# Can anyone fill me in on Karl Barth?



## JennyG

I know nothing whatsoever about him, but I've just been talking to a student in the Divinity faculty of the local University.
She tells me that a very big deal is made of Barth by all her lecturers. They make grand sweeping claims for his genius and even more for his crucial, pivotal importance to modern Christian thinking. 
When I googled him I found him being described as "in the Reformed tradition".

My question is, how should a Reformed, that is Biblical, Christian view all this?
Sorry to be lazy, but I have no intention of reading it all up and judging for myself! (I've also been told that Barth is almost unreadable)
What I'm hoping for is an answer in very elementary terms, since the closest thing I have ever read to a modern textbook of theology was C S Lewis's non-fiction.
Thank you in advance!


----------



## rbcbob

Barth was the father of Neo-Orthodoxy. Opposed the liberalism of his day although his view of Scripture was itself, not orthodox.


----------



## Semper Fidelis

Jenny,

There are times when Barth sounds Reformed (and I think he might have thought of himself as Reformed). His theology has been described as "critical, dialectical, and realistic".

I think a lot of Evangelicals liked Barth because he came out of the liberal, critical movement and chastised the old liberals for downplaying the Word of God. He can be read for large swaths and sound Evangelical.

But, when you start to get underneath what he's really saying, you discover that he essentially denies the real history of revealed religion. The Word is not the Word because it is the record of God's revelation in real human history. Barth considered it pagan to think of the events in Scripture as events that happened in real history. Barth taught of revelation as becoming the Word in the event of interacting with it.

For instance, when asked whether the Serpent spoke, Barth would answer "What did the snake say?" It was unimportant to Barth whether there was a historical Fall but what the revelation was beneath the actual words. There are indications in Barth's writing as well that he believed that God had elected all men to salvation and many neo-Orthodox have seen their mission as making men aware of what has happened and indicated already in God's decision of Creation over Chaos.

I'll be honest with you, dialectical theology gives me a headache. It's an attempt to maintain the man-centered imposition that the noumenal cannot interact with the phenomenal. Barth's theology is an attempt to get over the gap created by Kantian philosophy that insists that God cannot interact in real human history. Consequently, every propositional truth in Scripture that shows God speaking or acting in history is cast into a dialectical form and the dependency between history and theology that is part of Revelation is rent asunder to get to the truth behind the history.

The Christian religion is historical. Barth's theology is a-historical. Barth's theology is not Christian.


----------



## Philip

> But, when you start to get underneath what he's really saying, you discover that he essentially denies the real history of revealed religion. The Word is not the Word because it is the record of God's revelation in real human history. Barth considered it pagan to think of the events in Scripture as events that happened in real history. Barth taught of revelation as becoming the Word in the event of interacting with it.



Are you talking about the early Barth or the later Barth? About 1932, his theology shifted with the writing of _Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum_. The later Barth took scripture much more seriously, saying that man cannot bridge the gap between the noumenal and phenomenal, but God can. His theology was an attempt to rid theological study of man attempting to find God and instead to depend on God's self-revelation in Christ as revealed in Scripture.

His theology is useful at times, but only if one is well-versed in Reformed theology already. I'm divided on whether he personally was saved, but there is much in his thought that is helpful. He is probably the closest post-Kantian theologian to orthodoxy (evangelical theologians aside).


----------



## JennyG

Thank you, all!
That's just what I wanted to know. I had a sneaking suspicion already that the darling of the modern academic theology departments could hardly be a reformed believer in any meaningful sense. Thanks for spelling it out in terms I can understand!



> The Christian religion is historical. Barth's theology is a-historical. Barth's theology is not Christian.


That says it all 

---------- Post added at 05:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:55 PM ----------

Philip, thanks. I hadn't seen yours when I wrote that last. I have no idea which Barth I'm referring to, I suppose to answer that I would have to interview the Divinity faculty at the University.
I understand that he's not likely to do me much good if I ploughed through him, and that's really all I need to know


----------



## jwright82

I have always enjoyed studying Barth but I don't recomend it to people without a good grasp of theology and maybe even philosophy. 
He tried to complete and go "beyond the reformers (especially Calvin)" and complete their reformation, which only took him outside Orthodoxy and closer to Rome. He has been labeled a modern eucumenical thinker, which is suspect in itself, between Protestantism and Catholecism. 
Also he made controversial reformulations of key doctrines, which took him supicously outside the bounds. I won't get into these doctrines but if you are curious of specific ones than just ask and me or someone else could probally answer your specific questions.
He did believe in the Trinity and the divinity and humanity of Christ. He seemd to affirm, at least basically, the Apostle's creed. But his views in other areas took outside the bounds of orthodoxy, like I said. He rejected liberal theology in a time when most instutions of learning were liberal so his thinking really resonated with people who were tired of liberalism but not comfortable with orthodoxy. He really is one of the most important thinkers in the 20th century as far as mainline theology goes, although like I said he was outside the bounds of orthodoxy. This might account for his popularity at the college you are refering to. I hope this helps.


----------



## jwithnell

I find neo-orthodoxy even more difficult to handle than liberalism, at least on the practical level of discussion with those whose training is in that tradition. Very orthodox sounding words can have very different meanings. I read a fair amount of this stuff as I was trying to get my theological house together as a young person. I kept sitting there thinking, this is so dense and difficult -- do I really need to understand this to be Christian?


----------



## LeeJUk

What University was this Jenny?


----------



## bouletheou

Wikipedia has a brief, but relatively adequate (though sympathetic) article on Barth. Here is one of the salient points:

One of the most influential and controversial features of Barth's Dogmatics was his doctrine of election (Church Dogmatics II/2). One thread of the Reformed tradition, following one interpretation of its most influential thinker, John Calvin, had long argued for so-called double predestination: that God chose some humans for salvation through Christ and others for damnation. These groups were respectively called the elect and the reprobate. This choice was the "eternal, hidden decree" of God, an absolute, mysterious and fundamentally inscrutable decision which, though it was a decision of ultimate consequence for the individual human, was fundamentally inaccessible and unknowable to him or her. God chose each person to either be saved or damned based on purposes of the Divine will, and it was impossible to know why God chose some and not others. The Puritans generally believed it was only after a long time of introspection that one could come to know whether God had elected or rejected oneself. Calvin himself taught that one could be assured of one's own salvation.
Barth's doctrine of election involves a firm rejection of the notion of an eternal, hidden decree. In keeping with his Christo-centric methodology, Barth argues that to ascribe the salvation or damnation of humanity to an abstract absolute decree is to make some part of God more final and definitive than God's saving act in Jesus Christ. God's absolute decree, if one may speak of such a thing, is God's gracious decision to be for humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. Drawing from the earlier Reformed tradition, Barth retains the notion of double predestination but makes Jesus Himself the object of both divine election and reprobation simultaneously; Jesus embodies both God's election of humanity and God's rejection of human sin. While some regard this revision of the doctrine of election as an improvement[11] on the Augustinian-Calvinist doctrine of the predestination of individuals, critics, namely Brunner[12], have charged that Barth's view amounts to a soft universalism.


----------



## Philip

I can't say a whole lot about Van Til's reading (as I haven't yet read Van Til on Barth) but do not read Schaeffer's take for an in-depth or fair analysis. Schaeffer reads Barth as the poster-child for all of 20th-century theology, which is unfair. If anything, Barth was more opposed to those who followed after than he was to the old liberals.

If there is an aspect of Barth's theology that we should admire, it is his focus on the Christological nature of theology. That is, Barth wanted to refocus all theology on the person and work of Christ. Did he believe in the literal resurrection? Yes, claiming that one cannot really believe in Christ if one does not believe in the literal resurrection.


----------



## sastark

Read *Cornelius Van Til, "Has Karl Barth Become Orthodox?" Westminster Theological Journal 16.2 (May 1954): 135-182.*. Then you will know whether or not Barth's theology was Christian or something else.


----------



## JennyG

All this gets more and more interesting - thanks again everyone.


> I read a fair amount of this stuff as I was trying to get my theological house together as a young person. I kept sitting there thinking, this is so dense and difficult -- do I really need to understand this to be Christian?


This was the thought that saved me (when I was young and clueless) from getting into the likes of Tillich, not that I read him but he was still very influential through the medium of that book that made such a sensation in the sixties - "Honest to God" by John Robinson. It made a sensation in Britain, anyway.
Lee, it was the Divinity faculty at St Andrews University I was referring to, once Samuel Rutherford's stamping ground.


----------



## Semper Fidelis

P. F. Pugh said:


> I can't say a whole lot about Van Til's reading (as I haven't yet read Van Til on Barth) but do not read Schaeffer's take for an in-depth or fair analysis. Schaeffer reads Barth as the poster-child for all of 20th-century theology, which is unfair. If anything, Barth was more opposed to those who followed after than he was to the old liberals.
> 
> If there is an aspect of Barth's theology that we should admire, it is his focus on the Christological nature of theology. That is, Barth wanted to refocus all theology on the person and work of Christ. Did he believe in the literal resurrection? Yes, claiming that one cannot really believe in Christ if one does not believe in the literal resurrection.


 
I suggest you read Van Til who critiques Barth and Brunner as a New Modernism.

To suggest that Barth somehow "recovers" a strong Christology because he wants to focus all theology on Christ belies the fact that his methodology is a-historical. The "flesh and blood" of real human history was not the interest of Barthian theology. Christian religion has always insisted not in a noumenal-phenomal distinction brought out by autonomous human reasoning but upon the Creator-creature distinction. We don't know things in themselves because God bridges a noumenal-phenomenal gulf but because we are in relation to a Creator Who reveals Himself and causes us to place our trust in a God Who knows comprehensively.

The Apostle Paul consider the historical death and resurrection of Christ so central in 1 Cor 15 that he said that we are most to be pitied if Christ be not raised. This is not a "Revelational Event" where we hear of such things and the Resurrection or Christ become "real" for us at a point of revelation. Rather, it is an external, verifiable fact that Christ stepped into real human history, walked on real dirt, bled real blood, died a physical death, and rose again with a body that could be touched. Barth would consider all those "facts" as inconsequential and would only consider the "event" to be important.

Barth should not be ignored due to his profound influence on 20th Century theology but I would never commend him to _anyone_ as a source for sound Christology.


----------



## Mushroom

Wait 'til Grymir finds this thread. He just LOOOVES Barth! He'll be soo excited! And plenty to say, too!


----------



## bouletheou

As a graduate of a PCUSA seminary and a former PCUSA minister, I find all of this excitement about Barth in the PCA to be more than a bit unsettling.

The good things that Barth had to say are really said better elsewhere. The bad things Barth had to say really damage the historic Christian faith.

The mainline Reformed were enamored with Barth in the 50's and 60's. I echo Martyn Lloyd Jones' sentiments when a bunch of his proteges discovered Barth. "NeoOrthdoxy is not orthodoxy."


----------



## MW

sastark said:


> Read *Cornelius Van Til, "Has Karl Barth Become Orthodox?" Westminster Theological Journal 16.2 (May 1954): 135-182.*. Then you will know whether or not Barth's theology was Christian or something else.


 
Very good. There is also the monograph in the "Biblical and Theological Studies" series entitled "Barth's Christology." This essay suffices to show how shallow is the idea that Barth is to be praised for his "Christological Motif." His Christology is not Christian, and by making it the motif for theology he introduces a leaven which gradually de-Christianises theology the more it works its way through one's beliefs.


----------



## Philip

I was simply giving the impression I got from Grenz and Olson's treatment in _20th Century Theology_. I suppose I'll just have to suspend judgment until I reach Barth in my reading.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> I was simply giving the impression I got from Grenz and Olson's treatment in _20th Century Theology_. I suppose I'll just have to suspend judgment until I reach Barth in my reading.


I loved this book too. It really is a must read.


----------



## Carolyn

As stated above, Karl Barth is a red flag for former mainliners. When my husband and I heard him being quoted in studies, sermons, and denominational publications, we knew it was only a matter of time. We started our "exiting" process at that point. Once the philosophical underpinnings start to shift in a denomination, there's no turning that barge that I've seen. (Actually, we should have seen the non-confessional nature and the ordination of women "for support roles" as the red flag. Clueless!)

I have heard that there is one circumstance that quoting Barth is helpful. If you are in conversation with a mainliner, you can cherry pick his later material and drag the conversation in a biblical direction. The Barth quote serves to relax the mainliner into thinking that he's in conversation with an intellectual powerhouse like himself, and not with one of those born again morons. Again, I have only heard this works. I can't stand reading Barth and I'm not gifted in "strategic" conversation. A "born again moron", I guess!

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## py3ak

P. F. Pugh said:


> I can't say a whole lot about Van Til's reading (as I haven't yet read Van Til on Barth) but do not read Schaeffer's take for an in-depth or fair analysis. Schaeffer reads Barth as the poster-child for all of 20th-century theology, which is unfair. If anything, Barth was more opposed to those who followed after than he was to the old liberals.
> 
> If there is an aspect of Barth's theology that we should admire, it is his focus on the Christological nature of theology. That is, Barth wanted to refocus all theology on the person and work of Christ. Did he believe in the literal resurrection? Yes, claiming that one cannot really believe in Christ if one does not believe in the literal resurrection.





P. F. Pugh said:


> I was simply giving the impression I got from Grenz and Olson's treatment in 20th Century Theology. I suppose I'll just have to suspend judgment until I reach Barth in my reading.


 
Not to be hostile or anything, but when I put these two posts together there appears to be a disconnect. You can't comment on Van Til because you haven't read him; but you can comment on Barth though you haven't read him; and you're able to dismiss Schaeffer's criticisms of Barth - have you read those? And how would you know they were inaccurate if you hadn't read Barth in the first place?

I'm not very interested in any of the five people mentioned, so I bring this up not as a matter of substance, but as a question of approach: why express a definite assertion in these circumstances?


----------



## Philip

a) I have read Schaeffer on Barth

b) I have read some (not very much) of the later Barth (_Fides Quaerens Intellectum_, in which he reveals his method)

c) I have read the detailed outline of Barth's thought given by Grenz and Olson (which I trust over Schaeffer's analysis for various reasons, even though I respect Schaeffer highly).


----------



## jwright82

Anyone who is interested in Karl Barth firsthand should get the book Karl Barth: Theologian of Freedom, in the Making of Modern Theology series edited Clifford Green, in fact I recomend any of the books in this series. I hope that helps.

---------- Post added at 02:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:50 PM ----------

Here is a nice website with some neat scholarly articles on Karl Barth: Princeton Seminary Library.


----------



## bouletheou

BTW, you can all see what I think of K.B. in my little allegory

The Happy T.R.: The Pilgrims' Digress Part the Fourth


----------



## py3ak

P. F. Pugh said:


> a) I have read Schaeffer on Barth
> 
> b) I have read some (not very much) of the later Barth (_Fides Quaerens Intellectum_, in which he reveals his method)
> 
> c) I have read the detailed outline of Barth's thought given by Grenz and Olson (which I trust over Schaeffer's analysis for various reasons, even though I respect Schaeffer highly).


 
That answers my questions with regard to matters of fact, but not about the question of approach. To vary the example, do you think that my reading of various essays about Swift, including the quite detailed treatment in the _OHEL_ devoted to the time-period in which he wrote, as well as my acquaintance with _Gulliver's Travels_, _The Battle of the Books_, and a few other scattered pieces qualifies me to make strong pronouncement about the Dean?


----------



## Philip

py3ak said:


> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> a) I have read Schaeffer on Barth
> 
> b) I have read some (not very much) of the later Barth (_Fides Quaerens Intellectum_, in which he reveals his method)
> 
> c) I have read the detailed outline of Barth's thought given by Grenz and Olson (which I trust over Schaeffer's analysis for various reasons, even though I respect Schaeffer highly).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That answers my questions with regard to matters of fact, but not about the question of approach. To vary the example, do you think that my reading of various essays about Swift, including the quite detailed treatment in the _OHEL_ devoted to the time-period in which he wrote, as well as my acquaintance with _Gulliver's Travels_, _The Battle of the Books_, and a few other scattered pieces qualifies me to make strong pronouncement about the Dean?
Click to expand...

 
I probably should have qualified my statements to be less sweeping.


----------



## py3ak

P. F. Pugh said:


> py3ak said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> a) I have read Schaeffer on Barth
> 
> b) I have read some (not very much) of the later Barth (_Fides Quaerens Intellectum_, in which he reveals his method)
> 
> c) I have read the detailed outline of Barth's thought given by Grenz and Olson (which I trust over Schaeffer's analysis for various reasons, even though I respect Schaeffer highly).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That answers my questions with regard to matters of fact, but not about the question of approach. To vary the example, do you think that my reading of various essays about Swift, including the quite detailed treatment in the _OHEL_ devoted to the time-period in which he wrote, as well as my acquaintance with _Gulliver's Travels_, _The Battle of the Books_, and a few other scattered pieces qualifies me to make strong pronouncement about the Dean?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I probably should have qualified my statements to be less sweeping.
Click to expand...

 Especially if something makes Barth out to be distinctively good (thus incidentally casting aspersions on theologians from our own household), or might encourage people to listen to someone who, whatever his virtues are, undoubtedly has some dangerous ideas.


----------



## Philip

> Especially if something makes Barth out to be distinctively good (thus incidentally casting aspersions on theologians from our own household)



I can't speak for Van Til or Clark, but Schaeffer's analysis is suspect due to his misreading of other thinkers, such as Kierkegaard.

At any rate, I would never recommend Barth to any except those already well-grounded in Reformed faith and practice. However, we need to be aware of Barth, particularly when dealing with our brothers and sisters across the pond who see him as an ally in defending against liberalism. I've heard several conservative British Christian academics speak in the past two years and without exception, I heard Barth's name mentioned at least once in a favorable light. Is this indicative of our being too dismissive of Barth, or of just how bad things are for Christianity in Britain? I can't say--possibly both. I just think we have to be cautious and nuanced in our approach, keeping both an open mind and a close guard.

At any rate, I'll leave off with that.


----------



## bouletheou

Pugh,

In my limited experience, it is actually that bad in Britain.


----------



## MrMerlin777

Paging Mr Grymir. Paging Mr Grymir.


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion

All of Barth's eight volumes were required reading in my seminary days, so there's that. 

Only the careful investigators will understand why this applied to me. Sigh.

AMR


----------



## DMcFadden

My wife and I had a Barthian Sys Theo prof in college back in the early 70s. It turned her off so badly that it took a long time to convince her to read sys theo again. It is more than a little discouraging to see that evangelical denominations are rediscovering Barth long after he has been discarded as passe by the mainlines.


----------



## Peairtach

Barth has done a lot of damage in churches like the CofS, because he provided a place for people to stand apparently between evangelicalism (or the Reformed faith) and liberalism. But at bottom Barthianism is just another variety of liberalism. Maybe more dangerous because it poses as something better.

It's just another variety of the Serpent's lie: "Did God really say?"

He reworked theology in the light of Kant; now some seem to want to rework things in the light of post-modern philosophy. To the extent that we are interested in philosophy we should rework _that_ in the light of Scripture and Reformed theology, not the other way around.

*Quote from Carolyn*


> A "born again moron", I guess!



As long as you don't join the Church of the Latter Day Morons!


----------



## Marrow Man

Bill Evans has a good article entitled "A Layman's Guide to the Inerrancy Debate" over at Reformation21 (click here for the article). In it, he has some insights into Barth, Neo-orthodoxy, and the reason for the neo-Barthian reemergence.


----------



## Amazing Grace

Barths' Universalism is closer to the truth than free will salvation. At least he made Christs death powerful to actually save people.


----------



## Steve Curtis

Unfortunately, Barth is hard to sum up with Cliff notes. He wrote voluminously and was a significant presence in the religious conversation of his time. There were aspects of his thought that boldly moved away from the liberal bias of the day, yet there were other aspects that wholly capitulated to that bias.

For instance, Barth certainly held unconventional (i.e., unorthodox) views, but he nonetheless spoke clearly about the genuineness of such key doctrines as the Resurrection. Taking a firm stand against the prevailing academic view that the Resurrection was merely a metaphor, Barth wrote, for instance, that the event occurred “in the human sphere and human time as an actual event within the world with an objective content” [Church Dogmatics, IV/1 (T & T Clark, 1936-1977), p. 333]. That being said, Barth believed that the Resurrection was not “accessible to the historian” for objective study and examination, but rather must be received solely on the basis of faith.

With its renewed interest in the writings of Augustine and other early church fathers, neo-orthodoxy did emphasize a transcendent God who had all but been dismissed through the secularization of theology. Yet there emerged a compartmentalization of the nature of God wherein the transcendent, spiritual aspect of God was considered essentially unknowable, such orthodox ideals as natural theology and philosophical rationalism having been completely jettisoned. The problem with such a theology is that it necessitates a leap of blind faith to know God, whereas historical orthodoxy understood the Incarnation as God making Himself knowable by becoming like one of us and dwelling among His creation (that knowledge, of course, being limited to the degree that finite man is limited).

By contrast, neo-orthodoxy sees Christ as divine, and yet limits rational comprehension to the physical, human aspect of His nature, failing to grasp the significance of Christ’s response when Philip implored, “Lord show us the Father and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “…He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9).

Further, the doctrine of Scriptural inspiration was explained in such a way as to interpret the inspiration as existing in the receiving of the Word, and not the Word itself. In other words, as one reads a biblical text – which may very well be corrupted from its original form and thus not inerrant (or so goes the neo-orthodox belief) – the Holy Spirit will inspire the meaning and the message one derives from the text so that even a defective text (in a literary critical sense) can effectively convey the “logos” (or “Word”) of God. The problem with this is, of course, that it effectively opens the door to a plethora of potentially conflicting inspirations.

Hence, while on the surface neo-orthodoxy could speak of the inspiration of Scripture and the veracity of the biblical accounts that can only be attributed to an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient God, there was nevertheless an element of compromise inherent in the movement that deemed it necessary to incorporate at least some of the opinions and “discoveries” of 19th century liberalism. The result of this partial swing rightward of the theological pendulum was that, failing to restore Christianity to its orthodox bedrock, there remained a tendency – indeed a likelihood – to see the weight of liberalism exerting a sufficient force to keep the church forever embroiled in a diametric tension. And, of course, the natural resting place of an inert pendulum is right in the middle. And what does one find in the middle of the theological road?
Theological roadkill.

To understand the trajectory of theological thought in the 20th century, Barth must be included in the discussion. That being said, he must be read very, very, carefully with one's Bible in the other hand all the while!


----------



## R. Scott Clark

Take a look at C. Van Til's The New Modernism. See also The Bookstore at WSC: Engaging With Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques (Softcover) by Gibson, David

I like John Webster's work generally, The Bookstore at WSC: Karl Barth (2nd Edition) by Webster, John

Bruce McCormack's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology is quite good but challenging.

Berkouwer's volume on Barth, The Triumph of Grace, is useful.


----------



## Grymir

Why can't Barth just fade away into nothingness, become a victim of his own historical view of the Bible? ie, When we read Barth, and are moved by Barth, then Barth becomes real for us? But it may or may not have happened. Sigh, some days I feel like I'm playing Whack-A-Barth at Chuckie Cheeses.




JennyG said:


> I know nothing whatsoever about him, but I've just been talking to a student in the Divinity faculty of the local University.
> She tells me that a very big deal is made of Barth by all her lecturers. They make grand sweeping claims for his genius and even more for his crucial, pivotal importance to modern Christian thinking.


Yeah, it's important to modern Christian thinking. As in what's wrong with church's today (Can anybody say the PCUSA?) 

Do you want this in your demonination? Think Sauron.



JennyG said:


> When I googled him I found him being described as "in the Reformed tradition".



  



JennyG said:


> My question is, how should a Reformed, that is Biblical, Christian view all this?



To quote the Knights in The Holy Grail "Run away!!!"



JennyG said:


> Sorry to be lazy, but I have no intention of reading it all up and judging for myself! (I've also been told that Barth is almost unreadable)



You're not being lazy! It's not that Barth is unreadable, but once you peel away his high sounding words, you realize that there is nothing of substance to read. (Nothing to see hear, move along). And don't let those who say you have to read him in order to make any statement about him scare you. You don't have to read somebody to know what they are about. Others have done it and can do a good job of sumarizing him.


----------



## JennyG

At last, the elusive Grymir!!
...and a resounding final nail in KB's coffin from my viewpoint - thank you!


----------

