Reformed Dogmatics

by Geerhardus Vos, Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Editor)

Geerhardus Vos’ Reformed Dogmatics represents the early theological thought of one of the premier Reformed thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Originally self-published in five volumes in 1896 under the title Gereformeerde Dogmatiek (also known as Dogmatiek ), this important piece of Reformed theology has never been available to an English audience. Geerhardus Vos is perhaps best known to English speakers for his books Pauline Eschatology , published in 1930, and Biblical Old and New Testaments , published in 1948. Vos’ strong grounding in biblical scholarship and biblical theology makes his Reformed Dogmatics unique, bringing a fresh biblical perspective. Though this five-volume set is systematic in nature, Geerhardus Vos brings the skills and acumen of a biblical theologian to the task.

1764 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 4, 2021

About the author

Geerhardus Johannes Vos was an American Calvinist theologian and one of the most distinguished representatives of the Princeton Theology. He is sometimes called the father of Reformed Biblical Theology.

Vos was born to a Dutch Reformed pastor in Heerenveen in Friesland in the Netherlands. In 1881, when Geerhardus was 19 years old, his father accepted a call to be the pastor of the Christian Reformed Church congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Geerhardus Vos began his education at the Christian Reformed Church's Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, before moving to Princeton Theological Seminary. He completed his studies in Germany, receiving his doctorate in Arabic Studies from the Philosophy Faculty of Strassburg University in 1888.

Herman Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper tried to convince Vos to become professor of Old Testament Theology at the Free University in Amsterdam, but Vos chose to return to America. Thus, in the Fall of 1888, Vos took up a position on the Calvin Theological Seminary faculty. In 1892, Vos moved and joined the faculty of the Princeton Theological Seminary, where he became its first Professor of Biblical Theology.

In 1894 he was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church in the USA.

At Princeton, he taught alongside J. Gresham Machen and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield and authored his most famous works, including: Pauline Eschatology (1930) and Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (1948). Despite his opposition to the growing modernist influence at Princeton in the late 1920s, he decided to remain at Princeton Seminary after the formation of Westminster Theological Seminary by Machen, as he was close to retirement. Vos did indeed retire to California in 1932, three years after the formation of Westminster.

Vos's wife, Catherine, authored the well-known Child's Story Bible. She died in 1937, after 43 years of marriage. They had three sons and one daughter, and their son J. G. Vos studied at Princeton Theological Seminary and also became a minister.