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

2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-470
Author(s):  
Adrian Langdon
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Doctrine Of Election ◽  
The Cross ◽  
John's Gospel ◽  
Romans 8

AbstractTheologians seeking to respond to the ecological crisis seldom turn to the theology of Karl Barth as a resource. In fact, some suggest that his doctrine of God is too monarchical and leads to unnecessary hierarchies between God and humans, or between humans and the rest of nature. This article counters this trend and begins a dialogue with Barth, especially on the place of non-human nature in his thought. While agreeing with the substance of Barth's theology, it is argued a number of critical additions and revisions are appropriate, especially concerning his doctrine of election. The article first briefly outlines Barth's doctrine of election and then, second, examines various New Testament passages on election and non-human nature. This second section will examine the prologue of John's Gospel, Colossians 1:15–20 and Romans 8:18–23. As key texts in Barth's exposition, it will be noted how he passes over important connections between election and nature found in them. Guided by the green exegesis of Richard Bauckham, it will be argued that nature is not merely the stage for the drama between God and humanity but that it is also an object of God's election and thereby participates in reconciliation and redemption. The third part of the article suggests various points of commensurability, correction and addition to Barth's theology arising from the biblical material examined. This includes points concerning theological epistemology, the atonement, anthropology and the theology of nature. For example, Romans 8 suggests that creation groans in anticipation of redemption. Barth's view of the cross, especially the Son's taking up of human suffering, is extended to suggest that the cross is God's way of identifying with the suffering of nature and its anticipation of redemption, and not just human sin and salvation. The most important revision, however, is to be made to Barth's doctrine of election. It may be summarised as follows: in Jesus Christ, God elects the Christian community and individuals for salvation within the community of creation. The article concludes by suggesting areas of dialogue with other types of ecotheology, especially ecofeminist forms.

Jesus Christ in Martin Luther’s Theology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Zachhuber
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Theology Of The Cross ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Justification By Faith ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Trinity

Luther’s theology is strongly Christocentric, but Christology is rarely the central focus of his writings. In some of his most considered summaries of his own faith, he presents Chalcedonian Christology alongside the church’s teaching on the Trinity as the uncontroversial foundation of the Catholic faith, which he shared with his opponents. At the same time, it is evident that Luther’s most celebrated theological innovations, including his teaching on justification by faith, his theology of the cross, his soteriology, and in particular his doctrine of the Eucharist, had considerable Christological implications that sometimes seem at variance with received orthodoxy. Luther’s Christology must therefore be largely reconstructed from these various strands in his thought. The result is a distinctive albeit not systematic Christology that is focused on the paradoxical unity of divine and human in Christ. In this, Luther often appears close to the teaching of the Alexandrian fathers, but with a much fuller emphasis on the concrete humanity of the savior. His historical debt to late scholasticism is most evident in his few, albeit consequential, attempts to enter into the field of technical Christological doctrine, especially his affirmation in his controversy with Zwingli of the ubiquity of Christ’s human nature after the ascension.

scholarly journals Wie is die sondaar? Die beskouing van Karl Barth

1994 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
F. J. Van Zyl
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Previous Article ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Real Essence

Who is the sinner? The view of Karl Barth The previous article dealt with Barth’s view of the knowledge and real essence of sin, while this one focus on his view of the human being as sinner. In accordance with his christological approach to all theological matters, Barth presents us with a description of the image and character of the sinner as mirrored by the obedient suffering and death of Jesus Christ on the cross in the place of all sinners of all times - past, present and future. The price that God paid in surrendering his only Son to such suffering, indicates the enormous guilt and baseness of every sinner. Every human being is utterly insolvent and can only be delivered from sin through God’s graceful remission of siru

scholarly journals Who is the sinner? The view of Karl Barth

2007 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
F.J. Van Zyl
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
The Cross

This article focuses on Karl Barth’s view of the human being as sinner. In accordance with his christological approach to all theological matters, the article aims to argue that Barth describes the image and character of the sinner as mirrored by the obedient suffering and vicarious death of Jesus Christ on the cross in the place of all sinners of all times – past, present and future. According to Barth, the price that God paid in surrendering God’s only Son to such suffering indicates the enormous guilt and existence of every sinner. All human beings are hopelessly in debt and can only be delivered from sin through God’s graceful remission of sin.

scholarly journals ‘Jesus is victor’: passing the impasse of Barth on universalism

2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Greggs
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Doctrine Of Election ◽  
Pass Through

This article examines the question of Karl Barth's stance on universalism. Setting the question within the wealth of contradictory accounts of Barth on this issue, it seeks to find a way through the opposing views represented in the secondary literature. Following a brief examination of the doctrine of election which is the source of the charge of universalism, Barth's response to Berkouwer's The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth will be considered in detail. This passage helps to place Barth's own reaction to the charge of universalism in a broader framework than that of a simple denial or acceptance, and helps to highlight what Barth does and does not reject regarding universalism. It will be argued that it is the replacement of the person of Jesus Christ with a principle, rather than any limitation of the salvific work of God, that Barth rejects in rejecting apokatastasis. Barth's denial of universalism marks a dismissal of the problematic elements associated with the word, not a denial of the ultimate friendliness of Jesus Christ. The radical newness of Barth's own approach to universalism cannot be overemphasized, and marks the means by which one may pass through the impasse of differing accounts of Barth's eschatology.

Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ

2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin Chr. van Driel
Keyword(s):  
Internal Consistency ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Doctrine Of Election

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.

Election

2019 ◽  
pp. 308-324
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Aragon Bruce
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Doctrine Of Election ◽  
The One

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.

Karl Barth and the Latin Heresy

1986 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. F. Torrance
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
The Other ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Way Of Knowing ◽  
Father And Son

It was a fundamental principle of the great Athanasius that to approach God through the on and call him Father is amore devout and accurate way of knowing him than to approach him only through his works by tracing them back to him as their uncreated Source. To know the Father through his Incarnate Son who is of one and the same being as God is to know him strictly in accordance with what he is in his own being and nature as Father and Son, and as Holy Spirit, which is the godly and the theologically precise way. On the other hand, to seek knowledge of God from what he has created out of nothing would be to operate only from the infinite distance of thecreature to the Creator, where we can think and speak of God only in vague, imprecise and negative terms, for what God has created out of nothing does not tell us anything about who God is or what he is like in his own being. It is through God alone that we may know God in accordance Cross with his nature. We may know God in truth only as we are given access to him as Father through Jesus Christ his Incarnate Son and in his one Spirit, an access opened to us as we are brought near to God and are reconciled to him through the Cross (Ephesians 2.14–18).

Seek God where he may be found: a response to Edwin Chr. van Driel

2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce McCormack
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Logical Relation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Doctrine Of Election ◽  
The One

I would like to begin by expressing gratitude to Edwin van Driel for creating the conditions which make possible a genuine debate on the issues raised by my essay in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth. I have, of course, long been aware of Paul Molnar's (shall we say?) rather vigorous rejection of the position I took in that essay on the question of the logical relation of election to the triunity of God in Barth's ‘mature’ theology – i.e. subsequent to publishing his revised doctrine of election in CD II/2. If I have kept silence this long, it has not been without good reason. I was unwilling to respond to Molnar for two reasons. First, in his criticisms of my views, Molnar failed to engage the one point which would have been decisive for launching a serious ‘debate’, i.e. he made no attempt to explain the meaning of Barth's thesis that Jesus Christ is the subject of election or to show how his own reading of Barth is not called into question by that thesis. He simply set it aside as (apparently) unworthy of discussion and chose instead to merely insist on his own reading. It should go without saying that no real ‘debate’ can take place when the evidence brought forth to support a new proposal is passed over in silence. Less important was the second reason.

The Election of Jesus Christ

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-150
Author(s):  
Oliver Crisp
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Popular Belief ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
Doctrine Of Election

AbstractIn modern theology the election of Christ is often associated with the work of Karl Barth. In this paper, I offer an alternative account of Christ's election in dialogue with the Post-Reformation Reformed tradition. It turns out that, contrary to popular belief, there is no single 'Reformed' doctrine of election; a range of views has been tolerated in the tradition. I set out one particular construal of the election of Christ that stays within the confessional parameters of Reformed theology, while arguing, contrary to some Reformed divines, that Christ is the cause and foundation of election.

Historical Crucifixion: A Liberationist Response to Deep Incarnation

2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 892-912
Author(s):  
Michael E. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Cross

In light of the social-ecological crisis facing Puerto Rico, this article offers a response to deep incarnation theologies. Though it notes that deep incarnation offers a helpful account of divine presence and solidarity with all suffering creatures, the essay draws from liberationist theologians to argue that equating the cross with evolutionary death obscures the sinful causes of crucifixion. Ultimately, the essay insists that the notion of deep incarnation that addresses evolutionary suffering must be linked to a similarly “deep” notion of crucifixion rooted in historical reality.

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