Cover Page. The handle holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation.

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1 Cover Page The handle holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation. Author: Kunz, Abraham Jacob Title: Als een prachtig boek : Nederlandse Geloofsbelijdenis artikel 2 in de context van de vroegreformatorische theologie Issue Date:

2 Summary This research deals with the question how Article 2 of the Belgic Confession (BC) has to be explained. Since Karl Barth criticized this Article, because he felt that through this confession natural theology entered into the church of the Protestant Reformation, the knowledge of God, being the topic in this article, has been frequently interpreted as knowledge of faith. This implies that the Book of Nature is not regarded as leading to the universal notion of God but only to knowledge of God for believers, that is, for them who already know God through the Bible (the Second Book). On the other hand, before Karl Barth, the explanation of Article 2 assumed a universally accessible knowledge of God through the Book of Nature. The objective of this research is to offer an interpretation of Article 2 that does justice to the intentions of the original author. For this purpose, several criteria have been developed in the first chapter with reference to R. van Woudenberg and R.A. Muller: a. the interpretation must be supposable from a historical perspective (respectively, the original context); b. there has to be clarity about the author s identity; c. the interpretation has to take into account the structure of the text (demanding an accurate analysis of the text); d. the text has to be comprehensible in comparison to other statements by the author on the theme under review; e. the explanation must involve the text s genre and f. the explanation must be conceivable within the author s theological context, particularly in line with contemporary theologians and traditional source materials which may be related to the author. Through these criteria, the research methodology, that is the way in which the research has been performed, has been set out. Chapter 2 investigates the genesis of the BC. Given the objective of this research, the question at hand is who the author of the confession is and what kind of motives he had to write and publish his confession. Weighing the facts regarding the authorship, it is now almost certain that Guy de Brès, a minister in Doornik and its surroundings in 1561, is the author of the BC. Contrary to what is generally assumed, he did not write the confession as a result of religious tensions in Doornik, late September Letters included in the printed version of the BC (to King Philip II and the lower magistracy of diverse provinces in the Southern Netherlands) prove that the confession is not an occasional piece of manifesto but a vindication against the increasing repression apparent in the years before Only in the handwritten letter added to the parcel thrown over the wall of the Doornik citadel in the night of 1 November, we find direct references to the actual situation in October After clarifying the BC s historical context,we look for the theology-historical context by tracing the possible traditional source materials wherefrom De Brès may have drawn. With E.M. Braekman we emphasize that a. the confessions of faith from the refugees congregations in Lon-

3 380 ALS EEN PRACHTIG BOEK don, b. The Staff of the Christian Faith by Guy de Brès and c. the Gallic Confession must be included when explaining Article 2. Contrary to Braekman we also explore the source materials for the BC looking at Melanchthon, Bullinger and Calvin as representatives of the Early Protestant theology. At the end of this chapter, we outline the history of the text of Article 2 during the period Chapter 3 and 4 deal with the question how Article 2 was received based on the most important comments and monographs on the BC. Although nearly all interpreters before Barth assume a universal mediation of knowledge of God through the Book of Nature and a particular one through the Bible, after 1940 few interpreters explain Article 2 in this way. The reason lies undoubtedly in Barth s vehement criticism on Article 2 as formulated in the thirties of the last century and recorded in the Church Dogmatics II/1 in At the end of Chapter 4, we formulate a coherent interpretation of Article 2. The starting point is that in this way justice is done to a. the structure of Article 2 as marked by the ordinals le premier and secondement, b. the reference to Romains 1,20 and c. the comparative as a connector between God s manifestation in creation (the Book of Nature) and His holy and divine Word (the Bible). Based on these criteria, only an explanation implying a universal mediation of knowledge of God through the Book of Nature and a particular one through the Bible can be considered to be a coherent interpretation. For the very reason that interpretations, that take all knowledge of God in Article 2 only as knowledge of faith, do not meet the requirements of a coherent interpretation, they are yet rejected. Yet, as it cannot be excluded that study of the theological context of Article 2 may give cause to a reinterpretation of our hypothesis, this would imply that De Brès expresses himself carelessly or incompletely in the BC. Therefore, the following chapters examine how strong the proposed coherent interpretation stands when placed in the perspective of the early-reformed theology. Is our coherent interpretation also the most plausible candidate for the explanation that does justice to the author s intentions? Chapter 5 analyses De Brès ideas regarding the knowledge of God, starting from the text of Article 2. It proves that an interpretation looking at the text as a statement of faith with a universal claim with regard to the readability of the Book of Nature, offers the best perspective of an interpretation that does justice to the author s intentions. However, this knowledge is not a saving knowledge: for that purpose we need the Bible. The given interpretation also corresponds to the manner with which is spoken about the knowledge of God in other articles (such as Article 12 on creation and Article 14 on the remaining traces of God s image). Together with the argument of the structure of Article 2 and the reference to Romains 1,20, this forms an important argument to interpret the Book of Nature in Article 2 in a broader perspective than only as a mediation of the knowledge of God for believers.

4 Summary 381 For an explanation as intended by the author, it is important to know whether and, if so, how De Brès expressed himself about the theme of Article 2 in other oeuvres. In contrast to common practice, our opinion is that, when explaining the BC De Brès first publication, The Staff of the Christian Faith, must be involved. In its first edition, this work is only an anthology, comprising parts of writings from the Church Fathers, in order to provide the Calvinist Christians with a defence (a baton) against the Roman Catholic government and Church. However, the revised editions (1558/1559) also contain material by De Brès himself. The first chapter of the revised The Staff, titled De Dieu, et des propietez qui luy sont attribuées par la saincte Escriture, is an important source for forming his opinion about the knowledge of God. Here, De Brès connects the notion of God to the knowledge of God, which is obtained by sensory perception of the created universe. De Brès is formulating even more lyrically than Cicero: by lifting his eyes heavenwards man has to realize from the greatness, dynamics, design, stability, usefulness, beauty, diversity, the magnitude and the extent of all things that there is a certain divine nature. De Brès thus admits a mediation of knowledge of God s existence through the created reality, without the Bible. However, that does not mean a saving knowledge of God. For that purpose, the Bible is needed. We conclude that The Staff provides important arguments for what we called a coherent interpretation of Article 2. In Chapter 6, the text of Article 2 is looked at in the light of the Reformed confessions from before After making an inventory, four confessions are more closely examined: Calvin s Instructions (1537), his Catechism of the Church of Geneva (1542), the catechism of the Protestant refugees congregations in London by John a Lasco (1551) and the confession of the French church, the Gallican Confession (1559). In all these confessions we find that God reveals Himself in creation. However, the question if this revelation can still be received by man after his fall is answered in a different manner. In the Instructions there is no universal knowledge of God available. In the other confessions however, we find a universal knowledge of God through creation. All cases explicitly refer to Romains 1, In Chapter 7, Article 2 is placed in the larger scope of the Protestant Reformations in the 16 th century. We investigate the views on the knowledge of God from De Brès contemporary theologians (namely Melanchthon, Bullinger, Bucer and Calvin) in particular by an analysis of their comments on Romains 1,19-20; but also other works (especially Melanchthon s Loci communes, Bullinger s Decades and Calvin s Institutes) are included in the research. All researched authors explain the passage in Romains within the scope of a universal knowledge of God, which can be derived from creation. It is not a knowledge quis or qualis sit Deus, but only a knowledge of God s existence. Herein the stoic design argument is prominently present: the construction of the world, the arrangement of the universe, the beauty of creation form just as many arguments for the existence of

5 382 ALS EEN PRACHTIG BOEK God. This particularly regards an intuitive knowledge based on sensory perception, but there is even room for theistic arguments. In Chapter 8 we deal with the book metaphor, placing Article 2 in the broad context of the Christian tradition about the knowledge of God. The usage of metaphors in the early-reformed theology turned out to differ from the medieval interpretation by Hugh of Saint Victor, Bonaventure, Thomas à Kempis, and, to a smaller extent, Augustine. According to them, the Book of Nature is only legible for believers. According to Hugh of Saint Victor, other people do see signs, but no letters. However, during the Reformation we observe a broader interpretation of the metaphor with Bulllinger and Versteghe: to some extent non-christians also have a knowledge of God from the Book of Nature. Although that knowledge is not salutaris (saving), it is about a right notion of God s existence. However, for knowledge of salvation we dependent on the Bible. In the 16 th century, we also find this broader interpretation of the metaphor with Galilei. According to him, the Book of Nature has been written in mathematical symbols. Bullinger, Versteghe and De Brès keep their arguments strictly theological: the sensory perception of the created reality also leads to a notion of God s existence without the Bible. The fact that the Book of Nature gets a relative independence from the Bible in larger cultural strata of society (Van Sabunde, Galilei), proves that not only the early-protestant Reformations can be held accountable for the new interpretation. Based on the research, we draw our conclusions in Chapter 9. There appear to be sufficient data to draft an interpretation that maximally counts the intentions of the original author. By explaining Article 2 as a statement of faith that primarily makes a universal claim, justice is done to the structure of Article 2 (le premier and secondement), to the reference to Romains 1,20 and to the comparative as a connection between the Book of Nature and the Bible. This explanation also corresponds with the early-reformed notions concerning the knowledge of God. Finally, our interpretation aligns with the way Article 2 is explained by Maresius, Bekker and Rotterdam in the 17 th century. On the other hand, the explanation most common since the 20 th century (with an inversion of the structure of Article 2 making only believers the subject of the knowledge of God) cannot pretend to be the most probable explanation intended by the author. By way of a perspective, we examine the relevance of the explanation intended by the author for the actual discussion with regard to God, revelation and reality. Through this, we proceed from a historical to a more systematic-theological discourse. We ignore the question whether the latter discussion may be called scientific, but our opinion is that such a mediation is justified as the contextual analysis of the text and the reception thereof by other people raised questions. Although it would be obvious to see how these questions might be answered, that could only be a start in view of this research. A favourable answer to the question as to whether the given explanation of Article 2 is relevant for the present is im-

6 peded by four objections. An existential objection can be made: this world is not a beautiful book. Since Darwin we are impressed by the quantity of grieves in the natural world. In the second place we discuss an epistemological objection: given that this world can be seen as a beautiful book, does this book tell us something about (a) God? According to Immanuel Kant, our human cognitive capacities are entirely directed by the empirical reality. For that reason we are unable to pronounce meaningfully what exceeds that. Hence we do not know for certain that (a) God exists. A third objection is of a more cultural nature: De Brès like Calvin uses Cicero s argument e consensu gentium: there is no place in this world where people can do without religion. On grounds of this, Cicero and in his wake Calvin and De Brès, just as innumerable other people concludes that all people have a notion of God. However, nowadays it is more a matter of inverting the argument e consensu gentium: (in Western Europe) there are many places that prove that people can do without God. Contrary to De Brès, we have to deal with atheism in our contemporary culture. That raises the question if atheists are by definition dishonest in denying to have any notion of God. And how can the existence of atheism be related to a Book of Nature legible for all people? The last objection is a theological one: the recognition of natural knowledge of God leads eventually to natural theology and therefore forms a threat for the particular revelation and for the saving nature of redemption. With this objection particularly formulated by Barth this research is complete. For we have seen that this criticism by Barth has been the reason to interpret Article 2 from the perspective of the believer. In our opinion we have plausibly explained that none of the mentioned objections is decisive. Therefore, the way is clear for an attempted update of the text of the confession or a relevant explanation of Article 2. That does not change the fact that the objections brought forward against the explanation intended by the author have to be taken into account. For instance, we need nowadays more words to clarify the meaning of the Book of Nature. De Brès made his statement in the context of an almost unbroken corpus Christianum, whereas we have to deal with a climate of an atheistic culture and with an entgöttert (dis-deified) universe. Terms like notion of God and natural knowledge of God have only to be explained in their historical context. We insist that there is a universal knowledge of God. But, more than De Brès in his days, we have to take into consideration the fact that people consciously or not replace the notion of the true God by other idols or pseudo-religions. Translation: P.C.A. Pruissers Summary 383