^{page 423 note 1} In his introduction to Miegge's, GiovanniChristian Affirmations in a Secular Age (Oxford University Press, New York, 1958)Google Scholar Stephen Neill writes, ‘The fact is that Miegge and I have concluded that we are the only specimens yet known of a new species, the post-Barthian liberal (it is thought that the third specimen may be named Karl Barth, but this is not yet certain).’

^{page 423 note 2} Barth's principal discussion is found in his doctrine of election: Church Dogmatics, Vol. II-2, pp. 3–506.Google Scholar See especially pp. 417–29, 476, 480. See also IV-3, first half, pp. 461–78, and ‘The Humanity of God’, in God, Grace, and Gospel, trans. McNab, James Strathearn, Scottish Journal of Theology Occasional Papers No. 8 (Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, 1959), pp. 49–50.Google Scholar

^{page 424 note 1} Brunner, Emil, Dogmatics, Vol. IGoogle Scholar; The Christian Doctrine of God, trans. Wyon, Olive (Westminster, Philadelphia, 1950), pp. 346–353.Google Scholar

^{page 424 note 2} ibid., pp. 351–2.

^{page 424 note 3} ibid., pp. 336–7.

^{page 425 note 1} Berkouwer, G. C., The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1956), pp. 287–296.Google Scholar On the inadequacy of both ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ theories of the atonement and for a clear statement of the third ‘classical’ meaning see Aulén, Gustaf, Christus Victor, trans. Hebert, A. G. (Macmillan, New York, 1961).Google Scholar

^{page 425 note 2} Berkouwer, , The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, pp. 215–261.Google Scholar Unhappily in this formulation of the problem Berkouwer abandons his primary interest in the most adequate description of grace.

^{page 425 note 3} Berkouwer, G. C., Divine Election (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1960).Google Scholar

^{page 427 note 1} Barth, , Dogmatics, iv-3, first half, pp. 477–478.Google Scholar In his famous 1956 address, ‘The Humanity of God’, Barth seems to go further toward accepting universalism. But actually he merely insists on maintaining the distinction between the theological formulation and the divine possibility. Barth, , God, Grace, and Gospel, pp. 49–50.Google Scholar

^{page 427 note 2} The decisive point is whether freedom in the Christian sense is identical with the freedom of Hercules: choice between two ways at a crossroad. This is a heathen notion of freedom. Is it freedom to decide for the devil? The only freedom that means something is the freedom to be myself as I am created by God. God did not create a neutral creature, but His creature. He placed him in a garden that he might build it up; his freedom is to do that. When man began to discern good and evil, this knowledge was the beginning of sin. Man should not have asked this question about good and evil, but should have remained in true created freedom. We are confused by the political idea of freedom. What is the light in the Statue of Liberty? Freedom to choose good and evil? What light that would be! Light is light and not darkness. If it shines darkness is done away with, not proposed for choice! Being a slave of Christ means being free.’ Barth, Karl, Table Talk, ed. Godsey, John D., Scottish Journal of Theology Occasional Papers No. 10 (Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, 1963), p. 37.Google Scholar

^{page 427 note 3} Barth, , Dogmatics, II - 2, pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

^{page 428 note 1} ibid., II-1, p. 303; cf. pp. 314, 462, 514 and 527.

^{page 429 note 1} ibid., II-2, p. 417. ‘God seeks and creates fellowship between Himself and us, and therefore He loves us. But He is this loving God without us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the freedom of the lord, who has His life from Himself.’ Ibid., p. 257, cf. p. 155.

^{page 430 note 1} Usually the question is not raised in this way. Usually reprobation is understood as a manifestation of God's wrath or of God's justice, in which case the problem is to understand the relationship between wrath and love. Or if reprobation is understood as an expression of God's love, it is understood as a limited tactic, used by God to drive men to obedience. The problem of the wrath of God is discussed in terms of hiddenness and revelation by Dillenberger, John, God Hidden and Revealed (Muhlenberg, Philadelphia, 1953).Google Scholar According to Dillenberger, nineteenth-century liberalism saw the problem of eighteenth-century orthodoxy as the separation of God's love and His wrath. The result was the terrible hidden God. In overcoming this problem, liberalism identified God with His love and also identified His love with the end of men, thus destroying the mystery and freedom of God. Dillenberger's historical work sets the dilemma clearly; either wrath is separate from God's love, in which case God is not love, or wrath is a part of God's love, in which case it is not wrath. For a discussion of reprobation as a temporary tactic of God's love, see Ferré, Nels F. S., The Christian Understanding of God (Harper, New York, 1951).Google Scholar

^{page 430 note 2} Barth, , Dogmatics, IV - 3, first half, pp. 443–449.Google Scholar

^{page 430 note 3} Bouillard, Henri, Karl Barth, Vol. IIGoogle Scholar: Parole de Dieu et existence humaine (Montaigne, Aubier, 1957), pp. 142–144.Google Scholar

^{page 430 note 4} Barth, , Dogmatics, IV - 3, first half, pp. 461–478.Google Scholar

^{page 431 note 1} ibid., II-1, pp. 503–6.

^{page 433 note 1} ibid., IV-3, first half, p. 477.

^{page 433 note 2} ibid.

^{page 433 note 3} Aulén, Christus Victor.

^{page 434 note 1} Barth, , Dogmatics, IV - 1, pp. ix, 4.Google Scholar

^{page 434 note 2} ibid., II-2, pp. 184–8.

^{page 434 note 3} Cochrane, Charles Norris, Christianity and Classical Culture (Oxford University Press, New York, 1957), pp. 406–407.Google Scholar

^{page 434 note 4} Hendry, George S., The Gospel of the Incarnation (Westminster, Philadelphia, 1958), p. 134.Google Scholar ‘The plain sense of the gospel of grace, as it is presented in the New Testament, is that the object of the incarnation is to bring men into a personal relationship with God. It is to this end that the apostle declares the work of life, which he has heard and seen and looked upon and handled: “That ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1.3). This is the heart of the Christian salvation, and the incarnation was essential to its accomplishment. There are other things that God can do, and does, for men without incarnation. If for this thing he became incarnate—“Who for us men and for Our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man”—clearly our salvation is of such a nature that it could only be accomplished in our humanity; it had to be lived humanly into our life. This is the nature of personal relations. We can have no truly personal relation except with one who meets us at our own level, one who is homo-ousios with us, one whose approach to us is made in freedom and is reciprocated in freedom. We cannot have such a relation with an animal or an inanimate object that is unable to reciprocate, or that is entirely at our disposal. We also cannot have such a relation with God as God, for we are entirely at his disposal. But this is the measure of the grace of God, that he who in the power of his Godhead can dispose of us as he will, who can transform our situation, who can alter our consciousness, condescends to assume our humanity, to meet with us humanly and deal with us in human terms, in order to establish with us a truly personal relationship and so to determine our existence in the most fundamental way.

‘It is here, in the encounter of the incarnate Christ with men that the decisive event took place—not in some metaphysical transformation of the situation beneath the level of existence, but in the establishment of a new relationship at the level of existence. It was the mission of Christ to be the human agent of this purpose of God, and his whole life is the record of his fulfilment of it. By his life among men and for men he wrought salvation for them; salvation was not a result of something he did in entering humanity or of something he did in dying a human death; it was the work of his life and his death to relate himself freely to men and them to himself: And this relation is the core and foundation of their salvation.’ Ibid., pp. 133–4.

^{page 435 note 1} Barth accepts the traditional formula, extra ecclesiam nulla salus as a fitting indication of the radical difference between the Christian and the pagan, Dogmatics, I-2, pp. 213–22; II-2, p. 197.

^{page 436 note 1} Barth, , Dogmatics, II - 2, pp. 76–93, et passim.Google Scholar