This publication is an amended, updated version of my doctoral thesis. I took my Ph.D. in 2016 jointly from the Evangelical Theological Faculty at Leuven, Belgium, and VU University Amsterdam in the Netherlands. At the time, I published my thesis in Dutch as originally written; I now present the findings of my research in English for international scholarship.
My doctoral work was to study and analyze the theological debates over imputation that constituted the Third Antinomian Controversy in the England of the 1690s. Hence, my doctorate was categorized as historical research, a consequence of which was that I considered the historical turns, the confluence of unfavorable circumstances, and the misunderstandings that inevitably hampered dialogue between the protagonists in the debate, even where there was goodwill. Political and social tensions, personal grudges, and difficult personalities left their mark on the interaction between the key figures in the Controversy.
The reader might feel somewhat overwhelmed by the number of names, opinions, and arguments that crop up; if so, then he will at least have something in common with the participants in the debate at the time, namely a sense of confusion. They in their own day will surely not often have felt that the conversation was progressing smoothly. My modest advice is that the best way for the reader to retain an overall grasp of what was at stake in the Controversy is to read the summary and conclusion at the end of each chapter first. It is to be hoped that these segmented overviews of the material will afford a good framework for subsequent investigation of the body of each chapter.
There are historians—one being Tim Cooper—whose approach is to tease out of the tangle of historical debates the concerns, motives, and intentions of those involved. While this is a valid approach, it has not been mine. Regardless of what the concerns of participants in the Antinomian Controversies may have been (many of them non-theological issues), we have to do with an issue that was polemicized as a theological debate. It is apparent that the participants were unsatisfied by any other way of expressing what concerned them than by holding a substantive debate on key concepts and terms. This being so, I pay lavish attention to the interrelations of such concepts as imputation, penalty, guilt, forgiveness, and satisfaction for sin.
One of the findings of my research is that susceptible as these concepts are to varying individual understandings, the concepts still form a coherent scheme, whichever theological mind one peers into. The variations in interpretation prove to be clustered: where we note that Grotius takes a discrepant position on penalty, we find that he likewise varies on satisfaction, forgiveness,
It seems that my approach is one that appeals predominantly to systematic theologians and philosophers of religion. Although, as already noted, my research has been historical in nature, all reviews of the Dutch original of which I am aware have been written by dogmaticians and philosophers. Evidently, one benefit of my approach is that material has been retrieved which is usable in those disciplines. I greatly appreciate the way in which Maarten Wisse and Guus Labooy availed themselves of my research in 2019 to give new impetus to the present-day debate on penal substitution. It would be gratifying indeed if we were to see this and other appropriations of my findings put to the service of fruitful exchanges between historical theology and systematic theology.
While preparing this translated edition, I sensed a growing urge to write a book on imputation in the domain of philosophical theology. Such an approach would permit me to explore the same issues as in the present volume, only without the encumbrance and confusion that is inherent to descriptions of debates in the past; it would also stand me in good stead to go deeper in my analysis and to present more trenchant value judgements than is possible in historical research.
It is an honor and a joy to acknowledge my mentors. Prof. Willem J. van Asselt was my Church History lecturer at Utrecht University. His vast knowledge of Reformed scholasticism and his personal enthusiasm persuaded me not to take my doctorate at Utrecht but instead to follow him to Leuven when he was appointed to his professorship there. This proved to be an inspired decision. I consider it a privilege to have developed such a personal and friendly rapport with this scholar of international renown. His sudden decease in 2014 was a heavy blow and he remains sorely missed. Prof. Andreas J. Beck—first as my co-supervisor, then as my main supervisor—guided my research in the manner that characterizes him: painstakingly, thoroughly, and with a sharp eye for both the contours and the detail. His skill in academic enterprise has left a great impression on me. Prof. Wim Janse kindly succeeded Prof. van Asselt as my co-supervisor after the latter’s death. He is possessed of the rare gift of winsome encouragement and pleasant enthusiasm, consistently demonstrated. With him overseeing me, every discussion of my progress was a feast.
I am enormously grateful to be part of the academic community of the Theological University of Apeldoorn. The past few years have been life-changing for me in several ways, both in terms of setbacks and in terms of welcome developments. One of the most surprising and delightful of these developments has been my appointment at TUA, allowing me unlimited scope for academic
I would like to thank Alexander Thomson sincerely for his excellent translation. His remarkable linguistic prowess and his thorough theological erudition made him the ideal translator for my thesis. I am so thankful for how Lysanne Ebbers and Kees de Wildt helped in the editorial work. I would also like to acknowledge Stichting Meijers-van Meer, Stichting Zonneweelde, and several individual sponsors (some of whom wished to remain anonymous) for the financial support given to this project. I thank Brill for their willingness to include this book in their prestigious publication series and would like to single out Ingrid Heijckers for particularly warm thanks for her patience, considerateness, and encouragement when progress ground to a halt.
No one is more aware of the importance of this theological research to me—especially in the more troubled period since 2018—than my wife Mirma, and our children: Maria, Jan, Lydia, and Sifra. I am profoundly grateful to them for granting me the liberty to pursue this study.
Apeldoorn
National Day of Thanksgiving, 6 November 2024