Meticulously crafted by a father-son team of renowned systematic theologians, Beyond Immanence demonstrates that Kierkegaard and Barth share a theological trajectory—one that resists cynical manipulation of Christianity for political purposes in favor of uncompromising devotion to a God who is radically transcendent yet established kinship with humanity in time.
Beyond Immanence: The Theological Vision of Kierkegaard and Barth is available to order on Amazon , Barnes and Noble , Bookshop , and more.
What People Are Saying
“Alan Torrance and Andrew Torrance here remind us of the crucial importance of that theological trajectory that runs from Kierkegaard through Barth and on into our present.”
—Philip G. Ziegler , University of Aberdeen
“Even though Kierkegaard and Barth occupy center stage, this book speaks more to the present than the past. With the kind of creativity that comes only from deep learning, Alan Torrance and Andrew Torrance usher these two great modern thinkers into the fray of contemporary biblical studies, theology, and philosophy. The result is a powerful intervention in these disciplines, one ripe with possibilities for new dialogues within and among these disciplines.”
—Keith L. Johnson , Wheaton College
“ Beyond Immanence is a timely reminder that Barth and Kierkegaard were not geniuses, but apostles: people who know the transcendent God only because of what they have been told about Jesus Christ, the space-time incarnation of the Word of God.”
—Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Read an Excerpt
FROM THE FOREWORD
By Paul Martens
In developing the Kierkegaard-Barth trajectory, Alan and Andrew remind us that Kierkegaard and Barth both understood that, all too often, our talk of God is complicit with our social, cultural, and political arrangements. Arguing forcefully against idolatries of nationalism in different forms, both sought to point toward an “infinite qualitative difference” between humanity and God that is bridged only in the incarnation, the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Leaning heavily on Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments and Barth’s Church Dogmatics, Alan and Andrew energetically argue that only the incarnation provides the critical and constructive epistemic and semantic conditions for Christian talk of God which, in turn, radically reshapes our social and political arrangements “beyond immanence.” As such, this book about Kierkegaard and Barth is loaded, self-consciously, with contemporary ethical entailments.
When Stephen Evans and I first discussed this series many years ago, I could not imagine it without this volume. I feel the same today. Admittedly, I may be just a little biased, since it was Alan who first introduced me to Kierkegaard way back in the summer of 1995. In one sense, this book is the maturation and articulation of the themes and questions that exercised him in Philosophical Fragments and Works of Love already three decades ago. In another sense, this book is the natural outgrowth of Andrew’s focused attention to Kierkegaard’s account of what it means to become a Christian. In concert, Alan and Andrew have given us a gift of scholarship that points beyond itself to Kierkegaard and Barth and then beyond them to the self-giving God of grace that redeems and reconciles humanity through the incarnation.
From the Introduction
Søren Kierkegaard is one of the Christian thinkers mostly widely read among contemporary philosophers, yet few of the philosophers who read Kierkegaard are drawn to the thought of Karl Barth. This is because these two figures are, in many respects, worlds apart from one another. Yet they are also united to a profound degree by the convictions they share and in their responses to the common challenges they faced. Both believe that the triune God not only explains the existence of the contingent order but also defines what it means to be human. Both maintain that God draws humans into loving union with Godself in and through the person of Jesus Christ. And both figures expounded and developed these convictions in contexts where the academy was characterized by idealist and romantic notions of Christianity, and where the church had become bound to oppressive forms of establishment religion.
The aim of this book is to offer a close examination of several key theological ideas that connect the two thinkers, with an eye to presenting their mutual vision for the theological task. Many books have been written, and many more could be written, on how these thinkers engaged with the theological ideas just mentioned. However, we shall attend specifically to those ideas that Barth developed (directly or indirectly) under the influence of Kierkegaard. In doing so, we shall highlight the ways in which Barth developed and extended Kierkegaard’s trajectory, while also, in certain ways, departing from Kierkegaard. A key focus of this book is the profound sociopolitical relevance of the trajectory established by Kierkegaard and followed by Barth. Historically, this is especially relevant since Barth’s thought was hammered out on an anvil of political engagement, in a context where cultural religion was complicit in unprecedented moral evil. Beyond our interest in Kierkegaard and Barth, reflection on this trajectory is invaluable for helping us to challenge the ongoing potential for religion to endorse oppressive and marginalizing social practices and political commitments.
As we reflect on the historical and theological relationships between these two thinkers, it is important to be open about the limits of such an endeavor. We are inhibited by the fact that there was very little depth to Barth’s engagement with Kierkegaard; indeed, in many respects, his engagement with Kierkegaard was superficial. To lay out the obstacles facing this book, this introduction will begin with an analysis of Barth’s flawed reception of Kierkegaard, while also introducing some of the ways that Barth accurately appropriated Kierkegaard. In the second part of this introduction, we shall offer a preliminary comparison of their different theological projects. This will set the scene for us to engage more deeply with their respective approaches, concerns, and commitments. Finally, we shall conclude with an overview of the chapters of this book.
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