Jesus Christ, election and nature: revising Barth during the ecological crisis

This chapter considers the implications for soteriology of Barth's doctrine of election. Following an introduction to the doctrine, this chapter reflects on criticism of Barth, and offers an analytical approach to the doctrine within the framework of the larger theme of universality in Christ. Primarily, it argues that the doctrine of election is the foundation of Barth's soteriology in terms of the eternal election of humanity in Christ. It is advocated that this doctrine tends very strongly in a universalist direction. However, the principal focus is to demonstrate that these universalist leanings do not in any way undermine particularity. This is demonstrated through a special focus on Barth's doctrine of eternity. This chapter provides part of the reflective theological material for the formative aspect of the book's interpretation of universal salvation in the Son in Chapter 4.

INTRODUCTION: ON THE CHRISTOCENTRICITY OF BARTH’S DOCTRINE OF ELECTION When the history of theology in the twentieth century is written from the vantage point of, let us say, one hundred years from now, I am confident that the greatest contribution of Karl Barth to the development of church doctrine will be located in his doctrine of election. It was here that he provided his most valuable corrective to classical teaching; here too his dogmatics found both its ontic ground and its capstone. Nothing in that claim will seem surprising to those who are acquainted with Barth's teaching on this theme. But a more penetrating analysis will also, I think, yield the observation that it was in Barth's doctrine of election that the historicizing tendencies of well over a century of theology prior to him found, at one and the same time, both their relative justification and their proper limit. What Barth accomplished with his doctrine of election was to establish a hermeneutical rule which would allow the church to speak authoritatively about what God was doing - and, indeed, who and what God was/is - 'before the foundation of the world', without engaging in speculation .

This article focuses on Karl Barth's mature doctrine of baptism, as it is developed in the final part-volume of theChurch Dogmatics. Published in 1967 (English translation in 1969) as a fragment of the ethics of the doctrine of reconciliation, Barth's theology of baptism is not without its controversy. Among the critiques that the baptism fragment has generated, one of the most significant concerns is over its presentation of the relation between divine agency and human agency. The formal division in the baptism fragment (and its sharp distinction between ‘Spirit baptism’ and ‘water baptism’) is taken to imply an uncharacteristic separation of divine agency and human agency, which renders his doctrine of baptism inconsistent with other areas of his thought. The argument proposed in this article, however, is that better clarity as to what Barth is theologically up to in the baptism fragment can be gained by reading his mature theology of baptism in connection with his theology of prayer. Barth's theology of prayer is rich and extensive. Although very present across all of his writings, his thinking on prayer (and indeed theChurch Dogmaticsitself) culminates in an intriguing set of meditations on the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. Although unfinished, these lectures on prayer were published posthumously asThe Christian Lifein 1976 (English translation 1981). Together with his doctrine of baptism and his unwritten doctrine of the Lord's Supper, the finished lectures on prayer would have formed the ethics of reconciliation. Importantly, Barth insists that baptism and the Lord's Supper were to be understood not only in the context of prayer but actually as prayer, as ‘invocation’. Rooted in the motif of ‘correspondence’, which is deployed at a number of key points throughout theChurch Dogmatics, Barth's theology of invocation is based on a highly participative account of the divine–human relation: divine agency and human agency ‘correspond’ in the crucible of prayer. From the perspective provided by his writings on prayer, invocation and the motif of the ‘correspondence’ of divine and human agency, this article revisits the critique that Barth unduly separates divine and human agency in the baptism fragment.

Central to Barth's doctrine of election is the notion that Jesus Christ is the subject of election. This implies that Jesus Christ existed from all eternity. I discuss four possible interpretations of this proposition. I analyse these interpretations both in terms of their internal consistency and in terms of their consistency with Barth's overall proposal. Three of the four interpretations, defended by Emil Brunner, Cornelius Berkouwer, John Colwell and Bruce McCormack, I find wanting. With the fourth interpretation I lay my own cards on the table and argue that part of the problem lies in Barth's formulation itself. The context of Barth's saying that ‘Christ is the subject of election’ suggests that for Barth, Jesus Christ is not so much identical not with a subject, but with an act: the divine reaching out to that what is not God. This act establishes the act and object of election.

Karl Barth's Doctrine of Election as Part of His Doctrine of God Colin Gunton Colin Gunton Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume XXV, Issue 2, January 1974, Pages 381–392, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/XXV.2.381 Published: 01 January 1974

This chapter introduces and summarizes Barth’s doctrine of election. It begins with an overview of Barth’s criticism and rejection of classical Augustinian and Reformed versions of predestination. It then treats Barth’s Christological revision of the tradition by focusing on his conception of Jesus Christ as both the subject and the object of election. It shows how Barth’s doctrine of election is connected to his doctrine of God, highlighting how Barth’s understanding of ‘God as the one who loves in freedom’ serves as the key to understanding his doctrine of election. Finally, it suggests a new approach to the current debate over Barth’s doctrine of election by seeing it as a version of the classical intellectualist–voluntarist debate.

ABSTRACT
 The purpose of this study is to have an overview of the theology of Karl Barth who is considered as one of the most influential theologians in contemporary Christian world. This study is of worthy in order to have an accurate grasp of the trend of modern Chriatian theology. After a brief survey of his life and works, this study provides an overview of Barth’s theology focusing on three major areas of his theology: the doctrines of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Barth’s emphasis upon the transcendence of God, the centrality of Jesus Christ in Christian theology, and the importance of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity should not be ignored for better understanding of the modern Christian theology. In a word, Barth’s theology has continuity of, and, at the same time, discontinuity from liberal theology.
 Keywords: Karl Barth, morder Christian theology, transcendence of God, centraliy of Jesus Christ, importance of the Holy Spirit, neo-orthodoxy, liberal theology

Artykuł ukazuje kluczowe aspekty chrystologicznego ujęcia nauki Karla Bartha na temat „człowieczeństwa Boga”. Autor dowodzi, iż w lustrze człowieczeństwa Jezusa Chrystusa objawia się włączone w Jego boskość człowieczeństwo Boga. To w Jezusie Chrystusie w zadziwiający sposób spotykają się kenosis i gloria, humanum i divinum, które w przestrzeni negocjacyjnej, jaką jest Jego Osoba, wzajemnie się wyjaśniają, przemawiając donośniej własnym głosem. Stąd punktem wyjścia do refleksji nad postawionym tematem jest przyjrzenie się formalnym podstawom uprawianej przez Bartha teologii. Centralne miejsce Jezusa Chrystusa – pod względem treści, formy i metody – uznawane jest za jeden z najważniejszych jej atrybutów. Swoją naukę o człowieczeństwie Boga, autor Die Kirchliche Dogmatik rozpoczyna od omówienia preegzystencji Jezusa Chrystusa za pomocą doktryny „łaskawego wyboru”, która stanowi zmodyfikowaną koncepcję jego wcześniejszej teologii trynitarnej. Mówi ona, że Bóg „od początku” jest ukierunkowany na człowieka, przypisując proludzki charakter Boskiego bycia i działania. W świetle barthiańskiej doktryny Jezus Chrystus, jako druga Osoba Trójcy, jest nie tylko „przedmiotem wyboru” (object of election), ale jest On także „wybierającym podmiotem” (the electing subject). Jako Pragnący wykonać zbawcze dzieło Ojca, stanowi uzasadnienie i gwarancję naszego zbawienia. Barth z całą stanowczością opowiada się za paradygmatem chrystologicznym Objawienia, stwierdzając, że wokół historii i dialogu, w którym Bóg i człowiek spotykają się razem i są ze sobą – wokół rzeczywistości obustronnie utrzymywanego i dokonanego związku – istnieje najpełniejsze otwarcie i wymiana. Dokonuje się ona w Osobie, ponieważ Jezus Chrystus jest w stopniu jedynym i najwyższym: prawdziwym Bogiem człowieka (Gott des Menschen) i prawdziwym Człowiekiem Bożym (Mensch Gottes). Wypowiedź o „człowieczeństwie Boga” – to Emmanuel, do którego zmierzamy z chrystologicznego centrum, mając na uwadze wypływajace z tego ruchu konsekwencje teologiczne i antropologiczne.

Karl Barth and Georges Florovsky interacted in several contexts, beginning in 1931 and then later within the ecumenical movement. Although some have noted a ‘Barthian’ accent in Florovsky's Christocentric theology, in fact both theologians remained critical of the other. Making use of extensive historical sources, this article attempts to reconstruct the meeting between Barth and Florovsky, and to pinpoint the areas of fundamental reservation and disagreement between the two. As will be shown, at the heart of their disagreement lay the role of eschatology in its impact on ecclesiology, a difference finally Christological in foundation. This fundamental disagreement shows itself likewise in relation to the two theologians' ideas concerning history, the relationship of philosophy to theology and the place of Hellenism in Church tradition. The role of Florovsky's opposition to the sophiology of Bulgakov in his interpretation of Barth, and Florovsky's stance vis-à-vis the debate between Barth and Brunner on natural theology, will also be considered. Uniquely, Florovsky anticipated the contemporary debate concerning Barth's doctrine of election, and drew crucial connections between Barth and Bulgakov on this point – an issue which for him was related to the question of the role of German Idealism in modern theology. Notwithstanding these disagreements, this article concludes by highlighting crucial areas of convergence between Barth and Florovsky concerning Christocentrism, revelation and theology as an enterprise in fides quaerens intellectum. Florovsky's ideas on analogy, naming and realism in theology will also be illumined, in relation to Barth and with reference to Bulgakov and Torrance.

Karl Barth's Theology as a Resource for a Christian Theology of Religions. By Sven Ensminger. London: Bloomsbury TT $29.95 (paper).Scholars working in the theology of religions field often pigeonhole Karl Barth as an exclusivist, because of his insistence on Jesus Christ as the norm and source of revelation and salvation. As Sven Ensminger notes, the pluralist John Hick, who conceives the various world religions as spokes pointing toward one transcendent reality, dismisses Barths corpus as a sublime bigotry inimical to interreligious dialogue and a global ethic (p. 60). Less tendentiously, perhaps, Gavin D'Costa reads Barth as inconsistently combining elements of exclusivism, pluralism, and inclusivism (the view that non-Christians might come to a saving faith in Jesus outside of an explicit faith commitment).Ensminger deconstructs such stereotypes through a careful and close reading of Barth's work. The Swiss Protestant theologian, he notes, never developed a complete theology of religions, despite a stated desire to do so one day. Consequently, interpreters have had to sift through seemingly isolated passages in Barths oeuvre to interpret his approach to non-Christian faiths. A trenchant critique of religion as a source of idolatry (in Church Dogmatics 1/2, par. 17), receives much attention-so much so, in fact, that Barth has sometimes been read as advocating a religionless Christianity similar to the proposal in Bonhoeffer s prison letters. Ensminger, however, drawing upon recent scholarship on this passage, reads it primarily as an intraecclesial critique of a Christian hubris that would cling to revelation as a birthright, rather than as a gift fostering charity toward religious outsiders. Also frequent grist for the mill is a passage from the later Barth (CD TV/3, par. 69) that discerns parables of die kingdom in secular culture-lesser lights outside the church that reflect Christ, the one true light.The key problem, as Ensminger ably demonstrates, is that interpreters have read Barth too narrowly and too selectively, focusing on diese two passages, along with Barths occasional comments on other religious traditions-for example, a fascinating excursus on the role of grace in Amida Buddhism. If one would engage Barth's interpretations of religion, one must read his work as a whole. To that end, Ensminger offers four chapters that deal, respectively, with Barth's doctrine of Christ die one revealer, the foundation for all that follows; his interpretation of the role of religion as the human face ingredient to die reception of revelation; his tiieological anthropology diat stresses the solidarity of all people in sin and grace; and his revisionist account of election as embracing all people, whether they realize it yet or not. …

This article considers Barth's views on punishment as demonstrated both in his work on the atonement and through his ministry with incarcerated persons. I examine his history in ministry with those in prison, his visits to prisons in the US, and conversations with prison chaplains, along with his discussion of God's punishment of the ‘one great sinner’. Though a forensic framing of Barth's account of the atonement has dominated interpretations of his soteriology, the apocalyptic elements in Barth's account of Christ's work provide a promising direction for those seeking an approach to atonement that does not rely on courtrooms as sites of justice or punishment as a path to reconciliation. Given Barth's interest in prisons and concern for the prisoner, I examine his views on punishment alongside current prison abolition movements. I find Barth's commitment to a useful function of punishment to be at odds with the abolitionist perspective, but I also see resources in his theology that are compatible with the abolitionist imagination. I read the apocalyptic pattern in Barth's theology as resonant with the spirit of abolition through a focus on accountability over individual guilt and the promise of radical change, that is the end of an old system and the imaginative creation of something entirely new.

Books reviewed:John W. Hart. Karl Barth vs. Emil Brunner. The Formation and Dissolution of a Theological Alliance, 1916–1936.Terry L. Cross. Dialectic in Karl Barth's Doctrine of God.Richard E. Burnett. Karl Barth's Theological Exegesis. The Hermeneutical Principals of the Römerbrief Period.Joseph L. Mangina. Karl Barth on the Christian Life: The Practical Knowledge of God.

As two of the arguably greatest theologians in church history, both John Calvin and Karl Barth have recognized the significant role of union with Christ and presented it in their works respectively. However, there is no study devoted specifically on the comparison of the two theologians' thoughts regarding this critical theme. This article will start from exploring Calvin and Barth's doctrine of election, the root of their theology of union with Christ. Karl Barth frankly admits that he has departed from Calvin radically on the doctrine of election. While vindicating Barth's assertion, this article further argues that Calvin and Barth's divergent understandings on the root of union with Christ are driven by their contrasting ontological presuppositions. The clarification of that rooted difference will pave the way for our future study of Calvin and Barth's distinctive characterizing of union with Christ.

Johnson investigates Karl Barth's critical appropriation of the doctrine of divine simplicity. While Barth is critical of traditional formulations of the doctrine, he understands himself to be refining the doctrine rather than rejecting it. Barth notes that Scripture attributes a diverse set of perfections to God in describing his salvific actions. These diverse perfections, however, have a fundamental unity: God does not contradict himself, but rather his perfections describe his unified, trustworthy agency. For this reason, we can know that in God's inmost being, God is not self‐contradictory but utterly unified or simple in his self‐fidelity. Johnson points out that a key element of Barth's doctrine of God is that it can never be the mere deduction of an abstract, transcendent entity; rather, it must begin with the transcendent God's relationship to creation, and therefore must begin with Jesus Christ, who reveals the true being of God. Johnson identifies three guidelines for speaking of Barth's doctrine: each one of God's perfections must be seen as perfections of his one divine being; God's one being does not exist above and behind his revealed perfections; and God's revealed perfections are essential to his divine nature. On this basis, Johnson explores what Barth has to say about the relationship between God's freedom and his self‐fidelity, including as this regards his freedom to live his one eternal life for us.

In the broad arena of Barth studies there has been surprisingly little done on Barth's view of evil. This book provides a comprehensive look at the peculiar ontology of evil within Barth's theological framework including the development of the concepts of evil in his early theology. It finds that Barth's most important treatment of evil is not found in his famous section on Das Nichtige, but rather in his Doctrine of God. The book's primary focus is on demonstrating that there are four dominant motifs that provide essential insight for proper understanding of his doctrine of evil. In analysing and critiquing these motifs this study provides the reader with a clearer understanding and appreciation of Barth's doctrine of evil. This book concludes with a construction of a Barthian theodicy, and drawing out implications for Christian preaching, counseling, and ethics.