Karl Barth
Centenary Essays

This short volume brings together a collection of essays which make an important contribution to Barth interpretation.

Karl Barth (Author), S. W. Sykes (Edited by)

9780521097215, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 January 2009

184 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.1 cm, 0.24 kg

This short volume, which emerged from the Karl Barth centenary year in 1986, brings together a collection of essays which makes an important contribution to Barth interpretation. Few would dispute the fact that Karl Barth is one of the great figures of twentieth-century theology, and two decades after his death he continues to fascinate those who study the field and his own thought in the magisterial, unfinished Church Dogmatics. Yet while his impact and influence upon modern theology has been great, Barth has been subject, too, to suspicion and sometimes to fierce opposition. The contributors to this book examine and refute some of the more simplistic reasons why the thought of Karl Barth has had a somewhat limited appeal in modern English-language theology. Writing form a variety of ecclesiastical persuasions, Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican and Roman Catholic, the authors seek to demonstrate at a fundamental level the continuing important of some of Barth's major concerns. Collectively the essays constitute a positive introduction to Barth, to his place in the history of the philosophy of religion, as a constructive theologian, as a Churchman and in specific relation to the modern history of English-language theology.

Note on the text
1. Introduction S. W. Sykes
2. Karl Barth's eschatological realism Ingolf U. Dalferth
3. The triune God and the freedom of the creature Colin E. Gunton
4. Authority and openness in the Church S. W. Sykes
5. Ad Limina Apostolorum in retrospect: the reaction of Karl Barth to Vatican II Philip J. Rosato SJ
6. The reception of the theology of Karl Barth in the Anglo-Saxon world: history, typology and prospect Richard H. Roberts

Subject Areas: Christian theology [HRCM]