scholarly journals An Overview of Karl Barth's Theology: Focused on the Doctrines of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 2164-2175
Author(s):  
Sang-Hoon Jee

ABSTRACT       The purpose of this study is to have an overview of the theology of Karl Barth who is considered as one of the most influential theologians in contemporary Christian world. This study is of worthy in order to have an accurate grasp of the trend of modern Chriatian theology. After a brief survey of his life and works, this study provides an overview of Barth’s theology focusing on three major areas of his theology: the doctrines of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Barth’s emphasis upon the transcendence of God, the centrality of Jesus Christ in Christian theology, and the importance of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity should not be ignored for better understanding of the modern Christian theology. In a word, Barth’s theology has continuity of, and, at the same time, discontinuity from liberal theology. Keywords: Karl Barth, morder Christian theology, transcendence of God, centraliy of Jesus Christ, importance of the Holy Spirit, neo-orthodoxy, liberal theology

Author(s):  
Wolf Krötke

This chapter presents Barth’s understanding of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Jesus Christ. It demonstrates the way in which Barth’s pneumatology is anchored in his doctrine of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit is understood as the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, the One whose essence is love. But Barth can also speak of the Holy Spirit in such a way that it seems as if the Holy Spirit is identical to the work of the risen Jesus Christ and his ‘prophetic’ work. The reception of the pneumatology of Karl Barth thus confronts the task of relating these dimensions of Barth’s understanding of the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit’s distinct work is preserved. For Barth, this work consists in enabling human beings to respond in faith, with their human possibilities and their freedom, to God’s reconciliation in Jesus Christ. In this faith, the Holy Spirit incorporates human beings into the community of Jesus Christ—the community participates in the reconciling work of God in order to bear witness to God’s work to human beings, all of whom have been elected to ‘partnership’ with God. Barth also understood the ‘solidarity’ of the community with, and the advocacy of the community for, the non-believing world to be a nota ecclesiae (mark of the church). Further, to live from the Holy Spirit, according to Barth, is only possible in praying for the coming of the Holy Spirit.


Author(s):  
Dan Howard-Snyder

The doctrine of the Trinity is central to Christian theology. The part of the doctrine that concerns us here may be stated in these words: although the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are different persons, each is the same God as the other; they are not three Gods, but exactly one God. These words arguably imply a contradiction. For example, if the Father is not the same person as the Son, then the Father is not identical with the Son; thus, if each is a God, there are at least two Gods, which contradicts the claim that there is exactly one God. Analytic theologians have responded to this line of argument and others related to it. Each response aims to model a consistent doctrine of the Trinity, one that provides the resources to reject such arguments while retaining Trinitarian orthodoxy. We can classify these attempts by distinguishing those according to which there is no numerical sameness without identity from those according to which there is numerical sameness without identity. Attempts in the first group tend to raise worries about consistency with orthodoxy. Attempts in the second group tend to raise worries about intelligibility.


2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-290
Author(s):  
Adam McIntosh

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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-128
Author(s):  
Marlon Butarbutar

Kristologi adalah merupakan pokok terpenting dalam ajaran iman Kristen. Kristologi juga bisa disebut sebagai pusat kekristenan itu sendiri, dengan itu kristologi adalah pusat dari ilmu theologia. Karenanya mempelajari Pribadi dan karya Kristus, berarti sedang berada pada pusat theologi Kristen. Yesus Kristuslah yang memberikan identitas kepada kekristenan, yang sekaligus membedakannya dari agama atau kepercayaan yang lain. Keistimewaan doktrin ini terletak dalam pribadi dan karya Yesus Kristus sebagai Tuhan yang menjadi finalitas jalan menuju kepada keselamatan yang kekal. Pemahaman yang benar terhadap doktrin kristologi tidak lepas dari pengetahuan yang sehat terhadap Alkitab, sebab Alkitablah satu-satunya sumber utama yang dengan jujur dan terbuka memberikan kesaksian mengenai pribadi Yesus sebagai juruselamat dunia. Memang realita historis tulisan-tulisan di dalam Alkitab itu ditulis oleh manusia, akan tetapi proses penulisannya diilhami oleh Allah melalui pimpinan Roh Kudus sehingga apa yang diucapkan atau ditulis sesuai dengan kehendak Tuhan (bnd. 2Tim 3:16). Alkitab secara keseluruhan dipercaya dengan akurat dalam mengambarkan Yesus Kristus. Akan tetapi dalam prosesnya banyak ditemukan bahwa kristologi yang dihasilkan bertentangan dengan Alkitab. Sejarah membuktikan bahwa gereja selalu berhadapan dengan pengajaran-pengajaran sesat yang menyerang gereja dari dalam. Dalam hal ini berbentuk ajaran-ajaran (doktrin) yang menyesatkan atau bidat-bidat yang menyelewengkan ajaran murni Alkitab. Bahaya ajaran-ajaran sesat ini tidak saja timbul pada abad-abad belakangan ini, melainkan sudah ada sejak gereja didirikan. Karenanya penulis hendak menguraikan kristologi yang akan menjadi dasar apologetika di era postmodern sekarang ini.   Christology is the most important point in the teachings of the Christian faith. Christology can also be called the center of Christianity itself, so that Christology is the center of theological science. Therefore studying the Person and work of Christ, means being at the center of Christian theology. It is Jesus Christ who gives identity to Christianity, which also distinguishes it from other religions or beliefs. The specialty of this doctrine lies in the person and work of Jesus Christ as Lord who becomes the finality of the path to eternal salvation. A correct understanding of the doctrine of Christology is inseparable from a healthy knowledge of the Bible, because the Bible is the only major source that honestly and openly testifies about the person of Jesus as the savior of the world. Indeed the historical reality of the writings in the Bible was written by humans, but the process of writing was inspired by God through the leadership of the Holy Spirit so that what was said or written was according to God's will (cf. 2Tim 3:16). The Bible as a whole is believed to be accurate in describing Jesus Christ. However, in the process it was found that the resulting christology was in conflict with the Bible. History proves that the church is always dealing with false teachings that attack the church from within. In this case the form of teachings (doctrines) are misleading or heretics who distort the pure teachings of the Bible. The danger of these heresies has not only arisen in recent centuries, but has existed since the church was founded. Therefore the author wants to elaborate on the Christology that will be the basis of apologetics in the current postmodern era.


Author(s):  
Peter van Inwagen

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a central and essential element of Christian theology. The part of the doctrine that is of special concern in the present entry may be stated in these words: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each God; they are distinct from one another; and yet (in the words of the Athanasian Creed), ‘they are not three Gods, but there is one God’. This is not to be explained by saying that ‘the Father’, ‘the Son’ and ‘the Holy Spirit’ are three names that are applied to the one God in various circumstances; nor is it to be explained by saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are parts or aspects of God (like the leaves of a shamrock or the faces of a cube). In the words of St Augustine: Thus there are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and each is God and at the same time all are one God; and each of them is a full substance, and at the same time all are one substance. The Father is neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit; the Son is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. But the Father is the Father uniquely; the Son is the Son uniquely; and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit uniquely. (De doctrina christiana I, 5, 5) The doctrine of the Trinity seems on the face of it to be logically incoherent. It seems to imply that identity is not transitive – for the Father is identical with God, the Son is identical with God, and the Father is not identical with the Son. There have been two recent attempts by philosophers to defend the logical coherency of the doctrine. Richard Swinburne has suggested that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be thought of as numerically distinct Gods, and he has argued that, properly understood, this suggestion is consistent with historical orthodoxy. Peter Geach and various others have suggested that a coherent statement of the doctrine is possible on the assumption that identity is ‘always relative to a sortal term’. Swinburne’s formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity is certainly free from logical incoherency, but it is debatable whether it is consistent with historical orthodoxy. As to ‘relative identity’ formulations of the doctrine, not all philosophers would agree that the idea that identity is always relative to a sortal term is even intelligible.


Author(s):  
Jele S. Manganyi ◽  
Johan Buitendag

To what extent do the resources of African Traditional Religion (ATR) contribute towards Christian theological discourse and benefit the African church? ATR is accommodated in the African Initiated Churches (AICs). The members of these churches aim to be Christian without losing their African identity. ATR is a religion that was practised throughout Africa before the arrival of the Western missionaries. The core premise of ATR is the maintenance of African culture and its main feature is loyalty to the ancestors and the accompanying rituals that express this loyalty. This study addresses the appropriateness of ATR’s resources in terms of their contribution to the doctrine of the Trinity. When the early church worshipped God the Father and God the Son (Jesus) in the presence of the Holy Spirit, a tension developed. The questions of monotheism versus polytheism and the nature and position of Jesus within the Trinity were put forward and addressed. The doctrine of the Trinity is uniquely Christian and includes the belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who alone mediates between God and men. There is, on the other hand, an understanding that Africans worship one Supreme Being and venerate ancestors as intermediaries to the one Supreme Being, without clear roles being ascribed to Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. This article enquires whether the process of Africanisation and contextualisation consciously or unconsciously downgraded Jesus Christ as Mediator who came to reveal who God is and to reconcile humankind to him.


1986 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Bradshaw

This article seeks to define one important way in which idealist thought, for which Edward Caird will serve as spokesman, can help us understand Barth's doctrine of the essential Trinity. It is hoped that this will in particular clarify the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and help qualify some recent criticism levelled at Barth's teaching. The treatment falls into two parts, the first expository, the second analytical.


Author(s):  
Hendri Mulyana Sendjaja

The intellectual struggles and adventures of Christian thinkers in Alexandria in the first centuries produced an overarching effect to the doctrines of Christian faith, which survived to the present day. One of those doctrines is the doctrine of the Trinity. The study of the thought of Athanasius of Alexandria in regards of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, through his works such as Contra Gentes-De Incarnatione, Contra Arianos I-III, and Epistola ad Serapionem, speaks for itself the contribution he made to solidify the doctrine of the Trinity. For him, the doctrine expresses the eternal communion among the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, which in effect brings benefi t to us. The construction of the doctrine is inseparable from the Church tradition which owed to the ecclesiastical biblical exegesis, and the construction of the theological methods, and the soteriological perspective.


Author(s):  
Simeon Zahl

This book presents a fresh vision for Christian theology that foregrounds the relationship between theological ideas and the experiences of Christians. It argues that theology is always operating in a vibrant landscape of feeling and desiring, and shows that contemporary theology has often operated in problematic isolation from these experiential dynamics. It then argues that a theologically serious doctrine of the Holy Spirit not only authorizes but requires attention to Christian experience. Against this background, the book outlines a new methodological approach to Christian theology that attends to the emotional and experiential power of theological doctrines. This methodology draws on recent interdisciplinary research on affect and emotion, which has shown that affects are powerful motivating realities that saturate all dimensions of human thinking and acting. In the process, the book also explains why contemporary theology has often been ambivalent about subjective experience, and demonstrates that current discourse about God’s activity in the world is often artificially abstracted from experience and embodiment. The book culminates in a proposal for a new experiential and pneumatological account of the theology of grace that builds on this methodology. Focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation and sanctification, it retrieves insights from Augustine, Luther, and Philip Melanchthon to present an affective and Augustinian vision of salvation as a pedagogy of desire. In articulating this vision, the book engages critically with recent emphasis on participation and theosis in Christian soteriology and charts a new path forward for Protestant theology in a landscape hitherto dominated by the theological visions of Karl Barth and Thomas Aquinas.


1988 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-484
Author(s):  
M. P. Wilson

It would be dishonest not to begin with Austin Farrer, for what follows has grown out of a long-held admiration for that sadly neglected writer. Throughout his life, Farrer was concerned with the role played in our lives by imagination, inspiration and creativity. He saw that creation was shot through with the imprint of its Maker, and in the classical Christian tradition understood the shaping of all life in the material world to be the work of the Holy Spirit. At all levels of creation, inspiration, creativity and spiritual indwelling are the hallmarks of God's activity. For Farrer, natural religion and divine revelation are but two sides of the same coin. The key to all is the point at which they coincide most clearly, namely Jesus. Of Farrer's Christology I have written elsewhere. Such technical discussions are not our present business. Our task is to take the supreme Christian claim about the nature of God, namely the scandalous doctrine of the Trinity, and through the words of St John (whose influence on Farrer's understanding of Jesus was central) try to describe a practical understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit which employs the doctrine of the Trinity as the key-stone of Christian theology and experience.


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