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For Angela, Archie and Ella
Sine quibus non
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foreword
Francis Watson
ix
FOREWORD
x
acknowledgements
xi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Jonathan and Alastair, between them were a superb theological help and a
source of sustaining humour. Numerous friendships enriched my life
throughout: my thanks to Chris Asprey, Jonathan and Zoë Norgate, Ben
and Elizabeth Reynolds, Mark and Monica McDowell, Abe Kuruvilla,
Daniel Strange, and Paul Levy. The late Morton Gauld and his inimitable
teaching of Latin will always be fondly remembered. His untimely death
midway through my studies robbed many of us of a friend and the academic
community in Aberdeen of one of its most gifted and entertaining teachers.
Ubinam parem inveniemus?
My postgraduate studies at King’s College London and Aberdeen were
funded in full by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) which
also provided for a period of research at Princeton Theological Seminary
and Westminster Theological Seminary in the USA. As well as allowing me
to mine two excellent libraries for hard to obtain material, this trip led to
conversations with Bruce McCormack, George Hunsinger, and Richard
Gaffin which were extremely formative and opened up new avenues of
thought. My thanks also to Clifford Anderson, Jason and Shannon Santos,
Sandy and Linda Finlayson, and Carl and Catriona Trueman for their help
during that time.
My deepest thanks, however, are reserved for my wife, Angela. My closest
companion, my delight in ways that words cannot express, she has sup-
ported, encouraged and cheered me at every stage. This work is as much
hers as it is mine, for my life bears the impress of her selfless love and care.
She daily teaches me the gospel; the heart of her husband trusts in her. Our
son, Archie William, arrived to upset the thesis wonderfully and our daugh-
ter, Ella Ruth, came later to delay the book. To each of them this work is
most affectionately and gratefully dedicated.
xii
abbreviations
xiii
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1
Introduction
This book examines the relationship between Christology and election in
the Reformed theological tradition. The relationship is probed by exploring
its presence and function in the work of an early modern theologian (John
Calvin, 1509–64) and a late modern theologian (Karl Barth, 1886–1968).
It is an exercise in historical theology with a focus on theological issues as
they present themselves in the biblical interpretation of both figures. I argue
that the exegetical presentations of Christology and election in Calvin and
Barth expose a contrasting set of relationships between these doctrinal loci
in each theologian. I also argue that this differing relationship between Chris-
tology and election in both theologians can be seen to flow from, and to
inform, two contrasting approaches to the interpretation of Scripture.
This first chapter proceeds along the following lines. First, I sketch the
contours of the relationship between Christology and election in Calvin and
Barth. This leads to an argument for conceptual distinctions in their think-
ing which provide an analytical tool for grasping the differences between
them in this area. Second, an account is offered of why this difference should
be approached by examining their exegesis, and it is suggested that these
conceptual christological distinctions are reflected in similar distinctions in
their hermeneutical approaches to the biblical texts. The remainder of the
chapter engages with the complexities of comparing Calvin and Barth and
their work, and provides an outline of the rest of the book.
1
READING THE DECREE
1
CD II/2, p. 60; KD II/2, p. 64.
2
G. C. Berkouwer, Divine Election (trans. H. Bekker; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960),
p. 135.
3
CD II/2, p. 65; KD II/2, p. 70.
4
Ibid., p. 65; pp. 69–70.
5
Berkouwer argues that if the Reformed tradition always held Scripture as the boundary
of reflection on election, then it also held Christology itself as an ‘accentuated boundary’
within that circumference (Divine Election, pp. 7–27).
2
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
6
R. A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed
Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008; first printed 1986),
pp. 27–28.
7
Ibid., p. 28.
8
Inst. II.xii.1, p. 464; OS 3, p. 437.
9
P. Jacobs, Prädestination und Verantwortlichkeit bei Calvin (Neukirchen: Buchhand-
lung des Erziehungsvereins Neukirchen Kr. Moers, 1937), p. 73 (my translation).
3
READING THE DECREE
10
W. Niesel, The Theology of Calvin (trans. H. Knight; London: Lutterworth, 1956),
p. 164. B. McCormack argues that Niesel’s 1938 work was actually the most influential
in spearheading a reappraisal of Calvin which argued for the christocentric nature of
his doctrine of election; cf. ‘Christ and the Decree: An Unsettled Question for the
Reformed Churches Today’, in L. Quigley (ed.), Reformed Theology in Contemporary
Perspective (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 2006), pp. 124–142.
11
F. Wendel, Calvin: The Origins and Development of His Religious Thought (trans.
P. Mairet; New York: Harper and Row, 1950), p. 274.
12
Muller, Christ and the Decree, pp. 37–38.
13
S. Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004),
p. 148.
14
Muller, Christ and the Decree, p. 35.
4
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
15
CD II/2, p. 94; KD II/2, p. 101.
16
Ibid., p. 75; p. 81.
17
J. Webster, Barth (London/New York: Continuum, 2000), p. 88.
18
B. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and
Development 1909–1936 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), pp. 453–454; cf. also J. K.
Riches, ‘What is a “Christocentric” Theology?’, in S. W. Sykes and J. P. Clayton (eds),
Christ, Faith and History: Cambridge Studies in Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1972), pp. 223–238.
5
READING THE DECREE
19
R. A. Muller, ‘A Note on “Christocentrism” and the Imprudent Use of Such Termino-
logy’, WTJ 68.2 (2006), pp. 253–260.
20
Ibid., p. 254.
21
Ibid., p. 257; cf. Muller’s ‘Preface to the 2008 Printing’ of Christ and the Decree: ‘Rather
than attempting to match the christocentrism of the second-generation Reformers to
the christocentrism of the early orthodoxy, I would identify the issue of christocentrism
for what it is – an anachronistic overlay of neo-orthodox dogmatic categories – and set
it aside as useless for the discussion’ (p. x).
22
R. A. Muller, After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 97–98. The reference to W. Kickel is to his
Vernunft und Offenbarung bei Theodor Beza (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1967);
cf. also ‘A Note on “Christocentrism”’ where the distinctions are further explicated, this
time with the addition of ‘prototypical’ or ‘teleological’ christocentrism (pp. 255–256).
6
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
23
Muller’s use of E. TeSelle, Christ in Context: Divine Purpose and Human Possibility
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), is in danger of adopting TeSelle’s lack of attention to the
significant differences that separate Barth’s christocentrism from that of his liberal
Protestant forebears. Also, by seeking to rescue the theologies of the Reformed ortho-
dox from the ‘central dogma’ thesis but in turn imputing this to Barth (After Calvin,
p. 97), he runs the risk of collapsing his helpful ‘principial’ terminology into the mis-
leading conception of Barth’s theology as built on a principle from which a system can
be deduced. Cf. M. Cortez, ‘What Does It Mean to Call Karl Barth a “Christocentric”
Theologian?’, SJT 60.2 (2007), pp. 127–143.
7
READING THE DECREE
24
CD II/2, p. 149; KD II/2, p. 161.
25
Ibid., p. 149; p. 162.
26
K. Barth, How I Changed My Mind (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1969), p. 43.
27
Ibid. Cf. H. Hartwell’s comment: ‘The Church Dogmatics is wholly Christological in
the sense that in it . . . every theological proposition has as its point of departure
Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, in the unity of his person and
work. This Christological concentration of the Church Dogmatics and indeed of
Barth’s theology as a whole, is “unparalleled in the history of Christian thought.”’
(The Theology of Karl Barth: An Introduction [London: Duckworth & Co. Ltd,
1964]), pp. 15–16.
28
CD I/2, p. 123; KD I/2, p. 135. ‘In his theology there is no Christology as such; on the
other hand it is all Christology . . . Barth’s theology as a whole and in every part is
determined by its relation to Jesus Christ, his being and action, so that one cannot
detach any aspect of it from its christological basis.’ J. Thompson, Christ in Perspective:
Christological Perspectives in the Theology of Karl Barth (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew
Press, 1978), p. 1.
8
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
29
McCormack, Critically Realistic, p. 454. For further discussion of McCormack’s defini-
tion, see Cortez, ‘What Does It Mean to Call Karl Barth a “Christocentric” Theologian?’
30
Cf. the discussion in H. Kirschstein, Der Souveräne Gott und die Heilige Schrift:
Einführung in die Biblische Hermeneutik Karl Barths (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 1998),
pp. 20–23. My argument is in agreement with P. Lange ‘that in Barth’s Dogmatics there
is no place for a conceptually formulated principle of theology’ (cited in Kirschstein,
p. 23, my translation). A conceptually formulated christological principle might entail
seeing other doctrinal loci as deducible from the principle; but ‘principial christocen-
trism’ as I am using the phrase means only that other doctrinal loci are interpreted in
light of the encounter with the God revealed in Jesus; cf. also the observations in
Thompson, Christ in Perspective, pp. 4–7.
31
CD I/2, p. 133 (emphasis added); KD I/2, p. 147.
32
Muller, After Calvin, p. 98.
9
READING THE DECREE
33
D. R. Sharp, The Hermeneutics of Election: The Significance of the Doctrine in Barth’s
Church Dogmatics (Lanham: University Press of America, 1990), p. 2. Cf. ‘Viewed
dogmatically, christology is the basis, context and hermeneutic for election. However,
this is possible in dogmatic construction only because actually, originally, and ontically,
the movement is from God’s being and primal act of decision (Subject) to the execution
and revelation of the decision in the reality of Jesus Christ as fully God and fully
human (object). Thus in reality, election is the constitutive basis, context and herme-
neutic for christology’ (ibid., pp. 56–57).
34
The most substantial expression of his argument appears in ‘Grace and Being: The Role
of God’s Gracious Election in Karl Barth’s Theological Ontology’, in J. Webster (ed.),
The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000), pp. 92–110. However, see also: ‘For Us and Our Salvation: Incarnation and
Atonement in the Reformed Tradition’ (Studies in Reformed Theology and History 1.2;
Princeton Theological Seminary, 1993); ‘Barths grundsätzlicher Chalkedonismus?’,
Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie 18 (2002), pp. 138–173; ‘The Ontological
Presuppositions of Barth’s Doctrine of the Atonement’, in C. E. Hill and F. A. James III
(eds), The Glory of the Atonement (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004), pp. 346–366; ‘Christ
and the Decree: An Unsettled Question’; ‘Seek God Where He May be Found:
A Response to Edwin Chr. van Driel’, SJT 60.1 (2007), pp. 62–79.
10
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
35
Cf. D. K. McKim (ed.), Calvin and the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006). Although sadly lacking a bibliography, the chapters in this volume provide an
orientation to scholarship in this area; cf. also J. L. Thompson, ‘Calvin as a Biblical
Interpreter’, in D. McKim (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 58–73.
36
J. K. S. Reid, ‘The Office of Christ in Predestination’, SJT 1.1 (1948), pp. 5–19; 1.2
(1948), pp. 166–183. A similar neglect of Calvin’s commentaries on this issue with dis-
torting results appears in F. S. Clarke, ‘Christocentric Developments in the Reformed
Doctrine of Predestination’, Churchman 98.3 (1984), pp. 229–245.
37
For further criticisms of Reid, cf. Berkouwer, Divine Election, pp. 141–145; C. Gunton,
‘Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Election as Part of His Doctrine of God’, in Theology through
the Theologians: Selected Essays 1972–1995 (London/New York: T & T Clark, 1996),
pp. 88–104.
11
READING THE DECREE
and Prov. 16.4 are ‘key texts for the concept of double predestination’ in
Calvin. He proceeds to comment on Calvin’s use of them:
Van der Kooi may or may not be correct as regards the challenge to Calvin
from contemporary biblical research, but the substance of his assertion is
certainly misguided. The most serious shortcoming is the lack of any refer-
ence to Calvin’s Romans commentary. As we will see, Calvin’s exegesis of
Romans 9–11 cannot at all be described as ‘purely individualistic’, and the
category of covenant functions there as arguably his most important herme-
neutical concept.39 When Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is criticized on
the basis of what he should have said exegetically, and it turns out that this
is what Calvin actually did include in his exegesis, then it can only mean that
the understanding of what is being criticized is skewed. If, as I will argue,
Calvin understands Romans 9–11 to describe election as ‘a category of
sacred history’ and to deal with ‘the question of how God will remain true
to his promises and his covenant’, then our understanding of Calvin’s
theology is enhanced by wrestling with how he held covenantal convictions
about the election of Israel and the church alongside convictions about
personal salvation and double predestination.40 At best, van der Kooi’s com-
ments alert us to the issue of how Calvin’s commentary exegesis should be
read alongside his exegetical comments in the Institutes by asking whether
Calvin’s aim in using a text in both locations is always the same. At worst,
38
C. van der Kooi, As in a Mirror: John Calvin and Karl Barth on Knowing God (Leiden:
Brill, 2005), p. 164. This criticism of Calvin is a particular example of the general
criticism made by Barth of ‘the decisive exegetical error’ of the classical doctrine
of predestination; cf. CD II/2, p. 221; KD II/2, pp. 243–244. For a similar analysis,
cf. W. Kreck, Grundentscheidungen in Karl Barths Dogmatik: Zur Diskussion seines
Verständnisses von Offenbarung und Erwählung (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener
Verlag, 1978), p. 245.
39
Calvin appeals to the covenant 39 times in his commentary on Romans 9–11; cf. P. A.
Lillback, The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), p. 210.
40
As Lillback suggests, Calvin’s covenant-saturated interpretation of Romans 9–11
provides a serious challenge to the view, prevalent since Dorner, that covenant theology
was birthed by the critical reaction to Calvin’s rigid predestinarianism (ibid., p. 211).
12
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
41
This view of Calvin is widespread. T. Eskola argues that there is a close dependence
between exegesis and dogmatic questions on the issue of predestination and that one
of the most influential dogmatic positions has been that of Calvin; cf. Theodicy and
Predestination in Pauline Soteriology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998). Statements like
the following, however, are problematic: ‘It is probably justified to say that Calvin, with
his teaching of double predestination, drew the ultimate conclusions from the predesti-
narian statements of Augustine’ (p. 180). Such a construal ignores the instances where
Calvin explicitly departs from Augustine (for example, on reprobation as merely fore-
known). More importantly, it offers a misleading account of the way exegesis and
dogmatics are related in Calvin’s own position by underplaying Calvin’s stress on
deriving his doctrine from Scripture in a way which eschews determinism.
42
For an excellent example of this kind of project, see B. Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could
See: Calvin’s Doctrine of Faith in Its Exegetical Context (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999).
43
R. A. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Formation of a Theological
Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 6.
44
Cf. C. Baxter, ‘The Nature and Place of Scripture in the Church Dogmatics’, in
J. Thompson (ed.), Theology Beyond Christendom: Essays on the Centenary of the
Birth of Karl Barth (Allison Park: Pickwick Publications, 1986), pp. 33–62; idem,
‘Barth – A Truly Biblical Theologian?’, Tyndale Bulletin 38 (1987), pp. 3–27.
13
READING THE DECREE
45
See especially R. E. Burnett, Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis: The Hermeneutical
Principles of the Römerbrief Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004); cf. also
J. Webster, ‘Karl Barth’, in J. P. Greenman and T. Larsen (eds), Reading Romans through
the Centuries (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005), pp. 205–223; idem, ‘The Resurrec-
tion of the Dead’, in Barth’s Earlier Theology (London/New York: Continuum, 2005),
pp. 67–90; D. Wood, ‘“Ich sah mit Staunen”: Reflections on the Theological Substance
of Barth’s Early Hermeneutics’, SJT 58.2 (2005), pp. 184–198.
46
Kirschstein, Der Souveräne Gott und die Heilige Schrift; W. Lindemann, Karl Barth und
die kritische Schriftauslegung (Hamburg-Bergstedt: Herbert Reich-Evangelischer
Verlag, 1973); D. Wood, Barth’s Theology of Interpretation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).
47
B. Bourgine, L’herméneutique théologique de Karl Barth. Exégèse et dogmatique dans
le quatrième volume de la Kirchliche Dogmatik (Leuven: Leuven University Press,
2003).
48
J. Colwell, ‘Perspectives on Judas: Barth’s Implicit Hermeneutic’, in A. N. S. Lane (ed.),
Interpreting the Bible: Historical & Theological Studies in Honour of David F. Wright
(Leicester: Apollos, 1997), pp. 163–180; M. K. Cunningham, What is Theological
Exegesis? Interpretation and Use of Scripture in Barth’s Doctrine of Election (Pennsyl-
vania: Trinity Press International, 1995); E. Buess, ‘Zur Präedestinationslehre Karl
Barths’, Theologische Studien 43 (1955), pp. 5–64; G. Gloege, ‘Zur Prädestinationsle-
hre Karl Barths’, Kerygma und Dogma 2 (July 1956), pp. 193–217; (October 1956),
pp. 233–255; Kreck, Grundentscheidungen in Karl Barths Dogmatik; P. McGlasson,
Jesus and Judas: Biblical Exegesis in Barth (AAR Academy Series 72; Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1990); Sharp, The Hermeneutics of Election.
49
Cunningham, What is Theological Exegesis?, p. 14.
50
McGlasson, Jesus and Judas, p. 47.
14
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
51
Sharp, Hermeneutics of Election, p. 130 n. 25.
52
For other criticisms of Sharp, cf. S. McDonald, ‘Barth’s “Other” Doctrine of Election in
the Church Dogmatics’, IJST 9.2 (2007), pp. 134–147.
15
READING THE DECREE
53
Webster, Barth, p. 88.
54
J. Webster, ‘Hermeneutics in Modern Theology: Some Doctrinal Reflections’, SJT 51
(1998), pp. 307–341 (p. 309). Contra such approaches, Webster suggests that ‘theologi-
cal hermeneutics will be confident and well-founded if it says much of the reality which
is the axiom of all Christian life and thought, the living, speaking presence of the living
Jesus Christ’ (p. 317).
16
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
55
F. B. Watson, Text, Church and World: Biblical Interpretation in Theological Perspec-
tive (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), p. 222.
56
Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 187.
57
Cf. ibid., p. 14.
58
Cf. esp. Muller, ‘A Note on “Christocentrism”’, pp. 257–258; cf. Edmondson’s brief
criticisms of Muller’s reticence to claim the relevance of Calvin for modern theological
discussion (Calvin’s Christology, p. x).
59
Wood, Barth’s Theology of Interpretation, p. xiv.
60
Ibid.
17
READING THE DECREE
61
I limit myself to three, but there are further grounds for exploring connections between
Calvin and Barth. T. H. L. Parker comments on the significance of Barth’s Second
World War context: ‘It is not irrelevant to Calvin-studies that the confessing church
turned so eagerly to Luther and Calvin, men who spoke the word needed for strength-
ening. One can no longer write about Calvin as if he had played no part in the “German
church struggle”’; cf. John Calvin: A Biography (Oxford: Lion, 2006), p. 7.
62
J. Webster, ‘“In the Shadow of Biblical Work”: Barth and Bonhoeffer on Reading the
Bible’, Toronto Journal of Theology 17 (2001), pp. 75–91 (p. 78). E. Busch records how
during this time Barth became so preoccupied with Calvin that he had to abandon a
planned series of lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews; cf. Karl Barth: His Life from
Letters and Autobiographical Texts (trans. J. Bowden; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994),
p. 138; cf. also p. 143.
63
K. Barth, The Theology of John Calvin (trans. G. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1995).
64
Ibid., p. 389.
18
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
If Barth felt like this about his doctrine of election as it stood in 1924–1925,
then the personal reflection on his mature exposition of election in CD II/2
(1942) is not surprising: ‘To think of the contents of this volume gives me
much pleasure, but even greater anxiety.’67 However much Barth may have
felt he was departing from the Reformed tradition in the Göttingen Dog-
matics, it was nothing compared to the colossal shift which appears in II/2
of the Church Dogmatics. His treatment of election in Göttingen contains
notable similarities to the Calvinian tradition of Pauline exegesis (Rom. 9
‘teaches eternal, unconditional twofold predestination’68), with the stated
deviation being the account of temporality. Here Barth rejects a concept of
election as a decree occurring in a pretemporal past to save a ‘fixed number’.
He prefers instead an actualistic understanding of election whereby God is
involved in a continual interaction with individuals in the present as part of
the divine decision of electing and rejecting.69 But by 1942 everything is
different. In CD II/2 Barth explicitly rejects not just his earlier moment-by-
moment actualism in offering a more complex account of eternity and time,
but also the classical landscape of eternal, individual, double predestination.
While wishing to stand in the Reformed tradition and adopt many of its
foundational premises, Barth now expounds his radical re-orientation of the
65
Webster, ‘Barth and Bonhoeffer on Reading the Bible’, p. 78.
66
K. Barth, The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion (ed. H. Reiffen;
trans. G. Bromiley; vol. 1; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 453 (hereafter GD).
67
CD II/2, p. x; KD II/2, p. vii.
68
GD, p. 453.
69
S. McDonald argues that this doctrine of election remains influential for Barth in the
volumes of Church Dogmatics prior to II/2; cf. ‘Barth’s “Other” Doctrine of Election’,
pp. 134–147.
19
READING THE DECREE
This study does not examine Barth’s relationship to Calvin.71 But the depth
of his indebtedness to Calvin in the reading of the Bible and the doctrine of
election makes comparison of their exegesis interesting and worthwhile, if
for no other reason than after benefiting from Calvin so extensively Barth’s
interpretation of Scripture on election was to come to differ so radically.
These two points, however, combine to suggest a third decisive reason for
why comparison of Calvin and Barth is valid. If Calvin influenced Barth
both as biblical interpreter and as theologian, then what truly forges a con-
nection between them is the fact that, in different centuries, their exegesis of
election is a reading of the same text: Holy Scripture. That is to say, their
differences in context are actually bridged by the biblical text so that one
can point to this in common between them above and beyond their contex-
tual particularities. Understood in this way, their different historical locations
do not render a comparison fruitless but rather add focus to the nature of
the comparison itself. Why is it that the one set of texts come to be read in
such strikingly different ways? This means that the kind of comparison
which Muller wishes to press (soteriological–principial) is further sharpened
by attending to the fact that this theological distinction contains within it a
hermeneutical distinction (extensive–intensive) which cannot be explained
solely in terms of divergence and separation between Calvin and Barth. Why
is Barth’s christocentrism best rendered as principial, and his hermeneutics
of election best rendered as christologically intensive, when his doctrine of
70
CD II/2, p. x; KD II/2, p. vii.
71
Cf. S. W. Chung, Admiration and Challenge: Karl Barth’s Theological Relationship
with John Calvin (Bern: Peter Lang, 2003). In comparing Calvin and Barth I have
found it necessary at certain points to diverge from Barth’s own reading of Calvin.
To follow his judgements in every case would not always place us on the right path.
However, this book reads Barth and reads Calvin; not Barth on Calvin, or Calvin
through Barth, despite partially following the outline of Barth’s topical arrangement.
The extent to which Barth’s reading of Calvin is warranted is not the focus of this work
as my concern is to present two different readings of Scripture on election in the
Reformed tradition. Of course, the issues are not always separated so easily.
20
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
72
Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 108.
73
Ibid., especially pp. 101–158.
74
E. A. McKee, ‘Exegesis, Theology, and Development in Calvin’s Institutio: A Methodo-
logical Suggestion’, in McKee and B. G. Armstrong (eds), Probing the Reformation:
Historical Studies in Honor of Edward A. Dowey, Jr. (Louisville: Westminster John
Knox, 1989), pp. 154–174; idem, ‘Some Reflections on Relating Calvin’s Exegesis and
Theology’, in M. S. Burrows and P. Rorem (eds), Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical
Perspective: Studies in Honor of Karlfried Froehlich on His Sixtieth Birthday (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 215–226.
75
Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology, especially pp. 40–48; idem, ‘The Biblical Historical
Structure of Calvin’s Institutes’, SJT 59.1 (2006), pp. 1–13.
21
READING THE DECREE
76
McKee, ‘Exegesis, Theology, and Development’, p. 156.
77
The Battles edition notes some of the changes that were made to this preface as
a whole during the development of the Institutes (pp. 3–5). On the function of Calvin’s
prefaces, see S. Jones, Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety (Louisville: Westminster
John Knox, 1995), pp. 46–86; cf. her discussion of the development of the 1539 preface
(pp. 51–52).
78
Inst. ‘John Calvin to the Reader’, pp. 4–5; Institutio (1539); cf. OS 3, 6.
79
Cf. R. Gamble, ‘Brevitas et Facilitas: Toward an Understanding of John Calvin’s
Hermeneutic’, WTJ 47.1 (1985), pp. 1–17; idem, ‘Exposition and Method in Calvin’,
WTJ 49.1 (1987) pp. 153–165; idem, ‘Calvin as Theologian and Exegete: Is There
Anything New?’, CTJ 23 (1988), pp. 178–194; cf. also F. Büsser, ‘Bullinger as Calvin’s
22
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
23
READING THE DECREE
24
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
where the christological focus on the ultimate end of scriptural interpretation is clear
(ibid., pp. 26–27). Cf. also Holder, John Calvin, who presents similar but more quali-
fied arguments, and without Niesel’s Barthian presuppositions (pp. 139–180).
86
Muller argues that the characterizations of Calvin’s thought as christocentric have
tended to come from scholars intent on rescuing his thought from ‘a metaphysically
controlled predestinarianism’ (‘A Note on “Christocentrism”’, p. 259). Niesel’s work
falls into this category. The intention is laudable; the execution requires considerable
qualification.
87
Cf. the observations in this regard by F. B. Watson, ‘The Bible’, in Webster (ed.),
The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, pp. 57–71.
88
McCormack, Critically Realistic.
89
Ibid., pp. 453–463.
90
K. Barth, ‘Foreword’, in P. Maury, Predestination and Other Papers (trans. E. Hudson;
London: SCM, 1960), pp. 15–16.
25
READING THE DECREE
Election’,91 and McCormack is certainly right to say that ‘These lectures set
forth the basic viewpoints which would govern the massive treatment of the
theme of election in Church Dogmatics II/2.’92
It can be argued, however, that such an account with its compelling pres-
entation of how the actualism of Barth’s doctrine of revelation became
married in the closest possible way to a christological account of election,
tends to contain within it ‘the marginalization of the scriptural impulse in
Barth’.93 The result is that the development in Barth’s thinking is invariably
presented as the discovery of a christological method, over and above an
exegetical development and discovery of a confluence of Christology, revela-
tion and election which would bring significant changes to bear on the
presentation of the doctrine of election.
A similar approach is present in Matthias Gockel’s account of Barth’s
development.94 His study offers no discussion of the possible effects of
Barth’s biblical exegesis during this period. Gockel does argue that Barth’s
radical interpretation of Jn 1.1–2 in CD II/2 (1942) ‘is not simply the result
of the retrospective attempt to find exegetical backing for the christological
revision’, precisely because this view can be found in Barth as early as 1925.95
But the significance of this observation is underplayed. As we will see, in
1942 Barth would argue for an understanding of Jn 1.1–2 which would
draw the Jesus of history into the triune identity in a way which would
have significant effects on his revised doctrine of election. But might the fact
that in 1925 Barth was able to say that ‘the only possibility’ for the interpre-
tation of ou-toj in Jn 1.2 is that ‘he, Jesus . . . was in the beginning’ mean that
there are clear biblical precedents in his thought for the line of development
he would come to pursue after 1936?96 This is not to deny the radical new
insights Barth was to achieve. But it does indicate more than merely back-
ground significance to his constant engagement with the biblical materials.
This much resonates with Barth’s later explicit claim in the Preface to his
mature doctrine of election: ‘As I let the Bible itself speak to me on these
matters, as I meditated upon what I seemed to hear, I was driven irresistibly
to reconstruction.’97
91
K. Barth, Gottes Gnadenwahl (Theologische Existenz heute, 47; Zurich: EVZ, 1936).
92
McCormack, Critically Realistic, p. 458.
93
Wood, Barth’s Theology of Interpretation, p. 2; cf. his discussion of McCormack’s
work, pp. 2–4.
94
M. Gockel, Barth & Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election: A Systematic-
Theological Comparison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 158–197.
Gockel’s account has contributed to McCormack’s recent modification of his develop-
mental paradigm; cf. ‘Seek God Where He May be Found’, p. 64.
95
Gockel, Barth & Schleiermacher, p. 170.
96
K. Barth, Witness to the Word: A Commentary on John 1 (trans. G. W. Bromiley; Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 29.
97
CD II/2, p. x; KD II/2, p. vii.
26
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
98
In this study, Barth’s theology of interpretation is restricted to its expression in the
Church Dogmatics, as this provides the material most closely to hand for examining
his exegesis of election. Undoubtedly there are precedents for this even as far back as
Barth’s ‘Die neue Welt’ lecture in 1917, but it is left to others to explore the connec-
tions. See especially Kirschstein, Der Souveräne Gott; Lindemann, Karl Barth und die
kritische Schriftauslegung; Wood, Barth’s Theology of Interpretation.
27
READING THE DECREE
between covenant and election. For Barth, because Jesus Christ himself is
the subject of election, then the heart of the covenant is that God wills
fellowship with himself for man and wills the place of sinful man for him-
self. It is this determination at the heart of the divine life which necessitates
a two-fold form to the community and which thus creates a principial chris-
tological framework for Barth’s interpretation of Romans 9–11. The election
of Israel occurs for the sake of the Son of God; this is an explicitly theologi-
cal basis to Barth’s strong exegetical typology. Calvin’s understanding of the
covenant history likewise reflects his understanding of Christology. For him,
Christ is the head of his people, but this union between Christ and the elect
does not mean that the flow of redemptive history is a mirror image of the
humiliated and exalted Christ. Rather, for Calvin, union with Christ is effec-
tive only for the salvifically elect, and this points to his distinction between
a general and a special election. Christology is notably absent from large
sections of Calvin’s treatment of Romans 9–11. Given that Calvin under-
stands the logic of Paul’s argument to be the exposition of the eternal decree,
Christology’s recession into the background strengthens my argument that
Calvin’s form of christocentrism is one which is focused above all on the
economy of salvation rather than the eternal grounds of that salvation.
Chapters 2 and 3 hint at the way in which exegesis and theology are
related for Calvin and Barth. Chapter 4 turns from the theological distinc-
tion to the hermeneutical distinction. Here I offer an account of both
theologians’ theology of interpretation as it sheds light on their exegesis of
election. I do this for Calvin by showing how the Institutes works as itself a
reading of Scripture which emphasizes Christology in the exposition of
salvation-history and so impacts directly on the way in which election should
be read in Scripture. Calvin’s hermeneutics here are christocentric in a way
which may be described as extensive – no aspect of redemptive history is left
outside Christology’s reach. For Barth, I examine in detail his own observa-
tions on his hermeneutical approach in CD II/2 and explore the significant
connections between this material and his earlier reflections on biblical
interpretation. Such a study reveals that Barth’s aim is to make the reading
of Scripture as intensively christological as possible.
In this way, Chapter 4 is an attempt to stand back and consider the rela-
tionship between Calvin’s and Barth’s contrasting exegetical constructions
and their wider theological projects. Construing the hermeneutics of elec-
tion in this way is a deliberate move. The argument is that Calvin and Barth
read election in Scripture in a way which is best understood within a matrix
of theological doctrines (revelation, Scripture, Christology), rather than
within a range of more typical hermeneutical descriptions that are often
closer to hand, but which can submerge their exegesis under a weight of
conceptual abstractions and remove it from the stated aims both theolo-
gians intended it to fulfil. The differing functions of Christology in their
election exegesis is reflected in the way that both Christology and election
28
CALVIN, BARTH AND CHRISTOCENTRISM
99
Throughout, I have gratefully made use of and cited standard English translations of
Calvin and Barth. The translations quoted here, however, are my own responsibility
and are based on my own reading of the original texts. Accordingly, the translations
have been modified in some places without comment, while in other instances notable
problems in the standard translations have been recorded. Full citation details or stand-
ard abbreviations of every text in both translation and original are provided at each
point in the appropriate place.
29
2
Introduction
The previous chapter sketched an outline of the different understandings of
the relationship between Christology and election in Calvin and Barth.
Calvin’s theology allows us to speak of Christ and the decree, but Barth’s
theology to say that Christ is the decree. This chapter focuses on the exact
nature of the contrast between these phrases, and explores how this contrast
is evidenced in Calvin’s and Barth’s biblical exegesis of election. Examining
the explicit connections between Christology and election in both interpret-
ers yields three main results.
First, the patient work of a thick description will reveal why both of their
respective doctrines of election may be described as christocentric. This
establishes a similarity between both theologians. But secondly, precisely in
this description of their christocentric doctrines of election, we will see a
conceptual distinction emerging. Calvin’s doctrine of election is best described
as christocentric in the soteriological sense: although in his theology election
is connected to Christology in the realm of the inscrutable divine decree, the
weight of his treatment falls on the nexus of ideas associated with the preach-
ing of the gospel, the Spirit’s call and the response of faith in the Mediator.
By having more to say about election’s connection to Christ in this temporal
realm of faith and obedience, Calvin’s doctrine of election is an example of
his soteriological christocentrism. By contrast, we will see that the opposite
is true of Barth. The connection of election to Christology is not primarily to
be found in something that God does (issue a decree) but rather, in the person
of Jesus Christ, election describes who God is (turned toward us in his self-
determination). Barth’s understanding of Christology and election locates his
christocentrism principially: it is the ‘ground and content’1 of the doctrine of
election, with this particular understanding itself having a determining influ-
ence on the divine being and intra-trinitarian life. Here Christology operates
1
Webster, Barth, p. 88.
30
CHRISTOLOGY AND ELECTION
When Christ says that he has chosen twelve, he is not referring to the
eternal counsel of God. For it is impossible that any of those who have
2
Cf. CD II/2, p. 145; KD II/2, p. 157.
31
READING THE DECREE
been predestined (praeordinati) to life will fall away. But they, who had
been chosen (delecti) to the apostolic office, ought to have surpassed
all others in godliness and holiness. Therefore, he used the word cho-
sen (electos) for those who were selected and separated from the
common rank.3
3
Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 4, p. 179); CO 47, p. 163.
4
Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 5, p. 62); CO 47, p. 311.
32
CHRISTOLOGY AND ELECTION
that in two different ways in v. 18 Jesus gives a clear witness to his divinity.
First, this judgement by Jesus that he knows those whom he has chosen, and
that he is not speaking of all his disciples, is a clear example that Jesus does
not judge in a human way. For Calvin, when Christ says ‘I know’ in 13.18,
this kind of knowledge is peculiar to God.5
But, Calvin argues, there is a second proof of Christ’s divinity in v. 18
which is more powerful than the first: here Christ makes ‘himself the author
of election’ (se electionis facit autorem).6 When Jesus says ‘I know whom
I have chosen’ this is Christ testifying ‘that those who were chosen before
the creation of the world were chosen by himself (quum a se testator fuisse
electos, qui ante mundi creationem electi sunt). Such a remarkable demon-
stration of his divine power should affect us more deeply than if Scripture
had called him God a hundred times.’7 So Calvin is explicit that Christ plays
an active role not just in the temporal choosing of the twelve to the apostolic
office, but also according to his divine nature in the eternal choosing of indi-
viduals in a salvific sense.8 In Institutes III.xxii.7 Calvin comments on this
verse that ‘although Christ interposes himself as Mediator, he claims for
himself, in common with the Father, the right to choose’ (sibi tamen ius ele-
gendi communiter vendicat cum Patre).9 And also, referring to this election
as a heavenly decree (caelesti decreto), ‘we may infer that none excel by their
own effort or diligence, seeing that Christ makes himself the Author of elec-
tion’ (se Christus electionis facit authorem).10 In the context where Calvin
most clearly asserts Christ playing an active role in election in an eternal
sense, and even where Calvin draws inferences from this about the deity of
Christ, his emphasis is soteriological. The Christ who chooses eternally is
the Christ whose choosing brings some into the family of God and leaves
others (like Judas) outside.
In the final passage where the choosing language surfaces again, Jn 15.16,
19, Calvin equivocates between assigning a temporal or an eternal referent
to it. He uses the kai. e;qhka u`ma/j of v. 16 to interpret the immediately pre-
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
This exegesis of Jn 13.18 is overlooked entirely by Berkouwer in his discussion of
Christ as the subject of election in Calvin (Divine Election, pp. 157–159).
9
Inst. III.xxii.7, p. 940; OS 4, p. 387.
10
Ibid., p. 941; ibid. In Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, when addressing
the issue of how those who are eternally elect are nevertheless strangers to God until
they become sons through faith, Calvin comments on Jn 10.16: ‘Meantime, though
they did not know it, the shepherd knew them, according to that eternal predestination
by which he chose his own before the foundation of the world (qua suos elegit ante
consitutionem mundi), as Augustine rightly declares’ (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co,
1961), p. 150; De Aeterna Dei Praedestinatione (ed. W. H. Neuser; Genève: Librairie
Droz, 1998), p. 200; cf. also Inst. IV.i.10, p. 1024; OS 5, p. 15.
33
READING THE DECREE
ceding clause ouvc u`mei/j me evxele,xasqe( avllV evgw. evxelexa,mhn u`ma/j, but is
reluctant to drive too sharp a wedge between them. He first admits that this
passage does not ‘treat of the common election of believers (de communi
piorum electione), by which they are adopted to be God’s children, but of
that special election (de particulari) by which he appointed his disciples to
the office of preaching the gospel’.11 Nevertheless, he also wants to suggest
that there is a very clear parallel between this temporal election and eternal
election; what unites them is that both are entirely free, taking no account
whatsoever of human merit. Calvin takes this to be Jesus’ main point in Jn
15.16 – the disciples have done nothing to gain the honour being bestowed
on them. Yet he adds: ‘But all the same, if they were elected to the apostolic
office freely and by no merit of their own, much more is it certain that the
election is free by which, from being the children of wrath and accursed
seed, we are made his eternal heirs.’12 The election to office sheds light on the
election to salvation, and both are of a kind because both stem from Christ’s
grace. Calvin argues here that Christ is aiming to stir up the disciples to do
their duty actively and that nothing is more effective in doing this than the
believer acknowledging that they owe everything to God and possess noth-
ing of their own. For Calvin, both the beginning of salvation (eternal election)
and all the parts which flow from it (in this case appointment to the office
of preaching), flow from Christ’s free mercy. Having forged a relationship
between the ouvc u`mei/j me evxele,xasqe( avllV evgw. evxelexa,mhn u`ma/j and the
kai. e;qhka u`ma/j of v. 16, Calvin then comments specifically on the latter by
using the apostle Paul and the prophet Jeremiah as examples of how the
salvific election may be hidden until election to office becomes visible in
time. His final comment mirrors what he has earlier said on Jn 13.18: ‘That
Christ says he is the author of both [forms of election] (Christus se utriusque
facit autorem) is not surprising, since it is only by him that God acts and he
acts with the Father. So then, election and ordination belong equally to
both.’13
It is clear, then, that for Calvin Christ stands in such a relation to election
that it may truly be said to be a se – and this carries both temporal and
eternal reference, with a bearing on soteriology. This exegetical understand-
ing of Christ’s authorial role reveals a trinitarian conception of election that
reflects at least two wider theological constructs.
11
Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 5, p. 102); CO 47, p. 346.
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid., p. 103; p. 347.
34
CHRISTOLOGY AND ELECTION
some of the concepts of what would come to be known as the opus Dei
essentiale ad intra – the eternal decree or plan of God as willed by the entire
Godhead.14 Although for Calvin, as we will see, the weight of scriptural
testimony falls on emphasizing the electio Patris, such that the corresponding
weight in his exegesis of election will reflect this conception of the order and
distinction of the persons, he is nevertheless clear that the Father does not
choose alone: ‘although Christ interposes himself as Mediator, he claims for
himself, in common with the Father, the right to choose’ (quanvis se medium
Christus inserat, sibi tamen ius eligendi communiter vendicat cum Patre).15
This commonality between the works of the persons, specifically here the
Father and the Son, extends to the enactment of the divine decree. It is some-
times described by Calvin in terms of a unity of substance, and sometimes as
a unity of concord. Commenting on Jn 6.11, Calvin first of all calls Christ a
‘channel’ (canalis) that conveys to us the blessing of the Father, then corrects
himself: ‘he is rather the living fountain flowing from the eternal Father.’ For
this reason blessings come from the Father and the Son in common (commu-
niter), and ‘not only is this an office proper to [Christ’s] eternal divinity, but
even in the flesh the Father has appointed him the steward, to feed us by his
hand.’16 However, when Calvin comes to discuss ‘I and the Father are one’ in
Jn 10.30 he comments: ‘Christ is not discussing the unity of substance but
the concord (consensus) he has with the Father; so that whatever Christ does
will be confirmed by his Father’s power.’17 The point here is that in Calvin’s
description the works of the Father and Son express a mutuality, either on
the basis of shared essence or on the basis of shared purpose, so that the
actions of one are seen in the actions of the other.18 This overall theological
position means that election – decreed ad intra and executed ad extra – is for
Calvin always the work of the triune God.19
Following Paul Jacobs,20 Richard Muller has argued cogently that a
‘trinitarian ground of doctrine’ unites predestination and Christology in
Calvin such that their systematic inter-relationship occurs on two levels: ‘the
level of the eternal intra-trinitarian relationships of Father, Son and Spirit,
and the level of the temporal effecting of God’s will’.21 The two poles are
14
R. A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant
Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), pp. 211–212.
15
Inst. III.xxii.7, p. 940; OS 4, p. 387.
16
Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 4, p. 147); CO 47, p. 133.
17
Ibid., p. 273; p. 250. Cf. also Jn 10.38 ‘This saying does not refer to the unity of
essence, but to the manifestation of divine power in the person of Christ, which showed
that he was sent from God’ (ibid., p. 277; p. 254).
18
Cf. Inst. I.xiii, pp. 120–159; OS 3, pp. 108–151.
19
Cf. F. H. Klooster, Calvin’s Doctrine of Predestination (Calvin Theological Seminary
Monograph Series III; Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1961), pp. 19–20.
20
Jacobs, Prädestination und Verantwortlichkeit bei Calvin, pp. 74–78.
21
Muller, Christ and the Decree, p. 10, p. 18.
35
READING THE DECREE
related in this way: ‘As mediator Christ is subordinate to the decree while as
Son of God he is one with the Father and in no way subordinate. The Son as
God stands behind the decree while the Son as mediator is the executor of
the decree.’22 Commenting on Calvin’s use of Jn 13.18, Muller also observes
that ‘The certainty of Christ’s mediation and the certainty of his promise are
grounded in his divinity, since the promise he conveys in his incarnation sub
forma servi is the same promise which he decreed in his eternal divinity.’23
This focus on the relationship between Christ’s incarnation and his eternal
divinity in connection with election highlights the other theological construct
at work in the trinitarian super-structure of Calvin’s doctrine; namely, the
so-called extra Calvinisticum.
I refer to this doctrine as the ‘so-called’ extra Calvinisticum because, as
E. David Willis has shown, ‘A distinction must be made between “extra
Calvinisticum” as a term and the so-called extra Calvinisticum as a doc-
trine.’24 The latter did not originate with Calvin and indeed, according to
Willis, might properly be called the extra Patristicum or extra Catholicum.
This existing catholic doctrine came to play a critical role in Eucharistic
debates between the Lutheran and Reformed churches in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, so that the ‘Calvinistic extra’ became a Lutheran term
of derision. The extra taught the Son’s existence ‘beyond’ (extra) the flesh of
Jesus Christ. Whereas in Lutheran Christology Christ’s flesh receives
ubiquity by virtue of the hypostatic union, the Reformed argued that this
conception threatened the integrity of the human nature. It was better, they
held, to regard the human nature as limited spatially and the divine nature
as retaining its essential properties, such as omnipresence, impassibility and
immensity. Calvin expressed it in this way:
For even if the Word in his immeasurable essence united with the
nature of man into one person, we do not imagine that he was con-
fined therein. Here is something marvellous: the Son of God descended
from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to
be borne in the virgin’s womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon
the cross; yet he continually filled the world even as he had done from
the beginning.25
22
Ibid., pp. 37–38.
23
Ibid., p. 25.
24
E. D. Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology: The Function of the So-called Extra
Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology (Leiden: Brill, 1996), p. 8. Willis provides a compre-
hensive overview of the patristic and medieval sources of Calvin’s doctrine, pp. 26–60.
25
Inst. II.xiii.4, p. 481; OS 3, p. 458. Calvin refers to the extra again in his discussion of
the Supper (Inst. IV.xvii.30, pp. 1401–3; OS 4, pp. 387–389), and it is actually this
Eucharistic reference to the extra, in shortened form, that is original to the 1536
Inst. Willis also outlines Calvin’s use of the extra as it appears outside of the Institutes
(pp. 31–34).
36
CHRISTOLOGY AND ELECTION
26
McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, p. 95.
27
P. Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 60.
28
Muller, Christ and the Decree, p. 190 n. 65. He suggests that the same is true of
Calvin’s use of Jn 17.6–8 (p. 196 n. 158).
29
Ibid., p. 38.
30
Willis, Catholic Christology, p. 71.
37
READING THE DECREE
continued to exercise his dominion over it; the Incarnation was the exten-
sion of his empire, not the momentary abdication of it.’31 In this way, creation
and redemption are inseparably connected in the work of Christ: ‘Redemp-
tion is the restoration and reformation of man and the world into a proper
order.’32 The significance of this connection, and the impact of the extra
Calvinisticum at this point in Calvin’s thought, is expressed by Willis like
this: ‘The continuity of gracious order over creaturely attempts at disconti-
nuity depends on the identity of the Redeeming Mediator in the flesh with
the Mediator who is the Eternal Son of God by whom, and with whose
Spirit, all things were created according to the Father’s will.’33 Thus far the
significance of the extra for Calvin.
When Willis touches on Calvin’s doctrine of election, however, he over-
looks Calvin’s comments on Jn 13.18, and so misses a significant application
of his insights about the extra to Calvin’s doctrine of election. For Willis,
Calvin is in danger of jeopardizing the revelation of God in Christ by priori-
tizing in election ‘a will of God to which Christ’s revelation is subject, and a
will which is discoverable by us outside the Deus manifestatus in carne’.34 In
this scheme, the revelation of Christ is subject to a two-fold eternal decision
of either salvation or damnation and Willis highlights that the incarnate
Christ does not make known why this decision is two-fold. Calvin would
doubtless have agreed that Christ does not reveal the reason for the double
decree, but given his exegesis of Jn 13.18 and 15.16 it is hard to see how he
would concur with a conception of God’s electing will to which Christ’s rev-
elation is merely subject. On the contrary, by omitting the fact that for
Calvin election is by Christ and in common with the Father ante mundi cre-
ationem, Willis does not see how election displays continuity between the
Son’s eternal, universal headship and his extension of that headship into
space-time history.
Consider Willis’ argument. The extra in Calvin provides continuity
between the two aspects of the eternal Son’s ordering of the universe: beyond
the flesh, as from the beginning; in time, manifested in the flesh to redeem.
The redemption Christ brings is the extension of his empire over the rebel-
lious creature. Thus the extra reveals continuity between the two spheres of
Christ’s headship – just as he always was and remained head of the angels
even in his incarnation, so now in his incarnation that headship is extended
to creatures who had spurned it. However, if in the incarnation the eternal
Son continued to exercise his dominion over creation by the work of redemp-
tion, then the striking feature of Calvin’s exegesis here is that it attributes to
Christ, according to his divine nature, an active role in the eternal basis of
31
Ibid., p. 76.
32
Ibid., p. 78.
33
Ibid., pp. 99–100.
34
Ibid., p. 117.
38
CHRISTOLOGY AND ELECTION
35
Edmondson locates his discussion of election in Calvin under the rubric of Christ’s
royal office, and specifically under ‘The eternity of Christ’s kingdom’ (Calvin’s Christol-
ogy, pp. 143–151). In this way it could be argued that it is actually election itself, and
not just the incarnation, that deserves to be understood in political terms.
36
CD II/2, pp. 66–67; KD II/2, p. 71.
39
READING THE DECREE
37
Ibid., p. 52; pp. 55–56.
38
Ibid., p. 53; p. 56.
39
Ibid., p. 111; p. 119.
40
OS 4, p. 387.
41
KD II/2, p. 71; CD II/2, p. 67.
40
CHRISTOLOGY AND ELECTION
again it seems Barth is copying these biblical references from Calvin with a
slip of the pen, rather than studying them in Calvin.42
The second thing to say, however, is that regardless of the weaknesses in
Barth’s historical material at this point, a case can be made that his concep-
tion of Christ as the subject of election is different enough from Calvin’s
authorial Christ that even had he been aware of Calvin’s comments on
Jn 13.18 or 15.16 they would not have caused him to think much differently
about the problems in Calvin’s account. To consider this possibility I now
turn to examine Barth’s exegesis of Jesus Christ as the electing God. This
will allow us both to assess his position more fully in relation to Calvin and
also to see his different conception of the trinitarian basis of election.
42
Cf. Muller who suggests that ‘Barth has not fully discerned the relation of Christ to the
decrees in Calvin’s theology’ (Christ and the Decree, p. 190 n. 62). Also, on the
Reformed tradition more widely: ‘the concept of “Jesus Christ electing and elected”
which overcomes the threat of a “predestinarian metaphysic” and of a Deus nudus
absconditus appears not as a theme barely hinted at but as a fundamental interest,
indeed, as a norm for early orthodoxy’ (ibid., p. 173).
43
CD II/2, p. 7; KD II/2, p. 5.
41
READING THE DECREE
44
Ibid., p. 7; p. 6.
45
Ibid., p. 54; p. 57.
46
Ibid., p. 59; p. 63.
47
Cf. Sharp, Hermeneutics of Election, pp. 1–2.
42
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