Karl Barth (1886–1968)

I’m really glad I begun my cursory little glance back into theology with this work after a little over three years of having done virtually zero serious work on the subject. Having possessed both a feigned belief in Christianity during my enrolment at a Catholic primary school in my youth and a subsequently confrontational style of discussion during my predictable, yet still intensely irritating, stage of adolescence where I thought that New Atheism was the real deal it was refreshing to come at things from a Protestant perspective.

The series of lectures that Barth has penned here has its slow moments but the two central chapters on theological existence and the threats that the discourse of theology faces both internally and externally were incredibly enlightening and enjoyable. In particular the lecture on Temptation was very moving, causing a momentary atheistic vitriol to be stirred in my gut which I hadn’t felt in years. Thankfully this quickly subsided, but nevertheless the idea that God’s righteous wrath can cause Him to up and turn his back completely on a devoted community’s intellectual and practical efforts, ‘disdain[ing] these offerings of your fatted calves’, was a pretty difficult to pill to swallow. Tough love I guess, eh? The assertion by Barth that one should study the secondary witnesses (say, for instance, the Church doctors who never directly encountered Christ), with their theological systems which stand as the very pinnacles of Christianity, only to have to remain constantly aware while doing so that they too possess a danger which all must be cognisant of, was particularly striking. I can understand why Barth posits this, simul justi et peccatores and all that, but it’s an insight so novel to me to that I haven’t quite got round to fully digesting it yet. I was always a staunch proponent of the idea of Sola Scriptura, a clear heresy decried by my teachers, even during my atheist days - but the idea that some of the finest theologians may have written during periods of God’s withdrawal was patently dismaying.

That’s all to say that only one small discussion within this slim volume was enough to set me down a whole trail of thought I hadn’t considered in years. There are plenty of insights to be gleaned in here and I’d highly recommend it. I’ll close this out with a some fairly sizeable quotes that resonated with me fairly strongly:

‘So excellent may be the theologian's work. But of what help is it? Everything is in order, but everything is also in the greatest disorder. The mill is turning, but it is empty as it turns. All the sails are hoisted, but no wind fills them to drive the ship. The fountain adorned with many spouts is there, but no water comes. Science there is, but no knowledge illumined by the power of its object. There is no doubt piety, but not the faith which, kindled by God, catches fire. What appears to take place there does not really take place. For what happens is that God, who is supposedly involved in all theological work, maintains silence about what is thought and said in theology about him’

‘The God of whom we speak is no god imagined or devised by men. The grace of the gods who are imagined or devised by men is usually a conditional grace, to be merited and won by men through supposedly good works, and not the true grace which gives itself freely. Instead of being hidden under the form of a contradiction, sub contrario, and directed to man through radical endangering and judgment, man's imagined grace is usually directly offered and accessible in some way to him and can be rather conveniently, cheaply, and easily appropriated. Evangelical theology, on the other hand, is to be pursued in hope, though as a human work it is radically questioned by God, found guilty in God's judgment and verdict—and though collapsing long before it reaches its goal, it relies on God who himself seeks out, heals, and saves man and his work. This God is the hope of theology.’

‘In this love there is no fear. This perfect love drives out fear because in it God loved man for his own sake and man loved God for his own sake. What took place on both sides was not a need, wish, and desire but simply the freedom to exist for one another gratis. This was God's own primal freedom for man and at the same time man's freedom which was granted him by God. This was Agape, which descends from above, and by the power of this descent, simultaneously ascends from below. Agape is both movements in equal sovereignty, or, rather, this single movement.’

‘But theological observation of God cannot be a genial and detached survey. Theology cannot be an easygoing (or even interested and perhaps fascinated) contemplation of an object. For in the last analysis the attitude of the more or less enraptured subject toward this object might remain indifferent or skeptical, if not spiteful. If this object allowed its beholder to protect himself behind a fence of reservations, it would not at all be the wonder of God of which we spoke. When this object arouses wonderment of the type we have described, transforming the man whom it involves into an astonished subject, this man also becomes concerned.’

‘The question about truth, therefore, is not stated in the familiar way: is it true that God exists? Does God really have a covenant with man? Is Israel really his chosen people? Did Jesus Christ actually die for our sins? Was he truly raised from the dead for our justification? And is he in fact our Lord? This is the way fools ask in their hearts—admittedly such fools as we are all in the habit of being.’… (meer)