Karl Barth, reconciliation, and the Triune God

Abstract

It has become commonplace to attribute the twentieth-century recovery of the doctrine of the Trinity to the Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886–1968). Barth, though not alone, was indeed a major figure in the modern trinitarian renaissance. In his massive Kirchliche Dogmatik ( Church Dogmatics ), published in fourteen volumes from 1932 to 1967, Barth developed and expounded the thesis that the doctrine of the Trinity was foundational for Christian theological discourse. In the inaugural volume, he argued, “The doctrine of the Trinity is what basically distinguishes the Christian doctrine of God as Christian, and therefore what already distinguishes the Christian concept of revelation as Christian, in contrast to all other possible doctrines of God and concepts of revelation” ( Church Dogmatics , i /1, 301). These words are emblematic of Barth's effort to place the doctrine of the Trinity back in the center of Christian theology. Indeed, following his own advice, Barth placed the doctrine of the Trinity at the very beginning of the Church Dogmatics , arguing that it constituted the internal dynamic of God's speech to humanity and as such functioned as the basic grammar of Christian discourse.