6 - Modern Developments

Summary

The counterfactual question of whether Christ would have come had there been no fall turns out not to be the most helpful way of investigating the matter. The real question is whether God’s means are consistent with God’s ends – whether the story of God’s purpose to be with us now and always is a more encompassing narrative than the smaller story of evil, sin, suffering and death, and whether there is utter consistency between the Jesus who is with us in the incarnation and the Jesus who is with us always. In this chapter I investigate Karl Barth’s proposal and, while appreciating its very significant contributions to my project, find it finally wanting on these grounds. Barth helpfully renarrates election as the election of Jesus Christ, but his account of salvation is inconsistent with his Christocentrism and his eschatology is thin.