Feeling in Karl Barth's Theology

An in-depth analysis of the function of feeling (Gefühl) in the development of Karl Barth’s theological anthropology in dialogue with Friedrich Schleiermacher’s theology. If feeling is recognised at all in Karl Barth’s theology, it is often treated as part of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s ‘feeling (Gefühl) of absolute dependence’ that Barth rejected when he broke with theological liberalism. This study offers a different and more nuanced account. It argues that feeling has been neglected in the interpretation of Barth’s theological understanding of the human being. Affect theory, which highlights changeable disposition and environmental attunement, is used to discover the ways in which the concepts of feeling and experience change as Barth’s theology develops. Templeton also offers a fresh angle on Barth’s complex relationship with the theology of Schleiermacher. Initially, as a young scholar of modern theology, Barth embraces Schleiermacher’s concept of feeling, claiming that Christ’s revelation is verified in the believer’s affection. Then, as a pastor shocked at the capitulation of the Church and Academy to Germany’s war ideology, Barth rejects feeling as the root of a subjective and experiential theology that evades the judgment of God’s Word. Finally, as a professor of theology, Barth rehabilitates feeling by de-coupling it from Schleiermacher’s account, proposing instead that human feeling (with knowing and willing) becomes an analogy of Christ’s self-determination through the Spirit’s baptising.