Studies in Dogmatics: The Person of Christ

by Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 1954

Overview

In the doctrine of the person of Christ—more than anywhere else, says Professor Berkouwer—do we feel that theology is not practiced in a corner, and Christ cannot be made the object of a neutral interest in a scientific analysis. There will always be implicitly audible the pre-commitment of faith or unfaith, even when the theological discussion does not change to preaching.

Disclaiming the thesis of Troeltsch that the old view of Christianity and paganism is no longer valid, Berkouwer declares that what is needed today is conversion, not the simple uplift which is attached to the general promulgation of a culture. For this, the church will have to show something of the necessity which is divinely laid upon it. And for the clarification of this necessity, Berkouwer presents here an exposition of the doctrine of The Person of Christ which succeeds in making the Christian confession today as vital and relevant as it was when the infant church stormed into the world proclaiming, “He that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”

Contents

Top Highlights

“We are referring to the so-called kenosis-Christology.” (Page 27)

“A popular characterization of Docetism is generally that it teaches that Christ, during his sojourn on earth, had only a phantom body.” (Page 197)

“But Chalcedon, in 451, rejected both the confusion and the separation of these natures. Antithetically opposed to the heresies, it taught that Jesus Christ was truly God and truly man; as touching his Godhead homo-ousios with the Father, and as touching his manhood homo-ousios with us his brethren. Of the relationship between the two natures it declared that they were united: without mixture and without change, without division and without separation; to this was added that each nature, even in the union, retains its own properties.” (Page 68)

“Now more than ever the question has become acute as to whether modern thought is compatible with the Christian faith.” (Page 14)

“The central motif of Docetism, though it is not always conscious, consists in the conviction that a tie-up, a genuine union between God (or the divine) and the physical, material, and terrestrial is basically impossible. Basic to all Docetism is a dualism which in one way or another reveals itself as a threat to the church. To put it simply, Docetism could never yield to what John declared when he said that the Word became flesh.” (Page 199)

Product Details

• Title: Studies in Dogmatics: The Person of Christ
• Author: G. C. Berkouwer
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication Date: 1954
• Pages: 376

About Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer

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.