“Behind the texts and creation stands the Creator”

Bringing all of life into relation with the service of God

Voetius has been a source of fascination for Aza Goudriaan ever since he, as a theology student, first opened one of the theologian’s books. “Voetius was a pastor, professor of theology and rector magnificus of the University of Utrecht. He is a master at outlining various positions, weighing up issues in a nuanced way through extensive dialogue with tradition and international literature. It doesn’t make for the most accessible writing style, but it does result in precision. The accuracy with which he describes things, his effort to do justice to people’s positions – I find it a respectful way of engaging with others.” Voetius was also capable of putting things into perspective. “When it comes, for example, to different methods of preaching, he says: ‘Well, just go with the method that seems most suitable to you. As long as Jesus Christ is preached to people’s hearts.’”

Still, it is not just the person himself who fascinates Aza, but especially the way Voetius viewed the world. “He is an example of a way of thinking that brings all of life and all of reality into relation with God and sees it under God's rule. Someone who attempted to connect theology with various sciences, and in doing so to relate all of life to the service of God.” Not that there were no others who saw things this way, he readily admits: it was in fact an old Christian aspiration, one that someone like Origen was already trying to shape in Caesarea. The Reformation gave this a new international impulse, and in Voetius’ time it was not particularly remarkable. “But few people approached it with such expertise and such broad interest in other disciplines.” Moreover, he says, it would be much more difficult in our time to have enough knowledge of other disciplines to reach the same depth that Voetius achieved in his.

Those who want to serve God must know Him

In his research, Aza wants to study the various aspects of Voetius’ theology in a coherent way over the coming years. “I’m curious to see what kind of picture emerges. Connecting scholarship with piety was a task, and sometimes seen as a contradiction: personal devotion on the one hand and academic learning on the other.” He calls the attempt a ‘thoughtful and lived-out Christianity’: “It is a way of looking at the world that presupposes a relationship with God. God created the world, so you should also look at the world and history in relation to Him. Connecting scholarly interest and piety with God – I think that is very important for the church today as well. Voetius believed: if you want to serve God, you must know Him, that is to say: study. In the Bible, but also in other disciplines that shed light on God and His deeds. Voetius was someone who, both in a theoretical and practical way, tried to view and live all of life and reality as dependent on God and guided by Him.” The nineteenth-century theologian and former prime minister Abraham Kuyper called him “the greatest theologian of whom Reformed Netherlands can boast.”

Limited human beings who stand before God

What does Voetius have to offer our time? “Perhaps this: that the idea of the Christian faith in God means that we see all of life and all of reality as dependent on Him. That the church is not something marginal, but concerns the entire world.” He would therefore like to summarise his research under the heading: communion with God. Liberal theologian Wilhelm Herrmann wrote a book on this theme at the end of the nineteenth century: The Communion of the Christian with God, explained in line with Luther. “That book doesn’t really stand in the Voetian tradition, but the summarising perspective of ‘communion with God’ seems very promising to me for this research. In theology, there is sometimes the temptation to focus mainly on studying and interpreting texts – and that is necessary too… but behind the texts and behind creation stands the Creator. Theology has to do with dictionaries, lexicons, logical thinking and so on, but ultimately also with this: we are limited human beings and we stand before God, of whose greatness we have no understanding. Voetius, in all his striving for knowledge, also had an eye for this kind of ‘learned ignorance’. That there are many things you cannot know – perhaps should not want to know. I think that is liberating: the idea that God leads creation, history. God lives. It can be our calling to live for God as well.”