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- Title
Karl Barth on Nothingness: A Christological-Predestinarian Defiance of Theodicy.
- Authors
Shao Kai Tseng
- Abstract
This article examines Karl Barth's treatment of the theodicy problem in Church Dogmatics III/3, §50 ('God and nothingness'). By demonstrating how Barth develops his understanding of sin, evil, and death as "nothingness" on the basis of his Christocentric doctrine of election, this article contends that this term, often misunderstood as a meontological notion, is in fact a Christological-predestinarian notion that engages deeply and yet critically with Reformation and post-Reformation Reformed theology. For Barth, the term "nothingness" is his insistence on God's gracious election in Christ, part and parcel of which is God's absolute non-willing and rejection of the negative element that assails God's covenant-creature. With this term, he makes a concerted effort to avoid metaphysical rationalisation or explanation of nothingness. For this reason, he not only defies the theodicy problem with a Christus Victor, "Mozartean” attitude, but also he rejects theodicy projects as altogether unable to avoid natural-theological speculation about God's sovereignty and graciousness in abstract terms. Barth insists that true knowledge of nothingness is possible only in light of Christ's eternal and a priori triumph over it, as manifested in the event of the birth, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. It remains open to question, of course, whether Barth is always true to his fundamental conviction that nothingness has absolutely nothing to do with God, and to his avowed rejection of rational explanations of nothingness. Whatever the case, Barth’s intention in treating sin, evil and death as “nothingness” is to utter a metaphysical “I don’t know" about the dark mystery, and, more importantly, a Christological "I know" about God's sovereign graciousness to the covenant-partner in Jesus Christy thereby replacing theodicy with the category of witness.
- Subjects
BARTH, Karl, 1886-1968; NONBEING; RELIGION
- Publication
Sino-Christian Studies, 2015, Vol 20, p35
- ISSN
1990-2670
- Publication type
Article