G. C. Berkouwer


Gerrit Cornelis "G.C." Berkouwer was for years the leading theologian of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. He occupied the chair in systematic theology of the Faculty of Theology, Free University in Amsterdam.
Berkouwer was born in Amsterdam on 8 June 1903. He was raised in Zaandam. In 1927 he married Catharina Cornelia Elisabeth Rippen in The Hague. In 1932 he obtained his
doctorate from the Free University; his dissertation was entitled Geloof en
Openbaring in de nieuwe Duitse theologie. In 1949 the first volume of his eighteen-volume Studies in
Dogmatics appeared in the Netherlands. In 1962 he was an observer at the Second Vatican Council in Rome.
He was very influential among the Reformed churches and other groups in North America, where the many volumes of his series, Studies in Dogmatics, were translated and published. He had a continuous flow of seminary graduates to study under him for the degree of Doctor of Theology. Altogether Berkouwer mentored about 46 students who received the Th.D. degree under his supervision. Many of them became leaders in Christian thought abroad; and, often enough, denominational chief officers.
In 1953, Berkouwer became a member of the Royal Netherlands [Academy of Arts and Sciences].
Berkouwer died on 26 January 1996, aged 92, in Voorhout, Netherlands.

Work in the GKN

He came to his post at the Free University after the Second World War in which the Dutch national community suffered much from Nazi occupation, the Holocaust, and culminating in the Hunger Winter of 1944. The Free University, like all Dutch institutions of higher learning, had been shut down, so there was no public teaching. Nevertheless, preaching and pamphlet wars raged in church and society.
One issue was the negative tone of Berkouwer's predecessor, Valentine Hepp to use his role of systematician of Reformed theology to attack two movements in the Reformed church. The first was Reformational philosophy led by D. H. Th. Vollenhoven and Herman Dooyeweerd, VU professors of philosophy and law, respectively. The other was the in-church movement led by Klaas Schilder, against whom Hepp scored a Pyrrhic victory with Berkouwer's leading involvement as president of the GKN Council, meeting on and off between 1943 and 1945 when that Council finally forced Schilder, his colleague Seakle Greijdanus, and other theologians and pastors out of the denominational community along with a good number of GKN churches.
These reorganized themselves as the Liberated churches. Later, Berkouwer indicated regret that he had helped back the split-off group into a corner, and that some other way of handling the differences should have been found.

Ecumenism

One of Berkouwer's crowning achievements was to be delegated by the Council of the GKN to attend the 1957 assemblies of the International Council of Christian Churches, a world fundamentalist body that met in Amsterdam, and the World Council of Churches, the ecumenical body that met that same year in New Delhi, India. In his report back to the GKN, Berkouwer recommended that they join the latter, and they did so, remaining active and becoming one of the first evangelical denominations to enter the mainstream ecumenical movement.

Middle Orthodoxy

Berkouwer displayed in his Studies in Dogmatics an openness that allowed him to develop a friendship and shared views with Hendrikus Berkhof, the leading professor of systematics in the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk. The emerging collegial view of these two theologians became known as Middle Orthodoxy, and it aimed in an even more ecumenical direction than the Hervormde/Gereformeerde relationship of the time would suggest.
However, it did not extend so far as to relieve the conscience of the VU theological faculty in regard to their required subscription to the seventeenth-century Canons of Dort, a task which remained to Berkouwer's student and successor in the Chair of Dogmatics, Harry M. Kuitert.

Publications

Besides the Studies in Dogmatics, Berkouwer is known for his two books on Roman Catholicism - Conflict with Rome and, after the Second Vatican Council in 1962, The Second Vatican Council and the New Catholicism - and two books on the work of Swiss theologian Karl Barth - Karl Barth and The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth. Though this book was quite critical of Barth's thinking at points, Barth considered Berkouwer to be among the few of his reviewers who actually understood him. All of these books were translated into English, and the last was widely read in the English-speaking world.

''Studies in Dogmatics''

Berkouwer wrote a new theological short essay in almost every issue of the GKN weekly Gereformeerde Weekblad, which garnered responses from clergy and laity all over the Netherlands and beyond. A good part of the articles arose from class lectures to his students at VU, where the newspaper letters of response might carry some weight and sometimes occasioned Berkouwer's refinements for his students. The newspaper theological-articles, letters of response, and classroom refinements in turn led to the publication of books over many years under the general series name, Studies in Dogmatics.
The number of titles in the series eventually came to a total of 14 in English, due to the combination of some paired Dutch volumes into a single volume in English. Among key works were The Person of Christ, The Work of Christ, two volumes on Sin, a volume on The Providence of God, General Revelation, and The Image of God.
Berkouwer's leadership within the denomination to which most of them belonged was strengthened by this openness of the leading GKN theologian, and it contributed to Berkouwer's developing in turn his own position in tandem with that of his friend Berkhof. In an end-of-career work published in English but not Dutch, Two Hundred Years of Theology: A Report of a Personal Journey, Berkhof assessed - along with many other philosophers, philosophical theologians, and systematic theologians - a few leading Gereformeerde historical figures, including Abraham Kuyper and Berkouwer. Berkhof said of the latter, who was in his Studies so leery of speculation, that he suffered from being "not speculative enough."
But he added that since Berkouwer wanted to produce work in systematic theology that was grounded in careful exegesis of the biblical texts for all doctrinal teaching, according to a Reformed tradition of interpretation of the Bible, he mentions few philosophers and interacts sparingly with only one contemporary philosopher, Dooyeweerd, who theologically seems to have had some kinship with Berkouwer and Berkhof's Middle Orthodoxy.

Books

The full list in the Dutch originals with their publication dates and pages is presented below with the corresponding list of the English translation titles, publication dates, and total pages. Please note that in subsequent reprints of the English, paginations vary from the original English edition. Also, technical matter in the Dutch that referred to earlier theological debates in that historical context have sometimes been removed in the English translations. The original publisher of the Dutch series is Kok ; the English, Eerdmans.
Dutch title DatePagesEnglish title DatePages
Geloof en Rechtvaardiging1949220Faith and Justification1952207
Geloof en Heiliging1949222Faith and Sanctification1952193
Geloof en Volharding1949215Faith and Perseverance1958256
De Voorzienigheid Gods1950336The Providence of God1952280
De Algemene Openbaring1951280General Revelation1955336
De Persoon van Christus1952334The Person of Christ1954368
Het Werk van Christus1953387The Work of Christ1965358
De Sacramenten1954407The Sacraments1969304
De Verkiezing Gods1955414Divine Election1960336
De Mens het Beeld Gods1957416Man: The Image of God1962376
De Zonde I1958230Sin1971599
De Zonde II1960360Sin1971599
De Wederkomst van Christus I1961311The Return of Christ1972477
De Wederkomst van Christus II1963282The Return of Christ1972477
De Heilige Schrift I1966234Holy Scripture1975377
De Heilige Schrift II1967463Holy Scripture1975377
De Kerk I Eenheid en Katholiciteit1970260The Church1976438
De Kerk II Apostoliciteit en Heiligheid1972273The Church1976438