be brought to some other, more ultimate, human court of appeal in an attempt to secure for it a hearing. In fact it seems that the opposite is true, that, far from commending itself to some inherent sense of truth and goodness in humans, the gospel is received as a scandal, a word which contradicts accepted norms and mores. What we must be ever mindful of, however, Barth insists, is the fact that we are not dealing here with a gospel which is scandalous to some supposed ‘human reason’, since such