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So You Want to Read….Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

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"I fear that Christians who stand with only one leg upon earth also stand with only one leg in heaven." "The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from everyday Christian life in community…may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; for in the poor sister or brother, Christ is knocking at the door." "Since ethical thinking in terms of realms is overcome by faith in the revelation of the ultimate reality in Jesus Christ . . . there is no real Christian existence outside the reality of the world." "People who reject their bodies reject their existence before God the Creator." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer Prelude Andreas Steinhoff [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons I envisioned having a lot of time for blogging this summer, but that simply has not been the case - the last month has been a crazy one, to say the least. For two weeks, I was working at a theology summer camp of sorts, the Duke Youth Academy, and s...
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So, You Want To Read Karl Barth?

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Every now and then I am asked for advice about studying Karl Barth. So, I thought that I would share some of my standard advice here. But, before I do that, let me just say that I am by no means a Barth expert as compared to the people whose books I will mention below. I would be thrilled to find myself in their league one day, but as of yet that remains a distant dream. Still, I have been reading Barth for long enough, and under the supervision of a number of the scholars that I will mention below, that I think I can provide a decent orientation. I have never read Karl Barth before. Which of his books should I read first? Barth’s most famous work is the monumental 13-volume Church Dogmatics . Reading the CD with understanding is not an easy thing, so you definitely do NOT want to start here. Luckily, there are two smaller works by Barth that serve as helpful introductions to his work. Evangelical Theology: An Introduction - Based on the lectures that Barth delivered duri...
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2010 KBBC: Week 1, Day 5

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“You Wonder Where the Spirit Went”: Jenson and Barth on the Hiddenness of God By Peter Kline I am entering into a conversation that Jenson has already begun with Barth. In a constructive essay on the hiddenness of God (Jenson 2000), Jenson considers Barth’s position on the matter only to find it lacking. I want to explore why Jenson has problems with Barth on this issue, as well think critically about his constructive alternative. I will suggest that Jenson is only partly right in his diagnosis of Barth; he in fact overlooks the heart of Barth’s teaching on divine hiddenness. The reason is that he looks in the wrong place for Barth’s pneumatology. Jenson can’t find the Spirit in Barth not because the Spirit isn’t there, but because the Spirit is hidden . These considerations will open out into a comparison of Barth and Jenson on the logic of revelation. By “logic” I mean: what is discourse about God’s revealedness and hiddenness supposed to accomplish? Part I Jenson focuses his a...
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Wild Ideas about Pannenberg's 'Supposed' Hegelianism

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This could be unique to me, but at some point between informal conversations, research, and classes I've gotten the impression that when it comes to Pannenberg, there is a ton of interest in how his work relates to Hegel. For example, it seems that people want an answer to the question “to what degree is Pannenberg’s system ‘Hegelian’?” In one of my courses a couple years ago my professor spent some time on Pannenberg, discussing sections of his Systematic Theology and the reasons for / the rationale behind Theology and the Philosophy of Science . He also took special care to note that while Pannenberg resisted being seen as a disciple of Hegel, the footnotes may have told a different story. In the light of this interest, below is a lengthy quote from an interview with Pannenberg that I have not seen referenced elsewhere. Maybe later I can make an argument, but for now, here is part of his answer to the question put to Pannenberg: “What aspects of your thought do theologians c...
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Wolfhart Pannenberg, 'Introduction to Systematic Theology' (3)

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Wolfhart Pannenberg, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991). Learn a little something about Pannenberg . Chapter 3: The Doctrine of Creation in an Age of Scientific Cosmology Part of my attraction to the work of TF Torrance is his understanding of theological science and the relation of theology and science, so I very much enjoyed this chapter wherein Pannenberg engages scientific cosmology. In keeping with Pannenberg’s apologetic impulse, which we saw in the first chapter , this chapter seems to be predominantly a ground-clearing exercise, interested in suggesting ways in which Christianity can be understood in harmony with scientific cosmology. It seems to me that theology must attempt to find this harmony whenever possible, and so it was interesting to see Pannenberg engage in this task. Mechanical Universe Pannenberg recounts how scientific cosmology developed in the 18th and 19th centuries to view the world as a mechanical system. While God ...
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