Double Predestination, Anglicans and Karl Barth

"Another distinctively Reformed teaching that was important in the development of Anglicanism was the doctrine of double predestination.  This taught that God, from all eternity, predestined some people to eternal life (election) and predestined others to eternal damnation (reprobation)…….Though double predestination was a prominent belief in Anglicanism's formative years, the Articles of Religion are silent on this and in later generations the doctrine fell distinctly out of favor." Anglican Influences

I had to google that one and find it, because while reading the Irish Articles and comparing them to the later Articles it's apparent that the Anglican church changed it's position or have chosen to remain silent on double predestination. This seems to be the position throughout Reformed Christianity, some are double like Calvin and some aren't double like his contemporaries and later generations. 

Karl Barth on the other hand wasn't silent like the later Anglican Articles on his doctrine of election and his rejection of of an absolute decree. "In keeping with his Christo-centric methodology, Barth argues that to ascribe the salvation or damnation of humanity to an abstract and absolute decree is to make some part of God more final and definitive than God’s saving act in Jesus Christ. God’s absolute decree, if one may speak of such a thing, is God’s gracious decision to be “for” humanity in the person of Jesus Christ (Barth calls this God’s “Yes”). " The Theology of Karl Barth 

While retaining the resemblance of early Reformed tradition Barth rethinks and rewrites election."With the earlier Reformed tradition, Barth retains the notion of double predestination, but he makes Jesus simultaneously the object and subject of both divine election and reprobation: Jesus embodies God’s election of humanity and God’s rejection of human sin. He is the electing God and the elect man. As the electing God, Jesus elects all of humanity in himself. And thus, as the elected man, all who are “in Christ” are elect in him. Non-believers, it is said, have simply not realized or recognized their election in Christ." The Theology of Karl Barth 

Some though have charged Barth though with universalism with his rewriting of Calvin's doctrine of double predestination, but other scholars like Ben Myers says no. "He(David Congdon) draws extensively on Karl Barth’s theology in support of a universalist view of grace. Naturally we can try to press Barth’s theology in this direction if we wish. But we shouldn’t forget that Barth himself was always sharply critical of “universalism.” 

"For Barth, the grace of God is characterised by freedom. On the one hand, this means that we can never impose limits on the scope of grace; and on the other hand, it means that we can never impose a universalist “system” on grace. In either case, we would be compromising the freedom of grace—we would be presuming that we can define the exact scope of God’s liberality. So Barth’s theology of grace includes a dialectical protest: Barth protests both against a system of universalism and against a denial of universalism! The crucial point is that God’s grace is free grace: it is nothing other than God himself acting in freedom. And if God acts in freedom, then we can neither deny nor affirm the possibility of universal salvation." Why I am not a universalist 

Ok, there is a lot here that I found just on the web, but more to come as soon as I read more about Karl Barth and church history. 


Ken