TRAMES 1, 1, 1997

Alar Laats The Trinity of the later Barth: a major shift?

Abstract

In this article I show a change in Barth's understanding of the Trinity. At first I describe the doctrine of the Trinity as it is in the framework of Barth's doctrine of the Word of God. After that I shall show the implicit concept of the Trinity in the framework of the doctrines of election, creation and reconciliation, i.e., in the later volumes of the "Church Dogmatics". I argue that the difference is due to Barth taking more seriously the "distance" and the "otherness" between the first and the second persons in the divine economy. At the end of the article I show that the change in the doctrine of the Trinity is accompanied with the change in Barth's understanding of revelation.

Alar Laats, PhD (Cantab), MA (Birmingham) is a lecturer in the Faculty of Theology, Tartu University.

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