Creation for Life or Death: A Study in Lutheran Trajectories of Gustaf Wingren and Oswald Bayer in the Modern Context

This study is based upon Oswald Bayer’s and Gustaf Wingren’s retrievals of Luther’s theology, which supports an ambivalent ontology for the human creature. This is to say that the destiny of the human leans towards two directions at once, even as its origins from “nothingness” rest upon an original creation from non-being (creatio ex nihilo), while also being made “in the image of God.” As such, it will be shown that Wingren and Bayer often speak of the dual realities of life/death, sin/righteousness, suffering/glory, God/Satan, hidden/revealed God; and many other Luther-based dualisms. As such, they establish in their retrievals of Luther’s theology a Luther-based anthropology. This anthropology could support a double outcome predestinarian viewpoint, even as it did for Luther and the Reformers. But in the modern context other factors work to mitigate against this. Karl Barth’s theology is addressed as influential in this regard, especially in his doctrine of election with its potentially implied universalism. In the conclusion, one of the implications is that Jesus Christ, as man, both continues our original humanness as those made “from the void,” while yet ensuring in His redemptive resurrected life, eternal glory and life for those so called to this destiny of faith.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD