Honor

Today, Keet was presented with an award at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Trinity Graduate School's Honors and Awards Ceremony. As part of his MDiv requirements, he had to complete a Thesis. He turned this in last December when he completed everything else for his MDiv. Today he was presented with the Prof. C. B. Bjuge Thesis Award in Biblical and Systematic Theology. This "awards students who have demonstrated proficiency in the research and writing of outstanding master's theses." Basically, his thesis was better than everyone else's! :) Keet spent a lot of time on his Thesis last summer and fall so it is nice to see it recognized and appreciated.

In case you would like to know anything about his thesis, here is the abstract:

ABSTRACT

This thesis consists of a summary of Karl Barth’s doctrine of election as it relates to the doctrine of God in Church Dogmatics II/2. This summary is followed by an evangelical critique of Barth’s views in which his particular arguments are evaluated so as to determine the potential usefulness of Barth’s discussion for evangelical theology.

In the summary, Barth’s Christocentric focus is emphasized and explained so as to properly distinguish it from other typical discussions of election. For Barth, election takes place in the person of Jesus Christ as a movement between God and man. This movement actually determines the being of God and the being of the creature and precedes all other ways and works of God ad extra. Since this decision has a bearing on God’s being, Barth believes it properly belongs in the doctrine of God.

Following this discussion, the thesis develops two specific implications of Barth’s unique discussion of election. Firstly, Barth argues that election belongs at the very beginning of God’s decrees since election determines God in all of his dealings with creation. This section summarizes Barth’s distinctive Supralapsarianism. Secondly, Barth argues that Jesus Christ is the Subject of election. In this section, the thesis evaluates the divergent interpretations of Bruce McCormack and Edwin Chr. van Driel of this assertion. An alternative to these is argued in which Jesus Christ is the Subject of election only in the fact that in Jesus Christ, God himself moves outward in the person of His Son as man. As a result, election is a movement that determines the being of God ad extra, not ad intra.

The thesis concludes by pointing out various deficiencies in Barth’s discussion, while also highlighting points that could prove beneficial to future evangelical discussions about God and His plan. Specifically, evangelicals should consider Barth’s proposal that discussion of Jesus Christ belongs in the doctrine of God. Furthermore, God’s plan and purposes in the world are shaped and formed, not merely by God in Himself, but also by this one specific self-determination of God in Jesus Christ.