Karl Barth on Religion: A Critique

By: null Keith Ward

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Synopsis: Karl Barth is one of the most influential theologians of the past century, especially within conservative branches of Christianity. Liberals, by contrast, find many of his ideas to be problematic. In this study, Keith Ward offers a detailed critique of Barth's views on religion and revelation as articulated in Church Dogmatics. Against Barth's definition of religions as self-centred, wilful, and arbitrary human constructions, Ward offers a defence of world religions as a God-inspired search for and insight into spiritual truth. Questioning Barth's rejection of natural theology and metaphysics, he provides a defence of the necessity of a philosophical foundation for Christian faith. Ward also dismisses Barth's biased summaries of German liberal thought, upholding a theological liberalism that incorporates Enlightenment ideas of critical inquiry and universal human rights that also retains beliefs that are central to Christianity. Ward defends the universality of divine grace against Barth's apparent denial of it to non-Christian religions.