The Word, the Words and the Witness: Proclamation as Divine and Human Reality in the Theology of Karl Barth

Abstract

Karl Barth’s entire theology is predicated upon the supposition that God has spoken to human beings. His exposition of the doctrine of the Word of God is informed both by trinitarian and incarnational analogies and insights. In each of the three forms of God’s Word (Jesus of Nazareth, scripture, and Christian preaching) there is a paradox and scandal of identity between the divine and the human to be grasped. The relationships between these three, and the peculiar duality in unity which each manifests, are explored in this essay in relation to Barth’s characteristic understanding of revelation as event