Berkouwer’s Doctrine of Election: A Response to Criticisms made by J. W. Cottrell, “Conditional Election” in C. H. Pinnock (editor), “Grace Unlimited”

In this post, I will consider the criticism of Berkouwer’s thought made by J. W. Cottrell (Grace Unlimited, (1975), pp. 51-73).

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It is important to understand that Berkouwer shares Cottrell’s concern to maintain that

(a) grace is not “absolute power” but “a totally different kind of power, namely the drawing power of love and compassion and self-sacrifice” (p. 66);

(b) there is an important “biblical distinction between faith and works … namely faith and works are qualitatively different” (pp. 65-66).

The difference between the positions of berkouwer and Cottrell revolves more around the interpretation of temporal language when it is used in relation to God.

Berkouwer criticizes “the application of a temporal order to eternity” (Divine Election, (1960), Dutch – 1955), p. 266; favourably citing L. Van der Zanden, Predestinatie in Christus, p. 39) as “a clear form of humanization of God” (p. 267).

Berkouwer would be in greater agreement with I. H. Marshall’s statement: “our l of predestination … applied to divine-human relationships … does break down” (Grace Unlimited, p. 135, emphasis original) than with Cottrell’s emphasis on the literal interpretation of the temporal aspect of the expression ” foreknowledge” – “real knowledge … of something before it actually happens” (p. 59, emphasis mine).

Berkouwer would be in greater agreement with G. R. Osborne’s note on “foreknowledge” – “Note the use if this term in 1 Pet. 1:2, where it is used as a synonym for election. The word “know” is used often for God’s gracious love in the Old Testament – cf. Gen. 18:19; Ex. 33:12; Jer. 1:5; Amos 3:3; Hos. 13:5; and in the New Testament, 1 Cor. 8:3; Gal. 4:9″ (p. 188, n. 45) – than with Cottrell’s note – “Most Calvinists try to avoid the clear implications of God’s foreknowledge by changing the meaning of it from ;foreknow’ to ‘forelove’ or something similar … This is an arbitrary definition” (p. 71, n.21).

I think that Cottrell’s account of Berkouwer’s position (pp. 65-66)would have been less caricatured if he had paid attention to Berkouwer’s statements regarding the use of temporal language with respect to God.

Cottrell might then have recognized that Berkouwer’s problems with the Arminian use of the idea of ‘foreknowledge’ lies not in his opposition to the Arminian ‘order’ as such but to the whole notion of a temporal order in respect of God’s salvation.

If Cottrell had drawn attention to this aspect of Berkouwer’s thought (even if he did not agree with him on this point), he woukld have been able to appreciate the extent of the agreement between himself and Berkouwer rather than implying that their views are more widely divergent than they really are.

Since Cottrell does nb observe the significant difference between himself and Berkouwer regarding the use of temporal language in respect of God, he remains content to state that, in Divine Election, Berkouwer’s “main concern is to avoid the conclusion of individual reprobation as a symmetrical counterpart of individual election” (p. 71, n. 5). This summary of Berkouwer’s concern with the doctrine of grace hardly begins to uncover either the depth of Berkouwer’s thought or the extent of his sympathy with the basic concerns of an Arminian such as Cottrell.

While Berkouwer has a large measure of agreement with Cottrell regarding the relationships between grace, faith and works, he would not accept Cottrell’s attempt to understand these relationships by means of a system based on the idea of a temporal succession (i.e. foreknowledge precedes election).

Berkouwer’s words of caution are in order here – “We shall never be able to analyse exactly the interrelation between faith and reconciliation. Outside of faith nothing can be understood here” (The Work of Christ, p. 294).