Chapter 1: Barth, Roman Catholicism, and the Analogia
Entis
Chapter 2: The Background to the
Debate
Chapter 3: Incarnation and
Analogy
Chapter 4: The Nature of Barth's Rejection of the
Analogia Entis
Chapter 5: Przywara's Analogia Entis and the 'Invention of the
Anti-Christ'
Chapter 6: Barth's Analogia Fidei and its
Implications
Chapter 7: Analogy and
Covenant
Chapter 8: Analogy and the Church for the
World
A fascinating new study challenging the classical view of Karl
Barth's rejection of the Roman Catholic understanding of analogia
entis.
Keith L. Johnson holds a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary and is Assistant Professor of Theology at Wheaton College, USA.
Keith Johnson's "Karl Barth and the analogia entis" is perhaps the
best work on this demanding topic ever to have been written. It
contributes not only to the field of Barth studies but also to
modern theology in general. It approaches this vexing question with
painstaking care, erudition and sophistication. In the process it
makes a vital contribution to contemporary ecumenical discussion
among Protestant and Roman Catholic theologies. I believe it will
become a standard point of reference and that it will be widely
read and cited.
*George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ,
USA*
Given that metaphysics seems to be making a comeback in American
Protestant theology, Keith Johnson's fine study of the debate
between Karl Barth and Roman Catholic theologians with respect to
the so-called "analogy of being" could not be more timely. The
verdict of the last generation on this debate was that it rested on
a misunderstanding on Barth's side. Johnson gives us ample reason
to question this verdict - and even more reason to take Barth's
criticisms seriously. This is ecumenical theology at its best -
sober and penetrating but unfailingly courteous. This book will be
much-discussed.
*Bruce L. McCormack, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ,
USA*
Keith Johnson's forcefully argued and elegantly written book is the
best we have on the theological substance and historical
development of Karl Barth's treatment of the analogia entis.
Following von Balthasar, most have assumed that Barth's resistance
to the analogia entis of Przywara and Söhngen was misplaced, that
he never really understood their efforts, and that he eventually,
and on the sly, allowed a version of the idea to form his mature
account of divine and human relations. Johnson shows the mistake in
each of these assumptions. Barth's resistance never wavered. It
followed directly from the Protestant commitments that he spent his
career reviving and explicating, and he understood the analogia
entis well enough to see its incompatibility with the Reformation's
understanding of justification (in Przywara's case) and with its
insistence upon the ever sinful nature of the nevertheless
justified (in Söhngen's). Along the way, Johnson tells a
fascinating story of theological cross-fertilization. Przywara's
account of the analogy of being generated Kantian anxieties in
Barth, anxieties about the knowing subject's access to its intended
object. This encouraged Barth to make explicit the Protestant
substance of his theological commitments. It compelled him to
locate his account of revelation, not in the doctrine of creation,
but in Christology and, ultimately, in the doctrine of
justification. This, in turn, pushed Söhngen and von Balthasar to
recast their interpretations of Aquinas on natural knowledge of God
and situate the analogia entis within an analogia fidei. This
concession enabled Barth to admit that his earlier anxieties did
not apply here and at the same time to insist that fundamental
differences nevertheless remained. For Barth, grace yields an
analogy of being only as fallen nature is opposed and overcome, not
as it is perfected and assumed. So the story ends. The fallout is
both a defense of Barth's resistance to the positions staked out by
his Catholic conversation partners, and, more importantly, a deeper
understanding of the history and issues involved. Throughout,
Johnson's mastery of Barth's theology, its continuities and its
developments, its nuances and depths, is flawless. He helps us see
what a truly Protestant theology of grace looked like for Karl
Barth, and he helps us imagine what such a theology might look like
for us now.
*John Bowlin, Princeton Theological Seminary*
Keith Johnson's study of the debate between Karl Barth and Roman
Catholicism over the issue of analogia entis is first-rate
historical theology. Carefully researched, balanced in judgment,
and clearly written, it helps fill a gap in scholarly literature on
Barth's remarkable relationship with Roman Catholic theology and
opens numerous doors for future research.
*Daniel L. Migliore, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ,
USA*
Johnson has written an excellent book, offering a lucid analysis of
Barth's lifelong engagement with the /analogia entis/, an
engagement often referenced but seldom understood. In the course of
this work, he carefully exposits and evaluates not only Barth's
approach to the topic, but also its relation to the approaches of
his key conversation partners - Przywara, Söhngen, and Balthasar.
The result is at once fascinating and compelling, and establishes
Johnson as a theologian of the first order.
*Paul T. Nimmo, Meldrum Lecturer in Theology, New College,
University of Edinburgh, UK.*
Careful historical research, a stimulating and well-defined
interpretative agenda, and a willingness to venture bold, yet
nuanced, theological judgments distinguish this timely and
impressive book. Scholars interested in the development of Barth's
thought and the difficult question of Barth's relationship to
twentieth-century Roman Catholic theology will gain much from
it.
*Paul Dafydd Jones, Department of Religious Studies, University of
Virginia, USA*
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