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Response to Paul Nimmo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2015

Gerald P. McKenny
Gerald P. McKenny*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, 130 Malloy Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, [email protected]
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Extract

I am grateful to the Scottish Journal of Theology for offering me the opportunity to respond to Paul Nimmo's article review of the The Analogy of Grace, and I am especially grateful to Dr Nimmo for his lucid and accurate overview of the book, his generous comments, and his thoughtful and challenging criticisms. It is an honour to receive this careful and critical attention from the author of Being in Action, a study of Barth's ethics for which I have the highest regard.

Keywords

analogycommandethicsgraceKarl Barththeology
Type
Response
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 98 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2015 

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References

1 An earlier version of this response to Dr Nimmo was presented at the annual meeting of the Karl Barth Society of North America in Nov. 2012. I am grateful to Professor George Hunsinger and Professor Paul Molnar for the invitation to present the response and to the members of the audience whose probing questions prompted me to reformulate several points.

2 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, ed. Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–75)Google Scholar, English trans. of Barth, Karl, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1932; Zürich: EVZ, 1938–65)Google Scholar. References to this text use the abbreviation CD, with the English and then the German page numbers.

3 CD II/2, pp. 631/701.

4 CD II/2, pp. 631/702.

5 See CD II/2, pp. 632–3/702–4.

6 CD II/2, pp. 644/717.

7 CD II/2, pp. 645/718.

8 CD II/2, pp. 652–3/727.

9 The discussion covers CD II/2, pp. 644–61/717–37.

10 For thorough treatments of this theme based on the prohibition regarding the tree of knowledge and its violation in Gen 2:16–17 and 3:1–6, see CD III/1, pp. 257–66/292–304, 284–8/325–9, and CD IV/1, pp. 445–53/494–503.

11 CD II/2, pp. 667/744 (trans. altered).

12 CD III/4, pp. 12/11.

13 CD II/2, pp. 704/786, 709/792.

14 CD III/4, pp. 9/8 (emphasis original, trans. altered).

15 A notable example is St Thomas Aquinas. See Summa Theologiae I-II, q 94.4.

16 CD III/4, pp. 30–1/32–4.

17 CD II/2, pp. 643–5/716–18.

18 CD II/2, pp. 645/718 (trans. altered).

19 CD II/2, pp. 648–9/722.

20 CD III/4, pp. 9/8.

21 CD II/2, pp. 655/729.

22 CD II/2, pp. 656/730.

23 CD II/2, pp. 656/731.

24 This distinction between intersubjectivity on the one hand, and the combination of individuality and formal universality, on the other hand, recalls Jürgen Habermas’ argument for discourse ethics against what he described as the ‘methodological solipsism’ of Kant's moral theory. See Habermas, , Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Lenhardt, Christian and Nicholsen, Shierry Weber (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

25 I also considered this judgement to be supported by Barth's analysis of ‘the basic form of humanity’ in Church Dogmatics, III/2, where Barth identifies our being with our fellow humans as the most fundamental feature of our creaturely being (CD III/2, pp. 226–31/270–6).

26 CD III/2, pp. 231/276.