‘Praise
the Lord’. Psalms 146 and 147 began and ended with these words. Now, we
find the same beginning and ending in each of these three Psalms -
‘Praise the Lord’. Our personal song of praise to God - ‘Praise be to
the Lord my Rock... I will sing a new song to You, O God... I will exalt
You, my God the King; I will praise Your Name for ever and ever; Every
day I will praise You... My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord... I
will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long
as I live’ (Psalm 144:1,9; Psalm 145:1-2,21; Psalm 146:2) - is just a
small part of something so much richer and fuller - ‘Let everything that
has breath praise the Lord’ (Psalm 150:6). May these great Psalms of
praise inspire us to praise the Lord more truly and more fully.
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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