Barth Inspires Reformulation of Chief Reformed Doctrine

Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009 Posted: 11:31:31PM HKT

A highly guarded doctrine of the Reformed Church has received a fresh reinterpretation, thanks to the 20th century giant and neo-orthodox theologian Karl Barth.

In his contribution to a Chinese Reformed weblog conference posted today, Pastor Alex Tseng drew on Barth's ideas in an attempt to resolve a conundrum associated with the Reformed doctrine of predestination.

Tseng, a preacher at North American Chinese Faith Baptist Church, addressed the issue of how God who in this view is seen as having decreed the fall of Man could be justified in punishing and leaving the great majority to perish in their sins.

The answer: God’s double decree of election (choosing for salvation) and reprobation (rejection for salvation) does not apply to created human individuals per se, but only to Jesus Christ.

In a model shared by Barth and 17th century theologian John Owen, God decreed the fall of Man so that Christ could reveal His humility and perform His service toward sinners.

“Through the fall of humanity God paves the way for the incarnation whereby the King of kings became a servant of servants,” wrote Tseng, who holds two Masters degrees from Regent College and Princeton Theological Seminary.

And even for the so-called ‘reprobates’, though rejected by God they too have a relationship with Christ albeit one where they have rejected Him.

“The sin of humanity cannot trump the grace of God, thus the reprobate of Christ, which is the result of human sin, cannot overrule God’s election of Christ,” he explained.

“In Migliore’s words: ‘The grace of God includes judgment, and the judgment of God serves the purpose of grace.’ Or, in Hunsinger’s words: ‘Although God’s grace never occurs without judgment, nor God’s judgment without grace, in Jesus Christ it is always God’s grace, Barth believes, that is decisive.’

Being in Christ refers to being “in His person, in His will, in His own divine choice, in the basic decision of God which He fulfills over against every man”.

The reviewer (a feature of the conference is that all submissions are accompanied by a review each) and some participants did not take to Tseng’s view that God’s actions, even if capricious, has to be justified, arguing that everything that God does has to be good by definition. Some quoted the famous source text in Romans 9 for the Reformed doctrine of predestination otherwise known as the doctrine of double predestination.

A first of its kind, the CREDO 500 online conference was organised by two people, one a Malaysian Methodist pastor and the other an author and blogger, to provide a platform for the growing number of Chinese Reformed believers to learn and share their thoughts.

Organised in commemoration of the 500th anniversary since the birth of 16th century reformer and theologian par excellence John Calvin, the conference covers the legacy of Reformed theology and the Reformation and John Calvin and represents an attempt to present the theologian in all his contemporary relevance to the Chinese Reformed Church.

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Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com