Can anyone fill me in on Karl Barth?

[DMcFadden]

My wife and I had a Barthian Sys Theo prof in college back in the early 70s. It turned her off so badly that it took a long time to convince her to read sys theo again. It is more than a little discouraging to see that evangelical denominations are rediscovering Barth long after he has been discarded as passe by the mainlines.

 

[Peairtach]

Barth has done a lot of damage in churches like the CofS, because he provided a place for people to stand apparently between evangelicalism (or the Reformed faith) and liberalism. But at bottom Barthianism is just another variety of liberalism. Maybe more dangerous because it poses as something better.

It's just another variety of the Serpent's lie: "Did God really say?"

He reworked theology in the light of Kant; now some seem to want to rework things in the light of post-modern philosophy. To the extent that we are interested in philosophy we should rework that in the light of Scripture and Reformed theology, not the other way around.

Quote from Carolyn

A "born again moron", I guess!

As long as you don't join the Church of the Latter Day Morons!

 

[Marrow Man]

Bill Evans has a good article entitled "A Layman's Guide to the Inerrancy Debate" over at Reformation21 (click here for the article). In it, he has some insights into Barth, Neo-orthodoxy, and the reason for the neo-Barthian reemergence.

 

[Amazing Grace]

Barths' Universalism is closer to the truth than free will salvation. At least he made Christs death powerful to actually save people.

 

[Steve Curtis]

Unfortunately, Barth is hard to sum up with Cliff notes. He wrote voluminously and was a significant presence in the religious conversation of his time. There were aspects of his thought that boldly moved away from the liberal bias of the day, yet there were other aspects that wholly capitulated to that bias.

For instance, Barth certainly held unconventional (i.e., unorthodox) views, but he nonetheless spoke clearly about the genuineness of such key doctrines as the Resurrection. Taking a firm stand against the prevailing academic view that the Resurrection was merely a metaphor, Barth wrote, for instance, that the event occurred “in the human sphere and human time as an actual event within the world with an objective content” [Church Dogmatics, IV/1 (T & T Clark, 1936-1977), p. 333]. That being said, Barth believed that the Resurrection was not “accessible to the historian” for objective study and examination, but rather must be received solely on the basis of faith.

With its renewed interest in the writings of Augustine and other early church fathers, neo-orthodoxy did emphasize a transcendent God who had all but been dismissed through the secularization of theology. Yet there emerged a compartmentalization of the nature of God wherein the transcendent, spiritual aspect of God was considered essentially unknowable, such orthodox ideals as natural theology and philosophical rationalism having been completely jettisoned. The problem with such a theology is that it necessitates a leap of blind faith to know God, whereas historical orthodoxy understood the Incarnation as God making Himself knowable by becoming like one of us and dwelling among His creation (that knowledge, of course, being limited to the degree that finite man is limited).

By contrast, neo-orthodoxy sees Christ as divine, and yet limits rational comprehension to the physical, human aspect of His nature, failing to grasp the significance of Christ’s response when Philip implored, “Lord show us the Father and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “…He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9).

Further, the doctrine of Scriptural inspiration was explained in such a way as to interpret the inspiration as existing in the receiving of the Word, and not the Word itself. In other words, as one reads a biblical text – which may very well be corrupted from its original form and thus not inerrant (or so goes the neo-orthodox belief) – the Holy Spirit will inspire the meaning and the message one derives from the text so that even a defective text (in a literary critical sense) can effectively convey the “logos” (or “Word”) of God. The problem with this is, of course, that it effectively opens the door to a plethora of potentially conflicting inspirations.

Hence, while on the surface neo-orthodoxy could speak of the inspiration of Scripture and the veracity of the biblical accounts that can only be attributed to an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient God, there was nevertheless an element of compromise inherent in the movement that deemed it necessary to incorporate at least some of the opinions and “discoveries” of 19th century liberalism. The result of this partial swing rightward of the theological pendulum was that, failing to restore Christianity to its orthodox bedrock, there remained a tendency – indeed a likelihood – to see the weight of liberalism exerting a sufficient force to keep the church forever embroiled in a diametric tension. And, of course, the natural resting place of an inert pendulum is right in the middle. And what does one find in the middle of the theological road?
Theological roadkill.

To understand the trajectory of theological thought in the 20th century, Barth must be included in the discussion. That being said, he must be read very, very, carefully with one's Bible in the other hand all the while!

 

[R. Scott Clark]

Take a look at C. Van Til's The New Modernism. See also The Bookstore at WSC: Engaging With Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques (Softcover) by Gibson, David

I like John Webster's work generally, The Bookstore at WSC: Karl Barth (2nd Edition) by Webster, John

Bruce McCormack's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology is quite good but challenging.

Berkouwer's volume on Barth, The Triumph of Grace, is useful.

 

[Grymir]

Why can't Barth just fade away into nothingness, become a victim of his own historical view of the Bible? ie, When we read Barth, and are moved by Barth, then Barth becomes real for us? But it may or may not have happened. Sigh, some days I feel like I'm playing Whack-A-Barth at Chuckie Cheeses.

I know nothing whatsoever about him, but I've just been talking to a student in the Divinity faculty of the local University.
She tells me that a very big deal is made of Barth by all her lecturers. They make grand sweeping claims for his genius and even more for his crucial, pivotal importance to modern Christian thinking.

Yeah, it's important to modern Christian thinking. As in what's wrong with church's today (Can anybody say the PCUSA?)

Do you want this in your demonination? Think Sauron.

When I googled him I found him being described as "in the Reformed tradition".

My question is, how should a Reformed, that is Biblical, Christian view all this?

To quote the Knights in The Holy Grail "Run away!!!"

Sorry to be lazy, but I have no intention of reading it all up and judging for myself! (I've also been told that Barth is almost unreadable)

You're not being lazy! It's not that Barth is unreadable, but once you peel away his high sounding words, you realize that there is nothing of substance to read. (Nothing to see hear, move along). And don't let those who say you have to read him in order to make any statement about him scare you. You don't have to read somebody to know what they are about. Others have done it and can do a good job of sumarizing him.

 

[JennyG]

At last, the elusive Grymir!!
...and a resounding final nail in KB's coffin from my viewpoint - thank you!