Herman Bavincks Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Offenbarung (1908) enthalten das Grundgerüst für eine christliche Philosophie. In unseren Tagen, in denen die göttliche Offenbarung so in den Hintergrund gerückt ist, ist die Auseinandersetzung doppelt notwendig. Eduardo Echiverria hat eine ausgezeichnete Einführung geschrieben.
Der Fokus
Bavinck’s concern here is that of fundamental theology, justifying and expounding the relationship between faith and philosoph- ical thought regarding metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Bavinck seeks to show how, in faith’s knowledge conferred by revelation, there emerge certain truths providing the scaffolding necessary for, inter alia, a Christian understanding of nature (70–91), history (92–116), religion (117–141), religious experience (164–191), and culture (192–212).
Der Ausgangspunkt (zit. Bavinck)
[R]evelation is the starting point (uitgangspunt) of the inner unity of nature, of the human race, the unity of history, and is also the source of all laws—the laws of nature, of history, and of all development. The ideas and norms which govern religious, ethical, and social life, and appear in the self-consciousness and the thought of humanity, are the products of this revelation of God (zijn aan die openbaring Gods te danken).
… [Revelation] does not stand isolated in nature and history, does not resemble an island in the ocean, nor a drop of oil upon water. With the whole of nature, with the whole of history, with the whole of humanity, with the family and society, with science and art it is intimately connected. The world itself rests on revelation; revelation is the presupposition, the founda- tion (grondslag), the secret (geheim), of all that exists in all its forms.
. . . Together with all created things, that special revela- tion which comes to us in the Person of Christ is built on these presuppositions. The foundations of creation and redemption are the same.The Logos who became flesh is the same by whom all things were made.
Die Verbindung zwischen Sein und Erkennen (zit. Bavinck)
“For how can it be explained that man through his senses can observe the world, and through his intelligence can know and understand it? Whence the wonderful correspondence of knowing and being? What is the basis of the belief that the conception and the thought in the human brain are no imagination and no hallucination, but correspond with the reality? What is the ground for the harmony between subject and object, the ego and the non-ego?”
Wahrheit wird entdeckt, nicht kreiert (zit. Bavinck).
“We do not create the truth, and we do not spin it out of our brain; but, in order to find it, we must get back to the facts, to reality, to the sources.”
Ich empfehle das Studium in der neu übersetzten und kommentierten englischen Ausgabe.
