Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 60:2 (Fall 1998)
Article: Barthian Epigoni: Thomas F. Torrance’s Barth-Reception
Author: Sebastian Rehnman

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Barthian Epigoni:
Thomas F. Torrance’s Barth-Reception

Sebastian Rehnman*

* Sebastian Rehnman is senior lecturer in systematic theology at Johannelund Theological Institute, Uppsala.

The reception of Karl Barth’s work was never consistent and comprehensive.1 In the Anglo-Saxon world it generally underwent a process of normalization through assimilation to local and traditional needs and criteria. In particular, Americans and Britons peeled off Barth’s dialectic and construed a predominantly neoorthodox conception. At an early stage English speaking theologians preferred Brunner, whereas Barth was mainly known through semi-popular works. In Scotland Barth received a warmer welcome than anywhere else through the work of John McConnachie, H. R. Mackintosh, John and Donald Baillie, and Thomas F. Torrance. Subsequently the spread

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of Barth’s work in the English speaking world was increasingly dependent on Scotland and its appropriation. Richard Roberts, for example, points to “the monumental labors of T. F. Torrance, whose commitment to Barth was massive and consistent.”2 “Torrance has [.. .] been responsible for the dominant interpretation of the mature work of Barth in Britain.”3 As a prominent Barth scholar and as editor of the English translation of Barth’s Church Dogmatics, Torrance has been extremely influential in the dissemination and understanding of Barth in the Anglo-Saxon world. His own reception of Barth is therefore of particular interest and this article is devoted to the Edinburgh professor’s interpretation of the German theologian. I intend first to set out his view of Barth and then evaluate his reading.4

The dissemination and understanding of Barth in the Anglo Saxon world was dependent on Torrance. His editorship of the English translation of Barth’s Church Dogmatics merits attention in itself, but what follows will be limited to Torrance’s Barth studies. His bibliography reveals a long interest in Barth.5 His first in-depth study was Karl Barth: An Introduction to His Early Theology 1910–1931.6 In Karl Barth, Biblical

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and Evangelical Theologian he has collected his later Barth scholarship.7 It should be noticed that this collection is not exhaustive, but since Torrance is a...