The Intermediate State in Herman Bavinck: Answering Two Contemporary Neocalvinist Challenges

Since the mid-twentieth century, the Neocalvinist tradition has struggled with the doctrine of the status intermedius—the existence of the dead in an immaterial manner between death and resurrection of the body. For instance, Herman Dooyeweerd expressed substantial reluctance regarding the doctrine (Berkouwer 1962, 255–57). While G. C. Berkouwer, Anthony Hoekema, and Gordon Spykman affirmed the intermediate state, they did so in a minimalist manner (Berkouwer 1972, 32–64; Hoekema 1994, 92–94; Spykman 1992, 550–52). This previous ambivalence has turned into rejection or revision in the current works of J. Richard Middleton (2014) and Michael D. Williams (2019).^[1] Both thinkers challenge the intermediate state on Neocalvinist grounds, claiming it is based on a dualistic anthropology that negates creational goodness and denigrates human embodiment. To answer their criticisms, I will explicate Herman Bavinck’s doctrine of the status intermedius and demonstrate how he expresses the traditional doctrine with Neocalvinist emphases (see Bavinck 2008). After setting forth Middleton and Williams’s critiques, I show that he understands humanity’s postmortem life in light of a “dualistic holism,” as John Cooper terms it, grounded in the imago Dei.^[2] Bavinck does not promote an abstract doctrine of the soul’s natural immortality nor define the human constitution by death. For the saints, the intermediate state is an extension of the present eternal life established by the work of the Triune God, which continues into creational consummation. Bavinck avoids pitting the intermediate state against the resurrection of the body by properly ordering the two in an inaugurated and consummated eternal life. He ultimately demonstrates that no tension exists between hope in life after death and hope in the new heavens and new earth, since the source of hope is the Savior, not the location.

Middleton and Williams’s Critiques of the Intermediate State

In A New Heaven and a New Earth, J. Richard Middleton argues the intermediate state is scripturally dubious and ought to be rejected as a Platonic accretion within the Christian worldview.^[3] For him, the intermediate state is ultimately a distraction from the proper Christian hope in the resurrection of the body and the new heavens and new earth. Middleton discusses the intermediate state after setting forth a vision for a “holistic eschatology.” By this, he intends a view of creation’s future in which the physical creation as well as human culture and society are objects of redemption in a glorified version of present embodied existence. This “holistic view” is contraposed with a disembodied eschatology detached from and discontinuous with the present physical creation of redemptive history. Middleton expressly credits the Neocalvinist tradition for inspiring this position (2014, 21n1). He treats the intermediate state along with the concept of the rapture as an “egregious interpretation of texts that supposedly support a heavenly future” (Middleton 2014, 221), which mitigates against a holistic view. The rhetorical positioning of the status intermedius as a twin of dispensationalist rapture theology deliberately frames it as antithetical to the Neocalvinist emphasis of grace restoring nature.

Given Middleton’s presupposition that anthropological dualism is a Platonic deviation from the biblical worldview leading to an escapist ethic, he presents an exegetical case against the intermediate state. He claims no biblical text outright demands such a doctrine. He examines six primary texts, which he presents as mainstays for postmortem disembodied persistence: John 14:1–3 (Jesus going to prepare a place for his disciples), 2 Corinthians 5:6–9 (away from the body, at home with the Lord), Philippians 1:23 (departing to be with Christ vs. remaining in the flesh), Luke 16:19–31 (Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom), Revelation 6:9–10 (the martyrs calling “How long?”), and Luke 23:39–43 (“Today, you will be with me in paradise”).^[4] Methodologically, Middleton problematizes each of these texts and proposes other potential readings. No in-depth exegesis is offered, but alternative readings are postulated that neutralize pressure toward a status intermedius.

Middleton’s problematizing hermeneutic seeks to demonstrate that the intermediate state is not an organic doctrine derived from biblical revelation but a Platonic proposition read into the text.^[5] For instance, Christ preparing a place for his disciples (John 14:1–3) could “simply mean that Jesus is preparing (in heaven) the final redemption of the cosmos as a fitting place for God to dwell, in which there will be plenty of room for all his disciples” (Middleton 2014, 217, 229). Such a reading is in line with what Middleton labels the “apocalyptic pattern” according to which “preparation in heaven, [is] followed by revelation or unveiling on earth” (2014, 212). Therefore, Jesus’s statement to his disciples is about what he will do to reunite with them in the eschaton, not their presence with him upon death. After examining these passages Middleton concludes, “In the end, however, it does not matter [whether there is an intermediate state]. Authentic Christian hope does not depend on an intermediate state; nor do Christians need the Platonic notion of an immortal soul in order to guarantee personal continuity between present earthly existence and future resurrection life” (2014, 236).

Middleton advances a zero-sum understanding of Christian future hope. The more focus placed on an immediate, disembodied state with Jesus after death, the less emphasis is given to the promise of the resurrection of the body and the new heavens and new earth. The hope of “being with Christ” after death is a distraction both from embodiment and ethical action. This dichotomous understanding can be seen in Middleton’s exegesis of Paul’s comment in 2 Corinthians 5:8—“We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” Middleton claims that if “home with the Lord” is taken as an intermediate state, then this text amounts to a contradictory expectation. He asks, “Could Paul have contradictory hopes? Does Paul long for the resurrection while shunning a disembodied state and at the same time prefer a disembodied state to his present life?” (Middleton 2014, 230). Middleton acknowledges that perhaps these two hopes are ordered but quickly rejects this possibility. “However, we do not need such an artificial solution to this seeming contradiction” (2014, 230). The “contradiction” here is between hoping in a disembodied existence with Christ after death and hoping in a resurrected state in the eschaton. Middleton considers sequencing or ordering these two hopes an “artificial solution.” What does Paul mean, then, in 2 Corinthians 5:8? According to Middleton, “home with the Lord” refers to the hope of dwelling with Christ not immediately upon death but in the new heavens and new earth at the resurrection of the body. Paul’s juxtaposition of “away from the body” with “home with the Lord” is neutralized as meaning away from the earthly body compared with resurrected embodiment. A similar argument is given regarding Paul’s desire to depart and be with Christ in Philippians 1:23. Middleton avers “the text does not actually say that it would be immediate. Yes, he wants to be ‘with Christ,’ but he does not elaborate on where or exactly when this will be” (2014, 231).

Given the rejection of the intermediate state, what does Middleton think happens to human beings after death yet before resurrection? In A New Heaven and a New Earth, he is reticent on this question. While Middleton does not expressly support it here, he floats the idea of soul sleep:

Luke 23:43 [Today, you will be with me in paradise] might actually be used to support the notion of “soul sleep,” the idea that there is no consciousness of the intermediate state, but that one moves subjectively from death to resurrection. This might make sense of Paul’s seeming expectation (in 2 Cor. 5:5–6 and Phil. 1:23) of the immediate presence of Christ at death even while conceiving this presence as happening at the eschaton, in a resurrected body. (2014, 235)

Middleton’s support for something like soul sleep or an immediate resurrection is explicit in later writings. “I think that in the consciousness of the believer, the next thing we will know after death is the resurrection” (2022a, 92). He grounds this in a rejection of anthropological dualism and embodiment as a necessary condition for both personhood and consciousness (Middleton 2022a, 92–93; see also Middleton 2022c, 142–48). This position leaves several significant questions unanswered regarding personal eschatology, but Middleton seems to find this immaterial. “The intermediate state is not important for biblical eschatology. Whatever happens between death and resurrection, the New Testament hope is never focused on this” (Middleton 2022a, 92).

In a 2019 essay entitled " ‘For You are with Me’: Physical Anthropology and the Intermediate State," Michael D. Williams is reluctant to go as far as Middleton (Williams 2019, 21). Rather, he argues, exegesis and pastoral exigency support some sort of intermediate state, but this does not require an anthropological dualism of body/soul and the nature of this state must be reconceived. Williams explains, “Rejecting substance dualism, I also reject its anthropological entailment that human beings are made up of two metaphysically distinct constituents, one psychic and the other somatic, soul and body” (2019, 17). Like Middleton, Williams understands substance dualism and human beings as soul/body composites as a Platonic rather than a biblical concept (2019, 17–18, 22, 30). In contradistinction, Williams affirms a form of Christian physicalism such that the human person is wholly material and indissoluble, following primarily such figures as Joel Green and Nancey Murphy (Green 2008; Murphy 2006). Williams supports his anthropology, commitment to the goodness of physical creation, and general argument with Neocalvinist thinkers, citing Bavinck, Berkouwer, and Hoekema (2019, 24–26).

Williams breaks ranks, however, with other Christian physicalists in maintaining that the Bible offers a vision of a continued existence of human persons apart from the body in an intermediate state. He sees this reflected in explicit biblical statements including Matthew 10:28 (able to kill the body but not the soul) and Revelation 6:9 (the martyrs under the altar). In these passages, he states, “the word psyche [refers] to the human person under the regime of death” (2019, 29). Also, contrary to Middleton, Williams understands the passages of Paul’s desire to be with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8 and Phil. 1:23) as a fundamental indication that “a post-mortem, pre-resurrection existence of human beings is affirmed” (2019, 29). Therefore, Williams contends for an interim compatible with a physicalist anthropology such that only the “person,” rather than a soul, persists between death and resurrection. However, he balks at defining metaphysical personhood, merely stating “It is notoriously difficult to specify what constitutes a person” (Williams 2019, 23).^[6] Williams affirms that at death the body dies and something, denoted by Matthew 10:28 as the psyche, persists in relation to God. “At death there is a distinction between and separation of the person from the body” (2019, 32). However, he rejects the “contention that the reality of the separation of the person from the body at death implies or requires that human beings are constitutionally made up of two separable—and metaphysically distinct—elements” (Williams 2019, 32). Personhood consciously persists after death, but this is not properly designated a soul, as traditionally understood, nor does this disembodied something previously exist immaterially.

Williams argues that before death the human person consists in the physical existence of the body and that these two terms lack ontological distinction. Rather, the person is the body, and the body is the person. The physical substance and the person are neither “separable” nor “metaphysically distinct.” Human beings undergo a radical transformation at death.

Here is where we see the ontological effects of sin in all its perverse reality. If I can put it this way, I’d say we really have two different questions here: (1) what is the nature of human beings when they are alive? and (2) what is the nature of human beings who are no longer alive? And the answer for the second is different than for the first. (Williams 2019, 33)

The event of death is the unnatural decomposition of the human whole such that a metaphysical distinction between the person and the body emerges. The person persists, and the body goes to the grave. Death itself introduces this metaphysical distinction or rupture.

Williams contends that anthropological dualism is based on a flawed understanding in which death and the resulting intermediate state define human constitution. Because death is anti-creational and an effect of the Fall, it should not modify our understanding of human composition since this would conceptualize “death as the key to understanding the nature of human life” (Williams 2019, 32).^[7] Williams expresses this categorically: “My position hinges on this crucial methodological assertion: we do not have to account for death in constitution. Death is not a design element of human beings” (2019, 32; italics in original). Therefore, the intermediate state ought to be reconceptualized to avoid this anthropological error.

Middleton and Williams offer a series of critiques of the intermediate state motivated by Neocalvinist impulses. Both authors ground their judgments regarding anthropology and personal eschatology on the Neocalvinist insistence upon the goodness of creational reality and the theme of grace restoring nature (Veenhof 2006; Eglinton 2012, 95–97).^[8] They contrast such a “holistic” schema with any sense of “dualism” in which the spiritual is metaphysically and morally elevated above the physical and embodied. This leads to an emphasis on the essentiality of human embodiment, the resurrection of the body as ultimate hope, and the renewal of all creation against any over-spiritualization. Both thinkers also carry forward the later Neocalvinist adoption of the Hellenization thesis that sees a fall of a purer biblical Christianity into a corrupt reliance upon Greek philosophical thought and a rhetoric of anti-Platonism.^[9] In light of this, Middleton presents three challenges to the intermediate state. First, it is the result of a Greek philosophical or Platonic influence on Christian thought rather than a biblical worldview.^[10] Second, the intermediate state, as traditionally understood, relies on and supports a dualistic anthropology, which devalues embodiment. Third, the intermediate state divests the ultimate hope of resurrected life and the new heavens and new earth, leading to over-spiritualization. Williams largely echoes Middleton’s first two issues, while rejecting the third; however, he adds a fourth challenge regarding the understanding of death and anthropology. According to Williams, the intermediate state, as traditionally understood, fails to reckon with the unnaturalness of death and defines the human constitution in an inappropriate manner.

Bavinck’s Doctrine of the Intermediate State

As one of the progenitors of the Neocalvinist tradition, Bavinck offers a doctrine of the status intermedius that avoids a vicious anthropological dualism, including defining the human person by death, and presents a vision of ordered eschatological hope, which properly accounts both for the disembodied interim and final renewal of creation. Bavinck’s doctrine exemplifies the Neocalvinist emphases on holism and grace restoring nature while remaining in continuity with the Reformed catholic tradition.

Body/Soul and the Image of God in Bavinck

Bavinck grounds his doctrine of the human constitution in the image of God. “We must highlight… the idea that a human being does not bear or have the image of God but that he or she is the image of God” (Bavinck 2004, 522; italics in original). This imaging extends to the whole of the person including soul and body as a psychosomatic unity or “dualistic holism.”^[11] One component of the imago Dei is human beings’ spirit/soulish aspect, which reflects the nature of God himself both in being a unified subject and in the human spirit’s powers/faculties. Bavinck argues that the soul of humans uniquely exhibits creational forms of divine attributes: “The spirituality, invisibility, unity, simplicity, and immortality of the human soul are all features of the image of God” (2004, 556). Key here is the verbal implications of “image.” The human being is “spirit” because this reflects or images God who is Spirit. However, following a significant strand of the Reformed tradition more broadly, Bavinck does not restrict the image to the soul but includes the body also—“the human body belongs integrally to the image of God” (2004, 558).^[12] We are the image of God in all that he is—“God himself, the entire deity, is the archetype of man,” which includes God’s spiritual nature in an analogical sense (Bavinck 2004, 554). “The human is not the divine self but is nevertheless a finite creaturely impression of the divine. All that is in God—his spiritual essence, his virtues and perfections, his immanent self-distinctions, his self-communication and self-revelation in creation—finds its admittedly finite and limited analogy and likeness in humanity” (Bavinck 2004, 561).

Bavinck sees dualistic holism in the scriptural description of both the image of God and the creation of Adam in Genesis 2:7. For Bavinck, the biblical vocabulary of soul (nepesh and psyche) and spirit (ruah and pneuma) are broadly synonymous ontologically but with a perspectival difference. “Spirit” denotes the generic nature that is nonmaterial, while the “psyche/soul” denotes that non-material element as the organizing principle of the body for which it is naturally suited. “The spirit is the principle and the soul the subject of life in man” (Bavinck 2004, 556). Bavinck supports the spiritual nature of humanity from numerous biblical text; in the following quotation alone 21 prooftexts are given:

Man is “spirit” because he did not, like the animals, come forth from the earth, but had the breath of life breathed into him by God (Gen. 2:7); because he received his life-principle from God (Eccles. 12:7); because he has a spirit of his own, distinct from the Spirit of God (Gen. 41:8; 45:27; Exod. 35:21; Deut. 2:30; Judg. 15:19; Ezek. 3:14; Zech. 12:1; Matt. 26:41; Mark 2:8; Luke 1:47; 23:46; John 11:33; Acts 7:59; 17:16; Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 2:11; 5:3–5; 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 4:12; 12:23; etc.); and because as such he is akin to the angels, can also think spiritual or heavenly things, and if necessary also exist without a body. (Bavinck 2004, 556)

Note that the personal persistence of the soul after death is possible because of the spiritual nature; it is not a reason given for that spiritual nature. “Spirit” is not a sufficient descriptor for human persons, however, since it only denotes the metaphysical substance, which is shared with the angelic. Unlike the angels, man’s spiritual nature is a soul, which organizes a body. “But man is ‘soul,’ because from the very beginning the spiritual component in him (unlike that of the angels) is adapted to and organized for a body and is bound, also for his intellectual and spiritual life, to the sensory and external faculties” (Bavinck 2004, 556). It is this ensouled nature of the body that makes it possible for this part of material creation to image God in his fullness. The living God cannot be imaged by inert matter, which is why images or idols are an abomination since they attempt to capture the Ineffable One in dead wood, stone, or pigment. “The human body is a part of the image of God in its organization as instrument of the soul, in its formal perfection, not in its material substance as flesh (sarx)” (Bavinck 2004, 559–60). Without the soul, the body of humanity cannot image God, but without the body the soul cannot carry out this imaging towards the restoring of creation.

Bavinck’s understanding of the body/soul relation corresponds to his broader organic motif and emphasis on unity-in-diversity, demonstrated across his thought by Eglinton (2012). The body and soul are metaphysically distinct but cannot properly exist on their own nor function as they are intended separately. Considered abstractly and metaphysically, body and soul are mutually exclusive, but considered concretely, functionally, and constitutionally, they are mutually dependent. Bavinck clearly expresses this in his Foundations of Psychology,

The person as soul cannot be outside of the body. This applies to his essence as well and, thus, to the image of God…. The two substances, body and soul, do not exist isolated alongside each other; neither are they enemies of each other…. They are most closely related, most intimately connected, by nature and from the very first moment intended for each other and uniquely designed for each other. (2018, 48)

The human body/soul duality-in-unity of Bavinck is part of his broader understanding of the cosmos that God has created, the place of humanity in that cosmos, and the holistic salvation that he accomplishes. God created a world to reveal himself and show forth his glory throughout the heavens and the earth, not only to humanity but to the entire cosmos. Adam was at the center of this revelatory and glorifying mission to all creation and his constitution equipped him for this role. Humanity’s nature as a psychosomatic unity is essential to their place in the creational order and within the broader schema of God’s creation as spiritual and material, which includes the angelic, animal, and inanimate.

As spirit, man is akin to the angels and soars to the invisible world; but he is at the same time a citizen of the visible world and connected with all physical creatures. There is not a single element in the human body that does not also occur in nature around him. Thus man forms a unity of the material and spiritual world, a mirror of the universe, a connecting link, compendium, the epitome of all of nature, a microcosm, and, precisely on that account, also the image and likeness of God, his son and heir, a micro-divine-being (mikrotheos). (Bavinck 2004, 562)

The cosmos, which humanity mirrors here, is not a world of tension or struggle between matter and spirit, but the world that culminates in the new heavens and new earth. Even with the introduction of sin into this world, the grace of God restores and renews humanity both materially and spiritually. Bavinck’s combination of humanity’s formation in the image of God, correspondence with creational structure, and analogous reflection of God come together in a holistic manner. Cory C. Brock and N. Gray Sutanto have recently identified such an organic holism as one of the distinctive features of Neocalvinist thought. As they explain, “The physical and the immaterial can coexist as each diverse part is united under the single idea of creation, which all points back to the archetypal unity-and-diversity of the Triune God” (Brock and Sutanto 2022, 10). As this is true of God and his cosmos, so it is for humanity who is meant to represent one to the other.

Bavinck’s view of the human person avoids a vicious “dualism,” which Middleton and Williams attribute to any distinction of body and soul. Berkouwer offers a helpful distinction between dualism and duality. “A reference to a dual moment in cosmic reality does not necessarily imply a dualism…. Duality…becomes a dualism only when there is a polar tension, an inner separation, which destroys the unity between the terms” (1962, 211–12). On this definition, Bavinck’s construction is a duality but not a dualism between the soul and body. In numerous places, Bavinck opposes any dualism that pits the material and spiritual reality against each other.^[13] In Christian Worldview, Bavinck grounds cosmic unity and metaphysical duality in God’s intent for the world. “[Material and spiritual substance] although distinct in essence, were brought forth by one and the same divine wisdom and thus did not stand in opposition to each other. Furthermore, they were intimately linked and closely bound” (2019, 75). He maintains an intrinsic and organic relation between body and soul based on the image of God. Brian Mattson highlights this theme throughout Bavinck’s work: “Bavinck ceaselessly emphasizes the ontological equality of the material and immaterial, spiritual and corporeal, placing them both in the context of creation, with human nature as ‘supreme and most perfect,’ the goal and crown of creation” (Mattson 2011, 133). The metaphysical unity and distinction in creation is grounded in the divine creative will and finds its highest expression in the human person as the image of God.

The body/soul union is not in tension in any way, but the parts are definitionally interdependent and organically related. Without a soul the human body is not enlivened, organized, or given power; however, without the body the soul lacks its home, instrument for action, and source of sensation. The unified experience of the person requires both. “It is always the same soul that peers through the eyes, thinks through the brain, grasps with the hands, and walks with the feet…. It is one and the same life that flows throughout the body but operates and manifests itself in every organ in a manner peculiar to that organ” (Bavinck 2004, 559). Therefore, Bavinck holds to an intrinsic and organic relation between body and soul that is based on Scripture, the image of God, and which places humanity concretely and firmly within the world of redemptive history.

Bavinck juxtaposes his understanding of humanity with Platonic and Cartesian forms of anthropological dualism. Platonic dualism, on Bavinck’s definition, conceives of the body as lesser and detrimental to the operation of the soul and the acquisition of knowledge and beatitude. Rather, for Bavinck the body is essential for both. Against Plato and even later Christian Platonists, Bavinck maintains, “The body is not a prison, but a marvelous piece of art from the hand of God Almighty, and just as constitutive for the essence of humanity as the soul” (2004, 559). The body and soul are not pitted against each other nor hierarchically related. “When the Scriptures tell us that ‘the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature,’ [Gen. 2:7] they cut off every Platonic or Cartesian dualism…. The two substances, body and soul, do not exist isolated alongside each other; neither are they enemies of each other” (Bavinck 2018, 48). Bavinck sets himself apart from forms of dualism that either denigrate embodiment or consider the body inessential to human personhood. Such framing is not isolated in Bavinck’s thought but is integrated with some of the major themes of his theology. As Mattson concludes in his work on the interaction of the image of God and eschatology in Bavinck,

Bavinck’s view is nothing less than a complete rejection of Neoplatonic dualism, which invariably identifies rational, intellectual or spiritual capacities as the image in distinction from other aspects of human nature (e.g., corporeality); in other words, Bavinck rejects an inherent tension or conflict between spirit and matter, the “natural” and the “supernatural.” (2011, 118)

Bavinck’s view of human constitution is firmly situated within this view of the ontological complementarity of matter and spirit and the compatibility of nature and grace.

Bavinck’s doctrine of the body/soul duality within a personal unity avoids the criticism leveled against such a position by Williams and Middleton. Bavinck’s view is not some accretion of Greek thought but is organically interconnected within the biblical worldview and exegesis and is presented self-consciously against untoward dualism. The body is not undervalued nor is the soul complete without it. Additionally, Bavinck firmly positions his understanding theologically within the creational and redemptive historical story. Adam’s mission to image God and serve as his vice-regent to the cosmos is enabled by his nature as psychosomatic unity-in-diversity.

The Status of Death in Bavinck’s Anthropological Thinking

Bavinck maintains that death is a result of the Fall and abnormally separates the creational body/soul union, described above. But given that humanity possesses a spiritual substance the separation of the two is possible.

And although the soul is inextricably oriented to the body, nevertheless, precisely because it is spirit, the human spirit can, if need be, exist without the body. The human soul does not perish at death like the soul of an animal does. The separation of soul and body is indeed unnatural and violent. For that reason, this temporary rupture must be restored in the resurrection. (Bavinck 2018, 50)

Death for Bavinck is not primarily an ontological or metaphysical problem but an ethical/moral one, as a sanction of the violation of the covenant with Adam: “In the case of Adam, however, this immortality did not consist in a state of not being able to die (non posse mori), or in eternal and imperishable life, but only in the condition of being able not to die (posse non mori), the condition of not going to die in case of obedience. This state was not absolute but conditional; it depended on an ethical precondition” (Bavinck 2004, 560). As a consequence of the Fall, death is not limited to the human body, but to the person as a whole since the whole person fell. Both body and soul undergo death, which Bavinck presents as a fundamental change in relation of the person to the world. It is for this reason that the Bible uses the metaphor of sleep to describe death, according to Bavinck. The state of death can be called a “sleep” in that the deceased person loses all relation to this world, but “Scripture nowhere says that the soul of the deceased sleeps. On the contrary, Scripture always represents the person after death as being more or less conscious” (Bavinck 2008, 617). Bavinck could have taken this reflection on the biblical image of death as sleep further. The imagery of sleep speaks from the perspective of the living; it has no real bearing on the question of the state of the dead from their perspective. In the metaphor, sleep does not mean as we might think in modernity the black/blank unconscious state of anesthesia, for instance. Analogically, while we can speak of one sleeping this does not mean they do not dream, i.e., have an awareness of consciousness apart from the waking world.

Death, according to Bavinck, fundamentally reshapes the relationship of humanity with this world. “Whereas in death all the soul’s relationships with this world are cut off, they are immediately replaced by other relations with another world” (Bavinck 2008, 617–18). The redeemed in Christ continue in their relationship to God after death in a disembodied state. This is a state of both bliss and waiting until the full consummation of the divine plan. But there is also a relation of the non-elect in this state; they relate to God as under his wrath and bear the punishment of death until the final judgment. The intermediate state is an intensification of the relationship of the person to God in this life. Those in Christ continue in Christ and those opposed to Christ are confirmed in that opposition and receive their due. However, this intensification reaches its full flowering in the eschaton with the resurrection of the body and the final judgment.

For this reason, Bavinck does not see the question of the abstract immortality of the soul as significant in Scripture.^[14] Immortality is not an innate quality that the human possesses apart from God and the image of God. Rather, the chief concern of Scripture is eternal life. This life is communion with God through the Son and Spirit, which begins not with death but at the new birth.

Christ did not gain or disclose immortality in the philosophical sense, the sense of the continued existence of souls after death. On the contrary, both here and hereafter he again filled the life of humans, exhausted and emptied by sin, with the positive content of God’s fellowship, with peace and joy and blessedness. For those who are in Christ Jesus, death is no longer death but a passage into eternal life, and the grave is a place of sanctified rest until the day of resurrection. (Bavinck 2008, 616)

Death, therefore, serves no definitional function for Bavinck’s view of humanity. It is, in a sense, anti-creational and apart from God’s teleological intent for humanity, but that telos of creaturely communion with the Triune God and/or the display of God’s justice and mercy is neither nullified nor placed in abeyance by the divine sanction of death. As death is an ethical/religious sanction rather than an ontological problem it does not exert a determinative factor in the metaphysical constitution of the human person.

Bavinck’s holistic body/soul duality and death as a change in relationality inform his conception of the intermediate state. It is a continuation and transformation of a person’s relationship to God in the present world corresponding to the ethical/religious nature of death. Those united to Christ in this life continue that relationship in the temporary period between death and resurrection before it is consummated in the new heavens and new earth. Berkouwer expresses well what Bavinck is getting at:

That death is the divine judgment on the whole man (a point often made in attacks on the immortality of the soul and on an “in-between” state after death) the Christian never thinks of denying; rather, this forms the background for rejoicing because we may dwell with the Lord. The statements of the Church on immortality are therefore not an “escape,” but an acknowledgment of a wonder. (Berkouwer 1962, 277)

Bavinck’s anthropology is holistic and derives from the relationality of humanity as image bearers of God (fallen or redeemed); death is likewise a holistic judgment, which transforms but does not destroy the relation of the creature to the Creator.

The Nature of the Intermediate State in Bavinck

Bavinck’s description of the intermediate state flows from his theological anthropology, described above, and scriptural depictions and indications of postmortem existence. Bavinck argues that the nature of the intermediate state should be circumspectly described.

The history of the doctrine of the intermediate state shows that it is hard for theologians and people in general to stay within the limits of Scripture and not attempt to be wiser than they can be. The scriptural data about the intermediate state are sufficient for our needs in this life but leave unanswered many questions that may arise in the inquisitive mind. (Bavinck 2008, 614)

This scriptural reserve, however, is not absolute, as if Bavinck was wholly agnostic about the nature of the interim. His caution must be understood in the context of his previous section, which details the idea of purgatory and other speculations about the form of this state. According to Bavinck, Scripture does not give all the answers to questions we may have about this interim state of life after death, but it gives a doctrine sufficient for the needs of this life. And as one should not speculate beyond the bounds of the Word here, one likewise should not stop short of its teaching. “It is simply a fact that we cannot picture a pure [disembodied] spirit—its existence, life, and activity. About God, who is pure Spirit, we can only speak in an anthropomorphic manner, a procedure modeled to us by Scripture itself” (Bavinck 2008, 616). The life of humanity in a disembodied way remains a mystery that is unable to be fully conceptualized from the perspective of our embodied existence.

After death, both believers and unbelievers enter the realm of the dead but with a significantly different relation to God. “And just as immediately after death believers enjoy a provisional state of bliss with Christ in heaven, so unbelievers from the moment of their death enter a place of torment” (Bavinck 2008, 605). Bavinck supports this from Scripture through analysis of both the Old Testament concept of Sheol and the New Testament discussion of the dead in Hades, which is not hell or the final state but the place of the dead.^[15] The soul’s disembodied perpetuation through death is caused not by its innate attributes but God’s power; however, contra Williams, no metaphysical transformation occurs, since the spiritual substance persists and identity in relation to God endures. “God alone is life itself; he alone is immortal (1 Tim. 6:16). If the soul continues to exist, this can only occur by virtue of God’s omnipresent and omnipotent power” (Bavinck 2008, 595). Our knowledge of this state is asymmetric; Scripture reveals much more about the departed believers than unbelievers. Bavinck holds that unbelievers persist, are conscious, are confirmed in their opposition to Christ, and experience a foretaste but not the completion of God’s judgment.

Bavinck largely describes the intermediate state through refuting false positions, especially soul sleep, intermediate corporality, and purgatory. Rejecting soul sleep, he sees the continued existence of the soul as conscious and personal, although the faculties seem diminished or incomplete given the severing of body and soul. There is a consciousness of peace or awaiting punishment, but both are in process. Bavinck approvingly summarizes Calvin’s position: “After death the souls of the faithful will enjoy full peace, but that up until the day of resurrection something will still be lacking, namely, the full and perfect glory of God to which they always aspire, and that therefore our salvation always remains in progress until the day that concludes and terminates all progress” (2008, 611). Therefore, the intermediate state is conscious but incomplete or provisional since the soul requires the body to be fully itself. This is supported also by Bavinck’s rejection of intermediate corporeality, which he sees as a mistaken reading of the earthly descriptions of this state in Scripture, which are accommodated to our present understanding rather than dispositive of the intermediate state’s nature (2008, 618–20). Given his previous discussion of human metaphysics, only matter and spirit exist and it would be strange to posit an “intermediate body” that is neither in correspondence with the earthly body or the resurrection body.

Bavinck is also adamant that the exact placedness of this state is beyond our knowledge or description. Only so much has been revealed, and life with Christ after death is fundamentally mysterious. Yet, it must be conceived of as a part of creational reality and not some aspect transcendent of it. The soul, even disembodied, is not more than a creature and continues with some manner of spatiotemporal existence, which befits the human person. “What can be stated is that the beyond is not only a state but also a place, for though souls may not be circumscribed by time and space, they are certainly far from being eternal and omnipresent; they must be somewhere and pass through a succession of moments in time” (Bavinck 2008, 629; italics in original). The believer, now ushered into the presence of Jesus, is purified and comes to the end of all sin. This is not a purgatorial process of human movement through postmortem penance, but a moment of complete sanctification in the light of God.^[16] “Death is an enormous change, a breaking of all ties with this earthly life and an entering into a new world with totally different conditions and relations. It is not at all strange that, as he does with all suffering, God should employ death as a means of sanctifying the soul of the believer and cleansing it from all the stains of sin” (Bavinck 2008, 636). Therefore, in the intermediate state the elects’ sanctification is complete, even if it is not yet fully embodied at the final resurrection as part of the renewal of the cosmos in Christ. As Bavinck states, “Contemplation (visio), understanding (comprehensio), and enjoyment of God (fruitio Dei) make up the essence of our future blessedness” (2008, 722). This blessedness including the beatific vision of Christ begins in the intermediate state but is not completed until the resurrection of the body and cosmic culmination.^[17]

Although the intermediate state is beyond the full exposition of the theologian given the limited scriptural witness, Bavinck argues that we can speak to some extent of both the activity of the blessed and the nature of its provisionality. Since the state of believers after death is conscious and still within the context of the relationship with Christ, the blessed dead are not idle but engage in worship of God and fellowship with each other.^[18] Bavinck grounds this in the apocalyptic depictions of the heavenly court in the book of Revelation.

Those who have died in the Lord are with Jesus (Phil. 1:23), stand before the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 7:9, 15), cry out and pray, praise and serve him (6:10; 7:10, 15; 22:17). Anyway if they, being conscious, know God, Christ, the angels, and one another, they are by that very fact engaging in activities of intellect and will, increasing in knowledge, and being confirmed in love. (Bavinck 2008, 642)

Although the dead have no direct awareness of earthly life, the concern of the departed saints for the church militant seems to persist. Bavinck grounds the warrant for this in the martyrs of Revelation 6:10. He rejects any direct communication or intercession between the church in the world and in heaven, but the communion of saints is not destroyed by this twofold ecclesial expression, rather it is secured in the Lord. “The unity that binds all believers together, the dead as well as the living, is anchored in Christ, and through him in fellowship with the same Father, in the possession of the same Spirit, and in joint participation in the same treasures of salvation” (Bavinck 2008, 640). The church is not only a historical but a cosmic reality as the people of God that image him and give him glory. For the church on pilgrimage, the holy assembly remains an inspiration of faithfulness. The saints in heaven serve as worthy examples of faith and faithfulness in Christ, and the earthly church “feel one with them and live in anticipation of going to them” (Bavinck 2008, 640).

Even though the dead do not have direct access to or continued knowledge of this age, the saints retain a longing for the consummation of God’s plan and memory of life on earth, which Bavinck concludes from the parable of Lazarus (Luke 16:27–31) and the martyrs before the heavenly altar (Rev. 6:10). They likewise pray for the return of Christ to fulfill his promises and for the glory that they now experience to be made complete in the renewal of creation by the Triune God.

Although Scripture gives us no warrant for believing that the blessed in heaven know everything that happens here on earth, still it is likely that they know as much about the church militant on earth as the latter does about them. And that small amount of knowledge, added to the knowledge that they possess from memory and that is perhaps regularly augmented by statements made by angels and the recently deceased, is sufficient to prompt them to think with ongoing warm interest about this earth and the mighty struggle taking place here. (Bavinck 2008, 641)

This continued awareness of the heavenly assembly indicates that the organic unity-in-diversity that marks out the church on earth continues and is glorified in the interim and will be fully so at the second coming (Bavinck 2008, 643).

The holy dead’s epistemic limitation as well as the sense of longing for God to be all in all and for the restoration of creation indicates the provisional character of the intermediate state. This provisionality is not found in an incompleteness of justification or the need of further purification, which can be seen in Bavinck’s repudiation of purgatory.^[19] The promises of God still need fulfillment; the saints do not yet possess the earth, which is their promised inheritance and the restoration of their rightful place in the cosmos. Also, lacking the proper creational embodiment, the human experience is imperfect. “They are deprived of the body, and this incorporeal existence is not, as dualism must hold, a gain but a loss, not an increase but a diminution of being, inasmuch as the body is integral to our humanity” (Bavinck 2008, 641). For this reason, the intermediate beatific vision of the Lord is experienced by the soul in an incomplete manner, not because the presence of the Lord is lesser but because the capacity of the human person is deficient in the abnormal state of disembodiment. Additionally, the communion of saints is incomplete and will not have full blessedness until all the elect have been joined to Christ. “For that reason, in the case of the blessed in heaven, there is still room for faith and hope, for longing and prayer (Rev. 6:10; 22:17). Like believers on earth, they eagerly await the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the restoration of all things. Only then has the end been reached” (Bavinck 2008, 641). The souls with Christ have the same object of hope as the saints in via but experienced in a manner both continuous with earthly faith and transcending it through the intellectual vision of Christ, yet also waiting expectantly for the bodily resurrection and restoration of all things.

How can these two hopes of intermediate blessedness and final consummation be related? Are we forced to choose between them, as Middleton implies with his zero-sum thinking? Can the individual expectation of an interim life with the ascended Jesus and the expectation of the consummation of all things go together? Many have seen these as potentially opposed in a dualistic manner. Berkouwer has presented this as the problem of the “twofold expectation.”

Some have argued that this kind of eschatological individualism, this egotistical depreciation of the expectation is bound to result from any doctrine of a twofold expectation. They maintain it is inevitable, if a narrow perspective on individual “salvation” is allowed, that the broader, supra-individual aspects of the parousia would be pushed into the background and the confession of the early church, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead,” reduced to a formal dogma with no room for the real expectation concerning the future. (Berkouwer 1972, 34)

There are those who can only see an “irreconcilable duality leading inevitably to a dualism that extinguishes the spark of biblical expectation” (Berkouwer 1972, 35). This is ultimately Middleton’s view, and given this choice between intermediate state and new heavens and earth he opts for resurrection and consummation and snuffs out the personal and individual sense of postmortem communion with Christ. Bavinck, on the other hand, holds to the complementarity and sequenced/ordered nature of these two hopes, bringing them together within a relational understanding of the active power and grace of the Triune God, who upholds the believer through death and preserves the faithful relationship to them via the Son and Spirit. This same God will consummate the age for his own glory.

Bavinck ultimately presents a non-dualistic form of the “twofold expectation”—hope in life after death and hope in the new heavens and new earth. These are not in tension because it is not the state upon which the hope is founded but the Lord who is present, gladdens the heart, secures meaning in the face of death, and is gazed upon. The grave cannot separate the elect from God. “And all believers who on earth already participated in eternal life, so far from losing it by dying (John 11:25–26), after death enjoy it all the more intensely and blessedly in fellowship with Christ” (Bavinck 2008, 618). The object of Christian hope is not disembodiment in the intermediate state or even resurrected embodiment in the new heavens and new earth, although the Christian will experience both. The unifying element of the twofold expectation for humanity’s future is the Lord of the Living, the Triune God into whose presence the saints are ushered by death and the One who will redeem his creation in the consummation of all things. One sees the deeply pastoral and experiential value of this twofold hope in a letter Bavinck wrote to his dying student Johan van Haselen.

I hope, should the Lord’s plan be to take you away—and I pray this of Him, that He would strengthen you in the faith and in the blessed hope of the resurrection—that He would bring this life to an end and focus the eye of your faith on Him who has won over death, who has achieved eternal life, in whom is our life, and in whom we have open access to the Father’s House where there are many mansions and to which He has gone to prepare a place for us. (Bavinck 2013, 97)

Bavinck uses the idea of Christ preparing a place to comfort a dying man in this personal struggle and instill hope. This is not some abstract statement that Christ will redeem creation in the end, as Middleton would have it, but the promise of the personal presence of the Redeemer to a struggling believer. The purpose here is not to inform him of the end of history but to strengthen his faith in the Lord. “If I consider the glory of being with Jesus and understand this life in its futility and idleness, on these occasions I envy you and others called out of the fight early by the Lord” (Bavinck 2013, 101). As Brock and Sutanto note, “For Bavinck, because the Bible draws no dichotomy between creaturely, earthly life and the glorified, spiritual life in the immediate presence of God, theologians should not either” (2022, 169–70). The immediate presence with Christ after death is a continuation and elevation of the eternal life experienced in this age but also is not its final form. The inaugurated blessedness of heaven is culminated in the resurrected, spiritual life of the creational consummation.

Bavinck’s view of the intermediate state and the theological anthropology underlying it maintains the traditional view of a provisional, disembodied existence of the dead while integrating the Neocalvinist emphases of the goodness of creation, dualistic holism, and the ultimate hope in creational renewal (grace restoring nature). His doctrine is not susceptible to the challenges of Middleton and Williams. Bavinck’s theological anthropology based on the image of God is self-consciously set apart from a Platonic hierarchical view of the body and soul, and gives proper regard for the goodness and necessity of embodiment for full human life. Death does not function as the key to anthropology but affects both body and soul being conceived of as a fundamental relational change from this world to the hereafter. Finally, Bavinck does not pit the hope of being with the Lord after death against the hope in resurrected life but sequences them within an organic understanding of the realization of eternal life in Christ.

Conclusion

It would be easy to think of a reorganization of the intermediate state as mere fiddling around the edges of theology, but such a reorientation comes at the price of doctrinal and exegetical distortion. The positions of Middleton and Williams, and other absolutizations of Neocalvinist anti-dualism, can move quite close to a “naturalization” of Christian anthropology and eschatology.^[20] Such a position offers aid and support to the general sense of materialism, secularism, and disenchantment of the modern, Western world. Bavinck’s doctrine of the intermediate state not only avoids the errors leveled against this doctrine by these Neocalvinist critics, but also offers a properly ordered relationship between the twofold expectation of life with Christ upon death, and cosmic renewal and resurrected embodiment of the eschaton. Rather than being a “dualistic” view, Bavinck’s position assumes a properly holistic metaphysic which rejects monism and oppositional dualism. As Bavinck warns in The Philosophy of Revelation, “Monism in all its forms sacrifices the richness of reality to the abstract unity of its system” (Bavinck 1909, 310). Alternately, in Christian Worldview, Bavinck grounds cosmic unity and metaphysical duality in God’s intent for the world. “[Material and spiritual substance] although distinct in essence, were brought forth by one and the same divine wisdom and thus did not stand in opposition to each other. Furthermore, they were intimately linked and closely bound” (Bavinck 2019, 75). A properly holistic metaphysical account of the intermediate state would follow Bavinck by accounting for the unity-in-diversity of matter and spirit and, therefore, have a genuine alternative to present to modern materialism and, more importantly, offer the fullness of Christian hope.