"Berkouwer: Studies in Dogmatics" Thoughts?

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GTMOPC

Puritan Board Freshman
I just picked up a couple volumes of G.C. Berkouwer's "Studies in Dogmatics" from my local used book store. I haven't had any exposure to his work but couldn't pass up the deal; $4.50 a title for the hardcover printing in 1973. A little worn but otherwise excellent condition!

I'd vaguely remembered reading Berkouwer's name somewhere but ended up buying these books based on M. Loyd Jones recommendation on the back cover (and the price of course).

I picked up "Faith and Sanctification" and "Man- The Image of God." There are three or four more volumes I'm thinking about picking up but I was wondering what the PB thinks of his work? Confessionally speaking is he orthodox? Does anyone like/enjoy his writing?

Give me some advice on whether I should buy the other 3-4 books at the low price of $4.50. That's like 1/4 of the new sale price!
 
Berkouwer is generally reckoned as a mixed bag. In some areas (soteriology) he has lots of good things to say. On Scripture, he is horrible. He is one of those theologians who started out orthodox, but then drifted, coming under the influence of Karl Barth.
 
Thanks for bringing up the issue with Barth. As I was considering these books I was trying to remember what I'd read about is his slide towards Barth. Thanks a lot for the reminder!

It always amazes me how someone can begin in the truth but in time fall away. I guess their is a potential Galatian in all of us!
 
For your own good go get Herman Bavinks – Reformed Dogmatics, instead

G. C. Berkouwer introduced Karl Barth in the Netherlands, Barth even told that Berkouwer

was the theologian that understood him better.

Even if Berkouwer was first critical of some positions of Barth, he pretty much surrendered

to the seductions of dialectical methodology and became himself a Barthian.

Amongst many other problems, Barth, never consistently denied the universalistic

consequences of his formulation of election «in Christ».


Cornelius Van Til - Christianity and Barthianism – is a good analysis of Barth’s

Theological and Doctrinal implications.

The development of GKN’s with Barth’s influence through Berkouwer

is a good example of the muddy slippery practical side of it.


My personal belief is that Barth is also, pretty much, an F.V. «avant la lettre» (for Federal Vision)


Quoting from A Brief History of Covenant Theology - R. Scott Clark, 2001.

«Having rejected genuine historicity of Scripture in favour of a theology of personal encounter with the Word .

Barth rejected much of classic Reformed covenant theology as "scholastic" and Unbiblical.

He rejected the covenant of redemption and the classic distinction between the

covenant of works and the covenant of grace as "legalistic”.

In Barth's theology, grace overwhelmed Law.

Many contemporary Reformed theologians, including T. F. Torrence and G. C. Berkouwer

followed this critique of the Reformed tradition.»
 
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Back in the 70s wags said that The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth should have been called The Triumph of Karl Barth in the Theology of G.C. Berkouwer.
 
Back in the 70s wags said that The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth should have been called The Triumph of Karl Barth in the Theology of G.C. Berkouwer.

That seems like an excellent encapsulation of what I've been reading about Berkouwer this afternoon.
 
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