Berkouwer’s
book on general revelation is a classic on the subject. A famous professor of
the University of Amsterdam, Berkouwer’s own doctoral dissertation was on the
subject of revelation (entitled Faith and Revelation in Recent German Theology)
and this particular book on general revelation was first published in 1955. The
book is divided in eleven chapters. The first four chapters are devoted to
apologetical engagement. In them, Berkouwer investigates Karl Barth’s view of
general revelation and refutes it through the work of Barth’s friend, Emil
Bruner, and another German scholar, Paul Althaus. Still in his apologetical
material, Berkouwer analyses and refutes the modern understanding of general
revelation embrace by the Roman Catholic Church, especially after the Second
Vatican Council. In the remaining of the chapters, Berkouwer develops his own
idea of general revelation.
Berkouwer
situates his readers in the discussion in the very beginning of the book. He
reminds the readers that the idea of general revelation has been abused to the
point that “the unique significance of revelation in Christ was relativized and
endangered” (11). According to him, a true and valid formulation of the
doctrine must offer not threat to the unique revelation in Jesus Christ. “There
may be no competition between God’s general and special revelation, and every
conception of general revelation which is the result of doubt as to the
absoluteness of the revelation in Christ is to be condemned” (14). The result
of such commitment will prove to be the affirmation of natural revelation. The
next question Berkouwer wrestles with is if from general revelation there must
flow a natural theology. “We must discuss”, he affirms, “the background of
natural theology and ask whether general revelation and natural theology are
indissolubly united” (15).
The
chapter on Karl Barth’s theology of revelation is clear and insightful.
Berkouwer clearly spells out Barth’s view or revelation, setting him on a kind
of vendetta against both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Berkouwer
explains that, for Barth, everyone missed the train concerning revelation. No
one really understands it. And as a fruit of this lack of understanding a
mortal enemy has been created: natural theology. “Barth’s rejection of
natural”, Berkouwer affirms, “is motivated by his conception of God’s
revelation in Christ as the unique and exclusive revelation in the world” (22).
Anything apart for Christ may be labled as signs or witnesses, but never as
revelation. For Barth, there is no revelation apart from the incarnation. God
cannot be known apart from his grace. It was exactly this narrow view of
revelation that granted Barth’s theology the “christomonistic” classification.
Berkouwer masterfully
describes Barth’s position on the biblical texts that refer to a special
revelation like Romans 1 and places him against the great French reformer John
Calvin. When both are compared, Berkouwer affirms “Barth’s exegesis of Romans 1
is radically different” (31). Barth acknowledges that the text speaks of a
revelation of God in nature but such revelation is not in the eyes of the
natural man, of the pagans who reject Christ; but in the eyes of the apostle
Paul, a regenerated man. Because of whom Paul is in Christ he can see God’s
revelation in nature, he gazes at God in creation “in the light of the
revelation in Christ, in the light of the cross and the resurrection” (31).
Barth’s calls this a “reading-into”. Paul is not speaking of a general
revelation that every man in the world has access to but he is interpreting
nature through his redeemed eyes. Berkouwer reveals Barth problem and affirm
that this awkward and unique reading of Paul is due to Barth’s fear in creating
a competitor to God’s revelation in Christ. In Barth’s mind, if there is any
other kind of revelation except that of the incarnate Son, than redemption is
compromised. “Such a second source of knowledge would, he thinks, be in sharp
conflict with the redemptive character of God’s revelation” (32).
Berkouwer does not
himself refute Barth’s position. Instead, he summons one of the Barth’s best
friends, Emil Brunner, and another German theologian, Paul Althaus. Both man
appealed to a clear reading of the scriptural evidence concerning general
revelation. Brunner rejects Barth notion that Christ is the only source of
God’s revelation and affirms that, in this point, “Barth is in direct conflict
with Scripture” (38). For Brunner, the Bible does affirm that God reveals
himself in creation, the problem is how this general revelation relates with
special revelation in Christ. Creation declares that there is a God that is
knowable only through a Christian theology. With the theology of the 16th
Century, “Bruner maintains that it is at this point that the Reformation
differs fundamentally from Rome: there is general revelation but no natural
theology” (43). Paul Althaus approach, in spite of his affirmation of general
revelation was very different from Bruner’s. Going on the road built by Rome,
Althaus affirmed a salvific natural theology as a product of general
revelation. On the basis of the natural theology, Althaus stressed the close
relationship between other religions and the Christian faith to the point of
“denying that Christianity was the absolute religion and hold that it was only
a special form of the general ‘revelation which lay behind all religions’”
(48).
Berkouwer devotes a whole
chapter to refute the Roman Catholic position on general revelation. He
explains that the idea of a natural knowledge of God and a natural morality as
fruits of God’s general revelation is not a new concept for Rome. But it was in
the Vatican Council that natural theology was crowned with the status of
“rational knowledge and carefully distinguished from the knowledge of faith”
(62). For Rome, natural theology means “a natural knowledge or theology derived
from the created things by means of reason” (64). Through this knowledge, Rome
affirms, man can know God certainly and truly. Berkouwer explains that what is
behind Rome’s is an unbiblical “anthropology or view of man, which lifts the
so-called rational soul out of the sin-depraved life of man, and then by way of
this non-corrupt reason considers man capable of true knowledge of God” (67).
On the issue of sources
of revelation, Berkouwer wrestles with the question of revelation being
exclusively in Christ and sets a distinction between christocentrism and
christomonism. Revelation is christocentric, he affirms. Every speaking of God
points to Christ, but this is “entirely different from revelation commencing
with him” (106). He accuses neo-orthodoxy of creating a “once-and-for-all” idea
of revelation in Christ which is contrary to Scripture when it speaks of God’s
revealing voice everywhere, particularly in the Old Testament narratives. Berkouwer
affirms, appealing to 1 Peter 1:11, that either God indeed revealed himself
apart from the incarnation or the Israelites never truly new God. If Abraham,
Moses, and David did not know God the Old Covenant was just an illusion.
Is there a knowledge
transmitted by God’s general revelation? If there is one, what kind of
knowledge is that? Berkouwer considers the positions of Troeltsch and Barth on
this subject but seems to embrace a “third way” found on the thought of Kuyper.
Berkouwer recognizes the problem of false religions and adopts the explanation
for their existence in the general revelation found in creation. The reason why
these religions depart from the truth of Christianity, according the Kuyper,
lies in “man’s corrupted natural knowledge of God” (166). Therefore, general
revelation indeed produce a kind of natural theology. However, “the perversion
of man’s natural knowledge of God plus a given people’s natural disposition and
history produce a particular kind of false religion” (167). Different from
Rome, Berkouwer affirms with Kuyper that the natural theology drawn from
general revelation is enough for man’s condemnation but never for his
salvation.
Berkouwer spends a great
deal of time dealing with the controversy around article II of the Belgic
confession. He first considers Barth’s disagreement with the text of the
confession and the reactions of three theologians: Koopmans, Haitjema, and
Polman. After considering the strengths and weekenesses of their positions,
Berkouwer moves on to a positive and detailed explanation of what exactly is
the meaning of the Belgic confession when it talks about “two-sources” of revelation.
He, first, affirms that the goal of the confession is not “to give a
dissertation on general and special revelation, neither does it deal with man’s
situation before and after the fall” (276). The confession’s intention is only
to affirm the existence of two means of revelation, completely different from
the counter-reformation Romanist two-source-theory (Scripture and tradition)
and also different from the universalist idea of the Vatican Council of a
natural theology. Given that the confession expresses a thoroughly Calvinistic
view of the fall of man, the text of Article II simply affirms “the majesty and
goodness of him who is not the hidden God, but the God who reveals himself in
such an abundance of evidence, that this glory can be passed by only out of
utter blindness” (278).
Berkouwer’s book is a
gem. It not only transmits the biblical view of general revelation and it
relevance to both believers and unbelievers but also situates the reader in all
the important debates, and important figures, concerning this issue not so long
ago. The strength of the book is Berkouwer’s insistence in rejecting any
theological idea that is not in accordance to Scripture. We must not be afraid
to accept what Scripture has to say about a specific topic even if what it says
may be wrongly used and interpreted by others. The principle of Sola Scriptura must always be held if
one wants to embrace the whole counsel of God. There is no need to fear general
revelation, as long as we keep with the biblical view of a completely depraved
man, totally dependent on God’s grace. Thus, incarnational revelation is kept
it is place of absolute glory!
