Ons belydenis: Grieks of Kosher?

Abstract

Since the rise of liberal theology the Hellenizalion of Christian dogma has been stated over and over again. The thesis was first propounded by Schleiermacher, and the cue was taken up by Harnack. An echo of the thesis was heard in the works of the fathers of modern Calvinist philosophy, though with marked differences between Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd. Two to three decades ago the (supposed) fact of the Hellenization of Christian dogma was reversed into an anti- Greek slogan by liberation theologians: We must think in the Jewish mode (i.e. monist, functional, concrete) instead of the Greek mode (dualist, static, abstract)! This simplistic slogan is countered by the question: If there were in New Testament times Palestinian Jews and Hellenistic Jews, what then, is the "Jewish” mode of thought?