1919–1968

Karl Barth: Theology from Above and the Word of God in Three Forms

Disillusioned with his liberal teachers, who supported Germany's war policy in 1914, Barth in his Epistle to the Romans (1919) called for replacing theology "from earth to heaven" with theology from above and stressed the "infinite qualitative distinction" between God and humanity. In the Church Dogmatics, Barth's theology is a theology of the Word: the Word of God is not a static object but an event, "God's speech to us through Jesus Christ." It exists in three inseparable forms – revealed (Jesus Christ), written (the Bible as witness to revelation) and proclaimed (the church's preaching); the latter two become the Word when God uses them to reveal Jesus Christ. Instead of the "analogy of being," Barth starts from the "analogy of faith," which God himself establishes in Jesus Christ.