18 - Karl Barth

Summary

Assessments of significance depend at least in part on the standpoint of the observer and the context of interpretation. The more prominent the object, the more perspectives are likely to be available. That is certainly the case with Barth. He still stands out in the history of theology in the twentieth century both as a major figure - to put it no more strongly - and also as a disputed figure. He has been hailed by some as the modern church father, and dismissed by others as out of touch and out of date even in his own day, to say nothing of trente ans après.

These thirty years have been the period of my own involvement in theological research and teaching – a period in which a not uncritical engagement with Barth has been one recurrent activity. It was within a few weeks of beginning my doctoral study in Tu¨bingen in 1968 that I heard from Ju¨rgen Moltmann of Barth’s death the day before. That puts me in the generation of those who began theological work to some degree under Barth’s shadow and in awareness of his impact, but who never actually met or heard him in the flesh. My acquaintance with him is strictly either literary or second-hand through my contacts and friendships with many who did know him or studied with him. This limitation has perhaps both a negative and a positive aspect. The negative aspect is that we increasingly have only a truncated Barth before us – the work rather than the man. The positive aspect is that this puts me in the same boat as those for whom this collection of studies is being written – and that Barth himself would have insisted that the work he attempted to do, especially in dogmatic theology, was his primary commitment and main contribution.