ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the significance of Bruce L. McCormackBarth's "conceptual redescription" for theological ethics. Barth acknowledges that Lordship through a style of moral inquiry which corresponds to it and resists reduction to alternative sources of authority. Barth proceeds with his theological ethics in a manner that crucially incorporates two features. First, he often construes its biblical basis in terms of a realistic narrative of God's covenant with Israel and Jesus that implicates entirely humanity and its understanding of itself and the world it inhabits. Second, Barth as a matter of fact was "about the business of conceptual description". The justification requirement, though essential, belongs somewhat more to the periphery of the ethics of divine command. For Barth one's discernment of what is morally required of him or her and hence the hearing of the divine command depends upon an apprehension of the reality of God's Yes relative to the specific moral issue at hand, and as it encounters finite, fallen humanity.
