Karl Barth’s Calvin: A Weimar Prophet

Abstract

This chapter explores Karl Barth’s early reception of John Calvin at the time of his initial post-liberal engagement with classical Protestant authors. For Barth, the Genevan Reformer easily belonged in a pantheon of theologians that included Augustine, Thomas, Luther, and Schleiermacher. However, Barth’s Calvin was not antiquarian or historical but of thoroughly modern vintage, even romantic and modernist in certain respects. The chapter contends that Barth fashioned an image of Calvin in the tumultuous years of the Weimar Republic that was of thoroughly modern vintage. Although he immersed himself in primary sources, Barth’s presentation of the Reformer owed much to German romanticism as well as Weimar modernism, including such notable intellectuals as Hermann Hesse, Stefan Zweig, and Max Weber.