‘I
love the Lord... I will call on Him as long as I live’(Psalm 116:1-2).
Our love for God is to be a lifelong life. It is to be the love of our
life. What are we to do when our love for God grows weak? We must
remember His love for us - ‘Great is His love towards us. The
faithfulness of the Lord endures forever’(Psalm 117:2). When we find it
difficult to keep on loving God, we must remember how much He loves us.
When we feel like giving up on loving God, we must remember that He
never gives up on loving us. He loves us when our love for Him is
strong. He loves us when our love for Him is weak. In love, He reaches
out to us. He brings us out of our weakness and into His strength. Let
His strong love reach you in your weakness and give you His strength:
‘Loving Him who first loved me’(Church Hymnary, 450).
The question of universalism in Barth’s theology has been raised directly by J D Bettis in his article, “Is Karl Barth a Universalist?” (Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 20, No. 4, December 1967, pp. 423-436). This article requires to be carefully discussed not only for its significance as an interpretation of Barth’s thought but also because it presents a serious misrepresentation of Berkouwer’s criticism of Barth. Bettis writes, “Modern protestant theology has defined three basic answers to the question of the particularity of election: double predestination, Arminianism and universalism” (p. 423). By attempting to fit Berkouwer into “this structure of alternatives” (p. 423), he misrepresents completely Berkouwer’s criticism of Barth. According to Bettis, Brunner and Berkouwrer hold that “because Barth fails to accept either Brunner’s Arminianism or Berkouwer's double decree, he must be a universalist” (p. 426). There are two misrepresentations of Berkouwer here. (...
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