Barth

As I slowly make progress on my dissertation (“Scriptural but Not Religious: Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and a Biblical Critique of Religion”), I’m longing for the day when: Karl Barth’s Gesamtausgabe (Collected Edition) is finished. They are translated into a critical English edition. They are available within the same database/framework as Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Works in English and German (DBWE and DBW). In the meantime, the Digital Karl Barth Library, provided by Alexander Street Press is the best resource out there for searching the text of Barth’s works. ...

Tomorrow, I defend the proposal for my dissertation. For now, the dissertation is tentatively titled: “Scriptural, but Not Religious: Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and a Biblical Critique of Religion.” Here’s the “elevator pitch” for the dissertation. Feedback appreciated. Scriptural, but Not Religious: Barth, Bonhoeffer, and a Biblical Critique of Religion My project traces its origins to a single classroom discussion question in the Spring of 2015. The question was this: “In what ways is Bonhoeffer’s understanding of religion similar to, and different from, that of Barth?” ...

(Note: Read more about my work on Barth, Bonhoeffer, and the Bible here.) Christian theologians Karl Barth (1886-1968) and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) inherited a particular understanding of religion. In the broadly post-Kantian milieu, nineteenth-century thinkers such as Friedrich Schleiermacher, Albrecht Ritschl, and Adolf von Harnack defined religion essentially, anthropologically, and subjectively. That is, religion has a particular essence, and is in some manner inalienable from our humanity. The emphasis of this conception is on the experience of the religious subject, instead of the knowledge of religion’s object (let alone its reality).1 It is this notion of religion that both Barth and Bonhoeffer challenged. ...

ABROMEIT, Hans-Jürgen. Das Geheimnis Christi: Dietrich Bonhoeffers erfahrungsbezogene Christologie. Neukirchener Beiträge zur systemaschen Theologie 8. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991. BEINTKER, Michael. “Kontingenz und Gegenständlichkeit: Zu Bonhoeffers Barth-Kritik in ‘Akt und Sein.’” In Krisis und Gnade: Gesammelte Studien zu Karl Barth, edited by Stefan Holtmann and Peter Zocher, 29–54. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. BENKTSON, Benkt-Erik. Christus Und Die Religion: Der Religionsbegriff Bei Barth, Bonhoeffer Und Tillich. Arbeiten Zur Theologie, II/9. Stuttgart: Calwer, 1967. BETHGE, Eberhard. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. Edited by Victoria J. Barnett. Revised. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1967. BOOMGAARDEN, Jürgen. Das Verständnis der Wirklichkeit: Dietrich Bonhoeffers systematische Theologie und ihr philosophischer Hintergrund in “Akt und Sein.” Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser/Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1999. BURTNESS, James H. “As Though God Were Not Given: Barth, Bonhoeffer, and the Finitum Capax Infiniti.” Dialog 19, no. 4 (1980): 249–55. DEJONGE, Michael P. Bonhoeffer’s Theological Formation: Berlin, Barth, and Protestant Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. EICHINGER, Franz. “Zwischen Transzendentalphilosophie und Ontologie: Zur kritisch-systematischen Standortbestimmung der Theologie beim frühen Bonhoeffer.” In Vernunftfähiger – vernunftbedürftiger Glaube: Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Johann Reikerstorfer-, edited by Kurt Appel, Wolfgang Treitler, and Peter Zeillinger, 65–86. Religion – Kultur – Recht 3. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005. FEIL, Ernst. The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Translated by Martin Rumscheidt. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. GODSEY, John D. “Barth and Bonhoeffer: The Basic Difference.” Quarterly Review 7, no. 1 (1987): 9–27. ———. The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1960. GREEN, Clifford J. Bonhoeffer: A Theology of Sociality. Revised. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999. ———. “Trinity and Christology in Bonhoeffer and Barth.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 60, no. 1–2 (2006): 1–22. GREGGS, Tom. Theology Against Religion: Constructive Dialogues with Bonhoeffer and Barth. London; New York: T&T Clark, 2011. ———. “The Influence of Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Karl Barth.” In Engaging Bonhoeffer: The Impact and Influence and Impact of Bonhoeffer’s Life and Thought, edited by Matthew Kirkpatrick. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016. KAMPHUIS, Barend. Boven En Beneden: Het Uitgangspunt van de Christologie En de Problematiek van de Openbaring Nagegaan Aan de Hand van de Ontwikkelingen Bij Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer En Wolfhart Pannenberg. Kampen: Kok, 1999. KARTTUNEN, Tomi. Die Polyphonie Der Wirklichkeit: Erkenntnistheorie Und Ontologie in Der Theologie Dietrich Bonhoeffers. University of Joensuu Publications in Theology 11. Joensuu: University of Joensuu, 2004. KRÖTKE, Wolf. Barmen – Barth – Bonhoeffer: Beiträge Zu Einer Zeitgemäßen Christozentrischen Theologie. Unio Und Confessio 26. Bielefeld: Luther-Verlag, 2009. LEHMANN, Paul L. “The Concreteness of Theology: Reflections on the Conversation between Barth and Bonhoeffer.” In Footnotes to a Theology: The Karl Barth Colloquium of 1972, edited by Martin Rumscheidt, 53–76. Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1974. MARSH, Charles. Reclaiming Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Promise of His Theology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. MAYER, Rainer. Christuswirklichkeit: Grundlagen, Entwicklungen Und Konsequenzen Der Theologie Dietrich Bonhoeffers. Arbeiten Zur Theologie, II/15. Stuttgart: Calwer, 1969. PANGRITZ, Andreas. “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: ‘Within, Not Outside, the Barthian Movement.’” In Bonhoeffer’s Intellectual Formation: Theology and Philosophy in His Thought, edited by Peter Frick, 29:245–82. Religion in Philosophy and Theology. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. ———. Karl Barth in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000. PUFFER, Matthew. “Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Theology of Karl Barth.” In Karl Barth in Conversation, edited by W. Travis McMaken and David W. Congdon, 46–62. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014. REUTER, Hans-Richard. “Editor’s Afterword to the German Edition.” In Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology, 162–83. DBWE 2. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996. SHERMAN, Franklin. “Act and Being.” In The Place of Bonhoeffer: Problems and Possibilities in His Thought, edited by Martin E. Marty, 83–111. New York: Association Press, 1962. TIETZ-STEIDING, Christiane. Bonhoeffers Kritik Der Verkrümmten Vernunft: Eine Erkenntnistheoretische Untersuchung. Beiträge Zur Historischen Theologie 12. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999. WITVLIET, J. Theo. “Bonhoeffer’s Dialoog Met Karl Barth.” Kerk En Theologie 16 (1965): 301–21. WOELFEL, James W. Bonhoeffer’s Theology: Classical and Revolutionary. Nashville: Abingdon, 1970. WÜSTENBERG, Ralf K. “Philosophical Influences on Bonhoeffer’s ‘Religionless Christianity.’” In Bonhoeffer and Continental Thought: Cruciform Philosophy, edited by Brian Gregor and Jens Zimmermann, 137–55. Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ Press, 2009.

(Note: Read more about my work on Barth, Bonhoeffer, and the Bible here.) This semester — my final one at Beeson Divinity School — I’m doing a directed study with Piotr Malysz on the topic of “Religion” in Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The impetus for this study was a discussion question in Dr. Malysz’s Spring 2015 20th Century History and Doctrine course. On March 24, our third class period on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, our second question for discussion read as follows: ...

Hi internet – especially all you Barthians and Bonhoefferians (-ites?) out there. I’m in the process of compiling a reading list, and I could use your suggestions. Here’s my goal: to explore the possible relationship between Barth’s critique of the “No-God”(Nich-Gott) and Bonhoeffer’s critique(s) of viewing God as a “stopgap” (Lückenbüßer) or “working hypothesis.” As far as primary sources go, I plan to focus on the Romans commentary, Garrett Green’s recent re-translation of CD §17, and Letters and Papers from Prison. ...

Presented at Southeast ETS 2015. DISUNITY AS ECCLESIOLOGICAL IMPOSSIBILITY:A BARTHIAN ANALOGY Joshua P. Steele INTRODUCTION Just as sin is ontological impossibility, disunity is ecclesiological impossibility. The tension between the undeniable reality of sin and Karl Barth’s theological definition of sin as an impossible possibility parallels the tension between the obvious reality of a fractured church1 and the theological definition of the church as the one body of the one Christ. Two excerpts from the Barthian corpus legitimize this connection. First, in his prepared remarks to the 1937 Second World Conference on Faith and Order in Edinburgh, Karl Barth maintained that ...

Karl Barth’s exegesis of Christ’s wilderness temptations isperenniallyinspiring, but particularly poignant during this season of Lent. What does it mean for Christ to be the Perfect Penitent? And how should this influence our own repentance? The following series of quotations comes from a lengthy small-print section in CD IV/1, 259-73 (§ 59 The Obedience of the Son of God; 2. The Judge Judged in Our Place). There Barth walks through the three wilderness temptations before masterfully connecting them to Christ’s experience in the Garden of Gethsemane. ...

I just received the news today that my student paper submission for the 2015 Southeast Regional Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (old, broken link) has been accepted! My theme lately has been to write on Karl Barth and the unity of the Church. At last year’s Regional ETS (hosted by my seminary, Beeson Divinity School), I presented an edited version of my undergraduate thesis: Reconciliation and the Lack Thereof: Atonement, Ecclesiology, and the Unity of God. Click the link if you’d like to read the PDF. Here’s the thesis: ...

Yesterday I posted the beginning of Karl Barth’s exegesis of Christ’s wilderness temptations. He does a masterful job of explaining how Christ was tempted, not to violate the Law or commit a moral infraction, but to abandon his role as the obedient, Perfect Penitent. Put differently, Barth clarifies that Jesus’ sinlessness is not a vague moral perfection, but rather obedience and repentance. Christ’s first temptation was to turn stones into bread, thereby using divine power as a “technical instrument” to save and maintain his own life. Today’s temptation contains an incisive critique of Christendom’s desire for influence, relevance, and power. ...

I’ve been reproducing Karl Barth’s magnificent exegesis of Christ’s wilderness temptations in Church Dogmatics IV/1. It is a particularly appropriate discussion for this season of Lent, for Jesus was not tempted to break the Law or commit a moral infraction. Instead, he was tempted to abandon his role as the Perfect Penitent. For Barth, if Christ had capitulated to any of the temptations, he would have abandoned God’s redemptive mission. Jesus Christ had to persist in penitence in order to be “the Judge Judged in Our Place” (Barth’s most concise description of the atonement proper). ...

For my 20th Century History & Doctrine course at Beeson Divinity School, I’m re-reading through Karl Barth’s Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. If you’re involved in the life and ministry of the Church in any respect, I strongly recommend that you buy and read this book! Here’s a particularly challenging portion from the chapter on “Wonder,” beginning on page 71. I wish the language were gender-inclusive, but Karl’s words still ring true: “After all, who am I to be a theologian? ...

If you’re interested, I’m presenting my Regional ETS paper today at 5:00pm at Beeson Divinity School, room S009. “Reconciliation and the Lack Thereof: Atonement, Ecclesiology, and the Unity of God” If you’re able to attend the presentation, that’s great! If not, you can: Read the full essay on my blog Download the complete thesis PDF Atonement theology and the unity of the Church are two areas I’m very passionate about and intend to devote further study to in the future. I’d love to hear any questions, comments, or suggestions you might have!

Well, judging by my blog stats for the past 48 hours — as compared with the past few months — I’d get many more views on this post if it concerned the chaos at Cedarville University! However, my schedule and blood pressure won’t allow me to devote any more time to my shameful alma mater at the moment. I’ve got a presentation at the 2014 Southeast Regional Meeting of ETS tomorrow (see my previous post, and come to my presentation at 5:00pm in room S009!), and even though Beeson Divinity School’s Spring Break is right around the corner, I’ve still got a fair share of reading to get done. ...

If you’re in the Birmingham area from March 21-22, 2014, and you’re interested in evangelical theology, please consider attending the Evangelical Theological Society’s Southeastern Regional Meeting at Beeson Divinity School! This year’s theme is “the theological interpretation of Scripture,” and the plenary speaker is Wheaton’s Daniel J. Treier (incidentally, Dr. Treier and I are both alumni of Cedarville). Furthermore, if you’re free from 5:00-5:30pm on Friday, March 21, consider swinging by room S009 to hear me present “Reconciliation and the Lack Thereof: Atonement, Ecclesiology, and the Unity of God.” The atonement and the unity of the Church are topics that I’m passionate about, and I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to give my first ever conference paper. ...