Divine Election

G. C. Berkouwer’s Divine Election is a discussion of election in a perspective and spirit that will be quite novel to most theologians and ministers. Berkouwer contends that election can be understood only within faith, and within a spirit of doxology, for election takes place ‘in Christ.’ Hence election must be understood and employed in terms of the gospel. He then repudiates theological usage which employs election and reprobation as a principle of interpretation for theology with the usual consequence of deducing from this truth a nice logical system of theology. Another powerful feature of this book is its criticism of the conception of the sovereignty of God which abstracts it from the whole truth about God and then make it into a mere principle of naked, ‘absolute power,’ an ethically neutral principle of brute force. Berkouwer’s book is at once a most forceful theological presentation and a work of genuine piety.