A Heavenly Banquet Table
Imagining Barth's Universal Atonement and Election… without Salvation
About the author: Tim Hartman is Associate Professor of Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary. He is the author of two books: Theology after Colonization: Kwame Bediako, Karl Barth, and the future of theological reflection, and Kwame Bediako: African Theology for a World Christianity. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). His scholarly interests include: contemporary Christian theologies worldwide, Christology, Lived Theology, Election/Predestination, antiracist theologies, ecclesiology, postcolonial mission, and the work of Karl Barth, Kwame Bediako, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and James Cone.
Beautiful decorations, gorgeous flowers, live music playing, and a complete multi-course meal that will be served to guests. A lavish banquet with tables spread throughout the hall. All is ready. All is prepared. There is plenty of food and drink for all. The preparations are complete. There is no cost to the invitees. And, significantly, there is a name card in front of each place setting. Everyone – literally every human being – has received a personal invitation to attend. And, in fact, there is a specific seat ready for each person. Everyone’s name is on the guest list. Who will come?
This description of a heavenly banquet table is my illustration of universal atonement. God in Jesus Christ has done the work and prepared the way for every human to spend eternity with the Triune God. Through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus Christ has taken on the sin of all humanity. All sin—past, present, and future—has been forgiven and the grace of eternal life with God is offered to all, beginning right now.
But will they come? Will all humanity join in the feast and spend eternity with God? Here lies the question of universal salvation. Advocates of universalism reply with a resounding, “Yes, all will come!”
Karl Barth advocated for universal atonement (all are forgiven), universal justification (all are made right with God), and universal election (God has chosen all humanity to be with God forever), but he stopped short of claiming universal reconciliation or universal salvation (that all are saved—living forever with God).1 Jesus Christ is both the subject and object of election as electing God and elected human. Jesus Christ is the Elect One and the Reprobate One. On Christ alone falls the sin of the world—past, present, and future. For Barth, only in the person of Jesus can there be universal atonement and election.
Contrary to some theologians, Barth was less certain and more hope-filled on the question of universal salvation. In contemporary conversations, there are theologians who advocate for a Christian universalism on the basis of God’s character (who God is),2 and others who advocate for a Christian universalism based on what God has done in Jesus Christ.3 By contrast, if asked for his views on universal salvation, Barth might say something like: “Scripture does not answer that specific question. I hope all are saved, but I cannot be certain.”4
When Barth discussed apokatastasis (Greek for “restoration,” or “return”), which he also called universal reconciliation, he concluded that humans cannot “count on this [gift of grace] as though we had a claim to it.”5 The work of grace remains a hope—not a truth that is somehow extracted from God in Godself. The gift of salvation remains the work of God alone, all the way through from election and atonement to resurrection and eschatology. Humans cannot expect “an apokatastasis or universal reconciliation as the goal and end of all things.”6 In this way, Barth resisted universalism and chose to affirm God’s free gift of grace: “Even though theological consistency might seem to lead our thoughts and utterances most clearly in this direction, we must not arrogate to ourselves that which can be given and received only as a free gift.”7
Here, Barth’s systematic theology in his Church Dogmatics kneels before God and God’s works. Human logic is subordinate to divine revelation. Barth stopped short of claiming universal salvation because Scripture does not lead us all the way there. And yet, for Barth, “there is no good reason why we should not be open to this possibility [of an apokatastasis or universal reconciliation].”8 Barth maintained the hope that all may be at the heavenly banquet table (to use my imagery), but he refused to assert that he knows that all will come.
An additional part of the problem for Barth was the reduction of universalism to a principle that abstracts it from the person of Jesus Christ.9 Barth refused the label of “universalist” because universalism is a principle that departs from the actual history of Jesus Christ. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we learn who God is. God’s self-revelation in the God-man Jesus Christ did not provide Barth with sufficient biblical evidence to prove that all humanity is saved in Christ. Instead, Barth saw a clear hope that it was so.10 He continued to “hope and pray… [that God’s] compassion should not fail, and that in accordance with His mercy which is ‘new every morning,’ He ‘will not cast off forever.’”11 And yet, that hope—God’s hope, which Barth shares—perhaps may not be fully realized.
Returning to the heavenly banquet imagery above, Jesus Christ is the host of this banquet. And the hope of Jesus is that every seat will be filled. Jesus is calling everyone by name. Jesus is wooing humans to come and enjoy the feast that he has prepared. Yet, some seats may remain empty. Some people may seek to persist in rejecting God’s invitation. Daniel Migliore builds on Barth’s insights to describe this perspective: “If any are excluded from the community of grace at the end, it is because they have willingly persisted in opposition to God’s grace, not because they were excluded before the foundation of the world (cf. Matt. 25:34, 41).”12 Migliore—following Barth—is rejecting the notion of double predestination taught by Scholastic Calvinism that before the foundation of the world, God chose some for eternal salvation and others for eternal damnation. He rejects the claim that eternal salvation is possible for some because others are condemned to eternal torment and destruction. God’s love is for all, not just for some. And yet, God’s love is not coercive or dictatorial. No one will be forced to dwell in God’s presence. No one will be forced to come to the banquet.
Salvation is a gift after all. But to receive the gift, you have to unwrap it. There is no merit in showing up to a dinner that has been graciously prepared for you or unwrapping a gift that has been given to you. Your “effort” in arriving or opening does not impact the meal or the present. And yet, we must participate in order to reap the benefits.
For more on Barth’s understanding of salvation and atonement see: Colin Gunton, “Salvation,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed. John Webster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 143–158; Paul Dafydd Jones, “Barth and Anselm: God, Christ and the Atonement,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12, no. 3 (July 2010): 257–282; Adam J. Johnson, “Barth on the Atonement,” in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Karl Barth: Barth and Dogmatics, Volume I, ed. George Hunsinger and Keith L. Johnson (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2020),147–158; and Shannon Smythe, “Karl Barth,” in T&T Clark Companion to Atonement, ed. Adam J. Johnson (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 237–256.
See David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019).
For more on the breadth of Christian universalisms, see David W. Congdon, ed., Varieties of Christian Universalism: Exploring Four Views (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023).
For Barth’s discussion of universalism in his Church Dogmatics, see IV.3.1, §70, pages 477–480.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Bloomsbury: T&T Clark, 2009), IV/3, 479.
Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3, 479.
Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3, 479.
Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3, 480.
For a clear discussion of Barth on universalism, see Tom Greggs, “‘Jesus is Victor’: Passing the Impasse of Barth on Universalism,” Scottish Journal of Theology 60 no. 2 (2007): 196–212.
Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3, 480.
See Tim Hartman, Theology After Colonization: Bediako, Barth, and the Future of Theological Reflection (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020), 130.
Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2023), 97.
Yes, all humanity have been invited and none is predestined for destruction. Meanwhile, people stubbornly resisted the grace of God when it is made available for them for their conversion. I can't agree any better than what Daniel Migliore stated as quoted in your write-up that “If any are excluded from the community of grace at the end, it is because they have willingly persisted in opposition to God’s grace, not because they were excluded before the foundation of the world (cf. Matt. 25:34, 41).”