tends to make a complete break between ontology and rhetoric, so that rhetoric itself in the end is of minimal importance for the theological claims being made. Such a complete break between ontology and rhetoric may be necessary and inescapable for systematic theology. For biblical theology, however, such a complete break is in my judgment unthinkable. The available “real” and “substantive” of biblical theology are only rhetorically available. Barth, at least at points, knew this, for his rhetoric