Church Dogmatics, Volume 2: The Doctrine of God, Part 1

by Karl Barth; Geoffrey William Bromiley; Thomas F. Torrance

Publisher:

T&T Clark

, 2004

ISBN: 9780567051691

(18)

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Overview

Described by Pope Pius XII as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas, the Swiss pastor and theologian, Karl Barth, continues to be a major influence on students, scholars, and preachers today. Barth’s theology found its expression mainly through his closely reasoned 14-part magnum opus, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik. Having taken over 30 years to write, the Church Dogmatics is regarded as one of the most important theological works of all time, and represents the pinnacle of Barth’s achievement as a theologian.

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Key Features

Provides a translation of Karl Barth’s first part of Church Dogmatics, Volume 2
Examines humanity’s ability to know God
Investigates the perfect attributes of God

The Knowledge of God
- The Fulfillment of the Knowledge of God
- The Knowability of God
- The Limits of the Knowledge of God
The Reality of God
- The Being of God as the One Who Loves in Freedom
- The Perfections of God
- The Perfections of the Divine Loving
- The Perfections of the Divine Freedom

Praise for the Print Edition

[Barth] undoubtedly is one of the giants in the history of theology.

—Christianity Today

There are at least three key ideas in [Barth’s] early thought critical for his later writings. The first is the absolute transcendent sovereign God in contrast to sin-dominated mankind. Second is a dialectical theological method which poses truth as a series of paradoxes. For example, the infinite became the finite; eternity entered time; God became human. Such paradoxes create tension, in which one finds both a crisis and truth. The crisis, the third idea, involves humans. The individual discovers in the tension of the dialectic a crisis of existence, judgment, separation, belief/unbelief, acceptance/rejection of the ultimate truth of God concerning mankind as revealed in the Word.

—Biographical entries from Evangelical Dictionary of Theology

Barth’s greatest influence was theological, with his emphasis on God’s sovereignty placing him firmly in the Reformed (Calvinistic) tradition. He differed radically from the mainstream of continental European theology, rejecting both its subjective emphasis on religious experience and the prevalent idea that Christian doctrine is subject to, or limited by, its historical origins. By reaffirming what Kierkegaard had called an ‘infinite qualitative difference’ between God and humankind, Barth rescued theology from captivity to anthropology—that is, he reasserted God’s reality and sovereignty over human knowledge or imagination.

—Who’s Who in Christian History

Product Details

Title: Church Dogmatics, Volume 2: The Doctrine of God, Part 1
Author: Karl Barth
Editors: Thomas F. Torrance and Geoffrey Bromiley
Publisher: T&T Clark International
Publication Date: 2004
Pages: 712

About Karl Barth

Karl Barth (1886–1968), a Swiss Protestant theologian and pastor, was one of the leading thinkers of twentieth-century theology, described by Pope Pius XII as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas. He helped to found the Confessing Church and his thinking formed the theological framework for the Barmen Declaration. He taught in Germany, where he opposed the Nazi regime. In 1935, when he refused to take the oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler, he was retired from his position at the University of Bonn and deported to Switzerland. There he continued to write and develop his theology.

Barth’s work and influence resulted in the formation of what came to be known as neo-orthodoxy. For Barth, modern theology, with its assent to science, immanent philosophy, and general culture and with its stress on feeling, was marked by indifference to the word of God and to the revelation of God in Jesus, which he thought should be the central concern of theology.

Top Highlights

“the whole of revelation is summed up in the statement that ‘God is.’” (Page vii)

“And in this very event God is who He is. God is He who in this event is subject, predicate and object; the revealer, the act of revelation, the revealed; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is the Lord active in this event.” (Pages 262–263)

“But if the life of the Church is not just a semblance, the knowledge of God is realised in it. This is the presupposition which we have first of all to explain in the doctrine of God. We have to learn how far we can know God and therefore speak and hear about Him.” (Page 4)

“The One who (in His own way) loves us, who (in His own way) seeks and creates fellowship between Himself and us, also informs us what a person is, in that (in His own way! not as if we knew of ourselves what it is, but in such a way that we now come to recognise it for the first time) He acts as a person. The definition of a person—that is, a knowing, willing, acting I—can have the meaning only of a confession of the person of God declared in His revelation, of the One who loves and who as such (loving in His own way) is the person.” (Page 284)

“The knowledge of God occurs in the fulfilment of the revelation of His Word by the Holy Spirit, and therefore in the reality and with the necessity of faith and its obedience. Its content is the existence of Him whom we must fear above all things because we may love Him above all things; who remains a mystery to us because He Himself has made Himself so clear and certain to us.” (Page 3)