Category: The Mind of Karl Barth

The talk about God is the focus of the Christian proclamation.  We declare what God says and we are thus witnesses to His majesty.  We are all fallen, lost and depraved so we are blinded from the things of God.  This is the truth of our state of affairs.  We so easily forget about God and tend to say strange things that have nothing to do with Him at all.  What we do say is a result of the grace of God in spite of our rebellion and sin.  This is not just the state of the world but also includes the state of the church who share in the general state of affairs of the human race at large.  However, the hope of the gospel which God has given…

What must be avoided in theology is the need to reason our way to the truth.  Good theology is not founded on the ability for any human being to reason using the art of persuasive debate to achieve the best doctrine.  Though it is the pattern of modern times to turn to those with the best qualifications, the greatest charisma and the most distinguished of people and take more notice of what they say, this is not necessarily the case when it comes to the task of undertaking good theology.  What good theology expects of us is to place aside reason and to reiterate what has been revealed by the very Revealer Himself to us to the wider Christian community and to the uttermost parts of the world.  Reason comes…

The following are my thoughts on Karl Barth's 'Determination of the Rejected,' found in Church Dogmatics II.2 pp. 449-506. To call any human being rejected is quite a harsh thing to say.  The only way we can have any sort of discussion of this kind is to count ourselves as numbered with the rejected.  This is clearly consistent with Scripture, 'for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,' as well as, 'as in Adam all die,' but there are always two sides to the pancake.  Many Christians only see the pancake from the top and are not prepared to flip the pancake to see what is on the other side.  Some are of the view that the good news must spring from the bad news so it…