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"Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909-1936," by Bruce L. McCormack (Clarendon Press/ Oxford University Press, 499 pp.; $65, hardcover). Reviewed by Roger E. Olson, professor of theology at Bethel College (Minn.) and editor of "Christian Scholar's Review."

When chroniclers of twentieth-century theology look back one hundred years hence, there is little doubt that one name will overshadow all others as the giant of this century's theologians—Karl Barth. Thinkers of Barth's stature provide a framework within which countless others carry out their own work, and thus a change in the paradigm governing interpretation of a Barth or a Hegel or an Edwards or a Thomas Aquinas has consequences that ultimately extend far beyond the inner circle of scholarly debate.

The reigning paradigm for understanding the development of Barth's theology was most influentially described by Barth's fellow Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar in his monumental study "The Theology of Karl Barth" (1962; English translation, 1971). According to this reading, there were two major shifts in Barth's theological development, so that one can rightly speak of an "early Barth" (liberal), a "dialectical Barth" (influenced by existentialist thought), and a "mature Barth," who turned away from existentialism and dialectical theology (a method that focuses on finding truth in the tensions between apparently contrasting truths) to "neo-orthodoxy" beginning with his (supposedly) pivotal little book "Anselm: Fides quaerens intellectum: Anselm's Proof of the Existence of God in the Context of His Theological Scheme," published in 1931. In this three-phase view, Barth's 13-volume magnum opus "Church Dogmatics" represents a rejection of dialectical theology (especially as set forth in his first attempt at writing a systematic theology, "Die christliche Dogmatik," 1928) and a turn toward "objectivity" and a doctrine and method of analogy (neo-orthodoxy).

Now, however, Princeton theologian Bruce McCormack queries the consensus account of Barth's theological method in this revision of his Princeton doctoral dissertation. Thanks to the detailed, meticulous, sometimes laborious exposition of Barth's early works contained in McCormack's volume, we have an alternative paradigm to consider.

According to McCormack, once Barth broke decisively with liberal theology (specifically with his mentor Wilhelm Herrmann) in 1915, and especially after the publication of the first edition of his study of Romans in 1918, there were no further major shifts or turning points in his theological development: "Barth's theological development from this point on represented a more-or-less continuous unfolding of a simple theme: God is God. No further major breaks in his thought would take place."

This "continuous unfolding" of Barth's postliberal theology is described by McCormack as "critically realistic dialectical theology," by which he means a theology that is governed by the assumption that God's self-revelation is both veiled and unveiled at the same time. It comes to us in human-historical form and yet is never "given" into human experience as a possession.

Barth's new paradigm differed from the two major alternatives in Western Protestant theology—liberal and conservative—in significant ways. In contrast to liberal theology, Barth's governing assumption emphasized the genuine unveiling of God's self in divine revelation. Liberal theology tended to see revelation as indirect—coming through historically conditioned cultural movements and experiences. The absoluteness of God's revelation slipped away in the liberal emphasis on historical relativity. According to Barth, God really comes and reveals himself in Jesus Christ and the Word of God that centers on him. God's revelation is God's self-communication.

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December 11 1995, Vol. 39, No. 14