TH-501 has two major papers, which together comprise 45% of the grade. The paper of our interest tonight is the Theological Synopses, in which the student is directed to compare and contrast the views of three systematic theologians on the six major points of doctrine covered in the class: theology proper, creation/anthropology, God’s relation to creation (Providence, immanence, transcendence, etc.), revelation, scripture, and anthropology/hamartiology. (The topics in the paper do not all line up neatly with the major headings in the class. Just work with me here.) The paper is supposed to list and briefly comment on the relevant scriptures, summarize the view of each systematician, and present the author’s own theology, all in five paragraphs flat.

I chose to compare the works of Raymond Dunning (because I used to be a Nazarene), Stanley Grenz (because I wanted to see if he really was as crazy a pomo guy as his less favorable quotes make him sound), and Louis Berkhof (because I wanted a burly Reformed author in there to be right about some things).

This post contains only the synopsis of the theologies proper; the rest of the paper is due at the end of April. The text is the result of 300 pages of reading, and was supposed to fit in about 500 words. As always, brevity is at a premium. Enjoy/endure.

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Wherein The Theologies Proper of the Remonstrant Raymond Dunning, the Postmodernist Stanley Grenz, and True Heir of the Reformation Louis Berkhof are Explicated In Brief Summary, With Illumination by the Relevant Passages of Holy Scripture, and Adept Comparison and Contrast With the True Position and Right Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ

The Biblical witness addresses at least five distinct senses of God’s holiness. First, and perhaps most strikingly, is God’s majestic, existentially overwhelming otherness as narrated in Isa. 6:1-7. (Rev. 4 advances this same theme, albeit without bringing the human spectator to temporary ruin.) Second is God’s complete separation from moral imperfection as told by the wise Elihu in Job 34:10. Third, Lev. 11:44 (also quoted in 1 Pet. 1:16) shows how God’s attribute of holiness is extended into an ethical mandate for his creatures. Finally, Rev. 6:10 shows not only how God’s holiness engenders the expectation that he will avenge injustice on earth, but that he will do so eschatologically.

Dunning acknowledges the difficulty of “the whole concept of attribution as it relates to Divine Reality,” arguing that our knowledge of God is personal or existential–akin to our knowledge of other human persons–rather than a set of “rationally apprehended” metaphysical propositions.¹ Even so, he engages in a robust discussion of the divine attributes, framing it with the statement that “the essential nature of God is holy love.”² Holiness–or, more specifically, “holy love”–becomes the filter through which the other attributes are considered. Holiness has a metaphysical dimension as “that essential character of Deity that places God in a completely exclusive category and sharply distinguishes Him from the human and the naturalistic.”³ While it may not lack an ethical dimension, this is not primary and not to be emphasized as frequently as it is in competing theological systems.⁴ It is most properly a description of God’s otherness as construed in a religious (or relational), not metaphysical, sense.

In an enthusiastic embrace of the post-Kantian epistemology, Grenz denies that the divine attributes have any real facility in describing God in se; rather, they are “expressions arising out of our experience of the God who stands in relationship to humans and the world.” Thus the attributes have fundamentally doxological, rather than noetic, intent.⁵ He categorizes the attribute of holiness as one of God’s moral, rather than eternal, attributes. God’s holiness sets him apart from the creation, placing him beyond the world he has made, and indicates the he is theologically singular, being “unique among, and set apart from, all the gods.”⁶ Holiness also possesses a moral character, indicating that God is always totally righteous, just, and fair in his dealings with his creatures. This aspect of God’s holiness necessarily anticipates an eschatological fulfillment.⁷

Berkhof likewise denies that we can have absolute or exhaustive knowledge of God, which would require the theologian “to comprehend God and to offer a satisfactory explanation of His Divine Being, [which] is utterly impossible.”⁸ However, he allows that “we can undoubtedly have a relative or partial knowledge of the Divine Being,” which knowledge is made accessible to us through God’s revelation of his attributes to us.⁹ While Berkhof is reluctant to give one attribute a position of primacy over the others, he identifies holiness as the attribute that would receive such attention if it were proper to grant it. Holiness is not just an attribute in itself, but really a meta-attribute that describes the way God holds all his other attributes.¹⁰ It refers primarily to God’s absolute distinction from his creatures–a distinction of a character that is difficult existentially to behold, producing in the creature “a sense of absolutely nothingness…leading to absolute self-abasement.”¹¹ It also entails God’s utter separation from moral evil and his absolute possession of all moral excellence. This ethical holiness is made manifest in God’s Law, which is written on human hearts, and in God’s justice, which is seen in God’s dealings with human beings.¹²

I affirm with all three authors that God’s attributes do not describe him in se, but are only limited means by which finite human minds may grasp at the fundamentally incomprehensible divine being. With Berkhof alone I affirm that understanding of the attributes of God is a thoroughly effective theological method which, while it cannot contain the infinite within the finite, can still in principle inform us of true propositions concerning God’s being as he reveals it to us. With Berkhof and Grenz I affirm that holiness carries primarily a sense of radical (although not utter) metaphysical otherness, and secondarily an ethical dimension in which God is identified as completely separated from sin and in complete possession of all moral virtue. I would find in God’s holiness a metaphysical statement about his being, a call to repent of sin and submit more fully to God’s rule, an implied mandate for just personal relationships and social institutions, and the hope of an eschatological consummation of his holiness in the creation.

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¹ Raymond Dunning, Grace, Faith, and Holiness, (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1988), 197-198.
² Ibid., 192.
³ Ibid., 187.
⁴ Ibid., 193.
⁵ Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 90.
⁶ Ibid., 93.
⁷ Ibid., 94.
⁸ Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1938), 43.
⁹ Ibid., 44-45.
¹⁰ Ibid., 73.
¹¹ Ibid., 73.
¹² Ibid., 73-75.

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• Posted by Tim on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 at 11:47:15 pm PST
• Category: Theology
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