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The body and the image of God in Bavinck and the Reformed orthodox
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2024
Abstract
This article examines Herman Bavinck's inclusion of the body in the image of God in comparison with the positions of Reformed orthodox theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It demonstrates that while it is uncommon for earlier figures to consider the body to be properly included within the image, Bavinck's position is not unprecedented and applies lines of reasoning consistent with the tradition's anthropological convictions. First, an embodied imago Dei is advanced by sources such as the Leiden Synopsis and Petrus van Mastricht. Second, the Reformed orthodox in general adhere to the conviction that human beings are a body–soul unity, and that the image of God includes the uprightness of the whole person, positions that lead to the body being related in some way to God's image. Therefore, while Bavinck's account of an embodied image is a unique contribution, it is nonetheless in continuity with the tradition he receives.
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References
1 See, for instance, Helm, Paul, Human Nature from Calvin to Edwards (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018), pp. 55–78Google Scholar; Farris, Joshua R., An Introduction to Theological Anthropology: Humans, Both Creaturely and Divine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020), pp. 79–108Google Scholar; Joshua R. Farris, ‘A Substantive (Soul) Model of the Imago Dei’, in Joshua R. Farris and Charles Taliaferro (eds), The Ashgate Research Guide to Theological Anthropology (New York: Routledge, 2016), pp. 165–78; Oliver Crisp, ‘A Christological Model of the Imago Dei’, in The Ashgate Research Guide to Theological Anthropology, pp. 217–32; Lapine, Matthew A., The Logic of the Body: Retrieving Theological Psychology (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020)Google Scholar; Lee, Seung-Goo, ‘Calvin and Later Reformed Theologians on the Image of God’, Unio Cum Christo 2/1 (2016), pp. 135–47Google Scholar.
2 This term is from Joustra, Jessica, ‘An Embodied Imago Dei: How Herman Bavinck's Understanding of the Image of God Can Help Inform Conversations on Race’, Journal of Reformed Theology 11 (2017), pp. 9–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 See, for instance, Hoekema, Anthony, Created in God's Image (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1986), pp. 65, 68–70Google Scholar; Berkouwer, G. C., Man: The Image of God (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1962), pp. 76–7Google Scholar; Mattson, Brian G., Restored to Our Destiny: Eschatology & the Image of God in Herman Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics (Leiden: Brill, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lapine, The Logic of the Body, p. 211; Joustra, ‘An Embodied Imago Dei’, pp. 9–23.
4 Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, pp. 76–7.
5 Sutanto, Nathaniel Gray, God and Humanity: Herman Bavinck and Theological Anthropology (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2024), p. 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 The influences Joustra names are Augustine and Calvin. Joustra, ‘An Embodied Imago Dei’, pp. 14–15. In distinction from Joustra, Ziegler posits that Bavinck's embodied account of the image of God is a summary of traditional Reformed teaching, of which Calvin is a representative. Ziegler, Philip, ‘“Those He Also Glorified”: Some Reformed Perspectives on Human Nature and Destiny’, Studies in Christian Ethics 32 (2019), p. 168CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 On this position, in addition to those discussed below, see also John Weemes, The Portraiture of the Image of God in Man, 3rd edn (London: T.C. for John Bellamie, 1636), p. 64.
8 A comment from Helm reads, ‘According to the unanimous verdict of the Reformed theologians of this era, to possess an intellect is to possess the image of God.’ Helm, Human Nature from Calvin to Edwards, p. 79.
9 One taxonomy amongst the Reformed orthodox explicates the image antecedently in the soul's spirituality and rationality, formally in its righteousness and holiness, and consequently in immortality and the exercise of dominion. See, for instance, Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man, trans. William Crookshank (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010), pp. 56–7; Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian's Reasonable Service: In Which Divine Truths Concerning the Covenant of Grace Are Expounded, Defended against Opposing Parties, and Their Practice Advocated, as Well as the Administration of This Covenant in the Old and New Testaments, trans. Bartel Elshout (Orlando, FL: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1992), pp. 323–5; Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology [hereafter IET], vol. 1, ed. James T. Dennison, trans. George Musgrave Giger (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1992), pp. 465–6.
10 See for instance John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John Thomas McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), I.xv.3; Zacharias Ursinus, The Commentary of Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism, trans. G. W. Williard, 2nd American edn (Columbus, OH: Scott & Bascom Printers, 1852), p. 30.
11 Francis Turretin, IET 1, pp. 465–6.
12 Peter Martyr Vermigli, Philosophical Works: On the Relation of Philosophy to Theology, ed. and trans. Joseph C. McLelland (Landrum, SC: The Davenant Institute Press, 2018), p. 40.
13 Calvin, Institutes, I.xv.3. To be sure, there are a variety of interpretations of Calvin's position. Some, most notably Van Vliet, read him as including the body in the image. Jason Van Vliet, Children of God: The Imago Dei in John Calvin and His Context (Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), p. 248. See also Hoekema, Created in God's Image, p. 42.
14 Ursinus, The Commentary of Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism, p. 30. Along with Calvin, Ursinus is a target of criticism from Berkouwer for his failure to include the body in the image. Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, pp. 76–7.
15 À Brakel, The Christian's Reasonable Service, p. 323.
16 Turretin, IET 1, pp. 465–6.
17 Bucanus is another figure who includes the body in the image of God, writing that the image ‘hath not only being in the soule, but also in the body’ and that ‘the image of God was not in the soule alone, or the bodie alone, but in the whole man’. William Bucanus, Institutions of Christian Religion (London: George and Leonell Snowdon and R. Field, 1606), p. 100. For commentary on this, see Rowland S. Ward, God and Adam: Reformed Theology & the Creation Covenant, rev. edn (Lansvale: Tulip Publishing, 2019), p. 112n3. See also William Ames, Marrow of Theology, ed. and trans. John D. Eusden (Durham, NC: The Labyrinth Press, 1983), p. 106; and the sources cited in Lee, ‘Calvin and Later Reformed Theologians on the Image of God’, p. 144n65.
18 Synopsis of a Purer Theology: Latin Text and English Translation, vol. 1, ed. Dolf te Velde, trans. Riemer A. Faber (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 13.36.
19 Ibid., 13.37.
20 Ibid., 13.38.
21 Ibid., 13.42.
22 Petrus Van Mastricht, The Works of God and the Fall of Man, vol. 3 of Theoretical-Practical Theology [hereafter TPT], ed. Joel Beeke, trans. Todd M. Rester (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018), p. 285.
23 Ibid., pp. 285–6.
24 ‘Non sane in membrorum nostrarum materiali crassitie; sed in formali eorundem perfectione.’ Petrus Van Mastricht, Theoretico-practica theologia: qua, per singula capita theologica, pars exegetica, elenchtica et practica, perpetua successione conjugantur, vol. 1 (Ex officina Thomae Appels, 1699), p. 379, emphasis original; cf. TPT 3, p. 285.
25 Van Mastricht, TPT 3, p. 285.
26 Ibid., pp. 285–6.
27 Ibid., p. 286.
28 On the question of the ‘holistic’ anthropology of the Reformed orthodox, Cooper's definition of holism is useful: ‘Holism…affirms the functional unity of some entity in its totality, the integration and interrelation of all the parts in the existence and proper orientation of the whole. It views an entity as a single primary functional system, not as a compound system constructed by linking two or more primary functional systems. It recognizes entities as phenomenological and existential unities.’ Cooper, John W., Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Dualism-Monism Debate (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2000), p. 45Google Scholar. In other words, by this definition the varying understandings of the body–soul relationship and even the seeming devaluation of the body (in some) need not discount the Reformed orthodox anthropology, broadly conceived, as being functionally holistic. Cooper clarifies that there are two levels to the issue: ‘One is the functional holism and phenomenological unity of personal-bodily existence. The other is how that holistic unity is brought about. There is nothing about a contemporary Cartesian mind-brain dualism which would preclude the functional holism of life as I and my psychologist experience it.’ Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, p. 212.
29 See Helm, Human Nature from Calvin to Edwards, pp. 55–78.
30 John Owen, The Glory of Christ, vol. 1 of The Works of John Owen, eds William H. Goold and Charles W. Quick (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 2000), pp. 282–3.
31 Ursinus, The Commentary of Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism, p. 28.
32 Herman Witsius, Sacred Dissertations on What Is Commonly Called the Apostles’ Creed, trans. Donald Fraser (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing Company, 1993), p. 422.
33 Turretin, IET 1, p. 483.
34 Calvin, Institutes, I.xv.2.
35 Ibid., I.xv.2.
36 Vermigli, Philosophical Works, p. 44.
37 Turretin, IET 1, p. 465.
38 Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants, p. 57.
39 Matthias Martinius, De Creatione Mundi Commentariolus (Brema: Apud Johannemt Wesselium, 1613), p. 97; quoted in Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics: Set Out and Illustrated from the Sources, rev. and ed. E. Bizer, trans. G. T. Thomson (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1950), p. 237.
40 Herman Bavinck, God and Creation, vol. 2 of Reformed Dogmatics [hereafter RD], ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), pp. 553–40.
41 See, for instance, The Heidelberg Catechism, 3.6. Key biblical texts for this reasoning are Col 3:10 and Eph 4:24.
42 See, for instance, À Brakel, The Christian's Reasonable Service, pp. 323–5; Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants, pp. 56–7; Turretin, IET 1, pp. 465–6.
43 Ursinus, The Commentary of Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism, p. 30.
44 Canons of Dort, III/IV.1; https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/canons-dort.
45 Bavinck, RD 2, pp. 533, 554.
46 Ibid., pp. 532–3, 555.
47 This motif is exposited in Eglinton, James, Trinity and Organism: Towards a New Reading of Herman Bavinck's Organic Motif (London: T&T Clark, 2012)Google Scholar. Cf. Herman Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, ed. Gregory Parker Jr., trans. Herman Hanko and Gregory Parker Jr. (Jenison, MI: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2024), p. 84; Herman Bavinck, Christian Worldview, eds and trans. Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, James Eglinton and Cory Brock (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), pp. 67, 72; Mattson, Restored to Our Destiny, p. 130.
48 Bavinck, RD 2, p. 560n79.
49 Hank van den Belt and Mathilde de Vries-van Uden, ‘Herman Bavinck's Preface to the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae’, The Bavinck Review 8 (2017), pp. 105–6; Synopsis Purioris Theologiae, ed. Herman Bavinck (Leiden: Donner, 1881). For further commentary, see Clausing, Cameron D., Theology and History in the Methodology of Herman Bavinck: Revelation, Confession, and Christian Consciousness (Oxford: OUP, 2024), pp. 147–57Google Scholar.
50 Bavinck, RD 2, p. 556; cf. Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 13.32.
51 Bavinck, RD 2, pp. 556–7; cf. Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 13.32.
52 Herman Bavinck, Beginselen der psychologie [hereafter BP], 2nd edn (Kampen: Kok, 1923), p. 165; Herman Bavinck, ‘Foundations of Psychology’ [hereafter FP], ed. John Bolt, trans. Jack Vanden Born, Nelson Kloosterman and John Bolt, The Bavinck Review 9 (2018), p. 225; cf. Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 13.24. These commonalities are observed in Sutanto, God and Humanity, p. 22.
53 Bavinck, RD 2, p. 560; cf. Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 13.39.
54 Bavinck, RD 2, pp. 560–1; cf. Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 13.41.
55 Bavinck, RD 2, p. 561; cf. Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 13.44. This link in Bavinck is more explicit than in the Synopsis.
56 Bavinck, RD 2, p. 555; cf. Van Mastricht, TPT 3, pp. 285–6.
57 ‘Het menschelijk lichaam maakt niet in zijne stoffelijke substantie, als σαρξ, maar wel…in zijne perfectio formalis, deel uit van het beeld Gods.’ Herman Bavinck, Gereformeerde dogmatiek [hereafter GD], deel 2, 3e druk (Kampen: Kok, 1918), p. 602; Bavinck, RD 2, p. 560; cf. Herman Bavinck, The Duties of the Christian Life, vol. 2 of Reformed Ethics, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021), p. 166; Van Mastricht, TPT 3, p. 285.
58 Van Mastricht, TPT 3, p. 285.
59 Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God, trans. Henry Zylstra (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 2019), pp. 194–5.
60 Herman Bavinck, ‘Manuscript “De mensch, Gods evenbeeld”’, (1884), inv.nr. 102 // Manuscripten met titel. Archief van Herman Bavinck, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. https://sources.neocalvinism.org/herman-bavinck-archive/?tp=1&id_series=106. I am grateful to Jennifer Patterson for providing a transcription of this manuscript.
61 Bavinck, FP, p. 48.
62 Ibid., emphasis added.
63 ‘Dualistic’ here is meant in the sense that the substances of body and soul are pitted against each other, or that only one is deemed essential to human nature.
64 Bavinck, RD 2, p. 530.
65 Ibid., pp. 553–4.
66 See, for instance, The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, II (I): ‘Of Original Sin’; The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, I.10–11; Martin Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, Part I, vol. 7 of Chemnitz's Works, trans. Jacob O. C. Preus (St. Louis, MO: Concordia House Publishing, 2008), p. 510.
67 Bavinck, RD 2, p. 550. This distinguishes what he refers to as the image in the broad and narrow sense Bavinck, RD 2, pp. 553–4.
68 Ibid., p. 559.
69 Bavinck, BP, p. 165; Bavinck, FP, p. 225.
70 ‘De ziel is de vorm, de bewegende kracht, het beginsel van het lichaam, en het lichaam is de stof, de materie, de mogelijkheid der ziel.’ Bavinck, BP, p. 42; Bavinck, FP, p. 49.
71 Bavinck, RD 2, p. 559.
72 Ibid., p. 560.
73 Sutanto, God and Humanity, p. 12; Bavinck, FP, pp. 48, 214. Cf. Herman Bavinck, Philosophy of Revelation, eds. Cory Brock and Nathaniel Gray Sutanto (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2018), p. 175; Herman Bavinck, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, vol. 4 of RD, p. 94; Joustra, ‘An Embodied Imago Dei’, pp. 16–17.
74 Bavinck, GD 2, p. 601; RD 2, p. 559.
75 Sutanto, God and Humanity, p. 12.
76 Bavinck, RD 2, p. 559.
77 Herman Bavinck, Gereformeerde dogmatiek, deel 4, 2e druk (Kampen: Kok, 1911), p. 677; RD 4, p. 616.
78 Bavinck, FP, p. 214.
79 The full quote reads: ‘When one also considers [Protestant and Catholic] Scholasticism considered the soul to be a God-created, spiritual entity, which brought with it from the beginning all sorts of powers, (innate) habits, and gifts and was able through education and nurture to gain all kinds of acquired habits – then this provides sufficient proof that the old psychology, though it never spoke of the unconscious, understood the matter thoroughly, at least in principle.’ Bavinck, Herman, ‘The Unconscious’, in Essays on Religion, Science, and Society, ed. Bolt, John, trans. Boonstra, Harry and Sheeres, Gerrit (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), p. 181Google Scholar.
80 The full quote reads: ‘The theory of the unconscious that has gained such prominence in psychology of late is proof that the “psychology without a soul” is untenable, and in this respect is a recovery of the old theory of the soul, according to which soul and consciousness are distinct and consciousness is not the essence of the soul but a property.’ Ibid., p. 196.