Posts

Showing posts from December, 2024

Barth's "Göttingen Dogmatics" - §5: God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Image
Karl Barth is often credited with starting a revival of the doctrine of the Trinity in systematic theology. This paragraph comprises his first robust account of that doctrine. Already Barth closely associates the doctrine of the Trinity with the possibility of revelation, as well as with specifying the subject of revelation—that is, identifying the God that Christians worship. As Barth puts it, “The content of revelation is God alone, wholly God, God himself” (Diktatsatz). Karl Barth, The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion This is part 6 of a multi-part series, and you can find the series index here . I begin the audio recordings by reading Barth’s Diktatsatz , so I will begin reproducing that here as well. The bold is mine and indicates where I find emphasis: The content of revelation is God alone , wholly God, God himself. But as God solely and wholly reveals himself , he makes himself know in the three persons of his one essence. He, the ternal Fat...

§1 Approaching Galatians (session 4, part 2)—Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: A Presbyterian Adult Spiritual Formation Series

Image
[The series continues and now concludes the fourth in-person session.  Find the last post here .]   We saw, when we were talking about Luther, that Galatians is all about freedom of conscience. Calvin reads it very much the same way but focuses on the question of culture. For Calvin, you can't impose one culture on another culture. Now, unfortunately, there’s a tradition of interpretation within Protestant readings of Galatians that focuses on the idea of freedom and thinks about it in terms of freedom from the law. It draws a contrast with Judaism where Judaism is supposed to be characterized by servitude to the law and Paul’s vision of Christianity in Galatians is supposed to be characterized by freedom from the law and from Judaism. I think we’re all on the same page at this point about that way of framing things being problematic. But that doesn’t mean Galatians isn’t about freedom. I think it's certainly true that Paul wants to focus on the freedom of Gentile Jesus-fo...