Van Til as Critic of Barth's Christology

In this examination of Barth I have deliberately focussed on his more accessible shorter works, drawing on some of his early as well as his later works. The major themes in Dogmatics are dealt with in these shorter and seemingly more accessible works and enable the reader to get to grips with the core themes of Barth’s work in a more manageable format. The key themes of Barth’s thought that I want to examine are Revelation, Incarnation, Church and Community, and his own understanding of these within the place and function of theology. I want to examine the content of these themes and also place them within Barth’s own context to see how the context informed the theology and vice versa. I then want to examine Barth’s understanding of these themes with reference to their possible applications for the mission of the church in our own context.

Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif, 2013

Dirkie Smit is honoured in this contribution as a theologian who has persistently and ingeniously held together two poles in Reformed theology: Karl Barth's emphasis on Christology: God's salvation and free grace as incarnated in Christ, and Van Ruler's emphasis on pneumatology: the appropriation, application and working out of God's grace in humanity, nature and history, through the indwelling power of God's Spirit. The article, based on cryptic notes in which Van Ruler offered "Critical comments on Barth's theology" (1965), provides an English translation of this unique text with explanatory footnotes. It is suggested that Van Ruler's sixteen pertinent questions to Barth, almost fifty years ago, once again deserve our careful attention and that our task remains to keep in balance the work of the Creator, the Saviour and the Spirit, which persists in working on the pneumatological question of how we as human beings are incorporated into God's ongoing, sanctifying work in nature and history. KEY words Barth Van Ruler Pneumatology Twenty-first century Christology KErNwoordE Barth Van Ruler Pneumatologie Een-en-twintigste eeu Christologie

International Journal of Systematic Theology

Though the extra Calvinisticum has played an historically important role for Christology, the doctrine has been criticized not only by Lutherans and modern Christologies ‘from below’ but by some Reformed thinkers as well. This article examines the place of the extra in dogmatic thinking about the incarnation: specifically, Karl Barth's critical response to his own tradition. After examining the differences between Lutheran and Reformed construals of the relationship of the Logos asarkos to the Logos ensarkos I take up Barth's views on the extra, which over the course of his career moved from enthusiastic affirmation to a sharp critique. Finally, I suggest that Barth's mature Christology retains the best of both Protestant positions by correcting a critical inconsistency in Reformed thought. He does not reject the doctrine of the Logos asarkos, but he does suggest a way in which this is related to the life of the Logos ensarkos that marginalizes the former. Barth is right not to discard the extra, but also that it has been misused in how it is deployed in dogmatic theology.

Barth's doctrine of Scripture may produce a scenario of (temporary?) flux for his readers. Initially it pulls the rug out from under a rigid post-Enlightenment literalistic approach to Scripture. In many ways, it shakes such Christian beliefs and, at least for some who accept it, it leads to something that appears to be a diminished view of Scripture. But such diminishment is only evidence that these readers have stopped short of the goal toward which Barth is moving. In a sense, Barth knocks down that which many evangelicals have presented as “orthodoxy” (and which has been received as orthodoxy for many evangelicals), only to present back to the church something that is perhaps an even more faithful orthodoxy—an orthodoxy that Barth suggests does not diminish the historic confessional faith of the church, but simply does away with a lot of the language picked up by the post-17th century Enlightenment church. In this paper I explain and reflect on Barth’s theology of Scripture as a helpful theology for conservative, reformed evangelicals—that is, helpful for those who do not stop short of the goal toward which Barth moves. In keeping with this objective, it will be instructive to examine Barth’s understanding of (1) the content of Scripture—what these words are that constitute Holy Scripture—and (2) his understanding of the authority of Scripture—how Scripture’s authority is established.

pp. 168–197 in Engaging with Barth (ed D. Gibson & D Strange). Nottingham: IVP, 2008.

Karl Barth once complained that he existed in far too many minds as a cartoon summary, 'hastily dashed off by some person at some time, and for the sake of convenience, just as hastily accepted, and then copied endlessly.' 1 Undoubtedly he had a point when he made that remark more than fifty years ago. Yet even a cursory glance at the plethora of books and articles on his theology published since, suggests his complaint could just as easily be repeated today and perhaps with even more validity. On the one hand, there are those who continue to portray him as the arch-enemy of evangelical theology, someone whose ideas are to be avoided at all costs. His theology is heady stuff, alluring but most definitely dangerous.

International Journal of Systematic Theology, 2012

This is a strangely uneven work. There are some interesting chapters here that exude a genuine knowledge of Karl Barth's theology and clearly attempt to engage his massive positive contribution by relating his thinking to various positions espoused by evangelical theologians of assorted stripes. But some chapters offer such overt misinterpretations of Barth's theology that it is astounding that anyone could espouse such deficient views. The book purports to be a discussion between evangelicals and Barth, but too often it appears to be a forum for criticizing Barth from a conservative evangelical perspective rather than from a superior theological vantage point. Still, seven of the twelve chapters can be helpful to Barth scholars interested in dialogue with evangelicals and even the rest can be helpful in seeing just where key issues lie in contemporary theological discussion. Let us look at the more positive contributions first.

Stuart George Hall (éd.) ; "Jesus Christ today. Studies in christology in various contexts. Proceedings of the Académie internationale des sciences religieuses, Oxford 25-29 August 2006 and Princeton 25-30 August 2007"- p. 179-208 (ISBN : 978-3-11-020959-4), 2009

Scottish Journal of Theology, 2007

Karl Barth's interpreters often characterize him as a 'christocentric' theologian. This term, however, is subject to a variety of interpretations, ranging from the totalitarian and isolationist critiques of the 'christomonist' objection to the indeterminate and decentred approaches offered by various postmodern readings. The disparity between these two approaches suggests a level of ambiguity in the term that hinders its usefulness unless carefully qualified. Indeed, 'centric' terminology itself remains rather ambiguous until the substantive formal and material considerations that lie behind any given form of centricity are addressed. This article proposes to alleviate the ambiguity that has thus clouded the use of 'christocentric' as a description of Barth's theology by offering five formal and material qualifications; Barth's christocentricity must be understood in terms of (1) a veiling and unveiling of knowledge in Christ, (2) a methodological orientation, (3) a particular christology, (4) a trinitarian focus and (5) an affirmation of creaturely reality. Using these criteria, the article also argues that both the christomonistic and postmodern interpretations break down at certain points because they fail to appreciate fully these qualifications and thus the particular nature of Barth's christocentrism.

International Journal of Systematic Theology, 2000

This article shows how Barth's understanding of Ebionite and Docetic Christology shaped his trinitarian theology and argues that theologians today should learn from Barth in order to avoid the pitfalls of grounding Christ's uniqueness either in experience or in an ideology instead of in Christ himself. The article exhibits how Barth's insights relate to the views of a number of prominent contemporary theologians, illustrating how these theologians, in varying ways, actually reach problematic conclusions precisely to the extent that they do not actually begin their christological reflections with the fact that Jesus is the Son of God simply because he is. One of the most vexatious aspects of contemporary Christology is the fact that so many theologians do not begin where Karl Barth began. Hence they end by trying to build a Christology on a historically or idealistically reconstructed Jesus whose uniqueness is more a creation of the community than a reality whose genuine recognition rests upon a simple acknowledgement of his Lordship. Barth's startingpoint for thinking about the person and work of Jesus Christ was, as is well known, the simple fact of Jesus Christ himself who was the Son of God by virtue of his unique relation to the Father. This may sound like a simple or even simplistic point. But it is in fact loaded, because by this statement Barth was not only trying to say that thinking must be determined by the unique object being considered, but he was also asserting that accurate thinking about revelation (and thus about Jesus Christ) could begin neither with our ideas nor with our experiences. 1 At bottom revelation was not the disclosure of something hidden within history, but the disclosure of God himself who had entered history from outside. Beginning with ideas would lead to what he labeled Docetic Christology, while beginning with experience