Friendship and Being: Election and Trinitarian Freedom in M oltmann and B arth

This article constructs two responses to M oltmann's critique of B arth's doctrine of divine freedom in Trinity and the Kingdom , a first on the basis of B arth's programmatic treatment of divine freedom in II /1 of the Church Dogmatics and a second on the basis of B ruce McC ormack's reading of B arth's doctrine of election. It shows why the B arth of II /1 must dismiss M oltmann's concern for the priority of God's loving relationship to the world while B arth as interpreted by McC ormack can accommodate it. Finally it observes the significance of this twofold defense for mapping B arth onto the terrain of modern theology.