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

By Dr Steve Bishop

An independent researcher based in Wales, UK. He is a trustee of ThinkingFaith Network, maintains the website allofliferedeemed.co.uk and is an Associate Fellow of the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology. He is co-editor of On Kuyper (Sioux Center, IO: Dordt Press, 2013).

Arnold A. Van Ruler. Ernst M. Conradie (editor), Dirk van Keulen (Introduction) Douglas G. Lawrie (Translator). Pickwick Publications, 2023, 284pp, p/b. (£29.99 hive.co.uk)

Arnold Albert Van Ruler (1908-1970), a professor of dogmatics at the University of Utrecht, is little known in the Anglophone world. Primarily because not many of his works have been translated. The few that have been translated into English, include Calvinist Trinitarianism and Theocentric Politics (1989), The Christian Church and the Old Testament (1971) and I Believe (2015).[1] There have been several doctoral dissertations on Van Ruler.[2]

Sleddens and Wissink described Van Ruler as “one of the greatest representatives of Dutch Reformed thought”.[3]

Van Ruler’s approach has been described as “creation theology” (W. H. Velema), and he has been called “a theologian of earthly reality” (L. J. Van den Brom). It is good then to see this volume dedicated to Van Ruler’s approach to ecotheology. Van Ruler’s thought was largely shaped by theocratic ideas – his “main thesis was that the Torah has by no means been abolished in the Christian system , but rather has been established and made effective for the nations”.[4] These led him to be involved with the beginnings of the “Protestantse Unie” (PU) which was founded to promote the theocratic vision of P. J. Hoedemaker (1839-1910), whose writings had a great influence on him. Particularly Hoedemaker’s view of a State church. De Vries notes that “Besides as a political design of life, Van Ruler also uses theocracy as a structure of theological thought and as an encompassing sense of life.”[5] There are only some glimpses of this in this volume.

Dirk van Keulen who contributes a useful introduction to this volume and a brief biographical sketch, had edited in Dutch Van Ruler’s Collected Works. Selections from these, translated into English by Douglas G. Lawrie make up this volume. Topics include essays on the themes of God, creation, providence, being human, sin, this earthly life, and animal protection. Topics have been included to show Van Ruler’s significance for ecotheology.

Van Ruler is not an easy read. Some of the selections in this volume comprise mainly bullet points. He does come up with some great aphorisms though. A small selection will illustrate:

• God did not create me in order to get me down on my knees and to extend grace to me as a sinner.
• The Creator is revealed in creation – that is the mystery that evokes worship.
• Not only Holy Scripture is the word of God; the entire created reality is that too.
• Heaven is created reality. Just as much as the earth is.
• Our knowledge of God is never direct and unmediated. It is always mediated.
• Even when we question anthropologically – and question thoroughly – we automatically question theologically.
• the Creator ≠ creation
• The world is indeed a “cosmos” but in the sense that it is a jewel, a bracelet on the arm of the Creator.

Conradie’s introductory essay included here provides an excellent overview of Van Ruler’s approach. He observes: “Van Ruler’s polemical intention is clear, namely, to affirm creation as good, also eschatologically. There is no need to add something to creation or to replace it by something else. There is also no need or possibility to escape from being a creature.”

One of Van Ruler’s key points is that of re-creation. A point made by Herman Bavinck, who understood re-creation as a restoration not a repristination. As Conradie discerns: “Van Ruler’s oeuvre may indeed be understood as an extrapolation and eschatological radicalization of Bavinck’s position.” And elsewhere, Dirk van Keulen has described Van Ruler’s approach as “a radicalised reception of Bavinck’s central thought that ‘grace does not abolish nature, but affirms and restores it’”.[6]

This notion of re-creation as well as his emphasis on creation are key elements that provide a useful approach to ecotheology. He has a strong doctrine of creation. He is clear that the world was created by God and thus it is God’s world. Creation was an intentional and conscious act of God. Creation is not God, not divine and not demonic, not an emanation of God. It was created, ex nihilo, from nothing. He makes an interesting observation:

In paganism and philosophy the world is necessary, but it is not good; it is an unavoidable drama in which human beings suffer. In Christianity, the exact opposite holds: the world is not necessary—it could also not have been there—but that it is there depends on the goodness of God and therefore it is in its totality a good thing.

As well as a focus on creation he maintains the importance of eschatology, in particular he writes: “God will not create a new world to put it in the place of the present world. God will renew this old world of ours and this renewed world will be the new world.”

Overall, this is an excellent introduction to Van Ruler and provides some important insights into a creation-affirming Christianity.

Footnotes:

[1] Excerpts from some of Van Ruler’s books have been translated by Ruben Alvarado – can be found here: http://84.80.12.175/commonlawreview/theological/van-ruler/

[2] These include: T. G. Hommes, Sovereignty and Saeculum: Arnold A. Van Ruler’s Theocratic Theology. Ph.D. Diss., Harvard University, 1966; Gareth Hodnett, Ontology and the New Being: The Relationship between Creation and Redemption in the Theology of Paul Tillich and A.A. van Ruler. PhD Thesis. University of Stellenbosch, 2002; Allan J. Jansen, Kingdom, Office and Church: A Study of A.A. Van Ruler’s Doctrine of Ecclesiastical Office. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006); and J. P. De Vries,  Een theocratisch visioen: De verhouding van religie en politiek volgens A.A. van Ruler. [A Theocratic Vision. The relationship between religion and politics according to A.A. van Ruler] (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum Academic, 2011).

[3] W. Th. G. Sleddens and J. Wissink (1975) De Structuur Van De Theologie Van Dr. A. A. Van Ruler, Bijdragen, 36(3)(1975), 234. DOI: 10.1080/00062278.1975.10597064.

[4] Ibid., 235.

[5] De Vries Een theocratisch visioen, 327.

[6] D. van Keulen, “Leads for ecotheology in Arnold A. van Ruler’s work”, in E. M. Conradie (ed.), Creation and Salvation Leiden: Brill, 2011), 206).

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