Neo-Barthians v Neo-Orthodox

This is a really interesting piece by Erskine College prof. William B. Evans at Ref21. Barth’s dialectical method makes him inherently difficult. He can always be quoted on two sides of an issue. I also agree with Evans that, in the end, as he says that end of essay, there are real connections between Barth’s subjectivism and Schleiermacher—despite the fact that Barth hated Schleiermacher. For Barth, the “Word” remained an encounter and not an objective text given by God in history about a real, objective history. As unfashionable as it may be, I still think that Kees Van Til was basically right about Barth. That doesn’t mean that CVT’s rhetorical strategy regarding Barth was the wisest. The New Modernism isn’t very suaviter in modo. It’s a shame that the evangelicals have stopped reading CVT on Barth (see Muether’s bio of Van Til on this). They really should. Maybe if we offered to wrap it in brown paper so that no one could see what they were reading?

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  • R. Scott Clark
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    R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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