Abstract

The early theology of Karl Barth exhibits a seemingly incongruous emphasis on concepts like “origins” and “memory,” which would seem to suggest a point of contact between God and humanity. Although memory and anticipation are both ambiguous and tend towards self-reference, this article suggests that revelation is mediated through this ambiguity in Barth's theology through the early 1930s. Recollection can legitimately function as the basis of individual and ecclesial anticipation only when it is interpreted through the lens of the character of God. Although this language largely disappears by the Church Dogmatics, this article argues that the early tension between memory and anticipation is gradually eclipsed but remains a crucially neglected foundation to Barth's later thought.