Spiritual writings

For Karl Barth, all dogmatic work is spiritual. Thus, like Aquinas and other renowned theologians, Barth did not write an independent spiritual theology, but integrated spirituality into his dogmatic work.

Nevertheless, specific texts within Barth’s corpus are dedicated to spiritual matters and they form the basis of the material in this volume.

The selections draw widely from Barth’s commentary on Romans, Church Dogmatics, sermons, lectures, speeches, seminars, and his own prayer life.

They illumine for researchers, students, and the general reader the distinctiveness of Barth’s theology of Christian spirituality and the important contribution he makes to the wider traditions of Christian spirituality. To augment the primary sources, this volume also contains an introductory essay that comments on the selection of texts, sets Barth in his historical context, charts the development of his thought, and indicates the significance of spirituality to his theology (including drawing out the distinctively christological shape of his spiritual theology).

Each of the subsequent four sections will contain briefer introductions and a contextualizing introduction for each source. †