Berkouwer emphasized the importance of the doctrine of election - "if we
take seriously the conviction that election lies ... at the heart of
the church, we find ourselves at the centre of the church's faith when
qwe focus on the question of election" (A Half Century of Theology, p.
79). He also discerned the harmful effects of a deterministic doctrine
of election - "this doctrine has been all but comforting ... an offence,
with no real liberating and tension-relieving power ... a decision that
was extremely difficult to rhyme with a gospel of love comforting to
the heart" (A Half Century of Theology, p. 79).
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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