Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics for Everyone, Volume 1---The Doctrine of the Word of God: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners and Pros

by Marty Folsom

A Guided Tour of One of the Greatest Theological Works of the Twentieth Century Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics is considered by many to be the most important theological work of the twentieth century and for many people reading it, or at least understanding its contents and arguments, is a lifelong goal. Yet its enormous size, at over 12,000 pages (in English translations) and enough print volumes to fill an entire shelf, make reading it a daunting prospect for seasoned theologians and novices alike. Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics for Everyone, Volume 1--The Doctrine of the Word of God helps bridge the gap for would-be Karl Barth readers from beginners to professionals by offering an introduction to Barth's theology and thought like no other. User-friendly and creative, this guide helps readers get the gist, significance, and relevance of what Barth intended for the church... to restore the focus of theology and revitalize the practices of the church. Each section contains insights for pastors, new theologians, professionals, and ordinary people In addition, each volume features the voices of authors from different academic disciplines who contribute brief reflections on the value of Church Dogmatics for creative discovery in their disciplines. Volume 1 reflections Whether you are just discovering Barth or want a fresh look at his magnum opus, this series invites you to an enjoyable and insightful journey into the Church Dogmatics .

Genres: Theology

304 pages, Paperback

Published June 21, 2022

Reviews

[David S Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book for everyone about a book that is for everyone

I struggle to state how much I enjoyed this book. But I’ll try. Where I fail I’ll at least try to explain what the book is and why I think you should read it too.

I’ve skirted around Barth for several years now. I was introduced to Pauline Studies by Douglas Campbell (Who writes one of the essays in Part 4 of this book). I didn’t realise how influenced Campbell was by Barth, and in turn then how influenced I was by Barth. This makes sense now of why I then find myself liking theologians like Hauerwas and his friends. However, I never read Barth (stupidly) because someone in undergrad told me he was a Systematic Theologian. Ironically it was my Barthian teachers who convinced me that God wasn’t systematic and as such I then didn’t read Barth.

Lord have mercy!

A colleague changed my mind on this, after I completed my doctoral studies, by constantly quoting Barth and saying things I deeply agreed with. So I started to read Barth. But mostly his small books and sermons. To use Folsom’s metaphor throughout Church Dogmatics (CD) for Everyone, I skirted around the mountain that was Barth’s monumental Church Dogmatics, but lacked the proper guide to begin the hike to the top. I knew that I’d like CD, I wasn’t sure I’d understand it.

Folsom’s Church Dogmatics for Everyone (vol 1) is that guide that I was looking for. Not only has it confirmed that I personally should read more Barth, but that we all should if we are serious about Jesus. The gift that Folsom offers us here is a book that not only shows that Barth is for everyone, but that in this book maybe everyone can read Barth with Folsom as their guide.

The book is explicitly aimed at everyone - from theologians to ordinary church people. I think it offers something for everyone. To be frank, I’d be willing to give a book like this to a thoughtful atheist or skeptic on faith. I’ve also used it to frame discussions with children.

CD for Everyone is essentially divided into three sections, each wonderfully helpful in their own way. The first section is part one. Here Folsom orients you to CD. What is this 9,000 page, 13 volume, 6 million word thing that you are considering reading? Using some helpful metaphors, Folsom revisits CD repeatedly over 7 chapters offering new levels of detail on each pass - think about repeated snap shots of a mountain but beginning in space and ending up eventually at the trail head to hike said mountain. Each of these chapters now boast multiple bookmarks as they offer helpful graphs and outlines to serve as your map for CD. This section alone is worth the price of the book and I imagine many people feeling a sense of the possibility of reading CD after these short 7 chapters.

The second section consists of part two and three, divided helpfully into a focus on CD 1.1 and CD 1.2. The depth and insight here is outstanding. Highlights abound as Folsom tracks alongside Barth’s work. Those who have attempted Barth will know that in reading a translation from German that is now dated, combined with Barth’s sometimes overly verbose prose, can make understanding a lofty goal. Folsom allows you to read and understand quickly. There’s too much excellent content to offer a review of the actual content of these sections, but the outline that Folsom chooses for each chapter is worth mention.

Each chapter in parts 2 and 3 focuses on a particular paragraph of CD 1.1-2 (Barth’s paragraph and chapter structure is helpfully explained in Part 1 - even upon understanding it one is drawn to say a short prayer for Barth’s original editors and publishers.) Folsom then introduces each chapter with a Bold-printed focus statement to orient you to the focus of this chapter in his book. You are then given an introduction to the paragraph followed by a context section that reminds you that you are reading a book about another book. The context section locates you within CD - right down to how many pages Barth’s paragraph occupies, and the page numbers, which allows you to read alongside CD easily. He also overs a breakdown of the subsections of this paragraph. Following this you are offered another bold print statement, but this time it is Barth’s paragraph itself which is reproduced - the opening summaries that you find in CD. Folsom now presents his summary of this paragraphs section from CD. Following the substructure of CD you are offered very clear, extensive summary and details of what Barth is doing. Sometimes this is almost a bulleted list, sometimes fuller paragraphs reflecting the necessary way of summarising Barth’s style. Folsom writes this section so well it is hard to remember that you are reading Folsom and not Barth (he helpfully clarifies when he’s quoting verbatim). After this you are offered a commentary on the paragraph and contents. this is generally presented as a sequence of thesis statements. Then you have four brilliant contributions to each and every chapter with four sections the purpose of which is understood clearly from their titles: “Conclusion for the Church”, “Insight for Pastors”, “Insight for Theologians”, and “Clarifying Questions”. The quality of reflections here match the quality of the rest of the book. My confession as someone who preaches regularly is that I often wanted to simply export the clarifying questions into my Sunday sermons (Sidenote: This book should be essential reading for preachers - if it’s not apparent, Dogmatics is hugely taken up by the concern for what is said to the Church).

Finally in Part 4, the third section of the book, Folsom hands the keys over to experts from other fields to offer short essays on their perspectives on the worth of CD 1 for their field. Biblical Studies, Systematics, pastors, Mental Health, Spiritual Formation, and the Sciences all have a chance to reflect on this text. Each of these are worthy additions to the book, but I want to draw particular to two of the essays. Julie Canlis’ wonderful reflection on the value of CD 1 for Ordinary people is fantastic. Using D. F. Wallace’s “This is Water” metaphor she shows why reading Barth isn’t beyond the person in the pew. I would say this essay best supports the goal of the book of convincing the reader that Barth isn’t just accessible but necessary for the ordinary Jesus follower today. Similarly, Steve Guthrie’s defence of the value of Barth for Artists is a wonderful read. Barth is not often perceived as friend of artists - especially with his penchant for dogma and dismissal of natural theology. Using Manly Hopkins’ famous “Christ plays” poem, Guthrie shows how we are better positioned as theological artists if we listen to how Barth unpacks the revelation of the Trinity to us. You don’t need to read part 4 to understand Barth, but think of it as a wonderful bonus to this book. The multiple perspectives will help your reading of this book and Barth.

The best thing I can say about this book is that I was genuinely sad to finish it. I read it as slowly as possible - not simply to try and reduce the gap between this and the second volume’s release some months from now, but because I wanted to really reflect on what it was opening me up to. I’d happily recommend this book to anyone even remotely interested in Jesus that was open to seriously thinking about him and the world.

In sum, in my opinion, Folsom shows that not only can he write a book on Barth for Everyone, but that Barth’s Church Dogmatics are for Everyone.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd give it six if I could. Preordering volume 2.

[Christan Reksa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Karl Barth, a Swiss-German Protestant pastor-theologian, published a 4-volume magnum opus named Church Dogmatics (CD), published in 13 books between 1932 to 1967, consisted of more than 6 million words and thousands of pages.

The sheer amount of content, the density of his sentences, & his dialectical writing style, not shying away from tensions that seems contradictive, are reasons that a lot of people may seem to avoid his writings. However CD is a theological summa with laser-like focus on Christ as the center. A deep reading would benefit any Christian community on how to approach Christian dogma with high sensitivity to the voice of God that reveals Himself through Christ.

Marty Folsom is someone who have delved into Barth's works. Realizing the need for CD to be read by more laymen, he started the Church Dogmatics For Everyone, a multi-volume project designed to provide a friendly guide for anybody who wants to taste the good fruit of CD but find the sheer amount of reading needed dizzying. This is Volume 1, focusing on CD1, the most fundamental topic of his dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God.

I love how Folsom splits his insight of CD into slices of "adventure". Starting from the outer space, earth's orbit, zooming deeper & deeper, viewing a humongous mountain that is the Triune God revealed to humanity in Christ. It gives us perspectives on how to see CD & trying to understand what's at stake, Who's the backbone of all this, & how His name flows out in each of CD's section and paragraph. Even better were the suggested tips for laymen, pastors, and theologians which allow us to see the concrete applications of reading CD.

Folsom want this book to give us a slow & savoring engagement with CD, both as an independent reading & as a guide for us to read CD itself. The term "Church Dogmatics" itself, according to Folsom, is an exercise of clarifying what God is saying to the world He loves through a community that listens and loves named Church. A nice reminder to us, Church-people, to live as a clarifying proof of God's loving grace revealed.

[Ian Spencer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really for everyone.

While it has its moments, I ultimately found this book to be not really all that helpful. A large part of this has to do with a reoccurring disconnect between this book and the text of CD1. Sometimes in the summary or commentary on a part of CD, it's really unclear where in the text the material is supposed to be coming from as it doesn't really match anything Barth says in that part particularly well. Often these summaries/commentaries are more like "thoughts the author had which were inspired by the Barth passage under discussion" rather than an actual explanation or summary of what Barth actually said. Sometimes, where it does get close to Barth, parts of the summary/commentary are placed under the wrong section (e.g., a bit of content about paragraph x part 2 might find itself in the section on x part 1). Sometimes the material simply gets completely garbled in its transition from CD to this volume and the summary/commentary is clearly wrong or misleading in its presentation of what Barth is saying (I'm not talking about differing interpretations here - more things like Barth explicitly says that X is F, not G, and that Y is G in contrast to X, but the commentary says that X is G and Z is F in contrast to Y). The summaries/commentaries are also usually highly atomized - often, just a series of disconnected sentences each in its own paragraph with almost nothing about how they are related to each other or make up any kind of larger argument or big picture. Even worse, there are actually times where Barth's text is clearer, less dense, and less wordy than the material meant to explain it.
Regarding the introductory chapters, I didn't think their length to helpfulness ratio was very good. They do look at various levels of organization of CD but without doing enough to relate these levels to each other or to display them all together at the same time or to build on each other in as helpful a way as possible. An actual outline or just a comprehensive table of contents would as much or more with less confusion. I'm still not sure who is supposed to find a summary of CD in a single run-on, page-length sentence actually helpful or comprehensible. The use of brackets throughout these chapters for certain sections of CD is not very well explained either. Ultimately, I found much better free overviews of CD as a whole available online that I would recommend over these introductory chapters.
At the end of each chapter are "Clarifying Questions". Unfortunately, I almost always didn't find them particularly clarifying or clear and they often seemed to involve false dichotomies or missing options.
I read this along with CD1 for the very first time over the course of two or so months but I also used Bromiley's Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth at the same time. I found Bromiley's book to succeed in almost every way this one failed for me. It manages to discuss a given paragraph of CD in a way that actually makes the overall thought, flow, interconnection and content of the paragraph clearer and ends up being more precise, more accurate, and does all this with a fraction of the space in comparison to this volume. So personally, if anyone's like me, I would highly recommend using that one over this book (I'm sure there are others that would be good as well). Everyone's different, though, so I'm sure many people will find this volume extremely helpful. Unfortunately, it just wasn't for me.