RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
This is a more basic text on the nature of man and sin than Berkouwer's works. It doesn't have the awe or hard-hittingness of Berkowuer, but it is much more accessible and more exegetical than Berkouwer's.
Hoekema gives a decent historical survey, though very incomplete. He accurately reads the theologians in question, with a particularly good section on Barth. He fails to point out, however, how Origenistic Barth's reading of the Fall is, but no matter.
Hoekema follows the typical “Man in Fourfold State.” Image as Original, Perverted, Renewed, and Perfected.” The image of God is not something man has but something man is (95).
His best sections are the ones dealing with "Sin." Sin has its source in the heart. Instead of speaking of “the will” and sin, we should see the will as “the total person in the act of making decisions” (171). “We never exercise an isolated will; what we call willing always involves other aspects of the self, like intellect and emotion.” Here he follows Dooyeweerd and the best of the Amsterdam Tradition.
He then proceeds with the standard treatments of trichotomism and dichotomism. The Bible uses the terms soul, spirit, and heart more or less interchangeably.
1. Problems with trichotomy:
a. It does violence to the unity of man.
1.a.1 Presupposes an antithesis between soul and body. The Greeks sought a mediating power between physical and material substances (usually the soul).
1.b. The distinction between spirit/soul doesn’t work in the Bible. body/soul = body/spirit (cf. Mt. 10.28 and 1 Cor. 7:34).
1.b.1 Grief is referred to both soul and spirit (1 Sm. 1:10; John 12:27)
1.b.2 Salvation is associated with both soul and spirit (Jm. 1:21)
1.b.3 Dying is described as a departure of either soul or spirit (Gen. 35:18; 1 Kgs. 17.21)
2. Dichotomism. It is certainly a more respectable position and has a venerated pedigree, yet there are problems.
2.a We should certainly reject dichotomism in its Platonic context, which often hold the soul is “higher” than the body.
2.b. Man cannot be “cut” (diche temnein) into two, but rather is a totality.
Hoekema has a particularly fine section on Human Freedom. He notes how most difficulties in viewing human freedom presuppose some form of "faculty psychology" (the will almost seems to operate independently of mind, intellect, and body). This created difficulties in the Reformed world as to whether prioritize will or intellect (cf Muller for all of the problems). The problem, while it still remains, is lessened when we reject faculty psychology and move to a more "heart-unity" complex. Or so Hoekema claims.
His practical applications on treating man as a whole man are interesting, if underdeveloped. I don't know if Hoekema suggests exploring "wholistic medicines" (224). I don't necessarily disagree, yet without huge restraint and discipline, this can easily become Christians' visiting New Age hippies.
Criticisms:
Hoekema reads Berkouwer as endorsing Schilder’s interpretation that fallen man does not have God's image. I am not so sure Berkouwer is doing that. It seems that GCB is noting why Schilder said what he did (i.e., that is, the OT never speaks of man in the abstract but man in relation to God)
Hoekema gives a decent historical survey, though very incomplete. He accurately reads the theologians in question, with a particularly good section on Barth. He fails to point out, however, how Origenistic Barth's reading of the Fall is, but no matter.
Hoekema follows the typical “Man in Fourfold State.” Image as Original, Perverted, Renewed, and Perfected.” The image of God is not something man has but something man is (95).
His best sections are the ones dealing with "Sin." Sin has its source in the heart. Instead of speaking of “the will” and sin, we should see the will as “the total person in the act of making decisions” (171). “We never exercise an isolated will; what we call willing always involves other aspects of the self, like intellect and emotion.” Here he follows Dooyeweerd and the best of the Amsterdam Tradition.
He then proceeds with the standard treatments of trichotomism and dichotomism. The Bible uses the terms soul, spirit, and heart more or less interchangeably.
1. Problems with trichotomy:
a. It does violence to the unity of man.
1.a.1 Presupposes an antithesis between soul and body. The Greeks sought a mediating power between physical and material substances (usually the soul).
1.b. The distinction between spirit/soul doesn’t work in the Bible. body/soul = body/spirit (cf. Mt. 10.28 and 1 Cor. 7:34).
1.b.1 Grief is referred to both soul and spirit (1 Sm. 1:10; John 12:27)
1.b.2 Salvation is associated with both soul and spirit (Jm. 1:21)
1.b.3 Dying is described as a departure of either soul or spirit (Gen. 35:18; 1 Kgs. 17.21)
2. Dichotomism. It is certainly a more respectable position and has a venerated pedigree, yet there are problems.
2.a We should certainly reject dichotomism in its Platonic context, which often hold the soul is “higher” than the body.
2.b. Man cannot be “cut” (diche temnein) into two, but rather is a totality.
Hoekema has a particularly fine section on Human Freedom. He notes how most difficulties in viewing human freedom presuppose some form of "faculty psychology" (the will almost seems to operate independently of mind, intellect, and body). This created difficulties in the Reformed world as to whether prioritize will or intellect (cf Muller for all of the problems). The problem, while it still remains, is lessened when we reject faculty psychology and move to a more "heart-unity" complex. Or so Hoekema claims.
His practical applications on treating man as a whole man are interesting, if underdeveloped. I don't know if Hoekema suggests exploring "wholistic medicines" (224). I don't necessarily disagree, yet without huge restraint and discipline, this can easily become Christians' visiting New Age hippies.
Criticisms:
Hoekema reads Berkouwer as endorsing Schilder’s interpretation that fallen man does not have God's image. I am not so sure Berkouwer is doing that. It seems that GCB is noting why Schilder said what he did (i.e., that is, the OT never speaks of man in the abstract but man in relation to God)
