Barth and Mediaeval Theology

Mediaeval works of theology are frequently cited throughout Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Yet, with the exception of Anselm of Canterbury’s Proslogion, Barth shows little interest in engaging mediaeval works first-hand in his teaching or writing. This lifelong tendency to hold mediaeval theology at a distance springs from Barth’s critical judgement—first expressed in lectures in 1922 at the University of Göttingen—that the theology of the mediaeval era is by and large a ‘theology of glory’. Although Barth came to view Anselm as an important exception to this judgement by the time of Fides quaerens intellectum (1930), the question of whether he might have found further value in other mediaeval theologians deserves consideration.