I. INTRODUCTION
As the guns of August 1914 began to finally cool in 1918, it was evident to all that the intellectual commitment to a progressive humanity had ended. The nineteenth-century’s progressivism and naïve optimism seemingly lie fallow with the millions of dead in the trenches, and the mantra of the “goodness of man” rang hollow. It was in this context that protest against the theological climate of nineteenth-century Europe arose.[1] Karl Barth (1886-1968)—more than any other—was the pivotal figure in the transformation of theology during the early twentieth century.[2] As a figurehead, he came to represent the foremost theological rebuttal to liberal Protestantism, known as neo-orthodoxy or dialectical theology.[3] Though not a cohesive system, neo-orthodoxy embraced certain central themes: the radical transcendence of God, innate human sinfulness, christocentricity, the supernatural character of salvation, and God’s Word as the source and center of true theology.[4]
Barth’s theological corpus and contribution was immense, and in the present paper, we will limit our scope to the issue of Barth’s vociferous argument against natural theology. Several questions will be addressed regarding Barth’s position: (1) What is natural theology? (2) What was the socio-cultural milieu of Barth’s rejection of natural theology? (3) Finally, what were the central tenets of Barth’s disagreement with Emil Brunner, his most infamous debate partner, on this topic? The purpose of this paper is to investigate the answers to these questions and to illuminate the reasons why the twentieth-century’s greatest theologian held this somewhat unique theological position.
II. KARL BARTH BIOGRAPHY
A. Background of Classic Liberalism
The effects of Enlightenment thought during the eighteenth century elevated human reason to a level of near indispensable necessity, positing that all knowledge was conceivable by the method of human rationality, thus aggressively challenging the value of divine revelation. The philosophy of Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel was particularly influential, and it was Hegel’s philosophical optimism that was to provide “the structure adopted by the emerging schools of biblical criticism and cast an optimistic light on the entire nineteenth century.”[5] The first major stream of classical liberalism was represented by the ‘father of liberal theology,’ Friedrich Schleiermacher, who was especially influenced by Kantian philosophy, as well as Romanticism, and the influences of Christian pietism.[6] These three main influences combined in Schleiermacher’s thought and, in a significant way, changed how he understood divine revelation. For theologians who followed him, no longer would the traditional theological method begin with divine revelation, but with the subjective experience, which became its own final authority.[7]
Albrecht Ritschl represented the second major stream of classical liberalism. According to Ritschl:
Christianity is the monotheistic, completely spiritual and ethical religion, which on the basis of the life of its Founder as redeeming and establishing the kingdom of God, consists in the freedom of the children of God, and includes the impulse to conduct from the motive of love, the intention of which is the moral organization of mankind, and the filial relation to God as well as in the kingdom of God, which lays the foundation of blessedness.[8]
In other words, Ritschl conceived of the essence of Christianity in terms of moral and ethical betterment, and like Schleiermacher, Ritschl considered the encounter with God as primarily subjective and phenomenal. It was into this stream of classical liberalism that Barth was born and would be trained.[9]
B. Barth’s Life and Career
It would be hard to overstate Barth’s influence upon modern theology. Eberhard Jüngel, one of Barth’s most noted students, described him like this:
Karl Barth is the most significant Protestant theologian since Schleiermacher, whom he sought to overcome and to whom he nevertheless remains indebted in many ways. Barth’s personal and literary influence profoundly changed the shape of Christian theology across confessional boundaries, significantly altered the direction of the Protestant church, and also left an unmistakable imprint on the politics and cultural life of the twentieth century.[10]
Barth was born in Basel, Switzerland on May 10th, 1886 to parents who were steeped in the Swiss Reformed tradition. His father was a professor of early and modern church history at Berne, and he encouraged the young Barth to avoid the liberal theology then sweeping through the ranks of university faculties in Europe. Conceding to his father’s demands, he initially began his university studies with his father at Berne, but would eventually become a disciple of the “modern school,” studying at Berlin under von Harnack, then at Tübingen under Adolf Schlatter, and finally at Marburg under Herrmann. Following exams in 1908, he was ordained a pastor and served in several locations before settling for ten years in Safenwil, a farming and industrial area near Zurich.[11]
1. Pastorate (1911-1921)
Though trained in the theology and philosophy of liberal Protestantism, Barth would eventually break with his mentors. He experienced a personal crisis during his pastorate at Safenwil, one rooted in the frustration of preaching to working-class men and women week after week.[12] He increasingly found his theology unequal to the task, especially when his message of the “goodness of man” was preached within earshot of the large artillery barrages being fired during the First World War. This frustration was amplified when the revelation that ninety-three German intellectuals, including several former theological professors he had studied with, had signed a document supporting the war policy of Kaiser Wilhelm II.[13] As the war raged on, Barth’s own personal frustration with his training began to fester—assuaged primarily within his readings of the “strange new world” of the Bible:
It is not the right human thoughts about God which form the content of the Bible, but the right divine thoughts about men. The Bible tells us not how we should talk with God but what he says to us; not how we find the way to him, but how he has sought and found the way to us; not the right relation in which we must place ourselves to him, but the covenant which he has made with all who are Abraham’s spiritual children and which he has sealed once and for all in Jesus Christ. It is this, which is within the Bible. The world of God is within the Bible.[14]
His disappointment in the liberal paradigm was nearly complete, and a foundation was laid, which would eventually result in his break from liberal Protestantism.[15]
II. Der Römerbrief (1918, 1922)
If any event was central to his break from liberal Protestantism, it was the writing and publication of Barth’s commentary on Romans. While the first edition of 1918 contained a preface with some indication of a shifting tide in Barth’s thought,[16] it was the preface to the second edition, published four years later, that “fell like a bomb on the playground of the theologians.”[17] The “bomb” had in fact landed most acutely in the intellectual development of Barth himself. At this time, he was “becoming more convinced of the eschatological nature of Christianity, was studying more of Plato, was introduced to Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s works, and perhaps most important, came under the influence of Søren Kierkegaard.”[18]
Barth was influenced by Kierkegaard, whose own reactions against the reigning views of rationality in his Danish homeland in the nineteenth century caused him to formulate themes that would later be recapitulated in twentieth-century neo-orthodoxy.[19] To what extent Kierkegaard influenced Barth, and which of his writings proved influential on Barth, is uncertain. Scholars are still debating that issue in his development.[20] Because of its emphasis on “the confrontation between God and humanity,” Der Römerbrief won for Barth the label “dialectical theology” or “theology of crisis,” which suggests that Barth’s thought lay more in the camp of Kierkegaard than Hegel.[21] As Grenz notes, “for Kierkegaard, because of human sinfulness and the wholly otherness of God, God’s truth and human thought can never be smoothed out into a rational synthesis. Instead, the paradoxical truths of God’s self-revelation must be embraced in a leap of faith by the finite human mind.”[22] Barth willingly submitted that he was indebted to Kierkegaard for helping him formulate his theological method:
If I have a system, it is limited to a recognition of what Kierkegaard called the “infinite qualitative distinction” between time and eternity, and to my regarding this as possessing negative as well as positive significance: “God is in heaven, and thou art on earth.” The relation between such a God and such a man, and the relation between such a man and such a God, is for me the theme of the Bible and the essence of philosophy.[23]
III. Christian Dogmatics (1927) and Church Dogmatics (1932-1968)
Beginning in 1921, Barth began an honorary professorship in Göttingen. Without advanced study in theology, Barth felt compelled to intensely read the writings of thinkers with which he had only been superficially acquainted. He concentrated on Calvin and Zwingli, Schleiermacher and Feuerbach, Anselm and Aquinas.[24] This deep engagement with theological tradition was to be a hallmark of the rest of Barth’s work, and it was in Göttingen that Barth first began a dialectical re-reading of the Reformed tradition—furthering his intellectual efforts to replace what he now considered a defective liberal theology with something better.[25]
In 1927, the first volume in what was to be a multivolume Christian Dogmatics was published. The work is significant in that Barth rejected both liberal Protestantism and Roman Catholic theology for allowing the possibility of natural theology. In addition, Barth rejected the idea that faith is grounded in the human experience of faith and he rejected Schleiermacher’s “God-consciousness” as Gefühl (feeling). Instead, he posited that theology is grounded in the Word of God as addressed to humankind.[26]
Barth eventually abandoned the Christian Dogmatics project because he considered it to lean too heavily upon existentialism.[27] In 1930 Barth moved to a professorship in Bonn, but the political situation in Germany began to deteriorate, and Barth’s task became as much political as theological. As church leaders across Germany assimilated Hitler’s policies, Barth drafted the Theological Declaration of the “Confessing Church” (‘Barmen Declaration’), opposing the Nazi-supported “German-Christian” movement. Because he refused to take an unconditional oath of loyalty to Hitler and to open his university lectures with the customary Nazi salute, he was eventually dismissed from Bonn, and he was invited to teach at the University of Basel, where he would remain for the rest of his life.[28] In Basel, he renewed his effort at dogmatic theology with the multivolume work, Church Dogmatics, a series that eventually extended to thirteen volumes and remained incomplete at his death. His tenure at Basel was extremely productive, and he attracted many students there as he engaged with the world of theology and society. He remained active until his death on December 10th, 1968 at the age of 82.
III. KARL BARTH AND NATURAL THEOLOGY
A. Natural Theology Defined
Traditionally, ‘natural theology’ has been understood as an innate capacity on the part of men and women for ascertaining, to a certain degree, knowledge of God apart from God’s special revelation.[29] More formally defined, “natural theology is the practice of philosophically reflecting on the existence and nature of God independent of real or apparent divine revelation or scripture. ”[30] But, as James Barr pointed out in the Gifford Lectures for 1990, it is necessary to define natural theology in somewhat wider terms in order to appreciate Barth’s rejection of it. As Barr notes, “we should define natural theology more loosely [because] this approach fits with one of the great classic debates of the theology of this century…the disagreement between Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, which set the stage for so much modern theology. [The debate] took this form: is there any human knowledge of God antecedent to his self-revelation in Jesus Christ?”[31] For Barth, the answer was Nein! (‘no’)—for Brunner, ‘yes.’[32] Destined to become infamous with the publication of Brunner’s Nature and Grace, this disagreement and very public debate would become something of a cause célèbre.[33]
Brunner’s contention was that “the task of our generation is to find a way back to a legitimate natural theology.”[34] McGrath explains the approach of Brunner like this:
Brunner located this approach in the doctrine of creation, specifically the idea that human beings are created in the imago Dei, the image of God.[35] Human nature is constituted in such a way that there is an analog with the being of God. Despite the sinfulness of human nature, the ability to discern God in nature remains. Sinful human beings remain able to recognize God in nature and in the events of history, and to be aware of their guilt before God. There is thus a “point of contact” (Anknüpfungspunkt) for divine revelation within human nature. For example, the gospel demand to repent is addressed [sic] to an audience, which already has at least something of an idea of what “sin” and “repentance” might mean. Revelation brings with it a fuller understanding of what sin means—but in doing so, it builds upon an existing human awareness of sin.[36]
Nein! was the title that Barth gave to his essay response published in Brunner’s Nature and Grace. In effect, Barth was angry with Brunner’s suggestion that human beings somehow cooperated with God in the act of revelation.[37]
Barth understood ‘natural theology’ to be “every formulation of a system which claims to be theological, i.e., to interpret divine revelation, whose subject, however, differs fundamentally from the revelation in Jesus Christ and whose method therefore differs equally from the exposition of Holy Scripture.”[38] For Barth, “the Holy Spirit…needs no point of contact other than that which that same Spirit establishes.” For Barth, “any such ‘point of contact’ was itself the result of divine revelation. It is something that is evoked by the Word of God, rather than something which is a permanent feature of human nature.”[39] Barth, ever true to his contention that natural theology was the mistake of which theology must right itself, had this to say as he in great irony delivered the 1937-38 Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology: “I certainly see—with astonishment—that such a science as Lord Gifford had in mind [natural theology] does exist, but I do not see how it is possible for it to exist. I am convinced that so far as it has existed and still exists, it owes its existence to a radical error.” In the introduction to his Gifford lectures, he concluded “that it cannot really be the business of a Reformed theologian to raise so much as his little finger to support this undertaking [natural theology] in any positive way.”[40]
B. Summarizing the Barth-Brunner Debate on Natural Theology (1934)
I. Social Background of the Debate
What was the nature of the socio-cultural context that framed the theological dispute between Barth and Brunner? Importantly, the Barth-Brunner debate occurred in 1934, the same year that Barth formulated the Barmen Declaration.[41] This is also the same year that Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler seized total power in Germany by elevating himself to the position of Führer, or absolute leader of the German nation. As Hart notes:
The questions of the relationship between church and state, grace and nature were thrust to the fore in a situation in which apparent compromises were being made between the gospel of Jesus Christ and that of Germany’s other more recently adopted messianic movement.[42] Barth, together with others, became increasingly convinced that in the face of all the syncretistic blurring of boundaries, the Christian Church and its theologians, must return unequivocally to the one absolute authority for faith: the Revelation of God to humans in Jesus Christ and him crucified, a revelation the very substance of which spoke clearly of a judgment upon all purely human philosophies and ideologies. Christian theology…could in no sense be held to derive [its] message from two distinct sources: revelation on the one hand, and nature or reason on the other. To suggest this in the Germany of 1934, when the most demonic fruits of human nature and culture were clearly manifest in the political and social sphere, was to entertain the view that theology must serve two masters: on the one hand the Lord of light, and on the other the Lord of darkness.[43]
However, Barth’s concern about Brunner’s ideas reached historically deeper that just the immediate social context of Nazi Germany:
Underlying Brunner’s appeal to nature is an idea, which can be traced back to Luther, known as the “orders of creation.” According to Luther, God providentially established certain “orders” within creation, in order to prevent it from collapsing into chaos. Those orders included the family, the church, and the state. The close alliance between the church and state in German Lutheran thought can be seen as reflecting this idea. Nineteenth-century German liberal Protestantism had absorbed this idea, and developed a theology that allowed German culture, including a positive assessment of the state, to become of major importance theologically. Part of Barth’s concern was that Brunner, perhaps unwittingly, had laid a theological foundation for allowing the state to become a model for God. And who, he wondered, wanted to model God on Adolf Hitler?[44]
Some have questioned the accuracy of Barth’s criticism of Brunner in this regard.[45] Can the idea that humankind has a kind of limited knowledge of God outside divine revelation really imply that we might construct God in the image of someone like Hitler? Some suggest Barth has made a spurious link in this argument.[46] Nonetheless, as Hart notes, “it is important, when reading the response of Barth to Brunner in 1934 always to keep this context firmly in mind: otherwise the passion and invective may seem to be getting rather too worked up about an abstract issue of merely academic interest.”[47]
II. The Central Dialectic of the Barth-Brunner Debate (1934)
The key question in the debate was this: In terms of our knowledge of God and his purposes and designs for this world, what part may ‘nature’ be expected to play? What is the true relationship between ‘nature’ (the sphere of the human as given apart from any effective redemptive or revelatory activity on the part of God) and ‘grace’ (the condition and knowledge of those who have been acted upon in such a redemptive/revelatory way)?[48] With this key question in mind, we can now review the summary points of each theologian.
III. The Case by Brunner[49]
Brunner summarized what he took to be the Barthian objections to his thesis [displayed in italics] like this:
(1) Barth: In the fall, the image of God in humans was obliterated without remnant.
Brunner writes, “I agree that the original image of God in man has been destroyed, that the justitia originialis has been lost and with it the possibility of doing or even of willing to do that which is good in the sight of God (22).” Brunner contended however that we should differentiate between a ‘formal’ and a ‘material’ image of God. The ‘formal’ image is that part of humanity which distinguishes it from the animal kingdom; it accords a special status to humanity, and is “not only not abolished by sin; rather it is the presupposition of the ability to sin and continues within the state of sin (23).”[50] However, the ‘material’ image of God is completely lost in human beings—and this means that humans are no longer predisposed to grace, but hostile to it. As Hart notes on Brunner’s conclusion, “humans then remain persons responsible before God, albeit sinful persons, who have flouted and continually flout that responsibility, thereby incurring judgment.”[51] In other words, it is the presence of a categorical “ought” (present even in sinful humanity), which betrays a predisposition to God in our natures despite the fall.
(2) Barth: Scripture is the sole source and norm of our knowledge of God, and we must thus reject any attempt to identify a ‘natural’ or ‘general’ revelation of God in nature, since this would undermine soli gratia.[52]
Regarding ‘general revelation,’ Brunner again turns to a distinction to answer what he perceives as Barth’s objection on this point. “Wherever God does anything he leaves the imprint of his nature upon what he does. Therefore the creation of the world is at the same time a revelation, a self-communication of God (25).” On the one hand then Brunner contends that this fact does not alter just because of sin—creation goes on declaring the glory of God. In a similar fashion, the presence of the categorical “ought” or imperative within humanity is itself a consciousness of God (no matter how much we perceive it or even rebel against it). For Brunner, this consciousness is a knowledge of God. It may serve no purpose in making us more open to God, but it at least begs an important question: are there not two kinds of revelation? “Taking our stand upon the revelation in Jesus Christ, we shall not be able to avoid speaking of a double-revelation: of one in creation which only he can recognize in all its magnitude, whose eyes have been opened by Christ; and of a second in Jesus Christ in whose bright light he can clearly perceive the former. This latter revelation far surpasses that which the former was able to show him (26-27).”[53] The distinction that Brunner suggested is essentially one between the ontic and noetic: between what is there to be seen and our ability to see it.[54] As Hart notes, “on one hand the world itself possesses a God-given capacity for speech, or capacity for revelation…on the other [hand] the questions arises of the capacity of human beings to see or to receive this speech or revelation.”[55] Brunner concludes: “Only the Christian, i.e. the man who stands within the revelation in Christ, has the true natural knowledge of God (27).”
(3) Barth: There are no grounds for speaking of a ‘point of contact’ for the saving action of God in human nature, since this would undermine soli gratia.
Much of the brunt of Barth’s ire was directed at Brunner’s infamous phrase ‘point of contact’ (Anknüpfungspunkt). Brunner responded, “No one who agrees that human subjects (but not sticks or stones) can receive the Word of God and the Holy Spirit can deny that there is such a thing as a point of contact for the divine grace of redemption (31).” In other words, there must be something that makes humanity sensitive to and suitable recipients for the grace of God. For Brunner, this ‘something’ (or ‘point of contact’) was the formal image of God in human beings. Careful to not attribute too much to this point of contact, Brunner concludes, “This receptivity says nothing [of human being’s] acceptance or rejection of the Word of God. It is the purely formal possibility of their being addressed (31).” Clarifying further, “materially…there is no point of contact. The Word of God does not have to create man’s capacity for words. He has never lost it, it is the presupposition of his ability to hear the Word of God (32).”
(4) Barth: The new creation is not a perfection of the old, but comes into being exclusively through the destruction of the old, and its replacement is by something utterly new.
Brunner essentially disagrees with Barth on this point, insisting that though the “category of renewal or restoration is a wholly legitimate one,” the idea of a “total replacement of something old by something essentially novel in redemption is unbiblical, and denies continuity of personhood.”[56] Brunner insists that the person is not replaced, but healed and restored.
III. The Case by Barth[57]
We now turn to the content of Barth’s objections to all this, captured in his very direct title, Nein! Here are Barth’s objections to Brunner’s points—with Brunner’s summary objections in italics:
(1) Brunner: Human beings are predisposed to God despite the fall because of the ‘formal’ image of God.
Barth’s main objection was ultimately that in Brunner’s distinction between a ‘material’ and a ‘formal’ imago Dei, Brunner was asserting that the ‘formal’ image of God engendered a capacity for revelation (which was in effect, a material vestige). Barth admits that there is a ‘formal’ image of God remaining in humanity, concluding that “even as a sinner, man is man, and not a tortoise (79).” But what, Barth asks, does this have to do with a capacity in humanity for revelation or natural receptivity to the divine word? Expounding on this question, Barth uses a metaphor: “If a man had just been saved from drowning by a competent swimmer, would it not be very unsuitable if he proclaimed the fact that he was a man and not a lump of lead as his ‘capacity for being saved’ (79)?” Capturing Barth’s argument, Hart summarizes: “If, as Brunner alleges, humans are utterly unable to contribute in this manner [participate in redemption], then what possible sense is there in referring to a ‘capacity’ for revelation at all?”[58]
(2) Brunner: The world bears the imprint of God, which is a type of knowledge of God in itself. The categorical imperative (or sense of “ought”) in human beings is a type of natural knowledge of God, though it does not serve to open humanity to God.
Barth then turns his attention to the idea of ‘general revelation.’ Barth insists that Brunner is inconsistent on this point. Brunner suggests that at one and the same time the creation is recognizable as God’s world, and yet such recognition is rendered impossible because of the effects of sin. The result of Brunner’s thought is that the distinction between a material and formal image of God in humanity, actually breaks down—and what one is left with is an alleged knowledge of God “apart from God’s self-revealing activity in His Son” and with an account of the ‘idolatry’ which is the practical effect of such ‘partial’ knowledge, as but a somewhat imperfect preparatory stage of the service of the true God (82).” In other words, when Brunner contends that humanity possesses a type of ‘open-blindness,’ his position becomes untenable and inconsistent. Later scholars have agreed with Barth on this point.[59]
(3) Brunner: There is a formal, anterior basis (‘point of contact’) in human nature which provides a necessary precondition for the coming to humans of God’s gracious word.
For Barth, history has demonstrated humanity’s true response to the God who becomes incarnate—it crucifies Him. This is a supreme act of defiance that epitomizes the real truth about any ‘capacity for God’—there is none. Because of this, Barth contends, God anticipates His total rejection, and turns humanity’s rejection into her redemption. This is accomplished not by the healing of human nature—it is accomplished by crucifying the flesh of the sinner, and “raising up a new creature.”[60]
(4) Brunner: Regeneration is a healing of human nature, rather than a complete and total replacement of something old with something novel.
For Barth, regeneration is expressed not in the figure of repair or restoration, but of new birth—a completely new start.[61] What Brunner misses is the connection between Barth’s view of regeneration and his understanding of election. As McDowell notes, what Barth was ultimately insisting was that “the eventful Trinitarian God elects and creates human beings in Christ to respond to his Self-revelation. The ‘capacity’ or ‘point of contact’ is, therefore, a Christological and eschatological concept,”[62] Because this event is so miraculous, it is more than simple renewal, which suggests an inherent connection to the old life. The old life is completely gone. In Barth’s thought, the complete renewal of humanity is connected with the imputation to Christ of humanity’s negative tendencies to reject God: “For if God Himself became man…what else can this mean but that He declared himself guilty of the contradiction against Himself in which man was involved.”[63] Because the believer’s tendency to reject God has been completely assuaged, she is a completely new creation.[64]
C. Summary and Conclusion
The debate between Barth and Brunner is one of the more interesting in the history of Christian theology—even though it is not now debated as vociferously as it once was in the first half of the twentieth century. For Barth, God is the all-determining reality, especially in salvation. Like Calvin, Barth eschewed any hint of synergism in this regard—and he would not attribute any role to humanity in the redemptive/revelatory act. Unlike Calvin, Barth rejected a doctrine of general revelation. At its heart, Barth’s rejection of natural theology rested on a strong aversion to allowing an autonomous and unconnected natural theology to be separate and apart from revealed theology. Thomas Torrance describes Barth’s rejection like this,
Epistemologically then, what Barth objects to in traditional natural theology is not any invalidity in its argumentation, nor even its rational structure, as such, but its independent character—i.e. the autonomous rational structure that natural theology develops on the ground of “nature alone,” in abstraction from the active self-disclosure of the living and Triune God—for that can only split the knowledge of God into two parts, natural knowledge of the One God and revealed knowledge of the triune God, which is scientifically as well as theologically intolerable. This is not to reject the place of a proper rational structure in knowledge of God, such as natural theology strives for, but to insist that unless that rational structure is intrinsically bound up with the actual content of knowledge of God, it is a distorting abstraction. That is why Barth claims that, properly understood, natural theology is included within revealed theology.[65]
Not surprisingly, some critics have contended that in his zealousness to protect God’s primary role in divine revelation, Barth sacrificed too much on the human side of the “God-world relationship.”[66] Barth once remarked that Schleiermacher had tried to talk about God by talking about humanity in a very loud voice. Barth’s critics retorted that Barth had tried to talk about humanity by speaking about God in a very loud voice.[67] Whichever one of the errors is greater, history will judge. As Hardy notes,
Karl Barth’s lifelong search was to establish a strong position for orthodox Christian faith in a world in which it had been marginalized, and which had been seriously corrupted as a result. This “world” was not of recent origin: it included the subversive tendencies found throughout the history of Christianity as well as in the present day, many of which he confronted throughout the Church Dogmatics. These tendencies can be seen as the counterparts of the reductive ways of the theology in which Barth had been educated, a combination of Kantianism, Hegelianism, Schleiermacher, Von Harnack, and others, and in the approaches advocated by some of his contemporaries. The hydra-headed monster—largely a compound of history and philosophy—with which he was struggling, both in the past and in the present, was a real threat, and it survives in assumptions commonly made today. Barth however was not intimidated largely because he found it possible to trace the actuality of God’s self-revelation.[68]
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Thiselton, Anthony C. “Schleiermacher, Friedrich D.E.” Pages 329-330 in Dictionary of Biblical Criticism and Interpretation. Edited by Stanley E. Porter. New York: Routledge, 2009.
[1]A sampling of introductions to modern theology supports this point. See the following works: Stanley Grenz and Roger Olson, 20th-Century Theology (Downers Grove: IVP, 1992), 419-446; David F. Ford, “Introduction to Modern Christian Theology,” in The Modern Theologians, eds. David F. Ford and Rachel Muers (Malden: Blackwell, 2005), 1-14; Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Malden: Blackwell, 2001), 101-106.
[2]Daniel W. Hardy, “Karl Barth,” in Ford and Muers, Modern Theologians, 21. Readers interested in a general introduction to the life and thought of Karl Barth should consult the following works: David L. Mueller, Karl Barth (Waco: Word, 1972); Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979); Joseph L. Mangina, Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness (Toronto: Ashgate, 2004); Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976).
[3]‘Neo-orthodoxy’ is likely the most common moniker that the scholar will encounter in the literature; nonetheless, one should be aware that dialectical theology, theology of crisis, neo-orthodoxy, and even Barthianism are terms frequently encountered—all of which generally refer to the same theological movement.
[5]Sawyer, 402.
[7]Anthony C. Thiselton, “Schleiermacher, Friedrich D.E.” in Dictionary of Biblical Criticism and Interpretation, ed. Stanley E. Porter (New York: Routledge, 2009), 329.
[8]Quoted in Sawyer, 404.
[9]The apex of liberal thought is often argued to be the theology of Adolf von Harnack, who Barth claimed to have been a “disciple” of early in his life. Among the others that Barth considered his mentors, he listed Julius Kaftan, Hermann Gunkel, Wilhelm Herrmann, and Adolf Schlatter—all of whom had been steeped in classical liberalism. See Hardy, 22-24.
[15]Ibid. Sawyer quotes Barth on this frustration, “For twelve years I was a minister, as all of you are. I had my theology. It was not really mine, to be sure, but that of my unforgotten teacher, Wilhelm Herrmann, grafted on principles I had learned, less consciously than unconsciously, in my native home. Once in the ministry, I found myself growing away from those theological habits of thought and being forced back at every point more and more upon the specific minister’s problem, the sermon. I sought to find my way between the problem of human life on the one hand and the content of the Bible on the other. As a minister I wanted to speak to the people in the infinite contradiction of their life, but to speak no less the message of the Bible, which was as much of a riddle as life.”
[16]Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 1. Some clues to this change are seen in the first edition preface: “The historical-critical method of Biblical investigation has its rightful place: it is concerned with the preparation of the intelligence—and this can never be superfluous. But, were I driven to choose between it and the venerable doctrine of Inspiration, I should without hesitation adopt the latter, which has a broader, deeper, more important justification.”
[20]For an excellent treatment on the development of “dialectical theology” in Barth’s earlier years, see Bruce L. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 235-7. As McCormack notes, “It is beyond question that Kierkegaardian language and concepts play a significant role in Romans II [second printing]. But what does the usage tell us about the degree of Kierkegaard’s influence on Barth? The truth is…that most of the conceptual building blocks needed to produce the characteristic shape of the dialectic…were already in place before the encounter with Kierkegaard.”
[21]Hegel’s philosophy of history provided the structure adopted by the emerging schools of biblical criticism and cast an optimistic light on the entire nineteenth century, dogmatically asserting progress in history and the perfectability of humanity. For a treatment of Hegel’s philosophy and influence (especially directed at theology students) see: Frederick Copleston, From the Post-Kantian Idealists, to Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, vol. 7 of The History of Philosophy (New York, Doubleday, 1963), 159-247.
[23]Sawyer, 425. For a contrary view of the opinion that Kierkegaard was the primary influence on Barth’s dialectical method, and a suggestion that it was Wilhelm Herrmann who was primarily responsible, see Christophe Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians: Wilhelm Herrmann, Karl Barth, and Rudolf Bultmann (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Ag, 2005), 74.
[24]Anselm would prove to be very influential on Barth. Barth’s 1930 lecture “Cur Deus Homo?” precipitated a deeper study of Anselm. The result was Barth’s book Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum. Of his study of Anselm, Barth said later, “The deepening of my theological position consisted in this: in these years I have had to rid myself of the last remnants of a philosophical, i.e. anthropological foundation and exposition of Christian doctrine. The real document of this farewell is in truth, not the much read Nein!, directed against Brunner in 1934, but rather the book about the evidence for God of Anselm of Canterbury, which appeared in 1931.” Quoted in Sawyer, 429.
[27]Ibid. The ‘existentialism’ that Barth was most concerned about was found primarily in the prolegomena to his Christian Dogmatics. When eventually Barth began his work on the Church Dogmatics, he would eschew the need for a prolegomena altogether—signaling his rejection of the perceived necessity for a philosophical prologue to the divine revelation in God’s Word.
[30]Charles Taliaferro, “The Project of Natural Theology,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, eds. William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). 1. As Taliaferro notes: “Traditionally, natural theology involves weighing arguments for and against God’s existence, and it is contrasted with revealed theology, which may be carried out within the context of ostensible revelation or scripture.”
[31]Barr, 3. In her essay “God by Design,” Narveson contends that there are two ways to define natural theology—one wider, one narrower. For the present paper, we have adapted the “wider” definition. See Jan Narveson, “God by Design,” in God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science, ed. Neil A. Manson (New York: Routledge, 2003), 88.
[37]So zealous was Barth in his vociferous response to Brunner that their friendship essentially ended over the debate, despite their both being labeled as neo-orthodox theologians. The exchange would indelibly mark Brunner’s future writings, including his own Dogmatics, which would devote some space regularly to a polemic against Barth.
[38]Brunner, 74. For a further explanation on the ‘width’ of Barth’s concept of natural theology, see Henri Bouillard, “A Dialogue with Barth: The Problem of Natural Theology,” Cross Currents, no. 1 (1968): 208-9. As Bouillard states, “Barth does not consider the only theme of natural theology to be the natural knowledge of God. As many Protestants do, and as the Deists and their theological adversaries once did, Barth ascribes a broader meaning to the term “natural theology” than Catholic philosophers and theologians ordinarily do. He includes, among other things, all doctrines concerning man and all moral doctrines which lay claim to defining a relationship to God independent of Christian revelation.”
[40]Karl Barth, The Knowledge of God and the Service of God According to the Teaching of the Reformation, trans. J.L.M. Haire and Ian Henderson (London: Hodder and Stoughton Publishers, 1938), 2. Stanley Hauerwas notes that, “at the beginning of his Gifford Lectures, Barth observes that natural theology is primarily a protest movement in theology proper. When, however, natural theology loses its adversary, it becomes “arid and listless” and interest in it begins to flag. Accordingly, Barth claims that he is being faithful to Gifford’s will by giving natural theologians a position against which they can strike their blows. Toward the end of his lectures, Barth writes that no representative of natural theology can avoid what he has said, since any such representative will find Barth’s tenets to be the ‘direct opposite of his own tenets and therefore of necessity extraordinarily interesting and profitable for his own particular undertaking. I feel therefore that I have fulfilled my obligations toward the Gifford Lectures.” Stanley Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2001), 143.
[48]For the distillation of this key question and the following summary points in the Barth-Brunner debate, the author is indebted to Hart, 290-302. As Hart notes, “It was an age old question for Christian theology, and one to which Barth saw Roman Catholicism and Protestant liberalism alike as having given a similar answer, namely Gratia non tollit naturam sed perfecit: ‘Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.’ In particular, this meant affording human reason some positive status as regards the knowledge of God. Barth believed that in every age, and not just in the status confessionis of Nazi Germany, such an answer opened the floodgates to relativism, secularism, and paganism, viewing the category of the ‘natural’ as standing in a relationship of fundamental continuity with that of ‘grace,’ as a preparatio evangelica, and therefore as having a distinct and necessary role to play in the formulation of theology within the Church (291).”
[52]Soli gratia is one of the “five solas” of the Protestant reformers; it is a Latin term meaning ‘grace alone.’ The reformers posited that salvation is entirely comprehended in God’s gifts (God’s gift of free grace), dispensed through the Holy Spirit according to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ alone.
[60]Ibid., 301. As Hart notes, “Here Barth draws on what for him is the chief significance of the doctrine of the virgin conception of Christ’s human life: the words of Mary, ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?’ is the question of all humanity in the face of that work of redemption and regeneration wrought in them by Christ.”
[64]Further debate over the years between Barth and Brunner centered upon Barth’s eschewal of Calvin’s concept of double-predestination. Brunner interpreted Barth’s doctrine of election as universalism, a charge that Barth only softly refuted in his written work. Reformed scholars of both conservative and moderate stripe have something to appreciate about Barth then—his emphasis on regeneration preceding conversion (appealing to conservative Reformed scholars), and his softening of Calvin’s double predestination (appealing to moderate Reformed scholars).
2 comments:
Matthew,
Thanks for the in-depth discussion on Barth and Natural Theology. I am working on a series discussing Barr's take on Natural Theology within the discipline of Biblical Theology. The discussion has direct relevance to some of the hotly debated issues within Reformed thought today. I linked to your article in my post:
http://jedpaschall.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/james-barr-on-natural-theology-part-1/
Regards,
Jed Paschall
Thank you Jed. Blessings to you in your endeavors
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