Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer

Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer (around 1940)

Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer (born June 8, 1903 in Amsterdam , † January 25, 1996 in Voorhout ) was a Dutch Evangelical Reformed theologian. He was considered the leading dogmatist of the Gereformeerde Kerk . In 1953 he was appointed a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences .

Youth, studies, doctorate

Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer was the middle of three children of the married couple Cornelis Berkouwer and Adriana Aletta van der Ban; the father was a teacher. After attending grammar school, he enrolled at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 1922 . While studying theology, Berkouwer was interested in dogmatics, a subject that was shaped by Valentijn Hepp during his student days. In his later theological work, Berkouwer made particular reference to the work of Herman Bavinck .

In 1927 Berkouwer took up a position as professor in Oudehorne and in the same year married Catharina Cornelia Elisabeth Rippen. The couple had nine children together.

Berkouwer's doctoral thesis (1932) analyzed "Faith and Revelation in Modern German Theology". During this time he was very critical of Karl Barth . He gained the reputation of a solid dogmatist and in 1940 received a professorship for modern theology at the Vrije Universiteit. His inaugural speech was entitled "Barthianism and Catholicism" and did not spare criticism of either. At this point he had already acquired a good knowledge of Roman Catholic theology, which was to be important for his later life.

Synod presidency

During the Second World War Berkouwer was chairman of the synod of the Gereformeerde Kerk. In 1944, under his chairmanship, the church split, which was a traumatic experience for Berkouwer. The reason was differences of opinion about the theology of Abraham Kuyper . In 1942, the Synod attempted to resolve the conflict through a compromise. But a new dispute arose over whether the synod was authorized to do so. Many local congregations saw the compromise text not preserving Kuyper's understanding of baptism and covenant ; their spokesmen were Seakle Greijdanus and especially Klaas Schilder. When the synod declared the compromise text binding, Schilder called on the local congregations to resist. Under the chairmanship of Berkouwer, the synod removed Schilder from his offices as pastor and professor. In August 1944, Schilder declared himself independent from the Synod and called on the local congregations to do the same: the so-called "Liberation" ( Vrijmaking ). In the following years the Gereformeerde Kerk lost 90,000 members (12%) to the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (exempted) through this church split .

Barth Studies and Ecumenism

In 1945 Berkouwer became professor for modern history of theology, symbolism (lore from the confessional writings) and hermeneutics ; In 1950 the chair was renamed Dogmatics and History of Dogma. With a study on Karl Barth in 1954 he became known in the professional world beyond his church. In the Gereformeerde Kerk, Barthianism was mainly perceived as a threat to one's own identity, precisely because Barth used traditional Reformed theology and interpreted it in a new way. It was in this atmosphere that Berkouwer published his main work: “The Triumph of Grace in Karl Barth's Theology.” In this he contradicted Barth to a large extent, but acknowledged that Barth pursued theology on the basis of the Bible and the Reformed tradition.

With publications on the Roman Catholic Church, Berkouwer had earned the reputation of being a connoisseur of the same and was invited to the Second Vatican Council as an observer . He also accompanied the further development of Catholicism with his publications.

The Gereformeerde Kerk went through a process of change in the 1960s that was mourned as a loss of identity in the conservative spectrum of this church. Some blamed Berkouwer for this, even though he had been predominantly critical of Barth. Berkouwer himself understood his theology primarily as listening to the Bible, so that the festschrift was put under the motto Ex auditu verbi on the occasion of his retirement .

Last years of life

Berkouwer, who died at the age of 92, was almost completely blind in the last few years of his life and lived in a nursing home in Voorhout. But he had many personal contacts and received visitors almost every day. Although he could no longer read them, he kept a number of books to the end with which he surrounded himself.

literature

• EP Meijering: Levens report GC Berkouwer . In: Huygens Institute - Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW): Levensberichten en herdenkingen , Amsterdam 1997, pp. 7-14. ( PDF )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Herman Selderhuis (Ed.): Handbook of Dutch Church History . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, p. 569 f.