Barth on election integrated with Barth’s views on Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms

In this lecture, Williams takes account of the enduring influence of Barth’s doctrine of election.  He briefly lays out the major contours of Barth’s construction before going on to evaluate its merits.  The lecture, however, becomes as much about instruction in interpreting other theologians and speculation as it is about the doctrine of election itself.  Williams concludes that in Barth, atonement and election are swapped.  The universal extent of the atonement is moved to election and election (and reprobation) to atonement, Jesus as the reprobate one.

Biography

Stephen Williams (PhD, Yale University) is professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological College. He was born and received his early education in Wales. He holds MA degrees in Modern History from Oxford University and Theology from Cambridge University and, after a year studying Practical Theology in Aberystwyth, Wales, he was elected Henry Fellow at Yale University (1976-7). He subsequently pursued doctoral studies at the Department of Religious Studies, Yale University. From 1991 until 1994, he was based in Oxford at the Whitefield Institute for theological research, during which time he also tutored in Philosophy of Religion for Oxford University, from where he took up his present position in 1994. Stephen Williams has published in different areas in biblical studies, theology and intellectual history, including Revelation and Reconciliation: a window on modernity (Cambridge University Press, 1995) and a volume on Nietzsche, The Shadow of the Antichrist: Nietzsche’s Critique of Christianity (Baker Academic Press, 2006)