation) serve as spectacles through which all general revelation is to be viewed and

understood.42 If earthly beauty is general revelation of “God’s splendor,” and if Bavinck (and

Calvin) are correct in their belief that special revelation translates and interpreters general

revelation, then the special revelation of “God’s splendor” is epistemologically necessary for

truly understanding and interpreting all earthly beauty. Bavinck continues, “The

acknowledgement of this spiritual beauty is even the prerequisite for maintaining beauty in its

supersensory reality and for doing justice to the truth that both natural and artistic beauty are

independent revelations of beauty.”43 In other words, without the “prerequisite” of understanding

beauty in an ultimate and spiritual sense (i.e., “God’s splendor”), natural and artistic beauty

cannot be explained or justified in any sense.

41 Ibid., 250. Emphasis added.

42 See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J. T. McNeill, trans. F. L. Battles (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 1:14, and Thiago Machado Silva, “Scripture as Revelation in Herman Bavinck’s Theology” in Puritan Reformed Journal, 10, 1 (2018): 154-171.

43 Bavinck, “Of Beauty and Aesthetics,” 250.

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This foundational understanding of Bavinck’s belief about revelation in general, and

beauty as revelation in particular, becomes important for informing his later claim that “An

aesthetics from below must precede an aesthetics from above.”44 Taken in an unqualified sense,

such a statement could seem to communicate that an aesthetics from below instructs an aesthetics

from above (i.e., that earthly beauty must shape one’s understanding of divine beauty). The

opposite is in fact what Bavinck believes. Bavinck means not to communicate the

epistemological or authoritative precedence of a “from below” aesthetics, but rather its

experiential precedence. Indeed, the aesthetics that takes experiential precedence (i.e., an

aesthetics “from below”), according to Bavinck, actually functions to catapult human beings to

an aesthetics that takes epistemological and authoritative precedence (i.e., an aesthetics “from

above”—“God’s splendor”). Note:

Even though philosophy and metaphysics have been greatly dishonored for a time, the unsatisfying results of empirical research have finally made it necessary to go from the sensory to the suprasensory and to find there a solution for the problems about the origin, essence, and purpose of things that arise in the human spirit. Aesthetics also rises immediately above the empirical if it wants to know what beauty is, why some things affect us aesthetically, and what the foundation of aesthetic appreciation is.45

In other words, the “empirical” or experiential aesthetic “from below” has a teleological purpose

to direct one’s attention to an aesthetic “from above” (i.e., special revelation of “God’s

splendor”).46 If the final word on aesthetics rests not in the special revelation of “God’s

44 Ibid., 253.

45 Ibid., 253.

46 Bavinck describes this process by pointing to the “longing deep in every human heart” stirred up by an aesthetics from below, the satisfaction of which is found in God’s glory—an aesthetics from above. “Bavinck clearly believed that this longing, when matched with truth and goodness, could lead humans to desire the very thing beauty reflected, namely, the glory of God.” Corvolo, “Bavinck’s Theological Aesthetics,” 48.

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splendor,” it is incomplete—it begins “from below,” but it cannot stay there.47 This is consistent

with Bavinck’s overall theology of the relationship between revelation and God’s communicable

and incommunicable attributes.48 For Bavinck, “God’s incommunicable invisibility… must

always mitigate the nature of the communicability of divine attributes lest in bringing man up to

God, we inadvertently bring God down to fit a finite frame.”49

Before moving on, it is important to note Bavinck’s caution against taking aesthetics too

far in the enterprise of theology. In affirming the validity of (a qualified version of) the ancient

transcendental triad of truth, goodness, and beauty, Bavinck stresses not only the unity of these

transcendentals, but also their diversity.50 Because they find their ultimate archetypical form in

God, they are united by virtue of God’s simplicity.51 This does not mean, however, that they can

in any way be reduced or conflated into one another.52 This means that beauty, while important

47 Bavinck spends a considerable amount of space on this point that an “empirical aesthetic” is insufficient for having the final word on aesthetics. “[E]mpirical aesthetics is not sufficient in the search for the human sense of beauty. After all, it is certain that man is affected by the world that surrounds him, not only religiously and ethically, intellectually and practically, but also aesthetically. However, the more we think about this phenomenon, the more strange and mysterious it becomes. What is the nature of this aesthetic affection, and what is its origin? Is it a function of the lower or higher cognition, of observation or feeling? Is this feeling, or whatever one may call it, innate, or has it developed slowly through selection of heredity in the struggle for existence? All kinds of theories about these problems have been proposed in the history of aesthetics, and still there certainly is no unanimity, in spite of all the emperical and experimental investigations." Bavinck, “Of Beauty and Aesthetics,” 250-251?

48 See, Bavinck, RD, vol. 2, 148-255. James Eglinton describes the organic relationship that exists between these various loci within Bavinck’s overall theology in his outstanding work, Trinity and Organism: Towards a New Reading of Herman Bavinck’s Organic Motif (New York: T&T Clark, 2012).

49 Covolo, “Bavinck’s Theological Aesthetics,” 50.

50 Covolo summarizes Bavinck’s argument on this triad well. Ibid., 44-45.

51 See Bavinck, RD 2.170-177.

52 “Their [truth, beauty, and goodness] unity, however, does not exclude diversity... Neither the good... nor beauty... can be reduced to truth; neither does beauty coincide with the

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enough to focus on as a transcendental, is nevertheless insufficient as the sole—or even primary

—framework for developing theology.53 Since beauty is descriptive, it is never solitary; it always

compliments truth and goodness (and, by implication, truth and goodness are always

complimented by beauty).54 This all means that beauty must occupy the attention of Christian

theology,55 and that it must not occupy the sole attention of Christian theology.56

good (as the Greeks taught), nor is the good to be grouped together with beauty under the wider rubric of aesthetics... Neither does the difference lie in the fact that beauty, in distinction from truth and goodness, provides rest, peace, and pleasure, because both truth and goodness do the same.” Bavinck, “Of Beauty and Aesthetics,” 256.

53 “Beauty is different from either of those [truth and goodness] in that it does not have its own content, and thus it is not coordinated with or on a par with the true and the good; beauty always derives its content from the true and the good, and it is their revelation and appearance. Beauty thus consists in the agreement with content and form, with essence (idea) and appearance; it exists in harmony, proportion, unity in diversity, organization, glow, glory, shining, fullness, perfection revealed or whatever one wants to name it. But beauty always is in relation to form, revelation, and appearance.” Ibid., 256.

54 In saying that truth and goodness are always complimented by beauty, we are not saying that there is never an ugly side to truth or goodness. Rather, within the all-encompassing framework of a sovereign Triune God who mitigates his incommunicable glory through communicable acts of revelation and history, even ugly truths contribute to the revelation of ultimate divine beauty. The cross of Jesus Christ is the chiefest example of this: “The cross of Christ teaches us before and above all that truth and goodness are not always one in a formal sense. The eye of faith may see glory in this, but the Greek mocks this foolishness and it is an offense to the Jew. Whoever sees Christ only with the physical eye sees in him no form, beauty, or appearance that would make us desire him. However, beauty corresponds to thought and being, complies with logical law, and is such that our knowledge of it that pleases us.” Ibid., 256.

55 “Our country is often characterized on the one hand by coarseness that mocks all dignity, and on the other hand by a stiffness that is without any charm. We will not judge here whether Calvinism is to blame for that and has ruined our national song and art and left behind (as is sometimes and still recently declared) ‘a totally uncouth (putrid?) people.’ In any case, such a serious accusation must goad us to deny that with our deeds. Along with truth and goodness, beauty also needs to be honored.” Ibid., 260.

56 “Though a powerful form of revelation, beauty remains dependent on other elements without which her real magic cannot be fully worked. Even granting an objective status to beauty as part of the world, as well as its ability to enlighten and move the self beyond itself, such aesthetic events can at best leave us longing for something more, some other complement whereby to complete the perception of revelation.” Corvolo, “Bavinck’s Theological Aesthetics,” 49.

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Beauty and Triune Glory

Bavinck’s entire discussion on beauty and aesthetics hinges on the conviction that earthly

beauty is an ectypal revelation of archetypal divine beauty,57 and that the intended end of ectypal

revelation is to point creatures back to its archetypal divine beauty.58 As we have seen, Bavinck

prefers the terminology of “glory” rather than “beauty” to describe the archetypal fulfillment of

earthly beauty, but whatever terminology one uses, the point remains: earthly beauty reflects

God.59 However, the God reflected in earthly beauty is not merely a monistic deity on the one

hand, nor a pantheistic deity on the other,60 but rather the Triune God of Scripture—the ultimate

one-and-many.61 Bavinck writes:

57 “The pinnacle of beauty, the beauty toward which all creatures point, is God. He is supreme being, supreme truth, supreme goodness, and also the apex of unchanging beauty… God is the highest beauty, because in his being is absolute oneness, measure, and order.” Bavinck, RD 2.254.

58 “Not only does God have perfect knowledge of himself, however; he has also instilled

an impression of himself in our hearts. We all have an idea of God and fill it with all the perfections we conceive and think possible… [W]hen humans allow themselves to be instructed by Scripture, that sense of God is also clarified; they again learn to know God as he truly is, and say Amen! to all his perfections.” Ibid., 250.

59 “Humanity and the world are related because they are both related to God. The same reason, the same spirit, the same order lives in both. Beauty is the harmony that still shines through the chaos in the world; by God's grace, beauty is observed, felt, translated by artists; it is prophecy and guarantee that this world is not destined for ruin but for glory—a glory for which there is a longing deep in every human heart.” Bavinck, “Of Beauty and Aesthetics,” 259.

60 Bavinck, RD 2.331. John Bolt also gives a succinct summary of Bavinck’s rejection of both of these reductionistic deities (i.e., monism—sole unity—and pantheism—sole diversity) in Bavinck on the Christian Life: Following Jesus in Faithful Service (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 141-142.

61 “[I]n God both are present: absolute unity as well as absolute diversity. It is one selfsame being sustained by three hypostases. This results in the most perfect kind of community, a community of the same beings; at the same time it results in the most perfect diversity, a diversity of divine persons.” Bavinck, RD 2.331-332.

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There is much truth in the belief that creation everywhere displays to us vestiges of the Trinity. And because these vestiges are most clearly evident in “humanity,” so that “human beings” may even be called “the image of the Trinity,” “humanity” is driven from within to search out these vestiges. The perfection of a creature, the completeness of a system, the harmony of beauty—these are finally manifest only in a triad.62

Therefore, justice has not truly been given to Bavinck’s theological aesthetics if it is not cast

explicitly within a Trinitarian framework (along with every other aspect of his theology).63 The

glory of God that stands as the archetypical definition of all earthly beauty is a Triune glory.

It is also important to note the centrality of the incarnation in this discussion.64 If Triune

glory is the archetype of all earthly beauty, and if the special revelation of Triune glory is the

intended end of—and epistemological key for interpreting—earthly beauty, it stands to reason

that the apex of God’s revelation (i.e., the “Word made flesh” Jn.1:14) is crucial for

understanding beauty.65 Although Bavinck does not seem to explicitly connect these dots, the

fact that they must connect is unavoidable; indeed, Bavinck places Christ in far too central a role

in the enterprise of dogmatics for the connection to be neglected. Bavinck writes, “The doctrine

of Christ is not the starting point, but it certainly is the central point of the whole system of

dogmatics. All other dogmas either prepare for it or are inferred from it.”66 Therefore, although

Bavinck is not explicit on this last point, it is entirely consistent with his overall theology to

62 Ibid., 333.

63 See Covolo, “Bavinck’s Theological Aesthetics,” 53-57.

64 See Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 274-319.

65 “In Christ, in the middle of history, God created an organic centre; from this centr, in an ever widening sphere, God drew the circles within which the light of revelation shines… In Christ God both fully revealed and fully gave himself.” Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 383.

66 Bavinck, RD 3.274.

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conclude that apprehension of Christ by faith is nothing short of apprehension of Triune glory

(i.e., archetypal beauty) communicated in human form.

Edwards and Bavinck: Theological-Aesthetic Commonalities

In light of the above examination of Edwards’ and Bavincks’ theological aesthetics

respectively, their commonalities become apparent. Though before mentioning them, the striking

nature of their commonalities ought to be recognized: Bavinck seldom interacted with Edwards’

work directly, and apart from their common heritage in Calvin specifically and Reformation

theology in general, they emerge out of relatively distinct ecclesial backgrounds.67 It can

therefore be assumed that many of the following commonalities are not owing to any particular

circumstantial influence, but rather to the simple practice of consistency. In other words, the

consistent outworking of their common Reformed foundation led Bavinck and Edwards to the

three following similar conclusions.68

First, earthly beauty is reflective of divine beauty. Though Bavinck prefers the language

of “divine glory” to “divine beauty,” both thinkers are clear in their insistence that earthly beauty

reflects, depends upon, and points back to God, who is supremely beautiful. Though Edwards is

67 See Covolo’s comments on Bavinck in relation to Edwards in “Bavinck’s Theological Aesthetics,” 56-57. Edwards was a son of the Puritans, and Bavinck was comfortably situated in the separatist, Dutch Reformed tradition. To read on Edwards’ theological influences, see Marsden, Jonathan Edwards and E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003). To read on Bavinck’s theological influences, see Ron Gleason, Herman Bavinck: Pastor, Churchman, Statesman, and Theologian (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2010), and John Bolt, Bavinck on the Christian Life.

68 Albeit through vastly separate methodologies. Commenting on Edwards and the Dutch Reformed tradition in general, Louie writes, “[T]he Dutch Reformed school develops their aesthetics independent of Edwards. For us, the Dutch school illustrates that there is no single school of Reformed aesthetics. The fundamental belief in the absolute sovereignty of God (common to both Dutch and American Reformed tradition) does not determine how one should develop a theology of beauty.” Louie, The Beauty of the Triune God, 207.

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willing to go further than Bavinck with regard to the continuity between divine beauty and

earthly beauty (a point that shall be discussed further below), the basic impulse to see earthly

beauty as secondary to, and teleologically directed toward, God is common to Edwards and

Bavinck.

Second, the nature of divine beauty’s origin is Trinitarian.69 Both Bavinck and Edwards

remain unsatisfied with basing their theory of aesthetics (or any of their theology) on a generic

theism. If God is the source and definition of the divine beauty that earthly beauty reflects, and if

God is Trinity, then divine beauty must be understood in Trinitarian terms, or else it is not

understood at all. Between the two, Edwards was far more explicit on this point,70 but that is

simply owing to a difference of methodology and style, not to a substantial difference of

theology.71

69 Of Course, as we have already noted above, serious debate surrounds Edwards’ own form of Trinitarianism, which makes this point of continuity relative in strength to the Trinitarianism to which one believes Edwards held. However, even if Edwards’ views on the Trinity were to resemble Bavinck’s only in the crassest exterior form, our point is that they both theologized within a central Trinitarian framework.

70 With Bavinck, this is implicit within the categories he utilizes as he explores the topic. Covolo writes, “Bavinck’s description of the relationships among the triad evinces an uncanny resemblance to his formulation of the relationships among the persons of the Trinity. This is not to say that Bavinck explicitly states a trinitarian structure for aesthetics. However, it is difficult to ignore the striking similarity in Bavinck’s description of the relationship of the true, the good and the beautiful with his view of the Trinity… Although Bavinck sketches the trinitarian structure subtly, and although this structure is spread throughout his essay, a careful reading of his aesthetics reveals an implicit identification of the true with the Father, the good with the Son, and the beautiful with the Spirit.” Covolo, “Bavinck’s Theological Aesthetics,” 53-54.

71 Louie comments on their different methodological emphases, “On the one hand, the Dutch school approaches beauty through the perspective of artistic activities. Their definition of beauty is motivated by the search for the essence of art. On the other hand, Edwards is motivated by a search for the vision of the Creator within creatures.” Louie, The Beauty of the Triune God, 207.

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Third, the universe is ontologically derivative of the Trinity, and all things are therefore

to be related to the Trinity if they are to be understood in their truest sense. In this way, not only

is the nature of divine beauty Trinitarian, the earthly beauty which reflects it must also be

Trinitarian.72 We have seen that Edwards situates his theological aesthetics more squarely within

this point that than Bavinck, but when Bavinck is allowed to speak for himself, it becomes clear

that his theological aesthetic cannot consistently function outside of it either because none of his

theology can:

The thinking mind situates the doctrine of the Trinity squarely amid the full-orbed life of nature and humanity. A Christian’s confession is not an island in the ocean but a high mountaintop from which the whole creation can be surveyed. And it is the task of Christian theologians to present clearly the connectedness of God’s revelation with, and its significance for, all of life.73

Within such an expansive view of Trinitarian theology must rest the study of aesthetics. “[A]ll

the works of God ad extra,” Bavinck continues, “are only adequately known when their

trinitarian existence is recognized.”74

Edwards and Bavinck: Theological-Aesthetic Distinctions

Their similarities notwithstanding, there are a number of key differences between

Bavinck and Edwards in the realm of aesthetics. In some of these differences, Edwards’

formulations are preferential to Bavinck’s (with respect to developing an explicit theological

72 E.g., Edwards, “Miscellanies” no. 182 “Heaven,” in Works, vol. 13, 328-329. Bavinck similarly refers to the “vestiges” of the Trinity found in earth: see discussion on “Beauty and The Triune Glory” above.

73 Bavinck, RD 2.330. Indeed, Covolo writes, “Through a careful examination of his work, Bavinck’s true intent becomes clear: his desire is to guide his readers through the increasingly reductive empiricism of modern thought and to reclaiming created beauty as a revelation of God designed to direct us toward a transcendent beauty—the beauty that God alone possess in his categorically distinct trinitarian glory.” Covolo, “Bavinck’s Theological Aesthetics,” 57.

74 Bavinck, RD 2.33.

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aesthetic), and vice versa. We should once again stress that any judgment of “preferentiality” or

“advantage” or “strength” we attribute to one theologian over the other is relative to this narrow

enterprise of formulating an explicit locus of aesthetics within systematic theology.75 These

judgements are not meant to suggest that Edwards or Bavinck should be criticized for not

formulating their theology differently. Such may or may not be the case. But Edwards and

Bavinck were theologians in different times and places, and in different ways (e.g., Bavinck was

a systematician proper, whereas Edwards played the role of theologian as pastor, philosopher,

and apologist), and as such, their theological formulations vary for good reason. If we endeavor

to formulate an explicit theological aesthetic, however, relative strengths of one theologian over

another’s rise to the surface. We shall now highlight two of such strengths of each theologian’s

aesthetic over the other theologian’s.76

Relative Strengths of Edwards over Bavinck

First, Edwards applied his Trinitarian commitments to aesthetics more explicitly than

Bavinck. This is owing to a difference of emphasis, not substance. As we have argued thus far, if

Bavinck had dedicated more direct time and attention to the topic of aesthetics, he would have

made explicit the implicit lines we have drawn between his theological aesthetics in general and

his Trinitarian theology in particular (or else he would have been inconsistent). With respect to

the project of formulating an explicit theological aesthetic, then, Edwards has the advantage over

Bavinck in terms of Trinitarian focus.

75 See footnote 2.

76 In fact, there are far more differences than the four that will be mentioned here, but these four are the most relevant to the intended end of this paper (i.e., allowing Bavinck’s and Edwards’ theological aesthetics to balance one another out into a theological aesthetic that embodies the strengths of both).

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Second, Edwards explicitly followed the implications of his Trinitarian aesthetics into the

realm of soteriology, whereas Bavinck, while sharing the same individual elements of this kind

of aesthetic soteriology, did not draw the same lines. This advantage of Edwards follows directly

from the former. Like the pervious point, this point of discontinuity is in no way owing to any

intrinsic deficiency in Bavinck’s system; he simply did not seem to explicitly link his teaching

on the Trinity, glory, and beauty to soteriology in the pronounced way that Edwards did.77 In

some cases, Bavinck comes right up to the edge of drawing these lines explicitly, but he does not

seem to do so.78 Of course, faulting Bavinck for neglecting to draw such lines would be unfair79

77 I.e., If earthly beauty reflects divine beauty and is intended to direct creatures to such divine beauty, and if such a divine beauty is none other than the glory of the Triune God, and if the Triune God is ultimately revealed and communicated to creatures in the incarnation of the Son, and if the ordo salutis includes the Holy Spirit’s regenerating work to open the eyes of the heart to see the truth of God’s revelation, then surely faith must include an element of desire, in which the creature responds to the revelation of the Son (who, in revealing the Triune God, reveals Triune glory or beauty) with joy. Bavinck does not seem draw out such a syllogism in his works, but each of those premises are located in his overall theological system, and can therefore be drawn out without doing it damage.

78 E.g., “Beauty and the sense of beauty respond to each other, as the knowable object and the knowing subject, the religio objectiva [responding] to the religio subjectiva. Truly, awareness of beauty cannot be fully explained as 'empathy'; when observing and enjoying true beauty, it is not man who bestows his affections and moods on the observed object, but it is God's glory that meets and enlightens us in our perceptive spirits through the works of nature and art.” Bavinck, “Of Beauty and Aesthetics,” 259. We hasten to add, “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 3-4) to Bavinck’s short list of “nature and art.” Cf., “[T]he application of salvation is and remains a work of the Spirit, a work of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, and is therefore never coercive and violent but always spiritual, lovely, gentle, treating humans not as blocks of wood but as rational [and we may add, emotional] beings, illuminating, persuading, drawing, and bending them. The Spirit causes their darkness to yield to the light and replaces their spiritual powerlessness with spiritual power.” Bavinck, RD 3.573. We ask, illuminating what? Drawing where? What makes faith in Christ so compelling for the wooed and regenerated soul? Cf., RD 4.43; 125-126.

79 The one exception to this rule would be an occasion in his essay, “Of Beauty and Aesthetics,” in which Bavinck seems to pose a false dichotomy. After already establishing the tri-dependency of truth, goodness, and beauty, Bavinck poses them against one another, and relegates beauty into the realm of “luxury:” “[Beauty] does not, however, have the same compelling force for us as the true and the good. Because beauty does not have its own content, and because it deals with appearance and observation, it is tied more closely to the luxury of life

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—it would be the essence of anachronism to force him to answer a question he was not asking80

—but it is worth pointing out if for no other reason than to highlight that Edwards’ theological

aesthetic was, in this regard, fuller and more appropriately expansive than Bavinck’s in terms of

focus.

Relative Strengths of Bavinck over Edwards

First, Bavinck upheld the Creator-creature distinction in a more pronounced manor than

Edwards did.81 Bavinck safeguarded this distinction by regularly emphasizing the analogical

nature of creation (which is to say, the archetypal-ectypal relationship between God and his

creation).While Edwards did not likely conceive of himself as a pantheist,82 scholars debate

than the true and the good, and it reached freedom and independence much later. The theistic worldview therefore remains a religious-ethical one as opposed to the aesthetic view of pantheism.” Bavinck, “Of Beauty and Aesthetics,” 259. At this point of the article, Bavinck had already legitimized the language of “beauty” for God (albeit not without expressing his preference for the language of “glory”), but surely Bavinck would not be content with insinuating that this archetypal beauty—that is, God’s glory—belongs in the category of “luxury.” Furthermore, if earthly truth, goodness, and beauty is reflective of the Trinity’s truth, goodness, and beauty, then in a general sense, it must also reflect his indivisibility. Indeed, salvation (which is central to the “theistic worldview” Bavinck here describes strictly terms of truth and goodness, “religious-ethical”) is impossible without human faith in, and faithful response to, divine glory (i.e., beauty).

80 Furthermore, part of Bavinck’s hesitancy, or whatever it was that kept him from drawing these connections, was most assuredly his historical context. Throughout his career, Bavinck battled against the anti-Trinitarian conception of beauty that marked pantheism, and the emotionalism of figures like Schleiermacher (who makes a number of appearances throughout his four-part Reformed Dogmatics), neither of which were encroaching threats for Edwards to the degree that they were for Bavinck. Thus Edwards was at far more liberty to dwell on the nature of the affections without giving the idea that he was an endorser of these schools.

81 E.g., “Just as the contemplation of God’s creatures directs our attention upward and propts us to speak of God’s eternity and omnipresence, his righteousness and grace, so it also gives us a glimpse of God’s glory. What we have here, however, is analogy, not identity.” Bavinck, RD 2.254. Emphasis added. Cf., Ibid., 308; 438.

82 E.g., Jeffrey Waddington writes of Edwards’s epistemology, “Those who read Edwards as leaning in a Platonic direction must reckon with the seriousness with which he views human sin… If God and man are identified with one another as pantheism or panentheism would suggest, then there would be no possibility of sin or both God and man would be evil.” Jeffrey C.

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about whether or not his theology intrinsically and necessarily yields to a form of pantheism.83

Granted, Bavinck has the advantage of time over Edwards in this area, having witnessed and

striven against past and contemporary formulations of pantheism that were invading Christian

theology in ways not experienced or witnessed by Edwards. However, regardless of whether or

not Edwards should have guarded his theological-aesthetic language against the charge

pantheism (accurate or otherwise),84 it is clear that Bavinck leaves no room for such an

accusation. If theological aesthetics is to be understood in any sense as Christian, Bavinck must

be considered advantageous in this respect.

Second, Bavinck refrained from appropriating secularistic, speculative concepts of

metaphysics into his theology, and instead disciplined his discussions with explicitly biblical and

historically confessional categories.85 This does not mean that Bavinck was under the delusion

that theology could be formulated in a historical vacuum, nor does it mean that he ignored the

philosophical and metaphysical discussions of his day (indeed, Bavinck highly engaged and

utilized such discussions all throughout his corpus). Rather, our point is to emphasize that, for

Bavinck, the enterprise of theology was to spring up from Scripture alone.86 Whereas Edwards

Waddington, in “The Unified Operations of the Human Soul: Jonathan Edwards’ Theological Anthropology and Apologetic” (PhD diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 2013), 158.

83 E.g., Crisp argues for this conclusion in Crisp, Edwards on God and Creation,138-163.84 “While this language [of God’s archetypal knowledge and man’s ectypal knowledge] is

not found in Edwards, it was standard Reformed fare Edwards would have been more familiar with it.” Waddington, “The Unified Operations of the Human Soul,” 158.

85 E.g., “Now, over against all those who want to base the doctrine of the Trinity on rational grounds, we must undoubtedly maintain that we owe our knowledge of this doctrine solely to God’s special revelation. Scripture alone is the final ground for the doctrine of the Trinity.” Bavinck RD, 2.329.

86 “Normatively, theology should begin with revelation, proceed from faith, and articulate its own first principles (principia)… By way of revelation God makes himself known to us as the primary efficient cause of all things. Holy Scripture is the external instrumental efficient cause of

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was content to Christianize various concepts in metaphysics and philosophy in his theology (or at

least to formulate theology from within his own Enlightenment-cultivated philosophical

musings),87 Bavinck insisted that Scripture was sufficient all by itself to serve as a foundation for

systematic theology. There is no need, according to Bavinck, to adopt secularistic concepts to

make sense of—or to formulate—Christian theology.88 Even a cursory glance at Bavinck’s works

shows that he was rigorously biblical in his formulation of theology.

Concluding Proposal: An Edwards-Bavinck Alliance

We now conclude with a modest proposal. Given the reality of historical development,

the current theological landscape has the advantage of looking back upon the theological

aesthetics of both Jonathan Edwards and Herman Bavinck. If one allows them to inform and

balance out one another (a feat Edwards and Bavinck did not themselves have the opportunity to

do), their unified and distinct strengths combine to form an ideal conception of aesthetics within

the loci of systematic theology. Such a conception is marked by four characteristics. (1) An

explicit, rigorous Biblicism, which gives appropriate place to special revelation. If the Triune

God is aesthetically definitional, then his special revelation about himself appropriately sets the

terms for aesthetic discussions. (2) A thoroughgoing Trinitarianism, to which all conceptions of

theology, and divine revelation also requires the internal illumination of the Holy Spirit.” Bavinck RD, 1.207. This kind of theology can be contrasted with, as an extreme example, the method of correlation proposed by Paul Tillich, which “revolves around questions and answers. The questions are raised by philosophy through careful examination of human existence… The second step is uniquely theological, as the theologian draws on the symbols of divine revelation to formulate answers to the questions implied in human existence that philosophy can discover but not answer.” Stanley J. Grenz & Roger E. Olsen, 20th Century Theology: God & the World in a Transitional Age (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1992), 120.

87 E.g., see the above discussion on Edwards’ uniquely Christian idealism. Much of Edwards’ own theological formulations of the Trinity sprung out of philosophical and metaphysical musings, corroborating Scripture, rather than springing up from Scripture first. See “Discourse on the Trinity” in Works, vol. 21 and “The Mind” in Works, vol. 16.

88 This, indeed, is the conclusion of the first volume of his Reformed Dogmatics.

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beauty conform. This includes, but is not limited to, explorations of: the Trinity’s beauty ad intra

(the doctrine of perichoresis is useful here), the Trinity’s beauty ad extra (in both creation and

redemptive history), the “vestiges” of the Trinity’s work in creation (and in creation’s creation),

etc. (3) A chastening application of a pronounced Creator-creature distinction that disallows the

confusion between the ectypal “vestiges” of the Trinity’s work found in earthly beauty with the

archetypical beauty of the Triune God himself. (4) The symmetrical expansion of inquiry,

wherein this particular locus of systematic theology is related to various other loci in systematic

theology. Edwards led by example in relating aesthetics to soteriology, but if the concept of

beauty in general, and the Trinity’s beauty in particular, is a legitimate locus in systematic

theology, it must also relate to Paterology, Christology, Pneumatology, ecclesiology,

eschatology, etc.

Such an “Edwards-Bavinck alliance” has great promise in contributing to the field of

systematics. Though removed from one another by a continent, a language, more than one

hundred years, and distinct ecclesial traditions and influences, Edwards and Bavinck conspire

together on the larger stage of Church history to provide broad, sturdy shoulders for theological

meditations on the topic of aesthetics. Upon these shoulders, contemporary and future

theologians ought to stand.

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