Barth, Karl [addendum]
Since his death in 1968, time and distance have provided scholars with space to understand Karl Barth in a larger intellectual and cultural context. He has emerged as one of the most important Christian theologians of the twentieth century—perhaps the most important—while his massive theological oeuvre and the changing shape of his thought have generated a host of alternative interpretations, notably in respect to his understanding of and relationship to Western philosophy. Contemporary theologians have sought to appropriate Barth in several directions, exploring his thought in connection with various postmodern positions.
Barth consistently held that philosophy should not hold sway over theology. In a 1960 essay written in honor of his brother, who was a philosopher, Barth allows that theology and philosophy can coexist in harmony, but he also spells out the important differences between these disciplines. The Christian theologian must be held captive to the Word of God, he contends, for only God's revelation in Christ provides us with the key to understanding divinity; biblical theology, not philosophical reasoning, is the basis for Christian theology.
At the same time, Barth's thinking was influenced by European philosophers. The influence of existentialist thinkers (especially Kiekegaard) on Barth has long been acknowledged, even by Barth himself. Barth also read and responded to Heidegger in his own way. In recent years the importance of the Marburg school of Neo-Kantian philosophy has become more clear, especially in Barth's early development. Thus Barth's appreciation for philosophy is more expansive than had been acknowledged in earlier scholarship.
Contemporary scholarship has fruitfully engaged Barth's thought with larger philosophical concerns, bringing him into a larger orbit. Much of this research has brought to light Barth's critique of modernity and his ambivalence toward language as a vehicle for theology. Several so-called postliberal theologians have appropriated Barth as a narrative theologian who sought to read the rest of the world in terms of the biblical story. Here Barth is sometime brought into conversation with the later Wittgenstein, both in terms of an understanding of language and a critique of enlightenment rationalism. Most recently scholars have developed some of the parallels between Barth and postmodern philosophers, especially Derrida. This school seeks to appropriate Barth for postmodern theology, a move roundly criticized by more traditional Barth experts. Thus Barth remains at the center of contemporary theological debate.
Derrida, Jacques; Enlightenment; Heidegger, Martin; Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye; Neo-Kantianism; Rationalism; Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann.
Bibliography
Bush, E. Karl Barth. London: SCM, 1976.
Fisher, Simon. Revelatory Positivism? Barth's Earliest Theology and the Marburg School. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Ford, David. Barth and God's Story. Frankfurt: P. Lang, 1981.
Frei, Hans. Types of Christian Theology. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992.
Johnson, W. Stacy. The Mystery of God.Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997.
MacDonald, Niel B. Karl Barth and the Strange New World within the Bible. Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster, 2000.
Lowe, Walter. Theology and Difference. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
McCormack, Bruce. Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Ward, Graham. Barth, Derrida and the Language of Theology. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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