ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the limited nature of Barth's reception, and hinted at a critique of tendencies within contemporary Christian theology. It has sought to reassess the role of 'authoritative rhetoric' in Protestant tradition. The chapter argues that the Protestant account of Christianity's truth is rooted in its rhetorical performance of divine authority. Against the assumptions of recent thought, it has sought to affirm this basis, and so to defend this rhetorical idiom from charges of authoritarianism. The discourse of faith involves two voices, for it expresses the Word of God's encounter with human resistance. Theology in its purest form is simply a reflective expression of this agon. The chapter then discusses the impact of the Enlightenment on this rhetorical tradition. In Kierkegaard, it is on the defensive against the dominant discourses of human reason. His resistance to secular thought entails a rediscovery of the dialogical conception of faith.
