As I have been reading Francis Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology and Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, I have seen a similarity in their approach to defining the nature of theology.
Turretin writes,
Among Christians, the word “theology” is used either inadequately (with reference to the efficient to mean a discourse of God [Theou Logon], and with reference to the object, a discourse about God [logon peri tou Theou]) or adequately inasmuch as it denotes both a discourse of God and a discourse about God. These two must be joined together because we cannot speak concerning God without God; so that it may be termed the science which is originally from God, objectively treats concerning and terminatively flows into and leads to him, which Thomas Aquinas aptly expresses, “Theology is taught by God, teaches God and leads to him” (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 1:2).
In Bavinck’s second volume, God and Creation, he writes,
The knowledge that God has revealed of himself in nature and Scripture far surpasses human imagination and understanding. In that sense it is all mystery with which the science of dogmatics is concerned, for it does not deal with finite creatures, but from beginning to end looks past all creatures and focuses on the eternal and infinite One himself. From the very start of its labors, it faces the incomprehensible One. From him it derives inception, for from him are all things. But also in the remaining loci, when it turns its attention to creatures, it views them only in relation to God as they exist from him and through him and for him [Rom. 11:36]. So then, the knowledge of God is the only dogma, the exclusive content, of the entire field of dogmatics. All the doctrines treated in dogmatics–whether they concern the universe, humanity, Christ, and so forth–are but the explication of the one central dogma of the knowledge of God. All thing are considered in light of God, subsumed under him, traced back to him as the starting point (Herman Bavinck, God and Creation, vol. 2 of Reformed Dogmatics, 2:29).
These two statements on the nature of theology are simply an explication of Romans 11:36: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
Praise God that He reveals Himself that we might know Him!
