Greetings!
In Karl Barth's early lectures on the Apostles' Creed, published as Credo, his third lecture is on "The Father Almighty." So we have arrived at the third email in this series.
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"The Father Almighty"
The conception "Almighty" receives its light from the conception "Father" and not vice versa. . . . God's omnipotence is not some power that we might be inclined to regard as omnipotence. It is the power of the Father that does not make itself known to us as omnipotence in abstracto but only as the omnipotence of the Father, and that means--in the Father's revealing Himself to us.
The first article of the Creed and, in particular, these initial constituents are in no respect a playground for Natural Theology. It is not as if we already of ourselves knew what "omnipotence" is, in order then to have to learn from revelation only this in addition--that God is the Almighty and that the name and character of "Father" fit him. On the contrary, the revelation of God the Father is as such also the revelation of His omnipotence, and it is from this revelation that we have first of all to learn what real omnipotence is. . . .
God is therefore in truth Father because and in so far as He is in truth the Father of Jesus Christ and with him the source of the Holy Spirit. Therefore and in so far can He be and is He our Father. It is grace and not nature (the nature of the relationship of God and man, already known to us) that we may call God "Father" in virtue of the knowledge of His omnipotence.
As indeed this knowledge also itself rests on God's revelation of His omnipotence. But the grace that, in virtue of His revelation of omnipotence, we dare know Him as Father and call Him Father, itself again rests on the truth that He in Himself from eternity to eternity is Father of the Son and with Him source of the Holy Spirit.
Karl Barth, Credo, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936), pp. 19-20, 25.
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 To learn more about the history and purpose of the Foundation, click on this link:
History and Purpose.
Thank you!Grace and Peace,
Dr. James C. Goodloe IV, Executive Director
Foundation for Reformed Theology
4103 Monument Avenue
Richmond, Virginia 23230
Better Preaching, Teaching, and Pastoral Care
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