In, “Why ‘Baptist Dogmatics’?” we put forth a description and vision for this site. Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein and Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck influenced our decision to use the word “Dogmatics.” Given that this might be the first and the last time you read those two names together in one sentence, allow us to explain our reasoning.
During Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in 2017, Senator Feinstein made the following statement to Judge Barrett, “The dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern.” Judge Barrett and President Joe Biden profess to be Roman Catholic, but Senator Feinstein only appears concerned with Barrett. What differentiates Barrett and Biden? One might say that Barrett submits to dogma whereas Biden possesses private beliefs. Biden differentiates between his Roman Catholic beliefs and public policies, the latter of which are either in opposition to or inconsistent with Roman Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life. Feinstein feared that Barrett would not make the same distinctions as Biden but would allow her dogma to influence her practices.
Feinstein’s choice of the word “dogma” captures her concern that religious beliefs might move from the private to the public realm and make demands. She prefers to sequester religious beliefs to a particular individual or tradition as a set of ideals one lives by but never imposes on another, let alone the state! In doing so, Feinstein fails to recognize her own dogma, and that of the Democratic party platform, but that is not relevant for our purposes at this time. Instead, we wish to emphasize that Feinstein rightly understands the nature of religious dogma: it operates on the assumption that God has spoken, can be understood, and must be believed. It is a normative science.
Herman Bavinck also believed that dogmatics was a normative science. He defines dogmatics as follows: “Dogmatics is, and can only exist as, the scientific system of the knowledge of God. More precisely and from a Christian viewpoint, dogmatics is the knowledge that God has revealed in his Word to the church concerning himself and all creatures as they stand in relation to him,” (Reformed Dogmatics, I.38). He arrives at this definition after he considers the nature of dogma. Bavinck states that dogma is settled truth that cannot be doubted and contains that which ought to be believed in the intellect and carried forth by the will. Political or philosophical dogma receives its authority from its self-evident nature or the strength of an argument that demands belief. Religious dogma receives its authority from the God who speaks. Neither the state nor the church determines religious dogma, for it comes materially and formally from God and solely rests on his authority.
Although dogma does not derive its authority from recognition, it possesses a social element and tends toward public reception. In order to properly understand this element, one must parse the difference between dogma as it has to do with itself and dogma as it has to do with us. God knows all dogma and declares all that must be believed (Deut 29:29). God knows and has declared all dogma perfectly. The church receives God’s revelation and confesses it back in order to “preserve, explain, understand, and defend the truth of God entrusted to her,” (Reformed Dogmatics, I.29–30). In doing so, the church can truly understand and confess dogma as it has to do with the church. Since the church receives and recognizes dogma (John 10:25–30), her authority is ministerial and declarative rather than sovereign and legislative (Reformed Dogmatics, I.31).
Protestant dogma rests on two pillars: The Triune God speaks, and the church responds by confessing the truths she receives in divine revelation. The God who creates and sustains all things possesses divine authority over creation. When he speaks, creatures receive an authoritative, necessary, sufficient, and clear word that guides them in all matters of faith and practice. Readers discern the necessary consequences and entailments of God’s speech through careful study and illumination by the Holy Spirit.
What then is the task of the dogmatician? “The imperative task of the dogmatician is to think God’s thoughts after him and to trace their unity,” (Reformed Dogmatics, I.44). Note how Bavinck emphasizes that the task of dogmatics centers on God’s thoughts rather than the contents of faith as found in the dogma or the church. The dogmatician fails when he merely studies the dogma of the Christian faith apart from God’s sovereign and legislative speech. The historian may engage in mere confessional studies but not the theologian. This task presupposes the coherent nature of God’s thoughts, the organic unity of Scripture, and the complementary relationship between general and special revelation as two modes of revelation that flow from the same source. “The task of dogmatics is precisely to rationally reproduce the content of revelation that relates to the knowledge of God.” (Reformed Dogmatics, I.45).
The dogmatician ought to fulfill this task in participation with the great tradition, for this is the social nature of dogmatics. Recall that Bavinck defined dogmatics as the study of God’s revelation “to the church.” Dogmatics is for all people; however, only the church receives and recognizes the voice of the living God. For this reason, the fruitful dogmatician engages his task in communion with the saints who came before him and for the benefit of those not yet born (Ps 78.6). Yet the church is not the end of dogmatics, as Bavinck states, “It is part of the calling of the ekklesia to learn to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge and also to make known within the world of science ‘the manifold wisdom of God’ in order that the final end of theology, as of all things, may be that the name of the Lord is glorified. Theology and dogmatics, too, exist for the Lord’s sake,” (Reformed Dogmatics, I.46).
What hath Feinstein to do with Bavinck? Diane Feinstein’s statements to Judge Barrett and Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics underscore the normative nature of dogmatics as a science that derives its authority from God. Here at Baptist Dogmatics, we strive to engage this science and trace the unity of God’s thoughts as they are revealed in Holy Scripture. We recognize the social element of our task and seek to participate in the communion of the saints for the sake of the church as we contemplate our great God.