Church Dogmatics Study Edition 1: The Doctrine of the Word of God I.1 § 1-7

Church Dogmatics (Study Edition) #1

by Karl Barth

Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics is one of the major theological works of the 20th century. The Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) was the most original and significant Reformed theologian of the twentieth century. Barth began the Church Dogmatics in 1932 and continued working on its thirteen volumes until the end of his life. Barth's writings continue to guide and instruct the preaching and teaching of pastors and academics worldwide.
The English translation was prepared by a team of scholars and edited by G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance and published from 1936. A team of scholars at Princeton Theological Seminary have now provided the translation of Greek, Latin, Hebrew and French passages into English. The original is presented alongside the English translation. This makes the work more reader friendly and accessible to the growing number of students who do not have a working knowledge of the ancient languages. This new edition with translations is now available for the first time in individual volumes.>

Genres: Theology

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1986

About the author

Protestant theologian Karl Barth, a Swiss, advocated a return to the principles of the Reformation and the teachings of the Bible; his published works include Church Dogmatics from 1932.

Critics hold Karl Barth among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important since Saint Thomas Aquinas. Beginning with his experience as a pastor, he rejected his typical predominant liberal, especially German training of 19th century.

Instead, he embarked on a new path, initially called dialectical, due to its stress on the paradoxical nature of divine truth—for instance, God is both grace and judgment), but more accurately called a of the Word. Critics referred to this father of new orthodoxy, a pejorative term that he emphatically rejected. His thought emphasized the sovereignty of God, particularly through his innovative doctrine of election. His enormously influenced throughout Europe and America.

Reviews

[Josh Issa · Rating 4 out of 5]

AHHHHHHH IM FINALLY DONE (BOOK 1 OF 30!)

Okay so a lot of people get bogged down into Barth’s theology and get side tracked by random quotes but I’m going summarize all of this book into two quotes:

“[Then and there] becomes [here and now]. Jesus Christ Himself lives in the message of His witnesses, lives in the proclamation of His Church on the basis of this message, strides forward as the Lord of grace and judgment to meet the existence of the hearer of the Word. Experience of God's Word, then, must at least be also experience of His presence, and because this presence does not rest on man's act of recollection but on God's making Himself present in the life of man, it is acknowledgment of His presence.”

“But [dogmatics’] task consists in criticism and correction of Church proclamation regarding its agreement with the revelation attested in Holy Scripture.”

In short Barth tells us that the whole point of theology is to not to account the history of doctrine, nor to explain doctrine, but to correct the preaching of the Church to be in line with Scripture and so that we may encounter Christ truly through the proclamation of the Word.

That’s it. Everyone wants to make a big deal about his threefold distinction of the Word of God (which is completely right and true) but really the point is encountering the presence of God.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

He just saying that dogmatics should serve the Church by providing theological clarity and guidance for its proclamation. The self-revelation of Christ is the starting point and proclamation (preaching, worship, evangelism, and various forms of ministry that communicate the Word of God to people of all ages) is the end goal. Be humble and open to critique or correction to the dynamic nature of it.

Dogmatics: As a theological discipline, dogmatics is the scientific self-examination of the
Christian Church with respect to the content of its distinctive talk about God.

I need to reread section 3.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

1 down. 29 to go.

Karl Barth is so complicated and so good that he takes impossible to understand ideas, and when he is through with them, you want to complain that he has repeated himself until you realize that actually what has happened is Barth has just helped you understand a small piece of the impossible to understand.

[Greg Waddell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second half of Barth's first volume of his Church Dogmatics, a book in which he seeks to lay the groundwork for the entire series by expounding on the Doctrine of the Word of God. In section eight through twelve (covered in this volume), Barth addresses the concept of Revelation as being intimately linked with the nature of God. Hence, he spends these five sections wrestling with the doctrine of the Trinity, particularly as it relates to God's revealing himself in human history. I came away with the conviction that the Trinity is central to all the rest of theology. Even though the Bible itself never uses the word, if we take revelation seriously, we have no choice but to make an effort to understand what the Scriptures reveal about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. "The question of the self-revealing God which thus forces itself upon us as the first question cannot, if we follow the witness of Scripture, be separated in any way from the second question: How does it come about, how is it actual, that this God reveals Himself?" The answer to that question, unavoidably leads us to the doctrine of the Trinity.