Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Suzanne McDonald is associate professor of systematic andhistorical theology at Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan. She is also the author of John Knoxfor Armchair Theologians.

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Re-Imaging Election

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS....................................................................ixABBREVIATIONS......................................................................xiIntroduction.......................................................................xii1. Election, the Image, and the Spirit: John Owen..................................32. Election, the Image, and the Spirit: Karl Barth.................................313. Election "in Christ" in Barth: Some Pneumatological Queries.....................594. Sketching Some Scriptural Contours..............................................87Re-Presenting the Image: A Scriptural Overview.....................................88The Twofold Dynamic of Representation..............................................905. Election, the Spirit, and the Ecclesial Imago Dei...............................1156. Some Problems, a Parable, and the Parousia......................................1457. Owen and Barth: Beyond the Impasse..............................................175Epilogue: Glancing Backward, Looking Forward.......................................195BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................202INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS........................................................210

Chapter One

Rediscovering the "Forgotten Man" of English Theology

Even in a period that produced an abundance of extraordinary and fascinating individuals, John Owen cut a notable figure at the heart of theological and political life in one of the most turbulent periods of British history. Summoned to preach to the House of Commons on the day following the execution of Charles I, he later became one of Cromwell's chaplains, until his forthright objections to Cromwell's inclination to take the crown ruptured the close relationship between them.

Having been at the center of political and theological life during the Commonwealth and Protectorate, Owen remained unwavering in his adherence to dissenting Congregationalism throughout the persecutions that followed the Restoration. Noting Owen's extensive contacts and powerful intellect at the service of the non-conformist cause, the French Ambassador wrote to Louis XIV that Owen had as much religious and political influence in London as its Bishop.

Recognized as among the most erudite theologians of his generation, Owen was also a deep admirer and strong supporter of John Bunyan. Constantly engaged in detailed doctrinal controversies, he also demonstrates deep pastoral concern. In surveying Owen's life as well as his theological corpus, we are left with the inescapable impression of the breadth of his compass.

Until recently, however, in spite of his intellectual stature and political prominence during his lifetime, Owen has provoked relatively little interest either from theologians or from historians. In his seminal study of Owen's theology, Carl Trueman suggests that Owen has been the "forgotten man" of English theology, and the neglect of Owen has likewise been noted from the perspective of historians of the period. Nevertheless, in recent decades there has been a resurgence in Owen studies, from reappraisals of his theological method in its historical context to suggestions for the positive reappropriation of elements of his thought for contemporary theology. Here, aspects of Owen's account of election, the image, and the Spirit will set out some of the key questions for a Reformed approach to election that will occupy the remainder of Part I, and will provide some central themes and concepts for the attempt to rearticulate the doctrine in Parts II and III.

Election, the Image, and the Spirit in Context: The Shape of Owen's Theology

While much of Owen's life and work has been left in relative obscurity, one aspect of his thought has been more widely and consistently recognized. Without doubt, he is one of the strongest champions of what might be termed the classical Reformed orthodox position on the doctrine of election. Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (1647) is an exhaustive scriptural and theological defense of the efficacy of Christ's death for salvation, and therefore of individual double predestination and "limited atonement." It is among the best-known works in his extensive corpus, and stands with Perkins's A Golden Chaine as one of the most famous (or notorious) English presentations of the strictest Reformed interpretation of the doctrine of election.

Moreover, The Death of Death is not the only place in which Owen demonstrates his interest in the doctrine; his first published work is the anti-Arminian A Display of Arminianism (1642). Throughout his life Owen's theological priorities are shaped by an abiding concern to combat what he considers to be the two greatest contemporary threats to the integrity of the gospel: Arminian and Socinian thought. As a result Owen repeatedly seeks to state and defend a fundamental core of intimately related doctrines, the distortion of which he considers to lie at the root of all falsification of Christian thinking and living. These are, above all, the Trinitarian being of God, the Chalcedonian understanding of Christ's person, and the way in which both of these considerations must inform our understanding of the decrees of God and their outworking. While one or other of these may at times receive greater emphasis, each implies the other two.

Owen's theology, then, might best be described as spiraling round these three ellipses, rather than as a "systematic"enterprise unfolding from a single first principle. In particular, Trueman's detailed and persuasive analysis puts to rest any notion that Owen's theology is a system shaped by the inexorable unfolding of Aristotelian teleology, with an abstract double decree at its head.

If the shape of Owen's thinking is not "systematic" in this sense, neither is the nature of his corpus. He offers nothing comparable to his near contemporary Francis Turretin's Institutio theologia elencticae or even to Calvin's Institutio. Instead, his extensive output largely comprises theological and pastoral treatises on key loci, often in response to contemporary controversies, and a magisterial seven-volume commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews.

The limitations of such an approach for another of the concerns in this chapter — Owen's account of the imago dei — are self evident, in that Owen nowhere presents us with a treatise devoted to the image of God. Instead, he provides occasional discussions of aspects of the doctrine in the context of wider concerns. The image, in common with his presentation of many other doctrinal loci, is discussed and clarified less for its own sake than as part of broader arguments centered upon expounding and defending the scriptural and theological validity, as well as the practical consequences for Christian living, of the three ellipses mentioned earlier.

Nevertheless, Owen offers a sufficiently wide-ranging presentation of the image for a consistent picture to emerge with considerable detail and clarity. The contours of Owen's understanding of the image can be drawn from his...