Was Karl Barth a universalist and does it matter?

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Clarence Kho
Clarence999@gmail.com
Brisbane, Queensland.
+614-66381199
Was Karl Barth a universalist and does it matter?
Abstract

Was Karl Barth a Universalist? Barth denied. Was he Calvinist or Arminian? He denied. Was
he Supralapsarianist or Infralapsarianist? He denied. He was one of a kind. He rejected double
decree. He rejected human integrity or human absolute free-will to achieve salvation. He
married his doctrine of Christ to Supralapsarianism. God the Father elected Jesus Christ to be
both the elect and reprobate for all mankind. All mankind (either accept or reject) was elected
in Jesus Christ. Although all were elected, he did not proclaim all would be saved. Instead,
the future of all mankind was uncertain, mankind might be all saved. His “doctrine” was
inconsistent. In most places, he promoted universalism; in some places, he presented
uncertainty and promoted “agnostic” view towards the future of all mankind. He upheld God’s
sovereignty and boundless freedom to the extreme. His understanding of God’s divine love
was not genuine love. The grace of God was the overarching backbone of his theology. He
undermined the concept of faith and repentance. His God was a dominator.

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Christian universalism affirms the universal salvation and the denial of eternal punishment of
mankind. All human beings would be saved, Crisp acknowledged the differences between all
human beings not only “would be” saved, but “must be” saved to guarantee the success of
universal salvation.1 Universalists believed that all humans would ultimately end up in Heaven
because of the union with Christ. Paul described “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). Jesus
had paid off the wages, therefore there would be no death and no one would end up in Hell.
Crisp described Barth as a species of universalist (or which it might consist of incompatible
strands of doctrine that could not be reconciled).2 BECA regarded Barth as one of the most
influential universalistic theologians in the twentieth century,3 together with Donald Bloesch
(in Jesus is Victor!), Hans Urs von Balthasar (in The Theology of Karl Barth), G.C. Berkouwer
(in The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth) and Emily Brunner (in Dogmatics,
Vol.1). 4 The universalists hold on to God’s omnibenevolence and God’s omnipotence
intimately. Since God is the “divine love” in essence, he will not allow any of his creatures to
extinguish. And since God is the only almighty and all-powerful being, he can do anything he
can imagine. These two attributes of God had generally shaped the universalism throughout
the decades. The author traced mainly Barth’s Church Dogmatics to determine if Barth was a
universalist and how significant was Barth’s doctrine.

Barth’s denial of Universalism

On one occasion that Barth challenged Calvin’s understanding of a particular scripture and he
commented: “It is not only out of kindness, out of good nature, that the [Apostle] Creed does
not mention hell and eternal death. But the [Apostle] Creed discusses only the things which are
the object of the faith. We do not have to believe in hell and in eternal death … We cannot
'believe' in sin, in the devil, in our death sentence. We can only believe in the Christ who has
overcome the devil, borne sin and removed eternal death. Devil, sin, and eternal death appear
to us only when they are overcome.” 5 Barth suggested his audiences that they ought not
necessary to believe in hell and eternal death because the devil, sin and eternal death appeared
to us as they had already been overcome by Jesus. This seemed universalistic, however, Barth

1
Oliver D Crisp, All Shall be Well: Explorations in Universal Salvation and Christian Theology, from Origen to
Moltmann, I do teach it, but i also do not teach it, ed. G. Macdonald (Philadelphia: Casemate Publishers and
Book Distributors, LLC, 2011).
2
Ibid
3
Norman L Geisler, Baker encyclopedia of Christian apologetics (Baker Books, 1999).
4
Roger E. Olson, "Was Karl Barth a Universalist? A new look oat an old question", h
5
Karl Barth, The Faith of the Church: A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed According to Calvin's Catechism
(Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006).

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denied it. Crisp brought out three passages which Barth obviously denied universalism (known
historically as apokatastasis).6

“If we are to respect the freedom of divine grace, we cannot venture the statement that it must
and will finally be coincident with the world of man as such (as in the doctrine of the so-called
apokatastasis). No such right or necessity can legitimately be deduced.”7

“The Church will not then preach an apokatastasis, nor will it preach a powerless grace of
Jesus Christ or wickedness of men which is too powerful for it.”8

“No such postulate [apokatastasis or universal reconciliation] can be made even though we
appeal to the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 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.”9

Barth’s denial of Calvinism, Arminianism, Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism

Barth did not agree with the “traditional” view of universalism. He did not want to have any
share with the unorthodox Church Father Origen, who was condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical
Council of Constantinople. He did not want to fall into the Calvinistic view of doctrine either
and to proclaim that God was the primary cause of the evil of rebellion because of Calvin’s
doctrine of predestination. That made evil the attribute of God. 10 In another sense, he also did
not want to fall into the Arminian view of doctrine which upholds human integrity and human
absolute free-will to choose God. He neither agreed with supralapsarianism nor
infralapsarianism. Barth thought of an innovative idea. He proposed that Jesus was both the
elect11 and reprobate. He married his doctrine of Christ to supralapsarianism which derived a
new “purify”12 supralapsarianism. The double predestination’s doctrine applied to Jesus Christ,
not the saved and unsaved but Jesus Christ alone. Jesus Christ was both the very God and the

6
Stanley J Grenz et al., Pocket dictionary of theological terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998).
7
Karl Barth et al., Church Dogmatics Vol. II, Part 2, The Doctrine of God, trans. T. H. L. Parker, et al. (New
York: T&T Clark International, 1957).
8
Ibid, .
9
Barth, Bromiley and Torrance, Church Dogmatics.
10
Barth’s words: “… we have to bring against his [Calvin] whole doctrine of predestination. The electing God
of Calvin is a Deus nudus absconditus.” Barth, Bromiley and Torrance, Church Dogmatics.
11
Paul described Jesus as the one “chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times
for your sake.” (1Peter 1:20) The word “chosen” in Greek was προγινώσκω, meaning to know beforehand; to
have foreknowledge.11 Peter linked God’s foreknowledge intimately with his divine election. The two appealing
examples would be in Luke 23:35 and 1Peter 2:4 where Jesus was called the “chosen one.” No Bible translations
had translated these verses as the “elected one.”
12
Olson, "Was Karl Barth a Universalist? A new look oat an old question".

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very Man, he was the electing God and yet he was also the elected man. He was the elected
and the rejected at the same time. “Even as God, He[Jesus] was elected [by the Father].”13
The only truly rejected man is [God’] own Son.”14 Barth’s understanding of the Bible was
imaginative and courageous. The Bible revealed that Jesus is the only eternally begotten son
of God. Although Barth never intended to separate the ontological norm, Christ, from its
mediation in history and experience, Barthians traditionally inclined towards Christomonism.15

Jesus was both the elect and reject

The theology of “Jesus being both the elect and reject” sounded biblical. Barth derived this
concept from the Old Testament (Lev 14 and 16). Grebe challenged Barth’s understanding of
these passages with detail analysis. 16 Firstly, Grebe agreed that Jesus “should only” be
perceived as the sacrificial animal (not necessary relating all the four animals as types of Christ)
in the act of Existenzstellvertretung (substitutive atonement), and could only be considered to
be the elect of God by his both divine and human nature.17 Jesus shall never be considered to
be the reject from the divine perspective. Barth attempted to split Jesus’s dual nature. The
human nature was the one bore the punishment from the Father like the Azazel-goat/ scapegoat
(Lev 16:10), the divine nature brought the sacrificial atonement to God the Father.18 Grebe
described that there was some theology disunity in Barth’s interpretation. Barth acknowledged
that the Son of Man would be lifted up into the divine Triune fellowship as compared to the
punishment. 19 In essence, Grebe attempted to refute Barth’s argument of Jesus being the
“reject”. The words “elect” and the “reject” could not be compared parallelly. Jesus’s election
was a divine act in the eternal sphere according to Barth, Jesus’s reject was a temporal act
which occurred in the space-time continuum. Jesus was the one eternally elected, but not the
one eternally rejected. Barth’s dialectical approach undoubtedly fell into this dilemma. God’s
temporal rejection on the Cross (as No) was the thesis, God’s eternal election (as Yes) was the
antithesis, the synthesis was Jesus Christ. Again, Barth’s election and rejection were not
compared at the same horizon.

13
Barth, Bromiley and Torrance, Church Dogmatics Vol. II,.
14
Ibid,
15
Donald G Bloesch, A theology of Word & Spirit: Authority & method in theology (Downers Grove, Illinois:
InterVarsity Press, 2005).
16
Matthias Grebe, Election, Atonement, and the Holy Spirit : Through and Beyond Barth's Theological
Interpretation of Scripture, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2015),.
17
Ibid, .
18
Ibid, .
19
Barth, Bromiley and Torrance, Church Dogmatics Vol. II.

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The accept and the reject were both elected in Jesus Christ
In Barth’s theology, all human beings were elected in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was elected
by God the Father. It was clear from Barth’s point that there was no human outside of the
election of Jesus Christ. In fact, all human beings would be saved ones. Barth described that
“it could not now be the reprobate ones’ concern to suffer the execution of the threat, to suffer
the eternal damnation which their godlessness deserves. Their desire and their undertaking
were pointless in so far as their only end could be to make them rejected. And this was the
very goal which the godless could not reach, because it had already been taken away by the
eternally decreed offering of the Son of God to suffer in place of the godless, and could not any
longer be their goal.”20 Crips made it clear by negating any potential turbid “space” in his
footnote.21 Jesus had included everyone in His divine election, even those who rejected his
election. “… under the threat of his actual rejection – this fact does indeed conflict with his
election, but it cannot annul it, because it is not to be sought or found in him, but is grounded
in Jesus Christ. His rejection may be attributed to him [Jesus].”22 “They can … dishonour the
divine election of grace; but they cannot overthrow or overturn it.”23 “There was no other reject
but Jesus.”24 The divine election happened before the creation of the world, therefore it had an
immediate effect of salvation. When mankind was created, we were created with the effect of
salvation eternally, this was because God the Father had predestined Jesus to be the rejected
one for all mankind in the eternal sense. The salvation had been actualized, it was an
epistemology understanding if elects were aware of the salvation which Jesus had done before
the existence of space-time continuum.

Barth’s “Agnostic view” towards the future of all mankind

It was obvious that Barth upheld universalism. However, some theologians believed that Barth
did not endorse universalism. The most influencing quotes were found in Church Dogmatics,
Vol IV, part 3. Barth affirmed that the future of all mankind was uncertain. Barth opened up
the possibilities that mankind may be all saved.25 In another place, Barth also defended that
God had ultimate freedom even to reject those believers.26 From Barth’s perspective, his focus

20
Ibid,
21
Crisp, All Shall be Well: Explorations in Universal Salvation and Christian Theology, from Origen to
Moltmann.
22
Barth, Bromiley and Torrance, Church Dogmatics Vol. II.
23
Ibid, .
24
Ibid, .
25
Barth, Bromiley and Torrance, Church Dogmatics Vol. IV.
26
Ibid, .

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was in this temporal world. How could we know if one now believed and he would continue
to believe until his last breath? How could we know if one now rejected and he might believe
at his last breath and get saved? Therefore, Barth concluded that no one knew who would end
up in heaven or hell, only God knew, and if God wanted everyone to be in heaven, that was
also possible. Bettis observed that “Barth does not reject universalism because the future of
the pagan is uncertain. He rejects universalism because the future of all men is uncertain.”27

Barth’s sola Libertas and sola Imperium

The focal point of Barth’s theology was God’s grace and sovereignty28 which rooted in Rom
9:15-22. God was free to show mercy or compassion to anyone, it did not depend on the
human’s desire or effort. It was purely by his grace. Not only that, God was the one hardened
people’s heart so that they would refuse to accept Him. No one was able to resist God’s will.
The potter had the absolute right to determine the destiny of the jar from a lump of clay.
Sometimes, Barth’s doctrine seemed to transcend Calvinistic’s point of view of five “Solas”
(Sola Christus, Sola Fide, Sola Deo Gloria, Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia). Barth promoted Sola
Libertas and Sola Imperium.

Barth’s “Mystic view” towards God’s Sovereignty and boundless Freedom

Barth mixed up the temporal from the eternal realms, just like Jesus’s eternal “elect” and his
temporal “reject”. In this temporal world, he proclaimed that no one could be sure of human’s
destiny. He linked this concept eternally which God’s freedom alone decided the destiny of
mankind. There was no possibility of the assurance of human salvation because God could
withdraw his salvific grace from believers according to his ultimate eternal freedom. Therefore,
even our belief in this temporary realm would be overthrown by God’s eternal decree.
Berkouwer once wrote, “If this revelation of grace is to be qualified by a concept of divine
freedom which can be isolated from God’s self-revelation in history, it can only be done at the
expense of introducing both an element of arbitrariness into the doctrine of God and a basic
uncertainty into the believer’s knowledge of God.29 The assurance of believers’ salvation was
overruled by God’s “liberty”. Either the “believers” in the Bible could not be confirmed as
they were “true believers”, or God’s words in scripture could be overridden by his own eternal

27
Joseph D. Bettis, "Is Karl Barth a Universalist?", Scottish Journal of Theology 20, no. 4 (1967).
28
Barth declined any forms of synergism from human’s perspective. “It is God who elects man. Man’s electing
of God can come only second. But man’s electing does follow necessarily on the divine electing.” Barth,
Bromiley and Torrance, Church Dogmatics Vol. II.
29
Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer, "A Critique of J. D. Bettis, “Is Karl Barth a Universalist?”.

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“liberty”. Barth dissociated God’s revelation in history from God’s honesty, faithfulness and
trustworthiness. God’s “boundless” freedom was the ultimate reigning factor, even man’s
continuation of rejection was not the final decision. “God’s ways are higher than our ways,
God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts” (Isa 55:9). Barth upheld sola Libertas more than
Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide. If God’s ultimate freedom was the ultimate reigning factor, what
is the point adding an extra layer of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and his resurrection? God the
Father alone decided human’s salvation. Barth’s understanding of God’s divine freedom
prevents him to reconcile with reformed doctrines (especially sola Fide) because the human
response was not compulsory.

Barth’s understanding of God’s Grace

Horton illustrated Barth’s understanding of mankind as if the prisoners resided in Plato’s cave.
Mankind was under the reign of sin, death, unbelief, and condemnation, they were inside this
terrible dream which was not true of their reality 30, God was outside of this dream and he
decided the destiny of mankind irrespective of human response or good deeds. Horton
described that even God’s No is overtaken by God’s Yes; hence, Law must always be finally
subsumed under Gospel.” 31 What is the Gospel? In Barth’s opinion, it was God’s grace
(according to his freedom) manifested on mankind “But more, the election of grace is the whole
of the gospel, the gospel in nuce.”32 “… God decides, and the decision itself, are independent
of all other decisions, of all creaturely decision … Grace is the divine movement and
condescension on the basis of which men belong to God and God to men.”33 Barth upheld
God’s sovereignty, “freedom” and “love” to include all mankind in this covenant of grace.

Barth’s disastrous Theological Impact

Barth’s doctrine has a disastrous theological impact. One did not necessarily need to repent in
order to get saved. Whatever needed to be done (for salvation sake) had been done in Jesus
Christ. Repentance would seem to be an odd thing in Barth’s theology.

Barth’s misunderstanding of God’s Divine Love

30
Michael Scott Horton, The Christian faith : a systematic theology for pilgrims on the way (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Zondervan, 2011).
31
Barth, Bromiley and Torrance, Church Dogmatics Vol. II. “The Yes cannot be heard unless the No is also
heard. But the No is said for the sake of the Yes and not for its own sake. In substance, therefore, the first and
last word is Yes and not No.”
32
Karl Barth et al.
33
Ibid,

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Barth’s understanding of the divine love of God was not genuine. It was a forced love.
Mankind could not reject God’s love and grace towards them. Love cannot act coercively, but
persuasively.34 If you forced someone to love you which was against his will, it was rape, that
love was not a genuine, true love. It was out of no way but to submit to the authority. Therefore,
God’s love must allow others not to love him. True love gave “space” to others. True love
respected about others irrespective of if they disrespected or rejected him. Barth’s
understanding of God’s divine love was bounded by his absolute “liberty”, God was free to do
what he liked, if he decided to love us, he could forcibly make it happen irrespective of human’s
refusal. Barth’s understanding of love was not God’s divine love.

Barth’s “present” Hell and his optimistic hope for the true reject
Jesus taught about the existence of Hell in various occasions (Luke 13:28; Matt 5:29; 8:12;
10:28; 23:15 ; 25:41; Mark 9:43). Barth linked that to only one man, that is Jesus Christ who
alone suffered in hell.35 “… we actually know of only one certain triumph of hell – the handing
over of Jesus – and that this triumph of hell took place in order that it would never again be
able to triumph over anyone”.36 Bible revealed that the hell was a place with eternity for the
unbelievers. “God abandons them to themselves, and therefore to their destruction.”37 “the
hell into which the rejected are cast … eternal fire … gnashing of teeth …, consists in the fact
that everyone finds, and necessarily is and has, … that everyone has to lie on the bed which he
has made himself. This as such is the eternal torment which they must suffer, the eternal death
which they have incurred.”38 The hell that Barth described was not a state after death, it was
at the present life which the wrath of God poured against the reject. The reject lived in hell at
the present state. If there was no concept of hell for the unbelievers because Jesus had suffered
on their behalf, we could safely confirm that Barth was a universalist. What about those who
continued to reject God’s election until their last breath? Was there a difference in
consequences between the believers and unbelievers? Barth presented some inconsistency that
the future of the reject was unknown. “It cannot be our concern to know and decide what has
or will perhaps become of them [reject], for they also stand in the light of what God has done
for the world” 39 Barth remained “holy silence” as what Bartholomaeus and Hunsinger (cited

34
Geisler, Baker encyclopedia of Christian apologetics.
35
Michael Bartholomaeus, "Barth on hell", The Reformed Theological Review 74, no. 3 (2015).
36
Barth, Bromiley and Torrance, Church Dogmatics Vol. II.
37
Ibid, .
38
Ibid, .
39
Ibid, .

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by Bartholomaeus) pointed out.40 This prevented him to be labelled universalist. However,
Barth presents an eschatological optimism towards the reject. “As forgiveness of sins is
established in Jesus Christ alone, and as He alone has risen from the dead, so we have Him
alone, both for ourselves [those who accept] and others [those who reject], as a pledge of
hope.”41

Barth’s undermining of the concept of Faith

Because of the misconception of what love was, Barth applied the same erroneous concept
towards faith. “Faith is the non-rejection of man … man is not rejected.”42 If man could not
reject, it was a forced faith. Bible consistently taught us to have faith in order to please God
(Heb 11:6), to be accounted as righteous one (Gen 15:6), to be the children of God (Gen 3:6-
9), to live (Gal 3:11), to be justified (Rom 5:1), to be heard (Mark 11:22-24) and so on. Barth’s
theology undoubtedly downplayed the significance of faith in Christianity because Jesus had
done whatever that was necessary for us to be saved. In Barth, the justification was by grace,
not by faith. Barth undermined the necessity of pro-active faith throughout his “doctrine”.

Barth’s understanding of God’s Grace was the overarching Backbone of his Theology
In Barth, grace presupposed sin, grace presupposed fault, grace was how God loved.43 “Grace
included human response, our believing became a participatory event. Jesus Christ does it all,
even our believing, and even our believing in Jesus Christ does it all, even in our believing …
ad infinitum … one can never get outside of the brackets of grace.” 44 A typical Barth’s
apologetic, McSwain argued that no one could get outside of the brackets of God’s grace.
God’s grace was the foundation of Barth’s theological backbone. McSwain believed that
everyone was inside of this covenant of grace which Jesus Christ had done for all mankind.
The only thing we needed to do was “be” reconciled to God because all were actually already
inside this covenant. There was no way that human could opt out of this covenant, because
“our decision was actually a non-decision, the action step was really a non-action step.”45 If
our decision was a non-decision, how could he make sense that our decision was still

40
Bartholomaeus, "Barth on hell".
41
Barth, Bromiley and Torrance, Church Dogmatics Vol. II,.
42
Ibid, .
43
Horton, The Christian faith : a systematic theology for pilgrims on the way,.
44
Jeff McSwain, "You're Included - Calvinism, Arminianism, and Karl Barth", interview by JM
45
Ibid, .

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important?46 This was pretty much all the Barth’s apologetics who believed that Barth was a
non-logically universalist had to answer.

Barth’s Typological mistake and his Immoral Moralities

Barth fades Jesus and Judas into one, Jesus became Judas, the most problematic Urbild of
rejection. (cited by Grebe)47 “…the power of the matter entrusted to the apostles is so great
that even Judas is not exempt from its positive service, but subject to it … an outstanding
function is indeed allotted to him in this service. But this is something that we must affirm,
because, according to the New Testament, it is just as undeniable as his sin and guilt.”48 How
and when did Judas fall into the salvation table? In Barth, Judas was elected to carry an
outstanding and necessary service. That was to betray and sell Jesus. Without Judas’s help,
Jesus could not be sold and there would not have any crucifixion and resurrection. Therefore,
firstly we thanked Jesus, secondly, we thanked Judas. The New Testament never presented
Judas as a positive figure, in fact, he committed suicide. In Barth, Judas was a negative
example yet elected and saved by God.

Barth’s problem of his whole theology laid with the invisible “third” group of elects. God the
Father elected Jesus to be the elect and reject. Through Jesus, all mankind were elected.
Among mankind, those who accepted and “be” reconciled to God were the elects; some who
rejected and did not believe in Jesus were also the elects (example: Judas). Jesus knew that
Judas would not believe in Him in the early beginning and he would betray. (John 6:64;
13:11,18) “Yet there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus had known from the
beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.” (John 6:64) The third
group was the “unknown” group which Barth did not know whether they were the elect or
reject. He reminded us not to speculate. Is there any “third” group who fell outside of
“believing” and “not believing” in God? In Barth, his theology of election was ambiguous.
His moral standard was ambivalent. If one affirmed his theology, one could neither necessarily
believe nor follow Christ. We all could act as a negative example and still got saved. Where
was his bottomless bottom line? What was the true morality? Barth presented an immoral
morality in Christianity. This was not a surprise. He promoted “forced love” and “forced

46
Ibid,
47
David F Ford, Barth and God's Story: Biblical Narrative and the Theological Method of Karl Barth in the
Church Dogmatics (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2008), 93. Grebe, Election, Atonement, and the Holy Spirit :
Through and Beyond Barth's Theological Interpretation of Scripture,.
48
Barth, Bromiley and Torrance, Church Dogmatics Vol. II,.

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faith”. God could make things impossible possible. He presented his God as a “dominator”
instead of a sovereign one.

Conclusion
Barth’s understanding of the “elect” had some major deficiency. The election occurred in the
time-space based on God’s foreknowledge before the creation of the world. Barth’s
understanding of election has mixed up some concepts of different timeframes. For example,
the election occurred within the Trinity, the elect and reprobate were unified into Jesus, the true
elect and the true reject were both “elected” in Jesus Christ. There would be no non-elect and
eternal death, as all were brought forward to Jesus Christ; there would be no hell for the true
reject in the eternal sense, as the hell was brought forward to the present age. Barth’s election
theology was a disaster. One would not necessary to evangelise or be enthusiastic to preach
the gospel because human actions were inside God’s gracious captivity. As long as mankind
was aware that they were within this covenant, they would be epistemologically saved. Their
non-faith or reject would not change their fate. They would be eventually saved. Barth’s
doctrines were inconsistent, in many places he mentioned that all mankind would be saved
because of Jesus Christ, at some places he acted ignorantly and proclaimed that the future of
the reject might hopefully be saved or unknown. His jumble of timeframes unavoidably denied
logos asarkos. 49 In Barth, God’s wrath was swallowed by God’s grace, God’s justice was
swallowed by God’s righteousness, therefore there was impossible to have any sin, death,
unbelief, and condemnation which associated with God’s wrath because they were all gobbled
up by God’s grace. In Barth, God’s “liberty” and his “divine love” were scarily boundless and
truthless, God would possibly and potentially force us to fall in love with him.

49
Olson, "Was Karl Barth a Universalist? A new look oat an old question",.

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