Barth, Derrida and the Language of Theology

A new and original analysis of the problem of religious language.

Graham Ward (Author)

9780521657082, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 January 1999

280 pages
21.4 x 13.7 x 1.5 cm, 0.365 kg

'When Ward passionately grasps at the question of the importance of language in theology, it is quite clear that this is a book with a clear methodology … all of the engaging correspondences and complicities the author identifies are, and perhaps will remain, relevant in modern theology.' Literature and Theology

This study offers a new and original analysis of the problem of religious language. Taking as its starting point Karl Barth's doctrine of analogy, it places this doctrine within the context of German Sprache and Rede philosophies and reveals the historical links between them and the work of the philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Drawing out the parallels between this work and Barth's insights into the language of theology, it concludes that Barth's doctrine of analogy is a theological reading of Derrida's economy of différence. This important contemporary interpretation of Karl Barth reveals his closeness to postmodern thinking and underlines his relevance to current debates on the language of theology. It will be of interest to those studying both general questions of theology and language and the particular relationship between theology and postmodernism.

Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction
Part I. Logocentrism: 1. Karl Barth's two models for the nature of language
2. Sprachphilosophie from Hamann to Humboldt
3. Forms of logocentrism among Barth's contemporaries
4. Barth between Sprache and Rede philosophy
Part II. Dialogues with Difference: 5. Heidegger's dialogue with difference
6. Buber's dialogue with difference
7. Barth's theology of the Word and Levinas's philosophy of saying
Part III. Différance: 8. Derrida as Levinas's supplement
9. Barth and Levinas: their difference as différance
10. Derrida's supplement
11. Barth and the economy of différance
12. Conclusion: Comment ne pas parler
Index.

Subject Areas: Christian theology [HRCM]