Abstract

Basing his detailed exposition of Barth's understanding of our knowledge of the divine existence chiefly on volume II, part 1 of the Church Dogmatics, this American Catholic scholar exhibits the thorough-going consistency of Barth's exclusively a prioristic approach, while indicating some fundamental difficulties for it, and arguing the superiority of the Thomist position. One of the fundamental issues discussed is whether God discloses himself only through special, "vertical" acts of grace, or whether, as the Thomists affirm, the abstractive power of the intellect, itself a gift of God, may not apprehend the radical dependence of all finite things on a first, unique, cause. The critical problem is whether or not the perfect certitude of faith demands a "sacrifice of the intellect," as Barth seems to contend.--P. K. J.