http://www.ccel.org/ccel/berkhof/systematictheology.

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the position be maintained that there are no atheists? Should present

day Humanists be classed as atheists? What objections are there to the
identification of God with the Absolute of philosophy? Does a finite
God meet the needs of the Christian life? Is the doctrine of a finite
God limited to Pragmatists? Why is a personified idea of God a poor
substitute for the living God? What was Kant's criticism on the
arguments of speculative reason for the existence of God? How should we
judge of this criticism?

LITERATURE: Geref. Dogm. II, pp. 52-74; Kuyper, Dict. Dogm. De Deo I,
pp. 77-123; Hodge, Syst. Theol. I, pp. 202-243; Shedd. Dogm. Theol. I,
pp. 221-248; Dabney, Syst. and Polem. Theol., pp. 5-26;
Macintosh,Theol. as an Empirical Science, pp. 90-99; Knudson, The
Doctrine of God,pp. 203-241; Beattie, Apologetics, pp. 250-444;
Brightman,> The Problem of God, pp. 139-165; Wright, A Student's
Phil. of Rel., pp. 339-390; Edward, The Philosophy of Rel., pp.
218-305; Beckwith, The Idea of God, pp. 64-115; Thomson, The Christian
Idea of God, pp. 160-189; Robinson, The God of the Liberal Christian,
pp. 114-149; Galloway, The Phil. of Rel., pp. 381-394.
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[1] Dict. Dogm., De Deo I, p. 77 (translation mine -- L.B.).

[2] Anti-Theistic Theories, p.4 f.

[3] A Student's Philosophy of Religion, p.341.

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II. The Knowability of God

A. GOD INCOMPREHENSIBLE BUT YET KNOWABLE

The Christian Church confesses on the one hand that God is the
Incomprehensible One, but also on the other hand, that He can be known
and that knowledge of Him is an absolute requisite unto salvation. It
recognizes the force of Zophar's question, "Canst thou by searching
find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" Job
11:7. And it feels that it has no answer to the question of Isaiah, "To
whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto
Him?" Isa. 40:18. But at the same time it is also mindful of Jesus'
statement, "And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the
only true God, and Him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ," John
17:3. It rejoices in the fact that "the Son of God is come, and hath
given us an understanding, that we know Him that is true, and we are in
Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ." I John 5:20. The two
ideas reflected in these passages were always held side by side in the
Christian Church. The early Church Fathers spoke of the invisible God
as an unbegotten, nameless, eternal, incomprehensible, unchangeable
Being. They had advanced very little beyond the old Greek idea that the
Divine Being is absolute attributeless existence. At the same time they
also confessed that God revealed Himself in the Logos, and can
therefore be known unto salvation. In the fourth century Eunomius, an
Arian, argued from the simplicity of God, that there is nothing in God
that is not perfectly known and comprehended by the human intellect,
but his view was rejected by all the recognized leaders of the Church.
The Scholastics distinguished between the quid and the qualis of God,
and maintained that we do not know what God is in His essential Being,
but can know something of His nature, of what He is to us, as He
reveals Himself in His divine attributes. The same general ideas were
expressed by the Reformers, though they did not agree with the
Scholastics as to the possibility of acquiring real knowledge of God,
by unaided human reason, from general revelation. Luther speaks
repeatedly of God as the Deus Absconditus (hidden God), in distinction
from Him as the Deus Revelatus (revealed God). In some passages he even
speaks of the revealed God as still a hidden God in view of the fact

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