tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post4773539998117000471..comments2024-03-25T13:40:30.747-04:00Comments on Faith and Theology: Book giveaway: Bruce McCormack, Orthodox and ModernBen Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-15445716845052880182008-09-18T02:03:00.000-04:002008-09-18T02:03:00.000-04:00Who is Karl Barth?Who is Karl Barth?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-34603705976404829392008-09-17T19:26:00.000-04:002008-09-17T19:26:00.000-04:003 things I like:1. Barth is more conservative than...3 things I like:<BR/><BR/>1. Barth is more conservative than the conservatives.<BR/>2. Barth is more liberal than the liberals.<BR/>3. Statements 1. and 2. both contradict and don't contradict.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07781929186671053492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-83389362244232709342008-09-17T19:00:00.000-04:002008-09-17T19:00:00.000-04:00Three things I like about KB1. Negotiating space f...Three things I like about KB<BR/>1. Negotiating space for the relationship (under one roof) between Nellie and Charlotte. Dialectics or Analogy, I wonder.<BR/>2. His reductionist riposte to an arrogant scientist: 'Well, I don't know much about astronomy but perhaps it can summed up by: 'Twinkle, Twinkle, little star, how I wonder...'<BR/>3. His determination to pursue a theological vision in a wholly rigorous way and still be content to leave it unfinished.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-44197710598610082622008-09-17T16:39:00.000-04:002008-09-17T16:39:00.000-04:001. loved Mozart2. hooked up with his secretary3. t...1. loved Mozart<BR/><BR/>2. hooked up with his secretary<BR/><BR/>3. took a cold shower every morning so he could get to work on the Dogmatics.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-59511509422444067542008-09-17T14:22:00.000-04:002008-09-17T14:22:00.000-04:00Three reasons I like Barth: his trinitarianism!Three reasons I like Barth: his trinitarianism!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-36774783668899302382008-09-17T14:06:00.000-04:002008-09-17T14:06:00.000-04:00Three things I HATE about Karl Barth!1. Heretic.2....Three things I HATE about Karl Barth!<BR/><BR/>1. Heretic.<BR/>2. Couldn't stand Hawaiian pizza.<BR/>3. God still loved him in Christ.John Robersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12250225216058559780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-30299982937714320352008-09-17T14:05:00.000-04:002008-09-17T14:05:00.000-04:001. His generosity (and geekiness) in providing mil...1. His generosity (and geekiness) in providing miles upon miles of seemingly unedited small print detours, easily observable when you flip open to a page in any volume of CD.<BR/>2. His incredible mental organization - "Dogmatics in Outline" is theology as jazz improv - no lecture notes, no prior preparation, done in one take.<BR/>3. He told the Nazis to shove it, Socrates-stylePaulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07483515277515922712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-89780623390119110952008-09-17T13:47:00.000-04:002008-09-17T13:47:00.000-04:001. His breadth. The guy just...read...everything...1. His breadth. The guy just...read...everything: Reformation, post-Reformation, early church, catholic thinkers, you name it. When I think about him scrunched over in his library, reading endless tomes of ten-point Latin script so as to have a better understanding of Reformed orthodoxy, it makes me feel both grateful and inadequate. <BR/><BR/>2. His emphasis on mission. I feel like IV/3 is the real secret gem of CD: not only has he, by that point, revolutionized the doctrine of the trinity, the doctrine of election, etc., etc., but as kind of a capstone he basically founds missional theology as a discipline. Unbelievable. <BR/><BR/>3. His joy. KB was a joyful thinker, and when you read enough of him, you begin to feel both edified and delighted. Barth is a persuasive witness to the fact that Christ's resurrection is indeed good news.David Brunerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03618408575643769000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-45718033552851149092008-09-17T11:34:00.000-04:002008-09-17T11:34:00.000-04:001. The posture of prayer in theological method2. D...1. The posture of prayer in theological method<BR/>2. Defining God in light of the gospel – and thus the constant exegesis of the CD.<BR/>3. His polemic against all perceived forms of idolatry, both within and outside of the church, in light of the risen and living Lord.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-88748861596137693432008-09-17T08:49:00.000-04:002008-09-17T08:49:00.000-04:00Three colorful reasons for needing to like Barth:1...Three colorful reasons for needing to like Barth:<BR/>1. Have to like someone who earned the nickname "the red pastor."<BR/>2. Have to like his being a preacher in a blue-collar Swiss town.<BR/>3. Have to like the fact that "Green" is a frequent surname among Barth's many interpreters (Garrett and Clifford).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-73843508036791064032008-09-17T08:13:00.000-04:002008-09-17T08:13:00.000-04:00Things I Love1. The fact he recognizes that every...Things I Love<BR/><BR/>1. The fact he recognizes that every preacher should tremble before the congregation and the text...see the essay in Word of God, Word of Man<BR/><BR/>2. His account of transcendence and incarnation in CD 4.1. Only a truly transcendent God can become incarnate<BR/><BR/>3. His book on Schleiermacher and the fact he never let his students easily dismiss Schleiermacher without a fair read.<BR/><BR/>Things I loathe<BR/><BR/>1, How his rejection of natural theology has led, rightly or wrongly, to a sort of disembodied epistemology amongst many of his followers. Don't we need a non-natural natural epistemology...see the patristics on this, particularly Athanasius<BR/><BR/>2. CD 4.4 and his account of sacraments related to my worry in #1<BR/><BR/>3. That his focus on the concrete and particular is obscured in his discussion of men, women, and Israel in CD 3 and Christian religion in CD 1.Joshuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05954653672251021017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-11182103201385692008-09-17T08:12:00.000-04:002008-09-17T08:12:00.000-04:001. I could see Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Bart...1. I could see Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Barth in a biopic.<BR/><BR/>2. He was on the cover of Time: http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1962/1101620420_400.jpg<BR/><BR/>3. His prodigious writing output is, perhaps, only matched by Søren Kierkegaard; but, thank God, Barth never dabbled with "indirect discourse."<BR/><BR/><BR/>Thanks for holding this contest (and for your blog in general).Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05598326934680106837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-67647400954251045072008-09-17T04:37:00.000-04:002008-09-17T04:37:00.000-04:00Three things I love, and these three are one, or t...Three things I love, and these three are one, or the threefold form of the-thing-i-love-about-karl-barth:<BR/><BR/>1. The originary love for God that so compelled him to pen millions of words to explicate his understanding of God. This love is the internal basis of his theological writings, while his writings are an external basis of his love. The greatness of this love is testified by its indefatigable coherence within itself and its relentless permeating effect into every detail of life outside of itself. <BR/><BR/>2. The secondary love, which proceeds from the first and is inseparable but distinguished from it, is the love of the intellectuals for Karl Barth. Across the christian spectrum (conservative reformed, catholic, lutheran, etc) is an abundance of intellectual christians who appreciate the painstaking effort Barth puts into his every word of theology and interaction with the Bible and diverse kinds of thinkers. <BR/><BR/>3. The tertiary love, which proceeds from the first and the second and is inseparable but distinguished from the first two, is the love from the conservative evangelicals, typified by the likes of Cornelius Van Til. The gracious election that is Barth's theology of this particular group of antsy camp of theologians determines the being of Barth's theology, as I would argue. The ambivalence within this camp is beautifully microcosmic of that of the world at large toward christian theology as a whole.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-87861407269800279372008-09-17T04:35:00.000-04:002008-09-17T04:35:00.000-04:001. The way he kept Grunewald's painting of the cru...1. The way he kept Grunewald's painting of the crucifixion above his desk.<BR/>2. His 'I-don't-care-what-Pseudo Dionysius/Aquinas-says' attitude toward the (much neglected) doctrine of angelology in CDIII!<BR/>3. The fact that he would probably tell you to send me the book since I can't read much German!dpotterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13194312453721741900noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-31609370428522941602008-09-17T02:43:00.000-04:002008-09-17T02:43:00.000-04:00Three things I love about Karl Barth1. He changed ...Three things I love about Karl Barth<BR/><BR/>1. He changed his mind (and made it public)<BR/><BR/>2. He was "snatched up" in the theological moment of the Word<BR/><BR/>3. Without him, Jüngel might have just been another in the "genus Bultmannus"K.M. Delporthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06244619747665659351noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-71002612888884282972008-09-17T02:17:00.000-04:002008-09-17T02:17:00.000-04:00I like Barth because without him we would not have...I like Barth because without him we would not have:<BR/><BR/>1. T.F. Torrance<BR/>2. Dietrich Bonhoeffer<BR/>3. Jürgen MoltmannAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-55988742115852404342008-09-17T01:55:00.000-04:002008-09-17T01:55:00.000-04:00An Asian's 3-Point Reflection of Barth:1. A doktor...An Asian's 3-Point Reflection of Barth:<BR/><BR/>1. A doktorvater to T.F. Torrance - Barth's greatest mentoring investment to the next generation perhaps!<BR/><BR/>2. A pneumatic theologian without a pneumatology of his own in his magna opus - Barth's greatest theological mistake, considering that he had failed to recognize and address the impact of Pentecostalism at the dawn of the twentieth century on Christianity!<BR/><BR/>3. An ecclesial theologian without a sustained treatment of ecclesiology - Barth's greatest theological oversight since a Church Dogmatics without a critical Reformed ecclesiology seriously impaired his philosophy of a theology in service for the church! <BR/><BR/><BR/>Kindly, let me have the book to learn from the accomplishments and mistakes of a remarkable theologian from the previous century. Thanks!worldtimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16197631720244670742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-28553396807803562152008-09-17T01:35:00.000-04:002008-09-17T01:35:00.000-04:00Three things I like about Barth:1. The depth and t...Three things I like about Barth:<BR/><BR/>1. The depth and the subtlety of his understanding of those secular thinkers who did the most to demote the prestige of theology in modern European thought – especially Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Friedrich Nietzsche.<BR/><BR/>2. The judiciousness, generosity, and even fondness with which he typically discusses them. <BR/><BR/>3. His ability to draw intellectual nourishment from even their hostility to Christianity, without ever exaggerating their importance, or wavering in his cheerful assurance of their incomprehension of everything that really matters.<BR/><BR/>A word of explanation. A few years back, I had gotten a fair distance into an academic career in an intellectual milieu in which it was simply assumed that that Christianity had surrendered its claims on the mind of the West by the seventeenth century at very latest – a milieu in which it was simply assumed that Luther and Calvin was to be read (if at all) mainly in order to understand the background to Locke, Rousseau, and Kant; that Kant’s greatest critic was Hegel, and Feuerbach’s only great critic, Marx; that Kierkegaard’s natural heirs were Heidegger, Camus, and Sartre. In the space of just a few years, I’ve come to be someone who thinks and cares rather less about ‘the mind of the West’ than about the Body of Christ – how that happened, I can’t say. But this much I can say: it was my stumbling upon some writings of Barth’s (quite by accident) that first made me understand that my education (which I was by this time perpetuating as a university teacher) was not only fundamentally flawed in its secularist assumptions, but also radically unsatisfactory and incomplete on its own terms. Thus my choice for three things I like about Barth. These are qualities that I like about Barth, mind you – not those that I love most about him, or for which I am most grateful. I mention them mainly because I’ve lately suspected that this side of Barth’s greatness can only be fully appreciated by those burdened with an education as waywardly secular as mine. At any rate, it’s a side of his greatness that certainly deserves to be more widely known. There have been times in the last couple of years when I’ve had reason to believe that news of the existence of a twentieth-century theologian possessing these qualities would be met by some of my colleagues in the secular academy with little less incredulity and scandal than the news of – well, you know....RThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11566184873941883444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-90972321849751648962008-09-17T01:32:00.000-04:002008-09-17T01:32:00.000-04:001) That KB never wanted to be followed by "Barthia...1) That KB never wanted to be followed by "Barthians," but by fellow readers of Scripture and the theological tradition. That's theology with integrity and humility.<BR/><BR/>2) "Nein!" That's theology with balls.<BR/><BR/>3) "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." That's theology that is captive to Christ.Darrenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14982514539447292224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-3533583274965555352008-09-16T23:37:00.000-04:002008-09-16T23:37:00.000-04:00Me no like:1. His logos asarkos eggshells (allowin...Me no like:<BR/>1. His logos asarkos eggshells (allowing Hunsinger and Molnar to think it's the yolk).<BR/>2. His never quite finding his way, with his student Yoder, to Christian pacifism.<BR/>3. His anthropology on women and homosexuality.<BR/><BR/>And what's with his stealing the name of my son?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-65674763277661973872008-09-16T23:29:00.000-04:002008-09-16T23:29:00.000-04:001. Tillich says, "The newspaper will tell you wha...1. Tillich says, "The newspaper will tell you what to preach, the Bible will tell you how." Barth says, "The Bible will tell you what to preach, the newspaper will tell you how."<BR/><BR/>2. Theology after Hume graveled at the feet of Kant (a bit of an overstatement). Barth said, "Who Needs them, I've got the Word of God!"<BR/><BR/>3. Nice Round Glasses.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-2487302681162443172008-09-16T22:06:00.000-04:002008-09-16T22:06:00.000-04:00I haven't read Barth so can't give 3 likes/dislike...I haven't read Barth so can't give 3 likes/dislikes, witty or otherwise. But you should give me a copy of the book anyway because:<BR/><BR/>1. A pastor told me I should read Barth after quoting Barth's 'Jesus loves me' summation and then said that I would think that I didn't understand Barth. He admitted he was messing with me and laughed. <BR/>2. After trying to wrap my brain around that, my head hurt.<BR/>3. After reading through these comments, I laughed -- and my head still hurts, and I'm still puzzeled by commentary about Barth.<BR/><BR/>Give me some Barth reading material please, so I can figure out if I should laugh or take some aspirin!Anne Camillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12419931136194330529noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-37742069550833364102008-09-16T21:26:00.000-04:002008-09-16T21:26:00.000-04:00Ah, well, here goes.What I like about Barth:1. He ...Ah, well, here goes.<BR/><BR/>What I like about Barth:<BR/><BR/>1. He died. (Hopefully peacefully and without much pain. All that writing...)<BR/>2. He stopped writing. It's a good thing he wasn't related to people named in Genesis.<BR/>3. He will become the Patron Saint of Systematic Theologians. (It's true! The Church is investigating his miraculous works - if not for their content, their sheer volume.)<BR/><BR/>Ok yes, veiled stabs. Or not so veiled.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, it must be dark times for Theology if the collective brain trust has to resort to contests such as these to bait the heathens of the modern theological world. It's unfortunate, too, and though there are those who will defend with honor and grace the value of Barth's contribution to modern theology, the problem is still a fundamental one, on two fronts. (Call it Quantum Theological Problems, or QTP)<BR/><BR/>1. This contest revolves around subjective statements, either supported with intimate knowledge of his works or complete unadulterated bashing. (The contest allows for this mind you, so don't be surprised if you get some nasty comments.)<BR/><BR/>2. This sort of quasi-theological discourse still keeps the whole endeavor of theological discourse confined to the world of Logos. (It is Theo-logy, after all.) Meaning, it seeks to objectify a condition - and that starts the whole madness of attempting to determine what's the right word? And why? So on and so forth. It becomes completely subjective and can seduce people away from every really truly being intimate with God and becoming fascinated with their own ruminations, or that of others. (Especially those who wrote a great deal....)<BR/><BR/>Anyway.<BR/><BR/>And if by some miracle I happen to win? Give the book to someone else. :D (Or just disqualify me right now on that principle alone.)<BR/><BR/>Very Best. :DMykel G. Larsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17128735421035292909noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-84202498803892260892008-09-16T20:33:00.000-04:002008-09-16T20:33:00.000-04:00I like...1. That he was small in his own way2. The...I like...<BR/>1. That he was small in his own way<BR/>2. The way he forces you to read the fine print<BR/>3. The humanity of GodAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17839534694494543467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-45144237253642725442008-09-16T20:03:00.000-04:002008-09-16T20:03:00.000-04:00I appreciate how Barth told his students at Bonn d...I appreciate how Barth told his students at Bonn during his last lecture:<BR/>1.) "Exegesis!<BR/>2.) Exegesis!<BR/>3.) Exegesis!"Chris TerryNelsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03160910808665941467noreply@blogger.com