'Vivit! Regnat! Triumphat!': The prophetic office of Jesus Christ, the Christian life, and the mission of the Church in Karl Barth's 'Church Dogmatics' IV/3

This dissertation analyses the place and significance of Jesus Christ's munus propheticum in the theology of Karl Barth. While characteristic of Reformed christology, the dissertation argues that in Barth one finds a unique rendering of the prophetic office that integrates the understanding of Christ's person and work more fully than has characterized the tradition, with important implications for both christology and anthropology. By means of this office, Barth develops his understanding of humanity's knowledge of God as rooted in the risen Lord's ongoing self-manifestation through the power of the Holy Spirit. Barth thereby redresses modernity's and Liberal theology's concern for the conditions for the possibility of human knowledge of God not by epistemological consideration of the human but by reference to the being and activity of God in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit: as the risen Lord, Jesus Christ actively declares his reality as humanity enacted reconciliation with God.; The Introduction indicates the relation of the dissertation in Barth research. While a substantive aspect of Barth's christology, analysis of the role and function munus propheticum in Barth's theology is lacking. The impact of this lack of analysis is identified in several authors, and the research methodology to correct this lacuna is specified.; Chapters One and Two explore the context for Barth's understanding of the munus propheticum. Chapter Three analyzes the christological section proper of CD IV/3, § 69, in which Barth indicates the meaning and significance of Jesus' prophetic office. Whereas previous research on Barth's christology in CD IV has generally been restricted to the christological sections proper, Chapters Four and Five argue that the full meaning of the munus propheticum for Barth becomes evident only as one attends to the remainder of CD IV/3, §§ 70–73. In the Conclusion, attention returns to the four characteristics of Reformed theology's development of the munus propheticum. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...