This Earthly Life Matters: The Promise of Arnold A. van Ruler for Ecotheology

By Arnold A. van Ruler, Ernst M. Conradie and Dirk van Keulen

Arnold A. van Ruler was one of the most original Dutch Reformed theologians of the twentieth century. Through the term "re-creation" (Dutch: herschepping) he offers a radical affirmation of God's sustained loyalty to that which is material, bodily, and earthly. God's work of salvation and of consummation is necessary but then for the sake of creation. The path that he followed was diametrically opposed to that of Karl Barth and is also distinct from that of Jurgen Moltmann (who was influenced by Van Ruler). As an early exponent of Christian ecotheology, Van Ruler's oeuvre provides exceptionally rich resources for contemporary debates.

This volume offers an English translation of selected essays by Van Ruler on the themes of God, creation, providence, humanity, sin, this earthly life, and animal protection. It includes some famous essays, for example, on God and chaos, the "sunny side of sin," joy as the fundamental Christian attitude to life, and this earthly life. The selection is based on volume 3 of the Dutch scholarly edition of Van Ruler's Collected Works (published in 11 volumes). Few of Van Ruler's texts are available in English, so this volume provides a welcome addition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Jun 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666764437

Book preview

Editor’s Preface

The works of a number of Dutch theologians are available in English translation. These include some of the major publications by Abraham Kuyper, the series of Studies in Dogmatics by Gerrit Berkouwer, some books by Hendrikus Berkhof, and, more recently, the Reformed Dogmatics and Refomed Ethics of Herman Bavinck. However, English translations of the works of Kornelis Miskotte, Oepke Noordmans, and Arnold van Ruler, arguably the three most innovative Dutch theologians of the (mid) twentieth century, are rather scarce.

As far as Van Ruler is concerned, there is an early translation of Van Ruler’s Die christliche Kirche und das Alte Testament (originally published in German) by Geoffrey Bromiley, entitled The Christian Church and the Old Testament, a collection of essays translated and edited by John Bolt under the title Calvinist Trinitarianism and Theocentric Politics: Essays Toward a Public Theology (1989) and, more recently, a translation of Van Ruler’s Ik geloof by Garth Hodnett under the title I Believe (2015).

As a result, Van Ruler’s views on core themes—such as joy, the significance of this earthly life, creation, law, the church and eschatology—are not accessible in English. In the interim, nine volumes of Van Ruler’s Collected Works (Verzameld Werk) have been edited by Dirk van Keulen and published by Boekencentrum as indicated below:¹

•Verzameld Werk, Deel I: De Aard van de Theologie (2007), 550 pages (The Nature of Theology);

•Verzameld Werk, Deel II: Openbaring en Heilige Schrift (2008), 518 pages (Revelation and Holy Scripture);

•Verzameld Werk, Deel III: God, Schepping, Mens, Zonde (2009), 524 pages (God, Creation, Being Human, Sin);

•Verzameld Werk, Deel IV-A: Christus, de Geest en het Heil (2011), 794 pages (Christ, the Spirit, and Salvation);

•Verzameld Werk, Deel IV-B: Christus, de Geest en het Heil (2011), 825 pages (also Christ, the Spirit, and Salvation);

•Verzameld Werk, Deel V-A: Kerk, Liturgie, Prediking, Sacramente (2020), 771 pages (Church, Liturgy, Preaching, Sacraments);

•Verzameld Werk, Deel V-B: Kerkorde, Kerkrecht, Ambt (2018), 994 pages (Church Order, Church Law, Offices);

•Verzameld Werk, Deel VI-A: De Theocratie (2016), 973 pages (Theocracy);

•Verzameld Werk, Deel VI-B: Cultuur, Samenleving, Politiek, Onderwijs (2016), 988 pages (Culture, Society, Politics, Education).

Two more of these volumes are envisaged:

•Verzameld Werk, Deel V-C: Apostolaat en Eschatologie (planned for 2022) (Apostolate and Eschatology);

•Verzameld Werk, Deel VII: Oecumene, Rome—Reformatie (Ecumenics, Rome—Reformation).

The aim of the Dutch series is, of course, to collect Van Ruler’s writings and to make available some previously unpublished material, including some essays and lecture notes. The emphasis is on archival completeness with ample cross-references to Van Ruler’s oeuvre and to other Dutch and German publications available to Van Ruler.

By contrast, the aim of this volume of essays is to enable English readers to acquaint themselves with some of the core aspects of Van Ruler’s oeuvre. More specifically, the aim is to make available in English a collection of Van Ruler’s essays on God, creation, providence, humanity, sin, the significance of this earthly life and animal protection. These themes are addressed in the seven sections of Volume 3 of Van Ruler’s Collected Works. The Dutch version of Volume 3 includes no fewer than sixty-eight copiously annotated essays (524 pages). For the purposes of this translation twenty-one essays were selected, including at least two from each section.

This collection of essays is framed in terms of Van Ruler’s significance for contemporary Christian ecotheology. Van Ruler is widely regarded in Dutch and South African scholarly circles as an early exponent of ecotheology even though he did not address ecological concerns explicitly. The main selection criterion is therefore Van Ruler’s relevance for ecotheology. This is broadly understood since all the core aspects of the Christian faith may be relevant as sources to address contemporary ecological concerns. Preference is given to later rather than earlier texts while texts written in telegram or summary style are generally not included. Among the exceptions are the very first essay on the nature of our knowledge of God, one on suffering and important one on the relation between God’s work of creation and of salvation.

Apart from this preface and a translator’s note, this volume also includes a short biographic sketch by Dirk van Keulen and a translation of the editorial introduction to Volume 3 of the Collected Works by Dirk van Keulen. The latter has been shortened by omitting background provided to the essays in the Dutch edition that are not included here and his Word of Gratitude to those who contributed to the Dutch edition. This volume also includes an essay by Ernst Conradie on Van Ruler as an early exponent of Christian ecotheology.

The translation of Van Ruler’s essays was done by Douglas Lawrie, while the translation of Dirk van Keulen’s introduction, his biographic sketch and his annotations to Van Ruler’s essays was done by Ernst Conradie—with considerable cross checking.

Dirk van Keulen’s annotations to Van Ruler’s essays are detailed, as befits a critical scholarly edition of Van Ruler’s oeuvre. Some of these have been omitted and others shortened but, with a few exceptions, they have not been revised. Additions and revisions have been clearly indicated as Translator’s note or Editor’s note. Where available, English translations of Dutch and German texts were used for quotations from such sources. Other references are to the sources that Van Ruler had access to—which are mostly in Dutch, French or German. Cross-references to Van Ruler’s own publications and references to other Dutch and German texts and longish citations from such sources have not been included. These texts are usually not yet available in English.

Except in the essay by Conradie, the reference system of the Dutch editions of Van Ruler’s Verzameld Werk has been maintained.

Our gratitude to Dirk van Keulen for his detailed feedback on the translation, to Boekencentrum for permission to publish extracts from the Dutch original in English, to Christo Lombard for his sustained support, and for the staff at Wipf and Stock who helped to make this publication possible.

Ernst Conradie

October

31,

2022

1

. See http://www.aavanruler.nl/verzameld-werk/overzicht/.

Translator’s Preface

Douglas G. Lawrie

²

My brief from the editor was to produce a translation that retains some elements of the original, that still sounds a bit Dutch in style and that reproduces something of Van Ruler’s eccentric style of writing. The translation, therefore, leans towards the literal. Clarifying additions and simplifying paraphrases have generally been avoided. The resulting text does not always read smoothly, but nor does the Dutch original. This holds particularly for the pieces based on brief, unpublished notes.

One major change was made: while Van Ruler virtually always uses exclusive language (male forms only), the translation uses inclusive language in all but a few cases. Where this leads to stylistic awkwardness, Van Ruler is not to blame. Elsewhere, minor insertions or substitutions in the interest of clarity are indicated by square brackets. Van Ruler was careless about pronominal deixis, but, because nouns in Dutch are gendered, the Dutch is sometimes clear where the English equivalent would not be. Where Van Ruler’s meaning is really in doubt no attempt was made to clarify that in the translation.

By all accounts, Van Ruler was a lively and inspiring lecturer. He generally writes as if he were speaking: the tone is informal and conversational and colloquial expressions occur frequently. His punctuation, strange in writing, often reproduces the rhythms and breaks and emphases of speech. His use of modal qualifiers, of which Dutch has many, is also typical of spoken language. His use of clipped sentences and fragments also partly reflects the spoken language; partly it is one of his idiosyncrasies. The same goes for his excessive use of exclamation marks, superlatives and, occasionally, overstatements and tautologies. His statements are sometimes peremptory and sometimes cryptic, whereas modern authors may prefer, in the one case, to qualify and, in the other, to clarify. This too is typical of the conversational situation, where non-verbal cues and conversational implicature supply some clarification.

Much of this has been left in the translation. Some short sentences have been combined in the translation and, more rarely, long Germanic sentences have been broken up. Van Ruler’s punctuation has sometimes been adjusted. Occasionally, quotations marks have been inserted to set off supposedly spoken words from the rest of the text. Some tautologies defied translation: English simply lacks the required synonyms. Some of his slips of the tongue—he sometimes forgets what the grammatical antecedent is—have been plastered over in the translation.

Van Ruler also uses the terminology of the Bible and the church frequently in these pieces, which were generally not meant for academic audiences. When he quotes the Bible, he follows the old Statenvertaling (1637). To retain something of the archaic tone, the English follows the Revised Standard Version. To reproduce his churchy language, English words and phrases have been used that are—at least in the requisite sense—no longer common in English outside church circles. For instance, zaligheid has been rendered as bliss rather than happiness.

Italics in the English often indicates that Van Ruler emphasized the words by means of accents. More rarely, they represent words in italics in the original or emphases effected by means of modal words or word order in the original that could not be rendered in English in the same way.

Where Van Ruler uses languages other than Dutch, his wording has been retained in the main text, English translations being provided in the footnotes. For the rest, translator’s footnotes have been kept to a minimum.

In the interest of clarity, certain Dutch words have been supplied in square brackets after the English. Most of these cases and other choices made in the translation are explained below.

•Bevinding, (bevindelijk): Rendered as religious experience, followed by the Dutch in square brackets. It stems from a mystical strain in the Dutch churches that specifically emphasized the experience of God’s presence.

•Geest: Rendered as mind or spirit, depending on the context, followed by the Dutch in square brackets.

•Gestalte (gestaltelik): This can be translated as figure (the human figure), shape or form. Van Ruler sometimes uses it to refer to the visible manifestation of something abstract. It is rendered in various ways, followed by the Dutch in square brackets.

•Goddeloos: Though this literally means godless, the meaning in Dutch is often much looser. It has been rendered as impious.

•Heiden (heidendom): Rendered as pagan, but heidendom as heathendom.

•Heil: This term is usually rendered as salvation, followed by the Dutch in square brackets. For a discussion of the term heil, see Conradie’s essay in this volume.

•Humaniteit: Rendered as humanness, followed by the Dutch in square brackets.

•Koninkrijk van God: The standard English translation of kingdom of God is followed instead of the contemporary reign of God.

•Levensgevoel: Rendered as experience of life, followed by the Dutch in square brackets. It combines elements of experience and attitude, therefore het christelike levensgevoel means, roughly, the view of, orientation to and experience of life engendered by the Christian faith.

•Ophef (and derivatives): Usually rendered as cancel. Van Ruler does not seem to have in mind the German Aufhebung in a Hegelian sense.

•Schuld: This has almost always been rendered as guilt. The Dutch word, however, can also mean fault or debt. When Van Ruler says that sin is schuld, the meanings guilt and debt may both play a role.

•Stoten op: This has been rendered as encounter, with the Dutch in square brackets. Run into or bump into are more colloquial alternatives.

•Tegenpool: This usually means opposite or polar opposite. But when Van Ruler speaks of created reality as God’s tegenpool, he has a reciprocal relationship in mind, not an oppositional one. There it has been rendered as counterpart, with the Dutch in square brackets.

•Verenkeling: Rendered as individuation with the Dutch in square brackets. For Van Ruler it signals something ambiguous. Individual selfhood brings loneliness in its train.

•Verlossing, verlos: These can be rendered as either redemption and redeem, or as salvation and save. In the majority of cases, preference has been given to the latter to conform to Van Ruler’s soteriology.³ Van Ruler holds an Anselmian view, which, with modifications, he also ascribes to the Reformation, namely that Christ’s sacrifice was essentially one of atonement, not of redemption. Redemption can, however, be used in an eschatological context (cf. Rom 8:23).

•Volken: Rendered as peoples. The Dutch distinction between volk (ethnic and cultural) and natie (mainly political) is hard to reproduce.

•Vrijmacht: The normal translation would be absolute power or authority. In Reformed theology it denotes that God can and may do anything. It has been rendered as sovereign power.

•Welbehagen, welgevallen: Both words can be translated as pleasure. To make a distinction, the former has been rendered as pleasure and the latter as favor, followed by the Dutch in square brackets.

•Wezen: Where essence would not be appropriate, it is rendered as (very) being, followed by the Dutch in square brackets.

•Wonderlijk(heid): Though the Dutch word is cognate with wonderful, it lacks the positive connotation of the English word. It refers to anything that is astonishing, strange or remarkable. It has been rendered in various ways, depending on the context, followed by the Dutch in square brackets.

•Zijn: Where this is the equivalent of the Latin esse, it is rendered as Being.

2

. Douglas Lawrie is a senior research fellow in the Department of Religion and Theology at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.

3

. On Van Ruler’s soteriology, see Van Ruler’s Verzameld Werk Deel

4

A, sections

1

and

3

, edited by Dirk van Keulen (Zoetermeer: Boekensentrum,

2011

).

Introductions

Arnold Albert van Ruler (1908–70): A Brief Biographical Sketch

Dirk van Keulen

¹

Youth and Studies (1908–33)

The Dutch theologian Arnold Albert van Ruler was born on December 10, 1908, in Apeldoorn where his father was a baker. He grew up in an orthodox reformed environment with a pietist character. He received catechism from Th. L. Haitjema (1888–1972) whom he also encountered later as professor. After primary school Van Ruler studied at the Hogere Burger School in Apeldoorn (1921–23) and then at the local gymnasium (1923–27). In these years he read philosophical and theological literature, including Plato, Kant, Barth, Brunner, and Kohlbrugge.

In the summer of 1927, the young Van Ruler moved from the fifth to the sixth grade in the gymnasium. His teachers recommended him to write the national examination at that stage. After consultation with Haitjema, who became a professor of dogmatics in Groningen in the interim, he followed this advice without hesitation. In August 1927 he passed the national exams with outstanding marks. In this way he could start a year early with studying theology. It was no coincidence that he opted to do so at the Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen where Haitjema was based. In Groningen he received foundational training from Haitjema, from G. van der Leeuw (1890–50), the church historian and phenomenologist, and from W. J. Aalders (1870–45), the philosopher of religion. Content-wise his studies in Groningen were shaped especially by the theology of Karl Barth and the critical neo-Kantian philosophy of Marburg. In 1933 he concluded his studies with philosophy of religion as a major subject.

Minister in Kubaard (1933–40) and Hilversum (1940–47)

In November 1933, Van Ruler was ordained as minister of the reformed (Hervormd) congregation of Kubaard in Friesland. Just before that he was married to Joanna Adriana Hamelink (1910–95). They would have five children. By 1933 Kubaard was a small, remote rural location with stretched out pastures. There were some 250 members of the congregation. Van Ruler was a pastor with all his heart. Besides preparing for the weekly church services, he devoted considerable attention to pastoral care—which he experienced as a difficult vocation. He also spent many hours studying in the vicarage. He read everything by Barth that he could find even though he had some questions, for example on Barth’s christological focus, his vision of the Old Testament and the relation between church and state. He also worked on a dissertation on Ernst Troeltsch. However, during the 1930s he discontinued his doctoral studies and instead explored the theology of Abraham Kuyper. This led to his first book, entitled Kuypers Idee Eener Christelijke Cultuur (Kuyper’s Notion of a Christian Culture, 1940).

Van Ruler departed from Kubaard in January 1940 and was ordained as minister in Hilversum a week later. His years there were obviously marked by the events related to World War II. Van Ruler was not fearful: he enjoyed some tension and adventure. He had some links with the Dutch resistance movement. He had one encounter with the German occupation. In May 1942 he was tried by security police (Sicherheits Polizei) after a sermon but was subsequently released.

During and after the war, he became widely known. This had to do with a number of tasks that he accepted in addition to his daily work as a pastor. He often lectured on the themes in the interface between philosophy and theology, but also on culture, society and politics. From these lectures it is clear that he departed from Barth and developed a distinct theology. What is characteristic of his theology during and after the war was his theocratic vision, inspired by Ph. J. Hoedemaker. That led to three books, entitled Religie en Politiek (Religion and Politics, 1945), Visie en Vaart (Vision and Voyage, 1947) and Droom en Gestalte (Dream and Manifestation, 1947). Especially the concretization of such a theocratic vision met with some resistance, for example with reference to his views on democracy, colonial politics and the death penalty. Soon after the war he was also involved in the establishment of a new political party, the Protestant Union, that also strived towards a theocracy. Van Ruler was the ideologist of this party and was asked to oversee the party list for the election. However, following advice from Haitjema he declined the invitation. Van Ruler was not fit for practical politics. As scholar, he was more prophetically and visionary inclined. The Protestant Union took part in the first parliamentary elections after the war but did not manage to obtain any seat in the Dutch parliament.

Van Ruler was also closely involved in discussions that led to a new church order for the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk in 1951. His voice was also regularly heard on the radio. Until his death he would read a highly popular meditation on the radio every second week (with an average of some 450,000 listeners at the time). Most of these meditations were collected and published in various volumes.

In the interim, he continued with his pastoral work in the congregation. It is therefore surprising that Van Ruler managed to complete his dissertation alongside these activities. Since his interest in Troeltsch had waned, he shifted towards dogmatics. In 1947 he completed a dissertation entitled De Vervulling van de Wet: Een Dogmatische Studie over de Verhou­ding van Openbaring en Existentie (The Fulfilment of the Law: A Dogmatic Study on the Relation between Revelation and Existence) and obtained the doctoral degree cum laude. After the dissertation he collapsed. He was overworked and needed some rest.

Professor in Utrecht (1947–70)

A few weeks before his promotion, Van Ruler was nominated by the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk for a professorial chair at the Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht. Before the nomination there was some controversy in the Faculty of Theology in Utrecht over his nomination. There were some who feared that Van Ruler would not fit in well with the climate and theological direction of the faculty. Such initial fears proved to be unfounded. In subsequent years hearty relationships developed between Van Ruler and his colleagues in Utrecht.

Van Ruler delivered his inaugural lecture entitled Het Koninkrijk Gods en de Geschiedenis (The Kingdom of God and History) on November 3, 1947. The theme followed his dissertation closely. Initially his lecturing duties included the subjects biblical theology, Dutch church history and missiology. Five years later that was changed to dogmatics, Christian ethics, the history of the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk and its symbols, liturgies and church law. Van Ruler’s passion lied with these latter subjects, especially with dogmatics.

As professor, Van Ruler developed a distinct, challenging style of lecturing. He illustrated theological problems with images derived from daily life. His lectures were typically structured point-wise and analytical. Besides fulfilling his teaching duties, he wrote a few books in the years that followed: Bijzonder en Algemeen Ambt (Special and General Offices, 1952); Reformatorische Opmerkingen in de Ontmoeting met Rome (Reformed Observations on the Encounter with Rome, 1965); Ik Geloof: De Twaalf Artikelen van het Geloof in Morgenwijdingen (I Believe: The Twelve Articles of the Faith in Morning Devotions, 1968) and Waarom Zou Ik naar de Kerk Gaan? (Why Would I Go to the Church, 1970). In addition, he offered countless lectures during his years as professor. Together with his books these lectures were the fruit of his academic research.

Singing Psalms at Night

Van Ruler struggled with some serious health problems from time to time during his life. In the autumn of 1932, he suffered from a stomach ulcer that subsequently caused bleeding at various times in his life. In January 1951 he had a stomach operation. An infection caused by a wound was so serious that his life was in danger. There was some speculation that Van Ruler’s stomach-related complaints had to do with the way he dealt with criticisms. However, in modern medicine such a relation between stomach ulcers and stress or with particular characteristics is regarded as improbable. Stomach ulcers are typically caused by bacterial infections.

By the start of 1960 Van Ruler was overworked. Moreover, he was depressed. During meals he was silent. This period of depression lasted quite some time and weighed heavily on his family. Despite his heavy-heartedness—Van Ruler called himself heavy-hearted by nature—he continued with his classes, lectures and writing articles. His doctors did not allow him to preside over church services. Although this was something that he was always eager to do, Van Ruler accepted that because, as he said himself, preaching takes far more effort than lecturing. His students did not notice such heavy-heartedness during his lectures. According to Van Ruler’s son Kees, that was because he really enjoyed lecturing. It was pure theater; he was good; he had the students at his feet. At home things were different. Backstage and on stage could be worlds apart. That Van Ruler was vulnerable to depression raises some questions about his theology. It is characteristic of his theology that joy and enjoyment play such a significant role. The titles of his series of meditation speak volumes: Sta op tot de Vreugde (Stand Up to Joy, 1947) and Vertrouw en Geniet (Trust and Enjoy, 1955). One may also consider his emphasis on the appreciation of earthly life and on the notion—expressed in numerous texts—that one is called to affirm creation and one’s own life. Despite being prone to depression, Van Ruler experienced pleasure in his personal life and enjoyed nature, driving around, soccer and billiards. His heavy-heartedness and his ability to enjoy therefore go together in Van Ruler’s life. That gives a biographic tint to his theology: by calling for joy and for the affirmation of life he tried to lift himself from depression. At such moments one can compare his theology with singing Psalms at night.

In the Autumn of 1967, Van Ruler had a heart attack. He survived that and also a second heart attack in September 1969. At the start of 1970 he entered the lecture hall and was greeted by his students with applause. He lectured for two further semesters. A third heart attack on December 15, 1970 proved fatal. He was buried in Utrecht on 18 December following a liturgy during which Isaiah 40:1–11, Luke 2:25–35, and Revelation 22:1–15 were read.

1

. Dirk van Keulen is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Kampen Theological University. He is the editor of all the volumes of Arnold van Ruler’s Verzameld Werk published thus far. This brief biographical sketch has not been published previously.

Introduction to the Dutch Edition (Verzameld Werk, Deel III)

Dirk van Keulen

²

This third volume of the Van Ruler Verzameld Werk (Collected Works) includes texts on themes related to the coordinates of God, creation, humanity, and sin. The structure of the Collected Works as a whole follows more or less the traditional order of a classic dogmatics. The first two volumes focused on The Nature of Theology and Revelation and Holy Scripture. Further volumes will be (as envisaged by 2009—ed.) on Christ, the Spirit ,and Salvation (volume 4), The Church, the Sacraments, and Eschatology (volume 5), Culture, Society, Education, and Politics (volume 6) and "Reformation, Ecumenism, and Conversation with Others (volume 7).³

This third volume is divided into the following seven clusters:

•God

•Creation

•God’s providence

•Humanity

•Sin

•This Earthly Life

•Contemporary Issues

Each cluster includes texts that could be included thematically under the title of that cluster. Except in the first cluster the texts are listed chronologically. This makes it possible to follow the development in Van Ruler’s thinking on specific themes. In this English edition of Volume 3 at least two texts from each cluster are included (marked with a double asterisk **) while all the texts in the Dutch original are listed in this introduction.

1. God

In the Dutch edition of Van Ruler’s Verzameld Werk the following eight texts are included under this cluster:

•De Aard van Onze Kennis van God [1958] (The Nature of Our Knowledge of God)**

•Bewijzen voor het Bestaan van God [1956] (Proofs for God’s Existence)

•De God van het Oude Testament en van het Nieuwe Testament [1957] (The God of the Old Testament and of the New Testament)

•Het Spreken van God [1959] (God’s Speech)

•De Leer van de Drie-eenheid [1956] (The Doctrine of the Trinity)**

•De Triniteit [1964] (The Trinity)

•Kunnen we zonder God? [1966] (Can We Do without God?)

•De Verborgenheid van God [1969] (The Hiddenness of God)**

The first and the last of these are included in the English translation of excerpts from this volume, together with a short essay on the doctrine of the Trinity.

The first essay on The Nature of Our Knowledge of God (1958) is based on notes for a lecture in the context of the Studium Generale of the Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht, delivered on October 22, 1958. Given its contents, this text could also have been included in Volume 2 of the Verzameld Werk with other texts on epistemology.

In these notes Van Ruler identifies five aspects of the nature of human knowledge of God. First, it is fundamental and obvious. He suggests that the question about God and the knowledge of God permeates the whole of human existence and determines everything. Second, human knowledge of God is inadequate, that is, directed towards mystery. This refers to the complex of dogmatic questions regarding the incomprehensibility of God (incomprehensibilitas Dei). Third, knowledge of God is practical. Here Van Ruler rejects any form of intellectualism. We know God not only with our mind but with our whole person and our whole life. We are in a relationship with God. Fourth, human knowledge of God is cosmic. This means that we can only think and talk about God and relate to God within the forms and limits of creaturely reality. Finally, human knowledge of God is traditional: it comes to the individual through society and history. Each of these five aspects is briefly discussed by retrieving what the theological tradition has to offer in this regard.

These notes on The nature of our knowledge of God are fundamental for Van Ruler’s theology. They form the presupposition for his thinking and speaking about God in general and about the relationship between God, creation and humanity in particular. For this reason, this text is highly significant for other texts included in this volume of the Verzameld Werk. In fact, it provides the hermeneutical context within which the other texts were written.

This is followed by an essay on The Doctrine of the Trinity (1956). This is an important theme in Van Ruler’s theology. In an interview with George Puchinger (1921–99) on July 7, 1969 he expressed resistance against Karl Barth’s christological concentration⁴ in the following way:

When I reflect on the true structure of theology, then I find three disparate perspectives: the Trinity, the Kingdom and predestination.⁵

The Trinity is therefore central to his thought. This is also clear from an essay on The Necessity of a Trinitarian Theology with an English translation by John Bolt included in Calvinist Trinitarianism.⁶ In that essay Van Ruler acknowledges that he scarcely knows what a fully developed trinitarian theology would look like, but pleads for such a fully trinitarian structure in theology. More than once he actually tried to provide some groundwork for such a trinitarian theology. He proposes that theology has a trinitarian ground and also a trinitarian structure.⁷ In various texts he therefore developed alongside a christological perspective also a pneumatological perspective. One example is two chapters from his dissertation. After analyzing the fulfilment of the law from a christological perspective, he added a far more extensive chapter in which he did the same from a pneumatological perspective.⁸ A second well-known example is his essay on Structural Differences between Christology and Pneumatology.⁹

Aalders is therefore correct in emphasizing that Van Ruler attempted to do justice to the notion of a trinitarian spreading,¹⁰ i.e., addressing a wide range of theological themes and social issues from three distinct perspectives (patrological, christological, and pneumatological), each yielding different but complementary insights. Given such an emphasis, it is striking that Van Ruler wrote so little on the Trinity as such. Compared to the theme of the kingdom of God that is addressed at length in his dissertation, the theme of the Trinity seems to be neglected. The one essay that is included here was first published in Elseviers Weekblad and was later also included in the volume Blij zijn als Kinderen.

Why Van Ruler wrote so little on the Trinity in particular, while the theme was of such importance to him, is not clear. Was the theme perhaps too speculative for him¹¹—even though he was otherwise not unwilling to engage in speculative thinking? Elsewhere in his work he describes the Trinity, together with incarnation and predestination as one of the mysteries of Christianity.¹² He adds that this doctrine brings us in the midst of the most complete of aporias.¹³

The essay on The Hiddenness of God (1969) shows to what extent Van Ruler took seriously the question of God’s existence in human experience. He distinguishes five distinct ways in which God’s hiddenness can be expressed. One may say that such hiddenness is the only one of God’s characteristics on which Van Ruler wrote a whole essay.

These texts are by no means everything that Van Ruler wrote on God. In numerous other texts the being, characteristics and acts of God are discussed in relation with other themes. One example is the suggestion elsewhere in this volume that joy describes God’s very being: joy over what God has done.

2. Creation

In the Dutch edition of Van Ruler’s Verzameld Werk the following six texts were included under the cluster of creation:

•Vijf Bepalingen over de Hemel [1956] (Five Statements on Heaven)**

•De Engelen [1956] (The Angels)

•De Verhouding van Schepping en Verlossing [1958] (The Relation between Creation and Salvation)**

•De Wonderlijkheid van het Bestaan [1959] (The Marvel of Existence)**

•Het Woord Existentie in Tegengestelde Zin [1964] (The Opposite Meaning of the Word Existence)

•Hoe Waardeert Men de Stof? [1968] (How Do We Evaluate Matter?)**

The first essay included here is entitled Five Statements on Heaven (1956). Van Ruler emphasizes that heaven, just like earth, forms part of the created reality. Heaven is also the place where the risen Christ is and where the angels dwell.

The second essay included here on The relation between creation and salvation was first published in Volume 3 of the Verzameld Werk. This is based on notes for a lecture in the context of the Studium Generale of the Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht delivered on November 5, 1958.