A note from Herman

“[Scripture] nowhere contains a sketch of the doctrine of faith; this is something that has to be drawn from the entire organism of scripture…. So much study and reflection on the subject is bound up with it that no person can possibly do it alone.  That takes centuries.  To that end the church has been appointed and given the promise of the Spirit’s guidance into all truth.  Whoever isolates himself from the church, i.e. from Christianity as a whole, from the history of dogma in its entirety, loses the truth of the Christian faith. That person becomes a branch that is torn from the tree and shrivels, an organ that is separated from the body and therefore doomed to die.”  – Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (emphasis mine)[1]

[1] Herman Bavinck, “Reformed Dogmatics. 1: Prolegomena,” ed. John Bolt, trans. John Friend, vol. 1, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2003).