Claude Welch (1922–2009)

Haven't read and most likely never will but discussed the content with the author many times so feel like I know the content. Quote from one commentator: "n the trinitarian conception” of God (p. viii), as a reaction against the premature 19th-century dismissal of the doctrine. This was not a common opinion at the time; Welch was taking a chance in making the prediction. In 1969, NHG Robinson said that Welch’s prediction “could scarcely have proved wider of the mark,” since in Robinson’s estimate “the trinitarian concept has disappeared in all but name from the prevailng articulations of the Christian faith.” But Robinson was watching the wrong indicators (Bultmannians and anglo-empiricists), and Welch’s prediction has come to pass in a remarkable way, as one of the major stories of late twentieth century theology. What enabled Welch to predict the return of the Trinity was not just his historical instincts, but his lively theological awareness. Only a fool would think Christianity was going to keep moving forward without the doctrine of the Trinity; Claude saw that there was a great deal of foolishness and not enough trinitarianism in mid-twentieth century academic theology."… (mehr)

"Calvin, who accepted the concept of double predestination, was equally certain [as Luther] about his starting point. . . . The notion of double predestination is a last drastic guarantee against any concept of merit and a final affirmation that our destiny is entirely in the hands of God. In the passages in which Calvin most vigorously defends double predestination, the exclusion of merit is central. God's gratuitous mercy operates in election irrespective of human merit, and in damnation by a just but incomprehensible judgement. In either case, human calculation is excluded" (pp. 34-35).… (mehr)