Encountering the Task of History analyzes the intellectual history of the eighteenth century provided by Karl Barth, most notably in his Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century. Barth anticipates the recent scholarship on the religious roots, impact, and significance of the Enlightenment, foreshadowing the later and now current challenges to the secularization paradigm. This volume seeks to establish a new vantage point through which to understand not only the wider shape of Barths work itself but also his standing and contribution to public intellectual scholarship.