83r17h
Puritan Board Freshman
I've come across a curious section in Reformed Dogmatics in which he discusses revelation and history (1:377-380). In this section, he makes it clear that separating revelation and history is problematic. However, he then makes this claim:
I'm a tad skeptical here, because I'm not sure what exactly Bavinck is understanding as "the truths of history." For example, is the fact that I had a bowl of cereal this morning a truth of history? If so, I find it hard to believe that such is necessary, and without it happening or being true, that all of history and all of humankind would fall apart. If my eating cereal this morning is that important, great - but I don't think my ego needs that.
The other way that I could read it is that not all truths of history are necessary, but that there are some which are necessary and some which are accidental. The truth that God has a plan ordering history, that God created, etc, these would be necessary and not accidental truths. My eating cereal would be an accidental one. But here again I wonder, are all truths which are part of the history of revelation necessary in the sense that without one of them history and humankind would fall apart? I find it hard to conceive that if Matthew had omitted one sentence from his Gospel that such would be the case.
Am I missing something, or reading Bavinck wrong here?
The "truths of history," accordingly, are not accidental, least of all the truths of the history of revelation. They are necessary to the degree that without them all of history and all of humankind would fall apart.
I'm a tad skeptical here, because I'm not sure what exactly Bavinck is understanding as "the truths of history." For example, is the fact that I had a bowl of cereal this morning a truth of history? If so, I find it hard to believe that such is necessary, and without it happening or being true, that all of history and all of humankind would fall apart. If my eating cereal this morning is that important, great - but I don't think my ego needs that.
The other way that I could read it is that not all truths of history are necessary, but that there are some which are necessary and some which are accidental. The truth that God has a plan ordering history, that God created, etc, these would be necessary and not accidental truths. My eating cereal would be an accidental one. But here again I wonder, are all truths which are part of the history of revelation necessary in the sense that without one of them history and humankind would fall apart? I find it hard to conceive that if Matthew had omitted one sentence from his Gospel that such would be the case.
Am I missing something, or reading Bavinck wrong here?