On Reason and the Power of Life (Tolstoy contra Spinoza)

In his search for the meaning of life, Tolstoy turned to Spinoza’s rationalist teaching about freedom, reason, morality, and religious faith. Spinoza created a philosophy where beliefs are in union with deeds, logic unites with ethics, and knowledge joins faith. According to Tolstoy, it is art that makes a synthesis of all the best attempts of the real, true philosophy. I argue that Tolstoy’s artistic method of linkage (stseplenie) was probably borrowed from Spinoza. Inspired by Spinoza’s “theorems of reason,” Tolstoy created his own “axiom of life” and elaborates on the concept of the “power of life” as a core of religious faith. Tolstoy endorsed Spinoza’s rationalistic critique of religion which helped to liberate true faith from the power of superstition and church dogmatics, but he criticised the geometric form in which Spinoza put the truths he discovered.

Barth’s Call for a ‘Biblical Attitude’ and Miskotte’s ‘Alphabetization’ of Theology

This article is an English translation of an essay originally published in the journal Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie in 1989. In it, Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt revisits Karl Barth’s proposal in § 23 of Church Dogmatics that ‘biblical attitude’ is the first among several norms for Christian dogmatics. The article compares Barth’s emphasis on the ‘biblical formfulness’ of theology with the program of the Dutch Reformed theologian K.H. Miskotte, which seeks to educate Christians in the ‘iconic language’ of Scripture. It argues that Miskotte is concerned with hermeneutics in such a way that “Rudolf Bultmann’s name belongs—maybe before Barth’s—in proximity to Miskotte’s.” In contrast to Bultmann, however, Miskotte aims at teaching a language and generating speech rather than catalyzing self-understanding.

The Dissemination of Scottish Theology: T&T Clark

This chapter outlines the history of the Scottish family firm of publishers T&T Clark, which for nearly 200 years made a significant contribution to the development of an historical and critical approach to theological study. This was chiefly effected through a series of publications of mostly German-speaking works of theology and biblical studies. It is suggested that these were principally of a mediating kind, seeking to achieve a complementarity between forms of confessional Protestant belief and theology on the one hand and historical and philosophical studies on the other. This reached a climax in the early twentieth century with the publication of major works by Ritschl and Schleiermacher. Thereafter the firm’s publishing programme became more influenced by confessional forms of theology, particularly through its translation of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Its legacy, however, remains not only in the form of Barth but of Schleiermacher and historical critical studies of the Bible.

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

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.

“All Things Considered, a Little Tired”

After his retirement, Barth traveled for the first time to give lectures and public discussion in the United States, where the public interest was enormous. He also received several international honors, including an honorary doctorate from Sorbonne University. In September 1966, Barth traveled to Rome, where he met with the Curia and the Pope. Barth reconciled with Emil Brunner and became friends with the Catholic writer Carl Zuckmayer. During his final years, Barth experienced a steady decline in health. Charlotte von Kirschbaum developed dementia and in 1966 was moved to a clinic; after that the relationship between Karl and Nelly Barth eased. In 1967, Barth decided to end the work on his Church Dogmatics and published the fragments of CD IV/4. Barth died on December 10, 1968, in his sleep at his home in Basel.

“The White Whale”

Barth’s Church Dogmatics is the most extensive theological work of the twentieth century. Barth worked on it from 1932 until 1967, reconceptualizing theology from the very foundations. He distinguishes three forms of the Word of God, avoiding a biblicistic reading of the Bible. The doctrine of the Trinity is a consequent exposition of the concept of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ. This God is the one who loves in freedom, that is who relates to human beings because of grace. Barth therefore completely transforms the Reformed doctrine of double predestination. The doctrine of creation as well has to be derived from God’s self-revelation; God created the world because God wanted a covenantal partner. To this creation belong shadow sides as well as nothingness. God in Jesus Christ entered the confrontation with nothingness and reconciled the world with God. Only from reconciliation can we understand the essence of sin.

Karl Barth’s Christological Ecclesiology: A Historical Development

This paper traces the historical development of Karl Barth’s ecclesiology by analysing three representative works: The Epistle to the Romans, the Göttingen Dogmatics, and the Church Dogmatics. It argues that Barth’s theological turning point was a shift away from an early period Christology, which emphasised an eschatological time/eternity dialectic, culminating in the resurrection, towards a Christology that emphasised the anhypostatic union of Christ’s two natures, that culminated in the incarnation. Thus Barth gave an increasingly positive valuation of the church as an historical institution.

Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics

The most significant Reformed theologian of the twentieth century, Karl Barth, exercised a remarkably critical role relative to the classical traditions of Reformed Theology. His theological project drew on modern biblical criticism, post-Kantian philosophy, and early twentieth-century approaches to Christocentrism. Nevertheless, he prepared to offer a systematic theology by going to school with the classic texts of the Reformed tradition and by engaging in prolonged biblical exegesis. Eventually, Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics presented an orderly account of the Christian faith centred on and beginning with the self-presentation of God in Jesus Christ. It enfolds prolegomena, ethics, and homiletical guidance within its span, believing these ancillary discussions to demand properly theological and thus Christological regulation. This chapter explores the Christological focus and rhetorical style before turning to introduce each of the constituent parts (Word of God, God, Creation, and Reconciliation) of that magnum opus.