Seminar: Karl Barth on the word of God

An Asharite Muslim’s readingWe are pleased to welcome Dr Aref Ali Nayed for a special seminar reflecting on Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Dr Nayed is a long-term friend and advisor of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme. An erudite Muslim theologian, he is also director of Kalam Research & Media.

Abstract

The ‘Theology of the Word of God’ is the very foundation of Karl Barth’s monumental Church Dogmatics, and has been the focus of a massive number of Christian readings and commentaries. 

In this Seminar, Dr Aref Ali Nayed, as an Asharite Muslim theologian (Mutakallim), following the school of Imam al-Juwayni and his Irshad, offers a Muslim’s reading of the first two volumes of the Church Dogmatics. 

Barth’s approach to the ‘Word of God’ will be juxtaposed to al-Juwayni’s approach to ‘Divine Speech’ (Kalam Allah). The contemporary notions of competence/performance, speech-acts, transformative utterance, and God-talk will also be invoked in order to illuminate the juxtapositions.

About the speaker

Dr Aref Ali Nayed is a former Libyan Ambassador and Envoy, and Chairman of Kalam Research & Media (KRM) and the Libya Institute for Advanced Studies (LIAS). He is Senior Advisor to the Cambridge Interfaith Programme; Higher Academic Council Member of the Mohamed Bin Zayed University for Humanities, UAE; and Fellow of the Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute in Jordan.

He was Professor at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (Rome), and the International Institute for Islamic Thought and Civilization (Malaysia). He received his BSc in Engineering, MA in the Philosophy of Science, and a PhD in Hermeneutics from the University of Guelph (Canada). 

His published works include: The Mediterranean: Reason, Faith, and Civility (with Dr Wael Farouq, 2022); Radical Engagements: Essays on Religion, Extremism, Politics, and Libya (2017); Vatican Engagements: A Muslim Theologian’s Journey in Muslim-Catholic Dialogue (2016); Operational Hermeneutics: Interpretation as the Engagement of Operational Artifacts (2011); Growing Ecologies of Peace, Compassion and Blessing: A Muslim Response to ‘A Muscat Manifesto’ (2010); and Duties of Proximity: Towards a Theology of Neighborliness (2010), among others.

All are welcome to attend.