God after God

Robert Jenson's theological debut emerged from the intellectual ferment of the late 1960s, when the "death of God" theology had declared traditional theism obsolete and many theologians sought new ways to speak of divine reality. Writing as a young Lutheran scholar, Jenson turned to Karl Barth's revolutionary approach to divine revelation, arguing that Barth had already provided the theological resources needed to move beyond the sterile debates between classical theism and its secular critics.

Jenson contends that Barth's mature theology offers a radically temporal understanding of God that breaks free from the static categories of traditional metaphysics without falling into the nihilism of God's supposed death. He traces how Barth reconceived divine eternity not as timelessness but as the perfect temporality that encompasses and gives meaning to human history. This "God after God" is neither the distant deity of classical theism nor the absent God proclaimed by secular theologians, but the living God who meets humanity in the concrete events of revelation. Jenson argues that Barth's trinitarian theology, grounded in the narrative of Jesus Christ, provides a way forward that takes both human temporality and divine transcendence seriously. The work demonstrates how Barth's rejection of natural theology and his focus on God's self-revelation in Christ creates space for a genuinely biblical understanding of divine reality that speaks to contemporary concerns without capitulating to them.

This book established Jenson as a major interpreter of Barth and helped introduce American audiences to the revolutionary implications of Barthian theology for systematic thought. It remains valuable for its clear exposition of complex theological arguments and its demonstration of how engagement with Barth can illuminate contemporary theological problems. Readers seeking an accessible entry point into Barth's thought or those interested in how traditional Christian theology might respond to modern challenges will find this work illuminating, though those looking for detailed exegesis of Barth's Church Dogmatics should turn elsewhere.