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Berkouwer's monumental achievement may have been the writing of his fourteen-volume Studies in Dogmaticspublished between 1952 and 1976. But for many of us, it is a monumental achievement just to read fourteen volumes of theology.
Berkouwer stands as one of the most formidable theologians of the latter half of the century. He wasn't afraid to navigate his theological craft between the rocks of difficult straits, and that is also a monumental achievement.
While many of the other books in our elite list of one hundred from the past century will be forgotten, you can be sure that Berkouwer will not be. He stands tall as a theologian, and pastors and seminarians for the next several generations will be referring back to Berkouwer's Studies in Dogmatics1 and maybe particularly to volume 8, Man: The Image of God.
You may wonder why it is necessary for contemporary theologians to even bother writing anymore. If Luther and Calvin wrote what they thought the Bible taught, why should we bother to tinker with that? Why don't we just parrot what's been said?
But a lot has gone on in the world in the last five hundred years. Especially when it comes to the study of humanity, the fields of psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and biology have all made some bold statements that nudge if not collide with historic Christian positions. And how do the writings of modern theologians like Barth, Brunner, and Bultmann affect the evangelical position?
What made Berkouwer particularly interesting is that he tended to be practical instead of abstract, and he enjoyed direct interaction instead of philosophical vagueness. Born in Amsterdam in 1903, he studied at the Free University at a time when Karl Barth's writings were starting to get attention. Not surprisingly, some of his first writings were attacks on Barthian theol-
ogy. Before and during World War II, he was a pastor in the Netherlands and in 1945 he assumed the honored chair of dogmatics at the Free University. Having lived through the war, he was now concerned that theology relate to everyday existence. ״The Word of God never desires to lead us 1:0 an empty systematic which does not touch concrete life."
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While other theologians might begin their work with a book on the nature of God, Berkouwer begins with Faith and Sanctification. Faith and Justification is volume 3, Faith and Perseverance, volume 6. The road to faith, he says, is not reason, but simply the grace of God. He spells this out in Man: The Image of God. There he explains that sin has corrupted the whole of man. "There is no limit or boundary within human nature beyond which we can find some last human reserve untouched by sin; it is man himself who is totally corrupt." It is only by God's grace that we are saved.
This does not mean that man cannot think logically, but it affects the vital connection between the heart and the understanding. Since man is a combination of will, understanding, and emotions, sin is influential in every h נו man decision.
Man: The Image of God is then the eighth volume in Berk-ouwer's theology set, following the three volumes on faith, The Person of Christ, General Revelation, Divine Election, and IheProv-idence of God. Nearly half the book deals with questions regarding what it means for man to be in the image of God and whether we can still speak of man as being in that image. He opposes speculating on issues that Scripture does not deal with and he shies away from arguments regarding the nature and origin of the soul. "Nowhere in Scripture is the origin of the soul spoken of as a separate theme."
Sometimes you wish that Berkouwer would be more speculative and provide some nuggets of educated guesswork. But he sticks to Scripture, and that is what a biblical theologian is supposed to do.