Karl Barth and the Analogia Entis (T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology, 6)

As a Protestant, and particularlyl as someone not at all well-versed in Philosophy and Metaphysics, I found this book really helpful, as I read Przywara's Analogia Entis -- imminently readable!

Admittedly, this review is to counteract the injustice of a previous review entitled "Wrong against." That review is the most absurd series of ad hominems and pseudo-scholarly antics. I adjure you, good reader, to read that review for yourself and ask yourself if there is any actual and substantive interaction with even one argument of Johnson's study of Karl Barth and the Analogia Entis.That being said, Johnson's treatment of Karl Barth and the Analogia Entis is both lucid and exceedingly well researched. This book is a product of his dissertation under the guidance of George Hunsinger and Bruce McCormack, both of whom are the foremost scholars of Barth in North America and both of whom endorse Johnson's book. He provides helpful background to the nature of the debate between Barth and Przywara and he persuasively problematizes the common interpretation that Barth simply misunderstood the analogia entis. Below, I have provided the claims that Johnson will be defending. Whether Johnson's arguments prove persuasive I leave to the reader to decide. And let none who read reviews instead of the book undertake to answer him.Johnson's claims, which he will be defending throughout the book, are stated as follows: "Two claims will be defended. FIRST, I will argue that Barth’s rejection of Przywara’s analogia entis is not the result of a mistaken interpretation. That is to say, Barth understood the analogia entis accurately and he rejected it on grounds that are theologically coherent and justified. His rejection was neither ‘demented’ nor based on a ‘scant understanding’ of the principle, but rather, it was a well-reasoned and consistent rejection stemming from valid theological concerns that make sense within the context of Barth’s own theological development and his Protestant commitments...""The SECOND claim of the book will build upon the insights gained in the first part. The central argument will be that, while Barth never changed his mind about his rejection of Przywara’s analogia entis, he did change his response to the analogia entis in three ways. First, he drops his polemic against the analogia entis because he becomes convinced that the Roman Catholic description of it has changed. Specifically, Söhngen and von Balthasar convince Barth that Przywara’s interpretation of the analogia entis is not the Roman Catholic interpretation, and Barth came to believe that their accounts of the analogia entis were built, in part, upon insights that he had given them. Second, Barth acknowledges that his analogia fidei necessarily implies a participation in ‘being’, and that he must account for a ‘participation in being’ in his theology. However, because his account of this ‘participation in being’ stands in line with the same distinctions that he used to justify his initial rejection of the analogia entis, it does not mark a change of mind about that rejection. Third, Barth’s view develops because, in his mature theology, he finally accepts that there is a relationship of ongoing continuity between God and humanity. His account of this divine–human continuity does not correspond to Roman Catholic accounts, however, because while Catholic accounts are based upon the notion that God’s act of reconciliationin Jesus Christ presupposes God’s prior act in creation, Barth’s account works in reverse: for him, the human as created stands in continuity with the human in grace precisely because Jesus Christ’s justification of sinners is the condition of the possibility of creation. This means that what humans know of God and themselves through reflection upon their created nature is not the precondition for the fulfilled and perfected knowledge that they have by means of God’s revelation in Christ; rather, because what humans are internally is, at every moment in time, a function of the external, justifying relation of God to them in Jesus Christ, this relation is something that can be known through the revelation of Christ alone. Barth’s mature account of divine–human continuity, therefore, does not mean that he has adopted a version of the analogy he initially rejected, but rather, it stands as the strongest possible rejection of such an analogy, because nothing at all like that analogy is conceivable on Barth’s terms" (pp. 9-11).

Johnson has provided Barth studies with a definitive work on the question of Karl Barth and the analogy of being / analogia entis. He demonstrates that Barth's criticism of this notion is deeply rooted in Barth's broader reformational commitments. Further, Johnson demonstrates that Barth did not change his mind on this question, as many have argued in the past. It is a must read for anyone interested in Barth, or in the intersection of Protestant and Catholic theology. Surf to my blog, "Der Evangelische Theologe," to learn more about this volume.