Barth’s ”Göttingen Dogmatics” - §3: Deus Dixit (“God has spoken”)

We return to Barth’s first dogmatics lectures, and to the elaboration of one of his key theological concepts – both in this earlier period as well as throughout his later Church Dogmatics, although there it recedes into the background a bit despite continuing to be of foundational importance: Deus dixit, God has spoken.

This is part 4 of a multi-part series. You can find the series index here. Click here for the blog post corresponding to this episode, and click here to access this content on YouTube.

I begin the audio recordings by reading Barth’s Diktatsatz, so I will begin reproducing that here as well. The bold is mine and indicates where I find emphasis:

Christian preachers dare to speak about God. The permission and requirement to do so can rest only on their adoption of the witness of the prophets and apostles that underlies the church, the witness which is to the effect that God himself has spoken and that for this reason, and with this reference, they too must speak about God. This assumption can arise only because they take it that God’s address is directed to them as well. It means that with fear and trembling they recognize God as the true subject of the biblical witness and their own proclamation.

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