Karl Barth was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century. Pope Pius XI called him the greatest theologian since Saint Thomas Aquinas. But he was also a popular preacher in Basel and the author of the formidable Church Dogmatics had a lighter touch as well. This is revealed in this enchanting collection of fragments. Not only do they capture the gaiety and gravity of Barth in a simple and homely style; they also contain, in a delightfully digestible form, the essence of what he had to say about the Bible, theology, and the task of Christians in the modern world. Karl Barth (1886-1968), the Swiss Reformed professor and pastor, was once described by Pope Pius XII as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas. As principal author of 'The Barmen Declaration', he was the intellectual leader of the German Confessing Church - the Protestant group that resisted the Third Reich. Barth's teaching career spanned nearly five decades. Removed from his post at Bonn by the Nazis in late 1934, Barth moved to Basel where he taught until 1962. Among Barth's many books, sermons, and essays are The Epistle to the Romans, Humanity of God, Evangelical Theology, and Church Dogmatics.
Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century.
Beginning with his experience as a pastor, he rejected his training in the predominant liberal theology typical of 19th-century Protestantism. Instead he embarked on a new theological path initially called dialectical theology, due to its stress on the paradoxical nature of divine truth (e.g., God's relationship to humanity embodies both grace and judgment). Other critics have referred to Barth as the father of neo-orthodoxy -- a term emphatically rejected by Barth himself. The most accurate description of his work might be "a theology of the Word." Barth's theological thought emphasized the sovereignty of God, particularly through his innovative doctrine of election.
Barth tries to recover the Doctrine of the Trinity in theology from its putative loss in liberalism. His argument follows from the idea that God is the object of God's own self-knowledge, and revelation in the Bible means the self-unveiling to humanity of the God who cannot be discovered by humanity simply through its own efforts.
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