Karl Barth and his theological contributions

Karl Barth: An Overview of His Philosophy

God

The 20th century philosophy Karl Barth created a systematic theology in which God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost and the word of the Bible were all seamlessly integrated. Barth wrote that he began his examination of God with the problem of the 'otherness' of God. He saw Jesus Christ as the way that God made his revelation fully manifest on earth. Although God might seem 'other' God had shown that humanity, Christ, and God were all one through the presence of Jesus on earth. "Barth's position rests upon an immense stress on the concrete activity of God in space and time, in creation as in redemption, and upon his refusal to accept that God's power is limited by the weakness of human capacity or that the so-called natural reason can set any limits to God's self-revelation to mankind." Revelation rather than rationality is the focus of Barth's conception of the divine.

Jesus

In the Incarnation of Jesus God's truth was revealed in history. Barth believed that "Christian theology ought always to derive its entire thinking on God, man, sin, ethics, and society from what can actually be seen in Jesus," and by examining Jesus' words and actions, not by relying upon outside, later human sources and commentary. God may have been hidden, but Christ brought the hidden aspects of God to earth. Barth stressed that the Bible showed that Jesus was clearly divine and rejected later theologians who attempted to stress Jesus' more human aspects, or the need for revealed scripture to suit modern, human needs.

The Holy Spirit

God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit all represent the ability of God to become actively involved in human affairs. Yet Barth rejected the idea that the nature of this involvement was ever-changing. Christ's revelation was singular and unique, and it was the Christian's obligation to understand, not reinterpret the components of the divine Trinity.

The Human Being and Sin

According to Barth, human beings were fallen and unreliable, and hence individual consciousness was an unreliable guide to spiritual practice. "Barth specifically rejected both human spiritual experience and self-consciousness as a guide to God, and regarded both Christian and non-Christian religion as failed attempts to abide at the point of tangency. The job of Christian community is a negative job only - to seek to be a "void" in which the Gospel reveals itself"

Revelation and Scripture