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A great deal of attention is given to the revised version of Barth’s prolegomena lectures published in 1927 under the title Die christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf in treatments of Barth’s development. However, a synchronic comparison, section by section, of all three versions of the prolegomena (the Göttingen and Münster versions together with Church Dogmatics I/I and I/2) shows the extent of which the fundamental decisions which control even the Church Dogmatics I/I and I/2 were already made in 1924-25 in Göttingen. This chapter discusses the events and works which influenced decisions made by Barth.

Karl Barth was a dedicated theological liberal prior to the outbreak of the First World War. In August 1914, 93 German intellectuals, among which were Barth’s theological teachers, declared their support for the war policy of Wilhelm II. This precipitated his break with liberal theology. Barth adopted a new Ansatz — a new starting point for theological reflection, which placed knowledge of God the central question.

This chapter explores Karl Barth’s writing of a book on Anselm, Fides quaerens intellectum. Barth’s main goal was to treat the ‘problematic Anselm’ of Proslogion 2-4 in a new way. He wanted to show that the so-called “ontological proof” set forth by Anselm was not a proof at all. The existence of anything new in the Anselm book, which would have compelled Barth to view Die christliche Dogmatik as a ‘false start’ is discussed.

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion on how the interpretation of Karl Barth’s theological development has been dominated by Hans Urs von Balthasar’s book, Karl Barth: Darstellung und Deutung seiner Theologie (1951) for over forty years. It identifies three studies that have challenged von Balthasar’s thesis: Eberhard Jüngel’s ‘Von der Dialektik zur Analogie’, Ingrid Spieckermann’s Gotteserkenntnis, and Michael Beintker’s Die Dialektik in der’dialektischen Theologie. A new paradigm for interpreting Barth’s development is then presented.

Barth’s critique of Romans marked his first major effort to explain his new theology. He sought to establish an eschatologically conditioned theological realism which would overcome every attempt to ground theology in the human subject. He wanted to speak of a knowledge of God grounded in itself alone, place God’s reconciling activity in Christ beyond the reach of historical investigation, and faith beyond the reach of psychological investigation.

This chapter explores the factors that influenced Karl Barth’s shift from the process eschatological model which stamped Romans I to the consistent eschatology of Romans II. The influence of his philosopher brother Heinrich Barth and Franz Overbeck was more important than that of Søren Kierkegaard. From Kierkegaard, Barth learned a style of communication, an attitude, and the Kierkegaardian understanding of the paradoxicality of the incarnation.

This chapter chronicles Karl Barth’s teaching career in Göttingen, Germany in the 1920s. During his first five semesters in Göttingen, his attitude towards doctrine became more positive, and he came to view the Church as a locus of authority in theology rather than the locus of judgement. Aside from the transformation of his esteem for the Church, Barth began analysing the problem of the contingency of revelation, i.e., what it means to affirm that one piece of history has been qualified by revelation as the site of the salvation history. This sets the stage for a thorough reconsideration of the doctrine of incarnation.

Karl Barth’s theology entered a new phase when he adopted the anhypostatic-enhypostatic model of Christology. However, his basic orientation was towards the revelation-event which occurs in the here and now basis of God’s Self-revelation in Christ. Thus, though the ground of his theology was now Christological, his theology was largely pneumatocentric. This is most evident in his doctrine of election, which was centred in the concrete situation of the person who is addressed by revelation in the here and now.

Stewardship needs to show how God's action makes nature matter for faithful practices. To investigate theological support for an answer, this chapter turns to Karl Barth, querying the thoughts of this theologian of redemption with regard to the problems of stewardship ethics. Since the strategy of stewardship appeals to the general pattern of grace Barth defended, his theology should display the liabilities and the promise of stewardship. It should also point stewardship theologies toward the most helpful resources within the pattern of redemptive grace. The chapter inquires especially after themes of place and reconciliation in Barth.

This chapter explores the theology of Romans II. It covers Barth’s theological epistemology, the source of the charge of scepticism, dialectics, emergence of a critically realistic ethic, and political action. Barth’s later critique of Romans II is also presented.

Paul Santmire expressed his disappointment in a personal encounter with Barth in which the latter was roundly critical of Santmire's proddings to produce a theology of nature. This chapter argues that Santmire seems to have missed the place Barth's theology had already made for nature: the way of the Reconciler restores nature to theology and humans to the earth. Yet there are ambivalences, shortcomings, and inconsistencies in Barth's thought that may explain why Barth himself could not tell Santmire of that place. Barth failed to engage sufficiently and seriously with the natural world, for which he is rightly faulted. Despite his love of country retreats and mountain walks, it was the world of letters and politics that captivated his extratheological attentions. But that bias is not necessary to his theological commitments. In only a few cases do substantial dogmatic or interpretive decisions lie behind Barth's evasion of nature, and even here they appear unnecessary from Barth's wider project. Otherwise his theology bends in the other direction, as God claims human freedom within the environment of Jesus. In answer to the problems with stewardship ethics, Barth's account of grace counsels stewardship away from the hubris of partnership models and shows how it might theologically accommodate the use of natural sciences and environmental experience. Barth also lets stewardship theologies imagine how to talk about an ethical place of Christian witness, thus showing how stewardship may be well suited to engage issues like agriculture, built environments, and ecological restoration.

This chapter explores Karl Barth’s theological and political writings prior to the First World War. It begins with a discussion on his upbringing and student years, and the theological situation at the turn of the century. Barth’s earliest writings showed him to be a very dedicated follower of Wilhelm Herrmann’s theology. These also reflected his strong attachment to the general epistemological theory of Cohen and Natorp.

Karl Barth affirms the eternity of the incarnation in many passages in the Church Dogmatics. He puts the incarnation in the heart of the Trinity in ways that are still being pondered and systematized by contemporary theologians. This chapter traces the development of his thought on the eternity of Christ's body. It argues that, while Barth is not always consistent on this theme, his reflections typically tend toward maximizing the eternal significance of the incarnation as an event that takes place in the heart of the Trinitarian relations. This chapter also examines a recent controversy in theological circles, namely, Bruce McCormack's interpretation of Barth's doctrine of election and the responses to McCormack by Paul Molnar, Kevin Hector, and Aaron Smith. This chapter argues that McCormack makes election a part of the Trinity rather than the full identity of Christ as given in the incarnation.

This chapter presents a synthesis of the preceding discussions on the theological development of Karl Barth. Through all the phases of his development, Barth was a critically realistic dialectical theologian. All of his efforts in theology may be considered as an attempt to overcome Kant by means of Kant; not retreating behind him and seeking to go around him, but through him. It is important to note that however critical Barth may have been of modern theology, the form in which he taught dialectical theology was a thoroughly modern option.

The first part of chapter 4 addresses several of the most pressing critical challenges to Frei's work leveled by evangelical theologians. The first is that he forgoes all concern for whether or not the biblical accounts of Jesus do, in fact, truly correspond to actual historical events. The second is that Frei reduces the biblical witness to a self-contained literary world. The second part of chapter 4 reassesses the Barthian dimensions of Frei's work in light of the potentially devastating criticism that Frei's reading of Karl Barth is decidedly undialectical, inordinately stressing the role of analogy therein, and that this deficiency has been transmitted to many of the so-called "American neo-Barthians" (or "postliberals") influenced by Frei. The argument critically retrieves material from Frei's dissertation, his earliest publications, and recently circulated material from his unpublished archival papers in order to make the case that Frei identified a complex interrelation of dialectic and analogy in Barth's theology dating back as far as the second edition of Barth's Romans commentary and reaching forward into the Church Dogmatics.

In this chapter, speech act theory is outlined and then appropriated, especially in Wolterstorff's development of it, to provide a means by which an ontological link between God and Scripture may be conceived of, such that the human words of the Bible, as they mediate divine illocutionary acts, may legitimately be identified directly with the Word of God. The chapter suggests a construal of the orthodox Protestant identification of the Bible with the Word of God, that is, with God's speech, which satisfies the concerns which led Barth to reject that identification.

The so-called classical view of scripture states that scripture really is the word of God. Karl Barth's view has emerged as an important and influential alternative to the classical view. He does not endorse what is often loosely called a ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ view of scripture. He does not think that the Bible contains or reflects the Word of God and does not believe that it is merely the record of some important religious experiences. But nor does he endorse the traditional view, and indeed he is critical of it. Instead, he is convinced that scripture really is the Word of God — but only in the ‘event’ that it becomes so. This chapter engages Barth's proposal. It attempts to show how Barth's own concerns might be addressed by the use of analytic tools. Making use of recent developments in analytic philosophy of language, it argues that the theologian who shares Barth's fundamental theological commitments can — and indeed should — hold to the classical view.

Engaging with reverence, far from being a peripheral subject, requires us to grapple with some frontline issues in theology and ethics. Few theologians have provided detailed analyses of Schweitzer's work. But of these, two major theologians of the twentieth‐century, Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, have both lauded and criticized reverence for life. Their comments and objections to his “ethical mysticism” are addressed in Chapter Two. While critical, both support his concern for the lack of attention shown to non‐human species in ethical discourse, and even adopt some of these insights. Especially telling is Barth's engagement with reverence: his discussion of the “command of life” presents in theological terms some of the key concepts which Schweitzer masked in philosophical terminology, and thereby bringing Schweitzer out of the margins to the center of theology.