Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) was a Dutch Reformed theologian and churchman. He was a significant scholar in the Calvinist tradition, alongside Abraham Kuyper and B. B. Warfield. His father was Rev Jan Bavinck (1826–1909), the minister of theologically conservative, ecclesiastically separatist Christian Reformed Church. A leading figure in the secession from the State Church of the Netherlands in 1834.
After theological study in Kampen and at the University of Leiden, he graduated in 1880 and served as the minister of the congregation at Franeker, Friesland, for a year. Bavinck made his distinctive mark as an orthodox Calvinist theologian and churchman. In 1882 he was appointed a Professor of theology at Kampen and taught there from 1883 until his appointment, in 1902, to the chair of Systematic Theology in the Free University of Amsterdam, where he succeeded the great Abraham Kuyper.
Under the leadership of Abraham Kuyper, the Free University in Amsterdam (VU) was meant to be a bastion of Reformed learning in all fields of thought. The Free University, including its Theology Faculty for training clergy, unlike Kampen Seminary, was independent of both the state and all church denominations. Theology was VU’s initial leading concern for some decades. So, when he was first invited to join the VU Faculty, Bavinck had to weigh the merits of teaching what concerned him in his theological research in such a seemingly independent environment. With Kuyper in the same faculty, he might have come to feel quite crowded.
After refusing Abraham Kuyper’s invitation several times to come to Amsterdam, Bavinck finally accepted Kuyper’s plea. In 1902 he succeeded Kuyper as Professor of Theology at the Free University in Amsterdam. Kuyper himself had developed other workloads and simply wanted the best man available to replace himself. Thus, Bavinck moved to the big city, with his first edition of multi-volume Gereformeerde Dogmatiek (Reformed Dogmatics) already in publication. He arrived well-credentialed and well-respected. He remained at VU for the remainder of his teaching career. In 1906 he became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1911, he was named to the Senate of the Netherlands Parliament. He assisted in the encouragement of the Gereformeerde people to build their own Christian schools, without state financial help, until such a time as the 80-year “School War” was brought to an end by the granting of government assistance to all schools.
In 1908 he visited the United States and gave the Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary.
Bavinck died on 29 July 1921 in Amsterdam.
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Herman Bavinck – Wikipedia
