spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

physical healing is such an inactive gift, which means that Kuyper supports the cessationist
position.
6.2.3 Karl Barth
Karl Barth’s crucial meaning for Reformed theology is undisputed. He was the leading
Protestant theologian in the twentieth century, and all theologians who came after him had to
relate to his theology in one way or the other (Webster 2000:1; Grenz 2004:34; Hardy 2005:39).
One of Barth’s major contributions is the retrieval of a Trinitarian focus in Protestant theology:
the doctrine of the Trinity is not a separate doctrine within his systematic approach, but the
doctrine of the Trinity permeates and defines the whole of his theology. With the rediscovery
and thorough development of the Trinitarian perspective, Barth places the doctrine of the Trinity
on the (ecumenical) agenda again (Jenson 1989:47). Since then, there have been many
publications in relation to Barth’s Trinitarian theology (see for example Habets & Tolliday
2011).
Spirit and the Trinity
Barth develops his doctrine of God along Trinitarian lines: the Trinitarian God discloses his
identity on the basis of his revelation as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. With his doctrine of the
Trinity, Barth resists anthropological tendencies in church and modern Protestant theology, and
his account of the relation of God with humanity is based on the idea that the self-revealing God
is to be centralized. Barth does not want to start with human experience as knowledge about
God, but with the God who has revealed himself to creation in his Word, in Jesus Christ, because
only through this self-revelation of God is it possible for a human being to speak about God
(Grenz 2004:35).
Barth’s retrieval of the doctrine of the Trinity implies that his thought about the Holy Spirit is
fully determined by the Trinitarian frame of his theology. He indicates that “the Father
represents, as it were, the divine Who, the Son the divine What, and the Holy Spirit the divine
How” (CD 1.2, 33). The core of God’s self-revelation is God the Son, who reveals the Father and
reconciles sinful creation with the Father. This is the objective side of revelation. In contrast, the
subjective side of revelation, the way in which a person receives faith, is the Holy Spirit: “This
special element in revelation is undoubtedly identical with what the New Testament calls the
Holy Spirit as the subjective side in the event of revelation” (CD 1.1, 449). The Spirit is the One
who represents God in creation, and who makes man susceptible to God’s self-revelation. The
Spirit is God himself, because the Spirit discloses God; the Spirit is “the concretization of what is
shared between the Father and the Son” (Grenz 2004:46). According to Barth, God’s inner-
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