Studies in Dogmatics: The Providence of God
Overview
This is the second volume to appear in the American edition of Professor Berkouwer’s Studies in Dogmatics. Like its companions, it stands independently of the series as well as forming part of a larger theological whole. Like them, too, this study of the providence of God is a fine example of Reformed theology being defended and developed through interaction with a wide range of both past and present theologies and theologians, and through a fresh look at the Biblical message.
As Professor Berkouwer says in this book, the twentieth century has seen an attack on the worth of humanity itself, with the widespread “declarations of decline” and the prominence of such words as “crisis,” “chaos,” and nihilism” mirroring the distressing situation. In such times the most obvious confession of the Church, God’s providence and His rule over all things, has become to modern man the most outmoded confession of the historic Christian Church. God’s guidance, says Professor Berkouwer, has become the problem; and he points out that some facts of experience most striking as arguments for the providence of God have now become even more convincing counter-arguments. “This is the time, says Professor Berkouwer, “in which the Church of Christ must ask herself whether she still has the courage, in profound and unshakable faith, in boundless confidence, to proclaim the Providence of God. Or is she possessed of secret doubts fed by daily events? Can she still speak of God’s rule over all things, of his holy presence in this world?…Dare she still, with eyes open to the facts of life-no less than those who from the facts conclude an imperative atheism-confess her old confession?
Top Highlights
“We may take Bavinck as our starting point for the discussion of this question. Bavinck, after reviewing the Scriptural data, discusses the ‘witness of all peoples,’ and comes to the conclusion that ‘the doctrine of God’s Providence is one of the ‘mixed articles,’ made known to all men through God’s Revelation in nature.” (Page 38)
“Barth continues to say that we must not separate the ‘God Almighty’ of the creed from the ‘God the Father.’ God’s almightiness is not a formal power, but a concrete ability, and, precisely in that it is not a general potentia, is it a Divine omnipotence. The Almighty God is known only in the revelation of Christ. And it is only in Christ that the almighty power of Divine Providence is revealed. Providence, then, along with the creation doctrine, is a uniquely Christian confession.” (Page 37)
“Does Bavinck, as a Reformed theologian, mean the same thing as do the Scholastics in their distinction between truths discoverable by human reason and those known only from special Revelation?” (Page 38)
“The real crisis lies in the meaning of the reality of God to this shattered world. Does the Gospel have meaning and worth for our time? Does the church have the courage and the right to preach the living God in the midst of this senseless world, this world of the twentieth century which seems to have room for only one realistic world and life view: nihilism? Is not the present situation in the world a clear proof that at least on this side of life there is no perspective beyond the burden and the darkness? And is not all this irrefutable evidence that there is no God? Does not atheism seem now to be the only logical and permissible conclusion to draw from the reality of our century?” (Pages 8–9)
Product Details
- Title: Studies in Dogmatics: The Providence of God
- Author: G. C. Berkouwer
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Publication Date: 1952
- Pages: 284
G. C. Berkouwer (1903–1996) was the leading theologian of the Gereformeerde Kerken in the Netherlands and served as pastor there for over 15 years. He was professor of systematic theology at the Free University of Amsterdam while also lecturing on modern theology. In 1962, Berkouwer was an observer at the Second Vatican Council in Rome. He studied at the Christian Gymnasium and at the Free University of Amsterdam.
Berkouwer was very influential among the Reformed churches and other groups in North America, were his series Studies in Dogmatics, was translated, published, and very well-known. The Studies in Dogmatics series is noted by many as one of the most significant works of Christian Dogmatics of the twentienth century.