“By now Barth’s objection to Catholicism should also be clear: he accuses it of possessing an overarching systematic principle that is merely an abstract statement about the analogy of being and not a frank assertion that Christ is the Lord. The principle presupposes that the relationship between God and creature can already be recognized in our philosophical foreunderstanding (of natural theology). This means that God’s revelation in Jesus Christ seems to be but the fulfilment of an already existing knowledge and reality. Perhaps this need not imply a metaphysics that sets itself above faith itself, but Christ’s place as the fulfulment of salvation history is still reserved “in advance’: in an ontology that exists prior to the order of revelation and cannot be shattered by it” (p. 37).

The same criticism applies to the dominant theology of Barth’s early days, Liberal Protestantism. The strong rhetoric by Barth must be seen in the context of his struggle with a ‘natural theology’ that was hijacked by the Nazis. Some allowance for the ‘lesser lights’ was made later in his Church Dogmatics vol 4.

Note we are merely discussing the function of analogical language at the formal level. Theologizing can only be valid when it is rooted in concrete revelation in Christ exemplified by Barth’s Christocentricity – a Christocentricity that is Trinitarian