Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909-1936

This book is a major intellectual biography of perhaps the most influential theologian of the twentieth century, Karl Barth. McCormack offers the first full-scale revision of the well-known theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar's seminal interpretation of Barth, which was first published in 1951. Drawing on a wealth of material, much of it unpublished during Barth's lifetime, as well as a thorough acquaintance with the best of recent German scholarship, McCormack demonstrates that the fundamental decision that would control the whole of Barth's development--the turn to a new, critically realistic form of theological "objectivism"--was already made during the years in which Barth was at work on his first commentary on Romans. He further argues that the most significant decisions--both material and methodological--were made in Barth's G"ottingen Dogmatics of 1924/5, and not later in the 1931 book on Anselm, as has often been alleged. This unique and important work provides not simply a fresh interpretation of Barth's development, but a new paradigm for understanding the whole of Barth's theology. Read more Continue reading Read less REVIEW
"The best intellectual biography of Barth now available....As brilliant and comprehensive as it is meticulous and unorthodox...McCormack's new [book] will be required reading for every subsequent discussion of Barth."--Choice"Those who have already engaged in some study of Barth's theology will find McCormack's volume challenging and stimulating. And evangelicals approaching the crux of two centuries and two millennia can learn much from Barth and from critical studies of Barth's theology like McCormack's."--Christianity Today ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bruce L. McCormack is a Frederick and Margaret L. Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Read more Continue reading Read less