Passion for gift: The asymmetrical reciprocity between divine presence and human freedom in Barth's doctrine of revelation

In this dissertation, I will investigate the economy of God's presence in which God's difference and human freedom edify mutually each other without monistic identity and binary opposition. Against the backdrop of Derrida's thought of differance/the aporetic gift and Marion's thought of givenness/the excessive gift, I make the argument that Barth's doctrine of revelation is the quest for the paradigm of God's presence in which God's alterity or mystery edifies human freedom without mutual identity. That is, contra the modern economy of identity without difference between God's presence and human freedom, Barth's conception of revelation is the economy of difference between God's presence and human freedom. I pay attention to Barth's tackling of the theological problem of direct communication or immediacy via self-consciousness to which the modern conception of religion and the analogia entis gives rise. Derrida's thought of differance and Marion's thought of givenness also amount to the investigation of the economy of presence with difference without full presence. I attempt to make a formal convergence, with their thematic divergence in mind.;Meanwhile, I try to interpret Barth's shift from earlier dialectics to later analogically-oriented dialectics in terms of the move toward asymmetry for reciprocity from away mere asymmetry between God and humanity. Specifically Barth's concept of a divine sign-giving and the analogia fidei shows Barth's painstaking endeavor to shield God's difference from the dream of the full presence of the self-positing "I" and thereby making a sound mutuality in the God-human relationship possible. Furthermore, I attempt to show the architecture of asymmetry for reciprocity in an analogical thinking of Barth's later vision of "true religion," "the-anthropology," and "analogical ethics" after revelation. Thus, for Barth, the asymmetrical architecture of God's self-giving in terms of indirect and mediated analogy does not aim to threaten or reduce human freedom but to create the corresponding symmetrical yet reciprocal architecture of human hermeneutical and ethical responsibility. In this respect, contrary to a standard criticism, Barth's asymmetrical architecture of God-human relation does not intend to oppose God to humanity, but to ground a possibility of genuine reciprocity and partnership based upon an honor for the difference of God.