Barth and Politics

Karl Barth was keenly interested in politics throughout his life. This chapter suggests that the implications of this interest for his theology were fourfold. It contends (a) that Barth’s theology functioned as an ideology critique of all forms of nationalism, militarism, and capitalism; (b) that his later work anticipated Walter Wink in developing a critique of ‘the lordless powers’ which oppose the God of life; (c) that his understanding of creation as grace underwrites a response to the current transgression of planetary boundaries and suggests an ecological theology; and (d) that his theology of reconciliation be understood as a theology of human freedom-in-community.

Barth and Reformation Theology

Karl Barth seeks to restore the Gospel to the centre of Protestant theology by orienting dogmatic theology to the witness of the prophetic and apostolic authors of Scripture and to the theology of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. Barth especially endorses Luther’s claim that the proclamation of the living and free Word of God in Jesus Christ lies at the heart of the commission laid on the church, and that the task of theology is to test the truth of that proclamation. However, Barth becomes increasingly critical of Luther and Calvin when they distinguish God revealed in Jesus Christ from God in Godself and when they distinguish a Word of God in Scripture—be it a Word of the Creator or the Word as Law—that is distinct from the one Word of God, Jesus Christ. Barth also disagrees with Luther and Calvin regarding the sacraments, insisting at the end of his career that Jesus Christ is the one and only sacrament of God.

Barth and Contemporary Protestant Theology

The appropriation of Barth’s theology in contemporary Protestant theology is related to the culture and conditions of its reception. While the direct influence of Barth may broadly have decreased in recent years, some of his major insights and decisions have found wide acceptance in Protestant theology. The importance of Christology for the doctrine of God is recognizable in many strands of contemporary Protestant thought; equally, the ethical dimensions of Barth’s theology have drawn much attention to this domain of the theological enterprise. Barth’s emphasis on God’s action in favour of God’s creatures and of the human being—the creature called to creative and free response to God—also features heavily in current Protestant reception of his work.

Barth and Culture

Due to a widespread perception that he was a theologian of division, Karl Barth is not generally counted amongst the twentieth century’s great theologians of culture. Although this reputation derives largely from an unfair caricature, it also grows out of Barth’s very real scepticism concerning the possibility of a theology of culture that could avoid the deification of human achievements. Those who delve deeply into Barth’s understanding of culture, however, find in his writings a rich resource in his eschatological appreciation of secular culture. This chapter examines his writings on culture between 1926 and 1932, including his lectures on ethics and Church Dogmatics I/1, as well as his later essays on Mozart (1956) and relevant portions of Church Dogmatics IV/3, noting how these texts can be positively interpreted and can fund a contemporary theology of culture.

Sin and Evil

This chapter reconstructs the context and argument of Karl Barth’s innovative account of human sin and evil. For a proper understanding of the shifts in Barth’s treatment of these core themes, some ‘default positions’ are briefly sketched. The chapter next describes the implications that attend a transference of the doctrine of sin from anthropology to Christology. This shift is not only epistemic, changing the basis on which sin is recognized and understood. It is also a significant conceptual move, with sin described as a specific posture towards the grace of God, manifest in Christ. The chapter also shows how Karl Barth resists the temptation to reduce the existence of evil to a manageable deficiency of creation, while avoiding any dramatization of the experience of evil. Barth construes evil (nothingness, das Nichtige) in light of God’s creation as an election, with nothingness being that which is rejected in the divine act of creation. Rejecting a personification of evil (i.e., the devil), Barth nonetheless emphasizes the agency of evil as that against which the sovereign God battles.

Israel

Ever since 1967, when Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt first proclaimed Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics to be the discovery of Judaism for Christianity, Barth’s theology of Jews, Judaism, and Israel has been a matter of increasing interest and contention. Having moved well beyond the earlier presumption of Israel’s absence from Barth’s thinking, conversations have now turned to the much more interesting questions of why and how he afforded Israel and Judaism such prominence. With due regard to his episodic ambiguity in these matters, this chapter argues that Karl Barth came gradually to the realization that he was compelled to speak of Israel and the Jewish people, not reactively or reluctantly, but because neither Christianity nor the church are possible without or apart from them.

The Spirit

This chapter presents Barth’s understanding of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Jesus Christ. It demonstrates the way in which Barth’s pneumatology is anchored in his doctrine of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit is understood as the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, the One whose essence is love. But Barth can also speak of the Holy Spirit in such a way that it seems as if the Holy Spirit is identical to the work of the risen Jesus Christ and his ‘prophetic’ work. The reception of the pneumatology of Karl Barth thus confronts the task of relating these dimensions of Barth’s understanding of the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit’s distinct work is preserved. For Barth, this work consists in enabling human beings to respond in faith, with their human possibilities and their freedom, to God’s reconciliation in Jesus Christ. In this faith, the Holy Spirit incorporates human beings into the community of Jesus Christ—the community participates in the reconciling work of God in order to bear witness to God’s work to human beings, all of whom have been elected to ‘partnership’ with God. Barth also understood the ‘solidarity’ of the community with, and the advocacy of the community for, the non-believing world to be a nota ecclesiae (mark of the church). Further, to live from the Holy Spirit, according to Barth, is only possible in praying for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Trinity

The development of Karl Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity is traced from its origins in the Göttingen Dogmatics (1924) through Christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf (1927) and on into the final volume of Church Dogmatics. Questions of starting point and method, location and significance of the doctrine, the distinction of common and personal properties, and critical appropriation of classical terms are discussed. Changes of mind are noted and assessed with regard to their significance. A thesis is advanced, viz. that Barth’s doctrine of the ‘essential’ Trinity is grounded (epistemically) in his concept of revelation, leading to the conclusion that what God is eternally is what God is in His Self-revelation in time—and vice versa.

God

Barth’s doctrine of God is revolutionary. It leaves behind many of the traditional elements of a doctrine of God—natural knowledge of God, comparative religious practice, and proofs—and puzzles over simplicity and immutability. In their place Barth installs a new maxim, that God demonstrates or ‘proves’ himself. The Bible is the record of that self-demonstration. The divine perfections emerge in dialectical pairs, each displaying the personal life of God as the ‘One who loves in freedom’. Language for God successfully names God when it speaks of Jesus Christ, the Holy One who exemplifies divine omnipotence, omniscience, grace, mercy, and patience. In this way, Barth carries out his programme of Christological concentration, even in the doctrine of God. This is a doctrine of God unlike any other, an unsettling and a glorious one.

The Tasks of Theology

Starting from his ‘last word’ on the nature and tasks of theology in Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, this chapter attempts to retrace some of the decisive steps in Barth’s understanding of theology. Barth’s theological beginnings, his taking leave from the theology of his teachers and the programme of dialectical theology are touched upon; and some continuities and discontinuities are highlighted with reference to Barth’s book on Anselm, Christian Dogmatics, and Church Dogmatics. Throughout, the chapter emphasizes Barth’s view of the practice of doing theology and the way Barth himself tried to make this practice transparent with respect to its ground, aims, criteria, and methods, as they are rooted in God’s revelation in Christ through the Spirit.