Religion or faith, human consciousness or confession of the Creed, ‘Kulturprotestantismus’ or dialectical theology, in short: Schleiermacher or Barth. For decades the frontline has been this simple, one had to choose between one camp or the other. But the more the struggle between the offspring of liberal theology on the one hand and so-called Barthians on the other has declined, the less the two Reformed theologians have appeared to be strong opponents. Especially in the last couple of years several efforts have been made to overcome the hardly fruitful alternative. Matthias Gockel's PhD dissertation, produced with Bruce McCormack at Princeton Theological Seminary, can be placed within this context. Not only that, Schleiermacher's and Barth's reconstruction of the doctrine of election is examined. Moreover, according to Gockel, there are striking similarities between the two Reformed theologians, although he hesitates to draw lines of dependency. Contradicting Barth's well-known self-image of not having anything to do with Schleiermacher, Gockel claims that there is actually more common ground between them than one, maybe Barth himself, would have expected. This is because the ‘Church fathers’ of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries share the rejection of the traditional Calvinistic concept of election as God's pre-temporal choice about individuals either to salvation or to damnation. By a close reading of Schleiermacher and Barth this thesis is given proof.

Both in Schleiermacher's essay on the doctrine of election (1819) and, elaborated more consistently, in his main work The Christian Faith (1821/2), the systematic core is the notion of only a single divine decree: all human beings, both the faithful and the unbelievers, are elected and predestined to salvation in Jesus Christ. By this, the universalism of salvation in contrast to the particularism of election in traditional teaching is pointed out. In addition, a link between Christ's redemptive work accomplished in history and the election is established. Nevertheless, Schleiermacher's approach is basically less Christo- than theo-centric because it is God the Father who sees all human beings through his Son.

Barth's reconstruction of the doctrine of election is presented according to its development. Starting with the revised Commentary on Romans (1922) and the Göttingen Dogmatics (1924/5) Barth would have an encounter with this part of the Calvinistic heritage. His revision of the doctrine of election began when he attended a lecture in Geneva in 1936, ironically in the context of a symposium celebrating the city's Calvinistic reformation. Culminating in Church Dogmatics II/2 (1942) a christological revolution took place: if God reveals himself in his Son then God's will can only be seen in this event.

Finally, Gockel evaluates the strength of the argumentation of both Reformed theologians. He points out that Schleiermacher's position is more consistent than the reconstruction in Barth's early dialectical theology. Nevertheless, it was only the latter's christological conceptualisation of the doctrine of election, especially in Church Dogmatics II/2, that was able to overcome totally the traditional understanding of predestination as God's pre-temporal double act on the individual. The prize of his approach is that the widely attacked universalism of salvation can hardly be avoided. As Gockel points out, both the traditional Calvinistic understanding of election and the different efforts to overcome it have nearly unresolvable internal weaknesses. He advocates Barth's revision of the doctrine of election, either highly acclaimed or zealously opposed among Protestants. In order to understand what is really at stake, readers not very familiar with the doctrine might have been better equipped with at least a short exposition of its meaning, function and relevance in the history of theology, in particular in the Reformed tradition.

Especially noteworthy is, first, Gockel's careful dealing with the original German texts. For instance, he points out some misunderstanding of Schleiermacher, such as the often lacking distinction between religion (‘Religion’) and piety (‘Frömmigkeit’) even among scholars. Second, Gockel uses a historical-genetic approach. In this way he avoids the danger of most comparative studies of underestimating internal developments in different theologians’ thought.

This dissertation is an important and well-written contribution of historical theology to overcome the still widespread claim of an alternative to Schleiermacher or Barth in systematic theology.