DESCRIPTION:

This seminar is offered as a graduate seminar for Ph.D. and Th.M. students. By special permission, M.A. and M.Div. level students may enroll as space permits. This seminar will deal with the theological method and development of Karl Barth's theology. It will include an introduction to Barth's life and thought, examination of his method, central themes in his theology, critical response to Barth by representative American evangelical theologians, and a final appraisal of Barth's contribution to evangelical theology. Selected portions from Barth's Church Dogmatics will be discussed in class, dealing with knowledge of God, election, covenant, reconciliation, ecclesiology, and ethics.

This course is designed to enable the student to 1) understand and express Barth's basic theological method; 2) gain an overview of Barth's dogmatic theology; and 3) interpret the significance of Barth's theology for the evangelical church today.

Class sessions for ST530 will be held each Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00 to 9:50 a.m. (ST830 will meet concurrently on Tuesdays only from 8:00 to 9:50 a.m. and then separately at a time to be arranged.) Assigned readings will be used as a basis for the lecture and class discussion each day. A packet of readings from Barth's Church Dogmatics will be made available in class, and is required for each student to have. Class discussion will be based on these readings.

1,500 pages of reading are required, including:

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. Selected portions. (Photocopy packet made available in class.)

Busch, Eberhard. Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts. Eerdmans, 1993. (paper)

Two papers will be required. The first, due on Tuesday, May 6th, will be a brief (six to eight pages, double spaced) paper setting forth Barth's basic theological method. For graduate students, a second paper (20 to 25 pages, double spaced) will be required on a topic which relates some aspect of Barth's theology to the student's major research project, or which deals primarily with some aspect of Barth's own theology. Endnotes (or footnotes) will be required along with a bibliography. M.A./M.Div. level students will write a second paper (ten to twelve pages, double spaced) as a position paper on Karl Barth's theology from an evangelical perspective, or it can be a research paper on a particular aspect of Barth's theology. In this paper, end notes will be required, documenting sources used and discussing technical points not included within the paper, along with a bibliography.

Permission of the instructor.

Elective

None.