Introduction

If God is transcendent, how can human beings speak meaningfully about him? For centuries philosophers and theologians have asked whether and how it is possible to talk about God. The shared answer to this question goes by the name of analogy, which recognizes both similarity and difference between the divine being and human language.

Contemporary Debates

In the twentieth century, Karl Barth, Erich Przywara, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Eberhard Jüngel explored this question in new and controversial ways that continue to shape contemporary debates in theology.

The Book and Its Focus

In The Analogy of Faith: The Quest for God's Speakability, Archie Spencer examines the problem of analogy in its ancient, medieval and modern forms. He argues for a Christological version of Barth’s analogy of faith, informed by Jüngel's analogy of advent, as the way forward for Protestant theology in answering the problem of God's speakability.