A skirmish in the early reception of Karl Barth in Scotland: the exchange between Thomas F. Torrance and Brand Blanshard

Abstract

With an introduction by Iain Torrance, this paper reproduces a series of letters in The Scotsman newspaper between T. F. Torrance and the distinguished American philosopher Brand Blanshard. This (at times highly contentious) exchange was occasioned by views expressed by Blanshard in his 1952 Gifford Lectures on Barth and Brunner and what he called their ‘theology of crisis’. The letters give a fascinating insight into the way this new theology was perceived in the English-speaking world at the time.