Karl Barth was a powerhouse of influence within the realm and study of theology. He led a full-scale assault against liberal theology during his generation and compiled an impressive multiple volume Church Dogmatics, “the most comprehensive interpretation of the Christian faith in modern theology.” He has been discussed among prominent theological contemporaries as delivering “a stronger impact upon Protestant theology than any other man of the twentieth century, thus far.” Barth stands on the shoulders of such teachers of the faith as Luther, Calvin, Schleiermacher, and Ritschl. Yet, it is in the reader’s best interest when examining the life and influence of Karl Barth, to see both his foundation in liberalism and his refusal of those same liberal perspectives halfway through his life. This refusal and reexamination of his liberalist tradition originated with Schleiermacher, known as the father of ‘liberal theology,’ and was a gradual process that only strengthened as the years went on in the large, rich and full corpus of writings continued until his death. If one is to interpret the writings of Karl Barth for the end in mind: to understand his theological perspective for the enrichment of the Church and to guide the Church to ecumenism, then it would serve the readers of Barth to view his work as largely a reaction “and the precise nature of the reaction has been determined by the opponent of the moment.” One must view Barth as a polemicist in light of his objectors. His Life and Influence Reviewing some significant events in his life will better inform the discussion of Barth’s theology as all thought flows from life’s lessons. Karl Barth was born in Basel, Switzerland, on May 10, 1886. He was the first son of Fritz Barth, a minister of the Swiss Reformed Church as well as a teacher of the Evangelical School of Preachers in Basel. Barth’s theological background is deeply rooted in the Reformed or Calvinistic wing of the Swiss Reformation. When he was three years old, his father began teaching at the University of Bern Church History and New Testament Exegesis. The life professions of Barth’s brothers indicate a vivacious scholarly life within the very foundation of the home. His brother Peter was the coeditor of a critical edition of Calvin’s works and Heinrich Barth carried a reputation for his philosophical endeavors and even served alongside Karl at the University of Basel until his retirement in 1960. Karl Barth received his formal education in Bern. According to Thomas Torrance, Barth’s faith was grown and nourished in a evangelical atmosphere as well as a love and “appreciation for sacred scholarship in service of the gospel”(emphasis placed). Barth had great interest in history whereas “mathematics and the sciences held little attraction for him.” Even his interests in biblical exegesis and study were never abstracted from life. He continued to study in multiple universities and at the age of eighteen he studied under Herman Ludemann, a very influential theologian of the liberal tradition. However, the most significant event that took place during his intellectual pilgrimage at Bern happened during the fourth semester where the philosophy of Kant and the liberal theology of Schleiermacher exposed him to a whole new world of thought. Yet, his father sought that he would study not under Herrmann of Marburg, the leading neo-Kantian theologian of the day, but desired to have Barth study at the University of Berlin in the fall semester of 1906. The move to the University of Berlin during the fall semester of 1906 resulted in the first couple exposures to the reigning school of theological liberalism and it also “afforded him close contact with one of its last and most influential exponents in the twentieth century, namely, Adolf von Harnack, the renowned church historian.” Barth later discussed with his fellow colleagues, the denial of Berlin’s cultural riches in order to explore the seminar work of Harnack without ever coming to accept him and his theology completely. In1908, Barth studied under Herrmann through whom he concluded later in life to be the quintessential theological teacher of his student years. It was also during this time he continued to pursue his study with Kant alongside “the leading neo-Kantian philosophers of the day, Hermann Cohen and Paul Nature.” At the age of twenty-three, Barth ended his theological education a Marburg in 1909. He never pursued any doctoral degrees; rather institutions gladly awarded several to him for his marketable reputation. From 1909 to 1922 Barth made several transitions in both his thought life and politics. Later in 1909, Barth traveled back home to begin his pastoral ministry as an apprentice until 1911 at the German-speaking Reformed Church of Geneva, Switzerland. It was during this same year that Barth published an article containing his own thesis to combat the reluctance of practical forms of church work being expressed on the University grounds such as pastoral and missionary roles. He argued that this was due to two emphases of liberal theology. The first result of liberal theology is it’s religious individualism. Liberalism, according to Barth had rejected “all norms of revelation and authority external to the individual believer” and this “led to a concentration upon the subjective and personal experience of the individual Christian.” The second arena of study in which liberalism effected the Christian witness was in the tenet of historiography. The liberalism of Barth’s day held to a perspective on history called, “historical relativism,” in which there were no absolutes in history especially in consideration of the Bible and the events that take place within it’s narrative. According to Barth, this perspective on history and its relation to the Bible leads inevitably to one outcome: “Religion knows only individual values; history knows only general truths.” However, the most telling description of his bewilderment towards the growth and effect of liberalism on the study of God can be refracted in this statement: To the prevailing tendency of about 1910 among the younger followers of Albrecht Ritschl I attached myself with passable conviction. Yet it was not with- out a certain alienation in view of the issue of this school in the philosophy of Ernst Troelstsch, in which I found myself disappointed in regard to what inter- ested me in theology, although for the time being I did not see a better way before me. Barth became the pastor of the Reformed Church of Safenwil, Switzerland in 1911 until 1921. One of the most significant moments in his life was his marriage in 1913 to Nelly Hoffman and a renewal of relationship with Eduard Thurneysen who was a neighboring pastor in Leutwil. Through the brilliant mind of Thurneysen, Barth was introduced to the eschatological theology of Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805-1880). “The ten years Barth spent as a pastor were a period of intensely concentrated development, and most accounts of his work” had eventually and progressively “led to his abandonment of theological liberalism” as well as other differing views from his contemporaries. It was during this decade that Barth continually dealt with confrontational elements within the ideological and political world. Such Christian social thinkers as Kutter and Ragaz were further informed and fueled within their socio-political strivings by Barth’s writings and disputes. Though Barth remained highly controversial with his sermon content in attacking ‘relativism’ and other liberal manifestations of obscurity, Barth found the First Great War to be disillusioning. Most of his former teachers, whom he upheld in the highest regard for the knowledge of God, had signed a declaration of support for the Kaiser by which Barth saw them as “to be hopelessly compromised by their submission to the ideology of war.” With the loss of his liberal Protestantism falling at an ever-increasing crumble, his pastoral work was rendered impossible. He sought a new way of being Christian among the changing face of the current operative theology and further compromising of his leaders in the faith amidst a terrible war. It was during this seeking after a new way or the ‘rediscovery of the old way in Jesus Christ through the Pauline Corpus,’ had begun. Beyond the problems of theological liberalism and religious socialism, the concept of the Kingdom of God in the real, transcendent sense of the Bible became increasingly more insistent, and the textual basis of my sermons, the Bible, which hitherto I had taken for granted, became more and more of a problem. It was in this struggle of knowing Christ again through the Scriptures that he ‘became increasingly more insistent’ and wrote a commentary that has become comparible alongside the writings of the early Church Fathers. Romans Commentary During the summer of 1916, Barth pursued the heart of Pauline theology and thinking through the epistle of Romans. These notes were developed and placed into the first edition of Romans published in 1919. Although, “conventional critical-historical scholarship (whether of Barth’s contemporaries or our own) has not found it easy to consider Barth’s Romans as a commentary;” there are many who have devoted their lives to the study of Barth’s Romans and have found it to be a careful and accurate assessment unlike any other exposition written on it’s subject before. Werner Ruschke, in particular takes side with Barth’s Romans as an authoritative commentary. Ruschke argues “that although the form of Barth’s Romans is that of exegetical Erklarung, it is best read as what Barth would later call ‘irregular dogmatics,’” and this ‘irregular dogmatics’ involves the “free discussion of the problems that arise from Church proclamation from the standpoint of the question of dogma.” It is from this standpoint of dogma that the reader or interpreter of Barth’s writings can see the beginnings of his dogmatic work, especially as it pertains to the later Christian Dogmatics. There have been many attempts to view this revealing work on Barth’s earliest thoughts concerning such things as eschatology, dialectics, revelation, resurrection, “the origin,” and others as through socio-political perspectives or even as strictly a rebuttal to the liberal views of his day. However timely it is to place the author of a magnificent work as this edition of Romans, one would be careful not to misconstrue Barth from his original purpose. In writing this book, I set out neither to compose a free fantasia upon them of religion, nor to evolve a philosophy of it. My sole aim was to interpret Scripture….I shall not be impressed in the least…by general propositions concerning the value or lack of value of my “spiritual outlook,” or of my “religious position,” or my “general view of life.” My book deals with one issue, and with one issue only. Did Paul think and speak in general and in detail in the manner in which I have interpreted him as thinking and speaking? Or did he think and speak altogether differently? What drove Barth to write the book of Romerbrief (Romans) and for what reason did he write it? Although Barth sought to be a polemicist as opposed to a Church-unifying theologian, he also had a skillful way of remaining separate from his contemporary situation. The Romans commentary for Barth was about his “convictions about God, revelation, scripture, and the theology of the church.” The substance of the Christian gospel drove him to finish the commentary due to his enthrallment with “the linguistic world of the Bible.” Barth found himself at a crossroad. This juncture in Barth’s thinking led to his famous 1916 lecture “The New World in the Bible,” which was delivered at Thurneysen’s church in Leutwil. Barth was consumed by the world of the Bible and found that it directed the person to reject or accept the sovereignty of God. Barth had found the love of Christ throughout the living and active testimony of the Bible, specifically through the studying of Romans. Theological Solidification and Farewell In 1919, Barth grew in his significance and influence in Germany. He presented and reconstructive critique of the Christian faith through his lectures on “The Word of God and the Word of Man.” Because of the centrality of Christ as dogma during these lectures he found himself in the middle of a new theological movement in which the Christian witness plays a certain role in the world titled, “The Christian’s Place in Society.” This address made him most popular as he sought to side with a more idealistic form of Church government and socialism. In 1921, He was appointed as Honorary Professor of Reformed theology in Gottingen. This new trend came to be called ‘dialectical theology,’ and it demanded that he became well acquainted to teach Reformed doctrine than he had felt he was unprepared for. The rest of his life was given over to defending his new thoughts and demanded much of his energy, caused him to travel and cover large areas of Germany. Barth, Bultmann, Brunner and Gogarten made up this new trend of ‘dialectical theology’ and wrote a journal called Zwischen den Zeiten in 1922. In 1930, Barth moved to Bonn to publish his first volume of the Church Dogmatics. It was two years later in 1932, where “Barth achieved a confidence about his theological commitments which made his writing increasingly calm, unapologetic and descriptively rich” and finished the first volume of Church Dogmatics. The root of Barth’s confidence rested in the final laying aside of all his philosophical and anthropological foundations of Christian doctrine. His confidence also rested in his familiarity with classical Christian theology, patristic, medieval and Reformation as well as his role in being the leading Protestant thinker in Germany; a reputation he most clearly recognized and embraced. Through the rest of the 1930’s, Barth took a rather harsh stance against those of the Nazi takeover of Germany as well as those who sided with them. He was a rude polemicist as he occupied a key role in church politics against what he saw as “a gigantic revelation of human lying and brutality on the one hand, and of human stupidity and fear on the other.” Because of his refusal to refuse Christ and become more lax towards those that were for the Nazi administration, Barth was fired from Bonn and in 1935 and a week after being cut off as a professor he was offered another teaching position in Basel, Switzerland where he remained teaching for the rest of his life. This would also be the location where he would finish writing the rest of the volumes of his Church Dogmatics, yet never bringing it into completion as he largely left it aside after his retirement and illness in 1961. From 1962 to 1964, Barth traveled through the United States to write and speak at informal settings until his health gave out. When his health got better he traveled to Rome to speak with those concerning the Second Vatican Council and he also prepared the last piece of his Church Dogmatics for publication. Barth felt his old age imposed many constrictions on him. In every respect my feet can now move only in a small compass. Gone are the trips and runs and walks and rides of the past, gone the addresses to large groups, gone the participation in conferences and the like. Everything has its time, and for me all that kind of thing, it seems, has had its time. Barth died on December 10th 1968. He lived a full life of teaching, preaching and extending the Kingdom of God through the advancement of truth based on the revelation of God through God by God to his own people. He was driven to seek truth and to find new knowledge as well as to make his stance in the world. He enjoyed the large variety of international students during his last years at Basel who longed to see the creative power of newly established thoughts. Carl Zuckmayer, a witness to the Karl Barth before he died wrote a reflection on the mind of Barth: His… thirst for knowledge, fed from a spring of deep basic knowledge, was inexhaustible. He constantly took up new themes of a historical, literary, or philosophical character, in order, as he put it, to fill long-standing gaps. Everything concerning everyday life and world events and daily politics occupied him and aroused his criticism and lively interest. However one is to perceive Barth, one cannot under estimate his impact on the world of ministry and the church for the sake of Christ. Barth was above else a man after the truth of God’s sovereign rule and a man after the gospel of Jesus Christ without comprise to the person of God through man’s limited thoughts. Karl Barth’s Theology For any theologian, they know very well the difficulty that theology proposes to those in study of it’s subject, God. The boundries of language keep the theologian restrained to certain limiting factors, which in turn isolate those things of infinite qualitative natures especially as it pertains to the Christian God. Every worldview speaks about those things that depict and shade the perspectives at which one views reality. Yet, the problem of language as it pertains to God and the understanding of him does not lie in the words alone utilized but also in the truth that there is much more to reality than what can be known through man’s five senses. The issue in theology is the complex need of the theologian to both communicate God and the endeavoring struggle to limit the limitless God through that communication. Karl Barth recognized this need as a perplexing dilemma saying, “As ministers we ought to speak of God. We are human, however, and so cannot speak of God. We ought therefore to recognize both our obligation and our inability and by that very recognition give God the glory. This is our perplexity.” Where does Karl Barth fit within this large subject of theology thematically or to put it differently, ‘what did he believe about God?’ The revival of theology through Barth came during a time when Protestant liberalism was running rapent through out Europe. Barth’s greatest contention with liberalism was the way in which it turned “God-talk” into man’s talk to an extent that dissatisfied him. In Barth’s anguish, he saw the liberals speak about God with the equality of humanity in a certain “elevated tone,” and human beings were actually magnified at the expense of God who stood “over against humanity.” Barth’s clash with liberalism began with Epistle to the Romans in 1918. He argued for a radical discontinuity between God and humanity and also between nature and grace. Barth’s theology can be summarized through three distinct emphases: God’s self-revelation, Christ centeredness, and God’s election of Christ. God’s Self-revelation To know Barth and his view on God’s personal revelation is to understand Barth as being skeptical or resistant to ‘natural theology.’ According to Barth, there is one way and one way only in which someone comes to know God; one comes to know God only by his personal act of revelation. What is revelation then? For Barth, revelation is God’s “self-offering and self-manifestation” in which God “tells man that he is God, and that as such he is his Lord.” Revelation is something that is not just the same material to man as it is something new in such a way that he is powerless to know God apart from. One can find this revelation in Barth’s second axiom in regards to the knowledge of God and his personal revelation. Barth sees God speaking through the Scriptures one single point, namely Christ. When Holy Scripture speaks of God, it concentrates our attention and thoughts upon one single point…And if we look closer, and ask: who and what is at this point upon which our attention and thoughts are concentrated, which we are to recognize as God? …From its beginning to its end the Bible directs us to the name of Jesus Christ. Though Barth’s thinking on revelation shifted from “extreme denial of knowledge of God apart from revelation to a less vehement position” his main views did not change. Barth understood ‘natural theology’ or ‘natural revelation’ as some call it, to be a general depiction and overall knowledge of God’s existence in the world. However, revelation he argued, contained a redemptive nature that leads men to a very specific reason for their fallenness and a very detailed description of God as the Savior Jesus Christ, the data for which one cannot receive through ‘natural theology’ alone. Where was the understanding of the trinity in Barth’s thinking? To put it simply, Barth is known to be the pioneer of Trinitarian theology during the twentieth century. He laid the foundation of his Christian Dogmatics on the doctrine of Trinity, that is God revealed through three distinct persons while still maintaining his oneness. Barth is unique in the way he switched the order of how people in theology spoke of God. Historically speaking God’s oneness was discussed before that of his triunity. Barth began on the triunity of God for the reason of “The Doctrine of the Trinity is what basically distinguishes the Christian God.” Rather than using the word person while designating and distinguishing each member of the God-head, Barth prefers to make use of the term “mode of Being” because if person is used it will imply that God is made up of three separate members with differing personalities and wills. God has one personality and if Jesus Christ had a personality that differed from the Father, he could not be the self-revelation of the Father. If one considered only the first half of his Dogmatics, one could come to the conclusion that he was a modalist, that is one who shows no distinction between God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. However, when looking at his later volumes, Barth explains the incarnation as the Son of God’s journey into a far land. The Journey is that of God revealed through the Son. History is then understood, in a Barthian way as being brought into the actual triune life of God and thus when looking at history’s record, one can see the involvement of God in varying ways: of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus God creates the world for Jesus Christ. God is “the one who loves in freedom” and the act of creating is a “free positing of reality by the omnipotence of divine love.” God freely chose within himself to extend the intratrinitarian love that the Father and Son express towards one another through the Holy Spirit to his creation. And even more so, to invite by way of redemption a fallen race into Himself. Christ Centeredness BIBLIOGRAPHY Books Mueller, David L. Karl Barth, ed. Bob E. Patterson. Peabody, MC: Hendrickson Publishers, 1972. Wolf, L. Garold De. Present Trends in Christian Thought. New York: Association Press, 1960. Klooster, Fred H. The Significance of Barth’s Theology: An Appraisal: With Special Reference to Election and Reconciliation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1961. Torrance, Thomas F. Karl Barth: An Introduction to His Early Theology, 1910-1931. London: SCM Press, 1962. Barth, Karl. Theology and Church: Shorter Writings, 1920-1928, trans. Louise Pettibone Smith. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. Webster, John. Karl Barth: Second Edition. London, NY: Continuum, 2000. Barth, Karl. “On Systematic Theology,” Scottish Journal of Theology, 14, no. 3. September, 1961. Munster Faculty Album, 154 quoted in Webster, Karl Barth: Second Edition. London, NY: Continuum, 2000. Jeffrey P. Greenman and Timothy Larsen, Reading Romans Through the Centuries: From Early Church to Karl Barth (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005), 209. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. I/1 (Edinburgh: T& T Clark, 1975), 277f quoted in Greenman and Larsen, 209. Werner M. Ruschke, Entstehung und Ausfuhrung der Diastasentheologie in Karl Barths zweitem “Romerbrief” (Neukirchen: Neukrchener Verlag, 1987), 8. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), ixf. Karl Barth, “The Strange New World within the Bible,” in Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man, trans. Douglas Horton (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1928), 35. Karl Barth, How I Changed My Mind (?), 45 quoted in Webster, 8. Karl Barth, Letters 1961-1968, 295. Karl Barth, “The Humanity of God,” in Karl Barth: Theologian of Freedom, ed. Clifford Green (London: Collins, 1979), 48 Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 2, part 2 (Edinburgh: T& T Clark, 1957),. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, part 2 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956). Gordan, Clark H. Karl Barth’s Theological Method. Philadelphia, PA: The Presbyterian and Reformed Published Company, 1963. Karkkainen, Veli-Matti. Christology: A Global Introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003. Karkkainen, Veli-Matti. The Doctrine of God: A Global Introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004. Jenson, Robert W. Alpha and Omega: A Study in the Theology of Karl Barth. Edinburgh, Toronto: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1963. Hunsinger, George, ed. Karl Barth and Radical Politics. Translated by George Hunsinger. Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1976. Hartwell, Herbert. The Theology of Karl Barth: An Introduction. Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1964. Periodicals Barth, Karl. Moderne Theologie und Reichsgottesarbeit,” Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche, 19, no. 4 (1909).
areudirty
tangentwithtanner
turnnoffyourmind
jimmyeatworldofficial