Customer Reviews

Church Dogmatics (31 vols)

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Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics is one of the most important theological treatises of all-time, which set the agenda for religious thinking in the first half of the 20th Century. However, its sheer size and depth (reminiscent of Aquinas' Summa Theologiae) frequently discourage average readers from delving into its treasury of insights. Professor Gollwitzer's short selection of the Dogmatics provides a useful introduction to Barth's most important themes, especially his understanding of revelation, Christology, and salvation. Great reading for any serious college or seminary student who wants to wrestle with the mind of this great Christian thinker!

"Church Dogmatics: A Selection" is an excellent introduction to the theology of Karl Barth. Anyone even remotely acquainted with Christian theology cannot dispute the fact that Karl Barth is one of the most relevant and scholarly theological minds of our time. He articulated some of the most basic, yet profound truths of the Bible at a time when mainstream Christian theology had begun to place less and less emphasis on the Bible as God's inspired Word. He dialogues with the great theologians and philosophers from Luther to Calvin, to the scholastics, to his contemporaries. The unifying thread through his writing is the person of Jesus Christ, as witnessed in scripture. Barth, in his Church Dogmatics, did what no other modern theologian has been able to do with such clarity- he synthesized a millenium of Christian thought and focused it through the lens of what scripture says about Christ. His Doctrine of the Word of God is an amazing and thorough exposition of the topic- to get the full thrust of what Barth was saying, though, I would recommend working through the multi-volume set of his Church Dogmatics. For introductory or casual reading (if such a thing is possible), I would highly recommend starting with this concise volume. Best wishes on your theological quest!

For those who want to a hearty taste of Karl Barth's Church Dogmactics, this is the book. The only reason this book isn't ranked higher in my mind is that its divisions of Barth's theology by topics sometimes break up coherent arguments. Still this is the best book short of reading every volume of Barth's Church Dogmatics.

I am almost finished with V I.1, the doctrine of the Word of God for the second time. I am not a theologian and do not read Greek, but this is the best and most complete view of Evangelical Protestant thinking I have ever read. It has answered questions I have had about Christianity since I was a small boy. I highly recommend it for all persons who want to study and think about their religion. All the work I have put into understanding it has been more than paid back in blessings. I want to commend Hendrickson for the excellent quality of their hardback edition. My notes on the paperback I read first more or less tore it up, but as I am transferring those notes to the new hardback it remains in tip top shape.

Barth's Method
An important theological axiom for Barth is his preference for analogia fides as opposed to analogia entis. In his magisterial and breathtaking Church Dogmatics, where he returns to the "great concepts of God, Word, Spirit, revelation, faith, church, sacrament, and so on," Barth's method truly has at center faith in Jesus Christ. While very capable of handling his opponents in both philosophical as well as theological departments, and their analogia entis thinking, or Catholicity, Barth remarkably establishes his method in Dogmatics with elements of the gospel itself: faith in Jesus Christ, as one example, and Jesus Christ as the Word of God made flesh as another. Vehemently opposed to Thomistic approaches, Barth kicks off his Dogmatics by jumping right into it, using much of Scripture's theology as part of his very (and unannounced) methodological architecture, a venture that proponents of current theological interpretation of Scripture have found commendable. The Word of God, i.e., the person of Jesus Christ himself, was so crucial to Barth's project he states, "Theology stands and falls with the Word of God."

A Word on Propositionalism
Far from any other issue some take with Barth, it is my conviction that the chief reason his Dogmatics stands opposed to propositionalism is simply, and somewhat regrettably, his deep devotion to philosophical being as his theology's centralizing and glorious obelisk. With revelation understood in primarily and categorically transcendent terms, and only secondarily and necessarily in terms of physicality, Barth's subject is ever left without object, and it is this lack of objectification of theological truth, i.e., a lack of propositions, which is a consequence of his operative theological method. But Barth knows this and is not only content to build his castle here in the sand, but rather finds it both necessary and biblical that it should remain here - and not in sand, but a castle in the sky.

Barth's Legacy
Barth's theology reads like that of a church father, and he is recognized as both a pioneer and model for theological interpretation. Further, his theology has a feeling of purity to it that at times seems inspired of God and immune to anthropocentric reason.

While criticisms will always assail this magnum opus for being methodologically deficient in terms of grasping certitude, Barth is not so mistaken. God is wholly other and to be apprehended only through faith. Theology belongs to the Church only in faith in her very own being, Jesus Christ. Doing theology for Barth is itself a manifestation of the gospel so that all of theology is about Jesus Christ.

The new, 31-volume student edition of the Church Dogmatics has many benefits. The translations are useful, but the editors have retained the original languages in the text. This is a benefit for students who don't have all the languages under their fingers, and for those of us who still have them. Moreover, the way the set is broken down, useful pieces become more accessible rather than being buried in the backs of large volumes.

However, and I noticed it especially in III/4, the scanning that they did for this new work has led to a variety of embarrassing typographical errors. "bis" for "his", "hun" for "him", punctuation missing or wrong, small things on the grand scale, understandable in a work of this magnitude, but irritating. Mis-training of the OCR, and poor proof-reading for mistakes a spell-checker ought to catch.

Still, the benefits do outweigh the small irritation. If only I could assign pieces out of this set ....

I bought the 14 volume hard cover edition of Barth's Church Dogmatics for a song, though the Kindle version offered here is extremely reasonable. I suspect this edition of Barth's Dogmatics may become rare given that a new 31 volume study edition is being produced where all the Greek, Hebrew and Latin comments in the footnotes have been translated into English. But, if you don't mind slugging your way through some Greek and Latin, this is the preferable edition to have given the amount of space 14 volumes alone will take up on your book shelf.

That said, one has only to peruse the Dogmatics to be impressed by the depth and range of Barth's learning. I would hardly call myself a Barthian, but he is indeed the most significant "church father" of the 20th century having rescued much of European Christianity from an excess of liberal and overly optimistic theology as well as impacting important Roman Catholic theologians such as Hans Ur von Balthasar. There really is no one comparable to Barth in the realm of dogmatics in the previous century.

Barth can ramble at times, his thoughts sprawl across a number of pages such that he could have used an editor to condense some of his thought, but the learning that he brings to the table makes up for his prolixity and even if you do not agree with his conclusions you will understand how he got there. Few will have the time to read all 9,000 plus pages, but using this resource as a reference will be immensely rewarding to any serious student of theology.

Karl Barth is among the finest theological thinkers of all time, his monumental 'Church Dogmatics' offering a massive recapitulation, synthesis, and creative reinterpretation of Protestant theology since the Reformation. His work has become an immensely fertile ground for systematic and practical theology, and spawned an entire movement of disciples and interpreters. It is beyond the scope of a small review to summarise his theology, but it all centres on the self-revelation of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ, excluding anything that cannot be reconciled with this premise. This draws theological thinking back from 'Protestant scholasticism' into an awareness that everything the Christian theologian can say is derived from a transformative encounter with the Triune God. Some of his conclusions, particularly about Scripture, election, and redemption, have been and continue to be very controversial. Most theology done post-Barth is in some way in conversation with him, and cannot properly be read without a working knowledge of his thought.

This new Hendrickson edition (which does not include the new study version with translated Greek and Latin) provides a welcome inexpensive option for those who would like to have a copy of the Church Dogmatics in their personal library.

As a caveat to this review, I have not read the entire Dogmatics, but then I think that few people have. This is a work to be savoured over many years rather than quickly digested (indeed, the bulk of the volumes and Barth's dense and winding prose will frustrate such an attempt).

For a theologian who rejects inerrancy, Barth certainly has a lot to say about the Scripture. Evangelicals often are unsure what to do with Barth, lumping him into a liberal category for what they consider his low view of scripture. After reading a sermon such as his Strange New World, one cannot deny his brilliance and perhaps overlook things as his view on inerrancy and seemingly almost universal view of salvation (although to this he never did admit and alas, died before finishing the last installment of his great work Church Dogmatics, which would have covered eschatology..so we'll never know for sure). This great work most certainly is to be taken with a grain of salt, perhaps even some alka seltzer for the more conservative among us. Still, there is much here of merit, I particularly enjoy his critique of fundamentalism as Biblicism and think that we as evangelicals need to have an answer to that critique, at least those of us that hold to innerrency and sola scriptura. Barth's work on Calvin is an interesting read on this subject, as one can imagine.

BTW When I say I read it, I don't mean all of it. Anyone who knows the size of this work and Barth sometimes wandering style knows what I mean.

You can find this set, brand new, for just under $100 elsewhere on the internet. It shouldn't be hard to find if you search for it.