Inter-Varsity Press

CONTENTS

Foreword
Introduction
David Gibson and Daniel Strange

1. Karl Barth’s Christocentric method
Henri Blocher

2. Does it matter if Christian doctrine is contradictory? Barth on logic and theology
Sebastian Rehnman

3. Karl Barth as historical theologian: the recovery of Reformed theology in Barth’s early dogmatics
Ryan Glomsrud

4. Karl Barth and covenant theology
A. T. B. McGowan

5. The day of God’s mercy: Romans 9 – 11 in Barth’s doctrine of election
David Gibson

6. Witness to the Word: on Barth’s doctrine of Scripture
Mark D. Thompson

7. A private love? Karl Barth and the triune God
Michael J. Ovey

8. Karl Barth and the doctrine of the atonement
Garry J. Williams

9. Karl Barth and the visibility of God
Paul Helm

10. Karl Barth and Jonathan Edwards on reprobation (and hell)
Oliver D. Crisp

11. ‘Church’ dogmatics: Karl Barth as ecclesial theologian
Donald Macleod

12. A stony jar: the legacy of Karl Barth for evangelical theology
Michael S. Horton

FOREWORD

The Anglo-American evangelical infatuation with the thought of Karl Barth is not a recent phenomenon. Indeed, while the reception of Barth in places such as Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and South Africa was far from creedally orthodox, there has been a tradition in Britain and the United States of reading him in as evangelical and orthodox away as possible.

For example, the Torrance brothers, T. F. and James, and Colin Gunton, while not self-identifying as evangelicals in terms of, say, the UCCF Doctrinal Basis, nevertheless offered readings of Barth that addressed topics of central evangelical concern, such as incarnation and atonement, and also brought to the fore certain areas of classic orthodoxy to which evangelicalism pays lip service but often in practice neglects, such as the Trinity.

Such appropriation of Barth was, perhaps, not surprising. It is true that the reception of Barth’s works in other countries has tended to be in a manner theologically and ecclesiastically antithetical to traditions of evangelical orthodoxy; but in the English-speaking world a tradition developed where he was generally presented as a figure who offered a profound critique of liberalism and a means whereby evangelicalism could respond to, or perhaps better ‘sidestep’, the criticism of some of its most cherished positions (most obviously the inspiration and authority of Scripture), without abandoning orthodoxy. There were, of course, strident voices that opposed such a reception, most notably Cornelius Van Til and his followers; but Van Til’s critique failed to carry the day in Anglo-American evangelical circles.

Yet for all of the positive appropriation of Barth, broader concerns remained with his theology. In addition to Barth’s own disdain for conservative evangelicalism, there was also the apparent incipient universalism; the positive appropriation of the slippery Historie (that which is reported as fact) and Geschichte (the interpretation of that fact) distinction; the radical Christological reconstruction of the concept of revelation; and, perhaps above all, the sheer vastness and complexity of the Church Dogmatics, which militated against a unified and coherent account of his thought, something that should surely be basic to any positive interaction. Indeed, there sometimes seem as many Barths as there are Barthians. To all this, one might also add the practical, ecclesiastical point: the failure of Barthianism to stem the collapse of Europe’s churches, both numerically and doctrinally. This last observation is, perhaps, the greatest elephant in the room when it comes to discussing how Barth’s thought impacts preaching and the Christian life.

In the early nineties, it appeared to me that Barth had probably had his day. His theological writings, while always stimulating, had a very dated, 1950s feel about them; and, while beloved by a few theological intellectuals, his ideas made no impact on the grass roots of the church. In addition, the one major mainstream comprehensive Protestant systematic theology to emerge at that time, the one that sought to carry theological discussion forward, was that of Wolfhart Pannenberg; and his work marked a return to precisely the questions of history that Barth had dismissed as theologically wrong-headed. I well remember a debate at about this time over a cup of coffee with colleagues on faculty in the Theology Department at the University of Nottingham. We were discussing the resurrection of Christ: both myself and an atheist colleague agreed that whether the tomb was empty or not was absolutely crucial for the validity of the Christian faith; my Barthian colleague, with whom I shared a common orthodox vocabulary, thought that the historicity of the resurrection was irrelevant. The discussion seemed to me to capture how the same old questions that divide liberals and evangelicals keep coming back to haunt us: the Barthian bomb had detonated in the playground of the theologians, but now the noise and dust had died down and the children had returned to playing their traditional games.

Yet over a decade after that conversation, it seems that positive reception of Barth by evangelicals continues apace. Why is this? Four reasons come to mind (though this is by no means an exhaustive list). First, Barth’s view of Scripture is both aesthetically appealing (all the talk of a dynamic view of Scripture over the alleged static conceptions of traditional evangelical orthodoxy), and apparently allows for a form of scriptural authority that is not destroyed by the hard critical questions about the Bible text and about historicity. Indeed, the emphasis on hermeneutics in contemporary evangelical theology is obviously more conducive to positive Barth reception than the concern of an earlier generation for inspiration.

Second, the provisionality of Barth’s theology is, again, aesthetically appealing to a world where claims to truth have a distasteful ring of arrogance about them. Third, the Historie–Geschichte distinction is attractive to a form of evangelicalism that has picked up on certain currents in linguistic philosophy, with its implications for the perceived relevance of questions about extratextual referentiality. Finally, and positively connected to all the above, the current obsession in some quarters with story and narrative makes aspects of Barth’s project most seductive.

Of course, these are not insubstantial or irrelevant issues, and we ignore them at our peril. But is Barth the answer? On one level, I would most definitely say no. For myself, I believe Herman Bavinck, the great Dutch theologian, offers a more helpful resource on each of these points; but, on another level, interacting with Barth as a great mind wrestling with serious issues is surely of tremendous value. I often tell my students that great theologians are most helpful at precisely those points where I disagree with them, for it is there I am forced to wrestle most passionately, and there that my own thought is clarified and strengthened.

Given all these issues, and the fact that Barth looks set to remain a polarizing factor in evangelical thought and politics, it is a pleasure to commend the following chapters. The authors have all resisted the temptation to become infatuated with Barth, but have also avoided the kind of caricaturing that serves to do nothing other than break the Ninth Commandment. For those looking for a way to appreciate Barth and to remain really evangelical, this collection will prove a stimulating and thought-provoking read. I hope that it not only opens up new vistas of non-infatuated evangelical discussion of Barth, but also helps to carry forward the discussion of central elements of Christian orthodoxy.

Carl R. Trueman
Professor of Historical Theology and Church History
Westminster Theological Seminary (Pennsylvania)