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The Certainty of Faith

Courtesy of the Hultink Family Foundation, the Cántaro Institute is now the new home for the Reformational Digital Library (formerly known as the Reformational Publishing Project). All rights reserved.

Document: Herman Bavinck, The Certainty of Faith (St. Catharines, ON.: Paideia Press, 1980).

Excerpt: The centuries preceding the French Revolution (1789) are in many ways different from the epoch that followed. The radical change of direction introduced into the life and thought of the nations by this tremendous event shattered the continuity of history. We can project ourselves into the thought and life of those preceding ages only with great dif­ficulty. They were the ages of authority and objectivity, whereas in our era the subject proclaims its freedom and asserts its rights in every area of human existence.
Admittedly, by taking its starting point in faith, the Reformation dealt a stunning blow to the authority that had previously encompassed all of life. In the Reformation the believing subject arose against the oppressive authority of the infallible church and boldly shook off the painful yoke of an old tradition. Nevertheless, in the principles of the Reformation, Christians remained bound to God’s Word as it came to them in the Old and New Testaments.

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The Certainty Of Faith – H. Bavinck.pdf