The question of election and particular atonement, working from the John Owen/McLeod Campbell debate

In his fourth lecture, Professor Williams turns to election in the New Testament. He is particularly concerned here with predestination and election statements and the proper deployment of such statements in systematic formulation.  Williams himself advocates reading these statements along broadly Augustinian lines and in doing so, proposes a moderate form of single predestination.  Entailed in this is a passive view regarding God’s action toward the non-elect.  That is to say, the non-elect are “passed over” rather than actively predestined to reprobation.

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)