Ship of Fools: Barth seems silly

Thread: Barth seems silly - what's going on? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

I finally sat down and read Evangelical Theology.

Seriously?

What's this man, supposedly the 'greatest 20th Century theologian' actually saying?!

I barely know one thing from reading it about what Barth thinks God is like, or how Christians should live, or how to get saved (which really is the most important question I'd have...), or how to get right with God.. or anything TRUE.

So, can anyone help? What is Barth really trying to get at? What have I missed?

Is Barth evangelical? What is his dogma, his doctrine?

Thanks! [Smile]

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

I have never liked Barth's work but he set out to distinguish Christian theology from 'natural' theology.

Natural theology suggests that anyone can know God through nature, through thinking.

In Barth's day, a lot of Christians had sided with Hitler so, in revolt against this, Barth says than no human can ever find God except insofar as Gods reveals himself to them. God is totally transcendent, therefore, and scripture is his revelation.

I wouldn't call him 'evangelical', except insofar as it was a title of the Lutheran church. He was far too clever to be evangelical in the fundamentalist sense.

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

I'm another person who isn't that enamoured with Barth. To be honest, I think he is someone whose day has come and gone. I'm really not sure what his lasting impact will be.

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

Barth's neo orthodoxy means that he is not evangelical. This is illustrated in his belief that the bible contains the word of God whereas traditional evangelical belief sees the bible as the word of God.

Besides which his church dogmatics spends a lot of time and wastes a lot of words saying little that is new or refreshing.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

I think Barth has some good things to say from time to time. His early sermon, "what do they say?" actually brought me to tears with it's simplicity and beauty (but that might have been because I was reading thru Word of God and Word of Man and to suddenly have an essay that was readable and meaningful and direct was such a blessed relief it caused me to weep).

But yeah, the overly complex sentence structures make it so hard to slog thru that by the time you actually decipher what he's saying it's rarely worth the effort. Some of that is just the German language (see Mark Twain's brilliant critique) but it can't all be laid at that door-- Barth is worse than really anyone else, despite having demonstrated (in that early sermon at least) that it is possible to communicate in German w/o cramming 10 or 12 dependent clauses into every sentence. My theory is that either:

1. Once he became known as "the greatest theologian of the 20th c." everyone was gunning for him, so he worried that someone would quote him out of context, so each sentence has to contain all those conditional clauses to make sure no one misrepresents him.

2. German wartime rationing extended into the postwar period, and surprisingly enough, extended not just to food stuffs but to punctuation as well. While commas apparently grow on trees in the German countryside so are plentiful, periods evidently are costly imports that must be hoarded and used sparingly.

[ 14. October 2014, 22:37: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
German wartime rationing extended into the postwar period, and surprisingly enough, extended not just to food stuffs but to punctuation as well. While commas apparently grow on trees in the German countryside so are plentiful, periods evidently are costly imports that must be hoarded and used sparingly.

Love it!

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
ExclamationMark: This is illustrated in his belief that the bible contains the word of God whereas traditional evangelical belief sees the bible as the word of God.

People argue about things like this?

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Of course.

"The Bible contains the word of God" logically means that some of what is in the Bible may not be the word of God. That's a serious problem for evangelicals, even of the non-fundamentalist variety.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

Ah, I see now. For a moment I thought it was some ontological stuff.

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Of course.

"The Bible contains the word of God" logically means that some of what is in the Bible may not be the word of God. That's a serious problem for evangelicals, even of the non-fundamentalist variety.

Whereas I would say the Bible witnesses to the Word of God, which is Christ. I think (IIRC) Barth was trying to make some similar distinction - that Christ is the Word of God.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Personally, I try to avoid capitalising "word of God" in reference to the Bible because I believe there is a difference with the "Word of God" who is Christ, the Logos.

The Bible is a communication from God (in various forms, through various authors) and therefore it is, IMO, appropriate to call it the "word of God". I wouldn't say the Bible is exclusively a witness to Christ, the Word of God. To read the OT as exclusively prophecy about Christ, typology of Christ etc is to miss a lot of what God is saying through those texts. Even in the NT there are parts of the Epistles, for example dealing with practical aspects of church organisation, that are not really a witness to Christ either.

Posted by Ancient Mariner (# 4) on :

Barth may seem 'silly' or 'had his day'; he may have 'wasted a lot of words saying little that is new or refreshing' but I should advise readers, especially newer members of the crew, that they owe the very page they write on to a throw away line by KB, spotted by our esteemed captain as long ago as 1975.

I quote from Gary Dorrien's Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit: The Idealistic Logic of Modern Theology (Wiley-Blackwell):

'By 1923, crisis theology has passed from being a lecture circuit fad to a theological movement. It founded a journal, Zwichsen den Zeiten (Between the Times), and attracted the most promising theologians of the postwar generation, including Bultmann, Brunner, Gunther Dehn, Erik Peterson, Heinrich Schlier and George Merz.

'For Barth, the journal's name was a compromise. Gogarten wanted to call it The Word. Barth, already tiring of Gogarten, replied that it would be better to call it The Ship of Fools; they did not posses the Word.'

The rest is nautical history.

[Cool]

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Of course.

"The Bible contains the word of God" logically means that some of what is in the Bible may not be the word of God. That's a serious problem for evangelicals, even of the non-fundamentalist variety.

Well, yes, but it does avoid what for me is an even more serious problem if all the Bible, including Those Bits That Generally Cause Me To Lose My Cool On Here (and we all know what they are) have to be considered "Wot God said".

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

I find Barth enormously relevant and I still find myself going back to him time and time again. In fact, in pretty much every modern debate of the church here in the West, his absolute insistence that the 'Word' is God and not words on a page and the place of revelation in faith history and experience seem to me to be more relevant than anything else I have read regarding the church's modern quandaries.

But alas, he is out of fashion and does not fit in a world of evermore increasing polarising camps and deepening fundamentalism. He's one prophet from the past that very few people today want to hear.

Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :

I think Barth did have some weird ontological stuff going on though.

One criticism levelled at him from both the liberal and conservative directions was that his theology was "anti-historical".

So for example he apparently had a conversation with Baillie in which Baillie asked him whether he thought Methuselah had really lived for 969 years.

Barth said nothing at all.

Baillie was shocked that he didn't say "no".

A conservative might have been shocked that he didn't say "yes".

But the real problem, it is suggested, is that his silence indicates the position: "This is a non-question. Biblical truth and historical truth are entirely separate animals".

Many quote with approval his reply when asked what he had learned from his theology:

"Jesus loves me, this I know"

And Evangelicals tend to quote with approval the next line of his reply also

"For the Bible tells me so"

But I think characteristic of Barthian theology is that you know this "for the Bible tells me so"
and for no other reason. In fact I think he goes further than paleo-Calvinists here in that words like "good" and "love" are sort of stand-alone symbols. God's idea of "good" and "love" in Barth may be totally disconnected from our idea of the same thing.

However because this thorough-going Barthianism is so counter-intuitive I think very few of his followers really embraced it.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I think it depends on whether you're reading a theologian because you have to because you're studying theology or whether you are hoping that X will be a light to your path in some way.

Two thoughts - which I admit are in conflict with each other:-

The first is this. Some years ago, a wise person said to me that one can think of writers as providing maps, some more reliable than others of course, to the spiritual realm. If you read a highly thought of work and it says nothing to you, allow for the fact that it may be a map of a place where you just don't happen to be.

If so, put it down but don't assume it might not be just what you need at some other time in your life.

The second is that incomprehensibility does not always hide great wisdom. All too often verbiage is like the emperor's new clothes.

If they want to be heard, it rests on those who write books to try and write them in a way that makes them readable. It is their responsibility to get their message across, not yours to try and puzzle it out.

If you feel that somewhere inside the convoluted prose there is a nugget that you are prepared to expend time, effort and irritation to mine, then dig away. Otherwise, you are entitled to say, 'I can't be bothered'.

Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

Ok, firstly thanks everyone for such helpful replies...

So I'm left with another question, if I may:

If the Bible contains the Word of God, but isn't God's Word (as Barth seems to think) then why do I trust what Barth has said about God and The Bible, rather than trusting what God has said about God and the Bible.

And if I agree with Barth and say "there's God's word in the Bible, but not all of it is God's word.." then how do I know which bits to accept and which bits to reject (other than by accepting and rejecting what Barth tells me to!)

Thanks [Smile]

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

Your first question contains a false premise. As far as we can tell God has said nothing definitive about the Bible, unless you beg the question and assume that the words in the letter of Paul to Timothy are both from God and referring to the entirety of the Bible.

As for how you tell, that's where your three or four legged stool comes in. Plus the Bible contains broad, overarching themes and principles e.g. the two great commandments. If other parts of the Bible are not in accord with those commandments then chances are that it is the details that are in error and not the broad themes. Though I would again say that this is a false problem, as it's no more difficult than the problem the bibliolator faces in trying to resolve the internal contradictions in the message - they may use the excuse that certain instructions were part of the purity code, or that they had certain unspoken conditions attached that make them irrelevant now, but they're ultimately doing the same thing.

[ 15. October 2014, 09:58: Message edited by: Arethosemyfeet ]

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

The first is this. Some years ago, a wise person said to me that one can think of writers as providing maps, some more reliable than others of course, to the spiritual realm. If you read a highly thought of work and it says nothing to you, allow for the fact that it may be a map of a place where you just don't happen to be.

Or equally that the work of writers down the ages was a conversation with each other - separated by many years, over what the map should look like.

quote:

The second is that incomprehensibility does not always hide great wisdom. All too often verbiage is like the emperor's new clothes.

If they want to be heard, it rests on those who write books to try and write them in a way that makes them readable. It is their responsibility to get their message across, not yours to try and puzzle it out.

The problem is, sometimes it does. Especially in an era in which we expect everything to be accessible, sometimes we run into the issue that it takes time to make an older way of expression accessible, and equally that some ideas are genuinely complex and even the simplest formulation of them will take time to understand.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:
And if I agree with Barth and say "there's God's word in the Bible, but not all of it is God's word.." then how do I know which bits to accept and which bits to reject (other than by accepting and rejecting what Barth tells me to!)

As I understand it, you don't. The Holy Spirit tells you through the Bible.
I've not read Barth, but as I understand it he'd utterly reject the idea that finding out which bits of the Bible to accept or reject is in any way your job and not God's to tell you.
The fundamental idea, I believe, is that all the initiative comes from God, always, all the way along.

Nothing in my hands I bring;
Simply to his cross I cling.
Naked come to him for dress;
Helpless come to him for grace.

[ 15. October 2014, 10:52: Message edited by: Dafyd ]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Plus the Bible contains broad, overarching themes and principles e.g. the two great commandments. If other parts of the Bible are not in accord with those commandments then chances are that it is the details that are in error and not the broad themes. Though I would again say that this is a false problem, as it's no more difficult than the problem the bibliolator faces in trying to resolve the internal contradictions in the message

Of course, we all interpret the Bible. For some, that interpretation is conducted within an understanding of the Bible as a collection of records of how people in the past experienced and understood God. At the other extreme there are people with a high regard for the authority and direct inspiration of Scripture (who would not accept the inaccurate and offensive term 'Bibliolator') for whom every passage is a part of the self revelation of God through the written word (in addition to his self revelation through the Incarnate Word). In the middle are people who accept that the Bible contains the self revelation of God, but maybe inaccurately transmitted with other stuff mixed in. Despite our different approaches we will all read the Bible with context (the rest of the Bible, the teaching we received, our own intellect, our gut "this feels right/wrong" feelings).

Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As I understand it, you don't. The Holy Spirit tells you through the Bible.

Isn't this just another way of saying 'go with what your instincts/feelings/gut tells you about a passage'?

Doesn't seem to me to be a very good way to 'do' religion - I'd rather have certainty. This was what was so appealing to me as an Evangelical - certain religious truth that didn't depend on the utterly chaotic, random vagaries of my moving, shifting emotions, or on what sort of a mood I was in that day.

Equally, it's what's appealing about Dawkins-esque atheism.

Now, I'm neither evangelical/fundamentalist nor a Dawkins style atheist. But it's a very uncomfortable place to be!

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

Barth probably remains one of the most influential theologians with the evangelical church. Though not many will have gone through Church Dogmatics cover-to-cover, his teaching still percolates through to many a sermon.

Having grown up in an evangelical baptist church, Spurgeon was probably the name most often heard when referencing theologians. I never read any Barth until I was in my late 20s, but when I did it was little different than the content of hundreds of sermons I'd listened to. Probably the biggest difference between Barth and other evangelicals is his preference for a high Mariology, which is generally viewed with suspicion as being a bit too catholic.

With regards to evangelical views on the bible, while it is very fair to say that many evangelicals view the bible as "word of God" there is a rich breadth of opinions as to quite what that means. At the one end you might have the conservatives who subscribe to notions of inerrancy, whilst there are plenty of liberal evangelicals who take a more reasonable stance, as well as those in between.

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

Posted by Calleva:

quote:

And if I agree with Barth and say "there's God's word in the Bible, but not all of it is God's word.." then how do I know which bits to accept and which bits to reject (other than by accepting and rejecting what Barth tells me to!)

Via revelation, and that revelation of God has been given to you in Christ; and, as far as Barth is concerned in his theological frame, there is no other revelation of God to be known outside of Christ. It is the supreme act of God's self giving and revealing.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

Without having read Karl Barth, I must respond to a couple of posts.
______________________________

Posted by Calleva:

Doesn't seem to me to be a very good way to 'do' religion - I'd rather have certainty. This was what was so appealing to me as an Evangelical - certain religious truth that didn't depend on the utterly chaotic, random vagaries of my moving, shifting emotions, or on what sort of a mood I was in that day.

Equally, it's what's appealing about Dawkins-esque atheism.
______________________________

'Certainty' to me implies rigidity, an unquestioning acceptance of received ideas and a reluctance to explore broadening horizons. Hitchens and Dawkins epitomise certainty, as do one or two old conservative friends with whom I have no basis at all for exchange of ideas.
_______________________________

Posted by Alan Cresswell

Despite our different approaches we will all read the Bible with context (the rest of the Bible, the teaching we received, our own intellect, our gut "this feels right/wrong" feelings).

_______________________________

True, and our context includes our world view, not one in which the sky is an inverted bowl through which the stars shine, with 'heaven' and its inhabitants above it; and in which the lives of the masses are governed by powerful kings and emperors with the often capricious power of life and death – God being an infinitely more powerful overlord, sending rain or famine, victory or defeat to the nation, exile or homeland according to his desire or their behaviour.
God is a mystery, to whom Jesus the Galilean is the best pointer we have, and whose message has often been obscured by generations of authorities telling us what we must believe in order to achieve 'salvation'.

GG

Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
God is a mystery, to whom Jesus the Galilean is the best pointer we have

Why, though?

We know precious little about this 'revelation' on which Karl Barth hangs his whole neo-orthodoxy? We have some sketchy biographies not even written by people that new him. We have absolutely no idea what Jesus said. About anything.

But let's say we had a great idea of what he said and did.

Even then, on what grounds is he the 'best' way to humans to get past the infinite qualitative distance between us and God? Why isn't it Siddartha Gotama? Or Nanak? Or the words of the Qur'an? Or someone else? What about Roger the Shrubber? Or Brian that is Called Brian? Or some other random Joe Soap from somewhere?

Why arbitrarily pick an unremarkable Jewish rabbi from a poor province of the empire?

And if you say "ah ha! It's his poverty and insignificance that make him so significant as God's revelation.." aren't there several million other poor, illiterate, uneducated candidates to the the Revelation from God?

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

The 'revelation' is us knowing the 'Word'. You are coming at it from the wrong side - a kind of natural theology side, which Barth would strongly condemn.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I make no claim to be a theological expert. However, I think part of what Barth has been saying is that one has either to accept or reject the revelation. It doesn't work, and on his terms is a nonsense, to approach it with the idea that you'll see whether you like it or not, or whether you'll take the bits you are persuaded by and drop the ones you're not.

I think he's also saying that the revelation is a revelation of the Word, nor the Word itself. What matters is less how it is revealed and more, what is revealed. The Bible is the book about God, where you go to find out what the revelation is.

The Word is Jesus not the Bible. In John 1, 'In the beginning was the Word', John says 'the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us', not 'the Word was set down on paper and made available in religious book shops'.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:

quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
God is a mystery, to whom Jesus the Galilean is the best pointer we have
Why, though?

We know precious little about this 'revelation' on which Karl Barth hangs his whole neo-orthodoxy? We have some sketchy biographies not even written by people that new him. We have absolutely no idea what Jesus said. About anything.

But let's say we had a great idea of what he said and did.

Even then, on what grounds is he the 'best' way to humans to get past the infinite qualitative distance between us and God? Why isn't it Siddartha Gotama? Or Nanak? Or the words of the Qur'an? Or someone else? What about Roger the Shrubber? Or Brian that is Called Brian? Or some other random Joe Soap from somewhere?

Why arbitrarily pick an unremarkable Jewish rabbi from a poor province of the empire?

And if you say "ah ha! It's his poverty and insignificance that make him so significant as God's revelation.." aren't there several million other poor, illiterate, uneducated candidates to the the Revelation from God?

No, I don't say that. Neither do I accept that Jesus was 'sent' by 'god' to be a 'revelation'. He did make an incredible impression on those who knew him and it is I guess something of a gut feeling that his vision of the world as it could be makes perfect sense as an ideal to credit 'god' with.

I can't accept the dogma that had accumulated around the story by the time the creeds were composed, and continued to do so, nor the huge hierarchical structure of the church that grew to promulgate and enforce its beliefs. As someone recently said, the rabbi Jesus taught about how to live, not what to believe, yet the credal statement 'born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate' reduces all his life and teaching to a comma.

GG

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Calleva's skepticism is justified. To say that X is the best way to know God or approach God is a subjective judgment. It really means 'I prefer X'. Well, this is OK, I don't see how one could use any other approach, without becoming involved in circularity, kind of, this is true because I say it is.

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

Posted by Quetza:

quote:

To say that X is the best way to know God or approach God is a subjective judgment

Unless of course, the 'X' to which you refer is in fact God - which is entirely Barth's point.

Posted by GG:

quote:

I can't accept the dogma that had accumulated around the story by the time the creeds were composed, and continued to do so, nor the huge hierarchical structure of the church that grew to promulgate and enforce its beliefs.

Fair enough. Barth on the other hand is a Christian theologian and so approaches things from a somewhat different angle.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Posted by Quetza:

quote:

To say that X is the best way to know God or approach God is a subjective judgment

Unless of course, the 'X' to which you refer is in fact God - which is entirely Barth's point.

Posted by GG:

quote:

I can't accept the dogma that had accumulated around the story by the time the creeds were composed, and continued to do so, nor the huge hierarchical structure of the church that grew to promulgate and enforce its beliefs.

Fair enough. Barth on the other hand is a Christian theologian and so approaches things from a somewhat different angle.

I am interested in your 'in fact'. How do you arrive at a fact of this nature?

Posted by Ahleal V (# 8404) on :

I couldn't stand Barth at college - but fell in love with von Balthasar.

x

AV

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
To say that X is the best way to know God or approach God is a subjective judgment. It really means 'I prefer X'.

I don't see that 'X is a subjective judgement' is necessarily the same as 'I prefer X'. It depends on your psychological theory. If I say 'my perception of colour is a subjective judgement' I don't mean 'I prefer my perception of colour'.

Barth's point, though, as I understand it, is that we can't make any kind of judgement about God without grace, and with grace the correctness of our judgement ceases to be an issue. Basically Barth's position arises out of the Calvinist tradition that in all genuine relations between God and humanity the initiative comes entirely and solely from God.

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

Posted by Quetza:

quote:

I am interested in your 'in fact'. How do you arrive at a fact of this nature?

'I' don't - it's Barth we are talking about and specifically he is talking about God revealed in Christ: 'the best revelation we have' you might say (and Barth does say).

Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
'the best revelation we have'

On what grounds?

What set of First Principles that we can *both* agree on and are self evident can you build up your case that Christ is the best revelation?

If you can, please tell me!

But if not, while I do accept that your belief in this revelation, on faith, might well be indubitable for you, don't be surprised if no one else buys it...

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

Sorry, I thought we were talking about Barth rather than my own beliefs, but if we are still talking about Barth, then have a read of him before you announce it as 'silly'.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:

quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
'the best revelation we have'
On what grounds?

What set of First Principles that we can *both* agree on and are self evident can you build up your case that Christ is the best revelation?

If you can, please tell me!

But if not, while I do accept that your belief in this revelation, on faith, might well be indubitable for you, don't be surprised if no one else buys it...

to Fletcher Christian's point, in the works in question, Barth is a Christian speaking to other Christians. There are certain common assumptions you can make in that context that wouldn't necessarily hold in a different context. I would assume if Barth were writing to a group of non-Christians he would frame his arguments differently.

[ 18. October 2014, 15:30: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:
What set of First Principles that we can *both* agree on and are self evident can you build up your case that Christ is the best revelation?

Barth's starting point is that if you start with self-evident first principles that we can all agre on we end up with the trenches: Paeschendaele, the Somme and Verdun.
Barth grew up seeing his lecturers and tutors, men who had devoted their the lives to explaining and assessing revelation in the light of reason, all blessing the slaughter of the First World War.

Barth's diagnosis human reason cannot build up a case that Christ is a revelation at all. (And even if it could, it could never give you sufficient certainty for faith.) Either God has revealed Christ to you in the words of Scripture, or in preaching from Scripture and you have faith, or God hasn't and you don't have faith. There's no question of how you know that you know.

Posted by Calleva Atrebatum (# 14058) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
have a read of him before you announce it as 'silly'.

In the OP I said I'd just finished reading Evangelical Theology; but after reading it's turgid, cloying, dull, contrived prose I'm not terribly interested in ploughing through the Dogmatics. Might give epistle to the Romans a go.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:
In the OP I said I'd just finished reading Evangelical Theology; but after reading it's turgid, cloying, dull, contrived prose I'm not terribly interested in ploughing through the Dogmatics.

This might be a deeply-rooted instinct for self-preservation IMHO.

Posted by FCB (# 1495) on :

Dismissing Barth is a lot like dismissing Shakespeare. You are surely entitled to do it, but be prepared to have some very smart people think you've missed something.

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

Sorry - but to compare Barth with the Bard is the very definition of silliness.

No-one (I think) is denying Barth's influence on 20th century Protestant theology. But even so early into the 21st century, I think it looks like his influence will not be particularly long-lived. Come back in 200 year's time and if we're still discussing Barth then, perhaps a comparison to Shakespeare might not appear so ridiculous.

Posted by FCB (# 1495) on :

I'm pretty sure that theologians at least will still be discussing Barth in 200 years. Nothing's for certain, of course, but if it came down to betting which 20th century protestant was still being discussed in the beginning of the 23rd century, my money would be on Barth.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
I'm pretty sure that theologians at least will still be discussing Barth in 200 years. Nothing's for certain, of course, but if it came down to betting which 20th century protestant was still being discussed in the beginning of the 23rd century, my money would be on Barth.

I suspect we'll still be discussing Barth in 200 years, and aspects of his insights may still be influential hypothetically in 23rd c. theology. But I suspect (highly speculative of course) that actually reading Barth as a primary source will become more and more of a specialized occupation.

Posted by FCB (# 1495) on :

I suspect it already is.

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