I have to admit I was excited about reading James Eglinton’s Bavinck: A Critical Biography. My interest in Bavinck (1854-1921) came as a result of my early readings of Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987). From Van Til it doesn’t take long to notice the name Herman Bavinck which repeatedly comes up in Van Til’s texts, footnotes, and lectures. Van Til was so influenced by Bavinck he used to say of Bavinck’s Gereformeerde Dogmatiek (Reformed Dogmatics) is “the greatest and most comprehensive statement of Reformed systematic theology in modern times.” From such a glowing endorsement I became interested in Bavinck the theologian and have gained a wealth of insight yet without ever really knowing very much about Bavinck the man.

Bavink lived during a great transitional period in Dutch life. The Netherlands had migrated from an authoritarian monarchy to a state-sponsored liberal democracy. Under the state, there were many restrictions over religion. The government executed full control over religion from the songs that were sung to the sermons preached by the pastor. These state sponsored Churches were not known for their brimming orthodoxy but appear to have been institutions for the propagation of modernity. Out of this modernist movement were churches who opposed the heterodoxy of the state-sponsored churches and stood for orthodox Reformed Christianity. Against the backdrop of these modernist Churches, the orthodox Calvinistic Churches seemed out of place or out of touch with the new modernity. It was out of this tension between orthodoxy and modernity that Bavinck emerged as one of the most important theologians in Dutch history and one of the shining lights of Christendom.

As a young man, he received a traditional rigorous education. He was trained in the classical languages, Humanities, Music, Mathematics, and Logic. He transferred to the University of Leiden where his Christian convictions were at odds with the student party life. “Three hundredth anniversary of founding of Leiden, I was not in a festive mood and thus didn’t enjoy it much I saw the teeming crowd, that only uses the day as a reason for excess and debauchery, and then I thought, how little God is recognized for what he gives us.” “In those early student days, Bavinck found it hard to feel at home in a city where few felt any need to live Coram Deo. Life in Leiden was jarringly secular.” While that kept him from certain aspects of student life his pastor at Leiden was able to mentor Bavinck and taught him to have a more integrated existence on campus. But it wasn’t just the social life at Leiden that Bavinck found troubling. Many of his Professors were celebrity liberal Theologians whose teachings challenged the teachings of his upbringing. For Bavinck, his college experience wasn’t just academic. He had to learn to exist in an environment that was hostile to his faith and at the same time learn how to engage it with his conservative orthodoxy. It was that dualistic approach that became his method for his entire career. For some, it has caused so much confusion that some writers view him as a double-minded figure. But for Eglinton, this ability to speak orthodoxy into the modernist vernacular simply demonstrated Bavinck’s genius. Bavinck went on to become a Pastor, Professor, Theologian, Journal editor, and Statesman.

I’m not sure if anyone-besides Eglinton- has written a critical biography on Herman Bavinck yet. A “critical biography” sounds like something one would write to dismantle and poke holes in a person’s life and expose hypocracies or theological inconsistencies. But, a critical biography looks at the sources of the individual’s life and allows them to speak for themselves. Letters, notes, essays, publications, diaries, newspaper articles all become the subject of inquiry in a critical biography so that it wouldn’t be as if the biographer was simply telling the story he wants to tell about the individual void of any significant evidence. Good or bad the critical biography gives a well-examined account of the individual’s life and because of his extensive research into Bavinck there is no one better suited to give that account than Eglinton.

Bavinck consists of five parts that are in order of chronology as they progress through Bavinck’s life. Among the five parts are eleven chapters broken into five parts chronologically progressing through Bavinck’s life. Part one covering the first three chapters discusses Bavinck’s life and family context and begins with his childhood and early schooling. Part two develops further into his early education and part three explains his life as a pastor. Parts four and five discuss professorship at both Kampen and Amsterdam. Bavinck is a fantastic read that many in the church today can identify with. I would give Bavinck by James Eglinton 5 stars out 5.

James P. Eglinton is the Meldrum Senior Lecturer in Reformed Theology at the University of Edinburgh. He previously served as senior researcher in systematic and historical theology at the Theologische Universiteit Kampen. He is the author of Bavinck: A Critical Biography (Baker, 2020), and Trinity and Organism (Bloomsbury, 2012). He edited and translated Herman Bavinck on Preaching and Preachers (Hendrickson, 2017), co-edited and co-translated Christian Worldview (Crossway, 2019), and co-edited Neo-Calvinism and the French Revolution (Bloomsbury, 2012). He also serves as associate editor of the Journal of Reformed Theology.

Herman Bavinck's fame as a theologian has been steadily growing in my circles—especially since the Dutch Translation Society began putting out his Reformed Dogmatics in English in 2003. All four volumes sit proudly on my own shelves along with the first volume of his Reformed Ethics.

I like to know the stories and circumstances of my theologians. I like to know what concerns drove them, what conversations they found themselves in. And this book delivers. It's not a warm-hearted book (more on that in a moment), but it reads as eminently careful. The footnotes and the discussions very strongly suggest that Eglinton has made himself the master of Bavinck's writings—in Dutch, no less. He is a servant to Bavinck, not a lord: he helps readers of today understand who Bavinck was in his own mind and in his own times.

This is about to be the squishiest criticism I've ever given of a book, the most subjective: I did feel that Bavinck failed to come alive for me in Eglinton's work. He was treated as a third party about whom it was helpful for us all to have a discussion but who didn't himself get to speak much. His relationships to key people in his life, namely his wife and Abraham Kuyper, felt as if they were taking place somewhere very distant from the reader. Bavinck's friendship with Snouck Hugronje was well rounded, but I come away from this book feeling like I still haven't met Bavinck. This is a "critical" biography, but I still feel a little sense of loss. David McCullough makes his subjects seem alive; somehow that makes a deeper impression on me.

Nonetheless, I received a truly excellent and rigorous summary of his life and views, a set of considered and (it sure seems to me) reliable judgments on some significant areas of dispute among Bavinck biographies, and a picture of the man and his times that will most certainly aid me greatly as I embark on reading through his works in the coming year or so. Bavinck's early biographer Hepp comes in for regular and—again it seems to me, though I have only Eglinton's word to go on—just critique. Experienced readers know when an author has done his or her homework; Eglinton surely has.

One of the things that most impressed me about Herman Bavinck from this biography was the combined dependence and independence of his mind. He was dependent on Scripture and Christian theology and not on his times. He was able to see his culture as only one among many. He applied his theology of grace restoring nature to his own tribe. This comes out most markedly—in Eglinton's telling—in Bavinck's views on women's suffrage. Kuyper was distinctly unhappy with Bavinck at this point, but Bavinck was able to think both in ideal terms and in practical ones. He was able to hold onto his Bible while traversing the hidden barrier between the 19th and 20th centuries.

Bavinck was a truly great man, and this is a worthy biography. It wasn't a page turner, exactly, but I never felt bored, either. The pace was stately. A good fit for its subject.

Bavinck was a truly great man, and this is a worthy biography. It wasn't a page turner, exactly, but I never felt bored, either. The pace was stately. A good fit for its subject.

Knowing a critical commentary on Herman Bavinck is one of the events I most anticipated this year. Hearing such critical acclaim throughout the year created an even great sense of hopefulness. All of it lived up to expectations!

James Eglinton sets an example of understanding a modern, complex theologian in Bavinck: A Critical Biography. His premise surrounds taking another look at Herman Bavinck while setting aside the “Jekyll and Hyde” assumptions resulting from the apparent contradictions between the orthodox and modern sides of Bavinck. Eglinton’s biography argues Bavinck had the capacity to “as a creative thinker whose theological imagination allowed him to envision a distinctive articulation of the historic Christian faith within his own modern milieu.”

Bavinck contains 11 chapters broken into five parts chronologically progressing through his life. Part 1, consisting of the first three chapters, provides background and begins Bavinck’s childhood and early schooling. Part 2 dives further into his life as a student and part 3 at his life as a pastor. Parts 4 and 5 examine at his time as a professor at both Kampen and Amsterdam respectively. Each chapter is broken into sections ranging anywhere from a half-page to 3-4 pages. Approaching each chunk of text allows Bavinck to be considerably more attainable.

The first chapter inundates the reader with so much information and background. This is all relevant and necessary for understanding Herman Bavinck’s environment, but it is difficult to process and retain the unfamiliar Dutch traditions. I found myself bookmarking what I presumed to be important details in order to refer back. For example, knowing the difference between the Reformirte Kirche and the Old Reformed Church will help in the next chapter.

Chapter two is much the same way as it turns to the subject’s parents. I increasingly saw the relevance in the little details; each little piece shaping and building the Bavinck family and Jan’s (Herman’s father) values and perspective. The third chapter approaches Herman as a youth and his early schooling. Eglinton challenges the romanticized understanding of Herman’s childhood as being a “diamond in the rough” and sees Herman as receiving a good education for the time and capable of receiving class prizes at the conclusion of the high school equivalent. Chapters 4 and 5 each look specifically at his time as a student at the Theological School of Kampen and the University of Leiden.

Herman Bavinck served as a pastor from 1881-82 and chapter 6 surveys this period. Eglinton devotes chapters 7-8 to his tenure as a professor in Kampen where he moved to in 1882 to be a professor. He would remain there until 1902, during which time he would also publish the well known four volumes of Reformed Dogmatics.

Chapter nine focuses on Bavinck’s response to Nietzsche as he moves to his professorship in Amersterdam. We get a close view of Bavinck’s shift from writing to his engagement in broader political and cultural affairs of the time. These themes continue in Chapter 10 as we see Bavinck continue engaging in apologetics and evangelism in the public sphere along with his time during WWI. Chapter 11 brings a somber close to the life of Herman Bavinck.

The depth of the material necessitates rereading at times to grasp Bavinck’s background. Eglinton’s contribution cannot be understated — however challenging the meticulous background details may be. He approaches Bavinck with humility. While the overall outlook is favorable towards the Herman Bavinck, Eglinton treats him fairly, not assigning motive where we do not have clear and guiding information. He engages other biographies and critiques them along the way. We see Herman Bavinck humanly, as a Christian and churchman finding a path in a changing political and cultural environment.

The doting and praise this volume has received are well deserved. I look forward to having a copy on my shelf and reading this volume again soon.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley for review purposes. My comments are independent and my own. Quotations could change in the finished book. Pages for quotations are not provided due to receiving an unfinished manuscript.