This work demonstrates the significance of Karl Barth's Christology by examining it in the context of his orientation toward the classical tradition - an orientation that was both critical and sympathetic. To compare this Christology with the doctrine's history, Sumner suggests first that the Chalcedonian portrait of the incarnation is conceputally vulnerable at a number of points. By recasting the doctrine in actualist terms - the history of Jesus' lived existence as God's fulfillment of His covenant with creatures, rather than a metaphysical uniting of natures - Barth is able to move beyond problems inherent in the tradition. Despite a number of formal and material differences, however, Barth's position coheres with the intent of the ancient councils and ought to be judged as orthodox. Barth's great contribution to Christology is in the unapologetic affirmation of 'the humanity of God'.

The most comprehensive scholarly survey of Karl Barth’s theology ever published Karl Barth, arguably the most influential theologian of the 20th century, is widely considered one of the greatest thinkers within the history of the Christian tradition. Readers of Karl Barth often find his work both familiar and strange: the questions he considers are the same as those Christian theologians have debated for centuries, but he often addresses these questions in new and surprising ways. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Karl Barth helps readers understand Barth’s theology and his place in the Christian tradition through a new lens. Covering nearly every topic related to Barth’s life and thought, this work spans two volumes, comprising 66 in-depth chapters written by leading experts in the field. Volume One explores Barth’s dogmatic theology in relation to traditional Christian theology, provides historical timelines of Barth’s life and works, and discusses his significance and influence. Volume Two examines Barth’s relationship to various figures, movements, traditions, religions, and events, while placing his thought in its theological, ecumenical, and historical context. This groundbreaking work: Places Barth into context with major figures in the history of Christian thought, presenting a critical dialogue between them Features contributions from a diverse team of scholars, each of whom are experts in the subject Provides new readers of Barth with an introduction to the most important questions, themes, and ideas in Barth’s work Offers experienced readers fresh insights and interpretations that enrich their scholarship Edited by established scholars with expertise on Barth’s life, his theology, and his significance in Christian tradition An important contribution to the field of Barth scholarship, the Wiley Blackwell Companion to Karl Barth is an indispensable resource for scholars and students interested in the work of Karl Barth, modern theology, or systematic theology.

This book raises in a new way a formerly central but recently neglected question in systematic theology: what is the divine motive for the incarnation? Throughout Christian history theologians have agreed that God's decision to become incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ was made necessary by humanity's fall from grace. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, the incarnation would not have happened. This position is known as "infralapsarian." In the 19th and 20th centuries, however, some major theological figures championed a "supralapsarian" Christology, arguing that God had always intended the incarnation, independent of "the Fall." Edwin van Driel offers the first scholarly monograph to map and analyze the full range of supralapsarian arguments. He gives a thick description of each argument and its theological consequences, and evaluates the theological gains and losses inherent in each approach. Van Driel shows that each of the three ways in which God is thought to relate to all that is not God DL in creation, in redemption, and in eschatological consummation DL can serve as the basis for a supralapsarian argument. He illustrates this thesis with detailed case studies of the Christologies of Schleiermacher, Dorner, and Barth. He concludes that the most fruitful supralapsarian strategy is rooted in the notion of eschatological consummation, taking interpersonal interaction with God to be the goal of the incarnation. He goes on to develop his own argument along these lines, concluding in an eschatological vision in which God is visually, audibly, and tangibly present in the midst of God's people.

For too long contemporary theology has downplayed the importance of holding together the incarnation and the resurrection when thinking theologically. Paul Molnar here surveys the place of these key doctrines in the thought of several influential theologians: Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, Thomas F. Torrance, John Macquarrie, Gordon Kaufman, Sallie McFague, Roger Haight, John Hick, and Wolfhart Pannenberg. Molnar demonstrates that whenever the starting point for interpreting the resurrection is not Jesus himself, the incarnate Son of the Father, then Christology and Soteriology are undermined because they are not properly rooted in a plausible doctrine of the Trinity. Fair, comprehensive, and balanced, Molnar's analysis, following Torrance and Barth, highlights the details of contemporary theology of the resurrection linked to the incarnation and maintains the necessity of the incarnation in its intrinsic unity with the resurrection as the beginning, rather than the end, of Christology.

In the last half of the 20th century, a consensus emerged that Christian theology in the Western tradition had failed to produce a viable doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and that Augustine's trinitarian theology bore the blame for much of that failure. This book offers a fresh rereading of Western trinitarian theology to better understand the logic of its pneumatology. Ables studies the pneumatologies of Augustine and Karl Barth, and argues that the vision of the doctrine of the Spirit in these theologians should be understood as a way of talking about participating in the mystery of God as a performance of the life of Christ. He claims that for both theologians trinitarian doctrine encapsulates the grammar of the divine self-giving in history. The function of pneumatology in particular is to articulate the human reception and enactment of God's self-giving as itself part of the act of God; this "self-involving" logic is the special grammar of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

How does an understanding of the non-human lead us to a greater understanding of the incarnation? Are non-human animals morally relevant within Christian theology and ethics? Is there a human ethical responsibility towards non-human animals? In Animals, Theology and the Incarnation, Kris Hiuser argues that if we are called to represent both God to creation, and creation to God, then this has considerable bearing on understanding what it means to be human, as well as informing human action towards non-human creatures.

This companion volume to T. F. Torrance's Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ presents the material on the work of Christ, centered in the atonement, given originally in his lectures delivered to his students in Christian Dogmatics on Christology at New College, Edinburgh, from 1952-1978.