Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 123:489 (Jan 1966)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

The Second Vatican Council And The New Catholicism. By G. C. Berkouwer. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1965. 264 pp. $5.95.

This scholarly evaluation of the second Vatican Council, by the Professor of Systematic Theology at the Free University of Amsterdam, is required reading for anyone who wants to make a thoughtful and accurate evaluation of this new movement in the Roman Catholic Church.

The author, after dealing with the significant fact that such a council was called and that it is symptomatic of the changed climate of the Roman Catholic Church, treats such important matters as the relationship of unchangeability and changeability of dogma, the illuminating fact that Scripture and tradition long considered as having equal authority are now open for discussion as sources of revelation and other most important matters such as the new theology in the Roman Catholic Church, the relationship of pope and bishop, the mystery of the church, and the doctrine of Mary.

In general, Berkouwer’s most important conclusion is that the second Vatican Council is in the process of actualizing the new Catholicism which has been emerging in private discussion during the last several decades. Important milestones are such matters as: (1) approving the Deutero-Isaiah point of view, (2) the changed understanding of the early chapters of Genesis as being not journalistic or historic, but religious in intent, (3) a similar point of view in the narratives of the gospels of the New Testament with the assumption that an oral gospel preceded the written gospels and that they are “proclamation history and not merely a journalistic history” (p. 125). The author carefully avoids superficial anti-Catholic evaluation, but sustains the premise that the Roman Catholic Church is attempting to adjust to the times which includes a recognition of Biblical criticism long associated with liberalism. It is obvious that a new Catholicism is emerging which will allow greater flexibility in theology and less antagonism to Protestantism. Increasingly, voices other than the pope will be heard. The road to union of Protestantism with Roman Catholicism may be long, but the way is being smoothed.

J. F. Walvoord

Gods Plan For The Future. By Lehman Strauss. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, House, 1965. 198 pp. $3.95.

Those who have been blessed by the previous ministry of Dr. Strauss, both in his Bible conference ministry and many publications, will welcome this added volume to his earlier contributions to evangelical literature. Warmly practical and soundly Biblical the treatment includes ten chapters on pivotal proph...

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