View source for G. C. Berkouwer

{{short description|Dutch theologian}}
{{Refimprove|date=February 2008}}
{{Infobox academic
| name               = G.&nbsp;C. Berkouwer
| image              = GCBerkouwer1.jpg
| alt                = 
| caption            = Berkouwer in 1965
| birth_name         = Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1903|06|08|df=yes}}
| birth_place        = [[Amsterdam]], Netherlands
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1996|01|25|1903|06|08|df=yes}}
| death_place        = [[Voorhout]], Netherlands
| residence          = 
| spouse             = 
| partner            = 
| alma_mater         = [[Free University of Amsterdam]]
| thesis_title       = 
| thesis_year        = 
| school_tradition   = [[Reformed Christianity]]
| doctoral_advisor   = 
| academic_advisors  = 
| era                = 
| discipline         = [[Theology]]
| sub_discipline     = [[Systematic theology]]
| workplaces         = [[Free University of Amsterdam]]
| doctoral_students  = {{hlist | [[Johan Heyns]] | [[Harry M. Kuitert]] | [[Hans Karl LaRondelle]] | [[Jack Rogers (minister)|Jack Rogers]] | [[R. C. Sproul]] |[[Conrad J. Wethmar]]}}
| notable_works      = Studies in Dogmatics (1949–1972)
}}

'''Gerrit Cornelis "G.C." Berkouwer''' (8 June 1903 – 25 January 1996) was for years the leading theologian of the [[Reformed Churches in the Netherlands]] (GKN). He occupied the chair in [[systematic theology]] of the Faculty of Theology, [[Vrije Universiteit|Free University]] (VU) in [[Amsterdam]].

Berkouwer was born in [[Amsterdam]] on 8 June 1903. He was raised in [[Zaandam]]. In 1927 he married Catharina Cornelia Elisabeth Rippen in The Hague. In 1932 he obtained his
doctorate from the Free University. His dissertation was entitled Geloof en
Openbaring in de nieuwe Duitse theologie (Faith and Revelation in Recent
German Theology). In 1949 the first volume of his eighteen-volume Studies in
Dogmatics appeared in the Netherlands. In 1962 he was an observer at the [[Second Vatican Council]] in Rome.<ref name = "Vanderheide" />

He was very influential among the [[Reformed churches]] and other groups in North America, where the many volumes of his series, ''Studies in Dogmatics'', were translated and published. He had a continuous flow of [[seminary]] graduates to study under him for the degree of [[Doctor of Theology]]. Altogether Berkouwer mentored about 46 students who received the [[Th.D.]] degree under his supervision. Many of them became leaders in Christian thought abroad; and, often enough, denominational chief officers.<ref name = "Vanderheide">{{citation | first=Al | last=Vanderheide | title=Dutch Reformed Leader Dr. G.C. Berkouwer Passes Away | work=Internet Christian Library. |  publisher=United Reformed News Service | url=http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/reformed/archive96/nr96-016.txt | accessdate=2011-03-10}}</ref>

In 1953, Berkouwer became a member of the [[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]].<ref>{{cite web|author= |url=http://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=authorDetail&aId=PE00001932 |title=Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer (1903 - 1996) |publisher=Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences |accessdate=23 April 2016}}</ref>

Berkouwer died on 26 January 1996, aged 92, in [[Voorhout]], Netherlands.

== Work in the GKN ==
{{Unsourced|section|date=September 2023}}
He came to his post at the Free University after the [[Second World War]] in which the Dutch national community suffered much from [[Nazi]] occupation, the [[Holocaust]], and culminating in the Hunger Winter of 1944. The Free University, like all Dutch institutions of higher learning, had been shut down, so there was no public teaching. Nevertheless, preaching and pamphlet wars raged in church and society.

One issue was the negative tone of Berkouwer's predecessor, [[Valentine Hepp]] to use his role of systematician of [[Reformed theology]] to attack two movements in the Reformed church. The first was [[Reformational philosophy]] led by [[D. H. Th. Vollenhoven]] and [[Herman Dooyeweerd]], VU professors of philosophy and law, respectively. The other was the in-church movement led by [[Klaas Schilder]], against whom Hepp scored a Pyrrhic victory with Berkouwer's leading involvement as president of the GKN Council, meeting on and off between 1943 and 1945 when that Council finally forced Schilder, his colleague [[Seakle Greijdanus]], and other theologians and pastors out of the denominational community along with a good number of GKN churches. 

These reorganized themselves as the [[Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated)|Liberated]] churches. Later, Berkouwer indicated regret that he had helped back the split-off group into a corner, and that some other way of handling the differences should have been found.

===Ecumenism===
One of Berkouwer's crowning achievements was to be delegated by the Council of the GKN to attend the 1957 assemblies of the International Council of Christian Churches, a world [[Christian fundamentalism|fundamentalist]] body that met in Amsterdam, and the [[World Council of Churches]], the [[Ecumenism|ecumenical]] body that met that same year in [[New Delhi]], India. In his report back to the GKN, Berkouwer recommended that they join the latter, and they did so, remaining active and becoming one of the first [[evangelicalism|evangelical]] [[religious denomination|denominations]] to enter the mainstream ecumenical movement.

===Middle Orthodoxy===
Berkouwer displayed in his ''Studies in Dogmatics'' an openness that allowed him to develop a friendship and shared views with [[Hendrikus Berkhof]], the leading professor of systematics in the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk ([[Dutch Reformed Church]] from which the Gereformeerde Kerken had split-off in the nineteenth century). The emerging collegial view of these two theologians became known as [[Middle Orthodoxy]], and it aimed in an even more ecumenical direction than the Hervormde/Gereformeerde relationship of the time would suggest. 

However, it did not extend so far as to relieve the conscience of the VU theological faculty in regard to their required subscription to the seventeenth-century [[Canons of Dort]], a task which remained to Berkouwer's student and successor in the Chair of Dogmatics, [[Harry M. Kuitert]]. (Kuitert, however, went further than his mentor, breaking completely with the Berkouwer and Middle Orthodox tradition and turning publicly to an informal [[Unitarianism|unitarian]] stance.)

==Publications==
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Besides the ''Studies in Dogmatics'' (see below), Berkouwer is known for his two books on [[Roman Catholicism]] &ndash; ''Conflict with Rome'' (1948) and, after the [[Second Vatican Council]] in 1962, ''The Second Vatican Council and the New Catholicism'' &ndash; and two books on the work of Swiss theologian [[Karl Barth]] &ndash; ''Karl Barth'' (1954) and ''The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth'' (1954). Though this book was quite critical of Barth's thinking at points, Barth considered Berkouwer to be among the few of his reviewers who actually understood him.<ref>[[Karl Barth]], ''[[Church Dogmatics]]'' IV.3, p. 173</ref> All of these books were translated into English, and the last was widely read in the English-speaking world.

=== ''Studies in Dogmatics'' ===
Berkouwer wrote a new theological short essay in almost every issue of the GKN weekly ''Gereformeerde Weekblad,'' which garnered responses from clergy and laity all over the Netherlands and beyond. A good part of the articles arose from class lectures to his students at VU, where the newspaper letters of response might carry some weight and sometimes occasioned Berkouwer's refinements for his students. The newspaper theological-articles, letters of response, and classroom refinements in turn led to the publication of books over many years under the general series name, ''Studies in Dogmatics'' (the last word usually being rendered in English as ''systematic theology'').

The number of titles in the series eventually came to a total of 14 in English, due to the combination of some paired Dutch volumes into a single volume in English. Among key works were ''The [[Person of Christ]]'', ''The Work of Christ'', two volumes on ''Sin'', a volume on ''The Providence of God'' (which refers to [[Herman Dooyeweerd]]'s philosophy), ''General Revelation'' (again refers to Dooyeweerd), and ''The Image of God'' (which especially made the growing movement of philosophers, scientists, and theologians whose thinking was akin to the ideas of Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd much more comfortable than they had been under Hepp).

Berkouwer's leadership within the denomination to which most of them belonged was strengthened by this openness of the leading GKN theologian, and it contributed to Berkouwer's developing in turn his own position in tandem with that of his friend Berkhof. In an end-of-career work published in English but not Dutch, ''Two Hundred Years of Theology: A Report of a Personal Journey'' (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1989), Berkhof assessed &ndash; along with many other philosophers, philosophical theologians, and systematic theologians &ndash; a few leading Gereformeerde historical figures, including [[Abraham Kuyper]] and Berkouwer. Berkhof said of the latter, who was in his ''Studies'' so leery of speculation, that he suffered from being "not speculative enough." 

But he added that since Berkouwer wanted to produce work in systematic theology that was grounded in careful exegesis of the biblical texts for all doctrinal teaching, according to a Reformed tradition of [[hermeneutics|interpretation]] of the [[Bible]], he mentions few philosophers and interacts sparingly with only one contemporary philosopher, Dooyeweerd, who theologically seems to have had some kinship with Berkouwer and Berkhof's Middle Orthodoxy.

====Books====
The full list in the Dutch originals with their publication dates and pages is presented below with the corresponding list of the English translation titles, publication dates, and total pages. Please note that in subsequent reprints of the English, paginations vary from the original English edition. Also, technical matter in the Dutch that referred to earlier theological debates in that historical context have sometimes been removed in the English translations. The original publisher of the Dutch series is Kok (Amsterdam, the Netherlands); the English, Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA).

{| class="wikitable"
!Dutch title (Kok: Amsterdam) !! Date !! Pages !! English title (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids) !! Date !! Pages
|-
|''Geloof en Rechtvaardiging'' || 1949 || 220 ||''Faith and Justification'' || 1952 || 207
|-
|''Geloof en Heiliging'' || 1949 || 222 || ''Faith and Sanctification'' || 1952 || 193
|-
|''Geloof en Volharding'' || 1949 || 215 || ''Faith and Perseverance'' || 1958 || 256
|-
|''De Voorzienigheid Gods'' || 1950 || 336 ||''The Providence of God'' || 1952 || 280
|-
|''De Algemene Openbaring'' || 1951 || 280 || ''General Revelation'' || 1955 || 336
|-
|''De Persoon van Christus'' || 1952 || 334 || ''The Person of Christ'' || 1954 || 368
|-
|''Het Werk van Christus'' || 1953 || 387 || ''The Work of Christ'' || 1965 || 358
|-
|''De Sacramenten'' || 1954 || 407 || ''The Sacraments'' || 1969 || 304
|-
|''De Verkiezing Gods'' || 1955 || 414 || ''Divine Election'' || 1960 || 336
|-
|''De Mens het Beeld Gods'' || 1957 || 416 || ''Man: The Image of God'' || 1962 || 376
|-
|''De Zonde I'' || 1958 || 230
|rowspan="2" | ''Sin''
|rowspan="2" | 1971 
|rowspan="2" | 599
|-
|''De Zonde II'' || 1960 || 360
|-
|''De Wederkomst van Christus I'' || 1961 || 311 
|rowspan="2" | ''The Return of Christ''
|rowspan="2" | 1972 
|rowspan="2" | 477
|-
|''De Wederkomst van Christus II'' || 1963 || 282
|-
|''De Heilige Schrift I'' || 1966 || 234
|rowspan="2" | ''Holy Scripture''
|rowspan="2" | 1975 
|rowspan="2" | 377
|-
|''De Heilige Schrift II'' || 1967 || 463
|-
|''De Kerk I Eenheid en Katholiciteit'' || 1970 || 260 
|rowspan="2" | ''The Church''
|rowspan="2" | 1976 
|rowspan="2" | 438
|-
|''De Kerk II Apostoliciteit en Heiligheid'' || 1972 || 273
|}

== Footnotes ==
{{Reflist}}

==References==

*Baker, Alvin L. ''Berkouwer's Doctrine of Election: Balance or Imbalance?'' Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1981. viii, 204 p. {{ISBN|0-87552-119-3}}
*{{cite web | first=Al | last=Vanderheide | title=Dutch Reformed Leader Dr. G.C. Berkouwer Passes Away | work=Internet Christian Library. |  publisher=United Reformed News Service | url=http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/reformed/archive96/nr96-016.txt | accessdate=2011-03-10}}

==External links==
* [http://www.the-highway.com/freedom1_Berkouwer.html "Human Freedom"] by Berkouwer
* [http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/reformed/archive96/nr96-016.txt Obituary]
* {{in lang|nl}} [http://www.dwc.knaw.nl/DL/levensberichten/PE00001932.pdf E.P. Meijering: 'Levensbericht G.C. Berkouwer'. In: ''Levensberichten en herdenkingen (KNAW)'' 1997, Amsterdam, pp. 7-14]

{{s-start}}
{{s-aca}}
{{s-bef|before=[[G.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;A. Grosheide F. Wzn]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[List of rectores magnifici of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam|Rector Magnificus of the<br />Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam]]|years=1958–1959}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Koos Verdam]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berkouwer, Gerrit Cornelis}}
[[Category:1903 births]]
[[Category:1996 deaths]]
[[Category:Reformed Churches Christians from the Netherlands]]
[[Category:Dutch Calvinist and Reformed theologians]]
[[Category:Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam]]
[[Category:Writers from Amsterdam]]
[[Category:20th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians]]
[[Category:Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]]