1st Edition

Barth's Ontology of Sin and Grace Variations on a Theme of Augustine

By Shao Kai Tseng Copyright 2019
176 Pages
by Routledge

176 Pages
by Routledge

176 Pages
by Routledge

In recent Barth studies it has been argued that a key to understanding the theologian’s opposition to natural theology is his rejection of substantialist ontology. While this is true to an extent, this book argues that it is a mistake to see Barth’s ‘actualistic ontology’ as diametrically opposed to traditional substantialism. Probing into Barth’s soteriological hamartiology in Church Dogmatics... Read more

Introduction  1 Sin and Substantialist Ontology: The Augustinian Background of Barth’s Theological Grammar  2 God and Nothingness (CD III/1-3): Barth’s Actualistic Reorientation of Augustine’s Meontological Grammar  3 Barth’s Actualistic Hamartiology (CD IV/1-3, §60, §65, and §70): Prolegomenal Considerations  4 ‘The Pride and Fall of Man’ (CD IV/1, §60): Original Sin and the History of Christ  5 ‘The Sloth and Misery of Man’ (CD IV/2, §65): Barth on the Bondage of the Will  6 Condemnation and Universal Salvation: Barth’s ‘Reverent Agnosticism’ Revisited (CD IV/3, §70);  Epilogue. Barth’s Paradigm Shift: An Actualistic Reorientation of Christian Ontology

Biography

Shao Kai Tseng (DPhil, Oxford) is research professor in the Department of Philosophy at Zhejiang University, China. He is the author of Karl Barth’s Infralapsarian Theology (2016) and Hegel (2018), and a contributor to the Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Christian Thought (2017) and Blackwell Companion to Karl Barth (forthcoming).

‘In his characteristically clear and direct writing, Professor Shao Kai Tseng of Zhejiang University, China continues to establish himself as an important commentator on the theology of Karl Barth with this ground-breaking work discussing Barth’s understanding of sin, human nature and salvation. This book helpfully explains how and why Barth understood humanity to be affected by sin and grace with an emphasis on grace as God’s Yes to humanity in his Word and Spirit, but without resolving the freedom of God’s love for us into a rationalistic doctrine of universalism. This book will be must reading for all who are interested in Barth’s theological anthropology.’ – Paul D. Molnar, Professor of Systematic Theology, St. John’s University, Queens, NY, USA