Karl Barth and Orthodoxy   Abstract   This article examines the theological classification of Karl Barth as a progenitor of Neo-Orthodoxy through the lens of Cornelius Van Til's presuppositional apologetics, positing that Barth's dialectical theology, despite its apparent reclamation of Reformed motifs, constitutes a subtle departure from historic orthodoxy by integrating Kantian antinomies and Hegelian paradoxes into the architecture of divine revelation. Drawing on Van Til's seminal critiques in Christianity and Barthianism (1964) and cognate works, five paradigmatic examples are adduced: (1) the paradoxical indirection of revelation, eviscerating propositional clarity; (2) Christological actualism, which effaces the “Logos asarkos” and Chalcedonian distinctions; (3) the devaluation of historical temporality, rendering redemptive acts as mere dialectical veils; (4) the existential subordination of scriptural authority to subjective kerygma; and (5) the erosion of the Creator-creature antithesis via immanentist conflation. These deviations, Van Til contends, engender a “new modernism” that feigns confessional fidelity while capitulating to autonomous epistemology, thereby domesticating the sovereign God to creaturely horizons and undermining the analogia fidei. In conclusion, Barth's Neo-Orthodoxy emerges not as heresy “simpliciter” but as insidious subterfuge, compelling orthodox theologians to reaffirm the axiomatic primacy of God's accommodated self-disclosure as the unbreachable bulwark against noetic rebellion. This analysis underscores the enduring pertinence of presuppositional critique in safeguarding the “sola Scriptura” against dialectical encroachments.   Introduction   From a Van Tillian vantage point, Karl Barth's dialectical theology, while ostensibly retrieving elements of Reformed heritage, fundamentally undermines the presuppositional integrity of historic Christian orthodoxy by accommodating modern philosophical dualisms and existential paradoxes. Cornelius Van Til, in his sustained engagement with Barth, most notably in The New Modern Theology (1932) and Christianity and Barthianism (1964), contends that Barth's system, though cloaked in orthodox terminology, represents a “new modernism” that erodes the Creator-creature distinction, the objectivity of revelation, and the analogia fidei. This renders Barth's project rightly classifiable as Neo-Orthodox: a paradoxical retrieval that feigns continuity with the patristic and confessional traditions while surreptitiously capitulating to Kantian antinomies and Hegelian dialectics. Below, five emblematic departures from orthodoxy are delineated, each illuminated through Van Til's critical lens.   1. The Epistemology of Divine Revelation as Paradoxical and Indirect: Barth's conception of revelation, confined to the singular "event" of Christ and mediated solely through faith, the kerygma of the church, and the existential witness of Scripture, precludes any direct, propositional apprehension of God. Van Til excoriates this as a Kantian residue, wherein God remains "wholly other" in an unknowable noumenal realm, rendering human knowledge of the divine a mere limiting concept rather than a sovereignly accommodated self-disclosure. Orthodox Reformed theology, by contrast, upholds Scripture's perspicuity and God's analogical self-revelation as apprehensible by the regenerate mind, thereby safeguarding the noetic effects of sin without descending into irrational fideism.   2. Christological Actualism and the Denial of the Logos Asarkos: Barth's insistence that the eternal Logos exists only in its hypostatic union with humanity, eschewing any pre-incarnate, aseity-grounded subsistence, effectively collapses the eternal triunity into the temporal economy of reconciliation. For Van Til, this actualism not only negates the Chalcedonian affirmation of the two natures in eternal distinction but also identifies God exhaustively with His revelation, leaving no “antecedent” divine reality beyond the Christ-event. Such a move, Van Til argues, domesticates the Creator to the creature's horizon, inverting the orthodox taxis of divine procession and inverting the hypostatic union into a modalistic cipher.   3. The Devaluation of History and Temporal Revelation: By exalting God's transcendence to the point of rendering the created order “condemned” and human history ontologically inconsequential, Barth's theology consigns temporal events, including the incarnation and resurrection, to mere parabolic veils of an eternal dialectic. Van Til perceives this as an overreaction to liberal immanentism, but one that eventuates in anti-theism: revelation becomes superfluous, as the “wholly other” God dialectically negates any rootedness in historical time. Orthodoxy, per Van Til, integrates transcendence and immanence covenantally, affirming God's revelatory acts as historically objective and redemptively efficacious, contra Barth's ahistorical paradox.   4. The Existential Subordination of Scriptural Authority: Barth's doctrine of Scripture posits that the Bible “becomes” the Word of God only in the subjective moment of encounter, repudiating plenary verbal inspiration in favor of a christologically conditioned kerygma. Van Til indicts this as a wholesale rejection of the orthodox “sola Scriptura”, wherein the text's propositional truth-value oscillates between veridical and illusory based on existential flux, engendering skepticism akin to Kierkegaardian leaps. In Reformed confessionalism, Scripture's inerrancy and sufficiency stand as the axiomatic presupposition of theology, unmediated by dialectical ambiguity.   5. The Erosion of the Creator-Creature Distinction through Dialectical Immanentism: Influenced by Hegelian and Kantian syntheses, Barth's system neutralizes the qualitative chasm between God and creation by elevating both to an eternal, supra-temporal dialectic, wherein humanity participates quasi-divinely in the Christ-event. Van Til contends that this surreptitiously reinstates the immanentist pantheism of Schleiermacher and Ritschl, under the guise of transcendence, by denying God's self-sufficient aseity apart from revelation. Orthodox theism, Van Til maintains, presupposes an absolute ontological antithesis, resolvable only through gracious accommodation, not dialectical conflation, a bulwark that Barth's Neo-Orthodoxy fatally breaches.   In summation, the quintessential error of Neo-Orthodoxy, as unmasked by Van Til's presuppositional critique, resides not in overt heresy but in its insidious dialectical subterfuge, a feigned retrieval of Reformed orthodoxy that, through paradoxical indirection and existential accommodation, capitulates to the autonomous epistemology of modern philosophy, thereby corroding the foundational antithesis between divine self-revelation and human rebellion. Barth's system, for all its rhetorical grandeur, domesticates the sovereign God to the creature's horizon, conflating the eternal taxis of the Trinity with temporal contingencies and subordinating propositional truth to subjective encounter, thus engendering a theology of crisis that masquerades as confession while surreptitiously reinstating the immanentist antinomies of Kant and Hegel. Far from fortifying the faith once delivered, Neo-Orthodoxy erects a house of cards on the sands of irrationalism, compelling the orthodox theologian to reaffirm, with unwavering fidelity, the Creator-creature distinction as the unassailable bulwark of all sound doctrine, in which God's Word stands as the axiomatic light piercing the noetic darkness of sin.   An Addendum: Can a well-trained, discerning Christian find any value in Barth’s works?    Indeed, a discerning Christian, particularly one steeped in the Reformed tradition and attuned to Van Til's presuppositional safeguards, can derive substantial value from Karl Barth's oeuvre, provided such engagement is undertaken with critical vigilance against its dialectical encroachments upon the Creator-creature distinction and propositional revelation. Barth's theology, for all its neo-orthodox paradoxes, serves as a robust bulwark against the anthropocentric dilutions of nineteenth-century liberalism, reasserting God's sovereign “No” to human religiosity and the primacy of divine initiative in revelation.   These corrections herein echo Calvin's insistence on the sola gratia without the mediating corruptions of Schleiermacher or Ritschl. His unrelenting Christocentrism, wherein all doctrine orbits the hypostatic union as the Verbum Dei incarnatum, fosters a theology of unrelieved wonder at the deus absconditus who elects in freedom, offering evangelicals a deepened appreciation for the scandal of particularity amid cultural accommodations. Moreover, Barth's ecclesial emphasis on the church as creatura verbi, summoned to faithful witness rather than cultural synthesis, invigorates confessional fidelity in an age of therapeutic gnosticism, as recent Reformed interlocutors attest in their homages to his dogmatic rigor alongside figures like T.F. Torrance. Yet this value accrues only through the lens of orthodoxy's axiomatic commitments: Barth illumines like a flawed lantern, casting shadows that demand the unyielding light of Scripture's perspicuity to dispel them. In this discerning retrieval, the Christian theologian not only fortifies against error but enriches the analogia fidei, beholding anew the triune God's gracious condescension.   It should be noted that Barth strongly denounced Nazism, most notably through his pivotal role in drafting the Barmen Declaration of 1934, a confessional stand by the Confessing Church that repudiated the Nazi-aligned “German Christians” and their idolatrous fusion of the gospel with Führerprinzip. This act of theological resistance not only incurred his expulsion from his professorship at Bonn but also galvanized Protestant opposition amid the Third Reich's Gleichschaltung.   For those who would argue that Barth should not be studied, would they also say that Plato and Aristotle should not be studied?     The above article was Groked under the direction of Jack Kettler and perfected using Grammarly AI. Using AI for the Glory of God!   “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)   Mr. Kettler, an author who has published in the Chalcedon Report and Contra Mundum, is an active member of the RPCNA in Westminster, CO, and has 22 books defending the Reformed Faith available on Amazon.