In this fragment of the world there is detached from the world -- before the very eyes of men an in their actual hearing! -- something which gleams in the darkness and gives to the world a new brilliance; and this 'something' is -- Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased! -- God Himself, who willeth to draw the whole unto Himself, and to fashion a new heaven and a new earth. As yet we see but the image of this world and its dominion. Mighty it is, and lifted up, and very magnificent, terrible to behold, an image of gold and silver, or iron and clay and brass. But in the hidden Life of Jesus we see also the stone fashioned and detached, which smites the image upon its feet and, without any aid from human hands, breaks it into pieces. The whole image is crushed, and the wind carries it away like the chaff of the summer threshing floors. But the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth (Daniel 2:24-35). Satan as lightning is fallen from heaven, his dominion has ended; the Kingdom of God is at hand, and the heralds of His Kingdom are assuredly present.Karl Barth, Romans regarding ch3:24-25. pg104.
As we discovered in our exegesis of Barth’s excursus about Judas in CD II/2, Barth seemed to believe that God will allow a reconciled sinner to go on living the lie, without the knowledge of his or her reconciliation with God, into hell. Perhaps for Barth “hell” is this lie and the living of it.For the rest, enjoy it here.
Therefore, insofar as “saved” means living in the joy and blessing of fellowship with God, the personal decision of faith is necessary for salvation.
We are coming, then, to the conclusion that the controversy over whether Barth was a universalist or not comes down to a matter of semantics. (Which is not to say it’s unimportant.) Apparently, in spite of some confusing ways of expressing it, Barth believed in at least two distinct senses of being “saved.” One is the objective reconciliation with God extended to all people because of Jesus Christ and his life, death and resurrection. In that sense, because of election and atonement, all are saved. No personal decision of faith is required for it to be ontologically true and real. The other is the subjective fellowship with God enjoyed by those who, through a personal decision of faith, embrace their identity as reconciled persons. Such persons alone are “Christians.” But they alone are not “saved.” At least some, if not all, of those who reject their election and reconciliation, will, in spite of being saved, go to hell, understood either literally as Lewis’ painful refuge after death or figuratively as the lie lived in misery. Even they, however, are “saved” in the objective sense. And, according to Barth, based on the statement quoted earlier, God will continue to proclaim the kerygma to them, apparently with the hope and intention that they will somehow, sometime become saved in both senses.
Our thesis and conclusion agrees almost entirely with one of Barth’s most astute German interpreters Walter Kreck in his magisterial Grundentscheidungen in Karl Barths Dogmatik: Zur Diskussion seines Verständnisses von Offenbarung und Erwählung (roughly translated Basic Decisions in Karl Barth’s Dogmatics: Toward a Discussion of his Understanding of Revelation and Election). There, in the middle of an exposition and discussion of Barth’s doctrine of election, Kreck asked whether it leads to apokatastasis. He concluded that Barth did not want to draw that conclusion, but that it seems logically to follow from Barth’s doctrine of election.[15] On the other hand, Kreck also wrote that Barth rejected “speculating” (about ultimate reconciliation) and attempted to hold to the “open situation of proclamation” (in place of a doctrine of apokatastasis).[16] However, what Barth wanted and what Barth logically implied (as necessary) appear to be two different things.
The main contribution, if it can be called that, of this research project is that Barth was and was not a universalist. The solution is not sheer paradox, however. He was a universalist in the sense of everyone, all human persons, being reconciled to God, not just as something potential but as something actual from God’s side. He was not a universalist in the sense of believing that everyone, all human persons, will necessarily know and experience that reconciliation automatically, apart from any faith, having fellowship with God now or hereafter. Without doubt, however, he was a hopeful universalist in that second sense of the word.
"As the reconciliation of the world to God, the justification and sanctification of man, is the reality, and indeed the living and present reality in Jesus Christ the true Witness of its truth, a limit is set both to the falsehood of man and also to his decay and destruction, to the disintegration of his existence under the dominion of the pseudo-reality of that image. War is declared on them and they are checked. We cannot withdraw or erase anything that we have said concerning the process of disintegration. But we cannot describe it without recalling that its course is also determined and conditioned by the reality of God and man in Jesus Christ which is not affected by but resist it."It is somewhat difficult to avoid seeing the potential for a kind of universal salvation here, particularly in light of Barth's view on election and whatnot. Very interesting. What do you think?
Karl Barth, "Church Dogmatics" I.1 pg4."The question of truth, with which theology is concerned throughout, is the question as to the agreement of the Church's distinctive talk about God with the being of the church. The criterion of past, future and therefore present Christian utterance is thus the being of the Church, namely, Jesus Christ, God in His gracious revealing and reconciling address to man.
Does Christian utterance derive from Him?
Does it lead to Him?
Is it comfortable in Him?
None of these questions can be put apart, but each is to be put independently and with all possible force."
"Dogmatics is a theological discipline. But theology is a function of the Church. The Church confesses God as it talks about God. It does so first by its existence in the action of each individual believer. And it does so secondly by its specific action as a fellowship, in proclamation by preaching and the administration of the sacraments, in worship, in its internal and external mission including works of love amongst the sick, the weak and those in jeopardy."I love this.
"Faith, therefore, is never identical with 'piety', however pure and however delicate. In so far as 'piety' is a sign of the occurrence of faith, it is so as a dissolution of all other concrete things and supremely as the dissolution of itself. Faiths of its own, because it lives of God. this is the Centrum Pailinum (Bengel).Karl Barth, "The Epistle to the Romans" pg40, ch1 vv16-17
There is no man who ought not to believe or who cannot believe. Neither the Jew nor the Greek is disenfranchised from the Gospel. By setting a question-mark against the whole course of this world and its inevitability, the Gospel directly concerns every man. As surely as no one is removed from the universal questionableness of human life, so surely is no one excluded from the divine contradiction that is in Christ, by which this questionableness seeks to make itself known to men. The Jew, the religious and ecclesiastical man, is, it is true, FIRST summoned to make the choice; this is because he stands quite normally on the frontier of this world and at the point where the line of intersection by the new dimensional plane (i. 4) must be veritably seen (ii. 17-20; iii. I, 2; ix. 4, 5; x. 14, 15). But the advantage of the Jew provides him with no precedence. The problem 'Religion or Irreligion' -- not to speak of the problem 'Church of World' -- is not longer a fundamental problem. The possibility of hearing the Gospel is as universal as is the responsibility to hear it, and as is the promise vouchsafed to them who do hear it."
For, where the grace of God is, men participate in proclaiming the transformation of time and of things, the Resurrection--however reservedly and with whatever skepticism they proclaim it. Where the grace of God is, the existence of the world and the very existence of God become a question and a hope with which and for which men must wrestle.Karl Barth, "Romans" pg31, vv.4-7.
v. 13. And I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you--and was hindered hitherto--that I might [celebrate a harvest] among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.Karl Barth, "Romans" pg34, vv12-15.
Many times Paul had planned a visit to Rome to satisfy his own longing and the well-known longing of the Christians who lived there. But there were still places where no beginning had been made. And since his life's work was to plant in virgin soil (xv. 20-2), he had never been allowed to choose the road which lead to Rome. Nevertheless, it remained his desire and intention to reap where he had not sown, and to cultivate ground which others had already plowed. By the will of God (i. 10), however, this had not yet been possible.
"The man [Paul] who is now speaking is an emissary, bound to perform his duty; the minister of his King' a servant, not a master. However great and important a man Paul may have been, the essential theme of his mission is not within him but above him -- unapproachably distant and unutterably strange. His call to apostleship is not a familiar episode in his own personal history: 'The call to be an apostle is a paradoxical occurrence, lying always beyond his personal self-identity' (Kierkegaard).'"--Karl Barth, "Romans" pg 27 vv1-7.
Paul's position can be justified only as resting in God, and so only can his words be regarded as at all credible, for they are as incapable of direct apprehension as is God Himself. For this reason he dares to approach others and to demand a hearing without fear either of exalting himself or of approximating too closely to his audience. He appeals only to the authority of God. This is the ground of his authority. There is no other.Karl Barth, "The Epistle to the Romans," pg 28. vv 1-2. CH 1.
There is good reason for Paul's longing. When pilgrims on the road of God meet one another, they have something to say. A man by of value to another man, not because he wishes to be important , not because he possesses some inner wealth of soul, not because of something he is, but because of what he is--not. His importance may consist in his poverty, in his hopes and fears, in his waiting and hurrying, in the direction of his whole being towards what lies beyond his horizon and beyond his power. The importance of an apostle is negative rather than positive. In him a void becomes visible."--Karl Barth, "The Epistle to the Romans," pg 33. On vv. 11,12. CH. 1.
