Certainty of Faith, The

“Herman Bavinck was a brilliant theologian-philosopher, unique for his capacity to combine the disciplines of theology, science, and philosophy into a coherent, constructive world-and-life-system (Weltanschauung) within the matrix of orthodox Calvinism. Living as we are in the post-Enlightenment age, many Christians (including those in the theological guild) are far more influenced by the skepticism of modernism and postmodernism than they are ready to admit. It is for this reason that such a refreshing corrective—in this profound treatise on the certainty of the Christian faith—is as necessary for the twenty-first century church as it was when Bavinck first penned it. Describing the nature of faith, which lays hold of God revealed in His Word as the ultimate authority for belief and life, Bavinck shows that true faith is an experiential reality that provides lasting peace for the believer in the face of pain, suffering, death, and uncertainty, for it satisfies the deepest longings of the human soul that science and scholarship (wetenschap) can never satisfy. Taking us back to a Reformational, almost premodern epistemology without discounting the value of modern science, Bavinck shows how God’s Word answers the ‘why’ questions that science, with its emphasis on the ‘what’ and ‘how,’ can never answer. Now presented afresh to the English-speaking world, this treatise is sure to become a staple in the growing corpus of ably-translated Bavinck literature that has blossomed, for good reason, in recent decades.”

“The Certainty of Faith is a multum in parvo (much in little). It is a book I usually included on seminary class reading lists on the doctrine of assurance, even though it was no longer in print. If, in terms of theological literature, we are living in gold rush days, some of the finest quality gold is to be mined in Herman Bavinck Hills! Dan Schrock and Westminster Seminary Press together have given us one more grace-gift from the prolific ministry of a truly great theologian.”