Paul T. Nimmo - Böcker

Karl Barth (1886-1968) is generally acknowledged to be the most important European Protestant theologian of the twentieth century, a figure whose importance for Christian thought compares with that of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. Author of the Epistle to the Romans, the multi-volume Church Dogmatics, and a wide range of other works - theological, exegetical, historical, political, pastoral, and homiletic - Barth has had significant and perduring influence on the contemporary study of theology and on the life of contemporary churches. In the last few decades, his work has been at the centre of some of the most important interpretative, critical, and constructive developments in in the fields of Christian theology, philosophy of religion, and religious studies.The Oxford Handbook of Karl Barth is the most expansive guide to Barth's work published to date. Comprising over forty original chapters, each of which is written by an expert in the field, the Handbook provides rich analysis of Barth's life and context, advances penetrating interpretations of the key elements of his thought, and opens and charts new paths for critical and constructive reflection. In the process, it seeks to illuminate the complex and challenging world of Barth's theology, to engage with it from multiple perspectives, and to communicate something of the joyful nature of theology as Barth conceived it. It will serve as an indispensable resource for undergraduates, postgraduates, academics, and general readers for years to come.

How should we think about God? For Christianity, God is not merely the transcendent source and creator of the world; God is also immanently involved in creation, sustaining, upholding, and intervening in the cosmos in order to save and redeem beloved creatures. God is for us.The inaugural Scottish Dogmatics Conference explores this dimension of the character and nature of God in dialogue with Scripture and the Christian tradition and in pursuit of constructive theology for today.Contributors include:John BehrBruce McCormackAmy PeelerFred SandersJudith Wolfe

This book investigates the way in which the ‘actualistic ontology' - i.e., the fact that God and human agents are beings-in-act in a covenant relationship - that underlies the Church Dogmatics of Karl Barth affects his conception of ethical agency. It analyses this effect along three paths of inquiry: knowing what is right (the noetic dimension), doing what is right (the ontic dimension), and achieving what is right (the telic dimension). The first section of the book explores the discipline of theological ethics as Barth construes it, both in its theoretical status and in its actual practice. In the second section, the ontological import of ethical agency for Barth is considered in relation to the divine action and the divine command. The final section of the book examines the teleological purpose envisaged in this theological ethics in terms of participation, witness, and glorification. At each stage of the book, the strong interconnectedness of theological ethics and actualistic ontology in the Church Dogmatics is drawn out. The resultant appreciation of the actualistic dimension which underlies the theological ethics of Karl Barth feeds into a fruitful engagement with a variety of critiques of Barth's conception of ethical agency. It is demonstrated that resources can be found within this actualistic ontology to answer some of the diverse criticisms, and that attempts to revise Barth's theological ethics at the margins would have catastrophic and irreversible consequences for his whole theological project.

Karl Barth is perhaps the most influential Protestant theologian of the twentieth century. This Guide to his thought, written by one of the leading scholars of Barth, offers a concise but comprehensive introduction to his theology. The first chapter of the book considers the life and work of Karl Barth. Thereafter, the chapters examine in turn the key theological topics which Barth treated in his magnum opus, the Church Dogmatics – the doctrine of the Word of God, the doctrine of God, the doctrine of creation, and the doctrine of reconciliation. In each case, the theological path which Barth follows is first traced and then illuminated, recognising key lines of critique at appropriate junctures. The final chapter considers the legacy of the work of Barth, and the book closes with a list of suggestions for further reading. This structure follows the series format of the Bloomsbury T&T Clark Guides for the Perplexed, and offer a clear and accessible introduction to Barth’s thought.

Karl Barth is perhaps the most influential Protestant theologian of the twentieth century. This Guide to his thought, written by one of the leading scholars of Barth, offers a concise but comprehensive introduction to his theology. The first chapter of the book considers the life and work of Karl Barth. Thereafter, the chapters examine in turn the key theological topics which Barth treated in his magnum opus, the Church Dogmatics – the doctrine of the Word of God, the doctrine of God, the doctrine of creation, and the doctrine of reconciliation. In each case, the theological path which Barth follows is first traced and then illuminated, recognising key lines of critique at appropriate junctures. The final chapter considers the legacy of the work of Barth, and the book closes with a list of suggestions for further reading. This structure follows the series format of the Bloomsbury T&T Clark Guides for the Perplexed, and offer a clear and accessible introduction to Barth’s thought.

This book investigates the way in which the actualistic ontology - i.e., the fact that God and human agents are beings-in-act in a covenant relationship - that underlies the Church Dogmatics of Karl Barth affects his conception of ethical agency. It analyses this effect along three paths of inquiry: knowing what is right (the noetic dimension), doing what is right (the ontic dimension), and achieving what is right (the telic dimension). The first section of the book explores the discipline of theological ethics as Barth construes it, both in its theoretical status and in its actual practice. In the second section, the ontological import of ethical agency for Barth is considered in relation to the divine action and the divine command. The final section of the book examines the teleological purpose envisaged in this theological ethics in terms of participation, witness, and glorification.

Adding her distinctive voice to lively conversations about the work and legacy of Jonathan Edwards, Larsen shows that Edwards thinks boldly about the freedom of the Father and the Son within their blessed fellowship in the Spirit. She identifies profound insights into the relationship between the divine being and the divine economy by focusing on Edwards’s understanding of the Son as he undertakes the work of ad extra glorification—the work by which God is externally blessed through God’s communication to creatures. In addition to careful analyses of the ‘covenantal’ and ‘evocative’ registers in which Edwards describes the fittingness of the Son’s redemptive mission, Larsen concludes by drawing resources from Edwards’s Christology that speak to key issues of freedom and aesthetics in Reformed thought today.

This volume is a critical and constructive analysis of the sexually differentiated self in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatic. It secures in his Christocentric pattern of human agency an untapped resource for unsettling and reimagining the heteropatriarchal structure of human fellowship at the heart of his theological anthropology.Moving through Barth’s doctrines of revelation, creation, theological anthropology, and special ethics, Faye Bodley-Dangelo locates the human agent in his broader project aimed at re-habilitating the subject of modern protestant theology. She argues the human actor comes into view as the recipient of Christ’s redemptive activity, which redirects it out of self-aggrandizing isolation and into relationships of dependency, responsiveness, and ethical responsibility to multiple sites of divine and creaturely alterity. The book debates that Barth’s model of human agency cannot on its own terms sustain his version of female subordination nor his repudiation of same-sex relationships. Rather, it contains ethically-oriented, critical and reflective mechanisms that resist the sexist heterosexist dimension of his theological anthropology and lend themselves to an anti-essentialist performative account of gender.

This book offers an innovative, critical, and constructive exploration of Barth’s theology, one which demonstrates the radicality of his thought and which underscores the continued contribution he might make to theological reflection on a central element of the Christian tradition.Declan Kelly uncovers the promise of viewing Barth’s account of salvation as a “three-agent drama”—a drama involving God, humanity, and anti-God powers. Kelly demonstrates and examines Barth’s cosmological portrayal of God’s saving event as a defeat of the lordship of Satan in the cosmos—and, bound up with this, as an ending of God’s “left handed” activity—and as the bringing into existence of a new creation under the rule of God’s right hand. Barth’s doctrines of election, the atonement, and the resurrection receive a fresh reading as the book explores his apocalyptic grasp of God’s eschatological deed of salvation and as it puts forward the claim—with and against Barth—that the climax of this deed of salvation is best located in the event of God’s raising of Christ from the dead.

This is the first book to apply Bavinck’s theological anthropology to contemporary theological issues. Sutanto provides a sustained close reading of Herman Bavinck’s contributions to theological anthropology and positions him in conversation with current and historical dialogues on embodiment, revelation, affect theory, phenomenology, the cognitive science of religion, ethics, race, covenant, and the beatific vision. Sutanto explores the holistic character of Bavinck’s vision of humanity, suggesting ways in which his theological anthropology cuts across several potential binaries in contemporary discourse, between affect and reason, body and soul, animality and religiosity, unity and diversity, and between a this-worldly or other-worldly eschatology.

This is the first book to apply Bavinck’s theological anthropology to contemporary theological issues. Sutanto provides a sustained close reading of Herman Bavinck’s contributions to theological anthropology and positions him in conversation with current and historical dialogues on embodiment, revelation, affect theory, phenomenology, the cognitive science of religion, ethics, race, covenant, and the beatific vision. Sutanto explores the holistic character of Bavinck’s vision of humanity, suggesting ways in which his theological anthropology cuts across several potential binaries in contemporary discourse, between affect and reason, body and soul, animality and religiosity, unity and diversity, and between a this-worldly or other-worldly eschatology.

In this compelling work, Baylor draws on the works of John Owen to address critiques of a Reformed theology of God’s power and right. Modern outlooks on the world often encourage individuals to think of themselves as free and self-possessed sovereigns, rather than as subjects responsible to some higher authority. Christian responses to this have rightly sought to re-assert the creature’s dependence upon God, often focusing criticism on modernity’s possessive moral logic, and its disenchanted view of the world. However, Protestant theology is frequently caught in the crossfire, because many argue that the disenchantment of the modern world is driven by a Protestant vision of God’s rule as absolute and arbitrary.This rigorous study shows that Reformed theology has the resources to answer these criticisms and offer a compelling account of God’s rule. Baylor turns to Owen’s theology of divine “dominion”, an attribute that sought to integrate reflection on God’s power and justice. By tracing Owen’s richly textured vision of the creature’s relation to God, Baylor shows that Reformed theology sought to condition our notions of God's power by the forms of the creature's dependence upon God within God’s moral economy. In doing so, this book offers a nuanced account of God’s relation to creatures, and a powerful rebuttal to contemporary critics that depict Reformed visions of God’s power as arbitrary and tyrannical.

Adding her distinctive voice to lively conversations about the work and legacy of Jonathan Edwards, Larsen shows that Edwards thinks boldly about the freedom of the Father and the Son within their blessed fellowship in the Spirit. She identifies profound insights into the relationship between the divine being and the divine economy by focusing on Edwards’s understanding of the Son as he undertakes the work of ad extra glorification—the work by which God is externally blessed through God’s communication to creatures. In addition to careful analyses of the ‘covenantal’ and ‘evocative’ registers in which Edwards describes the fittingness of the Son’s redemptive mission, Larsen concludes by drawing resources from Edwards’s Christology that speak to key issues of freedom and aesthetics in Reformed thought today.

An in-depth analysis of the function of feeling (Gefühl) in the development of Karl Barth’s theological anthropology in dialogue with Friedrich Schleiermacher’s theology.If feeling is recognised at all in Karl Barth’s theology, it is often treated as part of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s ‘feeling (Gefühl) of absolute dependence’ that Barth rejected when he broke with theological liberalism. This study offers a different and more nuanced account. It argues that feeling has been neglected in the interpretation of Barth’s theological understanding of the human being. Affect theory, which highlights changeable disposition and environmental attunement, is used to discover the ways in which the concepts of feeling and experience change as Barth’s theology develops. Templeton also offers a fresh angle on Barth’s complex relationship with the theology of Schleiermacher. Initially, as a young scholar of modern theology, Barth embraces Schleiermacher’s concept of feeling, claiming that Christ’s revelation is verified in the believer’s affection. Then, as a pastor shocked at the capitulation of the Church and Academy to Germany’s war ideology, Barth rejects feeling as the root of a subjective and experiential theology that evades the judgment of God’s Word. Finally, as a professor of theology, Barth rehabilitates feeling by de-coupling it from Schleiermacher’s account, proposing instead that human feeling (with knowing and willing) becomes an analogy of Christ’s self-determination through the Spirit’s baptising.

Mason carefully develops a theology of prayer that builds on the dogmatic and moral theology of one of the most significant Reformed theologians of the past 50 years: John Webster.Ambitious in scope and exacting in analysis, this volume provides a creative and constructive exploration of the theology of prayer that grows out of Webster’s theology and ethics when considered as a whole. Mason offers close theological readings of Webster’s works against the backdrop of the development of his thought and his major sources in the Christian tradition. In so doing, he roots a dogmatics of prayer in various theological loci that are central to the theology of prayer and Webster’s own writings. This book pays careful attention to the doctrines of God, creation and providence, and sin and salvation, as well as to Webster’s sophisticated moral theology of creaturely agency. Central insights from Webster – in conversation with Aquinas, Barth, Calvin and Reformed scholastic sources – are brought to bear on the major components of a theology of prayer. In doing so, Mason develops a rich and detailed account of the central act of the Christian life in a way that displays the resourcefulness of Webster’s theology and ethics.

This Companion offers an introduction to Reformed theology, one of the most historically important, ecumenically active, and currently generative traditions of doctrinal enquiry, by way of reflecting upon its origins, its development, and its significance. The first part, Theological Topics, indicates the distinct array of doctrinal concerns which gives coherence over time to the identity of this tradition in all its diversity. The second part, Theological Figures, explores the life and work of a small number of theologians who have not only worked within this tradition, but have constructively shaped and inspired it in vital ways. The final part, Theological Contexts, considers the ways in which the resultant Reformed sensibilities in theology have had a marked impact both upon theological and ecclesiastical landscapes in different places and upon the wider societal landscapes of history. The result is a fascinating and compelling guide to this dynamic and vibrant theological tradition.