Barth and TF Torrance are the only modern theologians I have come across who if you don’t start with radically construed Chalcedonian premises, you won’t get. Their dialect is strictly christologically conditioned all the way down. This is one reason I think so many evangelical and conservative theologians of today write them off as incoherent. For example, theologians who harvest purely from the Post Reformed orthodox (pro), and some of the mediaeval theologians, will attempt to read Barth and TFT through the speculative, decretal categories they have imbibed vis-à-vis their recovery of said pro and med. theologians. And yet, this is precisely why I took such a liking to both TFT and Barth. I am really just a Bible reader, and as a result christological theology had an immediate resonance with me. Barth and TFT’s theology was the most organic move I could make as someone who also sees the value of doing Christian Dogmatic and systematic theology; i.e., engaging with the inner-theologic of the text of Holy Scripture.
This is why I will always remain confused by evangelical and other conservative theologians who write Barth and TFT off. TFT, a named protopresbyter of the Greek Orthodox church (even as a Church of Scotland churchman), and Barth called purportedly, by Pope Pius XII, ‘the greatest theologian since Thomas Aquinas,’ have a breadth and depth among the church catholic that most theologians since the Protestant reformation have never had. Beyond that, as already mentioned by illusion, I see Barth and TFT actually continuing on within the conciliar Christianity started at Nicaea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon in particular, in ways that no one else has. In my view, there are no modern or contemporary theologians who are so principially Christ conditioned in their methodology and devotion, as are Barth and TF Torrance.
c’est la vie