Introduction

This introduction sets forth the subject matter of the study, namely, Barth’s actualistic reorientation of Augustine’s ontology and hamartiology. Specific attention will be paid to the Swiss theologian’s emendatory employment of the thematic grammar underlying Augustine’s substantialist ontology and meontological account of sin. Barth’s critical use of Hegelian terms such as ‘determination’ (Bestimmung) and ‘actuality’ (Wirklichkeit) to redefine the originally substantialist nomenclature of Augustinian ontology will be a recurrent theme throughout this study. In this introduction as well as the rest of the book, the author shall argue against revisionist interpretations of Barth that the terms ‘Natur’ and ‘Wesen’ play an important role in what might in a carefully qualified sense be called Barth’s ‘actualistic ontology’, which critically, in basically Chalcedonian patterns, comprises both a process-historicist grammar of becoming and a substantialist grammar of being.