Bavinck, Herman. In the Beginning: Foundations of Creation Theology. John Bolt, Editor. John Vriend, Translator. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1999)

Herman Bavinck develops an understanding of creation beyond the traditional scope of the creation / evolution debates and the age of the earth. Seeking to unify an understanding of Christianity and culture and its initiation through the primordial act of Creation, Bavinck drew upon a synthesis of orthodox theology and the modern world, including its worldview and culture.

Bavinck had a somewhat similar experience with the Dutch Neo Calvinist visionary pioneer Abraham Kuyper in the modernist theological training at the University of Leiden, where both discovered and confirmed their commitment to orthopraxy and a deeply rooted Trinitarian understanding of faith and creation. For Kuyper, the “Sovereignty of the Triune God over the whole Cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible” led to a distinct conception of sphere sovereignty and common grace. Kuyper opposed both the abandonment philosophy of the Anabaptists and the complete synthesis of church and culture modeled by the Catholic Church.

He viewed the various spheres of human activity as institutions shaped fundamentally by the law of God. This law was instituted in creation and gave these spheres certain shape and nuance, what Albert Wolters would call, “structure”. The spheres he would call Norms. The Trinitarian concept of God defines the overarching aspect of creation and its trajectory by affirming the essence of Christianity in “the devastated creation of the father being restored in the death of the Son, and recreated by the Holy Spirit into a Kingdom of God.”

If the Triune God is indeed at the center of orbit about which all of creation (including the church) revolves, then the argument posited for the apparent purpose for creation and the subsequent Kingdom of God by the Reformed tradition takes on all the richer and fuller meaning. Christian theology almost unanimously espouses God’s glory as the final goal of creation. It is not merely that God is good, loving, or that he willed the creation. Rather it is the honor of God which compelled him to create. And thus, man is not the end of creation, as an object to bestow mere love or goodness.

While Humanism and materialism choose man as the ultimate end of creation and the center of dogma and morality, family and society, Christian theology appropriates God as the center and end of creation. As in Creation Regained, creatio secunda emerges as a central claim to the nature and purpose of creation. Documented in catechisms of faith such as the Westminster Shorter Catechism, creation is a continually forming process which does not end with the creation of Adam. The first theologically rich first question “What is the chief end of man? To Glorify God and enjoy him forever” leaves open the possibility for infinite ways to glorify and enjoy God. Thus we will be continually creating new cultural norms and reforming existing ones in the full scope of tradition and history.