ELECTION AND THE TRINITY: TWENTY-FIVE THESES ON THE THEOLOGY OF KARL BARTH

Abstract

A new and “revisionist” reading would argue that the later Karl Barth saw the existence of the eternal Trinity not as the ground and presupposition, but as the consequence of God's pre-temporal decision of election. A more “traditionalist” reading, on the other hand, as defended by this essay, denies that proposition. The texts adduced by the revisionists, it is argued, fail to make their case. More plausible, alternative readings are offered, counter-evidence is marshaled, and the deleterious theological consequences of the revisionist alternative are spelled out. Barth could not have adopted it without contradicting his most basic convictions.