Barth on Concursus

This chapter engages Karl Barth&s;s theology of concursus , demonstrating both his continuity with and advancement beyond the scholastic tradition. Engaging with figures such as Thomas Aquinas and Francis Turretin, who upheld concursus , Barth aligns himself with concurrentist accounts, rejecting occasionalism and mere conservationism by affirming the authentic and cooperative action of creatures alongside God&s;s sovereign and immediate activity. He maintains scholastic affirmations of God&s;s irreversibility and priority as first cause, while emphasizing the simultaneous, genuine action of secondary causes. Yet Barth&s;s innovation emerges clearly through his insistence on explicitly grounding concursus in God&s;s eternal election of grace revealed in Jesus Christ. Departing from abstract metaphysical descriptions of divine superiority, Barth argues that only a biblically authorized, covenantally determined, christological norm fully safeguards concursus against ideological distortions and theoretical deficiencies. By reframing divine concursus as fundamentally covenantal, Barth upholds the genuine freedom and particularity of creaturely agency without compromising divine supremacy, irreversibility, and distinction. In so doing, Barth elevates traditional scholastic categories into a richer theological vision of providence as cooperative divine-human action. This integration of historical scholastic insights with Barth&s;s christological norm firmly establishes him as a “scholastic of a higher order.”