Berkouwer maintained that, when Romans 9-11 is understood as referring
to "God's revelation of mercy ... and not to a 'naked sovereignty'", the
illegitimacy of man's protest against God and the "mystical delight" of
Paul's doxology are seen quite differenty from their deterministic
interpretation (A Half Century of Theology, pp. 90, 93; Divine Election,
pp. 65, 147-149). Man's protest is recognized as entirely inappropriate
because "the doctrine of election is an 'inexpressible comfort' for
both the believer and the nonbeliever since it proclaims that there is
hope for the 'most miserable of men'" (A Half Century of Theology, p.
103). Paul's doxology is recognized as entirely appropriate because it
is faith's response to the divine mercy in which "there is nothing of
'the inexplicable arbitrariness of power that moves one to put his
fingers to his lips" (A Half Century of Theology, p. 93).
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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