Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation

by Collin Hansen

Under Nicole’s influence, Keller continued his trajectory toward continental neo-Calvinism, rather than the British-American Reformed theology associated with Princeton Theological Seminary in the nineteenth century. Nicole assigned Louis Berkhof ’s Systematic Theology, which tracks closely with Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, as the textbook for his theology courses. Nicole also assigned parts of Bavinck’s Our Reasonable Faith and his Doctrine of God—at that time, no other section of his Dogmatics had been translated into English. The differences in these two strains of Reformed theology illuminate Keller’s apologetic approach. Princeton theology, exemplified in Charles Hodge, begins by seeking to prove the existence of God by showing nonbelievers that Christianity is built on rational arguments. The continental neo-Calvinism of Bavinck and Berkhof begins by assuming from Romans 1 that everyone already knows God and many things about him by general revelation that they suppress in sin (Romans 1). The job of the apologist, then, is to show nonbelievers how Christianity explains what they know in their hearts but deny with their lips.