A new study of the ethical thought of one of this century's greatest and most influential theologians, Karl Barth. The book relates Barth's ideas to contemporary ideas in religious ethics - including the problem of war, the ethical roles of the Bible and the Church, human freedom, and individual and corporate morality.

This book offers a fresh and up-to-date account of the ethical thought of Karl Barth, one of the twentieth century's greatest theologians. In it, the author seeks to recover Barth's ethics from some widespread misunderstandings, and also presents a picture of it as a whole. Drawing on recently
published sources, Biggar construes the ethics of the Church Dogmatics as it might have been had Barth lived to complete it. However, The Hastening that Waits is more than apology and description. For it recommends to contemporary Christian ethics the theological rigor with which Barth expounds the
good life in terms of the living presence of God-in-Christ to his creatures; his conception of right human action as that which is able to hasten in the service of humanity precisely by waiting prayerfully upon God; and his discriminate openness to moral wisdom outside the Christian church. Among
particular topics treated are: the concepts of human freedom and of created moral order; moral norms and their relation to individual vocation; the relative ethical roles of the Bible, the Church, philosophy, and empirical science; moral character and its formation; and the problem of war.

an excellent introduction to the complexities of Barth's ethics