Bavinck’s Biblical and Religious Psychology
One of those “behind the scenes” debates that has raged for over a generation among Evangelicals is whether or not psychology is a legitimate field of study, or, if it is, whether it should be cast in terms of a “biblical psychology” or else one of those fields belonging to general revelation given a wide variety of issues that Scripture does not explicitly address. The Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck wrote a series of articles in a Dutch journal between the years 1914 and 1920. The finished product was published under the title Biblical and Religious Psychology. In the early going, he weighs in on that whole question of the subject’s legitimacy and form:
“Does special revelation swallow everything that lies before us in nature and history, such that, in order to know everything about it (nature and history), we need to do nothing other than to investigate the Scriptures? There are those who indeed reason this way, but at the same time they contradict the practice in their own life.”1
The upshot is that Scripture gives us the general principles which nevertheless fence in the specialized work which must be done in its own right.
The Unity of Human Nature
In any science, there has to be a unified subject matter. If there is not, then either one has really multiple subjects on their hands, or else a mass of contradictions. Modern materialist psychology may seem to at least have a unity—a mass of tissue that is more like a stimuli-response mechanism. But the materialist makes an exception for himself. His analysis of the “patient” was not utterly determined, but proposes to be a real insight into the way things are. Besides, the modern schools do not all agree on what man is, nor the basic causes of his thoughts and actions. In a biblical view, Bavinck argues, the most important things function as a unity over all human experience:
“Scripture speaks of the same man who exists, lives, thinks, feels, wills, and acts … [and] teaches the common origin of the whole human race and the unity and immutability of human nature. It testifies that man, in spite of difference in sex, language, nation, culture, notwithstanding the fact that he has become a sinner, and also when he has been delivered and renewed from sin, the same needs, the same inspirations and aspirations.”2
Adam is regarded as historical, but also typological—God Himself being the archetype.3 In other words, Adam is a pattern for the way that God designed human beings. In the Bible, the human being “is not philosophically dissected into its constituent parts, but is always viewed in its unity.”4 Body and soul are distinct, but not divorced; likewise with mind and heart. Bavinck speaks of the two senses of the word “flesh,” carefully separating the biblical notion of the sinful nature (sarx) and the Gnostic error that our material bodies are prisons.
As to whether “spirit” and “soul” suggest a trichotomist position (that man is composed of three basic dimensions: body, soul, and spirit), Bavinck answers in the negative, siding with the classical Christian tradition in its dichotomism, and pointing to the origin of the trichotomist view in the ancient mystery religions.5
The Image of God and Sin
In consideration of the image of God, just as elsewhere, Bavinck divides the relational dimension under three heads: 1. Our relation to God, 2. Our relation to other people, and 3. Our relation to nature.6 He also takes the classical Reformed position on the image of God. It was not indelible—something of it was lost in the fall—yet he distinguishes between the moral dimension that the Confession describes as “knowledge, righteousness, holiness,” and the essential dimension that separates man from beast: reason, volition, and so forth.7
What then does sin do? First, we follow John’s lead of calling it “lawlessness” (1 Jn. 3:4), so a chapter is devoted to sin as transgression of the moral law. It is “ethical” in character, not just psychological.8 Sin doesn’t simply distort the soul, but poisons society. And since it is a totalizing corruption, mere education will not reverse things, as the Greeks thought. It goes to the root, so neither will mere habit-formation. The implications for how “experts” treat the soul should be clear. Modern psychology morphed sin into sickness, guilt into victimization.
It also has implications for how we should view children. They do not begin either morally pure or legally innocent. As such, the shaping of their souls must come from a good, spiritual force from without rather than an encouragement of those forces within. Bavinck channels this discussion into a criticism of educational theories as diverse as Rousseau’s child-centered romanticism and a pietistic repression of the child’s earthly calling.9
Bavinck speaks of a “threefold benefit” of a biblical lens toward psychology:
“In the first place, it teaches us to know man as he is and as he will always remain in his origin, essence, and destiny ... But it follows, in the second place, that the study of holy Scripture introduces us to man’s soul-life in a way that no other book does or can do. After all, it describes for us what changes in that man, who remains the same according to his essence, are produced through sin and grace ... And finally, it never does all this in abstract conceptions, but it makes us see everything in the full reality of life.”10
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1. Herman Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology (Jenison, MI: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2024), 8.
2. Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 13.
3. Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 91.
4. Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 27.
5. Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 55.
6. Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 91. cf. Reformed Ethics: Volume One (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), 50-62.
7. Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 93.
8. Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 100.
9. Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 154-57.
10. Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 16.
