Liberating God: Human Freedom in Barth and Cone

ABSTRACT This essay considers the issue of human freedom in the theologies of Karl Barth and James Cone. It will become evident that Barth sees human freedom as derivative of the liberative work of the God who loves in freedom. This understanding of human freedom subverts philosophically inflected versions of human freedom which tend to see self determination as something inherent to human existence. Without denying the need for a freedom grounded in divine action, Cone presses for an understanding of human freedom which is expressed in the particular situation of an oppressed black community embracing socio-political liberation from a society that would seek to deny them of it. The essay concludes that wholesale rejections of Eurocentric theologies fail to pay attention to complicated dynamics of how those working within that tradition are offering critical appraisals of it.