Jayson D. Bradley
It’s been nearly 18 months since we announced our translation project for Geerhardus Vos’ Reformed Dogmatics. The project is currently under development, and we’re excited about its progress. So excited, in fact, that we’re going to release the first two chapters early! Anyone who pre-orders Reformed Dogmatics by September 12, 2012, will have the first two chapters unlocked on September 13.
Geerhardus Vos taught at both Calvin Theological Seminary and Princeton Theology Seminary alongside such luminaries as J. Gresham Machen and B. B. Warfield. He was an outspoken proponent of Reformed biblical theology. Cornelius Van Til wrote that “Vos was the greatest pedagogue I ever sat under,” and John Murray said Vos was “the most penetrating exegete it has been my privilege to know.” This project is the first and only English translation of Vos’ Gereformeerde Dogmatiek.
We assembled a team of translators from North America and the Netherlands. The translation leader, Richard B. Gaffin, is an acclaimed Vos scholar who’s published numerous articles on Vos and who edited Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos. Gaffin has taught at Philadelphia’s Westminster Theological Seminary since 1965.
Everyone who’s pre-ordered by September 12 will get these two chapters:
- The Knowability of God
- Names, Being, and Attributes of God
Written in a catechetical format, Reformed Dogmatics expresses rich Reformed theology in a thoughtful question-and-answer dialogue.
On what ground do others deny God’s knowability?
On the ground that God is All-Being. They have a pantheistic view of God. Now, knowing presumes that the object known is not all there is, since it always remains distinct from the subject doing the knowing. Making God the object of knowledge, one reasons, is equivalent to saying that He is not all there is, that He is limited.
What response is to be made against this view?
a) The objection that this view presents stems entirely from a philosophical view of God, as if He were All-Being. This view is wrong. God is certainly infinite, but God is not the All. There are things that exist, whose existence is not identical with God.
b) It is certainly true that we cannot make a visible representation of God because He is a purely spiritual being. But we also cannot do that of our own soul. Yet we believe that we know it.
If you haven’t pre-ordered Reformed Dogmatics yet, what are you waiting for? Order it by next Wednesday, September 12, and add the first two chapters to your Bible study library on September 13!
Michael S. Heiser
Faithlife Staff
Karen Engle
Guest Author
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