Ouweneel and “Bereans”

Originally posted on September 19, 2008 – by Andre Piet

Last Saturday, dr. Willem Ouweneel was a guest with Andries Knevel (EO) to give explanation and clarification about the fact that over the course of the years he has changed his views in quite a number of respects. On creation–evolution, the charismatic movement, participation in politics, etc. An interesting broadcast that in any case yielded this pearl:

Never fix your gaze blindly on anyone. Not on the Ouweneel of 30 years ago and not on the Ouweneel of today either. Do as the Bereans do: keep going to the Scriptures and examine whether these things are so.

A remark that could just as well have come from the GoedBericht site! This also applies to what Ouweneel said about the great difference between faith and theology. OK, later in the broadcast* he said (incomprehensibly enough) roughly the opposite, but this is what he initially remarked:

There is an enormous difference between faith and theology. (…) So many theologians gave the impression that their theological theories were identical to biblical faith. Whoever touched theology touched the Bible. We have now come to a time in which, hopefully, this dreadful false doctrine can be refuted. Theology is nothing other than academic theory formation about all kinds of things and is worth exactly as much as the people who express it. There is a fundamental difference between the faith of the Apostolicum … and even there you can still argue about formulations and whether it is well said, because it too is merely human work. You already see there the distance from Scripture. But standing on a firm foundation cannot be compared with all theological theory formation. How much has not been theorized about “the covenant”?! It is unbelievable! That notion of the covenant does remain, but those theories about a covenant of grace and a covenant of works, and about… that entire terminology is nothing other than academic theory formation. It is interesting, it is nice, but it is not the faith of the people! But those theologians have forced it into the mouths of the people. They had to swallow this. This was the faith of the Scriptures. Well, that was not true. People must also learn what the status of theology is and that theological theories are relative and defective human work, but that Scripture and faith are absolute.

I have little to add to this, unless it is this: for “Bereans” (> “what does the Scripture say?”), theology is mainly “interesting and enjoyable,” because it confirms what Scripture says, namely: “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are vain.”

See also:
the vanity of theologizing
biblicism?!

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* Later in the broadcast Ouweneel remarked:
“All the more astonished am I at myself (…) that you so very often nevertheless simply end up back with tradition, because it has never been said better than then and there, in Chalcedon or in Nicaea…”.
That is indeed astonishing! For it is precisely in these places that numerous terms were introduced which, although foreign to Scripture, have since then nevertheless functioned as benchmarks of orthodoxy. Think of terms such as: trinity, one essence–three persons, one person–two natures, etc. Is this terminology not “academic theory formation”? Why may this theological terminology be forced into the mouths of people as being the faith of the Scriptures, while other terminology may not?

Delen: