by Nate Brooks, Ph.D.

Anthony Hoekema eventually earned his PhD, but the road to getting there was full of academic woe. His doctoral committee at Princeton Theological Seminary gave the young scholar full approval to write a dissertation on the centrality of the heart in Herman Bavinck’s theological anthropology. After multiple years of work, Hoekema sent them his completed project, only to discover that one of his committee members had serious reservations about his work. A series of letters in the archives of Calvin Theological Seminary chronicle Hoekema’s ever-increasing panic as he wrote back and forth to members of his committee. Eventually, “The Centrality of the Heart in Herman Bavinck’s Anthropology” would be set aside and three years later Hoekema would successfully defend his second dissertation, “Herman Bavinck’s Doctrine of the Covenant” and graduate as a newly minted PhD in Systematic Theology.^[1]

This reversal by a committee member is every doctoral student’s nightmare. Yet even though his work on Bavinck’s theological anthropology never saw the light of day during his lifetime, Hoekema’s work has tucked deep inside it a line about Bavinck’s thought that bears fruit in the arena of counseling today. As he discusses one’s personal development, Hoekema translates Bavinck as writing, “one’s philosophy is frequently nothing else than the history of the heart.”^[2] Hoekema would likely be surprised at the application of his work to the domain of counseling; however, this translation of Bavinck’s ideas highlights the way that doctrine and human experiences are of necessity drawn together in the discipline of counseling.

Counseling Is Theological

Bavinck speaks of a person’s “philosophy,” which entails their view of life and their place in it. A person’s philosophy serves as the lenses through which they view the world, their interpretive grid by which they make sense of their experiences and from which they draw their sense of meaning. A person’s ethical choices are always tied to their philosophy of life, as their understanding of what life is dictates the moves they make to secure the ends they desire.

We enter the domain of theology whenever we begin discussing individual’s philosophies.^[3]  The great questions that must be addressed in every personal philosophy are inherently theological.  “Who are we?” can only be answered truly if one roots the origin of humanity to its creator, with whom we are in perpetual covenant relationship. “What’s gone wrong?” requires understanding how our nature came to be poisoned and our alliance with those other beings who would seek His overthrow and our own exaltation. “How can things be made right?” necessitates centering faith in Jesus Christ’s sacrificial atonement and triumphant resurrection as what works to restore us to who we ought to be. The discipline of counseling is therefore irretrievably mixed up with claims of what is indeed true. No one’s life philosophy is ever neutral, and theology allows us to rightly ground our evaluations of that philosophy in God’s revealed truth.

Counseling is Experiential

The second half of Bavinck’s dictum is equally important for faithful counseling. Whatever life philosophy a person holds, it has been shaped by the history of their heart. Our hearts are dynamic, in constant interaction with the world around us.^[4] We absorb cultural preferences and cues, learn from experiences, and string together relational interactions that shape our life philosophy. A person who believes at their core that people are not safe did not develop this philosophy in a vacuum, but came to such a conclusion after successive interactions with people confirmed the validity of their hypothesis.

People’s heart histories are complex. All of us live in particular moments in time, participating in a particular culture with different moods, preferences, and symbols. One’s experience of government varies significantly if one was a Puritan than if one is alive in America today. Topics such as gender, ethnic diversity, and abuse drive different cultural discussions than would have been had even thirty years ago.

Beyond forces at work in broader culture, every person grows up in a micro-culture of their own family. Consider the impact two divergent family situations may have upon someone – growing up with a kind and loving father or a mercurial alcoholic given to violent rages. The former is a childhood marked by love, nurture, and stability. The latter a childhood marked by confusion, hiding, and instability. Throughout all these events, the dynamic heart is constantly being shaped by hypotheses and conclusions about life drawn from one’s own personal experience.

Counseling Draws Theology & Experience Together

Good counselors will be adept at two things – theological reasoning and experiential skill.^[5] To be a counselor who is faithful to God, one must be able to read the text of the Bible and draw true conclusions from it. This requires deep knowledge of the how the Scriptures give us truths to live by. But it’s not the Scriptures and theology alone that empowers counselors to effectively care for those in crisis. Knowledge and skill of how human beings function in real time and space is mandatory, lest one’s Scriptural knowledge be pointed in a futile or wrong direction. 

Solomon was heralded as the wisest of all men during his day. Reflecting on his experience with those around him he wrote, “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Prov 20:5, ESV). Strategies for making plain what is often buried, clarity on how to prioritize which problems to deal with and in what order, and hard-won case wisdom are qualities and tools possessed by every good counselor. A good counselor is a master of wedding God’s truth and the stuff of human life in a way that gets beyond the surface, diving deep into the whys and wherefores of people’s motivations. Put another way, wise counselors are those who are able to aid in the evaluation and development of a person’s philosophy through discussions of the history of their heart. Even better, counselors are able to assist those seeking help write new chapters in the story of their heart’s history – stories that are woven through by how God and his work meets them and transforms them into those that more clearly reflect his glory.

Conclusion

Anthony Hoekema’s futile soirée into the world of Herman Bavinck’s anthropology didn’t end in a doctoral degree conferred upon him. But his labors did confer upon us wise consideration about how we function as human beings. The way in which we view life and navigate its many twists and turns is inextricably bound up with our philosophy about life and our past experiences. Recognizing this as so gives us a paradigm by which to engage people as they seek aid for the difficulties that have come into their path.

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Footnotes

^[1] Anthony Andrew Hoekema, “Herman Bavinck’s Doctrine of the Covenant” PhD. Diss. Princeton Theological Seminary, 1953.

^[2] Hoekema, “The Centrality of the Heart in Herman Bavinck’s Anthropology,” 59. This is a translation by Hoekema from Bavinck’s Beginselen der psychologie, which was later translated into English as Foundations of Psychology, but was not available in English at the time Hoekema completed his dissertation. 

^[3] David Powlison’s writing ministry addresses this topic time and again. Many of his most enduring articles demonstrate the biblical and theological nature of counseling and how one’s belief system is ultimately a theological picture of reality. Those interested in reading more can find an accessible entry point in one of the collections of his articles. See David Powlison, Seeing with New Eyes (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2003) and David Powlison, Speaking Truth in Love (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2005).

^[4] See Jeremy Pierre, The Dynamic Heart in Daily Life (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2016), 11–28.

^[5] Joe Hussung models these twin skills well in Learning to Listen (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2025).