Actuality and Provisionality
Eternity and Election in the Theology of Karl Barth
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
Following pastorates in Essex and South London, John Colwell taught Doctrine and Ethics at Spurgeon's College where he remains as Senior Research Fellow. In 2009, after fifteen years teaching at the college, he returned to local church ministry in Budleigh Salterton, Devon. John is married with two adult children. In addition to Actuality and Provisionality, John has also written Living the Christian Story: The Distinctiveness of Christian Ethics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001), Promise and Presence: An Exploration of Sacramental Theology (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2005), The Rhythm of Doctrine: A Liturgical Sketch of Christian Faith and Faithfulness (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2007), and Why Have You Forsaken Me?: A Personal Reflection on the Experience of Desolation (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2010).
John Colwell's scholarship provides him with the basis for some sharp observations about the more sweeping criticisms of Barth, and shows that this supposedly 'extreme' theologian produces a far more nuanced and subtle account of such topics as the relations of incarnation and atonement, creation and redemption, grace and freedom, than do those who have read and moved rapidly on to provide their own one-sided 'improvements'. Moltmann and Pannenberg, in particular, come in for interesting and pointed questioning.
Here is not, however, an uncritical celebration of Barth... The publication of this work is to be much welcomed as a valuable contribution to Barth scholarship.
-- Colin E. Gunton
From the Foreword