August 2010
4 posts
3 tags
Revelation and Speculation
The past couple of weeks I have been reading Barth’s Gottingen Dogmatics so as to gain a well-rounded understanding of his theological development. All in all, it has been a hearty read. At first the opening lectures can seem monotonous, but the monotony chisels out ideas that bear repeating and probing. With the beginning of every chapter and sub-section Barth repeats himself:...
2 tags
Autumn and Books
The overwhelming heat of this summer has pushed my thoughts and hopes all the more forward to this fall. Not only will I have a true fall, an enduring fall, my fall will be spent in classrooms built in 1830’s. Maybe then, when I am looking over textbooks for the time or my next research assignment, I will actually be able to enjoy a cup of coffee without swimming in sweat. Maybe then I...
3 tags
Barth on the Ancients and Constructive Theology
Barth on early doctrinal formulation and the correct critical spirit of doctrinal reconstruction: “Again, we should not finally be frightened off from taking the problem seriously as such by the assertion that the thought-forms in which the discussion took place were those of Neoplatonic and even at times Gnostic philosophy, that the people who helped to fashion the doctrine were for the...
2 tags
True Sin and True Humanity
“The element of fate that all of us, parents and children, are human, and that we are thus implicated in the contradiction, in the alienation from God, is beyond dispute. But this consideration cannot be our final one. The rift goes through our existence because we cause it ourselves and are not just spectators in this tragedy.” — Karl Barth, Gottingen Dogmatics, 77 This is a...
