ABSTRACT
It has long been suggested by commentators that the doctrine of the resurrection held a formative place in Barth's theological understanding. Few interpreters have taken at face value Barth's assertions regarding the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ for his thinking. Barth's appreciation of the radical severity of the death of human creaturely existence in the death of Jesus Christ and of the astonishing reality of the effective transition of reconciled being and action from Jesus Christ to others in his resurrection is often treated as an odd and inessential digression in Barth's otherwise tight and integrated exposition. A large number of analyses come up short by dwelling upon the historical question, often falsely construing Barth's inversion of the order of the historical enterprise and the resurrection of Jesus as an aspect of his historical skepticism. The resurrection tradition reveals the inherent incapacity of theoretical and practical reason to provide principles for the interpretation of history.
