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Between 1920 and 1921, within the span of eight months, three great Calvinist luminaries with Princeton ties entered into glory: Abraham Kuyper, B.B. Warfield and Herman Bavinck. In Bavinck’s case, he ceased his mortal labors on this earth on July 29, 1921.
On the centennial anniversary of Bavinck’s passing, we take note of a eulogy written about Dr. Bavinck from the hand of a dear friend, Henry E. Dosker.
Dosker was born in the Netherlands and studied with Bavinck there before Dosker emigrated to the United States, eventually becoming a professor at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Dosker, writing in The Princeton Theological Review (July 1922), says:
Herman Bavinck was my lifelong friend and it was with the thought that this brief sketch may serve as a friend’s tribute to his memory, that it has been written. We studied together in the gymnasium of Zwolle and have been separated in 1873, but the tie of friendship remained unbroken; during all these well nigh fifty years, in fact almost to the time of his death, we corresponded and repeated visits, on either side of the Atlantic, deepened our friendship. Besides this I have been a constant reader of his writings and gladly admit that he was my preceptor as well as my friend. And as I set myself to the task of writing this sketch of the life of a truly great man it seems best to etch his life with a few strokes of the pen and then make an attempt at the analysis of his character as a theologian, his personality, methods of work and variety of interests.
In the following pages, Dosker does indeed sketch a remarkable life well-lived. We encourage our readers to scan those pages in tribute to one of the Netherlands’ greatest theologians. In closing, Dosker has this to say regarding his friend:
How he makes all doctrine to live! In reading his Dogmatics one can easily see how his students must have been carried away by his lectures. Theology was to Bavinck more than a science, more than a full concept of the teachings of the Scriptures, systematically arranged and philosophically expounded. The grace of God, a living faith in the Scriptures as principium, a hearty assent to their truth — all this was a prerequisite to its teaching and exploration. And every page of the Reformed Dogmatics indicates how true the great teacher was to his own principles. Of him as of Paul, it might well be said, he brought every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
