Evangelicals and Barth

Two books have recently appeared on the relationship between Barth and evangelicals. One is Engaging with Barth, featuring a piece by Moore College's own Mark Thompson. Another is Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology. Oliver Crisp and Henri Blocher appear in both volumes!

In both books, fair and critical engagement - sometimes sternly critical - is the theme. This is quite an interesting turn: a generation ago, 'Barthian' was a swear word in some evangelical circles. Hopefully, now that this is no longer the case, we can do without the label and enjoy some fruitful reading of Barth's work, without signing off on everything he says.

In KB&ET, Kevin Vanhoozer's essay 'A Person of the Book? Barth on Biblical Authority and Interpretation' is a particular stand out, not least for the history of Barth-reception among evangelicals. He explores the frequently expressed accusation that Barth views Scripture as a book that becomes rather than is already God's word. Using terms drawn from Speech-Act Theory to show how the Bible both is and becomes God's Word, he concludes:

...evangelicals and Barth can agree, at the very least, that the Bible is a central ingredient in the economy of God's self-communication. As to ontology, Scripture is divine-human communicative action: the Bible has its being in its locutions and illocutions, yet the Bible becomes what it is when the illuminating Spirit ministers those locutions and illocutions in order to bring about the divinely intended perlocutionary effects. p. 59

Barth on the atonement

Barth's extended discussion of "atonement" or "reconciliation" is all the more remarkable given the thoroughly liberal cast of his education. The central section in his Church Dogmatics IV.1 is entitled "The Judge Judged in Our Place". The entire section is imbued with the language of guilt, judgement and forgiveness. On the cross we see God exercising a rightful judgement on sinful humanity. The cross itself exposes human self-delusions: that human beings want to be their own judges.

For Barth, the cross of Christ represents the locus in which the righteous judge makes known his judgement of sinful humanity and simultaneously takes that judgement upon himself:

What took place is that the Son of God fulfilled the righteous judgement on us human beings by himself taking our place as a human being and in our place undergoing the judgement under which we had passed…Because God willed to execute his judgement on us in his Son, it all took place in his person, as his accusation and condemnation and destruction. He judged, and it was the judge who was judged, who allowed himself to be judged…Why did God become a human being? So that God as a human being might do and accomplish and achieve and complete all this for us wrongdoers, in order that in this way there might be brought about by him our reconciliation with him, and our conversion to him.

This is strongly substitutionary of course. God exercises his righteous judgement by exposing our sin, by taking it upon himself, and thus by neutralising its power.

Barth: 'Jesus Christ the Mediator'

In a brilliant few pages from CD IV/1 (pp. 122-128), Karl Barth identifies the problem with the traditional way in which theology has treated the 'person' of Christ as a separate item to the 'work' of Christ:

This schematism seems logically very illuminating, and didactically useful. At a first galnce it may even seem unavoidable...Yet it is not really calculated to enable us to expound the actual subject-matter...

He goes on to complain that the NT never has a 'Christology' as such set apart or abstracted from what Christ did among men and women. So, he goes on:

We hasten to explain that the being of Jesus Christ, the unity of being of the living God and this living God and this living man, takes place in the vent of the concrete existence of this man. It is abeing, but a being in a history. The gracious God is in this history, so is reconciled man, so are both in their unity. And what takes place in this history, and therefore in the being of Jesus Christ as such is atonement. Jesus Christ is not what He is - very God, very man, very God-man - in order as such to mean and do and accomplish something else which is atonement. But His being as God and man and God-man consists in the completed act of the reconciliation of man with God.

The climax of his argument? His being as his One is His history and His history is this His being.

It's a great point. But perhaps he has been too harsh: of necessity theology makes distinctions but that doesn't imply separations. It treats ideas in their turn, because it is just hard for most of us to think of more than one thing at once!

Theology as repentant humility...

Theology is an act of repentant humility…This act exists in the fact that in theology the Church seeks again and again to examine itself critically as it asks itself what it means and implies to be a Church among men…The Church, too, lives under the judgement of God, as does the world. So, it cannot be otherwise but that the Church must critically examine itself, not according to its own wishes and standards but according to the standard which is identical with its basis of existence which is God’s revelation, which, concretely, is the Holy Scriptures. It is this constant and ever-recurring necessity and demand for self-examination of the Church by the standard of the divine Word which is the peculiar function of theology in the Church.

Karl Barth, ‘Theology’ in God in Action (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1936), pp. 44f

Seitz, Barth and some notes on Blessing

From C. Seitz, Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture pp. 147-52

'Blessing is the language of God's address to humanity's forfeit.'In Genesis 1:28, blessing is tied up with expansion and spreading out.p. 148: '...whatever is marring God's creative intent, be it rebellion in the Garden, murder, evil human imagination, or projects for overextension and totalitarian unity, God is planning a different way forward, which he means to protect and superintend. Election is the means by which sinful creation receives the blessing originally intended for it, for all nations and people. Mission understood in OT terms, then, is the address of blessing to the deficit and forfeit brought about by rebellion in its many forms.'

p. 149: 'Blessing will come through election, and mission - God's word of blessing to the nations - will be the means by which God uses Israel to accomplish this in a special way vis-a-vis all peoples.'As von Rad notes, blessing concerns Abraham first, but then also includes those on the outside who adopt a definite attitude toward this blessing.God's blessing of Abram is a repeat of the charge to humanity in creation... it involves Abram getting what the race sought in tower building.... it also entails blessing for others.

p. 152 'If blessing is the means by which God restores and brings into proper relationship the families of the earth, it remains the case that he uses Israel for this purpose in ways neither Israel nor the nations fully comprehend. What is required of Israel is faith and obedience to the pronise, which constitutes its only ground of existence in the world. Obedience to this promise allows blessing to occur, but it does not ensure it.''for the church rightly to speak of 'mission'...it is necessary to comprehend the logic of key OT notions of blessing''Blessing' is drawing on God's goodness...and receiving it... it is the good God extending his goodness to the creation, filling the creation with his goodness...

Karl Barth 'In all its otherness it is predestined to receive the divine good which has been revealed and communicated. This is what is ordained for man in the primal decision of the divine decree. the portion which God willed and chose for him was an ordination to blessedness. For to be able to attest the overflowing glory of the Creator is blessedness. God will man and elceted man with the promise of eternal life. Life as a witness to the overflowing glory of God is eternal life...' CD II/2 p. 169

But...
'Man was willed and chose by God with his limitations, as a creature which could and would do harm to God by the application, or rather the misuse, of its freedom. the danger-point of man's susceptibility to temptation, and the zero-point of his fall, were thus included in the divine decree.' II/2 p. 169

Barth on the Christian seeing differently

Barth's chapters on Providence highlight the existential and pastoral aspects of the doctrine. The doctrine of Providence is in a very real sense all that separates the Christian who lives in the world of tsunamis and cancer and his neighbour who lives in the same world. What makes him different? Firstly, Barth says that is because the Christian as a creature affirms his own 'creaturely occurence'. That is, the Christian accepts his own being as a creature and not as a being of pure will, or an evolved organism. But he goes on...

Our answer can be the very simple one that he sees what the others do not see...What makes him a Christian is that he sees Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the humiliation but also in the exaltation of His humanity , and himself united with Him, belonging to HIm, his life delivered by Him, bu also placed at His disposal. (C.D. III.iii.241)

Being a Christian is looking with different eyes on the same view.
It is merely a matter of seeing things differently.

Barth on Affliction

Some comments from the older Barth on the Christian expectation of affliction:

If the ministry of witness is the primary determination of Christian existence, and if the ministry of witness unavoidably brings the Christian into affliction, then we have to say that none can be a Christian without falling into affliction. To be sure, we have not to desire or seek or provoke it, as martyrdom or the so-called baptism of blood was coveted in some circles in the early days of Christianity. This could only rest on misunderstanding, as though the bearing of affliction made the Christian a Christian. In fact, it is only the call of Christ, as His calling to the ministry of witness, which can
constitute Christian existence as such....

Barth goes on to note that affliction may indeed come from within the Christian community. But: supposing the world gives the Christian not much trouble? What then?

If...a man is not oppressed by his environment, if he has nothing serious to fear or to suffer at its hands, he has reason carefully to ask at least whether and how far he is genuinely a Christian at all and not fundamentally self-deceived in this respect.

Church Dogmatics, IV.iii, p. 618-9

Barth and Kant

We cannot deal evasively with Jesus Christ as one does with an idea.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II.ii.660

While Barth concedes that Kant 'has expressed the essential concern of Christian ethic by pointing out that of itself the concept of what is pleasing and useful and valuable does not give us the concept of what is obligatory', he also takes Kant to task for not acknowledging the reality that God's command may indeed result in what is pleasing and good:

The obligation revealed and grounded in the person and work and lordship of Jesus Christ fulfils the idea in all its strictness. It is a categorical imperative, not merely in name, but in fact. And as such - unlike the Kantian imperative - it reveals the fact that to obey it is not merely the highest duty but also the highest good.

Jesus Christ is our categorical imperative!

Barth and responsibility

This week: a chance to get a handle on Barth's 'divine command' ethics. Very refreshing after wallowing about in rather dry natural law thought. Of course the divine command is the gospel of Jesus Christ (Barth would say 'Jesus', but I am happy to offer him modest correction!) For Barth, ‘responsibility’ sums up the human situation before God who addresses us:

‘It is the idea of responsibility which gives us the most exact definition of the human situation in face of the absolute transcendence of the divine judgment. We live in responsibility, which means that our being and willing, what we do and what we do not do, is a continuous answer to the Word of God spoken to us as a command.’

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas Forsyth Torrance, trans. Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas Forsyth Torrance, 2d ed., 14 vols. (London ; New York: T. & T. Clark International, 2004), II.ii, p. 641.

Barth's Syllogism Martyrium

If the ministry of witness is the primary determination of Christian existence, and if the ministry of witness unavoidably bring the Christian into affliction, then we have to say that none can be a Christian without falling into afflication. To be sure, we have not to desire or seek or provoke it, as martyrdom or the so-called baptism of blood was coverted in some circles in the early days of Christianity. This could only rest on misunderstanding, as though the bearing of affliction made the Christian a Christian. In fact, it is only the call of Christ, as His calling to the ministry of witness, which can constitute Christian existence as such. C.D. IV.3.2 p. 618

Wonderful stuff... striking the right balance between that unavoidable affliction which is a mark of true Christianity and provoking it willfully: this is the challenge.

Barth on Election

Please allow me this foray into Barth without labelling me forevermore 'a Barthian'! (Though I think I have a rather cheeky article in me entitled 'the Barthianism of DB Knox'...!!!)

I am currently reading Barth's Church Dogmatics II.ii. In this volume he puts forward perhaps his most remarkable - and controversial - theological innovation: his doctrine of election. He is well aware of the novelty of his position: but his claim is that this is the only biblical way of construing the doctrine. That at least on the face of it is his ground.

Of course, Barth is a Reformed theologian in the tradition of Calvin, and so it is the Reformed commitment to predestination and election that drives him. And it is the Reformed tradition that he must supercede if he is to establish his version. His discussion of the Supra- vs Infra- lapsarian positions - in small print of course - is absolutely crucial. What he claims is that the Supralapsarian position - the least popular and least accepted alternative - is the more consistent and more rigorous. The tendency of Infralapsarianism is to offer the incarnation as God's plan B - a response to the fall rather than a decree from all time. But Supralapsarianism, with its implication that God has decreed some for damnation even before the fall is a tough sell! Which clears the ground for him to offer his correction of both positions.

And it is this: Jesus is the answer. Before the foundation of the world, God in Christ made his double decree of election and reprobation. Where he scores a hit against the Reformed construals is in their tendency to rely on an account of God's decrees which makes them inscrutable and mysterious, invisible and unrevealed. Speculation abounds (and it does!) Whereas, by making Jesus the electing God and the elected man, he is able to talk about the election of God as revealed in full view of humankind.

Now I need to read some critiques of his position - or hear them from my kind readers....

Update

The view from my room at Nuneham College, Cambridge.

Well it has been a slower period than normal on what my sister affectionately calls 'the most boring blog in the world.' Not that I'm sensitive...

Chiefly, the reason is that my HP/Compaq laptop has given up the ghost, and it has taken the Uni computer dudes a few days to decide this. This is the longest I have ever owned a single laptop: others have been lost to lightening strike, theft, water spillage (what idiot left a paper cup of water on the computer desk at Moore College), and virus. I would love your help on a replacement: at the moment I am favouring a Toshiba Satellite Pro.

Cambridge was excellent: I went to a Symposium on Oliver O'Donovan's Ways of Judgment which is proving to be a re-readable book - which in a world of many great books is high praise. Trouble with the English in formats like this is that they are too polite, and so it is hard to tell when they are actually having an intellectual disagreement. Jonathan Chaplin, Nigel Biggar and Ben Quash gave papers, and O'Donovan responded to each. He is a very fine and engaging speaker, and concedes very little!

The Tyndale Conference followed: this was more of a mish-mash of issues and papers. We heard some very interesting stuff on Islam, and also from David Ford (Prof at Cambridge) on 'Scriptural Reasoning'. He has a new book out called 'Christian Wisdom' which looks enticing. Basically, he is suggesting that inter-faith dialogue (and ecumenical dialogue) take place on the basis of reading one another's scriptures. This prevents an annoying liberal consensus having to be established first (WCOC style). Brian Brock gave a great paper on Genesis 1-4 and ethics. We heard some other papers on politics that made me feel more and more that Christendom wasn't so bad, crusades and what-not notwithstanding. Whenever I hear a Christendom-basher make huge sweeping statements about some fourteen centuries of Church-state relations - as is currently the fashion in Hauerwas-dominated circles - it makes my toes curl. I am becoming more grumpily conservative in me old age...

I also went to one of the Biblical Theology papers given by Brian Rosner. What was fascinating for me is that I realised that there is a HUGE chasm between the methods of biblical studies scholars and those involved in doctrine and ethics. And it seems to me that there is not a great deal of mutually respectful conversation going on between the two...

Since then: I have been reading Barth's Dogmatics II.i, one of the must-read volumes. His review of the Supralapsarian-Infralapsarian controversy is fascinating... though you can see how he is introducing his own position as the only alternative through his account.

I should also report that I have an almost complete first draft of my thesis. Blogging has not hindered but rather helped this! Having had a couple of readers review parts of it, I am encouraged to do a lot better of course. But at least I am getting better at answering that 'what is your thesis about' question...

The ascension

The exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of the Father is a basic component of the NT preaching of the person and work of Christ. In fact, the gospel declaration – “Jesus is Lord” – is a declaration of Jesus ascended: that the story of Jesus did not finish with his bodily resurrection but is ongoing, for he reigns. The ascension is the counterpart to the incarnation as we see in passages like Philippians 2:5-11. This was a favourite theme of our old friend, Irenaeus (A.H. 3.1, 18.2, 19.3.)


“In biblical terms the ascension involves a real departure of Jesus of Nazareth. That is the basis on which we find ourselves compelled to speak of two histories rather than one. Covenant history and world history have divided in this departure, for in and with Jesus the former has already reached its goal. In the resulting gap a place has opened up for the Eucharistic community as a genuinely new entity within world history, albeit a peculiar one with its peculiar view of the way things are.” (D.Farrow, Ascension and Ecclesia p. 40)




“Doctrinally, then, the Ascension … marks the culmination of the resurrection gospel – the universalizing of Jesus’ relevance to all aspects of human life, individual and global; the present possibility of a share in Jesus’ loving union with his Father, i.e. a life of both trustfulness and authority; the crowning of the purpose of Jesus’ life and death in the restoration of fellowship between heaven and earth. It represents both the call to witness (and to recognize Christ in the world of which he is declared Lord) and the promise of transformed – ‘deified’ – life, as the ground and source of that witness.” (R. Williams, 1983)

And heaven? What is that?

“’Heaven’ in biblical language is the sum of the inaccessible and incomprehensible side of the created world, so that, although it is not God himself, it is the throne of God, the creaturely correspondence to his glory, which is veiled from man, and cannot be disclosed except on his initiative.” (K. Barth, C.D. III/1. 453)