Berkhof's "Introduction to Systematic Theology"

[py3ak]

Being on a bit of a trip, I encountered a book:

Louis Berkhof, Introduction to Systematic Theology, originally printed by Eerdman's in 1932 (this edition is a 1979 reprint by Baker Book House.

Anyway, what I wanted to know was if this is the additional prolegomena material that was published in the latest Eerdman's edition of his ST. Does anyone know? Or is this an entirely separate volume? Does one have to read both things, or if only one, which is better?

Thanks!

 

[py3ak]

It seems extremely unlikely to me that none of the bibliophiles on here know the answer to this: I'm guessing they didn't see this....

 

[MW]

It seems extremely unlikely to me that none of the bibliophiles on here know the answer to this: I'm guessing they didn't see this....

Ruben, My older editions are separate, but I believe Eerdman's put out a new edition of the ST with the prolegomena included.

 

[py3ak]

Indeed. Where I currently am, I have a separate edition of the ST and the prolegomena: and I was wondering if the separate parts were identical to the ST with prolegomena.

 

[MW]

I'm fairly sure that they're one and the same.

 

[R. Scott Clark]

They are the same right down to the pagination. They simply inserted the old volume under the cover of the new edition.

The Reformed Dogmatics were originally published as three vols. They've all been published separately as the Intro, the Systematics, the history of doctrine.

rsc

 

[Contra_Mundum]

I want that little volume...

 

[py3ak]

Thank you, Mr. Winzer and Dr. Clark.

Bruce, the one I have is in very good condition and apart from a bookstore sticker and purchaser's name has no markings. It appears to have never been read, so I shall be the first.

 

[Philip A]

I want that little volume...

THIS little volume?

 

[py3ak]

That's the little volume, all right.

 

[MW]

I want that little volume...

Sorry, Bruce, but loud noise is par for the course with little children.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

funny!

yes, around here quiet is a relative concept.

 

[py3ak]

Here is a rather unexpected statement from pp.81,82.
The Federal Modification of Reformed doctrine.

With Coccejus a reaction set in against the speculative and scholastic method of some of the thorough-going Calvinists. He substituted a purely Biblical method, distributing his material according to the scheme of the covenants. However, his position represented not only a formal divergence, but also a material departure, from traditional Reformed theology, and entered ever increasingly into league with Cartesianism. Its really new thing was not the covenant doctrine, for this is already found in the works of Zwingli, Bullenger, Olevianus, Snecanus, Gomarus, Trelcatius, and Cloppenburg, but its federalistic method. It virtually changed Dogmatics into Biblical Theology, thus making it a historical discipline. Its method was anthropological rather than theological. Two of the best representatives of this school, are Burmannus and Witsius. The Synopsis Theologiae of the former is by far the best of the two, and is free from that forced exegesis which so often characterizes the work of the Cocceian school. The work of the latter, Over de Verbonden (Eng. tr. On the Covenants), is inferior to it, but is better known in this country. It represents a laudible [sic] but futile attempt to reconcile the more scholastic and the federal trend in theology.

So, several questions:

1. Did anyone expect a criticism of Witsius?
2. Is Berkhof right to say that Burmannus is better?
3. Did Coccejus tend towards Cartesianism?
4. How mad would this paragraph make the FV?

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Here is a rather unexpected statement from pp.81,82.
The Federal Modification of Reformed doctrine.

With Coccejus a reaction set in against the speculative and scholastic method of some of the thorough-going Calvinists. He substituted a purely Biblical method, distributing his material according to the scheme of the covenants. However, his position represented not only a formal divergence, but also a material departure, from traditional Reformed theology, and entered ever increasingly into league with Cartesianism. Its really new thing was not the covenant doctrine, for this is already found in the works of Zwingli, Bullenger, Olevianus, Snecanus, Gomarus, Trelcatius, and Cloppenburg, but its federalistic method. It virtually changed Dogmatics into Biblical Theology, thus making it a historical discipline. Its method was anthropological rather than theological. Two of the best representatives of this school, are Burmannus and Witsius. The Synopsis Theologiae of the former is by far the best of the two, and is free from that forced exegesis which so often characterizes the work of the Cocceian school. The work of the latter, Over de Verbonden (Eng. tr. On the Covenants), is inferior to it, but is better known in this country. It represents a laudible [sic] but futile attempt to reconcile the more scholastic and the federal trend in theology.

So, several questions:

1. Did anyone expect a criticism of Witsius?
2. Is Berkhof right to say that Burmannus is better?
3. Did Coccejus tend towards Cartesianism?
4. How mad would this paragraph make the FV?

1. Remember, this is one man's analysis, and he's entitled to his mind on the matter. I don't think his is as profound a criticism of Witsius as perhaps you think. It appears to me he recognizes in Witsuis a man of "dogmatic" or "confessional" mind who is yet associated with the Cocceian school. LB simply doesn't think Witsius' efforts at harmonization paid off. I would liken it to one of our contemporary theologians criticizing Hodge's Systematic for trying ineffectively to combine the old-line confessionalism with German-influenced taxonomy.

2. Don't know who Burmann was. You'd probably have to read Dutch or Latin to know him today.

3. I think the criticism of Cartesianism has to do with Cartesian rationalism opposition generally to the older scholastic philosophical method. In other words,, the Cocceian school would naturally make common cause against scholastic methodology everywhere in theology, and therefore with Cartesian criticism of Scholasticism. Both philosophies are formally speculative, but Cartesianism begins with methodological doubt, Scholasticism with a body of dogma.

Making common cause tends to make allies blur or overlook distinctions. So also in this case, I would think. And thus LB can make the criticism: in rejecting scholastic theology, the Cocceian school tended to adopt or befriend (or avoid critical evaluation of) Cartesianism, according to the side chosen. So, perhaps they were not strict Cartesians. After all, they were not going to jetison the Bible (special revelation) as a first principle. And yet, opposition to dogma (as a scholastic category) would tend in time to an undogmatic approach (as if free from presuppositions) approach to handling the Scripture.

And so, I think you can see that the analogy of faith eventually goes out the window, if BT is ungoverned.

4. FVs are on record as opposing the bondage of confessional categories. They might not like LB associating radical BT and Cartesianism, and by implication FV and Cartesianism, but they are free to object to the analysis. I think they do share with the Cocceian school the same general resistance to the historic check of ST to BT. So, if LB's criticism is valid, then (albeit anachronistically) the criticism can be brought analogously to bear upon the newer school as well.

 

[py3ak]

Bruce, did it not seem to you that Berkhof was possibly including Witsius within the category of forced exegesis? Since he doesn't exempt Witsius from that charge, as he does Burmannus, and both are lumped into the school of Coccejus which is often characterized by such forced exegesis....
In any case, assuming that Berkhof had made such a charge, would you agree with him?

 

[Contra_Mundum]

It sounds as if he might be saying that Burmann escapes the charge of "forced exegesis" entirely, in his opinion. Whereas, Witsius may come in for some of that kind of criticism. But he does class the two as being the "best representatives" of that school. So I wouldn't expect LB to label him generally as a "forced exegete." But occasionally, perhaps he would.

It would be better in my opinion to find a clear "correction" in LB's writings of something Witsius exegeted or even reasoned, before we figured Witsius for an author that LB would only recommend with severe caution.

His essential criticism of EoC as a whole (what I take to make it "inferior" in his estimation) is in the final sentence (which does not mention forced exegesis)--Witsius' "futile" attempt to mediate between the two schools. Perhaps Witsius fails, in LB's opinion, because he refuses to govern the BT by the ST, putting them on a plane. Anyway, that's how I read it.

I haven't found EoC to contain much to disagree with. I don't know that I've always agreed with every sentence or thought, but it is a reliable (albeit dated) early work on the Covenants as an interpretive approach to the Scriptures. So, as a good representative of the best that the Cocceian school had to offer, I would agree with LB.

But if LB is taken as criticizing Witsius for an ungoverned (by ST) BT approach to Covenant Theology, then I would demurre.

 

[py3ak]

Well, Berkhof will list Barth in the literature which one assumes is recommended reading at the end of the chapters, so I doubt that he would recommend Witsius with caution; but I didn't get the impression that he thought it was worth slogging through. Which was interesting to me, because others have said that Witsius is glorious, indispensable, and so forth. Whereas you rather confirmed my view that at least in patches, Berkhof thinks of Witsius as having a forced exegesis (naturally, that is not a final conclusion: I didn't think much of Berkhof's book on hermeneutics, after reading it twice).

Berkhof is definitely against using "covenant" as an organizing principle for dogmatics. He thinks it quite disadvantageous as opposed to his own synthetic method, so no doubt if Witsius falls into the weaknesses (from Berkhof's perspective) of a Biblical Theology approach (and to be fair I should note that Berkhof is quite clear that the dogmatician must employ the insights of Biblical Theology) he might therefore find him rather tedious or galling to read.