The book is a comparative study of John Calvins and Karl Barths doctrines of assurance.Calvin apparently equated faith and assurance. But what did he think about doubts which attack true believers? How did he relate assurance to signs of grace? Did he believe that assurance can be lost? Calvin is popularly associated with the doctrine of election and one might expect that he bases assurance on election. The irony is that for Calvin election is only a secondary foundation of assurance. It was Barth who made assurance a subtopic of the doctrine of election. For him assurance is based...

Developments in biblical studies, neurosciences, and Christian philosophy of mind force theologians to reconsider the traditional concept of the immortal soul. At the same time, the concept itself tends to create axiological dualism between the body and the soul that in turn may lead to insufficient appreciation of the physical life in this world. A more holistic approach to the ontology of human beings is required. The aim of this study is to analyze the function of the concept of the soul in the dualistic anthropology of John Calvin and to compare it to the holistic anthropology of Karl...

An investigation into the proper understanding of the soul in Christian theology, comparing the body-soul dualism in the writings of John Calvin with the more holistic understanding of Karl Barth.