Welcome back to Wednesdays With Barth! I hope you enjoyed some thought provoking reading this week! I missed last week I was a busy pastor.
THE LIMITS OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD: God is known only by God. We do not know Him, then, in virtue of the views and concepts with which in faith we attempt to respond to His revelation. But we also do not know Him without making use of His permission and obeying His command to undertake this attempt. The success of this undertaking, and therefore the veracity of our human knowledge of God, consists in the fact that our viewing and conceiving is adopted and determined to participation in the truth of God by God Himself in grace. Logos Bible Software Version of Church Dogmatics: The doctrine of God, Part 1 (Vol. 2, p. 179).
The incarnation is where we most clearly witness Gods initiative to make himself known through self-disclosure. This is the incarnation in its purest 
and most full sense… not that we know about God but that we know God. Rather than us knowing and seeing scripture we can be more sure that Christ, the object of Scripture, clearly sees, knows and personally discloses Himself to us. I love the focus Barth places on God’s ownership of true and pure knowledge. Our salvation is not dependent on knowing rightly but trusting that we are rightly known by God in Christ. I agree with H.R. Mackintosh when he said… “A religious knowledge of God, wherever existing, comes by revelation; otherwise we should be committed to the incredible position that a man can know God without His willing to be known.” Martin Luther called the mystery of revelation the “hidden revelation of God” he supported his paradox with what he called the “theology of the cross”. The concept of revelation as a theology is fascinating to me. Take for example Wolfhart Pannebergs first five of seven theses on “revelation as history” theory as opposed to Barth’s emphasis on the life, person and work of Christ (rather than Scripture in and of itself).
Pannenberg said…
1. The self-revelation of God in Scripture did not take place directly, after the fashion of a theophany, but indirectly, in the acts of God in history.
2. Revelation is not completely apprehended at the beginning, but only at the end of revelatory history.
3. In contrast to special divine manifestations, the revelation of God in history is publicly and universally accessible, and open to anyone who has eyes to see it.
4. The universal revelation of God is not fully realised in the history of Israel; it was first realised in the destiny of Jesus of Nazareth, in so far as the end of history is anticipated in that destiny.
5. The Christ-event cannot be regarded as revealing God in isolation; it is set in the context of God’s dealings with Israel.]
It’s enough for me to spend a lifetime of thought on! I’m just glad God thought of me first.
Some questions
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What do you think of Pannenberg’s 5 (historical) thesis along side Barth’s (Christocentric) view of revelation?
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Do they harmonize in your opinion?
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Why or why not?
Read CD II.1 in 7 weeks
February 21, 2014 Pg iii, pp vi–ix, pp 3–20
February 24, 2014 pp 21–54
February 26, 2014 pp 55–82
February 28, 2014 pp 83–112
March 03, 2014 pp 113–153
March 05, 2014 pp 154–178
March 07, 2014 pp 179–214
March 10, 2014 pp 215–244
March 12, 2014 pp 245–278
March 14, 2014 pp 279–321
March 17, 2014 pp 322–345
March 19, 2014 pp 346–380
March 21, 2014 pp 381–409
March 24, 2014 pp 410–440
March 26, 2014 pp 441–482
March 28, 2014 pp 483–509
March 31, 2014 pp 510–539
April 02, 2014 pp 540–580
April 04, 2014 pp 581–611
April 07, 2014 pp 612–644
April 09, 2014 pp 645–679, pp 690–699
Learn more about Karl Barth here.
Buy his Church Dogmatics in LOGOS here.
*Reading list generated by Logos Bible Software.