November 2007 - Protestant Reformed Churches in America

Protestant Reformed Theological Journal
Heinrich Bullinger and the Doctrine
of Predestination: Author of
“the Other Reformed Tradition”
Cornelis P. Venema. Grand Rapids,
MI. Baker Academic, 2002.
137 pages. $22.00 (paper). ISBN#
0-8010-2605-9. [Reviewed by
Prof. Russell Dykstra.]
Heinrich Bullinger and the
Doctrine of Predestination is
another in the series of books
published by Baker entitled
“Texts and Studies in Reformation
and Post-Reformation
Thought.” The goal of the
project is to make available significant
manuscripts of the Reformation
such as Caspar
Olevianus’ Firm Foundation
(already published) and
Theodore Beza’s Table of Predestination
(still coming), as
well as studies of Reformation
and Post-Reformation topics. It
is a worthy goal.
This volume purposes to set
forth Heinrich Bullinger’s
teaching on predestination, especially
to answer the question
whether Bullinger’s teaching
marked a radical divergence
from the rest of the Reformed
tradition. Dr. Cornelis Venema
explains the issue (p. 12):
122
J. Wayne Baker and others
have argued that, contrary to
the emphasis upon sovereign
and unconditional predestination
in the Reformed tradition
stemming from John Calvin,
the Rhineland Reformers, beginning
with Zwingli and including
Bullinger, authored
another Reformed tradition.
This tradition’s primary emphasis
was upon a conditional
covenant doctrine. Bullinger,
it is argued, was the author of
a Reformed tradition that repudiated
the double predestinarianism
of Calvin and advocated
instead a single or
conditional predestinarianism.
Whereas Calvin and
Geneva followed the tradition
of predestinarian doctrine
stemming from Augustine,
Bullinger and Zurich were responsible
for a quite different
formulation of the doctrine of
grace, one which by means of
its covenant view lends more
weight to the realization of
God’s purposes in history.
These distinct doctrinal positions
of Calvin and Bullinger
constitute the historical background
to a divergence within
subsequent Reformed theology
between unconditional
predestinarianism and conditional
covenantalism. The tra-
Vol. 41, No. 1