> Karl Barth is one of my favorite theological figures, and I'm glad to see a summary of his thought come up in this forum. More Barth-exposure is a Good Thing (tm). :-)
>

The problem with Barth is that he's so focused on divine revelation that he tends to ignore the real world around him.

Simply, my problem with Barth has to do with pluralism. He's all too willing to consign non-christian humanity to hell. According to Barth, divine revelation is also an explicitly Christian revelation -- which is something we know because of divine revelation. See, religion and attempts to understand God are a waste of time. In fact, human religion is itself an evil institution. It's only when the divine steps in that one religion in particular, Christianity, can move past its weaknesses.

What this means is that any challenge to Christianity's uniqueness, whether intellectual, emotional, or spiritual, can be ignored by a good Christian. Devotees of other faiths live empirically good lives? Too bad; they're not Christians, and Christian revelation is the _only kind that counts_, which we know by the grace of God. At least Catholics allow that non-Christian religions may share in the divine or have a genuine faith, even if Christianity is the most pure expression of God. Barth won't go that far. In a world where most serious theology moved towards the idea that all religions shared a view of a single Divine, Barth, was moving in the other direction.

And he acts as if he's got blinders on, which is safe logically because divine revelation is a trump card. He knows he's received grace because of grace, and his other opinions are right because of grace too, and it's impossible to know God except as Barth does, which must be true because it's divine revelation. It's circular logic -- which is sort of the point, as Barth wouldn't accept that human rationality is capable of judging his own beliefs. I guess I'm too much into the enlightenment to be able to agree with that.

And he is perfectly willing to accept the consequence that many people who perfectly live a Christian ethic are to be damned. Personally, if I was a Christian (I'm agnostic), I wouldn't be able to sleep nights with that sort of theology (which I find to be prescriptive rather than descriptive.)

I'll admit I haven't read all of Barth, and I certainly hope I'm misunderstanding him. But as far as I can tell, this is his theology, and I can't stomach it.

Tom "If there is a God, I believe he's knowable and accountable" Schmidt
tmschm@wm.edu