Daily Archives: May 11, 2009

Remembering P.T. Forsyth

Posted by on May 11, 2009 Comments Off

Jason alerts us to the fact that today is the birthday of Scottish theologian, P.T. Forsyth. Forsyth is one of the great underrated theologians and probably always will be. His books are worth anyone’s time. The Holy Father, The Cruciality of the Cross, and The Soul of Prayer are some of the best books of his.

Here’s a quote of his to add to the one Jason already posted:

Man is indeed incomparable with God, but incompatible he is not. And in Christ the compatibility becomes full communion. In Christ the living God is, to the extent that he lives, the giving God. In Christ we were neither made nor saved to eke out some lack in God, nor to meed some hunger in his being; but of his fullness we have all received. And we are here as the fullness and overflow of his creative love, to his praise and glory in our faith’s receptive and sympathetic love.

God in Christ is the maker of his own revelation. It was God himself that came to us in Christ; it was nothing about God, even about his eternal essence or his excellent glory. It is God that is our salvation, and not the truth about God. And what Christ came to do was not to convince us even that God is love, but to be with us and in us as the loving God forever and ever. He came not to preach the living God but to be God our life; yes, not to preach even the loving God but to be the love that God forever is.”

~ P.T. Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, 353-54.

The Great Barth Experiment of 2009

Posted by on May 11, 2009 26 comments

There’s every chance in the world that this won’t work out. This is one of those grand types of resolutions that are made to be forgotten about in a matter of days or weeks. Nevertheless I’m going to give it a shot. I mean, seriously, if I’m going to pay for the entire new set of Barth’s Church Dogmatics, it’s only fitting that I actually commit to read the thing. So that’s the plan. I plan to read the whole, entire, complete thing. But don’t worry, I’m not crazy. I will probably skim many of the in-text footnotes. I’m not gonna lie.

The new edition is split into 31 volumes, including the index (which, of course won’t be included in my final count). So that leaves me 30 volumes ranging between 150ish-400ish pages in length. My goal is to shoot for one of these volumes per week. This, of course is ridiculous.

But look, I’m 27 and single. Why would I not do this? Most of you get to have wives and children and mortgages. I get to read Karl Barth. It’s simple physics.

There are  two reasons why this plan will almost certainly fail. Probably more, but two that are relevant to me. First, even the most elementary theomathematician among us can see that pulling this plan off would entail reading the same series of books (all of them on dogmatics, no less) for 30 straight weeks. My attention doesn’t usually remain transfixed for that long, even on a set this awesome. So there’s that. Second, as I’ve already lamented, I watch way to effing much in the way of shows than is conducive to large amounts of reading. This also has retroactive impact on reason #1. The more time I spend watching Deadwood, the less time I have to read a variety of things when I get bored.

So, my steps shall be as follows. Beginning today the goal is one of the (new) Barth volumes per week. Usually this is going to average out to 40 or more (occasionally about twice as much, but not often) pages per day. I think I can pull this off. If and only if I can mitigate the danger posed by visual media burgling my time away. To that end, the laptop is (generally) going to be staying at work during the week from now on. If I can pull that off, I think I have a shot at this.

And lets face it, from a theologically geeking out perspective, there’s not much that’s more awesome than this.

So yeah. There’s every reason why I should fail at this undertaking. But I bought the set, so I’m taking the shot. If all goes according to plan, by December 7th, I should have read the Dogmatics. And watched no Deadwood.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Dogmatics as Persistence

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More from the early sections of CD I/1 on the nature of dogmatics according to Barth:

“Dogmatics as an enquiry presupposes that they true content of Christian talk about God must be known by men. Christian speech must be tested by its conformity to Christ. This conformity is never clear and unambiguous. To the finally and adequately given divine answer there corresponds a human question which can maintain its faithfulness only in unwearied and honest persistence. There corresponds even at the highest point of attainment the open: ‘Not that I had already attained.’ Dogmatics receives even the standard by which it measures in an act of human appropriation. Hence it has to be enquiry. It knows the light which is intrinsically perfect and reveals everything in a flash. Yet it knows it only in the prism of this act, which, however radically or existentially it may be understood, is still a human act, which in itself is no kind of surety for the correctness of the appropriation in question, which is by nature fallible and therefore stands in need of criticism, of correction, of critical amendment and repetition.” (p. 13-14)

Best Theology Books of the Last Two Years?

Posted by on May 11, 2009 20 comments

Alright, this question is actually an exercise in my own personal fact-finding. Every year I write this review column on British and American theology. Last year’s was a real winner with J. Kameron Carter’s Race: A Theological Account, Ted Smith’s The New Measures, and Nate Kerr’s Christ, History and Apocalyptic. So, this year I have to, once again choose the books I think most worthy to be included in the column. Sadly, we’re dealing here with constructive (i.e. systematic) theology in this publication, otherwise this would be the year for doing something on the awesome books on Paul that are coming out this year (Campbell and Gorman for starters).

So, if you had to pick 3-4 theology books from 2008-present to review, what would your choices be?

Where God May Speak

Posted by on May 11, 2009 3 comments

And for the first quote from my brand new, and freaking awesome Barth set, I give you a quote from CD I/1 that, contrary to many of the “invention of the antichrist”-type caricatures of Barth, exhibits his quite robust theology of creation, culture, and revelation:

“If the question [of] what God can do forces theology to be humble, the question [of] what is commanded forces it to concrete obedience. God may speak to us through Russian Communism, a flute concerto, a blossoming shrub, or a dead dog. We do well to listen to Him if He really does. . . . God make speak to us through a pagan or an atheist, and thus give us to understand that the boundary between the Church and the secular world can still take at any time a different course from that which we think we discern.” (CD I/1, 55)

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