What Am I Reading? John Webster
John B. Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology: Human Action in Barth’s Thought (Eerdmans, 1998). You can buy a newer paperback version from Amazon here.
John Webster delivers in this volume another instance of the kind of penetrating theological exposition that is to be expected from one of the foremost systematic theologians of the world today. I am not currently in the mood to provide any thing like an extensive review of this volume, but I will go so far as to heartily recommend it to any who are interested in theological ethics or Karl Barth studies. The reason I do not recommend it to a wider audience is because the material content of the volume, though wonderful diverse in some respects, is ultimately quite narrow. Those who are simply interested in questions of the relation of God’s agency and human agency, or who want to know “what Barth’s understanding” of this question is, would do well to look elsewhere as each chapter here provides answers to these questions. While these answers are always embedded in other interesting material, the more casual reader could develop a sense of tedium and redundancy. But, this in no way lessens the mastery of the essays contained in this volume and it is certainly a must read for serious scholars of these topics.
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On a related topic, those of you (if ‘you’ exist) who have been waiting patiently over the past month to hear what my final take on Peter Martyr Vermigli’s treatise on the Lord’s Supper will be – I must offer an apology. Other project pushed this reading from my mind, and I have yet to find suitable opportunity to return to it. Two other books must be read before I again take up Vermigli, but the good news is that I hope to have read them both by the coming weekend, and then Vermigli is once again in a place of ascendancy on my docket.
John Webster delivers in this volume another instance of the kind of penetrating theological exposition that is to be expected from one of the foremost systematic theologians of the world today. I am not currently in the mood to provide any thing like an extensive review of this volume, but I will go so far as to heartily recommend it to any who are interested in theological ethics or Karl Barth studies. The reason I do not recommend it to a wider audience is because the material content of the volume, though wonderful diverse in some respects, is ultimately quite narrow. Those who are simply interested in questions of the relation of God’s agency and human agency, or who want to know “what Barth’s understanding” of this question is, would do well to look elsewhere as each chapter here provides answers to these questions. While these answers are always embedded in other interesting material, the more casual reader could develop a sense of tedium and redundancy. But, this in no way lessens the mastery of the essays contained in this volume and it is certainly a must read for serious scholars of these topics.
=================================
On a related topic, those of you (if ‘you’ exist) who have been waiting patiently over the past month to hear what my final take on Peter Martyr Vermigli’s treatise on the Lord’s Supper will be – I must offer an apology. Other project pushed this reading from my mind, and I have yet to find suitable opportunity to return to it. Two other books must be read before I again take up Vermigli, but the good news is that I hope to have read them both by the coming weekend, and then Vermigli is once again in a place of ascendancy on my docket.
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