Dr. Alvin L. Baker is Associate Professor of Theology and Bible at Northeastern Bible College in Essex Falls, New Jersey. In obtaining his Th.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary, he wrote his dissertation on A Critical Evaluation of C. C. Berkouwer’s Doctrine of Election. THE OULOOK greatly appreciates his permission as well as the approval of Dallas Theological Seminary for this reprinting of the final chapter of this very timely and informative dissertation. Discussion of election and reprobation is very much alive today, and it is of special interest to know what the well-known and influential Dr. C. C. Berkouwer. Professor of Systematic Theology at the Free University of Amsterdam (now retired) has written on this important doctrine.
Theology is indebted to C. C. Berkouwer for his stimulating discussions of those concepts which are connected with divine election. A study of Berkouwer‘s writings is sure to cure one of being static. It is impossible to read Berkouwer and think that the processes of theological reflection are no longer necessary. He causes one to question all the old answers. As Hoekema has written of Berkouwer:
If one wishes to find neatly packaged and concisely phrased answers to theological questions, one should not read Berkouwer. If, however, one wishes to explore theological problems in depth (without necessarily finding satisfactory solutions), and to engage in animated dialogue with a number of past and present theologians on various facets of a doctrinal topic, Berkouwer, is the man to read.1
Berkouwer challenges the lazy pastor or theologian to think through propositions which have previously been repeated in parrot–like fashion. He drives the serious student to the Word to discover or rediscover the teaching of revelation in connection with election.
Berkouwer is also to be praised for injecting sound thoughts and opinions from historical theology into the contemporary discussion of election. Berkouwer is just as conversant with theologians of the past as the present. His comprehension of the past giants of the “queen of the sciences” should serve as an example for those who would do theology today. Especially important is Berkouwer‘s republication and exposition of John Calvin‘s thinkings in relation to election.
The Dutch doctor is to be applauded for his insistence that election should be preached and used pastorally. Berkouwer makes election a doctrine that can be utilized to comfort and challenge men by his destruction of several caricatures that have been attached to the Reformed concept of election. Berkouwer has shown that just because one believes in the biblical concept of unmerited and sovereign election, he does not necessarily have to think of God as arbitrary or hidden. Berkouwer‘s insistence that election is not to be considered a threat to the promises of God is a valuable contribution to the church. Election needs to be seen as Berkouwer views it: “as the profound, unassailable and strong foundation for man‘s salvation, both for time and eternity.”2
Berkouwer is always the sworn enemy of arid theological abstractions, and this is probably more evident in his treatment of election than in any other area of theology. Berkouwer is concerned about reality. The Christian faith is for Berkouwer no “narrow fideism of solipsism.” For him, the correlation between faith and God‘s salvation makes it impossible to speak abstractly of election. Berkouwer believes that the correlation between faith and salvation is such that it is impossible to speak “separately of faith and then only afterward proceed to reality.” Instead, “faith is concerned with nothing else than reality.”3
Consequently, Berkouwer is antagonistic towards those concepts which seem to him to make historical reality insignificant. His writing emphasizes the existential and man‘s responsibility to believe to such an extent that he hardly ever speaks of the “before” of salvation. In Berkouwer, historical reality seems to have swallowed up the eternal. True, he speaks consistently of God‘s love being the a priori of election but, he is usually silent about the eternal aspect of election. He seems to believe that any idea of a “fixed decree makes man’s faith insignificant.4 Election is not to be thought of, according to Berkouwer, as “something out of the past that we look back on but have nothing to do with.”5 It seems that Berkouwer has presented an unnecessary dilemma. One should not say that if one interprets Scripture to teach a fixed decree, then one does not allow for the importance of faith. Both are taught by Scripture, and they should never be considered to be antithetical. Belief in a fixed decree of God, as taught in Ephesians 1:11 and Psalm 33:11, does not detract from the urgency of preaching or the significance of the historical.
Most Reformed theologians have emphasized the importance of the historical—importance of faith and the means of salvation. For example, Turretin wrote:
It is not a question whether election is certain in the sense that there is no longer any need for means, and that whatever a person does he will necessarily be saved. We do not teach a separation of means and end, which God has joined together. The question is whether the appointed means ordained by God are certain.6
God‘s sovereign determination of the destiny of all men must be upheld. Berkouwer has led in the rebellion among conservative Reformed thinkers against the traditional concept of the all-comprehensive decree of God. Berkouwer can no longer accept reprobation, and he believes that the church should no longer preach that the reason for men having different spiritual conditions is due to God’s good pleasure. In fact, Berkouwer has written that it is a mistake to say that men are taking offense at the gospel when they reject the concept that God’s good pleasure is the ultimate source of discrimination among men. Berkouwer says that instead, the message of the church must be that of a living God who “elects not according to works, but according to grace.”7
However, Berkouwer is wrong, for the message of the church must include both God’s complete sovereignty and the gospel of grace. In fact, if God’s absolute sovereignty is not strictly maintained, then grace will invariably be perverted by attributing too much to the activity of men.
Berkouwer is incorrect to think that one may speak of grace and be ambiguous about, or ever deny, the eternal and sovereign “before” of election. To speak in such a manner empties grace of much of its biblical meaning. Again, it must be said that Berkouwer’s greatest failure is his reluctance to set forth consistently the biblical and Reformed view of the absolute sovereignty of God.
Berkouwer, unfortunately, has criticized the orthodox doctrine of absolute sovereignty, as set forth in such symbols as the Canons of Dort and the Westminster Confession. He now follows men of more liberal persuasion, such as J. C. Woelderink, who like Berkouwer, criticized the Reformed symbols because they were influenced by “causal” thinking.
Woelderink has written that Karl Barth opened his eyes to the presence of scholastic concepts in the orthodox Reformed theologians and in the Canons of Dort. Woelderink faulted Dort for seeking to explain the “cause of the fact that one man believes and another rejects the gospel.”9
Berkouwer has voiced basically the same kind of criticism. He has written that Dort was influenced by a “causal approach” to Scripture.10 Berkouwer has also criticized Calvin for Calvin’s unacceptable attempt to explain the relation of unbelief to the will of God by means of the concept of cause.11 He is opposed to attempts to “press the divine act into a deterministic framework,” and he is certain that the category of cause can never be used by man to explain sin and belief.12
Thus, Berkouwer has arrived at his divergent position on election as a result of following the critical attitudes of Barth and Woelderink towards the Reformed Confessions13—His rejection of “causality” as a means of explaining unbelief, and his neglect of the eternal and fixed aspect of God’s decree make his view of election a deviant from the Reformed tradition.
His position on election does not do justice to the historical facts, or biblical data. Dort’s belief that God included unbelief in His decree (I, 6) was not a scholastic deduction based on an extra-biblical philosophy. Rather, this article was based on the plain teaching of Scripture. Such passages as Matthew 11:26 and Romans 9:11 show that the distinction between those who have faHh and those who do not have faith is due to the sovereign will of God. God, according to Paul, has “prepared” some men for destruction (Rom. 9:22). In John 12:39, the wTiter says of those not believing: “For this cause they could not believe,” (italics mine), and goes on in verse 40 to show that the cause was due to God’s decision to blind the unbelievers. The unbelievers were responsible, yet, they would have been believers if God would had have elected them as He has elected the remnant (Rom. 11:5).
Berkouwer has oversimplified the will of God. He is correct to maintain Deus non est causa, auctor peccati. However, one cannot deny that God assured the entrance of sin into the world by His permissive decree.14 If sin and unbelief were to be completely removed from God’s sovereign-will, as Berkouwer desires, then dualism or a form of cosmic chance would menace Christianity. But, such passages as Ephesians 1:11 will not allow the placing of unbelief and sin outside the eternal counsel of God. God works “all things,” including sin, according to His eternal will. Scripture speaks of God’s determinative will as embracing sin and unbelief, as well as good and faith (cf. Matt. 26:54; Luke 22:22; Acts 2:23; 4:27, 28; Eph. 1:11). Moreover, the Scripture even speaks on occasion of God sovereignly moving people to commit acts of sin (Ps. 105:25; II Thess. 2:11; Rev. 17:17). While God is not the author of sin, still unbelief and sin exist only because He has willed that they exist. Any other view supposes a God who is like a fire-fighter, who goes from one emergency to another, frantically trying to bring autonomous man under control. Such a view is contrary to the Word which says–that the “counsel of the Lord, it will stand” (Prov. 19:21). There arc no unforeseen rebellions against God, nor rebellions which He has not permitted. And by that permission, God has determined that those sins and rebellions shall take place.
Rebellious man, in his sin, cannot thwart God‘s eternal will. Job 42:2 says: “I know that no purpose of thine can be thwarted.” Instead, God accomplishes all His “good pleasure” (Isa. 46:10). God is the One who “turns” the king’s heart “whenever He wishes” (Prov. 21:1). God is never crowded out by the autonomous sinful will of men. God is totally sovereign, moving in history to accomplish all that He has planned. As Psalm 115:3 says: “But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases” (cf. Ps. 135:6). Instead of God’s will being frustrated by the plans of men, the Psalmist writes: “The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples” (Ps. 33:10).
While one may speak of our planet being in rebellion, it is only as the Lord wills that a man can accomplish anything (Jas. 4:15).
Berkouwer‘s theology falls short of this total testimony of the Word. Berkouwer dislikes equal ultimacy. He envisions absolute sovereignty as being the sixteenth century’s rationalistic deduction. However, election and reprobation are equally ultimate in the sense that God has willed the final destiny of all men. This is not a naked deduction made from some “starting point” arrived at from outside of Scripture.15 On the contrary, this is a conclusion made from within all of Scripture’s teaching concerning God, man, and salvation.
It is not easy to criticize a man of Berkouwer’s theological acumen. He has produced much that will enrich the church until the Lord returns. His treatment of the issues connected with election are usually thoroughly and fairly done.
However, his work in the area of election does seem to tend towards the subjective. His main concern seems to be to show that preaching and perseverance are needed on the part of man. He tends to neglect God’s part in the “before” stage. One would not wish for any more speculation concerning things beyond the boundaries of Scripture. However, it seems that Berkouwer does not lead the theological explorer over all of the terrain within the approved limits of Holy Writ.
Still, there is much to commend in Berkouwer. Theologians and preachers should be thankful that Berkouwer has shown such an interest in demonstrating the fallacies of those caricatures which have made election such a foreboding doctrine to some men. Berkouwer continually exhibits a pastor’s heart while dealing with the difficult questions related to election. For example, his insistence that the gospel offer is serious, is perhaps more important to the theologians in the Gereformeerde Kerken, Christian Reformed Church, and Protestant Reformed Church, but, nevertheless, it remains as a needed corrective for any men who would follow their logic beyond Scripture. In many ways. such as this. G. C. Berkouwer has done a work, in connection with election, that will strengthen the ever deteriorating marrow of theology.
1. Anthony A. Hoekema, “Sin, by G. C. Berkouwer,” A review, Coloin Thoolcgical Journal, VIII (April, 1973), 80. 2. G.C. Bcrkouwer, Studies In Dogmatics, Divine Election, tram;. by Hugo Bekker (Grand Rapid5: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1960), p. 133 .Berkouwer, Studies In Dogmatics, Faith And Perseverance, trans. by Robert D. Knudsen (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1958), p. 219.
4. Berkouwer, Divine Election, p. 149. Cf. supra., pp. 75, 158–160, 179. 5. Berkouwcr, Studies In Dogmatics, The Return of Christ, trans. by James Van Oosterom, cd. by Marlin J. Van Elderen (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1972), p. 330.6. Francis Tumtin, “Institutio Theologiae Elentricae,” Reformed Dogmatics, cd. by John W. Beardslee III (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 342.
7. Bcrkouwer, “Vragen Rondom De Belijdenis,” “Geretormeerd Theologisch Tijdschrift,” LXlII Feb., 1963), 15.
8. Supra., p. 152.
9. J. G. Woclderink. Dc Uitverkiczing (Amsterdam: Van Kalien, 1951), pp. 10, 11. Cf. James Daane who finds the roots of the single decree of “sixteenth and seventeenth-century Protestant scholasticism” in medieval scholasticism. James Daane, The Freedom Of God. A Study Of Election And Pulpit (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1973), p. 154.
10. Berkouwer, “Vragen Rondom Belijderus,” p. 16.
11. Berkouwer, Divine Election, pp. 188, 189.
12. Ibid., p. 216.
13. Also, of course, Berkouwer has been influenced in a negative sense by negative sense by Hoeksema’s views on reprobation. Supra., pp. 182, 183.14. The permissive decree is a decree [a] not to hinder the sinful self–determination of the finite will. [b] To regulate and control the result of the sinful self-determination,” William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, Classic reprint ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1969), I, 406. The decree is “permissive” in the sense that while God decrees, the decree is effectuated by man’s willful breaking of God’s precepts.
15. Cf. Bcrkouwer‘s criticism of Van Til’s remarks concerning equal ultimacy. Berkouwer, Divine Election, p. 189.