Here's an attempt
to bring things together. (1) man knows of grace through revelation.
(2) divine revelation comes to man in the form of human language. (3)
The inadequacy of human language as a vehicle of divine revelation
demands that due care be taken in the interpretation of Scripture. (4)
The inadequacy of human language as a vehicle of divine revelation
demands an avoidance of undue dogmatism regarding the precise meaning of
Scripture. (5) The idea of a depth dimension points beyond the
limitations of human language to the profound spiritual realities of the
eternal God and His eternal salvation.
A response to a comment by G. R. Osborne on Berkouwer’s understanding of the doctrine of final perseverance
In his contribution to Clark Pinnock (editor), Grace Unlimited (1975), G. R. Osborne states that Berkouwer, in Faith and Perseverance, pp. 9-10, “speaks of the time less ness of the doctrine of final perseverance, founded on ‘the richness and abidingness of salvation” (p. 188, emphasis mine). This single-sentence comment on Berkouwer’s view hardly gives a fair indication of the type of thinking found in Chapter 1 of Berkouwer’s Faith and Perseverance - “Time li ness and Relevance” (pp. 9-14, emphasis mine). Berkouwer insists that “the living preaching of the Scriptures, which offer no metaphysical and theoretical views about … ‘permanency’ as an independent theme in itself, does nothing to encourage ‘a continuity which is … opposed in any way to the living nature of faith” (p. 13). Berkouwer stresses that “The perseverance of the saints is not primarily a theoretical problem but a confession of faith” (p. 14) and that “The perseverance of the saints is unbreakably connected wi...
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