Born on December 13, 1854, in Hoogeveen, Drenthe, Holland, Herman Bavinck was the son of the Reverend Jan Bavinck, a leading figure in the secession from the State Church of the Netherlands in 1834. After theological study in Kampen, and at the University of Leiden, he graduated in 1880, and served as the minister of the congregation at Franeker, Friesland, for a year. In 1882, he was appointed Professor of Theology at Kampen, and taught there from 1883 until his appointment, in 1902, to the Chair of Systematic Theology in the Free University of Amsterdam, where he succeeded the great Abraham Kuyper. Bavinck served until his death in 1921. Less