Barth's Theology Research Articles

Book Review: Revelatory Positivism? Barth's earliest Theology and the Marburg School

Book Review: Revelatory Positivism? Barth's earliest Theology and the Marburg School

Barth on Persons in Relationship: A Case for Further Reflection?

In III, 2 of the Church Dogmatics, Barth develops the analogy of relations revealed in Jesus Christ to obtain between three levels or ‘planes’ of persons in relationship. These are (i) within the Triune God as the eternal relation between the Father and the Son; (ii) between God and man as the free election by God that man should be his covenant partner; (iii) between human persons as the basic form of humanity. The single factor which constitutes this analogy, the one thing which is similar in spite of all the great dissimilarity between God and man, the indestructible imago Dei, is the concept of personal relationship, the dyad, the I-Thou encounter. This theme of personal relationship is central not only in its location within the Church Dogmatics but perhaps throughout Barth's theology.

A Study in St Anselm's Soteriology and Karl Barth's Theological Method

Recent discussion of St Anselm's theology of reconciliation has again raised the question of freedom in respect to the relationship presupposed between God and man in this encounter. It has been asked whether in fact St Anselm's account excludes God's ability to act freely, ‘within the dynamics and development of the narrative’, and suggested that such exclusion derives from an understanding of God's ‘unchanging nature beyond the influence of persons and events within the narrative’.

Karl Barth's Theology of Work: A Resource for the Late 1980s

Karl Barth's Theology of Work: A Resource for the Late 1980s

Barth's Theology and Process Theology

“In the following discussion, I will conduct a systematic comparison and ask: (1) What is common to Barth's and Whitehead's thought? (2) In the midst of these commonalities, what separates Barth's theology from Whitehead's theory? (3) How can Barth's theology and process theology mutually challenge and promote each other?”

Karl Barth's Theology of Culture. The Freedom of Culture for the Praise of God. By Robert J. Palma. Pickwick Publications, Allison Park, Pennsylvania, 1983. Pp. x + 122. $10·00.

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The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, I: Seeing the Form by Hans Urs von Balthasar

BOOK REVIEWS 663 physical vision. As the editors note (p. xiv), it is not always easy to see why one selection was included under faith and another under hope or love. But the focus on these virtues yields a new angle on Rahner, even for those already familiar with most of the articles individually. The " spirituality" of the subtitle is experience of and reflection on our (Rahner supposes) self-transcendence into holy mystery-a self-transcendence which yields diverse and conflicting spiritualities (pp. 19-20; cp. T.I. XIX, p. 103). Rahner's resolution of this diversity and conflict is evocative description of the "circle," the "synthesis" (pp. 7, 87, 141, 136) of our self-transcendence in spirit and matter and God's self-impartation in Word and Spirit. Is there really a "circle" here-or does Rahner have a "starting point" (e.g., "transcendental experience") ~ If it really is a "circle" does Rahner end up eompromising self-transcendence or self-impartation-or is the circle a sui generis synthesis, foreshadowing a new Catholic spirituality~ I suspect something like these questions will divide us for some time to come. Lehmann and Raffelt have done an excellent job of seeing to it that the debate includes not simply esotericists but all "those concerned with the practical molding of their faith, and who wish to make use of reflection and meditation in order to do so" (p. xiv). Loyola College in Maryland Baltimore, Maryland JAMES J. BUCKLEY The Glory of the Lord: .A Theological .Aesthetics, I: Seeing the Form. By HANS URS VON BALTHASAR. Translated by Erasmo LeivaMerikakis . Edited by JOSEPH FEssro, S.J. and JOHN RICHES. San Francisco, Ignatius Press and New York, Crossroad Publications , 1983. $35.00. This book is the first volume· of a planned seven-volume translation of I-Ierrlichkeit, the most sustained and comprehensive theological enterprise by a Catholic scholar in this century, and one which must rank with the classic theological achievements of the Catholic past. On the Protestant side, only Barth's Church DogmaUcs matches its range; in fact the association of the two is inescapable. Von Balthasar's 1950 study of Barth's theology is by that giant's own judgment the best appreciation of his work, and it is patent in the present book that von Balthasar's own synthesis is in continual dialogue with Barth's. 664 BOOK REVIEWS Von Balthasar presents his theological aesthetics as the single possible resolution of the dilemma wrought for our time by the rationalist isolation of God, man and the world and the consequent disintegration of the spiritual life by its submission to the rationalist criterion of immanent reason. This dilemma, the proximate issue of the Cartesian reduction of truth to concepts, of freedom to randomness and of space and time to pure quantityJ finds theological expression in the kind of rationalist analysis fidei that forces a choice between a Baroque voluntarism, in which the will supplements the insufficient evidence of the revelation, and the "Augustinian illuminism" which transposes the verum of faith's object into a bonum which would offer surcease to the cor inqitietum of the believer . This rationalism dissociates the integral unity of the spiritual life into dissonant fragments whose reintegration is thereafter the impossible task of a philosophy whose criterion of truth is now necessitarian, and a theology whose historicity has become its opacity to reason. Knowledge thus becomes loveless and sterile, and love becomes the freedom appropriate to atoms in the void, a blind striving, an innate dynamism. The same logic which has isolated love from knowledge, and philosophy from theology, continues to fragment reality into the objective and the subjective and cannot permit their reunion except under the rationalist rubric of necessity. Thus the transcendentals themselves are rationalized: unity, goodness, truth and even beauty are deprived of the freedom by which being itself is lovely and loved. Within the maze thus elaborated, contemporary theology is trapped, to wander blindly; it has traded light for logic. Von Balthasar proposes that only a theological aesthetics is capable of orienting theology toward the reality which is Christ, because only if the existential and personal unity of the faith-response to the revelation is...

Lecture II: On the Zen Philosophy of Hisamatsu Shinichi

Having heard my first lecture, you now recognize, think, that my position is in some respects closely akin to that of Dr. Hisamatsu. Hisamatsu, too, asserts that man is one with the dharmakaya, the absolutely formless Subject, though man is not generally aware of this fact. He often spoke of man's different modes of self-understanding in the middle ages, in the modern age, and in the post-modern age, as distinct ways of living, thinking, and existing. It is said that the modern age is the age of humanism, or the age in which man has attained consciousness of himself. But according to Hisamatsu, the man who has become conscious of his humanity has in reality fallen into Nihil. For one who truly awakens, the true self awakens to itself. Though there are opportunities which lead to the awakening, it does not depend upon a Savior. That which sustains me, the ground of my being, does not exist somewhere apart from me. In the event that awaken, awaken to myself. Of course in this case I should not be understood in the manner of modern humanism. Modern man does not recognize what the self really is. The self is one with the dharmakaya, but there is also a distinction between them. This very fact is the ground on which awakening takes place. Up to this point my opinions do not differ from Hisamatsu's very much. If so, one may ask, why does not Hisamatsu expound the primary and secondary contacts between man and the ground of being? The omission can be explained as follows: In Hisamatsu's view, Christianity teaches that man is saved only by the Savior, who came from a heaven which has always been separated from the world. Man's salvation depends on Him because man, having fallen into the absolute dilemma of sin and death, cannot get out of it, cannot save himself by his own power. According to Hisamatsu, modern dialectical theology also takes this position. But this is a misunderstanding. Karl Barth's theology, at least, is quite different. But, says Hisamatsu, though dialectical theology and existential theology are aware of the modern situation of nihilism and despair, they are nevertheless unable to over-

Book Review: Karl Barth's Theology of Mission

Book Review: Karl Barth's Theology of Mission

Karl Barth's Theology of Mission

Karl Barth's Theology of Mission

Barth's "Analogia Relationis" and Heidegger's Ontological Difference

Karl Barth's theology has been characterized as the theology of the triumph of divine grace. This characterization arises from Barth's concept of ultimate reality and his understanding of the real world. For Barth, the ontological reconciliation and fellowship between God and man eternally carried out within the trinitarian history is ultimate reality, and the reconciled world established by both the Christ event and salvation history is the real world.' If the significance and ground of creation are predestination and reconciliation, the meaning of creation is revealed in salvation history.2 In Barth's theology, therefore, election-God's fellowship with man-functions as the ground of creation and providence, and creation and covenant are the two sides of election. This implies that election unfolds itself as salvation history, and that creaturely history, including even natural history, is predestined to participate in the history of covenant.3 In Barth's theology, therefore, the history and fellowship within the trinitarian God unfolds itself as election, reconciliation, and salvation history. Von Balthasar is quite right when he identifies his concept of being with Barth's concept of the all-embracing decision of God (reconciliation), and within this framework of ultimate reality he finds a proper place for the well-known contrast between grace and nature.4 For von

Karl Barth on Christ's Resurrection

Recent decades have seen a flood of books and articles dealing with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. At no time since the second and third centuries has the central affirmation of Christian faith won so much attention from theologians and exegetes. This renewed interest in the resurrection was pioneered by Karl Barth (1886–1968), whose Epistle to the Romans in its second edition of 1922 marks thereal beginning of twentiethcentury theology. To prevent this investigation of Barth's view of Christ's resurrection from becoming confused and confusing, it seems advisable to make use of a distinction between the earlier and the later Barth. His Anselm study (Fides Quaerens Intellectum) of 1931 forms the turning point. It would be inaccurate to maintain that Barth's later theology represents a total break with his work in the 1920's, but it is incontestable that certain important shifts take place.

The Concept of Truth in Karl Barth's Theology

In this paper on Karl Barth's conception of truth I shall try to state his position regarding the nature of truth and the criterion of truth, and secondly I shall draw from his position some propositions which I believe exhibit a pattern in his theology which brings it into close relationship to a philosophical tradition.

Theology in the Public Debate: Barth's Rejection of Natural Theology and the Hermeneutical Problem

It is no coincidence that contemporary theology is dominated by the problem of understanding (hermeneutics) and that the key to Karl Barth's theology should deal with the same problem (Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum). It is the seriousness with which this problem is taken that distinguishes the contemporary theological situation from nineteenth-century protestant liberalism. The problematic for both the nineteenth and the twentieth century was stated by Lessing: ‘Accidental truths of history can never constitute the proof of necessary truths of reason. That, that is the ugly, broad ditch I can never cross over, no matter how often or earnestly I have attempted the leap. If anyone can help me over, let him do it!’ But this basic problematic of the relation between the private dimension of faith and the public dimension of thought was approached in quite different ways by the two centuries.

Talk about Religious Talk: Various Approaches to the Nature of Religious Language

The response of the theological world to contemporary developments in empirical and language philosophy is beginning to take on a more definite and active form. Books and articles are now appearing which deal with everything from the semantics of the Old Testament1and the Church Fathers2to parallels between language analysis and Karl Barth's theology.3In addition, anthologies in the philosophy of religion are now including a section on ‘The Nature of Religious Language’.4As the quantity and quality of this response increase there arises a need for a survey and classification of the various approaches of which it is composed. It is the purpose of this article to provide such a survey, and to make some evaluational comments and suggestions. It should be mentioned at the out-set that it is impossible completely to classify approaches; and yet there are similarities and dissimilarities among these approaches which enable one to point out ‘family resemblances’.Obviously, such a survey cannot come close to being exhaustive, but certain tendencies can be noted. Moreover, an effort will be made to classify the various approaches according to a continuum. Those that are dealt with first tend towards maintaining the autonomy of religious language, while those that are discussed further along in the article would prefer to relate religious language to empirical experience. In between there are those who would advocate something similar to an eclectic view.

Book Review: The Significance of Barth's Theology: An Appraisal with Special Reference to Election and Reconciliation

Book Review: The Significance of Barth's Theology: An Appraisal with Special Reference to Election and Reconciliation

Reinhold Niebuhr and Karl Barth on the Relevance of Theology

It is not yet apparent as to whether Barth's visit to America (Spring, 1962) will have any noticeable effect in theological discussion. A number of factors militate against the probability of Barth's exercising significant influence on American Christianity, however. One is the vehement and categorical dismissal of his theology by American theologians of first-rank importance, such as Niebuhr and Tillich, who have been influenced in earlier years by Barth's theology but who now disavow him altogether. A false image of Barth, prejudicial to a close study of the man and his thought, is perpetuated by responsible theologians. The sheer bulk of Barth's Church Dogmatics is a stumbling block to the American student. The different contexts of Con-

THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

THEOLOGICAL STUDIES Get access The Significance of Barth's Theology. By FRED H. KLOOSTER. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1961. 98 pages. $2.95. JOHN H. GLASSE JOHN H. GLASSE Vassar College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XXX, Issue 4, October 1962, Pages 340–342, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/XXX.4.340 Published: 01 October 1962

The Catholic Critics of Karl Barth In Outline and Analysis

In 1932 R. Grosche, editor of the newly founded magazine Catholica, attributed to Karl Barth the chief honour of ‘having made the Catholic-Protestant controversy again possible in the form of theological discussion’. For the Catholic critics of Barth the full possibilities of this discussion were first realised in 1951 in a brilliant work by Urs von Balthasar, whose central thesis was rated by Barth himself as ‘incomparably more powerful than that of most of the books which have clustered around me’ (C.D. IV. 1, 768). Now, in his latest part-volume, Barth expresses his gratitude to three other Catholic authors of excellent books on his theology, one each in German, French, and Italian, all showing a ‘thorough familiarity with the text’, and even more important, ‘an earnest wish to comprehend and a real comprehension’ (K.D. IV.3.1, viii). Hans Küng's Rechtfertigung reconciling the Catholic doctrine of justification with Barth's own, and raising a storm of interconfessional debate, has since become virtually a part of the continental theological vocabulary. Henri Bouillard's three-volume 900-page analysis, surpassing even von Balthasar's research in objectivity and breadth, and stimulating sheer envy for its French-reading public, appears to be the introduction to Barth's theology for the foreseeable future. And Emmanuele Riverso worthily represents even Italy's traditionally conservative Catholicism with a lengthy critique ranking with most Protestant attempts to date. Among the multitude of questions which this whole remarkable phenomenon raises for the Protestant spectator, several are basic: how does catholicism see Barth's dogmatics, what does it say to what it sees, and why should it to a greater extent than Protestantism be so obviously interested in seeing anything at all there?

Natural Theology and The Christian Faith

For over a generation now (in Protestant circles) natural theology has fallen on evil days. Barth has stamped ruthlessly on every attempt to ground the Christian faith in any form of general knowledge. ‘Back to the biblical faith’ became his watchword. Bultmann likewise scorned Weltanschauung as the importation of Stoicism into the non-philosophical Christian faith. Between Barth's biblical theology and Bultmann's existentialism there was such a strong bond of common hostility to general revelation that natural theology was rejected outright—for natural theology is most properly defined as any knowledge of God, His will and His ways, based on man's general experience, knowledge, and reason.Lately, however, for good or ill, there are some signs of return. The thrust of Kierkegaard's anti-rational and antiempirical polemic is being broken both as its newness wears off and as its negativity stands naked before us. The anti-theological as well as the an ti-metaphysical drive of linguistic philosophy is slowing down, and there is even evident most recently a somewhat more constructive mood and method within this philosophical position. The power of Tillich's position, in sharp contrast, has been partly due to a bold system holding that, while recognising the truths inherent in both Barth's anti-liberal stand and Bultmann's existential interpretation of the Christian faith, nevertheless dares to base itself on the fulness of the facts of experience and of human history. Tillich's positive and inclusive approach is commending itself to a fast expanding circle of thinkers.