Trauma and Restoration: A Theology of Trauma Engaging Herman Bavinck
In this dissertation, I provide a theology of trauma engaging Herman Bavinck and argue that his holistic theological anthropology provides an orthodox framework for understanding trauma’s devastating effects on the whole human individual. Much of the literature on the interface of trauma and theology errs by employing “extratextual” frameworks that give priority to worldview assumptions outside of Scripture. By contrast, I develop a theology of trauma from above, which takes as its starting point divine revelation and seeks to understand trauma within the redemptive-historical metanarrative of Scripture. I demonstrate how Bavinck’s corpus provides the theological resources necessary to engage this contemporary theological-anthropological issue in a manner faithful to Scripture and historic Christian orthodoxy. Chapter 1 introduces the topic and underscores the importance of engaging trauma theologically due to the dominant therapeutic impulse that characterizes much contemporary discussion surrounding trauma. In chapter 2, I establish the necessity for a theology of trauma from above by lifting trauma out of the immanent frame and setting it properly within the Bible’s redemptive-historical theological framework. I survey contemporary definitions of trauma, outline its key features, and identify major deficiencies in contemporary understandings of trauma. I provide a theological definition of trauma as an alternative to inadequate definitions in the contemporary literature. Ultimately, I argue that trauma must be brought out of the immanent frame if it is to cohere with a biblical worldview. In chapter 3, I argue that Bavinck’s organic epistemology serves as a model for evangelical theologians engaged in doing a theology of trauma from above. First, I provide an exposition of Bavinck’s organic motif giving special consideration to his organic worldview and the relation of theology to the other sciences. Second, I provide a Bavinckian assessment of the foremost problems in contemporary trauma studies, in which I identify two dominant trends, namely, physicalist and constructivist approaches. Both approaches reflect the twin errors of materialism and pantheism respectively and thus stand opposite Bavinck’s organic worldview. Chapter 4 applies Bavinck’s anthropological insights to trauma by providing a theological framework for understanding trauma’s devastating effects on the whole human individual. First, I canvass Bavinck’s holistic theological anthropology to lay a conceptual theological anthropological foundation. Second, I consider Bavinck’s understanding of the atomizing power of sin that loosens and disrupts the organic unity of the whole human individual and propose that trauma should be understood as an inflection of the atomizing power of sin. Third, this proposal establishes a properly theological framework for understanding trauma’s devastation of the whole human individual. In chapter 5, I consider the work of God the Holy Spirit in restoring the whole human individual made in God’s image; thus, this chapter provides a constructive theological framework for understanding restoration from trauma. The framework develops along a set of three propositions: (1) The living triune God is the ontological foundation and source of life essential to recovery; (2) Restoration from trauma is an act of the triune God appropriated to the Holy Spirit; (3) The Holy Spirit restores the whole human individual to a state of holistic flourishing.
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The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary