This is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the theology of Karl Barth. George Hunsinger has provided the theological community with a new, refined vocabulary for analyzing Barth's (and others') theology. He expounds a number of characteristic thought patterns characteristic of Barth's theology (and which might give considerable trouble to the new reader) and makes them accessible. His study is very helpful in bringing out the coherence and import of Barth's work. Reading this book is a great aid in accessing Barth's theology (right up there with learning German!)

I got this book after I had been reading Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics for a year. Barth's writing is truly dense, and has led to many misunderstandings of him. This book has helped me to notice patterns that I had missed before. I read this book in parallel with Barth's treatment of divine election, and this book saved me from misinterpreting Barth as a universalist. In terms of practical use, I can't think of a better book.

Having taken a class from him, he is a truly brilliant teacher, and he has helped me to pay close attention to the text. One of the poverties in American theology is that the art of commentary has been lost. The medieval universities trained the Scholastic theologians by making them do close readings (lectio) of important texts (e.g. the Bible, Lombard's Sentences, etc.). Whether you agree with the Scholastics or not is one thing, but you cannot deny that the disciplined approach to theology led to some monumental achievements. Hunsinger's book is a tool to help you do that with Barth.

This book has two parts. The first part suggests six patterns that run throughout the Church Dogmatics (particularism, actualism, realism, personalism, rationalism and another one which I can't recall just now). The second part is a set of etudes on Barth's theology utilizing the 6 patterns. Hunsinger addresses the issue of double agency in Barth's soteriology, secular parables of the kingdom of God, his view of revelation, etc.

On a different subject, the other best secondary sources on Barth are Bruce McCormack's intellectual history of the pre-dogmatics Barth, John Webster's _Ethics of Reconciliation_ and Hans Urs Von Balthasar's classic study.

In Types of Christian Theology, Frei does not lay down any formal systematic of his own, but rather outlines the five major movements in Christian Theology. Type 1 is distinctively "outer"; that is, it looks at the Church from the outside and tries to justify beliefs in a propositional manner. Frei uses Kant and Kaufman as archetypical of this typology. Types 2 through 4 all have some similarities, namely, they all have elements of expressive-experientialism. Type 2 relies on David Tracy, Type 3 on Schleirmacher, and Type 4 on Barth. As we move towards Type 5, we become increasingly "inner" in our discussion of theology. That is, by the time we reach Type 5 and D.Z. Phillips, we are completely concerned with the inner workings of the Church and her doctrine, rather than judging her by external propositionalism (such as logic or philosophy in general). For Frei, Barth is the hero; here we find a theology that is distinctively inner in its workings, but recognizes that "you cannot ignore philosophy". For Barth, we must suppose logic and its rules to communicate effectively; however, when logic conflicts with faith, "so much the worse for logic".

For a good introduction into the typologies out there, this is an excellent text. Despite his obvious Barthian bias, Frei does a more than adequate job of presenting the arguments for and against each side. The books one flaw is in its conception: it was not written by Frei as a book, but rather a combination of essays compiled by his students posthumously.