The PRC Seminary library recently added this new, significant publication by Baker Academic (June 2019) to its holdings. It is the first English translation of Herman Bavinck’s other (Reformed Dogmatics) major work, Reformed Ethics: Created, Fallen, Converted Humanity, translated by John Bolt (emeritus professor at Calvin Seminary).
This post by Rev. S. Lems introduces us to this work and the difference between and the relation between Reformed dogmatics and Reformed ethics. Bolt and Baker are to be commended for bringing this project to fruition. This is volume one of three planned volumes. Be sure and read this profitable quote on Lem’s blog!
So good!
“…The difference [between dogmatics and ethics] does not lie in the fact that the former deals with the understanding and knowledge, while the latter is concerned with the will and conduct. This would boil down to a division of human beings into two parts, of which one half is purely intellectual and the other purely ethical. No. In dogmatics we are concerned with what God does for us and in us. In dogmatics God is everything. Dogmatics is a word from God to us, coming from outside us and above us; we are passive, listening, and opening ourselves to being directed by God.
In ethics, we are interested in the question of what it is that God now expects of us when he does his work in us. What do we do for him? Here we are active, precisely because of and on the grounds of God’s deeds…
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