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Chapter One
Barth's Doctrine of the Trinity
Introduction
Our purpose in this first chapter is to present Barth's
doctrine of
the Trinity. We begin our study of economic and political life
with the
doctrine of the Trinity for two major reasons. First, and
most importantly, our fundamental question on how the state
should act in economic
affairs has its basis in the relation of creation and
reconciliation, and
this in turn has its basis in God's inner triune life. The
doctrine of the
Trinity is the foundation of our study. All our results will
be derived
from the doctrine of the Trinity, and therefore, we begin there.
Secondly,
Barth did not address the issue of political responsibility for
economic
life in the manner we have proposed. We shall derive results
not directly
envisioned by Barth. If we wish to remain true to the
essence of his
theology, we cannot simply proof-text his works but must grasp
the essential intelligibility of the whole of his thought.
Barth's theology is
quite complex, but two doctrines stand at the heart of his
theological
enterprise--his Christology and his doctrine of the Trinity.
These two
doctrines are related in varied and intricate ways, but we may
summarize
their relation by saying that God reveals himself only in Jesus
Christ, and
in Jesus Christ he always reveals himself as triune. That
God reveals
himself only in Jesus Christ refers to the well known fact
that Barth's
theology is a Christocentric theology, and it entails a
rejection of natural theology. All Barth's theological
doctrines, including his anthropology, have their basis and content in God's revelation in
Jesus Christ.
From this it follows that the content of his doctrine of the
Trinity has
its basis in Jesus Christ as well, and we shall observe this as
we proceed.
In revealing himself in Jesus Christ, however, God always
reveals himself
as triune. Barth discerns God's triune nature by passing from
God in his
acts, the content of his acts being Jesus Christ, to God in
himself. This
is a movement from below to above and it results in a
doctrine of the
Trinity. This implies that God in himself, immanent Trinity,
is as he is
in his acts, economic Trinity. Once Barth has arrived at a
doctrine of the
Trinity, he then works from above to below. The structure of
the Church
Dogmatics, its one doctrine of election followed by God's
three-fold acts
of creation, reconciliation, and redemption, is reflective of
the Triune
relations. We shall observe that the structure of Barth's
thought, its
inter-related intelligibility, the manifold ways in which various
doctrines
are ordered and related, has its basis in God's triune nature.
Structurally, the doctrine of the Trinity is at the apex, and
the direction is
downward, in that every other doctrine is connected from
above to the
dynamic inner triune relations of the God who is One in
Three.(1) Barth
expresses it at one point as follows: "Only by proceeding
downwards from
the triune existence of God can we understand how God stands
before us, how
in His revelation He gives Himself to be known and is known
by us."(2)
Therefore, if we are to extend Barth's thought, we must
understand his
doctrine of the Trinity and its significance for the whole of his
thought,
and that will be the primary task of this first chapter.
The intelligiblity of Barth's thought can be grasped
from another
direction as well. His thought can be understood as the
result of his
methodology, which in turn reflects his theological
epistemology. Matters
of epistemology and methodology belong, in Barth's view, to
dogmatic prolegomena. The task of prolegomena is to "give an
explicit account of the
particular way of knowledge taken in dogmatics, or, as we might
also say,
of the particular point from which we are to look, think, and
judge in
dogmatics."(3) Unlike virtually any other theologian, Barth
placed his
doctrine of the Trinity in the prolegomena of his dogmatics.(4)
He did this
for a variety of reasons. Chief among them was his belief that
his theology required an epistemology and a method based on a
doctrine of the
Trinity. Once the path to knowledge had been established
through a doctrine of the Trinity, he felt that he was on
safe methodological and
epistemological grounds in developing his subsequent doctrines.
All of
these subsequent doctrines reflect the fact that God reveals
himself only
in Jesus Christ, and that he does so in a triune manner.
Furthermore,
Barth arrived at the belief that a doctrine of the Trinity was
crucial for
epistemology and methodology through his encounter with the
prevailing
theological perspectives of his day, which was liberalism.
Initially, he
accepted the liberal theological program. He then rejected this
theological perspective, but he was not able to initiate his
own theological program until he had derived a suitable
epistemology. This was precipitated
by his reading of Anselm. The evolution of his thought can be
viewed as a
wrestling with the character of revelation, the epistemology of
revelation,
and the outcome of this struggle was a doctrine of the Trinity
which itself
reflected the major turning points of this thought.
In light of the foregoing, the order for this chapter is
as follows.
First, we shall begin by recapitulating the major conceptual
turning points
of Barth's thought as these lead at once to his doctrine of the
Trinity.
Then we shall present his doctrine of the Trinity. As we do so,
we shall
demonstrate how Barth moves from God in his revelation to God in
himself,
and then from above to below. Since we are interested in how
the Triune
God acts in the world, and how God relates economic and
political life, we
must be able to follow Barth as he moves from God in himself to
God in his
actions in life. This requires an introduction to his doctrine
of analogy.
As God acts in the world his actions take a three-in-one form
analogous to
the inner-triune relations. Barth places the oneness first, and
the unity
of all God's actions hinges upon his choice of Jesus Christ and
with him
the whole of humanity. Therefore, Barth's doctrine of election
is prior to
creation and reconciliation. We must speak of election prior to
speaking
of creation and reconciliation in order to discern the
fundamental unity
and goal of these acts, and therefore the goal of acting
politically in
economic affairs. Without an emphasis on God's oneness and his
one goal,
election, creation, and reconciliation fall apart, and the
state's political life will not have the correct relation to
economic affairs. Finally,
and this is important for our economic analysis of the final
chapter, we
shall observe that Barth's doctrine of the Trinity is bound up
with the
character of God's acts as taking a social and historical form.
As God
acts he acts as a social being, as Three-in-One, and his
actions create
history. History and social life are important categories for
us, they are
the primary concepts for our thesis that economic life has its
basis in
social history. Therefore, in this first chapter, we shall
present aspects
of Barth's understanding of history, God's social nature, and
their relation to Trinity.
Barth's Encounter with Kant: Liberalism, Its Rejection, and
Anselm
Our task in this section is to present the major turning
points of
Barth's theological development as they lead at once to his
doctrine of the
Trinity. We shall restrict ourselves to conceptual
developments. Political and social events were very important in
transforming Barth's theological world, and his triune
perspective was intimately connected with his
politics. We will mention a few instances of this, but if we
want to
address the matter conceptually, we may best do so by
investigating how
Barth came to terms with Kant. Kant, in Barth's view, set the
agenda for
nineteenth century theology.(5) Kant established certain
theological and
conceptual alternatives, and theology's differing choices
within these
diverse alternatives gave rise to the differing streams of
nineteenth
century theology. Kant was, in Barth's words, the
"dictator"(6) of nineteenth century theology, in that the
differing choices were made within the
limits he had proposed. Barth, born in 1886, inherited
nineteenth century
theology. He could advance theologically only by wrestling
with, modifying, or overcoming that tradition (Schleiermacher
above all), and this
entailed his coming to terms with Kant.(7) Barth encountered
Kant in three
stages: an acceptance of Kant and the major theological
adaptation to Kant,
liberal theology; then a rejection of liberal theology, but not a
rejection
of Kant; and finally Kant was overcome through the influence of
Anselm. We
will begin by presenting aspects of Barth's understanding of
Kant as this
will help us to understand aspects of his doctrine of the
Trinity. Much of
this discussion is taken from Barth's book on nineteenth century
theology.
Kant set the agenda for nineteenth century theology by
demanding that
God be treated as a noumenon. Noumena, in contrast to
phenomena, are
beyond cognition--the categories of thought, such as location in
space and
time, do not apply to them. God, being a noumenon, cannot be
conceived; He
is beyond conception, and the language ordinarily applied to
phenomena does
not apply to Him.(8) Several consequences follow at once from
this. First,
Kant rejected the cosmological proof of the existence of God.
One cannot
pass from the world known under the categories of space and
time to God,
and thereby analogously know God by means of spatial/temporal
concepts.
Secondly, one cannot go from God to the world. God cannot be
conceived as
a being who reveals Himself in the world, or acts in it.
Events in the
world are recognized and conceived by the categories of the
understanding,
and these categories do not apply to God. Barth quotes Kant at
this point,
"'For if God really spoke to man, he would never be able to
know that it
was in fact God who was speaking to him. It is an utterly
impossible
demand that man should grasp the Infinite One by means of
his senses,
distinguish him from sensory beings, and perceive him
thereby.'"(9)
Barth was raised in the Reformed tradition, and Scripture played
a central
role in his Christian formation. Scripture describes God as one
who speaks
to people and acts concretely in the world at specific times
and places.
According to Kant, the concrete, specific language, the
language of the
Bible, cannot be considered as descriptive of God since
Scripture uses
language employing the categories of the understanding which
cannot apply
to God. This language, and its associated theological ideas,
belong to an
outer core of accidental, historical facts. This outer core
surrounds an
inner core of theological statements that one can derive
from reason.
Although Kant rejected the cosmological proof of the existence
of God, he
did hold to a moral "proof" in that he believed in God as the
presupposition of moral norms and acts, and this God was thought
to be common to all
historical religions as their inner core. Historical religions,
however,
including the religion of Scripture, added an historical
accretion to this
inner core composed of statements describing God as one who
speaks and acts
within space and time. This outer core could not be accepted
philosophically, and was valid only for those who accepted its
tenets because they
lived within the stream of their religion's historical
influence.(10) Therefore, neither in Himself nor in His acts,
can God be conceived as One who
takes responsibility for others in economic affairs,
responsibility being
understood as acting specifically in definite times and places.
Nor can
the biblical revelation be understood as revealing an active,
responsible
God, unless one fails to appreciate the fact that the Infinite
cannot be
known by the finite understanding. There is no conceivable
linkage between
God and humanity which entails such concepts as responsibility,
service,
and active love, where these terms denote specific concrete
action. We
must now consider how theology responded to Kant, and how
that shaped
Barth's early theological development.
Liberalism
Schleiermacher, the father of liberal theology, was the
first great
theologian to reckon with Kant. In Barth's view,
Schleiermacher modified
Kant but accepted Kant's presuppositions. Schleiermacher
maintained that
all language, including theological statements, must utilize the
categories
of the understanding--language is inevitably spatial and
temporal. Since,
however, God is a noumenon, He cannot be the object of thought
or linguistically described. Therefore theological statements
do not properly refer
to God, but, for Schleiermacher, they refer directly only to
the human
feeling of absolute dependence. The variety of theological
statements
originates in the variations of the feeling of absolute
dependence. The
feeling of absolute dependence is an element of human
consciousness. It is
the feeling that all being hangs upon some "Whence" which cannot
be experienced or known directly. It is not, however, logically
necessary to make
the feeling of absolute dependence the locus for theological
statements as
did Schleiermacher. One could choose, rather, highly esteemed
aspects of
reality, such as the German culture, the unconscious, or the
Kingdom of
"God" in history. In Barth's view, the essential aspect of
liberal theology is that it makes the object of theological
statements an element of
the created world.(11) Initially, Barth accepted
Schleiermacher's program
and the essentials of liberal theology. For example, while
Barth was a
young pastor in Safenvil, he virtually equated the kingdom of
God with the
workers' struggle for social and economic justice.(12) Barth was
eventually
to abandon his initial liberalism. He came to believe that it
was fatal,
both for theology and for the Church's role in society, to open
the door to
considering theological language as description of a mundane
reality apart
from God's act in space and time. If theology, or any
religious conception, was ultimately a description of a worldly
reality, and not of God who
may reveal himself in a worldly event, but only concretely in
space and
time and according to his freedom, then theology and the
Church tacitly
accepted that reality in place of God as the object of
religious knowing
and devotion. Such a procedure is, in Barth's view,
heresy.(13) Barth
advances this critique throughout the Church Dogmatics,
and the resolution
of the matter is what Barth believes separates his theological
enterprise
from his liberal opponents. Consider the following statement:
We regard this modernist faith as also Christian to the
extent that the
being of the Church implies in fact a determination of human
reality.
But we cannot regard it as Christian to the extent that it
interprets
the possibility of this reality as a human possibility, to
the extent
that it fails to recognize that this determination of
human reality
derives and is to be considered only from outside all human
possibili
ties, i.e. from the acting God Himself, . . . (14)
The idea that theological statements refer to a human reality
had, in
Barth's view, disastrous consequences, not only for theology,
but for the
whole life of the Church and ultimately for society as well.
We will
examine some of the theological consequences at the
appropriate points.
The disastrous social consequences followed from the fact that
the Church,
influenced by liberal theology, was no longer able to exercise a
prophetic
role within society. When theology tacitly identified
society, or the
leading spirits of the society, with God, it lost its
prophetic voice
because it was no longer able to conceive of a God who could
stand in
radical judgment against society, even against its highest and
best expressions. The awareness of this fact came home to Barth
during World War One.
The Epistle to the Romans and the Break with
Liberalism
With the advent of World War One Barth was horrified to
discover that
his liberal mentors failed to oppose the Kaiser's war policy. At
that time
he felt utterly bereft, and "a whole world of exegesis, ethics,
dogmatics,
and preaching, which I had hitherto held to be essentially
trustworthy, was
shaken to the foundations, and with it, all the writings of
the German
theologians."(15) Barth began to see a direct connection
between liberal
theology and the capitulation of the liberal theologians whose
theology,
given its anthropological basis, prevented them from discerning
a Word of
God contrary to that given by their nation and culture.(16) The
devastations
of World War One, and the need to find a prophetic point of
view, convinced Barth that theology must free itself from its cultural and
anthropological presuppositions, since human reality, given its
grim martial visage, could in no way reflect or mirror the
reality of God. As these
reflection were taking place, Barth, partly because of the
necessity of
preaching each Sunday, became aware of what he then called "the
strange new
world of the Bible." Barth's study of Scripture led him to
believe that
the theme of Scripture was not the evolution of the human
spirit, or
culture, or human progress, but rather God' thoughts and
actions.(17) Nevertheless, Barth was not able to formulate any
effective conception of an
"act of God" since he still held his Kantian presuppositions.
Nor had he
really broken out of the liberal school of biblical exegesis.
As early as
1914 he had recognized that "The 'history of religion' school
had shown
that supernatural factors such as revelation and miracle cannot
be established historically, with the consequence that 'God
disappeared out of
history' and both faith and dogmatics, insofar as they tried to
base themselves on anything historical, lost their object."(18)
As these reflections
were taking place he encountered the Blumhardt's. The
Blumhardts, father
and son, after witnessing a miracle of exorcism, began a
ministry of
healing which eventually opened out on the eschatological hope
that God
would heal not only individuals, but the whole of society as
well. The nub
of their hope was concrete acts of God in which God acted upon
the world at
specific times and places to effect His salvation. These
experiences with
their eschatological expectation of God's action fortified
Barth's growing
conviction that the Church and theology must concern itself
positively with
God, His actions, and revelation. After a few false starts
Barth formulated his nascent theological ideas in his
epoch-making 1922 edition of The
Epistle to the Romans. Barth's Romerbrief ushered
in a new theological
era, catapulted Barth into the theological limelight, and
secured him a
post teaching theology. He remained a professor of theology for
the rest
of his life.
The basic idea of Barth's Epistle to the Romans is
quite simple: God
in no way can be known by virtue of created realities, nor
can He be
identified with any of them. He is totally inaccessible, remote,
and ultimately indescribable. The key principle of his
exegesis of Romans was
"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.'"(19)
It is obvious that Barth's view of God as portrayed in his
Epistle to
the Romans resembled Kant's understanding of God as a
noumena. In fact,
the 1922 edition of the Romerbrief was preceded by a
deeper reading of
Kant.(20) Since Kant had not been overcome, Barth still could
not get away
from understanding God as a noumenon. If God could be considered
only as a
noumenon, and if he could not be identified or analogously
known through
any worldly reality, then, in actual content, nothing could be
known concerning God at all. The result was an extreme sense
of God's transcendence, and the use of a dialectical method
in an attempt to express the
inexpressable. An example of his dialectical approach is the
statement,
perhaps the most quoted from the Romerbrief, that "In the
resurrection the
new world of the Holy Spirit touches the old world of the
flesh, but
touches it as a tangent touches a circle, that is without
touching it."(21)
Fundamentally and basically the Epistle to the Romans was
flawed; it failed
to do justice to the Incarnation because Barth had no way of
formulating
how God could act specifically in a particular time and place.
Barth was
later to say of it:
Then, in face of the prevailing historism and psychologism
which had
ceased to be aware at all of any revelation other than an
inner mundane
one within common time, the book had a definite antiseptic
task and
significance. Readers of it today will not fail to
appreciate that in
it Jn. 1:14 does not have justice done to it.(22)
Nevertheless, one basic theme emerged in Barth's Epistle to
the Romans, a
theme which is fundamental to the whole of Barth's mature
theology--the
belief that God is absolutely transcendent.(23) He possesses
complete noetic
and ontic freedom in the sense that, apart from his own act
within space
and time, he is not analogous to any created reality, nor can He
be grasped
or known by any created reality by its own power. In the
words of the
mature Barth:
But behind this noetic absoluteness of God there stands
decisively his
ontic. This is decisive because in God's revelation it is
really a
question of His ontic absoluteness, from which His noetic
absoluteness
inevitably follows. God's freedom in relation to all that
is not God
signifies that He is distinct from everything, that He
is self-
sufficient and independent in relation to it, and that He
is so in a
peculiar and pre-eminent fashion--as no created thing
confronts any
other.(24)
Barth was, however, to modify his understanding of God's
transcendence; in
fact, he was to deepen it, before he was to reach his final
theological
construction. We must turn now to that modification.
Anselm and the Overcoming of Kant
If one were to summarize Barth's theological development
as a whole,
it can be seen to take place in two movements. First, there is
the move
toward transcendence. In Barth's mature theology God's
transcendence and
hiddenness is still maintained as an aspect or mode of God. In
that sense
Barth still accepted Kant in that he believed that God in one
mode was
totally inconceivable. Secondly, Barth denied Kant by
asserting that God
reveals Himself in specific concrete events. God enters space
and time, He
is known by the categories of understanding, and finally, He is
known only
in this fashion. Barth called the event by which God reveals
himself in
space and time the Word of God. God reveals himself by His Word
and only
by His Word. Barth's theology, as a whole, can be understood as
a theology
of the Word of God in which God's transcendence is preserved as
one mode of
God's being. Barth' second theological move, the move toward
concreteness
was precipitated by Barth's reading of Anselm. The results
of Barth's
study of Anselm were written up in his book entitled Anselm:
fides quaerens
intellectum. This book is pivotal for understanding the
evolution of
Barth's thought, and Barth once said of it: "Most commentators
have completely failed to see that this Anselm book is a vital
key, if not the key,
to understanding the process of thought that has impressed me
more and more
in my Kirchliche Dogmatik (ET Church Dogmatics) as
the only one proper for
theology."(25) As a result of his study of Anselm, Barth
basically adopted
Anselm's epistemology and with it he was able to arrive at a
doctrine of
the Word of God. We will now present certain features of
Barth's understanding of Anselm.
According to Anselm, one begins theologizing upon the
basis of an
accepted Credo, which for Barth in his Reformed tradition, is
Scripture.
This Credo is accepted in faith. The theologian's aim is to
understand the
underlying intelligibility of the Credo which is then formulated
in theological statements. Ultimately, however, the
theologian is not seeking to
understand the intelligiblity of Scripture alone, but the
intelligibility
of God who reveals himself in Scripture. But this is
impossible, for
neither Scripture nor the world in general can give knowledge of
God since
God in himself, according to Anselm, is utterly
inaccessible. "Anselm
interprets the plight of man in his failure to know God, a
plight which
even the believer shares, as being due to the fact that he is
involved in
the remoteness of God from a humanity that is sinful by
inheritance. This
remoteness is clearly an objective remoteness of God
himself--God is
absent, he dwells in light unapproachable."(26) Anselm begins
with God's
remoteness. Furthermore, this remoteness cannot be
breached--in himself,
God is unknowable. In other words, Anselm does not present a
proof according to reason of the existence of God. The final
lines of Barth's book on
Anselm are as follows: "That Anselm's Proof for the Existence
of God has
repeatedly been called the 'Ontological' Proof of God, that
commentators
have refused to see that it is a different book altogether from
the well-known teaching of Descartes and Leibniz, that anyone
could seriously think
that it is even remotely affected by what Kant put forward
against these
doctrines--all that is so much nonsense on which no more words
ought to be
wasted."(27) Although Anselm begins with God's remoteness, a
remoteness
similar to that of the Romerbrief, he does not stop
there. The theologian
pores over Scripture in the hope that God will reveal his very
Self through
the Scriptural medium. That this may occur is not, in the first
instance, the Scriptural medium. That this may occur is not, in
the first instance,
due to any inherent power of the biblical words. The
Scriptures, like any
other created reality, cannot reveal God. If God does reveal his
very Self
it will be an act of grace. Therefore Anselm begins with
prayer. Anselm
prays because he knows that he cannot know God unless God takes
form within
the written word. "What is at stake here is not just the right
way to seek
God, but in addition God's presence, on which the whole grace of
Christian
knowledge primarily depends, the encounter with him which can
never be
brought about by all our searching for God however thorough it
may be,
although it is only to the man who seeks God with a pure heart
that this
encounter comes."(28) When God reveals himself he does so by
taking form
within the written Word. This is an event; it happens from
time to time.
In the moment of speaking, God reveals the Word hidden in
Scripture. As
the theologian hears this Word, he grasps the underlying
intelligibility of
Scripture and formulates it in theological statements. These
statements
speak of God, but not in a positivist fashion. They speak
of God as
glimpsed in the revelation of Himself, and God is not identical
with the
text in a straightforward fashion. The statements themselves
are comprehensible only when they are also illumined by God as
revelatory words. In
this way real knowledge of God occurs, a knowledge which
depends in the
final analysis on God's grace. Without grace, Scripture is
silent. The
knowledge of God and the faith to believe it "does not come
about without
something new encountering us and happening to us from the
outside . . .
The seed to be received is the 'Word of God' that is preached
and heard;
and that it comes to us and that we have the rectitudo
volendi to receive
it, is grace."(29) In short, Anselm proposed a doctrine of
revelation which
depended upon God's act, an event in which God took form within
the spatial
and temporal experience of the believer to reveal his very Self.
By adopting this epistemology Barth was able to overcome Kant and launch
the final
phase of his theological development.(30)
We are now in a position to present Barth's doctrine of
the Trinity.
In short, Barth associates God in his inconceivable
transcendence with God
the Father, God in the event of taking form in space and time
is God the
Son, and God enabling his people to experience subjectively his
presence in
space and time is God the Holy Spirit. Before describing these
matters in
greater detail, however, we shall briefly indicate the context
in which
Barth does theology, particularly as its relates to his
theological method.
The Context of Barth's Theology
Barth is a Reformation theologian, especially influenced
by Calvin
and the Reformed tradition. His Credo is Scripture. His
theology, first
and foremost, derives from Scripture.(31) His aim, and here we
are reminded
of Anselm, is to express conceptually the intelligibility of the
biblical
revelation. The theologian's work, however, takes place in a
specific
context. That context is the Church in the world. This is
why Barth
entitles this chief theological work The Church Dogmatics.
The task of the
Church in the world is to follow Jesus Christ. For Barth, Jesus
Christ is
normatively revealed only in Scripture. Scripture is the
norm of the
Church. The primary work of the Church as it follows Jesus
Christ as
revealed in Scripture is its work of proclamation.(32)
Proclamation is the
witness of the Church. The aim and hope of this witness is that
the Holy
Spirit will so enliven the Church's words and deeds that they
will reveal
God as known in Jesus Christ.(33) Barth describes the event in
which God
reveals himself through human words or other events as the Word
of God. As
we shall subsequently see, the Word of God is the specific event
of revelation in which God directly and concretely addresses
people. When God
speaks, he always speaks to people in their concrete
circumstances in
history. Therefore, Church proclamation must not only know
Christ as
revealed in Scripture, but must be aware of and involved in the
historical
events and issues of its day. It does all of these things in the
hope that
God will use its witness to reveal Himself in Jesus Christ as
the saving,
liberating God. Theology has a more modest hope and goal. Its
aim is to
serve the Church in its task of proclamation. It does so by
measuring the
Church's proclamation against the Church's norm which is
Scripture. "Dogmatics is the critical question about Dogma,
i.e. about the Word of God in
Church proclamation, or, concretely, about the agreement of
the Church
proclamation done and to be done by man with the revelation
attested in
Scripture."(34) Theology serves the Church by rigorously
attending to the
Church's norm. The theologian begins by intensely studying
Scripture. Its
study of Scripture is aided by past dogmatic formulations, the
creeds, and
by the history of the church in all times and places. Theology
must also
address the specific circumstances of people, the issues of
their personal
lives, and the broader social and economic issues of the day.
This follows
from the fact that the Word of God is specific, concrete, and
particular,(35)
and proclamation must follow the Word as directed at specific
historical
circumstances. Theology can carry out its task of serving
proclamation
only if it is involved in these matters as well. Therefore,
theology
possesses three norms: first, there is Scripture, then previous
theological work summarized in previous creeds and confessions,
and finally it must
consider the actual historical situation in which the
Church finds
itself.(36) With respect to the third norm Barth comments:
"What we understand by it is as follows: that in its testing
of Church proclamation
dogmatics must orientate itself to the actual situation in the
light of
which the message of the Church must be expressed, to its
position and task
in face of the special circumstances of contemporary society,
i.e. to the
Word of God as it is spoken by Him, and must be proclaimed by the
Church in
the present."(37) Given this third norm, we shall, in the
final chapter,
integrate our Barthian results with one aspect of contemporary
life.
Barth's Doctrine of the Trinity
The character of revelation as made known in Scripture is
the basis
or root of Barth's doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine of
the Trinity,
however, is not explicitly taught in Scripture. The doctrine of
the Trinity is the work of the Church and it emerged from an
analysis of Scripture.(38) The doctrine of the Trinity arose
in response to a question the
Church encountered very early in its history. The Church needed
to account
for the distinctive nature of its God; it sought to answer the
question,
Who is God?(39) The Church sought to answer this question by
investigating
who God is as revealed in Scripture. In doing so it arrived at
the doctrine of the Trinity. Barth follows what he takes to
be the path of the
early Church.(40) In seeking to describe the biblical God,
Barth analyzes
the character of those biblical events in which revelation was
received by
the biblical writers. Out of an analysis of that ground, the
doctrine of
the Trinity emerges as the character of the God who reveals
Himself in the
biblical fashion, and this God is seen to be triune. For Barth
the Scriptural witness is prior to the trinitarian formula.
The formula is an
inference which is helpful to the Church in measuring its
proclamation
against Scripture. In analyzing the biblical character of
revelation,
Barth discerns what he believes to be the substance and form of
the biblical concept of revelation. In his words: "God
reveals Himself as the
Lord; in this statement we have summed up our understanding of
the form and
content of the biblical revelation."(41) When Barth says that
God reveals
Himself as the Lord he means that God is, in his very nature,
noetically
and ontologically free with respect to created realities. We may
now begin
to lay the foundations for the doctrine of the Trinity as based
upon the
revelation of the God who reveals himself as the Lord.
The Basis of the Doctrine of the Trinity
According to Scripture, God reveals himself as the
Lord. God's
triune nature follows from God's Lordship as given in his
revelation. As
Lord, God is a personal Subject whose nature is one of absolute
ontic and
noetic freedom.(42) He is Lord of all things. As Lord he
cannot be identified or known by anything outside himself, and
therefore, apart from his
own act, he is absolutely remote and inaccessible, completely
distinct and
independent from the world. He is not bound by the world in any
sense, and
apart from his own act, he is analogous to nothing within the
world. It is
this mode of God, His epistemological and ontological
hiddenness, that
Barth likens to God the Father. The fact that God is hidden
and inaccessible is not, however, discerned by observing that
the world's general
realities reveal nothing of God and therefore concluding that God
is mysterious or unknown. There is no general or available
knowledge which reveals
God's mystery or utter aloofness. The created world, for
example, does not
reveal God in a positive sense, nor does it reveal the nature
of God's
remoteness. God is utterly free with respect to the world, not
bound by it
so as to be known in it through his remoteness to it. God's
mystery and
hiddenness can be revealed only in an act of revelation in which
God ceases
to be remote and unknowable, and becomes knowable, palpable,
and present
within space and time.(43) God is the Lord of all events in
space and time,
and by virtue of his lordship over these events he can create
and direct
them, and he can take form within them. This occurs according
to God's
decision, and it occurs in human experience as an event. It is
a specific
concrete address with a beginning and an end. When this
event occurs,
revelation occurs, and God reveals his very Self. "Revelation in
the Bible
means the self-unveiling, imparted to men, of the God who by
nature cannot
be unveiled to men."(44) In revealing himself, two things occur.
First, God
reveals Himself as one who is hidden and inaccessible; he is
revealed as a
mystery.
It is thus of the nature of this God to be inscrutable to
man. In
saying this we naturally mean that in His revealed nature
He is thus
inscrutable. It is the Deus revelatus who is the
Deus absconditus,
the God to whom there is no path nor bridge, concerning
whom we could
not say nor have to say a single word if He did not of His
own initiative meet us as Deus revelatus.(45)
In revealing himself as remote and unknown God reveals himself as
the Lord,
one whose essence cannot become a property of human knowing or
willing.
Here Barth will exegete a number of biblical passages which
indicate that
it is the event of revelation itself which indicates God's
remoteness, his
"reserve" or "concealment," or his "holiness."(46) Secondly,
He reveals
himself as a Subject who addresses persons as a Thou. He
speaks concretely, specifically, and He requires obedience to
his sovereign Word of
address. In this Word of address God is again the Lord, the
Lord of the
one who hears his Word. In speaking His Word he becomes
objectively present in the form of an event in space and time,
and he may do so for he is
the Lord of all events.(47) Again, Barth draws upon the
biblical witness.
For example, in demonstrating that God takes form as events,
Barth will
exegete numerous Old and New Testament passages which speak of
God's being
objectively present, such as God's "lovingkindness," His
"Wisdom," His
"right hand," and ultimately the history of Jesus Christ.(48) In
doing this
God does two apparently incompatible things, He reveals himself
as one who
by nature is hidden, unknowable and inaccessible, and
simultaneously present, knowable, and specific. This act or
event requires a differentiation
in God. The differentiation involves God's existing in two
modes. In one
mode God is totally indescribable and transcendent and in
another, known,
present, and describable. Therefore Barth will say:
The God who reveals Himself here can reveal Himself. The
very fact
of revelation tells us that it is proper to Him to
distinguish Himself
from Himself, i.e. to be God in Himself and in concealment,
and yet at
the same time to be God a second time in a very different
way, namely
in manifestation, i.e. in the form of something He Himself is
not.(49)
When Barth says "in the form of something He Himself is not,"
Barth refers
to God's not being created realities, not even indirectly or
analogously;
yet God can take their spatial/temporal form and become present
and knowable within them. The phrase "God a second time" means
that God, in his
act of revelation, is actually present, really there, present in
space and
time. It is emphasized that it is indeed God in the second
mode. Both
modes are God; the second mode is no less God than the first.
Since God in
his first mode--hidden, inaccessible, the Father--cannot by
nature be
present and knowable in space and time, it requires an act
whereby God
distinguishes Himself from Himself without ceasing to be God and
in these
two modes is both remote and unknown and yet present and known.
These two
modes correspond to the Father and the Son, and both are the one
God.(50) We
must now consider the third mode.
In becoming present and known, God always takes a
specific concrete
form in space and time. Every revelation of God occurs by
means of a
created medium, and its meaning and impact is never known or
felt apart
from this medium. We may think, for example, of the event of
the Exodus,
or of the life of Christ, as worldly events by which God
revealed himself.
By means of events, and only through events, God reveals of
Himself and
makes His presence active in the world. Furthermore, these
events are
given to people through the senses; they are perceived in the
world as are
other events. There is not, in other words, any direct mystical
knowledge
of God or direct sight of God that bypasses the earthly form.
The positive
content of who God is, or the impartation of His Word, cannot be
separated
from the form in which He manifests Himself. Content and form
go together
so that God is known only by means of the form.(51) There
is nothing,
however, intrinsic to the form or the event in the world that
enables one
to perceive or hear the Word of God conveyed in the event.
God may be
speaking within an event, and his Word may be ignored or never
perceived.
It is not the event in itself that reveals God, but God
active in the
event.(52) That God is present and speaking in the event can
be known and
experienced only subjectively through a third distinct act of
God. God so
acts that the hearer of the Word as it lives in the form is
empowered
actually to see and hear God speaking, to respond to God's
address, to be
taken up into encounter with God in a relationship of mutual
listening,
speaking, and acting. When God enters into the subjective
experience of
his listeners, he is distinct from himself as remote and
indescribable and
as objectively present and knowable within the revelatory
event. Barth,
once again, exegetes a number of biblical passages that refer to
the presence of the Spirit within the believer, a presence which
is seen to be God
Himself.(53) In doing this God differentiates himself from
himself a second
time. This third mode is God the Holy Spirit.(54) When the Holy
Spirit acts
in human experience, it is always and only to reveal and
enliven the
specific address of God as given in the event of his taking form.
This is
the filioque. The Spirit reveals the Father and the Son only as
revealed
by the Son. "He is not to be regarded, then, as a revelation
of independent content, as a new instruction, illumination and
stimulation of man
that goes beyond Christ, beyond the Word, but in every
sense as the
instruction, illumination, stimulation of man through the Word
and for the
Word."(55) God the Holy Spirit is distinct from God the Son,
or God the
Father. God's presence in a medium is distinct from His
presence in the
experience of those who witness the earthly form of the medium.
God can be
present under the conditions of space and time without his
presence being
known or experienced. God is the Lord of human knowing and
experience, and
one knows only through His Lordship, by his acting within a
person's experience to make himself known. This is the third
and final mode of God's
triune being.
Two Trinitarian Formulas
An analysis of the biblical character of revelation
discloses that
the biblical God reveals himself in a specific act or word of
personal
address, and in this event he reveals himself as hidden and
mysterious yet
palpably concrete and specific, and further, he reveals
himself in this
fashion only by working subjectively in those he addresses.
These inferences from revelation can be further extended and
defined in ways that lead
to the formal doctrinal statements on the Trinity. The process
of inference, coordination, and definition is theological work,
and its results are
interlocking theological statements. Barth does this work, and
he compresses his doctrine of the Trinity into two formal
statements. First, God is
a Unity in Trinity, with emphasis on God's being one. Secondly,
God is one
only in a certain way, that is, only as Trinity in Unity. In
the first
statement there is a slight emphasis on the oneness, in the
second a slight
emphasis on the threeness. Barth conflates the two statements
by saying
that God is Triunity.(56) The two statements comprising this
one statement
are a summary of many complex interactive statements, and we
must now
consider these two statements in further detail.
The First Formula
The first statement affirms that God is Unity in Trinity.
The emphasis here is on the unity of God. God is one. "The
doctrine of the triunity
of God, as this has been worked out and rightly maintained in the
Church as
an interpretation of biblical revelation regarding the
question of the
Subject of this revelation, does not entail--this above all must
be emphasized and established--any abrogation or even
questioning but rather the
final and decisive confirmation of the insight that God is
One."(57) In
saying that God is one, Barth is ruling out the possibility that
the three
"persons" of the Trinity are "persons" in the modern sense of
the word.
There are not three personalities in God, nor are there three
distinct
Gods, or three differing essences within God.(58) God is one
God in one
essence. When God differentiates Himself from himself to take
concrete
form, and when by another differentiation he acts in subjective
experience,
each of these differentiations does not produce another God or
differing
essences, but the same one God in another form or way of being.
It is the
same one God in three repetitions. Therefore, since each
repetition is the
same one God, there is an equality of essence between the three
"persons."
But in it we are speaking not of three divine I's, but
thrice of the
one divine I. The concept of the equality of essence or
substance
(omoousia, consubstantialitas) in the Father,
Son, and Spirit is thus
at every point to be understood also and primarily in the
sense of
identity of substance. Identity of substance implies the
equality of
substance of "the persons."(59)
The unity of the three divine I's is not, however, a set
unity, in the
sense that any three things can be taken together as a
collective of one.
But rather, the God who reveals himself in the mystery of
revelation
reveals himself as a One, of one essence. Apart from
revelation, however,
God either appears as an undifferentiated one above the
three-fold repetitions, or as three Gods in concert. Within
the mystery of revelation, in
the revelatory event itself, God reveals himself as one God,
and simultaneously, as the one God in three repetitions.(60)
But, and here is the
emphasis of the first formula, the three repetitions do not
deny that God
is one, but affirms it as the way in which the God who is
one reveals
himself. We may now consider the second formula.
The Second Formula
According to the second formula God is a Trinity in
Unity with a
slight emphasis on the Trinity. This means at least two
things. First,
there is a slight emphasis on the threeness within God.
Secondly, the
emphasis on the threeness does not negate God's oneness, but
confirms it as
the precise manner in which God is One. We will begin by
returning to
Barth's discussion of "person," and from there discover the
characteristic
way in which the modes are three.
We have already mentioned the fact that Barth rejects the
term "person" in the modern sense of the word. Rather than the
word "person," Barth
prefers the term "mode" or "way of being" (Seinsweise)
to describe the
persons of the Trinity. In his view the term "person" does not
convey the
intent of the early Church, nor the character of the biblical
revelation.
The use of the term "mode" or "way of being" is distinguished
from the word
"person" by the fact that God is one person existing in three
special modes
or ways of being in the event of revelation. He is not three
persons in
revelation, but only one person in revelation. The term "person"
refers to
God's oneness. In revelation he encounters his creatures as a
Subject who
speaks and wills.(61) He addresses his creatures as one God,
as Subject in
relation to other personal subjects. These ideas may be
coordinated with
Barth's statement that God in revelation is the same one "I"
thrice over,
or that he is the one God in threefold repetition.(62) From this
the equality of essences of the three modes followed since each
was the same
one God. But the threefold repetition cannot imply that the one
personal
God as repeated thrice means three personalities as given in
each repetition. This would be a form of tri-theism. Nor can
the fact of repetition
of the same one God imply that each mode is the same. Each mode
possesses
an equality of essence since it is the same one God who lives
and acts in
each mode, but this does not imply that Father, Son, and
Spirit are all
equal in their relations. The distinctions in the modes
refer to the
differing relations between the three modes. The fact that
the Father
takes form in the Son as Word, refers to the eternal generation
of the Son
by the Father, and that the Spirit reveals God in subjective
experience
refers to the inner-triune procession of the Spirit. Within God,
the three
modes are ordered by two relations, the eternal begetting of the
Son by the
Father, and the procession of the Spirit from the Father and
the Son.
These relations have their basis in revelation, in the "ways of
being" of
God in revelation. Apart from revelation, or apart from the
differing
relations, each mode conceived abstractly in isolation from the
others, is
identically the same, the one God. But this is not the
decisive feature
with respect to God's modes. The three "ways of being" or
modes are
distinguished by the two relations.
This answer is that the distinguishable fact of the three
divine modes
of being is to be understood in terms of their distinctive
relations
and indeed of their distinctive genetic relations to one
another.
Father, Son and Spirit are distinguished from one another
by the fact
that without inequality of essence or dignity, without
increase or
dimunition of diety, they stand in dissimilar relations of
origin to
one another.(63)
Therefore, while there is an equality of essence or substance
(omoousia,
consubstantialitas), there is no equality of relations by
which the modes
are distinguished; hence each mode is distinct, and no mode may
be confused
or confounded with another.(64) To blur or confuse the
distinctions of the
three modes is to say that God does not differentiate himself
from himself
in revelation, but rather, that he can be known apart from his
acts of
taking form or acting in subjective experience. Finally, it
must be said
that these theological statements are inferences from the truth
and mystery
of revelation. Taken singly they contradict one another at
every turn.
Taken together as mutually qualifying one another they help to
reveal the
triune God while preserving his mystery. Their
intelligibility, from
Barth's point of view, can be derived and maintained by holding
fast the
God as known in the biblical revelation. We must now
investigate the idea
that God's trinity in unity is the specific way of God's being
one.
When Barth says that God is a trinity in unity, with a
slight emphasis on the trinity, he is not removing but
confirming the unity in its
distinctive Christian form. God is one. Yet he is not one in
singularity
or isolation, nor is he just any sort of one, but he is the
specific,
distinct form of oneness as characterized by a unity of his
threeness and
only in his threeness.
In himself His unity is neither singularity nor isolation.
Herewith,
i. e., with the doctrine of the Trinity, we step on the soil
of Chris
tian monotheism . . . The concept of the revealed unity of
the revealed
God, then, does not exclude but rather includes a
distinction (distinctio or discretio) or order
(dispositio or oeconomia in the essence
of God. This distinction or order is the distinction or
order of the
three "persons," or, as we prefer to say, the three "modes
(or ways) of
being" in God.(65)
In other words, God is one, but one only in the specific
fashion of the
inner differentiations which involve his threeness in their
relations. Or,
to put it another way, God, in every depth of himself, is
always three
modes related by two issues. God is never, in every depth of
himself, an
undifferentiated God but always a Trinity in Unity.(66) That
God is only
this way can be further delineated by seeing this view as the
rejection of
three basic heresies. Arianism, modalism, and
subordinationism, all
attempt to posit an undifferentiated God (normally described as
the Father)
as prior to or above the other modes of the Trinity.(67)
Arius gave the
Father temporal priority, there was a time when the Son did not
exist, and
therefore a time when God in himself was alone without the
three-fold
distinctions. Subordinationism claims a more or less in God, a
relegation
of the Son and Spirit to a lesser status, and a consequent
elevation of an
undifferentiated God the Father above the Son and Spirit.
Modalism, holds
that God's three-fold modes are not intrinsic to God's inner
nature, and
therefore there exists an undifferentiated God beyond the three
modes and
two issues. The rejection of these views is to say that God in
every depth
of himself is three modes related by two issues, and that God
exists as God
only in this manner.
Transition
We have now described the fact that God exists only as
one God in
three modes related by two issues. We will need to describe the
two issues
in greater detail. This will be particularly important for our
purposes,
as the relationship between economic and political life has its
basis in
the inner triune relations as given in the two issues. Before
discussing
the two issues we need to introduce a number of other concepts in
order to
understand better the matter of the two issues, as well as
to orient
ourselves to the chapters which follow. We have, at this point,
described
the doctrine of the Trinity as an inference from the biblical
view of
revelation. In doing so, Barth has moved from below to above by
inferring
God's inner-triune life from God as he gives himself to human
understanding
in revelation. We now wish to be able to go in the other
direction. We
need to be able to go from God in his triune nature to God in
specific
revelatory events. Specific Barthian doctrines have their locus
in specific revelatory acts of God. Once we see how these
specific acts relate to
God's triune nature, we can then move from above to below,
from God as
Trinity to God in specific acts, such as founding the church,
the incarnation, and the creation of man and woman. In this way
we lay the groundwork
for how the doctrine of Trinity is relevant to those other
doctrines that
we will eventually need in our study. We have already observed
that all of
Barth's doctrines are connected from above to God's triune
nature. We must
begin to describe how these connections are made, as this will
enable us in
future chapters to relate various doctrines to Trinity and to
one another.
By discovering how Barth moves from below to above, and then
from Trinity
to God in his acts, we will lay the groundwork for discovering
the underlying intelligiblity of Barth's mature theology, and
once there, we will be
in a good position to investigate our fundamental question from a
Barthian
perspective. We will begin with a few observations on Barth's
views on
economic and immanent Trinity.
Economic and Immanent Trinity
Barth draws a distinction between economic and immanent
Trinity.
Economic Trinity is God in his revelation. Immanent Trinity
is God in
himself. With respect to economic and immanent Trinity, Barth
follows the
rule that God does actually give himself in his revelation, so
that the
knowledge of God obtained in revelation is actually knowledge of
God as he
is in himself.(68) This, in essence, is a rejection of
modalism. God does
give Himself in revelation to be known, and the triune
relations revealed
in revelation characterize God in every depth of Himself. For
this reason
Barth will speak of Father, Son, and Spirit as known in
revelation, and
then say that God possesses this same nature "antecendently in
Himself."(69)
We derived our doctrine of the Trinity from the nature of God as
given in
the event of revelation in which it could be seen that God is
triune. As
God is in his revelation, so he is in himself, with the result
that God in
himself is one God in three modes related by the two issues. In
deriving
the immanent Trinity from the economic, Barth moves from below
to above.
Nevertheless, once Barth has arrived at descriptions of
God's triune
nature, he then returns, so to speak, and uses these
descriptions to
describe how God is in his revelation, or even how various
created realities are related to one another. This type of
logic, from above to below,
occurs throughout the Church Dogmatics. It is based
upon a doctrine of
analogy. We need to describe this type of logic, as it is
important for
understanding how one can go from statements on God's triune
nature to
statements relating realities outside God such as economic and
political
life. We may address this matter by describing Barth's
doctrine of analogy.
Barth's Doctrine of Analogy
Perhaps the easiest access to Barth's doctrine of
analogy is to
contrast it with what he took to be the Roman Catholic doctrine
of analogia
entis.(70) Barth's first objection to the Roman view is that
it advances two
epistemologies. There is an epistemology associated with God
the Creator
based on a general concept of being, and another epistemology
associated
with the event of revelation as known in Christ. These two
epistemologies,
in Barth's view, differ. The first begins with a general
notion of being
which encompasses all existent realities including God. Since
human beings
have a knowledge of being, they are also able to know God whose
being may
be radically different, but not altogether different since the
one word
"being" encompasses both God and created things.(71) In other
words, God
possesses some analogy with other beings. Given this analogia
entis, it is
possible to carry out an analysis of being in general by which
one can pass
to a knowledge of God as the pre-eminent being whose character
is manifest
analogously in finite being. The knowledge of God gained in
this fashion
constitutes natural theology. The second epistemology is that
God is known
in the event of revelation as the triune act of the one God.
According to
Barth, Rome accepts and coordinates both epistemologies, and the
knowledge
of God that each generates. Barth claims, however, that there
can be only
one epistemology, the epistemology of God's triune act.
Barth's argument, in the first place, is biblical. He
analyzes the
biblical evidence and draws the following conclusion:
Holy Scripture neither imposes the necessity nor even offers
the possibility of reckoning with a knowledge of God of the
prophets and apostles which is not given in and with His
revelation, or bound to it; and
therefore to that extent with a "Christian" natural
theology. Holy
Scripture does not present us with "another" task of
theology, nor are
we allowed to impose it upon ourselves.(72)
Secondly, his argument is theological. He argues that the
two-fold knowledge of God given through two espistemologies
cannot be coordinated into a
knowledge of the one God. The two epistemologies inevitably
issue in a
two-fold partition in the depths of God. "To that extent it
[Rome] certainly intends to make a provisional division or
partition in regard to the
knowability of God, and this will inevitably lead to a
partitioning of the
one God as well."(73) We may restate Barth's argument in
terms of our
development up to this point. The God who reveals himself in
a triune
manner reveals himself as the Lord. His revelation is an event,
an event
which begins only with God's decision to reveal himself. In
that act he
reveals himself as transcending human knowing (the mode of
Father), yet
known (the Son) and as Lord of human knowing, never known
except by the
further divine act of the Holy Spirit. The God who reveals
himself in this
fashion, in so far as known only in this way, is known as a
dynamic acting
free Subject who unveils himself only on his own initiative. As
God is in
his revelation he is in himself--within himself at every depth
God is a
free being in encounter in the eternal encounter of Father and
Son by the
Spirit. By contrast, the god of natural theology is a god who
can be known
apart from his own decision.(74) He is known through being in
general, and
not by specific concrete event of self-disclosure; and he is
known by
reason, and not by the specific event of the Holy Spirit. In
other words,
the god of natural theology is not a being in encounter, he can
be known
apart from the encounter, and therefore, within himself, he is
not triune
since he is not triune in his revelation. Within himself, such
a god is
the timeless, static, impassible god of natural theology. In
Barth's view,
there is no way to reconcile these two beings. God in every
depth, and in
every aspect, is the one triune God. Within the depths of God
there is no
static impassible god existing side by side with the dynamic
triune God.(75)
Rather, in every depth of God, God is always and only three
modes related
by two issues. The rejection of Arianism, Sabellianism, and
Modalism, is
the rejection of a static, immutable god, and this god cannot
be united
with God understood as dynamic and triune. "We reject this
because it is a
construct which obviously derives from an attempt to unite
Yahweh with
Baal, the triune God of Holy Scripture with the concept of being
of Aristotelian and Stoic philosophy."(76) Consequently, Barth
rejects Rome's starting point, the notion of a second
epistemology based on an analogy of
being.
Analogia Fidei
The fact that Barth has rejected the analogia
entis does not mean
that he has no doctrine of analogy.(77) The crucial difference
is that the
triune God is known only in his act, in the event of grace in
which those
whom he addresses are empowered by the Spirit to hear and speak
with him in
faith. When God acts and speaks, he acts and speaks
according to his
nature, and therefore he establishes analogies or similarities
of himself
in the world.(78) This in no way means that the world in some
sense becomes
divine. It remains the created order, totally distinct from
God. But in
the moment in which God speaks and acts, he creates analogies
in this
distinct order, and these analogies reflect his action. These
analogies,
however, exist only in the event of grace, in the moment when
God speaks,
and when his personal address is received in faith as created
through the
subjective work of God the Spirit.(79) Apart from this
event, there is
nothing in the world which corresponds to God's being.
Throughout the
Church Dogmatics there are innumerable examples in which
Barth describes a
creaturely reality and then says that it is a reflection of or
analogous to
a divine reality. For example, he will say that creation
reflects God's
purposes, that humanity is created in God's image, or that
the church
reflects the unity and holiness of the divine life. But none
of these
realities, creation, humanity, or the church, are analogous to
God except
in the moment of grace. Apart from grace, creation is silent,
human relations do not reflect the love of Father, Son, and
Spirit, and the church is
divided rather than reflecting the unity of the triune modes.
Barth calls his doctrine of analogy the analogia
fidei.(80) Faith, in
Barth's view, is the human response to grace. Faith occurs as
people are
addressed by God and empowered by the Spirit to hear and speak
with him.
Apart from grace, the event of God's self-disclosure, there is no
faith and
no knowledge of God. But when God does speak, and when faith
occurs, God
reveals his nature in the world and creates similarities or
analogies to
his being. These analogies are not static enduring qualities of
the world;
they exist only in the moment of grace. But God does speak
and reveal
himself, and upon that basis Barth will then describe various
realities as
being analogous to God's inner triune nature. In making these
descriptions
Barth does not work abstractly or deductively from God's triune
nature to
deduce the structure of the analogous realities as created in the
event of
grace. The nature of these realities is described theologically
through an
analysis of Scripture. But once the analysis has been carried
out, the
fact that the doctrine describes the work of the triune God
means that the
matter under discussion corresponds to God's triune nature. For
example,
Barth will base his anthropology, or the dual nature of
Christ, or the
church, upon an analysis of Scripture. But once the analysis
is made, he
will go on to say that the human essence of encounter is
analogous to the
inner-divine encounter of God's triune modes, or that the
unity of the
church is analogous to that of God's inner-triune unity, or that
the relationship between the human and divine natures of Jesus
Christ corresponds
to an order within the triune life. Finally, Barth uses one
other term to
describe his doctrine of analogy. We may recall the statement
that the
various modes of the Trinity are distinguished in terms of their
relations.
It follows that the analogous entities set up in the world by
God's act
will reflect God's inner-triune relations, and Barth's doctrine
of analogy
has also been described as an analogia relationis.(81)
We will discuss the
relevance of this shortly.
In light of Barth's doctrine of immanent and economic
Trinity, we
have seen how Barth will move from God in his revelation to God
in Himself.
In light of his doctrine of analogy, he will pass from God in
himself to
realities within the world as formed in the event of grace.
These movements are theological movements. They have no
independent existence, but
are movements which help to explicate the underlying theological
intelligibility of Scripture. All of these operations take place
within the context
of the biblical revelation as interpreted by the church as it
lives in the
world. Since the God of the biblical revelation is triune, all
doctrines
based upon Scripture possess a triune structure as reflecting
God's triune
nature. To understand further the nature of this triune
structure, however, we must advance another Barthian doctrine,
his doctrine of appropriation.
Appropriation
God exists only in the three persons related by two
issues. Since
God exists only in this manner, it follows that the full
triune God is
present in each of God's acts. It is this characteristic that
gives rise
to Barth's doctrine of appropriation. "No attribute, no act of
God is not
in the same way the attribute or act of the Father, the Son,
and the
Spirit."(82) This is summarized by the phrase opera
trinitatis ad extra sunt
indivisa.(83) Although the full triune God is present in
each of his acts,
it is sometimes biblically appropriate and theologically
illuminating to
associate triune clusters of God's acts, or even creaturely
realities, with
the three modes of God. For example (and this is important for
our purposes), Barth respectively associates Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit with
God's action in creation, reconciliation, and redemption.(84) In
making this
or any other appropriation several criteria must be
fulfilled.(85) First,
the triad appropriated to the Trinity must by analogous to the
inner-triune
relations. In other words, Barth believes that the
relations between
creation, reconciliation, and redemption, correspond to the
inner-triune
relations of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Secondly, the
appropriation is
not exclusive. It must be remembered that God is present in all
his acts,
and therefore, appropriating creation under God the Father
must never
exclude the fact that the Son and Spirit are present and active
in creation, just as the Father is present and active in
reconciliation and
redemption. Finally, the appropriation must be biblical.
Barth's doctrine
of appropriation is important for a number of reasons. First,
it provides
a way of distinguishing and relating various divine acts
and/or created
realities. For example, Barth makes a distinction between
creation and
reconciliation, and bases the distinction in God's triune life.
Creation
is the history of God's acts in creating the world and the
world as
created, reconciliation is the history of God's acts in
reconciling the
world and the history of the man Jesus as the manifestation of
those acts
in the creaturely sphere. The history of Jesus is not a
continuation of
creation; he is distinct from creation and this has its
genesis in the
distinction between Father and Son. It stems from the fact
that Barth
appropriates creation to the mode of God as Father,
reconciliation to the
Son, and since Father and Son are distinct, creation and
reconciliation
must be distinct as well. In Barth's words: "And now in light
of what has
been said about creation and reconciliation we can add that
the divine
sonship of Jesus also results from the fact that creation (the
content of
His revelation of the Father) and reconciliation (the content of
His self-revelation) are completely different from one another
in their significance
for us and yet are also completely related to one another in
their origin."(86) On the other hand, having distinguished
between God's acts and/or
various created realities, Barth will then relate that which
he has so
distinguished. Creation is related to reconciliation since
there is a
relation between Father and Son within the triune life. All
God's actions
are indivisible, and therefore no one act occurs apart from
the others;
all are acts of the God who is one but only one in being triune.
In this
fashion Barth is able to distinguish and relate all of the
realities under
discussion, and all the theological doctrines descriptive of
these realities. By appropriating a given reality under a
particular mode he emphasizes a pronounced feature of that
reality, and then relates it to other
realities appropriated under differing modes with different
emphases. For
example, God's providential care of the world, appropriated
under God the
Father, is distinct from but related to the prophetic history
of Jesus
Christ seen under God the Son; or Jesus' first parousia known
under the Son
is distinct from but related to his final parousia appropriated
under the
Spirit; or economic life appropriated under the Father is
distinct from but
related to political life appropriated under the Son. The
relatedness
follows from the fact that God is one; the distinctions follow
from the
fact that his oneness always occurs in a triune form. Even
created realities reveal this unity and diversity since God in
his acts creates analogies of Himself.
Analogia Relationis
We may approach the matter from a slightly different
perspective.
Although Barth scarcely uses the term, he makes frequent use of
an analogia
relationis. Since each mode of God is the same one God, the
primary manner
in which the persons of the Trinity are distinguished is
through their
mutual relations as given in the two issues. If God in the
event of
revelation creates analogies of himself, then all three persons
must be
analogously represented and related by the two issues since God
exists only
in this manner. Therefore every event of grace creates a triad
related by
two relations and is therefore an analogia relationis.
The most important
example of this for our purposes is God's three primary acts of
creation,
reconciliation, and redemption appropriated to Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit.(87) As we shall see, each of these acts forms
histories involving
created realities. These three primary histories are
inner-related in
accordance with the inner-triune relations. We will describe
this in
greater detail in a subsequent section. For now, however, we
may observe
that God becomes present only in the event of taking form in
the Son as
revealed subjectively by the spirit. Prior and subsequent to
this event
the created world exists. But apart from this event,
reconciliation and
redemption do not exist since reconciliation is the Word of
grace as
revealed in Jesus Christ. Therefore, apart from the Word,
creation, reconciliation, and redemption do not exist together,
with the result that no
analogia relationis among creation, reconciliation,
and redemption can
occur. For this reason Barth will say that there is no
revelation of God
the Creator in creation. God the Creator is known only in Jesus
Christ and
in Jesus Christ by the Spirit. God cannot be known in creation
alone, but
only in creation, reconciliation, and redemption together
since every
revelation of God must be triune.(88) In this event of grace,
however, the
three histories of creation, reconciliation, and redemption are
all present
together, and in that moment they form relations analogous to
the inner-triune relations. But, apart from grace, the world
as created by God the
Creator shows no analogy to God since it does not coexist with
reconciliation and redemption.
We may consider the matter from a slightly different
perspective.
Since God exists always and only as three ways of being
related by two
issues it follows that every revelation of the one God entails
God's presence in all three modes. Or, none of God's modes can
be known apart from
the other two. Each is known in and with the others. "Just as
in revelation, according to the biblical witness, the one God
may be known only in
the Three and the Three only as the one God, so none of the
Three may be
known without the other Two but each of the Three only with
the other
Two."(89) From this it will follow that God's actions in
creation, for
example, must be known in and with his actions in
reconciliation and
redemption, or his actions in reconciliation must be known in
conjunction
with his actions in creation or redemption. This will be
important for us,
in that one of our major tasks will be to coordinate God's
economic work in
reconciliation with God's economic actions in creation. In
other words,
what we could call the "economics of Jesus" cannot be separated
from what
we know of God and economic life from God's work in creation
and redemption. In this way we will arrive at a trinitarian
understanding of God's
economic actions.
The Two Issues
Our next step is to investigate Barth's doctrine of the
two issues.
Barth works this out in connection with creation,
reconciliation, and
redemption as appropriated to Father, Son, and Spirit. The two
issues form
relations among the three modes, and these relations correspond
analogously
to relations among creation, reconciliation, and redemption.
Our interest
is economic and political life, and we are particularly
interested in how
they may be related. Their relation depends upon the
relation between
creation and reconciliation, which in turn reflects the inner
triune relations. Therefore, we will, as does Barth, work out
the matter of the two
issues within the divine life in conjunction with the
relations among
creation, reconciliation, and redemption. We begin with the
first issue--the eternal begetting of the Son by the Father. We
will first focus upon
the Father as the one who eternally begets, and then upon
the Son as
eternally begotten.
The Begetting of the Son
We may begin with the statement that according to the
Scripture
Jesus is the revelation of God, and therefore the revelation
of God the
Father. In revealing the Father, Barth begins by noting that
Jesus reveals
the Father as someone other than himself. The Son points beyond
himself,
and in doing so he reveals God the Father as his father
over against
himself as the Son.(90) Furthermore, Barth notes that those
scriptural
passages which speak of God the Father associate the Father
with God's
wrath and the end of human existence. Although each mode of the
Trinity is
present in each of God's actions, God's wrath and judgment, his
sentence of
death as seen in Good Friday, is appropriated to God the
Father.(91) The
first mode of the Trinity is characterized by hiddenness,
concealment, and
the Son reveals the Father as concealed in the end of human life.
But God
the Father is not known at the end of existence in any general
way, as if,
for example, one could analyze the "horizon" at the limits
of life.
Rather, God is concretely known in Jesus Christ as the one
who leads
humanity through death to life as revealed in the crucifixion and
resurrection. The purpose of the Father's judgment of death upon
the human race is
new life, the eternal life of the kingdom. As God the Father
exercises
this authority, it can be seen that the Father of Jesus Christ
is the Lord
of life and death. He is the Lord of all existence and
therefore the
Creator and giver of all life.
The real Lord of our existence must be the Lord over both
life and
death. And this is precisely God the Father as we find him
attested in
Scripture as the One revealed in Jesus. But the Lord of
existence is
the Creator. For if God is the Lord of existence in the
full sense of
the term, this means that our existence is sustained by Him
and by Him
alone above the abyss of non-existence.(92)
As God is in revelation, so he is in himself. Within himself,
God the
Father, understood as the first mode of God's inner-triune life,
is God the
Creator.(93) Theologically, this has several implications.
Within the
divine life, God the Father is the origin or author of the other
modes of
his being. He is pure origin within God, and ad extra
God the Father is
the Creator of all things. This statement, on God's work ad
extra holds
only by appropriation. God is one, and each mode is present in
the other
two (perichoresis), so that the Son and the Spirit are present
in creation
as well. But having said this, the unity of God does not
destroy the
appropriation. The appropriation is a theological construction,
but it does
lead to understanding. To move beyond the appropriation of
Creator to God
the Father, to discard it, is to obscure the matter and to
violate the
theological intelligibility of the biblical revelation.
It is quite out of the question, therefore, that the
appropriation of
especially God the Father for creation, or of creation for
the Father,
should be merely a provisional view which can be transcended
and which
will dissolve and disappear in a higher gnosis of the one
God. In no
sense does God's unity mean the dissolution of His
triunity.(94)
Biblically and theologically, subject to the requisite caveats,
creation
belongs by appropriation to God the Father. He is the pure
origin, not
only within the divine life, but to all existence outside God.
We may now
investigate the eternal begetting of the Son more completely as
we investigate its object, the Son.
Although the Son differs from the Father, and in that
distinction
reveals the Father, there is another element within the biblical
revelation
that speaks of the unity of the Son with the Father.(95)
When Scripture
speaks of the unity of Jesus Christ with the Father, it does not
mean the
deification of a man (Ebionite Christology), nor the revelation
of a particulary illuminating set of ideas (Docetism). Ideas
and people are created
realities. They are not God, nor can they become God. In
and of themselves they cannot reveal God, since God alone makes
himself known. But
God took form in Jesus Christ and in him revealed himself.
Jesus Christ,
without ceasing to be the specific man Jesus, is also God, for
only God can
reveal God.(96) As God, He is the revelation of God the Word,
or the second
mode of the Trinity, the Son. In his mode as the Son, God took
form in the
man Jesus, and there he worked and spoke as God. He entered into
a world at
enmity with himself, a sinful world perishing under the wrath
of God the
Father. In this world he spoke a new word, and he
established a new
creation. This new work is reconciliation. Jesus Christ as the
Son reconciles the world to God. He forgives humanity and
restores the broken
fellowship between God and humanity and among peoples. This
new work
follows God's original work of creation and judgment, and this is
reflected
structurally with the Church Dogmatics in that Barth's
doctrine of reconciliation follows his doctrine of creation.(97)
Reconciliation follows God's
creation and judgment and is related to that prior work, but it
cannot be
reduced to that prior work. It is an incomparably new work,
related to but
utterly distinct from the work of God the Father and not the
continuation
of God's prior work of creation.
We must say, then, that the Reconciler is not the Creator,
and that as
the Reconciler He follows the Creator, that He
accomplishes, as it
were, a second divine act--not an act which we can deduce
from the
first, whose sequence from the first we can survey and
see to be
necessary, but still a second act which for all its newness
and inconceivability is related to the first. God reconciles
us to Himself,
comes to us, speaks to us,--this follows on, and, we must
also say, it
follows from the fact that He is first the Creator.(98)
As God is in his revelation, so he is in himself. Within God,
the Son is
distinct from and yet related to the Father. He is eternally
begotten by
the Father who is the origin of all. There is a first in God,
and then a
second, since there is a Creator and Reconciler in God's acts
ad extra.
The fact that the Son in reconciliation follows the Father, or
that the
Creator is first, and the Son is second, implies a form of
subordination of
the Son with respect to the Father. This subordination,
however, and here
we may recall that the modes are distinguished by their
relations, does not
apply to the modes themselves. Each mode is God of equal
essence or
substance with the others, but each is differentiated from
the others
through their unequal relations. Nevertheless, on the basis
of their
relations, there is a Thence and then a Thither, an origin and
one begotten
within God.
Barth further explicates the inner-triune order, as well
as the
distinctions and unity of the inner triune modes, through an
analysis of
the second article of the Symb. Nicaeno-Constantinopolitanum
creed.(99) We
have already covered many of the ideas presented in this
analysis. The
central issue is that the Son is distinct from but related to
the Father
while being equal in essence. The phrases, "only begotten Son
of God,"
"begotten of the Father before all time," "light of light, very
God of very
God, begotten not made," "of one substance (or essence) with
the Father"
and even "through whom all things were made," all refer to the
fact, among
other things, that the Son is truly God and of equal essence
with the
Father. At the same time, the phrases utilizing the
relational word
"begotten", as well as the phrase "light of light, very God of
very God,"
refer to the distinctiveness and relatedness of the Son to the
Father. For
example, "light of light" and "very God of very God" imply
distinctions,
indicated in the word "of," between light and light, and God
and God.
These distinctions, however, are between light and light or God
and God,
implying that the objects distinguished are both God, and that
the Son and
the Father are both God. Of particular relevance to our
interest is the
phrase "the only-begotten of the Father," and again the
statement "through
whom all things were made." In the present context, the word
"begotten,"
referring to inner-triune relations, had its revelatory basis
in that
reconciliation is subsequent to creation. "To this order of
creation and
reconciliation there corresponds christologically the order of
the Father
and Son or Father and Word."(100) In this sense creation,
appropriated to
the Father, appears to have prior significance to
reconciliation appropriated to the Son. This order is
qualified in that Jesus Christ is the
"only-begotten" Son, with an emphasis on the word "only." All
other acts
in which God brings forth, and we may especially think of
creation, have
their basis in Jesus Christ as the only one who is
begotten, since, within
God, the Son is the only one begotten of God. Jesus Christ is
the basis of
creation, the one "through whom all things were made." This,
of course,
follows by the mutual indwelling, the fact that each mode is
present and
active in every other mode (perichoresis). But something more
is being
said at this point. God the Son is prior to creation. He was
"begotten
not made" and "begotten of the Father before all time." These
phrases not
only indicate that the Son was prior to creation, but they
sharply differentiate the Son from creation. The creation is a
creature; it was made; it
did not eternally pre-exist with God. The eternal begetting of
the Son is
not a creaturely begetting, though it is a form of coming forth
from the
Father.(101) Nevertheless, as the first of God's relational
acts, it is the
prototype of all future relational acts, including God the
Father's creation of the world. Therefore, creation, though
appropriated to God the
Father, has its basis in God the Son since the begetting of
the Son is
prior to the making of creation. In terms of order, Barth will
therefore
place God's eternal choice and establishment of Jesus Christ,
or his doctrine of election, prior to his doctrine of
creation.(102) We will discuss
the matter in due course, but for now, we may say that
although God the
Father is first in terms of pure origin, his first originating
act is the
Son and his choice of the Son (election), and not the creation of
the world
which occurs subsequently. Furthermore, by saying that the
world was made
through him, the creed gives Jesus Christ a place with God the
Father in
creating the world, and further, ascribes creative power to him
as he comes
in reconciliation. Jesus Christ comes with the power of the
creator since
the reconciliation that occurs in Jesus Christ is a new creation.
Reconci
liation is resurrection; it follows upon Good Friday, as the
bringing into
life of a humanity that had lost the life originally given it by
God the
Father. As a result of the foregoing, Barth will intimately
relate creation and reconciliation, or creation and
revelation: "As creation is
creatio ex nihilo, so reconciliation is the raising from
the dead. As we
owe life to God the Creator, so we owe eternal life to God the
Reconciler."
Or again, "Creation and revelation are not two truths which are
to be held
alongside one another and compared to one another and set in
relation to
one another. They are the one reality of Jesus Christ as the
Revealer with
the power of the Creator."(103)
Our thesis is that economic life has its basis in social
historical
life. We demonstrate our thesis by beginning with the
doctrine of the
Trinity. The crux of our argument is that the Father begets
only the Son,
so that all his actions, including his economic activities in
relation to
nature, have their basis in the Son. Secondly, God is social
in himself,
and therefore, his revelation in the Son takes a social form
(this will be
shown in the fourth chapter). Since the life of the Son takes
a social
form, and since economic life has its basis in the Son,
economic life has
its basis in a social context. Our argument proceeds from above
to below,
beginning with Trinity and ending with social historical life.
This line of
reasoning is valid from a Barthian perspective if Barth
understands the
inner-triune relations to be the basis and norm of the human
relations.
Barth affirms this. The fact that the word "begetting" takes
its origin
from the creaturely act of begetting children does not imply
that the
divine mystery is limited or contained within the creaturely
concept. By
grace the concept points to the mystery and reality of God's
inner life,
and by grace and faith it is then perceived that the divine
life in its
modes and mutual relations is the source of creaturely
relations as they
occur in grace. Speaking of the concept "begotten," Barth
comments:
It is not true that in some hidden depth of His essence God
is something other than Father and Son. It is not true that
these names are
just freely chosen and in the last analysis meaningless
symbols whose
original and proper non-symbolic content lies in that
creaturely reality. On the contrary, it is in God that the
father-son relation, like
all creaturely relations, has its original and proper
reality. The
mystery of begetting is originally and properly a divine
and not a
creaturely mystery. Perhaps one ought even to say that
it is the
divine mystery.(104)
Therefore, our procedure is a valid one. Having said this,
however, it is
to be remembered Barth does not reason deductively from God in
himself to
analogies of God in the world. Rather, the biblical revelation,
theologically investigated and oriented, is the basis of
Barth's theological work
and social activity. We may now discuss the second issue.
The Procession of the Spirit
God reveals himself in Jesus Christ the Word, and he
grants eternal
life through the reconciling work of his Son. The reality of
God's saving
work and presence is not, however, something that can be known
and received
at will. A further act of God is required, and this further
act is the
work of God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enables people to
participate
in God's revelation. They are set free to hear God's Word and
to respond
to God in his Word. As they listen to and speak with God and
one another
they live as the children of God. As his children they are
empowered to
speak of God in ways that enable the saving event of God's
revelation to
become actual in the experience of other people.(105) This work
of the Holy
Spirit in subjective experience admits of several
characteristics. First,
although the Spirit works in human experience, the Spirit is
not another
name for the human willing, thinking, and acting that occurs in
response to
revelation. The biblical statements about the Spirit are
statements about
God and his actions, albeit about God in relationship to people.
In other
words, the Holy Spirit is not a creature. Secondly, the Holy
Spirit is not
the Father, nor is he the Son. Thirdly, the Holy Spirit
reveals God as
known in the Word, and never independently of that Word with
the result
that the Spirit is intimately related to the Father and the
Son. And
finally, the statements about the work of the Holy Spirit as
applied to
human experience have an eschatological reference known only
in faith.
That is, the reality of being God's children as given by the
Spirit in the
present age is only dimly perceived in faith, and its fullness
will not be
experienced until the final eschatological age.(106)
As God is in his revelation, so he is in himself.
Within Himself,
and here Barth follows the four statements of the
Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Spirit is the Lord, the
Spirit gives life, the Spirit
proceeds from the Father and the Son, and is to be glorified and
worshipped
as the Father and the Son.(107) Each of these four statements
implies that
the Spirit is God and not a creature. The statement that the
Spirit gives
life, for example, implies that the Spirit is present and active
as God in
creation where life is given, and again in reconciliation in the
giving of
eternal life. Or again, the fact that the Spirit is worshipped
and glorified as Father and Son, means that the Spirit is God.
Even in worship, the
highest fellowship between God and humanity, there is no
blurring of the
distinction between God and humanity. The Spirit is God, and
only by God
may one come before God.(108) Secondly, in various ways,
these statements
refer to the distinctiveness and relatedness of the Spirit to the
other two
modes. For example, Barth notes that the word for Spirit in
Greek is
neuter, and that this implies a distinctiveness of the Spirit
with respect
to the Father and the Son whose nouns are masculine. The
distinctiveness
is particularly apparent in the use of the word "proceeds."
Proceeding is
different from the begetting of the first issue, and thus
indicates the
distinctiveness of Spirit with respect to the Father and
the Son.
"Secondly, then, the qui procedit means that the divine
mode of being of
the Spirit is to be differentiated from that of the Son, which
is denoted
by genitus, and implicitly, therefore, from that of the
Father as well."(109)
The distinctiveness of the Spirit is intimately bound up with
the Spirit's
peculiar relation to the other modes. The Spirit proceeds from
both the
Father and the Son. Here Barth affirms the filioque of the
Western Church.
The inclusion of the filioque means that the Spirit reveals God
only as
known in the Son and therefore denies the possibility of
access to God
apart from the Son. If God were accessible apart from the Son,
this would
imply a depth in God apart from the Son and this is a form of
Arianism.
Furthermore, the inclusion of the filioque points to the fact
that the
Spirit's act in revelation is to create fellowship between God
and humanity, and within the divine life, the Spirit exists as
the fellowship of the
Father and the Son. The Spirit is the togetherness, or common
factor, the
reciprocal love, the fellowship, or act of communion between the
Father and
the Son.(110) Within himself God is social. By this Barth does
not mean a
social doctrine of the Trinity, as if each mode were an
individual person,
but, fellowship and mutual love do exist within God. Ad
extra, this
implies that the counterpart of God is not the individual, but
first the
community, and in that context individuals as constituted
through their
social relations. We shall discuss this at greater length in
the next
chapter, and it is significant for discerning whether God's
economic commands are first issued to societies or to
individuals. Without the filioque there would be no
indication of the inner-divine fellowship of love,
which would lead to a God of singularity and isolation in
contradistinction
to a God who exists only in the plurality and togetherness of
the three
modes. In saying that the Spirit is the reciprocal love or
fellowship
between Father and Son, the emphasis is that the Spirit is a
mode of God
and not merely a relation between two modes of God. The
inner-triune
relations distinguish the modes, but the modes are not relations.
In other
words, it is not the case that there are two modes, a Father
and Son, and
then a relation which includes them both which is Spirit. The
Spirit is a
third way of being God, and not just a relation between two
ways of being
God. The divine relations are not God, they are unequal, but
the divine
modes are all equal as God. Though the words "fellowship" and
"reciprocal
love" have the form of relations between Father and Son, their
reference is
to a mode of God and not merely a relation, between two
modes. Spirit
refers to a way in which God loves, both within Himself and
with his
creatures. In other words, it belongs to the Godness of God to
establish
fellowship and communion, and when the communion occurs it is
God present
and active as Spirit, and not just a relation between God
and another
subject. Speaking of the procession from the first two modes,
Barth comments:
This third mode of being cannot result from the former
alone, or the
latter alone, or co-operation of the two, but only from their
one being
as God the Father and God the Son, who are not two "persons"
either in
themselves or in co-operation, but two modes of being of the
one being
of God. Thus the one Godness of the Father and Son is, or
the Father
and the Son in their one Godness are, the origin of the
Spirit. What
is between them, what unites them, is, then, no mere
relation.(111)
By appropriation, Barth associates the Spirit with God's
work of
redemption.(112) The final reference of redemption is the
eschatological age
in which the presence of God revealed and effective in Jesus
Christ becomes
universally and definitively revealed and effective. This
final age,
corresponding to the distinctions within God, is separated from
creation
and reconciliation. A new act of God is required, as
significant as creation and the giving of eternal life through
the raising of the dead. We
will discuss this matter more concretely in future sections,
especially in
conjunction with Barth's doctrine of the threefold parousia
of Jesus
Christ. At that time, we will note that the Spirit's work,
both in the
present age and in the age to come, proceeds from the Father
and the Son,
i.e., the Spirit reveals and works only as known in Jesus
Christ who
reveals the Father and the Son.
We will conclude our study of Barth's doctrine of the
Trinity by
raising an issue that will concern us as this paper proceeds.
When we
speak of acting responsibly in economic affairs, to whom do
we address
ourselves? Are the primary acting agents individuals, or are
they nations,
or some combination of the two in varied relations? Or,
perhaps we may
speak of the matter in this fashion: is the primary
responsibility of the
state to provide a context in which individuals exercise economic
responsibility, or is it the responsbility of the State
itself to become the
primary agent in economic affairs through corporate decisions
and actions? We will discuss this question as we proceed. At
this point, however, we
may note that within God there is a sense in which God exists in
community
and fellowship, and that community is God in his mode as Spirit.
God acts,
the substance of his action is the Son, and again, he acts in
fellowship,
knit together in love. He acts as Spirit. We will, in a
future section,
speak of the Church as a community, knit together by the Spirit
with Jesus
Christ as its head. This community is one, since its head is one
and it is
knit together with its head through the Spirit. As one, the
community
acts, and it may act responsibly in economic affairs. We will
relate the
Church to the nations, and upon that basis show in what way
nations may act
as one. The fact, however, that communities have ontological
status, that
they are not mere aggregates, has its basis in the triune God.
The triune
God is not three individuals who cooperate, with their
cooperative action
being incidental or external to their existence as individuals.
That would
be tri-theism. The triune God is one, but only one as knit
together by
Spirit as the one Word. God's action is always action in
togetherness,
since God exists only as one in the way of three modes
related by two
issues. That God acts only "in togetherness" is the basis of
communities
acting in togetherness. In future sections we shall show that
the counterpart of the triune God is not the solitary
individual, but the community
as gathered, directed, and formed by Word and Spirit.
Trinity and History
We have discussed Barth's doctrine of the Trinity,
including his
views of analogy, as well as economic and immanent Trinity.
By means of
these ideas we are able to perceive how Barth moves back and
forth from God
in himself to God in his revelation. We now wish to point out an
outstanding characteristic of God's revelation, and
consequently of all Barth's
theological doctrines as they have their basis in revelation.
God, in
Barth's view, is historical within himself, and all God's
revelatory
actions ad extra take an historical form. We shall
present aspects of
Barth's view of history. After describing Barth's doctrine of
history, we
shall describe one central moment in God's history with the
world, that is,
Barth's doctrine of election, followed by a note on Barth's
ethics. Then
our chapter will conclude.
The fact that God is triune implies that every revelation
of himself
is an event which together with other revelatory events form a
history of
God's revealing acts.(113) In his mode as Father, God is
concealed and
indescribable. Through his own inner decision he takes form,
and the
action of his taking form is an event. He takes form from time
to time.
He is not always present in his mode as Son, but only in discrete
events as
he chooses. When God takes form in the Son he speaks and acts,
and then by
a further related event he takes a third form and is heard so
that his
listeners respond to him. The dynamic of his absence, his
becoming present
as Word and act, his being heard, and then the return to
silence when he
has finished speaking, gives God's revelatory acts the character
of events.
These events have impact, they change the world. They create
history and
are a history.(114) As God is in his revelation, so he is within
himself and
vice-versa. God is historical within himself, historical in
the dynamic
events of relationship between the three persons of the Trinity
as related
by the two issues.(115) Since God is historical in himself,
the events of
his revelation form a history. These historical events are
narrated in
Scripture, and form the basis of the biblical revelation.
Barth's theology
derives from Scripture, and all his theological doctrines take
an historical form. He uses no static categories. Creation,
reconciliation, and
redemption are all understood as histories. The Church exists
only as an
event given in the moment of God's grace, human beings exist as
persons in
the event of encounter, Jesus' dual natures are both histories,
and the
relation between the two natures is a history, ethical action
takes an
historical form, and more examples could be given.(116) We
will follow
Barth's derivation of aspects of some of these doctrines as
they emerge
from the biblical history, and therefore, much of our work
will be concerned with Barth's understanding of the biblical
history. We shall, for
example, discover that taking responsibility for others in
economic affairs
has its basis in the biblical history of the covenant, and will
itself be a
history. Responsible action itself is an event, an event in
which people
encounter one another and come to one another's assistance in
economic
matters. From this it will follow that our economic analysis
must also be
historical, and as we shall see, emphasize how human beings
relate to one
another. We must specify the historical nature of God's
revelation more
closely so as to discern the nature of the histories it forms.
God's Speech as God's Freedom
God speaks in freedom, and the events of his free
speech form a
history. We may look at this from two points of view: God's
inner decision
to speak, and the fact that he speaks in the form of an event as
history.
With respect to God's inner decision to speak, God is utterly
free.(117) He
is the Lord, possessor of total ontic and noetic freedom.
He answers
prayer, and in his compassion he responds to the world's
varied necessities, but only in his freedom and not by
compulsion. This is not to say
that God's inner decisions are erratic; they are not. They
reveal God's
mercy as revealed in Jesus Christ. But God's acts cannot be
bound within
any scientific or cosmological schema.(118) When God speaks in
freedom, he
speaks through events that occur at definite times and places.
His address
is always a specific address, to specific people in concrete
circumstances.
These events can be known only through the senses, they occur as
observable
historical events.(119) The fact that God's revelation is
historical can, in
Barth's view, be contrasted with the idea of myth. Myth is a
description
of divine and human events or realities that holds in all times
or places,
a description of the fixed and invariant forms or structures of
the given
cosmos.(120) The Word of God is not a myth. It is not bound
by the fixed
structures of the cosmos, but occurs as an event in accordance
with God's
freedom. Therefore, as an observable reality it cannot be
determined or
set within a fixed order. It is always miraculous since it
reflects the
freedom of God's decision to act.(121) It may or may not be
miraculous from
the point of view of a neutral observer, or from what Barth
would call the
historisch point of view.(122) From that point of view
the event may or may
not be intelligible within an ordered nexus, and may have any
number of
meanings which have nothing to do with God's Word. But from the
point of
view of faith, that is, through the subjective work of the
Spirit, the Word
of God and the history it creates is not perceived as a human
possibility,
or as the result of cosmological developments.(123) Rather, the
event is the
Word of the transcendent and now immanent God addressing people
in their
concrete circumstances.
The dynamic of God's history-creating acts can be seen from
the point
of view of history's central axis. God acts in and creates
history through
his Word and that Word is Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ the
world is
radically transformed, and its turning point is the crucifixion
and resurrection. These two events, crucifixion and
resurrection, form the center
of history.(124) The crucifixion, by appropriation, reveals God
the Father's
judgment; it is the end of the old aeon. The resurrection, as
appropriated
to the Son, reveals a new creation and a new age. We have
already observed
these appropriations in relation to Trinity. The Father's
judment on the
old age entails its total dissolution. It comes to an end, and
therefore
the old creation cannot bring forth the new. A new act of God is
required,
the resurrection of the dead, the establishment of a new
creation. God
always brings something to an end in judgment, and creates
something radically new that was not immanent within the old
order. The new occurs in
space and time, an event which together with all God's
reconciling acts
forms a new history in the midst of life. This new history
cannot be
grasped through a general theory of historical causality or
invariant
structures since these structures are abolished in the
crucifixion. The
new history occurs only in grace, where grace is understood as
an address
by God directed to people in their concrete circumstances. The
new history
entails judgment, repentance, forgiveness, and a new direction
in life.
This has one immediate consequence for our study.
Given the foregoing, we may say that we are not deriving
a general
theory of how social and economic life may be related. There is
no general
theory, no cosmological structure, in terms of which we may
discover how
the state may act responsibly in economic affairs. Every
"invariant" cosmological structure is radically abolished by
God's judgment in the crucifixion. This is not to say that the
new order given in resurrection does not
reflect God's original hopes for his first creation, and that
there are not
resemblances between the old creation prior to sin and
the new order given
in Jesus Christ. There are resemblances and continuities.(125)
But these
resemblances are due to God's grace, to the fact that he freely
creates the
new order to fulfill his original hopes for the first creation.
The resemblances are not, however, due to the enduring power of
any worldly reality.
These perish under the judgment of God. Apart from grace,
there are no
similarities, and there are never enduring structures.
Therefore, a general theory is impossible, theory understood
here as an expression of how
the state may act in economic affairs without reference to the
mystery and
concreteness of God's grace. But, having said this, we must go
on to say
that we are going to derive results that indicate the nature of
grace as it
pertains to acting responsibly in economic affairs. In other
words, when
God acts, he will enable the church, and the state, and
persons, to act
responsibly in economic affairs, and we shall discern the
character of
responsible action as it occurs under the power of God's
action. From
Barth's point of view, responsible action in obedience to
God occurs
through the event of the Word as discerned in the Spirit.
It entails
judgment, pardon, and a new direction. By contrast, in his view,
a general
theory does not depend upon hearing the Word of God, but rather
entails the
application of the theory to human affairs. In other words, the
direction
of economic responsibility is not a possibility within the
created order,
and therefore it cannot be known through the universal harmonies
of capitalist economics, nor in the Marxist dialectic, but can
be given and discerned only in the action of Word and Spirit.
We now wish to introduce
elements of the relations among the histories that will concern
us.
The History of the Covenant and Related
Histories
A glance at the Church Dogmatics will show that the
final volumes,
volumes three, four, and the projected but never started fifth,
correspond
to God's works of creation, reconciliation, and redemption.
Volume one
deals with prolegomena. Volume two deals with God, and this is
followed by
the three volumes on God's three major acts. The final four
volumes are a
treatment of the traditional theological loci--first God himself,
followed
by his three major acts of creation, reconciliation, and
redemption.(126)
These four volumes reflect the unity and diversity of God,
first God himself as the one God (volume two), and then God in
his three-fold acts as
appropriated to Father, Son, and Spirit. These three acts, by
appropriation, reflect the inner-triune relations. We shall
describe aspects of
these relations in the following chapters. For now, however,
we wish to
make several observations. First, corresponding to God's
oneness, we may
note that Barth places his doctrine of God prior to his
discussions of
creation, reconciliation, and redemption. His doctrine of God
begins with
God in himself, God's perfections, and then God's first act
outside himself, his election of Jesus Christ and with him the
whole of humanity.(127)
Since, within God, the Father eternally begets the Son and
only the Son,
God's first act outside himself must have its basis in Jesus
Christ. Election has its basis in Jesus Christ; it is the
history of Jesus Christ
understood from the point of view of God's one abiding
purpose. God's
election of Jesus Christ, and the human response made known
in Jesus
Christ, govern all God's action and their human responses as
they occur in
the histories of creation, reconciliation, and redemption.
Therefore Barth
places election prior to these subsequent three-fold histories.
Election,
as God's one abiding purpose, reveals the unity of these three
histories;
the histories are the way in which God works out his intent as
revealed in
election. God's purpose in election is fellowship with his
people and
among peoples. All other acts, God's acts and their human
responses as
given in creation, reconciliation, and redemption, aim at
fellowship with
God and others and therefore these other acts can be understood
only from
the point of view of election. The history of election in
coordination
with creation, reconciliation, and redemption reflects the unity
and diversity of the God who is a triunity.(128) Therefore,
before we begin the
following chapter with the economic aspects of Barth's doctrine
of creation, we must present elements of his doctrine of
election as this guides
the discussion of how God acts in creation, reconciliation, and
redemption.
Secondly, in speaking of election, and of creation,
reconciliation,
and redemption, we are speaking of one history, with an
emphasis on God's
oneness, or of three histories, emphasizing God's
threeness.(129) This
three-in-one history encounters and overcomes another history,
the history
of human sin.(130) These histories, whether we think of the
one history of
God in opposition to human sin, or of that one history in its
threeness,
are not related as elements of a general temporal process, nor
can they be
categorized according to a general concept of time. Barth does
not speak
of "time" as a general concept, but of "times" differentiated
and brought
together in grace. Apart from grace, the histories of creation,
reconciliation, and redemption do not exist together, nor are
they related to God's
history of election. Only in the event of grace are they
one-in-three, and
further, only in the event of grace does this one history
encounter the
history of sin and overcome it.(131) This is another way of
expressing the
analogia relationis, the fact that relations hold among
God's major acts
only in the event of grace. Our results will be derived by
relating
reconciliation and creation, and further, they will become
historically
relevant only in the event in which God encounters fallen human
history.
Therefore, we may, from this angle, repeat our prior
conclusion, that we
are not deriving a general theory, but rather, describing
relations that
hold only in the moment of grace, and can become effective
in fallen
history only within that moment.
Barth uses one other important concept with respect to
history, and
that is "covenant." Before we introduce Barth's doctrine of
election, we
wish briefly to describe elements of how covenant, election, and
the other
major histories are related.
Within God, Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God,
and outside
himself, God's first act is election, the choice of Jesus
Christ and the
whole of humanity for fellowship with himself. The fellowship
between God
and his creatures as realized in election, however, is closely
related to
Barth's concept of "covenant." The term "covenant" indicates
the reality
of God's personal word of address. Not all God's actions are
direct words
of address; his creation of the world, for example, is not a
direct self-revealing word. Those events in which God directly
address his creatures,
however, are covenant words. They establish fellowship in that
they enable
human beings to respond to him and to one another. Election
therefore
refers to God's purpose as revealed in Jesus Christ; covenant
refers to
God's words of personal address. God's Word of personal
address is an
event, and therefore the covenant is a history. This history is
described
in Scripture. The covenant begins with Yahweh's covenant with
Israel, and
it is fulfilled in the new covenant in Jesus Christ.
Covenant is the
purpose of election. The covenant is prefigured in creation,
comes closer
to the light in the history of Israel, culminates in the
history of Jesus
Christ, and will reach its final goal when Christ is
revealed in the
eschatological age. We will describe the various ways in which
covenant
relates to God's acts as we proceed in our study, and it is an
important
concept for us. Our next step, however, is to introduce
Barth's doctrine
of election.
Transition
We have discussed Barth's doctrine of the Trinity and
aspects of his
view of history. We could at this point end this chapter and go
at once to
Barth's doctrine of creation. Before doing so, however, we need
to present
certain ideas pertinent to Barth's doctrine of election. We
have already
seen how God's election of Jesus Christ is the basis of
God's actions
outside himself. If we are to understand the basis and purpose of
all God's
acts we first need to understand God's purposes as revealed in
election.
Specifically, and this is relevant to our work in the following
chapter,
creation needs to be seen from the viewpoint of election and
not vice-versa.(132) Therefore, we will present Barth's
doctrine of election prior to
our discussion of creation. This is the order followed by
Barth in the
Church Dogmatics. Furthermore, following his discussion
of election, Barth
presents aspects of his ethical thought. Both election and
ethics occur in
volume two as part of the doctrine of God. In Barth's view, God
has chosen
to bind himself to humanity in Jesus Christ, and therefore
election is part
of the doctrine of God. Furthermore, in electing to fellowship
with humanity in his Word, God not only blesses but commands.
Therefore, ethics
belongs to a doctrine of God as well, and Barth places both
prior to the
remaining three volumes on creation, reconciliation, and
redemption. Each
of these three volumes contains special material on ethics
related to their
special content, but the basis of ethics is in the
sanctification that
comes to humanity through the electing God. We will end this
chapter with
a few observations on Barth's ethics which will indicate the
ethical relevance of the material in the following chapters.
God's First Act--Election
The election of Jesus Christ and with him the whole of
humanity takes
place through three choices which Barth visualizes as three
concentric
circles.(133) First, in the inner circle, there is the
choice of Jesus
Christ. The choice of Jesus Christ corresponds within God to his
eternally
begetting the Son.(134) God's choice of Jesus Christ is
specific and concrete; it is the history of God in relation to
Jesus Christ as described in
the gospel accounts. According to that history, God determines
himself for
sinful humanity, and sinful humanity for himself. By this it is
meant that
God and humanity relate to each other as given in Jesus Christ;
all God's
relations with humanity are reflections or realizations of what
has already
occurred in Jesus Christ. Specifically, in Jesus Christ, God
set aside
humanity's rejection of himself, and determined that humanity
share in his
glory, in the vitality of his presence. We shall describe this
two-fold
movement, God's humility in bearing the effects of human sin,
and humanity's exaltation through God's pardon and fellowship,
in chapter three.
The purpose of this divine and human work as revealed
in Jesus'
divine/human histories is fellowship, community between God and
humanity
and among people. Barth expresses it as follows:
What did God elect in the election of Jesus Christ? We
have said
already that not only did He elect fellowship with man for
Himself, but
He also elected fellowship with Himself for man. By the one
decree of
self-giving, He decreed his own abandonment to rejection
and also the
wonderful exaltation and endowment of man to existence in
covenant with
Himself; that man should be enriched and saved and
glorified in the
living fellowship of the covenant.(135)
The fellowship between God and humanity has its ontological
basis in Jesus
Christ, and upon that basis, it occurs in the second of the two
concentric
circles, the community. We may notice at this point that Barth
places the
community prior to the individual. In the third circle God
elects the
individual, but only the individual as existing in the community
which in
turn has its basis in Jesus Christ as its head. We will find
this pattern
throughout Barth's theology, and therefore it is the community,
acting as
one that is called to act responsibly in economic affairs. In
choosing the
community, God's aim is that the whole of humanity enter into
fellowship
with himself. Barth has no doctrine of double
predestination. God's
choice for love and fellowship in Jesus is an election of the
whole of
humanity, and humanity in their togetherness. It is not
God's eternal
purpose that any should be rejected. Nevertheless, the
reality of God's
choice as manifest in Jesus Christ has not yet reached the
whole of the
human race, with the consequence that God's eternal Yes to the
whole of
humanity is reflected in two forms. First there is the community
of Israel
which witnesses to God's judgment and the hearing but not
believing of
God's election. Secondly, there is the Church which witnesses
to God's
grace and human believing.(136) God calls all, God chooses all,
there is in
reality only one community, and its two-fold form reveals the
passing away
of judgment and disobedience, and the coming of the new
community of grace
and believing.(137) There is always the eschatological hope that
in the end
disbelief will pass away, and the community of belief will
comprise the
whole of humanity. Scripture, in Barth's opinion, does not deny
that hope,
nor does it say that its achievement is a certainty.(138)
Finally, there is
the choice of the individual. Barth places the choice of the
individual
after the choice of the community as the mediation of God's
election, and
the establishment of human individuality is only assured in the
midst of
those social relationships that constitute community.(139) In
hearing and
receiving God's gracious election there is a varied human
response. For
some the news is accepted and believed. But concerning even
those who do
not believe, God's aim is that their choice is void, that even in
disbelief
it is God's purpose and work that each person be appointed to
eternal life
with God.(140) Furthermore, even those who deny God's grace,
are not exempt
from the election of God. God will providentially order their
lives so
that they aid in the accomplishment of God's purposes, and bear
reluctant
witness to God's mercy.(141) One of the consequences of this
perspective is
that there is an essential solidarity between those who profess
the Christian faith and those who do not. By virtue of this
solidarity Barth felt
that Christians could and should participate in those social and
economic
movements that most nearly approximate the rule of God in human
affairs.(142)
All people and organizations have something to contribute to
God's kingdom.
Finally, we will discover that the image of concentric circles
is an image
that pervades the whole of Barth's theology. We will see it in a
number of
contexts. With respect to the state, we will find that Barth
visualizes
the state as a third outer circle, with Jesus being the center
and the
intermediary circle being Israel and the church. The fact that
all individuals and social organizations contribute to God's
purposes means that
there are positive relations among Jesus Christ, Israel and the
Church, and
the state. Specifically, the state has a positive contribution
to make in
establishing the final eschatological Kingdom created by the
Spirit.
A Note on Barth's Ethics
As God elects humanity to life and fellowship with himself
and one
another, he always acts to bless and save. As he acts to save
and bless,
he also summons his people into action. All saving acts of God
entail an
ethical response. The ethical response is based upon the work
of Word and
Spirit, in that God not only subjectively empowers people to
know him, but
enables them to respond in faith to his saving grace. The norm
of ethics
is the grace of God as revealed in Jesus Christ in Scripture and
mediated
in the present by further acts of God. The ethical response is
the form in
which human beings respond to God's saving grace, so that Barth
will say
that the law (the commanded human response in a particular
situation), is
the form of the gospel (the saving act of God in that
situation).(143)
Furthermore, since God's saving grace and Word addresses people
in their
concrete circumstances and creates history, ethics possesses an
historical
character. Ethics entails listening to the Word of God and
active participation in history.(144) Since ethics has its
basis in God's grace, in his
acts, it reflects the unity and diversity of God's actions.
Barth discusses general ethics in the context of his doctrine of
election; and then
with respect to God's major acts, special ethics correspond to
the ethical
response to God's grace as given in creation, reconciliation,
and redemption.(145) As we proceed in future sections, we
shall develop the relevant
ethical material in those contexts. At each point our basis
will be God's
grace and command. We will discover how God and humanity as
given and
known in Jesus Christ took responsibility for economic life, and
particulary, how this responsibility is reflected in creation
and reconciliation.
Upon that basis we will discover how nations and persons are
called to act
in economic affairs.
Final Propositions from Chapter One
1.1 God is one, and only one in the way of being three modes
related by two
issues, and this in every depth of himself. Each mode is God,
of the same
essence, yet, distinguished by their unequal relations.
1.2 The Father eternally begets the Son and only the Son, and
ad extra, all
God's actions have their basis in Jesus Christ. God reveals
himself only
by taking form in the Son as known by the Spirit. There is
no natural
knowledge of God.
1.3 The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and is
the common
factor, reciprocal love, the fellowship, the communion between
Father and
Son. Ad extra, the Spirit creates relationships,
community, and love among
persons and with God. The filioque implies that the Spirit
reveals God and
creates community only as known in Jesus Christ.
1.4 As God is in himself, (Immanent Trinity), so he is in
his actions
(economic Trinity), and vice-versa. As God acts he creates
analogies or
correspondences of himself. These analogies hold only in the
moment of
grace, in the event of God taking form as Son and acting
subjectively as
Spirit.
1.5 God's one great act is election, and by appropriation, his
election is
carried out in history through Creation, Reconciliation, and
Redemption,
which correspond to Father, Son, and Spirit. According to (1.1)
and (1.4),
election, creation, reconciliation, and redemption, are
distinguished and
related according to the inner-triune relations.
1.6 No mode of God exists without the others, and therefore,
outside himself, all God's actions as appropriated to a
specific mode occur with
related actions corresponding to the other two modes.
1.7 God is historical within Himself, and outside himself his
actions and
revelation take an historical form. Given (1.2), the one
central history
is the history of Jesus Christ, and given the distinctions within
God, this
one history is related to the histories of creation,
reconciliation, and
redemption as their basis, origin, and goal.
1.8 God is social within himself, social in the dynamic
interaction of the
three modes in the community of the Spirit. This follows from
(1.3).
1.9 Ethical action has its basis in God's action. It is given
through Word
and Spirit, and its norm is the two-fold, human and divine,
history of
Jesus Christ. The law is the form of the gospel. There is no
natural law,
just as there is no natural theology. All depends upon the event
of grace.
Endnotes to Chapter One
1. "Barth turns again and again to relate the doctrines he is discussing to the trinitarian discussion of God. The Trinity, he holds, is not an isolated affirmation about God, but is fundamental to all of the other aspects of the Christian faith." Claude Welch, In His Name (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972), p. 162. Claude Welch summarizes the fundamental position of of Trinity with respect to other doctrines (p. 163), and, in turn, recognizes that the doctrine of the Trinity is itself Christologically based (pp. 169, 178, 205).
2. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. I, part 1, 2d ed., part 2: The Doctrine of the Word of God; Vol. II, parts 1,2: The Doctrine of God; Vol. III, parts 1,2,3,4: The Doctrine of Creation; Vol. IV, parts 1,2, 3 first half, 3 second half: The Doctrine of Reconciliation; 4 Vols. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1936-75), II, part 1: 51. Hereinafter the differing volumes and their parts of the Church Dogmatics will be cited by Roman and Arabic numerals. For example, Church Dogmatics, IV:2, refers to volume four, part 2.
3. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, p. 25.
4. Ibid., p. 300. See the section, "The Place of the Doctrine of the Trinity in Dogmatics," pp. 295-304. One of Barth's motives for placing Trinity within prolegomena is to avoid a direct correlation between God and general human experience, including political and social programs. In this connection, Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt has proposed the thesis that Barth's "concept of God was achieved through socialist-interpreted social experience and presented in relation to that experience." (Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt, Theologie und Sozialismus, Das Beispiel Karl Barths [Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1972], p. 333. See also, George Hunsinger, ed. and trans., Karl Barth and Radical Politics [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976], pp. 47, 68.) Marquardt demonstrates his thesis by examining the development of Barth's thought in relation to his political activity, and by showing that Barth's central doctrines, above all, his concepts of God and Christology, were derived from and lead to his socialist political commitment. With respect to the Church Dogmatics, however, Marquardt does not begin with prolegomena, but with section 28 of II:1 on God as the one who loves in freedom (Marquardt, Theologie und Sozialismus, p. 236). Section 28 of II:1 refers to God's inner-triune life, his perfections. Within himself, God is social in the inter-related love of Father, Son, and Spirit. Therefore, God is social in his actions, and this, in Marquardt's view, has far-reaching social and ethical implications. Marquardt describes the social implications in these words: "The freedom of God for immanence, the flexible modes of God's self-giving in the world, is complete social utopia when one does not think of it in ontological terms but left hegelian." (p. 237.) Our fundamental thesis is that economic life has its basis in social history, and the basis of our thesis is God's inner-triune life. But we cannot, as does Marquardt, draw a direct line between God and socialism, nor can they be placed in a dialectical relation. Following Barth, we begin with prolegomena, and with Barth's doctrine of the Trinity. From Barth's perspective, the first meaning of Trinity is that God and his revelation is not, to use Marquardt's words, "achieved" or "presented" in relation to any element of general human experience. Barth describes his reason for placing Trinity in the prolegomena as follows: "The basic problem with which Scripture faces us in respect of revelation is that the revelation attested in it refuses to be understood as any sort of revelation alongside which there are or may be others. In insists absolutely in being understood in its uniqueness." Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, p. 295.
5. Barth's views on Kant are well stated in his book on Protestant Theology. Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century; Its Background and History (London: SCM Press, 1972). See the theological alternatives to Kant outlined on pp. 306-7, which indicate the major streams of nineteenth century theology.
6. Ibid., p. 306.
7. After an initial, brief, conservative theological education, Barth began theological training in Berlin where he encountered and was persuaded by the dominant liberal theology of the time. He became a liberal theologian, and was chiefly influenced by Schleiermacher, Kant, and the history of religion school of biblical interpretation. Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), p. 40.
8. Barth, Protestant Theology, pp. 274-5.
9. Ibid., pp. 282-3. 10. Ibid., pp. 284-6.
11. Barth begins his criticism of liberalism, as well as Rome, in the opening pages of the Church Dogmatics. For his view that liberalism identifies revelation with an aspect of created reality see I:1, pp. 36-40, 61-64, 124, 195-6.
12. Hunsinger, Radical Politics, pp. 19-20. See the whole of the essay in Hunsinger entitled, "Jesus Christ and the Movement for Social Justice," pp. 19-45. This essay is a speech given by Barth while still a young pastor in Safenvil.
13. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 25-36, "The Necessity of Dogmatic Prolegomena," and especially the comments p. 34.
14. Ibid., p. 38. Barth directly links liberal theology to the German Christians' failure to hold fast against Hitler's attempt to subvert the Church. In his view the "doctrine of the German-Christians is nothing but a particulary vigorous result of the entire neo-protestant development since 1700 . . . the German-Christians affirm the German nationhood, its history and its contemporary political situation as a second source of revelation, and thereby betray themselves to be believers in 'another God.'" (Karl Barth, The German Church Conflict, trans. P. T. A. Parker [Richmond: John Knox Press, 1965], p. 16. Also note, pp. 25, 27, 41-42). See also, Arthur Cochrane, The Church's Confession Under Hitler (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), p. 135. There is a convergence between Juan Luis Segundo and Karl Barth at this point. Segundo discusses a number of liberal theologians, Bultmann, Robinson, Cox, Van Buren, and correlates their aversion to the concept of divine intervention with their attachment to the bourgeois social order. (Juan Luis Segundo, Our Idea of God, [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1973], pp. 12-14, 47-49, 122-127). In his view, liberal theology is wedded to the sufficiency and dominance of its social context. Consequently, it cannot imagine an act of God as intervening to judge and transform its social world. It is created by the "modern man," one who is the product of the "great urban centers in the Anglo-Saxon industrial empire; an urbane pragmatic man molded by scientific and technological thought and bound up with the notions of progress and affluence. And as we have seen, what he cannot accept is a transcendence pictured as intervening within the boundaries of this world that he knows, uses, manipulates, and dominates." (p. 124, also pp. 14, 49, 125.) Both Barth and Segundo possess an understanding of God's act as revolutionary. From Barth's point of view, and we shall show this, God judges and redeems societies, and this includes the economic order. Similar ideas can be found in Jose Miguez Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation (Philadelphia, Fortress, Press, 1970), p. 72, and Christians and Marxists: the Mutual Challenge to Revolution (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1976), p. 39.
15. Busch, Karl Barth, p. 81.
16. The war was only one of a number of complex factors that led to Barth's break with liberalism. Barth mentions three primary influences, his encounter with the Blumhardts (father and son), and his discovery of what he called "the strange new world within the Bible," together with the war.Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, trans. John Newton Thomas and Thomas Wieser (Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1960), p. 40.
17. See the essay entitled "The Strange New World in the Bible." Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man, trans. Douglas Horton (New York: Harper Torchbooks, Harper and Brothers, 1956), pp. 28-50.
18. James D. Smart, The Divided Mind of Modern Theology: Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, 1908-1933 (Philadelphia: The Westminster press, 1967), pp. 47-48. Segundo makes a similar point: "We are in fact faced with two alternatives. Either the prophets--or Christ himself--transmit an interpretation that God is sending to us; in that case the message itself is a divine intervention in history, of the same order as any in the biblical account. Or else they are transmitting their own thoughts about our existence; and in that case I accept them or not, as I choose, just as I would those of a Socrates, a Nietzsche, or a Heidegger." Segundo, Our Idea of God, p. 49.
19. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (London: Oxford University Press, 1935), p. 10. See also, Busch, Karl Barth, p. 119, where Barth's second edition of the Romerbrief is described as a "radical criticism of the liberal and 'positive' theology of the previous century arguing that it had ceased to acknowledge God as God."
20. See the preface to the second edition of The Epistle to the Romans where Barth discusses the influences that led to the second edition. This included a deeper study of Kant.
21. Ibid., p. 30. 22. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:2, p. 50.
23. According to Marquardt, Barth worked out his concept of God's transcendence in the context of his socialist politics as a critique of the bourgeois social order. "Social experience determined Barth's theology so strongly that his 'logic of God' was developed from a critically conceived 'logic of (bourgeois) society.' In the context of experience of transcendence, his concept of God as the 'Wholly Other' did not directly refer to God's ontology as something beyond and aloof. Rather, it set God in connection with the Wholly Other of the new man, the new world, and the new age--in other words, with the contents of revolution." Hunsinger, Radical Politics, pp. 65-6. From the vantage point of the Church Dogmatics, God as "Wholly Other," implies that God stands in judgment over all social systems, including those founded upon a proletarian revolution, and not simply in judgment against bourgeois society.
24. Barth, Church Dogmatics, II:1, p. 311. See also, I:1, p. 352, where Barth claims that this notion of God's ontic and noetic independence is a biblical notion.
25. Busch, Karl Barth, p. 210.
26. Karl Barth, Anselm: Fides quaerens intellectum, trans. Louise Smith (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 38.
27. Ibid., p. 171.
28. Ibid., p. 38, also note statement p. 48. 29. Ibid., p. 19.
30. Barth begins the Church Dogmatics with an initial volume of prolegomena. Prolegomena is concerned with dogmatics and its "particular way of knowledge." (I:1, p. 25.) Since Anselm precipitated Barth's epistemology, his influence is especially evident in the opening pages of the Church Dogmatics. See, for example, the section on Prolegomena, I:1, pp. 25-46, where he differentiates his view from that which sees revelation as a general human possibility, rather than stemming from a specific act of God, p. 41. This act is the Word of God, Jesus Christ, pp. 41-44, and that is the criterion for Dogmatics. In Sections five and six, pp. 125-247, Barth describes the nature and knowability of this Word. Here the influence of Anselm is particularly evident, in that the Word of God is a concrete event of personal address given as God takes form in space and time, primarily through proclamation in conformity with Scripture. It occurs only from time to time, in the event of God speaking, and cannot be a general philosophical and anthropological possibility.
31. For Barth, the criterion for theology is the Word of God. (Church Dogmatics I:1, p. 47.) But the "Word of God is God Himself in Holy Scripture." (I:2, p. 457.) Scripture is the written norm, it is the Credo, and it becomes the Word through the event of God's triune act.
32. Note Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, section three, pp. 47-87, where proclamation is seen as the material of dogmatics, since theology is concerned with the Church's proclamation. Also, chapter IV of I:2, pp. 743-884, speaks of proclamation as God's commission to the Church (p. 743), and Barth places this section right after the section on Scripture since the Church's proclamation follows from Scripture.
33. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 51-53.
34. Ibid., p. 248. See especially sections three, pp. 47-87, and seven, pp. 248-275.
35. Ibid., pp. 136-7, 144.
36. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:2, pp. 816, 822, and 839.
37. Ibid., p. 840. One of Barth's motives in writing the Church Dogmatics was to serve the church in its task of proclamation as it pertained to the political realm. In his view, political clarity required theological clarity, and this matter was on his mind as he began to write the Church Dogmatics in 1932 as Hitler came to power. The following remark is taken from the preface to the Church Dogmatics: "I am firmly convinced, that especially in the broad field of politics, we cannot reach the clarifications which are necessary today, and on which theology might have a word to say, as indeed it ought to have, without first reaching the comprehensive clarifications in and about theology which are our present concern." (I:1, p. xvi.)
38. Ibid., pp. 304-313, 332-33, excursus p. 313.
39. Ibid., pp. 379-380.
40. Barth follows this procedure on pp. 315-333 of Church Dogmatics, I:1. See his reasons for doing so on pp. 287-292.
41. Ibid., p. 314, also, p. 306. 42. Ibid., p. 306-7.
43. Ibid., pp. 315-324, for Barth's discussion of God's hiddenness, and especially part 2, pp. 320-324, including the excursus of pp. 322-4.
44. Ibid., p. 315. For God taking form see part one, pp. 315-320, including biblical excursus 316-319. At this point Barth is repeating, from the biblical point of view, what he discovered through reading Anselm. Aspects of the matter were also discussed in chapter one of I:1. See, for example, pp. 133-142, where Barth discusses God's Word as taking form as a personal address. Further, see part 1, pp. 165-174, on the Word of God taking form, and part 2, 174-181, where the Word of God is seen as both a veiling and unveiling, which, in regard to Trinity, Barth understands as Father and Son.
45. Ibid., p. 321. See also, Church Dogmatics, II:1, p. 3.
46. See the excursus, Barth, Church Dogmatics, I;1, pp. 322-4.
47. Barth, among other places, discusses this in Church Dogmatics, II:1, in the first two sections on "Man before God," and "God before Man." Barth begins with God as Subject who brings his listeners as hearers into his presence, and in this event God becomes an object to human knowing, p. 32.
48. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, excursus beginning p. 316.
49. Ibid., p. 316.
50. When God distinguishes Himself from Himself and becomes "different," He is yet the "same" as both modes are the same One God. From a logical point of view nothing can be different from itself while remaining the same. For Barth the events of revelation, the biblical witness, take epistemological precedence over the criterion of consistency, (Church Dogmatics, I:1, p. 9). Furthermore, God as Trinity is a mystery, and the aim of rational effort is to reveal that mystery, and not primarily the creation of a perfectly consistent schema. "But all rational wrestling with this mystery, the more serious it is, can lead only to its fresh and authentic interpretation and manifestation as a mystery." (p. 368.)
51. Ibid., pp. 133-142, 165-181, 315-320. 52. Ibid., pp. 321, 323.
53. Ibid., the excursi beginning p. 330 and p. 453.
54. Ibid., pp. 324-332, and also pp. 181-186. 55. Ibid., pp. 452-3.
56. Ibid, the two sections " Unity in Trinity," pp. 348-353, and "Trinity in Unity," pp. 353-68, and the statements, p. 368, on the conflation of the two. See also comments p. 354.
57. Ibid., p. 348.
58. Ibid. With respect to the "persons," see discussion beginning p. 350, the excursus pp. 355-358, and additional comments 358-361. In contrast to Barth, Segundo has a stronger sense of the modes of the "Trinity" as "persons" or "acting subjects." (Our Idea of God, chapter 2, pp. 57-66.) The three modes are each alike as far as their objective content or essence. Each are God, but they differ in that each mode is an acting Subject in relation to the others. As Subjects, the three persons act together, they collaborate, and they are brought together in love without confusion or blurring of their being as acting subjects (pp. 62-66). Therefore, God is a society. This view of God has its correlate in social views of labor and social ownership. In this view, work and production are understood as a common endeavor for the good of all, while undifferentiated monotheism leads to a view of society as essentially private with everyone carving out their own private personal and economic domain (pp. 66-69). These connections are significant. In our case, Barth's stronger emphasis on God's oneness, in contrast to Segundo's view, does not destroy the "social" nature of God. God's oneness, for Barth, is not undifferentiated oneness. His oneness exists only in threeness, and this threeness, ad extra, leads to a social view of human personhood and social life. The counterpart of God's triune nature is the community, and then the individual in that context. By contrast, Segundo's Trinity would lead to a view of persons as persons first, and then, by mutual love, communities. The difference is whether one starts with the unity or triunity. Theologically, Segundo's doctrine of the Trinity is the social doctrine of the Trinity. By this it is meant that each mode is a distinct acting Subject. Barth rejects the social doctrine of the Trinity as it comes too close to tri-theism. But he does not deny God's social triune nature. In both cases, however, the social nature of work and economic life flows out of their formulations, and we shall demonstrate that this is the case for Barth.
59. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, p. 351. Barth is saying that he is speaking of the divine I thrice repeated, and not that he is speaking three times in different ways of one divine I.
60. Ibid., p. 352. 61. Ibid., pp. 358-9. 62. Ibid., pp. 350-1.
63. Ibid., p. 363. 64. Ibid., p. 360. 65. Ibid., pp. 354-5.
66. Ibid., pp. 364 and 483, for a concise statement of this matter.
67. Ibid., pp. 352-3, 439, for the discussion of Arius, pp. 381-2 on subordinationism and modalism. Bonino makes a connection between European imperialism and monist or non-trinitarian views of God. Monist view of God have lead European thought to formulate social conceptions which destroy solidarity among peoples. This view is the "philosophical expression of the European ethos of conquest and domination, which is unable to 'respect' any other reality--whether a nation, a race, a culture--but can only relate to it by appropriating, dominating, and subjecting it to slavery." (Christians and Marxists, pp. 100-1.) Bonino contrasts monism with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The triune God is social, the "other" exists within God, and, ad extra, God works with his people through history and solidarity (pp. 105-8). In Bonino's view, both Marxism and liberal bourgeois theology and philosophy reflect this monistic position. Segundo draws similar conclusions: "Our falsified and inauthentic ways of dealing with our fellow men are allied to our falsifications of the idea of God. Our unjust society and our perverted idea of God are in close and terrible alliance." (Our Idea of God, pp. 7-8.) Segundo goes on to connect the heretical versions of a static God with various social and economic images which are used to structure society. (Chapter three, pp. 98-144, on modalism, and chapter four, pp. 146-177, on subordinationalism.) With respect to modalism, his primary point is that Modalism understands God as impassive, remote, inaccessible, a divine "it." This image of God leads to alienation and oppression. It allows people to treat others as an impersonal "it," or to stereotype people into predetermined social strata and tasks. This view removes God from history, from personal encounter, struggle, and responsibility for others (pp. 104, 114, 127-33). Similarly, the God of Arianism, the supreme ground of all being, functions to legitimate the status quo since its existence is derived from an analysis of being as it is, rather than existence as revealed by a God who judges the present order. The Arian God fortifies the power of the ruling elite, or for the ruled, it relieves them of the frightful struggle for liberation in history (pp. 154-8). In spite of differences in their understanding of Trinity, both Bonino and Segundo recognizes it as a central concept in understanding and transforming reality. For us, the doctrine of the Trinity is crucial, it pertains directly to our thesis, for it addresses whether or not economic life belongs to an autonomous non-historical realm, or whether it belongs to the realm of social history. If it is the latter, it exists through social relations between peoples and classes and it can be changed by social historical action. If the former, it is beyond the reach of historical action and social encounter.
68. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 333, 479.
69. Ibid., chapter headings for sections 10, 11, 12 on pp. 384, 399, 448. See also p. 416 where Barth begins a discussion of why Jesus Christ as the Word of the Father in revelation must be so antecendently in himself. See the excursus pp. 416-9, and pp. 420-2 where he gives three fatal consequences of not holding this view.
70. The first major treatment of the analogia entis in the Church Dogmatics, aside from passing references in I:1 (pp. xiii, 41, 239, 243), and the related discussion of Vestigium Trinitatis (333-347), is found in II:1, pp. 63-128, the section on "The Knowability of God." See especially the excursus beginning p. 79 where Barth specifically discusses the Roman Catholic view of analogia entis.
71. Barth, Church Dogmatics, II:1, p. 81.
72. Ibid., p. 125. Barth examines the biblical evidence for natural theology on pp. 97-125.
73. Ibid., p. 79. 74. Ibid., p. 84.
75. Segundo's discussion of natural and revealed knowledge of God is quite weak. (Our Idea of God, pp. 102-106, 139-142.) The gist of his treatment is that rational knowledge of God yields a non-historical, impersonal, remote God. Such an image of God, by itself alone, leads to personal and social degradation. However, he does not deny the results of this knowledge, and must therefore coordinate them with revealed knowledge wherein God encounters his people in history as an event of personal address. The dynamic, revealed God joins his people in history and works for their liberation in every aspect of their existence. But how are these two epistemologies and aspects of God related? Segundo accepts both by saying that the rational knowledge of God refers to God's nature, while the revealed knowledge is God in his person as Subject (pp. 105, 139-40). If, however, there is a "natural element" in God, then, ad extra, this opens the door to an aspect of created life in which humans live, act, and think apart from the Word. This realm may perhaps be coordinated with the Word, but not fully addressed by it. Barth rejects this. From our perspective, such a natural element could involve economic life, which would then lead to the separation of economic life from the Word. In that case, the norms for economic life, as well as an understanding of its essential nature, would derive from sources other than Jesus Christ. Following Barth, we shall ground economic life in the Word and only in the Word and this will imply that economic life has its basis in social history.
76. Barth, Church Dogmatics, II:1, p. 84. See also p. xiii of I:1, where Barth says the doctrine of analogia entis is, in Barth's view, the "invention of Antichrist." A forceful expression of Barth's rejection of natural theology can be found in his reply "No" to Brunner. For Barth, the battle over natural theology was the critical theological issue in the struggle against Nazism. Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, Natural Theology, comprising "Nature and Grace" by Brunner and the reply "No" by Barth, ed. Geoffrey Bromiley, trans. Peter Fraenkel (London: Centenary press, 1946). For a discussion of the political and theological context of Barth's reply to Brunner, see Cochrane, The Church's Confession under Hitler, pp. 69-73.
77. Barth's, Church Dogmatics, I:1, p. 243-4.
78. Ibid., pp. 333-47. This is Barth's discussion of "Vestigium Trinitatis." A major point of that section is that trinities are set up in the world by revelation, but one cannot deduce knowledge of the triune God from trinities that may exist in creation apart from God's revelatory act. Note pp. 339-340, and 372-3.
79. Ibid., pp. 238-244.
80. Ibid., pp. 227-247, the section entitled "The Word of God and Faith." See especially the excursus pp. 243-4.
81. See, for example, Barth's comments, Church Dogmatics, III:2, pp. 220, and pp. 323-4.
82. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 362.
83. Ibid., p. 375, 394, 442.
84. Ibid., pp. 362, 372. Note the chapter headings for the sections on Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, pp. 384, 399, 448 respectively, and especially the discussions pp. 394-8, 442-3, 474, where appropriation is discussed with respect to each of the three modes.
85. Ibid., p. 374. 86. Ibid., p. 412.
87. Barth first works out these appropriations and their relations as reflective of the inner-triune relations in the sections referring to Father, Son, and Spirit in Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 384-399, 399-448, 448-466.
88. Ibid., pp. 384-390, where Barth speaks of God's being known only in Jesus Christ and at the end of human existence.
89. Ibid., p. 370. See also pp. 295-300, 374-5, 380-81, 394, 412, 449.
90. Ibid., the excursus pp. 385-6. 91. Ibid., the excursus pp. 386-7.
92. Ibid., p. 389.
93. Ibid., in the section on "God the Father," pp. 384-98, Barth proceeds in two steps. First he discusses God the Father as known in revelation, pp. 384-390, and secondly, in the section entitled "The Eternal Father," pp. 390-98, he moves from economic to immanent Trinity so that God in himself is as he is in revelation.
94. Ibid., p. 396. 95. Ibid., the excursus, pp. 400-2.
96. Ibid., excursus, pp. 402-406, and comments page 446.
97. Creation occurs in volume three, Reconciliation is volume four of the Church Dogmatics.
98. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, p. 413. 99. Ibid., pp. 423-447.
100. Ibid., p. 413. 101. Ibid., p. 433.
102. Barth's doctrine of election occurs in II:2, while creation occurs in III:1.
103. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 413, 446.
104. Ibid., pp. 432-3. 105. Ibid., pp. 453-459.
106. Ibid., pp. 459-462 on the Spirit's being God and not a creature, pp. 451-2 on non-identity of Spirit with other two modes, pp. 452-3 on Spirit revealing God as known in the Word, and pp. 463-4 on eschatological character of the Spirit's work. Barth verifies these propositions on the basis of the biblical revelation.
107. Ibid., p. 469.
108. Ibid., p. 472 on Spirit in creation, and p. 488 on the Spirit in worship.
109. Ibid., p. 474. For use of the neuter noun, see comments pp. 469-470.
110. Ibid., comments pp. 469-70, and again pp. 480-1.
111. Ibid., pp. 486-7. 112. Ibid., p. 448.
113. The decisive difference between Barth and Segundo is their view of history, and this has significant consequences for every aspect of their theological enterprise. Segundo introduces major portions of Teilhard de Chardin's evolutionary cosmology into his theological system. He does this in a systematic fashion by relating all his theological doctrines to this evolutionary view. From Barth's perspective, Segundo's view of history has affinities with the liberal view he so vehemently rejected.
Both Barth and Segundo relate a doctrine of the Trinity to a view of history. Segundo conceives of Father, Son, and Spirit, in terms of God before us, God with us, and God-in-us attuned to the rhythm of history. (Our Idea of God, the three sections, pp. 21-5, 25-28, 28-31.) The Son, God with us, affirms the value of history and the human work of constructing history. This work is progressive and cumulative, and goes beyond Jesus' original work in Galilee. The fact that Jesus departed and that he sent the Spirit to witness to him implies that humanity had not yet evolved to the point of understanding the fullness of his original works, and that future evolution would be needed to work out their meaning. This is the work of the Spirit within history, bringing forth the meaning of Christ. (Our Idea of God, pp. 29-30, The Liberation of Theology [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1976], pp. 120-121.) The goal of the Spirit's work is Jesus Christ the Omega Point. The concept "Omega Point" is taken from Chardin and it represents the evolutionary unification and ascension of the universe toward its goal Jesus Christ. (Grace and the Human Condition [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1973], pp. 82-86, The Sacraments Today [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1973], pp. 14, 68, De la sociedad a la teologia [Buenos Aires: Carlos Lohle, 1970], pp. 155-60; Segundo also speaks of Christ at the beginning of history Evolution and Guilt [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1974], pp. 29-30, 51.) The universe moves toward its goal through evolution in which reality is successively built into more complex structures. These new structures require previously formed levels as their threshold points. This view of history differs radically from Barth. Barth does not believe that the Kingdom cumulatively builds through evolutionary advance. Barth believes that the Kingdom is already fully given in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ works in history through events in which he is present and active. We shall address this matter in chapter four, but for now we may say he always works as repetitions of his prior earthly life and never cumulatively builds beyond that original history. By contrast, Segundo's evolutionary view leads him to emphasize the advance of the Kingdom within history. This in turn leads to the historical project, the construction of a more just, humane, and economically vital society as an ongoing and cumulative process. (Grace and the Human Condition, pp. 71-74, 200-1; Our Idea of God, pp. 30-31; Evolution and Guilt, pp. 83-84, 126-131.) From Segundo's perspective, Barth's view tends toward an occasionalist ethic rather than a systematic attempt to construct a new order. From Barth's perspective, Segundo's evolutionary view of history is another form of the liberal identification of the Kingdom with general history; it is a form of natural theology in dialectical tension with revelation. We shall discuss some of the implications of these differences as we proceed.
Bonino's view of history is very similar to Barth's, although it is not developed to the same degree. See Jose Miguez Bonino, Christ and the Younger Churches: Theological Contributions from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, ed. and intro. George F. Vicedom (London: S.P.C.K., 1972), pp. 21-31.
114. With respect to Barth's prolegomena to the Church Dogmatics, we may note I:1, pp. 143-49, 152, 156-7, 324-332.
115. Barth, Church Dogmatics, II:1, pp. 616-640; III:1, pp. 14-15, 66; III:2, p. 437; IV:1 pp. 112, 203f, 210, 215; IV:2 pp. 344-5.
116. The historical character of these categories will be presented as we proceed.
117. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 156-160.
118. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:3, the section entitled "The Divine Accompanying," pp. 90-154. Throughout this section, from several points of view, Barth speaks of the freedom of God's acts as not bound by various philosophical and scientific schema, or coordinated by any master concept such as "cause."
119. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 132-43, on the speech of God.
120. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 326-329; I:2, pp. 50-51; III:1, pp. 84-90; IV:1, p. 336.
121. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:2, pp. 63-5, 258; III:3, p. 64, 129-30; IV:2, pp. 147-149.
122. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 325-6; IV:2, p. 149-50.
123. See, for example, Barth's discussion of faith, Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 229-247, and especially his third point, pp. 244-247.
124. The ideas of this paragraph, and their references in Barth, will be discussed in chapter three when we discuss the resurrection.
125. We shall discuss the continuity between old and new creation in chapters two and three.
126. See Barth, Church Dogmatics, the section "The Dogmatic Method," I:2, pp. 853-884, where Barth presents his reasons for the structure of the Church Dogmatics,
127. As in Aquinas, there is a great "chain of being" in Barth, beginning with the Triune God, his election of Jesus Christ, the election of all people in him in the social forms of Israel and the church, the outer form of the nations, and then an outer sphere of the created world. The links of this great chain, however, exist only in grace, and are forged through the dynamic history-making action of the triune God. In Segundo's view, Aquinas' great hierarchy is static, and it leads to a sacralization of reality in which the church, state, and all other institutions are immutable and eternally fixed. (The Community Called Church [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1973], pp. 116-7.) The result, according to Segundo, was an encrusted conservatism in all realms. Barth's theology does not go in that direction.
128. Election is God's first act outside himself (Barth, Church Dogmatics, II:2, pp. 3, 94, 101, the excursus 106-115), and therefore it is the basis of all other acts of God and knowledge of them. Therefore, Barth places the doctrine first, before creation, see pp. 76-93, the section entitled "The Place of the Doctrine in Dogmatics."
129. History reflects the unity and trinity of God. Segundo has only one history, and does it reflect the oneness of God? Or what is the unity that brings the three persons of the Trinity together in one God? Segundo begins with the three persons and moves to the unity by virtue of the fact that each triune person loves the other. (Our Idea of God, p. 65.) By contrast, in history, he begins with one history in which the three triune persons act, and the nature of these actions provide differentiation in history. Within God, however, the threeness is first, and unity is achieved by love. With respect to history, Segundo begins with its unity and does not differentiate it clearly. Segundo's notion of God before, with, and active with us, does imply differentiations and advances in history, but it is still one history in which God and humanity live and act. Barth's view of history is three-in-one. By virtue of Barth's view of the distinctiveness and relatedness of history, as well as his doctrine of appropriation, we shall distinguish and relate economic and political life and reach a complex variety of results. It is impossible to address our fundamental question in this way from Segundo's perspective. Within his evolutionary view of one history, he has not differentiated and related economic and political life, and his divergence with Barth will lead to differing conclusions as to how economic and political life are related. We shall indicate some of these differences.
130. Barth's image of the biblical revelation in its relation to history is that of two concentric circles. Jesus Christ is at the center, followed by an inner circle of the covenant, and an outer circle of human sin which includes the history of the nations. In chapters four and five we shall show that this outer history is not a theological norm for Barth. We shall show, however, that this outer history is a partial norm for Segundo since it belongs to the one history which goes forward with the evolutionary advance. We shall take our norms for economic life from the history of Jesus Christ, and not from current developments in economic affairs. Segundo's criticism of this procedure is that this approach detaches theology and praxis from ongoing history. In response to this critique, we shall, in chapter five, develop a way of integrating theology and contemporary history that does not, however, imply that contemporary history becomes a norm over against or even in tandem with God's revelation in Jesus Christ.
Finally, we may note that Segundo's option for one history is characteristic of liberation theologians in general. They seek to avoid a historical dualism that separates the Church from the world, or the Kingdom from contemporary affairs. Rather, "they strive to maintain the integrity of 'one single God'filled history,' as Gutierrez puts it." (Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation, p. 137.) The problem with a single history is that it leaves little room for the Kingdom to stand outside of history, and thereby to judge and transform history. Bonino recognizes this difficulty and modifies the idea of one united history by holding to a double reference, present history in relation to the eschatological Kingdom. (p. 144. See discussion, pp. 132-152, and p. 164.) Barth's view is more complex. He holds to a three-in-one history which encounters the "history" of human sin, abolishes it in judgment, and recreates it through resurrection.
131. See, for example, Barth's discussion on contingent contemporaneity, Church Dogmatics, I:1, pp. 145-9, and especially the opening pages on "God's Time and our Time" pp. 45-59, of I:2. The major ideas of this paragraph are taken from this section of I:2, pp. 45-121, and Barth begins by saying that revelation cannot be understood by means of a general concept of time.
132. Barth discusses providence in the context of the doctrine of creation, Church Dogmatics, III:3, and in II:2, pp. 44-51, he gives his reasons for basing providence upon election and not vice-versa. See also III:3, pp. 8-10, and II:2, pp. 89-90, on priority of election with respect to creation.
133. See the table of contents of Church Dogmatics, II:2, p. xi, where the election of Jesus Christ, the community, and the individual, form the three section headings after an introductory section. See also the statement on p. 43.
134. This is implicit in Barth's comments, Church Dogmatics, II:2, pp. 94-95, the excursus pp. 95-99, also pp. 115-6, 175.
135. Ibid., p. 168. 136. Ibid., p. 195-205.
137. These two forms do not coincide with present day Judaism or the Church but with the two Scriptural histories associated with Jesus Christ, the prophetic and apostolic witness, which at its heart, is one witness.
138. Barth, Church Dogmatics, II:2, p. 423.
139. Ibid., pp. 306-315.
140. Ibid., p. 306, the summary on the election of the individual.
141. This is the substance of Barth's very long excursus on Judas Iscariot, Church Dogmatics, II:2, pp. 458-506. See especially the conclusion on page 501.
142. Barth and Segundo both understand election as an important concept for relating the Church and the world. In Segundo's view, humanity is one, and Christians are not distinguished by the fact that they possess God's favor and grace apart from others, but that they know that God has chosen all to be recipients of his grace and favor. (The Community Called Church, pp. 10-11, 31-32, 40-41; Grace and the Human Condition, pp. 105-108, 114.) They know the teleology of the universe, and therefore their responsibility is all the greater as they struggle to represent its evolutionary advance. (The Community Called Church, pp. 29-30, 40-43.) Since all are called, and God's grace works for all, both Barth and Segundo provide a basis for a Christian/world dialogue and common action. Because of the unity of the human race given in election, our results on economic life will apply, though in different ways, to both the church and the world, and we shall see that economic life is a responsibility that belongs to the whole of the human family.
143. Segundo's evolutionary view of history includes the idea that humanity matures, and this leads him to affirm a strong doctrine of human responsibility for the construction of history. He does not believe that humanity progresses apart from grace, but he does believe that grace produces the progressive capacity to relate to higher levels of complexity. (See his comments on Pelagius: Grace and the Human Condition, pp. 17-21, 46-50.) Segundo will even say that grace "divinizes," and that it elevates to the "superhuman." (pp. 63-64.) Grace enables people to become creative agents of change; they are enabled to direct history. The fact that Jesus departed, and sent his Spirit to work with humanity in history, implies that the task of shaping history rests with humanity. (Our Idea of God, pp. 39-40, 44-46, 54, 153-4.) This represents a real difference from Barth. The difference has its basis in the fact that Segundo sees human beings as being made relatively independent by grace, while Barth never denies humanity's total dependence upon God's grace. We shall show that, from Barth's perspective, economic vitality depends completely upon grace. Since grace does not accumulate in history, economic vitality may not increase, it may even diminish. This implies that the high levels of economic well-being among certain of the world's peoples are not guaranteed by the evolutionary advance, and that humanity as a whole may well descend to a lower level of physical vitality.
144. See Barth, Church Dogmatics, II:2, p. 509, for summary statements of Barth's ethical ideas. Both Bonino and Segundo connect non-historical forms of law with efforts to preserve a given social order. Both understand law as depending upon grace, and therefore it cannot be an eternal static reality. (Segundo, Evolution and Guilt, pp. 41-47, The Liberation of Theology, p. 122.) Bonino traces non-historical forms of law, or natural law, "to the philosophical rationalization of a mythology of the 'cosmos' which in turn sacralizes a static and stratified society. As to the contents of such natural law, it has often been noted that it reproduces some set of historical conditions--whether of the past or present." (Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation, p. 115. See also Bonino's discussion, Christians and Marxists, pp. 31-41, where the knowledge of the biblical God is understood in terms of action in history, especially in behalf of the oppressed.) Barth's dynamic understanding of law will lead us to conclude that the laws and institutional forms of the economic order are not eternal, but subject to social historical action.
145. Barth, Church Dogmatics, II:2, pp. 549-551.
The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
1986
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