Berkouwer insists that a proper understanding of theological language is
only attainable within the context of the obedience of faith. The
language of predestination may be understood as a form of expression
which the believer, who has willingly submitted to the authority of
grace, uses to confess his Christian faith. Set in this context, the
language of predestination need not be viewed as a form of determinism
which threatens to strip human experience of decisive significance.
Emphasizing that "he who has seen Christ has seen the Father" (John
14:9), Berkouwer maintains that the believer, in his encounter with
Christ, comes to know the revelation of God as something which is not
threatened by the idea of a hidden God whose secret cannot be known
(Divine Election, p. 124).
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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