Showing posts with label Berkouwer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Berkouwer. Show all posts

Tuesday 15 October 2019

G. C. Berkouwer On Spiritual Commitment And Social Concern In The Old Testament.

Serving God is incomplete if it doesn't lead to serving others. 
"The service of the God of Israel and total concern for life within our horizon are inseparable... His people can truly give all their attention to him without being lured away from their neighbors."(G. C. Berkouwer, A Half Century of Theology, p. 193).
Serving others need not lead us away from serving God.
"It is ridiculous to suppose that the Old Testament is guilty of being too heavily accented and one-sidedly concerned with the horizontal dimension of life, as though love for God might somehow get shortchanged by it." (p. 193).

Paul And James On Faith And Works

James' attack on "dead faith" (G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Justification, 137) and his protest for faith as "a truly experienced reality" (136), which dominates the whole of life, does not conflict with Paul who speaks against the works of the law but not against the works of faith.

Friday 6 September 2019

G. C. Berkouwer On "Election And The Hiddenness Of God"

In his discussion, "Election and the Hiddenness of God" in Divine Election (Chapter Four, pp.102-131), G. C. Berkouwer emphasizes that God's hiddenness is not to be set over against His salvation. He rejects a concept of God's hiddenness which "separates the God of revelation from our lives and mitigates the absolute trustworthiness of that revelation" (p. 125). Even in confessing God's salvation, faith acknowledges that it does not know everything about God (pp. 120-121, especially  the reference to Isaiah 45:15 - "Truly You are a God who has been hiding Himself, the God and Saviour of Israel."). Although our knowledge of God in Christ is confessed to be true and reliable, we must not presume upom complete knowledge (p. 124 - especially the reference to John 14:9 - "He who has seen Me has seen the Father."). The attempt to attain to complete knowledge is admonished for its spiritual pride, when Christ speaks of these things which are hidden from "the wise and learned" yet revealed "to little children" (p. 123, quoting Matthew 11:25). This Biblical passage - Matthew 11:25 - concludes Berkouwer's study of Divine Election (p. 330). He ends by emphasizing that knowledge of God is not to be sought apart from a simple faith, which looks to Christ as Saviour.

Tuesday 5 March 2019

To Understand History, We Need Revelation.

Warning against "the danger of going outside the sphere of faith into the area of observation", G. C. Berkouwer disputes the legitimacy of interpreting the ways of Providence on the basis of facts" (The Providence of God, pp. 164-165). He aims to guard against the possibility that "everyone according to his own prejudice and subjective whim (can) canonize a certain event or national rise as a special act of God in which He reveals and demonstrates His favour" (p. 164). Acutely aware that "the interpretation of an historical event as a special revelation of Providence too easily becomes a piously disguised form of self-justification" (p. 166), Berkouwer insists that "no event speaks so clearly that we may conclude from it a certain disposition of God - as long as God Himself does not reveal that His disposition comes to expression in the given event" (p. 170). Concerning events in the history of Israel, which are recorded in Scripture, Berkouwer writes, "The Divine disposition is, indeed, revealed in these events. But  it is the word of revelation which  explains them" (p. 171). Concerning the interpretation of contemporary events, he warns, "we have not been given a norm for explaining the facts of history... in the absence of a norm only an untrustworthy plausibility remains" (p. 171).  Using insightful exegesis of Scripture, Berkouwer warns against a misguided interpretation of contemporary events. Commenting on the words, "Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?" (Amos 9:7), he writes, "the fact of the exodus may not be used as basis, isolated from revelation and seen by itself  from which to draw selfish conclusions about God's dispositions... As a mere historical facrt, the exodus puts Israel on the same level with other nations. But accompanied by a proper faith in God, it constitutes a challenge and, given the proper response, further blessings" (p. 176).

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