Doxological Theology: Karl Barth on Divine Providence, Evil, and the Angels 9781472551160, 9780567191182, 9780567196514

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To Rachel, my beloved wife, as well as Ethan and Benjamin, my two precious sons

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acknowledgments

This book is a revised version of my doctoral thesis submitted to King’s College, the University of Aberdeen in 2009. Therefore, in the city of Aberdeen alone, I am indebted to an overabundance of help for the completion of this project. First and foremost, I offer thanks to my supervisor, Professor John B. Webster, who was not only encouraging and helpful beyond measure, but also instilled a buoyant sense of humor into this project. Likewise, early conversations with Darren Kennedy were very insightful. Thanks also go out to Ian McFarland, who allowed me to use his translations of Barth’s Latin quotations in III/3 before the new, more user-friendly volumes were published. A debt of gratitude is also owed to my two examiners in Aberdeen: Professors Francesca Murphy and David Fergusson. Thanks must also be extended to all who read my work and gave insightful feedback: prominently Andrew Draycott, Josh Malone, Kyle Strobel, Brannon Ellis, Caroline Batchelder, John McClean, Terry Wright, Keith Birchley, and Peter Bolt. Tom Kraft at T&T Clark also responded generously to my many questions. I owe the largest debt of thanks to my wife, Rachel; no stage of this project was undertaken without her selfless encouragement. I am overjoyed to have her as my life’s companion. She has remained selfless throughout the personal upheavals (whether speaking of the northern or southern hemispheres!) that have characterized all of the circumstances surrounding the origination of this book. Furthermore, my two sons, Ethan and Benjamin, both born during the course of this study, have met my need for meaningful interruption and, without knowing it, have altogether rewarded me with joy. Many of our friends at Gilcomston South Parish Church deserve our gratitude as they generously offered their prayers and encouragement throughout our time in Scotland. Among them are Dominic & Marjorie Smart, Alan & Elaine Cordiner, Jack & Ann Chalk, and Barry Douglas. Most particularly, thanks must be extended to Graham Black, who related the contents of §51 to me without ever having read it. This work also commemorates the passing of Ray S. Anderson, Senior Professor of Theology and Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary (1925–2009). He encouraged me when I began working in the discipline of theology. Even though Ray read and commented on this project, even in his illness, he passed away just over a week before its completion.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

On account of the generosity of Tom DeVries at Eerdmans and Dr. Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, excerpts from an English translation of Barth’s early Göttingen lecture on providence are also included in this study. The translation is part of a larger project of completing Göttingen Dogmatics II in English. All of the other translations of statements originally made in German are mine unless otherwise indicated. Finally, in the name of doxological theology, all glory, and honor and thanks are due to Jesus Christ for his providential mercy. Soli Deo Gloria!

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abbreviations

CD ChrL

Credo CTJ DIO ET GD

GD II

IJST Inst.

KD Prayer PTNC

SJT WAM ZDT

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–75). Karl Barth, The Christian Life: Church Dogmatics IV/4, Lecture Fragments (trans. G. W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981). Karl Barth, Credo (trans. J. S. McNab; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1937; repr., Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2005). Calvin Theological Journal. Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline (New York: Harper & Row, 1959). Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963). Karl Barth, The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion (ed. Hannelotte Reiffen; trans. G. W. Bromiley; vol. 1; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990). Karl Barth, The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion (trans. A. Neufeldt-Fast; vol. 2; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming). International Journal of Systematic Theology. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. J. T. McNeill; trans. F. L. Battles; 2 vols; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960). Karl Barth, Die kirchliche Dogmatik (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1932; and Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag Zürich, 1938–67). Karl Barth, Prayer (trans. S. F. Terrien; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002). Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History (trans. B. Cozens and J. Bowden; London: SCM Press Ltd., 1959; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). Scottish Journal of Theology. Karl Barth, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (trans. C. K. Pott; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans: 1986). Zeitschrift für Dialektische Theologie.

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1 introduction

When Karl Barth wrote his volume on divine providence in 1949, he faced a war-torn Europe that was averse to the doctrine of divine sovereignty.1 At that time, the idea that God determines all things—things such as the Nazi regime—were thought to be a disgrace. Regardless, Barth’s doctrine of providence takes an attitude of cheerfulness in the face of his post-war skeptics.2

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Barth refers to events “which [. . . have] caused us so much anxiety to-day,” CD III/3, p. 173. G. C. Berkouwer’s 1956 study examines Barth’s doctrine of creation according to what Berkouwer perceives to be an idealization of divine grace in Barth’s theology; G. C. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (trans. H. R. Boer; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), pp. 52–88. Many treatments of Barth’s doctrine of providence follow Berkouwer’s lead in applying this criticism to III/3, sometimes taking this portrayal as far as a monism; cf. R. Bernhardt, Was heisst “Handeln Gottes?” Eine Rekonstruktion der Lehre von der Vorsehung (Gutersloh: Gutersloher Verlagshaus, 1999), p. 265; H. Davies, The Vigilant God: Providence in the Thought of Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin and Barth (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), pp. 147–52; C. Duthie, “Providence in the Theology of Karl Barth,” in M. Wiles (ed.), Providence (London: SPCK, 1969), pp. 68–9; L. B. Gilkey, Reaping the Whirlwind (New York: Seabury Press, 1981), pp. 216–26; J. Hick, Evil and the God of Love (London: Macmillan, 1977), pp. 141–3; O. Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics (trans. D. L. Guder; vol. 1; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), pp. 491–3, 505, 522; C. Wood, “Providence,” in J. Webster, K. Tanner, and I. Torrance (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 101–2. These treatments share a common method: they approach Barth’s text with a particular theme in mind and then characteristically read his doctrine as a triumphalism, avoiding the volume’s more difficult-to-decipher statements about the creature’s own involvement in providence. This is not surprising either, since Barth’s earliest readers considered his theology to be an idealistic, rigid system. G. Dorrien notes that Barth was poorly received by his contemporaries because of a perceived “Neo-orthodoxy” on his part, the perception that he was unoriginal and simply reiterated orthodox Protestantism as he understood it: “Virtually all of them [i.e., Barth’s contemporaries] believed that good theology took nothing from the seventeenth century” let alone Anselm or Aquinas; G. Dorrien, The Barthian Revolt in Modern Theology: Theology Without Weapons (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000),

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Incongruously, III/3 is quite possibly the most cheerful of all the Church Dogmatics. One of Barth’s favorite pastimes was to listen to the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. For him, even though Mozart was foremost a musician, his music was ideal for depicting the mystery of God’s secret work in the world. This made Mozart greater than many of the church’s greatest theologians. His music opens up the beautifully two-sided way that human history goes—the good and the bad, the tragedy and the triumph.3 Even though the Lisbon earthquake distressed the world around Mozart in 1755, he was cheerful about the divinely driven symphony of world history. Therefore, at the end of Barth’s brief tribute to him in §50, he is within a stroke of putting down his pen: “This is the point which I wish to make.”4 Nothing more needs to be said about divine providence than what Mozart says to us in his music: “He himself was only an ear for this music, and its mediator to other ears.”5 In Barth’s volume on providence, he is not concerned about constructing a winning argument. Neither does he wish to convince his audience to adopt

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p. 131. Therefore, it makes sense that Barth would dispute with this accusation in his preface: “If it [i.e., III/3] is read with understanding it will not contribute either in Germany or elsewhere to the formation of a Neo-Orthodoxy,” CD III/3, p. xii. Various recent critiques have arisen to challenge this assumption about Barth’s theology on the whole; cf. especially G. Hunsinger (ed.), Karl Barth and Radical Politics (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976); J. Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Barth’s Moral Theology: Human Action in Barth’s Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). Following Berkouwer, a second generation of interpreters took up Barth’s doctrine more or less apart from §50–§51. These readings often evaluate the coherence of §49, making some comment on whether or not the charge of idealism truly applies. The dominant studies in the 1970s and 80s attempt to evaluate this as they compare Barth with a number of other theologians, questioning whether or not he exemplifies “more” or “less” affirmation of the created order than other writers. Indirectly, all of these readings take place in Berkouwer’s shadow, as the charge of idealism sets the agenda for these studies. M. Plathow is more interested in comparing Barth with his contemporaries than interpreting Barth on his own; M. Plathow, Das Problem des concursus divinus: Das Zusammenwirken von göttlichen Schöpferwirken und geschöpflichem Eigenwirken in K. Barths “Kirchlicher Dogmatik” (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1976). Hempelmann evaluates Plathow’s contribution as a reading of III/3 to be “very meagre”; H. Hempelmann, Unaufhebbare Subjektivitat Gottes: Probleme einer Lehre vom concursus divinus dargestellt an Hand von Karl Barths Kirchlicher Dogmatik (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 1992), p. 3. E. Saxer (1980) and D. Okholm (1986) also follow this trend, weighing the merits of Barth’s proposal against other classical or neoclassical theologians. D. L. Okholm, “Petitionary Prayer and Providence in Two Contemporary Perspectives: Karl Barth and Norman Pittenger” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation; Princeton Theological Seminary, 1986); Ernst Saxer, Vorsehung und Verheissung Gottes: vier theologische Modelle (Calvin, Schleiermacher, Barth, Sölle) und ein systematischer Versuch (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1980). 5 CD III/3, p. 299. CD III/3, p. 298.

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a particular Weltanschauung.6 In fact, Barth feels that such an activity would be a distraction, directing us away from the One who calls us to pray. That is, he thinks that, if we adequately consider divine providence, we must turn to God and address him personally. Just as the Lord’s Prayer says, we need forgiveness, bread, and deliverance from temptation on a daily basis. So, if we truly understand the dynamism implicit in the doctrine of divine providence, we understand that God actually rules by responding to our prayers. Simply, we can be cheerful about approaching the throne of God because we know him as the One who answers all of our prayers in Christ. For Barth, the doctrine of divine providence is a self-involving doctrine. We know that God is providentially ordering things because we know him personally. This God doesn’t rule as a human king rules; he doesn’t just wield an unfeeling scepter over the masses. Rather, the God of divine providence is the same God who meets us in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are actually following the directive that he gives to us. This makes Jesus Christ “our Leader in prayer.”7 Plainly, when we describe divine 6

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The evaluations of K. Tanner and G. Hunsinger mark a turning point for the comparative approach to III/3; cf. G. Hunsinger, How To Read Karl Barth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); K. Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988). These two readings look at Barth’s volume anew, believing that he can be retrieved in part because, in brief, he says some things that good theologians commonly say. Both of these works are Yale-school retrievals of Barth, evaluating his view of providence according to a set of literary motifs (i.e., Hunsinger) or cultural-linguistic rules for divine action (i.e., Tanner). This kind of inquiry sets out to read III/3 according to a pre-set strategy: to evaluate theologians across temporal and cultural contexts through their shared interest in an identifiable form of divine–human action. Some scholars have followed these two treatments with more enthusiasm, assimilating Barth’s doctrine into a wider discussion about a kind of divine action that successfully involves human agency, pace Berkouwer. The approaches of Hunsinger and Tanner come full circle at this point, with a difficulty that Barth does not endorse the idea of a “worldview” in the end. For example, G. W. Love takes the comparative approach further in his unpublished 1996 thesis, which follows Hunsinger and Tanner explicitly (and which is still the most extensive analysis of Barth’s doctrine of concursus available in English). His interest in a form of divine action leads to a difficulty with his theologian in the end: Barth rejects the possibility of a “worldview”; G. W. Love, “The Role of the Holy Spirit in Barth’s Understanding of the Conjoining of Divine and Human Activity in Divine Providence” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1996), p. 458. In the same way, these readings only observe one aspect of Barth’s doctrine of providence in isolation, that is, his doctrine of concursus. The methods of Hunsinger and Tanner appear to be strained at this point because they offer a point of entry into Barth’s corpus through an identifiable form of action. Unfortunately, this approach risks too much, as it defines the action of God in a context that is subjected to certain epistemic criteria at the outset, decentering the Church Dogmatics from the freedom of God in Jesus Christ; cf. P. Nimmo, “Karl Barth and the concursus Dei-A Chalcedonianism Too Far?”, IJST 9.1 (2007), pp. 58–72. This criticism also applies to H. Hempelmann’s work on concursus. CD III/3, p. 274.

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providence, we should do it prayerfully, according to the prayer that Christ has already given to us. Theologians are disciples too, and they are also called to pray. It is for this reason that Barth orchestrates his volume on divine providence according to the pattern of the Lord’s Prayer itself. For Barth, our adherence to the Lord’s Prayer should not just be a pious sentiment. Our following of Christ in all of our theological reflection is a most serious issue. To stray from obedience to Christ is to stray from the task of theology itself. That is why, for the whole of III/3, faithfulness to the object of theology overrides any importance that conceptual coherence might have for us. Barth’s is an approach that opposes any “system.”8 Rather, he offers his readers this insight in III/3: that meaningful theological discourse is a gift.9 In this analytical exposition of the different sections of III/3, I attend to the way that each part receives guidance from the Lord’s Prayer. This is, in part, 8 9

CD III/3, p. 295. Recently, some insightful approaches to III/3 have been undertaken that have focused on the topic of prayer in III/3. For example, M. T. Dempsey’s thesis, while a comparative study, uncovers an important insight: Barth understands the dogmatic task of the theologian as an act of “prayer without ceasing”; M. T. Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human: The Mystery of Divine Providence in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto, 2004), p. 138. Barth likens the knowledge of God with unceasing prayer in CD I/2, p. 776; II/1, pp. 15, 23; III/3, p. 274; III/4, pp. 48–50; Prayer, pp. 3, 7. Dempsey frequently comments on Barth’s understanding of the prayerful and political aspect of theology in his evaluation, an assumption which bears interpretive fruit in a number of places. Unfortunately, Dempsey expends his best efforts in juxtaposing Barth against Aquinas somewhat in the wake of the Tanner–Hunsinger approach, observing the doctrine of providence apart from the rest of III/3. Darren Kennedy has also taken up a fresh approach by placing Barth in dialogue with a number of philosophical personalists in order to raise questions about the volume as a unity; cf. D. Kennedy, “A Personalist Doctrine of Providence: Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics III.3 In Conversation With Philosophical Theology” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2007). Kennedy’s study is insightful, as are many of the comparative approaches, when the aim of theological analysis is to place Barth into a theological conversation with a group of conceptual interlocutors. What is difficult to find in Kennedy’s work, or in Dempsey’s, is a warrant for understanding how Barth came to choose what interests would inform his intent for writing the whole of III/3. Overall, I differ with both Dempsey and Kennedy, as well Love, Tanner, and Hunsinger, because they position Barth in a broader discussion about divine action in order to understand Barth. At one level, this strategy implicitly concedes Berkouwer’s point, by refusing to contend for a full recovery of “Barth” from the charge of idealism which has attached itself to his doctrine of providence from the beginning. If one only attempts to recover him according to a preset schematic, this assumes that his statement on providence has already been understood. That is, by placing Barth in a context in which he does not place himself, this family of interpretation shows that Barth’s own methodological standpoint for his writing Church Dogmatics III/3 has not yet been made clear. However, these approaches do garner important interpretive insights. They also ask a better question than Berkouwer does: how does Barth understand the theologian’s task in III/3?

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a historical judgment, for Barth is involved in some lecturing on the Lord’s Prayer as he is writing this volume.10 While there are no explicit connections between these lectures and III/3, Barth’s insights in both contexts can be shown to be harmonious. Therefore, I have included material from his lectures throughout this exposition. I consequently read Barth’s volume on providence as it follows the Lord’s Prayer as a guide for both synchronic and diachronic reasons.11 Textually, in the first half of the volume, Barth’s two paragraphs on divine providence correspond with the sentiments expressed in the first half of the Lord’s Prayer. He begins by describing the “fatherly wisdom and power” of God, according to the prayer’s initial outcry to the Father.12 In this section, Barth clarifies what it means to think of God as “Father.” This initial segment brings his doctrine of election to bear on his doctrine of providence; that is, to speak of the “Father” is to speak of the God who elects himself in Jesus Christ. He is the self-electing God and not equivalent with the highest conception that mankind can consider. The Father is a divine person and not a worldview, a social program or an object of our most pious sentiments. In Barth’s preface to III/3, he also states his choice to subject the Protestant orthodox doctrine of divine providence to a “radical correction.”13 However, he never explains what this means. In the first chapter of this book, I argue that Barth’s correction is an initial moment in §48: the assertion that his Christological doctrine of election provides the determinative context for his doctrine of providence. It is here that Barth begins his own treatment of providence by placing it into dialogue with the orthodox definitions, correcting them according to his 1942 statement on predestination.14 Barth makes this assertion at the onset of §48.1 and the rest of his paragraph

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Prayer, vii; E. Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts (trans. J. Bowden; London: SCM Press, 1976; repr., Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2005), pp. 342–3. My study takes its main point of departure from Kennedy’s and Dempsey’s insights. Following Kennedy, I presuppose the unity of his volume on providence, and following Dempsey, I observe Barth’s text as a doctrine written according to the lex orandi. Therefore, this study is an expositional analysis of III/3 that asks what each paragraph in the volume has to say to the others when considered as a lengthy, theological prayer. Since Barth explicates his doctrine of providence according to the lex orandi, the whole of the volume should be investigated in light of the Christian’s participatio Christi expounded on at the end of §49; CD III/3, 239–88. Few treatments have paid much attention to this central section. Also, few have given much thought to the importance of Barth’s later statement on providence in §72.1 “The People of God in World Occurrence,” CD IV/3, pp. 681–762. To make this study more complete, I have also included an analysis of Barth’s early Göttingen lecture on providence in the following chapter on Barth’s “radical correction.” 13 14 CD III/3, p. 58. CD III/3, p. xii. CD III/3, pp. 3–4.

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follows this insight, which, in turn, has constitutive significance for the whole of III/3. The subsequent section, §49, is Barth’s comprehensive paragraph devoted to the doctrine of divine providence. B. McCormack has recently mentioned that Barth’s “most mature theology” belongs to this part of III/3.15 Barth follows the arrangement of the Lord’s Prayer throughout. His initial statement on conservatio makes this clear: that the death of Christ creates a “hallowed situation (geheiligte . . . Situation)” for the creature.16 Further, the doctrine of concursus is concerned with how God’s “will is done on earth as it is in heaven.”17 Also, gubernatio reiterates the petition for the coming of the kingdom: “Thy kingdom come.”18 Finally, the last section in §49, which is devoted to the creature’s participatio Christi, opens up Barth’s interest in the Lord’s Prayer in explicit detail. In §49.4, Barth uses the Lord’s Prayer as an extended gloss on his assertion that the Christian comes to believe in providence in and through a “practical recognition” of God’s work in the world.19 With Barth’s frequent allusion to the prayer in III/3, he reminds his reader that his own volume on providence is only a theologia viatorum, a gift that finds its origin in the risen Christ. Throughout, my exposition aims to demonstrate that, for Barth, this priority serves to free the theologian from the conceptual difficulties that are seen as otherwise besetting the doctrine of providence. Barth’s two final paragraphs also describe the relationship between providence and evil from different prayerful standpoints. In the same way, I maintain that his interest in the Lord’s Prayer extends beyond §48–§49. Paragraph 50 on the Nihil echoes the sixth petition: “deliver us from evil.” Also, §51 on the Kingdom of Heaven corresponds with the doxology: “for Thine is the kingdom.” In this way, the different perspectives forwarded by Barth in his last two paragraphs do not serve as fodder for any conceptual synthesis. Rather, they each point to the way theology is given to the theologian by the One seated above the task of theology itself. On account of the giftedness of theological discourse, the theologian’s perspective on the relation between divine providence and evil will necessarily vary. This is an important insight for reading III/3 as a complete text. Barth’s two final paragraphs correspond with two different stances taken up by the theologian from the viewpoint of the doctrine of reconciliation. Barth’s argument in §49.4 sets up an important distinction between the Christian’s participation in the formal office of Christ (i.e., the prophetic) and her

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B. L. McCormack, “The Actuality of God: Karl Barth in Conversation with Open Theism,” in B. L. McCormack (ed.), Engaging the Doctrine of God: Contemporary Protestant Perspectives (Grand Rapids: Rutherford House, 2008), pp. 185–244 (p. 212). 17 CD III/3, p. 82; cf. KD III/3, p. 93. CD III/3, p. 93. 19 CD III/3, p. 156. CD III/3, p. 14.

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participation in the material offices (i.e., the priestly and kingly).20 In the context of the prophetic office, the Christian engages with evil as a continual threat and in such a way that her attitude toward it is to be one of “seriousness.” This is the perspective that says “Nevertheless” to the trials of history because Christ is seated above it as the Lord. Barth takes up this perspective in §50 on das Nichtige.21 However, the priestly and kingly offices are discussed in §49.4 as the objective ground for the prayer of the creature that assumes the Nihil to be entirely expelled from history at Golgotha.22 This is Barth’s vantage point for the relation between providence and evil in §51. Therefore, a tension arises on the conceptual level within the whole of Barth’s seventh volume in relating evil with providence. In §50, one ought to avoid demythologizing das Nichtige, but in §51 one should demythologize the demons.23 In §50, one envisions the reality of evil with “seriousness,” “as high as possible” in relation to ourselves; however, in §51, this pseudo-reality is discussed from a more elevated standpoint, the “joy” that sees it is “as low as possible” with respect to God.24 I argue that Barth’s text points to both of these forms of theological thought as free, prayerful responses to the risen Christ. Whether one participates in Christ materially in saying “Therefore,” or formally in saying “Nevertheless,” both are indicative of “the same” participatio Christi.25 These two perspectives are unified in III/3 because they are both given to the theologian at the behest of the same person, the risen Christ. Importantly, these perspectives are not explicitly distinguished in Barth’s own exposition. Rather, Barth shifts back and forth between them, at times even on the same page. This dual perspective on providence and evil is my own rubric for illustrating several things about Barth’s whole text. In the context of the doctrine of providence: 1. The Christian theologian is free from abstract conceptual coherence (i.e., from a “worldview”) in the context of his or her own prayerful “intercourse” with divine providence.26 This freedom is expressed by the fact that Christ gives the Lord’s Prayer to his disciples as a gift.27 A

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In order to represent the comprehensiveness of Barth’s view, I have chosen to alternate between both masculine and feminine pronouns when speaking of the “creature” in this volume. In order to avoid wooden repetition in this book, I frequently interchange names and terms for Barth’s doctrine of das Nichtige. Throughout this book, I refer to evil as “the Nihil,” “das Nichtige,” and “Nothingness”; with all of these terms I intend to refer to the same “thing”—or “nothing”! Barth makes this distinction between “formal” and “material” offices in his fourth volume; CD IV/3, p. 8. 24 25 CD III/3, pp. 300, 521. CD III/3, p. 295. CD III/3, p. 248. 27 CD III/3, p. 23. CD III/3, p. 274.

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doctrine of divine providence that is articulated according to the lex orandi is, in this same way, a gift from God. 2. There is a close connection between divine providence and the doctrine of reconciliation, immediately implied by Barth’s “radical correction.”28 This means that a doctrine of providence will observe the different offices of Christ faithfully by articulating the relation between providence and evil according to the objective and multiplex reality of the risen Lord. If theology is to partake in the clarity that comes from obedience to God, it must correspond with the risen Christ in this variegated way. 3. Each section in III/3 has a bearing on the others. In this case, Barth’s treatment of the Lord’s Prayer alongside the triplex munus in §49.4 has a bearing not only upon §50 and §51, but on the whole of III/3. 4. One does not need to choose between the “already” and the “not yet” of the kingdom of God in Barth’s account of divine government in §49.3. Rather, both realities are given at the behest of the risen Christ, and both are distinct perspectives on the relation between providence and evil in the present. Therefore, Barth has the rest of his doctrine of providence in mind when he says that the relation between providence and evil in history should be observed according to a “twofold rule.”29 For Barth, one finds an exemplar of this participatory duality in Mozart, who, as a man of freedom, faces evil and also refuses to dignify it. For Mozart, as for the reader of III/3, the contest with evil is one which is engaging for the creature of God, but it is also a contest that is already won. Mozart’s music is: a glorious upsetting of the balance, a turning in which the light arises and the shadows fall, though without disappearing, in which joy overtakes sorrow without extinguishing it, in which the Yea rings louder than the ever-present Nay [. . .] At some level, high or low, it is a contest to be won; actually it is already won [. . .] Mozart never lamented, never quarreled, though he certainly was entitled to. And that seems to me, insofar as one can say it at all, to be the secret of his freedom and with it the essence of Mozart’s special quality which engaged our attention at the beginning.30 In the final section of this study, I look to the last two paragraphs of III/3 in detail, which offer us a view of the way a formal perspective, within the context of divine providence, gives way to a material one in a concrete visio Dei

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CD III/3, pp. 6–7.

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CD III/3, p. 183.

30

WAM, pp. 55–6.

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of the self electing God in Jesus Christ.31 It is this perspective that extols God doxologically. Therefore, the question of theodicy, which attempts to relate holiness with omnipotence in the abstract, fades into the background in a concrete visio Dei of Christ as priest and king. This is the doxological emphasis of Barth’s doctrine of divine providence. For the theologian who extols God, and says “Thine is the kingdom” there is no other option but “Easter joy.”32 It is worth noting here that this study aims to be predominantly descriptive. Due to the paucity of literature dealing with Barth’s doctrine of providence, I have chosen to simply focus on accurately interpreting and expositing his own position. For this reason, I have relegated any of my own criticisms of Barth’s views to the occasional footnote and the conclusion. That way, the reader can come as close as possible to hearing Barth. Perhaps, if I have approached accomplishing this aim, the reader will hear Barth as if he were Mozart himself.

31

32

Throughout this work, I refer to Barth’s understanding of the creature’s visio Dei. I believe this language is warranted by Barth’s description of the Christian’s participation in providence as a kind of “seeing.” Cf. CD III/3, pp. 239–42; the Christian’s participation in providence “is a matter of the living seeing of the living Lord”; CD III/3, p. 26. CD III/3, p. 293.

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2 karl barth’s “radical correction” of the protestant orthodox doctrine in iii/3

I. Introduction In the context of Christian theology, the doctrine of divine providence is intimately linked with the concept of the will of God. This chapter is a glance at Barth’s developing engagement with the doctrine of divine providence from the time of his Göttingen lecture to his mature treatment in 1949, specifically focusing on the relationship between the divine conservatio and volition.1 Importantly, this sketch does not attempt to grasp a complete historical overview of Barth’s understanding of God’s will, but traces different developments of his standpoint as a preparation for reading his comprehensive explication of providence in III/3, §48–§49. As a result, this sketch makes explicit the “radical correction (durchgehende Korrektur)” of the Protestant orthodox doctrine of providence that Barth undertakes in 1949.2 In this chapter, I first look at two readings of Barth’s “radical correction” of the Protestant orthodox doctrine. Here, I make my own interpretation of Barth’s 1949 correction explicit. Then, I sketch an interpretive reading of Barth’s Göttingen lecture on divine providence, which is his first constructive statement on the doctrine. Third, I observe a decisive shift with regard to the way his doctrine is grounded in the will of God in II/1 and II/2. Fourth, I argue that this position is in continuity with Barth’s stated correction of the orthodox position in III/3 (1949). Finally, I bring my own

1

GD II, §20, “Die Vorsehung.”

2

CD III/3, p. xii; KD III/3, p. vi.

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understanding of Barth’s correction to bear on the scope of his seventh volume in order to show the strength of this interpretation.

II. Two Readings of Barth’s “Radical Correction” Barth’s “radical correction” of the Protestant orthodox doctrine of divine providence is his ordering of providence after his doctrine of the election of God in Jesus Christ. Therefore, his doctrine of election in II/2 endows his doctrine of providence in III/3 with a determinate and final context. My view is that, for Barth, this dogmatic positioning not only enables him to describe the providential work of a praiseworthy God; it also makes a prayerful participation in Christ necessary for apprehending providence.3 Barth may assert this in III/3 because his doctrine of election in II/2 not only identifies God as wholly gracious in Jesus Christ, the volume also concludes with a consideration of ethics.4 Therefore, for Barth, divine providence is contextualized by a dynamic which it shares with his doctrine of election: the God who predestines in Jesus Christ also calls the creature to pray. Because of his doctrine of election, Barth understands the doctrine of providence as not describing a faceless or capricious God. Rather, since election is placed before providence, it not only identifies the God of providence as benevolent, it also expects the creature’s responsive praise in the context of his sustaining, accompanying and ruling work. In this fashion, Barth’s correction of the orthodox position on the divine will employs his own version of predestination so as to license a practical or prayerful discourse about the way that God identifies himself as the Almighty in providence. It is in this sense that Barth understands his doctrine of election to be elevated above divine providence, putting an identifiable face on the One who governs the world. Therefore, in Barth’s treatment of providence in III/3, God cannot be described in the abstract. Rather, if Barth is to remain consistent, he can only speak theologically about this particular God inasmuch as he prays forth a doctrine of divine providence. M. Geiger proposes that Barth’s radical correction is the “living center” of his doctrine of providence.5 He thinks that Barth criticizes Calvin and his 3

4 5

Notably, B. L. McCormack’s recent treatment of Barth’s doctrine of providence observes his radical correction in the context of his doctrine of election, but does not develop Barth’s statements on the importance of prayer in III/3, which Barth highlights in §49.4; cf. McCormack, “The Actuality of God,” pp. 185–244. CD II/2, pp. 509–781. M. Geiger, “Providentia dei: Uberlegungen zur christlichen Vorsehungslehre und dem Problem der Beziehung Gott-Welt,” in Parrhesia: Karl Barth zum achtzigsten Geburtstag am 10 Mai 1966 (Zurich: EVZ-Verlag, 1966), pp. 673–707 (p. 674).

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followers for avoiding the universal aspect of Christ’s reconciling work “in every internal and external connection.” According to Geiger, Barth saw his Reformed predecessors as unable to highlight the connection between faith in providence and faith in Jesus Christ.6 For Geiger, this shapes his exposition throughout because it is faith in Christ that is the “radical correction.” Notably, this interpretation has the advantage of affirming the importance of participation in providence for the whole of §49, which has its climax in §49.4, “The Christian Under the Universal Lordship of God the Father.” In this chapter, Barth emphasizes the importance of the Christian’s participation in providence, and Geiger perceives this. Therefore, while Geiger’s reading does not emphasize the connection between election and participation in III/3, my interpretation follows his lead on account of his focus on Christian participation. Another version of the correction is Bengt Hägglund’s, whose analysis concludes that Barth found the orthodox to have a “philosophical” concept of God.7 This led to a free use of the concept of permissio, which plays a much greater role for the orthodox than it does for Barth.8 Hägglund is largely correct in identifying the formal distinction between providence and das Nichtige in Barth’s overall treatment, necessitating two separate paragraphs in III/3. However, Hägglund does not emphasize Barth’s positive correction of the orthodox on the basis of the will of God as it is manifest in Jesus Christ, which is ultimately Barth’s basis for the distinction between providence and evil in the Church Dogmatics. That is, since the election of God in Jesus Christ is an elevated context for Barth’s doctrine of providence, his distinction between the Nihil and providence in III/3 is made in such a way that his treatment is informed by a unique version of predestination, and not vice versa. In this chapter, I maintain that Barth’s developing view of the divine conservation demonstrates how his version of the will of God in Christ informs an implied relation between providence and evil, rather than the reverse. Therefore, I turn first to observe Barth’s lecture on divine providence at Göttingen, and then his way of relating the will of God with evil in II/1 and II/2 as a preface for reading his doctrine of providence in III/3, §48–§49.

III. Conservatio in Göttingen Dogmatics, §20 Barth’s arrival at Göttingen is accompanied by his own deep sense of inadequacy and his need to find a particular voice amidst his Lutheran 6 7

8

Geiger, “Providentia dei,” p. 675. B. Hägglund, “Die Vorsehungslehre bei Karl Barth vor dem Hintergrund der altprotestantischen Tradition,” in Luther und Barth (Erlangen: Martin-Luther-Verlag, 1989), pp. 37–51 (pp. 44, 49). Hägglund, “Die Vorsehungslehre bei Karl Barth,” pp. 41, 48–50.

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colleagues. Characteristically for Barth, he sets for himself a high standard of responsibility, casting the position of the dogmatician as spiritually and existentially significant: “What are you going to say [. . .] about God?”9 This season of lectures exerts a special pressure on Barth’s early thought, and at this formative stage he immerses himself into a dialogue with classical Reformed theology.10 Throughout Barth’s time at Göttingen, and especially toward the end with his lecture on providence, he works with the Reformed school of thought. Their imprint on his mind at this time constitutes what became “perhaps” the most “crucial phase of his development as a theologian of the Reformed church.”11 In the Göttingen Dogmatics, Barth openly teaches the Reformed doctrine of concursus as he received it, which was distilled for him largely through Heinrich Heppe’s Reformed Dogmatics.12 In this way, his construal of the divine will resembles the Protestant orthodox position; yet, he arrives at this view by means of his own actualistic doctrine of the Word of God. This counts as his “incisive deviation.”13 And, while Barth’s “deviation” still leaves the orthodox structure for concursus largely intact, in due course he finds that all of the orthodox positions can only coexist for him with an implicit strain. In time, Barth is pulled between his agreement with the Reformed doctrine of concursus and his affirmation of the providentia circa malum, the divine sustaining of sin. There is already a tension in Göttingen Dogmatics §20, and eventually these two doctrines are pulled apart. The result is that Barth’s mature articulation of concursus retains his initial version of the Reformed doctrine but with revisions. However, Barth eventually replaces the providentia circa malum entirely, which is taken over by his discussion of das Nichtige in §50 of the Church Dogmatics, an act of dogmatic replacement he mentions in his preface to III/3.14

9 10

11 12

13 14

GD, p. 6. Many of these early lectures have been visited for the first time recently by scholars, and have now been translated into English; cf. K. Barth, PTNC; The Theology of Schleiermacher (ed. D. Ritschl; trans. G. W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982); The Theology of John Calvin (trans. G. W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995); Die Theologie Zwinglis (Tubingen: Theologischer Verlag Zurich, 2004); The Theology of the Reformed Confessions (trans. D. L. Guder and J. J. Guder; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005). J. Webster, Barth’s Earlier Theology (London: T & T Clark, 2005), p. 41. H. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics (trans. G. T. Thompson; London: Wakeman Great Reprints, 1950). Also cf. A. Schwiezer, Die Glaubenslehre der evangelisch-reformierten Kirche dargestellt und aus den Quellen belegt (Zurich: 1844–47). GD, p. 443. “In the central section on nothingness our concern is with the problems which in the older doctrine of providence are usually treated in direct connexion with the positive exposition (De providentia Dei circa malum),” CD III/3, p. xii.

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Barth’s lecture on providence at Göttingen shows that he is concerned to place the will of God on a different scale of being than that of the creature. In his recovery of the Reformed position, he inherits a definition of necessity that enables him to address the problem of “freedom vs. necessity” ingredient in problematic approaches to divine providence: If we attempt to think an event in [the] world, then this means first of all that we attempt to grasp its necessity. We seek a universally valid “why” which is the ground of not just this or that specific event, but finally of all occurrence. We seek to grasp its law-governed regularity [. . .] The old dogmaticians called this necessity, that is, “the order between a cause and a necessary event.”15 The concept of contingency would then mean that this thinking of the necessity of an event, i.e., of the order by means of which the effect of a cause is unchangeable, must be dialectically counterpointed by the thinking of a second order by means of which the same effect of the same cause is also changeable, not necessary and not to be based on a general rule, but rather in an absolutely singular “why”?16 Barth’s concern with providence at Göttingen is to think of God and world together, and so maintaining the creature’s freedom is a priority for him. If the creature loses a grasp of the qualitative distinction between God’s action and his own, not only does he forfeit his freedom; the creature’s apprehension of God is drawn to an impersonal law rather than the God of the Bible.17 The immanence of God’s reign can in no sense be considered apart from the creature’s contingency. Barth denounces the alternative: “Do I need to emphasize that in this version it is the concept of God above all which necessarily suffers loss—and here towards the deistic side?”18 Barth’s early lecture on providence embarks on resolving this tension between contingency and necessity, and he explicitly states in numerous places his affinity for the Reformed solution. J. H. Heidegger19 is especially prominent, forming a team with J. Calvin on the qualitative distinction

15 16 17

18 19

This quotation is taken from Ursinus, cf. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 266. GD II, §20. “It is very enticing, indeed all-too enticing, to combine into one the concept of the necessity of all occurrence as it is thought in the knowledge of law and the providence of God over all,” GD II, §20. GD II, §20. J. H. Heidegger, author of Corpus theologiae christianae, printed in 1700, was professor in Zurich and known for his Reformed orthodoxy; cf. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 715.

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between God’s action and that of his creatures.20 On account of Heidegger’s distinction between providence and fate, to which Barth returns later in this section, he derives the rule that “Eternal necessity must certainly be distinguished from temporal necessity.”21 That is, God’s action cannot be anticipated or explained by observing a series of historical events. On account of this distinction, the necessity of the divine immanence and the conceptual pressure this exerts cannot be thought of as overshadowing the free contingency of the creature. Throughout this lecture Barth finds the Reformed to provide an accurate basis for negotiating a proper unity-indistinction between God and the creature. The older Reformed school could speak of “providence” as the “continuation of creation,” but only to the extent that this beingtogether is not thought otherwise than as an analogy to that original coming-together, to the extent that the there and then of creation signifies a distance between God and world for our thinking bound to time and place, but not in the reality of the eternal, omnipresent God.22 The Reformed see these two doctrines, divine and human freedom, as coexisting quite capably without confusion because of the qualitative distinction that differentiates between the Creator and the creature. It is notable that Barth’s attention is drawn to the Reformed in particular as opposed to Zwingli23 or the Lutheran orthodox.24 Barth borrows from the Reformed in order to talk about God’s action as qualitatively distinct from his creatures; thus, the Reformed are those who best draw the line between

20

21 23

24

“Notably, the older Reformed theology [. . .] since Calvin knew how to extricate itself from the horns of that dilemma,” GD II, §20. 22 GD II, §20. GD II, §20. When Barth makes statements about Zwingli’s text On Providence as being “almost brutal” or as having a God that is an “incomprehensible tyrant,” he is working comparatively, juxtaposing the way in which Zwingli’s theology envisions divine providence from the standpoint of a dominant principle against the emphasis of the Lutheran tradition upon the particular, cf. GD II, §20; Credo, p. 36. This is not to jettison Barth’s whole appraisal of Zwingli’s doctrine, which he even found to have some “humanizing force,” Webster, Barth’s Earlier Theology, p. 31. Barth, Die Theologie Zwinglis, passim. Barth fears, for example, that J. A. Quenstedt places the reality of concursus too nervously at the behest of the creaturely agent: “To be sure, caution must be exercised here [. . .] the primal cause does not become the secondary cause; the former is the Creator, the latter is a creation. Thus, one cannot say of the activity of the secondary cause as such that it is the activity of the primary cause”; GD II, §20; cf. CD III/3, pp. 133–4 where Barth reiterates this criticism in 1949.

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“fatalism” and “Pelagianism.”25 It is the Reformed tradition, from Calvin to the end of the seventeenth century, that escapes the dilemma between sovereignty and freedom, and Barth states this thesis in one place in detail. It would be pleasing to me, if—as a historical side-benefit from my presentations today and yesterday—you would to take the insight with you, that it is an empty over-simplification, indeed a distortion of the facts, if one were to say, that the Old Reformed theology got onto the dangerous ground of humanistic determinism with its doctrine of providence. This claim may be correct with regards to Zwingli, but one must not forget to add that even Luther and Melanchthon were determinists for a time. Lutheran theology reacted far too severely over against this danger, crossing over to a laboriously veiled indeterminism and synergism under Melanchthon’s leadership. Yet Reformed theology—already with Calvin and advancing from him in a straight line until the end of the 17th century—established the position described beyond this opposition, allowing it to speak of the absolute independence and power of God above all creaturely events and to emphasize with equal force “that our will always acts most freely”.26 The character of Old Reformed piety—whether one thinks of Calvin and Beza’s Geneva, or of the Puritans in England, or of the freedom fighters of the Netherlands or of the French Hugenots—gives proof that this “predeterminism” was not simply received doctrine but simultaneously a vital insight for a contending and suffering church. If the Reformed theologians of those centuries were indeed disciples of Pico della Mirandola in disguise and precursors of Spinoza, then much would have had to develop differently in more recent church history.27 Notably, Barth makes this statement in conscious opposition to A. Schweizer and R. A. Lipsius, who he notes in this statement falsely purport a discontinuity thesis, what we might call a “Calvin vs. the Calvinists” view of the development of Reformed doctrine.28 While one quotation does not suffice to absolve Barth from the accusation that he ingested this (now discredited) thesis from Schweizer, it does show his conscious opposition to it within the context of the doctrine of providence.29 A number of recent 25 27 28

29

26 GD II, §20. This quote comes from J. Braun; cf. Heppe, p. 272. GD II, §20. Barth footnotes Schweizer and Lipsius here with reference to their construal of the development of Reformed doctrine. The “Calvin vs. the Calvinists” view has been recently taken to task by a number of writers, but cf. especially R. Muller’s two-part article series: R. Muller, “Calvin and the

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treatments find Barth’s historical judgment to be very methodologically limited by a “Calvin vs. the Calvinists” thesis on the whole.30 As Barth appropriates the Reformed doctrine of concursus he implies that the creature is ethically free. Logically, if the creature is free, that freedom must have an ethical dimension; it is concursus, furthermore, that continues to hold this moral agency of the creature intact. As Barth appropriates the Reformed, then, he must eventually raise questions about the ethical life of the creature and the demands that are placed on her by God’s holiness in providence. Barth’s position directs his attention to the providentia circa malum for explaining God’s relation with the evil that the sinful creature chooses. He cites Heidegger, van Mastricht and Walaeus, agreeing that God concurs with the creature in both natural and moral senses.31 God is “above and in both” every natural law as well as every moral law. In this way, the contingency of the world’s reality as creation makes sin possible. And the question put before their will for decision is precisely this: in which sense do they wish to be creatures of God. They can be such in worshipful recognition of the difference between Creator and them, of their own createdness as that which connects them with God; or conversely in the validation of their own independence from the Creator, who has conferred the divine image upon them, in which they are more than just creatures. The second appears and is indeed only a reversal of the first, only the other dialectical possibility of the concept of “creatures of God”. But precisely this inversion—and human beings can choose this—is sin.32 The Protestant orthodox broadly distinguish between the physical being of the person, sustained by providence, and the inner intent or sin that is chosen. The actus naturalis substratus, says Barth, is the historic scenario of the creature’s life amidst his sin which “occurs physically through brain, nerves,

30

31

‘Calvinists’: Assessing Continuities and Discontinuities Between the Reformation and Orthodoxy (Part One),” CTJ 30 (1995), pp. 345–75; “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists’: Assessing Continuities and Discontinuities Between the Reformation and Orthodoxy (Part Two),” CTJ 31 (1996), pp. 125–60. R. Glomsrud, “Karl Barth as a Historical Theologian: The Recovery of Reformed Theology in Barth’s Early Dogmatics,” in D. Gibson and D. Strange (eds), Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques (Edinburgh: T & T Clark International, 2009), pp. 84–112; C. Trueman, “Calvin, Barth and Reformed Theology: Historical Prologomena,” in N. B. MacDonald and C. Trueman (eds), Calvin, Barth and Reformed Theology (Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2008), pp. 3–26 (p. 17). 32 GD II, §20. GD II, §20. 17

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mouth and hand.”33 This stricture addresses a reduction of the divine sustaining to an affirmation of the creature’s physicality. By utilizing this measure, theologians free themselves to talk about creaturely contingency and divine sovereignty as coexistent amidst sin. Barth affirms this here as well; after quoting Gen. 50.20—“You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good”—he comments: “and to this extent what God had willed and effected apparently occurs in sin.”34 For Barth, the providentia circa malum eventually becomes a platform for his constructive departure from the Reformed position, as it is only, according to the orthodox, an act of God that has as its object the physical flesh of the creature.35 In Heppe’s volume, Riissen states: “This permission is [. . .] not ethical, like a license to sin, but physical.”36 That is, since the providentia circa malum has to do with the physical sustaining of the creature, it has no moral aspect. For Barth, this becomes a picture of God’s sheer, but potentially arbitrary power that he wields in the event of sin. The creature cannot escape: “sin cannot extirpate itself from the connectivity of God’s world and therewith also the divine governing.”37 This aspect of Barth’s portrayal eventually opens up the potential for caprice in God. He eventually reasons that, since this special act of providence is an expression of the hidden will of God, it is not revealed as a holy act, as having reliable moral content. At once, for Barth, the threat that faces the creature in providence, as well as God’s solution, are both described in such a way that God’s moral character is hidden under a bushel. Presumably, Barth’s appropriation of this doctrine at Göttingen might have eventually piqued his suspicion: If the divine sustaining amidst the creature’s sin is only physical, how can the creature know in that moment if providence will continue? Why should the creature think, and think with assurance and joy in his heart, that God will faithfully sustain him? How can the creature praise a God who holds his life on the brink of an abyss, a threat from which the creature will never be free per definitionem? What glory can be given to a God who is never victorious in his liberating the creature from this threat, let alone from this doubt? If these questions were privately raised by Barth, they would explain why he says, in his mature treatment of providence in 1949, that to affirm the providentia circa malum requires not only a hidden will in God, but a tense denial of any assurance of God’s faithfulness when and where that assurance is most needed. Barth

33 35

36

34 GD II, §20. GD II, §20. “This evil [i.e., sin] emerges substantially as a psychical or physical action of the human created good by God, and though it cannot extirpate itself from the divine teleology at work in the world, and is only possible through the will of God, it is not thereby made good”; GD II, §20. 37 Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 274. GD II, §20.

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pointedly raises this question in III/3: “why should the idea of a creation of wrath be a false one?”38 At Göttingen, Barth explicitly shows an anxiety about God’s faithfulness in the context of his doctrine of election. When speaking of the divine attributes, Barth can find little assurance in God’s person when inquiring about the faithfulness of God in the context of predestination. This leaves the Christian’s assurance somewhere behind the revealed will of God. On account of the intermittent veiling of the revelatory Word, the occasionalistic nature of God’s personal choice to elect eventually calls for suspicion in the same manner as the providentia circa malum. In the end, Barth does not hide his anxiety: Where is the certainty of faith and salvation if behind what we can know and feel and grasp of God’s love in faith stands his secret will with scales in hand, and we cannot say with apodictic certainty whether they will drop in favor of our election? [. . .] In face of the older doctrine as well as this corrected Reformed doctrine, only assurance of God seems to be possible [. . .] and along with it assurance of Christian salvation and therefore of Christian truth, no longer seems to be apodictic.39 Barth’s interest in “apodictic” certainty at this point is a crucial matter for his motivation to correct the Reformed. He will later become dissatisfied with his own appropriation of the providentia circa malum for reasons already foreshadowed in the Göttingen Dogmatics. While Barth finds a temporary solace in his theology of the Word, a Word that reveals God as personal, God’s victory over evil is never final in such a way that the creature may see him as holy, and therefore as praiseworthy—that is, as holy in such a way that he is actively opposed to sin. How can a God who is complicit in sustaining our sinful acts, without actively opposing them, be worthy of our praise? Barth’s early theology of providence shows his assumption that an object of enduring praise must be a praiseworthy God. The “god” who only sets up creation as if it were a perpetual motion machine would never gain “the praise of God as the church knows it from revelation.”40 Therefore, in the Göttingen Dogmatics, prayer signifies a faithful apprehension of the Word’s revelation. Barth’s eventual query about praise is already anticipated in the Leitsatz for §20: the Word of God “presupposes from our side the act of prayer.”41 This prayer is revisited later in the same chapter as a doxological response to the Word. When concerned with the omnipotence of God alongside the problem of evil, our “line of thought” must be directed by the

38

CD III/3, p. 78.

39

GD p. 469.

40

GD II, §20.

41

GD II, §20.

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doxology of the angels in Luke 2, who announce the coming of the Incarnation; that is, Jesus Christ reveals God to be omnipotent, altogether good and glorious in such a way that the logic of the divine providentia circa malum should follow the logic of the praise of the angels: They all [i.e., the Protestant orthodox] took great care to describe the reigning of God in relation to this reality in such a way, that they could speak not only with a good logical, but with a good Christian conscience of a reigning of God. Recall firstly what he had heard in the discussion of the omnipotence of God in predestination: God is all in all, but never as the “author of sin”. Also, not as the author tou ponērou. Also not as the author of death—both understood in the New Testament sense, we should add. As soon as it concerns these matters, no apparent consequence should keep us from recognizing, that one may not simply continue the line of thought here, that the “Glory to God in the highest” (Luke 2.14) must take up room here.42 On the whole, Barth’s positive retrieval of the Reformed perspective takes place along two lines at Göttingen. First, the God of divine providence is considered to be a praiseworthy God. That is, the God of the Reformed tradition is thought of as omnipotent and as altogether holy. This God controls all things, and yet he also rejects sin. Therefore, praising this particular God will never slip into an admiration for someone or something in the created world. For Barth, this would actually be a dangerous form of self-praise because it would attach our admiration to our own highest ideals. Rather, when we offer praise to this God, we are not directing our petitions and doxologies to a god who is undeserving. The God of Reformed theology is, in fact, deserving because he is completely omnipotent and holy, both—and without detracting from one or the other. Second, Barth admires the Reformed tradition because it grasps a qualitative distinction between God’s action and that of his creatures. This means for Barth that Reformed theology is properly doxological. The Reformed do not apprehend God through a creaturely logic that works with the tools of necessity or contingency. Rather, the God of Reformed theology is omnipotent in a way that is qualitatively distinct from any imaginable creaturely hypothesis. Therefore, he is worthy of praise. This reading of the Reformed doctrine will characterize Barth’s own view of divine providence to the very end. To obey God is to recognize “in worshipful recognition of the difference between the Creator” and

42

GD II, §20; The following chapter on §51 discusses the importance of Lk. 2.14 for Barth’s whole doctrine of providence.

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oneself.43 However, Barth eventually makes his own revisions in order to maintain this perspective within his own context. With time, Barth’s adherence to the Reformed position on the providentia circa malum will strain his attempt to appropriate the qualitative distinction between divine and human action in the Reformed doctrine of concursus. Barth sees a place for prayerful freedom in providence because the God of Reformed theology is a praiseworthy God. However, for Barth, the creature’s praise eventually is anxiously inhibited where the will of God remains incognito. There is necessarily a hidden God behind the providentia circa malum, furthermore, that raises questions about the divine holiness and threatens to inhibit the creature’s praise. In order for the doctrine of concursus to function the way Barth wants it to, and for the God of the Reformed school to remain holy, and therefore to remain praiseworthy, some changes will need to be made.

IV. The “Radical Correction” in Church Dogmatics II/1 and II/2 Barth reasons that, while the providentia circa malum makes a theological statement about the freedom of the creature from non-being, as a dogmatic tenet it cannot free the creature from anxious doubt about divine caprice. However, in keeping the Reformed insight in mind that only a qualitatively distinct God can be praiseworthy, he does not seek for a constructive solution on the side of the creature. Rather, Barth alters his doctrine of the divine volition in order to maintain the Reformed doctrine of conservatio as he received it. In II/1 Barth moves against the providentia circa malum because it stimulates his suspicion of divine caprice; however, he also seeks to adhere to the advantages of the Reformed position on concursus. Accordingly, Barth turns to a dogmatic discussion of the will of God in II/1 in order to restructure the doctrine of divine providence. He raises the question of a divine incognito much more carefully here than in the Göttingen Dogmatics, §20, opening up a more profound conversation with the Protestant orthodox concerning the will of God: The divine will which lies at the basis of this [God’s] decree and is active in it is called the voluntas Dei beneplaciti inasmuch as its content is completely a matter of the free, divine decision and disposal. It is voluntas antecedens in that it completely precedes the existence and form of the created world. It is voluntas absoluta in that it is completely

43

GD II, §20.

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independent of everything that happens in time. Finally it is voluntas occulta in that no man or angel by himself can know its content. Proprie, it is explained, the voluntas beneplaciti is the one and only will of God and everything that takes place in consequence of it does not stand over against it as a second reality, but is simply a revelation of it to us (voluntas signi or revelata) [. . .] It is only improprie that these are separated from it, because in God there cannot really be any separate will. It is then explained that although in the creaturely sphere there may be an occurrence contra, there cannot be any occurrence prater voluntatem Dei, i.e., there may be resistance to the voluntas signi but not to the voluntas beneplaciti; for even evil takes place under the will of God, under a voluntas permittens Dei, although it does not on that account have to be referred back to God as its author.44 The differentiation between the “two wills” of God, between the voluntas beneplaciti and the voluntas signi, makes the affirmation possible that God’s will is done in all things, even in sin. Barth refers to the voluntas beneplaciti as God’s sovereign presiding over all things, “a general doctrine of providence.”45 His concern is to locate where divine providence takes place for the Reformed, juxtaposing it alongside all God’s ad extra works. Importantly, Barth finds that this view of providence makes God an unknowable reality with an absolute will affixed behind his activities.46 For Barth, this raises the question as to whether God can be truly signified by the voluntas signi: Wolleb expressly identifies the divine decree with the aeterna providentia Dei. This is not in itself untrue. The divine decree is in fact identical with eternal providence too. But the older theology identified 44 46

45 CD II/1, p. 519. CD II/1, p. 520. “The real will of God remains somewhere in the background,” CD II/1, p. 520. I differ with Barth’s reading of the Reformed position. Against this kind of reading, R. A. Muller notes that the Reformed understood the hidden and revealed wills of God to be analogically related: “The Reformed orthodox deny that the hidden will or eternal decree of God runs counter to the truth of God’s revelation,” R. A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (vol. 3, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2003), p. 463. For example, regarding the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Calvin analogically explicates something similar to what are later described as the voluntas beneplaciti and signi: “Here is not a question of his secret will, by which he controls all things and directs them to their end [. . .] But here God’s other will is to be noted—namely, that to which voluntary obedience corresponds,” Inst., III.20.43. For Calvin, however, this distinction does not imply two distinct ontic wills in God: “nothing agrees less with God’s nature than that he should be of double will,” Inst., III.25.17.

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it with this and this alone. As a consequence, all the contents of the decree, the creation, preservation and government of the world on the one hand, reconciliation and redemption on the other, and above all the incarnation of the Son of God and the existence of Jesus Christ— all form a single series as mere opera externa with a common denominator, as specific instances of the voluntas signi which has somewhere behind it the unmoved inscrutable voluntas beneplaciti, as mere instances of the divine providence.47 Barth is concerned that the divine will should be trustworthy, and that divine revelation ought to offer some assurance, disclosing who is behind this mask of God. As Barth sees it, he has simplified the problem of God’s providential governing of sin by identifying it in this way. He ultimately resolves this tension by merging the hidden into the revealed will of God in Jesus Christ, and in this way abrogating the incognito embedded in the voluntas beneplaciti. Barth objects to a double divine will, and envisions God’s will as entirely non-capricious. Rather, the hidden will of God is given an identifiable face in Christ. In support, he uncovers a number of Scriptural passages to further this line of argument, all texts that “refer concretely to a supremely particular event” while still maintaining “the government of a general eternal providence.”48 Barth’s revision calls for the voluntas signi to reflect God’s hidden will directly, then: “The voluntas signi would then [. . . be] the true and proper revelation of the voluntas beneplaciti.”49 Barth reconsiders the voluntas beneplaciti and signi in order to return to the matter of God’s providential governing of evil, and to do so cheerfully. His language on the relation between the divine sustaining and evil is more exculpatory of sin in II/1 than in the Göttingen Dogmatics: It is a mark of created being as distinct from divine that in it conflict with God and therefore mortal conflict with itself is not ruled out, but is a definite possibility even if it is only the impossible possibility, the possibility of self-annulment and therefore its own destruction [. . .] It follows inevitably only from the incomprehensible fact that the creature rejects the preserving grace of God. What belongs to the nature of the creature is that it is not physically hindered from doing this. If it were hindered in this way, it could not exist at all as a creature.50

47 48 49

50

CD II/1, p. 520. Isa. 46.9–13, Ps. 2.7–8, Eph. 1.9–11, Acts 2.23, 4.27–28; cf. II/1, pp. 520–1. CD II/1, p. 522; G. C. Berkouwer illustrates this same concern over the voluntas beneplaciti in his own constructive work; G. C. Berkouwer, The Providence of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), p. 76. CD II/1, pp. 503–4.

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Barth’s position in II/1 echoes his earlier statement from the Göttingen period in numerous ways with a notable difference, and his choice of words is not merely altered. In his treatment in II/1, Barth speaks about sin not just as a “possibility,” but as an “impossible possibility.”51 Barth’s language now self-consciously rejects any suspicion about caprice in the will of God. As the voluntas beneplaciti is illuminated by the voluntas signi, the manner of God’s self-revealing action in providence is also made clear. When the creature sins, he can now know that he is acting impossibly with respect to the will of God, which is now clarified by God’s self-disclosure in Christ.52 That is, Barth alleviates his own concern about the Deus absconditus here; the sovereign will of God can no longer be thought of as less than holy, but must be so in a Christological sense. Therefore, the creature’s act of sin has no place in the context of the life of God or the creature. This expulsion of evil makes a difference for the way Barth talks about divine providence in II/1. As Christ is revealed to be the One who governs all things, he is shown to be the King over all events and places.53 In this way, even if God’s will is concealed at times, it is never an anonymous will. God’s will always has a face that bespeaks unquestionable goodness. At each moment he acts for the sake of the creature. Thus, when the voluntas

51

52

53

W. Krötke estimates that this section in the Church Dogmatics marks an important shift in Barth’s thinking about the nature of sin. Before this point, the language of “impossible possibility” is only used by Barth to refer to the knowledge of God that, when redeemed by grace out of the realm of sin, is made possible. However, for Krötke, Barth’s text on Anselm provides a “new point of entry” whereby “what God has at all times said” is understood as the basis for theology, which sin inhibits. This implies that, henceforward after his text on Anselm, Barth’s language depicts the will of God as entirely exculpatory of sin. It is fitting that Barth’s first use of the phrase “unmögliche Möglichkeit” in the Church Dogmatics should be contemporaneous with that shift in his thinking (i.e., CD II/1, pp. 503–5). According to Krötke, the phrase “impossible possibility” in the Church Dogmatics refers to sin in se. Krötke’s observation is correct throughout, and this strengthens my contention that Barth’s clarification of the nature of the divine will as entirely invested in Jesus Christ in his “radical correction” aims directly at a divine expulsion of any possibility of caprice from the will of God. From that point on, the will of God is explicitly understood as entirely invested in Christ and no longer as “hidden.” Cf. K. Barth, Anselm: Fides Quarens Intellectum: Anselm’s Proof of the Existence of God in the Context of his Theological Scheme (trans. I. W. Robertson, 1st English edn; London: SCM Press, 1960), p. 65; K. Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (trans. E. C. Hoskyns; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 79, 113–14, 137; W. Krötke, Sin and Nothingness in the Theology of Karl Barth (ed. C. M. Bammel; trans. P. G. Ziegler; Princeton: Princeton Theological Seminary, 2005), p. 8. Barth’s next use of this language in the Church Dogmatics is in CD III/3, pp. 86, 351. CD II/1, pp. 487–90 on Barth’s revision of the Reformed view of the omnipresence of Christ.

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beneplaciti is invested in the voluntas signi, the Christian’s “Easter joy” cannot be discouraged by the hiddenness of divine providence.54 Barth is convinced, furthermore, that unless a position like this is achieved, the full and uninhibited praise of the creature will never be enjoined. Otherwise, the evil of quietism and resignation will always recur beneath a dialectical scheme. Thoughts of God will eventuate as either contingent or as necessary, and the creature’s unthankful action will follow suit.55 How is it possible that sin can originate without deriving either from God or the creature? This question turns us to the importance of Barth’s doctrine of election for his theology of providence. Inasmuch as the divine conservatio is concerned, Barth’s position on the will of God in II/2 is largely similar with that of II/1. For the first time in the Church Dogmatics, however, Barth’s doctrine of election in II/2 is mature, and he can coherently discuss his long-term distinction between evil in se and the “shadow side” of history.56 This distinction will have a decisive bearing on the subsequent volumes of the Church Dogmatics. In other words, in II/2 we see, in the doctrine of election, a decisive and dramatic explication of Barth’s ontological distinction between history and das Nichtige. A vantage point is now given for the trustworthiness of God within the context of the divine conservatio. Barth’s theology of temptation and permission is opened up in his treatment of predestination, and evil is decisively relegated to a separate sphere outside God and creation. Barth explains through the doctrine of election how it is not “possible” for sin to originate on the basis of either party. Barth’s explication of the divine sustaining in II/2 notably relegates evil out of created existence entirely. It is also noticeable that Barth reaffirms here the creature’s freedom when speaking about temptation. That is, he maintains the Reformed structure of the “eternal necessity” of God’s action in concursus. Uniquely, however, for the first time in II/2, the opposition between God and evil is given an elaborate and enduring context within the supralapsarian decree of God. Barth uses the decree of election to segregate evil from history by means of the self-election of God as the elected and rejected One in Jesus Christ: Man was willed and chosen by God with his limitations, as a creature which could and would do harm to God by the application, or rather the misuse, of its freedom. The danger-point of man’s susceptibility to temptation, and the zero-point of his fall, were thus included in the

54 55

56

CD III/3, p. 293. “Resignation [. . .] is always the disconsolate consolation of unbelief,” CD II/1, p. 511. CD II/2, p. 170.

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divine decree. In their own way they were even the object of the divine will and choice.57 Consistently, evil can no longer be explained within the context of God’s relationship with history alone, as if it were a simple negation of historical “being.” The divine will and choice is specified in II/2 as an eternal ground that removes any confusion about the historical faithfulness of God in the providentia circa malum. As Barth does this, he uses language of the divine “permission,” closely resembling the orthodox. Barth’s understanding of permissio, however, is one that expels nothingness, as this shadow is said to “flee” from the creature before the holiness and glory of God: Even in His permitting of man’s liability to temptation and fall, even in His permitting of evil, this is always what God wills. The divine willing of evil has, then, no proper or autonomous basis in God. It is not, as it were, an independent light in God which shines or is suddenly kindled at this point. God wills evil only because He wills not to keep to Himself the light of His glory but to let it shine outside Himself, because He wills to ordain man the witness of this glory. There is nothing in God and nothing in His willing and choosing ad extra to which either evil or the doer of evil can appeal, as though evil too were divinely created, as though evil too had in God a divine origin and counterpart. God wills it only as a shadow which yields and flees.58 The hidden will of God is revealed in Jesus Christ, and so God’s revealed will shows that his “hidden” will is a moral one, a will that expels evil at the most fundamental level. It is the moral aspect of the wholly revealed will of God that guarantees non-being has not been given a permanent place alongside the creature in the divine sustaining. God’s holiness eschews evil, and the creature’s continued existence relies on the fact that he should continue to do so. For this reason, where Barth states that God “wills evil,” even there Barth looks to the praise of the creature who is truly involved in God’s self-glorifying work. This is the ultimate conclusion that follows from his unification of the voluntas beneplaciti with the voluntas signi in Christ. The only proper response to the question of evil is a response that echoes a higher context for explicating God’s will, the context of predestination. When the creature considers God’s rejection of evil in the context of his self-election in Christ, he responds to God by offering him glory: “Man is the outward cause and object of this overflowing of the divine glory.”59

57

CD II/2, p. 169.

58

CD II/2, p. 170.

59

CD II/2, p. 169.

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The God who is clarified as holy in Jesus Christ also discloses an “order” to the creature. This order is an epistemological limit; it is a containment that inhibits the creature’s questioning mind and accosts him to praise God. Once the questioning of the creature deviates outside the contextual boundary of his predestination in Christ and his consequent praise, the Rubicon of the “knowledge of good and evil” has already been crossed and the situation of the knower has been implicated in sin.60 The obedient creature can only look to evil as it is properly repudiated by joy in God, only naming it in order to exorcise it.61 This glorification of God is the only way that it is given to the creature to know what evil is. To know das Nichtige is to observe the sufficiency of Christ from the vantage point of his victory over it—his resurrection. This is a Christological via negativa that thanks God for what he has already overcome on the other side of his cross: We cannot balance the fact that Adam fell, or David sinned, or Peter denied, or Judas betrayed, against the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The facts are true, but it is also true that they are far outweighed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ and that as the result of this resurrection they belong already to the vanished past. The thought of God’s predestination cannot, then, awaken in us the mixture of terror and joy which would be in order that we were confronted partly by promise and partly by threat. It can awaken only joy, pure joy. For this order is found in the divine predestination itself and it cannot be revoked.62 Barth consistently employs his doctrine of election in order to object to or to alter a variety of teachings affirmed by the protestant orthodox in III/3 (e.g., the providentia circa malum, concursus, permissio, etc.). Should a problematic consideration about providence arise, Barth utilizes his doctrine 60

61

62

“We can only rejoice at the double predestination of God,” CD II/2, p. 174; CD III/3, pp. 355–6. I choose the metaphor of exorcism here on account of Barth’s own rejoinder to G. C. Berkouwer’s rebuttal of Barth’s chapter on “Nothingness,” as Barth points to J. C. Blumhardt’s exorcism of G. Dittus on December 28, 1843 in §69.3 of the Church Dogmatics. Importantly, Barth sees that there are practical consequences for the believer on the noetic side of this reality of evil, and one of the consequences is not to create an abstract account of das Nichtige; cf. CD IV/3, pp. 169–71. Specifically, the treatment of “theodicy-like” questions is a tension in Barth’s account, and it is ultimately resolved at the end of his whole volume on divine providence with a “theological” act of “exorcism”; CD III/3, pp. 148, 521. In the final chapter, I analyze this act as Barth’s use of doxology in §51. CD II/2, p. 174. A more extensive treatment on the relationship between the will of God and evil within the context of praise will be given in the following chapters on §50 and §51.

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of election as a hedge against this. It is the doctrine of election in particular, furthermore, that enables Barth to maintain throughout the rest of the Church Dogmatics his early position on the qualitative distinction of God’s action, advocated as early as the Göttingen lectures. In short, with the advent of his Christological doctrine of election, Barth considers his mature position also to be “Reformed” on account of its ability to safeguard the praiseworthiness of God and the free and continual praise of the creature. This is what Barth means when he says in 1949 that he places his doctrine of providence in the context of creation in the manner of the Reformed “tradition.”63 He places his doctrine of providence in the context of the doctrine of creation in the sense that his doctrine of creation insists that the very being of the creature should be praise. Barth makes this position more clear in his volume on divine providence.

V. The “Radical Correction” in §48 and its Implications for III/3 Barth’s mature doctrine of providence is about the way in which the will of God, once corrected by his doctrine of election, can be recharacterized as “Almighty.” In II/1 and II/2, he uses his doctrine of election for correcting the “two wills” of God according to his own interpretation of the Protestant orthodox. The Father “Almighty” of the Apostles’ Creed is the God of providence, but it “is as the electing God that He is the Almighty, and not vice versa.”64 Barth’s concern for the creature’s uninterrupted praise means that the face of the “god” of providence must be identifiable as faithful. Barth has the distinction between voluntas beneplaciti and signi already in mind in II/2 in his rejection of this ordering of providence before predestination: If “we are concerned with the sovereign will of God, in the one case with that will in general, in the other with a particular application of it,” then the “Christian character” of the “doctrine of providence has not yet been shown.”65 Therefore, Barth’s reordering of divine providence to follow the doctrine of election is his “radical correction” of the Protestant orthodox doctrine in III/3. Specifically, it is by placing his doctrine of election before his doctrine of providence that Barth is able to recharacterize the voluntas beneplaciti of God as not only “Almighty” in an impersonal sense, but as identifiably holy. Barth definitively restates his view of the relation between election and providence in §48 “The Doctrine of Providence, Its Basis and Form.” He characterizes the will of God as not only universal but as identifiably good in his first section in III/3, §48.1, which engages with the Protestant 63

CD II/2, p. 78; CD III/3, p. 3.

64

CD II/2, p. 45.

65

CD II/2, p. 48.

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orthodox definitions of providence in order to correct their assertion that predestination is a subordinate doctrine: Our first task is to see why we cannot follow the example of the Scholastics and treat the subject denoted by this word, like predestination, in the context of the doctrine of God. On this point it is to be observed that in predestination it is a matter primarily and properly of the eternal election of the Son of God to be the Head of His community and of all creatures. It is a matter of the divine resolve and action, of the eternal decree, which does not presuppose the act of creation and the existence of creatures, but is itself their presupposition.66 For Barth, when predestination is made subordinate to providence, there may be an interconnection between the two doctrines but they subsequently fail to show their biblical particularity. He reverses this view at the onset of §48.1: “Predestination is rather the presupposition [. . .] of God’s overruling.” Thomas’ view that predestination is a “quaedam pars providentiae (particular aspect of providence)” is repudiated. Nor can Barth accept the statement of Zwingli, which eventually becomes the same line of thought as the orthodox: “Est autem providenita, praedestinationis veluti parens [. . .] Nascitur praedestinatio [. . .] ex providentia, imo est ipsa providentia (For providence is, as it were, the source of predestination [. . .] Predestination is born [. . .] of providence, and, indeed, is providence itself).”67 Barth’s doctrine of election is the “root” of the doctrine of divine providence.68 When he says this, he means that election is the necessary and anterior doctrine which provides a context for divine providence in such a way that the voluntas beneplaciti is only understood through Christ and, thus, the praiseworthiness of God and the praise of the creature are thereby secured.69

66 68

69

67 CD III/3, pp. 4–5. CD III/3, p. 4. “The election of grace being understood as [. . .] the root of the doctrine of providence,” CD III/3, p. 6. Barth’s language on there being a “root” for providence is, at this point, somewhat unclear. He also says that “providence has no corresponding root” as does the doctrine of election, which has its root “in the being of God,” CD III/3, p. 5. This means that, at the onset of III/3, Barth is saying that election has its “root” in the “being of God” in such a way that II/1 acts as a limiting context for II/2, but that multiple doctrines come into play as a foundation for a doctrine of divine providence. In saying this, Barth reiterates the original ordering for his doctrine of God in the Church Dogmatics as normative for interpreting his doctrine of election. At the onset of III/3, Barth is saying that the doctrine of election (i.e., II/2) presupposes the doctrine of God (i.e., II/1) as its only and limiting context. This is the sense in which election has a “root” in the doctrine of God, and in which providence does not have any corresponding “root.” Therefore, providence presupposes both God and creation, and while its “root” is in election, it does not have a “corresponding” limiting “root” in the same

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The God of §48 is not just an impersonal monad, but continually acts on behalf of the creature as he does for Isaac upon Abraham’s altar, procuring a ram as a replacement for him.70 This is the sense in which God “provides” in Christ. Barth illustrates the centrality that he gives to the doctrine of election in III/3 with an initial criticism of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas is, furthermore, the culprit of this problem both in 1942 (i.e., II/2) and in 1949 (i.e., III/3).71 For Aquinas, election follows providence in the ordering of his loci, and so Barth thinks predestination counts for him as one moment within the context of a faceless sovereignty.72 In III/3, Barth sees this move as incorrect, but has already contended with it in his volume on election.73 Rather, here Barth focuses on how Thomas’ consequential positioning of providence within the context of the doctrine of God inevitably introduces a difficulty into the dogmatic arrangement. Without a doctrine of predestination that is anterior to providence, giving it a personal shape, Thomas eventually obscures God with a philosophical conception of deity. With a “naked freedom and sovereignty” at the fore, a competitive relation between God and the creature inevitably follows.74 Such a “god” must know the creature as an object of his pretemporal will before time, and so the divine freedom in se necessarily

70 72

73

74

way that the doctrine of election does. It is noteworthy that this statement made by Barth is the closest that he comes in III/3 to indicating whether or not he would favor or disfavor B. L. McCormack’s reading that, after 1936, Barth’s doctrine of election reduces the eternal necessity of God’s character to the contingency of his act of selfelection in Christ. Barth’s 1949 affirmation of II/1 as a determinate context for his doctrine of election complicates McCormack’s thesis, as McCormack’s view requires that Barth’s statements about the eternal necessity of God’s being in II/1 should be revised according to a radical and ontic contingency, being strictly predicated of God’s predestination in Christ in II/2; cf. B. L. McCormack, “Grace and Being: The Role of God’s Gracious Election in Karl Barth’s Theological Ontology,” in J. Webster (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 92–110. 71 CD III/3, p. 4. CD II/2, p. 45; CD III/3, pp. 5–6. “According to Thomas, the doctrine of predestination belongs directly to that of the divine providence,” CD II/2, p. 45. Richard Muller has recently taken the assumption to task that the dogmatic ordering of doctrines are constitutive for their content for the Reformed; he argues that, by and large, in the Reformed tradition, the placement of the doctrines “do, in fact, indicate genuine understandings of doctrinal relationships, but it is not the placement that creates the relationships,” R. A. Muller, “The Placement of Predestination in Reformed Theology: Issue or Non-Issue?,” CTJ 40 (2005), pp. 184–210 (p. 208). Muller’s argument is well-researched and persuasive on this point. Barth states in II/2 that he treats election first, rather than explicating predestination as pars providentiae, in order that the election of a “living God” not become only one moment within an abstract relation between God and the world; CD II/2, p. 45. CD II/2, p. 44.

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becomes a willed relation with an “other.” Strangely, this view of providence challenges the aseity of God by definition.75 Barth thinks this problematic supports his own view of election as insightful. Barth understands Thomas as, for this reason, introducing an “eternal ground” that foresees all of God’s economic works. In Barth’s mind, this is used by Thomas to explain how God can have a basis for being disposed toward the creature in eternity, but without presupposing an actual existence of the creature alongside himself. Barth thinks of Thomas’ ratio ordinandorum (“ground of those things which have been ordained”) as an empty concept, however; it introduces an unnecessary complexity into the dogmatic structure. Why is it there? It is there, Barth says, to preserve the qualitative distinction between God and the creature and to safeguard the freedom of God in Thomas’ thought. And yet, the reason why it must be there is because this freedom has been denied in practice by placing the doctrine of providence within the context of the doctrine of God. For Barth, this ratio ordinandorum is nothing else but a placeholder, lacking any importance of its own except it proclaims that, for Thomas’ view, the freedom of God needs this protection for some unstated reason. This is what Barth means when he says that providence has somehow made the creature necessary for God in Thomas.76 “We cannot import this relationship into the being of God as though the creature too were eternally in God.”77 In this manner, Barth argues, a constraint on the freedom of God is implicitly admitted whenever providence is articulated outside the context of God’s self-election in Jesus Christ. Saying this, it is difficult to tell whether or not Barth thought this argument against Thomas would be convincing in and of itself, or if he thought of it as convincing because one has already established, in one’s mind, that his own view of election is the “biblical” position.78 For Barth, election balances the internal reality of the freedom of God with the external work of his providence. In fact,

75

76

77 78

Barth maintains in II/1 that God’s freedom in se is not a willed relation of any kind. He argues that God need not choose his own existence against the possibility of nonexistence in eternity, but that this freedom belongs to God essentially, CD II/1, p. 307. “For even an eternal ratio ordinandorum cannot be described without this entailing a description of the relationship of the Creator to a creature (even if only future), and the consequent integration of this creature in the being of God,” CD III/3, p. 5. III/3, p. 5. Barth’s version of the decree aims at a biblical depiction of God because the Bible’s narrative renders an agent at its climax who presides over the fulfillment of his historical workings: “The decisive point is the reading of the Bible itself”; CD II/2, p. 148.

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there is even a ratio ordinandorum for Barth; namely, God’s self-election in Christ.79 On account of Barth’s correction of the orthodox, two significant implications ensue in his remaining exposition in §48. First, the creature’s knowledge of providence in §48.2 is understood to be a “practical recognition.”80 Due to the fact that God’s will is highly particularized in election, this elicits a highly particular response from the creature: praise. The act of praise or prayer is “practical” in the sense that it is a confession that is given by God to the creature. Therefore, this is not a belief that can be apprehended within the context of a worldview. Belief in providence is faith, and this faith is a special gift of God. Second, on account of the fact that the doctrine of election clarifies God’s will as taking place entirely in Christ, then the doctrine of providence is never to be divorced from the obligation God places on the creature. Specifically, the two orthodox structures for the life of the creature (i.e., the “order of being” and “order of morals”) are both combined in Jesus Christ. The very being of the creature is praise; therefore, the theologian cannot grasp at any concept of “being” beneath a sovereign will, as if God’s will enjoined any other response but perfect obedience and praise. The Christian belief in providence occurs in accordance with a “practical recognition.” In §48.2, Barth points out that, on account of the benevolence found in God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ, the Christian may find God’s governance over ordinary affairs to be encouraging. As mentioned previously, Barth uses his doctrine of election to correct the misconceptions that he wants to exclude (e.g., the possibility that God’s providential will might be capricious). Barth makes it clear that the creature can only apprehend providence in the context of a practical, or perhaps worldly judgment. Therefore, in this section, Barth looks to “the fact that the creature which enjoys this recognition may always [. . .] give it [its Creator] its gratitude and praise.”81 The God of providence condescends to reveal himself in the practical affairs of ordinary lives. This work of God goes some distance to free the creature from needing to speculate about divine realities. On account of the elevated context of Barth’s doctrine of election, which is anterior to creation, the Lord of providence can be characterized as freely transcending every imaginable creaturely hypothesis. Furthermore, the freedom of God factors into Barth’s view as an important asset here. The self-election of God in Jesus Christ means that the creature can make no claim to have epistemically grasped God. Rather God meets the creature in the context of a 79

80

“This ratio ordinandorum could belong to the being of God Himself only if it merely did not compete but was radically identical with the election of grace in Jesus Christ,” CD III/3, pp. 5–6. 81 CD III/3, p. 14. CD III/3, p. 14

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self-demonstration that is more-than-cognitive, a self-giving of grace to the creature that surpasses any creaturely hypothesis or calculus of the will. In freeing the creature from speculation, the God of election liberates her from anxious doubt as well: “If the Christian belief in this lordship were a view which ultimately had behind it only the thinking, feeling, choosing and judging human subject, both it and its confession would always be unstable.”82 In III/3, the overruling of God stands above the differing hypotheses of the creature because the freedom of God’s grace means that he also has the power to overcome the creature’s vain concerns through the clarity of his self-manifestation: For if God is the God of the covenant and election of grace, this decides His being in a freedom which can only be that of the Creator as compared with that of the creature. This God is in a freedom that cannot be proper to any principle. And as the God of the Christian belief is seen in the fulfillment of the covenant between Himself and man as this has taken place in Jesus Christ; as His will is not therefore an obscure and concealed but a clear and revealed will.83 A second feature of §48 expands on Barth’s position. Barth’s is not only a correction that avoids subordinating the doctrine of election beneath divine providence. This adjustment of the traditional doctrine implies a correcting of the way the creature’s life is envisioned beneath the Creator. The mandate to praise God and the practicality of the creature’s apprehension of providence both come together in Barth’s assertion that even the creature’s very being is praise. Therefore, a comparison between Barth and the Reformed is instructive not only because his doctrine is articulated with the backdrop of the voluntas beneplaciti and signi in mind, but because his revisions on this point illuminate his understanding of the whole situation of the creature who is sustained, accompanied and ruled by God. In the traditional teaching, the orthodox make a hamartiological distinction in order to accommodate the providentia circa malum, between an “order of being” and an “order of morals.” The order of being is the proper object of the voluntas beneplaciti in the providential disposing of all created things.84 That is, as God orders all events according to his will, these events are arranged to align with his will according to their being. Since opposition against God’s will is impossible, he reveals the sin which opposes him through a different will, that is the voluntas signi. It is in this domain that the will of God may be resisted. Sin may take place, then, in the context of

82 84

83 CD III/3, p. 16. CD III/3, p. 30. As Barth describes it in the Göttingen Dogmatics, it is an ordering of the “brain, nerves, mouth and hand,” GD II, §20.

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an order of morals, and the creature’s being may still be secure beneath God’s sovereignty. The ethical domain must be kept separate for the orthodox, as God providentially allows the creature to choose sin but does not condone it in the sense of his actio.85 With another reversal, Barth asserts that the creature’s acknowledgment that all of creation is one order is a matter of thankful obedience to Christ. Francis Turretin, as an example of an orthodox thinker, finds that the order of morals is the arena where God reveals his opposition against sin. Turretin states: “In every moral action we must necessarily distinguish the substance of the act in the genus of being from the goodness and wickedness of the same in the genus of morals.”86 It is on the basis of this distinction that God can be said to change his mind in the biblical narratives, as the voluntas signi does not univocally echo the will of God ad intra. Turretin continues: Thus the volition of stealing reduplicatively and circumstantiated here and now, is indeed essentially evil with regard to another’s property; but the volition, to which that circumstance happens by which it is a volition to steal, is not essentially evil in like manner [ . . . ] God was unwilling that the brethren of Joseph should sell him and that the Jews should crucify Christ, since they were most heinous crimes against the law. Yet he is said to have willed, yea, even to have done these things. (Gen. 45.7; Acts 4.28)87 Importantly, this position leads Turretin to make statements similar to those belonging to Barth during the Göttingen period. In some sense, God must be said to be the “cause” of sin. In this manner, Turretin’s explication of the providentia circa malum describes the situation that originally causes Barth to suspect a difficulty with the orthodox position with respect to divine holiness. When this same strain begins to show in Turretin’s writing, he reiterates the distinction between an order of being and of morals. Turretin states: God is the cause of the human will; therefore he is the cause of sin— for when the created will sins, it turns aside and fails from the order of the first cause. And God who is the cause of the will per se, cannot be called the cause of the evil action, which is from the will not simply in

85 86

87

Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 274–80. F. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology (ed. J. T. Dennison; trans. G. M. Giger; 3 vols, vol. 1; Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company, 1992), p. 510. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 510–11.

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the genus of being (as it is from God), but from the will failing as to the law in the genus of morals.88 Barth’s repudiation of the orthodox position on the will of God has implications for all of creaturely life, life that undergoes both moral and immoral action. Consistent with Barth’s position on the voluntas beneplaciti and signi, he invests both the being of the creature and her ethical life in her response to the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ.89 Since the dual-order structure in the life of God has been merged in Christ, the very essence of the creature must also be said to be equivalent with his own act of praise: “Gratitude is to be understood not only as a quality and an activity but as the very being and essence of this creature.”90 Barth’s position comes full circle in this way: praise is the realization of God’s will not only for the creature’s moral life, but for his physical being as well.91 Sin can never be a power in the hands of the creature, enabling it to establish a secondary order outside the sovereign Creator’s will: “Thus we must not focus our attention on the sinner, as though by his sin he had founded a new order of things which had an independent meaning.”92 Rather, “by doing this and this alone does he distinguish himself as being from non-being [. . .] ‘To be or not to be? that is the question’ and it is decided by the way in which we answer the question: To give thanks or not to give thanks?”93 Since the creature cannot be found outside the will of God in Christ, every theological assertion Barth entertains in III/3 also observes how this structure for the divine will has a bearing on the task of the theologian. Barth’s theological methodology is committed to this view of human agency, and it is ingrained in the position he takes up in the seventh volume of the Church Dogmatics. As he later notes, the two volumes that come before and after his volume on providence show an intentional ordering and analogical relationship with each other.94 If we permit language that 88 89 91

92 94

Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, p. 525. 90 CD II/1, p. 522. CD II/1, p. 669. CD III/2, pp. 38, 171; CD III/3, p. 86; CD IV/2, p. 494; D. Kennedy’s discussion of the relationship between Barth’s position on the divine sustaining of sin and that of John Macmurray is helpful; Kennedy points out that both thinkers have a similar conception of the sinner as a “negative witness”: “the negative will [of the creature] can never destroy the positive will, since it is sustained by the positive”; Kennedy, “A Personalist Doctrine of Providence,” pp. 76–8, 97. 93 CD III/2, p. 34. CD III/2, p. 171. Barth comments in IV/2 that he deals with man’s sloth in terms of the four parts of the “command” of God the Creator, which correspond the obligation of God (i.e., CD III/4) with the created being (CD III/2) of the creature, each ordering the subject in view according to the same intentional structure: 1.) man’s relationship with God (i.e., CD III/2, §44; CD III/4, §53), 2.) his relationship with fellow-men (i.e., CD III/2, §45; CD III/4, §54), 3.) his relationship with the created order (i.e., CD III/2, §46; CD III/4, §55)

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Barth does not use, III/2 sets forth Barth’s keynote anthropology, an “order of being” in Christ. III/4, furthermore, forwards something like an “order of morals” as it discusses his ethics of creation. The transition between these two volumes is crucial for Barth’s overall proposal to work. By ordering his doctrine of creation in this manner, he asks the question as to how one can stay true to the particularity of Christ while addressing the traditional questions that arise within the context of the doctrine of creation (i.e., the distinction between being and morals). Since the voluntas beneplaciti is conjoined with the voluntas signi in Christ, how can the obedient theologian address these distinctions? Barth’s whole volume on divine providence answers this question as a mid-point between them: at every point, the work of divine providence is an intercession for the created world that is enacted by God in Jesus Christ. Therefore, divine providence is about the creature’s nolens volens participation in Christ. God preserves the creature to give it an opportunity to voluntarily praise him, but regardless, the creature does participate in him.95 Thanksgiving and praise are constitutive for the creature on account of the height that God’s election in Christ enjoys above the whole of the creaturely world. Therefore, the ongoing life of the creature is praise in the sense that divine providence, which is the work of God that sustains the creature’s life, is the work of God that expects the praise of the creature.

VI. The Fatherhood of God in the Rest of III/3 It is germane to Barth’s doctrine of providence that he should argue that the first article of the creed must be read in the light of the second, and so he states this criterion for his doctrine in a number of key places in III/3.96 Barth’s return to providence in IV/3 also emphasizes this as central in a summary of his exposition in retrospect: “The doctrine of Dei providentia which we have briefly sketched in this way, and which found more explicit development in C.D., III, 3 §§48–9 [. . .] follows very soberly from the necessity of understanding the first article of the creed in the light of the second, which refers in closing to the sessio Filii ad dexteram Patris omnipotentis.”97 In the second article of the creed one finds the true meaning of the first, that God the Father of Jesus Christ is the “Almighty.” This correction of the creed is the “climax of the whole doctrine of creation.”98 For Barth, the previous generations that recited the creed in full should have, so to speak,

95 97

and 4.) his relationship with his historical limitation in time (i.e., CD III/2, §47; CD III/4, §56); CD IV/2, p. 409. 96 CD IV/1, pp. 736–9. CD III/3, pp. 35, 105, 287, 428, 466. 98 CD IV/3, p. 688. CD III/3, p. 428.

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“known better” than to accept a philosophical version of simplicity, as the second article puts Christ’s face on the first. This makes the God of providence, that is, the God of the first article, identifiable as noncapricious. Barth consistently argues in 1949 that, despite the creed, the God of Western theology on the whole is unfortunately a philosophical monad, “the absolute, the general, the digit 1.”99 In this volume, he states that the most common cause for this dogmatic distortion is confusion between divine unity and simplicity. The default Western position on simplicity, he says, is grounded in an analogia entis which contrasts God with the world by identifying him as a philosophically “simple” being.100 Barth often raises this complaint about the Western view, which is implicit in his critique of J. P. Sartre, whose concept of man, he says, is a displaced version of the generic god of the West: It is as man that man assumes the functions of deity, and in spite of the strangeness of his form is clotted with the attributes of at least the conventional Western conception of God, existing of and by and for himself, constituting his own beginning and end as absolute actuality without potentiality, unique, omnipotent, and certainly omniscient [. . .] All that is lacking is the slightest trace of the biblical concept of God.101 It is the Apostles’ Creed that points to God’s election in Jesus Christ in its summary of the whole of Scripture, safeguarding the God of providence as the triune God. According to Barth, the doctrine is commonly obscured when God’s power as “Father” is abstracted from his revealed work in Christ. Thus, the God who reveals himself in an undivided way is slighted, severing the One who is the Son from his constitutive relation with the Father. Against this, Barth states at the beginning and end of his writing the Church Dogmatics that “the theological rule with respect to the Trinity [. . . is] opera trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa.”102 For Barth, his commitment to the unity of the triune God means an approach to divine providence will not be grounded in a metaphysical concept of the simple. Rather, he apprehends the work appropriated to the second person of the Trinity (i.e.,

99 100

101

CD III/3, p. 139. When Barth discusses the analogia entis in III/3, he takes a contrastive approach, juxtaposing this dogmatic move against the doctrine of the Trinity. The analogia entis distorts who God is as a “Subject”: “The divine and creaturely subjects are not like or similar but unlike [. . .] The divine causa [. . .] causes itself—and it is the Christian knowledge of God which gives us the decisive word on the matter—in the triune life which God enjoys as Father, Son and Holy Spirit [. . .] This is how God is a subject,” CD III/3, p. 103. 102 CD III/3, pp. 342–3. CD I/1, p. 375; ChrL, p. 8.

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election, reconciliation) as a context for understanding the variegated unity of the triune Subject who acts providentially. It is not hard to see, then, why Barth chides his opponents in III/3 for not “deducing” providence from the doctrine of the Trinity.103 As Barth sees it, his predecessors lost the programmatic role that should be played by the triunity of God because they failed to understand the doctrine of predestination in the context of the person and work of Christ. This is the purpose of the second article of the creed, which should have been sufficient for pointing to the centrality of Christ, and consequently, to the triunity of God. It is in the second article that the hidden God becomes manifest: Let us start, however, from the fact that the revelation of the Almighty God and therefore of what in the sense of the symbol is called “omnipotence” is identical with the revelation of the Father of Jesus Christ through the Spirit [. . .] Actually the hidden God here becomes manifest [. . .] Therefore the meaning cannot be that only the Father is Almighty and not also the Son and the Spirit—and that the Father is only Almighty and did not also share in all those attributes of God, of which the Second and Third Articles of the symbol speak. Opera trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa.104 The second article of the creed revises the version of the first that allows for a Deus absconditus. To fail to do this is to welcome the problem of doubt, the anxious inhibiting of the creature’s praise. When the second article clarifies the first, however, God’s creature can joyfully speak about the “eternal necessity” of God’s action in providence without any anxiety about divine caprice.105 The creature may freely glorify God knowing that he has determined in his election in Jesus Christ to do away with the problem of sin completely at Golgotha. This “doing away” with sin also means a doing away with the doubt that inhibits the creature’s praise. Therefore, this reading of the creed, especially as it witnesses to the election of God in Jesus Christ, points to Barth’s “radical correction” because it affirms his reordering of the doctrine of election as anterior to providence. As this correction is thoroughly implemented, the will of God in providence is made sufficiently identifiable in a “practical recognition.” That is, Barth’s second volume on the doctrine of God begins with predestination in §§32–5, and then what follows is his ethics of election, §§36–9. This not a mistake on Barth’s part. The fact that the second article follows from his doctrine of election implies

103 105

104 CD III/3, p. 31. Credo, pp. 20–1, 27 emphasis mine. Cf. Barth’s thematic use of Heidegger’s rule in GD II, §20: “Eternal necessity must certainly be distinguished from temporal necessity.”

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that divine providence should be known by the creature in an ethical context, in the context of a “practical recognition.” Barth comes close to restating this explicitly in his describing a “fifth” and determinate criterion for appropriating the Reformed doctrine of concursus with legitimacy.106 As he recovers the orthodox view in his section on the Divine Accompanying in §49.2, he places numerous strictures on its appraisal. He also sums up all of his criteria for correcting the orthodox with one final safeguard. It is notable that Barth describes this particular limitation as summative for his recovery of the orthodox doctrine of providence on the whole: But this safeguard, and all the safeguards so far mentioned, can be recognized as necessary and therefore valid only if we set against them the positive pre-condition which must be fulfilled in this matter. As the doctrine of the concursus, and indeed the whole doctrine of providence (wie die ganze Lehre von Gottes Vorsehung), is expounded there must be a clear connexion between the first article of the creed and the second. If the causal concept is to be applied with legitimacy, its content and interpretation must be determined by the fact that what it describes is the operation of the Father of Jesus Christ in relation to that of the creature.107 Inasmuch as Barth’s reading targets a philosophical conception of divine simplicity, his use of the creed actually takes aim at the whole orthodox tradition. However, his view of the creed is also relevant with respect to the Protestant orthodox inasmuch as he uses it to point to his own doctrine of election as a summary of the whole teaching of Scripture. God’s will in Jesus Christ isn’t just a powerful will, it is identifiable as holy; and the God of the creed is holy because the God of the Bible is God in Jesus Christ. Barth thinks the Reformed theologians who confessed this creed failed to think through the insights they had gained about “the will and work of God [ . . . as] holy just and good” that is properly exemplified in the doctrines of “grace and justification.”108 However, Barth sees the Reformed as more insightful than all the rest because the God of grace and justification is a God who opposes sin, and is, therefore, praiseworthy. The God of the Reformed tradition is repulsed by sin and chooses to deal with it decisively at the cross and in the lives of believers in justification. Barth’s penchant for reading the first article of the Creed according to the second is his attempt to supplement what he finds to be the best that the

106

107

“The fulfilling of the first four of these conditions depends upon the fulfilling of the fifth,” CD III/3, p. 107. 108 CD III/3, p. 105; KD III/3, p. 118. CD III/3, pp. 115–16.

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tradition has to offer: the Reformed position. He, then, attempts to add to their position by magnifying the holiness of God with an eye to his so-called correction.109 “And He is always holy. Therefore He always wills that His creature should be holy.”110 This is Barth’s latent reason for innovation with respect to the question of evil in III/3 as well, as he discards the providentia circa malum in favor of his explication of the problem of das Nichtige in §50. It is due to the singularity of the holy will of God as it is manifest in Jesus Christ that this will relegates the question of evil to an altogether distinct context. Therefore, the whole volume of III/3 takes shape according to the strictures implied by Barth’s reading of the Reformed as slighting the holiness of God, which, in turn, slights the full participation of the creature in a prayerful and free “intercourse” with divine providence.111

VII. Conclusion By insisting on a particular reading of the second article of the Apostles’ Creed, with a single stroke Barth invests the voluntas beneplaciti in the voluntas signi, acknowledging that the God of providence is the God whose self-election is in Jesus Christ. In this act he also gives the theologian a task: to respond with praise to the praiseworthy God of the Reformed tradition. This insistence stems from Barth’s two-sided inheritance from the Reformed school: the praiseworthiness of the God of divine providence and the doxology of the creature. In order to maintain these two aspects of the tradition, Barth must place Christ at the very center of his exposition of divine providence. The Reformed Christian apprehends Jesus Christ to be above the dialectic of human knowledge, which otherwise sees events according to a relationship between contingency and necessity. Therefore Barth employs his doctrine of election to draw a more elevated distinction between providence and evil. Placing election before the doctrine of providence, then, safeguards the praiseworthiness of God. Barth’s reordering of providence so as to follow election attempts to recharacterize the will of God as not only universally supereminent but also as holy. Therefore, Barth’s climax to §48 is “The Christian Doctrine of

109

110

This understanding of Barth’s “correction” opposes the reading that Barth simply emulates Schleiermacher’s view of sin in III/3, who he criticizes (before he agrees with him!) for lacking a robust sense of the holy, cf. CD III/3, pp. 329–31; R. Sherman, for example, is interested in finding similarities with Schleiermacher on this score, and in the polarity between omnipotence and holiness, he says, Barth “does seem to tilt in favor of the divine omnipotence”; R. Sherman, The Shift to Modernity: Christ and the Doctrine of Creation in the Theologies of Schleiermacher and Barth (London: T & T Clark, 2005), p. 111. 111 CD III/3, p. 353. CD III/3, p. 23.

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Providence,” where the will of God in Christ is expressed in “the second article of the creed [. . . which] is given its full New Testament sweep [. . . where] the qui sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis is fully accepted.”112 Consequently, no concept of the creature’s “being” can be grasped outside the rule of the One who expels all immorality from before his face at Golgotha. Therefore, on the side of God, Barth replaces the providentia circa malum of the Reformed with his doctrine of the Nihil in §50. This safeguards God’s character as noncapricious and as holy. On the side of the creature, furthermore, the very being of the creature is also safeguarded from anxiety because it is equated with the very act of praise. This line of reasoning does, to some extent, anticipate Barth’s reasons for using the Lord’s Prayer as a guide in III/3. However, the relationship between III/3 and the Lord’s Prayer is one step removed from this aspect of his argument. On the whole, Barth’s radical correction sets him on a trajectory that can only apprehend and articulate the doctrine of providence as a prayer that commends the Word of God in Jesus Christ. Barth places III/3 at a very crucial juncture within the whole of the Church Dogmatics: between the section that attends to the creature’s being (i.e., III/2) and the section that attends to the ethics of creation (III/4). For this very reason, III/3 combines the orders of being and of morals in Christ not only by assigning prayer to the creature, but by assigning this commission to the theologian and incorporating it into his very method. A doctrine of providence that sees the will of God in this way cannot grasp at any concept of being outside of God’s redemptive purposes. Therefore, it is fitting that Barth should go on to argue that this doctrine is given to the disciple by the Lord himself, who is his “Leader in prayer.”113

112

CD III/3, p. 35.

113

CD III/3, p. 274.

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3 §49.1, the divine preserving

I. Introduction Barth’s explication of providence begins with his upholding the doctrine of conservatio. In this section, he focuses on the relationship between the atonement and the divine preserving, which both have implications for the ongoing life of the creature. In this way, Barth assigns a historically extended life to the creature on the basis of the cross of Christ. Next come Barth’s four delineations in §49.1, which structure his constructive work and his interpretive stance with respect to his theological predecessors. All four of these statements are constitutive for his argument in §49.1. This section also includes Barth’s only mention of evil within the locus of divine providence. At this point, I only anticipate a more comprehensive outline of das Nichtige in chapter seven. However, this chapter notes the appropriateness of Barth’s discussion of “Nothingness” in §49.1 due to its setting, which follows the ethical role that is given to the creature’s praise. Thankfulness and praise is the trademark of the creature because the divine preserving expects the creature’s participation in Christ. Therefore, the reality of the Nihil is disinteresting to the obedient theologian, and can be abrogated from having an ontic ground either in God or the creature.

II. Preservation and the Atonement Barth understands the material content of the doctrine of providence to be of superlative interest when seeking to justify the ways of God to men. For Barth, what creation is, and what it continues to be on account of God’s preservation largely depends on whether or not one is attending to the way the will of God is revealed in Jesus Christ. How might one keep the contingency of the creature from drowning in a sea of divine necessity? Throughout his career, Barth’s solution to this question is Christological; he continually 42

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revisits God’s saving activity as this has decisive bearing on how creation and preservation cohere. For Barth, this means that providence is not just discussed alongside the doctrine of creation, but together with matters of salvation as well. The world is preserved “for the sake of His Son.”1 Broadly, this is a reading of the first article of the creed in the light of the second. Prayer is at the center of Barth’s interest in divine providence because the Christian who acknowledges God’s preservation does so as he participates in the prayer of Jesus Christ, praying the Lord’s Prayer after him. Barth states in §49.1 that the atonement of Christ creates a “hallowed situation (geheiligte . . . Situation)” for the divine preserving, making all of history holy in Christ.2 Just as the voluntas beneplaciti is made holy as it is explicated by the Incarnation, now this holy act of God offers conservation as a beneficium Christi to the rest of creation. Obediently following the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer in his exposition, Barth acknowledges that Jesus Christ is the only One who can “hallow” the name of God where the creature stands in need of preservation. According to Barth, §49, his larger chapter on divine providence, comprises the “real substance” of his volume.3 He arranges it into three parts, affirming each of the traditional divisions of the Protestant orthodox: conservatio, concursus, and gubernatio.4 Therefore, Barth “really, as he says, wants to learn and has learned from the old Protestant doctrine of providence [. . .] in that he has kept the structure of the old doctrinal wisdom.”5 It is not incidental that this deliberate reiteration of the orthodox arrangement should begin with a statement on the way that the will of God is invested in Jesus Christ in the atonement.6 In this manner, both affirmation and innovation are built into the way that Barth relates his own position with his most significant predecessors. As he describes the importance of the atonement for the rest of his oeuvre, he states in volume IV: The general grace of God in creation, preservation and over-ruling [. . .] is already grace. We recognise it distinctly as such only when we see God and ourselves in the inner and special circle of His will and work, in the light of this one, particular, redemptive act of God. It is only from this standpoint that the general grace of being and the opportunity which it offers can and do become a subject for serious gratitude and a source of serious dedication.7 1 4

5 6

7

2 3 CD III/3, pp. 58, 72. CD III/3, p. 82; KD III/3, p. 93. CD III/3, p. xii. Bernhardt suggests that Barth remained “imprisoned (verhaftet)” to the classical categories; Bernhardt, Was heisst “Handeln Gottes”?, p. 263. Hägglund, “Die Vorsehungslehre bei Karl Barth,” p. 44. “I have found it possible to keep far more closely to the scheme of the older orthodox dogmatics (conservatio, concursus, gubernatio) than I anticipated,” CD III/3, p. xii. CD IV/1, p. 9.

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Strictly, the second article of the creed qualifies the first, and the divine preserving begins with the particular act of grace that is the atonement. For this reason, Barth attends to Christ as “our Advocate” at the onset of §49.1.8 The divine preserving looks to the fact that the will of God is holy in a historical, concrete act. God’s volition is invested in Jesus Christ for the conservatio of the creature, and so the preserving will of God is described as a “holy will.”9 On account of Barth’s amplification of the orthodox doctrine, this gives the depth of the will of God a moral contour that is reassuring. Therefore, it is the intercession of Christ as priest that begins Barth’s account of divine providence in §49.10 In the eternal council of His grace as it is effective and revealed in Jesus Christ—His merciful will was to take up the cause of the creature against the non-existent [. . .] This is the eternal will of God fulfilled and accomplished once for all in time in Jesus Christ. And in the light of this will and work we have to regard the question of the conservatio of the creature as one which has already been decided. It does not stand in the obscurity of a hidden will of God which may be fulfilled in one way or may be fulfilled in another. It stands in the light of a will which has already been accomplished [. . . and] it has been promised and given to it to come to terms not with the non-existent, not with chaos, not with its own denial, but with God’s gracious intercession for it.11 Barth is explicitly interested in the importance of God’s holiness for specifying what he reveals about himself in providence. It is fitting, then, that he should argue that the Protestant orthodox fell short on precisely this point, as he thinks that they did not properly consider the full implications of the doctrine of justification by faith.12 As Barth sees it, the orthodox deserve the rebuke of nominalism because the holiness of God in the justification of the sinner was not given an adequate basis in the eternal life of God. Barth speaks of the “tragedy” of the Reformed doctrine of providence as stemming from this deficiency: They ventured it [the doctrine of providence]—and this we can and must describe as their tragic fault—only on the same presupposition of purely formal concepts of God and His will and work as that of their 8 10

11

9 CD III/3, p. 58. CD III/3, pp. 77–8. Likewise, he ends his whole paragraph on providence with an eye to divine holiness as well: “He [Christ] acknowledged the holiness of God, and in so doing He acknowledged the transgression and misery of man [. . .] This is how He loses His life. This is how He gains and saves it. As a Suppliant and nothing more, as One who in His supplication takes seriously both the holiness of God and the transgression of man, he is already heard and answered,” CD III/3, p. 275. 12 CD III/3, p. 79. CD III/3, p. 116.

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opponents. Naturally, they maintained and protested that the will and work of God is holy and just and good. But they could never explain or say how it is that those qualities can be ascribed to it.13 If the absence of divine holiness in providence characterizes the orthodox for Barth, he finds his own resolution in the Incarnation. Providence is a beneficium Christi,14 and Barth elaborates on the doctrine of the divine conservatio by noting that it has as its basis the term servatio: “Because servatio, therefore creation and therefore conservatio.”15 Preservation, then, is God’s faithfulness to creation, but both of these realities exist and are distinct on account of God’s atoning servatio.16 In this manner, the original orthodox view of divine preservation receives its correction in a “biblical-christological filling.”17 “Preservation as salvation,” as G. C. Berkouwer understands him, “is the theme around which Barth’s doctrine of providence is concentrated.”18 The atonement of Christ that makes providence possible does so because it is an expression of the doctrine of election. “Man is [. . .] as the creature of God and by divine providence—only as and because, before he himself was, there was in the will and purpose and decree of God this grace towards him.”19 Consequently, in the mystery of God’s determination in election, the history of the person of Jesus Christ “overlaps all others,” offering the benefit of the divine conservatio for all of creation.20 Barth says that the best “possibility of man” when Christ is forgotten is for him to be like sinking Peter “who without the hand of the Lord to save him and lift him up could only sink.”21 Rather, Christ intervenes in the place where his creatures are dependent upon his gracious work, and consequently, the Christian and non-Christian both stand under “the same determination.”22 M. Geiger 13 14

15 16

17 18 19 21

22

CD III/3, p. 115. Cf. §42.1, “Creation as Benefit”; “Creation, as it is known by the Christian, is benefit,” CD III/1, pp. 331–2; cf. CD III/3, pp. 62, 105. CD III/3, p. 80. Each of Barth’s part-sections in §49 includes a definitive term which describes his Christological application of the ethical content of the will of God for that particular locus. While Barth emphasizes servatio for conservatio in §49.1, in §49.2 he draws attention to the importance of iussio (i.e., the “command” of God, cf. CD III/3, pp. 143–4), and in §49.3 to ordinatio (for God’s gracious ordering of all things beneath his rule, cf. CD III/3, p. 164). Saxer, Vorsehung und Verheissung Gottes, p. 108. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, p. 71. 20 CD IV/1, p. 51. CD IV/3, p. 224. CD IV/2, p. 391; “No wonder we got so nervous and fearful when we look at the world’s disorder—as Peter looked at the stormy waves in which he was destined shortly to sink,” K. Barth, “The World’s Disorder and God’s Design,” The Congregational Quarterly 27.1 (1949), pp. 10–17 (p. 12). CD IV/3, p. 192.

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observes that Barth’s revised aim in §49.1 is that Immanuel, God with us, is constitutive for the history of the whole created order: God stands for the constancy and history of his creation in not only an accidental, but essential connection, which itself therein evinces, that he has time for his creature. He has associated himself with it, he co-exists with it, and he remains true [. . .] to a history of his own Lordship in this constancy of history. He attends himself to it in the omnipotence of his life as accompanier, and he binds himself with it through the Word, which he speaks to it. So Immanuel is the fundamental-basis (Grundwort) of the Christian faith in providence.23 The atonement of Christ gives God’s work in creating the world a determinate finality.24 The completeness of creation may be included in the divine preservation on account of the atonement.25 In making this point, Barth may have his eye on Schleiermacher, who deliberately fuses the three orthodox distinctions.26 Without knowledge of God as Creator in a final sense, the creature languishes in ambiguity and irony under the neo-protestant scheme: “the human has difficulty explaining to what extent she is a creature because she is constantly reaching beyond her createdness.”27 Without a final resting place within the created world, the creature can hardly have an adequate basis for offering praise to God. 23 25

26

27

24 Geiger, “Providentia dei,” p. 685. CD III/3, pp. 67–70. Creation can be said to be a complete act, as it refers to “a specific first time,” and providence is an ongoing one, as it is “the whole rest of time right up to its end,” CD III/3, p. 8. Schleiermacher not only merges together the doctrines of creation and preservation in CF §46, he rejects the threefold division entirely; F. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith (ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart; repr., London: T & T Clark, 2nd edn, 1830), pp. 176–8. This may have occasioned Barth’s quip about the “recent theology” that abrogates this distinction in the Göttingen period, cf. GD II, §20. For Schleiermacher, “The division of this theme into two separate doctrines—creation and providence—is merely traditional. There is no reason to retain it from the subject matter itself, since the consciousness of God as the Almighty does not imply any such division,” D. DeVries and B. A. Gerrish, “Providence and Grace: Schleiermacher on Justification and Election,” in J. Marina (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 189–207 (p. 191). With respect to providence, Barth seems to read Schleiermacher in a manner that reflects I. A. Dorner’s interpretation, asserting that, for Schleiermacher, the second article of the creed is not allowed to influence the first; cf. M. Gockel, “On the Way from Schleiermacher to Barth: A Critical Reappraisal of Isaak August Dorner’s Essay on Divine Immutability,” SJT 53 (2000): pp. 495–502; R. Sherman, “Isaak August Dorner on Divine Immutability: A Missing Link between Schleiermacher and Barth,” Journal of Religion 77 (1997), pp. 380–401 (p. 387). E. Busch, The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), p. 187.

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Barth’s use of the atonement in §49.1 broadly characterizes how, for him, the second article of the creed ought to clarify the first. The praise of the creature is a final test for whether or not this doctrine has truly undergone a correction that is radical enough. When the atonement truly points to the divine preserving, and when the doctrine of providence is specified as Christological in this manner, the full praise of the creature is truly enjoined. For Barth, the qualities of justice and holiness should be ascribed to the God of providence, and so the divine preservation is made to be a subcategory of God’s holy and just atoning work.

III. Barth’s Four Delineations for the Divine Preservation As Barth outlines roles for each of the covenantal partners in the divine preserving, he introduces four delineations. Conceptually, each statement has material significance for those that follow. First, the conservatio of God extends no further than the covenant of grace requires, which is a finite preservation in order that the creature should be a witness to the glory of God. This first delineation is a specific limit placed on the divine preserving due to its positioning within a dogmatic arrangement: “If God maintains the creature, then [. . .] there is no creaturely moment corresponding to His eternity.”28 If the creature were given an infinite existence, she would be another god and would not need a sustaining Lord. If this were hypothetically the case, the continual need of the creature for the divine conservatio would be undermined per definitionem. Barth’s first concern is also that the divine preserving must be corporately significant. The creature’s role as witness means that she is involved in a socially dynamic world. The theatrum gloria Dei must have its audience, and for this reason the “concrete meaning” of the creature’s existence is her assignment to be a witness of the kingdom of God to others.29 God’s preservation of the creature is consequently limited to this specific arena where a myriad of personal and temporal histories intersect.30 Social roles are required by the witnessing office of the creature because to testify is to live within a communicative context. The creature is determined to participate in the “continuing history of His people.”31 The limitation of the creature is a “participation” in eternal life, the life that is given by divine grace.32 If life were preserved indefinitely after death, it would render the grace of preservation superfluous, as God’s grace aims 28 30

31

29 CD III/3, p. 61. CD III/3, pp. 47–9. “Creaturely history can take place only amongst and on behalf of a plurality of many subjects which exist side by side”; CD III/3, p. 62. 32 CD III/3, p. 63. CD III/3, p. 63.

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to encourage the creature to witness to other finite creatures.33 Barth’s quotation of Augustine’s statement is telling: “And so they teach that the one holy church will remain forever.”34 In the case of this statement, Barth’s use of Augustine implies that there is no contradiction between the enduring nature of the church and the temporal limitation of each living being. The finite creature can be assured that her participation in the witnessing community is a participation in eternal life. Barth’s second delineation is that, by means of a free act of God, the creature may contribute to the manner in which the grace of God benefits the creature. On the basis of the freedom of God, he is able to use the free creature as a means for divine preservation. God issues a life to the creature that it truly has in itself, and this boundary is incomprehensible.35 God’s power is sufficiently a “power in another,” and so he can work in and through the creature as he effects this secondary preservation.36 While the grace that sustains the world is monocausal,37 when it comes to God’s preservation of the world, uniquely “He [also] does it by [. . .] maintaining the creature by means of the creature.”38 Barth’s logic must be carefully observed here. The creature is ordained as a temporal witness to others in space and time (delineation one), and therefore the creature is also given a constitutive role in sustaining the wider world (delineation two). This raises the obvious next question: to what extent does the creature effectively usher into history the grace of divine 33

34

35 37

Barth’s brief statement at the end of §49.1 against the concept of an afterlife is an aspect of his theology that sharply deviates from the Apostles’ Creed, in its reference to the resurrection of the body, cf. CD III/3, pp. 88–90. While in his later years, Barth does appropriate an afterlife into his theology on the basis of some exegetical concerns (CD IV/3, pp. 924–8), for the most part he maintains the position advocated in book three, which clearly repudiates the idea of a divine sustaining beyond death; cf. Kennedy, “A Personalist Doctrine of Providence,” pp. 157–8; Krötke, Sin and Nothingness in the Theology of Karl Barth, pp. 97–105; J. McDowell, Hope in Barth’s Eschatology: Interrogations and Transformations Beyond Tragedy (Burlington: Ashgate, 2000), p. 127. Rather, for Barth, the metaphor of “rest” is discussed as a beneficium Christi which is a working rest, right up to the end of life. Despite one cryptic reference to the resurrection of the body in CD III/3, p. 430, Barth categorically departs from the traditional view of an afterlife for a very different direction in this volume. G. C. Berkouwer’s criticism, while it lacks comprehensiveness and tact, is still pertinent on this point: Barth’s Christological methodology made it too difficult for him to discuss the afterlife in a meaningful way; Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, pp. 157–65. “Idem docent, quod una sancta ecclesia perpetuo mansura sit,” Aug., Conf., VIII in CD III/3, p. 63; Barth’s use of this phrase for this particular purpose means that the individual is assured that her own participation in “eternal life” is not in contradiction with her own social and temporal participation in the church’s ongoing life, which is a temporal participation. It is unclear if Barth truly thought this was Augustine’s intent. 36 CD III/3, p. 43. CD II/1, p. 538. 38 “Grace works directly or not at all,” CD III/3, p. 64. CD III/3, p. 65.

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preservation? Barth points out, however, that the question of “extent” is wrongheaded: one must assume a qualitative distinction between God and the creature when speaking of God’s enjoining the creature’s preserving cooperation. Further, inasmuch as Barth’s position on the qualitative distinction between God and the creature is due to his view of the voluntas beneplaciti as Christological, he must move against the traditional notion of the conservatio mediata as well. That is, God appoints all creatures to be witnesses within the context of creation as a whole. Against the orthodox, Barth insists that the creature that preserves his neighbor does not do so because he belongs to a certain class of creatures (i.e., those who are elect as opposed to the nonelect). Barth points out that the theologians of the enlightenment describe a cooperative creature in a universal context, but without a normative Christology. While the creature does in fact sustain his neighbor, this can be exaggerated if the qualitative distinction of God’s action is not safeguarded in Christ. The freedom of the creature can be taken to an extreme when speaking of the creature’s preservation of the creature, unwittingly deifying the world over and against God. Barth notes that R. A. Lipsius in the nineteenth century moves very close to asserting that the created order has its own aseity. He “identif[ied] the sustaining activity of God with the uniformity which rules in all things.”39 As Barth frequently sides with the orthodox in his discussions on divine action, he attends to J. Gerhard, “who was also from Jena,” to correct this example. Gerhard understood the divine “conservatio [. . . as] a continuous influxus, which means an incessant co-operation.”40 Second, the orthodox are a test case for what happens to the qualitative distinction if it is not safeguarded with an expansive soteriology (such as Barth’s). While the orthodox understand the qualitative distinction, Barth thinks they misappropriate it without focusing on the universal implications of the work of Christ. In Barth’s saying that Gerhard was “also from Jena” there is a tone of subtle irony in his description. As the orthodox did not have a material reason for the solution they affirmed “unanimously and resolutely,” their stated position also included a “tragic” seed.41 As Barth sees it, even among the orthodox, their safeguard against an autonomous creation was more formal than material. The eventual identification of the self-sustaining power of creation with the creature itself rather than God’s free conservatio “is not basically excluded” by the orthodox.42 As the 39

40 41

CD III/3, p. 66; Hägglund points out that, for Barth, this view caused a “confusion between the preservation [and] the essence of creation.” Eventually, Lipsius caused “an abandoning of faith in creation,” Hägglund, “Die Vorsehungslehre bei Karl Barth,” p. 45. Hägglund, “Die Vorsehungslehre bei Karl Barth,” p. 45. 42 CD III/3, pp. 67, 115. CD III/3, p. 67.

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orthodox did not attend to a soteriological distinction between God and the creature, they failed to see the “nexus of being” as a free witness. Rather, the orthodox assigned a conservatio immediata to some creatures and not to others because their view of salvation drew a cleft between one creature and the other.43 Lacking an adequate statement for the way the grace of God is universal in the divine conservatio, the orthodox could find no concrete basis for safeguarding divine action against the question of “extent.” Rather, Barth thinks that the qualitative distinction of God’s action can only be safeguarded in a material sense when the divine preserving is made a subcategory of the atonement. As is often the case, another pertinent reason for this sweeping criticism of Barth’s is his own constructive position: he regards the creature as a witness (delineation one). What is at issue here for Barth is the completeness of the whole created order, and his need to safeguard God as the only One who dispenses grace. Like John the Baptist in M. Grünewald’s portrayal of the crucifixion, the creature is determined by God to stand at the side of the crucified, and to point only to the Lamb of God. The creature is called to point to the reality that places all earthly life “under the same determination.”44 In this manner, Barth utilizes his first delineation to clarify what he means by his second, that the witnessing role of the creature means that God stands above all of creation in his conservatio. This is the “conclusion a maiori ad minus” that he is looking for: In the light of the fatherly sovereignty of God in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, in which the meaning of creaturely existence is manifested in its office as a witness to fellow-creatures of the grace of God, the identification of this existence with God the Father, and of the sustaining power of this existence with the sustaining power of God, is basically excluded.45 Barth furthers his explication of conservatio with a third assertion, that the creature’s witnessing to God’s work is its active offering of thanks to God for the completeness of creation on the basis of election. On account of God’s choice to elect the creature, he is also compelled to preserve her. With full assurance, the creature can praise her Creator because God

43

44

Barth’s chief example for this is Aquinas, who he surmises: “Thomas did not intend this conservatio secundem ordinem to apply to the whole of created reality, but only to a part, the other part being obviously reserved as the object of a conservatio immediata.” Essentially, Barth sees this particular grace of God in Aquinas to be selective, which for him indicates a capricious mode for the divine sustaining. Barth sees a reversal of God’s relation with the world as eventual here as the tradition accepts “the caprice of a temporally conditioned natural philosophy”; CD III/3, p. 66. 45 CD IV/3, p. 192. CD III/3, p. 67.

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“necessarily” preserves the creature.46 The constancy of God means that he will remain faithful to the “purpose” in history he has chosen in election.47 However, this compulsion, this “necessity” of God’s conservatio is not on account of or “in virtue of His Godhead.”48 God preserves the creature strictly because of election, as election in this case appoints a particular task to the divine constancy: “If we describe the preservation of the creature as a divine act [. . .] we must be quite clear that by this we mean simply that God continues to be [. . .] the God who on the basis of the election of grace elects it to its own specific being and existence.”49 The creature is to recognize this particular “fact” of her own preservation with “surprise and wonder and praise and thanksgiving.”50 Thankfulness is a response to God that recognizes the creation as already complete. God’s act of creation is not insecure, and so the creature may thank him that she lives within an ordered reality: “And to the praise of the Creator there definitely belongs gratitude for an order.”51 If the creature’s being were incomplete, how could earnest thankfulness ensue? If the creature were to, by means of praise, somehow realize her own completeness, how could her thankfulness be given to a praiseworthy God? If this were the case, the creature would enjoy no freedom from the threat of non-being. The proper response of the creature to the divine preserving is inherently enjoined in election, and this determination of God is made concrete in the atonement. The atonement provides an initial defeat of Nothingness in which creation is granted an essence; this victory is reinstantiated in the divine preserving by means of a separate and free act of God. On the basis of this same work of Christ, one can say that the creature is continually sustained, and thus is able to give thanks to God for the plentiful gift of life. For Barth, the creature does not exist in a fluctuation between “being and non-being and being.”52 With the safeguard of servatio firmly in place, the threat of the Nihil cannot touch the essence of the creature in creation or in conservatio. The atonement of Christ grounds the praise of the creature, and this effectively contextualizes the divine preservation. The finality of this act of God waits for the human “Yes” that is uttered in response to it: When He sacrificed Himself in the death of His Son for man, when He declared His severity and mercy to him in His resurrection from the dead, did He not do something supreme and final which renders quite superfluous any correspondence on the part of man? [. . .] Its purpose is obviously this—that God will not allow His last Word to be fully spoken or the consummation determined and accomplished and proclaimed by Him to take place in its final form until He has first heard a human response to it, a human Yes; until His grace has found its 46 50

CD III/3, p. 72. CD III/3, p. 68.

47 51

CD II/1, pp. 504, 515. CD III/1, p. 371.

48 52

CD III/3, p. 73. CD III/3, p. 68.

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CD III/3, p. 71.

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correspondence in a voice of human thanks from the depths of the world reconciled with Himself; until here and now, before the dawning of His eternal Sabbath, He has received praise from the heart of His human creation.53 The centrality of election also leads Barth to his fourth and prominent delineation: the creature’s need for preservation from the Nihil can only be apprehended from the standpoint of her own thankfulness in a commendation of the Word of God. Barth is consistent with his commitment to the task of theology as concrete and particular in his treatment of das Nichtige here; he wants his account to be “considered seriously from the theological standpoint.”54 Barth asks, then, at the beginning of his fourth statement, the question that distinguishes his view of evil from his predecessors, from Augustine to Leibniz: “why is it that the creature is menaced by nothingness, menaced in such a way that it needs the divine preservation and sustaining?”55 The “menacing” character of non-being is what sets Barth’s position apart from all previous orthodox theologians, who thought in “philosophical” terms.56 And while Barth adds one difficulty upon another in using the concepts of “nothing” and “non-being” equivocally, he clearly does not point to a spatial or temporal vacuum.57 For Barth, the Nihil or “non-being” of the orthodox conception can only be pictured by means of a negation of created being.58 If nothingness is not a negation of anything more transcendent than the physical existence of the creature, then it logically cannot threaten the very act of creation at the moment of its inception. When the Nihil is thought of “metaphysically” it can only be a privation of what is already physically there.59 For Barth, there are two consequences to this: first, the Nihil turns out to be a benign context, a context which God accepts, for his original creatio ex nihilo. For Barth, this complicates the holiness of God. Second, God’s negation of 53 55 56

57

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54 CD IV/1, pp. 736–7. CD III/3, p. 75. CD III/3, pp. 75–6; cf. Berkouwer, The Providence of God, pp. 236–9. They thought of it “only in a metaphysical and not in a theological sense,” CD III/3, p. 75. I am in agreement with W. Krötke’s observations about the lack of clarity in Barth’s use of terms such as “non-being” and “nothingness”; cf. Krötke, Sin and Nothingness in the Theology of Karl Barth, pp. 39–48. Throughout this study, I maintain that this matter can be clarified more extensively when discussed in the context of Barth’s view of the Christian’s participatio Christi. For further discussion, see the following chapters on §49.3, §49.4, §50, and §51. A “formal antithesis to being,” CD III/3, p. 75. B. Hägglund notes Barth’s treatment is very different from the Protestant orthodox on this point, as the non-being that threatens the creature is much more “rich in content” for him. The “nothingness” that threatens the creature is not just “an antithesis to essence and existence”; rather, it is “an enemy power against God, whereof the creation is rescued through the conservatio,” Hägglund, “Die Vorsehungslehre bei Karl Barth,” p. 45.

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non-being is never final in such a way that his creatures can be enjoined to thank him for his initial act of creation in the midst of their preservation. At once, this version of evil threatens both aspects of Barth’s radical correction of the Protestant orthodox: the praiseworthiness of God and the doxology of the creature as they are both contextualized by his doctrine of election. Barth reasons that if God creates “out of nothing,” in terms of non-being, he does, in some sense, accept nothingness as a context for his own action. He quotes J. H. Heidegger, again,60 on this point: “All creatures, since [. . . they] are from nothing, to that extent share in nothing [. . .] and are in need of some external power for every moment that they exist.”61 Clearly, here the Nihil is the same privation of being in creation as it is for preservation. Barth moves against this with an emphasis on the holiness of God. God’s permissio of the Nihil is in no way an acceptance of it.62 He revises his conception of non-being as das Nichtige, which is understood to be the same enemy of God in both cases—in creation as well as in providence. The creature can be thankful for an “already/not-yet” victory over evil within the context of the divine sustaining.63 It is on the basis of Barth’s controversial exegesis of Gen. 1.2 that this becomes a possibility for him.64 Second, Barth reasons that, if the faithfulness of God is complicit in nonbeing at the onset of creation, as it would be in the orthodox case, fretfulness alone can result for the recipient of the divine conservatio. What grounds can there be for the creature’s thankfulness for the divine preservation? How can the creature thank God for a victory that is already complete if the Nihil continues to threaten? Does this not imply the possibility that God’s initial will to create is somehow ineffective, only extending the life of the creature into a history of ambiguity? How is the truncated act of creation in this scenario supposed to encourage a sense of relief and joy on the part of the creature? For Barth, these potential challenges would count as signs that an abstraction has crept into the tradition. When the theologian only considers God’s conservatio from a metaphysical standpoint, he endangers the gratitude of the creature. The importance of participatory thankfulness returns Barth to his criticism that the tradition has defined non-being against a generic concept of being. For Barth, the doctrine of continuous creation widens the gates further for a metaphysical 60

61

62 63

64

Barth looks to Heidegger in several places on this point at Göttingen: “since all creatures are ex nihilo and so partake de nihilo, they exist prosdeomenoi in everything, in need of another’s strength at every moment,” GD II, §20. “Creaturae omnes, cum ex nihilo sint adeoque de nihilo participent [ . . . ] indigae virtutis alienate quocunque momento existunt,” CD III/3, p. 75. CD IV/3, p. 196. I expound on Barth’s “already/not yet” understanding of the kingdom in the following chapter on §49.3 “The Divine Ruling.” CD III/3, p. 75; For a good discussion of Barth’s exegesis of Gen. 1.2, cf. Krötke, Sin and Nothingness in the Theology of Karl Barth, pp. 35–9.

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intrusion.65 On account of his doctrine of election, however, Barth can say that the Nihil is inimical to creation in both physical and moral senses. From the standpoint of election, Barth’s answer to his own question about the “menacing” reality of das Nichtige consistently views it as antichrist: “What makes non-being a menace, an enemy which is superior to created being [. . .] is [. . .] the fact that it is not elected and willed by God the Creator but rather rejected and excluded.”66 Barth understands the onset of creation to be a holy act on the basis of election, victorious over a menacing Nothingness. That is, if God’s will in the divine sustaining is to be celebrated, it must be thoroughly moral. In short, if praise is to continue to happen in the context of divine conservation, God’s sovereign will must be his holy and electing will, the will of God in Jesus Christ. In God’s action in the Incarnation, whereby he fulfills his pledge of election, the creature is called to participate in Christ in thankfulness and praise. In other words, Barth has a thankful reason for rejecting the orthodox distinction between the voluntas beneplaciti and the voluntas signi. The Incarnation reveals that divine preservation occurs so that the creature may thankfully participate in Jesus Christ: It [God’s eternal council] stands in the light of a will which has already been accomplished and revealed, of a servatio which has already been fulfilled [. . . and] He does so because its [the creature’s] destiny is to participate in this work of salvation. And for this participation it must be able to be; it must have permanence and continuity.67 On account of his concern for a theologically specific “church” dogmatics, Barth employs the doctrines of election and atonement in order to radically correct the Protestant orthodox view of God’s conservatio. The cross provides Barth with a more clear perspective for discussing a Nihil that corresponds with the ironic and tragic nature of sin, assaulting Christ on the cross on the basis of God’s spoken “No” in election.68 It is from this elevated position that is given to the doctrine of election prior to providence that Barth can say that Nothingness is characterized by opposition to God’s will within the context of his initial act of creation. It is also from this high point that the creature can be assured and can thank God that das Nichtige is 65

66

67 68

Among the Protestant orthodox, Barth finds that Coccejus taught “continuous creation,” as well as “many others” who utilized the concept with “enthusiasm,” CD III/3, p. 70. CD III/3, p. 76; see T. Gorringe’s creative comparison between Barth’s view of the Nihil and W. Benjamin’s discussion of the “Antichrist”; T. Gorringe, Against Hegemony: Christian Theology in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 185. CD III/3, p. 79. See the following chapter on §50 for a fuller account of Barth’s “Yes” and “No” language with regard to his theology of Nothingness.

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already defeated therein, and can consequently be freely thankful for an ordered life in and through the divine conservatio. For Barth, thankfulness can only thrive if creation is complete, and if the Nihil is consequently defined in this way. Broadly, this is his way of reading the first article of the creed in the light of the second. As Barth works through his fourth delineation on Christ’s victory over das Nichtige, it is vital for him that he should speak from the vantage point of praise, from the vantage point of his third delineation. Human agency has been enjoined as a witnessing “liturgical assistant [. . .] to God” in delineation two;69 and Barth has defined thankfulness as grounded in the completeness of God’s creative action in delineation three. Barth’s treatment of conservatio, which must include a distinction between true history and the Nothingness that threatens it, explicitly views this contrast from the standpoint of a theology of participation in Christ. Christ intercedes for the world as priest because “its destiny is to participate in this work of salvation.”70 One of the thankful acts of the creature is to actively distinguish between creation and das Nichtige. This practice praises God the Creator. To thank God for the order that he has instantiated is to thank him that there is something that is historical, something rather than nothing. This thankfulness, on the part of the creature, likewise casts das Nichtige out of history in a relative sense. This participation is thankful praise, and it is also an active faith that sustains others. In this sense, Barth’s doctrine of providence anticipates some concerns articulated by more recent theologians, who treat the question of divine action from the vantage point of invocatio. Prayer can be employed as a safeguard for theology from the unhelpful employment of rough concepts when talking about divine action.71 God grants the faith that is assured of preservation so that the creature can freely sustain his or her neighbor. This faith is a wellspring for knowledge of the divine conservatio. M. T. Dempsey finds this to be prominent in Barth’s text: “We know that we are preserved by God only because God first preserves us in faith. After we acknowledge this preservation in faith, we then may come to know God’s general or ontological preservation on this basis.”72 Thus, God maintains “the creature by means of the creature.”73 Barth’s discussion of the active thankfulness that cancels the Nihil introduces a difficult tension: how can creation be complete and Nothingness 69 71

72

73

70 CD III/3, p. 65. CD III/3, p. 79. C. Schwöbel and M. Horton both invoke prayer as a means for purifying theological discourse from unhelpful abstractions; cf. M. Horton, Lord and Servant: A Covenant Christology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), pp. 18–19; C. Schwöbel, God: Action and Revelation (Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1992), pp. 23–8. Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 260; W. A. Whitehouse, Creation, Science & Theology: Essays in Response to Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), p. 38. CD III/3, p. 65.

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still be a threat in the divine preserving? In order to secure the doctrine of conservatio, the question of theodicy must be traversed without losing the finality of God’s creative action in his initial act, cancelling das Nichtige at the onset of creation. The doctrine also asserts, furthermore, that the praise of the creature is a legitimate act of exorcism within the confines of the continuation of space and time. This means that the Nihil, while cancelled, still continues to threaten somehow amidst the divine preservation. The reality of das Nichtige also continues “in its own curious fashion,” seeking to annihilate the creature.74 Indeed, the reality of Nothingness will continue for the creature to the extent that she fails to “pray without ceasing.” Without explaining the tension away, Barth’s solution for this question is to write the Christian’s participation in Christ into the fabric of his theological discourse. It is not given to the creature to reach beyond the capacity of a theologia viatorum that simply rejects Nothingness. For this reason, even the abstract question of the Nihil in §49.1 is preceded by a statement on the creature’s thankfulness. Not even the theologian can stand above the problem of the Nihil and ask the question that Adam and Eve asked without stumbling.75 Rather, the theologian’s whole approach to the question of das Nichtige is fundamentally ordered by prayer. In speaking of the problem of hominum confusione et providentia Dei in history, Barth says that distinguishing between the light and darkness in human history is a matter for the Christian’s voluntary participation in the resurrection of Christ. The kingdom of God has already come, and also it is still not-yet. It is in the sense of this not-yet that the Nihil continues to threaten the creature. Barth mediates between saying that das Nichtige is cancelled and that it continues in saying that the Christian’s belief in providence is a “practical recognition” of both realities.76 As the new reality of world history is made known to the people of God in Jesus Christ, it [i.e., the community] is enabled, permitted and commanded to see things very differently in practice, to participate in world history very differently in its own attitude and action, than is the case with those who do not yet have knowledge of this new reality . . . In its faith, which is both knowledge and obedience, it affirms already the transformation in which world-occurrence will be presented to it and to all humanity in the final, universal and definitive revelation of Jesus Christ, accepting the fact that this transformation has already taken place in His life and death and resurrection.77

74 77

CD III/3, p. 360. CD IV/3, p. 716.

75

CD III/3, pp. 355–6.

76

CD III/3, p. 14.

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IV. Conclusion The Lord’s Prayer is initially a prayer of Jesus Christ to his Father. In the same way, in order for theology to work correctly, the theologian must pray this prayer after the manner of Christ. Therefore, for the one who prays the Lord’s Prayer, she participates in providence in such a way that she recognizes history to be a “hallowed situation.” Theology is a gift, just as the Lord’s Prayer is, and it apprehends history in this way. This theological prayer remains true, not because it is conceptually impressive, but because of the One from which it is derived. History is not divorced from Christ’s rulership, then, and it is practically seen as holy because God has hallowed it, and continues to do so because of the atoning work of Christ. History is also continually hallowed by the Christian who expels the Nihil from history in her own relative way. The creature’s assurance of providence is real when theology is done within the parameters of this second-person address to the God who is praiseworthy in Jesus Christ. Therefore, prayer is even a kind of mysterious, albeit indirect self-preservation: the “command to be holy is not a command which man might or might not fulfill. But as a divine command it is simply the command of self-preservation. In the presence of God man stands or falls as he becomes holy.”78 Despite sin, the divine conservatio continues on because Jesus Christ prays in the creature’s place when and where she falls short of the holiness of God. Failing to pray, however, is not the creature’s cancellation of her own participatio Christi. Rather, to fail to pray is still to participate in Jesus Christ as a witness, but as a witness that only points to him indirectly. To pray actively, however, is to participate in Christ in a voluntary manner, consenting to the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit and commending the Word of God. At the onset of Barth’s account of providence in §49, the tension between voluntary and involuntary participation in Christ arises where the question of the Nihil is raised. Some creatures seize the opportunity they have for giving thanks to God on account of his conservatio. This is a positive expression of God’s will, and therefore, it is also an expression of the sense in which the Nihil is already expelled from history at Golgotha. However, the reality of das Nichtige also continues to threaten in a different sense. There is a tension between these two perspectives and this tension drives Barth’s account of providence forward. In the following three chapters, I point out that Barth describes this tension as a “calm” one within the context of the Christian’s participatio Christi.79 Therefore, evil and providence are not a conceptual paradox. They are only appropriately and practically apprehended at the footstool of Christ the King.

78

CD II/1, p. 364.

79

CD III/3, p. 189.

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4 §49.2, the divine accompanying

Jesus Christ is the end of all and the centre to which all tends. Whoever knows Him, knows the reason of everything.1

I. Introduction Throughout III/3, prayer plays a very special role for Barth’s understanding of God’s secret work in the world. Therefore, he aims to articulate his doctrine according to the lex orandi. Especially in his section on concursus, Barth does not piously adopt an approach to the doctrine of providence that is simply “prayerful.” Rather, as he argues that God accosts all creatures to pray, he prays his own way through the doctrine of providence itself. Barth prays in this manner because this stance for the creature is the only appropriate one for the theologian. Barth’s discussion of concursus raises questions about how a prayerful approach to divine providence shapes the material content of the doctrine. Frequently borrowing language from the Lord’s Prayer, Barth indicates that the creature is determined to be God’s “partner” on account of his sovereign election. Therefore, Barth’s doctrine of concursus is notably set apart from other approaches in that he understands creaturely agency as fundamentally moral. In this chapter, I attend to all of these aspects of Barth’s doctrine and then turn to the question of the Spirit’s action in concursus, which has constitutive importance for the whole of III/3.

1

B. Pascal, Pensées (ed. M. J. Adler; trans. W. F. Trotter; Great Books of the Western World, vol. 33; Chicago: William Benton, 1952), p. 271.

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II. The Question of Concursus The doctrine of concursus is a challenging one, and it has pervasive implications for the rest of the Church Dogmatics. Barth notes that, with a “profound sigh” Francis Turretin finds this matter to be among the most difficult in all theology.2 While some thinkers would even like to avoid the doctrine, no Christian theologian seems to be able to hide from it. Whenever God is said to “do” something within the context of creation, whether it be justification, sanctification, or even the inspiration of the Bible, a view of concursus remains implicit. For this reason, theological thinkers have everything to gain from clarifying exactly what this doctrine means. Concursus must follow the doctrine of conservatio, for a creature that is not sustained can make no real contribution to history. Once the reality of the creature is preserved, however, another host of questions arise: If God accompanies the creature that he sustains, does he bless the act of sin performed by it? If the God who accompanies the creature is, in fact, holy, why doesn’t his power expel all immorality? How does concursus not confuse the way the nature of God is thought of as inherently good amidst his sustaining and accompanying of the creature’s sinful act? In a way, concursus can appear to come close to offering sin an established place within God’s economy. Consequently, the ongoing relation of God with his creature tempts the theologian to resort to paradox. H. Schmid explains this hesitation over the doctrine: it is “the most difficult problem in the science of theology [. . . because it tries to establish] the method of the divine concurrence in the evil actions of men, without at the same time in any wise throwing the blame of the evil upon the first cause, i.e., upon God.”3 G. C. Berkouwer even rejects this doctrine out of frustration. He criticizes concursus on the whole and sees the Thomist view as complicit in a dogmatic confusion: “The result was that both good and evil had to be deduced in the same way” in Thomas’ account of “causality.”4 While Barth does construct his own doctrine of concursus, Berkouwer’s complaint against it does reflect, in a sense, Barth’s own mindset. His already noted interest is focused on divine holiness in the making of his radical correction of the Protestant orthodox; God’s resolute dismissal of evil likewise plays an important role in §49.2. Essentially, Barth’s view of

2

3

4

Quaesto de concursus Dei est ext difficillimis, quae in theologia occurrunt; “The question of the divine accompanying is one of the most difficult that arises in theology,” CD III/3, p. 97. Turretin emphasizes the pervasive impact a doctrine of divine concursus has for the rest of a dogmatic vision: “error is most dangerous” at this point; Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, p. 505. Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2008), p. 159. Berkouwer, The Providence of God, pp. 156–7.

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concursus does not simply address the creature’s being, but his moral life as well. Just as the divine conservatio is about a “hallowed situation,” so concursus is concerned with an enactment of God’s holy will in and through a history. Differing from the rest of the theological tradition, Barth’s solution for the doctrine of concursus is focused on disallowing a constitutive role for the causal concept. Rather, fixing his gaze on God in Jesus Christ, the problem of divine concursus becomes much less problematic for him and is set firmly within the context of the risen King. That is, Barth does not so much provide a set of rules for explicating how God’s action in history can be made intelligible (e.g., Kathryn Tanner’s reading), or a cluster of motifs that can be used for loosely relating divine providence with Christology (e.g., George Hunsinger’s reading).5 Instead, Barth safeguards his position against speculation about the divine essence by registering his dogmatic treatment of concursus within the context of faithful prayer, a praying after the manner of Jesus Christ. Barth’s concern in this section is to indicate that God’s will is done in concursus in a Christological manner, and is faithfully and theologically commended in the theologian’s own reiteration of the Lord’s

5

Quite often, accounts of Barth’s doctrine of concursus tend to treat it in isolation from its ordered placement within his whole doctrine of providence. K. Tanner, G. Hunsinger, G. W. Love, and H. Hempelmann all focus only on concursus apart from the rest of III/3 in their exposition. Treating Barth’s doctrine of concursus in this way, however, avoids his explicit reasons for placing his account within the context of a larger explication of divine providence. Barth does not even find concursus to be the most significant aspect of the doctrine, as he takes his section on gubernatio to be uniquely “decisive”; CD III/3, p. 154. Accounts that isolate Barth’s view of concursus, then, need to exercise methodological caution. Readings that understand Barth to be reconstructing or reiterating a set of cultural–linguistic rules (e.g., K. Tanner) or a list of literary motifs (e.g., G. Hunsinger) seem to inevitably mistake the specific register of prayer for Barth’s employment of theological language. In particular, Love’s account is influenced by Hunsinger’s and Tanner’s methodology, and in the end, he criticizes Barth for not adequately developing a worldview, an approach Barth explicitly rejects in §48.1; CD III/3, pp. 16–18; cf. Hunsinger, How To Read Karl Barth, pp. 185–224; Love, “The Role of the Holy Spirit,” p. 458; Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology, pp. 81–119. Approaches that see Barth’s doctrine as a reiteration of a “Chalcedonian pattern” especially risk oversimplifying the distinction Barth draws between God’s mediation in providence and the particularity of the Incarnation: “In relation to the providence of God we may indeed ask whether the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is not surpassed and superseded by the general maintaining and accompanying and ruling of all being and occurrence which He never relinquishes. Is it really anything more than one event within the general concursus divinus (CD, III/3, §49.2)? [ . . . ] It is one thing that God is present in and with everything that is and occurs [ . . . ] but it is quite another that He Himself became and is man. Even this union and unity cannot therefore be compared or exchanged with the unio personalis in Jesus Christ,” CD IV/2, pp. 52–3.

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Prayer: “This is how it is provided that His will is done on earth as it is in heaven, that nothing may or can take place as the action of the creature which is not in a very definite sense His own action.”6 With the Lord’s Prayer in mind, Barth explicates the doctrine of concursus in §49.2 according to the lex orandi. One can only describe concursus when praying through the doctrine; we can only render “an account to it rather than of it.”7 Barth’s later essay on the theological role of prayer in Evangelical Theology also mentions this straightforwardly, that the “object of theological work is not some thing but some one.”8 Only participation in Christ gives the theologian a proper ethical stance for explicating God’s general mercy on the creature. Prayer also places epistemic limits on the theologian. One can only properly understand God’s historical relation with the creature as a “cause” when certain constraints are observed. When the question of freedom is posed in the abstract, the theologian will only think “of” this reality; that is, he will raise the concursus question philosophically. This attempt will preclude any Christological solutions from the foreground and will eventually threaten human freedom. C. Schwöbel reminds us of this: “Where human freedom is seen as absolute, a God who is claimed to be absolute can only appear as a threat to freedom.”9 Furthermore, Barth maintains that versions of divine concursus which attempt to render an account of this reality actually suffer from a “fear complex.” The theologian who explicates concursus in the abstract secretly thinks that God is actually “a kind of stranger or alien or even enemy to the creature.”10 Barth finds that there is only one methodological solution for curing this problem: “this habit will not go out of us except by prayer and fasting.”11 In prayer, the theologian’s freedom is practiced in and through the way that theology is done.12 This is a “rendering” of concursus “to” God, a rendering that commends Jesus Christ’s prayer for the cosmos in and through a concretely lived life. When the theologian prays, her theology is born out of a real participation in Christ and, once again, she finds that his 6 9

10 12

7 8 CD III/3, p. 93. CD III/3, p. 109. ET, p. 163. C. Schwöbel, “Imago Libertatis: Human and Divine Freedom,” in Colin E. Gunton (ed.), God and Freedom: Essays in Historical and Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995), p. 70. 11 CD III/3, p. 146. CD III/3, p. 148. J. McDowell has recently focused on this theme of Barth’s, recognizing that true prayer is inconsistent with the imaginative thoughts that reduce divine action to a generic view of causality: “Enquiries about prayer’s meaning begin with, and are dominated by, questions of efficacy [. . .] only when reflections are improperly abstracted from the irreducible actuality of grace and disorderedly assume a ‘success-oriented’ perspective and an instrumentalizing of ‘god’;” J. C. McDowell, “‘Openness to the World’ Karl Barth’s Evangelical Theology of Christ as the Pray-er” (Unpublished conference paper, American Academy of Religion; San Diego, 2007).

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Father is Father over all things: the theologian “sees the Son,” and therefore “sees the Father, the ‘God over us.’ ”13 This participatio Christi is made possible at the behest of the will of God in Jesus Christ: “God is the Father of Jesus Christ, and that very man Jesus Christ has prayed, and he is praying still. Such is the foundation of our prayer in Jesus Christ. It is as if God himself has pledged to answer our request because all our prayers are summed up in Jesus Christ; God cannot fail to answer, since it is Jesus Christ who prays.”14 When God’s creatures pray, they truly act.15 According to Barth, this “acting” is a motion that is completely circumscribed by the intercession of Jesus Christ. For this reason, our prayers are always answered in him before they are offered; God’s intercession for every creature in Christ means that he “accompanies” all creatures at all times. The notes from Barth’s seminar on the Lord’s Prayer according to the Reformation catechisms (contemporaneous with his writing of III/3) show that, for Barth, this prayerful relation that the creature has with Christ has theological implications for concursus.16 We should not quibble over the philosophical notion of “causality.” Rather, when we pray, we bring our own “cause” to God in the sense that we bring our own plight before God. In doing this, we realize that, as God’s creatures, our “cause” is truly enfolded by his “cause” in Christ. The terminological similarity with Barth’s doctrine of concursus is inadvertent but it points to the heart of the matter. This version of dual-causality serves to jettison any notion of fatalism before God. God’s “cause” enfolding ours is the mystery that is imbedded in the relation between the first and second half of the Lord’s Prayer: We are not there for God’s cause; we must bring forward our own cause also, while making it fit into God’s. It would therefore be dangerous to omit the last three petitions, for then there would be, on the one hand, an ecclesiastical, theological, metaphysical sphere, and, on the other hand, a sphere concerned with money, sex, business, and social relationships. There would thus be two compartments. Now, whether you wish it or not, there is only one [. . .] Such is the case

13

14 15 16

CD III/3, p. 29; “Only as that which we know elsewhere as the father-son relation is transcended by the Word of Christ the Crucified and Risen, only as it is interpreted by this Word, which means, in this case, only as it acquires from this Word a meaning which it cannot have of itself, only in this way may we see what creation means,” CD I/1, pp. 389–90. Prayer, p. 14. Prayer, p. 14; cf. “Prayer as a Human Act,” pp. 18–21. Prayer, p. vii; Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, pp. 342–3.

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because it is Jesus Christ who invites us to pray with him, because in him these two causes are one. Therefore it is important to understand in the Lord’s Prayer the difference between these two parts, but also their unity [. . .] we ourselves must benefit from his action, not as spectators, nor by giving ourselves the role of indispensable collaborators, but by praying, by concerning ourselves with him, with what he is doing. Therein is the true collaboration. God invites us to address ourselves to him while understanding that his cause and ours are intimately united, that our cause is comprehended within his. We come, then, as human beings, and we are there before him, disposed to live in the wholeness of these two causes. All is contained in God’s liberty, in his sovereignty. It is not a sort of necessity of fatality; but God is our Father, and he wills that we be with him.17 A prayerful response to the Word of God is the telos of God’s intent in his concurring action. This means concursus holds three distinct truths in tension, which must be consented to in order for prayer to happen. First, God goes with the creature that continues to exist in se on account of the doctrine of conservatio. “The holy will of God [. . .] continue[s] to be a Yes.”18 Second, this continuance means the autonomy of the creature within this change. God conjoins his action with the “autonomous actuality and therefore the autonomous activity of the creature.”19 Third, God accompanies the creature in his Lordly presence in spite of the flux of natural things. It is the phrase “as the Lord” that he focuses on when speaking of God’s transcendence in concursus: God “goes with it [the creature] as the Lord.”20 In this manner, Barth aims to reiterate “the Reformed standpoint” when speaking of concursus.21 All three of these statements are made by him as properly distinct truths without slighting the pervasive sovereignty of God or the freedom of the creature. Therefore, Barth does not just repeat the orthodox arrangement; for him, concursus naturally follows conservatio because God wills that the sustained creature should pray.

III. Background to Concursus in §49.2 a. The Moral Aspect—a Prayerful Partnership in Christ With the importance of prayer in mind, Barth’s introduction to concursus mentions the ethical aspect of his doctrine within the context of the Spirit’s

17 20

Prayer, pp. 29–31. CD III/3, p. 93.

18 21

CD III/3, p. 78. CD III/3, p. 96.

19

CD III/3, p. 92.

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action.22 The divine accompanying must have an ethical aspect, as the orders “of being” and “of morals” are subjected to a “radical correction” throughout III/3. Providence is never just an act of God that presides over natural, corporal essences. Rather, in the Word, God discloses that the creature should obey him, even in the most remote spheres of the created world.23 The Holy Spirit, who effects the beneficia Christi for all of history, brings this obedience about at the behest of Christ’s will: “All that happens between God and man takes place quite freely, in the freedom of the Spirit [. . .] The Fatherly lordship of the Creator; the childlike obedience of the creature; and the Spirit in whom both take place together.”24 Since the doctrine of concursus has obedience as its telos, it does not describe a mere coexistence. The meaning of “co-existence (Zusammensein)” for Barth is more than a sharing of space and time with an other.25 God’s presence in concursus actually accosts the creature to obey his command. For this reason, Barth’s “material” discussion of the doctrine reaches a climactic point where he describes God’s command as constitutive for concursus.26 The command of God in concursus comes upon the creature who is accosted by God to praise him. Therefore, it is fitting that his doctrine is a pursuit of the theological task in and through a concrete act of praise. In order for an apprehension of God as qualitatively distinct to take place in this doctrine of providence, God must be apprehended as praiseworthy. This, in turn, means that the God who presides over the creature in the divine accompanying must be a holy God who cannot but “command” the creature. Again, Barth understands this to be consistent with the praiseworthiness of the God of Reformed theology, who is not only exalted above all praise but is especially known as praiseworthy because he commands:

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Barth notes the special importance of the Holy Spirit for establishing the creature’s prayerful knowledge of God in CD II/1, pp. 9, 48, 157, 510–11; IV/1, pp. 736–9; “Our knowledge of God is always compelled to be a prayer of thanksgiving, penitence and intercession,” CD II/1, p. 223. W. S. Johnson confirms the importance of obedience for Barth’s account of providence: “God permits our freedom. God desires our obedience. When we render that obedience, our freedom becomes freedom in the truest sense [. . .] We must conceive the activity of God and that of the obedient creature together ‘as a single action’ (III/3, 132)”; W. S. Johnson, The Mystery of God: Karl Barth and the Postmodern Foundations of Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), pp. 94–5. CD III/3, p. 94. Barth’s notion of “coexistence” is not only physical but spiritual; cf. CD III/3, pp. 8, 12, 14, 94; IV/1, p. 599; IV/3, pp. 50–1. Barth discusses Cocceius’ introducing iussio (“command”) in the doctrine of concursus as decisive for his own view; CD III/3, pp. 143–4.

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This much at least is certain, that a pre-deterministic understanding of the concursus simultaneus obviously gave to Calvinism all the greater cause to reckon seriously with creaturely occurrence as a whole, and especially with human spontaneity and activity—in direct responsibility, of course, to the commandment of God Himself.27 Speaking critically of J. Müller’s volume on sin, Barth reiterates the praesentia actuosa of God in his moral command in concursus. Especially, Barth notes that this divine command is an enjoining of the creature’s thankful praise: He was thus unable to show the true incomprehensibility, iniquity and culpability of sin. He was unable to show that sin is no mere formal but a material transgression, that it is not the breach of a high and difficult but a near and easy command—the requirement of the gratitude which is natural to man because the God who requires it is beside him.28 The uniqueness of Barth’s doctrine is especially apparent in the responsiveness to Jesus Christ that is embedded within the life of the creature. The creature’s freedom “for the other” beneath the kingdom of Jesus Christ underwrites his account of concursus throughout.29 In §49.2, Barth aims consistently to affirm both realities of divine sovereignty and human freedom, but he wishes to affirm this as centered in the response of prayer that participates in the intercession of Jesus Christ. Epistemologically, Barth thinks that his doctrine of concursus is secure from abstraction because it is explicated in and through this Christological lens. For this reason, the moral aspect of concursus is unavoidable; it is what enables Barth to sustain his claim that theological discourse is radically particularized by prayer. Current readings of Barth’s view of concursus tend to avoid or overlook the ethical aspect of his doctrine. H. Hempelmann, for instance, criticizes Barth for not having a tangible doctrine of concursus in the end.30 Hempelmann limits his explication of Barth’s doctrine to the epistemological

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28 29 CD III/3, p. 146. CD III/3, p. 315. CD III/3, p. 39. Hempelmann criticizes Barth for locating the doctrine of concursus within the sphere of confession, a notion that fails to protect against misunderstanding; Hempelmann, Unaufhebbare Subjektivitat Gottes, p. 4. Hempelmann argues that Barth “logically (logisch)” empties the causal concept of its cognitive power for explaining the freedom of the creature; CD III/3, pp. 378–9. Since Hempelmann doesn’t describe the ethical aspect of Barth’s doctrine, his critique is brought to bear on Barth from a different methodological standpoint. Hempelmann especially laments that Barth’s employment of “prayer and fasting” for an exorcism of theological fear as a defensive move that only insulates his doctrine from criticism and “does not help theology at all”; CD III/3, p. 378. Barth would retort that his view is not a mere “ignoramus,” CD III/3, p. 139.

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significance it has for other theological concepts, and in this way he overlooks its moral aspect altogether.31 Rather, Barth would aver that the cognitive content of concursus is thoroughly ethical, as he continually reiterates that the providence of God has personal contours. According to Barth, when one participates in Christ, the cognitive content of one’s belief comes through, and is made apprehensible to the rest of the world.32 Barth would respond to this interpretation—that his doctrine of concursus is amoral and disinterested in matters of prayer and obedience—with his assertion in III/3 that the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders, who continually worship at Christ’s throne, would be “most surprised” with the theological concepts that so often satisfy God’s creatures.33 Prayer ascribes certain attributes to God in doxology, and this is what it means to do theology as a commending of the Word of God.34 On the whole, Hempelmann’s reading illustrates how the perception that Barth’s doctrine is only a traditional account also encourages the impression that his register for theological language is generic.35 An analysis of Barth’s doctrine of concursus would be empty without precisely explicating how the ethical aspect fits in. Barth’s focus on the term “cause” offers his reader a clue along these lines: his excursus that attends

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Hempelmann’s evaluation of Barth’s doctrine of concursus (1992) is, alongside G.W. Love’s (1996), the most extensive to date. Unfortunately, they do not converse with each other and so both need to be taken together. Hempelmann’s whole reading of the doctrine of concursus in III/3 is somewhat schematic, as he brackets each of the paragraphs in the volume according to the appropriations of the triune God in His self-revelation, cf. Hempelmann, Unaufhebbare Subjektivitat Gottes, pp. 122–3. This approach to an organizing principle for III/3 is unlikely because the appropriations are not emphasized by Barth in this volume. “For those who do so participate [. . . in Christ] this participation is [. . .] a participation in knowledge whose content can be known only as it is continually proclaimed and shared—not only among those who already take part in it, but also among those who do not,” Hunsinger, How To Read Karl Barth, p. 135. For a foil to the cognitive content of participation in Barth, C. Schröder simply rejects Barth because of an exclusivistic tone she finds inherent in his writing. Schröder is offended that the Christian subject is privileged in providence to see what others don’t see, which presupposes that the creature’s participatory witnessing to the Word of God is restricted to the noncognitive and is, thus, an incommunicable possession of the privileged; C. Schröder, “‘I see something you don’t see’: Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Providence,” in G. Hunsinger (ed.), For the Sake of the World: Karl Barth and the Future of Ecclesial Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). CD III/3, p. 476. I will return to and develop the theme of doxology in the final chapter of this thesis, focusing on §51. L. Gilkey has brought this charge against Barth’s doctrine of providence; Barth’s doctrine is “purely abstract” and is only a “theoretical exercise”; L. B. Gilkey, “The Concept of Providence in Contemporary Theology,” Journal of Religion 43.3 (1963), p. 188.

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to its history and safeguards its use shows why he thinks the whole doctrine of concursus needs to be retained.36 As is often the case with Barth, it is his criticism of the tradition that also shows what he is saying that is positive. Had Barth chosen to allow the term causa to remain, but without explaining it, he would have left his doctrine of concursus vulnerable to misunderstanding. Anytime God is described as a “cause,” care needs to be exercised lest he be envisioned as “only a cause.” A god who is “just a cause” doesn’t necessarily concern himself with the creature’s justification or sanctification. However, for Barth, God and the creature are properly covenantal “partners,” and this includes the fact that the creature with which God concurs is accosted by him to pray and obey. In Barth’s particular use of theological language, the two parties that coexist in concursus are not spoken of as causes but as “partners.” God and the creature together obtain a partnership that is only apprehended in Jesus Christ’s sending of the Spirit. Unless one comes to understand concursus in the context of God’s self-mediation in the Son and Spirit, then either God will eclipse the creature, or the creature will supplant God.37 These are the two possibilities, equally fatal for the doctrine, that Barth labels very early on as “Scylla and Charybdis.”38 Barth opens §49.2 by introducing the two parties in divine concursus not as primary and secondary causes but as covenantal partners. Whenever the language of causality is used, Barth says, it risks obscuring the full reality of this partnership. Clearly, Barth thinks of the biblical portrait of “partners” as supplanted in the “older theology” by its use of the “causal” concept: Face to face with the difficulty [. . .] the Reformed no less than the Lutheran, made a formal borrowing at this point from a philosophy and theology which had been re-discovered and re-asserted at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries—the philosophy of Aristotle and the theology of Aquinas. The borrowing consisted in the adoption and introduction of a specific terminology to describe the two partners whose activities are understood and represented in the doctrine of the concursus in terms of a co-operation, the activity of God on the one side and that of the creature on the other. The concept which was adopted and introduced was that of “cause”.39 Barth revises his terms when attending to concursus; he wants his reader to understand that these two parties have been obscured with the adoption of an unfortunate term. Furthermore, the theme of covenantal partnership, 36 38 39

37 CD III/3, pp. 94–107. Cf. CD III/3, pp. 142–3. Cf. GD II, §20; CD III/3, p. 162. CD III/3, p. 98 emphasis mine (cf. also pp. 39, 213, 274, 280, 356–7 for Barth’s use of “partnership” terminology in III/3).

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according to W. Krötke and K. Tanner, spans the entirety of the Church Dogmatics.40 Barth’s view of covenantal partnership can be thought of as a larger matter for his theology on the whole, and which also underwrites his discussion in §49.2. An exposition of divine partnership is, for this reason, a necessary task for understanding what Barth is saying about the two parties involved in the divine accompanying. How is agency to be understood in terms of the supremacy of Christ? Further, how does the moral component of his doctrine impact his assertion that the creature is free? How is it that the creature can be truly free to cause certain events to happen, but can still be obligated by God to pray and obey? As a background for reading §49.2 accurately, I look to W. Krötke’s statement on covenantal partnership in the Church Dogmatics. b. Wolf Krötke on “Partnership” in Barth’s Theology W. Krötke’s interpretation of Barth on covenantal partnership is a clear and concise reading of the creature’s freedom in the Church Dogmatics which makes felicitous use of Barth’s text. The suitability of his view for a whole reading of §49.2 also lends credibility to his interpretation on the whole. As he replies to T. Rendtorff in “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner,’ ” Krötke discusses the very question of creaturely freedom that Barth focuses on in §49.2: the combined moral and agential freedom that is gifted to the creature in concursus. The creature does not stand beneath God as a “Marionettenvorstellung,” which is Rendtorff’s characterization; rather, for Krötke, this God does not eclipse the creature zero sum.41 Therefore, Krötke’s view is suggestive enough to merit a brief discussion inasmuch as it has a bearing on §49.2.42 Krötke notes that II/2 is filled with references to a determination of the creature for covenantal “partnership.” This analogy of “partnership” between God and the human finds its ground in the triune abundance of 40

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W. Krötke, “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’: zur Bedeutung einer zentralen Kategorie in Karl Barths Kirchlicher Dogmatik,” in Eberhard Jüngel (ed.), Zur Theologie Karl Barths: Beitrage aus Anlass seines 100. Geburtstags (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1986), pp. 158–75 (pp. 163–4); K. Tanner, “Creation and Providence,” in John Webster (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 111–26 (p. 115). That is, Krötke counters Rendtorff’s reading, which accuses Barth of constructing a doctrine of God that denies the creature’s freedom; Krötke, “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’: zur Bedeutung einer zentralen Kategorie in Karl Barths Kirchlicher Dogmatik,” p. 167. In the second section of his argument “Das Verhältnis von Gott und Mensch als Bundespartnerschaft,” Krötke safeguards his position by indicating that he does not think of “partnership” as a concept. Rather, it is a “determined phrase” which Barth uses to indicate a “recognizable continuity” among different explications of the same Word of God in the Church Dogmatics; Krötke, “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’,” p. 164.

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God’s own life; God always has a relational “partner” within himself: “the ‘history in partnership is the life of God for and over all creaturely life [. . .] it is [. . .] a communication in the encounter’ (IV/2, 385) [. . .] It is not foreign to him to have a partner alongside himself.”43 According to Krötke, Barth’s God has an inherent freedom to be with an other that makes creaturely being possible. The inner life of God does not stop guiding, however, once it has given the creature a physical existence. This same triune life of God clarifies how his moral “determination” is brought to bear on the creature in the economy of grace: As partner of God he is called, to execute his life in a determined (bestimmen) way. Barth can only barely describe this determination (Bestimmung) of man. It “demands therein, to allow [one] to have one’s own love from God” (II/2, 455), to thank God for his love and “to be joyous in time and eternity for his lot” (II/2, 456). The partner of God, therefore, is first a beneficiary in his life, and consequently, an actor who according to the corresponding love of God has requested human love. He, as Barth emphatically and often has said, “requests according to his obedience.” (II/2, 566)44 In Krötke’s exposition, the action of the creature beneath the triune God is prayer (a “requesting”). The creature asks God for love, a request that takes place “according to his obedience.” However, Krötke notes that obedience (Gehorsam) in Barth’s theology confuses many of his interpreters, and consequently, the theme of divine–human partnership is often set aside. The difficulty, it would seem, comes when one attempts to explain how one can be obligated to be oneself. Does this not confuse the ontological with the ethical? How can one be obligated to be what one already is de facto?

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Krötke, “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’,” p. 165. From this point on, citations noted by Krötke are taken verbatim from his quotations, which cite KD. Krötke, “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’,” p. 166. B. L. McCormack has suggested that “determination (Bestimmung)” of the creature is best understood as “defines” in CD II/2; cf. Love, “The Role of the Holy Spirit,” pp. 186–7, 248. Krötke’s reading is similar, but contextualized by his reading of covenantal “partnership.” Krötke observes that “Bestimmung” includes a telos for the person, which is prayer. God does not simply “define” the creature with an autonomy that is free to arbitrate between various options. W. S. Johnson’s interpretation is also flexible and open to the moral aspect of partnership, grounding it in election: “The noun Bestimmung means both determination and destiny. In the latter sense it includes one’s sense of purpose or vocation. It can include both a determination of something at the beginning or the resulting effect that becomes visible at the end. Election as ‘determination’ embraces both,” Johnson, The Mystery of God, p. 59.

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As I have already argued, Barth’s doctrine of providence not only addresses God’s sustaining and accompanying a mere physical reality; God accosts the creature to pray in concursus. This reading corresponds with Krötke’s understanding of partnership. The creature who is God’s “partner” is not only sustained by God, but is morally responsible to him, and this is ingredient in the creature’s own freedom. What is unique about Krötke’s interpretation on this matter is that he clarifies how concursus has been Christologically understood by Barth, in his definition of the historically extended life of the creature: “Can an obey-er be an actual, free partner?”45 Krötke understands Barth’s doctrine of election as the heart of the question of covenantal partnership.46 In election, Jesus Christ shares fellowship with the other that he welcomes as coexisting alongside him, the creature. God elects that the humanity of Jesus Christ should be self-giving for the sake of that other creature; in turn, the rest of humanity is given a teleological orientation by this particular choice.47 In other words, the self-giving of God in Jesus Christ in election is the very basis for creation writ large; therefore, the determination that the creature should be inherently self-giving is an act of God that is determinative for both his subsequent act of creation and the historic life of Christ. On the basis of this elected mutuality between partners, it is also revealed to the creature that his freedom “for the other” not only bears a similarity with, but is constituted by God’s self-giving in the humanity of Christ. It is in this sense that the creature’s freedom is an image of God: he is free, but is limited to be a free creature within the context of predestination, a context that gives the creature a teleological orientation to live only properly as he gives of himself to others.48 To be less than self-giving in the manner of Christ is to be less than a creature. The determination that the creature receives in election is grounded upon the same decision of God that determines that the humanity of Jesus Christ should be freely obedient. This gives the creature that God accompanies in concursus a basis for obedience that is not only written into his being, but that stems from the holy heart of God:

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Krötke, “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’,” p. 166. “God has elected man to be his covenantal partner. He will not be alone without this partner”; Krötke, “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’,” p. 164. “Then in the man Jesus, God appears definitely on the side of every man. He arrives, therefore, that each man might be in the right relationship with him”; Krötke, “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’,” p. 164. “It is not only in an ontological connection of humanity with God, but also in our connection with other humans, that we are, according to Barth, God’s Image [. . .] Absolute, relationless freedom would here delete the humanity of man as the negation of the God-relationship,” Krötke, “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’,” p. 167.

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In the man Jesus, God turns this love of his ad extra in such a way that, in the first instance, the relation of God and Jesus corresponds to God’s own inner self-relation. As God is for him, so Jesus is the man for God. But he is the man for God in a definite form of humanity, namely in his being for other human beings [. . .] Therefore, relatedness to others marks out the human creature as belonging to God. It reminds the human person that he or she is determined to be God’s covenant partner. It makes the enactment of a life of co-humanity into the task of a lifetime which does not take place at some distance from God, but which, on the contrary, is itself intrinsic to our relation with God.49 This freedom-in-obedience is no loss to the creature because the God revealed to him in Jesus Christ has enacted this paradigmatic freedom in election. Krötke recontextualizes Rendtorff’s generic question about “obedience” in Barth’s theology so that it is fulfilled from a higher standpoint than an enlightenment view of human liberty. Obedience, as an essential correspondence with Christ, can in no way be a fragmentation of the creature’s humanity because Christ is, at once, the creature’s ground and is also self-giving. Barth’s theology of the creature as a partner, then, explicates free action as an obedient action when considered in the context of election. Jesus Christ is the ground for both reconciliation and for creation: God distinguishes the human thus, that He embraces and expects for him [the creature] the free choice of this right. Therefore, one can in no way understand the command of God as an abstract “authoritarian” order, which needs the creature against itself in order to act. God’s command is not in any way darkness, capricious or oppressive. It breathes the spirit of freedom [. . .] God gives us “room and time” as “independent, free subjects” (IV/3, 383), even as “major creatures” (IV/4, 39) to live our being in relationship. He therefore wants “not to precede and act over our heads” (IV/3, 383), not “imposing” the benefit of his acting. (IV/3, 384)50 The order of God’s triune love is a free order that is ethically charged “for the other.” Consequently, the freedom to be a creature beneath the command of God means that the creature not only has an identity that is obligated to obey God, but, logically, she also does not have the freedom to sin. God does not take away the creature’s ability to obey God, and this is 49

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W. Krötke, “The humanity of the human person in Karl Barth’s anthropology,” in John Webster (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 159–76 (p. 168). Krötke, “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’,” p. 167.

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elemental in what it means for a creature to be a partner. However, when God is not thanked or praised by the creature, this can only be spoken of as an “impossible possibility.” Covenantal partnership, and the person’s fulfillment of her own nature ceases whenever prayer ceases.51 Should such a thing happen as sin, the person of Jesus Christ is already standing in the gap to intercede for the creature in order to sustain her as a partner. Jesus Christ, in his intercessory work as Priest, is an advocate for the creature in such a way that she is continually redirected en route to covenantal partnership. The creature is always affirmed in concursus, then, despite the reality of historical sin.52 c. Partnership, Election, and the Lord’s Prayer Krötke’s view of covenantal partnership reinforces a reading of §49.2 that understands it in the light of the prayerful obedience of the creature. Therefore, when prayer ceases, partnership also does.53 On the basis of Christ’s intercession, then, there is only one “possible” stance for the creature in III/3, and that is unceasing prayer and obedience: “The only possible status of the creature [. . .] is that of [. . .] a continually renewed asking.”54 His communication with man in the partnership based on His election is so real and so definitely miraculous, and it is the concrete form of the hope given the believer by the opening up of the depth and perspective of creation, that man is not merely permitted to hear God, to answer Him, to worship Him, and in that worship to find comfort, peace and purity, but he may actually call upon God in the most definite way to do for him and give him what he needs, with the expectation that God will do it, and in His wisdom give Him what he needs. So real is this communication that where it occurs God positively wills that man should call upon Him in this way, in order that He may be His God and Helper.55

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“The freedom to affirm God and to give thanks to God is forfeit in the decision to deny God,” Krötke, “The humanity of the human person,” p. 164. “When God elects the human person to be his partner, he intends that the human person should grasp the possibility of this partnership. But where the human person does not in fact do so, God from the very beginning has decided to step in and realize this possibility with his own divine life in the life and death of the man Jesus Christ”; Krötke, “The humanity of the human person,” p. 165. Barth likens the knowledge of God with unceasing prayer in CD I/2, p. 776; II/1, pp. 15, 23; III/3, p. 274; III/4, pp. 48–50; IV/2, pp. 411, 495; Prayer, pp. 3, 7; Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 138. 55 CD III/3, p. 274. CD II/1, p. 510.

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This view of covenantal partnership means that concursus is grounded in God’s offering of himself for creation in the humanity of Christ, and that this is the basis of creation’s existence.56 The creature continues to “live” as he continues to “ask,” and he asks “according to his obedience.” The freedom of the creature to be a partner means, on account of the graciousness of Christ’s election and intercession, his continual redirection in Christ. Despite the (un-)reality of sin, God continues to love the creature in and through a concrete history. This eternal self-giving of God’s is also an ethical command to conform to the image of Christ and therefore to the imago Dei, a being “for the other.”57 It is for this reason that prayer is indivisible with action.58 God’s self-giving orders the shape of concursus because he therein enjoins the creature to be his partner. For this reason, Barth states that God gives himself to the creature as a “Companion” in concursus.59 Barth’s view of divine partnership has implications for the theologian’s task. It is in II/2 that Barth develops the broader context for his view of covenantal partnership: “God has elected Himself as man’s Friend and Partner.”60 Covenantal partnership is a coexistence with God that is realized in an ongoing, prayerful relation. It is in the election of man in Jesus Christ that the teleological goal of prayer is given to the theologian. In the act of prayer, the creature finds his freedom in conformity with Christ, who as the Son of Man elects God and prays to him in response: And yet the decision of the sovereign God, His election of grace (in the understanding of which we cannot be allowed to reverse or even to compare the two partners), has as its sole content the fact that God elects man in order that man may be awakened and summoned to elect God, and to pray that he may give himself to Him, and that in this act of electing and prayer he may exist in freedom before God.61

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Covenantal partnership is grounded in the atonement, and has as its goal the sustaining of the creature unto covenantal partnership; cf. CD IV/1, p. 90. The creature’s being addressed by the divine command is involuntary: “Words like law, commandment, ordinance, etc., although they are quite possible and relevant, do not quite suffice to indicate what is meant [ . . . the creature’s] decision and act, therefore, can consist only in obedience to the fact that he begins and does not cease to breathe in this place and kingdom,” CD IV/1, p. 100. “Though they [Christians] cannot ‘bring in the kingdom’ they are claimed for action in the effort and struggle for human righteousness,” Gorringe, Against Hegemony, p. 266. CD III/3, p. 110. CD II/2, p. 163; Krötke, “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’,” p. 164. CD II/2, p. 180.

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The prayer of the theologian is heard by God only because it is a prayer that is included in man’s election of God in the prayer of Jesus Christ to the Father. God’s election in Jesus Christ, then, includes within it the freedom and the prayer of his creaturely partner. More specifically, in the election of God in Jesus Christ, Christ prays the Lord’s Prayer and instructs his partner to pray in this same manner. That is, the Lord’s Prayer witnesses to God’s divine–human steadfastness in Jesus Christ, poured out for the creature in the Holy Spirit. This election includes his act of enjoining the creature to continually pray in response to him. It is the Lord’s Prayer that is commanded to the creature in Jesus Christ as the divine and the human find fellowship with each other in him: It is in the unity of this steadfastness both divine and human that we shall find the peculiar secret of the election of the man Jesus. In this twofold steadfastness there is to be seen both the glorifying of God and also the salvation of men, the two things which together constitute the aim and meaning of the covenant willed by God and the election of this man [. . .] In this steadfastness the Word of God is spoken and the answer of man is given, and together the Word and the answer represent the decision willed by God in all His ways and works, and therefore constitute the content of the will and counsel of God in the beginning [. . .] The kingdom of God is here set up as the consummation towards which all God’s ways and works are moving. And the answer of human steadfastness is the prayer which is the assent of Jesus to the will of God as it confronts His own will. This prayer is His intercession with God on behalf of His people. And yet it is also a prayer which he teaches His people and places on the lips of His people. With this prayer He proves Himself to be the Son of God who is rejected for their sakes and yet who is still the Elect of God even in His rejection. With this prayer He undertakes to be both priest and victim, thus affirming for His part the salutariness of the holy wrath of God. In this prayer He fulfills His creaturely office in the history of creation as it was determined and prepared by God. In this prayer He affirms the fact that He is the King who was appointed by God to be at the head and in the place of the elect as their Lord and Head. In this prayer he affirms that He Himself in His own person is the kingdom of God [. . .] To believe in Jesus means to have His resurrection and prayer both in the mind and in the heart.62 Barth finds that Christ’s human steadfastness is bound up with “this” prayer which Christ taught to his disciples. For this reason, Barth’s final page in his

62

CD II/2, pp. 125–6, emphasis mine.

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volume on election describes the significance of the Lord’s Prayer for his ethics of election. He typifies the shape of an obedient theology in this manner. Ethically obedient language is properly theological language because it is included in the prayer of Jesus Christ to the Father: “All threatened boasting in the flesh [. . .] will always be put to shame by the fact that in the prayer which is the Lord’s Prayer we cannot tire of praying constantly for the grace of prayer itself.”63 The doctrine of divine providence serves the doctrine of election by giving a historical continuity to the creature. In this manner, the creature is enabled to worship the triune God of election. In this way, then, Barth safeguards his theology from abstraction. Theological language that aims at “talk” about divine providence discusses the “partnership” that is shaped by election. Jesus Christ gifting the Lord’s Prayer to his disciples represents this partnerenjoining love that is grounded in God’s triune life; it is an accosting of the creature to pray in the very act of theological thinking. For this reason, the petitions imbibed in the Lord’s Prayer rightly summarize the very content of the doctrine of divine providence. In the rule of His fatherly providence over the existence of all His creatures, and in the execution of the reconciliation of the world with Himself [. . . there is] the representation, reflection and correspondence of the union of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit as His own eternal living act. As He causes the world, and in His grace ourselves, to be His creatures, His men, and to exist before Him as is appropriate, and as in the same grace He does not withhold Himself from us but reveals Himself as our Partner and acts as such, from the provision of our daily bread to our deliverance from all evil—in all these things He is primarily true to Himself, revealing Himself as the One He is in Himself, as Father, Son and Spirit, in expression and application and exercise of the love in which He is God.64 Barth’s theology of partnership stems from his theology of predestination in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, this view of partnership accentuates Barth’s doctrine of the creature as very distinct. The creature is not only a created body that moves, thinks, and breathes, but is given an edict by God in the very context of her existence. As God is “for” her in the sheer context of history, so she is commanded by God to be “for the other.” Thanks to the fact that this decree for the creature is built into, and constitutes her very existence, in her rightful response she does nothing that fragments or derails her own rightful position beneath God. In fact, she realizes this position in a continued prayer before the Father that commends his lordship over all

63

CD II/2, p. 781.

64

CD IV/2, p. 346.

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things in Christ. In doing this, she prays according to the prayer that God has given her as a disciple of Christ. In the creature’s praying of the Lord’s Prayer, the creature not only signals an acceptance of the Lordship of Christ; she actively partakes in the self-giving of the One who constitutes her very existence. In this manner, as the creature prays according to Christ’s instruction, God’s will is “done on earth as it is in heaven” in such a way that theological language is made meaningful when it describes God’s concurring mercy.

IV. Expositional Analysis of Concursus in §49.2 a. Formal Safeguards for a Prayerful Use of the Causal-Concept “All theology,” says Barth, “is a meditation about God and the creature.”65 For this reason, Barth meditates on the concept “cause” in a prayerful way in §49.2. The term “cause” carries a great deal of weight because it emphasizes God’s ongoing relation with his creature. The “older theology” lost its prayerfulness as it employed this term, and in doing so it thought of God as “featureless.”66 However, Barth finds his most pressing problem with this concept to be that the term is simply ambiguous. By being faithful to an understanding of the causa prima and the causa secunda as partners, he aims to safeguard concursus from obfuscation within the context of a faithful meditation on both.67 It is more important for Barth to describe precisely how to correct the “older theology” than to jettison its terminology. Partners do, in fact, “condition” each other, as God and the creature mysteriously do. Barth states at least in one place in III/3 that what it truly means to be a “cause” in his theology: it is a “conditioning [. . .] of another (Bedingen eines Anderen).” This is the analogia operationis.68 Barth is more interested, then, in redeeming the

65 67

68

66 CD III/3, p. 102. CD III/3, p. 100. Hägglund describes the ambiguity with which the “causal” concept is built into Barth’s discussion, and while he rejects the way the “older theology” employed it, he still accepts it; Barth’s employment of this term, then, is not “clearly defined (eindeutig definierbar)”; Hägglund, “Die Vorsehungslehre bei Karl Barth,” p. 45. CD III/3, p. 102; KD III/3, p. 116; This has consequences for Barth’s adopting the “causal” terminology in his own way. In practice, Barth employs this idea in his discussion on prayer and immutability, cf. CD III/3, p. 285. He asks “who can mark off the boundary where the freedom of God ceases and the freedom of the creature begins?” CD III/3, p. 148. However, this statement does not deny that there is such a boundary, cf. CD III/3, pp. 43, 129, 432. Barth’s consistent position in III/3 is that there is no clear knowledge of such a boundary, but that there is a real boundary that constitutes the difference between God and his creaturely partner.

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causal concept, as his version of omnipotence leaves room for its use. He thinks that the “older theology” failed to introduce effective safeguards against its abuse, and eventually the prayerfulness of the creature and the praiseworthiness of God were clouded by scholasticism’s employment of Aristotle. In Barth’s excursus, the term “cause”: “is [. . .] subjected to a new normative interpretation: it [. . . is] the mystery of grace, which is seen only by man in prayer and thankfulness.”69 In the “older theology,” the particularity of each partner was filled out with a generic concept, and “the message of the Bible” was, in this way, overlooked.70 The particularity that each “partner” needs is, then, either discarded or avoided. The “message of the Bible” is described here as very important for Barth’s view, as the biblical (Barth’s) doctrine of election describes God’s relation with the creature on that basis.71 Barth’s return to the Bible for the sake of concursus is, then, largely a recovery of his programmatic doctrine of election.72 Barth’s description of concursus according to the lex orandi must evaluate the roles of both divine and human agents according to the register of prayer. For this reason, Barth proposes four safeguards for the doctrine, each of them hearkening back to the import that prayer has for providence. For Barth, in each case, a prayerful commending of the Word of God in Christ is the criterion for whether or not a proper view of causality has been appropriately safeguarded. First, a clear understanding of Barth’s version of the “causality” of both partners should not think of it as something that is “effective automatically.”73 While he acknowledges that none of his predecessors thought of God as operating in a strictly mechanical way,74 it is important to keep this requirement explicit for safeguarding the qualitative distinction between God’s action and the creature’s. Barth alludes to the Lord’s Prayer in reiterating that the will of God cannot be identified with a “narrow” view of causality: “For what can there be in common between the fulfillment of His gracious will in heaven and on earth?”75 Second, the subjectivity of each partner must also be guarded from being reduced to a “thing.”76 Barth safeguards the 69 70 71 72

73 74

75

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Geiger, “Providentia Dei,” p. 688. Barth repeats the phrase six times in this section; CD III/3, pp. 99–101. CD III/3, p. 98. Barth uses his doctrine of election as a summary of the whole of the Bible’s message; CD III/3, pp. 5, 10. CD III/3, p. 101. Barth criticizes Ritschl for assuming this, and he rebuts: “we cannot charge either Thomas or our own orthodox dogmaticians with being guilty of any such comparisons,” such as between God and observable, “mechanical” causes; CD III/3, p. 101. CD III/3, p. 106; Barth alludes to this clause of the prayer “on earth as it is in heaven” quite often in CD III/3; cf. pp. 93, 106, 444–7, 462, 477–8, 481, 483, 499, 504, 510. CD III/3, pp. 101–2; the Word of God is “not a thing,” CD I/1, p. 136.

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dignity of each party with caution. He does this by reiterating the importance of prayer for apprehending the fully covenantal character of created agency: “It is clear that the causa prima can be known only in prayer, and the causa secunda in gratitude, or else not at all.”77 Third, Barth says that “above all” the two subjects must not be subsumed underneath a “masterconcept,” as if they were two species of the same genus. Rather, he presses the qualitative distinction here, and says that the two subjects are divided by an “absolute” antithesis. The older divines fail to draw this distinction sharply enough because they employ the same terms used for distinguishing between the two natures of Jesus Christ: They might have done so quite successfully if in view of the unsatisfactory usage of the sources they had dropped altogether the predicates prima or princeps, and secunda or particularis, and spoken simply of causa divina or creatrix and causa non divina or create, in the same way as they spoke of natura divina and natura humana in their Christology.78 It is at this point that Barth feels theology has been susceptible, and has succumbed to a temptation. To think of the relation between God and the creature with a qualitative distinction that is not Christologically grounded is to attempt to think beyond one’s given limits. Technically, this failure only points to a formal distinction but doesn’t think it through; it is a ceasing of prayer. For this reason, Barth reiterates the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer when speaking of his third safeguard, aiming instead to look directly to Christ for preserving the qualitative distinction. The distinction between God’s holy action and man’s sinfulness in concursus is grounded only in the distinction between God and man in Jesus Christ: If we keep before us the archetype of divine-human co-operation, the co-operation of the holy God and sinful man in the covenant of grace; if we have regard to the antithesis which in Jesus Christ became an antithesis in unity, we shall refrain from drawing any parallels or comparisons, we shall be delivered from the evil desire to find a master-concept.79 Barth’s fourth safeguard against the tradition’s abuse of the “causal” concept is that “theology should not be turned into philosophy at this point.”80 Rather, when “cause” is properly understood, it cannot be employed without the Holy Spirit’s assistance: “Only by revelation and

77

CD III/3, p. 106.

78

CD III/3, p. 104.

79

CD III/3, p. 106.

80

CD III/3, p. 104.

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in faith” can we know that a causa princeps and the causa particularis truly are.81 As he completes this section, Barth turns from this “formal” discussion of how concursus needs revision to his “material” explication of the providential God.82 Covenantal partnership has to do with the qualitative distinction between God and the creature. The two partners are only thought of, as such, when they are protected from philosophical distortion. Essentially, Barth seeks to ensure that the nature of God’s action as qualitatively distinct is grounded in a view of the love and holiness of God in Jesus Christ. This God, furthermore, can only be known in the Word, and this Word’s reception is only realized when its message is commended by the prayer of the theologian in the Spirit. In this way, the whole triune God is materially involved in Barth’s doctrine, and prayer is retained as epistemically central. b. Barth’s Material Discussion of Concursus Barth describes the qualitative distinction between God and the creature, its irreversibility, and the ground for this relation as rooted in the eternal love of God. God’s love for the creature includes its own distinctiveness as divine holiness is implicit in his self-giving: “We have understood this supremacy as the supremacy of God’s eternal love [. . . and] in the holiness which is at the heart of all divine activity.”83 Plainly, God’s qualitatively distinct action means that it cannot be simply described philosophically; it is personally involving as it is “a matter which questions us.”84 For this reason, one can only approach the “material” matter of divine providence in faithful prayer to God in the Spirit. Barth describes at some length the National Socialist movement in Germany as a syncretism, an example of what it looks like in practice when the qualitative distinction of God’s action is forgotten.85 Divine action is only categorically apprehended within the context of a purely “Christian chapel,” which is a house of worship that cannot accept any idolatry. Necromancy is not permitted by God alongside his rule in Jesus Christ, who is the only world-ruler, and this worship is only safeguarded from syncretism by a vigilant “Christian decision”: And when the building of the National-Socialist temple first began, it was commonly believed that at least in the forecourt there would be a Christian, a German-Christian chapel, and that in that chapel there would be a place and a use for the Bible, and for Jesus and Paul and

81 85

82 84 CD III/3, p. 107. CD III/3, p. 107. 83 CD III/3, p. 109. CD III/3, p. 109. T. Gorringe indicates that, for Barth, the struggle against National Socialism was a parallel struggle against natural theology; Gorringe, Against Hegemony, p. 161.

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Luther. But this type of alliance does not usually last long. A decision is required, for we cannot really serve two masters. On the one hand, the Christian chapel, assuming that it does not disappear altogether, will quickly become the cult-centre of the god who is really believed to be the world-ruler. On the other, it will come to be seen, or it will be remembered, that Jesus Christ will not allow Himself to be relegated to the place of a redeemer side by side with whom there may be a world-ruler of quite a different stamp, whether ideal or aesthetic or technical or political. Jesus Christ Himself occupies the position of World-ruler, and side by side with Him there is no room for another— and as this is seen or remembered there will grow up a centre of resistance even within that chapel [. . .] The only thorough and comprehensive and radical safeguard is in the Christian decision. If the supremacy and activity of God is not secured first, the creaturely forces are too strong for such impressions not to be made and such errors not arise. But the supremacy of the activity of God is secured only when the irreversibility of its relationship to all other forces is secured, and this is secured where its qualitative distinction from those forces is secured, and this in turn is secured only when it is secured that it is the power of eternal love. But it is only in the knowledge of the work and revelation of God in Jesus Christ that all this can be perceived to be secure.86 The threat of religious syncretism creeps in upon us from every side. Only the eternal love of God can sustain us from theological distortion, which always spells political catastrophe and only attempts to wrest the scepter from the hand of God. Therefore, Barth applies a litmus test on the side of the creature for adjudicating whether or not the Word has been successfully received. He asks this as an overriding question: “What will our reaction be” as creatures who receive the Word?87 The only faithful response on the side of the creature, the only “possible” response, is a prayerful commending of the Word of God in and through the Spirit. If no acknowledgment of Christ is made, the admission of a qualitatively-distinct God is also eliminated. Once this breakdown has taken place, the creature will inevitably envision God’s relation with the world apart from Christ and, thus, apart from the particular way that the true God of providence offers his presence to the world. For this reason, Barth employs the response of the creature in prayer or in prayerlessness as a theological criterion for whether or not an adequate doctrine of concursus has been achieved. As Barth has already said, theology is a “meditation on God and the creature.” In this case, theology meditates

86

CD III/3, p. 112.

87

CD III/3, p. 113.

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on the role of the Spirit of God when it asks whether or not the Word has been prayerfully commended by the creature. The creature without Christ remains in a position beneath an “unconditionally supreme being.” In this case, God’s supremacy will always be a power without personal contours, and so the creature will remain “without any real perception of what it is” that God approves of.88 This “god” without Jesus Christ, who is not known in a prayerful response, is a “god” whose full acceptance has not yet been made clear. In this case, the creature is left alone, with no resources for countering the impiety that will eventuate on his side of the divide.89 In order to emphasize the creature’s need for God, then, Barth elaborates on the impieties that always distort concursus. This is inevitable when the doctrine is envisioned outside the active prayer that commends the Word of God. It was the “tragedy of the Reformed doctrine of providence” that a conception of divine love was not adequately safeguarded, and this eventually ushered in “the murmuring of the clay against the potter (Rom. 9.20f.).”90 This is the “manifest impiety” of protest against God that the Reformed eventually incurred.91 To the response of protest, Barth says “No,” for in protest we “openly or secretly [. . .] will hate and despise” God. Eventually, this “god” will be thrown off of our backs and we will confine our speech to “destiny or nature or the like.”92 The Christian must not “for a single moment” cease to oppose this impious evil.93 If faith and prayer are legitimate criteria for whether or not an adequate doctrine of concursus has been received, then protest certainly errs far afield from the goal that God expects for his creature. Quietism is also another defiant option for the creature’s distortion of the Word. God is oft envisioned by the creature to be so far above her that she can no longer meaningfully act. As Barth understands it, this quietism must also be rejected, as “in this opposition we will either despair or conclude that we are absolved from all further responsibility and justified in frivolity.”94 Our sinful minds will eventually blame God for our own selfindulgence and our sloth. To quietism Barth says “No” once again, for it involves us in an “apathetic surrender to the inevitable, which [. . .] is always fatal, because it is fatalistic.”95 In order for God to be truly distinct and free to “concur” with the creature, the creature must also be understood as active, as alive beneath God. In this manner, it is the specific 88

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90 93

CD III/3, p. 113; see Barth’s exegesis of Job, who characterizes the difficulty of avoiding a secular conception of divine omnicausality; CD IV/3, pp. 402, 428. Moltmann concurs: “Omnipotence can indeed be longed for and worshipped by helpless men, but omnipotence is never loved; it is only feared”; J. Moltmann, The Crucified God (trans. R. A. Wilson and J. Bowden; New York: Harper & Row, 1974), p. 223. 91 92 CD III/3, pp. 115–16. CD III/3, p. 115. CD III/3, p. 114. 94 95 CD III/3, p. 118. CD III/3, p. 114. CD III/3, p. 118.

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content of God’s action in Jesus Christ that assures the creature that her prayer is important. Thus, in her commending the Word of God in worship, the creature also recognizes quietism as an aberrant response to divine providence. Finally, there is the “secret impiety” of synergism, which imagines that God’s will in concursus is reversible, that is, that God not only “concurs” with the creature but that the creature “concurs” with God.96 Synergism distorts the doctrine of God itself in that the creature may “concur” with God as he “concurs” with the creature. Eventually, Barth claims that this was the legacy of the Lutheran school, which “quickly abandoned the De servo arbitrio and committed itself to the mediating theology of the older Melanchthon.”97 Synergism must be rejected because it is the most insidious form of rebellion: “It may be that we will simply deny that the divine will is so sovereign in execution [. . .] may it not be after all that the concept concursus is in some degree reversible?”98 Against synergism, the view for which Barth has the least respect, he answers “No again,” lest we make “the God who is all in all a God who is only much in much.”99 Against all three impieties, Barth retorts: “No, No, and again No”!100 Each impiety inevitably manifests itself on the human side of concursus as a sign that the doctrine has been distorted. Rather, the God who elects the creature to be a partner in concursus does not leave him without a gracious self-disclosure in Christ. In each of these cases both the freedom of the creature and the sovereignty of the praiseworthy God of providence are simultaneously reduced in one way or another. If an adequate conception of concursus has been achieved, it will only be received in the midst of faithful prayer. The triune God is at the center of Barth’s “material” section, then, because only the triune God can offer the Spirit as a safeguard against these distortions. When and where the creature actively believes, she also prays in the power of the Spirit. This act on the side of the creature depends entirely on the Word’s donation of the Spirit.101 Only Christ can safeguard the qualitative distinction between divine and human action, then, because only the Spirit of Christ can bring about a true “awakening to faith and obedience.”102 “In the Holy Spirit God comes together with these people in such a way that [. . .] there arises fellowship, a common life, between him and them.”103 Knowledge of God as triune is grounded in a partaking of the Holy Spirit, who is the mystery of God’s

96 99 101

102

97 98 CD III/3, p. 115. CD III/3, p. 116. CD III/3, p. 114. 100 CD III/3, p. 119. CD III/3, p. 118. Word and Spirit coincide here: the rulership of Christ takes place “upon the basis of the decree of grace, with its fulfillment in the sacrifice of His Son and its confirmation in the work of the Holy Spirit,” CD III/3, p. 117. 103 CD III/3, p. 117. ChrL, p. 90.

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knowledge of himself in his eternity.104 It is in the Spirit, then, that the “Christian decision” may truly safeguard the qualitative distinction: the “Christian decision” that Barth speaks of is truly God’s decision. This commending of the work of God in the Holy Spirit is an implicit acknowledgment of the qualitative distinction of God’s action: prayer roots out all “godless notions of causality.”105 Concursus is “materially” initiated by Christ, safeguarded by the Spirit and prayerfully commended by the theologian. For this reason, the doctrine is truly about God’s Word and Spirit, and there is no other standpoint from which this can be apprehended.106 Anything less than this commending of the Word in a trinitarian context will bring about distortion. This distinction is never adequately acknowledged with the advent of a sophisticated conceptuality. The qualitative distinction is only truly apprehended in a prayerful response to the love of God in Jesus Christ. c. Praecurrit, Concurrit, and Sucurrit When the theologian prays that the will of God should “be done on earth,” does this qualitatively distinct will come before ours, during it, or after? There are three aspects of the doctrine of concursus in a faithful dogmatic context: praecursus, concursus, and succursus. In praecursus (which is God’s “preceding” the creature’s act) Barth maintains the strong, Reformed conception of divine sovereignty. The triune God not only foresees what the creature will do next but actually touches the creature’s will: “the one God effects both the will and its accomplishment.”107 In this, Barth distinguishes his view from the Lutheran orthodox, who say “that the creature chooses this or that movement [as] its own doing, not God’s.” In other words, the qualitative distinction that is secured in prayer in no way sees the human as an initiator to which God merely responds. This is synergism, and it enacts “a fateful secularization” of the human subject.108 Barth does not see an either-or here in the way that the Lutheran tradition does, and he employs the qualitative distinction in order to resolve this. M. Geiger summarizes that, for Barth, his position is so Reformed that it is Lutheran in its emphasis on the freedom of the creature: “The traditional Reformed accent on the transcendence of the Creator over the creature comes to such an expression in the Barthian doctrine of providence that it has also implemented the 104

105 108

“in the heart of the truth in which we know God, God knows Himself; the Father knows the Son and the Son the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit,” CD II/1, p. 49. 106 107 CD III/3, p. 118. CD III/3, p. 142. CD III/3, p. 121. CD III/3, p. 120; Barth rejects the Lutheran doctrine of fides praevisa because he sees it as also compelling the understanding of “predestination as pars providentiae,” and this, in turn, subjects the doctrine of God to a generic concept of deity; cf. CD II/2, pp. 71ff.; E. Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth (trans. J. Webster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 98.

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Lutheran emphasis on creaturely independence.”109 Consequently, God’s active involvement in the faith and prayer of the creature in praecursus cannot be called into question. In concursus, Barth only changes his vantage point from his discussion of praecursus with respect to “concept and not [. . .] content.”110 Barth describes the content of God’s uniquely sovereign action that precedes, accompanies, and follows the creature on the basis of three positive statements. First, God’s action with respect to the creature is a single action, conjoined with the creature on the basis of his superiority. God makes the creature’s action “His own in virtue of His mastery over it.”111 That is, every event in history stands before God, and God enacts it in his own way as a Subject. Even “in the slightest movement of a leaf in the wind” there is not “a single point where He [. . . is] absent or inactive.”112 The “how” of this action is inscrutable, as “He alone knows His own power and resources.”113 What is known in God’s self-revelation, however, is that he acts by his Word and Spirit: “the operation of God is His moving of all creatures by the force and wisdom and goodness which are His Holy Spirit, the Spirit of his Word [. . .] objectively proceeding from God by His Word; and subjectively, moving towards man by His Holy Spirit.”114 Since it is the Spirit who effects the goal of the Word in the free life of creation, the Christian does not pray out of an “uncontrollable compulsion.”115 It is only in the Spirit that the creature may commend the Word, and in the manner of the Lord’s Prayer, may hallow God’s name in the wake of God’s work in Jesus Christ: “But we do justice to the operation of the one true God when we describe it as Word and Spirit, because when we do so we again pronounce the holy name of God.”116 At once, then, freedom and sovereignty are both cheerfully affirmed by Barth in concursus. However, the exchange that happens between them, as Barth says, maintains God’s holy name. God issues a “command” to the creature which clarifies the quality of the creature’s freedom in concursus. To be human is to be summoned by God, and this is a requirement for being real.117 In this sense, the doctrine of concursus issues a moral “command” to the creature on the basis of the biblical portrayal: “is it not obvious that in the Old Testament the creature [. . .] is set in train by a divine address, word, call, command or order?” For this reason, Cocceius “introduced the concept iussio [command] into the discussion of the concursus.”118 Therefore concursus is a moral reality that accosts the creature to conform to Christ.

109 112 115 118

110 111 Geiger, “Providentia Dei,” p. 687. CD III/3, p. 131. CD III/3, p. 149. 113 114 CD III/3, p. 133. CD III/3, p. 135. CD III/3, p. 142. 116 117 CD III/3, p. 264. CD III/3, p. 144. CD III/2, p. 150. CD III/3, p. 143; J. Webster describes Barth’s discussion of God’s “command” in II/2 as a permission and the “opposite to [. . .] the absolute, undetermined moral self”; Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, p. 55.

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Despite God’s enjoining the creature to be freely “for the other” as a partner, the creature is quite often reluctant and falters beneath an anxious “fear-complex (Angstkomplexes).”119 This is chiefly demonstrated by the way the creature imagines God’s omnipotence in Jesus Christ as if it were a mere force that is exerted at the creature’s expense. This is a giving in to dogmatic temptation, a despising of God that takes place in secret: “to put it in the older terminology, the causa secunda is not secure unless it can play the role of the causa prima in a secret corner of its own.”120 Essentially, it is because of the hardness of the human heart that God is continually refashioned by theologians “as though perhaps we were ascribing too much to God and too little to the creature.”121 This fear is a slighting of praise to God, and the basic condition of this problem is “not intellectual but spiritual.”122 Therefore, without “prayer and fasting” this demon will never be exorcised from Christian theology.123 For in the very depths of the Church, in the very depths of the Christian conscience and Christian theology, our fear of God is in fact far stronger than the love with which we are able to love God [. . .] If our Christian perception and confession does not free us to love God more than we fear Him, then it is obvious that we shall necessarily fear Him more than we love Him. At root, this is the only relevant form of human sin. And this is the one and only reason why it is so hard to grasp that the freedom of creaturely activity is confirmed by the unconditioned and irresistible lordship of God.124 Statements such as these make it clear that Barth’s discussion of concursus focuses on the epistemological role played by worship, which is a sign that the Word of God has truly been commended in the Spirit. Consequently, prayer is the only correct manner for apprehending a doctrine of concurrence without distortion. Without the Spirit of Christ, the creature will eventually confuse God as Satan and Satan as God. Barth’s application of the “fear complex” idea in his discussion of concursus also furthers the motif of exorcism in III/3, and practically affirms that worship is a relative act of exorcism within the creature’s own context.125 Barth’s second positive assertion on concursus is that God’s activity is incomparable with the creature’s and for this reason allows the creature to be a creature; the qualitative distinction works on both sides, and this means 119 120

121 124 125

CD III/3, p. 146; KD III/3, 166. CD III/3, p. 146; Barth characterizes generic conceptions of transcendence as secretly motivated by self-exaltation, CD IV/1, p. 233. 122 123 CD III/3, p. 147. CD III/3, p. 146. CD III/3, p. 148. CD III/3, p. 147. Cf. “theological exorcism”; CD III/3, p. 521.

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that the creature’s life can be meaningful in a relative sense. The creature is consequently responsible within his own world. Since God’s action takes place on a different scale than the creature, his action is “far more than the first of a series of actions.” This directly implies that it is the “secret of grace” that God’s action allows the creature to be “just what it is in its creaturely essence.”126 Barth even speaks in this section of “everything” being left to the “responsibility” of the creature!127 Barth’s third statement on concursus is that the diversity of God’s action with respect to his creatures is grounded in the wealth of his triune abundance. Against a philosophical notion of simplicity, Barth finds that God’s life is a variegated multiplicity that is not “monotonous and undifferentiated” but can circumscribe the particular reality of the creature without any exertion of his own being.128 For this reason, God’s life as Word and Spirit is “eternally rich” and is in no way threatened by the creature’s turning to him in prayer. Bondage to the command of the Word and freedom to be a partner “for the other” in the Spirit are, therefore, “one and the same thing.”129 Barth notes that the third aspect of his doctrine—succursus—actually “merges” into the third overall section on divine providence, De gubernatione.130 In God’s almighty disposing, the effect of every creature’s action is immediately posited by him in a qualitatively distinct way: “God outruns the creature.”131 Barth affirms the biblical axiom that “what a man sows, that he must reap.”132 This means that, while the creature suffers or enjoys the effects of his own free action, he will still be quite limited only to leave the effect of his action in the hands of God: “He acts as the Lord even of the effects of creaturely activity [. . .] in the service of His omnipotent

126 127

128 131 132

CD III/3, p. 136. CD III/3, p. 149. Some of Barth’s language in this section is difficult to decipher; for example, he states that there “is still a gap between the activity of God and that of the creature,” CD III/3, p. 149. However, on p. 53 he states that there are “no gaps” between God’s action and the creature’s. Barth’s language is best understood as speaking of how the qualitative distinction creates a discontinuity between God’s action and the creature’s in the first instance, and then in the second, as speaking of the way in which the distinction enjoins a unity of action between God and the creature. 129 130 CD III/3, pp. 138–9. CD III/3, p. 150. CD III/3, p. 151. CD III/3, p. 152. CD III/3, p. 151. M. T. Dempsey criticizes Barth on this point, saying that the idea of reward and punishment is “notably absent in Barth”; but Dempsey misses the claim that Barth makes here: “It [the creature] will reap what it has sown,” is thematic for succursus; CD III/3, p. 167; Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 313. Furthermore, Barth ties this principle in with his understanding of the Christian’s participatio Christi in the context of obedience in §49.4; CD III/3, pp. 257, 261. Barth’s criticism of the traditional saying the God of providence “causes His rain to fall on the just and unjust” is a criticism that this God is no more than that for the unbeliever; CD III/3, pp. 32, 41.

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operation.”133 No activity of the creature is ever lost from the providence of God. Every act of the creature has a meaningful effect that is taken up into the kingdom of God, and thus triviality and irony are excluded from divine providence.134 It is true, then, that the creature can be said to be “free” in a noncompetitive relation with God; however, inasmuch as the creature strives for an existence centered on himself, claiming the observable world for himself against the full partnership that God welcomes in providence; God cancels this out and uplifts the creature despite himself. No willful act of the creature can ensure any particular effect, not even if its aim is the most earnest prayer.135 God is omnipotent, then, and directly posits the outcome of every event in history.

V. Analysis: The Holy Spirit’s Role in §49.2 It is the question of causality that brings the creature into the arena of suspicious inquiries about the benevolence of divine providence. For Barth, the “causal” terminology of theologians encourages faith to stumble over this point. He characterizes this query as birthed by a “fear complex” because it leads either to protest against God, to quietism, or to synergism. All three of these dogmatic attitudes are a lapsing from prayer and a quenching of the Spirit. In turn, a movement away from God’s Spirit eventuates in a false conception of the “god” of divine providence, an idolatrous construction of something other than the triune God who is Father, Son, and Spirit. Suspicion is only brought to the doctrine of God because of a lapsing in prayer. This problem is also the traditional theologian’s problem, eventually approaching God with theological questions that are born out of fear instead of love. Barth’s approach for escaping this dilemma is grounded in the assurance of the believer’s participatio Christi, which circumvents suspicion altogether. When the “cause” question is circumvented by the believer’s praise to God, she is assured that the mystery of his work in Christ encloses her own continued activity as meaningful in the divine praecurrit, concurrit, and succurrit. While Barth avoids the traditional use of the causal terminology, he still adopts it for his own nuanced reasons. In the Spirit, God works something that is rightly called “causality” in divine providence because he and his

133 134

135

CD III/3, p. 152. H. Frei makes the observation that “the one form of imagination of which he [Barth] really had little sympathy was the tragic”; cf. McDowell, Hope in Barth’s Eschatology, p. 216. In the Christian Life, Barth describes how God uplifts the meaning of the creature’s prayer and “translates” it, appropriating it for the purposes of his kingdom; ChrL, p. 107.

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covenantal partner (i.e., the creature) mysteriously “condition” each other.136 God’s Spirit makes this “conditioning” possible on each side, and the irreducible mystery of providential causality is grounded within God’s own life. For this reason, the question of the “causality” of the Spirit in the created world is an incontrovertible enigma: The divine pattern must be normative on both sides. In His procession from the Father and the Son, the Spirit is a particular Spirit, the Holy Spirit. He is always a Spirit of love and peace and order, but now He is the Spirit of the love and peace and order which according to the eternal mystery of the unity of Father and Son will always be a mystery in the ways and works of the Spirit in the created order, and therefore in Christian existence. The Spirit can never be observed or imprisoned by the creature, and therefore by the Christian, but in all His majesty He will always be a free Spirit and —therefore the Holy Spirit.137 This element of pneumatic mystery in concursus opens a door for Barth to talk about causality without thinking of it as a “mechanical” causality.138 The Spirit is the effect of Jesus Christ’s action in providence, and this is a conditioning of his partner, the creature. Due to the fact that Christ’s action takes place in the Spirit, his action on the creature transpires in such a way that it is causal and yet, ineffably nonmechanical.139 Christ’s providential action is “causal” because it is a “conditioning” of the creature, but this is not a “mechanical” conditioning. Barth’s appropriation of “causal” language refers to a kind of covenantal “conditioning” that is meaningful in two ways: First, and in the light of the importance that is placed on the atonement in §49.1, it may be more accurate to say that God’s work in providence is “causal” in the sense that it is a soteriological “conditioning.” Barth’s way of soteriologically adopting the term causa should not be a surprise on account of his “radical correction.” Since Barth’s doctrine of election is elevated above his doctrine of providence, the traditional terminology is not only placed in a soteriological

136 137

138 139

CD III/3, p. 102. CD III/3, p. 255; G. W. Love notes: “The only difference between the agency of the Father through the Word and the agency of the Holy Spirit is that the Spirit is selfeffacing,” p. 388. CD III/3, p. 101. Barth mentions in a lecture given to the first assembly of the World Council of Churches at Amsterdam, at the same time as his writing the volume on providence, when it comes to the Holy Spirit, God’s “thoughts are not our thoughts”! Barth, “The World’s Disorder and God’s Design,” p. 12. G. Hunsinger recognizes this aspect of Barth’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit; How To Read Karl Barth, pp. 111–12.

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context, it is retained so that it can be meaningfully redefined. Second, and regardless of the way that Barth’s soteriology qualifies his account of the appropriate use of causal terminology, divine and human agents do have a real impact on each other due to this soteriological context. God may even be said to be “determined” by the creature in the act of prayer.140 This happens, furthermore, because God allows this exchange to occur mysteriously in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the “Lord of our hearing” in such a way that “no method” can approach him on the side of the creature.141 For Barth, this solution will only satisfy the theologian if the “cause” question originates within the context of a prayerful commending of the Word. That is, the question of God’s ongoing relation with the creature in concursus can only be properly raised when this is done from the standpoint of Barth’s soteriology. The creature will only pray in the context of providence when this also occurs in the context of reconciliation. Creation cannot be isolated and investigated here. All too often, however, the “cause” question is motivated by a need to safeguard the doctrine of divine omnipotence with a conceptual apparatus and, therefore, the theologian attempts to gain knowledge of creation apart from reconciliation, that is, apart from prayer. Attempting to gain knowledge of creation in se and apart from reconciliation is characterized by Barth in §49.2 as motivated by fear. However, a practical knowledge of the divine concursus that arises out of prayer is satisfied with the irreducible mystery of the Spirit’s action, which embraces both creation and reconciliation as mutually supportive contexts. I will elaborate on this version of causality more fully in the following three chapters. However, at this point it suffices to say that the prayer that the Spirit encourages is one that jettisons dissatisfaction and suspicion from theology, and therefore, the motive that traditionally encourages the use of causa. Barth makes it clear in §49.2, and especially in his discussion of succurrit, that Christ is certainly omnipotent over all things. However, for Barth, Jesus Christ is the King who enacts the omnipotent rule of God because the Spirit that enacts this causality in the created world is “His Holy Spirit.”142 The Holy Spirit is a predicate of Christ’s action in providence that not only safeguards the inexplicability of the mysterious relation between reconciliation and providence, but conceals the historical effect of his power in practice.143

140

141

142 143

“Without abandoning the helm for one moment he will still allow himself to be determined by them,” CD III/3, p. 285. CD I/1, pp. 182–83; “It is a genuine mystery because it is disclosed, if at all, from within, as it is spoken as the Word of God and received by His Holy Spirit,” CD IV/1, p. 177. CD III/3, p. 142; CD IV/2, pp. 129, 323. Numerous commentators on Barth’s doctrine have noted that the Spirit is clearly applying the beneficia Christi in this context; Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,”

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The Spirit is “a subjectivisation of the objective Word of God.”144 In other words, only in the context of faithful prayer can the creature come to apprehend what it means that she is the “partner” of God. Just as Christ possesses the Spirit, he possesses the creature’s prayer and directs it to apprehend this mystery analogically, without grasping it fully. This also offers a clue for understanding what Barth means when he speaks of human freedom in §49.2. As a predicate of Christ’s work, the Spirit is God’s action that guarantees the origin, execution, and effect of every event in history. Therefore, this leaves us with one final implication: that the act of the creature is truly free because the Spirit is the mystery of God’s empowering love in Jesus Christ: “Where the Word and Spirit are at work unconditionally and irresistibly, the effect of their operation is not bondage but freedom.”145 At once, in the Holy Spirit, divine providence is incomprehensible, but is also faithful to the Creator’s purpose for the creature—that she should be free. The ongoing freedom of the creature in divine concursus is guaranteed in Christ’s action on account of the mystery of the Spirit’s mediation.

VI. Conclusion In Barth’s next section on gubernatio he states that the purpose of God’s rule is “no causal purpose, but the purpose of his very heart, which corresponds exactly to his being as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”146 This statement demonstrates Barth’s presupposition in §49.2: if one introduces the triune God into the discussion of causality, one maintains a conception of divine supervenience but also circumvents the ordinary, “mechanical” view of causality that so often distorts concursus. Rather, at the heart of the matter, a correct view of the creature’s contribution can only be apprehended when the theologian reasons within the context of the lex orandi. Without the “Christian decision,” which takes place in prayer, the qualitative distinction between God’s action and the creature’s will never be faithfully apprehended. Obedience is a prominent issue for Barth’s account in §49.2; the mark of the obedient Christian is that he does not subject the agency of the creature to a generic scheme that encompasses both God and the creature. Rather, as this creature actively prays, he applies the insight that can be gleaned from the Lord’s Prayer that the “cause” of God encompasses and embraces the “cause” of the creature.

144 146

p. 256; Love, “The Role of the Holy Spirit,” p. 429; McCormack, “The Actuality of God,” pp. 229–31. 145 CD III/3, p. 324 emphasis mine. CD III/3, p. 150. CD III/3, p. 156 emphasis mine.

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Divine concursus is the external side of God’s partner-enjoining love in the economy of his action. In this outward movement of the love of God, the work of the Spirit encourages the creature’s prayer. Therefore, God’s action encourages and “concurs” with the creature’s activity and in this way discloses his triune identity. The parties of providence, then, are seen as “partners” in the freedom that faithfully responds to this call in the Spirit. This active posture for the creature is the only one that can claim to have faithfully apprehended the doctrine of concursus.

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5 §49.3, the divine ruling

I. Introduction In §49.3, Barth describes a distinction between the “already” and the “not yet” of the kingdom of God. With the prayer “Thy kingdom come,” he asks for the coming of a kingdom that has already, in a sense, arrived. However, there is also a sense in which the Nihil continues to threaten the creature with deception in the context of God’s permissio. Consequently, Barth’s triumphalistic statements in §49.3 need to be understood in a very particular context. This chapter argues that the participation of the Christian in providence is Barth’s context for discerning the difference between the reserve that God’s permission grants to evil and the character of evil itself as incomprehensible. This interpretive reading begins with an explication of the eschatological tension between the “already” and the “not yet” in §49.3. Then, Barth’s unequivocal statements about the total remit of God’s rule are uncovered. Finally, this chapter maintains a resolution for the tension between Barth’s statements on sovereignty and his understanding of the eschatological delay with a three-part argument. It is concluded that Barth’s doctrine of providence incorporates different ways for the Christian to participate in Christ, and these different kinds of participation license differing statements about the relation between the kingdom of God and evil. Overall, Barth’s statements point to the doctrine of providence as a “practical recognition” of the risen Lord in the context of a prayerful commending of the Word of God. Therefore, “Thy kingdom come” is an appropriate summary of what Barth says in his explication of divine government in §49.3.

II. The Eschatological Tension of the Kingdom in §49.3 The Westminster Confession of Faith states that God orders events “to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely or 92

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contingently.”1 It is the “necessarily” that makes the doctrine of gubernatio at once dogmatically appropriate and culturally tense, for it asserts that God governs things so that they will arrive at the destiny that he determines. Eventually, the question of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake arises: whence this particular evil?2 On account of evil events in the world, many moderns recoil from a God that presides over the public. We would rather be ruled by a “god” who transforms the personal side of the world than bow to a King who governs the earth.3 Should God’s government be a pervasive one, how might we understand his involvement in the horrific events that span human history? Further, how does God’s presiding over these events not diminish his praiseworthiness, which Barth is so interested in protecting? In a way, Barth’s own methodology in §49.3 mirrors the skeptic’s glance at a particular event; he turns the Lisbon-complaint on its head in attending to the most tragic event of all, the cross of Christ. On account of the pervasive significance of Golgotha, Barth can consistently refuse to disassociate the personal from the public side of the world. These two spheres are combined in one order beneath God in Jesus Christ, and so “we cannot make it [i.e., divine government] into a private history.”4 Barth acknowledges that tragic events have cultural weight for shaping popular notions of providence, and they did play an important role in the humanistic skepticism that became entrenched in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and continued on through the twentieth. The nineteenth century offers us a typical example of what it means for theology when the kingly office of Christ is slighted.5 Consequently, as Barth saw the German church of the twentieth century, it had already “died the death of a thousand smaller compromises.”6 Barth’s reiteration of the doctrine of gubernatio is an attempt to return to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, and especially with the prayer and obedience of the church in mind. If theology is not just a private discourse, then one may first raise questions about divine power from within the context of the Christian confession: in what sense does the Christian believe this God to be “the Father Almighty”? In the light of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the question of God’s

1 2 3 4 5

6

The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chap. 5, sect. 2. In 1755, “God was under attack for the Lisbon earthquake,” CD III/3, p. 298. Gilkey, Reaping the Whirlwind, p. 202. CD III/3, p. 183. J. Bosc, The Kingly Office of the Lord Jesus Christ (trans. A. K. S. Reid; Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1957), p. 33. “For more than two hundred years, it [the church] has been trying to divide its loyalty between Jesus Christ and other supposed sources of divine revelation,” G. Hunsinger, Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 95.

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providential power becomes a very unique one. Is his general governance of the creature qualified by his choice to become incarnate in Jesus Christ? What unique resources are available to the Christian for believing in, and obeying the God who rules over the world? Barth understands his segment devoted to the question of divine government to be “decisive.”7 That is, God does not just rule as a tyrant, but he rules over every historical event in and through the “kingdom of Christ.”8 Dogmatically, the kingdom of Jesus Christ is pervasive because it isn’t just an exercise of blind power; it is also a redemptive kingdom. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is a saving kingdom that circumscribes every event in history. This kingdom even redeems the prayers of the saints, extending into the personal sphere. In Jesus Christ, the God to whom we pray is no longer a solitary monad; “the colourless idea” of divine omnicausality “takes on colour” in a prayerful commending of the Word of God.9 Barth identifies the omnipotence of the King not just as a personal quality belonging to him, but as Jesus Christ himself. Jesus is not the kind of King who is respected only because of the authority that he wields, because he, so to speak, “pulls the strings” that cause things to happen in the natural world. Rather, Christ’s power is a divine power that soteriologically encompasses every event within creation; furthermore, in this way his power agrees with creation at its very heart: “this means that His [. . .] measures are not merely sovereign, but in their sovereignty they are also right.”10 Christ’s power agrees with nature because he is the partner of the creature in election. God’s act of creation cannot be divorced from the purpose he destines for the natural world in predestination. Furthermore, creation has a telos that expresses God’s will, and this gives history a particular direction. This telos will, in the end, simply agree with God’s initial will to create in Jesus Christ: “The world to which the Son of God comes is the Son’s own world.”11 This implies that the fullness of Christ’s kingdom is “always a completed fact” and that, at the same time, “we are only moving” toward it, as it “is still concealed from us.”12 God rules over every event in history, but some creatures do not voluntarily commend the Word of God. Yes, there is a free confession of the Word in the church; however, there is also rebellion against it in the “world at large.”13 Despite the apparent strain, God rules over this external rebellion in such a way that his exercise of power is not tensely related with his rule over the church. The relationship between these two manifestations of the kingdom is an “inwardly calm” one.14 He first mentions the already/not yet distinction

7 10 12

CD III/3, p. 154. CD III/3, p. 156. CD III/3, p. 157.

8 11 13

9 CD III/3, p. 40. CD III/3, p. 177. Tanner, “Creation and Providence,” p. 112. 14 CD III/3, p. 188. CD III/3, p. 189.

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in an exegetical excursus on the biblical doctrine of the kingdom, which concludes: The New Testament concept of God, actualized now in the accomplished incarnation and epiphany of the Word, is also historically dynamic, and for the first time truly so [. . .] The Bασιλεία is here, and yet it is not here; it is revealed, yet also hidden; it is present, but always future; it is at hand, indeed in the very midst, yet it is constantly expected, being still, and this time seriously, the object of the petition: “Thy kingdom come.”15 Barth balances his account of this eschatological tension in his explication of gubernatio at every point. His reading seeks equilibrium between a realized universalism and a postponed parousia. History has its own life which is directed toward a telos, that is, to some extent, unrealized in the present.16 As he affirms this eschatological direction for the history of creation in election, however, he also affirms that this eschatology is, in another sense, realized in the present. One must simply ask: how can this be?

III. Extant Readings of the Eschatological Tension in §49.3 G. W. Love’s 1996 thesis on Barth’s doctrine of concursus argues that Barth’s section on the Nihil, if considered seriously, must cut a huge swath across his whole doctrine of providence, qualifying all of his statements about divine government. He concludes that the divine ruling can only be eschatological in providence in such a way that evil events are permitted to occur beneath God’s rule: “We can speak only of an eschatological omnicausality of God.”17 What Love means in saying this is that Barth does not give enough room for the possibility of evil events in his explication of gubernatio.18 E. Saxer’s account joins Love’s, seeing the discontinuity between §49.3 and §50 as a sign that Barth’s theological development had not yet fully matured on this matter when writing III/3. Barth’s “third phase” of providence (in 1949) is characterized by “the radical contradiction between God’s good creation against sin and evil.” However, this perspective shifts when he reaches the doctrine of reconciliation in volume IV, which is his “fourth phase,” where

15 16

17 18

CD III/3, p. 156. “He Himself is the only goal” of the creature, CD III/3, p. 158; and so the “telos which has to be attained in this history” is Jesus Christ, CD III/3, p. 155. Love, “The Role of the Holy Spirit,” p. 258. Love, “The Role of the Holy Spirit,” pp. 258–9.

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“the ruling of God and Nothingness are no longer divided.”19 Love’s and Saxer’s readings raise a valuable question for observing §49.3: Is Barth’s discussion of divine government an idealized account?20 Barth’s section on gubernatio makes various statements about the eschatological kingdom that stand in tension. J. McDowell affirms that Barth is “slippery” in the midst of the eschatological tension in his thought, “often taking away with one hand what he had appeared to present with the other.”21 These readings are beneficial because they point out the difficulty inherent in resolving Barth’s accepted tension into a higher unity. It is, rather, wiser to affirm that there are theological reasons for Barth’s conscientious self-positioning against a hegemonic perspective.22 For instance, Love’s view leaves God’s creatures with a diminished knowledge of the kingdom in the present, and with a scant basis for a prayer for the coming of this kingdom. Without knowledge of the realized kingdom there is no basis for petitioning God for its coming.23 I will especially investigate M. T. Dempsey’s account, which is particularly attentive to questions about the creature’s participation in the midst of this tension. Dempsey asserts that, while Barth does say in III/3 that God’s will is always done, “it is still the case that, for Barth, God’s will is not always done as such.”24 Dempsey’s account of the divine government is consistent with this statement, in taking full notice of the active role of the Christian. Since the Christian participates in the divine government, Dempsey reasons, this means that this government is contingent on the creature’s active participation in the Spirit: If God’s government has its being in terms of its action in time, then it must be understood in our concrete relationship with God. And if this relationship is understood along these ethico-political lines, then we cannot understand how God’s government is fully accomplished in a world in which Christians do not act on behalf of the poor and oppressed. God is, of course, free and sovereign over all God’s creation and God depends in no way upon creatures for the sovereignty of 19 20

21 22 23

24

Saxer, Vorsehung und Verheissung Gottes, pp. 83, 87. Otto Weber suspects this: “He [Barth] first of all develops (CD, III, 3) the doctrine of providence without any notable attention to sin, and then the doctrine of ‘nothingness’, which follows methodically and thematically upon the doctrine of providence but still is not an element of it. The result of this division in his thinking is that the creature in the sense of providence is not seen clearly enough as a sinner,” Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics, p. 505. For a list of such readings, see the introduction. McDowell, Hope in Barth’s Eschatology, p. 148. Gorringe, Against Hegemony, pp. 1–23. Barth argues in his lectures on the Lord’s Prayer in 1949 that one must know the kingdom has already come in order to petition its coming; Prayer, 36. I deal with this observation at more length at the conclusion of this chapter. Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 247.

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divine government. Yet, God has not only decided not to be alone, but has even decided to give creatures a share in the actualization of God’s government. Thus, if the divine government only becomes actual in time, and if the norm for the divine government follows from 1 Corinthians 12:14–26, then we cannot say that God’s government is fully concrete insofar as creatures are not responding to God’s grace by acting on behalf of the poor and oppressed.25 Dempsey’s treatment of Barth is sensitive and clear, and it encourages readers of III/3 to look beyond Barth’s statements that appear to be a reiteration of orthodox Protestantism. There is much to commend Dempsey’s argument because he reasons from the standpoint of Barth’s text, especially where this relationship between the “already” and the “not yet” stands in tension. The emphasis of Barth’s writing also lends itself to a mandate for social action for the sake of the “less honourable” parts of the cosmic-body in places.26 Dempsey’s reading focuses very closely on the question of current unrighteousness in what still appears to be the kingdom of God. The interpretive question that he raises is, furthermore, if Barth’s account understands the divine kingdom to be contingent on human cooperation: Since the divine government does not exist somewhere other than time and space, then according to 1 Corinthians 12, the divine government becomes most actual insofar as God’s creatures respond to God’s offer of grace by bestowing the glory and honour of God to those in the community who are lacking the most. If God’s Kingdom is a righteous Kingdom that stands “unambiguously” on the side of the poor and oppressed, then to grasp this specific political understanding of government actualistically, is to understand it as it becomes operative in human thinking, being and acting, i.e., in political action and thought. The divine government, in other words, functions most efficaciously insofar as human beings are actually caught up in the reality of God’s rule in their own lives of faith and outreach to the needy. Far from undermining the role of human agency in the execution of God’s government, Barth’s theology places an enormous responsibility on human beings to make God’s government and will actual in time and space [. . .] Moreover, if to take Barth’s actualism seriously means that where there are “Christians” who are not actualizing this specific righteous will of God in history for those in need, then God’s government is not fully actual in any form other than pure permission.27

25 27

Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 288. Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 287.

26

CD III/3, p. 193.

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Dempsey’s difficulty with whether or not the will of God is “always done” is my concern here. He finds no other solution for Barth’s statements but to make the fulfillment of the kingdom of God contingent on human cooperation. Some difficulties arise at this point, however. Dempsey makes very little mention of Christ’s role in Barth’s account of divine government. He especially overlooks the relation between the governing intercession of Christ and the participation of the Christian in him. Dempsey also chooses not to comment on the section of Barth’s text where he makes this connection clear, in the section of §49 that follows gubernatio.28 And perhaps, most importantly, in each statement, Dempsey seems to build his argument on a strong time-eternity distinction, not taking note that Christ’s intercession in providence takes place from the standpoint of a created and heavenly incomprehensibility. That is, Jesus Christ enacts the participation of the creature in divine providence in and through his Spirit from a terminus a quo that rests within creation, and he always does so incomprehensibly.29 Therefore, the relation between God’s government and the creature’s act cannot be reduced to a “mechanical” view of causality.30 Because of this, while Dempsey’s focus on the kingdom of God in terms of its broad, eschatological overtones brings out the tension implicit in Barth’s text, it seems to do so at the expense of the full and joyful assurance that belongs to the prayerful theologian that Barth is so interested in protecting. For this reason, Dempsey does give short shrift to some of Barth’s statements on the pervasiveness of the kingdom. In one place he states of gubernatio: “this co--ordination of creatures is God’s ruling [. . .] ‘(and) if we are to understand the divine world governance rightly, there is one idea that we can never resist too strongly, one notion we can never reject too sharply [. . .] (i.e.,) that God causes His will and His will alone to be done in all things (III/3, 171).’ ”31 Most likely, Dempsey’s careful eye overlooks the full statement in Barth’s text because the focus of his particular reading is so heavily concerned with 28

29

30 31

“It is beyond this present thesis to offer a detailed treatment of faith, obedience and prayer in Barth’s thought,” Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 291. Barth’s statement on “The Kingdom of Heaven” in §51.2 points out that all of God’s works in the created order have their terminus a quo from a heavenly standpoint, which is also part of the created order; heaven is “needing to be sustained by Him,” CD III/3, p. 419. D. Kennedy concludes on this matter that there are, consequently, no “Humean” miracles (i.e., miracles which would “interrupt” the “real” laws of nature) in Barth’s theology. Rather, God acts from a standpoint that is incomprehensibly above the human dialectic of knowing natural law, which is based on juxtapositions between “necessity” and “contingency” in nature; see his section on Barth’s repudiation of dualism in §51. Kennedy’s study is also insightful because he links this contemporaneous role given to heaven in Barth’s theology with his truncated view of the afterlife; Kennedy, “A Personalist Doctrine of Providence,” pp. 216–23. CD III/3, p. 101. Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 283.

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the “not yet” aspect of the kingdom. In Dempsey’s reading, this precludes the possibility that the kingdom is currently, actually realized on the whole. In the same way, Barth’s intention is shortened in this quotation. Dempsey’s citation cuts off the full sentence in view after its first half. The full statement in III/3 reads: If we are to understand the divine world-governance rightly, there is one idea that we can never resist too strongly, one notion that we can never reject too sharply. The fact that God causes His will and His will alone to be done in all things, does not mean that the ruling God is an oppressor who grudges it to the creature even to exist at all, let alone to have its own value and dignity over against him.32 Ironically, this is a very strong statement of Barth’s that rehearses the compatibility of the current and full realization of the kingdom with the creature’s free agency. Dempsey’s account on the whole is a helpful guide for pointing out the diversity of statements that are made by Barth in §49.3. Unique among other interpretations of Barth’s volume on providence, Dempsey is discriminating enough to sense the seemingly contradictory aspects of Barth’s view as they are written into his explication of gubernatio. He especially seems to recognize that Barth begins his account of the divine government with the “already” and “not yet” concern in mind.33 This shows sensitivity to Barth’s eschatological accents in III/3. An interpretation of the whole of III/3 should incline in this direction, but should not juxtapose the present “already” against the “not yet” as opposing principles in his theology. Classically, G. C. Berkouwer’s critique of Barth’s theology in his The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth avers that Barth submits his theology of creation to a particular principle: grace.34 Barth’s response, which characterizes the specificity of the debate for him, is that his theology is derived from a “person” rather than a principle, and that this should be evident in reading §50.35 Importantly, it is the 32

33 34

35

CD III/3, p. 171; KD III/3, p. 193: “Man kann, wenn man Gottes Weltregierung recht verstehen will, den Gedanken nicht streng genug fernhalten, die Angst und das Miβtrauen nicht scharf genug zurückweisen, als wäre der regierende Gott, indem er in allem seinen und nur seinen Willen geschehen läβt, ein Unterdrücker, der es seinem Geschöpf miβgönnte, ihm gegenüber nun wirklich zu sein und also eben seinen eigenen Wert und seine eigene Würde zu haben.” Cf. CD III/3, pp. 155–7. “This theme has become the dominant motif in the theology of Barth”; Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, p. 19. CD IV/3, pp. 173–80; cf. M. D. Wüthrich, Gott und das Nichtige: zur Rede vom Nichtigen ausgehend von Karl Barths KD §50 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2006), p. 303.

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subjectivity of Christ as Victor that presides over the current kingdom. In this way, the victorious Christ can distinguish himself from a principially “realized” kingdom with the problem of the Nihil in view.36 This response of Barth’s points to the anteriority of Christ’s own subjectivity over a principially realized kingdom, and Barth finds this to be a defining enough characteristic for his theology to rebut Berkouwer’s whole argument: “It is in the free act of this person [. . .] that the divine and therefore absolute superiority of this Partner is worked out and the situation between Him and His opponent is settled—and not otherwise.”37 I propose that a more careful reading of Barth’s view of gubernatio will need to follow Dempsey’s lead in looking to the eschatological tension as a central theme. However, I wish to explore how the supremacy of Christ’s person is a proper vantage point for reading this tension. Especially, Christ’s inalienable subjectivity relates with the Christian’s participatio Christi so as to license Barth’s seemingly contradictory statements in §49.3. That is, the distinction between the “already” and the “not yet” is a distinction between two legitimate and obedient perspectives on the kingdom. For this reason, the distinction between “already” and “not yet” need not be entirely a matter of distinguishing between the creature’s voluntary and involuntary compliance with God’s rule, contra Dempsey. With this tension in mind, I take up the question of the “extent” of the divine government after a more complete look at the importance of the kingly office of Christ in §49.3.

IV. Textual Analysis of Gubernatio in §49.3 a. God as the Goal of his Ruling Barth begins each of his sections in III/3 with an exegetical reflection on a segment of Paul’s doxology in Rom. 11.36: “from him and through him and to him are all things.”38 Among Barth’s other reasons for considering this verse in III/3, his most important is his attending to the final clause of the verse with a view to the divine government: “We may now take up the third obvious application of the words in Rom. 11.36: Eἰϛ αὐτóν τὰ πάντα[. . .] εἰϛ αυτóν means (P. Van Mastricht) ad finem suum [to the end determined 36

37 38

Otherwise, “all would thereby be unilaterally subsumed within the impersonal, and monistic, process of grace’s march,” McDowell, Hope in Barth’s Eschatology, p. 168; cf. p. 136. CD IV/3, p. 176. Cf. CD III/3, pp. 59, 95, 157–8; in each case in Barth’s exegesis, “him” is God in Jesus Christ. For example, Barth states that the “him” in this verse refers to “the perfect rule of God over all creatures as fulfilled in the sending and raising again of Jesus Christ,” CD III/3, p. 59.

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by Him]. The goal towards which everything moves in its own history is the goal which God alone has fixed and appointed for it.”39 God’s reconciling all things ad finem suum means that every event in history is determined to culminate in a reconciled fellowship with God. God alone is “irreplaceably and unexchangably” the subject of this rule, and therefore, he is its telos as well. For Barth, the history of divine providence accompanies the history of reconciliation, and joins with it in such a way that they are truly one. God’s rule is immediate, and yet also distant, and this disparity cannot be comprehended by the creature. However, with the advent of Barth’s use of the Holy Spirit as a predicate of Christ’s action in concursus, this mystery does not beg for a conceptual resolution. God stands above all of the antitheses that are experienced in creation, and this is mysteriously apprehended in the Holy Spirit at the behest of Christ. Without the Spirit, the creature is incapable of conceiving the divine rule as anything but either a “general” or “particular” governance. When gubernatio is apprehended in the Spirit, however, the eschatological aspect of God’s rule frees the creature to see God as powerful above the dialectical tension between the norms and exceptions of history. In truth, “we cannot identify with the divine dynamic, or substitute for it, what which we ourselves think to be dynamic as opposed to static.”40 Rather, God sits on a “throne established over this antithesis [. . . and he] laughs at all our attempts to see his rule with the eye of human reason.”41 When God’s power is seen within the confines of this historical dynamic between contingency and necessity, his supremacy is starkly underestimated. If God’s action is not qualitatively distinct in Jesus Christ, the creature’s conception of the divine rule eventually becomes quite limited. On his own, the creature will inevitably imagine divine power according to the limited capacities, strictures, and norms of created bodies.42 The creature, even as a Christian, may imagine God as “Almighty” in the superlative, as the “greatest” power among other powers.43 Without an adequate Christological safeguard in place, an idolatrous result will eventuate. The doctrine of God is consequently endangered without a Christological view of divine power; in order for the God of gubernatio to be a praiseworthy God, his free omnipotence must stand above all of the antitheses that characterize the creature’s knowledge of the natural world: “A deviation either to the right hand or the left will inevitably lead to the worship of a god which has nothing whatever to do with the true God who is Father and 39 42 43

40 41 CD III/3, p. 158. CD III/3, p. 161. CD III/3, p. 160. CD III/3, p. 27; CD IV/1, p. 233; CD IV/3, p. 107. Ideally, in reciting the creed, the Christian “proceeds to call Jesus Christ the one Lord (I Cor. viii. 6), he does not by that merely place Him at the top of the pyramid of these many lords”; Credo, p. 52.

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King.” Any other “god” is unworthy of worship because it is “confined to the prison-house of Parces.”44 Once God’s power has been rendered vague, it will inevitably be understood as “reversible” with a capacity of the creature.45 Consequently, what one will mean when using the word “power” in speaking of God (or, even when praying to God) will be similar to when the term is predicated of a creature. Resultantly, this conception of the power of God will be loose enough that it will be freely identifiable with another creature, or even with a historical movement. For example, in The Christian Life, Barth finds that Luther and Calvin pit the kingdom of God against various evils in the world. As he comments on the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, he argues against them in saying the petition “looks to a mighty act that limits and determines from outside the whole of human history with its brighter and darker elements, its advances, halts and setbacks.”46 In other words, for Barth, God’s kingdom is incomprehensibly free in such a way that it stands above the dialectic of freedom and necessity that characterizes all earthly knowledge of the world.47 Without this safeguard in place, the creature will be tempted to say “Lo, it [i.e., the kingdom] is here or here (Lk. 17.21).”48 God rules over the “cosmic antithesis of freedom and necessity,” and unless he is praised and “adored within” this freedom above the antithesis, his power will never be faithfully ascertained.49 God is praiseworthy in Jesus Christ, and so the power he exerts is holy and has a soteriological shape. The glory of God in creation cannot be separated from his purpose for the salvation of the creature: “God controls all things because [. . .] He wills and actually accomplishes one thing—His own glory as Creator, and in the justification, deliverance, salvation, and ultimately the glorification of the creature.”50 The only resource the Christian has for apprehending God’s determination of history is the history of Jesus Christ as it is apprehended in the Spirit. b. A Christological Order for History Barth assigns a particular role to Jesus Christ in God’s execution of his plan for all of history. He describes a radically particular understanding of God’s governing of the free contribution of the creature. Every event in history is determined by an ordinatio beneath Christ. Commenting on

44 45 46 49

CD III/3, p. 162. Cf. Barth’s example with Quenstedt, CD III/3, p. 134. 47 ChrL, p. 242. CD III/3, pp. 424–50. 50 CD III/3, p. 164. CD III/3, p. 168.

48

ChrL, p. 244.

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M. F. Wendelin’s (1634) definition of gubernatio as ordinatio,51 Barth states: The definition is illuminating because in the concept ordo it quite rightly reveals the presupposed decision and plan of God as such, but at once connects it with that of the ordinatio, the living divine constitutere, disponere, regere, thus giving it full dignity and power. It cannot be otherwise if we are not to make temporal history completely empty, removing the living God, fundamentally denying His actual and sovereign and free activity, and making a dead idol of the eternal propositum.52 Barth consistently rejects the possibility that God’s government should only be a protological matter.53 Providence must not be swallowed by an eternal past. God’s ordinatio is a real relationship with the free creature in the present, directing her aspirations eschatologically beneath the dominion of Christ. God gives the creature a “sphere in which to work.”54 In the context of the governing “order” of Christ, Barth uses his own terms for describing what each partner has to offer: the creature brings forward her own “aims,” which “aim at a certain effect.” However, as in succursus, God freely, immediately wills the historical “effect” that results from this “aim,” and it will only be an “effect” that is posited by God: Whether the effect comes, and if so how it comes, is a completely new factor in relation to the activity. This is true whether we consider it from the standpoint of necessity or from that of freedom. And if it is God who controls creaturely occurrence and not fate or chance, then we have to say quite baldly that the decisive moment, the very meaning of creaturely activity, its effect, and the goal or end in which it culminates, are all the gift and dispensation of God.55 God routes every creaturely “effect” toward him on the horizon between providence and eschatology. It is important to keep in mind, however, that Barth does not use these terms univocally (i.e., “aim” and “effect”). The creature may be given a special freedom in concursus, a freedom that “aims”

51

52 53

54

“It is the ordinatio, qua Deus [. . .] omnia in ordinem redigit, fines certos et bonas constituendo et media ad fines disponendo et disposita regendo [the determination by which God [. . .] puts all things in order, establishing definite and good ends, arranging means to those ends, and governing those arrangements]”; CD III/3, p. 165. CD III/3, p. 165. “The meaning Barth constructs [of providence . . .] is not simply protological but eschatological in scope”; Johnson, The Mystery of God, p. 91. 55 CD III/3, p. 165. CD III/3, p. 166.

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at certain effects; however, this does not mean that the creature’s freedom somehow lies outside the divine government. Rather, Barth’s language of “aim” and “effect” is used by him to reinforce his assertion that God controls all of history.56 It appears, then, that Barth uses these terms in order to keep his doctrine of providence eschatologically focused: “In determining creaturely activity and its effects, God directs it to a common goal, that is, Himself.”57 This structure of God’s government over human agency has many implications. The term “aim” expresses that the creature has a place to stand and from which to act in God’s eschatological plan. Likewise, the term “effect” expresses that God sovereignly actualizes a scenario that results from the “aim” of the creature. Within the context of this whole arrangement, God coordinates the creature’s position beneath him so that it will function for realizing his all-encompassing plan. Barth emphasizes the eschatological dominion of God over human agency cheerfully, turning the modern sensibilities of his readers on their heads: It is the glory of the creature to be lowly in relation to God. For when it is relative to Him, it participates with all its activities and effects in His absoluteness. To be able to serve Him alone with all its activities and in all its joint-effects, to be in His hands and under His control only as a means, an instrument, the clay of the potter—this is its direct and original glory.58 God’s ordinatio is not an individualistic order, but an order for the external basis of the whole covenant, embracing all of history. In this way, the God who arranges an order for his creatures within the world, with an eye upon the individuality of each, also does so in order that his creature might join in a chorus of praise to him: “It is He who arranges that His creatures can praise Him together.”59 Our “imperialist will to comprehend” is offended by this order, as we desire to connect divine providence with a structure within creation.60 Since the God who governs the universe stands above our distinction between “great” and “small,” he is able to arrange

56

57 60

“This, then, is the divine order of world-occurrence; the controlling of creaturely activity in its execution and also in its results. Since this control is universal, and embraces and concerns all creaturely activity and its effects, it is actually an ordering of everything that happens,” CD III/3, p. 167. Jesus Christ will accept no other “orders” beneath him; CD IV/2, pp. 173–9. 58 59 CD III/3, p. 167. CD III/3, p. 171. CD III/3, p. 170. Whitehouse, Creation, Science & Theology, p. 40.

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things so that every creature should exist in an “immediate encounter” with him.61 c. The King of Israel Barth’s employment of the kingly office of Christ as the “material content” of the divine ruling is offered from within the standpoint of the history of the covenant. It is in the context of a particular people that one can see that Jesus Christ is King. This is the most fundamental basis for apprehending divine providence, as it defines the sense in which God the Father is “the Almighty.”62 The Christian particularity of divine providence can only be safeguarded within the history of God’s self-disclosure to the people of Israel as the “I am.”63 Barth contrasts the God of providence with the older, orthodox conception. He says the “older theology” thought of the powerful God of providence as “colourlessness.”64 However, caprice cannot possibly characterize the God who fulfills his covenant with Israel. This God, the God who discloses himself in saying “I am,” is the God who makes his identity sufficiently clear for the sake of the creature’s worship. On account of the fact that God discloses himself to a particular people within a historical stream, one can only come to know him as the “I am” from an analogously particular standpoint. In order to avoid the intellectual hazards that encroach here, one must have the “right [. . .] relationship to this reality.”65 God is not simply a generally powerful God, whose abilities can be classified on a scale that measures differing degrees of power. This God’s power is only known in the way he “initiates” and “fulfills” the “history of this people”; he proves that his power is extraordinary by soliciting the worship of his people in and through a Heilsgeschichte. One can only know this King as one lives within the society of the remnant that praises him, the faithful group of those who actively intercede for the larger community: And there is always a remnant which, even in its solidarity with the people in sin and judgment, perceives that the King reigns, remembering that he has done so in the past and confident that He will do so in the future; which pays heed to His Word and recognizes in the adversity of the people the judgment of its King; which humbly acknowledges His judgment to be just and even in judgment recognizes His grace, and therefore of His favour; which on this account can still rejoice even in its isolation, praising the King on behalf of the whole people.66

61 64

CD III/3, pp. 174, 173. CD III/3, p. 176.

62 65

CD III/3, p. 175. CD III/3, p. 177.

63 66

CD III/3, p. 177. CD III/3, p. 179.

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This King not only exercises his sovereignty over all of history, but discloses his identity as the “I am” in his enjoining the praise of his people. An implication of this history is that God’s determination is not only that the creature should be free, but also that the creature should praise him in the Spirit. The particularity of this history is crowned in the coming of Jesus Christ, who fulfills God’s promise to be the “I am.” “Now the King Himself comes and He comes from Nazareth in Galilee.”67 At once, then, an apprehension of this King within the confines of this particular history becomes a matter of prayer. Barth describes the appropriate response of the New Testament community as “prais[ing] His grace in its life and by its witness.”68 Within the context of this salvation history God beckons his people to participate in him. Barth’s soteriological approach means that Christ beckons history toward himself eschatologically, never lessening its nature. This means that he stands over every event in freedom, whether this event is thought of as “necessary” or “free” within the confines of creation. God is free to work above and within every event in history. God is even free to become incarnate within the context of this juxtaposition: It is in the almightiness of His mercy and in the mercy of His almightiness that He is above and in these antinomies. And it is as the King of Israel that He acts and manifests Himself in this way, that he is both unity and life, that He is almighty and merciful in an unfathomable and incomparable, a truly incomprehensible and yet manifested divine union of the two, in the union in which He overlooks and controls and is thus superior to all the tensions which these antinomies necessarily mean for the creature and creaturely thinking, in which the antinomies can only serve him.69 Having made his radical correction, now the praiseworthiness of God is securely safeguarded in Jesus Christ. God not only rules, in the words of Heidegger, according to an “eternal necessity.”70 Rather, his work is “always according to an eternal necessity, and yet always with surprise.”71 The God who discloses himself in this particular history in the Incarnation is the triune God who “in his freedom is gracious, and in his grace [is] free.”72 This means that all of history hinges on one single point that stands above it: whether an event is “necessary” or “free,” it is determined by God to witness to his glory at the footstool of Jesus Christ. The atonement of Christ affects the world “from within [. . .] causing his kingdom to come on earth.”73 This

67 68 69 72

CD III/3, p. 179. CD III/3, p. 180; “the New Testament community is the new Israel,” CD III/3, p. 181. 70 71 CD III/3, pp. 187–8. GD II, §20. CD III/3, p. 188. 73 CD III/3, p. 186. CD IV/1, p. 198.

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event is the hinge on which history turns because it is the free event that exemplifies the freedom of God’s love. On the heels of the doctrine of concursus, the singularity of this eschatology also raises a question about the way the divine government circumscribes the various particulars of history. How can the history of creation be coordinated into a “single whole” if all creatures are truly free and particular? If God’s determination is to reconcile every event with Jesus Christ, does not the singularity of this goal trample on the freedom that has just been given to the creature in the doctrine of concursus?74 Barth finds that this need not be the case if gubernatio is apprehended on the basis of a “Christian” account of the doctrine of God.75 For Barth, there is a constitutive role for the Holy Spirit in the community’s apprehension of this sovereignty. The Holy Spirit is “the only One who has true power.”76 So, while the Bible does not offer a “solution to the technical problem” for how “the individual and the community can properly co-exist,” it does offer its readers a visio Dei of the self-electing God in Jesus Christ that administers the particularity that continues to belong to creation in the Spirit. This vision of Christ is also of the triune God who safeguards the creature’s commendation of his Word in the Spirit.77 Apprehending the King of Kings is, for this reason, a “practical recognition.”78 Providence cannot be seen apart from an active participation in Christ via the Holy Spirit. Rather, it is only in the Spirit that one can apprehend this particular dominion: “for if the idea of the divine worldgovernance is concretely filled out as we have suggested, then at once we are caught up in the divine economy and disposition.” As we simply “think the thought” of the divine rule within the context of this particular history, we have “begun to put it into effect in our own particular sphere.” The God we speak of, when speaking of the divine ruling, is the One who cannot be Lord without, in turn, “thinking of us and laying claim upon us.”79 Therefore, when one apprehends the God of divine providence in Jesus Christ, this apprehension is wholly self-involving. One cannot see this God without 74

75 77

78

For example, R. Bernhardt argues that the analogy between world history and salvation history simply collapses into a monism in §49.3: “The likeness-analogy between the world-history and the execution of the divine plan of salvation assimilates the subject-essence (Subjectsein) of the world and of the human to the subject-essence of God and moves toward a problematic salvation-historical monism”; Bernhardt, Was heisst “Handeln Gottes?,” p. 265. 76 CD III/3, p. 190. CD III/3, p. 187. CD III/3, p. 190; Barth draws upon Paul’s image for the relation between a community and its members by quoting 1 Cor. 12.14–26, citing it at length with a small interpretive comment about the way the Holy Spirit orders things in the cosmos: “the image is normative for a description [. . .] of the cosmos which is ruled by the living God, the King of Israel,” CD III/3, p. 193. 79 CD III/3, p. 14. CD III/3, p. 194.

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commending his dominion as a kingdom that also includes the creature’s active response within it in earnest gratitude: We cannot think the thought without understanding the Word of God and being caught up in the work of God [. . .] without seeing in Jesus Christ the Saviour who came down and was manifested and died and rose again for us; without seeing in free grace the reality to whose service we are pledged and by whose glorifying we can live—we who are called here and now, and have cause for gratitude, being indebted for our very selves. The very fact that we fill out the idea in a biblical and Christian way means that the divine world-governance necessarily becomes an event in our own lives and that we have to recognise and affirm it as such.80 This is what it means for the creature and especially the theologian to commend the Word of God in prayer. The creature can only know the divine government to the extent that he apprehends its God as the Christian God, and consequently participates in fellowship with him. The logic that requires that the Christian apprehension of the lordship of Christ involves his own active prayer is the logic of the mystery of the Trinity itself. Therefore, the only way in which the Christian can apprehend the divine government is if he also participates in the reality of the Spirit. This methodological commitment of Barth’s involves him in saying something very particular about divine providence: the doctrine of providence can only be articulated within the confines of a visio Dei of the God who elects himself in Jesus Christ. No other discussions of realities such as “creation,” or “nothingness” have any real content. Rather, the doctrine of divine providence can only be said to be a meaningful doctrine in and through a spiritual recognition of Jesus Christ as Creator in his resurrection.

V. An Engagement with Barth on the “Extent” of the Divine Government a. A Prophetic and Kingly Problem for Barth’s Account As I have just demonstrated, Barth states in §49.3 that the divine government is pervasive. Barth’s language of “aim” and “effect” in §49.3 structures the life of the creature according to a participatory framework beneath the divine government. In this way, he also states that the participation of the

80

CD III/3, pp. 194–5 emphasis mine.

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Christian is included within this government. On account of both of these assertions, I now present a hypothetical dispute with Barth’s explication of divine government within the context of this reading. I raise a number of questions here because, in the end, this line of inquiry helps to clarify what Barth means to say about history in saying that “God alone rules” and in also saying that the creature must participate prayerfully in this history. To summarize in advance: I ask why it is that Barth does not deal with his specific theology of permissio at length or with specificity, and therefore, why it is difficult to tell whether or not the Nihil is given a power that threatens the pervasiveness of the sovereignty of God in §49.3. To what extent is this contemporaneity of the Nihil effective? How does one account for Barth’s statements which indicate that both his government and das Nichtige are real? As Barth describes the divine order of God’s government in §49.3, he implicitly works within the context of the triplex munus. While Barth doesn’t mention the three-fold office in §49.3, he makes this framework for the Christian’s participation in providence explicit in the chapter immediately following, in §49.4. To be a “Christian” is to be “one who has personal knowledge of the prophetic and priestly and kingly office of Jesus Christ.”81 This is Barth’s register for evaluating the creature’s participatio Christi within the whole of III/3. This should not be surprising, since the importance Barth assigns to election at the onset of his doctrine of providence also implies a constitutive role for the doctrine of reconciliation.82 The divine ruling belongs to God within the context of the kingly office of Christ.83 Further, Barth also asserts in §49.3 that all creatures participate in this office, voluntarily or involuntarily. However, it will be made clear in the section that follows §49.3 that to become a “Christian” is to participate voluntarily in the prophetic office of Christ.84 Only one of these two offices, then, requires that the creature should “aim” to participate in it in order for that participation to occur. Thus, there is an important dogmatic distinction in III/3 between “kingly” and “prophetic” contexts for participation in Christ. If one may borrow from Barth’s discussion of the triplex munus in §49.4, his delineation between the two offices raises a valuable question about the divine government. When speaking within the context of the kingly office, das Nichtige has already been decisively cancelled on account of Christ’s victory on the cross. For this reason, there can be no “counter-government” alongside God’s rule in Jesus Christ; not even das Nichtige, which calls providence into question, can rival this dominion.85 However, in the temporal 81 83

84 85

82 CD III/3, p. 273. CD III/3, pp. 6–7. “Now the King Himself comes, and He comes from Nazareth in Galilee”; CD III/3, p. 179. CD III/3, pp. 239–88; cf. IV/3, §71, “The Vocation of Man,” pp. 481–680. CD III/3, p. 158.

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working out of things before the parousia, Christ’s prophetic work is “still engaged” in conflict with this darkness.86 Nothingness continues to contest the peace that Christ has established on the cross, and it is in the context of the prophetic office that the Christian witnesses to this peace and defies the “Lordless Powers” in the present.87 Therefore, there is a curious discontinuity between these two offices, and between the two ways that the creature can be said to actively participate in Christ in III/3. The creature only has one option when it comes to the kingly office, and that is to participate in Christ. This is, furthermore, Barth’s overall context for gubernatio in §49.3. No matter what she “aims” for, the “effect” of this aim will be immediately posited by God. Even in sin, as the creature goes to the so-called left hand of God, she will inevitably be a “sign and witness” to the kingly office.88 Whether the creature responds voluntarily or involuntarily, she will still witness to God’s realized dominion over all of history in Christ. Because of the kingly office, God’s telos for history includes a determinate “end of chaos and all its sinister powers.”89 Barth’s language of God’s determinate “effect,” then, describes God’s eschatological provision that the creature should inevitably witness to the sovereignty of God in Jesus Christ. Barth has already stated that the relationship between God’s rule over the confessing church and over the rebellious world is “inwardly calm.”90 The reality of the creature’s participation in the prophetic and the kingly offices is also dealt with accordingly by Barth. Both offices have distinct roles in his overall exposition in III/3, and they are joined with each other because they are grounded in Christ.91 On the one hand, the full implications of the kingly office are to be confessed within the context of the divine government. On the other, in the context of the prophetic, the final revelation of this distinction between the “shadow side” and das Nichtige will not take place until the end.92 There is only one power that belongs to the “fragmentary” reality of Nothingness.93 This is the power of deception, to somehow diminish the full efficacy of the truth of Christ’s accomplishment at Golgotha. This is a power to appear to the creature as if it were a “counter-government.”94 In the present, this factor in divine providence is only capable of coaxing God’s creatures with lies. In fact, das Nichtige has no real potency with respect to the “effects” that are brought about by historical agents. Rather, and in a conspicuous way, God actually allows this deception to occur, but lies can

86 88

89 91

92

87 CD IV/3, p. 328. ChrL, pp. 213–33. Barth’s account of the four traces as “signs and witnesses” includes a final category, death, which requires that every human history should participate in Christ’s dominion; CD III/3, pp. 226–38. 90 CD III/3, p. 158. CD III/3, p. 189. The kingly office is “inseparable from his person,” CD III/3, p. 156; “He has put these titles of majesty on their lips,” CD IV/1, p. 162. 93 94 CD III/3, pp. 20, 289, 296. CD III/3, p. 367. CD III/3, p. 158.

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only meddle with the creature’s “aim.” This power to deceive is allotted to das Nichtige by God in his act of permissio, and it fills the gap which is opened by the concealment of the Word of God: “Nothingness may still have standing [. . .] to the extent that the final revelation of its destruction has not yet taken place and all creation must still await and expect it.”95 God reveals his rule, and yet he conceals it, and it is in the outer sphere where his government is concealed that the permissio of God is still active: “For the way in which He creates the context in world-occurrence does not reveal Him to us, but conceals him from us.”96 Regardless of this permission, however, the effect brought about by the creature’s action always belongs to God. [The creature] will answer for what it has said and done. But what this is, what harvest comes up from the seed, what happens as the goal of its striving and willing and the result of its working, whether it is nonexistent or existent, whether it is what was striven after and willed or something quite different, whether it is good or bad, salvation or perdition—this is not the creature’s concern. It is decided, decreed and directed by God.97 This raises an important question that must be asked of Barth about the divine government. If the Lordship of God always determines the “effect” of the creature’s action, but still “permits” deception to occur within the context of the creature’s “aim,” is this not, in practice, an admission that God is somehow complicit in evil within the context of his dominion? If God allows das Nichtige to rear its head in any manner, how is this not a vital blow against Barth’s thematic focus on the holiness and praiseworthiness of the providential God? This is, for Barth, the sense in which §49.3 is about having one piece of the “Christ-pie” missing. The distinction between the two offices, which grounds the distinction that Barth explicitly makes in III/3 between two different kinds of voluntary Christian participation inevitably implies this question about their relationship within the same volume. If the permission of God allows evil to continue to deceive the saints before the parousia, how can the creature wholeheartedly praise the God that has already cancelled das Nichtige? If Barth is to be consistent with his own approach, he must articulate a view of the divine rule and its relationship with his permissio in such a way that “we can never be deceived.”98 b. Clarifying the Question of “Extent”: The two distinct but united perspectives that belong to the prophetic and kingly offices show similarity with Barth’s later account in §78.3 “Thy 95 98

CD III/3, p. 367. CD III/3, p. 188.

96

CD III/3, p. 197.

97

CD III/3, p. 167.

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Kingdom Come.” As a reflection on the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Barth introduces a tripartite “structure” for the New Testament’s statements on the “mystery of the kingdom.” This three-fold typology organizes references to the kingdom as referring to “place,” the future world of God, and the royal action of God amidst a covenantal history.99 These last two resemble the perspectives that Barth brings to bear on the kingdom in III/3. Most importantly, while there is a “deep gulf” between the last two, the eschatological aspect of the kingdom’s future coming is mysteriously one with its realized, royal expression within the world. Barth mentions that, despite the fact that the New Testament speaks of the kingdom with an eschatological tension, these two eschatological perspectives are truly one: To be sure, we are dealing with one thing here, but not in the form of certain intersecting human views and conceptions. Of such one can only say that, as their elements and they themselves cannot be reduced to a common denominator, they bear witness to the fact that they relate to something that is uniquely and incomparably one [. . .] they also bear witness to the majesty with which it forbids us from trying to comprise and comprehend it in a picture.100 At every point, any so-called problem (between the kingly and the prophetic points of view) turns on why one office of Christ should ever be juxtaposed over and against the other. It is, indeed, an inevitable question arising from Barth’s own complementary statements. And yet, by the time of his writing of III/3, it is unlikely that a theologian of Barth’s stature would have overlooked these apparent contradictions unknowingly. Barth adopts a tension within his discourse, and yet he asserts this tension is a calm one. As he introduces the concept of permissio, Barth simultaneously asserts the sovereignty of God as pervasive, and also that when speaking of permissio this sovereignty is rightfully said to be “as if”: “He thinks it good that we should exist ‘as if’ He had not yet mastered it [i.e., Nothingness] for us—and at this point we may rightly say ‘as if’.”101 Barth’s statements go back and forth between deferral and fulfillment. At one point in §50, he affirms that, on account of the kingly victory of Christ in his resurrection, the falsehood of das Nichtige is completely destroyed. That is, on account of the kingly rule that Christ expresses in the resurrection, das Nichtige is no longer even permitted to exist: Even the truth of falsehood, the power of impotence, the sense of nonsense and the possibility of the impossible which it is accorded on the left hand of God are withdrawn from it in the victory of God on the

99

ChrL, pp. 238–9.

100

ChrL, p. 239.

101

CD III/3, p. 367.

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right. Even the permission by which it existed there is revoked. This is what has already been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, in the exaltation of this creature to the right hand of God.102 Four pages after this statement, Barth affirms a legitimate role for the “concept [. . .] of permission.” He seems to speak from a different vantage point when he says: “God still permits his kingdom not to be seen by us, and to that extent He still permits us to be a prey to nothingness.”103 At once, the hiddenness of the kingdom that is necessary from the standpoint of the prophetic office, and the deferral that is implied in Barth’s concept of permissio are combined. Evidently, Barth is not anxious as he explicates his theology of government within an eschatological tension. A bifurcation will always threaten the relation between the “already” and the “not yet” here if a more basic preliminary question is never raised: why is it that Barth makes so many statements about the “already” of the kingdom alongside the “not yet,” and without giving a justification for the discontinuity? The divine permissio is not pursued by Barth in III/3 as a subject in itself. For this reason, while it seems that the question of permission is inevitable, it also looks as if Barth’s lack of attention to this matter is really the true subject of genuine interest. In practice, Barth raises the methodological question as to how these two perspectives are rightly unified on the matter of permissio, and in such a way that a theological account of this reality is not truly necessary in §49.3. I propose that Barth’s concept of permissio is not an anxious matter for him because, as a consistent theologian who actively commends the Word of God in his discourse, he truly has Christ in view— Christ and his offices.104 Consequently, for Barth, there is a twofold mystery in explicating divine providence. Both contexts, the kingly and the prophetic,

102 103 104

CD III/3, p. 363; permissio never means “acceptance,” CD IV/3, p. 196. CD III/3, p. 367. M. Wüthrich’s work on §50 is the only other account in the secondary literature that follows a line of inquiry similar to this one. He has noted that Barth’s retort to G. C. Berkouwer’s Triumph of Grace in §69.3 orients his perspective for §50 by making his own frame for the question of evil explicit within the context of a prophetic, “dynamic teleology,” CD IV/3, p. 168. Essentially, Wüthrich argues that §50 is also underwritten by a Denkform that is grounded in the prophetic office of Christ, and is made explicit in IV/3. My own view draws upon Wüthrich’s insight, but places Barth’s prophetic perspective in CD III/3 within the context of his view of the Christian’s participation in the triplex munus in §49.4. This is not opposed to Wüthrich’s view, but grounds that perspective in Barth’s evident textual strategy for the whole of III/3. In a way, I am also furthering Wüthrich’s discussion by drawing on §71 and §72, which both follow this exchange with Berkouwer and are positioned within the overall context of his volume on the prophetic office; cf. especially Wüthrich’s section “Das Prophetische Amt Jesu Christi und die Darstellungsform des §50,” Wüthrich, Gott und das Nichtige, pp. 303–13.

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are truly one context when the theologian is led by the Spirit. Salvation history, according to Barth, “does not offer any solution at all to the technical problem raised.” However, it offers us something “far better, the fact of a relationship.”105 In the following three sections I argue that Barth does, in fact, address this matter, but he does so by circumventing questions about permissio as wrongheaded, as stemming from a faulty theological methodology. Rather, Barth’s prayerful approach most clearly shows itself to be precisely what it is at this juncture. For the theologian who prayerfully commends the Word of God in the Spirit, there is only one standpoint from which this question may be addressed. It is from the vantage point of prayer that one may have one’s questions reoriented by the One who discloses himself as Prophet and King within a dynamic context. Due to the nature of this particular self-disclosure, furthermore, certain abstract questions are inappropriate for the Christian theologian. The faulty inquiry asks: how can it be that two of the offices of Christ should distinguish between creation and evil differently? From the perspective of this critical question, one may come to suspect that creation is insulated from evil from one standpoint (i.e., from the “kingly”), and from the other, that it is somehow complicit in evil (i.e., from the “prophetic”). Barth understands this question, however, to be the question of the “extent” of the Creator’s work and the “extent” of the creature’s freedom. This question is truly asking: “What is the extent of what the creature, in fact, is and continues to be amidst the history of God’s sustaining, accompanying and ruling presence?” For Barth, this question can only be pressed with an eye to self-concern, outside a thankful fellowship with a praiseworthy God. In the context of the Christian’s participation in Christ, the dynamic work that takes place in the Holy Spirit prayerfully circumvents this line of questioning as unnecessary. Questions that regard the “extent” of the Creator’s power and the creature’s freedom are eluded by a genuine participatio Christi. Suspicious questions only take place outside the creature’s beholding the face of the resurrected Christ. Along these lines, Barth’s first paragraph in the Church Dogmatics includes as its final section “Dogmatics as an Act of Faith.”106 He finishes this paragraph with a statement on the importance of prayer for theology, asserting that “prayer can signify that [. . .] man justifies God and not himself.”107 In the dogmatic theologian’s beholding of God, it is an offense to the divine freedom when a justification is sought for this visio Dei outside the confines of God’s own self-bestowal. In the very act of beholding the resurrected Christ, the creature chooses to turn away from these metaphysical questions. The extent of creation as

105 107

106 CD III/3, p. 189. CD I/1, §1.3, pp. 17–24. CD I/1, p. 23 emphasis mine; “God justifies himself in the event of encounter,” McDowell, Hope in Barth’s Eschatology, p. 143.

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such, is no longer an object of inquiry that draws the theologian’s interest. Rather, to look upon the resurrected Christ’s face is to apprehend the gracious and royal freedom of the Creator. In resurrected freedom, Christ stands over the dialectic between evil and suffering and declares that evil has been bested by him. In this act, Christ declares himself as King, and there is no “peering behind” the Incarnation.108 Also, in his resurrected freedom, Christ enjoins that the creature should be quintessentially free in a prayerful response to him. In this case, Christ declares himself as the “true Prophet.”109 Utilizing the freedom that is licensed to the theologian on account of both offices, Barth’s practical answer on the eschatological tension outruns the abstract questions of his readers. God, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, not only defines the freedom of the Creator over and against the power of evil; God imparts a proper freedom to the creature (and to the theologian) in his witnessing recognition of this fact. The Christian theologian, consequently, sees divine providence from two different practical standpoints. This visio Dei always operates “from the Here with its Therefore to the There with its Nevertheless.”110 Barth’s focus on Christ in §49.3 is a concrete visio Dei of the risen Christ.111 Furthermore, the prophetic context is Barth’s own version of the ordo cognoscendi for filling in this gap in III/3. This visio Dei is God’s actualization of the prophetic office for the Christian within the context of her vocation. For this reason, a nuanced answer will attend to Barth’s statements about divine providence in IV/3. This context clarifies what it means that the Christian prayerfully commends the divine government in the Spirit. This is a removal of the theologian’s confusion in such a way that the dialectic between the “already” and the “not yet” is no longer troublesome. Christ’s resurrected presence demystifies the creature’s questioning mind, which is preoccupied with questions regarding the “extent” of creation. In this act, God demonstrates his power in a majestic healing of the creature’s perspective, removing her fear-complex and her conceptual anxiety. c. Hominum Confusione In §72.1, Barth explicates the epistemological aspect of the doctrine of divine providence within the context of the doctrine of reconciliation. In Barth’s discussion in this volume, the prophetic office of Christ illuminates 108 111

109 110 CD IV/2, p. 123. CD III/3, p. 180. CD III/3, p. 248. W. A. Whitehouse uses the term “concrete” to explain the revelation that takes place within the context of the divine government: “The history of Israel is the place where the government of God is concretely revealed”; Whitehouse, Creation, Science & Theology, p. 41. By “concrete” I mean Barth’s movement from the “particular to the general” as G. Hunsinger characterizes Barth’s “particularism”; Hunsinger, How To Read Karl Barth, pp. 32–5.

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the “confusion” of those deceived by the Nihil. From the standpoint of the prophetic ministry, world-occurrence looks different than it does from the kingly. In this context, it is appropriate to speak of God’s work as enacting a concealment of his final victory over the abyss that threatens humanity. Here, history looks “astonishingly different” from the context in which God “determine[s] its future.” This history is different because “it does not yet disclose [. . . the] contradiction of man’s contradiction of his Creator.”112 This is what it means that humanity is confused beneath the divine ruling. Without a visio Dei of the self-electing God in Jesus Christ, the creature is inevitably and actively confused about what God’s dominion is and what evil, in fact, is: Confusio undoubtedly denotes something very questionable and indeed wholly evil. It opens up a vista of folly and wickedness, of deception and injustice, of blood and tears. But it does not pronounce any absolute sentence of rejection. It does not describe world history as a night in which everything is black [. . .] It simply says—and this is serious and severe enough—that men make and shape and achieve confusion. And confusion does have also a positive element. Here below there can be no theoretical significance in the fact that it takes place under God’s providence. But where there is confusion, there have to be at least two different elements at work which, instead of being kept apart, are intertwined and thus become entangled. It is the fact that man entangles them, but only this, which determines and characterizes world-occurrence as seen from below.113 When the creature becomes confused, he still does his very best thinking about the difference between good and evil beneath the providence of God.114 However, the sinful considerations of man are characterized by an inability to receive any knowledge of divine providence. Man, in his stubbornness, tries to think about creation as if he were in control of it. Thus, he attempts to coordinate between two elements that are, in truth, “absolutely antithetical.”115 With the advent of a metaphysical imagination, the human thinks that he can determine where creation stops and where that-whichopposes-creation begins. In this act, he apprehends the cosmos as if it were “his own cosmos.”116 Without the Word of God, the creature is fallen and incapable of understanding how to conceptualize the “good” and “evil” of human experience. 112 114

115

113 CD IV/3, p. 687. CD IV/3, p. 695. CD IV/3, p. 696. Barth uses the phrase hominum confusione providentia Dei in his accounting for lengthy disagreement in the church over questions about divine providence; CD III/3, pp. 33, 107. 116 CD IV/3, p. 697. CD IV/3, p. 698.

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Rather, in his attempt to step in and fill this vacuum, the creature gives “place to nothingness as the enemy of God, his neighbor and himself.”117 Despite this act of confusion, however, the goodness of creation continues to shine through.118 However, the presence of things that are evidently good also makes confusion possible, as it leads to the crafting of a worldview that conceptually juxtaposes good against the problem of evil, explaining these two elements from a single standpoint. This is “confusion.” “Confusion” is the deception which das Nichtige may achieve in creation before the end. When creation falls prey to this deception, furthermore, it is not just an entertaining of benign, white lies. Confusion is simultaneous with the creature’s falling away from love for neighbor and for God, and so it essentially is “the negation of the good creation of God.”119 Even the most dreadful realities of history are birthed by human confusion, such as humanity’s propelling itself toward self-destruction in war.120 Within Barth’s dogmatic context for divine providence, and especially with a view to the kingly office, the question arises: how does the Christian community see what world-occurrence looks like from a truly theological standpoint without becoming confused? Acceptance of a “world-view” would have dire consequences for the Christian community. If the church’s theologians were to adopt an explanation for evil, they would inevitably fall short of their commission to be witnesses, as they have been appointed to this within the context of the prophetic ministry. This leaves the theologian with abstract questions about providence in a situation that is not only difficult but morally compromised: Even distinctively Christian consideration and understanding would then mean bringing the providence of God and the confusion of man under a common denominator, estimating the one as the basis of the other and the other as filled with meaning in virtue of this basis, and therefore approving and validating both in their higher unity. The sure and certain result would be that in extolling this unity Christians would in practice be compelled, with sighs perhaps but also with cheerfulness, to affirm the human confusion justified and sanctified by this connexion with the providence of God.121

117 118

119 120

121

CD IV/3, p. 697. The “scent of flowers” does not cease whenever man ceases to glorify his Creator; CD IV/3, p. 698. CD IV/3, p. 696. CD IV/3, p. 699; In the confusion of sin, “war [ . . . ] comes irresistibly,” CD IV/1, p. 451. CD IV/3, p. 704.

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Barth’s whole discussion on hominum confusione illuminates an apt rule for his theology of divine providence on the whole: in order for a Christian theologian to be faithful to the Word, he not only must observe a distinction between providence and evil, he must make this distinction in an obedient manner. According to Barth, only when a theological account of providence is concerned with giving praise to God and God alone, will that theology avoid becoming another “confused” worldview. The question that I have raised above, furthermore, is whether Barth is truly praising God in his own theological account. By asking Barth what he means in III/3 in saying that das Nichtige is “permitted” to deceive within the context of an over-arching divine sovereignty, I am asking Barth if he is, in his own words, “confused.” Does this not mix one principle against another? How can we know that Barth is participating in Christ in his own way of praying through the doctrine of providence? Within the context of Barth’s treatment of the prophetic office in IV/3, the problem of human confusion in §72.1 also invites the question of the Christian’s active participation in divine providence. For this reason, as is often the case with Barth, his dogmatic arrangement is constitutive for the theological substance of his doctrine. Barth precedes his discussion of “The People of God in World Occurrence” in §72 with §71, “The Vocation of Man.” In this section he describes the manner of the Christian’s prayerful participation in Christ. The question as to whether or not the theologian has made an obedient distinction between Nothingness and history, or between the “realized” aspect of the kingdom and its deferral, depends on whether or not he discusses the doctrine of providence strictly within the confines of a faithful participatio Christi. It is in the vocation of the Christian, as Barth argues in §71, that one can find a “given” basis for making a “practical” distinction between creation and Nothingness, between what is realized in the “already” and unrealized in the “not yet.” d. The Theologian’s Vocational Affliction In the Christian’s vocation, she decides to participate in the prophetic office of Christ. In this act, the creature becomes a “Christian.”122 This statement of Barth’s links his explication of the creature’s vocation in volume IV with his previous discussion of participation in III/3 (i.e., §49.4).123 In practice, both accounts address the same reality from two different standpoints. Since providence deals with God’s sustaining, accompanying and ruling over the external basis of the covenant, the Christian’s participation in this reality is

122

123

It is in the prophetic event of vocation that the creature becomes a “Christian,” CD IV/3, p. 521. Barth’s terms for discussing providence shift when he reaches §49.4 in speaking of God’s supervision over the “Christian” rather than the “creature.”

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fundamentally prophetic, and therefore it is a temporal reality.124 As she participates in her vocation, the Christian says something to the wider world. This means that the creature is, on account of her being a creature, subject to struggle within the history of doubt that is inherent in the world before the parousia. The creature lives a historical life within creation, then, in order to participate in the prophetic ministry of Christ as a witness. The Christian’s participation in Christ in the event of her vocation means her own de facto participation. This phrase signifies the creature’s voluntary participation in Christ; Barth uses it to represent a full commending of the Word of God in the Holy Spirit.125 Barth’s other phrase, “de jure,” signifies the inevitable participation of the creature in the universal significance of Christ’s atoning work.126 For my purpose here, de jure participation contrasts with de facto participation in that it signifies an involuntary response on the part of the creature. Only the de facto participant in Christ can actively enjoy the blessings of the prophetic ministry. The creature can only be a witness to Christ if she has this as her “aim.” However, regardless of the outcome of this decision, the creature’s “aim” will still have an “effect” that will inevitably participate in the kingly office of Christ de jure. From the perspective of reconciliation, creation is ordained to be a theater for God’s glory de jure.127 The Christian’s active relationship with Christ consequently means that she undergoes the event of vocation. Therefore, the Christian is inevitably subjected to affliction in her identification with Christ.128 It is as the disciple of Christ that the world eventually does harm her, and this is inevitable.129 The Christian’s visio Dei of God in Jesus Christ, then, involves her concrete suffering because it connects her life with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The fact that Jesus Christ reveals himself as the Crucified, furthermore, leaves the Christian with no other option.130 Whatever the Christian may “aim” for, the “effect” of this aim will eventually include affliction in the “shadow of His cross.”131 This suffering, furthermore, takes place as an “analogy to 124

125

126

127 128 129 131

Barth equates divine providence with the external basis alone at the start of §48: “The history of the covenant which follows creation also needs an external basis. Its external basis is the sway of divine providence”; CD III/3, p. 7. The Spirit betokens the Christian’s “personal participation in revelation” and is the “subjective side” of revelation, CD I/1, pp. 453, 466; CD II/1, pp. 9, 49. “Already at these points we were unable to understand the divine act of atonement effected in Jesus Christ without considering its meaning and scope in relation to the man, i.e., the Christian, to whom it is given, as he comes to know it, to participate in it, not merely de iure like all others, but de facto,” CD IV/3, p. 662. CD IV/3, p. 117. Cf. “The Christian in Affliction,” CD IV/3, pp. 614–47. 130 CD IV/3, p. 619. CD IV/3, pp. 635, 642. Barth uses this phrase several times in §71.5, as it identifies the rightful position of the Christian who undergoes suffering in the name of Christ; CD IV/3, pp. 636–8. This

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the suffering of the one man of Gethsemane and Golgotha.”132 This is the context within which the problem of the Nihil is properly raised for the theologian. The analogy of suffering between Christ and the Christian implies a strong distinction. The sufferings of Christ are particular in that he alone carried the entire weight of the abyss, the Nihil. Christ was assaulted by das Nichtige in time, and this remains, on account of his resurrection, the sole, real entrance of Nothingness into history as a victor.133 For this reason, even in the Christian’s affliction, “it would be sheer exaggeration to speak of a Gethsemane [. . .] to be borne by Christians.”134 Rather, the difference between them is sharp. However, the connection between the Christian’s suffering and Christ’s is revealed in the fact that the he is resurrected as “the Crucified and Slain.”135 The marks of suffering on the face of the risen Christ weave a tapestry of affliction into good.136 For this reason, the Christian’s experience of suffering can even be spoken of as a beneficium Christi. The evil he alone encounters at Golgotha is altogether vanquished, and yet its trace is still reflected in his resurrection as the “Crucified” which is, in turn, reflected in the suffering of his children. This is what it means that the Christian suffers in Christ’s “shadow.” There are two perspectives on the Christian’s sharing in Christ’s suffering, the “kingly” and the “prophetic.” Whether or not the Christian says “Therefore” or “Nevertheless,” “already” or “not yet,” it is the Christian’s participation in each office that determines what is “practically” recognized as divine providence at any given point. At once, furthermore, what is recognized as a proper sharing in the sufferings of Christ determines what the “shadow” is, and what the remainder “is” as well, that is, the Nihil: “We can only achieve proper knowledge, when we know that he who is true God and true man has suffered [. . .] Only from this standpoint, by sharing in the suffering He suffered, can we recognise the fact and the cause of suffering everywhere in the creaturely cosmos.”137

132

133

134 135 136 137

vision of history as “good” beneath the cross of Christ, and for which the menace of the abyss has been cancelled, is the epistemic birth of what Barth has already called the “shadow side” of reality in §50; CD III/3, pp. 211, 295–302. CD IV/3, p. 637; R. Jenson, Alpha and Omega: A Study in the Theology of Karl Barth (repr., Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2002), p. 96. “The true nothingness is that which brought Jesus Christ to the cross, and that which He defeated there,” III/3, p. 305; On the cross “the will of God was done as the will of Satan was done,” CD IV/1, p. 268; cf. P. D. Jones, “Karl Barth on Gethsemane,” IJST 9.2 (2007), pp. 148–71 (p. 168). CD IV/3, p. 636; Jenson, Alpha and Omega, p. 107. CD IV/3, p. 642. This affliction “is not an evil but a good,” CD IV/3, p. 641. DIO, p. 104.

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It is crucial for the Christian theologian’s avoidance of metaphysical confusion that the question of the relationship between his own suffering and evil is asked within the context of a faithful participatio Christi. That is, the question of “evil” and its relation to the “shadow side” is not asked from a metaphysical standpoint. For the Christian theologian, the question of “evil” and its origin is inevitably a question that allows it no origin at all, for the sufferings of the Christian only point to those of Christ. According to Joseph Hartounian, Calvin’s doctrine of providence derives from his reflecting on the sufferings of the elect.138 To the extent that this observation is correct, Barth resembles Calvin in this manner, but the “elect,” in this case, is Jesus Christ. In the vindication of God’s election of Christ in his resurrection, his self-disclosure shows the proper distinction between history and evil, and what it means that this pseudo-reality has already been discarded from history. This is a “practical” recognition, and therefore, as the Christian apprehends this distinction, this visio Dei is indivisible from his own active involvement in the most secular parts of the world. On the cross, das Nichtige is understood as expelled from history by Christ and relegated to the status of a “shadow.” For this reason, the Christian always objectively stands “in the shadow” of his cross. Not Nothingness, and not even the concreteness of creation is a legitimate object for the obedient theologian’s inquiry. Rather, in a prayerful fellowship with the risen Christ, the Christian is led into a resurrection from confusion. As the Risen One, Jesus Christ is the only adequate fount for apprehending the “extent” of his creative work. Further, it is only in active participation and prayer that the Christian may come to enjoy this victorious resurrection; therefore, it is only in a prayer to God in Jesus Christ that the creature can come to a “practical recognition” of the “extent” of divine providence. e. Participatory Theology The creature who engages with God in her vocation yields to both the prophetic and kingly offices de facto. Rather than any principle, Scripture only gives precedence to Christological thinking within theology.139 In a visio Dei of the risen Christ, both offices are concretely given in a single person. This makes the question of “extent” irrelevant, for this apprehension of God in

138

139

J. Calvin, Calvin: Commentaries (ed. J. Hartounian; trans. J. Hartounian and L. P. Smith; vol. 23; Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1958), p. 40. In “theological thinking generally [the] unconditional priority must be given to thinking which is attentive to the existence of the living person of Jesus Christ [ . . . ] so that per definitionem christological thinking forms the unconditional basis for all other thinking, even that which deals with the relationship between God and evil,” CD IV/3, p. 175.

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Jesus Christ discloses a faithful Savior and Creator. In this, the creature’s inquiry about the divine government only asks for more anxiety when explaining this reality on the basis of any historical–dialectical juxtaposition. The “realized” aspect of God’s kingdom is, in Christ, “calm[ly]” related with the hiddenness implicit in the “not yet.”140 For this reason, Barth’s discourse freely moves back and forth between both perspectives, from the kingly to the prophetic, and then vice versa. On account of the Christian’s participation in the prophetic office of Christ, he beholds Christ in a manner that looks beyond this “formal” ministry (i.e., the prophetic) to the “material” reality that is already realized (i.e., the priestly and kingly).141 Only in the context of his vocation can the theologian actively put the question of “extent” aside and freely participate in the kingly and the prophetic offices. Barth’s description of the Christian’s participation, then, is the best description of the theologian’s task. This task encompasses a participation in a narrow sphere which apprehends Christ’s dominion, and it leads into a wider sphere where God is hidden and in which the Christian may witness: As faith in Him, as faith in the power and obedience of the Holy Spirit, it is Christian faith. And as such, in a movement arising from this first movement, it as it were raises itself and reaches out and becomes confidence in the fact that what occurred in Jesus Christ has precedence over all other occurrence; that all other occurrence is subordinate to it, having in this occurrence its origin and goal, its norm and standard; that to the one Jesus Christ all power is given both in heaven and in earth. It is as he participates in Jesus Christ in faith that the Christian participates in the divine providence and universal lordship. The same Holy Spirit who first led him into the narrow and central sphere now leads him out over its periphery into the wider circle [. . .] Believing in Jesus Christ, the Christian enters into a given presupposition, and now he draws out the deductions implicit in that presupposition, but implicit only as deductions. In the former case, faced with the particular occurrence in Christ, his faith is a confidence which is both related to and based upon a definite objectivity. In the latter, faced with creaturely occurrence generally, it is a confidence which ventures out from this basis without any such objectivity. In the one case, it is a light kindled by light, and in the other a light shining in the darkness [. . .] In the one case it has the character of a present certainty, in the other, of a certain hope. But in both cases, it is the same [. . .] It is never present 140 141

CD III/3, p. 189. Barth distinguishes between the prophetic office and the priestly and kingly offices as a distinction between “formal” and “material” in his exposition of volume IV on the whole; cf. CD IV/3, p. 8.

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in the one case and not in the other. It cannot participate in Jesus Christ without participating in the divine providence and universal lordship. Again, it cannot participate in the latter without participating in Jesus Christ. It is always our striding from the one to the other: from the place where God is revealed to the place where He is hidden; from the Here with its Therefore to the There with its Nevertheless.142 The Christian theologian avoids the problem of confusion by never making statements about the distinction between the “shadow side” and das Nichtige within a metaphysical register. The only metaphysical statement that has ever been made that can divide between these two realities is the Word of God in Christ’s resurrection. Only in a concrete visio Dei of the selfelecting God in Jesus Christ, and in a de facto participation that is a prayerful commending of the Word in the Spirit, is the Christian theologian able to apprehend this distinction in and through a process of liberation.143 Consequently, the Christian participates in the two offices by the Holy Spirit’s directive, continually seeing the continuity and discontinuity in his sharing in Christ’s suffering. When one stands within the “antithesis of divine providence and human confusion,” confusion can only be cast out with the advent of the “royal freedom” that is found in the Holy Spirit.144 In the event of the Christian’s vocation, God’s determination that the creature should pray becomes evident, and this is to be a movement from “anxiety to prayer.” “Anxiety” is the sense in which the afflictions of the Christian become confusing for him; it is the “shrinking of man, of the man who is not at peace with God, his neighbor or himself.”145 However, in the Christian’s vocation, this anxiety is cast out in his turning to Christ and in his active acknowledgment of the One that saves and sustains him; this is the removal of the “fear complex” from theology.146 Even though it [i.e., darkness] does still totally embrace, darken and call in question his human and even his Christian being, it cannot prevent him from crying to Him like the sinking Peter: “Lord, save me” [. . .] His vocation is a vocation to prayer: not to particularly pious, fervent or beautiful prayer—the prayer of Peter could not be described as such—but simply to prayer [. . .] It is not that by his prayer he liberates himself from anxiety, but that in prayer he confesses the dynamic lordship of God over all things and therefore over 142

143

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CD III/3, p. 248 emphasis mine. M. T. Dempsey comes close to seeing a similar solution for the eschatological tension in the “Therefore/Nevertheless” statements, but does not elaborate; Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 247. “The Liberation of the Christian,” §71.6; CD IV/3, pp. 647–80; this is the section which immediately precedes his statement on providence in CD IV/3. 145 146 CD IV/3, p. 707. CD IV/3, p. 671. CD III/3, p. 146.

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anxiety as his particular anxiety, and that he may trust the One who has only to stretch out his hand and grasp him to rescue him from anxiety, and of whom he may expect nothing other than that He wills to do this, and will do it.147 In a concrete visio Dei of the risen Christ, it is seen that there has been a particular ending of das Nichtige’s opposition against history at Golgotha. Further, in the Christian’s response to this in a commending of the Word of God in prayer, he also apprehends that this God is sufficient to bring about a final end of evil in a different sense: “The conflict is still in full course, but already in the course of it there can be no doubt as to the outcome.”148 The difference between these two senses is no longer a cause for anxious concern because they are simply different spheres in which Christ is apprehended “as the Lord.”149 Beholding the face of Christ in the theologian’s partaking of the Spirit’s mysterious work circumvents the anxiety that raises these questions. Therefore, in praise the Christian realizes that it is no cause for concern that God’s voluntas permittens is subordinate to his voluntas efficens: “if God is greater in the very fact that He is the God who forgives sins and saves from death, we have no right to complain but must praise Him that His will also includes a permitting of sin and death.”150 Whatever is beyond the confines of this visio Dei is not given to the theologian, and so it is not meaningful to speak beyond it either. The distinction between the “kingly” and the “prophetic” is, then, real, but it does not cause any unease, for these offices culminate in this one person and the harmony between them is given within the confines of this visio Dei. In seeing Christ in his vocation, the Christian sees that the question of extent is not only no longer of any real interest; it is an interest that has been crucified.

VI. Two United Standpoints for Gubernatio in §49.3 The Christian theologian never arrives at a stable philosophy that can address the concerns raised by an abstract doctrine of providence. Rather, according to Barth, the theologian’s own participation in God’s Word and Spirit is the only basis for a doctrine of providence that is not confused. In fact, the theologian’s way of explicating this doctrine must maintain this stance for providence in order for it to make any sense. This is why Barth 147

148 149

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CD IV/3, pp. 672–3; Jesus Christ as King conjoins himself with man and excludes man’s fear; IV/1, pp. 103–4. CD IV/3, p. 197. Barth’s title for §49 is “God the Father as the Lord of His Creature”; this is synonymous with his axiom in I/1 that God “reveals himself as the Lord,” CD I/1, p. 307. CD II/1, p. 595.

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states that: “The very fact that we fill out the idea in a biblical and Christian way means that [. . . it] becomes an event in our own lives.”151 In Barth’s section on gubernatio, he sets up “a twofold rule” for apprehending the distinction between the work of God in the wider world and in the covenant of grace. These two rules resemble the distinction between the two offices of Christ that I have just considered. They demonstrate that Barth’s dealing with this eschatological tension requires very little theoretical work on his part. On account of the role Barth gives to the vocation of the Christian, the inquiry of the theologian may be freely ventured from two standpoints. First, “we have to look at world events in general outwards from the particular events attested in the Bible.” This vantage point may be closely associated with the kingly office. It is from the position of the history of the covenant that one can see that the kingdom is already realized: “Already in the Old Testament the King of Israel is secretly the King of all the nations and of the whole earth.”152 To see God in his sovereignty over world occurrence is to see him from the standpoint of his gracious Word, within the context of the covenant. This is “where” the fact of God’s pervasive rule is not concealed. It is from this place that God makes his name known, in his act of self-identification before his people as the “I am.”153 This act of self-disclosure, furthermore, does not clarify God’s way with the nations in the wider world.154 Rather, this is a self-identification that is sufficient for God’s creature to respond to him in prayer. Barth’s second standpoint for observing the divine government is that “we have to look back from the world events of nature and history, both far and near, both above and below, to the particular events which are attested in the Bible, to the history of the covenant of grace from the promise which initiated it to its final fulfillment.”155 Here we are dealing with Barth’s second standpoint for seeing gubernatio, which is the “circumference” of the center that is Jesus Christ. For this reason, this standpoint betokens the prophetic ministry of Christ among his people and within the world. It is from this standpoint that we are able to apprehend the “most central content of the prophetic and apostolic message.” From this vantage point, which is the position where God’s creatures actively participate in the prophetic ministry, one can see that world occurrence includes an act of concealment on God’s part; world-occurrence is “secretly filled with glory.” The movement of these events is, furthermore, a necessary backdrop for God’s glory. By being under the pervasive rulership of God, these events are en route toward a revelation of divine glory: “The general events have their meaning in the particular. It is only as the particular events take place that they [. . .] move towards the revelation of this glory.”156

151 154

CD III/3, p. 195. CD IV/3, pp. 688–93.

152 155

CD III/3, p. 183. CD III/3, pp. 183–4.

153 156

CD III/3, pp. 178–9. CD III/3, p. 184.

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From the standpoint of God’s self-disclosure within the covenant, there is a prophetic remnant of those who actively pray within this history. Furthermore, one not only apprehends that God is the “King of Israel” within the context of this remnant. These people are also “looking forward to the culminating revelation of the King and therefore to the end of all His ways.”157 For this reason, within this context, there is no tension between the “already” and the “not yet.” The dissolution of tension comes from a beholding of the concrete work of God in Jesus Christ in his resurrection. This is the visio Dei that is Barth’s turning point for expelling confusion from his doctrine of providence: We cannot think the thought without understanding the Word of God and being caught up in the work of God [. . .] without seeing in Jesus Christ the Saviour who came down and was manifested and died and rose again for us; without seeing in free grace the reality to whose service we are pledged and by whose glorifying we can live—we who are called here and now, and have cause for gratitude, being indebted for our very selves.158 Barth’s account of the divine government in §49.3 is more apt to organize the proper questions of the theologian around a concrete visio Dei of the risen Christ than it is to search for metaphysical answers. In doing away with the question of “extent,” the confusion of the Christian theologian between the kingly and prophetic perspectives is expelled. Rather, he is made free for an “intercourse” with divine providence.159 It is in this visio Dei that the Christian theologian is given what he needs: a mysterious continuity between the kingly and prophetic offices in a prayerful commending of the Word of God in the Holy Spirit. Barth is not apprehensive about saying that the kingdom of God is realized and that it also consists in a continued realization. In a prayerful context, the problems of conceptual bifurcation are expelled from the theologian’s task in the fact that this task is limited to a prayerful response to this divine self-disclosure of the risen Christ in the Holy Spirit.

VII. The Eschatological Tension in the Lord’s Prayer In his 1949 lectures on the Lord’s Prayer according to the Reformation catechisms, Barth raises the question as to whether or not God’s work in answering prayer implies a slighting of his omnipotence. He is concerned

157 159

CD III/3, p. 181. CD III/3, p. 23.

158

CD III/3, pp. 194–5; emphasis mine.

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that God’s responsiveness should not be understood as a weakness on his part. Rather, Christ’s reconciling work presupposes the fact that the creature is freely a creature, and is able to be heard by God. As God’s power sets one partner alongside the other in his creative and reconciling work, this power is exemplified in his ability to listen to the creature that he loves: “He does not then impair himself by yielding to our prayer; on the contrary, it is in so doing that he shows his greatness.”160 God is powerful enough to heed the prayer of his creature, and so his power is not just a disinterested strength. God’s soteriological work does not oppose his work as Creator in giving the creature a place to stand. In Barth’s exposition of the kingdom in §49.3, then, God’s relationship with the created world is salvifically focused in such a way that the power he exercises over it also gives it a goal for its life. God moves history in one direction, toward a position that glorifies him at the footstool of Christ. Eschatology comes together with the kingdom of God in the present in gubernatio; on account of her election in Jesus Christ, God’s creature is determined to witness to him in the present and in the end. This determination takes place in a “movement from yesterday to tomorrow.”161 He gives his creature a life that has “a motivated history.”162 The creature as God’s partner is determined at every moment to witness to the majesty of God at the throne of Jesus Christ. The eschatological aspect of the kingdom of Jesus Christ can in no sense be a cancellation of the current pervasiveness of his rule. God’s rule is not only distinct in that it doesn’t have to work against the creature to be powerful (e.g. as in concursus), it is a rule that can actually determine the direction of history without losing the qualitative distinction of God’s action. In fact, it is necessary for God’s kingdom to be present in order for his creatures to exercise their freedom. For example, for the creature to pray to the Father of Jesus Christ, she must have some knowledge of this kingdom in the present. Without an understanding of the fullness of God’s present kingdom, the creature would have no basis for obediently reiterating the Lord’s Prayer in asking that the fullness of this kingdom should be revealed: But saying to God “Thy kingdom come” presupposes that those who so pray know this kingdom, this life, this justice, this newness, this reconciliation; they know that all this is not foreign to them. They must know it, and when they pray in these words, the kingdom must already have come.163

160 161

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Prayer, p. 15. CD III/3, p. 157; the emphasis on “tomorrow” comes from Barth’s asserting that God is freely “post-temporal” in the divine ruling; cf. pp. 14, 90, 131, 151–4. 163 CD III/3, p. 192. Prayer, 36.

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It [i.e., the kingdom] is an event which has already come but is still to be expected, which is still to be expected precisely because it has already come [. . .] Seen in the New Testament context, the future, the world to come, the last thing to which the petition undoubtedly looks, has already encountered those who call upon God in it here in the present, in this world. It already stands before their eyes, knowable and known by them, as the first thing. It is before them as they know it to be already behind them. They have already been confronted by the new thing for which they pray.164 The kingdom has already come from heaven to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. His kingly office, furthermore, is “inseparable from his person.” On this basis and for this reason “Thy kingdom come!” is the outcry that Barth chooses for opening his account of the divine ruling in §49.3.165 “The fact that Christians pray ‘Your kingdom come’ is proof that God resists the torrent of human injustice and evil.”166 God’s action in concursus may be qualitatively distinct, and may safeguard the freedom of the creature so that he may worship freely; however, the determination of God that the creature should do this, and the way this determination becomes “a motivated history” is Barth’s focus in §49.3. God’s theologian requests that his kingdom should come in an expectation of the parousia. For now, it is knowledge of the present fullness of the kingdom that offers assurance of God’s faithfulness in the future: “The good and the evil; the sun and its heat and the sea with its waves; the stars of heaven and the grasshopper in the fields” are all determined by God.167 There is a salvation history that is implicit in the church’s confession of Jesus Christ, and this Heilsgeschichte has a King.168 God is seen as “absolutely the Almighty” within the context of this history.169 In this manner, the

164 165

166 167 168

169

ChrL, pp. 239, 247. CD III/3, p. 156. Kenneth Stevenson’s historical study of the interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer notes that Origen makes this same point in his exposition, largely due to his Platonism and the realized eschatology that underwrites his exegesis. For Origen “the petition for the kingdom is based on the view that the kingdom is already in our midst”; K. W. Stevenson, The Lord’s Prayer: A Text in Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), p. 36. Gorringe, Against Hegemony, p. 266. CD III/3, p. 189. Barth states this in juxtaposition against Judaism and Islam, who have no climax for their distinct salvation histories, and thus they strive “towards it in endless approximation.” This means that the god of Judaism and Islam can only be powerful with a view to a divine incognito: “the devout Jew is never wholly clear as to His love or wrath, His grace or judgment. And His obscure character is projected into His government of the world,” CD III/3, p. 28. CD III/3, p. 189.

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second article of the creed illuminates God’s wider dominion. God’s work above the world in his ruling is not simply a guarantee of the creature’s freedom within the natural world. It is an assurance that the creature will never be lost to him; no choice of the creature can inaugurate a scenario that escapes his ruling hand. The participation of the creature in Christ means that she is taken up purposefully by God and directed to the end determined by him: to witness to his majesty at the footstool of Jesus Christ.

VIII. Conclusion Nevertheless! The Christian can assert that pervasiveness of the kingly rule of Christ despite the questions left open by his participation in the prophetic. The dominion of gubernatio must be seen and approached from these two different standpoints because it is the kingdom of a particular person who holds diverse offices: Christ. The first appropriate domain of the divine rule is kingly, pervasive and complete; the second is prophetic, specific, and it embraces the mystery of divine hiddenness in the wide world. Both of these standpoints are appropriate for the Christian theologian who participates in the One who rejects and elects himself in Christ prior to all of his works in the created order. It is on account of Barth’s doctrine of election that the Christian theologian is free from the conceptual abstractions that deal with the doctrine of providence within the context of a knowledge of creation apart from Christ. A theologian becomes “confused” when he attempts to juxtapose relative properties within the created order for arriving at a conception of divine power. This attempt is simply offended by the truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Christ’s self-disclosure in his resurrection, he shows himself as the ruler of all creation, and thus, as the “Crucified and Slain.” In this disclosure, he shows that, in one sense, his lordship over history is one that has discarded evil from time and space, destining it for destruction once and for all. This self-disclosure also, in another sense, enjoins the theologian to “range himself with God” as a witness.170 In this self-disclosure, God discloses that history includes suffering, which is rightfully born on the basis of an analogy with his own suffering, the suffering that is seen as already past in his risen self-disclosure. The impulse to look for an explanation for suffering is no longer entertained by the Christian, and “confusion” is expelled from theology in this manner. On the face of Christ, Barth understands God to have woven suffering into a historical tapestry of good, but not without a self-involvement in this good. It is in the act of recognition of the resurrection and in praise

170

CD III/3, p. 359.

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to God for his victory that the power of God over evil is finally clarified. To look upon the resurrected Christ is not only to conceive of divine power, but to partake in the One who wields it. This only takes place at the behest of the triune God in the Spirit. From the standpoint of the lex orandi, Barth feels no need to clarify his methodology. Rather, he is confident that those who prayerfully commend the Word of God in the Spirit will not be confused by the metaphysical question of the “extent” of the kingdom of God, of creation, of the creature’s freedom, or of God’s work as Creator. Therefore, on account of the reality of this kingdom’s fullness, Barth reiterates the outcry of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come!” Having prayerfully arranged the divine order for God’s government of all of history, Barth turns to the final question to be asked within his larger paragraph on divine providence. Now that the lordship of God has been clarified through the theologian’s own earnest prayer, Barth turns to address the question of what it means that the Christian believes, obeys, and prays within this Christological ordinatio.

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I. Introduction This chapter is about the importance of the Christian’s participatio Christi in §49.4 and its significance for the rest of Barth’s doctrine of providence. On the whole, the first and second halves of the Lord’s Prayer act as guides for the first and second halves of III/3. This structure secures the insight that Barth articulates his doctrine of providence according to the lex orandi. Furthermore, Barth’s description of the Christian’s “faith, obedience and prayer” makes a distinction between two kinds of voluntary participation in Christ within the context of providence. I call these two kinds of participation “formal” and “material,” after the distinction Barth makes between the two incarnational offices (i.e., the priestly and kingly) and the witnessing office (i.e., the prophetic) in his doctrine of reconciliation. As discussed in the previous chapter, these different kinds of participation license different perspectives on the relationship between providence and evil in III/3. Prayer, as opposed to faith and obedience, is also the special focus in this chapter for the sake of brevity, and due to the import it has for understanding the rest of III/3. Most importantly, it is in this section that Barth makes his focus on the Lord’s Prayer explicit. This prayer obligates the theologian to articulate a doctrine of providence according to the sentiments expressed within it, which Barth consistently does in III/3.

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II. The Position of §49.4 in III/3 and the Lord’s Prayer Barth’s exposition of divine providence in §49 culminates with his section entitled “The Christian Under the Universal Lordship of God the Father.” Addressing the matter of the Christian’s participatio Christi is a vital concern for his denouement in §49. While Barth attends to the relationship between providence and participation as early as §48,1 it is not until he concludes §49 in this manner that his interest becomes explicit. Only in prayer can the Christian participate in the intercession of Jesus Christ for the world that constitutes divine providence.2 From the standpoint of participation in Christ, God’s purposes in history are opened more widely than a calling for the creature’s involuntary compliance. Participation brings about the kind of living in the world that is fitting for God’s beloved creatures; it is both a knowing of providence as well as an active living, “contemplating to be sure, but active as well; perceiving, but also working.”3 The Christian actually makes a unique contribution. While providence is unclear for the “creature,” it is evident for the “Christian” who, looking upon Jesus Christ, sees providence as if he were “a man looking out of a window.”4 Barth’s final section in his definitive paragraph on providence raises a difficult question: what does Christian freedom contribute to the providential government of God? Barth makes it clear in his exposition of the Lord’s Prayer that the providence of God enjoins the voluntary contribution of the creature. Barth’s use of the Lord’s Prayer in III/3 is crucial, then, for pointing to the way the providence of God expects the de facto participation of the Christian in Christ. The first half of the prayer speaks of the way that God’s “cause” (i.e., his plight) enjoins the “cause” (i.e., plight) of the creature.5 Consequently, the creature necessarily complies with this reality involuntarily. The first half of the Lord’s Prayer petitions God to enact this creaturely, de jure participation. However, its second half has to do with the creature’s voluntary 1 2

3 5

CD III/3, p. 38. “For what man knows and lives as his freedom, he lives in the freedom which is given him and created for him by the fact that Christ intercedes for him in the presence of God,” DIO, p. 91. 4 CD III/3, p. 244. CD III/3, p. 240. Barth’s language of “cause” here in his lectures on the Lord’s Prayer is reminiscent of his adaptation of causal language in §49.2. If any interdependence could be demonstrated between the lectures and his volume on providence, it would most likely be this terminological similarity. Overall, it is important to keep in mind in both cases that, when Barth adapts causal terminology for his own purposes, he is not using the term to speak simply of the way one kind of event impacts another; rather, he is speaking of the way the whole plight of the creature is circumscribed by God’s sustaining, accompanying, and governing action, which is not to be divorced from his reconciling work (e.g., CD III/3, pp. 6–7).

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compliance in the hallowing of God’s name, the coming of his kingdom and his will. In praying through the second half of this prayer, the creature commends the Word of God for enjoining her own de facto participation.6 The second half of the Lord’s Prayer depicts a turning, then, a turning of the creature to join with the cause of God. Most especially, the first half of the prayer expects this turn: According to the first three requests of the Lord’s Prayer, the God who rules and is revealed in Jesus Christ, and through Him bids us call upon Him as our Father, is not a solitary God who wills to work and create, to fight and to win, to rule and triumph alone [. . .] Hence He takes no account of our godlessness. He reckons us among His own. He appeals to His ownership of us. He understands us from this ownership. He thus commands us to desire and will and ask that His name may be hallowed, that His kingdom may come, that His will be done.7 It is in the first half of the Lord’s Prayer that the Christian is to recognize that God is after the “cause” of his name, kingdom, and will. In making the following statement in §49.4, then, Barth identifies the first half of the Lord’s Prayer as an adequate summary of what he has said up to this point about divine providence in III/3. The Christian: attest[s] His [Christ’s] asking even before God, that there at the heart of the cosmos it can confirm the fact that His name is already hallowed, His kingdom has already come, His will is already done on earth, and the whole cosmos is caught up in a movement whose end is the meaning of creation and preservation and all that occurs within it.8 In saying this, Barth echoes all three of his preceding sections on divine providence in §49.1–3, which pray forth the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.9 The creature’s turning to a de facto participation is the subject matter at the center of this prayer; in this active participation, she voluntarily commends the “cause” of God and participates in providence. In doing this, the Christian recognizes that God’s faithful acting on his own behalf is a “cause” which includes, and is for the sake of the “cause” of the creature. 6

7 9

I am borrowing de facto language from Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation to express that voluntary participation in providence is the covenantal reality brought about by the Holy Spirit on the side of the external basis of the covenant; this voluntary action is the Christian’s “de facto” participation; CD IV/3, pp. 278–9. 8 CD III/4, pp. 103–4. CD III/3, p. 279. As stated in the introduction, Barth connects each of the three classical sections of §49 with one of the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer; for conservatio: a “hallowed situation,” CD III/3, p. 82; concursus: “God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven,” p. 93; and gubernatio: “Thy kingdom come!” p. 156.

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It is notable that Barth does not order III/3 according to the Lord’s Prayer in a strict manner. That is, he does not follow this prayer as he does, for example, in The Christian Life. Rather, in Barth’s seventh volume of the Church Dogmatics, the Lord’s Prayer acts as a guide for apprehending the movement of divine providence from its expectation of the de jure participation of the creature in its first half, to expecting her de facto participation in its second half.10 Therefore, Barth’s exegesis of the Lord’s Prayer recognizes that there is a turning built into divine providence at its very heart. When one attends to God’s “cause,” a turning to the “cause” of the creature must follow. When praying through the Lord’s Prayer, one finds that the will of God in Jesus Christ is a will that is wholly for the creature, inviting the creature to address and petition him voluntarily. It is in this manner that the first half of the Lord’s Prayer expects the de facto participation of the Christian in providence, which is depicted in its second half: “Thus we are permitted, even commanded, to take interest in God’s cause, to pray that this cause of God—his name, his kingdom, his will—may be victorious, so that it may reach its fulfillment [. . .] God does not wish, then, for his cause to be his alone; he wishes it to be ours as well.”11 Barth’s discourse in III/3 turns at the very point where the Lord’s Prayer turns. He decides to set the Christian apart as his focus of interest in §49.4. Barth’s dogmatic treatment in III/3 has heretofore focused on the creature in general rather than the very specific creature, the “Christian.” Paragraph 49 is the context in which Christ is discussed as the One who intercedes for the creature, who “hallow[s]” his own name.12 However, from this point on in III/3, Barth focuses on the way the “cause” of the creature looks to God for assistance, on the plight of the creature that participates in Christ de facto. It is fitting that the structure of Barth’s text should turn when and where this turn is also built into the Lord’s Prayer, that is in §49.4. The so-called causa secunda now exercises certain privileges, standing before God and petitioning him: “The Christian Under the Universal Lordship” aims at expounding on the dynamic exchange that this participation involves. The Christian’s situation is special for she may know divine providence “from within.”13 For the first time in §49, providence enjoins the creature and she freely commends this enlistment into the mystery of God’s governance.

10

11

Stevenson notes that the earliest of the Fathers to comment extensively on the Lord’s Prayer in our extant records is Tertullian, who divides it into two halves, the first half pertaining to “heavenly things” and the second to “earthly necessities.” Tertullian also associates the petition for deliverance from temptation with the Akedah, which is the locus classicus for the doctrine of divine providence. Tertullian’s example in halving the prayer is largely followed in the West, especially by Augustine; Stevenson, The Lord’s Prayer, pp. 30–1, 80, 206–7. 12 13 Prayer, pp. 26–7. CD III/3, p. 275. CD III/3, p. 242.

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III. Faith, Obedience, and Prayer Barth describes three participatory forms in which the creature may contribute meaning to divine providence. The creature “says Yes” to creaturely life in three ways: faith, obedience, and prayer.14 As Barth begins, he segregates all three modes of participation with a trinitarian heuristic. He hurriedly and “bold[ly]” compares faith, obedience, and prayer with the doctrine of the eternal Trinity.15 Barth suspects that he needs to provide an initial warrant for the tripartite form of the Christian’s participation at the commencement of his discussion. He refers to the Trinity on this account: he wants to provide an eternal and variegated ground for the pluriform set of activities that are undertaken by God’s covenantal partner. The participation of the Christian is an echo of God’s triune magnificence: “He enters our world and makes its form His own.”16 For this reason, whether one speaks from the vantage point of faith, obedience, or prayer, one is speaking on the basis of the same reality. There is ultimately only one voluntary participatio Christi. It is important to note that Barth’s trinitarian analogy reflects a brief meditation on the interconnectedness of faith, obedience, and prayer as something of a, so to speak, “perichoretic” reality. This can be seen in the way his discussion of each form of participation climaxes by relating it with its two companions.17 Barth extends the analogy of the Trinity into the Christian’s participatio Christi in order to underwrite his whole subsection on the three participatory forms with the presupposition that faith, obedience, and prayer comprise an ontological unity. While Barth asserts that all three forms of the Christian’s participation are united, his treatment of each of them is specifically interested in what should be, so to speak, “appropriated” to each of these participatory forms. That is, a helpful analogy for uncovering what Barth means to say here exists between the three participatory forms and the appropriations of the eternal Trinity. By asserting a strong unity shared by faith, obedience, and prayer, Barth gives himself the freedom that he needs to concentrate on what makes each of these participatory forms distinct. Therefore, when specifically 14 16

17

15 CD III/3, p. 240. CD III/3, p. 246. CD III/3, p. 430. §51 is, from one vantage point, a discussion on how the simplicity of God is not violated by a variegated set of participatory activities on the side of the creature, whether the object in view is in heaven or on earth. Barth accepts the same solution for this problem there as he does in his section on concursus: divine simplicity is not a philosophical monism, but a living and variegated multiplicity; CD III/3, pp. 138–9. In §49.4, at the end of each section, each of the participatory forms is described as it meaningfully interfaces with its other two companions; cf. CD III/3, pp. 252–3, 262–5, 284–8. If one follows his trinitarian analogy, this is a kind of rhetorical echo of perichoresis.

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focusing on these three participatory forms within the context of creation and providence, each of these aspects of the creature’s “Yes” means something different with respect to the rest of the created order that God sustains, accompanies, and rules: “The distinction, i.e., the peculiar emphasis and standpoint and even life of faith and obedience and prayer is just as indispensable as is the distinction between the modes of being in our confession of the triune God.”18 In describing faith, obedience, and prayer as a unity, he is now free to raise the question as to how each of these realities are distinct (i.e., how they are “appropriated”) on the side of the “external basis” of the covenant. The suspicion of disunity has been removed. Faith, obedience, and prayer all have subtle relations with each other, and this can also be likened to a circle. In the context of creation, the faith and obedience of the Christian are “appropriated” to the prophetic office of Christ. That is, these two forms of participation in Christ, when considered in the context of providence, say something to the larger world. So, the faith and obedience of the Christian are like the circumference of a circle, standing on the outside, defining the shape of the Christian life and its boundary, and what it means to other creatures. However, the prayers of the Christian stand within that circle—in the middle—because they are “appropriated” to the kingly and priestly offices. For Barth, these are the incarnational offices of Christ. Therefore, within the context of providence, prayer exercises certain privileges that faith and obedience do not. In the context of creation, prayer is given a special importance in its making a request.19 While faith and obedience are free witnesses to the Word in the world, prayer is unique in that it betokens the incarnational offices and ministries of Christ, taking part in an intercession for the world in such a way that it even influences God’s decisions. However, despite these distinct, so-called appropriations, all three forms of participation comprise “the same” participatio Christi.20 The Christian believes, prays, and obeys. Each form of participation is distinct, but unified with the others in relation with the triplex munus. Barth observes the reality of Jesus Christ with a very wide lens here, looking at his whole doctrine of providence from the standpoint of his whole doctrine of reconciliation. This three-fold structure is ingredient in the unity-in-diversity Barth understands as belonging to all three participatory forms: “It is for him as a Christian, i.e., as one who has personal knowledge of the prophetic and priestly and kingly offices of Jesus Christ, as one who by his membership of the community participates in this office, that world-occurrence is clearly and palpably not abandoned to its own devices, but preserved and accompanied and ruled by God.”21 The portrait I have offered here highlights the distinctions between faith, obedience, and prayer. Most especially, I have argued that—when speaking 18 20

CD III/3, p. 246. CD III/3, p. 248.

19 21

CD III/3, pp. 267–70. CD III/3, p. 273.

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within the context of providence—faith and obedience betoken the prophetic office, while prayer is attuned to the “center” of what God is doing in providence by means of the kingly and priestly offices. However, it is also important to emphasize that all three participatory forms are involved in the prophetic office. Even prayer has something to say to the rest of the world. The difference is that prayer is set apart as unique by, so to speak, it being “appropriated” to the priestly and kingly offices. Prayer has privileges that faith and obedience do not. I will discuss this more below. The prophetic ministry of Christ situates the Christian within the world as a witness. This mysterious work unites the witnessing of the believer with Christ’s self-disclosing work in the world, and this unity is eschatologically constituted in and through the work of the Holy Spirit. J. Mangina mentions, regarding the “prophetic” aspect of Barth’s theology of participation: Metaphorically, we can state the manner in this way: having watched the drama of salvation unfold in the priestly and royal work of Jesus Christ, and having seen our negative and positive inclusion in his work, we now see Christ the prophet breaking through the proscenium arch that separates his history from ours, and so entering our space of experience, perception and action.22 All three forms of participation listed in §49.4 exist on the basis of the prophetic office. The prophetic ministry is the threshold that the creature crosses in the Holy Spirit when he becomes a “Christian.” Just as the Holy Spirit guarantees against any absorption or division between the Father and the Son in eternity, the Spirit also guarantees this same noncompetitive coexistence between God and his creature in the event of vocation.23 As a de facto participant in Christ, the Christian contributes to the government of divine providence voluntarily, and without the looming threat of a loss of being. Dempsey interprets Barth’s intention in III/3 correctly: “Barth advances a rather strong theology of participation in the Triune life of God, even if he refuses to speak in terms of assimilation, divinization or mysticism.”24 22

23

24

J. Mangina, Karl Barth on the Christian Life: The Practical Knowledge of God (ed. P. Molnar; Issues in Systematic Theology, vol. 8; New York: Peter Lang, 2001), p. 76. CD IV/1, p. 203; CD IV/2, p. 344; For more discussion on the safeguarded distinction between God and the creature in Barth’s view of the creature’s participatio Christi, see B. L. McCormack, “Participation in God, Yes, Deification, No: Two Modern Protestant Responses to an Ancient Question,” in J. Fischer, I. U. Dalferth, H. P. Grosshans (eds), Denwurdiges Geheimnis, Beitrage zur Gotteslehre: Festchrift fur Eberhard Jungel zum 70. Geburtstag (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), pp. 347–74; A. Neder, Participation in Christ: An Entry into Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (Columbia Series in Reformed Theology; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009); J. Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology, pp. 179–214. For an account of the relation between Barth’s theologia crucis and his theology of participation, cf. Mangina, Karl Barth on the Christian Life, pp. 80–5. Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 265.

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In the creature’s becoming a “Christian,” he responds to the call of God with the advent of believing and obedient prayer. However, within the confines of the dogmatic intersection between divine providence and reconciliation, faith and obedience are limited to the context of the prophetic ministry. This assertion is grounded in an important presupposition: in III/3, providence, and the Christian’s participatio Christi within the context of providence, take place on the side of the external basis of the covenant.25 Barth’s comments about the Christian’s participation in §49.4, then, are made strictly on the basis of what can be said to be “real” on the side of the history of creation as it accompanies the covenant of grace. Therefore, when speaking from the standpoint of the covenant of grace, the prophetic office is a baseline for the creature’s crossing over into a de facto participation in all three offices of Christ. Objectively, when the creature participates in the prophetic office, he becomes a Christian. However, since Barth is speaking in §49.4 from the standpoint of the external basis of the covenant, this office initially comes into focus in III/3 because it exemplifies the Christian’s participation in providence in accord with Christ’s witnessing ministry to the wider world. This assertion comports with Barth’s first delineation in his previous section in §49.1 on the divine preserving: the creature is situated in the world as a witness. The Christian’s participation in the prophetic office, when speaking in the context of providence, is an acceptance and affirmation of this fact. When the creature commends this prophetic Word of God in the Holy Spirit, this acknowledgment is a participation in the prophetic ministry. In his discussion in §49.4, Barth focuses in on the importance that this de facto participation has strictly for the rest of creation. Importantly, the faith and obedience of the Christian only have significance for providence within the context of this aspect of the providential ministry of the risen Christ. In Barth’s discussion of faith and obedience, the anterior reality of the Word is emphasized. Barth links these two forms of participation with the prophetic office by speaking of the importance of the Word in both descriptions. For all of faith’s activities: “the Word alone” can “open the eyes” of the Christian and enable her recognition of God.26 In the same way, obedience to the Holy Spirit in §49.4 is a “doing” of the “Word of God.”27 Faith and obedience also say something to the world on the basis of the Word. Faith is a “light shining in the darkness,”28 and the obedient disciple “justifies the Word of God” by “justifying with his conduct that which God is doing in this [outer] sphere.”29 Therefore, social and creational themes come across in Barth’s statements on the Christian’s faith and obedience in §49.4. These two forms of participation, when limited to the context of the external 25 26 29

This insight can be observed very early on; cf. CD III/3, pp. 6–7. 27 28 CD III/3, p. 249. CD III/3, p. 253. CD III/3, p. 248. CD III/3, pp. 256–7.

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basis of the covenant, are strictly prophetic. Barth says this explicitly in his section on the Christian’s faith: “In the present context our interest in faith is in respect of the [. . .] movement in which the Christian is faced with creaturely occurrence generally.”30 Also, he says this of obedience as well: “In this context our concern is with the [. . .] form [of obedience] in which [. . .] the Christian does actually participate in the course and process of creaturely and universal occurrence as a whole.”31 Speaking objectively, Christ’s prophetic breaking through is a divine revelation that providence is constituted by the promeity of Jesus Christ. It is due to the objective promeity of Christ, then, that the Christian’s “prophetic” mode of participation must also turn to the other offices, the priestly and the kingly. For the Christian, faith in divine providence must be faith that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all events in history.32 Barth’s understanding of promeity is an objective one; faith in Jesus Christ’s efficacious death and resurrection is not content to be limited to a personal sphere. Rather, this faith reaches out and looks to the hand that guides all things.33 Therefore, de facto participation in Christ is a beneficium Christi whereby the believer apprehends that her own awakening is included in the objective reality of Christ’s all-encompassing promeity. To put it another way: when the Christian participates in Christ de facto, she participates in the prophetic ministry that is objectively anticipated by the priestly and the kingly ministries of Christ. Adam Neder describes this: “When he says that Christians co-operate with Jesus Christ in His prophetic work by the power of the Holy Spirit, he is speaking about the de facto response of Christians to the de jure reality of Jesus Christ’s priestly and kingly work. In the prophetic office, Jesus Christ reveals, by the Spirit, the reconciliation which has come to the world in Him.”34 Like faith and obedience, prayer is also a participation in the prophetic office; however, when speaking within the context of the external basis of the covenant, only prayer can also express itself as a realization of the kingly and priestly ministries. Therefore, while Barth’s discussion of participation in §49.4 begins with faith and obedience, more attention is given to his climactic section on prayer than the other two combined. There is an objective reason for why faith and obedience must also include prayer: Jesus Christ reveals himself, according to the title of §49, “as the Lord.” Participation in the announcement of the promeity of Jesus Christ in the context of his 30 32

33 34

31 CD III/3, p. 248. CD III/3, p. 257. “Barth sets questions of ontology, theological anthropology and moral deliberation within the context of divine promeity,” M. A. Husbands, “Barth’s Ethics of Prayer: A Study in Moral Ontology and Action” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto, 2005), p. 45; Mangina, Karl Barth on the Christian Life, pp. 57–8. “The history of this One is world history,” CD IV/2, p. 269. A. Neder, “A Differentiated Fellowship of Action: Participation in Christ in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics” (Doctoral dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2005), pp. 291–2.

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prophetic ministry is consequently an acknowledgment that Christ is also Lord as High Priest and King. As the Christian prays and “repeats” the prayer of Jesus Christ for the world, he “participates not only in His prophetic, but also in his high-priestly office and work.”35 The Christian’s prayer is also taken up into the kingly office of Christ, where God’s providential decisions are made: prayer “is a participation of the Christian not only in His prophetic and high-priestly but also in His kingly office.”36 Not only does the creature intercede for the world in Christ, he even influences God’s decisions, as God allows himself to “be determined” by the creature who calls upon him.37 On the side of the external basis of the covenant, faith and obedience do not have this privilege, but prayer does. Few commentators have noted the importance of the incarnational offices of Christ for Barth’s section on prayer in §49.4, but it is evidently one of his main concerns.38 Prayer, then, is a distinct way of participating in providence because it is a participation in the material reality of Christ’s intercession and rule. Barth opens his section on prayer in §49.4 by stating, “And now let us try to understand materially (sachlich) what it is that is primarily and properly surprising in the Christian situation.”39 In this way, prayer participates in, what Barth will indicate in his doctrine of reconciliation are both of the “material (sachlich)” offices of Christ, the priestly and the kingly.40 From the standpoint of divine providence, the faith and obedience are only part of the formal, prophetic reality of the Christian’s participation in the proclaimed Word. Prayer, however, participates materially in the priestly and kingly offices of Christ, the locus of Christ’s work that supervenes over all historical events. To summarize: while faith, obedience, and prayer are inseparable, in the context of divine providence they offer two distinct standpoints from which the Christian may think and speak about the government of God in Jesus Christ: “formal” and “material.” These two perspectives are distinct on the side of the external basis of the covenant, involving the Christian in distinct 35

36 38

39 40

CD III/3, p. 279; D. Farrow’s criticism that Barth’s doctrine of the priestly office is overshadowed by the prophetic in the ascension is unlikely on account of this section; cf. D. Farrow, Ascension & Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999), pp. 252–4. For Barth, Christ’s priestly office is “inseparable from His person” just as is the kingly, CD III/3, 156. As Burgess states: “Ascension determines the particular form that Jesus’ transcendence takes in the present age”; A. Burgess, The Ascension in Karl Barth (Burlington: Ashgate, 2004), p. 94. 37 CD III/3, p. 287. CD III/3, p. 285. Among the rest, H. T. Goebel organizes his reading of prayer in §49.4 around Barth’s use of the priestly and kingly offices; H. T. Goebel, “Struktur und Aussageabsicht der Vorsehungslehre K. Barths. Historische und dogmatische Analyse von KD III/3,” ZDT 10.2 (1994), pp. 135–58 (pp. 149–50). CD III/3, p. 268; KD III/3, p. 304. CD IV/3, p. 8; “sachliche Gehalt der Versöhnungslehre,” KD IV/3, p. 5.

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forms of thought and action. Barth distinguishes between these two de facto perspectives on the basis of the triplex munus. Therefore, these distinctions are not theological whims; they are given distinctions within the context of a participation in the same reconciling Lord. They are distinct perspectives that are given to the theologian as variegated but united apprehensions of the government of God in Jesus Christ. In the creature’s becoming a Christian, he participates in Christ de facto, and yet, within the context of providence there are two different ways for him to commend the Word of God. After Barth’s calling the two incarnational offices the “material” offices of Christ in his doctrine of reconciliation, as opposed to the “formal” office (i.e., the prophetic), I describe these two kinds of obedient participation distinguished in §49.4 as “formal” and “material” forms of Christian participation. As I maintained in the previous chapter, this discussion of Barth’s in §49.4 follows the “twofold rule” he introduces in §49.3 for observing the divine government from two different standpoints.41 Consequently, the Christian apprehends the distinction between the “already” and the “not yet” in two distinct but united ways. He also sees his own contribution to the divine government from these two perspectives. Speaking “materially,” the Christian understands the reality of providence on the basis of the unconditional supremacy of the risen Christ. That is, he sees the kingdom of God as “already” realized. This corresponds with the first of Barth’s “twofold” rule: one must look to the events of the covenant of grace in order to understand the meaning of events in the created world.42 This place, as I have already argued, is where Christ is apprehended as an already seated King, a King who does not permit the Nihil. From this “material” standpoint, strictly within the covenant, the Christian sees himself as being merely an “instrument” in the hands of the potter.43 This “material” standpoint is the Christian’s participation in providence in the context of the priestly and kingly ministries. Speaking “formally,” however, the creature may liken his own position differently. The creature may be more of a “servant” than an “instrument,” living a meaningfully active life as a witness in the context of the history of creation. This second perspective operates on the basis of the “second” aspect of Barth’s “twofold” rule.44 It looks to the covenant of grace and 41 42

43

44

CD III/3, p. 183. “We have to look at world events in general outwards from the particular events attested in the Bible,” CD III/3, p. 183. Cf. Barth’s use of four metaphors for the contribution of the creature, CD III/3, pp. 46–51. “We have to look back from the world events of nature and history, both far and near, both above and below, to the particular events which are attested in the Bible, to the history of the covenant of grace from the promise which initiated it to its final fulfillment. The general events do not happen for their own sake. They do not form a self-contained and self-motivated whole as contrasted with the particular events [. . .] The general events have their meaning in the particular”; CD III/3, pp. 183–4.

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creation simultaneously, perceiving the sense in which they share meaning with each other. This “second” perspective comes about for the Christian on the basis of the prophetic office, seeing a deferral of God’s reign, his permissio, and his patient tolerance of evil as a postponement of the parousia. Barth foregrounds his distinction between formal and material participation in his use of “Therefore” and “Nevertheless” language in III/3. From the standpoint of material participation, the creature says, “On account of the Word of God, therefore Christ is Lord over all things.” The second, formal perspective says “Nevertheless,” and observes the confused lines of history within the context of this “Therefore.” This second perspective says, “Despite any evils in the world, God is nevertheless the Lord.” In this manner, both perspectives are included in the same de facto participation in Christ. Barth states in §48: What man sees is simply the multiplicity and confusion of the lines of creaturely occurrence, which in itself and as such—for creation is not God—cannot be identified with the doing of the will of God, with the work of His freedom, grace and power. There can be no question of a transparency proper to this occurrence as such, or of an inherent ability of man to see through it. What man sees is simply creation in all the regularity and contingency of its own movement and development. If he did not begin with faith in God’s providence, he might try to interpret this movement and development in different ways. But he certainly could not maintain and confess that God is the Lord who is prior to this occurrence, supreme over it and at work in it. The belief in providence maintains and confesses this with its Nevertheless [. . .] In faith in God’s particular revelation man sees God before he sees the general history of creation. And it is for this reason that as he sees the latter he sees God as the One who in concealment but supreme reality is before and over and in it as the Lord. Hence his Nevertheless is not blind. It is grounded in a supremely illuminating Therefore. And the man who ventures this Nevertheless, because he may so venture, is not ignoring reality. He does not imagine another reality. He does not think he sees through reality. On the contrary, he sees it as it is just because he encounters it with his Nevertheless, not believing in its apparently autonomous significance, but in the significance given it by the fact that in all its developments it stands under the lordship of God.45 Barth takes his distinction between the “Therefore” and the “Nevertheless” in §48 and he writes it into his section on the difference between the Christian’s formal and material participation in §49.4:

45

CD III/3, p. 44 emphasis mine.

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In its first and decisive moment his faith is a confidence in what took place and was revealed in this One, in the kingdom of God in Him, in the uniting of God and man accomplished by Him, in the reconciliation of the world with God actualized by Him, in the fatherhood of God and the sonship of man proclaimed by Him [. . .] Believing in Jesus Christ, the Christian enters into a given presupposition, and now he draws out the deductions implicit in that presupposition, but implicit only as deductions [. . .] In the one case, it is a light kindled by light, and in the other, a light shining in the darkness [. . .] It is always our striding from the one to the other: from the place where God is revealed to the place where He is hidden; from the Here with its Therefore to the There with its Nevertheless.46 The Christian who participates in the variegated but united offices of Christ says both “Therefore” and “Nevertheless.” In this manner, both of Barth’s stated rules for observing the divine government in §49.3 are observed by the Christian who participates in Christ de facto. Both modes of de facto participation, that is, formal and material, are brought together because they are both given by the same Lord, Jesus Christ. They do not constitute a conceptual paradox; rather, they are given to the Christian by Christ as two freely and “calm[ly]” related perspectives on his reign over history.47

IV. Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer Barth’s discussion of prayer as a distinct form of Christian participation exemplifies what he means by doing theology from a material standpoint. Barth describes prayer as “the most intimate and effective form of Christian action.”48 The one who prays engages deeply with the will of God. His being is grounded in a free agency for God. For this reason, prayer is not an intermittent response to the Word. Rather, according to Barth, Calvin and Luther understood 1 Thess. 5.17 to be of significance for identifying the character of prayer as belonging to the creature’s ongoing existence: The “pray constantly” of 1 Thessalonians 5:17 is not quoted in any catechism of that period [. . . however] In a general way, it may be stated that according to the explanations of the Reformers themselves—that is, what they say in their writings, their preaching, and their actions—prayer is at once word, thought, and life.49

46 49

47 48 CD III/3, p. 248. CD III/3, p. 189. CD III/3, p. 264. Prayer, p. 7. Barth’s incorporates 1 Thess. 5.17 and Rom. 12.12 into his ethics of creation, CD III/4, pp. 48–50; Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 138.

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Without mention of this Scriptural text, Barth accounts for continual prayer in III/3 as an enduring participation in Christ. He does not consider this to be an uninterrupted stasis or awareness, but a task for the whole person who asks with a “continually renewed asking.”50 The creature is not willed by God, then, to be an agent only on occasion; the absolute and ethical wills of God are Jesus Christ, and so the creature is continually in need of the “lesson of true prayer” that is Christ’s constitutive life and example.51 Therefore, both essentially and ethically, the Christian is realized as a real agent as he prays. That the Christian should never cease praying is the one and only will of God for the creature. The prayer of the Christian is inseparable from “daily Christian living.”52 For Barth, the “law of prayer (lex orandi) is the law of action (lex agendi).”53 Barth asks how prayer might be distinguished from faith and obedience: does it have a “center (Mitte)”?54 Is there anything irreducible about prayer that circumscribes the faithful and obedient life? What is it, exactly, that makes this way of doing theology “material”? At the heart of prayer is the reality of petition, which is a posture before God that is content to ask. Prayer that requests something of God does not decline into a metaphysic. Rather, prayer doesn’t even focus on a distinction between a “prayerful” view of God and a metaphysic. Prayer deliberately consents to a covenantal reality. Amidst this dynamic, each party is justifiably positioned vis à vis the other: The Christian situation is not the abstract one of the lowliness of man before God, although this forms part of it. Nor is the Christian situation the abstract one of man’s horror of himself, although this is included in it [. . .] The man who really prays comes to God and approaches and speaks to Him because he seeks something of God, because he desires and expects something, because he hopes to receive something which he needs, something which he does not hope to receive from anyone else, but does definitely hope to receive from God. He cannot come before God with his petition without also worshipping God, without giving Him praise and thanksgiving, and without spreading out before Him his own wretchedness. But it is the fact that he comes before God with his petition which makes him a praying man.55 The covenantal reality of petition does not leave it to the creature to pull himself out of an abyss. He does not pray on the basis of the freedom of his 50 52 53

54

51 CD III/3, p. 274. CD III/3, p. 277. Mangina, Karl Barth on the Christian Life, p. 177. Dempsey, “Fully Divine, Fully Human,” p. 123; Mangina, Karl Barth on the Christian Life, pp. 173–7; Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology, p. 198. 55 CD III/3, p. 266. CD III/3, pp. 267–8.

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self-will. The Word of God initiates the prayer of the creature and his hearing it “precedes the asking.”56 Jesus Christ gives of himself as the answer to the creature’s prayer before the creature may prayerfully act. He is the “gift and answer” of every petition before any appeal has taken place because he is the divine conservatio, concursus, and gubernatio of God for the creature: Of all the things that are needed by man, and needed in such a way that he can receive them only from God, that only God can give them to him, there is one great gift. And to all the true and legitimate requests that are directed necessarily to God, there is one great answer. This one divine gift and answer is Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ because in Him it came about that God concerned Himself with the world and man, and in so doing He turned upon the world and man the fullness of all blessing [. . .] In Him, in His own beloved Son, in His Word which is a Word of salvation and peace, He controls all occurrence, upholding it, accompanying it and ruling it. In the fact that Jesus Christ is there, the world is already helped, and everything that creation needs, and at the heart of creation man, is already provided [. . .] Therefore He is the one great gift and answer in which all that we can receive and ask is not merely determined but actually given and present and available for us.57 God’s covenantal conjoining of the creature with himself is exemplified by the moment when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray. If we are to understand the essence of prayer, we must follow the Lord’s Prayer.58 The Lord’s Prayer is an objective testimony to the establishment of the Christian’s petition and action as it is enjoined by Jesus Christ on the basis of his work.59 In praying the Lord’s Prayer, the Christian acknowledges that Jesus Christ asked first, and courageously believes that he will be heard as well. Jesus offers this prayer as an example to the disciples, and so all prayer is given to the disciple by Jesus Christ. As it orders the Christian’s petition into a sequence, the eternal and the temporal are brought together in a faithful reiteration of the Lord’s Prayer. At God’s behest, the Lord’s Prayer is the Christian’s participation in divine providence. 56 59

57 58 CD III/3, p. 270. CD III/3, p. 271. CD III/3, p. 268. Barth comments on Calvin’s 1542 Catechism on participation in Christ: “What is the principal end of human life?” it asks. The answer is participation in the divine glorification as the highest good: “Man as man can stand and walk only in participation in the self-glorification of God. Every step from this path is a step into the abyss”; CD III/2, p. 184. The catechism posits a God-led form of participation in God’s self-glorification in the “faith, obedience, prayer and worship” of the creature and on the brink of an abyss; CD III/2, p. 185. Mention is made of the Lord’s Prayer here as well; CD III/2, pp. 185–6.

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To understand this Christian asking as such, it will be our best plan to follow the same order as when we spoke of the divine gift and answer. The first and proper suppliant is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. The Gospels tell us that He taught His disciples to pray, and that He did so by repeating a prayer with them, by being their Leader in prayer. This fact is of decisive practical importance for the meaning and character of Christian prayer . . . It is (1) primarily and centrally an asking. It stands (2) in a basic relationship to the divine answer. And it takes place (3) in this order.60 The formality and the reality of the Christian’s participation come together in Jesus Christ’s teaching the Lord’s Prayer to his disciples. Jesus Christ gives his disciples a prayer just as he gives himself as their Prophet, Priest, and King. At the center of this particular prayer is the concurring reality that is petition because it is the participation that Jesus exemplifies and embodies: “The Son of Man teaches it [the community] to pray, and therefore to ask [. . .] And as He prays with it, it can now pray with Him.”61 This statement briefly encapsulates the order that the Lord’s Prayer stands for as Christ appropriates it as a meaningful witness. H. T. Goebel observes that here “Barth understands the ‘Christian request’ according to a definite order” with Christ as the first and proper Suppliant.62 Christ’s gifting of this prayer to his disciples testifies to the gift of an ordered participation in his own life: When we pray, we can only return to that prayer which was uttered in the person of Jesus Christ and which is constantly repeated because God is not without humankind. God is the Father of Jesus Christ, and that very man Jesus Christ has prayed, and he is praying still. Such is the foundation of our prayer in Jesus Christ. It is as if God himself has pledged to answer our request because all our prayers are summed up in Jesus Christ; God cannot fail to answer, since it is Jesus Christ who prays.63 Petition is a dynamic, it is grounded in Christ alone and it is regulatory for the Christian’s ordered covenantal participation. Ethically speaking, Christ’s disciples are accosted by God to continually return to the Lord’s Prayer as the witness that he has appropriated for pointing to this intercession in providence. To participate in Christ is to mine the depths of this particular 60 62

63

61 CD III/3, pp. 274, 282. CD III/3, p. 277. “Das ‘christliche Bitten’ versteht Barth in einer bestimmen ‘Ordnung’: Der zuerst und eigentlich bittende Mensch ist [. . .] Jesus Christus selber”; Goebel, “Struktur und Aussageabsicht der Vorsehungslehre K. Barths,” p. 149. Prayer, p. 14.

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prayer when considering what he has done for the world. The one who listens to this prayer obediently understands that Christ is the ontological–ethical reality that constitutes the ruling of the universe. It is the petition that Jesus Christ is for the cosmos that the Lord’s Prayer accurately clarifies. What the man Jesus did was the very thing that He told us to ask for in the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer: he hallowed the revealed name of God [. . .] Naturally as the Son of Man He is only and altogether Suppliant because as the Son of God He is Himself altogether the divine gift and answer. It is, therefore, the love and power of God Himself which breaks through and gains the victory in the existence of this man by becoming a single request.64 The prayer of the Christian is addressed to Jesus Christ in the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer reminds us, for it was originally received from Christ, that he remains the “first and proper Subject of true prayer.” The one who prays is only a follower, under the “discipleship of the asking Lord.”65 In this manner, the Lord’s Prayer is a special prayer which Jesus Christ attends to, designating it as a witness to his own intercession, the intercession that constitutes divine providence. As Barth later organizes The Christian Life as an explicit reflection on the Lord’s Prayer, he mentions divine concursus as it is similarly reflected therein: Over against this presupposition it must be stated that God who is known as “Our Father” in Jesus Christ is not this supreme being who is self-enclosed, who cannot be codetermined from the outside, who is condemned to work alone. He is a God who in overflowing grace has chosen and is free to have authentic and not just apparent dealings, intercourse, and exchange with his children [. . .] He wills that he also be spoken to, that they also speak to him. He does not just work on and for them. As the Founder and perfect Lord of this concursus (cf. CD III, 3 §49.2), he wills their work as well.66 The prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples reflects the reality of his submission to the Father. In turn, as I have argued in the previous chapter on concursus, the submission of Christ is the basis for the divine command to pray. God’s claim, as it comes to the creature, is grounded in the anterior and concrete act of the Father in accosting the Son to prayerfully submit to his will in election.67 In this manner, Barth begins to show his “material” colors here, for as he turns to God in Jesus Christ he also turns toward the doctrine 64 67

65 66 CD III/3, p. 275. CD III/3, p. 280. ChrL, p. 103. “God elects man in order that man may be awakened and summoned to elect God, and to pray that he may give himself to Him,” CD II/2, p. 180.

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of God. In this sense, the Lord’s Prayer is a witness to Christ’s own submission to the Father, in its reiterating alongside him at Gethsemane: “Thy will be done.” The Lord’s Prayer is the only prayer that can expect to be answered.68 God is a benevolent God, and his will is a merciful will to match. In turn, this prayer of the Christian is a participation in the material reality of Christ’s kingly and priestly offices, and so we are not under fate but a loving Father: What establishes it [the divine claim] is that this man has known and possesses in God the One who is “Our Father in heaven” [. . .] And it is precisely this God who has authority for Jesus. It is His claim which He does not evade, but to which He is wholly subject. It is to Him that He is obedient. It is not a matter of any kind of subjection to a power or fate, nor of any kind of subordination to a self-imposed rule [. . .] Everything therefore that we read in the New Testament about the relationship of Jesus to the will of God is to be understood from the point of view that it is the grace of God which has acquired human form in this person, and that in this relationship Jesus only, as it were, responds to the fact that God is so kind. It is in this sense that “Thy will be done” stands in the Lord’s Prayer.69

V. Praying Through the Rest of III/3 From Barth’s writing “The Need and Promise of Christian Preaching” (1922) to his oft-celebrated Evangelical Theology: An Introduction (1962), his theological outcry is Veni, creator Spiritus! B. McCormack observes that, as both of these texts draw upon Romans 8 and the Spirit’s enjoining of the creature, Barth understands his theology to be essentially a matter of prayer throughout.70 Implications for theological discourse are not distant. Barth states in his fragment on The Christian Life that a proper de facto participation in Christ has “self-evident” consequences in an explicit focus on the Lord’s Prayer: The arrangement according to which we must proceed on this presupposition is self-evident. In our discussion and presentation we shall simply follow the course of the prayer which has come down to us in Matthew 6:9–13 and Luke 11:2–4: the prayer that Jesus Christ himself prayed, that he prayed first and then told his disciples to pray after him. The order that is given at this absolutely and exclusively authorized 68 70

69 CD II/1, p. 511. CD II/2, p. 561. B. L. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 2004), p. 32.

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place—the order that we should call on God thus and not otherwise— encloses within itself point by point the criterion of a life, action, and work that is determined by this prayer, by the One who as the representative of all men before God, prayed this prayer to him.71 III/3 is, in a particular way, similar to The Christian Life in that there are places where it is appropriate to see the Lord’s Prayer as a platform for his theological thought. For the second half of III/3, this prayer will continue as an insight for apprehending what God does in the context of divine providence. As the climax of §49, Barth’s section on the Christian’s participation in providence reorients the way the subject is approached. Providence means a participation of the Christian in the resurrection of Jesus Christ; it is a “seeing” his self-disclosure in the event of Easter. The Lord’s Prayer is uttered from within this context, where the resurrection illuminates the crucified Lord’s situation, which is precisely where providence is found to be superior to das Nichtige, defeating it, creating a nearness between the Father and his child. It was for the direct nearness between God and man as between Father and child, and child and Father, that Jesus Christ was born a man and crucified. And this nearness is the light of his resurrection. And when the Christian prays, he does what he has to do in answer to the Word and work of the Son of God. He makes the first available use of the freedom which is given to him by the amazing fact created in Jesus Christ.72 The whole of the doctrine of providence is apprehended by the believer in this participation in the resurrected Christ. Jesus’ kingly rule and intercession for the world is disclosed in the use of this prayer, and this comprises essentially what providence is at the behest of his kingly promeity. Barth furthers his argument by alluding to the terms he has already used for describing providence throughout §49: conservatio, concursus, and gubernatio. Returning to his statement on the triplex munus mentioned above, it does help significantly to note that he is here expounding on the Lord’s Prayer. Barth states: “It is for him as a Christian, i.e., as one who has personal knowledge of the prophetic and priestly and kingly office of Jesus Christ [. . .] that it [i.e., the world] is preserved and accompanied and ruled by Him.”73 Immediately following this he adds: And Christian petition, the meaning of which we are trying to understand, is simply the taking and receiving of the divine gift and answer 71

72

Barth then notes that Tertullian says that the Lord’s Prayer is a “breviary of the whole gospel” (Tertullian, De oratione, I, 6); ChrL, p. 44. 73 CD III/3, p. 269. CD III/3, p. 273.

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as it is already present and near to hand in Jesus Christ [. . .] To understand this Christian asking as such, it will be our best plan to follow the same order as when we spoke of the divine gift and answer. The first and proper suppliant is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. The Gospels tell us that He taught His disciples to pray, and that He did so by repeating a prayer with them, by being their Leader in prayer.74 Just as Barth maintains in The Christian Life, Jesus prays first, and the theologian who partakes in Christ prays subsequently. By placing his exposition of the Lord’s Prayer at the climax of his paragraph on providence, Barth attunes his final note so that it will disclose his interest in this particular prayer. It is not a mistake, then, that the three divisions of divine providence are implicitly reiterated in this restatement of the Lord’s Prayer in §49.4: He [i.e., the Christian] can and must pray for himself: that the name of God may be hallowed by him, and therefore by his genuine praying, which will itself always be supplication; that the kingdom of God may be set up, and therefore the lordship of God in his own life; that the will of God may be done in his life, in his free thoughts and words and actions; that he may have the daily bread which is necessary if he is to continue to exist both as a creature and as a man; that he may be forgiven the particular guilt which separates him from God; that he may be guarded against his own particular temptation; that he may have all the things which he does not have and of himself cannot have, but can have only from God.75 This particular echo of the Lord’s Prayer interweaves various aspects of the doctrine of providence into its structure. As all good theology should be, the doctrine is here addressed to God in second person.76 If the Christian is to have daily bread in order “to continue to exist [. . .] as a creature,” he must be an object of the divine conservatio. Also, his “free thoughts and words and actions” are made so by the divine accompanying in concursus. Finally, the kingdom of God that is requested in the Christian’s petition, “and therefore the lordship of God in his own life,” means that this kingdom is already actual on the basis of Christ’s work.77 Just as this particular prayer witnesses to the reality of divine providence, it is expected that the disciple who stands at Jesus’ side will explicate the doctrine of providence as a reflection on the Lord’s Prayer. From the vantage point of the theologian’s participation in Christ, praying the Lord’s Prayer and explicating a doctrine of providence are to be thought of as similar 74 77

75 CD III/3, p. 274. CD III/3, p. 280. CD III/3, pp. 155–7; Prayer, p. 36.

76

ET, p. 164.

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activities. Barth’s doctrine of providence is, in turn, a faithful reflection on the Lord’s Prayer in this manner. For this reason, Barth’s authorial strategy in III/3 bears the mark of one who intentionally takes on the stance of the faithful Christian who participates in Christ by uttering the Lord’s Prayer in his theological description of providence. The Lord’s Prayer continues as a basis for insight into Christ’s governing action after §49.4. Once Barth’s section on the Christian’s participation is complete, he turns to each of the “two hands” of God for ordering his discourse in III/3. First, the “left hand” of God is turned to, as Barth addressees the topic of das Nichtige in §50. Then, Barth turns to the “right hand” of God, the kingdom constituted by the resurrection of Jesus Christ in §51. In this way, Barth’s ordering of the second half of III/3 corresponds with the Lord’s Prayer’s sixth petition “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” where he makes his statement on Nothingness in §50. In this same manner, Barth prays a doxology in his explication of the kingdom of heaven in §51: “for Thine is the kingdom.” My own intent in pointing out the importance of the Lord’s Prayer for the second half of III/3 is not to submit Barth’s doctrine of providence to a master pattern of some kind. Rather, in describing how the second half of the prayer bears significance for Barth, I maintain that this view of the creature’s de facto participation from both the standpoint of temptation and doxology is constitutive for the way Barth finishes off his seventh volume. Barth takes up a variegated perspective from which to see divine providence in both §50 and §51. His section on evil discusses the temptation that the theologian faces to capitulate to a metaphysic, and in this way he largely describes his subject matter from the perspective of the one who participates in Christ “formally” in §50. However, his section in §51 on the doxology of the angels describes what it means to praise God in the same manner as the doxology of the Lord’s Prayer, which is the aspect of the prayer that “encompasses” the whole.78 Doxology is a “material” participation in Christ that appropriately speaks of divine rulership from the standpoint that he specifies as belonging to prayer in §49.4. As Barth would have it, an explication of the doctrine of providence is not only a description of God’s victory over evil; it is a faithful turning against evil as a Christian. The assignation of the second half of the Lord’s Prayer to the voluntary participation of the creature in the “cause” of God is fitting, then, for the second half of III/3. Barth’s distinction between “formal” and “material” theologizing continues in his overall focus in the latter half of this volume. Notably, before Barth prays his way through an account of the doxology of the angels, which commends God’s work in Jesus Christ as Priest and King, he turns to the question of what it is against which the Christian struggles within the context of his own witness in the world. Is it 78

Prayer, p. 65.

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not temptation? The Christian’s participation in the prophetic ministry raises the question of the threatening power that looms within the context where God is not revealed, but hidden. What does it mean, and what is the Christian up against, when his participation is understood as a “light shining in the darkness”?79

79

CD III/3, p. 248 emphasis mine.

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7 §50, god and nothingness

The message of Easter leads us to the boundary between two worlds. And on this boundary, a battle is raging. Two gigantic kingdoms are engaged in a war with one another. The night strives against the morning, the palpable-visible strives against the spirit, appearance against truth, the world against God. But we cannot and we may not be mere spectators of this battle of which Easter speaks. We have to become partisan on one side or the other.1

I. Introduction Barth’s paragraph on das Nichtige is best read within the context of the Christian’s participatio Christi in §49.4. Therefore, he obediently follows the ordering of the Lord’s Prayer in his exposition of §50. For Barth, the sixth petition acts as a guide for understanding the depth of the theologian’s own temptation to resort to a metaphysic. Paragraph 50 is Barth’s descriptive attempt to avoid a theodicy and remain consistent with his own prayerful approach. Throughout, this chapter maintains that Barth’s theology of Nothingness, within the context of the overall arrangement of III/3, prioritizes a prayerful consistency over conceptual clarity. Therefore, in order to shed more light on Barth’s position, this chapter explores whether or not Barth is clear about the relation between the “shadow side” of creation and the Nihil within the context of divine providence. Overall, Barth’s description of the “shadow” is found to be very instructive for evaluating the contribution that the lex orandi makes to a reading of Barth’s perplexing paragraph on evil.

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From Barth’s Sermons, February 23, 1913; citation from McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, p. 96.

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Following the larger insight proposed in this study, that is, that III/3 is an intentionally crafted whole, I propose a maximal reading of Barth’s level of consistency in §50. This chapter suggests a two-fold typology for ascertaining what Barth means when speaking of the “shadow,” “Nothingness,” “non-being,” and the like. This typology is grounded in his whole theological approach to the question of Nothingness. By using it, I mean to encourage a coherent reading of his seemingly contradictory statements in III/3. Throughout, Barth’s apparently opposing statements in §50, when evaluated according to the creature’s participatio Christi, can be seen as consistent with the rest of the volume.

II. The Temptation to Metaphysical “Confusion” H. Arendt describes the eighteenth century’s focus on theodicy as a shift against praise: “When men could no longer praise, they turned their greatest conceptual efforts to justifying God and His creation in theodicies.”2 Arendt’s statement touches upon the historical side of what Barth is saying about the problem of evil in §50 of the Church Dogmatics. The anthropocentrism of the eighteenth century is not just a cultural and philosophical deviation; it is a falling away from grace in its failure to thank God for his providence.3 When divine providence is strictly made into a philosophical matter, the decay of the creature’s thankfulness ensues. For Barth, then, theodicy is an evil of history, and the thankfulness of the creature does well to expel this enemy of God. The speculative or philosophical mind is especially left without answers when Barth addresses the problem of das Nichtige. For this reason, dissatisfied readings of Barth’s account of evil and its demons are legion.4 While §50

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H. Arendt, The Life of the Mind (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977), p. 97. Citation taken from G. Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), p. 85. On the theme of the negative impact that theodicy-attempts have on the mind, cf. D. B. Burrell, Deconstructing Theodicy: Why Job Has Nothing to Say to the Puzzle of Suffering (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008); T. W. Tilley, The Evils of Theodicy (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2000). Barth says of Leibniz, “Do we not find a theodicy here which decisively refers man to himself?” PTNC, p. 65. J. Mangina notes, for example, that Barth’s concept of das Nichtige has “found few followers,” J. Mangina, Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness (Burlington: Ashgate, 2004), p. 102. G. C. Berkouwer and J. Webster both mention, regarding §50, that part of the reason for the widespread disavowal of his view is its complexity; Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, p. 69; Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, p. 61. Perhaps the best explanation for this lack of a following is that, as N. Wolterstorff notes, Barth’s account “offers a powerful attack on many standard

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may cause some disappointment, however, this is not because Barth’s statement is disorganized. More often than not, the interpreter leaves Barth’s view of evil behind because it is not considered to be an existentially satisfying or intellectually convincing account. Barth’s critics need to exercise care, however, when interpreting this section, for he does intentionally avoid offering simple answers, and regardless he will not feign any personal satisfaction.5 To convince our reason or to comfort our fears would be a gross mistake on his part, were he accurately to depict evil. Rather, if Barth’s separate paragraph on das Nichtige is dealt with according to the lex orandi, he will not write in order to settle this matter for his reader, but will confidently and carefully unsettle his readership instead. Treating §50 requires a focus on what it is that Barth has arranged with a prayerful purpose in mind. Barth delimits for his reader what “evil” is, but he approaches this without allowing it to finish his volume. As I have argued already, Barth is following the logic of the Lord’s Prayer in making this move, and so as he approaches §50, he is working with an intentionality that deliberately spans the whole of III/3. Barth’s approach to the subject of evil is underwritten by a theological participatio Christi. As he mentions in §49.4, firmly grounded in the Lord’s Prayer, the theologian is free to approach the subject of evil while looking ahead to the doxology of the kingdom of heaven. In Barth’s lectures about the Lord’s Prayer, during the time of his writing §50, he clearly has the real problem of Nothingness in view when discussing what the sixth petition (i.e., “lead us not into temptation . . .”) means: [It] is not a matter of an ordinary threat which might be clearly perceived and resisted. It is rather a question of the infinite menace of the nothingness that is opposed to God himself. It is the menace that, for the creature, carries with it not only a passing danger, a destruction of secondary importance, a momentary corruption, but total fall, ultimate extinction.6 As Barth finishes off his volume on providence, he first turns to discuss the relation between God’s left hand and providence, and this is reflected in the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer. After that, he turns to God’s right, which

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lines of thought,” N. Wolterstorff, “Barth on Evil,” Faith and Philosophy 13.4 (1996), p. 584. “We have here an extraordinarily clear demonstration of the necessary brokenness of all theological thought and utterance,” CD III/3, p. 293. Berkouwer also notes that “Bavinck calls the origin of evil the greatest riddle of life and the heaviest cross that the understanding of man must bear”; Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, p. 217. Prayer, p. 60.

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focuses on the praise of the heavenly realms (i.e., §51), and this accords with the concluding doxology of the Lord’s Prayer. On account of the fact that Barth’s ordering of his volume follows this arrangement, it is best to evaluate his statements on the Nihil from the standpoint of his prayerful approach. As I have previously argued, participation in Jesus Christ means that a theology of providence fittingly takes shape in the context of the Lord’s Prayer, and this also may become the prayer of the theologian when Jesus is said to have prayed this prayer first. Barth’s appropriation of the Lord’s Prayer in the case of this chapter goes without an explicit reference in §50, so I derive it implicitly from the structure of the volume. Barth does say here that there is only one way in which this reality can be seen “without [. . .] temptation.”7 That is, unless the theologian faithfully enacts a prayerful commending of the Word, epistemological confusion will simply eventuate.8 This is always “a triumph of Nothingness” that threatens us. Therefore, this chapter is Barth’s prayer that God should, so to speak, “lead us not into metaphysics.” Thankfully, our theological confusion is “wrecked on the rock” of the rule of Jesus Christ.9 Knowledge of the Nihil is, in the end, only thankful knowledge of what God discloses as that which he has already cancelled in the atoning work of Christ.10 In this chapter I argue that Barth’s treatment of das Nichtige describes evil in the way that he must in order to stay true to a de facto participation on the theologian’s part. Participation in Jesus Christ occurs in one of two ways: it is either a de jure participation or de facto. The “shadow side” of creation can only be “practical[ly]” seen, because it is seen from the standpoint of an active de facto participatio Christi.11 Therefore, conceptual solutions are not going to help when addressing this question. Rightly seen, the “shadow” is a historical reality, and is therefore a good overcoming of the Nihil. A de facto participation can see this, which is a vision that is characterized as “practical” or as “existential.”12 Barth chooses this modus operandi because the creature who asks the question metaphysically is actually motivated by doubt about the Lordship of God

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CD III/3, p. 305. Stevenson notes that Augustine, in his comment on the sixth petition, breaks from the interpretations of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Ambrose; he is the first to translate a malo “not as the devil, but as the force of evil, present in temptation, but in much more”; Stevenson, The Lord’s Prayer, p. 79. Barth refers to the problem of hominum confusione in §50 frequently, an aspect which many accounts do not mention; cf. CD III/3, pp. 295, 299, 317–18. CD III/3, p. 299. The only access the theologian has to that which tempts him with metaphysics is to see “that which brought Jesus Christ to the cross, and that which he defeated there,” CD III/3, p. 305. 12 CD III/3, p. 14. CD III/3, p. 194.

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over all things. Like concursus, the problem of evil is not a problem that is “intellectual but spiritual.”13 Therefore, “any theoretical synthesis we contemplate between creaturely existence and genuine nothingness can only be a description of its triumph over creaturely existence, and therefore blasphemy.”14 Seen from the vantage point of a de jure participant in Christ, one can only attempt to “grope in the void” when trying to adjudicate the divide between creation and evil.15 The one who participates in Jesus Christ de jure can only look at human history in order to identify what is good and what is evil. This creature is left to his own devices in order to apprehend what the Nihil might be, and then the questionable reality between Nothingness and providence, the “shadow side” of history. Consequently, he attempts to correlate knowledge of “good” with “evil” and replicates the sin of Adam and Eve.16 The problem of confusion threatens the theologian at every step with capitulation to a grandiose explanation: The controversy with nothingness, its conquest, removal and abolition, is primarily and properly the cause of God Himself. At first sight we might regard the converse as true. Nothingness is the danger, assault and menace under which the creature must exist. Therefore the creature as such is surely the hero who must suffer and fight and finally conquer this adversary [. . .] But there can be no greater delusion nor catastrophe than to take this view. For it would not be real nothingness, but only an ultimately innocuous counterfeit [. . .] and while the creature is preoccupied with the assault and repulse of these counterfeits, it is already subject to the attack of real nothingness and its defense against it is already futile.17 Which side is the “shadow” on, really—is it evil or good? In the end, Barth does not offer a conceptual solution for this problem. My contention is, however, this is not a failure but is strictly a matter for Barth’s consistent reiteration of the correct, Spirit-guided positioning of the theologian who prayerfully commends the Word. If Barth’s theological inner-structure is the lex orandi, then to stray from a de facto participation is to adopt a metaphysic and, consequently, to cease doing theology. Barth maintains that theology is to be done according to the example of Mozart, and “there is no 13 15

16

14 CD III/3, p. 146. CD III/3, p. 303. CD III/3, p. 288; I use de jure language here loosely in an epistemological sense. For Barth, the creature that participates in providence involuntarily is already reconciled with Christ but does not acknowledge this. So, when speaking of the creature’s de jure participation in this chapter, I mean to emphasize the creature’s blindness outside of an active participation in Christ. 17 CD III/3, pp. 355–6. CD III/3, p. 358.

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Mozartean metaphysics.”18 Therefore, Barth does not offer a conceptual solution for where Nothingness ends and where the “shadow side” begins, or for where Nothingness ends and where divine providence begins. To do so would be to deny what Barth asserts at the outset, that seeing divine providence is the gift of God.19 It is participation in Christ that makes the difference, not only for the creature but also for the theologian. The theologian can only have a part “in the work and warfare of God” when operating “under the wings of divine mercy.”20 As creaturely persons, we cannot understand the distinction between light and darkness “in static terms.”21 Rather, Barth writes his account of temptation strictly from the standpoint of a de facto participant in Christ. For this reason, §50 is organized so as to only say what can be said by the creature who is thankful for his preservation. Only when one looks at the wonder of divine providence with the gratitude and praise that God expects can the threat of the Nihil be correctly apprehended: “We saw that He does this [providence] because [. . .] He wills to be known and praised by the creature as its Liberator and because he thus wills its continuation and not its destruction.”22 In this chapter, I address the topic of das Nichtige in itself, as Barth does take this up with strict constraint in places. However, I point out that what Barth thinks is important is the constraint placed on knowledge of the Nihil as it is conditioned by the theologian’s own participation in Christ. Barth can only say what evil isn’t on the basis of who Jesus Christ is understood to be in the context of prayer. Regardless of what questions are raised here, they are meant to be answered by a visio Dei of the self-electing God in Jesus Christ. Therefore, the question that drives this inquiry into §50, which observes Barth’s doctrine of providence as written according to the lex orandi, is if Barth is consistent in his repudiation of metaphysics at every step. The “shadow side” is Barth’s most relevant idea in §50 for dealing with this question, and I will take this issue up after attending to the matter of Barth’s placement of his discussion of evil within the context of III/3 as well as his strict definition for the Nihil.

III. The Ordering of §50: Plan or Paradox? God’s rulership is said to be unequivocal in §48 and §49, and it is even said to be pervasive with respect to the power of Nothingness.23 However, Barth’s 18 19

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WAM, p. 53. “For the freedom of faith in which alone this insight is possible must always be given to man afresh as the gracious gift of the Holy Spirit,” CD III/3, p. 56. 21 22 CD III/3, p. 359. CD IV/3, p. 168. CD III/3, p. 290. CD III/3, p. 158.

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treatment of this question is somberly different at the onset of §50. He deliberately unsettles any hopes that the matter of evil will somehow conceptually integrate with providence. Barth even comes very close to reneging on the fullness of the divine government at the start of his description: It is distinct from that in which God’s providence rules the creature and creaturely occurrence. The result is that the alien factor can never be considered or mentioned together in the same context as other objects of God’s providence. Thus the whole doctrine of God’s providence must be investigated afresh.24 Readings that suspect Barth for insulating his doctrine of providence from the question of evil can find logical support here. T. Gorringe mentions that “Barth does not have one statement of providence but two.”25 This would make sense if Barth were only piling one metaphysical reality on top of another. A better question may be asked, however: why does Barth choose to include his account of the Nihil within his volume on providence, rather than in his volume on election? While Barth has reasons for segregating his account of evil from that of providence, he also has reasons for including it within the same volume. If Barth were to treat “evil” without an antecedent explication of the creature’s participation in Christ within the context of creation (i.e., §49.4), his way of distinguishing between providence and evil would be wrested from a prayerful standpoint for the theologian’s own participatio Christi. Any discussion of a theological context for evil without such a background would unwittingly exalt nothingness and create an idealized account. For this reason, Barth waits to discuss evil within the context of III/3. He must first deal with divine sovereignty with respect to creation (i.e., §§48–49.3), and then he must deal with the freedom of the creature to make a real contribution within that arrangement (i.e., §49.4). This must be done because the question of das Nichtige, placed within the context of III/3, is at once an ontological, but just as much a practical and ethical matter for the creature that is sustained by God. It is only after these arrangements have been described that he may properly take up the question of this “third” factor.26 It is precisely because Barth is not after concepts for delineating between providence and evil in this section that he must wait for it to follow §49.4. To do otherwise would undermine his whole intent that providence should be “practically” recognized. The question of the Nihil cannot be entirely divorced from the doctrine of providence, then, because it cannot be approached properly outside the Christian’s de facto participation in the wider created order. 24 25 26

CD III/3, p. 289. T. Gorringe, God’s Theatre: A Theology of Providence (London: SCM Press, 1991), p. 49. CD III/3, p. 349.

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Barth lays his foundation on the Christian’s participation and then he addresses the problem of das Nichtige as the problem of confusion. Within the context of the participation of the Christian, Barth separates his treatment of evil from providence in order to stay strictly faithful to the task of the theologian that prays. This is especially reinforced by Barth’s own statements (i.e., just like the one above, that these two realities cannot be “mentioned together”) that segregate his discussion of the Nihil in order to safeguard his theological speech from lapsing into sophistry. In his preface, he states: “so far as possible, I have tried not to mention God and the devil together, and therefore I have given the matter this special treatment.”27 M. Geiger argues that Barth’s choice to separate his discussion of evil from providence in III/3 is “not simply on the basis of a conceptual–logical differentiation” but is due to “careful theological reasoning.”28 This chapter is a part of the Church Dogmatics as a whole, a “massively consistent argument.”29 The question of the Nihil should not be divorced from the Christian’s participation, as Barth considers this subject from the standpoint of the Christian’s “Easter joy.”30 He orders his section on evil so as to prayerfully position the terminus a quo of the saint’s theodicy-inquiry. First and foremost, the Christian beholds the world in the light of its benevolent Creator’s face. In other words, Barth circumvents the metaphysical question of evil altogether by placing his discussion of “confusion” after providence. If providence truly circumscribes the de facto participant in Christ, this question of evil arises only within the context from which it is immediately expelled. One only comes to know what “evil” is by actively shunning it within the context of an active participatio Christi. In shunning evil, furthermore, the Christian comes to accept the shadow side, and comes to understand this affliction as a gracious gift of the divine government of God. In the Christian’s voluntary participation in the event of vocation, he crosses the boundary from a de jure to a de facto participation. Barth also points out in §49.4 that this kind of participation is a witnessing in the “darkness.”31 This complicates the plight of the Christian, who must share in the afflictions of Christ outside the sphere of the Word’s selfmanifestation.32 This is a sphere of “adversity,” and of “the abyss, the night and misfortune.”33 In order for the theologian to avoid metaphysical concerns, it is vital that the question unde hoc malum (“whence evil”) 27 29 31 32

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28 CD III/3, p. xii. Geiger, p. 680. 30 Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, p. 13. CD III/3, p. 293. CD III/3, p. 248. “Nothingness may still have standing [. . .] to the extent that the final revelation of its destruction has not yet taken place,” CD III/3, p. 367. CD III/3, p. 297.

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should arise within the context of this very particular participatio Christi, from within this particular suffering that is a sharing in the afflictions of Christ. The theologian who commends the Word of God in prayer does not ask the question of evil outside an active fellowship with him, outside the context of his own vocation in the Spirit. In this manner, the Christian theologian is able to apprehend the shadow side as part of God’s good creation. From the standpoint of §50, a true recognition of the shadow side that is not admixed with das Nichtige is the “practical recognition” that is the Christian’s belief in providence.34 In his acceptance of affliction and, therefore, of the shadow side of creation, the theologian knows that the remainder in this equation can only have “the sense of non-sense.”35 When it comes to apprehending the shadow side of creation faithfully, the problem of the Nihil threatens at every step to enter this equation as confusion. For instance, if das Nichtige were not treated separately from providence, Barth’s statement would discuss it simply as a metaphysical matter. Providence would ingest the matter of evil conceptually, and the antithetical distinction between God’s holiness and human sin would collapse into a “higher unity.”36 Sin would be thought of as a “privation” or a cavity in the created order.37 In short, a theory of privation would disrupt the praiseworthiness of the God that Barth is so apt to defend, and this would spell doom for the theologian’s own prayerful response. Barth not only rejects this option, but acknowledges that this would be unwittingly to give das Nichtige power in the context of his theology.38 Rather than shorten his account of Nothingness by making it somehow continuous with providence, Barth segregates it so that its radical and “menacing” reality can best be understood and felt.

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35 36 CD III/3, p. 14. CD III/3, p. 361. CD III/3, p. 300. Barth’s endorsement of “privation” language in CD III/3, pp. 353–4 needs to be interpreted in the light of his arguments against Leibniz and Schleiermacher just preceding, stating that the distinction between creation and das Nichtige must be an “antithesis to the grace of God”; CD III/3, p. 331. Even in Barth’s open agreement with Schleiermacher on the “relationship between grace and sin,” he notes that Schleiermacher’s lack of objectivity leaves him without the antithesis that is needed in order to “speak of sin with far greater dismay and of grace with far deeper joy” than he intends to; CD III/3, p. 334. Barth speaks of this reality as antithetical to creation because of “the nothing-character of Nothingness (der Nichtigkeit des Nichtigen),” KD III/3, p. 330; CD III/3, p. 292. I take this language to be expressing that the antithesis between the Nihil and creation truly extends beyond the boundary of human reason and can only be apprehended as the antithesis that it is by the Christian within the context of a de facto participation. “It cannot then be described or understood [. . .] only as a weakness, privation, or imperfection of the creature,” CD III/3, p. 80.

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IV. Barth’s Straightforward Description of the Nihil In §50, Barth sets up seven statements that can all be said to refer to this incomprehensible reality inasmuch as its broken nature is revealed in Christ: 1. Only God and His creation properly are, and Nothingness only has its own distinct reality in a unique way, not germane to the existence of either of these other two realities. Only “in the light of God’s relationship to it we must accept the fact that in a third way of its own Nothingness “is”.”39 “Nothingness is not nothing but exists in its own curious fashion.”40 2. The second follows from the first: Nothingness is not simply “what is not” because anything that can be said to be lacking on the part of either God or the creature can only be part of his or the creature’s perfection.41 The “shadow side” is one example of this kind of perfect “not” for the creature. “It is in no way to be understood as an essential attribute of divine or creaturely being but only as their frontier.”42 3. Knowledge of Nothingness in se, then, cannot be a matter that is in any way accessible for the creature.43 “Nothingness cannot be an object of the creature’s natural knowledge.”44 “We are capable of knowing nothingness only as we know God in His self-revelation.”45 4. Knowledge of Nothingness is revealed as a matter that is addressed by the biblical witness.46 Thus, we see in the Bible that Nothingness “is” only in the context of God’s action in and through a salvation history.47 “Nothingness has its being on the left hand of God and is grounded in His non-willing” in and through salvation history.48 5. The character of Nothingness has its own “ontic peculiarity.” It is, for instance, a “being” that “lacks his grace”.49 Barth states that “it cannot even be viewed dialectically”,50 but it is a “privation”51 in the sense that: “where God and His creature are known, and His free grace as the basic order of their relationship, nothingness can only be understood as opposition and resistance to this basic order and cannot therefore be regarded or grouped with God and His creature.”52 “It is evil by nature and therefore we cannot regard or group it in any sense with God and His creature.”53 6. Evil is properly “God’s own affair” against which he fights on the cross of Christ.54 At the center of God’s conflict against evil is the cross, and victory over evil in all times and places “depends on this one point”.55 39 42 45 48 51 54

CD III/3, p. 349. CD III/3, p. 360. CD III/3, p. 360. CD III/3, p. 360. CD III/3, p. 353. CD III/3, pp. 354, 360.

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CD III/3, p. 360. CD III/3, pp. 350–1. 46 CD III/3, p. 352. 49 CD III/3, p. 353. 52 CD III/3, p. 354. 55 CD III/3, p. 360. 43

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CD III/3, pp. 349–50. CD III/3, p. 350. 47 CD III/3, p. 353. 50 CD III/3, p. 354. 53 CD III/3, p. 360. 44

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7. “Nothingness has no perpetuity.”56 Rather, it has an end that has been announced on account of Jesus Christ’s victory. “Because Jesus is Victor, nothingness is routed and extirpated. It is that which in this One who was both very God and very man has been absolutely set behind, not only by God, but in unity with Him by man and therefore the creature.”57 Nothingness only has a “fragmentary existence” between now and the end.58 If one grants that my approach to III/3 is correct, that is, that there is a constitutive reason for his placing §50 following §49.4, then Barth’s theology of participation should also play a constitutive role for delineating the contours of this reality. First, points one and two are a distinction between the pseudo-reality of das Nichtige and the two covenantal partners of divine providence. Only God and the creature can properly be said to “be” within the dynamic “coexistence” that is this prayerful exchange within providence.59 It is on the basis of this concrete apprehension, furthermore, that restriction number three is also stated. Since the knowledge of God and the creature are a matter for a de facto participatio Christi, then whatever the Nihil, in fact, is, cannot be known in this context because it is negated by this very context. Praying is, in practice, an active affirmation of God and of one’s being before God, and, therefore, it is also a negation of any “nonbeing” which might resist either. Statements four through seven indicate that Nothingness is apprehended as antithetical to the grace of God within the context of an objective Heilsgeschichte. Positively, this victory of God over the pseudo-reality of das Nichtige is dependent on a history of grace leading up to, climaxing upon, and following the cross of Christ. For this reason, there is one sense in which Nothingness has been cancelled on the cross of Christ, and there is another sense in which safeguard five is correct, that it still has an ontic peculiarity and God’s creatures must hope for its final extinction at the parousia. I maintain in this chapter that rationally coordinating the “sense” of these two “senses” is conceptually impossible. First, in one sense, the Nihil is cancelled and any apparent evil in the world is only a manifestation of God’s good providential order on the “shadow side” of creation. However, there is another sense in which evil continues to infest creation with lies. Barth affirms both of these as true from the standpoint of his doctrine of reconciliation. Importantly, their unity and distinction are grounded in Barth’s description in §49.4 of the difference between the “formal” and “material” offices of Christ as they are manifest in the Christian’s participation in divine providence. These offices yield differing kinds of participation

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CD III/3, p. 360. CD III/3, pp. 8, 12, 14, 94.

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CD III/3, p. 363.

58

CD III/3, p. 367.

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in Christ on the side of the external basis of the covenant, and they, consequently, license differing modes of thought, differing kinds of theological statements. These two “senses” are, then, apprehended to be what they are in the context of the Christian’s de facto participation in the context of divine providence.

V. Election, the “Shadow Side,” and Theological Temptation in §49.1 The following discussion is an in-depth look at a particular passage in §49.1 in order to provide a context for Barth’s statements about the relation between the “shadow” and evil in III/3. I proceed in this way because the logic of Barth’s arrangement of §50 within the whole of III/3 follows the lead of his initial statement on evil in the context of providence in §49.1. The thankfulness (Barth’s third delineation in §49.1) that opens up the Christian theologian’s right to speak from a de facto vantage point also precedes his first statement on das Nichtige (Barth’s fourth delineation).60 In the same way, Barth orders the whole of III/3 so that §49.4, which is about the creature’s de facto participation, comes right before §50, which addresses das Nichtige at more length than §49.1. In both cases, the theologian is to be constitutively and theologically situated by the ordering of Barth’s subject matter before discussing the Nihil. In both cases, theological confusion is the real enemy to be opposed within the context of the dogmatic description. In both cases, the structure of Barth’s argument is intended to safeguard against a temptation to metaphysics, which would be an imaginative supplanting of the doctrine of election. As sin, which is epistemic confusion, is a reality that is simultaneous with evil, a metaphysic must be resisted at every step. Nothingness can only be said to “be” on account of God’s act of election: “It is not elected and willed by God the Creator but rather rejected and excluded.”61 It only actually exists in a peculiar sense, as an antithetical privation of God’s determination to elect himself in Christ.62 When one speaks of the “No” God utters against this dreaded reality in creation, one is speaking of what God does strictly on the basis of his eternal decree of predestination 60 61 62

See the section on Barth’s four delineations in chapter 3, §49.1, The Divine Preserving. CD III/3, p. 76. In using the term “privation” here, I mean that, outside of a “No” that is subordinate to God’s “Yes,” this Nihil has no reality. It is, in this sense, only “real” on account of God’s choice to negate it, and in this sense, and in this sense only, it is a “privation.” This language should not be used to indicate a physical privation of any kind. Also, I will return to this matter to respond to the charge that Barth’s view of the Nihil is a “mythology,” as if he had chosen to ground evil in the very nature of God.

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in Christ.63 Therefore, as das Nichtige originates from God’s turning against it in election, it is “comprehended” by God, and God alone.64 One cannot trace this reality within an identifiable context, as if it were able to leave its own footprints behind. The Nihil “owes the fact that it is” to “that divine distinction” between his “Yes” and “No” in election.65 The biblical conception, as we now recall it, is as follows. God elects, and therefore rejects what He does not elect. God wills, and therefore opposes what He does not will. He says Yes, and therefore says No to that to which He has not said Yes. He works according to His purpose, and in doing so rejects and dismisses all that gainsays it. Both of these activities, grounded in His election and decision, are necessary elements in His sovereign action.66 This way of explicating evil, then, is placed within the context of divine providence in that it emphasizes the supremacy of the protological determination of God. Barth’s way of relating providence with evil here, more than anywhere else, appears to be “mythological” and “anthropomorphic,” as if God’s “Yes” required a “No.”67 However, to say this would be to say that evil is necessary for God, and this is not Barth’s intention. Rather, to ask if evil is a necessity is to miss the epistemic significance that Barth gives to prayer in this context, which places the very question of evil in III/3 in the context of the lex orandi. The praying Christian can only know that God rejects this reality in his act of election. More is required here, however, and I will deal with this criticism more extensively further on. At first glance, Barth modifies his position by making some distinctions that appear to be idealistic. The victory of God over evil in providence is his sustaining, accompanying, and ruling of creation as good. According to Barth, the combative Nihil must be distinguished from the “shadow” side of creation, which is a painful reality, but is still inherently good.68 This “shadow” is essentially all suffering that takes place within the history of creation on the whole; it is “the darkest night and the greatest misfortune.”69 Consequently, he seems to offer a view of the created order as idyllic with his concept of the “shadow”; creation seems to be a world that, while it may suffer at times, is free from evil and sin. Consistently affirming this shadow as part of the perfection of the created order in the strongest terms, Barth states in one place in §50 that this reality does not have “any connection”

63 64 65 67 69

CD III/3, p. 5. “It cannot escape providence but is comprehended by it”; CD III/3, p. 289. 66 CD III/3, p. 73. CD III/3, p. 351. 68 Hick, Evil and the God of Love, pp. 135–6. CD III/3, pp. 295–302. CD III/3, p. 297.

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with das Nichtige whatsoever.70 However, Barth appears to modify this position when he says that the creature comes to an intuitive knowledge that creation is in “jeopardy” because he knows and experiences this darker side of creation. It belongs to the essence of creaturely nature, and is indeed a mark of its perfection, that it has in fact this negative side, that it inclines not only to the right hand but also the left, that it is thus simultaneously worthy of its Creator and yet dependent on Him, that it is not “nothing” but “something”, yet “something” on the very frontier of nothingness, secure, yet in jeopardy.71 At times Barth comes rhetorically close to presenting these two realities as remarkably similar. E. Saxer is correct in seeing this conundrum as the most important of all questions for §50: “The fundamental question however appears to us, why does nothingness emerge and break through on the shadow side of creation—and on it alone?”72 Already in the above statement, Barth acknowledges that the shadow is identified by the creature with a reality that is on the “frontier” of a threatened creation. While the creature is not capable of fully understanding this distinction, she apprehends a reality that presses against her on the side of historical suffering. It appears, then, that the shadow’s being on the “frontier” of nothingness is one reason why Barth makes apparently undecipherable statements about the distinction between evil and the “shadow side” of history. In this section, I argue that Barth’s first text that deals with Nothingness in III/3, §49.1, offers a glimpse of the way the blindness of involuntary participation in Christ can be entertained by his discourse and then discarded as an impossibility within the context of faithful, theological prayer. Following my interpretation of the following text, I compare my own reading with M. Wüthrich’s view of the shadow-evil distinction, which acknowledges the same phenomena. I do this in order to claim some advantages for my own reading.

70

71 72

CD III/3, p. 350; CD IV/2, p. 398; For Barth, “the danger is in confusing this shadowside with nothingness [. . .] the danger exemplified by eighteenth century optimism,” Gorringe, Against Hegemony, p. 178. CD III/3, p. 296. Saxer, Vorsehung und Verheissung Gottes, p. 86. R. R. Ruether also observes this as the chief obscurity in Barth’s account: “What seems to be the most difficult problem in Barth’s treatment of evil [. . .] is the relation of radical evil to the shadow side of creation”; R. R. Ruether, “The Left Hand of God in the Theology of Karl Barth: Karl Barth as a Mythopoetic Theologian,” Journal of Religious Thought 25 (1968–69), pp. 3–26 (p. 14).

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First, Barth explicates the Nihil rather swiftly in §49.1, conflating it with the “shadow”: He marked off the positive reality of the creature from that which He did not elect and will and therefore did not create. And to that which He denied He allotted the being of non-being, the existence of that which does not exist. God created light, approved it, divided it from darkness, and called it day, but the darkness He called night (Gen. 1:3– 5). In the power—that is the negative power—of this divine creating, approving, dividing and calling, there enters in with the creature that which in all these things is marked off from it, and it enters in with menacing power, the power of the denial of that which God has affirmed, as the non-being which does not exist, and hostile to the creature, as that which is not, chaos. It is not an adversary to God, but only the shadow of His work which both arises and is at once dispelled by His wrath. But to the creature it is an adversary for which the creature as such is no match [. . .] It has the attractive force of a whirlpool—we are reminded of the power of a single minus placed before a bracket, which cannot be offset by any plus within the bracket—in whose eddying the creature in itself and as such can only sink and perish.73 This statement proves difficult to understand, but its meaning is crucial for the whole of Barth’s treatment of Nothingness and providence. This “chaos” he describes is not a creature because it is a “menace” against the creature, against which the creature is “no match.” Puzzlingly, it is only a “shadow”; and yet, it is also evil. Barth’s statement is plainly contradictory here, but it is not inconsistent with how he deals with the subject matter of das Nichtige in the Church Dogmatics.74 At this point, I ask what it means that theology must correspond with “its object in broken thoughts and utterance.”75 Another look at the context for the above quotation is warranted in order to establish just how it is that Barth’s language about the Nihil is “broken.” I suggest that the key to Barth’s above statement resides in what it means that the shadow has a mysterious affinity with das Nichtige.76 He

73 74

75 76

CD III/3, p. 77 emphasis mine. William Stacy Johnson mentions that “the shadow side” in Barth’s corpus “is not without its own contradictions,” Johnson, The Mystery of God, p. 98. CD III/3, p. 294. The “shadow side” shows us, when studied carefully, how Barth’s view of nothingness is not only relevant for understanding his view of history, but that his view of providence is, on the whole, complex. Barth’s connection between das Nichtige and the “shadow” truly weakens any reading of his account as idealistic. Some recent charges are as serious as R. Bernhardt’s, that Barth’s doctrine is a salvation-historical “monism”; Bernhardt, Was heisst “Handeln Gottes?,” p. 265.

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acknowledges the possibility that such an affinity exists, and he states that the shadow is “on the frontier of nothingness.”77 It is “so near” to the Nihil.78 The shadow is even “orientated towards it.”79 Theology can only be meaningful if it meditates on the historically extended, covenantal coexistence that takes place between God and his creature.80 However, Nothingness is precisely a breaking of this covenantal reality. This creates a conundrum for Barth’s employment of theological language for describing any place for the Nihil in his theology. Therefore, in this section, I attend to the context for this text in §49.1 to demonstrate that Barth’s description of das Nichtige takes it up as a hypothetical context for the nonparticipation of the creature. Then, in the practice of an obedient theologian, he negates this possibility as impossible. Consequently, the “orientation” that the shadow has with Nothingness as its “frontier” depends on the “aim” that the creature in view has—the kind of participation in Christ that this creature undergoes on the side of the external basis of the covenant. Does the creature in view participate in Christ involuntarily (i.e., de jure) or voluntarily (i.e., de facto)? This difference, which takes place in the mystery of the Spirit’s action, determines whether or not das Nichtige, in fact, “is.” I suggest, therefore, that Barth’s description of the distinction between the shadow and Nothingness depends on the way in which the “creature” in view is said to be a participant in Christ. When Barth shifts his description, from making the “shadow-nothingness” distinction clear, to unclear, and then back to clear again, he is focusing on the contribution that the “aim” of the creature in view makes to God’s enactment of divine providence. In III/3, when the creature ceases to pray, confusion arises, and the proper distinction between creation (i.e., the “shadow”) and the Nihil is absolved. Barth’s theological description acknowledges that there is a Nothingness in this context in his above statement in §49.1. However, when the “creature” in view is said to be prayerful, 77

78 80

CD III/3, p. 296; On account of statements such as these, W. Krötke suggests that “a certain corrective” must be given to Barth with regard to the “shadow side.” That is, Krötke maintains that Barth’s juxtapositions between the “shadow” and evil are due to a conceptual iridescence latent in his exegesis. Krötke points to the difficulty in Barth’s reading of Gen. 1.3ff., which explains the origin of the “shadow side” and das Nichtige “as though the being of creation declines toward nothingness.” This contradicts Barth’s position in §50.2. Krötke’s difficulty with Barth’s exegetical data points to the fact that Barth’s slippery language on this crucial point has yet to be comprehensively investigated. I differ from Krötke in my method for interpreting this difficulty, as I assume that §50 is given a decisive context in the section which immediately precedes it, that is in §49.4. I argue that if Barth’s cross-sectional intent is observed, his theology of the “shadow side” becomes less elusive; Krötke, Sin and Nothingness in the Theology of Karl Barth, p. 43. 79 CD III/3, p. 297. CD III/3, p. 296. “All theology is a meditation about God and the creature”; CD III/3, p. 102.

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the correct, albeit incomprehensible, distinction between the shadow and das Nichtige is observed. When this is the scenario in view for the creature’s participation, the Nihil is, consequently, said to be an already abolished threat. Following the just quoted statement in §49.1, Barth describes the need that this “creature” would have were it not for God’s subsequent preservation. That is, Barth describes the situation of this creature from the standpoint of the free event of creation in a hypothetical context. He asks what the doctrine of creation would mean for the creature were it not for God’s subsequent preservation. What would such a “creature” be without providence, and would not such a “creation” be meaningless? Once Barth asks this, he immediately acknowledges in this same context that this is not truly the case. Once he completes his portrait of the scenario he is describing, we see a shift in his outlook on the plight of the “creature as such.” He assures his reader that God allows his creation to continue by means of his conservatio on the basis of his election in Jesus Christ: Therefore that which He did not elect and will, the non-existent, comprises the infinite range of all the possibilities which He passed over and with good reason did not actualize, the abyss in which the one thing which He did not create must inevitably sink, the ocean by whose waves it must inevitably be overwhelmed, if He who created it did not also preserve and sustain it.81 When Barth observes the shadow side from the standpoint of the “creature as such,” he is free to speak of it as confused with Nothingness because he is, at that point, describing the situation of the de jure participant in Jesus Christ. This is precisely what it means to only be a “creature as such” in this context.82 De jure participation only envisions a creature in stasis or in selfassertion, the “creature in itself and as such” without God.83 De facto participation, however, sees creaturely life as an “opportunity” for fellowship with the God who elects in Jesus Christ.84 The description of the creature “in itself and as such” is a description of a creature that is helpless against Nothingness because it has no historical–temporal life, no “opportunity” afforded by the divine sustaining for offering praise to God.85 This “creature as such” is necessarily confused because the providence of God has not yet been brought into the situation of this so-called creature as a factor; this is 81 82

83

84

CD III/3, p. 77 emphasis mine. “To the creature it is an adversary for which the creature as such is no match”; CD III/3, p. 77. “A whirlpool [. . .] in whose eddying the creature in itself and as such can only sink”; CD III/3, p. 77. 85 CD III/3, p. 85. CD III/3, pp. 77, 85.

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only a creature in stasis. I maintain that the Nihil is only “real” for this hypothetical creature, who only “is” in a pseudo-real form of stasis, in being a “creature as such” outside the scope of God’s providential care. Importantly, confusion and sin are the attempt of the creature to situate itself into this Godless state, and this is the de jure stance that does not give thanks to God for his providence. Immediately after Barth describes this “shadow-as-nothingness” he qualifies his account. He makes an adjustment once he begins to discuss what both creation and providence mean on account of the will of God in Jesus Christ. Once Barth begins discussing the benevolence of the God of election, he is free to change the language he employs for describing what Nothingness is in se. For the one who sees God in terms of his self-election in Christ, the Nihil is no longer a real possibility because it is not a possibility for the will of God. God’s will is revealed in Christ as “finally gracious even in its wrath” and not capriciously “wrathful [. . .] in its grace.”86 Once Barth makes it clear that God’s will is a merciful will and that the creature can expect to be sustained, he can also account for God’s determination that the creature should participate in Christ de facto. The creature exists as the mercy of God operative in Jesus Christ is effective towards it [. . .] And this is why God preserves it [. . .] He does so because it has been promised and given to it to come to terms not with the non-existent, not with chaos, not with its own denial, but with God’s gracious intercession for it. He does so because its destiny is to participate in this work of salvation. And for this participation it must be able to be; it must have permanence and continuity.87 Barth’s account of Jesus Christ as the merciful will of God is central in this section of §49.1, and once this is made explicit, his description does not need to account for the creature as necessarily “confused” about the “shadow-as-nothingness” any longer. Rather, once the doctrine of election is brought into view, the creature can expect to be sustained because he apprehends that his telos is a de facto participation in Christ. It is at this point that Barth speaks of a de facto participation in Christ as the telos of the creature: the creature should “attest” and “proclaim” and “seize” and “apprehend” this share in divine providence.88 Looking back from this part of Barth’s discussion, the reader is able to see that his prior discussion of das Nichtige as confused with the “shadow” is only a hypothetical context for the “creature as such” that is not, in fact, sustained. Once it is made clear that this “creature” has a historical continuity, and therefore has an “opportunity” for praise, then he is seen as having an opportunity to participate in Christ

86

CD III/3, p. 78.

87

CD III/3, p. 79.

88

CD III/3, p. 80.

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de facto. By implication, this creature is no longer necessarily confused. That is, once the creature is given an opportunity for praise in and through a history, the necessity of confusion is expelled. Immediately, the Nihil drops from Barth’s discussion at this point. In the context of election, das Nichtige no longer “exists” because it is only actual in the confusion that distorts God’s covenantal relation with the creature. M. Wüthrich has identified two doctrines of das Nichtige in the Church Dogmatics. The first is represented in III/1, which often confuses evil with the “shadow side” of creation. Wüthrich correctly notes that Barth’s account of God’s “No” in III/1 sometimes is spoken against the shadow side (i.e., die Schattenseite) and sometimes against das Nichtige.89 According to Wüthrich, this leads to a mixing of these two realities in some of Barth’s exegetical writing on the creation account. The second, however, which is represented in §50, approaches the matter differently. Therein, Barth asserts that creation, including the shadow, is completely good. Therefore, evil is altogether relegated from history in III/3.90 This approach observes the same phenomena as my own reading of §49.1 above, but interprets it from the standpoint of Barth’s chronological development. Furthermore, Wüthrich’s interpretation becomes difficult to maintain when it is observed that Barth articulates both perspectives on das Nichtige within III/3; the first, which conflates evil with the shadow appears as late in the Church Dogmatics as the quotation given above from §49.1. For this reason, I maintain that Barth’s key for resolving this difficulty is offered in III/3 because this particular volume gives the reader a context for both perspectives. It is the kind of participation that the creature undergoes amidst divine providence that distinguishes between the different ontologies of evil that are explicated in the Church Dogmatics. Broadly, and in the case of III/3, one is able to explain the opening up of an apparently idyllic perspective of evil’s complete divorce from the shadow side in §50 on account of the fact that this chapter is placed within the context of the Christian’s participatio Christi following §49.4. The “creature as such” of III/1, just like the “creature as such” in §49.1, is only able to confuse the shadow with the Nihil because this creature has not yet been given a historically extended life for fellowship with God. That is, he is incomplete as he is only a hypothetical creature, that is, a creature without providence. Therefore, these contexts freely speak of God’s wrath upon the shadow, confusing the shadow with Nothingness. This is another good reason for Barth’s postponing his statement on das Nichtige until III/3, for chaos can only be negated within a context that is grounded in the Christian’s participation.

89 90

Wüthrich, Gott und das Nichtige, p. 135. Wüthrich, Gott und das Nichtige, pp. 139–41.

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Consequently, in §49.1, Barth offers his reader two perspectives on the Nihil and its relation with creation. 1.) First, Barth addresses this reality as “above” the creature, and as a “menacing” reality: “It has supreme power in the face of the creature.”91 This is his occasion for mixing the “shadow” with the Nihil. 2.) Second, once the doctrine of election is introduced, a different telos is given to the creature. Therefore, the participatory stance of the “creature as such” is thereby changed. I maintain that, in doing this, Barth takes on the stance of the theologian who, in affirming the election of God in Christ, rejects the Nihil. The difficult thing about Barth’s discourse is that both of these perspectives are written into his account. On the one hand, it appears that Barth thinks it is legitimate for a theologian to address this question objectively, and to talk about a real Nichtige. However, this can only be a “reality” when the creature he is observing aims to only be a “creature as such,” to be a creature who stands in the place of God, outside of the providence of God. Barth’s view is complex, then, because his accounting for both of these perspectives raises a difficult question: how can Barth, as a prayerful theologian, understand himself to be avoiding a metaphysic when talking about this “Nihil,” while at the same time, and in the same text, he implies that this “reality” is only apparent in the context of the creature’s confusion and sin? In §49.1, both of these perspectives are written into Barth’s text, and he does this throughout III/3 as well. I maintain that Barth’s theological language is “broken” in the sense that the Nihil can only be talked about from the standpoint of the Christian’s de facto participation in Christ, which is the stance taken up by the faithful theologian. Therefore, Barth writes Nothingness into his theological text as a possibility for a hypothetical creature who does not actively commend the election of God in Jesus Christ as “above” her, and then he rejects this as impossible for any creature. He does this by incorporating the doctrine of election into his argument as a new, decisive context. Once Barth makes this change, das Nichtige “cannot be deduced or explained or justified” from any standpoint.92 The interesting thing about this way of dealing with the problem of evil for Barth is that he must, in some manner, still speak of evil. This is the sense in which his theological language about the relationship between providence and evil is “broken.” He must speak of evil in order to reject even speaking of it, and he does this in obedience to God. This interpretation of §49.1 creates the expectation that Barth will provide a warrant for talking about the relation between providence and evil in two different ways, and without lapsing from prayer. I maintain that Barth does this in §49.4 with his reference to the doctrine of reconciliation, and the importance that the triplex munus has for his different ways of thinking and

91

CD III/3, p. 77.

92

CD IV/1, p. 419.

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talking about this relation between the Nihil and the “shadow side.” This is the sense in which §49.1 anticipates §50, for Barth’s chapter on evil at once describes an “evil” of an apparently metaphysical quality, but also asserts that this reality is occasional, deriving from the creature’s confusion and sin.

VI. Participation and the Nihil in §50 In the light of the context that is provided for §50 by Barth’s view of the Nihil in §49.1, I suggest that his understanding of the relationship between the “shadow” and Nothingness in §50 depends on the kind of participation undergone by the “creature” in view. 1.) First, on account of the fact that Barth understands his own position as directly given to the disciple by Christ, his “Leader in prayer,” theology may take up different standpoints that don’t cohere conceptually but have the same objective basis.93 At this point, §50 is a prayer in the sense that faithfulness to the object of theology is more important than conceptual coherence. 2.) Second, the relationship between the shadow side of creation and evil is incomprehensibly nonmechanical, but this is what one should expect, given that the reality of concursus is administered by God’s Word and Spirit.94 While it is possible that Barth makes several contradictory statements in his accounting for the relationship between sinful “confusion” and the Nihil, it is more likely that his distinction between the agency of the creature and the evil that threatens it follows his account of concursus faithfully, portraying this relation as an ineffably nonmechanical one. To answer one way or the other, that sin (which takes place on the “shadow” side of history) causes evil or vice versa, would be to capitulate to Pelagianism or to Manicheanism. To place all of the dogmatic weight on the creature’s autonomous freedom or on a metaphysical privation would not be faithful thinking on the part of the theologian that prays. Therefore, Barth’s doctrine of concursus intersects with his view of the relation between evil and providence. A prayerful view of a “nonmechanical” concursus is Barth’s primary safeguard against both extremes. Barth’s version of the analogia operationis means that the agency of the creature is continually accompanied by God, and is influenced by him in a nonmechanical sense; the creature’s agency is “conditioned” by him.95 Since the “causal concept” has been faithfully jettisoned by the theologian who describes the creature’s agency in the context of worship, his act of delineating the relation between evil and the shadow must also be understood without the connotations implied by “causa.”96 3.) Therefore, once de facto participation has become the theologian’s

93 96

CD III/3, p. 274. CD III/3, p. 104.

94

CD III/3, p. 142.

95

CD III/3, p. 102.

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basis for apprehending a non-mechanical view of the relation between God and history, this standpoint also affords the theologian with two different perspectives for describing the reality of evil from the vantage point of faith. In observance of the “exorcism” of the causal-concept from theology, it must not be reused to explain a generic reason for the creature’s sin.97 Altogether, the Christian’s participation in providence affords him with a freedom for making theological statements that explore the practical similarities and differences between das Nichtige and historic sin. Since providence describes a “practical recognition,” Barth’s language is very flexible here. First, I propose that Barth avoids confusion by circumventing the question of any mechanical relation between the shadow, which includes sin and suffering, and pure evil. For Barth, the de jure participant in Christ inevitably sees the problematic of evil and suffering in the light of a “mechanical” view of causality. Therefore, this person will insist that the theologian must choose between a Pelagian or a Manichean view: either people bring evil upon themselves with agential sin or a higher, metaphysical reality must be blamed. Barth protests against this either-or. He displays his freedom from a “foreign concept of the mechanical” in his statements that place the Nihil on both sides.98 In some places, he says that evil is altogether apart from history, and in others he says evil has an imposing presence with respect to history on account of its lies. Sometimes in §50, Barth avoids a Pelagian view on the relation between sin and evil and risks the appearance of a Manichean one, keeping the reality of evil from being completely dependent on the creature’s choice to sin: “Nothingness is not exhausted in sin.”99 On the other hand, sometimes he avoids a Manichean view and risks a Pelagian one, as he says that the reality of evil is only truly and ontically real when the creature chooses sin, which brings confusion.100 To speak of this reality “as though it were still [. . .] above us” is to succumb to confusion.101 The key to Barth’s argument, however, is that if one thinks of a causal–mechanical relation between evil and sin, this thought is, in fact, confusion and is evil. This is a sign of de jure thinking. Barth’s view of evil “lifts the concept of Adam’s sin out of the idiom of causality” which not only traditionally refers to the transference of sin, but which allows the knower to explain its origin.102 Once it is given that faith is “altogether the work of God and it is altogether

97 100

101

98 99 CD III/3, pp. 521, 146–7. CD III/3, p. 101. CD III/3, p. 310. Barth’s jostling back and forth between these two perspectives in the context of his doctrine of creation and its relation with evil is why H. Blocher finds him “constantly swinging back and forth between solemn or vehement denunciation of the ruinous nature of nothingness and the extreme danger of evil, and the Good News that the irruption of nothingness is ‘before God absolutely powerless’”; H. Blocher, Evil and the Cross (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1990), p. 78. 102 CD III/3, p. 364. Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology, p. 73.

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the work of man,” it makes sense that faith’s negation should be altogether a matter of sin and altogether a matter of metaphysical evil as well.103 Therefore, Barth freely moves back and forth, making apparently contradictory statements as he speaks from the standpoint of the variegated reality of the risen Lord, and he does this without supporting his theology of providence with a sophisticated explanation. Rather, Barth’s doctrine is written according to the lex orandi. Krötke observes this problematic for reading Barth’s text: Thus, the reality of sin may be described in neither an ontologically independent nor ontologically dependent way. The acknowledgment of sin and other realities that belong to sin as Nichtiges—nothingness—is an expression of this double demand [. . .] it is exactly at this point that problems arise in Barth’s work, problems that still await clarification.104 Barth’s history of the doctrine of sin in §50 engages with J. Müller, G. W. Leibniz, F. Schleiermacher, M. Heidegger, and J. P. Sartre. Each are said by Barth to be “confused” in their own way of relating the shadow side with evil according to what he calls a “mechanical” view of causality. Müller and Schleiermacher both confuse the external depth of evil in se with the reality of sin in the creature, or with the consciousness of sin in the mind. On the other hand, Leibniz, Heidegger, and Sartre recognize this “other” reality, but unwittingly exalt it because of a faulty anthropocentrism. Barth says of Müller that he focuses on sin itself rather than the pure evil that awakens it and, thus, eliminates any real basis for its universality.105 Schleiermacher’s view, though Barth says he largely stands in agreement with it, still misses the objectivity of evil and grace that is anterior to the subjective consciousness of the creature: “the nullity of nothingness and the glory of grace could not be seen in their reality” in his Glaubenslehre.106 Leibniz, furthermore, marks a turn to the actual, metaphysical aspect of the Nihil, but is “obviously guilty of confusing nothingness with the [. . .] negative side of creation.”107 Heidegger and Sartre also look to evil in se, but they reconfigure the Western conception of God in crafting their own philosophical version of Nothingness.108 Completely arresting it from creation, they both

103 104 105

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CD III/3, p. 247. Krötke, Sin and Nothingness in the Theology of Karl Barth, p. 5. “It seems never to have occurred to him that in the physical evil concealed behind the shadowy side of the created cosmos we have a form of the enemy and no less an offence against God than that which reveals man to be a sinner,” CD III/3, p. 315. 107 CD III/3, p. 334. CD III/3, p. 317. CD III/3, pp. 342–3; Barth accuses the tradition of attributing unbridled caprice to God here, as well as in §49.1, cf. CD III/3, p. 78.

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envision it either as God himself (i.e., Heidegger), or as the backdrop that threatens the god that is man (i.e., Sartre). In each case, they are “concerned with something very different from the nothingness which we have here considered as nothingness before God.”109 For this reason, all of Barth’s dialogue partners are confused in different ways, each incapable of characterizing the relation between the Nihil and the shadow side of creation outside a “modern idea of necessity.”110 It is due to the fact that the Spirit of God belongs to the Word of God that ordinary apprehensions of causality can be circumvented by God’s work in the world.111 Therefore, the de jure participant that does not prayerfully commend the Word of God is limited by the causal-concept in explaining the relation between evil and sin (which occurs on the shadow side). In order to make this nonmechanical relationship intelligible, Barth avoids using causal terms when he makes statements that relate Nothingness with sin in a sequence. Giving place to nothingness as the enemy of God, his neighbor and himself, neither he nor his whole cosmos ceases to be the good creation of God. But it is settled that for him, in his heart and thinking and action, nothingness is given that precedence over the good creation of God, and the good creation is to its own destruction betrayed into that position of subservience and subordinated to nothingness.112 In this statement, Nothingness “is given” a place by the sinner, but this Nothingness also “subordinates” the creature in the act of sin. For Barth, doing theology according to the right view of concursus means that there is a truly incomprehensible relation between history and evil. However, when the theologian turns to God in prayer, he turns to address the object of theology over-against any need for conceptual coherence. He thinks of his solution here with the “far greater dismay” and the “far deeper joy” that is necessary, and is only possible, when turning from a de jure standpoint to a de facto one.113 Once the creature prays to God in Jesus Christ in the Spirit, the variegated reality of the risen Lord and his offices becomes the proper object of a theology that attempts to express the relation between providence and das Nichtige. Furthermore, in order for theology to partake in the clarity that comes from obedience to its Lord, it must reflect the multiplex reality of the triplex munus, even if it can only do so in a “broken” manner. Barth 109 111

112

110 CD III/3, p. 344. CD III/3, p. 101. The Spirit is “His Holy Spirit,” CD III/3, p. 142. For Barth’s statements on God’s circumventing the apprehensible “laws” of creation, cf. CD III/3, p. 129; cf. also the previous section in chapter 3 on the Holy Spirit’s role in concursus. 113 CD IV/3, p. 697. CD III/3, p. 334.

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distinguishes between two obedient modes for doing theology in practice in his rejoinder to G. Wingren’s argument that he does not believe in the devil; when speaking of the justification (i.e., the priestly office) and of the sanctification (i.e., the kingly office) of man, there is no room for talk of the devil because these are the “material” offices of Christ.114 Theology changes, however, by giving a “sphere” and a “space” for talking about a real evil when observing its object from a prophetic standpoint: The devil certainly exists and is at work. We have to reckon with him. We cannot possibly recount the history of the prophecy of Jesus Christ without thinking of him, for in his self-defence against it, having nothing more to oppose to the completed work of reconciliation, he finds his final sphere of operation. The ancient foe, or however we might describe him, cannot alter the justification and sanctification of man actualized in Jesus Christ. But he still has space to resist the Word of reconciliation, to hinder its understanding, acceptance and appropriation on the part of man. It is to the story of his opposition in this sphere that we now refer.115 Due to the pluriform stance taken up by Barth in §49.1, and due to the influence its arrangement bears on §50, I propose a two-fold typology for reading Barth’s statements about the Nihil in III/3 on the basis of the triplex munus. This is my own typology for uncovering Barth’s material. With this rubric, I hope to make it clear that, in §50 (as well as the whole of III/3), theology finds its own warrant in being faithful to the object in view (i.e., Christ) at the point where conceptual coherence breaks down. This is the sense in which theology is prayer for Barth in III/3. As theology is licensed by the high context of his doctrine of election, it is free to follow its prayerful “Leader” by participating in the variegated but objective reality of the risen Lord, who discloses himself as such. If theology is to partake in the clarity that comes from obedience, it must reflect this reality in its own language, even if that means making statements that are apparently contradictory. Importantly, this typology is only for the sake of illustrating how Barth

114

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Barth deals with the doctrine of justification in §61, which is grounded in the priestly office (cf. CD IV/1, pp. 514–642) and with the doctrine of sanctification in §66, which is grounded in the kingly office (cf. CD IV/2, pp. 499–613). Altogether, he distinguishes these two as “material” offices, which are revealed in the “formal,” prophetic office in the third volume of his doctrine of reconciliation (CD IV/3, p. 8). CD IV/3, p. 260 emphasis mine; cf. also “It is to this goal which is still to be reached [. . .] to the revelation of his own glory as the glory of the world reconciled to him, of the man justified and sanctified in him, that he moves in and from this beginning [. . .] But he has not yet accomplished it”; CD IV/3, p. 327.

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understood the freedom that belongs to the theologian who is enraptured by a visio Dei of the self-electing God in Jesus Christ. Barth’s text in §50 evinces a free “back and forth” between two perspectives just as easily as §49.1. On the one hand, Wingren’s accusation appears to be legitimate in places. Sometimes, Barth says that the Nihil is entirely “cancelled.” Truly, “in no sense” can it “be affirmed that nothingness has any objective existence.”116 “No protest can be too sharp or emphatic.”117 This is Barth’s act of “theological exorcism.”118 However, in other places, das Nichtige is said to be real, and that it continues to threaten: “God still permits His kingdom not to be seen by us, and to that extent He still permits us to be a prey to nothingness.”119 I suggest that Barth has two standpoints for talking about the existence of a threatening Nihil within the context of his participation in Christ as a theologian, and that both are taken up from a different standpoint within the context of his doctrine of reconciliation. These two ways of describing Nothingness are both de facto perspectives on evil. Following Barth’s discussion of the triplex munus in §49.4, the first is “material,” the second is “formal.”120 These two, differing vantage points have two different sets of offices of Christ as their basis, the priestly/kingly and the prophetic.121 They also have differing eschatological accents with respect to their portrayal of historical contingency. One is a “joyful” response to the resurrection of Christ that says “Therefore” all of reality is “already” beneath his dominion. The other is a “serious” response to this reality, acknowledging that this evil still has a semblance of presence in the world, that it is “not yet” conquered but “Nevertheless” it will be fully conquered in the end. I look to the kingly motif first. When the pervasiveness of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ is questioned on account of eschatological concerns, Barth often employs “triumphal rhetoric” in his description of God’s current rule.122 This way of talking about Nothingness corresponds with a participation in the “material” reality of the priestly and kingly offices of Christ.123 116 119 121

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117 118 CD III/3, p. 363. CD III/3, p. 296. CD III/3, p. 521. 120 CD III/3, p. 367. CD III/3, p. 268; CD IV/3, p. 8. J. McDowell observes that Barth alludes to the triplex munus in §50, in a statement that associates the three forms of sin that are appropriated to their respective negations in the context of the work of Christ; III/3, p. 305. If my view of Barth’s use of the threefold office in III/3 is correct, it is supplemented by the insight that his volume on reconciliation defines sin in the same manner, as pride, sloth, and falsehood, each in a responsive distortion of one of the offices of Christ; J. McDowell, “‘Mend Your Speech a Little’: Reading Karl Barth’s das Nichtige through Donald MacKinnon’s Tragic Vision,” in John McDowell and Mike Highton (eds), Conversing with Barth (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 142–71 (p. 161); J. C. McDowell, “Much Ado about Nothing: Karl Barth’s Being Unable to Do Nothing about Nothingness,” IJST 4.3 (2002), pp. 319–35 (p. 332). 123 McDowell, Hope in Barth’s Eschatology, p. 236. CD III/3, p. 268.

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From this perspective, Barth describes the Nihil only from the standpoint of the internal basis (the covenant of grace), according to Barth’s first rule stated in §49.3.124 Here, with his epistemic “Therefore,” Barth considers sin and evil to be impossible in the midst of a material de facto participatio Christi. This perspective acknowledges the fullness of the current reign of God in Jesus Christ over history as King. It means that the Nihil is, in no way, a real force. Barth adopts this way of explicating the Nihil in his discourse when performing an act of “theological exorcism” as a theologian; it is a triumphal casting out of das Nichtige by refusing to ask questions about its pseudo-reality.125 When the question is raised as to whether or not Nothingness could be a “counter-government” alongside God’s, Barth does not argue the matter conceptually: “we must immediately oppose such an idea.”126 This perspective is particularly characterized by a stable and resilient position for the theologian who praises God and knows better than to get involved in theodicy-like questions. This is the perspective from which Barth speaks in III/3 when he opposes any impulse to offer an extensive dogmatic account of the demonic: “the very thing which the demons are waiting for, especially in theology, is that we should find them dreadfully interesting and give them our serious [. . .] attention.”127 We are to address this question with “loathing.”128 This doxological act is, then, properly a “demythologization” of evil.129 This is why we can only “ridicule” the problem of das Nichtige, rather than explain it.130 Barth quotes Luther’s “Mighty Fortress” three times in III/3 with the ascended kingship of Christ in view: “One word shall quickly fell him.”131 In performing this refusal, the theologian posits a thorough disconnect between evil and any external reality in creation that might possibly make room for sin. From this standpoint, there is no room for sin in creation because God has relegated it entirely out of court at Golgotha. This language in Barth’s text leaves no doubt about whether or not he thought in structurally Manichean terms.132 While Barth is accused of “mythology” in saying that God’s “Yes” actualizes a negative reality with his “No,” this is, for him, in 124 127

128 131 132

125 126 CD III/3, p. 183. CD III/3, p. 521. CD III/3, p. 158. CD III/3, p. 519; John McDowell recognizes that demonology is a “temptation” that Barth avoids; McDowell, “Much Ado about Nothing,” p. 324. 129 130 CD III/3, p. 302. CD III/3, p. 521. CD IV/3, p. 261. CD III/3, p. 332; p. 35; p. 186. For one reading of Barth’s doctrine of evil as a quasi-Manichean reality, or as licensing evil as intrinsic to God’s will, cf. Blocher, Evil and the Cross, pp. 76–83; H. Blocher, “Karl Barth’s Anthropology,” in Sung Wook Chung (ed.), Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology: Convergences and Divergences (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), pp. 128–35; H. Blocher, “Karl Barth’s Christocentric Method,” in David Gibson and Daniel Strange (eds), Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques (Edinburgh: T & T Clark International, 2009), pp. 47, 53.

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no way to be understood as a Manichean view.133 Furthermore, I will argue below that this is the standpoint from which Barth writes his final chapter in III/3 on the Kingdom of Heaven, §51. The difficulty with maintaining this rhetorical stance at all times is that it only betokens the “already” of the kingdom. This is immediately unsettled by the “not yet” of the obscurity of the hidden Word. R. S. Rodin notes the uniqueness of Barth’s description of the nature of evil when the prophetic office is in his purview: Barth claims that the prophetic work of Christ is the work of the one who is the “Victor”, and it is critical that we understand in what sense Barth uses this term since we will find here a whole new idea of the victorious Lord than might be expected [. . .] Whatever his reason, we clearly see a shift in Barth’s view of the completeness of the work of the Son and the role of evil in the time of the community.134 There is a sphere in which the Nihil attempts to “hinder” the creature’s “understanding, acceptance and appropriation” of Christ’s priestly and kingly work.135 That is, “God [. . .] permits us to be a prey to nothingness.”136 For Barth, what this means is that the “Therefore” of the Christian must also turn to view the covenant in the light of its external basis. In this act, the creature says “Nevertheless” with the matter of das Nichtige in view. The Christian who is given knowledge of the kingly office has nothing to fear from the mysterious questions raised within the context of the prophetic. Therefore, these two standpoints are guaranteed as one within the context of the Spirit’s incomprehensible action. Just as the Spirit unites the external basis with the internal, so also the Christian’s participation in providence apprehends this reality from both standpoints.137 Still, one must approach the matter of historical evil with disquiet, for the joy of the “material” perspective must be followed “also with [the] seriousness” of the formal.138 By means of God’s voluntas permittens, he

133 134

135 137

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Gorringe, Against Hegemony, pp. 181–2. Rodin calls the distinction between the “completed work of Christ in the utter defeat of Satan” and the “continued role and operation of evil under the divine permittens” a “devastating tension” in Barth’s theology on the whole; R. S. Rodin, Evil and Theodicy in the Theology of Karl Barth (New York: Peter Lang, 1997), pp. 234, 252 n.138. 136 CD IV/3, p. 260. CD III/3, p. 367. “We have said that this perception or recognition is possibly only in the light and power of the Holy Ghost, in the freedom of faith in which the freedom of the divine providence is manifested”; CD III/3, p. 55. CD III/3, p. 295.

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discloses himself in the Word as One who continues to act against das Nichtige. Having given free course to His jealousy, wrath and judgment once and for all in creation, He might have refrained from any further exercise of them [. . .] But He descends to the depths, and concerns Himself with nothingness, because in His goodness He does not will to cease to be concerned for His creature. He thus continues to act in relation to nothingness with the same holiness with which He acted as the Creator when He separated light from darkness.139 Barth cannot make judgments about the shadow side of creation and its connection, or disconnect from the Nihil when only speaking from a “material” standpoint. Instead, he needs a different standpoint from which to faithfully speak about the present evil age, wherein the creature continues to struggle as a witness on behalf of the cause of Christ: “It is true [. . .] that God does not contend with nothingness without allowing His creature a share in this contention.”140 Barth needs a sphere of thought for speaking about the Christian’s role as a witness where the Word is hidden. Indeed, while evil should be joyfully thought of “as low as possible in relation to God,” it also must be seriously considered “as high as possible in relation to ourselves.”141 This height that belongs to the Nihil above the creature is not, at this point, a confused denial of Christ’s work on the cross. Rather, it is a seriousness that must accompany the Christian’s expression of the positive will of God in the context of creation. Wüthrich identifies this sphere that Barth gives to the Christian theologian for discussing the matter of evil as a prophetic Denkform (“thought-form”). He maintains that, in §50, Barth discusses the matter of evil from the standpoint of implicit premises which are not made explicit in his text, but are enacted on the face of the text by the theologian who faithfully follows them. Barth’s theology attempts to make “theologically transparent the specific pragmatics of its own textual mediation” without being encumbered by an enmiring “metatheoretical self-reflection.”142 If Barth were to make his theoretical premises explicit here, he would be operating on the basis of a theory of providence, losing hold of the object of his theology, Christ. Rather, in his discourse, he continuously and prayerfully engages with Christ. I follow Wüthrich’s observation in this regard, as I have argued in the previous chapter on §49.4, that Barth reasons about 139 142

140 141 CD III/3, p. 357. CD III/3, p. 355. CD III/3, p. 295. “Barths Theologie gelingt es damit auch ohne metatheoretische Selbstreflexion, die spezifische Pragmatik ihrer eigenen textlichen Vermittlung im Rahmen ihrer eigenen Voraussetzungen theologisch durchsichtige zu machen,” Wüthrich, Gott und das Nichtige, p. 311.

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the relation between providence and evil from the standpoint of his doctrine of reconciliation, and he does this on the basis of the triplex munus. Therefore, Barth works with two, obedient de facto perspectives on the whole, and the prophetic is the one that addresses the Nihil as a dynamic reality to be reckoned with. Wüthrich finds this Denkform in Barth’s debate with Berkouwer in §69.3 wherein Barth identifies his register for §50 as contextually “prophetic.”143 This dynamic perspective on evil is, above all, traceable to the impact of the Blumhardts upon Barth, and the exorcism of Gottliebin Dittus.144 Barth says in §69.3 that darkness and light have to be understood in terms of a “dynamic teleology (dynamisch-teleologisch).”145 This is opposed to a view of the grace of God as a “principle” which can be used to flatten one aspect of God’s work over and against the other.146 “The power of light is not so overwhelming that darkness has lost its power altogether, as though its antithesis were already removed, its opposition brushed aside, its challenging and restricting of light of no account.”147 The prophetic office of Christ that is in view here permits sin as a possibility for the creature in a postponement of the final revelation of Christ. For this reason, and due to the import this office has for his description of the Nihil, Barth states in §50 that the Christian makes a distinction between evil and history in hope: “It thus demands on our part a wholly different seriousness from that imposed by life and the world—the seriousness of a radical fear and loathing founded on hope in the God who is primarily affected but who is omnipotent and supreme and therefore our only hope.”148 This prophetic perspective looks at the relation between the covenant and history in the light of the second aspect of Barth’s “twofold rule” in §49.3.149 It is from a prophetic standpoint that we “look back from the world events of nature and history [. . .] to the particular events which are [. . . in] the history of the covenant.”150 Therefore, the first creation account in the Bible is an “expectation and prophecy” of the second.151 This prophetic form of 143

144 146 148

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Wüthrich’s section “Die prophetische Denkform Barths und ihre hermeneutischen Konsequenzen” spells out a prophetic perspective as identifiably Barth’s vantage point for §50. He finds that Barth’s debate with Berkouwer in §69 over the “Triumph of Grace” makes this prophetic perspective explicit; Ibid., pp. 303–13. This turn is implicit in §50: “die Darstellung des §50—soweit sie von der Wendung geprägt ist— selber in der prophetischen Denkform begründet ist, die Barth in KD IV/3 breiter entfaltet”; Wüthrich, p. 312. 145 CD IV/3, pp. 168–70; ChrL, pp. 256–60. CD IV/3, p. 168; KD IV/3, p. 192. 147 CD IV/3, p. 173. CD IV/3, p. 168. CD III/3, p. 305; In book IV, Barth also describes genuine hope as the proper response of the Christian to God in the context of the prophetic office; CD IV/3, pp. 902–42; §73: “The Holy Spirit and Christian Hope.” 150 151 CD III/3, p. 183. CD III/3, pp. 183–4. CD III/1, p. 231.

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participatory thought glances back at the dilemma of the de jure participant from a de facto standpoint. As Barth, as a theologian, sees the external basis, he sees the dilemma of humanity in sin; §50 is “an ethical account of wickedness.”152 Having passed through the gates of a de facto participation in Christ, this form of participatory thought grasps with adequate seriousness how the reality of the creature’s confusion also has an ontic depth beneath it. This perspective objectifies the old life as it awaits the parousia, engaging with the rest of the world as a witness to Christ. The telling mark of this perspective is that the Christian theologian considers the reality of das Nichtige from what may appear to be a metaphysical standpoint, but without confusion. Unlike the “material” standpoint for III/3, this perspective refuses to “demythologize” evil, for this would mean an apokatastasis.153 Barth adopts this perspective in practice in §49.1. He explains how the hypothetical creature-without-election thinks of evil, as if it were a “whirlpool.”154 The Nihil is the depth of the temptation that is ingredient in the creature’s confusion and sin—that is, the creature that wants to be a creature-in-itself-and-as-such—situated outside of the dominion of Christ the risen King. As I mentioned in the preceding chapter on Barth’s doctrine of gubernatio in §49.3, the difference between metaphysical confusion and a “formal” perspective on redemptive history depends on what question is being asked by the theologian. Is the question of historical suffering being asked within the context of Christ’s resurrected self-disclosure, who declares the meaning of his cross in giving his Word to the Christian? Or, is the question raised by the theologically minded philosopher, who asks unde hoc malum?155 Barth’s prophetic perspective is characterized by a strict sequence: that the faithful witness allows the sufferings of Christ to raise the question of the distinction between history and the Nihil that is its opposition. As I have mentioned previously, this is at the heart of the section that precedes Barth’s account of providence in the context of book IV in §71.5, “The Christian in Affliction.” At the behest of Christ’s person, and in the context of his prophetic office, he wills that the Christian should share in his afflictions in the midst of her vocation.156 The Christian not

152 153

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Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology, p. 76. Barth uses the term “apokatastasis” to refer to Origen’s doctrine of the restoration of all to the original state, a form of universal-salvation. Unlike Barth’s view that it is appropriate to “demythologize” a demonology in §51, he says in §50 that a general apokatastasis would be a “demythologizing” of evil, and would, on this count, be an improper correspondence with its object; CD III/3, p. 300. CD III/3, p. 77. This is St. Augustine’s phrase for inquiring about the origin of evil: “whence evil?” CD IV/3, pp. 635, 641.

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only apprehends the similarity but the dissimilarity between her suffering and his.157 This “formal” perspective on history may look upon the whole as it is included in the work of Christ. In spite of the completion of the “material” work of Christ (the priestly and kingly offices), because the manifestation of his prophetic office is still incomplete before the parousia, the lie that his work is incomplete may still be believed by the creature: “nothingness may still [. . .] assume significance” wherever the Word is hidden.158 On account of the cross, this lie only has “the truth of falsehood.”159 Still yet, since the response of belief and obedience revolves around the Christian’s vocation and sharing in Christ’s affliction, sin is a denial of the appropriate similarity and dissimilarity between one’s own suffering and the suffering of Christ on the cross. That is, sin is a denial of what actually happened for the sake of the creature on account of Christ’s work at Golgotha: the justification and sanctification of sinful man.160 Sin denies the effectiveness of what God has truly accomplished in Christ, and simultaneously it denies the fact that God has actually enjoined the creature in this act to be a witness. Participation in divine providence looks to Christ from two different standpoints, from a final, kingly victory and toward a fully realized victory in the parousia: “The only valid presupposition is a backward look to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and a forward look to His coming in glory.”161 Therefore, the de facto participation of the Christian means a visio Dei of Christ as both Prophet and as King. In Christ’s cancellation of das Nichtige on the cross as King, the creature is enjoined to work alongside him and to join his announcing of this victory. Barth not only displays his freedom as a theologian in speaking from these distinct vantage points. It is an expression of the freedom of his theological method that he combines them. This is, for Barth, the freedom to be faithful to the object of theology when and where conceptual coherence breaks down. The church witnesses to Christ in a prophetic form of participation, and, in doing so, points to the finality of his kingly victory: It would not be the Christian community if, as it knew about Jesus Christ, it did not also know about this Already, if in all the weakness

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Das Nichtige enters history as “victor” at one time only: CD III/3, p. 305; IV/1, p. 268; Jenson, Alpha and Omega, p. 107; Jones, “Karl Barth on Gethsemane,” p. 168. 159 CD III/3, p. 367. CD III/3, p. 361. “In the encounter with God Himself it [das Nichtige] could only fulfil its true destiny of having no perpetuity, of ceasing to be even a receding frontier and fleeting shadow. This is what happened to it in the death of Jesus Christ, in the justification and deliverance of sinful man in this death”; CD III/3, p. 362. CD III/3, p. 363.

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and imperfection of its creaturely existence, but looking always to its Lord, and always in faith, and by faith in obedience to Him, it did not really live in this Already, in the full presence and receiving of the divine gift and answer. How could it, and how would it be the witness to Him, the light which He has kindled in the darkness, if it did not know about it and live in it, if it could not bear witness to it?162 Once these two vantage points for the de facto participant are adequately delimited, Barth’s speech about the Nihil is brought into a more understandable framework for a more careful evaluation. Barth self-consciously mixes these two perspectives because they are both given at the behest of the same God in Jesus Christ. Importantly, despite the apparently contradictory elements in his text, these differences are objectively grounded by a de facto participation in an objective distinction between two kinds of offices of Christ, “formal” and “material.” The creature cannot supplant or test these modes of description within a causal or “earth[ly]” framework.163 It is only on the basis of Christ that Barth can shift between these two differing ways of describing the “already” and the “not yet,” continually safeguarding his position from Manicheanism and Pelangianism. It is on this basis that, on his terms, he avoids a problematic “mythological” view. It is in this way that he can also open his account with a straightforward description of this pseudo-reality, denying Pelagius. Altogether, the de facto participant is able to see these aspects of reality with a simultaneous “dismay and [. . .] joy.”164 Without giving up on either, the de facto participant in Christ sees that sin and evil cannot be causally related but must be, with full joy and seriousness, actively rejected.

VII. Conclusion Barth’s placing of election prior to divine providence affords him with the insight that the Christian participates in providence in apprehending it with a “practical recognition.” Importantly, this is a de facto participatio Christi that apprehends Christ according to the multiplex reality of the reconciliation of creation with himself. In this manner, the Christian makes statements within the context of divine providence, which is the history of the external basis of the covenant, that are varied and apparently contradictory. The distinction between “formal” and “material” offices of Christ in §49.4 grounds a distinction between different forms of thought and action on the part of the Christian in the context of his witness to Christ in

162

CD III/3, p. 272.

163

CD III/3, p. 424.

164

CD III/3, p. 334.

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the wide world. Far from confusion, however, this variegated way of doing theology is a partaking in the clarity that comes from obedience to the risen Christ. In praying through the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, one does not lose sight of the depth of temptation; this is das Nichtige. However, one does not lose sight of the Lord of history either. Therefore, in remembrance of the Lord of providence, who reveals himself as such, Barth turns to the kingdom of heaven in §51 with the doxology of the angels and of the Lord’s Prayer in mind.

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8 §51, the kingdom of heaven, the ambassadors of god, and their opponents

I have to confess that if I ever get to heaven, I would first of all seek out Mozart and only then inquire after Augustine, St. Thomas, Luther, Calvin and Schleiermacher.1

I. Introduction In this final chapter, Barth’s doxological theology is uncovered as the material participation that he refers to as prayer in §49.4. This is a participation in the “material” offices of Christ, the priestly and kingly, rather than a “formal” participation in the prophetic.2 It is joy rather than seriousness, and it says “Therefore” rather than “Nevertheless.” Both forms of participation are connected with each other, and are grounded in the same person, Christ; however, each functions so as to license a different kind of theological statement. First, it is noted that Barth’s doxological concentration in §51 finds its impetus in the resurrection of Christ and aims to give theological discourse a triumphal perspective on his reign over history. Next, this kind of participation is described as finding its best examples in the conclusion to the Lord’s Prayer and in the praise of the angels in §51. Barth’s exegesis of Revelation 4–5 makes this plain. In Barth’s interpretation of Scripture, the angels, and also the faithful theologian, are said to extol God in such a way that they are aware that the act of praise adds nothing to his character. These creatures understand God’s self-giving in Jesus Christ as a final victory over evil. Ultimately, it is from this standpoint, where the praise of God’s 1

WAM, p. 16.

2

CD IV/3, p. 8.

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creature on earth echoes the praise of heaven, that the God of providence is faithfully apprehended as such. Therefore, Barth’s angelology relates with divine providence in the context of the ordo cognoscendi. Finally, this chapter concludes by noting that §51, as well as §49.4, draw attention to the incarnational offices of Christ in the context of praise. Essentially, for the theologian that prays, the work of Christ is a priestly and kingly work that expels the intellectual problem of theodicy altogether in a concrete visio Dei in his resurrected self-manifestation.

II. Resurrection and Doxology In this chapter, I argue that doxology in §51, as well as in III/3 on the whole, is an elevation of theological language set apart by its objective content, that is the resurrection of Christ. W. Krötke notes that God must “raise” language “from the dead” in order to bring it to its own being.3 Without a special empowerment of the Word, language becomes bankrupt in sin and becomes a kind of endless play: “If speech is ‘the house of being,’ ” Barth says, “the occupier seems to have left without giving any definite address.”4 All too often, theologians attempt to explain too much, thinking that they can somehow contribute to the glory of God with their own words and prayers. This is an attempt to “play the role of the causa prima in a secret corner” of one’s own.5 For this reason, Barth’s understanding of doxology grasps hold of the only One who can effectively pray for the creature. Barth shapes the final paragraph of III/3 so that it will echo the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, in a prayer to the Father that is heard because it is given by Christ to his disciples. This doxological discourse is given to the disciple of Christ, and thus he becomes “their Leader in prayer.”6 As a gift, theological language is resurrected as doxology.7 Therefore, §51, which follows on the heels of the dilemma of the Nihil, is an example of doxological theology. On the side of the creature, doxology is a final victory over evil because it is a turning against the last temptation that she will face: the enticement to think that she can, in any way, contribute to the glory of God with her own praise. Barth avoids this temptation by simply extolling God; this means that he does not attempt to explain too much. To ascribe “the kingdom, power and glory” to God in doxology is to overcome any confusion about the importance of 3

4 7

Krötke, Sin and Nothingness in the Theology of Karl Barth, p. 11. Our words have a “possibility” for truth in the sense that “they are enlisted by God’s revelation to participate in His truth, that they are in a certain sense raised from the dead,” CD II/1, p. 231. 5 6 CD IV/3, p. 473. CD III/3, p. 146. CD III/3, p. 274. J. B. Torrance suggests that “if out of the confessional (kerygmatic) statements of the Bible, come doxological statements, Christian dogmatics unfold from reflection on doxology,” J. B. Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996), pp. 9–10.

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one’s own praise. Rather, doing theology doxologically renounces the pretense of systematization before the God who stands over all theological systems and “laughs.”8 Our prayers and our theological terms are only rightly positioned when they humbly renounce all claims to the maior Dei gloria.9 Doxology is a material participation in Christ. Barth’s discussion in §49.4 describes two kinds of active participation, which I have entitled “formal” and “material.” In the case of §51, Barth explores the significance that the resurrection has for material participation, and in doing this he shows what doxology is in practice. Of course, Barth says, whether “formal” or “material,” both are “the same” participation as they are both grounded in Christ.10 However, in §51, he explains that doxological participation occurs in heaven before it does on earth because heaven is where the omnipotent reign of the risen Christ is already unveiled. It is the risen Christ that constitutes the unveiling of the glory of God.11 As this doxological praise is brought from heaven to earth, God’s will “is done on earth as it is in heaven.”12 This gives the Christian on earth a reason for her “Easter joy.”13 Evil is only known in a turning against it in the light of Christ’s resurrection, resulting in joy: “The resurrection of Christ [. . .] can awaken only joy, pure joy.”14 The Christian finds doxology to be a kind of deliverance, then. As she extols the One who is risen, she is taken up into a heavenly doxological theology that acknowledges Christ as having already bested the Nihil: “Thine [. . .] is the glory” is the “prayer of the New Testament church,” which is an ascription to the One who is “alive from the dead.”15 This acknowledgment of Christ as the risen Lord is a doxological freedom of theological language from the encumbrances of blindness and self-obsession. Barth demonstrates what material participation is in practice by securing his doxological standpoint for §51 on the basis of his resurrection. He does not point to heaven as an abstract reality in §51, but only to the risen Christ. The resurrection defines the material participation in Christ that doxology is; it is the objective content that enjoins the creature’s doxological response. In this, the resurrection is shown to be constitutive for the doxology of both heaven and earth, for the angels as well as the theologian on earth. In §51, Jesus Christ’s resurrection is what is constitutive for the doxology of heaven, and therefore, for a doctrine of providence that is true “on earth as it is in 8 9

10 11

12

13

CD III/3, p. 160. Barth discusses the maior Dei gloria and the minor gloria creaturae in his section on concursus; CD III/3, p. 97. CD III/3, p. 248. “This then, the glory of the one true God, constitutes the relationship between Father and Son, between Him that sits on the throne and Him that sits at His right hand”; CD III/3, p. 441. Barth repeats this phrase frequently in §51; cf. CD III/3, pp. 444–7, 462, 477–8, 481, 483, 499, 504, 510. 14 15 CD III/3, p. 293. CD II/2, p. 174. CD II/1, pp. 642–3.

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heaven.” Barth’s exegesis of the New Testament conception of the “right hand” of the Father makes explicit the central position that is given to the resurrection in heaven: The fulfillment and revelation of this will of the one true God is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which forms the explicit or implicit presupposition in all the passages in the New Testament which speak of the elevation of Jesus Christ to the right hand of the Father. For in His resurrection, completed in the ascension, it took place that as true God and true man He was taken from earth and set in heaven [. . . and] what is said here concerning the ascension is also the final word concerning heaven itself.16 The self-disclosure of the risen Christ is the context that illuminates what happened at the cross. Therefore, the cross is the concrete event that provides an interpretive context for all questions about das Nichtige. The cross, then, is the particular hermeneutical center for the creature’s apprehension of the providence of God. What does the resurrection disclose that the cross is over and against evil? Barth raises this question in his paragraph §64, the “Exaltation of the Son of Man,” wherein the “darkness” which Jesus Christ endured on the cross is spoken of as the “final negative.”17 And while, from one perspective, it is “a problem of the first magnitude” and is the “true and final darkness,” the Gospel writers do not contemplate on this reality because they see it from the standpoint of Easter. Instead, they are content that, on the basis of his resurrection, Christ’s passion can be seen as something that is “not alien”: There is one thing that the Gospels definitely do not do, and that is to invite their readers and hearers to prolong their consideration of this darkness and the problem that it raises [. . .] On the contrary, in His suffering and dying he is still the same as He always was, although in another form. The passion is not an alien element in His work as a whole. From the very first, and with decisive significance, all that He did was done under this sign. This emerged clearly in the death and passion, but it was there all the time. And the Gospels see this because they see the whole story in the light of Easter. We should have to adopt a different standpoint from that of the Gospels even to envisage—let alone investigate—it as an alien element.18 In this same section Barth goes on to explain that “God’s providential rule was not contradicted by this event.”19 God’s work on the cross was wholly planned by God. It is in this sense that the de facto participant in Christ sees 16 18

17 CD III/3, pp. 440–1; IV/2, pp. 153–4. CD IV/2, p. 250. 19 CD IV/2, p. 251. CD IV/2, p. 259.

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how providence “comprehends” the Nihil.20 Participation in the Easter-event is a “practical recognition” that sees Jesus Christ is the King over history’s shadow side, and also sees that das Nichtige is already negated, and thus, is wholly discarded from history.21 This is a material apprehension of Jesus Christ as the risen, heavenly King who still lives “in” a “heavenly-historical” form of existence.22 This apprehension of Christ would not be complete, however, if the Christian only contemplated on this distinction in the abstract. Rather, confronted by the subjectivity of the risen Lord, one cannot apprehend him as King without also extolling him in response. The risen Lord who appears to his disciples makes it explicit that God determines that all creatures in heaven and on earth should praise him: What took place in the appearances to the first disciples of the Jesus who had just been crucified, dead and buried meant in any event the knowability of Jesus to them in the future of his completed history [. . .] Even as eyewitnesses of the Easter event they could not stop looking back to this history and remembering what Jesus had said and done in it [. . .] They for their part had not found him to be another person but the same one who had lived among them [. . .] the future of his completed history as the disciples now came to see it in the Easter days was the revelation of Jesus as the One who had been in that history but who had been hidden from their eyes from the cradle to the cross [. . .] and in relation to the creature and its history, the Lord whom all creatures in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth must worship and confess to the glory of God his Father. (Phil. 2.10f.)23 Doxology signifies for the Lord’s Prayer what the resurrection of Christ means for his suffering and crucifixion. The enactment of this prayer to its very end means that one comes to see the problem of deliverance from evil, as well as the predicament of the crucified Christ, in the light of his resurrection. It is only “as we hear the Word of the cross through Him, the risen Lord” that we can understand what it means that Jesus “hallowed the name of God in his death.”24 In this manner, the doxology of the prayer leaves no doubt about the disciple’s participation in Christ because it sees this participation in the light of Easter. According to Barth, the early church understood this doxology to be a recognition that all deliverance belongs to Christ over and against the powers which brought about the crucifixion: What were the thoughts of the people in the primitive church of the second century when at the end of the Lord’s Prayer they spoke or chanted this doxology? One can see in it a relation to the sixth petition, 20 21 22

CD III/3, pp. 289, 293. The Christian belief in providence is a “practical recognition”; CD III/3, p. 14. 23 24 CD IV/1, p. 661. ChrL, p. 255. ChrL, p. 165.

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“Deliver us from the Evil One,” because the kingdom, the power, and the glory belong to God, not the Devil, sin, death, or hell. “For” means, “This is why we ask thee to deliver us from the Evil One, since to thee belong the kingdom, the power, and the glory.” Or, in other words, “Show us that thou art the King, powerful and glorious, by delivering us from the Evil One.”25 The doxology of the Lord’s Prayer constitutes its defining moment: “These final words encompass the whole prayer.”26 The Lord’s Prayer looks to a doxology at its end because it turns toward the eschatological reality of God’s kingdom. It is an address that acknowledges the resurrected King in second person, and implies that the one who prays is confronted personally by him: “Thine is the kingdom.” In this way, the relation between divine providence and evil is finally untangled in the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer. The doxological praise of the creature is the final victory of divine providence over evil, for it is the covenantal realization of God’s will that he should be apprehended as the glorious and risen King. In this prayerful act, the creature accepts his own rightful place beneath God in Jesus Christ as a creature beneath her Creator.27 In this act of praise, the creature’s theological language is delivered from pretense and confusion. Barth’s exposition of the Lord’s Prayer identifies the death-resurrection sequence with the Christian’s turning to Christ because das Nichtige is already defeated. This is a sign of the joy of a material participation in Christ, a joy which brings about defiance. Even a participation in the initial vocative “Father”! is a turn against the Nihil: “They do cry ‘Father’ [. . .] in defiance of all that says that they cannot and should not do it.”28 This defiance of das Nichtige corresponds with Barth’s notion in III/3 that the faith of the Christian “defies” all that is not faith.29 The voluntary participant in Jesus Christ only speaks of Nothingness “with a wink”30 because this is an emulation of Christ who simply “laughs at His enemy” in the resurrection.31 Barth’s decision to conclude III/3 with §51 doxologically expresses the same retrospective contempt for das Nichtige as the faithful believer in 25

26 27

28

Prayer, p. 65. Barth echoes this sentiment in his exposition on the first petition in The Christian Life, “How do those who pray thus—the Christian community and its members, we ourselves—how do we come to know what we have learned to be the object of the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer? [. . .] only one answer can be given [. . .] Coming from Good Friday and Easter Day, the Christian world knows [. . .] it is praying for the taking place of the unique and definitive act which it knows to have taken place already in Jesus Christ”; ChrL, pp. 161–3. Prayer, p. 65. Heaven, among its many characteristics, is also “creature” and has need “to be sustained by Him”; CD III/3, p. 419. 29 30 31 ChrL, p. 71. CD III/3, p. 250. ChrL, p. 235. CD III/3, p. 441.

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Christ. This act is grounded in his own response to the resurrection as a theologian. His second account of das Nichtige in the Church Dogmatics, that is, his section on the “Lordless Powers” in The Christian Life (§78.2), is structured in the same way as III/3. In both cases, Barth follows his treatment of evil with a section on the kingdom of heaven (cf. “Thy Kingdom Come,” §78.3). Barth’s theological discourse itself parallels the Lord’s Prayer so closely that he cannot address the subject of das Nichtige without turning against it with a doxological contempt for its pseudo-reality. Therefore, §51 strikes “a far more cheerful note” than the previous paragraph.32 How else could one truly deal with the subject of demons from a doxological standpoint than to “demythologize” them? And this is what he does in §51,33 and he does this against his earlier recommendation in §50 that the Nihil should not be demythologized.34 Barth’s final paragraph in III/3 is characterized by a material participation in Jesus Christ, which, as opposed to the previous, looks upon the subject of demons without “seriousness,” indeed, without any interest at all. In summary, doxology is an acknowledgment of the risen Lord, and a sign of the Christian’s material participation in him. For this reason, Barth finishes his volume on providence with a doxological chapter, addressing how the objective reality of the resurrection has significance for the rest of divine providence. This focus on the risen One brings about the appropriate joy that is built into his discourse, a joy that shows itself in a turning against the question of evil in defiance. Barth’s ordering of §51 after §50 shows this attitude, as well as his refusal to discuss the matter of demons: “The very thing which the demons are waiting for, especially in theology,” he says, “is that we should find them dreadfully interesting and give them our serious and perhaps systematic attention.”35 For this reason, at the conclusion of a doctrine of providence that is ordered according to the lex orandi, God’s creature on earth looks directly to Christ and eulogizes him as the risen King. In doing this, the earthly creature also finds, strangely enough, that he is hearing this praise “already in the existence of other creatures and is thereby summoned” to perform this doxological act along with the angels.36 For this reason, Barth also addresses the matter of angelic praise, which is the doxological praise to God that takes place in heaven without end.

III. Angelic Praise The task of the theologian is a doxological one because theology extols the God who can have nothing added to his character. In the same way, the 32 33 36

Mangina, Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness, p. 102. 34 35 CD III/3, pp. 519–31. CD III/3, p. 300. CD III/3, p. 519. CD III/3, p. 462.

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praise of the angels is inherently obedient because it is a continual beholding of the risen Christ. Angels only exist inasmuch as they are self-effacing, God-extolling creatures.37 “The saying of John the Baptist [. . .] ‘He must increase, but I must decrease,’ is no less true of them.”38 In their humility, the angels combine theology with praise, and it is for this reason that Barth finds them to be theologians par excellence, exemplars of what it means to have a theologia viatorum. They show their dissimilarity to us in that they marvel at human theologies which often fall short of extolling the effulgence of God. Speaking of the theology imbibed in the doxologies of Revelation 4–5, Barth offers a bit of sarcasm: At one time Θεoλoγία was thought of as knowledge of the kind of matters which have occupied us here. Rev. 4-5 was thus regarded as a typical specimen, and it was for this reason that the author was called John ὁ Θεóλoγoϛ. He would have been most surprised, and the 4 living creatures, the 24 elders and the many angels in heaven, must surely have been surprised, at most of the things which have since been given the name theology.39 Wolfhart Pannenberg notes the weighty importance that Barth’s discussion of angels has for the rest of modern theology.40 Barth also recognizes this importance in his own text; it is the “most remarkable and difficult” section in III/3.41 His task in §51 is misunderstood, however, if he is thought of as simply avoiding the conceptual problems that are so often latent in modern and premodern angelology.42 Barth distinguishes his view from his predecessors and contemporaries by refusing to construct a doctrine of creation cosmologically by starting with angels.43 Rather, he arranges their dogmatic position by including them within the context of divine providence, giving them a basis for offering praise to God. It is in the context of divine providence that they find a historically extended relationship with 37

38 40

41 42

43

Barth states that the angel of Yahweh’s role is to “efface himself in favour of the One on whose behalf he appears to man”; CD III/3, p. 488. 39 CD III/3, p. 502. CD III/3, p. 476. “Karl Barth’s doctrine of angels in CD, III/3, §51 is the most important discussion of the theme in modern theology,” W. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (trans. G. W. Bromiley; vol. 2; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 103. CD III/3, p. 369. The “ancients” considered angels according to their “far too interesting mythology” and, as a mirror image, the moderns, deal with the question according to their “far too uninteresting ‘demythologization,’” CD III/3, p. 369. CD III/2, p. 5; Among those who include a statement on angels within their doctrine of providence, a few notables are: T. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, III, pp. 77–80, 108–09; Summa Theologica, I.50–64; 106–114; J. Calvin, Inst., I.14.4–19; F. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 539–67; F. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, §42, pp. 156–9.

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God.44 Angelic praise is very important to Barth because it has a mysterious bearing on the praise that is offered to God on earth. To this extent, angels also influence the theological task. This is the reason for our own “testimonium paupertatis.”45 Therefore, in this chapter I only address the aspects of Barth’s exposition that have an importance for the relationship between angelic praise and the theologian’s own work. Three assertions are important for establishing the mysterious relation between the praise, and therefore the theology of heaven and earth: 1.) Barth’s exposition first highlights that angels live in a perfect praise and obedience to God. 2.) He mentions that angelic praise to God has an incomprehensible but positive bearing on earthly praise. 3.) This praise is a concrete doxology, an “analytic” apprehension of Christ as the risen Lord according to his material offices. As Priest and King, Christ offers himself to his creatures in a concrete visio Dei that overcomes the abstract problem of divine providence and evil. The question of the relation between omnipotence and holiness now pales in comparison to an apprehension of the powerful and intercessory work of Christ.46 I will deal with the first two points in this section, and then the third in a final, separate section. First, due to the self-effacing character of the angels, they never intend to distract from Christ. Angels are, by nature, inherently obedient: “Whatever the manner of heaven, its being is an obedient being.”47 “Their praise of God is pure praise. Their existence corresponds perfectly to His Word and work.”48 Barth focuses his query on the angelic office, furthermore, because he refuses to speak of an angelic ontology: “Angels are defined less by class or individual identity than by their doxological function.”49 This is an initial move that indicates that Barth correlates his own theological discourse with 44 45 46

47

48 49

Heaven needs, as all creatures do, to be “sustained by Him,” CD III/3, p. 419. CD III/3, p. 412. Barth notes in §50 that the question of evil is the question as to how to relate divine holiness with omnipotence in the light of sin and suffering; CD III/3, p. 292; p. 294. CD III/3, p. 444; G. C. Berkouwer criticizes Barth’s use of Jn. 8.44 to describe Satan’s nature as essentially deceitful, which is logically required by his view of angels as inherently obedient. Barth does not make much use of the Scriptural texts that describe an angelic falling away from a state of innocence in Jude 6 and 2 Pet. 2.4: “It is not made clear why the texts in Jude and Peter about the fall of the angels are vague and obscure,” Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, p. 80. W. Pannenberg echoes this: “Barth may well be right when he says that ‘a true and orderly angel does not do this’ [i.e., rebel] (CD, III/3, cf. 530). According to the biblical witness [. . .] which Barth was trying to follow more strictly than the classical doctrine of angels in the theological tradition, not all angels seem to have been ‘orderly’” however; Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, p. 105. Barth’s only response to this seems to be that these exegetical arguments are speculative; CD III/3, p. 530. CD III/3, p. 463. J. Mangina, “Apocalypticizing Dogmatics: Karl Barth’s Reading of the Book of Revelation,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 1.2 (2007), p. 202.

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the style of heavenly praise. Not only is modesty in worship important to the angels, it is important for Barth as well. The angels point away from themselves and only to the Word. Like Mozart, what the angel reveals in its music is “certainly not himself.”50 Therefore, Barth’s theological discourse corresponds with this act of worship by pointing away from any angelic ontology, also pointing to the Word alone. This is necessary because the creature can only know “this expectation for doxology through the Word of God.”51 The role of the theologian is to step aside and to behold the effulgence of the Word in its risen manifestation. To do otherwise would be to shun the resurrected Lord, attempting to describe “ice cold summits of objectivity.”52 Second, in practice, as Barth speaks of this obedience of heaven, he posits a positive connection between heaven and earth.53 He avers that, unfortunately, the church’s history of interpretation discards this biblical view of their relationship and instead takes up an abstraction with its focus on the nature of angels. That is, the history of the church’s interpretation of angels goes astray to the extent that it crafts its angelic ontology “abstractly.”54 The church’s pursuit tends to overlook how angels are portrayed in the biblical witness, and thus, the positive relation between heaven and earth is distorted by idealism and Aristotelianism.55 While the early church understood the liturgical aspect of angelic life,56 they envisioned this in such a way that 50 51

52 53

54 55

56

WAM, p. 37. “Von diesem Warten Gottes, von dieser Notwendigkeit der Doxologie weiβ der Mensch aber allein durch Gottes Wort,” H. Kirschstein, Der souverane Gott und die heilige Schrift: Einfuhrung in die Biblische Hermeneutik Karl Barths (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 1998), p. 264. Barth describes Aquinas’ view of angels with this phrase, CD III/3, p. 400. “There is a correspondence, a similarity, of the relationship between heaven and earth to that between Creator and the creature”; CD III/3, p. 419. D. Kennedy points out a very important, and still unexplored insight into Barth’s understanding of the physical connection between heaven and earth in §51. He notes that heaven is, in Barth’s theology, the terminus a quo for all of God’s miraculous work in providence. This implies that there are no “Humean” miracles in Barth’s theology, that is, miracles enacted from a standpoint external to creation. Rather, when God acts miraculously in providence, those acts have their origin in this mysterious place that already rests within the created order. Kennedy’s reading is also insightful in that he connects this role given to heaven with Barth’s diminished view of the afterlife; cf. Kennedy, “A Personalist Doctrine of Providence,” pp. 216–31. CD III/3, p. 385. Barth’s critical comments on both the pneumatologies of Pseudo-Dionysius and Thomas Aquinas are modest. Dionysius errs in a platonic direction, and Thomas lacks a Christological focus; CD III/3, pp. 386–401. Barth also faults Justin and Athenagoras for praying to the angels as gods, CD III/3, p. 381. Barth mentions in his exegesis that it was the view of the author of Hebrews that angels were liturgical spirits: λειτoυργικὰ πνεύματα Heb. 1.14; CD III/3, pp. 382–84, 452–9.

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their songs of praise to God could only be “integrated and fused” into the heavenly.57 Rather, “we have to wrestle with the view and concept of angels as they come before us in Holy Scripture as the witness to the work and revelation of God in Jesus Christ.”58 Only in this manner can the relation between heaven and earth be positively understood. God’s will can only be “done on earth as it is in heaven” in the theologian’s own discourse when a positive mutuality is observed between heaven and earth. The obstacle of the being of the angels, then, must be completely removed as a speculative temptation. Participation in Christ’s resurrection, as the climax of the Bible’s narrative, redirects the common query about the nature of angels to a query about the office of angels. The resurrection or exaltation of Christ is the “decisive” hermeneutical “key” for this turn.59 Seeing Christ in his exaltation from a heavenly vantage point leads the angels to nothing else but a perfect obedience to Christ. There can be no questioning what characteristics comprise a heavenly ontology, then, except that the angel is God’s creature that is determined to obey in an “inflexible” manner.60 The “existence” of the angel is simply “liturgical.”61 They are “ambassadors” who only herald the coming of the Word.62 Therefore, while providence insists that the praise of the creature is a norm for all of history, only the angels praise God unceasingly in the way that divine providence expects: “God expects the praise of His creature [. . . and, therefore] this expectation of God makes the praise of God necessary.”63 Whenever the earthly creature takes part in a de facto realization of the will of God in praise, she participates in a heavenly song that does not need her because it is already an ongoing one. In this manner, the praise of heaven anticipates the praise of earth. The witnessing ministry of the angels has this implication “on earth.”64 All creation waits to hear the praise of God and to be summoned to take part in it. It needs to do this to achieve its true nature and thus to be itself a correspondence of the Word and work of God. And in so doing it does not will to be alone. It cannot strike up the praise of God—no creature can do this—but only join in the praise of God as it hears it already in the existence of other creatures and is thereby summoned to it [. . .] The ministry of angels is the supreme ministry of witness, to the increase of which our praise of God and ministry, and 57 59

60 62 63

58 CD III/3, p. 384. CD III/3, pp. 379, 411. “The free, electing grace in which this [participation of the Christian] is the case is the majesty and glory with which God is exalted even above heaven. We must make use of this decisive key of Christian knowledge from the very outset”; CD III/3, p. 420. 61 CD III/3, p. 463. Gorringe, Against Hegemony, p. 176. CD III/3, §51.3 “The Ambassadors of God and their Opponents.” 64 CD III/3, p. 461. CD III/3, p. 481.

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all service of God, can be added only as a secondary ministry attaching itself to it. The will of God is first done in heaven and then on earth.65 It is in Barth’s “radical correction” that he insists that the providential will of God is singular and invested in Jesus Christ in election.66 God’s determination that his creature should obey him, then, is not a hidden will but a revealed one.67 This revelation has implications: it means that the creature is determined to praise God and “participate in this work of salvation.”68 For this reason, God’s will cannot be said to be “done on earth as it is in heaven,” as Barth says of concursus, unless the covenantal reality of this coexistence is already complete in the de facto praise of every creature. The providential will of God would be circumvented if the praise of all creatures were not complete. This line of reasoning requires an account of the de facto praise of the heavenly realms not only for concursus but for the whole of divine providence. There must not be a praise-less corner in the dominion of Christ the King. Taking note of the tone of the above statement reveals that Barth is speaking of the angelic ministry in the context of the external basis of the covenant. Barth is discussing how the creature that exists in a mundane sense, living a life within the context of other creatures, praises or doesn’t praise God. Whether speaking of earth or heaven, the creature can only achieve its true nature as a witness in correspondence with the Word in a social context. It is important here that Barth’s argument should not be confused with the suggestion that the praise of the angels is somehow a fulfillment of God’s will within the context of the covenant of grace.69 The angel, instead, “cannot fulfill” God’s “covenant” by responding to him on behalf of men.70 Rather, what Barth is asserting is that, strictly speaking, on the side of the creature, praise takes place in heaven in such a way that God’s will that the creaturely world should be a “theatre” for the fulfillment of the covenant is 65 67 69

70

66 CD III/3, pp. 461–2 emphasis mine. CD III/3, pp. 5, 17, 29, 76–7. 68 CD III/3, p. 79. CD III/3, p. 79. Timothy Gorringe astutely points this out: “they [the angels] do not mediate between God and human beings but they constitute the ‘atmosphere’ in which there can be a creaturely witness”; Gorringe, Against Hegemony, p. 177. CD III/3, p. 460; Barth has been criticized for not maintaining clarity on this point by Robert Jenson, who says the angels appear as mediators in this section and this creates a “disaster in his Christology.” Jenson does not note that Barth strictly limits the role of the angel to the external basis of the covenant; cf. R. Jenson, Systematic Theology (vol. 2; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 124. Barth gives this place to the “creature” on the external side of the covenant at the onset of his account of divine providence; cf. CD III/3, pp. 6–7. Angels “cannot save, redeem or liberate the earthly creature” and so the ministry they have on earth is not soteriological; CD III/3, p. 460. “Jesus Christ is in His own person identical and of one essence with God, but this is not true of anything or anyone apart from Him, not even [in] heaven”; CD III/3, p. 419.

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already realized.71 Even should the earthly creature cease praising, God’s will in providence is still fulfilled on account of the praise of the angels and the impact that praise has upon earth. In this sense, due to the angelic praise that takes place in heaven, God’s determination for the continuation, accompaniment, and ruling of all creation can be said to be completely realized, even when and where the praise of humanity is lacking. Barth gives a supervening role to heaven so that wherever earthly praise does not take place, this is also the same place where the angels are said to praise him. This obedience is determined by God and realizes his will “on earth as it is in heaven” within the context of divine providence: Because his kingdom comes from heaven to earth, this means that in those who come with Him He will always have many trustworthy witnesses on earth, namely, in the existence of His strong angels who are always present and active in full numbers [. . .] even where [wo] the earthly creature seems to be sadly lacking with its praise both in quantity and quality.72 Can one object at this point that Barth’s position on angelic creatures leaves the effectiveness of providence in the hands of the creature, albeit the angelic creature? Barth does not feel a tension here because angelic beings are, once again, according to their office, inherently obedient with respect to their specific commission. The angel is not an “autonomous subject” at all.73 An angel cannot initiate anything from its own standpoint.74 The angelic creature is a perfect echo of God’s will, and so God remains at the helm of the realization of divine providence. The relation between heaven and earth cannot be abstracted without distracting from the Word of God. Therefore, the praise, rather than the being of the angels is the proper conduit between heaven and earth. The angels are pure and self-effacing praise and so they merely herald the coming of the Word, looking only to Christ. The positive relation between the praise of the angels and of the earthly creature, then, means that the angelic doxology has an important bearing on the life of the creature and also on the task of the theologian.75 The content of angelic praise is important for ascertaining the proper response of the theologian to the question of evil within the context of divine providence.

71 74 75

72 73 CD III/3, p. 47. CD III/3, p. 462. CD III/3, p. 372. “No creature can strike up the praise of God on its own”; CD III/3, p. 462. M. Welker states it this way: “the angel engages and transforms this world of experience that is near yet inaccessible”; M. Welker, Creation and Reality (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), p. 53.

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IV. “Analytic” Praise: The Content of Heavenly Doxology a. Exegesis of Revelation 4–5 The praise that is offered to God by the angels in heaven is a doxological view of reality, a visio Dei that looks to Jesus Christ as the crucified and risen One. In III/3, pp. 463–76, Barth focuses on the doxologies of the angelic host in Revelation 4–5. It is important for Barth’s whole theology of providence that this angelic doxology should include the praise of earth in its heavenly song. It is important to note, furthermore, that Barth seems to be so enthusiastically involved in this section that he appears to get exegetically carried away. For example, he reads the twenty-four elders in Revelation chapter four as not being representative of humanity in any sense, probably because of the significance allotted to the anteriority of angelic praise: “These are not the robes of earthly kings or priests,” he says, “but the festal garments with which they are invested in virtue of the fact that God has sat on His throne among them.”76 Whether or not this is an accurate reading of the twenty-four elders, Barth is probably led by his own excitement here, and he seems very willing to allow his exegesis to be strained by the frame of his own logic. For Barth, as a form of praise, doxology is grounded in a personal knowledge of the resurrected Christ. Doxology is precisely the kind of praise that is shaped by heaven, extolling God for his glorious control of all things, recognizing that providence includes the shadow side of history within it. Doxology looks to Jesus Christ as the one who once “was dead” but is now “alive forevermore.”77 Knowing the risen Christ, then, gives the creature a confidence that the Lord of providence is the “Lord of life and death.”78 No event in creation, whether “good” or “bad” can escape the right hand of God. In this manner, doxology distinguishes between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and das Nichtige, which is the false power that assaults Christ at Golgotha. The obedience of heaven takes on the form of the kind of praise that recognizes the victory of the resurrection in this context. The doxology of heaven shapes human praise after it, into the distinctive form of obedience and witness to Christ that is a material participation in him. Barth’s exegesis of Revelation 4–5 in III/3 may be understood as the climax of his whole doctrine of providence. Observing first that these two chapters are separate, Barth attests to their unity: they address the way an earthly doxology is taken up into a heavenly one, extolling God in Jesus Christ: “For it is in heaven that the occurrence originates which then takes earthly form as cosmic and eschatological occurrence. The angels in heaven do already what will also be done on earth by earthly creatures.”79 76 78

CD III/3, p. 465. CD III/3, p. 463.

77 79

Rev. 1.18; CD III/3, p. 471. CD III/3, p. 468.

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In the end, the whole of Barth’s doctrine of divine providence is explained from the standpoint of the risen King. These doxological prayers are categorical acknowledgments that nothing can be added to his Lordship; he is said to be omnipotent in such a way that all of history belongs to him. Consequently, it is inherent in Barth’s exposition of the angelic doxology that this praise should not add anything to God’s glory or power. Rather, the category of doxology allows the creature to take its proper stance beneath God by extolling him “analytically.” He states that, when it comes to extolling God, it is the creature’s essential honor and power “to be able to ‘give’ them to Him”: The a@cioj ei } with which the hymn opens has the following significance—that it is intrinsically proper, that it belongs or corresponds to Thee [. . .] Hence that which is stated of God in what follows is not a predicate ascribed to Him, nor a title conferred by others. It is to be understood analytically as the recognition of what He is originally and essentially in Himself before any other being can resolve or approve or confer it, and of what He would still be if no other being attributed it to Him.80 In an acknowledgment of the resurrection of Christ, his rulership over history as his good creation is affirmed. The distinction between the shadow side of history and the Nihil is made here in practice in the creature’s analytic praise. No aspect of history can escape his rule, and, therefore, even the praise of the creature, albeit imperfect, adds nothing to the glory of God. This is, in essence, a participation in Jesus Christ as the risen One on the side of the external basis of the covenant. The doxology of Revelation chapter four “has been brought into specific relationship to the first article of the creed” because the doctrine of God cannot be dealt with apart from the risen Christ.81 Barth understands that this section looks to God as the Creator, as “Father” over the history of divine providence. For this reason, the difference between Revelation chapters four and five can be delineated as the same extant distinction between the first and second articles of the creed: “Only in Revelation 5 do we see the Lamb in the midst of the throne.”82 Barth’s exegesis reveals that, in his view, these two chapters relate as the first two articles of the creed relate. He also mentions elsewhere that the relation between these two articles grounds his interpretation of the whole of divine providence.83 Barth comments that “the fact that in the answering chorus of the 24 elders He is expressly praised 80 83

81 82 CD III/3, p. 468. CD III/3, p. 466. CD III/3, p. 466. “The doctrine De providentia which we have briefly sketched in this way, and which found more explicit development in C.D., III, 3 §48–49 [. . .] follows very soberly from the necessity of understanding the first article of the creed in the light of the second,

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as the Creator (4:11) must certainly be taken to mean that He, the One who comes, who does not abandon the creature but is on the way to it as Judge and Savior, is the Creator of the universe by whose will it was created.”84 So the ascribing of glory and honor to God is appropriate not only because of God’s action in creation, but specifically because God has acted decisively as the “One who comes” to the creature in Jesus Christ. Just like the first two credal articles, the two chapters are thoroughly integrated and are only understood in unison: “If our view of Rev. 4 is correct, the following chapter is not to be regarded as the description of another event but as a deeper and more specific consideration of the event already recorded in c.4. What is implicit in the earlier chapter is now made explicit. But for this purpose a new picture is introduced and a new song has to be sung.”85 It is in Barth’s exegesis of Revelation five, which describes the Lamb who is worthy to open the book, that Barth finds the Christological impetus for his doctrine of providence: “The opening of the book” in this text “means that what is written in it takes place in history.”86 God alone can determine history, and so the question of the deity of Jesus Christ is raised in his opening of the book. This is the place where Jesus Christ is doxologically apprehended as deserving of the supreme historical position above all things. Exegetically, Barth points out that there is no difference between knowing Jesus as the resurrected king and participating in him actively. It is on the basis of Easter that Jesus Christ is seen and extolled as victorious, as he elicits the praise of creation from his kingly seat. This news of the victory of the Lion of Judah and Root of David is obviously the Easter message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, in which it has been revealed at a specific time and place in the earthly sphere that God Himself has closed the gap between Himself and the creatures in the person of this Jewish man, and that He has exalted this Jewish man to participation in His lordship over all creation. It is a victory of God, and for this reason and in this way of man too; a victory from above, and therefore from below. It is God who has raised this Jewish man from the dead, and it is therefore this Jewish man who has passed through and over the abyss of death. It is God who has placed this man at his side, and it is therefore this man who has become equal to God. What is the reason for all this? It is in order that He, the human Victor in the grace and power and glory of God, or the divine Victor in the grace and power and glory of this man, should open the book, and thus set in train the future events still concealed from all creatures. It is in order that He should resolve and know the things

84

which refers to the sessio Filii ad dexteram Patris omnipotentis,” CD IV/3, p. 688; cf. CD III/3, pp. 35, 105, 287, 428, 466. 85 86 CD III/3, p. 467. CD III/3, p. 469. CD III/3, p. 469.

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which must be hereafter. And because this is true the seer need not weep and the heavenly creation may rejoice at that which comes to pass.87 The revelation of Christ in his resurrection also discloses his victory over the Nihil, and his continuing supereminence over the shadow side of creation, the side of history that includes suffering and death. In his resurrection, Jesus Christ shows that he, the Lamb, is also the Lion who rules over history’s darker side: And it is the self-revelation of the Lamb which declares and confirms that the Lamb is the Lion. We are in heaven and not on earth. The description of the Lamb is thus beyond normal apprehension. It is “as it had been slain,” which means that it is a sacrificial animal still bearing the marks of its immolation. But in Revelation 1:18 we are told concerning the One who is here called the Lamb: “I was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore.”88 Christ in his resurrected self-disclosure still “bears the marks” of the suffering Lamb. In this way, the divine supereminence of God does not work against the “shadow” side of history, but rules it. This shadow is inherently good because it is understood as the object of Christ’s good Lordship. That Jesus Christ is the “Lamb” does nothing to cancel out his position as the Lord who “opens the book” of creation’s destiny. Although this Lamb is Jesus Christ, he “is a sacrificial animal still bearing the marks of its immolation.”89 To glance at the wounds of the One who suffered the cross is to respond with doxology, that is, to extol the One who is the Lord over the history of suffering (or, the “shadow side”). In this way, knowledge of divine providence is not indirectly knowledge of history that is somehow gained through Christ; it is strictly and only knowledge of Jesus Christ as the crucified and risen One. As Barth says, the “Lamb is the Lion”: What is revealed in His enthronement and seizure of power is that from all eternity the secret counsel of God, whatever may be its content in detail, has had the meaning which finds form and reality in the fact that the Lamb is the Lion, the all-powerful and all-wise Executor of His will and plan.90 The creature is “summoned” to praise God in Jesus Christ in this manner with the angels.91 He extols Jesus Christ as a holy Lamb and as an omnipotent Lion, joining the first two articles of the creed: “unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb” Barth states “there is a confluence of the two apparently separate streams of the doxologies of cc. four and five.”92 In this way, the chapters of Revelation four and five represent Barth’s exegetical 87 90

CD III/3, p. 470. CD III/3, p. 471.

88 91

CD III/3, p. 471. CD III/3, p. 475.

89 92

CD III/3, p. 471. CD III/3, p. 475.

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warrant for the conjoining of the first and second articles of the creed on the basis of Jesus Christ. The omnipotent One is brought together with the holy One, and both are apprehended as the same King. b. Features of Doxology On the basis of this positive relation between heaven and earth, doxological praise can be said to have several characteristics. First, to eulogize God with a doxology comparable to that of the angels is to render to him that which belongs to him already: history and creation, including all its elements, both “good” and “bad.” Jesus Christ shows himself to be the One who can “open the book” of creation’s history and destiny.93 The four creatures “‘give’ glory and honour and thanks to Him [. . . and] this means that they render or ascribe to him that which belongs to Him.”94 In acknowledging that Christ the King is also the Lamb, or that the risen One is also the crucified One,95 the creature simultaneously apprehends that the shadow side of creation is part of the history of divine providence. Therefore, this aspect of doxology derives from the fact that it is based on the self-disclosure of the glory of God in the resurrection. As this shadow is understood to be part of God’s good creation, the praise that the creature offers to him is, by implication, “analytic.” All of creation, including its history of suffering, belongs to him. This corresponds nicely with Barth’s original tripartite analysis of the event of the Word of God in I/1—that “God reveals himself as the Lord”—as an “analytical” judgment: We may sum all this up in the statement that God reveals Himself as the Lord. This statement is to be regarded as an analytical (analytisches) judgment. The distinction between form and content cannot be applied to the biblical concept of revelation [. . .] To act as Lord means to act as God in His revelation acts on man. To acquire a Lord is to acquire what man does in God when he receives this revelation [. . . this is] the root of the doctrine of the Trinity.96 The title of Barth’s large paragraph on providence is “God the Father as the Lord” of his creature.97 In God’s self-manifestation as triune, the creature properly does something “when he receives this revelation.” However, this “doing” on the part of the creature is misunderstood if it is thought of as adding something to who God is in the event of the Word. “Analytic” praise acknowledges the whole of the triune God in his self-disclosure of the Word, in the self-manifestation of his providential glory. H. Kirschstein claims that doxology has a fundamentally constitutive role for Barth’s doctrine of providence as early as 1914. Whenever Barth states at 93 96

94 95 CD III/3, p. 469. CD III/3, p. 466. Cf. Rev. 1.18; CD III/3, p. 471. 97 CD I/1, p. 307; KD I/1, p. 323. CD III/3, pp. 58–288.

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that time that prayer should “start at the beginning (mit dem Anfang anfangen),” he means to speak of God’s providential rule.98 Barth’s theology is fundamentally doxological because it is trinitarian.99 It is in the “Deus dixit” of Barth’s prolegomena that one finds the only criteria for a doxological response to the Word.100 Therefore, while Barth’s rhetoric at times appears to make “the praise of the Christian” necessary, this is not what he means, and it would be counterproductive to his doxological aim to assert this.101 Rather, doxology is signaled in Barth’s text “in the moment when the creature seems to be entirely orderly—that is when he nolens volens gives praise to God.” As a key example for a doxological formula, Kirschstein cites the following passage from §50: How surprised we shall be, and how ashamed of so much improper and unnecessary disquiet and discontent, once we are brought to realise that all creation both as light and shadow, including our own share in it, our puny and fleeting life, was laid on Jesus Christ as the creation of God, and that even though we did not see it, without and in spite of us, and while we were shaking our heads that things were not very different, it sang the praise of God just as it was, and was therefore right and perfect.102 The second aspect of doxology that is unique comes from the fact that it is a material participation in Christ. The abstract question of das Nichtige, which is also a hopeless question according to Barth, is how an incongruity can exist between divine holiness and omnipotence. Barth points to the hopelessness of this endeavor with a citation of van Mastricht, whose view of the problem of evil is “thinking especially of the unification of God’s holiness and omnipotence.” Barth asks why it is necessary that this question should be posed in the abstract: “what ground is there for saying that here we have something which ought to be unified?”103 Doxology chooses to extol “the Lion and the Lamb” rather than to explain a philosophical coordination between holiness and omnipotence. Doxology looks to Christ’s exaltation rather than attempting to resolve the problem of das Nichtige conceptually. In his exegesis of Revelation chapters four and five, not only is the earthly creature’s praise joined with the heavenly, but God’s will as Creator, as “Father” and as Almighty is conjoined with the holy Lamb, Christ. Christ is the priest and the king, and therefore, God is 98 99 100 101

102 103

Kirschstein, Der souverane Gott und die heilige Schrift, p. 35. Kirschstein, Der souverane Gott und die heilige Schrift, p. 263. Kirschstein, Der souverane Gott und die heilige Schrift, p. 264. Kirschstein asks this question pointedly: “Bedarf dieser herrliche Gott des ausdrücklichen Gottelobes der Christen?” Kirschstein, Der souverane Gott und die heilige Schrift, p. 264. CD III/3, p. 297; Kirschstein, Der souverane Gott und die heilige Schrift, p. 264. CD III/3, p. 294.

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holy and omnipotent. This recognition is a material participation in Christ because these are the material offices of Christ.104 This is why Christ is explicated as the expression of God’s “holy will” in providence at the outset of §49.105 In a material and therefore a doxological apprehension of Jesus Christ as both the Lion and the Lamb one comes to understand that God is both holy and omnipotent. Therefore, the problem of evil is concretely cast out by Christ’s self-disclosure in the Word: “in His relation to this sphere in the depths they recognize Him who sits on the throne as the Holy One, as the παντoκράτωρ.”106 The revelation of both divine perfections, as they belong to Jesus Christ, is given in his self-disclosure: “And it is the self-revelation of the Lamb which declares and confirms that the Lamb is the Lion.”107 To say this, that “the Lamb is the Lion,” is to allow a concrete visio Dei of the risen Christ to overcome the abstract question of evil. This concrete convergence of holiness and omnipotence in Jesus Christ comes through in The Christian Life, which is also, albeit more explicitly, guided by the Lord’s Prayer. Barth’s exposition on the hallowing of God’s name illuminates a similar resolution for the problem of evil. The Christian works actively in the world against any confusion between God’s holiness and omnipotence. The prayer “hallowed be” God’s name means that one petitions God for a sanctifying of his name in the present (cf. §77.3); in tandem, the Christian must “revolt” against the “disorder” that distorts this (cf. §78.1). When a correct apprehension of divine providence is made possible by a concrete participation in Christ, the “disorder” against which the Christian works and prays in §78.1 is a distortion of this true participation for which the Christian is determined. The disorder against which the Christian prays and works is also a misuse of human power, that is, the “Lordless Powers” (§78.2). For this reason, The Christian Life describes God’s impetus for the Christian to intervene in the context of both material offices through a practical working out of God’s self-sanctifying of his name in the present (i.e., in a prophetic context). This means that the Christian, who acts in the name of God’s power in Christ, must also stage a revolt against worldly abuses of power. In the Christian’s doxology, she is given a concrete visio Dei of the self-electing God in Jesus Christ that apprehends him as priest and king. This concretely coordinates divine holiness with omnipotence because it shows forth his material offices; the God of this visio Dei is shown to be both priest and king in his resurrection. Not surprisingly, this participation starts in heaven and then moves to earth: The purpose of fellowship between God and man, and therefore of the relationship of command and obedience that characterizes it, is determined in the covenant of grace by the fact that God’s glory and man’s 104 106

CD IV/3, p. 8. CD III/3, p. 467.

105 107

CD III/3, pp. 77–8. CD III/3, p. 470.

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salvation [. . .] is pregnantly described in the song of praise which, according to Luke 2:13f., “a multitude of heavenly host” sang on the night of the nativity of Jesus Christ. The purpose and result of the reconciliation effected in him, the covenant of grace in its final actualization, is that there took place together as one and the same thing, on the one side of the glory of God in the height of his sovereignty and holiness and in the depths of the earth, and on the other side the peace created by him for men of his good pleasure, their peace with God, with one another, and within themselves [. . .] The petition which he laid on the lips of his disciples and which they were to repeat (“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” Mt. 6.10) is already heard and fulfilled in him even before it is uttered.108 In a parallel passage in III/3, Barth extols this concrete coming of the Incarnation on the basis of the same two passages, allowing Lk. 2 to clarify Mt. 6.10. As it is recorded in Luke’s gospel, Christ is glorified on the basis of this incarnational descent. The same passage is spoken of as the movement of a eulogizing of God from heaven to earth, and is said to be a fulfillment of God’s will as it is expressed in the Lord’s Prayer. There is “no finer commentary” on the rendition of the Lord’s Prayer in Mt. 6, Barth says, than Luke’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem in Lk. 19.37f.109 Barth observes that the outcry of the disciples who say “Glory in the highest” upon Jesus’ messianic entry echoes the eulogizing of the angels who glorify God at the onset of the Incarnation in Lk. 2.13ff. Following the pattern of the participation of heaven in earth, the initial doxology of the angels is a proclamation of “peace” and “blessings” and “glory” in Lk. 2, and is eventually manifest in the human eulogizing of Christ on the part of the crowd at his messianic entry into Jerusalem.110 The vision of Christ that Barth pictures as eulogized by the angels in III/3 is, then, not far afield from a vision of him as holy and omnipotent. In both cases, the material content of the kingdom of heaven’s peace is brought to earth in the Incarnation of Christ. This is the second unique feature of doxology because it is a material participation in Christ’s material offices. It is this material participation in Christ that illuminates his resurrection and ushers in the joy of the Christian: “It is, of course, explicable that it is recorded of the earthly shepherds (Lk. 2.9) that when the glory of the Lord shone round them, they were sore afraid. But more attention should be paid to the answer of the angel: ‘Fear not, behold I bring you good tidings of great joy.’ ”111 While Barth’s “radical correction” takes up his early doctrine of providence at Göttingen and revises it, this doxological glance at the holiness and omnipotence of God in III/3 is what Barth had envisioned from the very 108 110

109 ChrL, p. 30. CD III/3, p. 447. 111 CD III/3, pp. 446–7. CD II/1, p. 645.

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beginning. For the Protestant orthodox, God is “all in all, but never as the ‘author of sin.’ ”112 In order to hold these two truths together at Göttingen, Barth appeals to the angelic doxology: “As soon as it concerns these matters, no apparent consequence should keep us from recognizing, that one may not simply continue the line of thought here, that the ‘Glory to God in the highest’ (Luke 2.14) must take up room here.”113 Therefore, even at Göttingen, Barth speaks from a standpoint that sees theodicy according to a relation between holiness and omnipotence, and the doxological praise of the angels is invoked to resolve this tension. In this light, Barth considers his 1949 doctrine to be aligned with the Reformed tradition in the sense that it is in the praiseworthiness of God that the problem of theodicy is supplanted.114 In III/3, Barth’s treatment of providence takes up doxology as the only apprehension of these two perfections. In this manner, Barth’s version of doxology is the material participation that is implied by his radical correction of the Protestant orthodox doctrine. This is the practical recognition that is the Christian belief in providence on account of the elevated importance of his doctrine of election above divine providence. This God can be apprehended as triune, as above any metaphysical concept of the “simple.”115 Rather, for the one who reads the first article of the creed in the light of the second, it is this God who lives and is apprehended “as the Lord.” Barth comes to the doctrine of angels as a climax within the context of the whole of III/3. His final chapter is doxological in the same sense as the final section of the Lord’s Prayer and the praise of the angels in heaven. As a response to the concrete presence of the risen Christ in heaven, and due to the fact that the praise of heaven has an incomprehensible bearing on human praise, theology is invited by heaven to think doxologically after the manner of the angels. In this way, theology is not distorted; it takes its rightful place as the obedient creature “says Yes” to the limits of creaturely life.116 It is only due to the incomprehensible distinction between heaven and earth that there can be this relation between heavenly and earthly praise. Even though he explains the advent of doxology as a culmination of the creature’s response to the Word “as the Lord,” the traditional dictum of I/1 cannot be broken, that God “reveals himself as the Lord.” Every event that occurs in this sequence on the side of creation still only occurs because of the grace that is given in this self-disclosure of God in his Word. However, grace determines that the creature should be a witness, and it comes across more clearly in §51 than anywhere else that witnessing involves the creature in a social network, a world that is shared with other creatures.117 This means that it is incumbent on Barth to craft a position on the heavenly realms that 112 114

115

113 GD II, §20. GD II, §20. Cf. Barth’s statement on his doctrine being aligned with the Reformed despite his “radical correction,” CD III/3, p. 3; cf. CD II/2, p. 78. 116 117 CD III/3, pp. 138–9, 342–3. CD III/3, p. 240. CD III/3, pp. 63–7.

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has a positive relation with earth without involving the angels in his theology as soteriological mediators. He is only able to maintain this position on account of his continued assertion that the relation between heaven and earth is categorically incomprehensible and that providence is categorically about the external basis of the covenant. This is the arena in which the praise of the angels is able to influence the theological thought of God’s creatures; this does not happen, however, if theology is not considered in response to the Word of God in the context of the covenant of grace.

V. Conclusion There is, in heaven, an ongoing doxology that praises God for all of his glorious perfections. This song takes place without any need for an external justification. It is a response to God’s own self-disclosure in the resurrection of Christ. This song is, in heaven, perfect. It is an obedient praise that takes place entirely at the behest of God’s will. Barth’s use of the Lord’s Prayer climaxes at this point, with a doxology that is not only given by the Lord to his disciples, but is an echo of the doxology that God commands his angels to perform in heaven. When we ascribe the “kingdom, power and glory” to God, we join in with an anterior, supereminent, and angelic chorus. Paragraph 51 follows Barth’s section on the Nihil for this intentional reason. The resurrection of Christ illuminates the meaning of his crucifixion and the “shadow” side of history. In this risen self-disclosure, Christ shows himself to be the One who is head over all things, even the suffering of human history. He is the One who “opens the book” of history and presides over all its events. Therefore, all creation can be called good and evil is understood from this standpoint as expelled from history altogether. This is the epitome of what Barth is doing theologically when he reasons on the basis of the material offices of Christ (i.e., priestly and kingly). Doxology is a theological praise that derives from a material participation in Christ. In this manner, the “faith, obedience and prayer” of §49.4 anticipates §51, which returns to this theme.118 How can the angels praise the God who presides over the evil events of history? Barth’s “material” doxological theology lives, at this point, as a theologia viatorum and as a testimonium paupertatis. For Barth, this means that theology stays true to its self-revealing object despite any conceptual difficulties that might result on account of earthly reason. It is, once again, due to the incomprehensible nature of heaven that a generic knowledge of creation does not tempt one to think of this as a confusing problem. Since “heaven” is more than “earth,” the most limitless human knowledge cannot fathom how these matters might cohere in heaven, on the side of creation where the risen King is seated. 118

CD III/3, 432–3.

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9 conclusion: a doxological theology

I. The “Radical Correction” Revisited In this work, I have proposed a reading of III/3 that understands the volume as an intentional unity. Throughout, I have maintained that Barth remains attentive to his own “radical correction” of the Protestant orthodox doctrine. Derivatively, I have argued that Barth articulates his doctrines of providence, evil, and the angelic realms according to the lex orandi. In this manner, he is able to deal with a number of conceptual difficulties more freely than the philosopher who attempts to understand providence in the context of a worldview. Therefore, Barth’s doctrine of providence is made possible for him on the presupposition that theological discourse is meaningful because it is given to the theologian, just as Christ gives a particular prayer to his disciples, that is, the Lord’s Prayer. I have also maintained that Barth follows this particular prayer as a guide for the way that God’s “cause” circumscribes and enjoins the “cause” of the creature in III/3. This aim is worked out by Barth in his own way, as he reiterates the traditional divisions for providence: conservatio, concursus, and gubernatio. The contextual challenge Barth faces with respect to divine providence is that he must describe a way of relating God’s governance with evil in the post-war situation in which he finds himself. Barth’s political environment in 1949 is a force in his thinking that reminds him of the possibilities of evil.1 This inevitably involves him in polemics against the various cultural structures which he understands as harboring wickedness. For Barth, the

1

T. Gorringe characterizes Barth’s doctrine of creation as a “response to the horrors of the period”; Gorringe, Against Hegemony, p. 13.

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appearance of good does not safeguard against the marrow of evil.2 Consequently, his dogmatic challenge in this situation is to find a way to refuse to forget the reality of war, and, at the same time, to still do theology “as if nothing had happened.”3 That is, theology must be done in such a way that his current situation is thought through theologically. Consequently, the reminders of war during his time are signs that more permanent, dogmatic questions need to be raised and answered as such. So, while Barth believes that evil retains the power to deceive the creature, he unashamedly maintains throughout III/3 the Reformation insight on the sovereignty of God.4 In the second chapter of this book, I argue that Barth’s mature doctrine of providence derives from his nuanced attempt to maintain a Reformed perspective on the qualitative distinction of God’s action. As he does this, he seeks to augment this distinction by directly incorporating divine holiness into all of God’s providential acts. For Barth, the Reformed understand the importance of omnipotence in divine providence, but not holiness. Therefore, Barth thinks that the Reformed lack an interest in thinking through the full implications of the doctrines of “grace and justification.”5 He sees the Reformed as equivocating about whether or not the will of God is faithful and holy in providence. He consequently maintains that the God of Reformed theology is “formless,”6 “neutral and featureless,”7 a “bored spectator,”8 potentially “capricious,”9 and could even be “finally wrathful even in [. . . his] grace.”10 In Barth’s context, if he had commended the Reformed doctrine as he understood it, it may well have inhibited his ability to address the various evils that he faced in his own context. On account of his radical correction, Barth sets out in III/3 to protect the doctrine of God from caprice by allowing the holiness of the self-electing God to permeate every aspect of divine providence. The pervasive importance of the holiness of God cannot be underestimated for his construal. Therefore, Barth’s understanding of gubernatio is “decisive” for his whole treatment.11 He feels that the Reformed conceded to a god of caprice and tyrannical indifference in the context of gubernatio. Therefore, Barth emphasizes in this section the government of God as repulsed by evil.12 Especially, 2

Barth’s concern for the deceptiveness of evil comes through III/3 throughout, and exceptionally in his culminating a history of the doctrine of providence “on the lips of Adolf Hitler” himself; CD III/3, p. 33. 3 K. Barth, Theological Existence Today! A Plea for Theological Freedom (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1933), p. 9. 4 Barth’s God is “as sovereign as Calvinist teaching describes”; CD III/3, p. 131. 5 6 7 CD III/3, p. 116. CD III/3, p. 30. CD III/3, p. 100. 8 9 10 CD III/3, p. 132. CD III/3, p. 118. CD III/3, p. 78. 11 CD III/3, p. 154. 12 In §49.3, Barth simply “oppose[s]” even raising the question of das Nichtige; CD III/3, p. 158.

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he maintains in §49.3 that all creatures are appropriately situated by God in the divine ruling according to his righteousness and holiness: For if the kingdom of this King means order, it is, therefore, a kingdom of righteousness, then this means that His plan and will, His co-ordinating of all of the activities and effects of all His creatures, does not encroach too much upon any one of them [. . .] For this is what distinguishes the totality which is raised up and sustained and maintained by the divine governance from the unholy hierarchy of a universal collective whole.13 Barth has to be satisfied with the result of his project at this very point: that the God of Reformed theology should be understood as “praiseworthy.” Noncapricious divine holiness must inform every aspect of the doctrine of providence. Therefore, Barth’s Christological doctrine of election enjoys a prominent dogmatic position above providence, and this enables him to make theological assertions that introduce the holiness of God into every aspect of divine providence. For Barth, it is “the high mystery of grace” that places divine providence in this light.14 However, Barth faces a theological difficulty at this very point. His criticism of the Reformed also comes with its own set of liabilities. While Barth’s employment of the tool of the doctrine of election rids him of the anxiety that he mentions so explicitly at Göttingen, he still must answer the question as to why, if the God of providence is truly holy, his holiness should not be evident in all historical events. In order for Barth to remain consistent with his “radical correction” through and through, he must also spell out two very important entailments of his doctrine of providence that follow. The first regards the ambiguity of the Christian’s apprehension of the holiness of God in the context of his participation in providence. The second regards the total realization of God’s will for the praise of the creature in heaven (and not on earth) as a necessary entailment of his construal of the will of God. I see both of these implications of the “radical correction” as, in the end, difficulties for Barth’s view.

II. Participation and the Father For Barth, theological language has a flexibility that belongs to the Christian’s participatio Christi. That is, his doctrine of election contextualizes providence in such a way that it is always set alongside the doctrine of reconciliation in a harmonious manner, through the Holy Spirit’s work.15 Therefore, Barth is able to articulate a doctrine of providence in the context 13

CD III/3, pp. 172–3.

14

CD III/3, p. 135.

15

CD III/3, pp. 6–7.

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of a tension between what I have called “formal” and “material” modes of participation in Christ. It is notable that this distinction becomes necessary on account of the delay of the manifestation of the holiness of God in the context of the prophetic office. That is, due to the fact that the Christian participates in all three of the differing offices of Christ, he will necessarily partake in apprehending a deferral of the revelation of the holiness of God. In order for Barth’s account to remain strong, he knows that he must account for how the relationship between the “Therefore” and the “Nevertheless” of the Christian should be thought of as “inwardly calm.”16 Barth’s employment of this distinction is, in practice, a calculated risk. That is, since he expels the lack of clarity he sees in the Reformed doctrine of God he must reposition the ambiguity. While Barth’s account begins with a concern that the Reformed equivocate about the nature of God as holy, what he maintains in reply is, in effect, a transposition of that ambiguity from the identity of God to the apprehensibility of his holiness in the context of the creature’s participation in providence. In this book, I maintain that a reading of the whole of III/3 allows the obedient Christian to be involved in the providence-evil distinction in various ways. Largely, these ways are seen as two typical modes of discerning the providence-evil relationship, which Barth signals with his use of terms, such as his use of “Therefore-Nevertheless” language. “Nevertheless” is said by the prophetic Christian, observing the relation between providence and evil in history. In this way, the Christian sees the relationship between the covenant of grace and the wider world with “seriousness.”17 From this particular standpoint, he soberly chooses not to “demythologize” Nothingness.18 The one who says “Nevertheless” sees God as the Lord of history even though the “how” of this Lordship is obscured by the hiddenness of the Word.19 Also, this perspective is indicative of “the same” participatio Christi as the “Therefore” of the Christian.20 Thus, in III/3, Barth asserts that these two perspectives are united in such a way that they are also distinct. In short, I question Barth as to whether God is known as holy specifically in the context of the Christian’s “Nevertheless” in a meaningful way. Is there any other reason for the Christian to state this “Nevertheless” than a practical deferral of an apprehension of God’s holiness? This question is an important one for III/3 because it shows Barth’s dogmatic priority. When speaking of the way that divine holiness impacts the Christian’s participatio Christi, he lacks the exactitude that he clearly applies to his “radical correction.” Therefore, I suggest that Barth’s lack of clarity here points to the priority he places on maintaining the very identity of God as holy. When faced with the difficulties that beset the doctrine of divine 16 19

17 18 CD III/3, p. 189. CD III/3, p. 295. CD III/3, p. 300. 20 CD III/3, pp. 44, 248–50. CD III/3, p. 248.

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providence, especially after the two great wars, he feels that the resources of the tradition are insufficient for inculcating the layperson with the sense of joy that the biblical doctrine of providence—and, indeed, the Reformed tradition itself—expects. In order for the layperson to praise the God of providence, that God must be sovereign and worthy to receive honor for the speckled majesty of the created world. However, this God must also be holy, and must not be complicit in the evil deeds of men as he sustains that creation. For Barth, in order for God to be praiseworthy, he must be both of these things. Therefore, he finds himself presented with a necessary either-or. If the doctrine of providence is to fulfill its doxological function, Barth feels that one must either equivocate about whether holiness can be said to describe the very will of God—as the Reformed supposedly do—or one must describe the way that the Christian participates in providence as only capable of an occasional apprehension of the sovereign-and-holy God who meets us in Jesus Christ.21 Barth chooses the latter option with the advent of his “radical correction.” Throughout III/3, the crucial importance that is given to the role of the Spirit continually recenters Barth’s epistemic question as to how to discern the holiness of God on the ontological one, on the very nature of God as triune.22 Only the advent of God’s self-disclosure in the Spirit can make the discernment of the Christian meaningful. Evidently, then, knowledge of divine providence depends on whether or not one partakes in an active fellowship with the triune God. Barth’s allocation of this role to the Spirit of God changes things. Prayer does not appear to be a methodology for this reason, because the prayer of the theologian only takes place at the behest of the One who stands on his side and prays for him in the Spirit. However, tensions remain. Barth’s employment of prayer as a completion of the event of the Word in this volume takes on a very methodological shape. That is, Barth’s move to employ the lex orandi in III/3 expends a great deal of energy in delineating what kinds of assertions are and are not appropriate for the obedient theologian. He asks this question: given a practical deferral of the holiness of God in divine providence, how might the obedient disciple of Christ think about causality in a faithful way? Barth points to prayer as a significant part of the answer. This gesture employs the advent of prayer in the Spirit to the rescue of the difficulty that characterizes his account. This means that he must focus a great deal of his attention on what true prayer looks like when it is a theological response to God in the context of the work of the Spirit of God.

21

22

It seems that there can be no third way for Barth in this regard. The reasons why this should be an incontrovertible either-or for him is an intriguing matter. CD III/3, pp. 31, 117, 142, 194–5.

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Barth’s version of prayer in this volume continually orbits around the importance of the Son and the Spirit for apprehending the God of providence. As Irenaeus would call them, these “two hands” of God clarify who we speak of when we speak of the “Father.” However, Barth has a difficulty here because, in an all-out attempt to clarify who the “Father” is, he ends up nearly avoiding speaking of him in practice. That is, questions regarding the mediatory work of the Son and Spirit dominate Barth’s description in this volume because these two members of the Trinity provide him with the conceptual apparatus he needs for his theology of prayer. In effect, all of this happens at the expense of a weighty, doxological focus upon the Father in the context of the doctrine of providence. As he does this, Barth’s version of prayer runs the risk of becoming a theological methodology. As an entailment of the Christological concentration that belongs to his “radical correction,” Barth’s theological use of prayer in III/3 also has a narrowing effect that constricts his doxological focus on the whole. When discussing what it means to reference the “Father” in III/3, a concern with the boundaries of obedient theological speech is especially evident.23 Barth actually says very little about the Father in §49, which is his prominent section for defining providence and is even entitled “God the Father as the Lord of His Creature.” Rather, in a brief section in the preceding §48, he explains how our theological referencing of the “Father” must be qualified by the doctrine of God’s self-election in Christ. After his quotation of Jn 14.9 (“he that hath seen me hath seen the Father”) in §48.2, he says very little about the Father in the rest of the volume.24 Barth’s doctrine of election is employed here to provide an exclusively Christological context for any subsequent language about the Father in III/3. At this point, I ask if Barth’s version of doxology has been narrowed by his doctrine of election. What, then, can we say about the Father after ingesting Barth’s Christological doctrine of election? The roles of the Son and the Spirit appear to do more than simply clarify the Father as holy and merciful; rather, they nearly eclipse him in practice. This narrowing can also be said to limit what Barth says about prayer and its methodological importance in III/3. In this volume, Barth points to the Lord’s Prayer with a dominant focus on the way that Christ utilizes it as our advocate and exemplar. However, biblically, Christ’s focus in

23

24

J. Webster points out that it is common for Barth, in his referring to the Father, to concentrate on questions related to theological language and the self-clarification of God as merciful in Christ in order to avoid the confusion that sees his majesty as a potential threat: “Divine paternity is not a postulate for Barth, a consoling or threatening projection. It is that ‘which he is’ . . . Barth’s morphology of Christian speech examines language as it were from the other end—from the controls set upon it by that to which it refers;” Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, p. 178. CD III/3, p. 29.

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Matthew 6 and Luke 11 is on the disciple’s direct address to the Father.25 This, then, is a problem congruent with his lack of attention to the Father because Barth actually makes very little reference to the biblical context for the Lord’s Prayer in III/3. Why does he not deal with the Matthean account where he explicitly focuses on providence and prayer in §49.4? At this point, it seems that Barth is more attentive to the structural role given to the Son and the Spirit in his account than he is to the biblical context of the Lord’s Prayer.

III. Heavenly Praise and the Afterlife A second entailment of Barth’s radical correction is his explication of the Kingdom of Heaven. In my initial chapter on Barth’s interpretation of the Reformed, I note that he combines what they would call the orders of “being” and of “morals” into one. That is, due to the fact that the providential will of God, as it is invested in Jesus Christ in election, is entirely holy, the very being of the creature must be envisioned according to God’s determination that he should praise the Creator. The providence of God expects the praise of the creature and so the very being of the creature is explicated as praise. Of course, it was very evident to Barth that Adolf Hitler did not voluntarily praise God. Rather, a deferral of the manifest holiness of God also exerts theological pressure at this juncture. In order to ensure that the God who wills to sustain, accompany, and rule every event of history should not be circumvented by the creature’s sin (i.e., the creature’s ceasing to pray), Barth is pressed to find a sphere in creation where sin does not exist (i.e., where prayer does not cease).26 “God expects the praise of His creature [. . . and] this expectation of God makes the praise of God necessary.”27 This is the logical frame within which Barth employs the oft-repeated phrase from the Lord’s Prayer in III/3 that the will of God should be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” Heaven is a place where the providential will of God for the creature’s praise is already realized de facto “even where the earthly creature seems to be sadly lacking with its praise.”28 In order for Barth to remain consistent with his “radical correction,” he cannot simply reposition the problem of the Christian’s knowledge of the holiness of God to a participatio Christi. He also has to explain how it is 25

26

27

“Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him,” Mt. 6.9. In Barth’s account, heaven is clearly a created place: “When we have to do with heaven and therefore with angels, we are wholly within the sphere of the creature,” CD III/3, p. 421. 28 CD III/3, p. 461. CD III/3, p. 462.

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not a problem for the doctrine of God itself that an omnipotent and holy will is not contravened by human sin in history. An ontological explication must be offered here that repositions the creature so that God’s will goes unchallenged, even when and where the creature ceases to praise him. Just as Barth transposes the ambiguity of potential caprice in the Reformed account of the will of God to the Christian’s participation in providence, he also transposes the realization of that holy will from earth to heaven. This transposition presses Barth’s version of heaven into a very contemporaneous relationship with earth, and distances his version of heaven from a future “place,” for example, that might be understood as an abode for the afterlife. Traditionally, a statement on heaven would naturally be congruent with a theological description of the afterlife. However, D. Kennedy points out that Barth is nontraditional in his dealing with the question of “eternal life” under the rubric of the Divine Preserving in §49.1 rather than in his section on the Kingdom of Heaven (i.e., §51).29 That is, by repositioning the question of “eternal life” to the context of the creature’s conservatio, Barth, so to speak, squeezes the juice out of the traditional doctrine of the afterlife by eliminating its traditional setting. While Barth’s statements in §49.1 about the cessation of God’s preservation of the creature at death are cryptic, he also creates a second safeguard against a traditional notion of the afterlife by denying it a meaningful context. This is not a mistake on Barth’s part. From II/1, it can be shown that Barth is averse to pietistic versions of heaven as a “pie in the sky,” self-serving reward system. In one place, he even calls heaven “Cloudcuckooland.”30 Statements like these are made by Barth as an affirmation of the unity of God’s creation and as a repudiation of any cosmic dualism. However, as he denies any cosmic duality, Barth exchanges this for what appears to be a Kant-like, epistemic duality. I will return to the matter of “eternal life” in III/3 in a moment. Following his “radical correction,” in order for Barth’s view of the uncompromising will of God as holy to remain consistent, he needs to posit a creaturely sphere that is absolutely obedient. This is how he describes the angelic realms.31 However, heaven must also be a sphere that presides over the whole of the rest of creation (i.e., “earth”) so that the praise of heaven, so to speak, will “count” for, and will “stand in the place of” the disobedient creature on earth. Since the realization of God’s holy will for creation must 29 30

31

Cf. Kennedy, “A Personalist Doctrine of Providence,” p. 215. CD II/1, p. 475; “Wolkenkukuksheim”; KD II/1, p. 535. In this statement, Barth contrasts his own notion of heaven, which encompasses all spaces, with a view of heaven as a cosmic “Nowhere,” a place where God’s presence hypothetically does not rest. Barth’s statement here is a repudiation of any cosmic dualism. “Whatever the manner of heaven, its being is an obedient being”; CD III/3, p. 444.

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be one, “heaven” and “earth” must be ontically connected. This natural union of heaven and earth presses Barth to delineate between them in terms of their knowability. Barth describes earth as distinct in terms of its epistemic accessibility: it is the “sphere of man; the sphere of his vision and comprehension; the sphere of his access and capacity.”32 On the other hand, heaven is described as the “unknowable” that “waits at the limits of the knowable.”33 It also seems that Barth aims to reinforce an epistemic distinction as the context for his account of heaven by opening it with a discussion of the difference between biblical “saga” and “history.”34 Barth feels the need to mention that his position is not a reiteration of modern categories.35 That is, he wants to assure his reader that he is making a dogmatic, rather than a Kantian distinction. Barth says that heaven is not even graspable on the boundary of our best philosophical notions. Heaven does not wait for us as an idea on the frontier of what cannot be grasped by the senses.36 Rather, heaven is one step further removed from human knowledge and is, in principle, incomprehensible. Barth’s creative thinking here is commendable for his attempt, which shows his signature of combining biblical insight with dexterity of thought. Whether or not Barth’s description of heaven is theological enough to avoid being Kantian is not my concern. Rather, with the doctrine of the afterlife in view, the presence of a strong, epistemic duality in Barth’s account (at least, strong enough for Barth to feel the need to mention that he is merely adhering to the Bible) is a necessary correlate for what he sees as a strong, cosmic duality in traditional accounts. That is, to the extent that Barth employs an epistemic duality in his explication of the nature of heaven, he distances himself from traditional accounts which adhere to the notion of an afterlife. Barth’s revision of the Reformed position insists that divine holiness necessitates unceasing praise on the part of the creature due to the omnipotent-and-holy will of God. Therefore, unceasing praise must belong to the whole of the created order. As a response to the problem of historic sin, Barth posits two parts of the created world: one where there is sin (earth) 32 34

35

36

33 CD III/3, p. 424. CD III/3, p. 425. “In saying this, we take consciously and expressly into account the fact that when the Bible speaks of angels (and their demonic counterparts) it always introduces us to a sphere where historically verifiable history, i.e., the history which is comprehensible by the known analogies of world history, passes over into historically non-verifiable legend”; CD III/3, p. 374. Angels “are figures of biblical saga and legend [. . .] It is a factual explanation of their distinctive being and action. Nor is it a concession to modern thought. The distinction between documented history and saga is a possibility of modern thought. We make no use of it”; CD III/3, p. 375. “The frontier between the visible and the invisible is not co-extensive in the Bible with the frontier between heaven and earth”; CD III/3, p. 425.

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and one where there is not (heaven). Unceasing praise belongs to the heavenly side of things. In order for the providential will of God to be safeguarded on the earthly side, furthermore, it also follows this that the praise of heaven must be positioned as supervening over all of the darker moments of sin, injustice, and evil on the earthly side. In this manner, Barth’s “radical correction” presses him to position heaven at the incomprehensible boundary of what is unknowable about the created world in the present. This decenters Barth’s notion of “eternal life” in the Church Dogmatics from the notion of an eternity beyond death and recenters it on a present satisfaction with the presence of God in his gracious self-bestowal in Christ, whose session takes place from a heavenly standpoint.37 Barth’s position on “eternal life” betrays his insensitivity to the afterlife as a legitimate aspect of the locus of providence. His discussion of the preservation of the creature at the end of §49.1 goes against the tradition and argues for a contemporaneous view of “eternal life.”38 As he approaches the end of his doctrine of reconciliation, he does put forward some exegetical concerns that point to a life “beyond,” but this is the exception in the Church Dogmatics.39 Rather, and on the whole, Barth’s position on heaven is shaped by his “radical correction.”

IV. Sinking Peter, the Theologian Despite Barth’s difficulties, his position in III/3 is a thoroughgoing defense of the identity of God from conceptual constraint. He is, in fact, very aware of the difficulties that I mention here, but he does not consider them to be insuperable. Barth fights a very unique battle in his context. Overall, he is very focused on an implicit concern, and it is not a concern with the problem of equivocation in the context of providence. Rather, Barth shows himself to be concerned with providence in order to safeguard the identity of God as faithful and holy. He does not provide criteria for discerning that holiness in practice. Rather, Barth feels that the identity of God as holy must be protected at any cost. If one must choose between equivocating about the sense in which history is “hallowed” in Christ and the identity of God, one must safeguard the praiseworthiness of God from any dogmatic intrusion. That is, it is the duty of the Christian to hallow the name of God in the very act of praying forth a doctrine of providence. Nothing deserves more protection than the very identity of God, which can so easily be coopted by lawless regimes, and this is only possible, he would say, if we “begin at the beginning” by directing our adoration to the God of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 37

38

I am in agreement with gist of Berkouwer’s argument that Barth’s Christological method made it too difficult for him to affirm a robust view of the afterlife; Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, pp. 157–65. 39 CD III/3, pp. 88–90. Cf. CD IV/3, pp. 924–8.

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For Barth, a faithful theology of providence is an active hallowing of God’s name, a task that is given to the disciple by the Lord himself. The unique thing about his account, furthermore, is how this insight permeates his text in practice. Refusing at every point to slip into the abstract, Barth insists that his repositioning of providence should follow the Lord’s Prayer as a guide. Therefore, Barth writes his doctrine of providence on his knees. Like “sinking Peter,” who turns away from anxiety toward Christ in a moment of dire need, he soberly assures us that this is the correct stance of the theologian before the Lord of history.40 Therefore, he prays his way through the doctrine of providence, and he does this according to the prayer that is given to him by the Lord.

40

CD III/3, p. 249; IV/2, pp. 388, 391, 538; IV/3, p. 673; Barth, “The World’s Disorder and God’s Design,” p. 12.

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bibliography

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Geiger, M., “Providentia dei: Uberlegungen zur christlichen Vorsehungslehre und dem Problem der Beziehung Gott-Welt,” in Parrhesia: Karl Barth zum achtzigsten Geburtstag am 10 Mai 1966 (Zurich: EVZ-Verlag, 1966), pp. 673–707. Gerrish, B. A. and D. DeVries, “Providence and Grace: Schleiermacher on Justification and Election,” in Jacqueline Marina (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 189–207. Gilkey, L. B., “The Concept of Providence in Contemporary Theology,” The Journal of Religion 43.3 (1963), pp. 171–92. —Reaping the Whirlwind (New York: Seabury Press, 1981). Glomsrud, R., “Karl Barth as a Historical Theologian: The Recovery of Reformed Theology in Barth’s Early Dogmatics,” in D. Gibson and D. Strange (eds), Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques (Nottingham: Apollos, 2008; New York: T&T Clark International, 2009), pp. 84–112. Gockel, M., “On the Way from Schleiermacher to Barth: A Critical Reappraisal of Isaak August Dorner’s Essay on Divine Immutability,” Scottish Journal of Theology 53 (2000), pp. 490–510. Goebel, H. T., “Struktur und Aussageabsicht der Vorsehungslehre K. Barths. Historische und dogmatische Analyse von KD III/3,” Zeitschrift für Dialektische Theologie 10.2 (1994), pp. 135–58. Gorringe, T., God’s Theatre: A Theology of Providence (London: SCM Press, 1991). —Against Hegemony: Christian Theology in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Hägglund, B., “Die Vorsehungslehre bei Karl Barth vor dem Hintergrund der altprotestantischen Tradition,” in Luther und Barth (Erlangen: Martin-Luther-Verlag, 1989), pp. 37–51. Hempelmann, H., Unaufhebbare Subjektivitat Gottes: Probleme einer Lehre vom concursus divinus dargestellt an Hand von Karl Barths Kirchlicher Dogmatik (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 1992). Heppe, H., Reformed Dogmatics (trans. G. T. Thompson; repr., London: Wakeman Great Reprints, 1950). Hick, J., Evil and the God of Love (London: Macmillan 1977). Horton, M., Lord and Servant: A Covenant Christology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005). Hunsinger, G., How To Read Karl Barth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). —Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). Hunsinger, G. (ed.), Karl Barth and Radical Politics (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976). Husbands, M. A., “Barth’s Ethics of Prayer: A Study in Moral Ontology and Action” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto, 2005). Jenson, R., Systematic Theology (vol. 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). —Alpha and Omega: A Study in the Theology of Karl Barth (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1963; repr., Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2002). Johnson, W. S., The Mystery of God: Karl Barth and the Postmodern Foundations of Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997). Jones, P. D., “Karl Barth on Gethsemane,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 9.2 (2007), pp. 148–71.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Jüngel, E., God’s Being Is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth (trans. J. Webster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). Kennedy, D., “A Personalist Doctrine of Providence: Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics III.3 In Conversation With Philosophical Theology” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2007). Kirschstein, H., Der souverane Gott und die heilige Schrift: Einfuhrung in die Biblische Hermeneutik Karl Barths (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 1998). Krötke, W., “Gott und Mensch als ‘Partner’: zur Bedeutung einer zentralen Kategorie in Karl Barths Kirchlicher Dogmatik,” in Eberhard Jüngel (ed.), Zur Theologie Karl Barths: Beitrage aus Anlass seines 100. Geburtstags (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1986), pp. 158–75. —“The Humanity of the Human Person in Karl Barth’s Anthropology,” in John Webster (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 159–76. —Sin and Nothingness in the Theology of Karl Barth (ed. C. M. Bammel; trans. P. G. Ziegler; Princeton: Princeton Theological Seminary, 2005). Love, G. W., “The Role of the Holy Spirit in Barth’s Understanding of the Conjoining of Divine and Human Activity in Divine Providence” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1996). Mangina, J., Karl Barth on the Christian Life: The Practical Knowledge of God (ed. Paul Molnar; vol. 8; New York: Peter Lang, 2001). —Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness (Burlington: Ashgate, 2004). —“Apocalypticizing Dogmatics: Karl Barth’s Reading of the Book of Revelation,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 1.2 (2007), pp. 193–208. McCormack, B. L., “Grace and Being: The Role of God’s Gracious Election in Karl Barth’s Theological Ontology,” in John Webster (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 92–110. —Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). —“Participation in God, Yes, Deification, No: Two Modern Protestant Responses to an Ancient Question,” in J. Fischer, I. U. Dalferth, and H. P. Grosshans (eds), Denwurdiges Geheimnis, Beitrage zur Gotteslehre: Festchrift fur Eberhard Jungel zum 70. Geburtstag (Mohr Siebeck, 2004), pp. 347–74. —“The Actuality of God: Karl Barth in Conversation with Open Theism,” in Bruce L. McCormack (ed.), Engaging the Doctrine of God: Contemporary Protestant Perspectives (Grand Rapids: Rutherford House, 2008). McDowell, J., Hope in Barth’s Eschatology: Interrogations and Transformations Beyond Tragedy (Burlington: Ashgate, 2000). —“Much Ado about Nothing: Karl Barth’s Being Unable to Do Nothing about Nothingness,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 4.3 (2002), pp. 319–35. —“‘Mend Your Speech a Little’: Reading Karl Barth’s das Nichtige through Donald MacKinnon’s Tragic Vision,” in J. McDowell and M. Highton (eds), Conversing with Barth (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 142–71. —“‘Openness to the World’: Karl Barth’s Evangelical Theology of Christ as the Pray-er,” (Unpublished conference paper, Karl Barth Society of North America, American Academy of Religion; San Diego, 2007).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Moltmann, J., The Crucified God (trans. R. A. Wilson and J. Bowden; New York: Harper & Row, 1974). Muller, R. A., “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists’: Assessing Continuities and Discontinuities Between the Reformation and Orthodoxy (Part One),” Calvin Theological Journal 30 (1995), pp. 345–75. —“Calvin and the ‘Calvinists’: Assessing Continuities and Discontinuities Between the Reformation and Orthodoxy (Part Two),” Calvin Theological Journal 31 (1996), pp. 125–60. —Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (vol. 3, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003). —“The Placement of Predestination in Reformed Theology: Issue or Non-Issue”?, Calvin Theological Journal 40 (2005), pp. 184–210. Neder, A., “A Differentiated Fellowship of Action: Participation in Christ in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics,” (Doctoral dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2005). —Participation in Christ: An Entry into Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009). Nimmo, P., “Karl Barth and the concursus Dei-A Chalcedonianism Too Far”?, International Journal of Systematic Theology 9.1 (2007), pp. 58–72. Okholm, D. L., “Petitionary Prayer and Providence in Two Contemporary Perspectives: Karl Barth and Norman Pittenger,” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1986). Pannenberg, W., Systematic Theology (trans. G. W. Bromiley; vol. 2; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991). Pascal, B., Pensées (ed. Mortimer J. Adler; trans. W. F. Trotter; Great Books of the Western World; vol. 33; Chicago: William Benton, 1952). Plathow, M., Das Problem des concursus divinus: Das Zusammenwirken von göttlichen Schöpferwirken und geschöpflichem Eigenwirken in K. Barths “Kirchlicher Dogmatik” (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1976). Rodin, R. S., Evil and Theodicy in the Theology of Karl Barth (New York: Peter Lang, 1997). Ruether, R. R., “The Left Hand of God in the Theology of Karl Barth: Karl Barth as a Mythopoetic Theologian,” Journal of Religious Thought 25 (1968–69), pp. 3–26. Saxer, E., Vorsehung und Verheissung Gottes: vier theologische Modelle (Calvin, Schleiermacher, Barth, Sölle) und ein systematischer Versuch (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1980). Schleiermacher, F., The Christian Faith (ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart; repr., London: T&T Clark, 2003). Schmid, H., The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2008). Schröder, C., “‘I see something you don’t see’: Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Providence,” in G. Hunsinger (ed.), For the Sake of the World: Karl Barth and the Future of Ecclesial Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), pp. 115–35. Schwiezer, A., Die Glaubenslehre der evangelisch-reformierten Kirche dargestellt und aus den Quellen belegt (Zurich, 1844–47).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Schwöbel, C., God: Action and Revelation (Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1992). —“Imago Libertatis: Human and Divine Freedom,” in Colin E. Gunton (ed.), God and Freedom: Essays in Historical and Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995). Sherman, R., “Isaak August Dorner on Divine Immutability: A Missing Link Between Schleiermacher and Barth,” Journal of Religion 77 (1997), pp. 380–401. —The Shift to Modernity: Christ and the Doctrine of Creation in the Theologies of Schleiermacher and Barth (London: T&T Clark, 2005). Stevenson, K. W., The Lord’s Prayer: A Text in Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004). Tanner, K., God and Creation in Christian Theology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988). —“Creation and Providence,” in John Webster (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 111–26. Tilley, T. W., The Evils of Theodicy (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2000). Torrance, J. B., Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1996). Trueman, C., “Calvin, Barth and Reformed Theology: Historical Prologomena,” in N. B. MacDonald and C. Trueman (eds), Calvin, Barth and Reformed Theology (Colorado Springs: Paternoster 2008), pp. 3–26. Turretin, F., Institutes of Elenctic Theology (ed. J. T. Dennison; trans. G. M. Giger; vol. 1; Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company, 1992). Weber, O., Foundations of Dogmatics (trans. D. L. Guder; vol. 1; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981). Webster, J., Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). —Barth’s Moral Theology: Human Action in Barth’s Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). —Barth’s Earlier Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2005). Welker, M., Creation and Reality (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999). Whitehouse, W. A., Creation, Science & Theology: Essays in Response to Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981). Wolterstorff, N., “Barth on Evil,” Faith and Philosophy 13.4 (1996), pp. 584–608. Wood, C., “Providence,” in J. Webster, K. Tanner and I. Torrance (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Wüthrich, M. D., Gott und das Nichtige: zur Rede vom Nichtigen ausgehend von Karl Barths KD §50 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2006).

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index of subjects

afterlife 48n. 33, 216–19 already-not yet 8, 53, 92, 99–100, 126 tension between 53, 92–100, 111– 13, 129–30 analogy of being (analogia entis) 37n. 101 of operations (analogia operationis) 76 angels 193–9 apokatastasis 183n. 153 Apostle’s Creed 28, 36–9, 41, 43–4, 48n. 33, 55, 128–9, 201–2 Aristotle 77 atonement 43, 45–7, 50–1, 106 cause 60, 62, 65–7, 76 as conditioning of another 76–7, 87–90 concursus 58–91 conservatio 42–57 creation creatio ex nihilo 51–4 initial moment of 42 demythologizing of Nothingness 7, 193 Denkform 113n. 104, 181–2 election 19 in Jesus Christ 25, 45 and providence 19, 27–35, 40, 50–1, 54, 70–7, 94 relation with participatio Christi 11n. 4, 27 Yes and No of 54n. 68

exorcism 29 of fear complex 61, 85, 123 of theology 29n. 61, 85 Göttingen Dogmatics election 19 lecture on providence 12–21, 23 gubernatio 92–130 two standpoints 92–100, 124–6 heaven Barth’s position on 216–19 divine action from 188–9, 216–17 related with earth 195–9 Holy Spirit 63–4, 78–9, 82, 87–90, 101, 122, 126, 180 Israel 105–8, 128n. 168 lex orandi 5n. 11, 7–8, 58, 144 Lord’s Prayer as constitutive for III/3 3–6, 143–50, 215–16 doxology of 151, 191–2 eschatological tension in 126–9 hallowing of Father’s name 43, 57, 147, 219 lectures on 5n. 10 on earth as in heaven 60–1, 189n. 12 structure of 62–3, 131 thy kingdom come 92, 95, 111–12, 127–8, 130 necessity 38n. 106 contingency and 14–15, 101–2, 106–7

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS modern idea of 77, 88 Nothingness (Das Nichtige) 153–86 defeat of 27, 51, 56, 149, 189–93 definition of 162–3 Gen. 1, 2, 53n. 64 hominum confusione 56, 115–21, 129, 154–8 lordless powers 110, 193 and Lord’s Prayer 6, 155–8 Manichaeism 174–80 and non-being 51–3 perceived rightly 51–6, 109–24, 160, 164–73, 205–9 permission 8, 26, 109–14, 118, 124 privation 53 providentia circa malum 13n. 14, 17–21, 26, 40 and shadow side 52–6, 111–20, 123, 157–8, 160, 164–73, 176, 200, 203–9 and sin 169–70, 176 order of being, morals 33–6, 64 participation in Christ (participatio Christi) formal and material 7n. 22, 100, 122n. 141, 135–43, 140–3, 178–80, 206–7 promeity 139 question of “extent” 48–9, 108–15, 121, 126 visio Dei 9n. 31, 107, 114–16, 121–3, 126, 178, 195, 200–8 voluntary and involuntary 57, 121, 132–4 praiseworthiness (of God) 19, 28, 40, 52–3, 64–5, 212 prayer determination for the creature 29, 32, 36, 46, 51, 143 faith and obedience 135–43

as theology 60–1, 74–6, 78–9, 82, 108, 121–4, 148–52, 181, 188–93, 195 without ceasing 4, 56, 143–4, 216–17 quietism 25, 81 reconciliation, doctrine of 8, 135–43 Reformed orthodox theologians 14–17, 22, 43 theology of providence 20–2, 43, 63, 77, 81, 83–4, 105, 207–8, 208n. 114, 210–12 resurrection of Christ 189–93 and doxology 188–93 suffering in Barth’s time 1, 210–11 of the Christian 118–21 of Golgotha 118–21, 189–93 synergism 82–3 therefore and nevertheless 7, 122–3, 142–3, 213 threefold offices of Christ (triplex munus) 6–7, 109–15, 129–30, 135–43, 178–85 kingly office 89, 105–7, 126, 128, 135–43, 205–8 prophetic office and Nothingness 113n. 104, 115–18, 172 and providence 118–24, 135–43, 181–5 vocation 118–21, 123–4 will divine will 10, 18, 21, 23, 28, 33, 41, 44–5, 94 hidden will 18–19, 24, 44–5 world view 3, 7, 117, 210

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index of names

Arendt, H. 154 Augustine 48, 52, 134, 156 Berkouwer, G. C. 1, 23, 45, 48, 52, 59, 99–100, 155, 182, 195, 219 Bernhardt, R. 1, 107, 167 Blocher, H. 174, 179 Bosc, J. 93 Burgess, A. 140 Busch, E. 46 Calvin, J. 11, 14, 22, 102, 145n. 59, 194n. 43 Cocceius, J. 84 Davies, H. 1 Dempsey, M. T. 4n. 9, 55, 86, 96–100, 123, 143 DeVries, D. 46 Dorner, I. A. 46 Dorrien, G. 1 Duthie, C. 1

Hägglund, B. 12, 49n. 39, 52, 76 Hartounian, J. 121 Heidegger, J. H. 14–15, 53 Heidegger, M. 175–6 Hempelmann, H. 2–3, 60, 65–6 Heppe, H. 13–14, 18 Hick, J. 1, 165 Horton, M. 55 Hunsinger, G. 2n. 2, 3n. 6, 60, 66, 88, 93, 115 Husbands, M. 139 Jenson, R. 120, 184, 198 Johnson, W. S. 64, 69, 103, 167 Jones, P. D. 184, 120 Jüngel, E. 83 Kennedy, D. 4n. 9, 48n. 33, 98, 196, 217 Kirschstein, H. 196, 204–5 Krötke, W. 24, 48, 52–3, 68–72, 168, 175, 188

Farrow, D. 140 Frei, H. 87

Leibniz, G. W. 52, 175 Lipsius, R. A. 16, 49 Love, G. W. 3n. 6, 60, 66, 95

Geiger, M. 11–12, 45–6, 77, 83, 160 Gerhard, J. 49 Gerrish, B. A. 46 Gilkey, L. B. 1, 66, 93 Glomsrud, R. 17 Goebel, H. T. 140, 146 Gorringe, T. 54, 79, 96, 128, 159, 180, 197–8, 208

McCormack, B. 6, 29n. 69, 69, 137, 148 McDowell, J. 48, 61, 87, 96, 100, 178–9 Mangina, J. 137, 139, 144, 154, 193, 195 Moltmann, J. 81 Mozart, W. A. 2, 8

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INDEX OF NAMES Müller, J. 175 Muller, R. A. 17, 22 Neder, A. 137, 139 Nimmo, P. 3 Okholm, D. 2 Origen 128, 183n. 153 Pannenberg, W. 194–5 Pascal, B. 58 Plathow, M. 2 Rendtorff, T. 68 Rodin, R. S. 180 Ruether, R. R. 166n. 72 Sartre, J. P. 37, 175–6 Saxer, E. 2, 45, 95, 166 Schleiermacher, F. 40, 46, 161n. 37, 175 Schmid, H. 59 Schröder, C. 66

Schweizer, A. 16 Schwöbel, C. 55, 61 Sherman, R. 40, 46 Stevenson, K. W. 128, 134, 156 Tanner, K. 3, 60, 68, 94 Tertullian 134 Torrance, J. B. 188 Trueman, C. 17 Turretin, F. 34–5, 59, 194n. 43 van Mastricht, P. 100 Weber, O. 1, 96 Webster, J. 2, 13n. 11, 84, 137, 174, 183, 215 Welker, M. 199 Wendelin, M. F. 103 Whitehouse, W. A. 104, 115 Wingren, G. 177 Wolterstorff, N. 154–5 Wood, C. 1 Wüthrich, M. 99, 166, 171, 181

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