Barth on Revelation

1960 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 366-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. H. L. Parker
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Evangelical Church ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The Will ◽  
The University ◽  
Evangelical Theology ◽  
The Church

In 1938 and 1939 Karl Barth delivered the Gifford Lectures in the University of Aberdeen. According to the will of the founder, these lectures were established for the ‘promoting, advancing, teaching and diffusing’ of the study of natural theology. But Barth was, as he made plain on receiving the invitation, ‘an avowed opponent of all natural theology’. Three years earlier he had fiercely attacked his former theological associate, Emil Brunner, on this same question. He had then said of natural theology: ‘It has to be rejected a limine—right at the outset. Only the theology and the church of the antichrist can profit from it. The Evangelical Church and Evangelical theology would only sicken and die of it.’ When therefore he was asked to give the Gifford Lectures he was in a quandary. The way in which he resolved the problem has usually been treated, half-humorously, as an ingenious piece of theological juggling. In fact, however, when we consider it in relation to his attitude to natural theology in his controversy with Brunner and to his treatment of it in Church Dogmatics II.I, on the knowledge of God, and indeed against the background of the whole of his life's work, we can see that in his solution of this difficulty there is simply the same attitude sharpened to a clear-cut issue. What he did was to jettison natural theology completely and give an exposition of its opposite, the theology of revelation.

The Doctrine of Appropriation as an Interpretative Framework for Karl Barth's Pneumatology of the Church Dogmatics

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-290
Author(s):  
Adam McIntosh
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Trinitarian Theology ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Interpretative Framework

Although Karl Barth is widely recognised as the initiator of the renewal of trinitarian theology in the twentieth century, his theology of the Church Dogmatics has been strongly criticised for its inadequate account of the work of the Holy Spirit. This author argues that the putative weakness of Barth's pneumatology should be reconsidered in light of his doctrine of appropriation. Barth employs the doctrine of appropriation as a hermeneutical procedure, within his doctrine of the Trinity, for bringing to speech the persons of the Trinity in their inseparable distinctiveness. It is argued that the doctrine of appropriation provides a sound interpretative framework for his pneumatology of the Church Dogmatics.

Karl Barth

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul T. Nimmo
Keyword(s):  
Karl Barth ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This chapter explores the epistemology of theology that is described and deployed in the theology of Karl Barth. Drawing primarily on the second volume of the Church Dogmatics, the chapter first considers Barth’s understanding of the epistemology of theology with reference to the roles of Word and Spirit, the primary and secondary objectivity of God, and the place of analogy. It then turns to examine the impact of Barth’s position upon the way in which the discipline of theology engages in dialogue with other disciplines, observing Barth’s practice in respect of the conversations he conducts with general ethics and general anthropology. The chapter concludes by suggesting ways in which the work of Barth may have ongoing importance in respect of contemporary work in the epistemology of theology.

Israel

2019 ◽  
pp. 324-340
Author(s):  
Mark Lindsay
Keyword(s):  
Jewish People ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
The Church

Ever since 1967, when Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt first proclaimed Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics to be the discovery of Judaism for Christianity, Barth’s theology of Jews, Judaism, and Israel has been a matter of increasing interest and contention. Having moved well beyond the earlier presumption of Israel’s absence from Barth’s thinking, conversations have now turned to the much more interesting questions of why and how he afforded Israel and Judaism such prominence. With due regard to his episodic ambiguity in these matters, this chapter argues that Karl Barth came gradually to the realization that he was compelled to speak of Israel and the Jewish people, not reactively or reluctantly, but because neither Christianity nor the church are possible without or apart from them.

Church Dogmatics by Karl Barth

1962 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-83
Author(s):  
Daniel L. Deegan
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Theological Interpretation ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Universal Rule

In this third part of volume III of his Dogmatics Barth sets forth the doctrine of divine providence as the objective and universal rule of God which establishes and encompasses but does not absorb the existence of the person or community which becomes the object of His preservation. Barth's steadfast aim has been to produce a theology dominated by its object, Jesus Christ. This part of the Dogmatics is no exception, for here he argues that the order of being and the order of knowledge start with the event of God's action in Christ. Hence he does not speak of a natural theology with an independent cosmological interest in the work of divine preservation, for he insists that Scripture is differently orientated. It does not witness simply to the highest being as first cause; it witnesses primarily to the Lord of history, the God of the Covenant. This means that the doctrine of providence does not become a Weltanschauung. What Barth says concerning this problem in C.D.III.3 should be read in conjunction with C.D.III.2, pp. 3ff. Because he affirms that the central concern of theology is the relation of God and man established in Jesus Christ he regards cosmology as a peripheral concern arid draws the line against attempts to integrate scientific views and theological interpretation into a comprehensive Weltanschauung. Yet he readily admits that the natural sciences which know their limits have their appropriate place in elucidating the nature of man against the background of creation.

“Non potest non peccare”: Karl Barth on original sin and the bondage of the will

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-207
Author(s):  
Shao Kai Tseng
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Historical Condition ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will

Summary This article offers an exposition of Karl Barth’s actualistic reorientation of the Augustinian notions of original sin and the bondage of the will in § 60 and § 65 of Church Dogmatics IV/1–2. Barth redefines human nature as a total determination of the human being (Sein/Dasein) “from above” by the covenantal history of reconciliation. Human nature as such remains totally intact in the historical state of sin. The human being, however, is also determined “from below” by the Adamic world-history of total corruption. With this dialectical construal of sin and human nature, Barth redefines original sin as the radically sinful activities and decisions that determine the confinement of human beings to the historical condition of fallenness. Barth also challenges the famous Augustinian account of the bondage of the will to which original sin gives rise, and uses the present active indicative to express his actualistic reorientation of the Augustinian notion of the bondage: “non potest non peccare”.

Barth and the divine perfections

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 450-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Sonderegger
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Divine Perfections ◽  
Radical Claim ◽  
Act And Being

AbstractColin Gunton advanced the radical claim that Christians have univocal knowledge of God. Just this, he said in Act and Being, was the fruit of Christ's ministry and passion. Now, was Gunton right to find this teaching in Karl Barth – or at least, as an implication of Barth's celebrated rejection of ‘hellenist metaphysics’? This article aims to answer this question by examining Gunton's own claim in Act and Being, followed by a closer inspection of Barth's analysis of the doctrine of analogy in a long excursus in Church Dogmatics II/1.Contrary to some readings of Barth, I find Barth to be remarkably well-informed about the sophisticated terms of contemporary Roman Catholic debate about analogy, including the work of G. Sohngen and E. Pryzwara. Barth's central objection to the doctrine of analogy in this section appears to be the doctrine's reckless division (in Barth's eyes) of the Being of God into a ‘bare’ God, the subject of natural knowledge, and the God of the Gospel, known in Jesus Christ. But such reckless abstraction cannot be laid at the feet of Roman theologians alone! Barth extensively examines, and finds wanting, J. A. Quenstedt's doctrine of analogy, and the knowledge of God it affords, all stripped, Barth charges, of the justifying grace of Jesus Christ. From these pieces, Barth builds his own ‘doctrine of similarity’, a complex and near-baroque account, which seeks to ground knowledge of God in the living act of his revelation and redemption of sinners. All this makes one tempted to say that Gunton must be wrong in his assessment either of univocal predication or of its roots in the theology of Karl Barth.But passages from the same volume of the Church Dogmatics make one second-guess that first conclusion. When Barth turns from his methodological sections in volume II/1 to the material depiction of the divine perfections, he appears to lay aside every hesitation and speak as directly, as plainly and, it seems, as ‘univocally’ as Gunton could ever desire. Some examples from the perfection of divine righteousness point to Barth's startling use of frank and direct human terms for God's own reality and his unembarrassed use of such terms to set out the very ‘heart of God’.Yet things are never quite what they seem in Barth. A brief comparison between Gunton's univocal predication and Barth's own use of christological predication reveals some fault-lines between the two, and an explanation, based on Barth's own doctrine of justification, is offered in its place.

Karl Barth on Baptism

1969 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Hartwell
Keyword(s):  
Essential Element ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
Remarkable Recovery ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation ◽  
The Church ◽  
Seriously Ill

Some years ago Barth fell seriously ill, and no one, least of all he himself, dared hope that he would ever again be capable of adding another volume to the twelve volumes of his opus magnum, the Church Dogmatics, which had appeared from 1932 till 1962. After his remarkable recovery in autumn 1965, however, he has paid a visit to Rome in September 1966, the fruit of which was his highly instructive report Ad Limina Apostolorum (reviewed in SJT, vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 110f), and now he has presented us with another volume of his Church Dogmatics, though, for the reasons given in the Preface to K.D. IV.4, the latter had to be confined to a fraction of what Barth had originally hoped to achieve in that volume. To understand what follows, we must call to mind that Barth, treating ethics as an integral part of dogmatics, had dealt in his doctrine of God (C.D. II.2) with the command of God as an essential element in the very Being of God (general ethics). In his doctrine of creation (C.D. III.4) he had discussed the command (special ethics) of God the Creator. In his teaching on reconciliation he had so far expounded (C.D. IV. 1–3) the three aspects of Jesus Christ's work of reconciliation, namely His priestly work as the Lord (Son of God) who became a servant to accomplish the work of reconciliation, His kingly work as the servant (Son of Man) who became Lord and by His exaltation exalted man to fellowship with God, and His prophetic work as the Godman who as the Mediator of man's reconciliation with God is the Guarantor and Witness of that reconciliation.

God's Self-Communication in Christ: A Comparison of Thomas F. Torrance and Karl Rahner

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 288-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Molnar
Keyword(s):  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Karl Rahner ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Triune God ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The One ◽  
Evangelical Theology ◽  
The Church

Karl Rahner and Thomas F. Torrance have made enormous contributions to 20th century theology. Torrance is quick to point out that Rahner's approach to Trinitarian theology which begins with God's saving revelation (the economic Trinity) and pivots ‘upon God's concrete and effective self-communication in the Incarnation’ does indeed have the effect that Rahner intended. First, it reunites the treatisesOn the One GodandOn the Triune God. This opens the door to rapprochement between systematic and biblical theology and binds the NT view of Jesus closer to the Church's worship and proclamation of the Triune God. Second, it opens the door to rapprochement between East and West by shifting from a more abstractive scholastic framework to one bound up with piety, worship and experience within the Church. Third, it opens the door to rapprochement between Roman Catholic theology and Evangelical theology ‘especially as represented by the teaching of Karl Barth in his emphasis upon the self-revelation and self-giving of God as the root of the doctrine of the Trinity …’

scholarly journals Reading Karl Barth on Truth and Falsehood in the Post-Truth Age

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 593
Author(s):  
Geoff Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Form ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This article offers a close reading of two sections of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics, i.e., §70.1 “The True Witness” and §70.2 “The Falsehood of Man” against the background of the post-truth environment. A brief discussion of the post-truth phenomenon highlights how some strands of the resistance to it trade on a binary of objective and subjective approaches to truth and epistemology, insisting on the triumph of the former over the latter as the way of overcoming the problems of knowledge and truth in a post-truth culture. The reading of the two selected texts from the Dogmatics indicate that Barth’s discussion of truth and falsehood cuts across that binary. Whilst much of what Barth says in these texts is said in earlier parts of the Dogmatics, it is sharpened in this context by Barth’s discussion of the “pious lie,” the distortion of the truth within the Christian community, as the fundamental form of falsehood. Alertness to this sin challenges the church to adopt a posture of self-criticism to its own knowledge of the truth. This can be its own form of witness in the post-truth age.

Barth, Karl (1886–1968)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Loup Seban
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
World War ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Christian Socialism ◽  
Protestant Theologian ◽  
Theological Understanding

Karl Barth was the most prominent Protestant theologian of a generation shaken by the traumatic experience of the First World War and concerned with giving Christian theology a new grounding. He took a creative part in the struggle of the German Church against National Socialism, and, after the Second World War, exerted a worldwide influence that reached beyond the bounds of Protestantism. Although influenced at first by Christian socialism, Barth came to repudiate such ‘hyphenated’ versions of Christianity, which, he felt, underemphasize or ignore the otherness of God. There is an infinite qualitative distinction between the divine and the human; the Enlightenment attempt to historicize and secularize revelation was profoundly mistaken. This ‘dialectical theology’ attracted a number of leading theologians in the 1920s. Later, however, Barth felt compelled to close the gap with the divine, and developed a ‘theology of the Word’ to this end. Central to this approach is the concept of the knowledge conferred by faith, which makes theological understanding and rationality possible. It was on the basis of this that Barth constructed his massive Die Kirchliche Dogmatik (Church Dogmatics) (1932–70). In this, he emphasizes the self-expounding nature of Scripture (by contrast with nineteenth-century biblical scholarship, which stressed the need for a historical approach to the text) and the importance of Christ in the understanding of theology and human nature. He was a determined opponent of natural theology, and was critical of the idea that philosophy could complement theology.

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