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GORDON-CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

BARTH AS PROPHET: THE ROLE OF THEOLOGY IN THE ETHICS OF KARL BARTH

SUBMITTED TO DR. GARTH ROSELL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF CH502 - CHURCH HISTORY 2

BY LARRY HACKMAN BOX 182-B 6 JULY 2011

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There is, in this day, an unfortunate bifurcation that goes on between the world

of providence, of happenstance and daily life, and the seemingly separate inner world of personal beliefs, particularly beliefs concerning God. What one believes of the divine Creator seemingly has little bearing on how one acts in todays society. One of the more scandalous turns of modern Christianity is that Christians and non-Christians mingle in relative obscurity with each other. In work or play, in life, many Western Christians nd little in their theology to offer guidance for the day-to-day issues that they face. The back-and-forth interplay between life and theology is becoming a more and more pressing issue in our modern times and more and more pastors and theologians are beginning to wrestle with this interaction, with practical theology. But one theologian who was perhaps ahead of our times was Karl Barth. In fact, Barths theology, easily characterized as heady but elegant, had much to say to the events of his life. His theology was not disconnected from his ethic, but in fact his theology informed his ethic. ! In this context, ethics means the moral principles derived from a philosophy or

belief. In other words, it is how one behaves after one has decided what to believe. But Barth did not see himself as an island in the world, rather his theology had much to say to Christians and non-Christians alike. As such, his ethics were not merely personal, but also societal. For Barth, the Church and the individual in the Church did not live

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separately from the world, but lived in the world as witnesses to Christ.1 But before Barth came to this denitive view of the Churchs mission he rst went through a crisis of ethics of his own. ! As a European being trained for ministry in the early 20th century, Barth was

steeped in the liberal theology of the day. Schleiermacher and Herrmann, with a good dose of Kant, made up the theological makeup of a young Karl Barth working as a pastor for the Swiss Reformed Church in the town of Safenwil, Switzerland.2 Even in this stage of his life, Barth understood himself not as a pastor, but as more of a theologian. He had, previous to taking the position, been hoping to begin his career life in academia but took the job as a pastor in leu of any opportunities. In fact, he felt woefully inadequate for the position, remarking later in life that he had failed nally as a pastor of Safenwil. The prospect of having to teach children again, of having to take hold of all kinds of practical problems is really fearful to me.3 And yet, take hold of all kinds of practical problems was exactly what Barth did. The town of Safenwil had a number of industries: a sawmill, a dye factory, and a weaving establishment.4 The young pastor quickly discovered that there were some issues concerning labor relations between the workers and the managers and became deeply involved in the issues

Eberhart Busch, The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barths Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004), 174.
2 3 4

Busch, The Great Passion, 17. T. H. L. Parker, Karl Barth, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), 49. Karl Barth, How I Changed My Mind, (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1966), 20.

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affecting his parishioners. Concerning his time there he said, It was the concrete classconict, taking place right before my eyes in my own congregation which confronted me for the rst time with the real problems of real life.5 As a liberal pastor, concerned with the subjective expression of faith, Barth saw the kingdom of God breaking through in the form of socialism, and even joined the socialist party of the time. 6 Clearly, despite his predilection toward the realm of thought, this was no disassociated pastor but rather someone who was keenly aware of the real world and the need for his faith to interact with it. Whatever one thinks of the merits of the social gospel Barth was closely espousing, it is clear, beginning in his pastorate and throughout his life he was concerned with what his theology had to say to a broken world. ! There is no mistaking that Barth was a thorough-going liberal. He himself said,

closely echoing the thoughts of Schleiermacher, that Faith, then, is simply an individual vitality, an inward experience, the impress made on our selfconsciousness by the eternal content, the actualization of possibilities in our consciousness resulting from an a priori function.7 But as he sought to preach to his congregation, he found that liberal theology did not have much to offer, that, in fact, it did not have much to offer from the Bible itself. He could not speak of God in any sense, because God was merely what any given person experienced.

5 6 7

Eberhart Jngel, Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1986), 25. Busch, The Great Passion, 18. Ibid., 17.

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Interestingly enough, it was not on the fundamental faults of liberal theology

that Barth began to forge new ground for himself but it was through the ethic, the ultimate working out of the theology, that he nally, decisively, became dissatised with what he had been trained in. It was a singular event that precipitated this crisis for Barth, shortly before the start of major hostilities in Germany. As he describes it: One day in early August 1914 stands out in my personal memory as a black day. Ninety-three German intellectuals impressed public opinion by their proclamation in support of the war policy of Wilhelm II and his counsellors. Among these intellectuals I discovered to my horror almost all of my theological teachers whom I had greatly venerated. In despair over what this indicated about the sings of the time, I suddenly realized that I could not any longer follow either their ethics and dogmatics or their understanding of the Bible and history. For me, at least, nineteenth century theology no longer held any future.8 What Barth realized was that neo-Protestantism had unmasked itself as a religion sprung from a culture and bound to a culture.9 In other words, it had no permanence, nothing to recommend itself beyond what the whims of the time may be. This theology, which had as its subject mankind, had nally and decisively revealed for Barth its fruit, the fruit of a sinful and broken people, in this case, war. The ethic of liberal theology had revealed itself, and Barth rejected it. Of this religion and the God it made for itself Barth exclaimed, It is high time for us to confess openly and gladly that this god, to whom we have built the tower of Babel, is not God. He is an idol. He is dead.10

8 9

Parker, Karl Barth, 16. Ibid., 17. Ibid.

10

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At this point Barth began to search for meaning for his faith in Scripture. After

tumbling around with Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Overbeck, Calvin, Luther, as well as deeply in Scripture, Barth launched out on a new course for theology.11 At the root of this theology was the principle of the otherness of God and His revelation to mankind through the Word of God, Jesus Christ. As opposed to the subjective nature of the liberal theology he had been steeped in, God revealed in man, Barth was exploring how God is revealed to man. As a being that is wholly other God made himself known to mankind by his own grace, leaving nothing to the wavering subjectivities of nite humanity. As such, the Churchs one task is to point to Christ as the revealed God. Later in life, when Hitler began to rise in power, Barth proclaimed that there is no more urgent demand in the world than that which the Word of God makes, viz. that the Word be preached and heard.12 Indeed, Barth himself was deeply moved by the painting of the crucixion by Grnewald depicting John the Baptist extending his forenger to the grisly image of Christ hanging on the cross, signifying John 3:30: He must increase, but I must decrease.13 For Barth, All proper theology must be like this hand, with which a person does not point to oneself nor at some idea or program but towards the God who for his part completely turns to that person. 14 It was on these grounds that his ethic, indeed his social ethic, would come to develop. The Church, and the individual
11 12 13 14

Barth, How I Changed, 26. Busch, The Great Passion, 11. Ibid., 6. Ibid.

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within the Church, served as a witness to the state and to the world and as a watchman pointing to God, a watchman who reminded the state of Christs status as Lord of the world. Jesus Christ is not just the Lord of the church, but in the form of the claim upon the political order is also the Lord of the world.15 ! Still a pastor at Safenwil, Barth published a commentary on the book of Romans

based on his discoveries in theology that soon gained him notoriety. He was quickly invited as an assistant professor of Reformed theology at the University of Gttingen in Germany, gaining an honorary doctorate. There he continued to rene his theology in the midst of a hectic teaching schedule. In the meantime, Germany was still recovering from the effects of WWI. Barth himself made a stipend of 6 million marks from his position at Gttingen, but that meant nothing when a cup of coffee was 4 million marks in 1923.16 By 1930 Barth had moved on to the University of Bonn as a professor of Systematic Theology and the fhrer was on the rise. Even as early as 1924, Barth was aware that trouble was brewing in Germany. Witnessing a dedication to a war memorial, he says, It was quite worthwhile for me to see the German-national-racial Germany, gathering for once in one place all of them gave their speeches in general I cannot deny that the whole phenomenon and the possibility which it evidently embodies has made an impression upon me, so that when it is all over I am glad I did not play truant from the whole hullaballo, bad as it was.17
15 16 17

Ibid., 161. Parker, Karl Barth, 83. Ibid., 84.

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Play truant was certainly not what Barth did. In 1930 the German Christian

Movement began, a consortium of churches and Christian leaders who supported the National-Socialism movement, viewing the party as the savior against communism and embodying the essence of what it meant to be Christian in Germany. When Hitler came to power in 1933, the ties between the fhrer and the German Christians became close, even having a close condant (Ludwig Mller) take part in a reorganization of churches under a national bishop called the Reichsbischof. Finally, in June 1933 August Jger was appointed as Commissioner over the Prussian churches, signaling direct Nazi control over the churches. At this, Barth was roused to write a thirteen thousand pamphlet in one day called Theologische Existent heute! or Theological Existence Today! that decried the move. Regarding the link between state and church, I maintain that this teaching is alien with no right to a place in the Evangelical Church. I maintain that it would be the end of the Evangelical Church if this teaching ever came to have sole sway within her, as the German Christians intend that it shall. I maintain that the Evangelical Church ought rather to become a tiny group and go into the catacombs than sign a peace, even covertly, with this doctrine.18 Barths problem with what the German Christians had done was not political, it was purely theological. But his theological convictions had something immediate to say to the situation. He was convinced that the Church should be built on and to live by the Word alone since faith and understanding are created and determined by their object,

18

Ibid., 87.

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so the Church must not take her stand on anything but the Word of God which has called her into being and which supplies her life.19 Barth was, much like John the Baptist, pointing to the revelation of Christ as the central call of the Church and in this pointing he was not at all disassociated with the goings on of the world. ! Writing in 1938, in the midst of carrying out the task of writing his Church

Dogmatics, he says the danger of falling into an abstract negation of the world has never worried me less than today. I must rather set it down as fact that during these last ten years I have become, simultaneously, very much more churchly and very much more worldly.20 Concerning his pamphlet in 1933, he says Without my wanting it, or doing anything to facilitate it, this had of necessity to take on the character of a summons, a challenge, a battle cry, a confession. And so one day I found myself standing in the very midst of church politics, engaged in collaboration in the deliberations and decisions of the Confessional Church.21 In a twist of irony, it seemed that the ones who had given consideration to political considerations rst where at the behest of one of the most wicked regimes of history, while Barth, who was a theologian rst and foremost, was one of the founding leaders of the Confessing Church. Finally, in 1935, Barth found himself evicted from his post at Bonn. In his own words,

19 20 21

Ibid., 88. Barth, How I Changed, 44. Ibid., 46.

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The church-theological conict contained within itself the political conict, and it was no fortuitous happening that it revealed itself more and more as a political conict. Because I could not hide this fact from myself and others, because I could not very well begin my lectures in Bonn with the salutation to Hitler, and because I could not very well swear an unconditioned oath of allegiance to the fhrer, as I should have to do as the holder of a state ofce, I lost my position in the service of this state and was forced to quit Germany.22 Barths theological convictions were strong enough to do what many of his fellow church leaders could not: outright resistance. He was no pie-in-the-sky theologian, concerning himself with an abstract, transcendent God, who does not take care of the real man without signicance for the present, and the just as abstract church separated from state and society by an abyss but rather the practical relevance, the struggle, and the confessional character of [his] theological teaching [had] become visible to many against the backdrop of a time which has taken shape at the hands of National Socialism. ! After he was kicked out of Germany and returned to his hometown of Basel,

Barth continued to be active in the concerns of the Confessing Church and actively helped Jewish refugees nd solace in Switzerland, as well as spoke out against the antisemitism that much of the Confessing Church had been silent about.23 At the age of 54, Barth joined the Swiss Army as a soldier, patrolling the Rhine and looking out for the forces of Hitler. When it appeared that the war might be soon over, Barth took up a
22 23

Ibid., 47.

Mark R. Lindsay, Barth, Israel and Jesus: Karl Barths theology of Israel, (London: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, 2007), 33.

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campaign to encourage his fellow Swiss to take a favorable policy toward their neighbor. After the war had nally played out its course in Germany, Barth was quick to return to his old haunting grounds, returning to the University of Bonn for the summers of 1946 and 1947.24 He was not aloof from the matters of healing and reconciliation after the war, but deeply concerned that the people of Germany, and especially the church of Germany, should nd life again. ! But for all that, Barth knew that he was called to be a theologian, so he returned

to his monumental task of writing out his Church Dogmatics. But this does not mean that his voice in world affairs ceased. The threat of Hitler was gone, but in his wake the new specter of communism rose to hover on the borders of Europe. Barth was certainly concerned about the injustices perpetrated in the now communist countries of the Soviet bloc, but he was just as concerned with the posture of the Western countries toward Soviet Russia, that of hostility and armament. Always concerned with a positive stance in the world as a witness instead of a negative stance at the defensive, Barth encouraged the Hungarian Reformed church in 1948 to not resist the government, but instead attend to the immediate task of tending to the strayed and bewildered Hungarian people.25 To this, he was accused of being a communist sympathizer. ! As a matter of fact, Barth said himself that he regarded anticommunism as a

matter of principle an evil even greater than communism itself, though he was
24 25

Barth, How I Changed, 56. Ibid., 57.

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certainly not communist himself.26 Barth saw in the hysteria of McCarthyism a reection of the tyranny of prewar Germany. Have we forgotten that what is at stake in this absolute enemy relationship is a typical invention of (and heritage from) our defunct dictators - and that only the Hitler in us can be an anticommunist in principle?27 The policies of the West, according to Barth, had provoked the East to respond in kind. Also reective of Hitler was the subtle, or perhaps not so subtle, theological justication of the East versus West struggle in terms of a higher cause. [W]hat kind of Western philosophy and political ethics - and unfortunately even theology - was it whose wisdom consisted of recasting the Easter collective man into an angel of darkness and the Western organizational man into an angel of light? And then the help of such metaphysics and mythology bestowing on the absurd cold war struggle its needed higher consecration? Were we so unsure of the goodness of the Western cause and of the power of resistance of Western man that we could bring ourselves to admit only senselessly unequal alternatives - freedom and the dignity of man as against mutual atomic annihilation - then venture to pass of just this latter alternative as a work of true Christian love?28 ! This stance did not win Barth friends in high places. Barth was blocked from

receiving the German Booksellers Peace Prize by then President of West Germany Theodor Heuss 29 and found himself the victim of many small McCarthys in his

26 27 28 29

Ibid., 63. Ibid. Ibid., 64. Jngel, Barth Legacy, 26.

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homeland of Switzerland.30 Yet Barth was not adverse to difculties in light of his strong theological convictions. ! ! And indeed, once again, this was not a political consideration, but rather a

theological consideration rst. Barth was calling the Church, or a people who supposedly aligned themselves with the Church, to look like their God. On the one hand the German Christians had made a God out of their nation, even of their fhrer. On the other hand the Western Church had subverted the cause of the Gospel with the cause of their political leaders. And I think above all that the Christian churches should have considered it their commission to inuence by superior witness to the peace and hope of the kingdom of God both public opinion and the leaders who are politically responsible. 31 In both cases, Barths voice remained as consistent as the unwavering forenger of John the Baptist. ! Theology is often characterized as the enterprise of men who are disturbingly

unaware of their surroundings. What concern do matters of faith have with matters of of the state? But Barth saw clearly that how he viewed God, especially a God who had inserted Himself into the affairs of men in power and grace as Barth described Him to do, meant much to how he and other Christians called their society to justice. In this way Barth was as much a theologian of our times as he was a prophet, speaking to the injustices of the day and pointing people back to Christ, to reconciliation.
30 31

Barth, How I Changed, 66. Ibid., 65.

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Bibliography Barth, Karl. How I Changed My Mind. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1966. Busch, Eberhart. The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barths Theology. Grand ! Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004. Jngel, Eberhart. Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, ! 1986. Lindsay, Mark R. Barth, Israel and Jesus: Karl Barths theology of Israel. London: Ashgate ! Publishing, Ltd, 2007. Parker, T. H. L. Karl Barth. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970.