Personality and Worldview (eBook)

J. H. Bavinck (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
208 Seiten
Crossway (Verlag)
978-1-4335-8486-2 (ISBN)

Infos

An Examination of Worldview, Worldvision, and the Soul by Dutch Reformed Theologian J. H. Bavinck, Translated into English for the First Time Modern evangelicals differ on their concept of 'worldview.' Many have varying definitions of it and some even consider it to be a wholly unhelpful term in understanding the world around them. This volume by Johan Herman Bavinck examines the relationship between the soul, each human's unique personality, and worldview-acknowledging the importance of worldview while recognizing the dangers if worldviews are misapplied.  Personality and Worldview by J. H. Bavinck, nephew and student of Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck, creates a distinction between a worldvision (which all people have) and a worldview (which only few have in a mature and wise way). Profoundly influenced by the works of St. Augustine, Bavinck challenges readers to allow the gospel to reshape their worldviews and their personalities as they pursue godly wisdom. Translated into English for the first time by James Eglinton, Bavinck's accessible prose, personal applications, and more will greatly serve pastors, students, and laypeople alike.  - Foreword by Timothy Keller: Keller writes, 'I could not be happier that Johan Herman Bavinck's Personality and Worldview has been made accessible to the English-speaking world. It is an important work, perhaps even what we call a 'game-changer.'' - Edited and Translated by James Eglinton: An expert scholar and author on the Dutch neo-Calvinist tradition  - Introduction by the Editor: Provides an overview of the book and a brief introduction to Johan Herman Bavinck's life - For Readers Who Enjoy Herman Bavinck: Works as a follow-up text to Herman Bavinck's Christian Worldview

J. H. Bavinck (1895-1964) was a Dutch pastor, theologian, and missionary to Indonesia. Nephew of Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck, he also served as a professor of missiology at the Free University of Amsterdam and the Theological School in Kampen. Some of his other works include An Introduction to the Science of Missions; Between the Beginning and the End; and The Church Between Temple and Mosque.

Textauszug

1

The Struggle for a Worldview

The subject that we will discuss is beautiful and dangerous in equal measure: beautiful because it compels us to see [all] the worldviews that have been devised as expressions of personalities, as revelations of the soul, and dangerous because it could also cause us to lose our own firm foundations.

Before we move forward, it is necessary, first, that we consider the question [of personality and worldview] clearly and that we take account of the difficulties that will be placed before us. We should not walk into the labyrinth of opinions blindly. Rather, we must reflect beforehand on the problems that will be posed to us. If we fail to do this, we will be in great danger of losing our way.

The history of human thought presents us with a range of ideas, of systems, of worldviews. Some are elegant and religious, others crude and banal. Some are deep and beautiful, others hard and ugly. Some expand your view, lift you up, satisfy the heart, and make life appear different; others are like sticks of dynamite that possess the power to damage and destroy everything in their path. Some are poetic, intuitive, thoughtful; others are based on a mass of arguments, crawling forward, as it were, from one conclusion to another. Each of these worldviews has enjoyed a period of recognition. When each was first proposed, there was a group that received and honored its thoughts. But as the years came and went, the movement [generated by it] and faith [in it] waned, and other thinkers arose to open up new perspectives. And so human thought developed, sliding from worldview to worldview. Each system of thought must always give way to another.

The question has been posed, Must we accept that a certain development can be perceived in all those worldviews? Is there an approach to the truth [in them]? Are we moving further [forward], step by step? Are the questions posed in a more refined way, the challenges better gauged, the puzzles better solved? In one way or another, that great competition of thought must have an end point, a goal. Can we say that the history of philosophy, of worldviews in general, is the history of the discovery of the truth? Or must we think of it in a completely different way? Must we declare that the truth has never been found, that we tumble from one confusion to the next, that no progress can be observed?

This question becomes more difficult when we notice that the number of worldviews is relatively small and that the same types [of worldviews] return again and again. Kant1 has said that the great questions regarding worldview are always these three: What can I know [weten]?2 What must I do? What may I hope? Now in broad terms, only a few answers are possible to each of these questions. What can I know [weten]? Can I indeed know something (skepticism)? Does my knowledge [kennis]3 reach nothing beyond the phenomena, the externals (positivism)? Or can I proceed to the essential, the eternal, the idea, the very highest reason? In my knowing [weten], am I dependent, above all, on experience, sensation, perception (empiricism)? Or is it precisely the understanding, thinking, reason that must be honored as the highest source of knowledge (rationalism)? May I accept that my consciousness, my representations, correspond to a reality beyond myself (realism)? Or must I believe that only those representations, those concepts and thoughts, exist and that there is no material reality that corresponds to them (idealism)? Does a God who brought all things into being exist? And if he exists, how and where must I conceive of him? Is he only exalted high above the world, unknowable [onkenbaar], inaccessible (deism)? Or is he only in the world, a part of the world—that is, is the world itself God (pantheism)? Or is he both simultaneously in the world and also exalted far above it, immanent and at the same time transcendent (theism)? Or is there absolutely no higher power—that is, does everything boil down to matter and power (materialism)?

In this way, we can expand the questions on every side, although only a few answers are possible to each of these questions. The number of ideas, the number of worldviews, is limited and also must be limited. Naturally, all sorts of different forms and styles of worldview can be found. The great and basic assumptions, however, must remain the same.

It is also evident that in the course of history, the same ideas and systems return time and time again. In more recent philosophy, we find the philosophical schools of antiquity returning in new garments. We continually encounter the same constructions. It seems as though history is constantly repeating itself. What we think and the solutions we see were also grasped many centuries ago. The same forms return incessantly in the rhythm of human living and thinking. Yes, and not only that: even the order is often the same. The same development that you can see in Greek philosophy, the progress of the one system to another, you find returning at a number of points in the newer philosophy. It moves along the same paths from the one to the other:

What has been is what will be,

and what has been done is what will be done,

and there is nothing new under the sun. [Eccl. 1:9]

And yet we must be on our guard against all one-sidedness because while they often are the same systems, that does not mean that there is indeed no difference or even a certain kind of progress. On all sorts of points, the consequences are better felt, the gaps are better filled in. It is not in vain that our era possesses wonderful material from the experiences of previous generations. When the old returns, it is never entirely the same. There is always newness and freshness in it. But nonetheless, the fact that the history of human seeking always returns to older solutions is enough to make us skeptical toward the question whether we can speak of an approach to the truth.

That is also the reason that many in our time are inclined to consider the development of worldviews from a different angle. They ask the question differently and look for a different perspective. It is foolishness, they say, to expect any progress from all that thinking and seeking. We do not know [weten] and will never know. We act more smartly and precisely[, they say,] when we move beyond all those worldviews to the personalities that created them. Why is it that one person chooses materialism, while another despises and detests that same materialism? Why is it that that one thinker is immediately inclined to one solution, and another goes down a different path from the beginning? What phenomenon is the cause of Spinoza4 thinking differently from Kant, of Kant seeing things differently from Hegel?5 Is it not this, [they allege,] that Kant was a wholly different person, a wholly different personality, from Spinoza? Is each worldview not grounded in personality? As an approach to the truth, [we are told,] it is worthless. But as a revelation of the life of the personality, it is of great significance. From Kantian philosophy we get to know Kant himself; his soul is opened up before us. Each period, each century, has its own mentality and thus also its own worldview. From the history of worldviews, we become acquainted with the history of personalities. We understand the soul better; we understand the idiosyncrasy of the different sorts of people who have spoken in those worldviews. That is the worth of all those systems. They do not bring us closer to the truth, but they bring us further in the knowledge of the soul, in the knowledge of personality. A materialist does not only think differently from an idealist; he also lives differently, and he is also different. Therefore, [we hear,] the arguments they use against each other are so fruitless. Each sees things from his own personality: “Whatever sort of philosophy one has is dependent on what sort of a person one is.”6

At first glance, there is much in this idea that is attractive. Is it not true that a person’s worldview is most closely connected to his personality? Is that not the reason that humanity continually returns to the same possibilities? The possibilities of the personality are, of course, always limited. Is that not also the reason that it is so difficult to resolve the striving between worldviews with arguments? An intimate connection must exist between personality and worldview; each worldview can be fully understood only from the personality that created it.

From the Christian perspective, these things are, in a certain sense, even more obvious. If the worldview one depends on is based only on a rational understanding, the only consequence would be a struggle of ideas, and then the struggle against the Christian faith would become incomprehensible. The reason the battle of worldviews is so often carried out with furious passion would not be understandable because everything would be a great and convivial discussion of proof against proof, of one theory against another hypothesis. That, however, never seems to have been the case in history. In worldviews, personalities —human souls—battle against each other. Each defends his own life, his own character. The arguments that were advanced serve his personality’s right...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.4.2023
• Übersetzer: James Eglinton
• Vorwort: Timothy Keller
• Verlagsort: Wheaton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
• Schlagworte: Bible • biblical principles • Christ • christian living • Church • Discipleship • disciplines • Faith Based • God • godliness • Godly Living • Gospel • Jesus • Kingdom • live out • new believer • Religion • Small group books • spiritual growth • walk Lord
• ISBN-10: 1-4335-8486-7 / 1433584867
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4335-8486-2 / 9781433584862