in the Bible as a whole, especially in the Psalms.”^138 One quickly recognizes
Bavinck’s boldness that was absent in Barth. Nonetheless, Bavinck is critical of the
psychology of religion movement that studied conversions and those who had
experienced revivals because it shifted the focus of dogmatics from the “exposition of
the doctrine of Scripture” to “a description of conscious religious ideas or pious
emotions.”^139
Bavinck also understands that experience alone can never be the foundation
for faith because there must be some objective truth that first invites a response.^140 As
previously stated, Bavinck understood “Scripture is the norm also for our emotional
life and tells us what we ought to experience.”^141 Barth no doubt would approve of
that assessment. However, Bavinck unlike Barth does not panic when subjective
experiences are mentioned because, “[t]he word “faith” ... expresses subjective
religiousness.”^142 It must be stressed that Bavinck’s subjective dimension of faith is
radically different from Schleiermacher’s subjectivism.^143 In The Certainty of Faith
Bavinck reveals the essential dynamics of both truth and experience, “[t]here is a
certainty that pertains to objective religious truth and a certainty that pertains to the
subject’s share in the benefits promised by that truth. The two kinds of certainty are
doubtlessly very closely interconnected, but they should, nevertheless, be
distinguished and not confused.”^144 More succinctly he summarizes his position in his
(^138) Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (^) , 1:533-34.
(^139) Bavinck, Essays on Religion, 62. cf. Philosophy of Revelation, 210. Bavinck
devotes an entire chapter to this topic in 140 Essays of Religion, 61-80.
141 Bavinck, Certainty of Faith, 67, 69, 92.^
142 Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:534, cf. 3: 26.^
143 Bavinck, Philosophy of Revelation, 225. cf. Reformed Dogmatics, 4:130.^
(^144) Bavinck, Bavinck, Reformed DogmaticsCertainty of Faith, 28, cf. 82., 1:66-70, 521.