This work seeks to fill a lacuna in scholarship’s assessment of Barth as a Reformed theologian, namely his appropriation of Calvin’s theology throughout his lifetime. Sung Wook Chung provides a historical, theological and thematic analysis of Barth’s relationship with Calvin. The result is a careful and important study which portrays Barth’s stance towards Calvin as variously appreciative, ambivalent, and strongly critical.

The book is divided into two parts. Part One offers a theological and historical analysis of Barth’s engagement with Calvin in three separate stages: his student years through to the Safenwil pastorate (1904–21); the Göttingen Period (1921–25); and the Münster-Bonn Period (1925–35). Chung shows how Barth’s scanty interest in Calvin throughout his early education was gradually replaced with increasing engagement as he followed in the Reformer’s footsteps of weekly preaching and pastoring. He argues that the seeds of Barth’s ambivalence towards Calvin were sown in his 1922 Der Römerbrief II and his interaction with Calvin’s view of predestination. In these chapters some of Chung’s central contentions take shape: Barth’s relationship with Calvin consciously and constantly took the shape of interpreting some of the latter’s fundamental insights from the standpoint of the former’s own dialectical presuppositions. The question is raised (and often answered in the negative) as to whether Barth’s interpretation of Calvin is faithful to Calvin. This section of the book is at times a bit pedestrian as Chung works through quote after quote by Barth containing reference to Calvin, although the organisation and analysis of the material is clear and accessible. Part Two offers an extremely interesting treatment of two themes in the Church Dogmatics and the role Calvin plays in Barth’s formulations—the doctrine of the knowledge of God and the relationship between Law and Gospel. On both topics, Chung provides a carefully argued outine of how Barth appreciated Calvin’s position, in places creatively re-appropriated it, in some places misunderstood it, and in other places explicitly rejected it.

Of course, to argue that Barth fundamentaly misinterpreted Calvin on some points (for example, on natural knowledge of God) is a controversial position not shared by those who wish to claim Barth as a thoroughly Reformed theologian. However, it seems cogent here. Probably the most important feature of Chung’s book is his overall contention that Barth has to be understood as both a thoroughly anti-modern andthoroughly modern theologian who actually engaged in the theological task while presupposing the legitimacy of certain key features of Kantian epistemology. Simply put, this means that Barth has certain philosophical presuppositions controlling both his exegesis and his reading of Calvin—to give an example, his view that Scripture cannot itself be revelation is simply a result of accepting the Kantian premise that nothing natural or phenomenal can be a source of knowledge of the supernatural or noumenal. This highlights the central question of intellectual contexts and the fruitlessness of debating Barth’s status as a Reformed theologian without careful consideration of the context Barth was operating in, the challenges he was seeking to address, and the differences from Calvin’s corresponding challenges and context. In this regard, two final observations: Chung’s case that Barth is indebted to Kantian epistemology is largely made by reference to McCormack and, although it certainly seems to hold good in the cases in point, more argumentation and explicit evidence is needed to strengthen the case. Second, Chung classifies Calvin as pre-modern and Barth as modern. This oversimplifies intellectual history and in Chung’s analysis largely collapses modernity into the Enlightenment; it is arguably more correct to describe Calvin as early modern and Barth as late modern.