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Of his theological works, perhaps the best remembered is Barth's massive study Kirchliche Dogmatik (1932-67; Church Dogmatics), a remarkable contribution to 20th-century theology. Church Dogmatics grew year by year out of his class lectures; though incomplete, it eventually filled four volumes in 12 parts, of which Barth regarded volume II, parts 1 and 2, which are devoted to the doctrine of God, as the highlight. It is particularly notable for its powerful epistemology and his account of the Act and Being of God, in which he integrated dynamic and ontological factors in theological knowledge.

As a theologian Barth was concerned to establish the truth that God can be known only in accordance with his nature and to reject the 19th-century view that saw an identity between the Spirit of God and religious self-consciousness or between the laws of God and the natural structures of man's life and history. Drawing on the Church Fathers and the Reformers, Barth demanded a return to the prophetic teaching of the Bible (in Jeremiah and the writings of Paul), of which he believed the Reformers were authentic exponents. He accepted much trenchant criticism of historical Christianity from John Calvin, Martin Luther, Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Franz Overbeck and found positive help in the writings of Isaak Dorner, Wilhelm Vilmar, Friedrich Kohlbrügge, and Johann and Christoph Blumhardt. The essence of the Christian message, he affirmed, was the overwhelming love of the absolutely supreme, transcendent God, who comes in infinite condescension to give himself to mankind in unconditional freedom and grace. --Encyclopedia Britannica