Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

egarded as the phenomenal manifestation of God. At present there is a strong reaction
to this position in the so-called “theology of crisis.” It is sometimes thought that this
theology, with its emphasis on the “infinite qualitative difference” between time and
eternity, on God as the “wholly Other” and the hidden God, and on the distance
between God and man, naturally rules out the immanence of God. Brunner gives us the
assurance, however, that this is not so. Says he, “Much nonsense has been talked about
the ‘Barthian theology’ having perception only for the transcendence of God, not for His
immanence. As if we too were not aware of the fact that God the Creator upholds all
things by His power, that He has set the stamp of His divinity on the world and created
man to be His own image.” 66 And Barth says, “Dead were God Himself if He moved
His world only from the outside, if He were a ‘thing in Himself’ and not the One in all,
the Creator of all things visible and invisible, the beginning and the ending.” 67 These
men oppose the modern pantheistic conception of the divine immanence, and also the
idea that, in virtue of this immanence, the world is a luminous revelation of God.
6. THE FINAL END OF GOD IN CREATION. The question of the final end of God in the
work of creation has frequently been debated. In the course of history the question has
received especially a twofold answer.
a. The happiness of man or of humanity. Some of the earlier philosophers, such as Plato,
Philo, and Seneca, asserted that the goodness of God prompted Him to create the world.
He desired to communicate Himself to His creatures; their happiness was the end He
had in view. Though some Christian theologians chimed in with this idea, it became
prominent especially through the Humanism of the Reformation period and the
Rationalism of the eighteenth century. This theory was often presented in a very
superficial way. The best form in which it is stated is to the effect that God could not
make Himself the end of creation, because He is sufficient unto Himself and could need
nothing. And if He could not make Himself the end, then this can be found only in the
creature, especially in man, and ultimately in his supreme happiness. The teleological
view by which the welfare or happiness of man or humanity is made the final end of
creation, was characteristic of the thinking of such influential men as Kant,
Schleiermacher, and Ritschl, though they did not all present it in the same way. But this
theory does not satisfy for several reasons: (1) Though God undoubtedly reveals His
goodness in creation, it is not correct to say that His goodness or love could not express
itself, if there were no world. The personal relations within the triune God supplied all
66 The Word and the World, p. 7.
67 The Word of God and the Word of Man, p. 291.
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