The Freedom of God For Us: Karl Barth's Doctrine of Divine Aseity 9780567520715, 9780567659606, 9780567272041

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T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology Edited by John Webster Ian A. McFarland Ivor Davidson Volume 25

The Freedom of God For Us Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Divine Aseity by Brian D. Asbill

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

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www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2015 Paperback edition first published 2016 © Brian D. Asbill, 2015 Brian D. Asbill has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-0-5675-2071-5 PB: 978-0-567-66953-7 ePDF: 978-0-5672-7204-1 ePub: 978-0-5673-0146-8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Asbill, Brian D. The freedom of God for us: Karl Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity/by Brian D. Asbill. – 1st [edition]. pages cm. – (T&T Clark studies in systematic theology; v. 25) ISBN 978-0-567-52071-5 (hbk) – ISBN 978-0-567-27204-1 (epdf) – ISBN 978-0-567-30146-8 (epub) 1. Barth, Karl, 1886–1968. 2. God (Christianity)–History of doctrines. I. Title. BT103.B37A83 2014 231–dc23 2014026021 Series: T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain

To the Rev. Dr. Stephen T. Colbert who awoke me from my dogmatic slumber

Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Abstract

1

Introduction God’s aseity in the Christian tradition A historical sketch Theological functions and contexts God’s aseity in Barth studies Divine freedom and pronobeity Divine autonomy and the modern subject Divine objectivity and human subjectivity Divine triunity and election God’s aseity in Barth’s theology The central task Life, love and freedom

Part 1 2

3

x xii xiv 1 1 3 7 14 15 18 21 25 28 28 30

The Reality of God

Pronobeity-in-Aseity God is Barth’s early and later doctrines of aseity A retraction? A genuine revision From aseity to pronobeity in aseity God as God and wholly other Personality and aseity Freedom and love Conclusion

35

Being-in-Action Humanity speaking of God The demand for Christian witness

62

35 41 41 45 51 51 54 55 60

62 62

viii

Contents

The basis of Christian witness The nature of Christian witness God speaking Godself God’s being is revealed in God’s action ad extra God’s being is in action ad intra God’s being-in-action ad extra and ad intra correspond

Part 2 4

5

6

69 71 72 73 74

The Love and Freedom of God

The Teleology of God From revelation to the reality of God Divine revelation Divine reality The teleological ordering of revelation Dialectics Development

81

Personality and Aseity The distinct elements in paradoxical unity The relation between the elements The meaning of the elements The breaking of concepts and the unity of God The collision and correction in speaking of God The God above creaturely collision

94

Love in Freedom The unified elements in concordant distinction The relation between the elements The meaning of the elements The clarification of concepts and the unity of God The incapacity and expansion in speaking of God The God above creaturely incapacity

Part 3 7

66

81 81 83 86 86 87

94 94 99 102 103 109 113 113 113 121 125 126 131

The Aseity of God

An Anatomy The reality of divine revelation The self-demonstration of God’s life The self-movement of God’s life

137 137 137 140

Contents

8

9

ix

The particularity of the Christian God A trinitarian reality A unique reality The incapacity of human witness A dynamic concept A primarily positive concept The election of the one who loves The manner of God’s pronobeity The readiness of God’s pronobeity

142

A Paraphrase God’s lordship in the act of self-binding Aseity as lordship Pronobeity-in-lordship God’s uniqueness in the act of self-revealing Aseity as uniqueness Pronobeity-in-uniqueness God’s sufficiency in the act of self-giving Aseity as sufficiency Pronobeity-in-sufficiency

158

Conclusion Divine freedom and pronobeity Divine autonomy and the modern subject Divine objectivity and human subjectivity Divine triunity and election

177

Bibliography Author Index Subject Index

142 146 147 147 150 152 152 154

158 158 160 163 164 166 168 169 172

181 191 192 194 201 217 219

Acknowledgements Ignoring the guidance of my fundamentalist Christian community by making Karl Barth the focus of my doctoral studies was one of the most pivotal decisions of my young adult life. After being inoculated to intellectual engagement at Biola University through its inconsistent and half-hearted forays into the enterprise, I was incapable of seeing just how insulated, sectarian and arrogant I had become. Studying Karl Barth opened my mind to see truth in the modern world, even truth outside of the immediate purview of theological studies. Of course, many will find it deeply ironic that Barth, of all thinkers, should play such a role in my life. I myself freely admit that he can be underwhelming in exemplifying this stance. Nonetheless, on the whole, he had the courage to live in his own time. He may have devoted himself exclusively to Christian dogmatics, but he still honoured the achievements of philosophical, historical and scientific knowledge by acknowledging the truth which they offer in their respective spheres. Even if these spheres are practically undervalued throughout his work, he at least provides a perspective which can accommodate them while maintaining the theological character of theology. Sadly, conservative Christianity in America has largely failed on both fronts. With this ode to Barth aside, I would like to call attention to the many who have assisted and mentored me throughout my studies. First and foremost, I would like to thank my Doktorvater, John Webster. John’s humble and gracious demeanour allowed me to find greater joy throughout this process and his perceptive insight helped to compensate for the poor quality of my initial training in systematic theology. I am also in debt to my examiners, Tom Greggs and Susannah Ticciati, whose feedback proved quite valuable in my revisions for publication. Similarly, I would like to recognize the generosity of the various scholars who gave their time to interact with a humble PhD student such as myself: George Hunsinger, Christophe Chalamet, Paul Dafydd Jones, Kevin Hector, Katherine Sonderegger, Paul Molnar, Kevin Vanhoozer and Philip Ziegler. On a more personal note, I am grateful for the ongoing support of Ken Berding and Jon Lunde, two of my early mentors and biblical studies professors. I have also been fortunate enough to have gone through my theological education alongside

Acknowledgements

xi

a number of close friends, particularly Jordan Barrett, Matthew Wilcoxen, John Dunne and Yong Shin Jung. Their friendship and encouragement have been truly invaluable. More generally, I am thankful for the community that embraced me when I arrived in Aberdeen. Good men such as Ed Cheesman, Will Buchan and Kenny Sutherland ensured that I not leave Scotland before experiencing all of the fundamental rites of passage: bothy trips, Munro climbing, pub banter, Burns Night, haggis and, of course, developing a healthy love for scotch.

Abbreviations Since this project has primarily involved the close reading of two particular texts, the Church Dogmatics and The Göttingen Dogmatics, a few conventions have been followed in order to facilitate ease of access while maintaining brevity. All concise and unannotated citations of this material are provided in the main text, while the more extended ones are relegated to the footnotes. References to the Church Dogmatics are restricted to the volume number, part volume number and page number. The abbreviation ‘CD’ is only used for clarification when other texts or editions are present – primarily ‘KD’. Although original language sources have been readily utilized, they are typically paired with references to their English translations so that they may be more widely accessed. If an original text is referenced by itself or prior to the English cross-reference, the translation is my own. ANF

Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds. Ante-Nicene Fathers. 10 vols (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1885–96; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951–6; reprint, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994)

CD

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–75)

CO

John Calvin, Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, 59 vols, ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss, Corpus Reformatorum 29–87 (Brunswick and Berlin: Schwetschke, 1863–1900)

CTS

John Calvin, Commentaries of John Calvin, 46 vols (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1843–55); reprint, Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1979)

ET

English translation

FOTC

Ludwig Schopp et al., eds, Fathers of the Church: A New Translation (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1947–)

Abbreviations

xiii

GD

Karl Barth, The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion, vol. 1, ed. Hannelotte Reiffen, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991)

KD

Karl Barth, Die kirchliche Dogmatik (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1932, and Zurich: EVZ, 1938–67)

ChrL

Karl Barth, The Christian Life: Church Dogmatics IV/4, Lecture Fragments, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981)

NPNF

Philip Schaff et al., eds, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2 series, 14 vols each (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1887–94; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952–6; reprint, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994)

PG

Jacques-Paul Migne, ed., Patrologia cursus completus, series Graeca, 166 vols (Paris: Minge, 1857–86)

PL

Jacques-Paul Migne, ed., Patrologia cursus completus, series Latina, 221 vols (Paris: Minge, 1844–64)

Romans I

Karl Barth’s Romans commentary, 1919 edition

Romans II

Karl Barth’s Romans commentary, 1922 edition

rev.

revised translation

SCG

Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, vols 13–15, Sancti Thomae de Aquino opera omnia (Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1882–)

ST

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 61 vols (Cambridge: Blackfriars, 1964–81)

UCR

Karl Barth, ‘Unterricht in der christlichen Religion’, ed. Hannelotte Reiffen and Hinrich Stoevesandt (Zurich: TVZ, 1985–2003)

WA

Martin Luther, Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimarer Ausgabe, Schriften), 65 vols (Weimar: H. Böhlau, 1883–1993)

Abstract This volume analyses Karl Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity in order to appreciate the vital role which it can play in constructive dogmatics. Brian D. Asbill sets the theological context by introducing the various conceptions and functions of aseity both throughout the Christian tradition in general and throughout Barth studies in particular. The exposition then begins with developmental overviews of two fundamental themes in Barth’s understanding of the reality of God: the relationship between the divine life pro nobis (pronobeity) and a se (aseity) and the relationship between Christian witness and divine self-communication. The second section turns to the dialectical pairings which guide the doctrine of the divine being and attributes in Barth’s earliest and most mature dogmatic cycles, respectively, The Göttingen Dogmatics §§16–17 and Church Dogmatics §§28–31. Particular attention is given to how these pairings arise from revelation and how the elements in these dialectics relate to one another. The final section directly examines divine aseity, principally according to Barth’s most extensive treatment in Church Dogmatics II/1, §28. Asbill first provides an anatomy of this doctrine which identifies Barth’s basic interpretative decisions, namely, that aseity is the self-demonstration and self-movement of God’s life, a trinitarian and entirely unique reality, a primarily positive and dynamic concept and the manner and readiness of God’s love for creatures. Next he offers a paraphrase of aseity which illustrates its primary functions in Barth’s theology, namely, to indicate God’s lordship in the act of self-binding, God’s uniqueness in the act of self-revealing and God’s sufficiency in the act of self-giving. The study concludes with a synthesis of the foregoing insights which is then applied to a few leading questions in Barth studies.

1

Introduction

God’s aseity in the Christian tradition The God who is present as the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit is the living God. From and to all eternity this one lives as three who enjoy unceasing fellowship. The plenitude and perfection of this love and knowledge are inherent to God’s own reality. As such, divinity is pure vivacity and actuality. For this reason the subject of the Christian religion is named with the assistance of the predicate a se. Throughout its history, this doctrine has assumed an indispensable role. It is no exaggeration to say that for many of the Church’s leading thinkers, this concept stands at the centre of God’s identity. Calvin can write, ‘nothing is more characteristic’ of God than eternity and ‘self-existence’ (αὐτουσία), or rather, God’s ‘existence of Godself ’ (a se ipso existentia).1 Parallel to this conviction, some have viewed aseity as encompassing and qualifying all of the other divine attributes in a unique way.2 In view of its pervasive influence throughout the doctrine of God, Isaak Dorner even wonders whether aseity should be considered an attribute in the strict sense of the term.3 Most dramatically, some have even gone so far as to conceive of aseity as the principal attribute which serves as the conceptual starting point for deriving the others.4

1

2

3

4

John Calvin, Institutio christianae religionis, 1.14.3, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1:153. John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, 1.14 (FOTC, 37:201); Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4 vols, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003–8), 3: 152. Isaak August Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 4 vols, trans. Alfred Cave (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1880–9), 1:205. Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretico-practica theologia, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Henricus & Theodorus Boom, 1682–7), 2.3.16; Charles-René Billuart, Summa Sanctae Thomae hodiernis academiarum moribus accommodota, 10 vols (Paris: Lecoffre, 1878), 1.2.1.1; Joseph Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit, 5 vols (Münster: Theissing, 1867–74), 1.1.2.6; Joseph Pohle, Dogmatic Theology, 12 vols, trans. Arthur Preuss (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1911–24), 1.2.3.2.

2

The Freedom of God For Us

Despite these forceful endorsements, the doctrine of divine aseity has fallen into disrepute among some contemporary Christian thinkers. This dissatisfaction with divine aseity is often located within a broader critique of classical theism. The concern is that classical theism and its corollary entailments compromise God’s personality and loving relations ad extra.5 For example, some have found this to be at issue in Aquinas’ argument that since God is per seipsum necesseesse and correspondingly self-sufficient and immutable, God does not have real relations with creatures.6 More specifically, they hold that this conception of God’s life ad extra objectifies creatures and allows the absoluteness of God to diminish their relative independence. Still others have worried that the doctrine of the immanent trinity requires one to go the way of Parmenides – that aseity is more befitting of the One than the God of Holy Scripture. When divine aseity is interpreted along these lines, it appears to uphold God’s life ad intra at the expense of God’s life ad extra. Critics therefore argue that greater emphasis is needed on the sphere to which the scriptural narratives themselves draw our gaze, namely, the outpouring of Godself in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. A more robustly christological and pneumatological understanding of God’s elected identity should instead shift the focus from the divine fullness of God to the divine self-emptying.7 The present study attempts to showcase the benefits of the doctrine of divine aseity by focusing on a figure who largely avoids the pitfalls which these critics perceive while still maintaining a positive valuation of this doctrine. Through the example of Karl Barth it will become clear that the doctrine of divine aseity can be helpfully interpreted as a statement about how the triune God is the gospel to creatures.8 This opening material will lay the groundwork for this task by offering an overview of divine aseity in the Christian tradition, Barth studies and in Barth’s work itself. 5

6 7

8

See Douglas Pratt, ‘Aseity as Relational Problematic’, Sophia 28.2 (1989): 13–25; Robert F. Brown, ‘Divine Omniscience, Immutability, Aseity and Human Free Will’, Religious Studies 27.3 (1991): 285–95. For a more positive valuation of aseity in this regard, see William E. Mann, ‘Divine Sovereignty and Aseity’, in Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion, ed. William J. Wainwright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 35–58. Aquinas, SCG, 2.12. For an eschatological reconstruction of the doctrine of the immanent trinity along these lines, see Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993). The twofold conviction that aseity must be consistently formulated as a description of the triune God of the gospel is perhaps the chief burden of John Webster’s work on this theme. See John Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself: Reflections on God’s Aseity’, in Engaging the Doctrine of God: Contemporary Protestant Perspectives, ed. Bruce L. McCormack (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 107–24; idem, ‘God’s Perfect Life’, in God’s Life in Trinity, ed. Miroslav Volf and Michael Welker (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 143–52.

Introduction

3

A historical sketch The first extensive treatment on aseity is found in Anselm, who develops the notion that God exists per se and therefore ex se.9 Treatments prior to Anselm are generally passing or indirect in nature, but their significance should not thereby be overlooked. Quite early on in the church’s history, theologians began to discern aseity in the divine name of Exodus 3:14,10 an association which echoes throughout much of medieval and reformation theology.11 This association is likewise established in connection with the traditionally correlated name YHWH.12 Of similar importance is the locus classicus John 5:26 where it is said that the Father has ‘life in himself ’ and has given the Son to have the same.13 Texts of this kind helped give rise to the characterization of the divine life as God’s own inherent possession. Thus, for Augustine, the great giver of ‘the blessed life’ does not draw from a foundation in creatures but rather ‘from Godself ’ (de se ipso).14 Along the same lines, the Greek fathers describe God using a host of ‘self ’ (αὐτός) compounds such as ‘self-living’ (αὐτοζωή), ‘selfdivine’ (αὐτόθεος), ‘self-existent’ (αὐτουσία), ‘self-generate’ (αὐτογέννητος), ‘selfbegotten’ (αὐτοϕυσής), ‘self-powerful’ (αὐτοκράτωρ), ‘self-sufficient’ (αὐτάρκης) and ‘self-good’ (αὐτοαγαθία).15 Treatments on this doctrine can be helpfully differentiated on the basis of whether they view the meaning of aseity as fundamentally negative or positive in 9 10

11

12

13

14

15

Anselm, Monologion, 5–6 (PL, 158:150–3). For example, Novatian, De trinitate, 4 (FOTC, 67:31–3); Hilary, De trinitate, 1.5–6, 12.24 (FOTC, 25:6–8, 517–18); Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations, 30.18 (NPNF, 7.2:316); Jerome, Commentariorum in epistolam ad Ephesios, 2.3, on Eph. 3:14–15 (PL, 26:489a); Augustine, De trinitate, 5.3, 7.10, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1991), 190, 227–8; idem, De civitate Dei, 12.2, ed. and trans. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 500–1; idem, De doctrina Christiana, 1.32, trans. R. P. H. Green (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 24; idem, De Genesi ad litteram, 5.16, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P., in On Genesis (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2002), 292–3; John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, 1.9 (FOTC, 37:189–90). Anselm, Meditatio, 1.3 (PL, 158:712a–b); idem, Proslogion, 22 (Davies and Evans, 99–100); Aquinas, ST, 1.2.3 sed contra; 1.13.11; cf. 1.3; idem, SCG, 1.22; Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 1.2, ed. and trans. Allan B. Wolter, 2nd edn (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1966), 2–3; John Calvin, Commentarius in Mosis reliquos quatuor libros, part 1, on Exod. 3:14, CO, 24:43–4; Francis Turretin, Institutio theologiae elencticae, 1.3.4.5, trans. George Musgrave Giger (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992–7), 184–5; Mastricht, Theoretico-practica theologia, 2.3.13; Barth, CD II/1, 302; III/2, 465. Calvin, Commentarius in Mosis reliquos quatuor libros, part 1, on Exod. 6:3, CO, 24:78; idem, Institutio christianae religionis, 1.10.2; idem, Expositio impietatis Valentini Gentilis (1561), CO, 9:381–4; Turretin, Institutio theologiae elencticae, 1.3.4.5 (Giger, 184–5). Hilary, De trinitate, 7.27 (FOTC, 25:255–7); Chrysostom, Homiliae 1-88 in Ioannem, 39.1 (FOTC, 33:385–92); Augustine, In Evangelium Iohannis tractatus, 22.8–10 (FOTC, 79:204–7); idem, De trinitate, 1.26, (Hill, 85); cf. Calvin, Commentarius in evangelium Ioannis, on Jn 5:26, CO, 47:118. Augustine, De civitate Dei, 10.18 (PL, 41:297); cf. idem, Confessions, 3.4, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 42; Hilary, De trinitate, 2.6 (FOTC, 25:39–41). See Barth, CD II/1, 302; J. C. Suicerus, Thesaurus ecclesiasticus, s.v. ‘αὐταρκεια’.

4

The Freedom of God For Us

character.16 In other words, does aseity simply mean non ab alio or does it entail a positive meaning beyond this negative and contrastive sense? The negative aspect of aseity is ubiquitous throughout the Christian tradition and is typically considered essential to the doctrine of God. Returning once more to the language of the Greek fathers, all creaturely reality has its existence from the Creator, but God is ‘uncreated’ (ἄκτιστος),17 ‘unoriginate’ (ἂναρχος),18 and ‘ungenerate’ (ἀγέννητος).19 In the Aristotelian categories so favoured in medieval theology, although all creaturely reality has God as its causa efficiens, God is the causa prima who is ineffectibile and incausabile.20 And within the Reformed tradition, while creaturely reality exists in complete dependence on God, God exists in the perfection of independentia.21 However, some accounts, while accepting this negative aspect, have sought to develop a positive meaning. Perhaps the most famous of such attempts is the concept of God as causa sui. The use of this concept in relation to divinity has its roots even as far back as Plotinus, but the most influential of its early Christian articulations appears later in the work of Jerome.22 Drawing on the

16 17

18

19

20

21

22

For example, Mastricht, Theoretico-practica theologia, 2.3.22–3. John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, 1.8 (esp. PG, 94:817b). According to Gregory of Nyssa, humans are made in the imago Dei, but they are distinguished from God in that while they exist ‘through creation’ (διὰ κτίσεως), God is ‘uncreated’ (ἀκτίστως) (Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio, 16.12 [PG, 44:184c]). Tatian, Oratio adversus Graecos, 4 (PG, 813a); Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 1.33 (esp. PG, 45:396a–c); John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, 1.8 (esp. PG, 94:807–16). The meaning of ἀγέννητος often converges with those of ἄκτιστος and ἂναρχος and communicates the notion of not having an origin with respect to existence. In line with this usage, Ignatius speaks of the paradox of the incarnate Son’s unified identity as human and divine, as ‘born and not born’ (γεννητὸς καὶ ἀγέννητος) (Ignatius, Epistola ad Ephesios, 7:2, ed. and trans. Michael Holmes, 3rd edn [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007], 188–9 rev.). In comparing God and creatures, Irenaeus writes that as ‘being things which are created’ (τὸ γεγενν σθαι) creatures are not ‘uncreated’ (ἀγέννητα) (Irenaeus, Contra haereses, 4.38.3 [PG, 7:1107c–8a]). However, in accordance with the Nicene description of Jesus Christ as ‘begotten, not made’ (γεννηθέντα οὐ ποιηθέντα), the term ἀγέννητος eventually develops the more precise sense of not having an origin with respect to the trinitarian relations. In this sense, the Father is designated ἀγέννητος and the Son γεννητός in order to indicate that the Father does not proceed from the Son as the Son does from him (e.g., John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, 1.8, 13 [esp. PG, 94:807–16, 856–7]). Therefore, even though ἀγέννητος and ἂναρχος apply to the Father alone in the fully unqualified sense, ἀγενητός applies equally to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. On ἀγέννητος and ἀγενητός, see Athanasius, Orationes contra Arianos, 1.30 (PG, 26:73–6); idem, De decretis, 6–8 (PG, 25:433–8); idem, De synodis, 46–7 (PG, 26:775–8); Cyril of Jerusalem, Catachesis, 11 (esp. PG, 33:708a); Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus de sancta et consubstantiali Trinitate, 1–3 (PG, 75:23–36); John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, 1.8 (esp. PG, 94:817a–b). On ἀγέννητος and ἂναρχος, see Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 1.33 (esp. PG, 45:396a–c). Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 3.17; cf. 3.7, 16 (Wolter, 50–1; cf. 44–5). God is the primum movens quod a nullo movetur (Aquinas, ST, 1.2.3 responsio). Mastricht, Theoretico-practica theologia, 2.3.13–26; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:151–3; cf. Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart (London: Continuum, 1999), 218–19; Barth, CD II/1, 302. Plotinus, Enneads, 6.8.13–21, trans. A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 7:266–97.

Introduction

5

divine name of Exodus 3:14, Jerome argues that God does not originate from another, but is instead ‘the origin of Godself, the cause of God’s own substance’ (sui origo est, suaeque causa substantiae).23 Since that time the concept of God as causa sui has found support among philosophers such as Descartes, Hegel and Schelling24 and among theologians such as Herman Schell and Wolfhart Pannenberg.25 Schell and Pannenberg reinterpret causa sui as self-realization or rather self-actualization. The former does so in relation to the divine processions and the latter in relation to the immanent and economic trinity. However, since much of the Christian tradition has interpreted causa sui as addressing the question of the origin of the divine reality, it has commonly been rejected.26 When it comes to the category of causation, theologians have tended to prefer the more reserved and negative affirmation that God is uncaused. Another positive interpretation of divine aseity – one which is especially important in medieval theology – is the concept of God as ens necessarium.27 According to this view, it is impossible for God not to exist or to be different from who God is. The logic here is that ‘what is from itself is not able not to exist’.28 ‘An uncausable being necessarily exists from itself.’29 To God it is therefore said, ‘You are entirely uncaused . . . indeed, it is utterly impossible for you to not exist, because from yourself you are the necessary being.’30 In the 23 24

25

26

27

28 29 30

Jerome, Commentariorum in epistolam ad Ephesios, 2.3, on Eph. 3:14–15 (PL, 26:489a). René Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia, 3, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 2 vols, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984–5), 2:24–36; idem, Réponses aux quatrièmes objections (Cottingham et al., esp. 2:162–72); G. W. F. Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik, Erster Band, Die objektive Logik, ed. Friedrich Hogemann and Walter Jaeschke, Gesammelte Werke 11 (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1978), 2.3.3.c; F. W. J. Schelling, ‘Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit und die damit zusammenhängenden Gegenstände’, in F. W. J. Schelling’s philosophische Schriften, vol. 1 (Landshut: Philipp Krüll, 1809), especially 429–35. Herman Schell, Katholische Dogmatik, 6 vols (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1889–93), 1:238–42, 2:20–2, 2:61–82; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 3 vols, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991–8), 1:390–1; see also Barth, CD II/1, 305–6. On the rejection of God as causa sui, see Augustine, De trinitate, 1.1 (Hill, 65–6); Anselm, Monologion, 6, ed. Brian Davies and G. R. Evans, in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 16–18; Aquinas, ST, 1.2.3; idem, SCG, 1.18, 22; Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 2.1–3, 3.7–20 (Wolter, 14–15, 44–53); Barth, CD II/1, 305–6; III/3, 103. Interestingly, in the case of Aquinas and Duns Scotus, Richard Lee claims that despite their explicit rejection of God as causa sui, a concept very much like this is nonetheless operative in their affirmation of divine infinity, perfection and power (see Richard A. Lee, Jr., ‘The Scholastic Resources for Descartes’s Concept of God as Causa Sui’, in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, vol. 3, ed. Daniel Garber and Steven Nadler [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006], 99–101, 107–9). See Étienne Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, The Gifford Lectures, University of Aberdeen, 1930–2, trans. A. H. C. Downes (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936), 42–63. Hugh of St. Victor, De tribus diebus, 17 (PL, 176:825d). Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 3.21; cf. 3.22–6 (Wolter, 52–3; cf. 54–9). Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 4.84 (Wolter, 142–3).

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context of the ontological and cosmological arguments, the ontic and noetic senses of this concept are intermingled. With regard to the former argument, the ontic and noetic necessity of God’s existence find their basis in God’s own existence as ‘something than which nothing greater can be thought’ (aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit).31 Ontologically considered, if God bore any other name God would not be God, and bearing this name God must be God. ‘All other things owe him but he owes nothing to another, nor is there any other reason why he is than that he is’.32 Noetically considered, God ‘cannot be thought to not exist’.33 With regard to the latter argument, God is the causa prima, the primum necessarium, a being which is ‘necessary through itself ’.34 Ontologically speaking, the eternal God ‘cannot not be’.35 However, both ontic and noetic elements can be found in the conclusion to Aquinas’ third way where he argues that it is necesse to suppose that something exists which is per se necessarium and correspondingly ‘not possessing the cause of its necessity from another’.36 Not altogether unlike this conception, aseity has also been interpreted as absoluteness.37 Interestingly, some such as Barth have viewed absoluteness as a negative concept along the lines of being unconditioned or independent, but others have seen it as a positive one which extends beyond these contrastive senses (II/1, 307–8). For example, in describing God as absolute life, Dorner asserts that God is ‘the absolute reality of being, and the absolute originating power of His reality’.38 Dorner thus moves beyond the negative idea that God is unconditioned and more in the direction of positive conceptions of God as self-contained or self-possessing.39 In this view, ‘the centre of gravity of absolute Being does not lie outside of God, but falls within His own circumference’.40

31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40

Anselm, Proslogion, 2 (PL, 158:227c). Anselm, De veritate, 10 (Davies and Evans, 164). Anselm, Proslogion, 3 (PL, 158:228b). Aquinas, SCG, 1.15; cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 5.5. Aquinas, SCG, 1.16; cf. 18. Aquinas, ST, 1.2.3. Richard Rothe, Still Hours, trans. Jane T. Stoddart (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1886), 95–8; Julius Müller, The Christian Doctrine of Sin, 2 vols, trans. William Urwick (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1885), 2:113–57; Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 1:214–30, 255–9. Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 1:257, 259. See Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 1:256, 439, 447. Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 1:256. The conception of aseity as self-containment has been especially important Van Tillian circles (see Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd edn, ed. William Edgar [Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2007], 327–33; John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God [Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002], 600–8). See also Plotinus, Enneads, 6.8.20 (Armstrong, 7:290–5).

Introduction

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Theological functions and contexts Having offered this brief sketch of how the concept of divine aseity has been interpreted, it will now be helpful to complement these more narrow concerns with a broader survey of where and how this doctrine has been operative. In other words, what are the most significant theological contexts and functions of divine aseity? First and foremost, divine aseity has played an important role in the context of the doctrine of the being and attributes of God. Here aseity has been situated within a nexus of corollary commitments in the classical view of God. The God who exists in aseity is eternal. God is self-existent, living from God’s own limitless plenitude and therefore not as one who is bound by the constraints of time.41 The God who exists in aseity is simple. God’s existence is God’s essence. Or rather, it is of God’s essence to exist. In fact, the name which Aquinas identifies as the most fitting for God, qui est (Exod. 3:14), does not signify any particular feature of God’s nature but rather God’s being itself.42 Unlike humans who have traditionally been viewed as a composite of form and matter and angels who have likewise been seen as a composite of existence and essence, God is not a composite being.43 The one who is ‘through Godself a necessary being’ can in no way be a compositus being who exists as such by virtue of a componentem.44 The God who exists in aseity is purely actual.45 A being that is not a se and is composite can therefore have potency. However, a being who is self-subsisting 41

42 43

44

45

‘For absolutely nothing can be a semetipso which is not ab aeterno’ (Richard of St. Victor, De trinitate, 1.6; cf. 1.8 [PL, 196:894a; cf. 894d]). Likewise, omne necessarium per se sit aeternum (Aquinas, SCG, 1.15). God is a se ipso ideoque aeternus (Calvin, Commentarius in Mosis reliquos quatuor libros, part 1, on Exod. 3:14, CO, 24:43). Aquinas, ST, 1.13.11. Aquinas, ST, 1.3.4; 1.13.11 responsio; idem, SCG, 1.21–2; see also Leo J. Elders, The Philosophical Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990), 147–60. Aquinas, SCG, 1.18; cf. Richard of St. Victor, De trinitate, 5.4, in Trinity and Creation: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Richard and Adam of St. Victor, ed. Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2011), 295; Hugh of St. Victor, De tribus diebus, 17 (Coolman and Coulter, 78). This connection can also be seen in the Spinoza’s view of aseity as causa sui: ‘I understand that as causa sui whose essence involves existence or whose nature cannot be conceived unless existing’ (Benedictus de Spinoza, Ethica, 1, def. 1, trans. Samuel Shirley, Spinoza: Complete Works [Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2002], 217 rev.). In recent philosophical theology, this connection has been further highlighted through discussions about the ontological status of divine properties. It has been argued that for Aquinas, among others, the doctrine of divine simplicity arises out of the so-called ‘sovereignty-aseity intuition’ (Alvin Plantinga, Does God have a Nature? [Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980], 34). That is, if God has an essence which is distinct from Godself and upon which God is in some sense dependent, then God is not truly a se. On the ancient consideration of this question, see Plotinus, Enneads, 6.8.12, 19–20 (Armstrong, 7:264–7, 290–5). For a more general examination of these issues, see Jeffrey E. Brower, ‘Simplicity and Aseity’, in Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, ed. Thomas P. Flint and Michael Rea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 105–28. Aquinas, SCG, 1.16; see also idem, ST, 1.3.2 responsio; 1.12.1 responsio.

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and simple is not an admixture of potency and act but rather actus purus.46 The God who exists in aseity is self-sufficient. God has life in se. Unlike creatures who live by way of ‘participation’, God both is and is who God is by way of God’s own ‘plenitude’.47 The God who exists in aseity is immutable, or rather, constant. Creatures change because, not inherently having life in themselves, they are potential, caused and composite. However, since God is ‘entirely uncaused’, God is ‘incapable of generation or corruption’ (ingenerabilis et incorruptibilis).48 The God who exists in aseity is infinite. As the one who is self-subsistent in se prior to all created things, God stands outside of all creaturely limitations.49 The God who exists in aseity is perfect. In medieval theology, this is expressed through the idea of God as the most supreme being, the summum ens.50 With respect to existence, God is seen as the most supreme and perfect being because that which is per se is greater than that which is per aliud.51 In praying Anselm 46 47

48

49

50

51

Aquinas, SCG, 1.16. Richard of St. Victor, De trinitate, 5.4; cf. 1.23 (Coolman and Coulter, 295; cf. 226); see also Aquinas, SCG, 1.16. Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 4.84 (Wolter, 142–3). This language points back to Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione (see also Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1.3, 8.1–3; cf. Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri metaphysicae, ed. M.-R. Cathala and R. M. Spiazzi [Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1964], 8.3; idem, SCG, 1.13, 15; Guilelmus de Ockham, Expositio in libros physicorum Aristotelis, in Opera philosophica, vol. 4 [Saint Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1985], 1.18). Aquinas, ST, 1.7.1–2; Franciscus Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae, in Opera omnia, vols 25–6 (Paris: Vives, 1866), disp. 28, sect. 1, art. 6–7; see also Lee, ‘The Scholastic Resources for Descartes’s Concept of God as Causa Sui’, 109–11. For Aquinas, ‘since the divine being is not a being received in anything, but is its own subsistent being . . . it is clear that God himself is infinite and perfect’ (Aquinas, ST, 1.7.1 responsio; cf. Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 4.75–86 [Wolter, 134–47]). Duns Scotus similarly argues that while all finite things are perfected through the addition of something else, a first cause whose causation cannot be perfected by another is infinite – talis causa prima est infinita (Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 4.51 [Wolter, 106–7]). Some contemporary proponents of divine aseity object to this language. Jüngel argues that divine aseity should be affirmed without recourse to this ‘metaphysical title’ (Eberhard Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth: A Paraphrase, trans. John Webster [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001], 40). He claims that the idea of God as the summum ens compromises aseity because it implies that God can be conceived as an extension and elevation of the human experience of being (Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 40). Tillich likewise objects to the conception of God as a summum ens because on this view God is ‘a being’ alongside others rather than ‘being-itself ’ which subsists in perfect aseity (Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3 vols [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951–63], 1:235–6; emphasis original). Of course, it is important to note that Tillich’s strong emphasis on divine aseity takes a quite different form than it does for Jüngel or Barth because they have much more robustly christological doctrines of revelation. Anselm, Monologion, 3; cf. 4–7, 28 (Davies and Evans, 13–14; cf. 15–20, 43–5); see also idem, Proslogion, 2, 22 (Davies and Evans, 87–8, 99–100). Concerning creaturely reality Irenaeus writes, ‘in so far as the things which are created have their origin of existence subsequently, they must also be inferior to the one who has created them’ (Irenaeus, Contra haereses, 4.38.1 [PG, 7:1105a]). By contrast, concerning the divine reality he writes, ‘God is preeminent [πρωτεύει] in all things, the only uncreated one [μόνος ἀγέννητος], the first of all, and the cause of all that is’ (Irenaeus, Contra haereses, 4.38.3 [PG, 7:1108a]; cf. Col. 1:18 where the verb πρωτεύω, a hapax legomenon in the New Testament, is applied to the Son). Whereas creaturely reality is described as ‘ascending to the perfect’ and ‘becoming like the uncreated’, ‘the uncreated is perfect’ (Τέλειος . . . ὁ ἀγέννητος) (Irenaeus, Contra haereses, 4.38.3 [PG, 7:1108b]).

Introduction

9

therefore says, ‘You alone, then, of all things most truly exist and therefore of all things possess existence to the highest degree; for anything else does not exist as truly, and so possesses existence to a lesser degree.’52 This connection between aseity and perfection has often been found in the divine name of Exodus 3:14.53 Moreover, with respect to God’s essence, God is the most supreme and perfect nature because that which is what it is per se is greater than that which is what it is per aliud.54 The God who exists in aseity is unique. Corresponding to the ratio of divine supremacy and perfection, it is God and God alone who exists per se, while creatures exist per aliud.55 Therefore, for some theologians, aseity alone is incommunicable among God’s attributes and God alone possesses God’s attributes in aseity.56 The God who exists in aseity is free. God’s existence as a se entails the inherent freedom of God’s subsistence and God’s existence as absolute entails God’s freedom from prior conditions and constraints.57 Just as God begins

52 53

54

55

56

57

Anselm, Proslogion, 3 (Davies and Evans, 88). On this basis, God has been described as the one who exists in the ultimate and proper sense. Even as early as the second century, theologians have described God as the one who ‘truly’ exists (Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 1.8 [ANF, 2:227]; Origen, De principiis, 1.3.6 [ANF, 4:253]). Similar interpretations unfold throughout the tradition. ‘And as there is one Beginning and therefore one God, so one is that Essence and Subsistence which indeed and truly and really is, and which said “I am that I am”’ (Athanasius, Orationes contra Arianos, 4.1 [NPNF, 2.4:433]). ‘God is the Supreme Being – that is, He supremely is’ (Augustine, De civitate Dei, 12.2 [Dyson 500; emphasis original]). ‘God exists in the supreme sense, and the original sense, of the word’ (Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, 1.32 [Green, 24]). ‘He says, “I am who I am” (Exod. 3:14) – and it is said beautifully; for only he truly is, whose being is immutable. Therefore, he whose being exists so preeminently, so uniquely, is in this way the only one who truly is. In comparison to him all being is nothing’ (Anselm, Meditatio, 1.3 [PL, 158:712a–b]; cf. idem, Proslogion, 22 [Davies and Evans, 99–100]). ‘You are truly what it means to be, you are the whole of what it means to exist’ (Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 1.2 [Wolter, 2–3]). ‘God attributes to himself alone divine glory, because he is self-existent and therefore eternal . . . Nor does he predicate of himself anything common, or shared by others; but he claims for himself eternity as peculiar to God alone, in order that he may be honored according to his dignity’ (Calvin, Commentarius in Mosis reliquos quatuor libros, part 1, on Exod. 3:14, CO, 24:43–4 [CTS, The Four Last Books of Moses, 1:73]). Anselm, Monologion, 1; cf. 2–4, 16 (Davies and Evans, 11–12; cf. 13–16, 28–30); see also idem, De veritate, 10 (Davies and Evans, 164–5). So also, for Duns Scotus, ‘every dependent thing is . . . inferior to that upon which it depends’ (Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 2.43; cf. 3.18–19; 4.7–11 [Wolter, 32–3; cf. 50–3, 78–81]). For Aquinas, the relationship between aseity and uniqueness intersects with his conception of God as simple and as the first cause. Since God’s essence is God’s existence and existence cannot be a genus, God does not belong to a genus (Aquinas, SCG, 1.25; cf. idem, ST, 1.5). ‘The very fact that God’s existence itself subsists [per se subsistens] without being acquired by anything, and as such is limitless, distinguishes it from everything else, and sets other things aside from it’ (Aquinas, ST, 1.7.1 ad 3). According to Dorner, ‘by His Aseity God is absolutely sole Being, and not the highest genus of general existence’ (Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 1:259; cf. Tillich, Systematic Theology, 1:235–6; Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 40). Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 1:205. Interestingly, for Bavinck, although through divine aseity ‘the immeasurable distinction between the Creator and creature stands out vividly and plainly, there is nevertheless a weak analogy in all creatures also of this perfection of God’ (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:152). See especially Tillich, Systematic Theology, 1:248.

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with Godself, so also the action of God begins with Godself. As Aquinas argues, since that which is free is willed ‘for its own sake’ (sui causa) and therefore per se, this is most fittingly applied to the ‘first agent’ for whom it is most fitting to act per se.58 God always acts out of God’s eternal identity and never out of external necessity.59 God always acts in spontaneity.60 The God who exists in aseity is sovereign. This is simply a specification of the being of the one who acts and the manner in which this action is undertaken. God exists and acts out of the depth of God’s own life and is therefore the Lord of God’s own existence and action.61 In sum, divine aseity has served to affirm the divinity of God. Second, divine aseity has played an important role in the context of the doctrine of the trinity. In its consistently Christian formulations, aseity is always a characterization of God’s life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nonetheless, when aseity is raised in the context of the doctrine of the trinity, it affirms the relations between the three persons along with their essential equality. The essential aseity of God – that is, the aseity of God’s essence shared by Father, Son and Spirit – has been a standard feature of the Christian doctrine of God.62 By contrast, the question of personal aseity has been notably more controversial. Some theologians, while not wishing to diminish the full equality of the three persons, have identified a personal form of aseity that specifies the unique character of the Father’s identity in relation to the Son and the Spirit. In this sense, aseity is synonymous with the traditional designation of the Father as unbegotten or ungenerate (ἀγέννητος) in contrast to the Son who is begotten or generate 58 59

60

61

62

Aquinas, SCG, 1.72. According to Anselm, although God has no need for or obligation to humanity, ‘by God’s own goodness’ in creating humanity God has ‘put Godself under obligation’ to see the work of creation through its fitting end in salvation (Anselm, Cur deus homo 2.5 [Davies and Evans, 319]). The ‘necessity’ of this action is a necessity which arises from God’s own honour (see William Courtenay, ‘Necessity and Freedom in Anselm’s Conception of God’, in Analecta Anselmiana 4.2, ed. Helmut Kohlenberger [Frankfurt: Minerva, 1975], esp. 55). The conception of freedom as spontaneity (sponte) – that is, acting from and through oneself – is vital for Anselm. Although God and creatures are differentiated by the aseity of God’s being, they both are free through their spontaneous willing (see Katherin A. Rogers, Anselm on Freedom [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], 73–86, 185–205, esp. 75–6). On the one hand, this can be seen in the case of the negative concept of independence: ‘The independentia Dei is therefore that attribute by which he does not owe anything to anyone and he alone is the Lord of all things’ (Franz Volkmar Reinhard, Vorlesungen über die Dogmatik: mit literärischen Zusätzen, 5th edn, ed. J. G. I. Berger and H. A. Schott [Sulzbach: J.E.v. Seidel, 1824], 108; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 218–19). On the other hand, this also holds for the positive concept of aseity. According to Brunner, the idea of God as ‘absolute Lord’ is simply what the medieval, Lutheran and Reformed Orthodox theologians mean by affirming that God is a se, absolute and actus purus (Emil Brunner, Dogmatics, 3 vols, trans. Olive Wyon and David Cairns [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1950–62], 1:142–5; cf. Barth, CD II/1, 301). That being said, there are certainly qualifications and exceptions. Zizioulas, for example, argues that the existence of God is not grounded in the one divine ens or substance but rather in the hypostasis of the Father (John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church [Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993], esp. 40–1).

Introduction

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(γεννητός).63 Others have expanded this notion of personal aseity to entail that the Father alone has his essence a se. In this view, the Son does not merely have his relational identity in his procession from the Father, who himself does not proceed from another; instead, the Son receives his essence from the Father, who himself does not receive his essence from another. In contrast to this line of thought, Calvin speaks of the Son as ‘self-divine’ (αὐτόθεος), ‘self-existent’ (αὐτουσία) and a se ipso.64 In doing so, he argues that the doctrine of divine aseity must follow the reasoning that since the three divine persons equally share in the divine essence, what can be predicated of the essence can also be predicted of the persons.65 Alternately considered, this view seeks to give unqualified assent to the Nicene confession, ‘of the same substance as the Father’ (ὁμοούσιον τ πατρί), and therefore to interpret ‘God from God’ (θεὸν ἐκ θεο ) relationally rather than essentially.66 It is thus an extension of Augustine’s interpretation of John 5:26. For Augustine, when the Father is said to have ‘given’ the Son to have life in himself, it does not mean that the Father gave life to one not already sharing in it. Since the Son himself is life, this ‘given’ indicates that the Father ‘begot the Son to be unchangeable life, that is to say eternal life’ – eternal life which becomes the life of creatures in the Son.67 In sum, divine aseity has served to affirm both that the Father is unoriginate and that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are fully and equally divine. Third, divine aseity has played an important role in the context of the gospel of God’s love for creatures. Divine aseity often serves to explain how it is that 63

64

65

66

67

For example, Richard of St. Victor argues that the divine persons cannot be differentiated with respect to the divine essence. The very same summum and summe simplex being is equally shared by Father, Son and Spirit (Richard of St. Victor, De trinitate, 3.22; cf. 3.21, 4.15 [PL, 196:928c; cf. 928a–b, 939b–d]). Nonetheless, he uses the language of aseity, particularly a semetipso, to refer to the unique identity of the Father as unoriginate. According to his ontology, every being belongs to one of three modes: ab aeterno and a semetipso, neither ab aeterno nor a semetipso, or ab aeterno but not a semetipso (Richard of St. Victor, De trinitate, 1.6 [PL, 196:893c–4a]). All three divine persons are ab aeterno, but the Father alone belongs to this first mode as additionally a semetipso. The Father is therefore ‘incommunicable’, while the Son and Spirit are ‘communicable’ (Richard of St. Victor, De trinitate, 5.4–5 [esp. PL, 196:952a–b]). John Calvin, Pro G. Farello et collegis eius adversus Petri Caroli calumnias defensio (1545), CO, 7:322–5; idem, Expositio impietatis Valentini Gentilis (1561), CO, 9:368, 374–5, 380–4; cf. idem, Institutio christianae religionis, 1.13.7–13, 19, 22–26 (Battles, 129–38, 143–4, 147–55). Calvin, Pro G. Farello et collegis eius adversus Petri Caroli calumnias defensio, CO, 7:322–3; see also T. F. Torrance, ‘Calvin’s Doctrine of the Trinity’, in idem, Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), especially 59–67. Pannenberg also opposes the designation of the Father alone as God a seipso and ἂναρχος in all respects. In his case, however, the motivation is more specifically to maintain the ‘genuine mutuality’ of the relations between the persons (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1:311–12). See B. B. Warfield, ‘Calvin’s Doctrine of the Trinity’, The Princeton Theological Review 7 (1909): 635–6; see also R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 190–202, 436–45. Augustine, De trinitate, 1.26 [Hill, 85]; cf. Augustine, In Evangelium Iohannis tractatus, 22.8–10 (FOTC, 79:204–7); see also Marius Victorinus, Contra Arianos 1a.4, 3.2–3 (FOTC, 69:155–9, 224–37).

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God is pro nobis, or rather, how it is that the triune God is the gospel. As Isaak Dorner writes, Athanasius and the great ecclesiastical teachers of the fourth century have rightly acknowledged that God must before all things be in Himself living, if a world is to be able to issue from Him. The concept of God, according to which He is a Being self-enclosed in His own Sublimity and without distinctions, is a false one in their esteem. They see in God Himself eternal Life and eternal Motion. But internal distinctions are associated with that view. Athanasius sees that without such distinctions God could not have Aseity for a moment. ‘The divine well is never dry, the divine light never lacks lustre.’ God is not ἄγονος, unfruitful and without productiveness in Himself, otherwise He must also be ἀνενέργητος, and could create nothing. Because He is in Himself eternally productive Life, He is also creative outside Himself.68

Moreover, in addressing the question of cur Deus homo, Anselm argues that God has obligated Godself to see salvation through to its fulfilment on the basis of ‘the immutability of God’s honor’ – an honour which God possesses ‘from Godself and not from another’ (a seipso, et non ab alio).69 In fact, even his treatment on aseity in Monologion 1–6 opens with the words, ‘Of all the things that exist, there is one nature that is supreme. It alone is self-sufficient in its eternal happiness, yet through its all-powerful goodness it creates and gives to all other things their very existence and their goodness.’70 Similarly, for Calvin, God is the living God ‘not only because he has life in himself, but out of himself, and is also the origin and fountain of life. This epithet ought to be taken actively, for God not only lives but has life in himself; and he is also the source of life, since there is no life independent of him.’71 In sum, divine aseity has served to affirm the gracious character of God’s relations with creatures. 68

69

70 71

Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 1:375 rev. On Dorner’s own understanding of divine aseity as supporting God’s pronobeity, see Jonathan Norgate, Isaak A. Dorner: The Triune God and the Gospel of Salvation, T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology 3 (London: T&T Clark, 2009), especially 25–7, 48–72, 81, 217–18. Norgate argues that God’s aseity functions as ‘the key to his being able to posit the world as free, without falling into the danger of disconnecting God and the world (since God relates to the world because he is in himself self-sufficient, and the world is free to relate to God because it depends of God)’ (Norgate, Isaak A. Dorner, 217). Norgate further adds that Barth’s account is superior to that of Dorner because Barth more fully utilizes the doctrine of divine grace in interpreting the relationship between God’s triune self-sufficiency and creaturely dependence (Norgate, Isaak A. Dorner, 218). Anselm, Cur deus homo, 2.5 [PL, 158:403c]; see also Stephen R. Holmes, ‘The Upholding of Beauty: A Reading of Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo’, in idem, Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 44. Anselm, Monologion, 1 (Davies and Evans, 11). Calvin, Praelectiones in Danielem, part 2, on Dan. 6:26, CO, 41:32–3 (CTS, The Book of the Prophet Daniel, 1:392); see also Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 119–23.

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Fourth, divine aseity has played an important role in the context of natural theology and the theology of nature. In other words, it has served as a description of God in relation to creation which is offered either ‘functionally’ and apologetically or ‘doxologically’ and dogmatically.72 Both approaches are well attested throughout this doctrine’s history and both are often found within the work of a single theologian. Perhaps the most important of these examples is its indispensable role in the ontological and cosmological arguments.73 In the former case, this a priori argument operates as a reductio ad absurdum by pairing the twin premises of the superiority of actual existence over non-existence and of God’s identity as the most supreme being. In light of the superiority of existence and of the absolute superiority of God, God is most certainly a se.74 Aseity is thus one of God’s essential great-making properties.75 In the latter case, this a posteriori argument moves from the impossibility of an infinite regress of causation to the need for an absolute origin which stands at the genesis of all finite reality.76 Accordingly, God is the primum movens,77 the causa efficiens and causa finalis,78 the primum efficiens and the finis ultimus79 and the primum principium.80 To this one it therefore belongs to exist a se.81 72 73

74

75

76

77 78

79 80 81

Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 111. Divine aseity has also been central in presuppositional apologetics. See John Frame, ‘Divine Aseity and Apologetics’, in Revelation and Reason: New Essays in Reformed Apologetics, ed. Scott Oliphint and Lane Tipton (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2007), 115–30. Anselm, Proslogion, 2–4 (Davies and Evans, 87–9); Richard of St. Victor, De trinitate, 1.11 (Coolman and Coulter, 219–20); Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 4.65 (Wolter, 122–5); Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia, 5 (Cottingham et al., 2:44–9); idem, Réponses aux quatrièmes objections (Cottingham et al., esp. 2:162–72); Samuel Clark, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, ed. Ezio Vailati (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), especially 10; see also Darren Hynes, ‘Descartes’s Ontological Proof: Cause and Divine Perfection’, Analecta Hermeneutica 2 (2010): 1–24; Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 110–13. However, it is worth remembering that Barth argues that Anselm’s ontological argument is not functional but doxological (see Karl Barth, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Anselm’s Proof of the Existence of God in the Context of his Theological Scheme, trans. Ian W. Robinson [London: SCM, 1960], especially 44–53; idem, CD II/1, 305). For example, ‘Anything to whose nature it is repugnant to receive existence from something else [esse ab alio], exists of itself [esse a se] if it is able to exist at all. To receive existence from something else is repugnant to the very notion of a being which is first in the order of efficiency’ (Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 3.19; cf. 3.21–2 [Wolter, 52–3; cf. 54–5]; see also Richard Cross, Duns Scotus on God [Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005], 29–48). Aquinas, ST, 1.2.3; 1.44.1; idem, SCG, 1.13; Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 3.7–17, 4.51–5 (Wolter, 44–51, 106–15); see also Aristotle, Physics, 7–8; idem, Metaphysics, 12. Aquinas, ST, 1.2.3 responsio (the first way). Aquinas, ST, 1.44.1, 4; cf. 1.2.3 responsio (the second way); see also Aristotle, Physics, 2.3; idem, Metaphysics, 5.2. Duns Scotus, De primo principio, 4.84 (Wolter, 142–3). Duns Scotus, De primo principio, especially 1.1, 3.1 (Wolter, 2–3, 42–3). For Anselm, ‘since all things exists through this one thing, beyond a shadow of a doubt this one thing exists through itself ’ (Anselm, Monologion, 3 [Davies and Evans, 14]). For Hugh of St. Victor, the cosmological argument is given a dualist reinterpretation. He begins with the idea that creatures have an invisible rational and spiritual essence which is mingled with their physical bodies – a spiritual reality of which they themselves are cognizant. In this way, since ‘uncreated wisdom’ is

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Aside from these apologetic interests, when God’s aseity has been brought to bear on the doctrine of creation, it has also served to demonstrate that the existence of creatures rests solely on the one who truly is. Creatures do not exist inherently or necessarily, but are rather created by grace and ex nihilo. God is the one ‘Who supremely is, and Who therefore made every being which does not exist supremely (for no being that was made out of nothing could be His equal: or, indeed, exist at all, had He not made it)’.82 And again, ‘all things in heaven and earth derive at His will their essence, or subsistence from One, who only truly is’.83 In sum, divine aseity has served to affirm both the apologetic notion of an absolutely pre-eminent being that is the source of all creation as well as the dogmatic notion that the Father of Jesus Christ is the supremely living creator who graciously gives life to creatures.

God’s aseity in Barth studies As with the classical Christian tradition, divine aseity lies at the heart of Barth’s conception of God. It can even be found operating scarcely below the surface of some rather unassuming doctrines. Not surprisingly, therefore, aseity has had a notable presence in a variety of contexts throughout Barth studies. Four of the most pertinent discussions can be helpfully – although somewhat artificially – divided according to the following pairings: divine freedom and pronobeity, divine autonomy and the modern subject, divine objectivity and human subjectivity and divine triunity and election.

82

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imaged by ‘created wisdom’, one ‘may arrive at knowledge of the Creator from a consideration of himself ’ (Hugh of St. Victor, De tribus diebus, 17 [Coolman and Coulter, 77]). Once this task is taken up, it follows that, while the physical body may find its immediate origin in other physical reality, the spiritual essence of a human cannot originate from physical reality, from itself or from creaturely reality. ‘Therefore our nature tells us that we have an eternal Creator. It is proper to Him to subsist, because if He had received being from another, He could not truly be said to be the first origin of things. If there was a time when He was not, He did not have His beginning from Himself ’ (Hugh of St. Victor, De tribus diebus, 17 [Coolman and Coulter, 78]). For Richard of St. Victor, ‘If nothing had existed from itself then there would be no possible source for the existence of those beings which do not have nor can have their own being from themselves’ (Richard of St. Victor, De trinitate, 1.8; cf. 1.6, 5.3 [Coolman and Coulter, 218; cf. 216–17, 294–5]). For Calvin, ‘he from whom all things draw their origin must be eternal and have beginning from himself ’ (Calvin, Institutio christianae religionis, 1.5.6 [Battles, 1:58–9]). For Mastricht, since there cannot be an infinite regress of dependent beings and since nothing can cause itself, there must be a ‘being from itself [ens à se], through being, who brought all things forth’ (Mastricht, Theoretico-practica theologia, 2.3.15). Augustine, De civitate Dei, 12.5; cf. 12.9, 12.16, 12.26, 14.11 (Dyson, 504; cf. 509–11, 519–23, 536–8, 603–7). Calvin, Commentarius in Mosis reliquos quatuor libros, part 1, on Exod. 3:14, CO, 24:43–4 (CTS, The Four Last Books of Moses, 1:74).

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Divine freedom and pronobeity First, aseity has featured in discussions about the relationship between divine freedom and pronobeity. In the Church Dogmatics, aseity and freedom are parallel and even overlapping concepts. Since Barth views concepts as inadequate servants, his gaze is not primarily fixed on these instruments in and of themselves, but rather on their master, Jesus Christ. As is characteristic of his theology more generally, Barth uses the concepts of aseity and freedom with an open hand. The degree to which they are precisely analysed and logically related is tempered by the fact that they are not examined as independent concepts, but rather as descriptions of the one Subject in the story of Immanuel. According to Barth, if aseity is distinct from divine freedom, it is only as its primary aspect. This is important to bear in mind in light of the fact that much of the secondary literature which takes up these concerns does so under the term ‘freedom’, the term which Barth comes to favour by the time of writing Church Dogmatics II/1. Studies on or inclusive of Barth’s doctrine of divine freedom have therefore proved to be valuable resources for his view of divine aseity in the narrow sense of the term.84 Of the motifs which have arisen in this literature, arguably the most important is the notion that divine freedom is realized and manifest in the gospel of Jesus Christ.85 As Ulrich Hedinger writes, The being and action of God are determined and opened up in Jesus Christ: Jesus Christ is the eminent act of divine freedom and grace. In this way, God’s freedom does not abolish God’s unity, but rather establishes it. The freedom of God does not point to a sum of unending possibilities, but rather to the one reality of God in Jesus Christ.86 84

85

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See especially Ulrich Hedinger, Der Freiheitsbegriff in der Kirchlichen Dogmatik Karl Barths, Studien zur Dogmengeschichte und systematischen Theologie 15 (Zurich: Zwingli Verlag, 1962), 33–71, 141–58; Robert T. Osborn, The Idea of Freedom in the Theology of Karl Barth (PhD dissertation, Drew University, 1955), 19–73, 151–2; George S. Hendry, ‘The Freedom of God in the Theology of Karl Barth’, Scottish Journal of Theology 31 (1978): 229–44; John Colwell, Actuality and Provisionality: Eternity and Election in the Theology of Karl Barth (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 1989), 208–30; Timothy Bradshaw, Trinity and Ontology: A Comparative Study of the Theologies of Karl Barth and Wolfhart Pannenberg, Rutherford Studies in Contemporary Theology 1 (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 1988), 64–9, 302–24. See Hedinger, Der Freiheitsbegriff in der Kirchlichen Dogmatik Karl Barths, 33, 61–71, 141–58; idem, ‘Der Freiheitsbegriff bei Paul Tillich und Karl Barth’, Theologische Zeitschrift 19.1 (1963): 42–9; Hans Theodor Goebel, Vom freien Wählen Gottes und des Menschen: Interpretationsübungen zur ‘Analogie’ nach Karl Barths Lehre von der Erwählung und Bedenken ihrer Folgen für die Kirchliche Dogmatik (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1990), 25–71; Osborn, The Idea of Freedom in the Theology of Karl Barth, 48–73. Hedinger, Der Freiheitsbegriff in der Kirchlichen Dogmatik Karl Barths, 141; see also Rowan Williams, ‘Barth on the Triune God’, in Karl Barth: Studies of his Theological Method, ed. S. W. Sykes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), especially 178.

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This christological determination of divine freedom has sparked a variety of conversations about the particular nature of God’s free ‘decision’ (Entscheidung) or ‘determination’ (Bestimmung) to be our God. These discussions have largely sought to come to terms to with two convictions evident throughout the Church Dogmatics, albeit in varying degrees. On the one hand, ‘God would not be God, He would not be free, if this had to be so’ (II/2, 101). Or more fully, From all eternity God could have excluded man from this covenant. He could have delivered him up to himself and allowed him to fall. He could have refused to will him at all. He could have avoided the compromising of His freedom by not willing to create him. He could have remained satisfied with Himself and with the impassible glory and blessedness of His own inner life. But He did not do so. He elected man as a covenant-partner. In His Son He elected Himself as the covenant-partner of man. (II/2, 166)

God’s elected presence with creatures can only ever be a gift. On the other hand, the decision of election does not give witness to a conception of God as ‘irresistibly efficacious power in abstracto, naked freedom and sovereignty’ (II/2, 44).87 Both noetically and ontologically, the meaning of divine freedom is specified in Jesus Christ. That is, God is only known in God’s will to be God in the history of Jesus Christ (II/2, 146) and God does not will to be God in any other way (II/2, 77). Accordingly, the doctrine of election belongs to the doctrine of God (II/2, §32.3), and it is Jesus Christ who is specified not merely as the object of election, but also as its subject (II/2, §33.1). Although the presence of these themes is beyond dispute, how they should be interpreted and related has been a more controversial matter. Does Barth strictly conceive of divine freedom as God’s self-initiation in choosing this one path or does divine freedom also involve a choice between various options? Hans Goebel perceives a solution along chronological lines. In his view, in I/1 Barth focuses on divine freedom in terms of the ‘ability’ (Können) and ‘eternal ground’ of the triune subject of revelation, but by the time of II/2 Barth comes to understand divine freedom more concretely in terms of God’s

87

See Eberhard Busch, The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 115; Joseph L. Mangina, Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 66; Paul Dafydd Jones, The Humanity of Christ: Christology in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 82–3.

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‘will’ (Willen) in electing to be our God.88 Barth’s earlier emphasis is thus on the absoluteness of God’s triunity and correspondingly on God’s capacity for independence. By contrast, his later emphasis is on the actuality of God’s concrete determination to be pro nobis in Jesus Christ, or rather, on the fact that even in eternity God already stands in relation to humanity through the election of Jesus Christ. Bruce McCormack has been the most dominant voice to develop this general outlook.89 For McCormack, divine election in II/2 is a free decision, but it is also an ‘eternal decision’ which ‘has never not taken place’.90 Nonetheless, even though McCormack affirms the conception of God’s freedom as essentially freedom pro nobis and denies the possibility of any abstract voluntarism,91 he still maintains that for Barth ‘God might have chosen to create a different world or to have created no world at all’ and that the assertion that ‘“God would be God without us” is a true statement and has a value in safeguarding the divine freedom.’92 This general interpretation of divine freedom as essentially freedom for has been well received by a variety of scholars in the current discussion. Most notably, Kevin Hector asserts, ‘Because God is the God of the covenant, God is free; but because God is the God of the covenant, God’s freedom is precisely freedom-for this covenant.’93 Following and developing McCormack’s position, he argues that since election is an ‘eternal decision’, it is fitting to say both that God is ‘freely 88

89

90 91

92

93

Hans Theodor Goebel, ‘Trinitätslehre und Erwählungslehre bei Karl Barth: Eine Problemanzeige’, in Wahrheit und Versöhnung: theologische und philosophische Beiträge zur Gotteslehre, ed. Dietrich Korsch and Hartmut Ruddies (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1989), 154; cf. Thies Grundlach, Selbstbegrenzung Gottes und die Autonomie des Menschen: Karl Barths Kirchliche Dogmatik als Modernisierungschritt evangelischer Theologie (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1992), 145–67. See Bruce L. McCormack, ‘Grace and Being: The Role of God’s Gracious Election in Karl Barth’s Theological Ontology’, in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed. John Webster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 101–2. McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 101; cf. 99–100. See Bruce L. McCormack, ‘Let’s Speak Plainly: A Response to Paul Molnar’, Theology Today 67.1 (2010): 60. McCormack, foreword to the German edition of Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, in idem, Orthodox and Modern: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 297. In McCormack’s own proposal which is explicitly with and beyond Barth, he argues that since, unlike creatures, God’s decision ‘simply is’ his intentionality, God’s election to be pro nobis simply is his freedom (Bruce L. McCormack, ‘Election and the Trinity: Theses in response to George Hunsinger’, Scottish Journal of Theology 63.2 [2010]: 221). Moreover, since God’s freedom ‘does not consist . . . in a choice between alternatives’, the ‘opposite’ of God’s election to be pro nobis is not some other elected path of existence but rather the choice not to exist (McCormack, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 223). Kevin W. Hector, ‘God’s Triunity and Self-Determination: A Conversation with Karl Barth, Bruce McCormack and Paul Molnar’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 7.3 (2005): 256; emphasis original.

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bound’ and that creation is ‘contingently necessary’.94 Election may be viewed as ‘volitionally necessary’ for God.95 Others such as Paul Molnar and George Hunsinger have been concerned that these voices are in danger of compromising the proper relationship between God and creatures. For Molnar it is essential that God’s freedom pro nobis be understood as more than merely self-initiation in election and freedom from external constraint. This determination must be ‘seen against his freedom to have existed without us’ or else an intolerable element of ‘logical necessity’ will be introduced into the concept of divine freedom.96 His concern is that without the freedom to exist entirely in and from Godself, God’s life ad extra and even creation become necessary in some sense.97 Therefore, while Molnar accepts that God has determined to be free for us, he worries that with McCormack and Hector divine freedom is ‘only his freedom for us’,98 or rather, that ‘because God is graciously free for us in his Word and Spirit, he had to be so from all eternity’.99 In this light, the discussion here raises the question of the extent to which Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity should be interpreted as reinforcing the contingency of God’s decision to be pro nobis or as reinforcing its necessity.

Divine autonomy and the modern subject Second, aseity has featured in discussions about the relationship between divine autonomy and the modern subject. Scholarship since the 1960s has given 94 95

96 97

98 99

Hector, ‘God’s Triunity and Self-Determination’, 257, 261; emphasis original. Kevin W. Hector, ‘Immutability, Necessity and Triunity: Towards a Resolution of the Trinity and Election Controversy’, Scottish Journal of Theology 65.1 (2012): 71; emphasis original. Molnar, ‘The Trinity, Election, and God’s Ontological Freedom’, 299. See Molnar, ‘The Trinity, Election, and God’s Ontological Freedom’, 303–6. So also for Hunsinger, creation is ‘in no way necessary for God, not even “contingently” (whatever that might mean)’ (George Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity: Twenty-Five Theses on the Theology of Karl Barth’, Modern Theology 24.2 [2008]: 193). Molnar follows Hunsinger in speaking of the Logos asarkos as ‘eternally necessary’ and of the Logos ensarkos as ‘eternally contingent’ (Molnar, ‘The Trinity, Election, and God’s Ontological Freedom’, 302; cf. George Hunsinger, introduction to For the Sake of the World: Karl Barth and the Future of Ecclesial Theology, ed. idem [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004], 16–17; idem, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 191). See also Edwin Chr. van Driel, ‘Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ’, Scottish Journal of Theology 60.1 (2007): 54. Molnar, ‘The Trinity, Election, and God’s Ontological Freedom’, 304; emphasis original. Ibid., 297; emphasis original. However, as has been seen, McCormack and Hector affirm both that election is an eternal decision and that it is a decision which God ‘could’ have not made. Therefore, this criticism would only hold if it could be demonstrated that their affirmation of the contingency of election is somehow inconsistent with its eternity and relative necessity. McCormack himself concludes that Molnar’s attention to this point is misplaced. He argues that the issue which fundamentally divides them in this discussion is not divine freedom, but instead whether it is possible to talk about the divine identity in the case that one counterfactually supposes that God had actualized this genuine ‘could’ – that is, whether it is possible to talk about God’s immanent triunity as actual apart from God’s elected economic triunity (see McCormack, forward to the German edition of Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 297).

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increased attention to Barth’s relationship to modernity, and especially the way in which his theology arises from and is located within the history of ideas.100 In line with these interests, Trutz Rendtorff challenges the traditional assumption that Barth’s relationship to the Enlightenment is fundamentally a negative one. He instead claims that Barth offers a positive appraisal of the modern conception of the subject as radically autonomous, but simply finds that it has been misappropriated. It is not humanity that rightly possesses ‘radical autonomy’ but God.101 For this reason Barth can be viewed as extending the concerns of the Enlightenment and liberal theology, albeit in this inverted manner.102 The significance of the radical autonomy of God is that it ‘has a radical function, that of affirming pure freedom against every claim of historical structure to be the realisation of freedom’.103 Since God is the radically autonomous subject, reality is constituted only within the sphere of divine freedom. It is therefore a reformulated expression of the liberal conviction that theology must uphold human freedom and ethics. Accordingly, while Barth rejects the subordination of dogmatics to ethics, the doctrine of God is in fact reformulated in ethical terms: God exists in action and, more specifically, God elects to act in love towards creatures.104 Human freedom is thus constituted in the creaturely act of reflecting divine action. At a minimum, this interpretation has shown that Barth’s relationship to modernity is too complex to be categorized simplistically as either one of discontinuity or continuity.105 Moreover, many of the key themes highlighted in this reading are indeed central to Barth’s theology. For Barth, concepts have their primary and proper meaning in the divine reality and only a secondary and derivative meaning with respect to creatures – a conviction which deeply shapes his conception of both personhood and freedom. Barth writes, ‘The real 100

See John Macken, The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics: Karl Barth and his Critics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 109–13. 101 Trutz Rendtorff, ‘Radikale Autonomie Gottes: zum Verständnis der Theologie Karl Barths und ihrer Folgen’, in Theorie des Christentums: historisch-theologische Studien zu seiner neuzeitlichen Verfassung, ed. idem (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus Gerd Mohn, 1972), 164. For analyses for Rendtorff ’s interpretation of Barth on divine freedom, see Macken, The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics, esp. 124–43; Stefan Holtmann, Karl Barth als Theologe der Neuzeit: Studien zur kritischen Deutung seiner Theologie, Forschungen zur systematischen und ökumenischen Theologie 118 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), especially 73–89. 102 See Rendtorff, ‘Radikale Autonomie Gottes’, 164–5, 180–1. 103 Macken, The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics, 132; emphasis original. 104 See Trutz Rendtorff, ‘Der ethische Sinn der Dogmatik: Zur Reformulierung des Verhältnisses von Dogmatik und Ethik bei Karl Barth’, in Die Realisierung der Freiheit: Beiträge zur Kritik der Theologie Karl Barths, ed. idem, Falk Wagner and Walter Sparn (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1975), 119–34; see also Macken, The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics, 129–33. 105 See Bruce L. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909-1936 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 28.

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person is not man but God. It is not God who is a person by extension, but we’ (II/1, 272).106 And again, We, too, feel that we are each an I, a lord, and free. But this is not true. Our individuality also denotes a limit. Our thinking, willing, and feeling break up once they cross this limit. We constantly have other lords alongside us and over us and under us. We are I in antithesis to not-I, and only thus. But God says: ‘I am the Lord.’ He is God inasmuch as he can say that he is free. (GD, 370)

This freedom and autonomy is God’s lordship (I/1, 306–7). Furthermore, according to Barth, it is in relation to God’s unity rather than God’s trinity that God must be considered the free ‘person’ (I/1, 349–51).107 Lastly, Barth does in fact claim that it is only in relation to the elected path of this freedom that humans themselves can be free. ‘Human freedom and libertas christiana can only be understood if it is recognized that and how God is free’.108 It is clear, then, that divine aseity plays a foundational role throughout Barth’s theological ethics.109 106

Cf. I/1, 355–8; II/1, 284–7. See Moltmann’s critique in this regard: Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God: The Doctrine of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 139–44. 108 Hedinger, Der Freiheitsbegriff in der Kirchlichen Dogmatik Karl Barths, 33. Some interpreters, to be sure, have feared that Barth’s emphasis on God’s sovereign freedom infringes upon divine immanence and creaturely freedom (e.g., Bradshaw, Trinity and Ontology, 314–17); however, a wide range of Barthians and Barth scholars have found his doctrine of divine freedom to move in quite the opposite direction (see esp. Macken, The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics, 42–87; Colin E. Gunton, ‘The Triune God and the Freedom of the Creature’, in Karl Barth: Centenary Essays, ed. S. W. Sykes [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989], 46–68; idem, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, 2nd edn [London: T&T Clark, 2003], xix, 118–77; Paul D. Molnar, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity: In Dialogue with Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology [London: T&T Clark, 2002], esp. 63–4, 138, 166, 196, 311–16). Also worthy of mention is Walter Ralls’ argument that while nominalism led philosophers to ground human identity intrinsically and accordingly to define freedom as self-determination, Barth theologically recasts human identity eccentrically and accordingly grounds human identity in God’s freely established covenant with creatures. In this way, the self-sufficient God of nominalism is replaced with the self-determined God of the covenant (Walter Mark Ralls, Karl Barth and the Subject of Modernity: The Theological Aufhebung of the Modern Self [PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1999]). For more on divine and human freedom in Barth, see Goebel, Vom freien Wählen Gottes und des Menschen, especially 53–71, 281–312; Dale R. Althoff, Freedom and Love in the Thought of Karl Barth (PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1976), especially 111–62, 218–37; Suzanne McDonald, Re-Imaging Election: Divine Election as Representing God to Others & Others to God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), especially 49–54. 109 See Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 2–5, 46–7; idem, ‘Freedom in Limitation: Human Freedom and False Necessity in Barth’, in Barth’s Moral Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 99–123; Christopher R. J. Holmes, ‘“A Specific Form of Relationship”: On the Dogmatic Implications of Barth’s Account of Election and Commandment for His Theological Ethics’, in Trinity and Election in Contemporary Theology, ed. Michael T. Dempsey (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 193–5, 199–200; cf. Jesse Couenhoven, ‘Karl Barth’s Conception(s) of Human and Divine Freedom(s)’, in Commanding Grace: Studies in Karl Barth’s Ethics, ed. Daniel L. Migliore (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 239–55. 107

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However, the more specific question of whether Barth is borrowing his concept of autonomy from the Enlightenment has proved to be more difficult. Does this view give sufficient consideration to the historicality of the word of God?110 Further, does it give sufficient consideration to the degree to which Barth’s trinitarian and christological interpretation of divine freedom deviates from the modern conception of the human subject? Would this view not ultimately make Barth himself guilty of the Feuerbachian critique which he so frequently applies to others? In this light, the discussion here raises the question of the extent to which Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity should be interpreted as the wholly unique freedom of the triune God or as a reversal and extension of the modern conception of the human person as an autonomous subject.

Divine objectivity and human subjectivity Third, aseity has featured in discussions about the relationship between divine objectivity and human subjectivity. Within Barth’s career this question arises in his ongoing debate with Bultmann over his demythologizing program.111 For Bultmann, the mystery with which the Christian faith is concerned is not ‘what God is in Himself, but how he acts with men’.112 Concern with God beyond human experience, beyond the anthropological categories which inexorably permeate the reception of divine grace, is considered a regression into metaphysical abstraction. Much to Barth’s disappointment, Bultmann can readily claim that ‘to speak of God is to speak of myself ’.113 Bultmann fears the ‘objectifying’ tendency of mythology, but Barth fears the ‘subjectivizing’ tendency of a demythologized and existentially interpreted kerygma114 – a tendency which he sees as having the tragic effect of upholding anthropology at the expense of 110

For example, consider the following critique which Barth offers against Bultmann: ‘Is the demythologized kerygma allowed to say anything about God’s having condescended to become this-worldly, objective and – horror of horrors! – datable?’ (Karl Barth, ‘Rudolf Bultmann—An Attempt to Understand Him’, in Kerygma and Myth, vol. 2, ed. Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. Reginald H. Fuller [London: SPCK, 1962], 109). See also Macken, The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics, 132–3. 111 See Rudolf Bultmann, ‘New Testament and Mythology’, in Kerygma and Myth, vol. 1, 2nd edn, ed. Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. Reginald H. Fuller (London: SPCK, 1964), 1–44; Barth, ‘Rudolf Bultmann – An Attempt to Understand Him’, 83–132; Bernd Jaspert, ed. Karl Barth – Rudolf Bultmann: Letters 1922-1966, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 87–108, 140–8. 112 Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), 43. 113 Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology, 70. 114 Karl Barth to Rudolf Bultmann, 24 December 1952, Karl Barth–Rudolf Bultmann: Letters 1922-1966, ed. Bernd Jaspert, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 106.

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theology.115 Especially through the influence of Anselm in 1927–31, Barth wishes to maintain a theological epistemology which gives priority to the ontic over the noetic.116 It is thus an epistemology ‘with its foundation in God’s objective, selfsufficient reality, beyond any correlation with the human subject’, that is, with its foundation in God’s aseity.117 Desiring neither an ‘abstract subjectivism’ nor an ‘abstract objectivism’, Barth seeks to follow God’s objective self-revelation in Jesus Christ.118 In addition to the controversy between Barth and Bultmann themselves, the strands of this discussion are later picked up by Herbert Braun and Helmut Gollwitzer.119 Despite being influenced by Barth, on the question 115

According to Barth, Bultmann inverts the New Testament message by treating subjective experience as the starting point for understanding divine action and as the key criterion for its interpretation (Barth, ‘Rudolf Bultmann – An Attempt to Understand Him’, 92). For this reason Barth believes Bultmann is following in the footsteps of their former Marburg professor, Wilhelm Herrmann, by overemphasizing the role of ethical and anthropological considerations in the theological task (Barth, ‘Rudolf Bultmann – An Attempt to Understand Him’, 123; cf. 114). Even more derisively, Barth can speak of the ‘anthropological strait-jacket into which Bultmann forces his systematic theology’ (III/2, 446). Speaking of his own theology, however, he writes, ‘I have become increasingly a Zinzendorfian to the extent that in the NT only the one central figure as such has begun to occupy me – or each and everything else only in the light and under the sign of this central figure. As I see it, one can and should read all theology in some sense backwards from it: down to anthropology, ethics, and then methodology. This is what I have attempted and am still attempting’ (Karl Barth to Rudolf Bultmann, 24 December 1952, Karl Barth–Rudolf Bultmann: Letters 1922-1966, 107). For more on Barth’s critique of the reduction of theology to anthropology, see, I/1, 125–31; II/1, 292–3; III/2, 21; idem, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History, new edition, trans. Brian Cozens and John Bowden (London: SCM, 2001), 522. 116 See Barth, Anselm, especially 44–53. 117 Christophe Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians: Wilhelm Herrmann, Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann (Zurich: TVZ, 2005), 234. The fact that Barth finds incentive for this position through engagement with the first theologian to develop the doctrine of divine aseity is by no means a coincidence. Even in a cursory reading of Fides Quaerens Intellectum, one can scarcely avoid seeing the central role that this theme plays. Barth speaks of ‘aseity in his work on Anselm with exemplary theological objectivity’ (Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation, trans. Edward T. Oakes [San Francisco: Ignatius, 1992], 78). 118 Barth, ‘Rudolf Bultmann – An Attempt to Understand Him’, 92. ‘To fall out of subjectivism into an equally naïve objectivism, out of psychology into ontology – that I call exchanging the devil for Beelzebub’ (Karl Barth, ‘Church and Theology’, in idem, Theology and Church, trans. Louise Pettitbone Smith [London: SCM, 1962], 297). 119 See Horst Symanowski, ed., ‘Post Bultmann Locutum: Eine Diskussion zwischen Professor D. Helmut Gollwitzer (Berlin) und Professor D. Herbert Braun (Mainz)’, vol. 1, Theologische Forschung 37 (Hamburg-Bergstedt: Herbert Reich Evangelischer Verlag, 1965); Hans-Werner Bartsch, ed., ‘Post Bultmann Locutum: Eine Diskussion zwischen Professor D. Helmut Gollwitzer (Berlin) und Professor D. Herbert Braun (Mainz)’, vol. 2, Theologische Forschung 38 (Hamburg-Bergstedt: Herbert Reich Evangelischer Verlag, 1965); see also Herbert Braun, ‘Gottes Existenz und meine Geschichtlichkeit im NT: Eine Antwort an Helmut Gollwitzer’, in Zeit und Geschichte, ed. Erich Dinkler (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1964), 399–421; idem, ‘The Problem of a New Testament Theology’, Journal for Theology and Church 1 (1965): 169–83; idem, ‘The Meaning of New Testament Christology’, Journal for Theology and Church 5 (1968): 89–127; Helmut Gollwitzer, The Existence of God: As Confessed by Faith, The Library of Philosophy and Theology, trans. James W. Leitch (London: SCM Press, 1965). For commentary on this debate see Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 1–7; Bruce L. McCormack, ‘God Is His Decision: The Jüngel-Gollwitzer “Debate” Revisited’, in Theology as Conversation: The Significance of Dialogue in Historical and Contemporary Theology: A Festschrift for Daniel L. Migliore, ed. idem and Kimlyn J. Bender (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2009), 51–7.

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of demythology Braun nonetheless takes after Bultmann. He does not deny that the New Testament describes God as ‘existing in and for himself ’, but he seeks to demonstrate that in and through the disparate biblical descriptions of God as objective and non-objective there lies the decisive theme that God is properly ‘the whence of my being agitated’, or rather, that God is the one who stands behind the creaturely vocation of loving the other.120 Following Bultmann’s notion that to speak of God is to speak ‘anthropologically’ and ‘soteriologically’, Braun concludes, ‘I can speak of God only where I speak of man.’121 In response, Helmut Gollwitzer, Barth’s former student and preferred choice as successor to his post at Basil, attempts to take up Barth’s mantel in defence of the perceived threat of anthropological reductionism. He vehemently rejects the ideas that God’s being is identical with humanity’s encounter with revelation and that speaking about God beyond this event is an ‘objectifying metaphysic’.122 Nonetheless, he grants that God is only perceived by creatures through an ‘I–Thou’ relationship according to which speech about God is conceptually structured. That is, he maintains that God must be viewed as a person and that the event of God’s relationship with creatures is personal. However, the concept of person refers to a ‘relation’ rather than a ‘substance expressing the nature of something that exists on its own’.123 Through his effort to uphold God’s existence outside of God’s relationship with creatures, he prevents this conceptual structure from being read back into God’s being: ‘it is not possible to argue back from it to the nature of God in the sense of how God is constituted, but only to the nature of his will, i.e. from his will as made known in history to his eternal will as the will of his free love’.124 Since God reveals Godself as God is and yet all creaturely concepts used to describe this event are anthropological, to speak of God with ‘is’ propositions is both necessary and unserviceable.125 On the basis of revelation – but only on this basis – creatures must give witness to the fact that an ‘objective reality’ encounters us in the proclamation of the word as well as to the ‘nonobjectifiability’ of this reality.126 In accordance with ‘the old concept of aseity as theology understands it’, since God’s being for us is grounded in God’s ‘free, 120

Braun, ‘The Problem of a New Testament Theology’, 177, 183. Ibid., 183. 122 Gollwitzer, The Existence of God, 34; cf. 220–32. 123 Ibid., 187. 124 Ibid., 186. 125 Ibid., 202–20. 126 Ibid., 209, 215–16. 121

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sovereign decision’, it is necessary to also say that God is ‘in and for himself ’, or rather, that God is unbound both in and beyond the relations established in this event.127 Therefore, in revelation we do not have to do with God in se but instead with God pro nobis.128 Following this debate, yet another student of Barth, Eberhard Jüngel, finds that Gollwitzer’s exposition does not adequately account for all of Barth’s concerns.129 At the general level, Jüngel argues that Gollwitzer perpetuates the misguided polarization between the Bultmannian school (with its alleged reduction of theology to anthropology) and the Barthian school (with its alleged dismissal of the anthropological dimensions of revelation).130 Alternatively, he claims that both Bultmann and Barth grant that revelation establishes a connection between God and humanity in such a way that speaking about God at least to some degree requires speaking about humanity.131 The key difference is that Barth finds it necessary to look for the possibility and truth of revelation beyond the sphere of its anthropological significance and correspondingly distinguishes the creaturely medium of revelation from God. In other words, Barth’s position is distinguished by his conviction that ‘God’s presence in the parable of sacramental reality must not lead to an equation between God and our reality, if God is not to be objectified.’132 Gollwitzer also fails to identify that for Barth it is the divine reality and not an isolated concern with the divine will that grounds the actuality and possibility of God’s existence for us.133 By contrast, in attempting to defend Barth’s emphasis on God’s objective reality, Gollwitzer often appears simply to exchange the ‘methodological principle’ of God pro me for that of God in se.134 In this light, the discussion here raises the question of the extent to which Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity should be interpreted as establishing the presence of God’s being with creatures or as protecting the integrity of God’s being in se.

127

Ibid., 217–18; emphasis original. Ibid., 207–9. 129 On Jüngel’s interpretation of Barth’s doctrine of God, see McCormack, ‘God Is His Decision’, especially 57–60; John Thompson, ‘Jüngel on Barth’, in The Possibilities of Theology: Studies in the Theology of Eberhard Jüngel in his Sixtieth Birthday, ed. John Webster (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), especially 144–9, 160–7, 173–7; John Webster, introduction to God’s Being is in Becoming, ix–xxiii. 130 Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 69–74. For a critique of the Barthian interpretation of Bultmann as compromising the reality of God and reducing theology to anthropology, see Benjamin Myers, ‘Faith as Self-Understanding: Towards a Post-Barthian Appreciation of Rudolf Bultmann’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 10.1 (2008): 21–35. 131 See Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 71. 132 Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 74; cf. Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 105–6; 272–81. 133 Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 104–23. 134 Ibid., 119n. 159. 128

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Divine triunity and election Fourth, aseity has featured in discussions about the relationship between divine triunity and election. Barth scholars have long since recognized that the formal placement of the doctrine of election within the doctrine of God and the corresponding material import of this move together entail that God’s eternal identity and God’s eternal will in Jesus Christ are inseparable. However, there has been a wide range of opinions on the question of how this relationship ought to be interpreted.135 In the debate arising from Bruce McCormack’s pivotal essay, ‘Grace and Being’, this issue has been concretely expressed in terms of the ontological and logical relationship between God’s triunity and election, or more fully, between God’s action ad extra and God’s being,136 between the economic and immanent trinity,137 and between time and eternity.138 According to McCormack, as with divine freedom, any answer to this question must bear in mind the chronological development of Barth’s theology towards a more rigorous and consistent christocentrism. This christological orientation is initially incited through Pierre Maury’s lecture, ‘Election and Faith’ (1936), but it is not until II/2 that it achieves a more robust expression.139 As II/2 marks a transition from a potentially abstract to a concrete conception of divine freedom – that is, from ability to will – so also it marks a transition 135

For a helpful overview of these positions, see van Driel, ‘Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ’, 45–61. 136 See McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 96–100; Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 180–1; Paul D. Molnar, ‘The Trinity, Election and God’s Ontological Freedom: A Response to Kevin W. Hector’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 8.3 (2006): 300–1; idem, ‘Can the Electing God be God Without us? Some Implications of Bruce McCormack’s Understanding of Barth’s Doctrine of Election for the Doctrine of the Trinity’, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 49.2 (2007): 213–17; Justin Stratis, ‘Speculating about Divinity? God’s Immanent Life and Actualistic Ontology’, International Journal for Systematic Theology 12.1 (2010): 20–32. The groundwork for this question is laid in Eberhard Jüngel’s God’s Being is in Becoming and in Wilfried Härle’s Sein und Gnade: Die Ontologie in Karl Barths Kirchlicher Dogmatik (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975). 137 See McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 93–104; Molnar, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity, 61–4; idem, ‘The Trinity, Election and God’s Ontological Freedom’, 297–9, 302–3, 305–6; idem, ‘Can the Electing God be God Without us?’, 209–13; Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 182–3, 184, 188–94; cf. Paul Dafydd Jones, The Humanity of Christ, 78–116. 138 See Bruce L. McCormack, ‘Seek God Where He May Be Found: A Response to Edwin Chr. van Driel’, Scottish Journal of Theology 60.1 (2007): 75–6; Molnar, ‘The Trinity, Election and God’s Ontological Freedom’, 301–3; idem, ‘Can the Electing God be God Without us?’, 217–21; Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 180–90; idem, ‘Mysterium Trinitatis: Karl Barth’s Conception of Eternity’, in idem, Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 186–209; Hector, ‘God’s Triunity and Self-Determination’, 253–4; cf. Christophe Chalamet, ‘No Timelessness in God: On Differing Interpretations of Karl Barth’s Theology of Eternity, Time and Election’, Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie, Supplement Series 4 (2010): 25–31; Aaron T. Smith, ‘God’s Self-Specification: His being is his Electing’, Scottish Journal of Theology 62.1 (2009): 16–17, 20–1. 139 McCormack, ‘Seek God Where he may be Found’, 63–6; cf. idem, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 458–63.

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from a potentially abstract to a concrete conception of God’s being – that is, from an essentialist to an actualistic ontology.140 With an essentialist ontology, since God is triune in revelation, God simply is triune and would have been so even apart from creation, reconciliation and redemption. According to McCormack, although Barth is not wholly consistent, he generally comes to see this view as involving a speculative attempt to know the divine identity behind God’s election to become Immanuel. Barth’s doctrine of election thus establishes a ‘hermeneutical rule’ which validates speech about God’s action and identity prior to its economic enactment ‘without engaging in speculation’.141 This critique therefore leads Barth to an actualistic ontology in which it is recognized that the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Spirit do not merely reveal eternal generation and spiration, but are rather ‘constitutive’ for them.142 God is not eternally triune in abstracto. God’s eternal triune relations are only true of God insofar as God eternally exists in the election of these temporal triune relations ad extra. God’s existence is necessary, but ‘how’ God exists is only necessary within the contingency of God’s sovereign will to be God in this way.143 The statement that ‘God would be God without us’ is true, but it extends to the very limits of appropriate speech about the divine reality.144 That is, the doctrines of the immanent trinity and, more specifically, of the Logos asarkos have theological value in upholding the distinction between time and eternity, but they in no way justify speech about God’s identity which differs in content from who God is in Jesus Christ.145 God’s immanent triunity can only be understood to mean that God is triune ‘by way of anticipation’ of his economic triunity.146 A Logos asarkos which is other than the Logos incarnandus is quite simply a ‘mythological abstraction’.147 Divine election is therefore understood as God’s self-determination (Selbstbestimmung) in the stronger sense of the term, that is, in the sense that in this act God ‘assigns’ Godself a specific being.148 God’s eternal determinations to be triune and to

140

McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 98–9; see also Goebel, ‘Trinitätslehre und Erwählungslehre bei Karl Barth’, 153–7; Grundlach, Selbstbegrenzung Gottes und die Autonomie des Menschen, 145–67. 141 McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 92. 142 Ibid., 99. 143 McCormack, foreword to the German edition of Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 296. 144 McCormack, ‘Seek God Where he may be Found’, 76; emphasis original. 145 McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 95–6, 100–1; idem, ‘Seek God Where he may be Found’, 67–8. 146 McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 100. 147 Ibid., 103. 148 Ibid., 98.

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be pro nobis are ‘one and the same act’,149 but God’s election is logically prior to God’s triunity.150 In response, scholars such as Paul Molnar, George Hunsinger and Edwin Chr. van Driel have found it necessary to oppose this position. Of the objections which have been lodged against McCormack’s view, the most consistent have been the claim that it makes creation necessary to God and correspondingly diminishes God’s freedom to be for creatures.151 They instead claim that it is necessary to view God’s triunity as ontologically and logically prior to God’s election.152 Against McCormack and with the traditional doctrine of the trinity, it is argued that eternal generation and spiration are natural or necessary, but their temporal and outward movement is freely willed such that it is contingent.153 Therefore, although for McCormack God’s determinations to be triune and to be pro nobis are one act, for Molnar God’s eternal existence – not self-constitution – as trinity and God’s election to be pro nobis are ‘two distinct acts’.154 Still other scholars such as Kevin Hector, Paul Dafydd Jones, Aaron Smith and Christophe Chalamet have substantially agreed with McCormack, but have nonetheless found it necessary to modify his formulation. They have agreed with McCormack by affirming the need to speak of God’s immanent triunity and freedom as concretely ordered towards the economy. They have differed from McCormack in their rejection of a logical prioritization of God’s election over God’s triunity. Instead they have argued that election and the trinity are 149

McCormack, forward to the German edition of Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 295. 150 McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 101–4. 151 For example, Molnar, ‘The Trinity, Election, and God’s Ontological Freedom’, 295–9; Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 188–90, 192–4; van Driel, ‘Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ’, 54. Other objections to this position have included the following. First, if God’s being is a logical consequence of God’s election, then the possibility is raised that this decision might be made by a (logically) non-trinitarian subject (van Driel, ‘Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ’, 54–5; Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 192–3, 196n. 7). Second, features of God’s being such as divine power are necessary to God’s decision of election (van Driel, ‘Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ’, 54). Third, this view may problematically diminish the theological function of God’s eternal self-relatedness (Molnar, ‘Can the Electing God be God Without us?’, 206–8; Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 189). In defence of McCormack’s position, see McCormack, ‘Seek God Where He May Be Found’, 62–79; cf. Hector, ‘Immutability, Necessity and Triunity’, 78–81. 152 Molnar, ‘ The Trinity, Election and God’s Ontological Freedom’, 302, 305; Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 180–1, 187–8; van Driel, ‘Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ’, 59n. 46. 153 For example, van Driel, ‘Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ’, 53–4; Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 197n. 20; Molnar, ‘Can the Electing God be God Without us?’, 214; cf. McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 103. All sides of the discussion agree that this is the position found in the opening few part-volumes of the Church Dogmatics (see esp. I/1, 433–4). 154 Molnar, ‘Can the Electing God be God Without us?’, 202.

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simultaneous,155 either with an emphasis on the logical priority of God’s triunity156 or with an emphasis on their reciprocity.157 More broadly considered, all of these positions raise the question of whether and to what degree God’s action ad extra should be conceived as the constitution or the reiteration of God’s being.158 In this light, the discussion here raises the question of the extent to which Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity should be interpreted as reinforcing the conception of election as God’s determination to reiterate the depth of God’s life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit ad extra or as God’s election to constitute Godself as this triune God simpliciter.

God’s aseity in Barth’s theology The central task The significance which these discussions have had in Barth scholarship and the significance which divine aseity has had in these discussions together underscore the need to understand this critical doctrine. How does Barth fill out the meaning of divine aseity? What theological functions does it have in this theology? A variety of paths could be taken to this end. The point of departure could be one of the aforementioned discussions so as to identify how this theme speaks into the concerns of Barth scholarship. Alternately, these questions could be brought into dialog with the leading models for interpreting the whole of Barth’s thought (esp. those of McCormack and von Balthasar) so as to clarify how this theme is integral to Barth’s basic theological impulses and how it develops in conjunction with his christological revision. Moreover, one could focus on the presence of aseity outside of the doctrine of God so as to identify its various contexts and its broader theological functions. Or, one could primarily attempt to understand the meaning and functions of this doctrine on the basis

155

Hector, ‘God’s Triunity and Self-Determination’, 258; cf. Jones, The Humanity of Christ, 81n. 51; Chalamet, ‘No Timelessness in God’, 36; Smith, ‘God’s Self-Specification’, 1–2. Hector, ‘God’s Triunity and Self-Determination’, 258; Jones, The Humanity of Christ, 101–2. McCormack categorizes Hector’s position as being in line with that of Jüngel (see McCormack, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 207, 224). 157 Jones, The Humanity of Christ, 78–81, 115, especially 81n. 51; Smith, ‘God’s Self-Specification’, 1, 23n. 42. Although there is no indication that McCormack has altered his basic position, he has started using some language that pushes more in the direction of reciprocity: ‘election and triunity are equally primordial in God’ (see Bruce L. McCormack, ‘The Doctrine of the Trinity after Barth: An Attempt to Reconstruct Barth’s Doctrine in Light of His Later Christology’, in Trinitarian Theology after Barth, ed. Myk Habets and Phillip Tolliday [Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2012], 113). 158 See Holmes, ‘A Specific Form of Relationship’, 195–200. 156

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of its most substantial treatment in Barth’s career, Church Dogmatics II/1, §28.3: ‘The Being of God in Freedom’. While all of these concerns will be kept in view to some extent, the primary course taken here will be this final one. Even if one accepts the notion that Barth’s christocentrism is progressively carried out with greater rigour, the now infamous ‘tensions’ in Barth’s thought which endure through and beyond II/2 suggest that a satisfactory ‘solution’ to interpreting Barth cannot be achieved through developmental considerations alone.159 These tensions unfold chronologically to some degree, but they are also contextually defined. At a very basic level, they can be understood in terms of Barth’s desire to maintain radically and simultaneously both God’s pronobeity and God’s aseity. To say this another way, Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity cannot be understood as merely a feature of his early theology up through II/1. Despite the variations in Barth’s emphasis – again because of his increasing christocentrism as well as contextual considerations – the core features of this doctrine are evident throughout his subsequent work. In fact, as the following exposition will indirectly serve to demonstrate, Barth’s concerns in the richly christological material of II/2 and IV/1–2 are very much anticipated in his doctrine of aseity in II/1.160 The focus is therefore most fruitfully placed on the main section where this doctrine is articulated. It must certainly be acknowledged that more than a few studies have already been offered on CD, §28.3.161 However, the significance of these treatments in 159

On these ‘tensions’, see, McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 101–2; idem, ‘Seek God Where He May Be Found’, 77–9; cf. Chalamet, ‘No Timelessness in God’, 33n. 17; idem, Dialectical Theologians, 276; Smith, ‘God’s Self-Specification’, 24. 160 Since McCormack, by contrast, views II/2 and IV/1–2 as demonstrating a much greater degree of development, he finds it more helpful to reinterpret II/1 through the lens of these later revisions (McCormack, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 217–21; cf. Grundlach, Selbstbegrenzung Gottes und die Autonomie des Menschen, 161). Despite my indebtedness to McCormack and our shared appreciation for CD IV, I believe that he tends to overestimate the extent and degree of Barth’s development in this regard. See Ivor J. Davidson, ‘Divine Light: Some Reflections after Barth’, in Trinitarian Theology after Barth, ed. Myk Habets and Phillip Tolliday (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2012), 56–8. 161 For example, Härle, Sein und Gnade, 60–9; Claus-Dieter Osthövener, Die Lehre von Gottes Eigenschaften bei Friedrich Schleiermacher und Karl Barth, Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann 76 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996), 169–80; Michael Menke-Peitzmeyer, Subjektivität und Selbstinterpretation des dreifaltigen Gottes: Eine Studie zur Genese und Explikation des Paradigmas ‘Selbstoffenbarung Gottes’ in der Theologie Karl Barths (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2002), 431–43; Robert B. Price, Letters of the Divine Word: The Perfections of God in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics, T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology 9 (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 26–32; Colin E. Gunton, Becoming and Being: The Doctrine of God in Charles Hartshorne and Karl Barth, 2nd edn (London: SCM, 2001), 194–9; idem, The Barth Lectures, ed. P. H. Brazier (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 100–3; Christopher R. J. Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes: In Dialogue with Karl Barth, Eberhard Jüngel, and Wolf Krötke, Issues in Systematic Theology 15 (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 48–53; J. Scott Jackson, Jesus Christ as the God who Loves in Freedom: Election, Covenant and the Trinity in the Thought of Karl Barth (PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 2006), 97–105; Jeremy Wynne,

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relation to the matter at hand has been limited by their tendency to subordinate the task of analysing divine aseity to corollary concerns. With a few exceptions, these expositions have been brief and generally descriptive rather than analytic in tone. The exposition here will extend beyond these efforts by directly engaging with divine aseity and thereby offering a more detailed analysis of its meaning, its theological functions, and to a lesser extent, its relationship to the basic contours of Barth’s thought and development.

Life, love and freedom It must also be added that it is essential to understand CD, §28.3 in conjunction with the whole of §§28–31, and particularly the previous two subsections of §28. As the thesis of §28 indicates, this material identifies three distinct features of the being of God: [§28.1] God is who God is in the act of God’s revelation. [§28.2] God seeks and creates fellowship between Godself and us, and in this way God loves us. [§28.3] But God is precisely this one who loves as Father, Son and Holy Spirit even without us, in the freedom of the Lord who has God’s life from Godself. (II/1, §28 thesis rev.)

God’s life, love and freedom are distinguishable, but they are in no way separable. The inseparability and interconnectedness of these three doctrines is evident at the formal level of this account. Even though Barth divides the discussion of God’s being into three sections, these divisions have a relative rather than absolute quality. They are not partitions but rather thematic stages in the unfolding description of one theme, namely, God is. In each case Barth formally juxtaposes material from the other two sections alongside the material immediately at hand. All three doctrines interpenetrate these divisions and permeate the whole. These formal features are simply an indication of the deeper material inseparability and interconnectedness of these doctrines. As Barth’s exposition progresses, he is quite persistent in pressing this point.162 In §28.1, having Wrath Among the Perfections of God’s Life, T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology 8 (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 100–2; Todd B. Pokrifka, Redescribing God: The Roles of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason in Karl Barth’s Doctrines of Divine Unity, Constancy, and Eternity, Princeton Theological Monograph Series 121 (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2010), 136–8; Dolf te Velde, Paths Beyond Tracing Out: the Connection of Method and Content in the Doctrine of God, Examined in Reformed Orthodoxy, Karl Barth, and the Utrecht School (Delft: Eburon Uitgeverij, 2010), 302–4. 162 This is, in fact, implied from the outset in Barth’s title for the paragraph: ‘The Being of God as the One who Loves in Freedom’ (II/1, 257; emphasis mine).

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articulated his actualistic conception of God’s being, he concludes by adding that all other statements about God ‘must always correspond to’, ‘must always state and explain’ and be ‘always linked with’ this truth (II/1, 272). In everything that is said about God, there can be ‘no evasion’ of this theme (II/1, 272). In §28.2, after describing God’s existence in love, he likewise asserts that this theological concept cannot be isolated from the other descriptions of the divine identity. ‘All our further insights about who and what God is . . . can only be repetitions and amplifications of the one statement that “God loves”’ (II/1, 283–4). In §28.3, he begins by clarifying that just as the movement from life to love did not entail a ‘change of theme’, so also this movement from love to freedom does not involve a ‘new theme’ but rather maintains the same grounding in Jesus Christ and the same focus on the one divine subject (II/1, 299). In addressing God’s freedom, Barth says that he has ‘not strayed from the living and loving of God’ (II/1, 321). In addressing God’s life and love, Barth finds that his task cannot be properly completed ‘without constantly referring to this unique mode’ (II/1, 298; cf. 300). Accordingly, the content with which Barth fills out these three categories bears a mutually constitutive character. God’s life is God’s dynamic existence in the action of loving (II/1, 272–3). However, in giving witness to the event, act and life of God’s love, one must never forget that it is always a matter of God’s ‘free event, free act and free life’ (II/1, 264). ‘In this way, freely, He lives and loves’ (II/1, 301).163 The investigation of divine aseity must therefore be informed by all three subsections of CD, §28 and by the love–freedom pairing which guides the exposition of the divine perfections in §§29–31. However, before turning directly to §§28–31, it will first be necessary to locate this material within the broader developmental context of Barth’s understanding of the relationship between divine pronobeity and aseity.

163

This mutual constitution is also seen in some of Barth’s sub-themes such as divine personality. Initially Barth develops God’s personhood from God’s action. Since God is in act and acts only occur ‘in the unity of spirit and nature’ (II/1, 267), Barth views God’s being as ‘being in person’ (II/1, 268; cf. 271, 284–5). Not long after, he connects God’s personhood to his love. Since God exists in the dynamic mode of personhood, God is therefore an ‘I’ who can and does establish fellowship with a ‘Thou’ (II/1, 284–5). However, as with God’s action and love, God’s personhood is beyond any personhood known in the merely creaturely sphere. Therefore, Barth adds that God is a ‘free person’ (II/1, 301; cf. 302).

Part One

The Reality of God

The little phrase ‘God is!’ signifies a revolution, a radical change in a human life. – Barth, Predigten 1914, 168

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Pronobeity-in-Aseity

God is The theology of Karl Barth is consumed with the reality of God. Even during his early years as a pastor in Safenwil, Barth has already come to see the conviction that ‘God is’ is the ‘focal point’ (Mittelpunkt) of human existence.1 Nearly three decades later, in Church Dogmatics II/1, Barth again takes up this little phrase as a fitting summation of the doctrine of the reality of God and even of theology as a whole. Every affirmation in all of preaching and dogmatics is indeed ‘the basis and the content of all the rest’, but this uniquely holds true with this phrase (II/1, 257–8). There is no speech in any domain of Christian reflection which can ever venture beyond this unbounded reality of all realities. Dogmatics – in all and each of its divisions and subdivisions, with all of its questions and answers, with all its biblical and historical observations, with all of its formal and material reflections, examinations, and summaries – in its beginning and in its end, in its entirety and in its parts, can say nothing other than this: God is.2

It is therefore not merely in volume II that the divine identity resides at the centre of Barth’s concern. In fact, the entirety of the Church Dogmatics can be fittingly read as an expansion upon this single theme. In his opening volume on the doctrine of the word of God, Barth presents a prolegomena in which the only word which must be spoken beforehand is ‘trinity’. The Christian doctrine of revelation is nothing more or less than the description of the Christian God in the event of revelation. Then, in accordance with the divine appropriations, the third volume through the project fifth, respectively, follow after the operations of the Father, Son and Spirit ad extra – creation, reconciliation and redemption. 1

2

Karl Barth, Predigten 1914, Gesamtausgabe 1.5, ed. Ursula Fähler and Jochen Fähler (Zurich: TVZ, 1999), 168. KD II/1, 289; CD, 258.

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So how does Barth fill out the truth that ‘God is’? Through inheriting the nineteenth-century concern with the relationship between God and the world, Barth comes to view the anthropological and immanentist impulses of his liberal predecessors as untenable. The God he discovers in the world of the Bible does indeed appear within the horizon of creaturely reality, but this holy one does so as a bolt of lightning that pierces the night sky. God with us is a diastasis. There is a relation to be sure, but it is a polarized and asymmetrical one in which the possibility of synthesis between the two members is perpetually denied on both sides.3 God with us means that the presence and knowledge of this one are real but never at our disposal. God is the self-giving gift, but never a given. What then does this imply for every doctrine of God which relies on human rationality or experience as its starting point? It implies that the divine commandment, ‘you shall have no other gods before me’ (Exod. 20:3), must be applied even to theological reflection itself.4 In this capacity, this command serves as a twoedged sword. While it ultimately calls theologians ‘to build and to plant’, it also requires them ‘to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow’ (Jer. 1:10). Upon reading the signs of the times, Barth initially finds himself drawn into the latter of these two tasks. In and around Barth’s theological reorientation in 1914–15, these convictions come together through the formula ‘God is God’,5 or more fully, ‘The world is the World. But God is God.’6 On some ears, this rather obtuse formula amounts

3 4

5

6

McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 129. See Eberhard Busch, ‘God is God: The Meaning of a Controversial Formula and the Fundamental Problem of Speaking About God’, The Princeton Seminary Bulletin 7.2 (1986): 101, 105. Busch identifies Barth’s first use the phrase ‘God is God’ as a sermon given on 13 March 1916 (Busch, ‘God is God’, 101; cf. Eberhard Jüngel, Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy, trans. Garrett E. Paul [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986], 31; see Karl Barth, Predigten 1916, Gesamtausgabe 1.29, ed. Hermann Schmidt [Zurich: TVZ, 1998], 118). However, this axiom can be seen in a variety of forms throughout 1915 and even as early as June of 1914 (Barth, Predigten 1914, 327; idem, Predigten 1915, Gesamtausgabe 1.27, ed. Hermann Schmidt [Zurich: TVZ, 1996], 174–5, 210, 274, 281, 407, 445). Barth also uses a number of similar phrases in these early sermons of 1915 (Barth, Predigten 1915): ‘God is truly God’ (277), ‘God remains God’ (487, 489), ‘God is God and remains God and will be God’ (281) and ‘God remains who he is’ (108, 112; cf. idem, Predigten 1914, 631–2). Karl Barth, ‘Kriegszeit und Gottesreich’, lecture given in Basel, Switzerland, 15 November 1915; cited by Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, trans. John Bowden (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 87. Barth uses a similar phrase in a sermon given shortly after: ‘God remains God and humanity remains humanity’ (Barth, Predigten 1915, 487). Busch is inclined to think that the origin of Barth’s use of ‘God is God’ may be the religious socialism of Ragaz and Kutter, but he admits that he has been unable to find occurrences in their writings that predate 1916 (Busch, ‘God is God’, 103). Alternately, Eduard Thurneysen says he and Barth encountered the fuller version of this formula through Christoph Blumhardt during their stay in Bad Boll (10–15 April 1915): ‘Wir führten dann Gespräche mit Blumhardt und hörten ihn im Blick auf die Lage sagen: “Welt ist Welt, aber Gott ist Gott!” Barth hat später diese Parole aufgenommen und auf seine Weise ausgelegt’ (Eduard Thurneysen, Karl Barth: Theologie und Sozialismus in den Briefen seiner Frühzeit [Zurich: TVZ, 1973], 8).

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to no more than a tautology. However, patient listeners have perceived in these words a stimulus for the genuinely theological description of God. Barth’s use of this language admittedly displays some variation, but one of its most crucial functions is to clarify that, although many concepts are necessarily and even fittingly taken up as predicates of God is, God ever remains irreducibly Godself. God is light and God is love, but God is God. Predicates of the divine may never become interchangeable with their subject.7 Through this language, Barth thus gives voice to his emerging commitment to God’s ineffaceable divinity. In reflecting back on these early days, he himself writes, The stone wall we first ran up against was that the theme of the Bible is the deity of God, more exactly God’s deity – God’s independence and particular character, not only in relation to the natural but also to the spiritual cosmos; God’s absolutely unique existence, might, and initiative, above all, in His relation to man.8

It is even appropriate to view Barth’s conviction that God is God as ‘the core’ of his early theology.9 From that time onwards, God’s divinity finds expression through a variety of other formal patterns and material concepts, including divine aseity. What follows is a brief historical survey of the most notable manifestations of this theme. The most obvious place to begin is with Barth’s notorious characterization of God as ‘totally different’ or ‘wholly other’ (ganz anders), a name which plays a particularly important role in the second edition of his Romans commentary (1922).10 From the outset of this work, he asserts that with Kierkegaard one must acknowledge an ‘infinite qualitative distinction’ between time and eternity.11 7 8

9 10

11

See Busch, ‘God is God’, 101, 104–7. Karl Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, in idem, The Humanity of God, trans. Thomas Wieser and John Newton Thomas (Atlanta: John Knox, 1960), 41; emphasis original; cf. 42–3. Busch, ‘God is God’, 102. This description of God as ‘wholly other’ appears as early as 1913 (McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 100; see Barth, Predigten 1913, Gesamtausgabe 1.8, ed. Nelly Barth and Gerhard Sauter [Zurich: TVZ, 1999], 167–8, 252). Nonetheless, this designation becomes especially significant for Barth in the early 1920s (in addition to Romans II, see also Karl Barth, ‘Biblical Questions, Insights, and Vistas’, in idem, The Word of God and the Word of Man, trans. Douglas Horton [Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1978], esp. 72–6; cf. Busch, Karl Barth, 109–22). Barth notes that his attachment to this phrase came through the influence of Thurneysen: ‘It was Thurneysen who once whispered the key phrase to me, half aloud, when we were alone together: what we needed for preaching, instruction, and pastoral care was a “wholly other” theological foundation. It seemed impossible to proceed any further on the basis of Schleiermacher. I can still see Thurneysen’s contemptuous gesture to my Schleiermacher books in Safenwil’ (Karl Barth, ‘Concluding Unscientific Postscript on Schleiermacher’, in idem, The Theology of Schleiermacher: Lectures at Göttingen, Winter Semester of 1923/24, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982], 264). Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 10.

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It is difficult to underestimate the significance that this idea has for his interpretation of the relationship between God and creatures ‘on this side of the resurrection’.12 Our relation to God is ungodly. We suppose that we know what we are saying when we say ‘God’. We assign to Him the highest place in our world: and in so doing we place Him fundamentally on one line with ourselves and with things. . . . God Himself is not acknowledged as God and what is called ‘God’ is in fact Man. By living to ourselves, we serve the ‘No-God’.13

In this way, Barth finds that through the gospel of God comes the knowledge of idolatry. In addition to its implications for the doctrine of the reality of God, this infinite qualitative distinction leads Barth to conclude that revelation can only be self-revelation.14 For Barth revelation means Deus dixit.15 It means Dei loquentis persona.16 ‘God alone, wholly God, God himself must be the one whose revealing is worthy of the name of God. What is less or other is not God or God’s revelation. God is God.’17 Revelation is self-revelation because there is a genuine unveiling of God, but it is also self-revelation because God remains irreducibly Godself in this unveiling. God reveals God and God reveals God. God is fully revealed, but only ever as one who is hidden, and therefore as one whose existence with us is an incomprehensible mystery. The doctrine of revelation is the task of giving witness to ‘the inexhaustible vitality’ (der unerschöpflichen Lebendigkeit) and ‘the indissoluble subjectivity’ (der unaufhebbaren Subjektivität) of the Father, Son and Spirit in this event.18

12

13 14

15 16

17 18

Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 44. The eschatological character of Barth’s soteriology is noteworthy because ignoring it often reinforces the misconception that in his early work the inaccessibility of God is an abstract problem. Ibid., 44; emphasis original. ‘In revelation God is always, not quantitatively (for what is gigantic or infinite does not make God God), but qualitatively different from us’ (GD, 134). See GD, §3; cf. CD I/1, 113–20, 296. This favourite phrase of Barth is drawn from Calvin: summa Scripturae probatio passim a Dei loquentis persona sumitur (the supreme proof of Scripture in every part consists in the fact that God in person speaks it) (Calvin, Institutio christianae religionis, 1.12.4). It appears in all three of Barth’s dogmatics cycles: UCR, 1:67–8; GD, 57; Die christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf, vol. 1, Die Lehre vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur christlichen Dogmatik, 1927, Gesamtausgabe 2.14, ed. Gerhard Sauter (Zurich: TVZ, 1982), 66; CD I/1, 114; cf. 136–9, 304–7. See Isidro García-Tato, Die Trinitätslehre Karl Barths als dogmatisches Strukturprinzip (Bad Honnef: Bock & Herchen, 1983), 483–8. GD, 134; emphasis original. UCR, 1:120; GD, 98; see also Karl Barth to Eduard Thurneysen, Karl Barth–Eduard Thurneysen Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 1921-1930, Gesamtausgabe 5.4, ed. Eduard Thurneysen (Zurich: TVZ, 1974), 254; cf. CD I/1, §9 thesis.

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Since even from early on Barth is committed to shaping the form of theology according to its content,19 he chooses to express this Realdialektik in the relationship between God and creatures through dialectical Denkform.20 While readily admitting that theology cannot simply adopt one method, in Barth’s Elgersburg address he suggests that the way of ‘dogmatism’ with its positive approach to the divine object and the way of ‘self-criticism’ with its negative approach to the human subject are best held together through the way of ‘dialectic’.21 In this approach, both ways are affirmed, but so also are their insufficiencies. Rather than statically fixate on the positive side or the negative side alone, dialectical method moves dynamically ‘from one side to the other’ so as to give witness to their ‘common presupposition’.22 This movement thus attests to the fact that no method can ever fully anticipate and account for the grandeur of the divine object – that is, for the fact that God is God.23 The use of the dialectical method to express God’s divinity is one of the most notable features of Barth’s early accounts of the being and attributes of God. Even prior to his theological reorientation in 1915, Barth had already

19

20

21

22 23

‘As it is determined by its object, dogmatic thinking is dialectical thinking’ (GD, 309; emphasis mine; cf. 298). Chalamet identifies this connection in Barth’s thought even as early as 1913. In a letter to Barth, Herrmann writes: ‘You have not silenced the strength which is embedded in the paradox, precisely when it is openly admitted and when, far from being an arbitrary construction, it comes from the subject matter [Sache] itself ’ (a postcard from Herrmann to Barth, 7 June 1913 cited in ‘Der Glaube an den persönlichen Gott (1913)’, in idem, Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten 1909-1914, Gesamtausgabe 3.22, ed. Hans-Anton Drewes and Hinrich Stoevesandt [Zurich: TVZ, 1993], 497; cited by Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 74; cf. 74–9, 97–8, 134–5, 150–1). See also von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 82; Eberhard Jüngel, ‘Von der Dialektik zur Analogie’, in idem, BarthStudien (Zurich and Cologne: Benziger Verlag, and Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1982), 143; Michael Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths: Studien zur Entwicklung der Barthschen Theologie und zur Vorgeschichte der ‘Kirchlichen Dogmatik’ (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1987), 61; cf. 112–13. Dialectical Denkform or Formaldialektik is a noetic dialectic. It concerns how creatures know and speak about God. Realdialektik is an ontic dialectic. It concerns the relations between God and creatures. The locus classicus of the former is Barth’s Elgersburg lecture, ‘The Word of God and the Task of Theology’ (1922). That of the latter is Barth’s opening claim in Romans II that it is essential to perceive the ‘inner dialectic of the subject matter [innere Dialektik der Sache]’ of the Bible and therefore of theology (Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1922 [Zurich: TVZ, 1940], xiii; ET, 10). On this distinction, see McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 16–20, 162–5, 266–73, 367–71, 428–41; cf. 11–12; Henri Bouillard, Karl Barth, 3 vols (Paris: Aubier, 1957), 1:73; Jüngel, ‘Von der Dialektik zur Analogie’, in idem, Barth-Studien, 143; Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths, 25–40. Karl Barth, ‘The Word of God and the Task of the Ministry’, in idem, The Word of God and the Word of Man, trans. Douglas Horton (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1978), 200–5. Barth, ‘The Word of God and the Task of the Ministry’, 206–7. To use Barth’s illustration, the task of a theologian may be viewed as trying to paint a bird in flight. The movement of the object makes it impossible for it to be fully captured by any static image. The object can be depicted, but not grasped (see Barth, ‘The Christian’s Place in Society’, in idem, The Word of God and the Word of Man, trans. Douglas Horton [Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1978], 282–3; idem, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, trans. Grover Foley [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979], 10).

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followed ‘the theological teacher’ of his student years,24 Wilhelm Herrmann, by filling out ‘God is’ with the aid of dialectical pairings.25 In ‘Belief in a Personal God’ (1913),26 Barth follows Herrmann in dialectically speaking of God as both ‘personal’ (persönlichen) and ‘absolute’ (absoluten).27 Similar pairings can be seen throughout Barth’s three major treatments on the divine being and attributes. The first treatment occurs in his Göttingen lectures (winter 1924), the second occurs in his Münster lectures (summer 1927) and the third is initially presented in his Basel lectures (winter 1938–9) and then published more fully as Church Dogmatics II/1, §§28–31 (1940).28 The earliest of these treatments explicitly adopts a ‘dialectical’ approach (GD, 390–401) which elevates and intertwines ‘personality’ (Persönlichkeit) and ‘aseity’ (Aseität) as the two leading categories for the description of God (GD, 351, 375). However, by his final treatment, these central categories are transposed to ‘love’ (Liebe) and ‘freedom’ (Freiheit) and their function is no longer explicitly labelled dialectical (II/1, 257, 322).29 While Barth does continue to speak of divine aseity and absoluteness, here they are subordinated below the more general heading of divine freedom (II/1, 303–20). Throughout the remainder of Barth’s work, ‘freedom’ remains the primary category for this cluster of themes. In fact, aside from its central place in the doctrine of the reality of

24

25

26

27

28

29

Karl Barth, ‘The Principles of Dogmatics According to Wilhelm Herrmann’, in idem, Theology and Church, trans. Louise Pettitbone Smith (London: SCM, 1962), 238; emphasis original. It is therefore preferable not to designate his works prior to 1915 as pre-dialectical (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 65, 79–81). Drawing on Michael Beintker, McCormack likewise sees in this lecture of Barth’s ‘an early affinity . . . for dialectical thinking’ (McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 104). Karl Barth, ‘Der Glaube an den persönlichen Gott (1913)’, in idem, Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten 1909–1914, Gesamtausgabe 3.22, ed. Hans-Anton Drewes and Hinrich Stoevesandt (Zurich: TVZ, 1993), 494–554. On the use of dialectic in this lecture, see McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 104–7; Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 73–9; Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths, 105–9; Terry L. Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, Issues in Systematic Theology 7 (New York: Peter Lang, 2001), 53–60; von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 215–17. By the turn of the nineteenth century, the question of whether God should be conceived as personal or absolute had become an important debate (see II/1, 287–97). In his preparation for this lecture, Barth interacted with a number of the significant figures in these discussions (e.g., Strauss, Biedermann, Ritschl, etc.), but his decision to uphold both absoluteness and personality dialectically bears an unmistakable resemblance to Herrmann’s work. Moreover, in addition to the general influence that Herrmann had upon Barth, he also sent Barth a theological text at this time – probably §37 of Herrmann’s Systematic Theology (see Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 73–4; cf. 52–54). See Jan Štefan, ‘Gottes Vollkommenheiten nach KD II/1’, in Karl Barth im europäischen Zeitgeschehen (1935–1950): Widerstand – Bewährung – Orientierung, ed. Michael Beintker, Christian Link and Michael Trowitzsch (Zurich: TVZ, 2010), 85; cf. Busch, Karl Barth, 284, 292. For the complete list of Barth’s Göttingen and Münster lectures, see McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 293–4, 378. See also II/1, §28.1–2; §29: 340–50; §30: 351–3; §31: 440–2.

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God (§§28–31), the pairing of love and freedom plays an important role both in other contexts throughout the Church Dogmatics30 and in some of Barth’s other writings.31

Barth’s early and later doctrines of aseity This survey hints at an important developmental question: what is the relationship between Barth’s earlier doctrine of aseity and its later formulation, particularly in its most expansive treatment in Church Dogmatics II/1? What does the terminological shift from ‘aseity’ to ‘freedom’ indicate? Is Barth’s early emphasis on divine aseity later overtaken by an emphasis on divine love? Does Barth’s increasing reticence to use the term ‘dialectic’ suggest that he has retracted his dialectical approach to the doctrine of God? In short, is Barth’s earlier doctrine of divine aseity retracted, revised or entirely upheld?

A retraction? On von Balthasar’s reading, it is suggested that these early and later emphases stand in a contrastive and sometimes even competitive relationship. More specifically, when Barth later attempts to develop the theme of divine pronobeity more fully, he is forced to revise and to some extent retract his doctrine of divine aseity. To assess this proposal, one must give attention to the broader developmental paradigm within which it is formulated. Barth’s development can, of course, be assessed at a variety of levels. According to Barth’s own reflections in ‘The Humanity of God’ (1956), for example, his development is mainly understood through the christological categories of humanity and divinity.32 To this lens the following overlapping categories can also be added: God’s being 30

31

32

These are some of the most notable sections: I/2 (1939), §15: 132–8 (incarnation); II/1 (1940), §25: 32–42 (human freedom to love God); §27: 206–7 (divine self-revelation); II/2 (1942), §32: 3–34 (election); §33: 175–88 (election); III/1 (1945), §41: 49–51, 94–7, 215–16, 230–1 (creation); IV/1 (1953), §57: 67–78 (reconciliation); §58: 125–35 (reconciliation); §59: 186–210, 211–24, 304–9 (Jesus Christ’s acts of reconciliation); §60: 413–21 (divine grace and human pride); IV/2 (1955), §64: 348–59 (Jesus Christ’s acts of reconciliation); §68: 751–824 (divine and human freedom to love); ChrL, §76: 56–69 (divine and human freedom to love); cf. III/2 (1948), §45: 265–85 (human freedom to love); III/4 (1951), §54: 213–24 (human freedom to love in marriage). For example, Karl Barth, ‘The Proclamation of God’s Free Grace’ (1947), in idem, God Here and Now, trans. Paul M. van Buren (London: Routledge, 2003), 36; idem, ‘The Gift of Freedom: Foundation of Evangelical Ethics’ (1953), in idem, The Humanity of God, trans. Thomas Wieser and John Newton Thomas (Atlanta: John Knox, 1960), 70–5; ‘The Humanity of God’ (1956), 48–52. Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 37–52.

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and relations with creatures (transcendence–immanence, aseity–pronobeity, etc.), God’s revelation to creatures (hiddenness–revealedness), the valuation of nature as it is confronted by grace (negative–positive) and the methodological character of theology (dialectical Denkform–analogical identification). For von Balthasar, however, Barth’s development is primarily interpreted both in terms of this latter methodological focus on the ‘formal principle’ of theology and in terms of the doctrine of analogy.33 With these concerns in mind, he famously presents a twofold periodization in which Barth’s thought is initially punctuated by his conversion from liberalism which leads to his dialectical phase (c. 1915–30) and then later by his conversion from dialectic which leads to his analogical phase (c. 1930–68).34 This second conversion implies that there is a notable degree of discontinuity between Barth’s earlier and later work. This is because through this transition his initial reliance upon dialectic abates and he implicitly adopts a form of the analogia entis through its inclusion within the analogia fidei.35 Although von Balthasar is primarily interested in dialectic and analogy with respect to the nature of theology and of God’s relations with creatures, he also believes that these shifts have implications for Barth’s doctrine of God. For one thing, von Balthasar claims that divine aseity lies at the heart of Barth’s rejection of the analogia entis. Barth perceives in the analogia entis an inversion of the proper emphasis of the doctrine of God. In the place where one ought to stress God’s particularity, God is said to be common.36 Therefore, von Balthasar argues, Barth instead maintains that God and creatures stand in ‘indissoluble contrariety’: ‘The one subject is self-positing, that is, exists a se. The second is other-posited and exists ab alio.’37 In addition, von Balthasar also claims that divine aseity lies at the heart of Barth’s use of dialectical method. Since this method emphasizes that theological assertions are pointers or witnesses to God, it clarifies that the 33

34

35 36

37

Von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 47–55, 62–3; see also 30–6; cf. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 16. See von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 59–113 (esp. 93); cf. 47ff. McCormack perceives two models in von Balthasar’s work. First, there is the model with a decisive break in approximately 1931 which separates Barth’s earlier dialectical phrase (1918–31) from his later analogical phase (1931 and onwards). Second, there is the model of a dialectical phrase (1918–27), a progressive shift from dialectic to analogy (1927–38) and a fully developed analogical phase (1938 and onwards). Whereas the former model sees Barth’s decisive break as precipitated by his engagement with Anselm’s Fides Quaerens Intellectum, the latter model sees these encounters as less determinative (McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 1–4). See von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 161–7. This interpretation of the analogia entis has been criticized in recent years, particularly in relation to Erich Przywara’s formulation. For a defence of Barth in this regard, see Keith L. Johnson, Karl Barth and the Analogia Entis, T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology 6 (London: T&T Clark, 2010). Von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 162.

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‘objective’ character of theology is held in check by a corresponding ‘gospel simplicity’ which prohibits any manner of abstract objectivity.38 In this way, dialectical method upholds the divinity and aseity of the divine object. ‘It becomes a form of service, truly a holy theology of God. It becomes the angel with the flaming sword standing guard before the aseity of God.’39 Divine aseity is indeed essential to the first of the two moments in Barth’s dialectics. Whereas the second ‘dynamic’ and Hegelian moment achieves synthesis in God’s movement from No to Yes, this first ‘static’ and Kierkegaardian moment places God and creatures in an absolutely polarized relationship.40 ‘Above all’, he argues, this first movement ‘stresses the aseity of God in the very act of God’s self-disclosure’.41 What is the outcome of this dialectical method? When Barth’s radical affirmation of God and radical negation of creatures is followed by a dynamic resolution, it inevitably results in the dissolution of the two along with their supposed relations.42 Pure dialectics dissolves those subjects between whom the theological event takes place: God and creature. God’s aseity is dissolved in the event of his revelation and abolishes itself. On the other hand, the creature has not self-subsistence of its own vis-à-vis God. It either collapses into God (at the origin and goal) or becomes pure contradiction to God (in sin) and dissolves into nothingness.43

Despite Barth’s desire to affirm God’s loving self-communication to creatures, his formulation is ultimately unable to endure the tension. However, as Barth moves beyond this ‘dialectical’ phase to his ‘analogical’ phase, he is given occasion to retract and reformulate these problems in his doctrine of God. According to von Balthasar, it is not until Church Dogmatics II/1 that Barth finally begins to think of creaturely reality as ‘thoroughly good and positive in itself’ and therefore ‘to take seriously the concept of the creature’.44 This development, he argues, manifests itself in Barth’s stipulation that God has his ‘absoluteness and freedom’ primarily in se and then only secondarily in his relations ad extra.45 God’s relations ad extra are not viewed as the pretext for the negation of creaturely reality but rather as

38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45

Ibid., 77. Ibid., 77–8; emphasis original. Ibid., 82–3; cf. 73. Ibid., 82. Ibid., 84. In striking contrast to Barth’s stated intentions in the introduction to Romans II, von Balthasar finds in this work ‘a very unbiblical philosophical pantheism’ (von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 84). Von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 85. Ibid., 110; emphasis original. Ibid., 111

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the basis for its affirmation. There is therefore a pointed shift from Barth’s early theology. ‘If it seemed in The Epistle to the Romans that the fire of God’s absolute reality was threatening to consume the creature to the very core of its being, the Church Dogmatics shifted perspective and saw God’s all-consuming presence more as the fire of his absolute love.’46 In this light, a critical question is raised: does a developmental interpretation along these lines establish a basis for viewing Barth’s later focus on divine love as a movement away from divine aseity? There are certainly some texts in Barth’s later work which might seem to reinforce this idea. In Barth’s treatment on love in Evangelical Theology (1963), he says that the theological task must not be governed by the Eros of the human subject but rather by the Agape of theology’s object.47 The object of this work is the one true God and the one true man. The true God exists not in his aseity and independence but in his union with the one true man. And the true man likewise exists not in his independence but in his union with the one true God. The object of theology is, in fact, Jesus Christ.48

Barth had long since expressed uneasiness about unqualified affirmations of divine ‘independence’, but the inclusion of ‘aseity’ in this criticism could be taken as a newly found disparaging outlook on his doctrines of God in Church Dogmatics II/1 and prior. In addition, there are multiple places where Barth describes humanity as seeking after ‘aseity and independence’ or projecting such qualities up onto the canvas of heaven, thereby creating idols. In Church Dogmatics IV/1 (1953), Barth draws on the story of Eve’s temptation in the Garden of Eden to contrast the pride of humanity with the humility of God (Gen. 3:5). Prideful humanity wants to be like God – to be God – but the supposed deity to which humanity aspires is ‘only a self-sufficient, self-affirming, self-desiring supreme being, selfcentred and rotating about himself ’ (IV/1, 422). This temptation placed before humanity is utterly ‘false’, Barth writes, because the ‘aseity and independence’ which is so desired is that of a ‘false god’ and is in fact ‘contrary to the whole Old Testament concept of God’ (IV/1, 423). Similarly, according to Church Dogmatics IV/3.1 (1959), when sinful humanity rejects the word of God and therefore also the God of grace, it expresses its desire for ‘an unloved world, loving only itself and therefore loved only by itself, neither sharing nor needing the love of 46 47 48

Ibid., 170; cf. 75–85. Barth, Evangelical Theology, 202. Ibid.

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another’ (IV/3.1, 252). The god it wants is a self-sufficient supreme being who is unconcerned with humanity. It wants a god who is simply ‘a supreme symbol for the self-resting and self-moved sovereignty, autarchy and self-sufficiency of human being’ (IV/3.1, 252). Therefore, it ‘rejoices in the independence of this being and therefore in an aseity of God which confirms this’ (IV/3.1, 252). Does this not indicate that Barth has essentially retracted his early doctrine of divine aseity so as to make room for divine love? Both von Balthasar’s paradigm and this sampling from Barth’s own words could give this impression.

A genuine revision In addressing this issue, it is vital to avoid an unduly polarized response. On the one hand, it is beyond doubt that Barth revises his earlier doctrine of aseity to some degree, but the question is where along the spectrum of continuity and discontinuity this revision should be placed. In this regard, von Balthasar is certainly right to see evidence for discontinuity in the form of a shift in emphasis. Barth’s early dialectical method is indeed a way of giving particular prominence to divine aseity.49 As Barth himself makes clear, God is hidden in his self-revelation because God is with us as the one who is ‘the indissoluble subject, from Godself, not from us’ (das unaufhebbare Subjekt, von ihm aus, nicht von uns aus).50 Barth’s dialectical method protects divine aseity with striking vigour, or rather, with ‘flaming sword’.51 Moreover, in light of the convergence of this theme with his vehement rejection of natural theology, it is not surprising that there are texts during these years which, taken by themselves, appear to dissolve God’s relations with creatures. In the same way, Barth’s later work does in fact manifest a greater focus on divine love and pronobeity. In Barth’s own terms, whereas his early theology is marked by a focus on God’s deity, his later work further develops the significance of God’s humanity.52 In more inclusive terms, one can say that while Barth’s earlier theology is marked by a predominant focus on God’s deity, 49

50 51 52

Just as God’s transcendence and mystery drive the dialectical thought of Wilhelm Herrmann, from whom Barth substantially learnt to think dialectically, so also Barth’s early dialectical method ‘has no goal other than respecting God’s mystery in his revelation, his veiling and unveiling’ (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 38, 151). Similarly, in Barth’s Göttingen lectures, the ‘center’ of his dialectical approach to theology is ‘the revelation of the hiddenness of God and the corresponding emphasis on the radical freedom of the gracious God in all relationships with the world’ (Daniel L. Migliore, introduction to The Göttingen Dogmatics, by Karl Barth, xxix; emphasis mine). UCR, 1:165; emphasis original; GD, 135. Von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 77–8. Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 37–8.

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transcendence, hiddenness and correspondingly aseity, his later theology is marked by a heightened sense of God’s humanity, immanence, revealedness and correspondingly pronobeity.53 Barth should by no means be interpreted as simply carrying forward his earlier doctrine of divine aseity. On the other hand, caution and patience are needed if reductionism is to be avoided.54 Barth’s early theology is nonetheless concerned with God’s pronobeity and his later theology with God’s aseity. It is true that the sheer rhetorical force of his attacks on anthropotheology in his earlier writings tends to drive the humanity and pronobeity of God to the periphery, but this is generally grounded in his polemical agenda rather than in any necessity arising from the theological formulations themselves.55 It is therefore crucial that the ‘critical and polemic’ character of these writings not be construed as an abstractly chosen theological decision.56 As these pressing needs subside and Barth settles into the task of dogmatics, he finds that his earlier emphasis can be taken up into his later one. Von Balthasar himself acknowledges that in Church Dogmatics II/1 Barth presents a conception of God’s ‘absolute reality’ which does not threaten ‘to consume the creature to the very core of its being’.57 Barth does so by understanding divine absoluteness as primarily a characteristic of God in se and secondarily as a characteristic of God’s life ad extra. The result is that absoluteness is not conceived in contrastive terms which might lead to the negation of creatures (II/1, 317).58 This prioritization of the imminent aspect of absoluteness is then complemented by a broader prioritization of aseity over absoluteness altogether (II/1, 308–9). In stark contrast to von Balthasar’s portrayal of Barth’s early doctrine of aseity, Church Dogmatics II/1 argues that when the world is ‘viewed sub specie aseitatis, that is, in the light of the primary creative freedom of God,

53 54

55 56

57 58

See Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 37–46; cf. Busch, ‘God is God’, 102. For example, this is not an entirely steady and balanced theological progression. Barth’s development is deeply shaped by the particular projects and questions with which he is engaged. Romans I has a stronger sense of God’s revealedness and Romans II has a stronger sense of God’s hiddenness. Furthermore, Barth’s theology during 1915–18 has a more prominent focus on God’s victory than does Romans II which elevates the theme of God’s judgement (see Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 105–15, 130–8). See Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 38–9; see also Barth, Evangelical Theology, 12. Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 38; emphasis original. ‘Is it not possible that, granted the unmistakable contestability, even perversity of their position [i.e., the anthropological orientation of liberal Protestant theology], the humanity of God did not quite come into its rights in the manner in which we, absorbed as we were in contemplation of the mighty deployment of Leviathan and Behemoth in the book of Job, lifted up His deity on the candlestick?’ (Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 44; emphasis original). Von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 170. See ibid., 111.

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there can no longer be any question of aloofness or hostility to the world on the part of the absolute God’ (II/1, 309). A more balanced approach to Barth’s development is thus needed if his stated intentions and formulations are to be taken seriously. Even a later and more self-critical Barth can affirm that the focus of his earlier theology is ‘certainly right!’, even if ‘only partially’ so.59 Likewise, the focus of his later theology is not ‘in opposition to’ but rather ‘in distinction from’ that of his earlier theology.60 In other words, this is not a retraction but a Retraktation, a revision after the manner of Augustine’s Retractationes.61 It is a ‘genuine revision [which] in no way involves a subsequent retreat, but rather a new beginning and attack in which what previously has been said is to be said more than ever, but now even better’.62 The consuming theme and even ‘the core’ of Barth’s early theology – namely, God’s divinity – is therefore also central to his later theology.63 From around 1915 and onwards, Barth’s theology represents ‘a more-or-less continuous unfolding of a single theme: God is God’.64 In Barth’s early theology ‘God is God’ essentially means ‘God is a se.’ Or to quote a more traditional expression from within Barth’s tradition: ‘The essence of God is his deity, by which God is and exists absolutely from Godself and through Godself.’65 However, as Barth’s theology develops, he becomes more aware of the need to interpret God’s essence in concreto, that is, in light of its christological determination.66 ‘What God is as God, the divine individuality and characteristics, the essentia or “essence” of God, is something which we shall encounter either at the place where God deals with us as Lord and Saviour, or not at all’ (II/1, 261).67 If the divine being is only understood properly when understood christologically, the same must apply to any of its predicates, including aseity. More pointedly, ‘the form of God’s aseity, the chosen path of the divine being, is specified in

59 60 61 62 63 64 65

66 67

Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 41–2. Ibid., 37. Ibid., 41. Ibid., 41–2; emphasis original. Busch, ‘God Is God’, 102. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 134. ‘Essentia Dei est ipsa Deitas, qua Deus a se et per se absolute est et existit’ (Amandus Polanus, Syntagma theologiae christianae, 2.5). See Eberhard Jüngel, ‘. . . keine Menschenlosigkeit Gottes . . .’, in idem, Barth-Studien, 337–40. This theme in II/1 anticipates Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation later in volume IV: ‘Who God is and what it is to be divine is something we have to learn where God has revealed Himself and His nature, the essence of the divine. And if He has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ as the God who does this, it is not for us to be wiser than He and to say that it is in contradiction with the divine essence’ (IV, 186). ‘The Word became flesh. . . . This is how God is God – as the One who is free to do this and does it for His own sake, to put into effect His own almighty mercy, and therefore for our sake, who are in need of His mercy’ (IV/1, 418). See also Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 47.

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the history of Jesus Christ’.68 Through appreciating this insight, Barth begins to express ‘God is God’ ‘even better’ by interpreting it to mean ‘God is pro nobis in aseity.’69 Alternatively, expressed in terms of christology, Barth begins to clarify that God became human.70 And again, expressed in terms of theology proper, Barth begins to clarify that, even with regard to divine freedom, ‘who and what God is must revolve round . . . the mystery of His loving’ (II/1, 283). Who God is and what He is in His deity He proves and reveals not in a vacuum as a divine being-for-Himself, but precisely and authentically in the fact that He exists, speaks, and acts as the partner of man, though of course as the absolutely superior partner. He who does that is the living God. And the freedom in which He does that is His deity. It is the deity which as such also has the character of humanity.71

In short, an evangelical theology, and indeed a ‘theoanthropology’, can express nothing less than a christologically determined doctrine of divine aseity because the eternal aseity of the triune God is nothing less than ‘the free love of God that evokes the response of free love, his grace (charis) that calls for gratitude (eucharistia)’.72 The idea that Barth ultimately upholds his doctrine of divine aseity, albeit in a revised form, draws further support from recent scholarly insight into Barth’s theological development. Over the years, Barth scholars have been increasingly dissatisfied with the degree to which von Balthasar’s twofold periodization sets Barth’s earlier and later theology over against one another. Drawing on these voices,73 Bruce McCormack has offered a decisive challenge to the Balthasarian paradigm by rejecting the supposed conversion from dialectic to analogy and by arguing for a stronger sense of continuity between Barth’s earlier and later work.74 Specifically, he argues that ‘critical realism’ and dialectic are essential 68 69

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71 72

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Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, 3. John Webster clarifies that Barth’s earlier theology is concerned with the question of ‘How God is God for us’ and his mature work displays an increasing interest in the question of ‘How God is God for us’ (Webster, Karl Barth, 15; emphasis original; cf. idem, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, 46). ‘The theological principle “God is God” not only did NOT exclude the later christocentric theology but was and remained its premise, a premise which neither dropped nor even corrected the basic structure of that principle’ (Busch, ‘God is God’, 103; cf. 102). Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 45–6; emphasis original. Barth, Evangelical Theology, 12; see also Eberhard Jüngel, ‘. . . keine Menschenlosigkeit Gottes . . .’, in idem, Barth-Studien, 341–7. Especially Eberhard Jüngel, Ingrid Spieckermann and Michael Beintker. McCormack argues that when Barth finally takes up the doctrine of analogy positively through his analogia fidei, it is formulated within the context of, and not in contradiction to, a dialectical understanding of revelation. In fact, ‘the Realdialektik of veiling and unveiling is the motor which drives Barth’s doctrine of analogy and makes it possible’ (McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 18).

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features of Barth’s thought from the time of his ‘break with liberalism’75 throughout the remainder of his life.76 Moreover, in further distinction from von Balthasar, McCormack argues that the ‘dialectical’ character of Barth’s theology is primarily defined by the presence of Realdialektik, and particularly the dialectic of revelation, rather than by his dialectical Denkform.77 As it happens, Barth’s dialectical method does endure,78 but it is eventually taken up into the way of dogmatism.79 Therefore, while Barth becomes increasingly wary of the term dialectic due to a variety of untheological associations that it seems to acquire,80

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Christophe Chalamet offers a compelling argument for maintaining an even stronger sense of continuity throughout Barth’s development. He does so by demonstrating the similarities between Barth’s thought in the years leading up and following his theological shift in around 1915. Consequently, he prefers to describe this shift as a ‘reorientation’ rather than as a ‘break from liberalism’ (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 89; cf. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 125). See McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, especially 14–23, 274, 307–14, 367–71, 434–41. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 16–20, 273–4; see also idem, ‘Karl Barth’s Version of an “Analogy of Being”’, in The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Antichrist or the Wisdom of God?, ed. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 90–1; cf. 135–9. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 312, 343–6, 436–8. This occurs by the time of Barth’s Göttingen lectures (GD, §13; see also McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 348–9; Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 225–8, 246–7). For this reason one must be careful not to overemphasize the importance of the way of dialectic. In the Göttingen lectures, Barth places dialectical thinking among no less than ‘twelve relativities’ which he regards as ‘indispensable for an understanding of the relation between scripture and preaching’ (GD, 309; cf. 306–7). McCormack finds all three of Barth’s methodological ‘ways’ – that is, dogmatism, self-criticism and dialectic – to be at work in these lectures, but he believes that the way of self-criticism falls into disuse thereafter (McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 312). Chalamet, however, is probably correct in suggesting that Barth must uphold the way of criticism to some degree since his ongoing use of the dialectical Denkform could not have functioned without it (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 150n. 248; cf. 168–70, 176). Early on in Barth’s work he becomes aware of the risks associated with the term ‘dialectic’, but he still finds it necessary. He writes, ‘I cannot help it if this word dialectic, once it is thrown into a discussion, immediately becomes a bogy with which one frightens children, as if some kind of horror of subChristian philosophy lurked behind it’ (Barth, ‘Church and Theology’, 302). However, at times he shows greater caution. In the Göttingen lectures he writes, ‘Do not let yourselves be bedazzled by the word. Above all do not use it too often’ (GD, 309). When he eventually discovers that the term ‘dialectic’ can create quite significant obstacles in the articulation and reception of his theology, this caution gives way to outright avoidance. He becomes particularly concerned about the idea that his use of this term might suggest that he is either trying to establish a human basis for revelation or that he conceives of divine action as a dialectically balanced Yes and No and therefore as not teleologically ordered according to God’s election to be pro nobis (see Chapter 4, Section 2). Barth certainly tries to ward off these accusations. With regard to the first of these two misunderstandings, for example, Barth offers a vigorous case to the effect that he is not establishing a basis for speaking about God but rather reflecting its human impossibility (see Barth, ‘Church and Theology’, 302; idem, ‘The Word of God and the Task of the Ministry’, 211; GD, 140, 309). Nonetheless, the danger of these possible connotations leads Barth progressively to retreat from explicit language about dialectic, even though the ontological concept and theological method both remain intact (see Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 208, 280). Late into his career, Barth can therefore reflect, ‘I myself was the originator of this unfortunate term (i.e., “dialectical theology”)’ but ‘I have long ago lost interest in the word’ (Karl Barth, Karl Barth’s Table Talk, ed. John D. Godsey [Richmond: John Knox Press, 1963], 24).

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the Realdialektik of revelation and the dialectical Denkform which arise from it are present throughout all three of his major treatments on the divine being and perfections.81 Considered at the general level, McCormack has presented the more compelling of these two accounts. In the face of the von Balthasarian and Neo-Orthodox readings, one must affirm that Barth was and ever remained a ‘dialectical’ theologian. Many of the leading Barth scholars have come to recognize this fact. However, what has gone essentially unnoticed is that the basic structure of this paradigm carries with it the implication that Barth’s strong sense of God’s divinity and aseity likewise plays a critical role in his mature work. Barth’s ontic dialectics arise from these themes and his noetic dialectics point to them. Those with an eye for the broader developmental issues in Barth studies should keep this thesis in mind. Nonetheless, the most compelling insight will come not through these general and synthetic claims but

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According to Terry Cross’ study on dialectic in Barth’s doctrine of God, by the time of Church Dogmatics II/1 Barth sheds the problematic Realdialektik while maintaining his dialectical Denkform. Generally following after Jüngel and Beintker, Cross argues that this shift has its roots in 1925–7 when Barth ‘lessens the intensity of the ontic dialectic, while heightening the intensity of the noetic dialectic’ (Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 101n. 218; emphasis original; see 87n. 159, 119–20, 204–12). More specifically, he claims that this shift is grounded in Barth’s increasing movement from prolegomena to dogmatic content, from dialectic method to dogmatic method and from the difference between God and creatures to their relatedness (Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, see esp. 95–120, 210). These changes are supposedly accompanied by an elevation of the doctrine of analogy. According to his concluding thesis, ‘Dialectic continues to play a major methodological role in Barth’s thought in the Church Dogmatics II/1. It cooperates with analogy as limiter and helper for human apprehension of God. Therefore, Barth’s doctrine of God would not succeed without it’ (Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 210). However, Cross’ work becomes a bit confusing when one reads that it purportedly ‘supports and builds on the main theses of McCormack’s work as well as extends into the Church Dogmatics the clarifications of dialectic that Beintker proposed’ (Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 9–10). Cross appears to believe that the thrust of McCormack’s research on this matter is that dialectic has an ongoing role in Barth’s later theology – regardless of whether this dialectic is ontic or noetic. In response, it should be acknowledged that Cross has generally understood the contours of Barth’s shift in orientation correctly; however, he is wrong to understand the deficits in Barth’s early thought as being inextricably bound to Realdialektik. For Cross, Realdialektik is identified with Barth’s often unqualified emphasis on God’s ‘infinite qualitative distinction’ that tends to overshadow God’s pronobeity (see Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 93–4n. 186, 201–10). He therefore tends to understand Barth’s Realdialektik as a complementary dialectic which equally balances the Yes and No of divine action, thereby preventing the gracious Yes from triumphing over the No. When Cross correctly identifies Barth’s use of a ‘teleologically ordered’ dialectic which does allow the Yes to dominate, he wrongly interprets this as evidence for a general retreat from Realdialektik (Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 156–72, 195–6; cf. Barth, CD II/1, 236). If Barth’s doctrine of God in Church Dogmatics II were not so thoroughly grounded in the ontic dialectic of revelation, this error could perhaps be overlooked (see Chapter 4). Additionally, at the level of Barth scholarship, since Cross overlooks the priority of ontic dialectic over noetic dialectic in McCormack’s reading, he overestimates the continuity between their perspectives. For McCormack, dialectical method ‘could have been abandoned altogether – in truth it was not, but it could have been – without in the least requiring the abandonment of the vastly more important Realdialektik’ (McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 18; emphasis original; cf. 273–4).

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rather by giving attention to Barth’s own descriptions of this theme throughout his work. To this end, this study will now offer a brief sketch of the aseity theme in Barth’s corpus.

From aseity to pronobeity in aseity God as God and wholly other How does Barth’s later emphasis on divine pronobeity relate to his early descriptions of God as God and wholly other? For many interpreters, when Barth speaks of these predicates with his characteristic fervour, he ultimately compromises God’s humanity and revealedness.82 This construal of Barth’s theology can be seen in both early83 and later interpreters.84 Barth himself labels the deficiencies of this phase with the following diagnosis: ‘the swallowing of immanence by transcendence’.85 From the standpoint of his mature work, Barth can even acknowledge an element of truth in the claim of some of his contemporaries that, in contrast to Schleiermacher, he had been making ‘God great for a change at the cost of man’.86 He comes to be particularly concerned about the potentially dangerous wholly otherness of God, which becomes prominent in Romans II. He writes, it was pre-eminently the image and concept of a ‘wholly other’ that fascinated us and which we, though not without examination, had dared to identify with the deity of Him who in the Bible is called Yahweh-Kyrios. We viewed this ‘wholly other’ in isolation, abstracted and absolutized, and set it over against man, this miserable wretch – not to say boxed his ears with it – in such a fashion that it continually showed greater similarity to the deity of the God of the philosophers than to the deity of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.87

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William Mann observes that thinkers often struggle when trying to find balances in relation to these themes (Mann, ‘Divine Sovereignty and Aseity’, 36). For example, Busch notes Hans Wilhelm Schmidt and Bernhard Dörries in this regard (see Busch, ‘God is God’, 102). Although divine victory is a discrete focus of Barth’s theology in the early 1920s, many interpreters failed to see it. ‘These critics considered his theology as a theology of negation, of judgment and as a symptom of the trauma caused by the war’ (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 132). For an overview of these ‘dualistic’ readings, see Christopher Asprey, Eschatological Presence in Karl Barth’s Göttingen Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 2–16. Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 43. Ibid., 43; emphasis original; cf. 44; see also Macken, The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics, 159–60. Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 44–5.

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Accordingly in Romans II, on the divine side, ‘God is pure negation.’88 So also, on the human side, the feeble claims of religion to establish a ‘direct’ relationship with God are ‘utterly worthless’.89 These kinds of statements, especially if viewed in and of themselves, can threaten to push divine pronobeity to the periphery and even challenge its possibility. Seeing this tension, the later Barth therefore speaks of having gone ‘astray’ and having been ‘wrong’.90 Nonetheless, one must not oversimplify the matter and conclude that Barth had not allowed any place for God’s pronobeity or that God’s deity and otherness prohibited him from doing so. Romans II may have the negative tone of a ‘ground-clearing work’ (Aufräumungsarbeit),91 but as Barth himself acknowledges through the words of Luther, the pivotal issue is ‘the deep, secret Yes under and above the No’.92 Barth may speak of ‘pure negation’, but it is by no means purely negative in either its content or its presuppositions.93 Despite the towering divine otherness that permeates so much of Romans II, this theme is not allowed to compromise God’s presence with and for us through the loving work of the Son and Spirit. Concerning the mediatory work of Christ, Barth writes, ‘By the death of Christ we are confronted by the absolute and not merely relative “otherness” of God, and therefore by His indissoluble union with us. . . . Here is Emmanuel, God with us.’94 Concerning the work of the Spirit in

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Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 141. ‘The Barth of the second Romans commentary is guilty of a one-sided emphasis on divine transcendence. His God is the “wholly other” God of Luther. The only possible relation that such a God can have to the human is that of negation, the “Absolute No,” as Friedrich Gogarten put it’ (McCormack, ‘Karl Barth’s Version of an “Analogy of Being”’, 96). For more on the claim that the theme of God’s wholly otherness is at least partially inherited through Luther’s Deus Absconditus, see Timothy Stanley, Protestant Metaphysics After Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2010), 98–104. Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 185. Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 44. See Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1922, 15; ET, 39. Romans II is ‘a piece of negative theology’ which ‘presents God as the abolition of all human possibilities’ (John Webster, ‘“On the Frontiers of What is Observable”: Barth’s Römerbrief and Negative Theology’, The Downside Review 105.3 [1987]: 175). Karl Barth, ‘An Answer to Professor von Harnack’s Open Letter’, in The Beginnings of Dialectic Theology, ed. James M. Robinson (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1968), 184; citing Luther on the story of the Canaanite woman (Mt. 15:21–8): WA, 17.2:200–4; cf. Karl Barth, ‘The Paradoxical Nature of the “Positive Paradox”: Answers and Questions to Paul Tillich’, in The Beginnings of Dialectic Theology, 143; GD, 447; see also Webster, ‘On the Frontiers of What is Observable’, 178. See Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths, especially 37, 75; see also Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 135; David Clough, Ethics in Crisis: Interpreting Barth’s Ethics, Barth Studies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 19–20. Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 162. ‘Since, then, sinlessness and righteousness are veritably observed in the death of Christ, the wholly Other has entered within my horizon once for all; . . . So then, just as I am visibly one with the dying Christ, so I am invisibly one with this “Other”, the risen Christ’ (Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 206). ‘The Son of God, the Lord, in whom we recognize ourselves to be united to Him in the likeness of His death – that is to say, in our death (vi. 5) – is the turning-point, the decision, the divine Victory; He is the wholly Other of God’ (Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 282).

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adoption, he likewise explains that although believers remain in bondage in that they are still religious humans of this world order, through their union with Jesus Christ by the work of the Spirit they are set free. In the ‘newness’ of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 7:6), there is no ‘“otherness” or opposition between God and men, between Creator and creature’.95 Those who have been adopted into God’s family by the Spirit are now ‘sons, hearing the voice of their Father, forgetting the “otherness” of God but first forgetting their own “otherness”’.96 Even the phrase ‘God is God’ can mean that God, in his supreme reality, is pro nobis. In one of the earliest occurrences of this phrase, Barth writes, ‘What is faith? It is to recognize that God is God! It is to recognize that he is not far off! It is to recognize that he is right around us, for us!’97 Therefore, while it is true that during these earliest years the otherness of God and the negation of humanity stand at the forefront of Barth’s concern, these emphases must be understood within the broader context of his theological agenda during this phase. Barth’s deconstructive and groundclearing work must be seen as the initial phase in his positive theological construction. In time Barth would come to give greater attention to the ‘YES’ of God which requires a corresponding ‘Yes’ within the creaturely sphere.98 In time Barth would say that God’s actual self-revelation in Jesus Christ renders the notion that God ‘can and must be only the “Wholly Other” . . . quite untenable, and corrupt and pagan’ (IV/1, 186). Yet one must not overlook this critical ‘only’. In Barth’s movement towards a more positive appraisal of the creaturely sphere and its relation to God, he never loses his initial sense of awe and wonderment at the fact that it is God who elects to establish relations with creatures. The humanity of God which arises so forcefully in Barth’s later thought is not intended as an outright contradiction of this prior theme. ‘Romans is thus the first of a series of attempts by Barth (which include the abortive Christian Dogmatics, his work on Anselm, and the many shifts within the Church Dogmatics) to articulate the freedom, the inexhaustible self-hood, of God.’99

95 96 97 98

99

Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 297. Ibid., 297. Barth, Predigten 1916, 118. The transition from Barth’s earlier to later theology displays an ‘increasing trust of the positive spheres of human history and agency as potential bearers of divine action [and this] is bound up with a revision of Barth’s earlier strictures against human language. Because God is essentially pro nobis, Christian language cannot simply negate’ (Webster, ‘On the Frontiers of What is Observable’, 178). Webster, ‘On the Frontiers of What is Observable’, 171.

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Personality and aseity In The Göttingen Dogmatics (§§16–17) Barth’s description of the divine reality is ordered by the noetic dialectic of personality and aseity. In these lectures, the language of otherness and difference (ganz anders, ganz andere, etc.) is neither given a structurally prominent role nor used with much frequency.100 However, the actual formulations in Barth’s doctrine of aseity and the use of dialectic to affirm God’s divinity both make it clear that this material stands in substantial continuity with his understanding of God from the prior decade. Although not in the exact same form, the divinity and wholly otherness of God are both highly operative throughout these lectures. As for the former theme, Daniel Migliore observes that the thematic refrain ‘God is God’ ‘runs like a great fugal theme with many variations through the Göttingen Dogmatics’ and is in fact ‘the theme’ of the work.101 As for the latter theme, McCormack notes that as Barth began to write The Göttingen Dogmatics in 1924, his ‘startingpoint in the wholly other God remained as constant as ever it had been from 1915 on’.102 In this context, however, rather than use the term ‘absoluteness’, Barth sums up this second dialectical element – that is, God’s ‘lordship’ – with ‘the foreign term “aseitas,” which commonly occurs at this point in the older Protestant dogmatics and which still does so today in Roman Catholic dogmatics’ (GD, 371 rev.). As with the description of God as wholly other, the concept of aseity is largely given a negative or limit function, particularly through its correlation with the via negationis103 and the qualified description of the attributes of aseity as attributa negativa.104 God’s aseity sets God absolutely beyond creaturely categories. The divine attributes of aseity thus ‘belong to God alone and to no one and nothing outside him’ (GD, 395). Therefore, when the doctrine of aseity dialectically converges with other descriptions of God, it draws out their otherness. God has the personal and communicable attribute of life, but this life is equally that of the one who exists in hiddenness, who is a se: ‘In no way does God share in our life, but we share totally in his. If this were not so, we would not be thinking of the life

100

This being said, there are some occurrences. For example, Barth says that God’s holiness is ‘the concept of that which is distinct or that which is supremely positive in God, though it seems that we can describe it only negatively as that wherein he is completely different [ganz anders] from the gods and the world and humanity’ (GD, 418; UCR, 2:137). 101 Migliore, introduction to The Göttingen Dogmatics, xxv, xxvi. 102 McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 330. 103 GD, 371, 400, 426–7. 104 UCR, 2:148; GD, 426.

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of him who is the Lord and a se’ (GD, 403). God’s aseity requires that creatures look ‘not only far beyond this life but totally beyond it’.105 This being said, in the Göttingen lectures Barth displays an effort to treat God’s life pro nobis with full seriousness. Barth finds that ‘Christian revelation is trinitarian revelation, and this very firmly rules out any possibility of seeing God behind or above in his deity apart from his personality’ (GD, 368). Therefore, ‘in itself the thought of aseity is not the thought of God. In itself what can it be but the mystery of our limit, the negation of human imperfection?’ (GD, 371). In other words, God is not God if God is only a se. God is God in personality and aseity. Both concepts are required in the expression of God’s divinity (GD, 368–9, 372). However, in contrast to ‘Belief in a Personal God’ (1913) where Barth uses the dialectical pairing of personality and absoluteness, here he shows concern that ‘absoluteness’ might lead to an abstract conception of God’s lordship or aseity (GD, 370). Through this subordination of divine absoluteness, he manifests a burgeoning conviction that God’s deity and aseity can only be understood concretely as the deity and aseity of the one who is for us. Even this quite early treatment thus anticipates his fuller and more famous account of the doctrine of God.

Freedom and love In Church Dogmatics II/1 (§§28–31) Barth’s description of the divine reality is ordered by the noetic dialectic of love and freedom.106 By this time Barth is beginning to be wary of the term ‘dialectic’ and therefore he does not identify his ‘fourth’ approach to the divine attributes as ‘dialectical’ as he had done in the Göttingen lectures (GD, 390, 394). Despite the absence of this term, the content and structure of these two accounts manifest a significant degree of similarity.107 The most notable of these features are the consistent and balanced juxtaposition of the two leading elements and their grounding in the dialectic of revelation

105

GD, 403; emphasis original. Setting aside the differences between these figures, Barth’s twofold account is anticipated by Hermann Cremer’s distinction between ‘love’ and ‘freedom’ and by Isaak Dorner’s distinction between ‘self-communication’ and ‘self-preservation’. See Hermann Cremer, Die christliche Lehre von den Eigenschaften Gottes, 2nd edn (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1917), esp. 19–20; Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, esp. 1:438–62; see also Webster, ‘God’s Perfect Life’, 145–7. 107 On the relationship between The Göttingen Dogmatics, §§16–17 and Church Dogmatics, §§28–31, see Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 2–6; Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 65–71; Migliore, introduction to The Göttingen Dogmatics, xlvi; Štefan, ‘Gottes Vollkommenheiten nach KD II/1’, 85. 106

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(II/1, 341; cf. 236). For this reason, many scholars have not hesitated to identify love and freedom as a dialectical pairing.108 Of course, much is also new in this third and final treatment of the divine reality. At the most basic level, Barth’s theology in Church Dogmatics II/1 is more rigorously christocentric and therefore it makes new gains in affirming that God is God concretely in Jesus Christ.109 To state this in negative terms, Barth displays heightened levels of concern that God’s being not be understood abstractly. Divine ‘personality’ had served as a leading concept in ‘Belief in a Personal God’, the Göttingen lectures, and even in the Gifford Lectures which were given around the time that Barth began his Basel lectures (1937).110 Here, however, this concept is dismissed as ‘too vague’ (zu blaß) to constitute a summary of the first element in the dialectical description of God.111 Moreover, divine ‘absoluteness’ had been foundation in ‘Belief in a Personal God’ and then cautioned against in the Göttingen and Gifford lectures,112 but here this concept is given a central role as the secondary and negative aspect of divine freedom (II/1, 307–20).113 And again, divine ‘aseity’ had featured prominently in the Göttingen lectures and had then been taken over by ‘majesty’ in the Gifford Lectures, but here this concept is given a central role as the primary and positive aspect of divine freedom (II/1, 303–7).114 These adjustments raise a number of issues. The first and arguably the most important question is the following: what is the significance of the fact that Barth

108

E.g., Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 241–3; Henning Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem: Eine Untersuchung zu Kierkegaard und der neueren Theologie als Beitrag zur theologischen Logik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960), 151–2; 178–85; Štefan, ‘Gottes Vollkommenheiten nach KD II/1’, 94–5; Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God; Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 5, 43; Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 223, 230; cf. 16, 71; Gunton, Becoming and Being, 188. 109 See McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 458–63; cf. Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 65; Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 5–6. 110 Karl Barth, The Knowledge of God and the Service of God according to the Teaching of the Reformation: Recalling the Scottish Confession of 1560, The Gifford Lectures, University of Aberdeen, 1937–8, trans. J. L. M. Haire and Ian Henderson (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), 25–34; see also Busch, Karl Barth, 279–80. 111 KD II/1, 333; CD, 296. Personality instead takes on a thematic role (see §28.1, 267–72, 284; §28.2, 284–7; §28.3, 298–300). Robert Price similarly identifies its function throughout §§28–31 as that of a ‘secondary’ concept (Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 11). 112 As one might expect, in the Gifford lectures Barth cautions against viewing God as ‘absolute’ in connection with his rejection of natural theology. More specifically, he has in mind ‘a universally intelligible philosophy of the Absolute’ which amounts to the kind of projection that Feuerbach had so effectively deconstructed (Barth, The Knowledge of God and the Service of God, 32). 113 It is worth noting that Barth does retain some concern that the concept of absoluteness has the potential to dissolve God’s relations with creatures if not handled with the proper care (see GD, 370). Nonetheless, he finds that it can be constructively utilized as long as this negative concept is located within the context of the positive concept of aseity (II/1, 308–9). 114 Barth, The Knowledge of God and the Service of God, 32–4; cf. CD II/1, 302.

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changes the second element from ‘aseity’ to ‘freedom’? That is, does this in some way indicate that Barth has come to view the traditional connotations of this doctrine as too problematic for it to be employed? Barth has sometimes been read in this way. George Hendry, for example, interprets Barth to be utilizing the concept of divine freedom ‘in place of the traditional concept of aseity’.115 He offers two reasons for this view. First, he claims that for Barth the concept of divine freedom more appropriately fits with the idea that God’s being is in act rather than static. Second, he claims that for Barth the concept of divine freedom more appropriately fits with the idea that the acts in which God’s being subsists are in accordance with God’s volition.116 The second reason does indeed have validity, but the first is in substantial need of qualification.117 More to the point, Hendry has certainly captured part of the matter, but overall his interpretation of this issue is unnecessarily polarized. For one thing, Barth does not set freedom over against aseity, but rather uses aseity as the primary concept for the explication of divine freedom. Whether speaking of aseity or of absoluteness, Barth is still speaking about forms of divine freedom. Aseity is simply ‘God’s freedom to exist in Himself ’ and divine absoluteness is simply ‘God’s freedom from all external conditions’.118 Additionally, since aseity is the primary meaning or ‘the quintessence’ of divine freedom,119 Barth is even able to think of them as equivalents.120 In light of this association, although Barth generally uses the language of aseity121 to refer specifically to 115

Hendry, ‘The Freedom of God in the Theology of Karl Barth’, 231; emphasis mine. Ibid., 231–2. 117 The only support Hendry offers here is a text which indicates Barth’s preference for the term ‘reality’ over the term ‘essence’ in depicting the actuality of God’s being. Interestingly, Hendry references §28.3 (II/1, 303) where the subject is God’s aseity, but the text which he quotes actually comes from §28.1 where the subject is God’s being (II/1, 262; Hendry, ‘The Freedom of God in the Theology of Karl Barth’, 231). Hendry is right to point out that Barth views the term ‘essence’ as standing in tension with actualism, but he does not offer any reason to think that Barth feels the same way about the term ‘aseity’ – at least in this context of Church Dogmatics II/1. The closest Hendry comes to doing so is when he suggests that the deficiency of the term ‘aseity’ is implied by Barth’s choice of the title for this section: Gottes Sein in der Freiheit (The Being of God in Freedom) (KD II/1, 334; CD, 297; Hendry, ‘The Freedom of God in the Theology of Karl Barth’, 235). Nonetheless, even if Hendry were correct about this, one would then wonder why Barth decides not to express his disapproval of the term ‘aseity’ as he does in the case of ‘essence’. 118 II/1, 302; emphasis mine; cf. 307. This twofold sense of freedom is laid out quite straightforwardly in his summary of the structure of §28.3: ‘We have entitled this section, “The Being of God in Freedom” [Gottes Sein in der Freiheit], and in it we have spoken about God’s aseity [Aseität] and his primary and secondary absoluteness [primären und sekundären Absolutheit]’ (II/1, 320; KD, 360; see also KD II/1, 340–1, 348; CD, 302–3, 309). 119 Joachim Ringleben, Religion Past & Present, 4th edn, s.v. ‘aseity’. 120 The language of freedom (frei, Freiheit) and of aseity (Aseität, aseitas) are also sometimes overlapping and interchangeable back in The Göttingen Dogmatics (see UCR, 2:71–5; GD, 269–372). In this previous context, however, ‘freedom’ fills out the meaning of ‘aseity’. See Velde, Paths Beyond Tracing Out, 302. 121 Barth uses the following terms: Aseität, aseitas, a se and aseitarische. 116

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the positive aspect of God’s freedom, he sometimes uses it more loosely to refer to both the positive and negative aspects.122 It is therefore clear that aseity and freedom are framed in a complementary relationship. In addition, Barth does not set freedom over against the traditional concept of aseity, but rather takes up this doctrine so that it may be christologically reinvigorated. ‘By freedom’, Barth writes, ‘we denote what was called in the theology of the Early Church the aseitas Dei’ (II/1, 302). According to Barth, his doctrine of divine freedom corresponds to what the Greek fathers often meant when they employed ‘self ’ (αὐτός) compounds. It is this doctrine which receives its initial formulation at the hands of Anselm in classical texts such the Monologion and Proslogion (II/1, 302).123 So also, it is this doctrine which Barth discovers in ‘the older Protestant dogmatics’ during his initial lectures on the being of God at the University of Göttingen (GD, 371). Moreover, 5 years after Barth’s christocentrism and actualism reach new heights through his doctrine of election in Church Dogmatics II/2, he once again affirms this concept: God is God by virtue of the fact that in His eternal Son, and therefore from all eternity, He was, is, and will be the God of men, who loved, loves, and will love men. He did this, does this, and will do this in freedom, for He is sovereign, He is majesty. He is the omnipotent God. He has aseity, as the old theologians used to say: He is sufficient unto Himself and He needs no other. His loving is in no way a form of needing. But all this is grace.124

Despite Barth’s revisions and reinvigorations of this traditional doctrine, it continues to play a vital role in his thought.125 A second question which these adjustments in Church Dogmatics II/1 raise is why Barth chooses to understand aseity primarily in terms of divine freedom. The answer is found in Barth’s attempt to balance love and freedom 122

For Barth, ‘freedom’ denotes ‘the aseitas Dei’ (II/1, 302; see also Webster, Barth, 2nd edn [London: Continuum, 2004], 86). Accordingly, as his exposition transitions from the positive aspect of God’s freedom to the negative aspect, he then adds, ‘If we have established this first proposition that God is he who is free in himself [i.e., aseity in the more specific and positive sense], then we can now also express his aseity [Aseität] in a second proposition [i.e., as absoluteness]’ (II/1, 307; KD, 346; see also KD II/1, 345, 361; cf. 393; CD, 306, 321; cf. 349–50). 123 Barth draws on Monologion 6, De veritate 10, Proslogion 22, De casu diaboli 1; cf. Barth, Anselm, 17n. 3. 124 Barth, ‘The Proclamation of God’s Free Grace’, 36. 125 Part of the confusion in Hendry’s argument arises from the fact that he takes the traditional doctrine of aseity to view God as ‘the originator of his own being (or as “unoriginate”, in the traditional term of trinitarian theology)’ (Hendry, ‘The Freedom of God in the Theology of Karl Barth’, 231). The problem with this is that Barth also rejects the ‘traditional’ account of aseity proposed by Jerome (II/1, 305). He quite straightforwardly affirms that the divine being is ‘in need of no origination (not even an origination from itself)’ (II/1, 306). Nonetheless, this does not detract from his appreciation of the ‘traditional’ accounts of aseity proposed by the Greek fathers, Anselm and others (II/1, 302).

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more consistently and to demonstrate that God is pro nobis through both of these elements. Although Barth uses the language of divinity more frequently in relation to God’s freedom than in relation to God’s love (II/1, §28.3),126 he is nonetheless emphatic that their equality and mutually determinative character must be upheld.127 Likewise, in contrast to the negative construal of divine aseity in the Göttingen lectures with its potential implication of opposition between God and creatures, here aseity is viewed as an essentially positive concept (II/1, 302). This positive conception protects the self-directedness of the divine life. God’s aseity is freedom because it is the concrete movement, determination or – as Hendry highlights – choice of the divine life.128 In this way Barth is able to clarify more fully that God’s aseity is in fact ‘the chosen path of the divine being’.129 God remains God. God remains wholly other. God remains a se. God remains free. However, God is these things in God’s life pro nobis in Jesus Christ. This account therefore demonstrates that God’s freedom is neither opposed to nor separable from God’s love. God’s freedom is rather the manner of God’s acts of love. God is the one who ‘loves in freedom’ (II/1, 257). The primary meaning of this freedom is therefore not the abstract and absolute power of choice, but the concrete demonstration of God’s ability to be God pro nobis (II/1, 303). God’s freedom is not actualized in isolation and contrariety; God is ‘free even in His being for us’ (II/1, 347). God’s freedom is fundamentally God’s freedom to love. In sum, Church Dogmatics II/1 takes up Barth’s earlier conceptions of God and christologically invigorates them in light of God’s self-determination. Throughout the various phases in Barth’s understanding of God, there is therefore discontinuity and revision in the broader context of substantial continuity. This account of divine freedom takes up the ‘wholly otherness’ of God so prominent in Romans II, but it also brings new balance where there had sometimes been one-sidedness and unguarded fervour. ‘The exposition of freedom takes the place of the “Wholly Other” of Barth’s earlier period. It enables him to make clearer that, whilst God can in no way be manipulated, God must be understood as existing in the profoundest relationship to creation.’130 In the same way, this 126

See especially II/1, 297–300, 320–1. See especially II/1, 344–53, 440–2. 128 Hendry, ‘The Freedom of God in the Theology of Karl Barth’, 231. Katherine Sonderegger observes that Barth’s interpretation of aseity as freedom is one of a number of Hegelian features of this account (Katherine Sonderegger, ‘The Absolute Infinity of God’, in The Reality of Faith in Theology: Studies on Karl Barth Princeton-Kampen Consultation 2005, ed. Bruce L. McCormack and Gerrit Neven [Bern: Peter Lang, 2007], 42). 129 Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, 3; emphasis mine. 130 Timothy Gorringe, Karl Barth: Against Hegemony (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 144; emphasis mine. 127

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account of divine freedom takes up Barth’s negative concept of divine aseity in the Göttingen lectures and moves beyond its ‘more cautious, less Christologically concentrated, account of the positive character of God’s freedom’.131 In doing so, Church Dogmatics II/1 more strongly reinforces the idea that God’s freedom is primarily the freedom to love – an idea which plays an immensely valuable role in Barth’s work throughout the following decades. This treatment thus anticipates Barth’s subsequent doctrine of reconciliation in which God is God in the humility of the incarnation.132

Conclusion With these considerations in view, it is now possible to contextualize the previously mentioned examples in which Barth rejects a form of divine aseity. It should now be evident that these are certainly not rejections of Barth’s own conception of aseity. When prideful humanity seeks to be like a god who is purely self-related and self-loving, this characteristic is called ‘aseity’ only in an entirely abstract and negative sense – a sense which is diametrically opposed to that of Church Dogmatics II/1 (IV/1, 423). Even in the very context where he rejects this abstract doctrine of aseity, Barth himself notes a proper and theological interpretation of this concept which must be upheld. God is for Himself, but He is not only for Himself. He is in a supreme self-hood, but not a self-contained self-hood, not in a mere divinity which is obviously presented to man in the mere humanity intended for man. God is a se and per se, but as the love which is grounded in itself from all eternity. Because He is the triune God, who from the first has loved us as the Father in the Son and turned to us by the Holy Spirit, He is God pro nobis. When man tries to make this mad exchange his first and supreme error is in relation to God. It is not only that he cannot succeed in worshipping the true Deity in himself, but that in positing himself as absolute what he thinks to see and honour and worship in himself is already the image of a false deity, the original of all false gods. (IV/1, 422)

What Barth rejects here is the self-apotheosis of creaturely reality.133 The aseity denounced in IV/3.1 should also be read along these lines. Here too, sinful humanity lifts up an abstract god of aseity who is in no way pro nobis; however, 131 132 133

Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 65. For example, IV/1, 418; cf. §59.1; idem, ‘The Humanity of God’, 47. Actually, Barth had already rejected this pseudo-aseity back in CD, §28.3 (see II/1, 307).

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as Barth points out, humanity does so by ‘projecting it as it were into infinity’ (IV/3.1, 252). And lastly, Barth is likewise concerned with this abstract notion of aseity when in Evangelical Theology he writes that God does not exist ‘in his aseity and independence but in his union with the one true man’.134 Although this passage shows a particularly heightened sense of God’s freedom to love, this love remains God’s freedom: ‘the great God gave and offered himself in his own primal freedom to be the God of small man’.135 The aseity of God so prominent in Barth’s early theology never fades from view. On to the very end of his career, Barth continues to confess that God is. His later emphasis on divine pronobeity and humanity therefore constitutes a genuine revision rather than a retraction of aseity and divinity. It is a revision which allows him to clarify that, in the fullness of God’s aseity, God is with us. God is, of course, and that in the strictest sense originally and properly, so that everything else which is, in a way which cannot be compared at all with His being, can be so only through Him, only in relation to Him, only from Him and to Him. Now even when He is ‘with us’, He is what He is, and in the way that He is; and all the power and truth of His being ‘with us’ is the power and truth of His incomparable being which is proper to Him and to Him alone, His being as God. He is both in His life in eternity in Himself, and also in His life as Creator in the time of the world created by Him; by and in Himself, and also above and in this world, and therefore according to the heart of the Christian message with us men. And He is who He is, and lives as what He is, in that He does what He does.136

In this light, the whole Church Dogmatics may in fact be read as ‘a massively ramified reassertion of the aseity of God: as an intense pursuit of the truth that neither in the realm of being nor in the realm of knowing is God contingent or derivative, but rather axiomatically real, true, and free’.137

134

Barth, Evangelical Theology, 202. Ibid., 202–3. 136 IV/1, 6; emphasis original. 137 Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, 2–3. Colin Gunton gives qualified assent: ‘According to John Webster the whole of Barth’s theology is a meditation on God’s aseitas. This is in some senses an exaggeration but there is a certain sense in which this is right’ (Gunton, The Barth Lectures, 102). 135

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Being-in-Action

Through addressing God’s life (§28.1), Barth specifies divine freedom (§28.3) as the freedom of the one who exists in action pro nobis in Jesus Christ and therefore also in eternity. In the opening of ‘The Reality of God’, Barth makes it eminently clear that any doctrine worthy of this title must be concerned with nothing less than the reality of God. As with his first dogmatic cycle, so also here the gospel of Jesus Christ entails that God truly makes Godself known to creatures. Correspondingly, one of Barth’s leading concerns from the outset of this material is the basis of faithful human speech about the reality of God. The exploration of this theme will begin with the broader consideration of three closely related issues concerning creaturely witness to the divine reality: its demand, its basis and its nature. The focus will then narrow in on the more particular consideration of how the vivacity of the divine reality makes this human knowledge and speech possible.

Humanity speaking of God The demand for Christian witness First, the demand for speech about God stands at the centre of the task of theology. For Barth, the failure to hear and follow this divine command is exemplified by the Ritschlian theologians. These thinkers argue that theology must show great restraint when it comes to speech about the reality of God. Interestingly, they allege that this interpretation of the theological task finds support in the early writings of Philipp Melanchthon. In the 1521 edition of Melanchthon’s Loci Communes, he decides to ‘suppress’ a special treatment on the doctrine of God by directly proceeding to the beneficia Christi (II/1, 259). In Melanchthon’s words, ‘We should more properly adore the mysteria divinitatis, than investigate them. Moreover, it is not possible to attempt this without great danger, a danger

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not infrequently experienced even by holy men.’1 As Barth observes, it is in this text that the later eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Rationalists (e.g. J. J. Spalding and K. G. Bretschneider) and Ritschlians (e.g. B. M. Rade and H. Stephan) find historical precedent for their dismissal of speech about God ‘antecedently in Godself ’ (zuvor in sich selber) as ‘untheological metaphysical speculation’.2 Barth would have been exposed to this pattern of thought quite early on through his Marburg professor, Wilhelm Herrmann. Herrmann seeks to eliminate every hint of metaphysics from theology with a force even greater than that of Ritschl.3 In contrast to the anti-objectivist tendencies of his NeoKantian colleagues, Paul Natorp and Hermann Cohen, Herrmann elevates the importance of the divine ‘reality’ (Wirklichkeit) – a reality which he understands as ‘totally’ (gänzliche) transcendent, beyond the creaturely realm.4 Herrmann builds upon this ‘ontological dualism’ by establishing an ‘epistemological dualism’ which allows him to assert the autonomy of religion in the face of all other theoretical and ethical works.5 Therefore, although he accepts the NeoKantian epistemology of Natorp and Cohen, he limits its role to the sphere of science and therefore disallows it from addressing the sphere of theology. ‘God’s reality lies beyond all of what science can prove.’6 He thus affirms the reality of God, but denies that it can be known. Accordingly, the task of theology is not to speak of God in se but rather to speak of the beneficia Christi.7 In this way, 1

2

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4 5 6 7

‘Mysteria divinitatis rectius adoraverimus, quam vestigaverimus. Immo sine magno periculo tentari non possunt, id quod non raro sancti viri etiam sunt experti’ (Philip Melanchthon, Loci Communes, 1521, in Melanchthons Werke in Auswahl [Studiensausgabe], 7 vols., ed. R. Stupperich [Gütersolh: Gerd Mohn, 1951–75], 2/1.6.16–19; see Barth, CD II/1, 259). Especially, KD I/1, 436–47; CD, 415–25. See Simon Fisher, Revelatory Positivism? Barth’s Earliest Theology and the Marburg School (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), especially 131. See McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 51n. 35; cf. 49–54. In contrast to much of Ritschl’s scholarship, Matthias Neugebauer proposes that Ritschl is not anti-metaphysical, but, in fact, has a role for metaphysics in constructive theological work (Matthias Neugebauer, Lotze und Ritschl: Reich-Gottes-Theologie zwischen nachidealistischer Philosophie und neuzeitlichem Positivismus [New York: Peter Lang, 2002]). For a brief overview and critique of this position, see Christophe Chalamet, ‘Reassessing Albrecht Ritschl’s Theology: A Survey of Recent Literature’, Religion Compass 2.4 (2008): 629–31. Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 35–8. Ibid., 52; cf. 39. Herrmann, Schriften zur Grundlegung der Theologie, 2:292. For Hermann, ‘what an almighty being is for himself remains hidden to us. But he appears to us in what he brought about for us. We can only speak about what God does for us’ (Wilhelm Herrmann, Schriften zur Grundlegung der Theologie, 2 vols., ed. P. Fischer-Appelt [Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1966–7], 2:314). And again, ‘Our knowledge of God, then, can never be other than the clear knowledge of an activity which produces the stirrings of real life in us. But the power which we owe these experiences remains to use unknown’ (Wilhelm Herrmann, Systematic Theology, trans. N. Micklem and K. A. Sanders [New York: MacMillan, 1927], 98). Therefore, God is a ‘reality’ (Wirklichkeit) pro nobis, but only insofar as God ‘acts’ (wirkt) pro nobis (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 39).

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‘revelation . . . becomes synonymous with the beneficia Christi experienced by the believer’.8 Consequently, Herrmann finds it necessary to distance himself from traditional discussions about the divine being and attributes.9 Barth’s earliest theology displays an acceptance of the use of Melanchthon after the manner of Herrmann and Ritschl,10 but he later comes to reject both their concentration on the beneficia Christi to the exclusion of the reality of God11 and their appeal to Melanchthon to support this view.12 As can be seen in his treatments on the Son’s life ‘antecedent in himself ’ (I/1, §11.2) and on the truth that ‘God is’ (II/1, §28.1), Barth meets this theological orientation with quite trenchant criticism. Most definitively, he argues that this perspective fails because it wrongly supposes that the beneficia Christi stand on a more sure noetic basis than do the mysteria divinitatis. By contrast, Barth asserts that the beneficia Christi themselves belong among the mysteria divinitatis (II/1, 259). There is only one mediator between God and humanity, and not even the benefits of this mediator can serve as a suitable replacement (1 Tim. 2:5). In any case, the question of whether or not it is possible to speak about God’s reality is one that can only be put to God’s word. ‘If the Word of God forbids the question of God’s being as a particular question, or leaves us in doubt about this particular

8 9

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12

This being said, it is important to note that for Herrmann this reluctance to talk about God in se is not due to a faithless timidity but rather to his attempt to uphold the full transcendence of God in history (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 42–3). Barth may indeed depart from his former teacher in this regard, but Bultmann, Hermann’s other famous student, maintains this one-sided focus on God pro nobis (see Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology, 43). Fisher, Revelatory Positivism, 144. ‘Our conceptions of the divine attributes express the way in which faith recognizes God’s working. We have no right to distinguish from this, as did the older dogmatics, a knowledge of God’s nature’ (Herrmann, Systematic Theology, 97). See Barth’s comments on the beneficia Christi in his 1911 lecture on metaphysics in theology: Karl Barth, Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten 1909–1914, Gesamtausgabe 3.22, ed. Hans–Anton Drewes and Hinrich Stoevesandt (Zurich: TVZ, 1993), 351–2; cf. Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 66. See especially I/1, 416–23; II/1, 259–60. Barth also affirms the need to talk of God in se through his disputes with Gogarten and Bultmann. Concerning the former, see Barth, CD I/1, 169–74; cf. Friedrich Gogarten, ‘Das Problem einer Theologischen Anthropologie’, Zwischen den Zeiten 7.6 (1929): 493–511; idem, ‘Karl Barths Dogmatik’, Theologische Rundschau 1 (1929): 60–80. Concerning the latter, see Barth, ‘Rudolf Bultmann – An Attempt to Understand Him’, 91–102, 121–3. In Church Dogmatics II/1, Barth faults Melanchthon for stopping short of developing a special doctrine of God in his 1521 Loci, but he describes this decision as ‘an act of rashness, of which he rightly repented’ (II/1, 259). In Church Dogmatics I/1, Barth also clarifies that the Rationalists and the Ritschlians do not ultimately find what they seek in Melanchthon because this omission merely reflects a ‘passing mood’ (I/1, 416). Therefore, it does not have enduring significance either in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions or even in Melanchthon’s own thought. Furthermore, Barth argues that Melanchthon does not intend to subvert the orthodox doctrine of God, but is rather expressing his personal inclination towards other loci. This impulse, in turn, is grounded in the influence of Luther on his thought as well as in his reaction against the allegedly speculative theology of the scholastics (I/1, 416–17).

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question, it means that it gives us no real revelation of God’ (II/1, 259). And of course, if there is no revelation of God, it also becomes impossible to speak of the beneficia Christi. However, as Barth looks to this event of God’s word, he sees nothing less than Immanuel. It is on the basis of this reality that theologians are compelled to give witness to and elucidate the truth that ‘God is’. In the words of his first dogmatic cycle, This is the science of Christian preaching, which cannot just as well remain dumb but has to proclaim God. ‘Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!’ (1 Cor. 9:16). For this reason there must be no failure to attempt to define God’s nature, no fall into the abyss of divine incomprehensibility.13

Barth thereby rejects the nineteenth century’s ‘turn to the subject’ and instead offers what has been referred to as a ‘turn to theological objectivism’.14 That is, he finds it necessary to uphold a strong sense of God’s ‘objectivity’ (Gegenständlichkeit) in revelation, or rather, ‘revelational objectivism’.15 In sum, dogmatics must affirm the genuine revelation of God to humanity.

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In 1929, Barth likewise says, ‘If we are going to talk about God as the object of theology, then we will already be advancing a typically realist proposition. How could we get away from God’s objectivity completely, even if we ardently wanted to place it in quotation marks? . . . At the very least we cannot get around ascribing the quality of being to God, being under quite definite conditions, but certainly being. The proposition that “God is” is a realist utterance not easily dispensed with if theology is not to fall into mystical silence the first time it ventures to speak. And the situation does not get any easier but even more exacting when we recall that by the term God we do not mean some sort of “God as such,” but rather, according to our agreement about the nature of theology, the God of the Christian church, the God revealed in his Word’ (Karl Barth, ‘Fate and Idea in Theology’, in The Way of Theology: Essay and Comments, ed. H. Martin Rumscheidt, trans. George Hunsinger [Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications, 1986], 35; emphasis original). Ingrid Spieckermann, Gotteserkenntnis: Ein Beitrag zur Grundfrage der neuen Theologie Karl Barths (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1985), 73; cited by McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 130. On God’s objectivity in revelation, see George Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 35–6, 76–9; Amy Marga, Karl Barth’s Dialogue with Catholicism in Göttingen and Münster: Its Significance for His Doctrine of God (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 1–2, 59–90, 153–75. Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, 76; cf. 77–9. The key question for Barth with regard to God’s objectivity in the context of revelation is not whether God is an objectively real being, but rather whether theology’s object is ultimately located in God or in humanity. In McCormack’s view, the realist aspect of Barth’s turn to ‘critical realism’ in 1915 entails that ‘Barth now regarded God as a Reality which is complete and whole in itself apart from and prior to the knowing activity of human individuals’ (McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 129; emphasis mine). However, Chalamet is more accurate when he writes that even in his 1913 presentation, ‘Belief in a Personal God’, ‘Barth defends an ontological realism as radical as the one Bruce McCormack believes is the main characteristic of Barth’s theology after 1915–16. Barth had no difficulty speaking of God’s absolute precedence with regard to the world and man. I am sure Barth has never doubted that God is before we ever know him’ (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 76; emphasis original; cf. 92–8, 108–9).

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The basis of Christian witness Second, the basis of speech about God must be the objective reality of God in God’s act of self-revelation rather than human rationality or experience.16 Barth’s thought is marked by a systematic attempt to appreciate the gravity of taking up the word ‘God’. How is it possible for humanity to speak this word with any real meaning? Early on, Barth discovers that when considered from the perspective of humanity, God can only ever be understood as ‘the impossible possibility’.17 ‘As ministers we ought to speak of God. We are human, however, and so cannot speak of God. We ought therefore to recognize both our obligation and our inability and by that very recognition give God the glory.’18 There can be no moving from the general to the particular.19 There can be no ordo cognoscendi that proceeds from a human starting point and genuinely leads to the knowledge of God’s reality. There can be no grounding of ontological statements in ontology.20 Barth’s early disparagement of human starting points remains a central conviction throughout all of his work and is especially prominent in Church Dogmatics II/1.21 As Barth begins §28.1, he surveys traditional and contemporary accounts of the doctrine of God and laments the various ways in which theologians have attempted to establish an abstract basis for the knowledge of God. Notably, he claims that the later editions of Melanchthon’s Loci Communes offer a conception of God on the basis of ‘an independently formed and general idea of God’ (II/1, 259).22 Melanchthon then became a ‘disastrous example’ to the Protestant orthodox theologians in this regard (II/1, 260). In fact, in Barth’s view, this anthropological grounding of the knowledge of God’s being is ‘the 16

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This conviction has been especially prominent in Molnar’s Barthian critique of contemporary theology. See Molnar, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity, 125–34; cf. 27–8, 32–3, 58–9. ‘However ambitious and questionable the position of the righteous man who searches and waits for God may be as a human position (ii. 17–25), he, nevertheless, performs a distinct and necessary function as a symptom of the will and action of God. Set in the midst of human life, righteous men bear witness to reliance upon God and to the advent of His Kingdom; and, compelled to be still, by their own “experiences” or by the experiences of others they direct their attention to the possibility that the unknown can as such become an object of knowledge. By their recollection of the impossible they are themselves the proof that God stands within the realm of possibility, not as one possibility among others, but – and this is precisely what is made clear in their case – as the impossible possibility’ (Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 79; see Jüngel, Karl Barth, 54–70). Barth, ‘The Word of God and the Task of the Ministry’, 186. Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, 51. For Barth, ‘ontological statements in theology do not imply a theological ontology’ (Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 77n. 5; cf. 129–30). See Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 226. In defence of the particularity and trinitarian character of Melanchthon’s theology, see Sven Grosse, ‘Melanchthons Wendung zur Trinitatslehre’, Kerygma und Dogma 54.4 (2008): 264–89.

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fundamental error which dominated the doctrine of God of the older theology and which influenced Protestant orthodoxy at almost every point’ (II/1, 261). He also finds Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher and Ritschl guilty of this error. Each of them ‘speaks forcefully of God’, but they fail to adequately describe their object because their descriptions are not adequately grounded in God’s self-revelation (II/1, 270). Each of them, in their own way, of course, offers speech about God behind which is found speech about humanity. Barth’s response is incisive: Hence the impossibility of all those assertions about the nature of God, behind which there is seen to a greater or less extent the moved and moving being of men . . . there is no help to be found even in the strongest and most emphatic underlining of this motivation. We can say ‘man’ in the loudest tones. We can ground our statements about man on the most profound metaphysical premisses. But this does not mean that we say ‘God.’ By this very act we perhaps again and more emphatically say ‘man’ in distinction and opposition to God. In fact with this exaggeration we really say ‘sinful man.’ Sinful man – according to God’s revelation – is man exalting himself, and thinking that by his own efforts he can realise and assert the being of God. (II/1, 269–70)

By beginning with humanity, they fail to transcend humanity (II/1, 271). For Barth, accounts of this kind ultimately reduce theology to anthropology. In this way, they reinforce what he later refers to as ‘the distinctively postulatory character of the whole modern doctrine of God’ (II/1, 292). Barth gladly submits these theologies to Feuerbach’s judgement that ‘God did not create man in His image, as the Bible has it, but . . . man created God after his image.’23 In characteristic fashion, Barth finds in these bitingly negative words the richly positive warning that theologians are always at risk of forsaking their object and turning aside to abstraction.24 For this reason, at the outset of the doctrine of the reality of God, he observes that ‘the threatened absorption of the doctrine of God into a doctrine of being’ which was resisted in his account of the knowledge of God must equally be opposed in this context (II/1, 260). If dogmatics is to speak of God with due reverence and propriety, then ‘it cannot make any free speculations about the nature of His being’ (II/1, 261).

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Barth is citing Feuerbach, Das Wesen der Religion, 1848, lecture 20; cited by Barth, CD II/1, 292. Along these lines, consider the quote commonly attributed to Voltaire: ‘If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated’. Barth finds himself perplexed that so few follow this constructive use of Feuerbach and conversely that so many ‘expose themselves so openly to this objection of Feuerbach without apparently taking any account of its existence’ (II/1, 293). For more on Barth’s evaluation of Feuerbach, see Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century, 520–6.

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Turning to the positing aspect of this conviction, Barth argues that God is objective to creatures only insofar as God is the subject of God’s own objectivity.25 The possibility of this creaturely impossibility must be secured from God’s side.26 God stands in contrast to man as the impossible in contrast to the possible, as death in contrast to life, as eternity in contrast to time. The solution of the riddle, the answer to the question, the satisfaction of our need is the absolutely new event whereby the impossible becomes of itself possible, death becomes life, eternity time, and God man.27

God must act. God must reveal Godself. God must stand behind all human speech about God.28 When this truth is acknowledged, the general considerations that finitum non capax infiniti and that homo peccator non capax verbi divini are relativized by the fact that, in Jesus Christ, homo capax verbi Dei (I/1, 212, 238). How then does this shape the theological task? It means that God’s selfrevelation is both the foundation and the criterion of all theology.29 It means that, in contrast to the classic line of metaphysics, the ordo cognoscendi runs parallel rather than opposite to the ordo essendi.30 It means that theology is not undertaken a priori, but a posteriori.31 Theology is Nachdenken: ‘thinking after’ divine action.32 Questions about the being of God involve a process of theological

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Dei loquentis persona is ‘the objective reality, in that it is also subjective, the subjective that is God’ (I/1, 136; emphasis original; cf. GD, §3.3, §5.1–2; see also Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 55–7). See Barth, ‘The Word of God and the Task of the Ministry’, 198–200; see also McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 130, 155–62, 245–51. Barth, ‘The Word of God and the Task of the Ministry’, 197. ‘Gotteserkenntnis’ is only possible as ‘Offenbarungserkenntnis’ (Härle, Sein und Gnade, 46; emphasis original; cf. 13–29; see also Barth, CD I/1, 31–44, 187–9). See Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 77. It is this conviction which leads von Balthasar to claim, ‘What Barth has in fact done is to invert the Hegelian intent but in the Hegelian manner: as Hegel tried to absorb the assertions of theology into a more comprehensive philosophy, Barth orders all the paths of human wisdom, philosophical and religious, around the central core of a purely theological point of view’ (von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 36). As Barth states a decade earlier, ‘the noetic ratio of faith follows the ratio of the object of faith and consequently the ontic ratio’ (Barth, Anselm, 83; cf. 48–53). See McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 245–6, 430–1; idem, ‘The Actuality of God: Karl Barth in Conversation with Open Theism’, in Engaging the Doctrine of God: Contemporary Protestant Perspectives, ed. idem (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 186–9, 237; Alan J. Torrance, ‘The Trinity’, in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed. John Webster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 72–5. See Alan Torrance, Persons in Communion: An Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation with Special Reference to Volume One of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 15–28; cf. Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 168; Richard E. Burnett, Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis: The Hermeneutical Principles of the Römerbrief Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 35–41. See GD, 151; UCR, 1:185; see also David Ford, ‘Barth’s Interpretation of the Bible’, in Karl Barth: Studies of his Theological Method, ed. S. W. Sykes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 55–87; Busch, The Great Passion, 76–81.

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reasoning which ‘follows the being of God’ down a path which ‘the being of God has itself already proceeded’.33 The possibilities of God’s life in se are only known in their actuality in God’s life ad extra.34 All throughout §§28–31, Barth is emphatic that God’s identity is a revealed actuality rather than a posited possibility. He is not at all concerned with being, love, freedom or perfections in general. The doctrine of God’s being is ‘not concerned with a concept of being that is common, neutral and free to choose, but with one which is from the first filled out in a quite definite way’, that is, through the word of God (II/1, 260–1). The reality of God is only found in the reality of Jesus Christ (II/1, 261). Likewise, in the doctrine of God’s perfections, he says that ‘we may consider as obvious errors all those types of a doctrine of attributes which attempt to define and order the perfections of God as though they were the various predicates of a kind of general being presupposed as known already’ (II/1, 337). In sum, dogmatics must affirm the genuine revelation of God to humanity.

The nature of Christian witness Third, the nature of speech about God, by God’s grace, can become realistic rather than merely nominalistic or semi-nominalistic. Whereas the first and second points concern whether it is given to creatures to speak about God, the issue here is the extent to which this speech is given. Just as Barth holds that the basis of Christian witness is ground in God, he concludes that its efficacy requires this same grounding. In and of themselves, humans are unable to speak about God. Correspondingly, in and of themselves, all human concepts are unable to describe God as God. In theology, all concepts are anthropological and anthropomorphic – not merely those which more overtly present themselves as such (II/1, 193–5).35 This rules out any sort of untheological objectivism.

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Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 9–10; emphasis original; cf. Williams, ‘Barth on the Triune God’, 149. As Barth establishes early on in CD II/1, ‘Where the actuality exists there is also the corresponding possibility. The question cannot then be posed in abstracto but only in concreto; not a priori but only a posteriori’ (II/1, 5). See Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, 57–8; Gunton, The Barth Lectures, 78. Anthropomorphism cannot be defined as the application of ‘material and corporeal’ concepts to ‘the divine and the spiritual’ over against abstract concepts because ‘spiritual – i.e., abstract – concepts are just as anthropomorphic as those which indicate concrete perception’ (II/1, 222; cf. I/1, 316; II/1, 221–3, 264–6, 286–7). As Gunton observes, for Barth, ‘metaphysical categories have no a priori advantage over the so-called similes and mythical language of the Bible’ because ‘language must follow, a posteriori, what actually happens’ in the personal even God’s self-revelation (Gunton, Becoming and Being, 191–2).

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Barth explicitly denies that he is trying to establish ‘some sort of realism or objectivism’ which might become an abstract principle (II/1, 13).36 This being said, Barth is convinced that the realistic and objective character of theology must be upheld if, in accordance with the gospel, real and objective knowledge of God is communicated through the Son and by the Spirit. He therefore takes aim at subjective views which he believes will threaten this truth, especially nominalism and semi-nominalism. In Barth’s words, nominalism views all statements about the divine reality as having ‘no other value than that of purely subjective ideas and descriptions (conceptus, nomina)’ (II/1, 327).37 They do not correspond to the divine reality because this reality is ‘pure simplicity’ (II/1, 327). Semi-nominalism also maintains this scepticism towards objectivity in theological language, even if it does so in a less radical manner. For some, this restraint arises from the limitations of human cognition. For others, it arises from divine accommodation (II/1, 227–30). In either case, the faithfulness and efficacy of God to communicate Godself through concepts is called into question. Barth shows this concern quite strongly in the context of the relationship between God’s simplicity and multiplicity. More specifically, he worries that an abstract concept of simplicity might be allowed to swallow up God’s multiplicity.38 In the case of the nominalists, ‘Starting from the generalised notion of God, the idea of the divine simplicity was necessarily exalted to the all-controlling principle, the idol, which, devouring everything concrete, stands behind all these formulae’ (II/1, 329). In an ironic twist, the seeming humility of nominalism turns out to be its overconfidence. Regardless of the motivation, the outcome is insufficient fidelity to the object of theology. In response, Barth protests that there can be no ‘hesitation between the reality and unreality, between an objective and a purely subjective discrimination of the divine attributes’ (II/1, 329–30). His doctrine of the divine perfections affirms ‘neither nominalism nor expressivism’.39 He instead upholds the ‘multiplicity, 36 37

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See Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 55–7. He finds this perspective represented, for example, by Schleiermacher: ‘All attributes which we ascribe to God are to be taken as denoting not something special in God, but only something special in the manner in which the feeling of absolute dependence it to be related to Him’ (Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, §50 thesis; see Barth, CD II/1, 327). See Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 33–9; Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 12–21, 55–9; idem, ‘The Theological Function of the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes and the Divine Glory, with Special Reference to Karl Barth and his Reading of the Protestant Orthodox’, Scottish Journal of Theology 61.2 (2008): 210–15; Rinse H. Reeling Brouwer, ‘The Conversation between Karl Barth and Amandus Polanus on the Question of the Reality of Human Speaking of the Simplicity and the Multiplicity in God’, in The Reality of Faith in Theology: Studies on Karl Barth PrincetonKampen Consultation 2005, ed. Bruce L. McCormack and Gerrit Neven (Bern: Peter Lang, 2007), especially 84–92, 102–4. Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 55.

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individuality and diversity’ of the divine perfections in the face of ‘the nominalistic contesting and the semi-nominalistic weakening of them’.40 Divine multiplicity, individuality and diversity are seen as real in God and not merely on the human side of this event.41 In other words, Barth aims to close the gap between the description of God and God’s reality by replacing abstract nominalism and abstract realism with theological realism (II/1, 330–5).42 This rejection of the overly confident stance of objectivism and the overly modest stance of subjectivism allows Barth to emphasize that human witnesses can become faithful to the divine reality. This possibility is actualized by the gracious presence of God which works in, with and under human concepts. It is therefore God who permits human language to be taken up into this service of giving witness to God’s reality. In light of this idea, Barth’s theology should be read as ‘a single and extended realist claim that God in his self-manifestation has both epistemological and ontological priority, and that it is to that self-establishing reality that faith and theology refer’.43 Although this holds true for the entirety of the Church Dogmatics, there is no place where it is more rigorously developed than in the doctrine of ‘The Reality of God’ (II/1, §§28–31).44 In sum, dogmatics must affirm the genuine revelation of God to humanity.

God speaking Godself In Church Dogmatics §28.1, the demand, basis and nature of speech about God converge in the concept of actualism, or being-in-action. Barth’s first assertion in this section is that ‘God is who He is in the act of His revelation’ (II/1, §28 thesis). With this statement, he raises the traditional distinction between God’s ‘being’ and

40 41

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II/1, 330; cf. 331–5. II/1, 327; cf. 330, 336. ‘We must reject out of hand the semi-nominalistic reservation that in the last resort we can speak of the proprietates Dei only improprie, that the most characteristic inner being of God is a simplicitas which is to be understood undialectically’ (II/1, 333). Interestingly, this is one of the few places in Barth’s third doctrine of God where he explicitly retains the label ‘dialectical’ for his approach. In Barth’s first doctrine of God, by contrast, this connection is much more straightforward. In this prior context, Barth rejects the ‘unequivocal nominalistic’ approach and the ‘unequivocal realistic’ approach (GD, 379) and instead takes up the positive contributions of both through his ‘dialectical’ approach (GD, 380–4; see Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 67). The designation of Barth’s realism and objectivism as ‘theological’ – or, following Hunsinger, as ‘motifs’ – is intended to account for this qualification (see Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, 35–9, 43–9; idem, ‘Beyond Literalism and Expressivism: Karl Barth’s Hermeneutical Realism’, in idem, Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000], 210–25). Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, 29; emphasis original. See Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 189–92.

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‘works’, or rather, God’s essence and acts ad extra.45 However, in contrast to the tendency among many classical accounts, Barth finds that paying closer attention to the event of God’s self-revelation leads to a conception of the relationship between God’s being and works that is both more unified and more dynamic. Barth’s formulation can be summarized through three interconnected convictions.

God’s being is revealed in God’s action ad extra First, in seeking to describe God’s being on the basis of revelation, Barth fixes his gaze on the one through whom God has made Godself known to creatures, namely, Jesus Christ. This is simply an extension of the refrain throughout the doctrine of ‘The Knowledge of God’ that ‘God is known by God and by God alone’ (II/1, §§25–7).46 Accordingly, in transitioning to the doctrine of ‘The Reality of God’ (II/1, §§28–31), he writes, ‘If we want to answer this question legitimately and thoughtfully, we cannot for a moment turn our thoughts anywhere else than to God’s act in His revelation. We cannot for a moment start from anywhere else than from there’ (II/1, 261). It is necessary ‘always to keep exclusively to His works’ (II/1, 260). This attention to the point of contact between God and creatures quickly yields the conclusion that revelation is not dead and motionless, but living and active. God with us is a ‘happening’ (Geschehen), an ‘event’ (Ereignis). God’s movement towards creatures is God’s own ‘act’ (Tat) and ‘decision’ (Entscheidung).47 The being and willing of God cannot be held apart: ‘The fact that God’s being is an event, the event of God’s act, necessarily . . . means that it is God’s own conscious, willed and executed decision.’48 45

46

47 48

At least in the context of §28, Hunsinger is correct that for Barth, God’s work ‘applies only to God’s relationship to the world’ and God’s act or action ‘pertains not only to God’s relations with the world but also to God’s being in eternity in and for itself ’ (Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 180). Being mindful of this distinction between God’s being-in-action ad intra and ad extra helps to prevent the following two claims from contradicting one another: (1) God eternally exists in ‘the event of His action’ (II/1, 263) and (2) God is ‘the same even in Himself, even before and after and over His works, and without them’ (II/1, 260). See II/1, 179; cf. 43–5, 79, 179–83, 204, 223. The revelatory function of divine action is likewise established back in the first half of CD II/1. For example, Barth writes, ‘He always gives Himself to be known so as to be known by us in this giving, which is always a bestowal, always a free action. How would it be His objectivity if this were not so? How could He be our Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer, how could He be the living Lord, if it were not so, and if His being for us were ever to be separated from His activity, so that a direction of man to God’s being could exist that was grounded in something other than his being directed by God’s activity? Faith stands or falls with the fact of man being directed by God’s action, by the action of His being as the living Lord. Man’s being directed is his direction to God and thus of necessity his direction to the living Lord; not to any other sort of being, but to the actual being of God’ (II/1, 22; cf. 45–7). See especially KD II/1, 293–4; CD, 262. KD II/1, 304; CD, 271.

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In accordance with the Church’s presupposition, Barth therefore believes that the eternal identity of God is revealed in God’s outward action. In this event, humanity encounters the subject who reveals, the predicate who is the act of revelation and the object who is revealed (II/1, 262–3). In this event, humanity encounters the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For this reason, these works cannot be abstracted from their subject. As the one who performs these works, ‘God is so decisively characteristic for their nature and understanding that without this Subject they would be something quite different from what they are in accordance with God’s Word’ (II/1, 260). With this in view, there is little excuse for failing to describe God on the basis of God’s works. On the one hand, God is only known through God’s work. On the other hand, even if God could be known elsewhere, God would not be found to be any different from who God is in these works. God’s self-revelation thereby eliminates the possibility of free speculation about the divine identity. The reality of Immanuel entails that the identity of God in se is no longer an ‘open question’ (II/1, 260).49 ‘God is who He is in His works.’50

God’s being is in action ad intra Second, Barth follows this first point to its most direct and logical conclusion. Since Immanuel is the revelation of God, the dynamism of this reality does not merely apply to God’s movement ad extra. If God’s action ad extra is not ancillary to God’s identity in se, then neither is God’s identity as one who acts. Again, if God’s action ad extra reveals God’s eternal being, then this includes the revelation of God’s being-in-action ad intra. The dynamic descriptions of God which arise from revelation – Tat, Ereignis, Geschehen, Entscheidung – also characterize God’s life in eternity.51 ‘To its very deepest depths God’s Godhead consists in the fact that it is an event.’52

49 50 51

52

See Stratis, ‘Speculating about Divinity?’, 20–1. II/1, 260; emphasis mine. Justin Stratis plausibly suggests that Barth’s use of Ereignis and Tat ‘implies a criticism of classical theism and its conception of divine eternity, while the language of “decision” implies a criticism of nineteenth-century theologies of impersonal transcendence’ (Stratis, ‘Speculating About Divinity?’ 26n. 29). He further claims that Barth uses Entscheidung to indicate ‘the aseity of God’s personhood, over against the anthropocentric theisms of Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher and Ritschl’ (Stratis, ‘Speculating About Divinity?’ 27; emphasis original). II/1, 263; emphasis mine. It is helpful to recall that Barth interprets ontological statements ‘primarily in terms of events and relationships rather than monadic or self-contained substances’ (Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, 30).

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For Barth, this dynamic rather than the static understanding of God’s existence is simply an interpretation of the biblical designation of God as ‘the living God’ (II/1, 263). Moreover, although it may not have always been treated with sufficient consistency and rigour, Barth believes that it is essentially this same conviction that undergirds the descriptions of the vita Dei and God’s character as actus purus which one finds in the ‘older theologians’ – Augustine, Aquinas and the Protestant orthodox theologians (II/1, 263). In fact, Barth is so convinced of the basis and significance of this idea that it stands behind his title for this section: ‘The Reality of God’ (Die Wirklichkeit Gottes). Fearing that the more traditional term ‘essence’ (Wesen) has the effect of ‘pulling apart’ (auseinanderreißenden) being and action, he instead replaces it with the term ‘reality’ or ‘actuality’ (Wirklichkeit), which he sees as better suited for the task of ‘holding together’ (zusammenfassenden) both of these elements.53

God’s being-in-action ad extra and ad intra correspond Third, Barth traces out the ratio of the first two points by arguing that God’s being-in-action ad extra and ad intra correspond. That is, if God’s works reveal God’s eternal actuality, then they likewise reveal God’s capacity to become this same being-in-action in relation to creatures. The importance of this insight for Barth can hardly be overestimated. This is Barth’s doctrine of revelation. As Jüngel so ably captures the matter, the most fundamental and basic ontological statement that can be made about God is that God has God’s being-in-act and that ‘God’s being is thus a being in becoming.’54 In other words, in God’s movement ad extra, God remains Godself in a new way. God’s being ad extra corresponds essentially to his being ad intra in which it has its basis and prototype. God’s self-interpretation (revelation) is interpretation

53

54

KD II/1, 293; CD, 262. The standard English translation of the Church Dogmatics chooses the term ‘reality’, but in 1929 Barth himself indicates his preference for the term ‘actuality’: ‘Simply to recall the concept of revelation ought to bring home to us that in realism we can detect one of the legitimate and indispensable aspirations of all genuine theology, namely, the concern to understand God as an actuality. The exact foreign word corresponding to the German Wirklichkeit here would not be “reality,” [Realität] but “actuality” [Aktualität] (just as it is certain that here facticity and objectivity are within hailing distance)’ (Barth, ‘Fate and Idea in Theology’, 36; ‘Schicksal und Idee in der Theologie (1929)’, in idem, Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten 1925–1930, ed. Hermann Schmidt [Zurich: TVZ, 1994], 360). The reason for this preference is the correspondence between ‘actuality’ (Aktualität) and ‘act’ (Akt) – a connection which is not as clear when ‘reality’ is used (T. F. Torrance, Karl Barth, 151n. 1). However, T. F. Torrance argues that ‘reality’ can sometimes be a preferable term as long as ‘we remember that it is a living, active Reality with which we are concerned’ (T. F. Torrance, Karl Barth, 151n. 1). Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 77; emphasis original.

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as correspondence. Note: as interpreter of himself, God corresponds to his own being. But because God as his own interpreter (even in his external works) is himself, and since in this event as such we are also dealing with the being of God, then the highest and final statement which can be made about the being of God is: God corresponds to himself. Barth’s Dogmatics is in reality basically a thorough exegesis of this statement.55

The correspondence of this relation entails that there is both identity and distinction. The identity in this correspondence is maintained through Barth’s conception of divine revelation as self-revelation, or rather as ‘self-unveiling’ (Selbstenthüllung).56 God does not merely speak something. God speaks Godself.57 In Jesus Christ, humanity encounters the eternal God in all God’s fullness (II/1, 261).58 Since this event is ‘final’, it prohibits the positing of a hidden God in se over against the revealed God pro nobis (II/1, 263).59 There may not be any untheological bifurcation between God’s identity in se and pro nobis.60 On the one hand, there is the negative qualification that ‘in Himself He is not another than He is in His works’ (II/1, 260). On the other hand, there is the positive affirmation that God ‘declares His reality: not only His reality for us – certainly that – but at the same time His own, inner, proper reality, behind which and above which there is no other’ (II/1, 262). To state the matter more directly, ‘God’s essence and work are 55 56 57

58

59

60

Ibid., 36; emphasis original. See especially I/1, 315–33; KD, 332–52. In God’s action ad extra, God ‘has given no less than Himself to men as the overcoming of their need, and light in their darkness – Himself as the Father in His own Son by the Holy Spirit’ (II/1, 261–2; see also I/1, §8.1–2). Wilfried Härle rightly observes, ‘Das Frage nach der Bedeutung der Aussage “Gott ist” kann also nicht anders beantwortet werden als im Blick auf das Tun Gottes in der Christusoffenbarung, und von hierher findet sie ihre Beantwortung. Das ist so, weil “Offenbarung” von Barth nicht nur verstanden wird als Enthüllung der gnädigen Gesinnung oder der vergebenden Liebe Gottes gegenüber dem Sünder, sondern im umfassenden Sinne als “Selbstenthüllung Gottes”. Diese Bestimmung steht nicht im Gegensatz zu der Aussage von der Verborgenheit Gottes auch in seiner Offenbarung, sondern bezieht sie dialektisch mit ein. Wohl aber richtet sie sich gegen die Vorstellung, als enthülle Gott in seiner Offenbarung nur “etwas” von sich und nicht sich selbst, sein ganzes Sein’ (Härle, Sein und Gnade, 21–2; emphasis original; especially citing KD I/1, 332–4). God’s identity in Jesus Christ is ‘God’s definitive, final, and binding act of self-revelation. There is no God apart from, beyond, or behind God as God in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, God’s being is present in its unity and entirety. There is no hidden God beyond the revealed God. The hidden God and the revealed God are essentially one and the same’ (Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, 37). Here Hunsinger is drawing on CD II/1, 51–3. In going down this path, Barth is self-consciously following after ‘certain German theologians of the 19th century’, such as Franz Hermann Reinhold von Frank and Gottfried Thomasius of the Erlangen School as well as Isaak Dorner (II/1, 330). For example, Barth mentions the following comment by Dorner with approval: ‘If God cannot or will not grant us any knowledge of his being in itself but only of his being in the world, then because it is not himself, he necessarily reveals something in the world which is different than himself ’ (II/1, 330 rev.; see Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 1:204; cf. 194–202).

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not twofold but one. God’s work is His essence in its relation to the reality which is distinct from Him and which is to be created or is created by Him’ (I/1, 371). Barth thus speaks of ‘the actuality of His revelation where He is faithful to Himself and where we are therefore confronted by His being as it is in itself ’.61 This conviction is thematic throughout II/1, §§28–31. In the context of the doctrine of God’s being, this is seen in God’s life as the one who loves in freedom. In Jesus Christ, God reaches out beyond God’s eternal love ad intra and loves creatures. ‘What God does in all this, He is: and He is no other than He who does all this’ (II/1, 274). Similarly, ‘the freedom to exist which He exercises in His revelation is the same which He has in the depths of His eternal being’ (II/1, 305). This same pattern is also seen in the context of God’s perfection. The thesis statements of §30 and §31, respectively, refer to God’s perfections of love and freedom as a characteristic of God ‘in Himself and in all His works’ (II/1, 351, 440). The structurally significant position which Barth gives this assertion should not be overlooked. It demonstrates how emphatically Barth is trying to clarify that ‘as the triune God, both in regard to His revelation and to His being in itself, He exists in these perfections, and these perfections again exist in Him and only in Him as the One who, both in His revelation and in eternity, is the same’.62 As for the other part of this correspondence, the distinction is maintained through Barth’s eagerness to respect the relational difference between the ad intra and ad extra dimensions of the divine life. If ‘God’s work is His essence in its relation to the reality which is distinct from Him’, then the distinction between these two dimensions resides in the relations themselves (I/1, 371). Indeed, ‘What would “God for us” mean if it were not said against the background of “God in Himself ”?’ (I/1, 171). God is who God is in God’s works, but ‘He is not, therefore, who He is only in His works’ (II/1, 260). God’s self-interpretation is completely faithful, but it does not compromise the fact that God is who God is in se and apart from this life ex extra (II/1, 260). From all eternity, the Father, Son and Spirit enjoy perfect love and fellowship. Equally, even in God’s self-determination to be God pro nobis, the Father, Son and Spirit 61 62

II/1, 300; emphasis mine. II/1, 323–4; emphasis mine. On God’s self-correspondence in the doctrine of the divine perfections, see Holmes, ‘The Theological Function of the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes and the Divine Glory’, 206–23; idem, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 55. This theme is particularly established through Barth’s account of divine glory. ‘For it is in the treatment of the divine glory that the extent to which God is truly actually present – revelation as self-manifestation – is pressed to the fore. The divine glory attests that God is present as God in the concretions peculiar to God’s saving history amongst us’ (Holmes, ‘The Theological Function of the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes and the Divine Glory’, 215).

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enjoy this same perfect love and fellowship. Both in time and in eternity, God lives, loves and does so freely. The distinction does not indicate a division in God, but rather the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem of God’s singular self-determination. God is from God and to God, and in both respects, for us. Barth thus concludes §28.1 as follows: The validity of every further statement about God, as a statement about the living God, depends on the avoidance of this confusion, or this comparison and contrast, between His life and ours. But this will happen automatically if the positive content of the rule which has emerged is clear to us, if every further statement of what and how God is is always linked with the fact that God is He who is not only to be found alone in His act, but is to be found alone in His act because alone in His act He is who He is.63

In brief, the eternal plentitude of the triune life is faithfully revealed and present in the history of Immanuel. Since God faithfully speaks Godself, by grace and through faith, humans can faithfully speak of God. Therefore, the love and freedom in God’s action pro nobis in Jesus Christ is the eternal love and freedom of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now that it is clear how Barth grounds speech about this pairing of love and freedom, it is possible to explore the relationship between these elements.

63

II/1, 272; rev. emphasis mine; cf. II/2, 191–2. This rule correlates with Barth’s previous rule that the economic trinity and immanent trinity cannot be different in content: ‘we have consistently followed the rule, which we regard as basic, that statements about the divine modes of being antecedently in themselves cannot be different in content from those that are to be made about their reality in revelation. All our statements concerning what is called the immanent Trinity have been reached simply as confirmations or underlinings or, materially, as the indispensable premises of the economic Trinity. They neither could nor would say anything other than that we must abide by the distinction and unity of the modes of being in God as they encounter us according to the witness of Scripture in the reality of God in His revelation. The reality of God in His revelation cannot be bracketed by an “only,” as though somewhere behind His revelation there stood another reality of God; the reality of God which encounters us in His revelation is His reality in all the depths of eternity’ (I/1, 479; cf. 483, 485). See McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 100–1; Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 92n. 24.

Part Two

The Love and Freedom of God

On the one side there is the essential element of divine aseity, absoluteness or freedom: God in God’s own sovereignty in Godself and over against all which is not Godself. And on the other side there is the essential element of the love of God, the being and act of God’s personality. – Barth, CD II/1, 341 rev.

4

The Teleology of God

Through addressing God’s love (§28.2), Barth specifies divine freedom (§28.3) as the freedom of the one who exists in love pro nobis in Jesus Christ and therefore also in eternity. Although life, love and freedom are all inseparable descriptions of the divine being, the formulation of God as the one who ‘loves in freedom’ sets these two concepts in a uniquely close relationship (II/1, 257). Correspondingly, divine love has a uniquely significant role in formally and materially shaping Barth’s account of divine freedom. It is therefore necessary to appreciate how this juxtaposition of concepts arises from revelation and the two elements affect one another. This chapter will explore the dialectic of revelation, paying particular attention to its teleological character. The following two chapters will then apply these insights, respectively, to personality and aseity in The Göttingen Dogmatics §§16–17 and to love and freedom in Church Dogmatics §§28–31.

From revelation to the reality of God Divine revelation Even from early on in Barth’s work, the Realdialektik of revelation is the most determinative feature of his ‘dialectical’ theology. Barth is, of course, famous for elevating the Realdialektik of time and eternity in Romans II, but even this dialectic bears witness to God’s unveiling and veiling.1 So also, when Barth elevates dialectical Denkform, this formal decision likewise reflects a deeper material one regarding the nature of revelation.2 Moreover, this dialectical understanding of revelation remains one of the most central features of his theology throughout

1 2

See McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 266; cf. 269. Ibid., 18; Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 151.

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the period in which he composes all three of his dogmatic cycles on the doctrine of God’s being and attributes. Back in 1924, Emil Brunner can speak of Barth’s use of the ‘criterion’ of ‘the unity of Deus absconditus and Deus revelatus’.3 This is particularly evident in Barth’s Göttingen lectures where the dialectic of revelation ‘marks Barth’s treatment of all loci . . . and is apparent on virtually every page’.4 Then, in contrast to von Balthasar’s paradigm, this dialectic remains ‘decisive’ in the Church Dogmatics.5 In short, this early discovery ‘would remain a permanent feature of Barth’s thought, leaving its stamp on all the works of the late 1920s and continuing on into the Church Dogmatics, where it finally found its home in the “Doctrine of God”’.6 Just as divine aseity lies as the heart of Barth’s dialectical understanding of God’s self-revelation,7 so also it is conversely true that the ontic dialectic of revelation lies at the heart of Barth’s noetic dialectics of personality–aseity (GD, §§16–17) and love–freedom (CD, §§28–31).8 As with the doctrine of the trinity which precedes them, both of these pairings are presented as descriptions of the 3

4

5 6

7

8

Emil Brunner to Karl Barth, August (?), 1924, Karl Barth–Emil Brunner Briefwechsel 1916–1966, Gesamtausgabe 5.33, ed. Eberhard Busch (Zurich: TVZ, 2000), 103. See, for example, Romans II where Barth writes, ‘The content of Romans is that in Christ the Deus absconditus as such is the Deus revelatus’ (Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1922, 408; ET, 422; emphasis original). Migliore, introduction to The Göttingen Dogmatics, xxviii; cf. xxix–xxxii; see also Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 170; Asprey, Eschatological Presence in Karl Barth’s Göttingen Theology, 56–94, 260–1. Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 240; see also 239–46. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 274. McCormack affirms the prevalence of the Realdialektik of God’s unveiling and veiling from around 1924 onwards, albeit in conjunction with his thesis that Barth’s theology does not achieve its fully christocentric concentration until II/2: ‘It is in Barth’s doctrine of revelation that the basic decision were made that control all his theologizing from 1924 through around 1940. The basic structure of that doctrine is provided by a dialectic of veiling and unveiling’ (McCormack, ‘Karl Barth’s Version of an “Analogy of Being”’, 112; emphasis original). ‘ The analogia fidei remains – through CD II/1! – a description of the epistemological consequences of a doctrine of revelation that finds its focus in the event of faith’ (McCormack, ‘Karl Barth’s Version of an “Analogy of Being”’, 115). McCormack adds that even after Church Dogmatics II/1, this dialectic remains the same formally, but materially it goes through a christological reorientation (McCormack, ‘Karl Barth’s Version of an “Analogy of Being”’, 90). This integral connection between the dialectic of revelation and divine aseity is most clearly illustrated in Barth’s interpretation of the divine name of Exodus 3:14. On the one hand, as will be explained in the following section, Barth views this name as a description of the indissoluble subjectivity of God in the event of God’s self-disclosure, that is, the dialectic of revelation (see especially GD, 327, 392, 399; CD I/1, 317–18). On the other hand, in line with many of the classical interpretations of this name, Barth also views it as a ‘close approximation’ of the positive aspect of God’s freedom, that is, God’s aseity (II/1, 302). ‘Hinter der Formaldialektik sieht Barth eine Realdialektik, die Realdialektik des offenbarungsbegriffes walten’ (Štefan, ‘Gottes Vollkommenheiten nach KD II/1’, 95; emphasis original). Štefan is most immediately concerned with the dialectical relationship between the perfections of love and freedom (CD, §§29–31), but the same idea holds for love and freedom in the doctrine of God’s being (CD, §28) and for the corresponding material in the Göttingen lectures (GD, §§16–17). See GD, 394; CD II/1, 341.

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being and attributes of God in the event of revelation.9 Furthermore, in both of these pairings, Barth associates the first elements with unveiling and the second elements with veiling.10

Divine reality How then do God’s unveiling and veiling lead to these descriptions of the divine reality? First, according to the Göttingen lectures, God is genuinely unveiled to creatures, but the ‘irremovable mystery of God’s divinity’ (unaufhebbarem Geheimnis seiner Gottheit) is seen only through the veil of creaturely reality.11 God is hidden in the very place where God is revealed. Barth interprets the divine name ‘I am who I am’ as a paraphrase of this dialectical event (Exod. 3:14).12 The first ‘I am’ depicts God as an ‘I’ who speaks. This is God, the selfrevealing subject. The second ‘I am’ depicts God as an ‘I’ who has remained a subject even as an object. This is God, the self-revealing subject. This name embodies the ‘paradoxical repetition’ inherent to revelation: the ‘subject is not giving an objective definition of himself but positing himself again as subject’ (GD, 327). Barth first introduces the twofold character of this event in his doctrine of revelation (especially GD, §6.2), but as he turns to the doctrine of God it remains highly operative through what he calls a ‘twofold possibility’ (doppelte Möglichkeit).13 In the doctrine of the ‘knowability’ of God (GD, §15), Barth reflects upon this twofold possibility by speaking of the ‘adequacy’ of the indirect knowledge of God (§15.2) as well as its ‘limit’ due to the divine ‘mystery’ (§15.3). The connection to the dialectic of revelation is quite clear. In fact, right from the outset, this paragraph’s thesis reiterates that ‘God reveals himself to us as the irremovable subject: I am who I am’ (GD, §15 thesis). In this way, Barth’s claim throughout the doctrine of revelation is upheld once more: the denial of either divine objectivity and unveiling or divine subjectivity and veiling is nothing less than the denial of 9 10

11 12

13

GD, 361–2, 366–9, 378–84, 392, 426–8; CD II/1, 341–4. GD, 392, 401, 426; II/1, 341–3. As will be seen, this association is stronger in the Göttingen lectures. UCR, §6 thesis; cf. CD II/1, 16–25, 48–53. See GD, 87–8, 134–6, 307–8, 325–7, 333–4, 368–9, 392, 399. Barth entertains a number of the proposed translations for this name, but throughout the Göttingen lectures he tends to use the present tense form (e.g., GD, 327; CD I/2, 53–4). This form has been retained throughout this exposition for the sake of consistency. Those who might be quick to point out the linguistic challenges to this rendering should take note that Barth’s theological interpretation of this name is more grounded in the repetition of the verb than in its tense (see GD, 327). See GD, §18.1–2, especially 445; cf. 376.

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revelation.14 ‘God can reveal himself only in this way, in the concealment of the subject-object relation’ (GD, 332). In the doctrine of the ‘nature’ of God (GD, §16), the twofold possibility of revelation first appears as divine ‘conceivability’ and ‘inconceivability’ (§16.1–2) and later as divine ‘personality’ and ‘aseity’ (§16.3).15 As Barth takes up the question of God’s nature, he immediately clarifies that the concept of God is not concerned with a general reality, but rather with the subject of a ‘specific event’, namely, the event of ‘I am who I am’ (GD, 367). On the one hand, there is the first ‘I am’ of divine ‘personality’ (Persönlichkeit), the self-revealing ‘I’ who speaks to a ‘Thou’ (GD, 367–9). God is not ‘something’, but ‘someone’ (GD, 368). On the other hand, there is the second ‘I am’ of divine ‘aseity’ (Aseität), the lordship and freedom of God in this address (GD, 369–71). ‘I am who I am’ is a paraphrase of both the temporal event of revelation and the eternal event of the revealer. God is personal and a se. In the doctrine of the ‘attributes’ of God (GD, §17), ‘personality’ and ‘aseity’ serve as the two guiding concepts according to which the attributes are delineated. As with the doctrinal movement from trinity to incarnation, the movement from the divine nature to the divine attributes arises through paying attention to the subject of revelation (GD, 375–6). In both cases, the latter doctrines are ‘strictly no more than explications of the basic datum of revelation’ and ‘the conditions under which this reality is possible’.16 Seeking to maintain the unified duality of this event, Barth rejects the ‘psychological’, ‘religious–genetic’ and ‘intuitive’ approaches (GD, 387–90). Instead, he takes up the ‘dialectical’ approach by once again utilizing his main pairing from the doctrine of the divine nature (GD, 390–3). Here too, the form and content of these concepts remain closely connected to ‘the dialectic of revelation’ (GD, 394). Second, when Barth later develops his theology in the Church Dogmatics, the ‘twofold possibility’ of the Göttingen lectures is matched by the ‘twofold

14

15

16

‘As God reveals himself, he is knowable, or it would not be revelation’ (GD, 328; cf. 330). ‘To deny the concealment in which God is knowable by us, the indirectness of the knowledge of God, is to deny revelation’ (GD, 332). On Barth’s doctrine of the nature and attributes of God, according to The Göttingen Dogmatics, see especially Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 65–71; Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 166–77. GD, 376; UCR, 2:79. The deduction and division of the divine attributes is therefore ‘not for our own satisfaction or as a work of supererogation, but because to be able to speak about God we cannot fail to assert that his one unsearchable nature gives itself to be known by us under specific conditions, and therefore we have to have a picture – not of God, for the Bible expressly and rightly forbids this [Exod. 20:4], but – of these conditions of his knowability, of these possibilities that represent the reality of his own Word in human words’ (GD, 385; UCR, 2:92–3).

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movement’ (doppelte Bewegung) of the word of God.17 In the doctrine of the ‘knowledge’ of God (II/1, §25–7), this is expressed through the twofold character of God’s ‘clothed objectivity’ (bekleideten Gegenständlichkeit).18 God is only ever revealed through the veil of creaturely reality, but God is indeed revealed in this way.19 As with the Göttingen lectures, to deny either divine unveiling or veiling is to deny revelation (II/1, 199; cf. 342–3). And again, to deny either the genuine apprehension of God or the divine inapprehensibility is to deny revelation (II/1, 194). Accordingly, in the doctrine of God’s ‘being’, Barth once again takes the event of God’s self-revelation as his point of departure (II/1, §28). However, in this treatment, he deemphasizes the ‘I am who I am’ formulation and instead focuses more directly on the concept of divine action. In revelation, God appears as an actor and thereby manifests the active quality of God’s eternal life. However, in both respects, this is ‘a specific act with a definite content’, namely, divine love (II/1, 272). Moreover, in loving creatures, God demonstrates that ‘His loving is . . . utterly free’ (II/1, 321). Simply put, the definite content of God’s action is love (II/1, 272–3) and its manner of execution is freedom (II/1, 297–301, 321). In continuity with the Göttingen lectures, these two leading categories for the divine being are then extended into the doctrine of the divine ‘perfections’ (II/1, §§29–31). Barth finds this necessary because the doctrine of the divine perfections is not a new theme, but rather an additional dimension of witness to the subject of revelation. ‘A fully restrained and fully alive doctrine of God’s attributes will take as its fundamental point of departure the truth that God is for us fully revealed and fully concealed in His self-disclosure.’20 Both unveiling

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KD I/1, 186; CD, 179. ‘The Word of God in its veiling, its form, is the claiming of man by God. The Word of God in its unveiling, its content, is God’s turning to man. The Word of God is one’ (I/1, 179; cf. I/1, 330; I/2, 84; II/1, 55). KD II/1, 16; CD, 16; cf. CD II/1, 16–25, 48–53; see also Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, 79–81. For Barth, ‘revelation means sacrament’ (II/1, 52). Although ‘sacramental reality’ (sakramentalen Wirklichkeit) can indeed become the instrument of revelation, it can never be revelation itself since it is not God (KD II/1, 60; CD, 55). It is ‘only by the grace of God and only in faith’ that ‘veiling becomes unveiling’, but by grace and through faith this does occur (II/1, 56). II/1, 341; cf. 322–4. Barth expresses the importance of God’s full unveiling and veiling back in the doctrine of revelation: ‘That God’s Word is onesided means that when spoken to us and received by us it does not meet us partly veiled and partly unveiled, but either veiled or unveiled, yet without being different in itself, without being spoken and received any the less truly either way. Its veiling can change for us absolutely into its unveiling and its unveiling can change absolutely into its veiling. Absolutely, for it is always unalterably the same in itself, always the one or the other for us. We can only grasp the other in the one, i.e., we can grasp the other only as we grasp the one; we can grasp it only in faith’ (I/1, 174).

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and veiling must be upheld. We may not ‘confess the one to the exclusion of the other’ (II/1, 342). ‘We have to know Him integrally and therefore in both these aspects’ (II/1, 342). Barth thus upholds the unveiling and veiling of God throughout his account of the divine identity.

The teleological ordering of revelation Dialectics Having explained the way in which the dialectic of revelation gives rise to the leading concepts in Barth’s doctrines of the reality of God, it will now be helpful to explore the character of this dialectical relation in more detail. In studying Barth’s dialectics, scholars have often distinguished between those which are ‘complementary’ and those which are ‘supplementary’.21 In complementary dialectics, the two elements are held in a relation of balanced polarity, correlation and interconnection.22 Since neither element is prevalent over the other, the irreconcilable juxtaposition of these two elements leads to their perpetual movement back and forth. The dialectic upholds rather than resolves the tension.23 In supplementary dialectics, the two elements are set in an imbalanced relation in which one element has prevalence over the other.24 Due to this imbalance, the more dominant element is able to achieve a synthesis (Aufhebung) with the less dominant one in such a way that the latter is either abrogated or taken up into a higher form. The movement in this relation is therefore not one of perpetual oscillation, but rather one of genuine progress.

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Von Balthasar points in the direction of this distinction when he speaks of a ‘static and dualistic dialectic’ and a ‘dynamic and triadic dialectic’ (von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 73; cf. 82–3; see also Bouillard, Karl Barth, 1:72–5). The terms the ‘complementary’ and ‘supplementary’ are introduced by Henning Schröer in his examination of paradox (Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem, 44–6; cf. 36–7; for Schröer’s analysis of Barth in this regard, see 133–53). Subsequently, this distinction has played an important role in many studies on Barth and dialectic. See especially Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths, 38–40; McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 162–5, 266–74; Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 49, 93–98, 110–15, 238–47; Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 57–8, 68–9, 86–94; Peter S. Oh, Karl Barth’s Trinitarian Theology: A Study of Karl Barth’s Analogical Use of the Trinitarian Relation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2006), 31–9. Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem, 45. Peter Oh diverges from the more common use of the term ‘complementary dialectic’ in Barth studies by emphasizing the paradoxical unity between the elements and even by speaking of a ‘complementary synthesis’ (see Peter S. Oh, ‘Complementary Dialectics of Kierkegaard and Barth: Barth’s use of Kierkegaardian Diastasis Reassessed’, Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 48.4 [2006]: 497–512, especially 511). Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem, 45.

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There is a definite telos. For this reason, sometimes, this form of dialectic is also designated ‘teleological’ or ‘dynamic’.25 Before applying this distinction to the matter at hand, a general word of caution is in order. Throughout Barth’s theology, he disallows principles and formal structures from governing doctrinal content. Just as the way of being shapes the way of knowing, so also the content of theology shapes its form. Barth certainly shows preference for specific forms which should therefore be analysed. Nonetheless, scholars should be wary of projecting their own interest in or fixation with these structures onto Barth. Since he conceives of theology as Nachdenken, he self-consciously avoids articulating doctrines through abstractly established conceptual schema – a conviction which grows as his theology becomes more christological. The emphasis and form of Barth’s theology is often more eclectic and occasional than has been acknowledged. Many have misinterpreted Barth’s dialectics by indiscriminately applying otherwise useful categories for his thought.26 With this caveat aside, we must ask the following questions. With regard to divine action ad extra, what form does the dialectic of revelation take?27 With regard to human knowledge and witness, what form does Barth’s dialectical description of this reality take? Lastly, how do these dialectics develop in Barth’s thought leading up to and including the period of his doctrines of God?

Development In 1913–14, Barth largely follows the complementary dialects of Wilhelm Herrmann.28 In doing so, Barth focuses on the tensions in human existence and in the attempt to know and speak of God. Accordingly, his writings in this early phase are filled with dialectical collisions without any sign of synthesis. Although this complementary form of dialectic plays an enduring role in his noetic dialectics, in time his overall theological emphasis on tension soon gives way 25

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For example, the term ‘dynamic’ is used by Mechels and von Balthasar (Eberhard Mechels, Analogie bei Erich Przywara und Karl Barth: Das Verhältnis von Offenbarungstheologie und Metaphysik [Neukirchen Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1974], especially 214; von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 73, 83). In addition, the diastasis in the complementary dialectic and the Aufhebung in the supplementary dialectic have led many to refer to these, respectively, as Kierkegaardian and Hegelian. (See McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 268–9; cf. von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 73, 82–3; Bouillard, Karl Barth, 1:72–5.) This has often occurred through inattention to whether a given dialectic is ontic or noetic and whether it refers to God, humanity or the relations between them both. The answer to this question will also apply to the corollary dialectics of divine action ad extra (election–rejection, gospel–law, etc.). See Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 65, 73–81.

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to an emphasis on synthesis. The first step in this development occurs during his reorientation in around 1915.29 At this time, a burgeoning conviction arises in Barth’s theology: the dialectics of divine action ad extra are supplementary.30 In other words, Barth begins to see that there is an ultimate divine YES which victoriously stands above the dialectical tension of Yes and No on the human side of salvation.31 Barth points to this shift in a Good Friday sermon given in 1915: ‘Now I see God’s saving grace at work in this event a great deal more clearly than his judgment on us.’32 However, it is in Romans I that Barth’s supplementary dialectic decisively takes shape.33 Through the dialectic of Adam and Christ and the corollary dialectic of ‘so-called history’ and ‘real history’, Barth gives voice to God’s definite purpose for creatures and the definite movement from old to new that occurs in Christ.34 He confesses that through Jesus Christ Law and veiling have given way to Gospel and unveiling.35 These themes likewise find their way into ‘The Christian’s Place in Society’, a lecture given not long after in 1919. Here Barth says that creatures exist in a fallen realm of indissoluble tensions: ‘We are more deeply in the No than in the Yes.’36 However, the dialectical tension which exists in creaturely reality and knowledge cannot be interpreted as denying the possibility of a synthesis.37 This tension instead indicates that resolution is not a possibility which can arises from the human side. According to Scripture, the 29 30

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32 33

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Ibid., 85–98. This new emphasis in Barth’s dialectical theology distinguished him among the other ‘dialectical theologians’ (see McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 239–40; Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem, 45n. 57; cf. 133–53). See Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 92–8. Since there is correspondence between the ultimate YES and the Yes in tension with the No, a number of scholars have observed that Barth’s discovery of supplementary dialectic lays the groundwork for his later development of analogy (see Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 110–12; cf. Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem, 150–4; Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths, 11–13, 245–86; Mechels, Analogie bei Erich Przywara und Karl Barth, 207–20). Barth, Predigten 1915, 133; cf. Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 94–5. See Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths, 109–15, 121–7; McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 163–4; Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 105–15. Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1919, Gesamtausgabe 2.16, ed. Hermann Schmidt (Zurich: TVZ, 1985), especially 172–5, 189–90, 455–9. On this basis, creatures are called to exist in proper alignment with God’s teleologically ordered purposes (see especially Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1919, 240–6). Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1919, 86–92. Karl Barth, ‘Der Christ in der Gesellschaft’, in idem, Das Wort Gottes und die Theologie (Erstveröffentlichung: Würzburg, 1920), 59; ET, 311–12; emphasis original; cf. idem, Der Römerbrief, 1922, 446; ET, 462; UCR, 2:244; see also, Karl Barth, ‘The Paradoxical Nature of the “Positive Paradox”’, in The Beginnings of Dialectical Theology, ed. James M. Robinson, trans. Keith R. Crim and Louis De Grazia (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1968), 146–52; idem, ‘An Answer to Professor von Harnack’s Open Letter’, in The Beginnings of Dialectical Theology, 183–4. A few years later Barth can caution, ‘On the presupposition of revelation, the contradiction in man cannot in any circumstances or in any sense be viewed as a rule or order, let alone as a divinely willed order’ (GD, 76).

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tension between the No and the Yes find their synthesis and definite directedness in God.38 As Michael Beintker rightly observes, ‘Certainly for Barth there is also a synthesis of the opposition – however only as the possibility of divine action. It is not humanity but God who is capable of synthesis.’39 With 1 Corinthians 15, Barth finds that in God history has a definite aim. ‘The goal of history, the τελος . . . is not one historical occurrence among others but the summation of the history of God in history.’40 It is the victory of ‘The Life Beyond’ over the affirmation and denial of life which are indissolubly held together within the realm of creaturely possibilities.41 Even in Romans II, infamous for its focus on negation and the critical side of the dialectical method, Barth does not retreat from his commitment from the victorious divine YES, but rather shifts his focuses more exclusively to the level of tension in creatures.42 On the one hand, Barth stipulates, ‘We cannot escape the duality.’43 On the other hand, even in the midst of this preoccupation with tension, Barth looks to a hope which lies beyond the seemingly indissoluble dialectics within the sphere of creaturely reality and experience.44 Although Barth affirms double predestination, he emphatically maintains that the relation between God’s Yes and No is not ultimately one of ‘equilibrium’ (Gleichgewicht) but rather one of the ‘eternal overcoming’ (ewige Überwindung) of the divine Yes.45 Correspondingly, the dialectic of Adam and Christ is neither an ‘equilibrium’ (Gleichgewicht) of two equally important states nor does it entail an ‘unending cycle’ (ewiger Kreislauf) between the two.46 On the contrary, this dialectic points to ‘the victory of the second over the first’ through which they are taken up together in unity.47 Therefore, while ‘everything is set under the TELOS either of

38 39 40 41 42

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Barth, ‘The Christian’s Place in Society’, 322. Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths, 71; cf. 72–3. Barth, ‘The Christian’s Place in Society’, 321–2. Ibid., 321; cf. 310–12. See Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths, 38–40; McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 266–70; Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 130–8; Matthias Gockel, Barth and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election: A Systematic-Theological Comparison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 115–24. Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1922, 332; emphasis original; ET, 347. Ibid., 156–7; ET, 178. Ibid., 332; ET, 347. Ibid., 143; ET, 165. For more on this dialectic, see especially Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1922, 142–66; ET, 164–87. Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1922, 143; emphasis original; ET, 166. There is ‘unity in the movement’ because it is only possible to pass on to life in Christ through death in Adam (Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 166). However, since this is a ‘genuine movement’, ‘the parallelism or polarity of the two contrasted factors, which appears at first sight permanent and fixed, must break down’ (Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 166). The relation of between the two is therefore ‘not metaphysical but dialectical’ (Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 177).

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death or of life’, ‘the theme of the revelation and observation of God is nothing less than the stepping from death to life’.48 In this way, while creatures exist in the present tension of Yes and No, in God there is definite telos, a divine YES which points forward to God’s eschatological victory.49 To sum up the matter thus far, Barth’s early theology does indeed manifest the underlying conviction that in Christ the telos of the relationship between God and creatures is ultimately undialectical. Nonetheless, as is exemplified by Barth’s 1922 Elgersburg lecture, his general pattern of describing the unfolding of God’s redemptive action during this phase is to focus on the lower level of dialectical tension in creatures.50 This being the case, he emphasizes that humanity can only know and relate to God as humanity, and more specifically, as fallen humanity between the times. Theology and the Christian life are bound by the strictures of human finitude and fallenness.51 For Barth, the ‘concrete obedience’ which theology offers stands in the shadow of the human, all too human, sphere in the obscurity of which it has pleased God now graciously to reveal himself. Theology is not only ectypal (ἔκτυπος) and the theology of wayfarers (viatorum); it is also, according to the further analysis of our elders, theology after the fall (theologia post lapsum). And that means that it is conditioned in its basic assumptions by human misery.52

In the noetic sphere, this indicates that theology is theologia viatorum and in the ontic sphere this indicates that every theologian is a viator (GD, 77).

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Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 226–7; cf. 177, 225. Similarly, in lecturing on John 6 a few years later, Barth says that the ‘τέλς of revelation’ is ‘the restoration of the real fellowship between God and humanity’ (Karl Barth, Erklärung des Johannesevangeliums: Vorlesung Münster, Wintersemester 1925/1926, wiederholt in Bonn, Sommersemester 1930, Gesamtausgabe 2.9, edited by Walther Fürst [Zurich: TVZ, 1999], 326; cf. 327). Beintker therefore correctly discerns that in Romans II the divine YES is both ontologically prior to the No and eschatologically victorious over it (see Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths, 75). It is quite probable that the commentator who labelled the theology of Zwischen den Zeiten ‘dialectical theology’ in 1922 did so in response to Barth’s complementary-style dialectical method as presented in ‘The Word of God and the Task of the Ministry’ (McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 273n. 119; see also T. F. Torrance, Karl Barth: An Introduction to His Early Theology 1910–1931, new edition [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000], 80). The danger here is twofold. On the whole, throughout Barth’s theology, his primary focus is on ontological and supplementary dialectics. To state this in theological terms, his primary focus is on God and the efficacy of God’s action in relation to creatures. In Barth’s early theology he gives particularly strong voice to this dialectical tension in creaturely being, thought and experience through siding with Kierkegaard over Hegel in affirming ‘the real dialectic of life’ (die reale Dialektik des Lebens) – a term which is particularly utilized between 1922 and 1927. On the dialectic of life, see Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths, 55–9; McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 235–40, 273. Barth, ‘Church and Theology’, 299; cf. GD, 309.

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It is this focus on the human side of the dialectical relationship between God and creature which leads Erik Peterson to accuse Barth of viewing revelation as ultimately dialectical in itself. In 1925, Barth responds to this critique and expresses his position with greater clarity: The revelation of which theology speaks is not dialectical, is not paradox. That hardly needs to be said. But when theology begins, when men think, speak, or write, or (if Peterson thinks it more accurate) ‘argue’ on the basis of the revelation, then there is dialectic (διαλέγεσθαι). Then there is a stating of essentially incomplete ideas and propositions among which every answer is also again a question. All such statements together reach out beyond themselves towards the fulfillment in the inexpressible reality of the divine speaking. . . . ‘It did not please God to save his people by dialectic’, Peterson quotes from Ambrose. Certainly! But it must be said that what God does and what the theologians do ought to be quite different things.53

As McCormack and others have noted, Barth’s aim is not to rescind his interpretation of revelation as a Realdialektik.54 The immediate context of these assertions speaks against this – not to mention Barth’s forceful reaffirmation of the Realdialektik of revelation in the first few part-volumes of the Church Dogmatics. His focus is instead on revelation ‘in the sphere of conceptual thinking’, that is, in its noetic and creaturely context.55 As elsewhere, Barth maintains that if finite and fallen humanity wishes to take up finite and fallen concepts in order to speak of the entirely unique God, then it is needful to uphold ‘the dialectical character of theology’.56 ‘The fragmentariness, the paradox, the continual need of radical completion, the essential inconclusiveness of all its assertions are not to be denied.’57

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Barth, ‘Church and Theology’, 299–300; cf. 298–302; see also Erik Peterson, ‘Was ist Theologie?’ in idem, Theologische Traktate (Munich: Kösel Verlag, 1951), 9–43. Jüngel holds that Barth’s dialectical Denkform is initially grounded in a more basic Realdialektik, but especially through this interaction with Peterson the ontic aspect falls away, thereby leaving the noetic aspect to stand alone (Jüngel, ‘Von der Dialektik zur Analogie’, in idem, Barth-Studien, 130–6; cf. 143–4). However, it is preferable to view this work as demonstrating Barth’s ability to speak of an undialectical element within the relation between God and humanity. McCormack argues that Barth can do this because of his adoption of the anhypostatic–enhypostatic christology in around 1924 (McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 367–71). Alternatively, Chalamet argues that Barth can do this because of his adoption of supplementary dialectic back in 1915 (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 177–85; cf. 97–8). Nonetheless, with both McCormack and Chalamet, Barth’s dialectical Denkform is understood as continuing to arise from the content of theology, that is, from Realdialektik. Barth, ‘Church and Theology’, 300. Ibid., 299. Ibid.

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So what then is Barth’s positive point concerning the undialectical character of the revelation to which theology gives witness? It is that when two human words are taken up to echo the one divine Word, the complementary-style tension at the creaturely level which is conveyed through dialectical Denkform may not be projected up into the divine reality itself. In Jesus Christ, the two dialectical words God and humanity come together ‘in one word’.58 This undialectical moment in revelation does not deny its basic character as Realdialektik. In the unfolding relationship between God and creatures, there is a dialectic of Yes and No, but in God there is a pure and undialectical YES.59 In addition, Barth is also clear that there is no ‘fragmentariness’ or ‘paradox’ in God.60 This is a position which Barth had long since established and which he would hold to throughout his career.61 Creaturely weakness before the divine majesty cannot be made into anything other than just that – creaturely weakness. Even in the locus classicus

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Ibid., 301; emphasis original. As McCormack argues, ‘in itself, revelation is undialectical. The Person of the Logos is not dialectically structured. But the being of the Mediator (the Person of the Logos in His two natures) is dialectically structured’ (McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 370–1; emphasis original). See especially Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 182–4. See Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 77n. 5; cf. 79–80. The closing sections of the following two chapters will address how this is evident, respectively, in The Göttingen Dogmatics (1924–6) and in Church Dogmatics II/1 (1940). For now, here are a few key passages which establish this idea after and before the timeframe of the main texts in question. During the closing phase of Barth’s work, in the course of speaking about the gracious command of God as the basis for ethics, he explains that there is ‘no trace of caprice, contingency, or mutability’ in God’s acts of power and grace in Jesus Christ (ChrL, 17). ‘The multiplicity of his ways is endless, but his will and resolve in all his ways is one and the same. Hence one can and should and must count on it that God makes no mistakes, that his power never fails, even though it be ever so deeply hidden – and when is it not? – that his grace can never yield or fall, even though it be felt and experienced ever so slightly or not at all. And who among us can boast of always feeling it, of ever having experienced it in all its depth? There are riches in God, but no antithesis, contradiction, or dialectic. Thus, we can count on it that his action in the glorifying of his name, the coming of his kingdom and the doing of his will, will never break off. Even though it be in the most alien form and manner, it will always continue as the living and life-giving basis of every relation to him, even the most inconstant, the most broken, and the most negative. Always and everywhere he will be for everyone the one he wills to be according to his good pleasure, but always the one he is, in the power of his grace and the grace of his power’ (ChrL, 18; emphasis mine). However, this conviction is also present in Barth’s earlier work. In 1922, he writes, ‘We are not saved by our knowledge of God. Our knowledge brings us under judgment. God is Alpha, and therefore Omega; He rejects, and therefore elects; He condemns, and therefore is merciful. . . . God is One. One in the identity of the God of wrath with the God of mercy. One as the Deus absconditus and as He who raised up Jesus from the dead. One as the God of Esau and as the God of Jacob. This Oneness – and it is summed up in all its invisibility and inaudibility in the Cross of Christ – is our hope’ (Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 393–4). Likewise, even in 1913 Barth can say, ‘his judgment is eternal and final. But this holy and just God is also infinite love. . . . Therefore his love is also eternal and final. The two contradict each other, do they not? Yes, but only in our thought. We wish quietly to let this contradiction stand. Jesus’ life and Jesus’ cross proclaim both aspects to us: God’s holiness and God’s love, both with the same height and strength and power, and both in the deepest unity’ (Barth, Predigten 1913, 50; emphasis original; cited by Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 80). Interestingly, Chalamet claims that during 1913–14 Barth follows Wilhelm Herrmann in perceiving ‘dialectical tension in God’s supreme being’ (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 75).

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for dialectical Denkform, Barth says that this method gives witness to ‘the living Truth beyond Yes and No, the reality of God beyond my dialectic turns’.62 In fact, Barth anticipates an undialectical mode of human knowledge and speech which will likely be realized through the eschatological consummation of God’s gracious action ad extra. Only in heaven, when according to the significant teaching of older dogmaticians we have moved on from a theologia viatorum to a theologia comprehensorum, can this be expected. I would imagine that this will be a theology which will no longer have any need of dialectic. But since God will still be distinct from us even in heaven, this, too, can still be only a theologia ektypos.63

In this way, Barth makes clear that both God and God’s telos for creatures are characterized by perfect peace. Barth follows this teleological ordering with greater consistency later on when his christocentrism becomes more robust, it has quite early roots in his theology.64 Barth’s early discovery of the triumphant divine YES leaves its indelible mark on the remainder of his theology. Among his final words, Barth writes, ‘God’s Son, Jesus Christ, is not Yes and No, but what took place in him was simply Yes’ (ChrL, 19). And again, ‘To say “yes” came to seem more important than to say “no” (though that is important too). Theologically, the message of God’s grace came to seem more urgent than the message of God’s law, wrath, accusation, and judgment (though that is certainly not to be suppressed either).’65 Accordingly, it is this undialectical victory of God which must serve as the theological context for the dialectic of revelation in the Göttingen lectures and the Church Dogmatics. This is true concerning the description of divine revelation and this is true concerning the description of the divine reality in revelation. If God is God’s revelation, then the teleology of revelation is the teleology of God. 62 63 64

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Barth, ‘The Word of God and the Task of the Ministry’, 216; emphasis mine. GD, 285–6; cf. 309, 337–9. ‘From 1914-15 onwards, and with a stricter consistency after 1930, Barth claimed that God’s Yes is victorious over the No and includes it’ (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 286; cf. 97–8, 225–34, 246–7). Despite the overall similarities between their outlooks on Barth’s development, this is one of Chalamet’s main departures from McCormack. Following Beintker, McCormack acknowledges Barth’s use of supplementary dialectic as early as Romans I and Romans II (McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 163–4, 266–9); nonetheless, he identifies Pierre Maury’s ‘Election and Faith’ (1936) as the most formative influence behind the teleological ordering of revelation in Church Dogmatics II/1 (1940). He therefore sees Barth’s definitive turn to supplementary dialectic as occurring between 1936 and 1942 – the latter date being the publication of Church Dogmatics II/2, through which Barth increases his christological consistency (see McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 455–63; cf. Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 163–4, esp. 163n. 99). See also Gockel, Barth and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election, especially 156, 196. Karl Barth, How I Changed my Mind, ed. John D. Godsey (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1966), 51.

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Barth’s treatments on the doctrine of God unfold as deepening realizations of the truth that the teleology of God’s self-revelation is Immanuel. On the one hand, this upholds the majestic sovereignty and particularity of God. Through finding a divine telos above the tension of Yes and No, Barth attests to the sheer difference between God and creatures.1 This move carries with it an uncompromising asymmetry in God’s relations ad extra – an asymmetry whose ‘only purpose’ is ‘to preserve God’s freedom and sovereignty’.2 On the other hand, this upholds the gracious condescension and finitude of God in becoming human. It indicates that God concretely exits as the God who draws near to creatures in the history of Jesus Christ. In light of the critical importance of the teleology of revelation in Barth’s thought, further attention must be paid to how the ontic dialectic of unveiling and veiling shapes the noetic dialectics of personality and aseity and of love and freedom. More specifically, how does their grounding in the dialectic of revelation affect the relation between and meaning of their respective elements? This chapter will follow this line of questioning in connection with personality and aseity (GD, §§16–17) and the next chapter will do so in connection with love and freedom (CD, §§28–31). In doing so, these explorations will locate Barth’s accounts of divine aseity within their immediate theological contexts.

The distinct elements in paradoxical unity The relation between the elements As for the relation between the elements in the dialectic of revelation in the Göttingen lectures, two points must be made. First, divine unveiling and veiling

1 2

See Beintker, Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths, 72. Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 106.

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are teleologically ordered. Barth is not concerned with just any dialectic, but rather with a dialectic that is concretely ordered according to the christological telos of God’s action ad extra (GD, 394).3 He therefore speaks of the ‘teleology of God that is made known in Christ’ (in Christus sichtbar werdenden Teleologie Gottes).4 God’s acts of self-revelation always consist of the ‘duality’ (Zweifachen) of unveiling and veiling, but the tension between these two elements is the penultimate word.5 God may reveal Godself through a medium such that the communication is ‘indirect impartation’, but this medium ‘fulfills its purpose, it becomes luminous, it unveils even as it veils’.6 Although ‘revelation without concealment would not be revelation’, this concealment must be understood in light of the fact that ‘God turns to us in revelation’ (GD, 461). Both unveiling and veiling are oriented towards the ultimate and undialectical divine YES of unveiling: ‘God’s veiling is the content of God’s unveiling and unveiling the point of his veiling’ (GD, §18 thesis). There is a quite definite No, but one must not fail to see ‘the deep secret Yes below the No’ (GD, 447).7 Second, divine unveiling and veiling are characterized by both paradoxical simultaneity and sequence.8 The ‘I am who I am’ and the ‘I am who I am’ exist together in ‘paradoxical simultaneity’ (paradoxe Zugleichsein).9 It is therefore necessary to speak of the ‘unity’ (Einheit) and ‘simultaneity’ (Gleichzeitigkeit) of unveiling and veiling.10 This concept of paradoxical unity clarifies that unveiling and veiling are not two events, but two aspects of the very same event – two aspects which cannot be abstracted from one another.11 In other words, through this simultaneity, emphasis is placed on the lower level of the dialectic, that is, the level of unresolved tension between the Yes and the No.

3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

In addition to its connection with the dialectic unveiling and veiling, this teleology is also evident in Barth’s dialectic of election and rejection. In The Göttingen Dogmatics §18 Barth clarifies that even though divine election cannot be understood apart from ‘a sharp dialectical reference back’ to rejection (GD, 471), the two are neither ‘symmetrical’ nor ‘equally true and real’ (GD, 460). There is an irreversible movement ‘from here to there’ such that the goal of predestination is quite definitely election rather than rejection (GD, 460; emphasis original). Divine election is not the absolute contradiction of divine rejection but rather is ‘the goal of the ways of God which is impossible to deny in the face of Christ’ (das im Angesichte Christi unmöglich zu leugnende Ziel der Wege Gottes) (UCR, 2:206; GD, 470). See Gockel, Barth and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election, especially 144–56. UCR, 2:207; emphasis original; GD, 471. UCR, 2:102–3; GD, 392. GD, 332–3; cf. 138. Cf. Barth, ‘An Answer to Professor von Harnack’s Open Letter’, 184; WA, 17.2:200–4. See especially GD, 358–61, 392, 394, 426, 443–4. UCR, 2:102; emphasis original; GD, 392. UCR, 2:148; emphasis original; GD, 426. ‘God’s hiddenness, his incomprehensibility, is his hiddenness not alongside or behind revelation but in it’ (GD, 93).

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Nonetheless, it is equally true that there is a concrete ordering in this event. Barth utilizes two different but compatible sequences to express this point. When viewed from the perspective of God’s ultimate purpose in acting ad extra in Jesus Christ, the divine Yes comes first because this ‘divine Yes to humanity is primary, the first and the last, the meaning of the covenant’ (UCR, 3:20). In Jesus Christ it is revealed that foedus must always and unequivocally mean foedus gratiae. By contrast, when viewed from the perspective of the history and experience of salvation – in Barth’s words, a ‘genetic’ or ‘historical-psychological’ perspective – the divine No comes first because redemption is a movement from No to Yes (UCR, 3:20–1).12 The critical point is that in both cases the logic of the sequence is governed by the teleology of God. Barth uses both of these sequences to emphasize the upper level of the dialectic, the level of God’s undialectical YES.13 In the doctrine of God, Barth generally follows the first of these two patterns. The first and self-communicating ‘I am’ comes first and reflects the fact that the definite aim of revelation is revelation. For Barth, since God is who God is in revelation, appreciating these insights concerning unveiling and veiling is critical for understanding personality and aseity. At the most fundamental level, the distinction evident in the ontic dialectic of unveiling and veiling gives rise to the distinction in the noetic dialectic of personality and aseity. The dissolution of the positive side would lead to naive objectivism and the dissolution of the negative side would lead to mysticism (GD, 392–3). Stated in terms of Barth’s corresponding use of traditional Reformed language, if incommunicability is allowed to swallow up communicability, the result is an ‘undialectical’ movement towards ‘mystical agnosticism’.14 Nonetheless, the concept of incommunicability is necessary, Barth argues, ‘not just because I happen to be Reformed’, but in order that ‘the total concept of God’ (des ganzen Gottesbegriffs) might be established.15 Accordingly, the relation between God’s personality and aseity is directly shaped by the

12

13

14 15

Cf. GD, 460–1, 470–1; Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 401; see also Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 239n. 48. The association of the simultaneity of the elements with dialectical tension and the sequence of the elements with God’s undialectical telos can be seen in the contrast between Romans I and Romans II. In the supplementary dialectics Romans I, Barth uses the genetic sequence – unveiling follows veiling – in order to emphasize God’s ultimate telos (e.g., Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1919, 410–12). By contrast, in the much more critical Romans II, Barth instead focuses on the simultaneity of veiling and unveiling in order to emphasize that God’s ultimate telos is not yet fully given (e.g., Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1922, 346–53). In the Göttingen lectures this sense of simultaneity still persists, but as will be seen, it later gives way around the time of Church Dogmatic II/1. See Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 112, 131–2; cf. 238–9. UCR, 2:109; GD, 397. UCR, 2:108; emphasis original; GD, 396.

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relation between God’s unveiling and veiling, albeit with some modification. In order to understand this interconnection, the two points addressed above must now be revisited. First, divine personality and aseity are equally balanced rather than teleologically ordered. This is the crucial distinction between these two dialectics.16 Since divine unveiling and veiling are ordered according to the ultimate goal of redemption, it is an imbalanced and asymmetrical relation. By contrast, personality and aseity are symmetrically balanced, with no priority or subordination on either side. God’s eternal and purely actual life as personal and a se does not have a telos in the way that God’s election of Godself to become Immanuel does. God’s becoming in eternity may not be collapsed into God’s becoming in time. Personality and aseity are both ‘necessary determinations’ of God’s eternal nature (GD, §16 thesis). Barth’s ‘dialectical’ approach upholds this conviction in that it ‘avoids both forms of one-sidedness’ and ‘rightly, solemnly, and objectively lays equal emphasis on both sides’ (GD, 393). The concepts of not apprehending God are ‘just as important and independent’ as the concepts of apprehending God (GD, 392). The concepts of not apprehending God are the ‘great negative gift of the equally serious and joyful reality of God’ (GD, 400).17 Second, as with unveiling and veiling, divine personality and aseity are characterized by both paradoxical simultaneity and sequence. Just as in the doctrine of revelation, in Barth’s doctrine of God he finds that he ‘must meticulously retain this simultaneity’ between unveiling and veiling.18 He therefore speaks of the ‘unity’ (Einheit) and ‘simultaneity’ (Gleichzeitigkeit) of these dialectical elements: We remember that as the revelation of God takes place in the unity and simultaneity of unveiling and veiling, so also the knowledge of revelation takes place in the unity and simultaneity of apprehending and not apprehending. This is because in this knowledge we both share in and do not share in God’s nature at one and the same time.19

The simultaneity of ‘I am who I am’ in revelation is mirrored by the simultaneity of ‘I am–the Lord’ in the conception of God in revelation.20 For this reason, the 16

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This distinction is admittedly less clear in the Göttingen lectures than it is in the Church Dogmatics. In light of the significant role that order and structure plays in Barth’s theology, he clarifies that just because the attributes of aseity are placed second, it must not be concluded that they are for that reason less valuable (GD, 394). UCR, 2:103; GD, 392. UCR, 2:148; emphasis original; GD, 426. See GD, 369, 372, 392.

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two can never be pulled apart. God’s personality is only ever the personality of the one exists in aseity. Correspondingly, God’s aseity cannot be ‘abstracted away’ from God’s personality (GD, 384). Moreover, in further correspondence to the dialectic of revelation, there is also a definite sequence in this relation. Personality and aseity are not teleologically ordered like unveiling and veiling are, but this does not mean that their sequence can be freely chosen. If theology is Nachdenken, it must attend to the concrete manner in which God demonstrates Godself and in which humans come to know God.21 It must attend to ‘the actual course of our knowledge’ (GD, 394). Since in this context Barth believes that the teleology of revelation is most fittingly depicted through the sequential priority of unveiling over veiling, he likewise affirms the sequential priority of personality over aseity. Aseity must never be subordinated to personality as veiling ultimately is to unveiling, but the two dialectics must be understood to correspond to this sequential pattern in the event of God’s self-revelation. Throughout the doctrine of God, Barth therefore first speaks of divine conceivability and then of divine inconceivability (GD, §16.2), first of personality and then of aseity (GD, §16.4) and first of the attributes of personality and then of the attributes of aseity (GD, §17.4–5).22 Barth self-consciously understands this arrangement as a revision of the typical pattern found among the Protestant orthodox theologians.23 In terms of Barth’s conceptual framework, the Protestant orthodox first speak of the attributes of divine aseity and then of the attributes of divine personality. By contrast, Barth finds that he ‘must reverse the dialectical relation of the two members’ in the knowledge of the divine nature and attributes (GD, 358; cf. 394). This ‘reformulation’ according to the dialectic of revelation is ‘perhaps the most important change’ to the classical and ‘dialectical’ approach of the Protestant orthodox (GD, 394).24 It is through this arrangement that Barth’s

21

22

23

24

As Barth states earlier in the doctrine of revelation: ‘All reflection [Nachdenken] on how God can reveal Godself is actually only a “thinking after” [Nach-Denken] of the fact that God has revealed Godself ’ (UCR, 1:185; emphasis original; GD, 151). Note that the division of §16.4 is omitted in the English translation. It begins with the bottom paragraph of GD, 367. This being said, Barth admits that there are a few Reformed Protestant orthodox theologians who adopted this approach (GD, 394; see Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 60–2). See Asprey, Eschatological Presence in Karl Barth’s Göttingen Theology, 262. More generally, Barth’s proclivity for dialectical and Reformed thinking in these lectures leads Daniel Migliore to describe them fittingly as ‘a dialectical rereading of the Reformed theological tradition’ (Migliore, introduction to The Göttingen Dogmatics, xxix).

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doctrine of God reflects the way in which ‘[t]he Yes breaks forth from the No, the message of the resurrection from the word of the cross, God the living Lord from aseity, from the absolute mystery of God, election from rejection – not . . . as the end of the ways of God but as their undeniable goal in the light of Christ’ (GD, 470). As Barth moves ‘from the Yes to the No, from the first “I am” to the second’ (GD, 394), he manifests his conviction that ‘[o]nly as we speak God’s Yes to them can we make them hear the divine No that they must also hear’.25 In short, the teleologically ordered Realdialektik of unveiling and veiling gives witness to the complementary and yet sequentially ordered noetic dialectic of personality and aseity.

The meaning of the elements As for the question of meaning, the Göttingen lectures emphasize that personality and aseity are highly distinct and radically polarized concepts which exist in paradoxical unity in human thought. In the dialectic of revelation, although veiling is ordered towards the goal of unveiling, the two elements retain their highly distinct senses. Divine unveiling is the place where the object of revelation is open, for us, and apprehended by creatures. Divine veiling is the place where the subject of revelation is closed, in Godself, and not apprehended by creatures. Both of these elements point to the genuine revelation and knowledge of God, but they do so as their highly distinct meanings are held together in paradoxical unity. Since personality and aseity are simply descriptions of God, respectively, in God’s unveiling and veiling, they likewise retain this strong sense of distinction. Divine personality is the self-revealing ‘I am who I am’ and divine aseity as the self-revealing ‘I am who I am.’26 Corresponding to divine unveiling, God’s personality indicates God’s objectivity, life pro nobis, and therefore humanity’s direct and positive knowledge of God. Corresponding to divine veiling, God’s aseity indicates God’s subjectivity, life in se, and therefore humanity’s indirect and negative knowledge of God. In Barth’s words, as we know God, we apprehend God and do not apprehend God. Thus we apprehend God as God reveals Godself, but we do not apprehend God in God’s hiddenness. We apprehend God in God’s objectivity, but we do not apprehend 25 26

GD, 360; emphasis original. See GD, 368–9, 392, 399.

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God in God’s subjectivity. We apprehend God in God’s Word, i.e., in God’s being for us, but we do not apprehend God in God’s being in Godself. We apprehend God indirectly, but we do not apprehend God directly. We apprehend God in everything in which there is a relation between God and us by virtue of God’s revelation, but we do not apprehend God outside of this relation – in the outside which we in fact also become aware of precisely through this relation. We apprehend God in his personality – we now say – but we do not apprehend God in his aseity.27

This correlation of personality and aseity with apprehending and not apprehending is further extended through their association with the two primary ways of knowing in the via triplex.28 The via eminentiae is the formation of concepts of ‘God’s personality, of the God who turns to us’ (GD, 399). It is the use of concepts which are positively drawn from the creaturely sphere and then determined by divine aseity so as to extend beyond creatures to God. The via negationis is the formation of concepts of ‘the aseity of God, of the hidden God, that is, the God who is hidden from us’ (GD, 400). It is the use of concepts which negate creaturely finitude and imperfection so as to extend beyond creatures to God.29 The via causalitatis is then added as a methodological coordination of these first two ways (GD, 401). These definitions and associations demonstrate that, despite a few important modifications, Barth has not moved far from the traditional categories of the Protestant orthodox. Barth feels comfortable placing personality and aseity right alongside their pairings of negative–positiva, quiescentia–operativa, interna–externa, absoluta–relativa, immanentia–transeuntia, ab aeterno–in tempore, primitive–derivata and incommunicabilia–ommunicabilia.30 However, just as Barth senses the need to align the relation between these elements more closely with the dialectic of revelation, so also he senses the need to qualify their meaning (GD, 393–4, 398). In filling out these concepts, he stipulates, ‘I prefer to keep closer to the act on which everything turns here, and my emphasis thus falls on the self-revealing God on the one side, the hidden God on the other’ (GD, 393–4).

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28 29

30

UCR, 2:103; emphasis original; GD, 392. This does not mean that divine personality is something common or that divine aseity fails to constitute a genuine description of God. As with unveiling and veiling, both of these elements are statements about God in revelation. GD, 398–401; cf. 426–7. Barth even speaks of the attributes of aseity as ‘devastatingly negative’ (verheerende Negativität) (UCR, 2:160; GD, 435). UCR, 2:101, 106–9; GD, 391, 394–7; see Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 60–2; Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 117–18.

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As for the Lutherans, he worries that their pairings such as negative–positiva and immanentia–transeuntia are essentially ‘logical dialectical categories’ (GD, 393). That is, in both the form and content of these categories, ‘formal logic plays an understandable but impermissible role’ (GD, 394). For example, Barth makes clear that speaking of God as immanentia and transeuntia is much more than a logical arrangement. Divine hiddenness does not arise from an abstract concern with ‘transcendence, majesty, or negativity’ GD, 134). In fact, beginning with God’s immanence through the Son and the Spirit yields the very same result (GD, 134). God is ‘the living God, the self-revealing God, the God before whose Godhead we can neither flee from transcendence to immanence nor vice versa, the one who is never so distant as when he is near, the one who, because he is God, can never be an object’ (GD, 135). Granting these qualifications concerning the interconnectedness of the elements, Barth still essentially follows the meaning of the Lutheran dialectics by correlating personality with God’s positive qualities and being pro nobis and by correlating aseity with God’s negative qualities and being in se (GD, 392).31 As for the Reformed pairing of incommunicabilia and communicabilia, Barth finds that it does not have an ‘objective distinction’ from the Lutheran dialectics (GD, 395). Nonetheless, it advances beyond those of the Lutherans in that it looks to ‘the objective element’ (das sachliche Moment) in their logical dialectics.32 Whereas the Lutheran distinctions are overly dependent on formal logic, this Reformed distinction falters in its development of the positive element. It does not take the relative nature of divine communicability with sufficient seriousness. If divine communicability gives witness to an analogy between God and creatures, it is ‘purely formal’ (GD, 397). God is only ever communicable in God’s incommunicability. Unfortunately, in their propensity towards Platonism, the Reformed tend to fill out this concept with material that is ‘unmistakably philosophical and rationalistic’ (GD, 398).33 Despite these criticisms, Barth is still able to incorporate both the Reformed distinction of incommunicabilia and communicabilia and the Lutheran distinction

31

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Barth says that the closest approximation to his own categories among the Lutheran divisions is the distinction between the attributes which God has ‘from eternity’ and ‘in time’ (GD, 394; see Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 123–4). UCR, 2:106; emphasis original; GD, 395. The truth of God’s communicability and incommunicability reflect the fact that in seeking to know God in revelation, creatures both have and do not have a ‘share’ (Anteil) in the divine nature (UCR, 2:148; GD, 426; cf. 398). This being said, God’s communicability must not compromise the fact that for creaturely reality there can be no ‘participation’ (Anteilgabe) in the divine nature (UCR, 2:109; GD, 396–7; cf. 403).

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of negativa and positiva – although favouring the former over the latter.34 Only the Reformed pairing is expressed in the thesis for §17, but both appear in the introductions to §17.4 and §17.5. The attributes of personality are the attributa positiva and communicabilia of the God who is revealed.35 The attributes of aseity are the attributa negativa and incommunicabilia of the God who is hidden.36 Therefore, while Barth is seeking to ‘reinterpret and develop the tradition’, it is clear that the meaning of the elements in his own pairing remains generally amenable to those of the Protestant orthodox divisions (GD, 398).

The breaking of concepts and the unity of God This interpretation of the relation and meaning of the elements, in turn, must be understood in light of Barth’s use of dialectical method. The function of dialectical method in the Göttingen lectures is generally consistent with that of ‘ The Word of God and the Task of the Ministry’, which Barth had presented just a few years prior.37 Immediately prior to beginning his doctrine of God, 34

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Barth alludes to his incorporation of the Reformed incommunicabilia and communicabilia distinction in a letter to Eduard Thurneysen written during his preparation for these lectures: ‘Die ganze vorige Woche ging es nur um das Prinzipielle der Eigenschaftslehre, nächste Woche folgen nun die zwei Reihen: [1] Eigenschaften der Persönlichkeit, des sich enthüllenden Gottes, praedicata communicabilia, [2] Eigenschaften der Aseität, des sich verhüllenden Gottes, praedicata incommunicabilia, die sich aber natürlich gegenseitig anschauen und bedingen, von deren einzelnen Gliedern jedes auch das Ganze bezeichnet und alle miteinander die große inadäquate, aber gegen die Mystik als notwendig zu behauptende Beschreibung des Wesens Gottes, das incomprehensibilis, aber in der Offenbarung = {Enthüllung Verhüllung} cognoscibilis ist, nicht “von Angesicht zu Angesicht” [vgl. 1. Kor 13, 12], sondern indirekt, aber wirklich. Es ist ganz erstaunlich, was da alles an den Tag kommt, und zwar immer an Hand meiner orthodoxen Tröster, die mir an jeder Wegbiegung aufs neue mit ihren ernsten Problemen begegnen und deren Erwägung immer ergiebig ist. Wenn man doch Emil bereden könnte, auch etwas mehr Schulfuchs zu sein, statt so draufloszuhornen. Gewiß, die eigentlich guten sinnreichen Sachen sind zu erleben, nicht auszuhecken. Die moderne Dogmatik mit ihrer Willkür ist doch gräßlich unklassisch, und nicht für vieles Geld wollte ich auch solchen Mist machen. Aber da sehe jeder, wie ers treibe’ (Karl Barth to Eduard Thurneysen, 26 November 1924, Karl Barth–Eduard Thurneysen Briefwechsel, 2:292–3; emphasis original). This reception of Protestant orthodox theology is heavily mediated through Heinrich Heppe and Heinrich Schmid, whose works Barth discovered earlier that year. In the introduction to the doctrine of God, Barth even recommends that their works be read in conjunction with his lectures ‘as sources’ (GD, 324). See Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. Ernst Bizer, trans. G. T. Thomson (London: Allen & Unwin, 1950; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978); Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, trans. Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1899). See also Karl Barth, foreword to Reformed Dogmatics, by Heinrich Heppe, v–vii; Migliore, introduction to The Göttingen Dogmatics, xxxiv–xxxix. UCR, 2:115; GD, 401; cf. §17 thesis. UCR, 2:148; GD, 426; cf. §17 thesis. Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 168. ‘In 1924 as in 1913–14, Barth cannot speak of revelation and of God in a direct, undialectical way. Revelation itself is not without concealment, and therefore our knowledge of it (our experience of it, for Barth in 1913–14) is necessarily broken, dialectical’ (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 170).

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Barth identifies the necessity of dialectical method: ‘ Thinking nondialectically would mean in principle not thinking before God. Before God human thoughts become dialectical.’38 Accordingly, when the concepts of God as revealed in his personality and hidden in his aseity are brought before God, they are necessarily expressed through a ‘dialectical’ approach (GD, 390–401). This dialectical juxtaposition further illuminates how Barth conceives of the concepts themselves.

The collision and correction in speaking of God First, personality and aseity are a noetic dialectic which reflects the difference between human witness and divine self-communication and draws attention to humanity’s limitations in using finite and fallen concepts in speech about God. When God speaks Godself, God is revealed in self-repetition, in tautologies: ‘God is God’ and ‘I am who I am’ (GD, 368). The predicate is identical to the subject. When humanity speaks of God, the predicate cannot be repeated as it is spoken. ‘We cannot say “God is God” in such a way that this subject himself speaks and posits himself through our speaking’ (GD, 369). Thinking means thinking about objects or predicates. God, however, is pure subject. He is subject in his Word too. He himself is the content of his Word. Even in his predicates, even when he makes himself an object as he does in revelation, he is still himself, still subject. ‘I am who I am’ [Exod. 3:14]. He cannot be accessible to thought. Or, as happens in revelation, he can be accessible only in his inaccessibility as the Word speaks by the Spirit to spirit. (GD, 308)

Since humanity knows God indirectly, its conception of God ‘breaks in two’ (GD, 369). Humanity is forced to paraphrase the tautology of God’s selfrevelation with something new. Concepts must be taken up and applied to God. ‘Knowledge without concepts would be the intuitive vision of the blessed. But our knowledge involves concepts’ (GD, 352). For this reason, the singularity of ‘I am who I am’ becomes the duality of ‘I am the Lord.’39 ‘We can only say “I am” and “the Lord” – personality and aseity’ (GD, 372). This holds for both the divine nature and the divine attributes: ‘As we are able to understand it, God’s nature is always twofold (we have called the two elements personality and aseity), such

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GD, 311; emphasis original. GD, 369; cf. §5.3.

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that the knowledge of his nature in his attributes (only in the attributes do we really apprehend his nature) is also twofold.’40 On the one hand, Barth affirms that such concepts are insufficient in the task of Christian witness. His continued sense of self-criticism, as laid out in his Elgersburg lecture, leads him to worry about the danger of naïve objectivism. He therefore clarifies that the concepts of personality and aseity ‘break down’ when they are applied to God (GD, 370, 372). ‘Our definition can consist only of two pieces which are both meant to say both things and both the one thing, but which can say only something partial’ (GD, 369). The same is true of all of the attributes of divine personality and aseity. They ‘are and always will be our concepts’.41 On the other hand, Barth also affirms that such concepts are warranted by God through revelation. ‘Engendered by the act of divine revelation, and grounded in it, they arise and are formed in the act of the knowledge of revelation’ (GD, 381). The breaking of these concepts does not indicate that revelation has fallen short of its telos. Even when ‘we come up against facts on which our concepts break, as they are broken they still tell us things about the facts that break them’ (GD, 412). ‘In the very breaking of our ideas and concepts here we can take comfort that we have not come up against an inert stone but against the reality of the living God’ (GD, 413). In this way, Barth’s dialectical approach upholds the medieval and Protestant orthodox view that, by God’s grace, humans can apprehend or know God but not comprehend God (GD, 351). More generally, even though – as the previous chapter demonstrated – Barth confesses the ultimate victory of unveiling over veiling, in this context, his attention is often elsewhere. Barth’s strong correlation between personality and aseity, respectively, with apprehending and not apprehending God and his overall focus on the level of human thought both lead him to balance the gift and impossibility of speaking about God through concepts more evenly than he will later find appropriate in Church Dogmatics II/1. For now, he continues to retain much of the negative counterbalancing which so infamously characterizes his works from a few years earlier, especially Romans II and his Elgersburg lecture. ‘We have knowledge of God in his revelation with the caveat of inconceivability,

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UCR, 2:102; GD, 392; emphasis original. GD, 381; emphasis original. ‘God’s attributes or predicates that we might try to enumerate would only be partial and imperfect descriptions of this unique subject, not saying anything even in their totality because they cancel out one another. They can all of them be only references back, not to the statement “God is,” but to the statement “God spoke”’ (GD, 88).

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and therefore we can have concepts of his nature . . . only and in all circumstances as attempts at interpretation’ (GD, 381).42 Second, personality and aseity are a noetic dialectic which protects the divinity of God by maintaining the mutual participation and reciprocity of the elements. In view of the necessarily twofold character of Christian witness noted above, Barth perceives that the threat of abstraction is present on both sides. If the selfrevealing ‘I am’ is not also understood as the ‘Lord’ and thus refers only to ‘his so-called immanence, his paradoxical presence in this world that is so unlike the Father’ (GD, 371), then it does not genuinely point to God. If the ‘Lord’ is not understood as an ‘I am’ and thus refers only to ‘his so-called transcendence, his supraterrestriality, his standing above the antithesis’, then it does not genuinely point to God (GD, 370).43 Without whole truth of ‘I am the Lord’, ‘along with a thousand paganisms, we have the thought of an idol, a non-god’ (GD, 371). Personality and aseity are ‘equally dangerously’ taken up as themes in the doctrine of God (GD, 427). They both must be distinctly expressed rather than blended together and interconnected rather than separated (GD, 371–2). The two must speak as one. In brief, if the ‘necessary dialectical reflection’ is omitted in speech about God, the concepts which theologians might offer are made to refer to ‘an idol rather than the living God’ (GD, 333). Barth upholds this conviction in accordance with his early discovery that ‘God is God’ by presenting the formal and material juxtaposition of these concepts as an expression of God’s divinity. As in his Elgersburg lecture, it is through this bidirectional gaze that these creaturely concepts can be ‘purified for the purpose that they should serve’ (GD, 312). Using the analogy that personality and aseity are, respectively, like the light of the sun and moon, Barth writes, ‘The conceivable stands under the shadow of the inconceivable and the inconceivable in the light of the conceivable’ (GD, 393). Although there are two elements, ‘the second thing is meant to be said with the first and vice versa’ and ‘only one thing is meant to be said with both’ (GD, 369). As the corollary to God’s unveiling, personality must determine aseity as the description of the God who is revealed and present with us. As the corollary to God’s veiling, aseity must determine personality as the description of the God who is hidden and beyond us. In this way, divine personality establishes the moment of the knowledge of 42

43

‘Revelation is God’s entry into the world of conceptuality’ (GD, 359). Nonetheless, ‘The inconceivable God has come into the world of human conceptuality. What can all concepts of God be but elucidations of his inconceivability?’ (GD, 360). ‘We have now to think of the lordship of God in all these relations, naturally remembering all the time that it is (divinely) personal if the formula “Lord” is really to be a term for God’ (GD, 370).

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God and divine aseity supplements and corrects this knowledge by marking its limit and mystery. There can be no last words on our lips. God speaks the last word. Knowledge of God’s personality lays all these words on our lips. Recollection of God’s aseity characterizes them as next-to-the-last words, and commands that we correct and supplement them by one another. We say what we have to say, knowing about whom we are speaking and therefore what we cannot say and ought not to try to say with any other word. When we do this, then we do what is humanly possible, not preventing God from speaking his own last word, and perhaps even securing a hearing for what he himself wants to say.44

Concepts are never inherently fit for their task in theology, but the dialectical approach is an attempt to acknowledge this fact and to maintain faith in God’s faithful presence with us in Christian witness. It is an attempt to express the humility and openness to which all creaturely witnesses are called.45 This intertwining of the elements as a testament to God’s divinity is present throughout §§16–17, but it is especially prominent in the latter paragraph on the divine attributes. From the outset, Barth stipulates, ‘we are speaking about the divine perfections only if we speak with our gaze fixed on the one divine nature, and hence in practice on the attributes of the other group’.46 He likewise observes, ‘I knew what I was doing when in the thesis I expressly added the word “God” to each attribute in either class. In neither class must any attribute be understood in itself but only as an attribute of God.’47 The truth and genuineness of each element lies in its unity with the other beyond humanity’s grasp. As for divine personality, ‘the communicable attributes have their power precisely in their participation in the mystery of the incommunicable attributes’ (GD, §17 thesis). As for divine aseity, ‘the truth of the incommunicable attributes lies precisely in their participation in the disclosure of the communicable attributes’ (GD, §17 thesis). In terms of apprehension, we only know God as we both share in the knowledge of God through the via eminentiae and do not share in the knowledge of God through the via negationis.48 These ideas guide all of Barth’s structural decisions throughout §17.4–5. 44 45

46

47 48

GD, 425–6; emphasis original. Barth’s conception theology in these lectures is ‘dynamic, self-critical, always open to reform, in continuous movement’ (Migliore, introduction to The Göttingen Dogmatics, xxxiii). GD, 393; emphasis original. Similarly, it is only as the attributes of God are further explications of God’s nature that they are in fact ‘God’s attributes’ (GD, 377; emphasis original; see also Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 67). GD, 428; emphasis original; cf. 375. GD, 399–401, 426–7.

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In §17.4 Barth follows the pattern of beginning with an attribute of divine personality and then correcting it with either an attribute of divine aseity or general considerations associated with this concept (negation, veiling, etc.). If the treatment of the attributes of divine personality omits the corresponding truth of divine aseity, these attributes implicitly become means of attempting to make God a ‘prisoner’ of positive human concepts (GD, 406). However, ‘God is the Lord, God is a se. If the first truth is to have any force, and not to be merely a bit of formal logic, then we must take into account this second truth that intersects it. God is the Lord. He is not the prisoner of an intrinsically correct concept of his personality’ (GD, 405–6). Once the attributes of personality are formed through the via eminentiae, they must then be ‘set in the right light’ through the via negationis (GD, 402). Each attribute of personality ‘must be set aside and burst through as no more than an analogy for all its importance and the necessity of its contribution’ (GD, 402). It must receive the ‘necessary corrective’ of divine aseity ‘which alone makes it correct’ (GD, 406, 420).49 In this way, ‘if and as we do know God, there breaks upon our vision his concealing incommunicable nature . . . forcing us to look not only far beyond this life but totally beyond it’.50 In §17.5 Barth follows the pattern of beginning with an attribute of divine aseity and then refocusing it either with an attribute of divine personality or with general considerations associated with this concept (eminence, unveiling, etc.). If the treatment of the attributes of divine aseity omits the corresponding truth of divine personality, these attributes implicitly become ‘metaphysical ghosts’ (GD, 437). Once the attributes of aseity are formed through the via negationis, they must then be refocused on the revealed God through the via eminentiae. ‘The limiting concept is not itself the lord; it accompanies us like an unruly horse. God is the Lord, He is Lord over us even when we try to think of him as Lord, even over our very correct limiting concept’ (GD, 432). These attributes of divine aseity have ‘no meaning except as a predicate of the known He’ who is the selfrevealing object of theology (GD, 431). It is therefore necessary that ‘we know them in a here and now in which we are known by God’ (GD, 437). This mutual participation and reciprocity is depicted in the following table. Note that the items listed as normal text are divine attributes and the items listed in parentheses include direct affirmation of personality and aseity as well as themes associated with these leading concepts (eminence–negation, unveiling–veiling, etc.). 49 50

Divine aseity is ‘a corrective, a warning, but which is also full of promise’ (GD, 394). GD, 403; emphasis original.

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§17.4 The Attributes of Personality Personality Eminence

Aseity Negation

Life

(misc.)

Power

Glory

§17.5 The Attributes of Aseity Aseity Negation

Personality Eminence

Unity

(misc.)

Holy will as righteous

Eternity and omnipresence

(misc.)

Love

Holiness

Constancy

–

Blessedness

Love as blessed (and misc.)52

Glory

–

Wisdom Holy will as merciful

(Concealment) 51

This visual depiction of Barth’s account helps to clarify that his structure here is less symmetrical and consistent than it is in the corresponding material in the Church Dogmatics.53 Third, personality and aseity are a noetic dialectic with strong antithesis. Since God’s personality and aseity are the human words of a viator about the divine Word, it is necessary to uphold the ‘dialectical tensions’ (dialektischen 51

52

53

From the outset of the paragraph, Barth actually identifies three characteristics of divine willing, all of which are listed as characteristics of divine personality. God’s will is ‘holy, righteous, and merciful’ (GD, §17, thesis). However, Barth subsequently clarifies that he views righteousness and mercy as expansions upon holiness (GD, 419–20). Furthermore, Barth’s use of dialectic throughout this discussion focuses on the juxtaposition of mercy and righteousness, thereby suggesting that these attributes respectively emphasize personality and aseity. ‘As the necessary boundary of the quality of mercy, the correction of the way of negation which we must make here too, lest here too an idol arises by the way of eminence, mercy can be present only as we do not forget for a moment the righteousness of God in and on which mercy shines’ (GD, 421–2; cf. 425). Barth categorizes love and blessedness as attributes of personality, but he suggests that, like the relationship between righteousness and mercy, blessedness and love qualify and correct one another. ‘We said earlier that God’s mercy means that the righteous one is merciful, and now we say that God’s love means that the one who is eternally blessed in himself so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son’ (GD, 425; emphasis original). This would seem to indicate that love emphasizes personality and blessedness emphasizes aseity; however, Barth proceeds to explain that blessedness must likewise fall under the qualification of aseity (GD, 425–6). In other words, Barth demonstrates that he is committed to using dialectic as a corrective, but that he has not yet committed himself to a particular pattern for how this should apply to these two classes of divine attributes. This is true at multiple levels. First, Barth does not evenly pair each attribute with an attribute from the other class. This occurs in a few cases (e.g., power–glory), but more often the corollary pairing takes the form of a general theme associated with the other class (the ways of eminence and negation, unveiling and veiling, etc.). In fact, in the case of constancy and glory, no pairing is provided of any kind. Second, the treatments on the attributes are highly disproportionate in depth and length. This is especially true in the cases of constancy and glory which are practically reduced to an appendix (see GD, 439). Nonetheless, this asymmetry and imbalance is undoubtedly affected by the demands of Barth’s teaching schedule and is therefore not simply a matter of design (see Karl Barth to Eduard Thurneysen, 26 November 1924, Karl Barth–Eduard Thurneysen Briefwechsel, 2:292–3). In addition, Barth’s structure and choice of concepts is shaped by the doctrinal material which he encounters in Heppe and Schmid in a much more formative way than is seen in his later treatments. Compare this table with the one for Church Dogmatics §§30–1 in the following chapter.

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Spannungen) between these concepts.54 After affirming the ‘dialectical’ approach of the Protestant orthodox theologians, Barth immediately adds the qualification that he has made the ‘antithesis’ between two classes of attributes even ‘stronger than usual’.55 Therefore, while personality and aseity are not opposites, they are strongly opposed to one another in human thought. Just as there is ‘the paradox in revelation’, so also there is ‘the paradox of the knowledge of revelation’ (GD, 384). Just as there is the ‘paradoxical repetition’ of the ‘I am who I am’ of revelation (GD, 327), so also there is the paradoxical simultaneity of personality and aseity (GD, 392). These two elements do exist in unity, but to us it ever remains a ‘mysterious unity’.56 The intersection of these concepts is a ‘collision’ (GD, 421). When they come together, they ‘burst’ (sprengen)57 and ‘shatter’ (zerbrechen).58 Their juxtaposition is their ‘breaking apart’ (Auseinanderbrechen)59 and ‘breaking through’ (Durchbrechung).60 Although these elements may not be opposites in the strict sense, they nonetheless stand in a relation of intense opposition. When Barth transitions between the sections which address these respective themes, his language indicates that each dialectical shift entails a striking and abrupt change of topic. At these junctures, he says that he ‘must halt and do a rightabout turn’ (GD, 430). He must make a ‘sharp turn’ (GD, 405, 437), or rather, a ‘dialectical turn of 180° back’.61 This strong sense of dialectical tension echoes back to one of his earliest lectures on the identity of God: ‘Belief in a Personal God’. ‘In 1925 (as in 1913–14), it is impossible for Barth to speak of God’s being without using dialectical tensions, without speaking of a “collision” between God’s aseity and his personality.’62

The God above creaturely collision These points concerning the noetic dialectic of personality and aseity raise an ambiguity in Barth’s earliest doctrine of God. On the one hand, insofar as personality and aseity arise from and correlate to the Realdialektik of unveiling and veiling, there must be a genuine sense of duality in God. Veiling and unveiling 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

UCR, 2:27; GD, 337; cf. §4.3. GD, 393; UCR, 2:104; see Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 65; cf. 68–9. UCR, 2:79; GD, 376. UCR, 2:71, 74, 116–17, 137; GD, 370, 372, 402–3, 418. UCR, 2:71, 75, 122, 130; GD, 370, 372, 407, 412. UCR, 2:72; GD, 370. Alternatively, they ‘break apart’ (brechen auseinander) (UCR, 2:164; GD, 437). UCR, 2:142; GD, 421. GD, 431; UCR, 2:154. Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 169.

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are not arbitrary but realistic descriptions of the revelation of God with us. The divine attributes, along with their guiding framework of personality and aseity, point to real distinctions in the unified nature of God. On the other hand, the Realdialektik of revelation entails dialectical tension in the relation between God and creatures throughout the unfolding process of salvation. This tension is reflected through Barth’s use of dialectical Denkform and is further heightened through his strong emphasis on the fallenness of creatures and the limitations of concepts. The issue is that if Barth were to interpret personality and aseity as a Realdialektik, just like the revelation in which this dialectic is grounded, two problems would result. First, this would mean that there is dialectical tension in the eternal being of God – tension which would threaten the perfect peace of God’s life ad intra and even the very distinction between God’s life ad intra and ad extra. Second, this would risk reducing theology to the projection of the noetic limitations of fallen humanity. How these themes come together is not fully developed in this earliest of Barth’s doctrines of God. His interaction with Erik Peterson, which occurs less than a year after these lectures, provides an opportunity for him to clarify more fully that there is no dialectical tension in God’s life ad intra and that even God’s life with us has an undialectical telos. Moreover, as will be seen, this matter reaches a less ambiguous resolution by the time of Church Dogmatics II/1. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to conclude that the stronger sense of dialectical tension in Barth’s account of the divine nature and attributes in the Göttingen lectures suggests that he wishes to portray personality and aseity as a Realdialektik in the life of God in se. Instead, it is preferable to see this increased tension as arising from his focus on both the lower level of the Realdialektik of revelation and the noetic limitations of finite and fallen humanity which undergird his dialectical Denkform.63 This interpretation is supported by two features of Barth’s account. First, Barth suggests that the noetic dialectic of personality and aseity points beyond its conceptual tension in the creaturely sphere to its undialectical reality in God. In accordance with Barth’s Elgersburg lecture, these conceptual fragments do reflect two distinct aspects of God’s identity, but they do not indicate that God’s identity is itself fragmented. God’s reality exists in perfect unity beyond the conflict and discord between these partial concepts. God’s 63

Holmes’ view of Barth is less appreciative of this nuance: ‘Appropriate thought of God, that is, strictly dialectical thought, corresponds to the dialectic within God’s own being – a being that is both revealed and concealed. The dialectical character of knowledge of God thus corresponds to a duality within revelation’ (Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 67).

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nature ‘cannot be divided’ (GD, 393; cf. 428–32). In fact, the same must be said of God’s attributes: ‘Each attribute is the total essence of God’ (GD, 382). This is reflected in the irreversibility of the statement that God is personal and a se.64 God is personal and a se, but personality and aseity are not God. The stress falls on divine personality and aseity and therefore on the fact that the unified subject can become the object of concepts in revelation.65 Personality and aseity are fragmented concepts which bear witness to an unfragmented reality. ‘These two words are one word as God’s Word’ (GD, 372). Humans may be required to speak of the self-unveiling ‘I am’ who is veiled as ‘the Lord’, but God is the event of the ‘I am’ who reiterates Godself as ‘I am’.66 Second, Barth believes that the noetic dialectic of personality and aseity anticipates a direct and undialectical knowledge of this undialectical reality in the eschaton. Barth’s dialectical rereading of the Reformed distinction between the incommunicable and communicable attributes is an attempt to preserve the indirect nature of the human knowledge of God prior to the eschatological consummation of redemption.67 Although most of his focus throughout the doctrine of God is on the current tensions in creaturely thought, drawing on a few key Scriptural texts as well as Aquinas’s theology of the beatific vision,68 Barth does look forward to this eschatological consummation as well.69 In contrast to the present indirect knowledge which ‘involves concepts’, the ‘intuitive vision’ of the blessed saints in heaven will be direct knowledge ‘without concepts’ (GD, 352). ‘The human subject will know the divine subject directly and not just in hidden form as an object’ (GD, 337). For the noetic dialectic of personality aseity, ‘unity is a theological aporia which will only be revealed and resolved

64

65

66

67 68

69

In fact, for Barth, all statements about the divine nature and attributes are irreversible: ‘Like all the statements that we must now make, the statement that God is life is irreversible’ (GD, 402; cf. 405, 416, 430, 438). Likewise, throughout the doctrine of God, the stress does not ultimately fall on the divine nature and attributes but on the divine nature and attributes (see GD, 361–2, 392–3, 427–8). Personality and aseity each constitutes what Barth calls an ‘element’ (Moment) in the divine nature (Wesen), or rather, an ‘essential element’ (Wesensmoment) of God (for Moment, see UCR, 2:72–3, 76, 84, 96, 102; for Wesensmoment, see UCR, 2:84, 96, 99–100). In light of the necessary distinction between these elements in creaturely thought and their ultimate unity in the divine reality, Barth’s use of das Moment is somewhat similar to that of Hegel. ‘Hegel sometimes uses the term “moment” [das Moment] to refer to an “aspect” of something, or, more technically, a part which is separable from the whole only in thought. . . . In Hegel’s Logic, each category is a moment in the whole. Each is a part, but not a literal, physical part – and each derives its meaning from its place in the whole, and is thus not fully intelligible considered in separation from it’ (Glenn Alexander Magee, The Hegel Dictionary [London: Continuum, 2010], 150–1). Asprey, Eschatological Presence in Karl Barth’s Göttingen Theology, 262. See GD, 337–8, 352; see also UCR, 3:485. Barth particularly draws on the following Scriptural texts: 1 Cor. 13:12, 15:24ff.; 1 Jn 3:2; Jn 17:3. See especially GD, 337–9, 352, 413–14.

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eschatologically, in God’s presence’.70 In fact, near the end of the Göttingen lectures, Barth specifically addresses the eschatological resolution of the dialectic of personality and aseity. Characterizing the eschatological consummation of eternal life as the visio and fruitio Dei, Barth speaks of an ‘unbroken knowledge of God in God’s whole being of personality and aseity’ (UCR, 3:485–6). This visio Dei belongs neither to the angels in heaven nor to the prophets on earth. It is the visio of the redeemed who have been enlightened by the lumen gloriae (UCR, 3:486). In sum, the Göttingen lectures portray divine personality and aseity as a unity-in-distinction. In accordance with Barth’s understanding of dialectical method, there is a generally implicit sense that the fragmentation and tension in the concept of God gives witness to a reality which is multifaceted but unified. However, this account focuses on the partial completion of God’s undialectical goal of Immanuel and on the noetic limitations of creatures due to their fallenness and dependence on concepts. Barth therefore believes that it is fitting to fill out personality and aseity with strongly opposed senses and to hold them tightly together in simultaneity. In doing so, he intends to give witness to the weakness of humanity and, more importantly, the grandeur of God. Personality and aseity may exist in harmonious simultaneity in God, but in relation to finite humanity between the times, this relation becomes a ‘paradoxical simultaneity’.71

70 71

Asprey, Eschatological Presence in Karl Barth’s Göttingen Theology, 262n. 3; emphasis original. UCR, 2:148; GD, 426.

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Love in Freedom

The lines of inquiry which have been traced out in the Göttingen lectures must now be extended to Church Dogmatics II/1. Interestingly, there is a notable amount of continuity between these two accounts. The relation and meaning of the two leading concepts in the doctrine of God’s reality are still closely tied to the dialectic of revelation. Barth’s use of dialectical Denkform continues to serve the function of purifying human speech about God. Additionally, many of the adjustments in the Church Dogmatics can in fact be understood as more consistent developments of the theology of the Göttingen lectures. Nonetheless, throughout the period which spans Barth’s first and final treatments on the doctrine of God, there are a number of formal and material revisions which require attention. The following analysis will sketch out this overarching sense of continuity and, within that context, identify the most significant of the pertinent developments.

The unified elements in concordant distinction The relation between the elements Beginning once more with the character of these dialectics, first, divine unveiling and veiling are still teleologically ordered. Here too Barth is not concerned with just any dialectic, but rather with a dialectic that is concretely ordered according to the christological telos God’s action ad extra (II/1, 348–50).1 There can be 1

As with the Göttingen lectures, this teleology is especially evident in Barth’s dialectic of election and rejection. In Church Dogmatics II/2, Barth continues to maintain that predestination is ‘double’ – that God’s glory enters ‘the sphere of contradiction where light and darkness are marked off from each other’ (II/2, 169). However, in itself, divine election is light and not darkness (II/2, 13). ‘In aim and purpose God is only light, unbroken light’ (II/1, 169; cf. 170). Although there is a dialectical form to election and its shadow of rejection, ‘Originally and finally it is not dialectical but nondialectical’ (II/2, 13). Both readings therefore indicate that the shadow of the divine No ultimately gives way to the pure light of the divine YES. See Gockel, Barth and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election, especially 195–7.

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no equilibrium between unveiling and veiling. In revelation, ‘the relationship between veiling and unveiling is not symmetrical, equivocal, vacillating or obscure, nor is it a reversal and alternation dependent on the arbitrariness of God or humanity’ (II/1, 236 rev.). On both sides God is achieving his one purpose of fellowship with creatures. On both sides God’s one grace is at work. ‘God is gracious not only in His unveiling, but also in His veiling’ (II/1, 236).2 Thus, ‘only for the sake of His unveiling does He veil Himself ’ (II/1, 236).3 There is no mere reciprocity between Law and Gospel. Both are present, but the Gospel can be understood only as the ‘victorious Gospel’ (II/1, 236). In fact, in this context, Barth quite straightforwardly categorizes the dialectic of revelation as a ‘teleologically ordered dialectic’ (teleologisch geordnete Dialektik).4 Second, in contrast to the Göttingen lectures which emphasize both the paradoxical simultaneity and the sequence of unveiling and veiling, here Barth fundamentally understands the elements as a unified sequence of mutually interconnected elements. It is the ‘unity’ (Einheit) of God in God’s unveiling and veiling which constitutes the biblical concept of revelation.5 We can only fittingly know and speak about God by knowing and speaking about God ‘completely’ (ganz), that is, ‘in both’ elements.6 We cannot grasp and possess God on either side. In both the cases we have faith that God acts graciously towards us in the totality of this event.7 This greater sense of the unity of unveiling and veiling is best viewed as the result of Barth’s more thorough appreciation of the teleological ordering of revelation. Barth is now more concerned that the tension which arises from speaking of the simultaneity of unveiling and veiling might obscure God’s singular goal in this action. He therefore backs away from his previous language about their simultaneity and instead more consistently elevates their 2

3

4 5 6 7

‘Both demands are laid upon us by God Himself in His revelation: the obedience of knowledge and the humility of ignorance. And in laying down both requirements God is equally the one true God. The one grace of His self-revelation is at the root of both’ (II/1, 342). When considered from the perspective of human apprehension, ‘Revelation occurs for faith, not for unbelief ’ (II/1, 55). The complementary and indeterminate ‘dialectic of certainty and uncertainty’ at the purely human level is likewise ordered according to divine grace (II/1, 71–4). ‘God’s goodpleasure is His knowability. In it rests the undialectical certainty of the realisation of the true knowledge of God’ (II/1, 74). KD II/1, 266; CD, 236. KD II/1, 386; CD, 343. KD II/1, 385; CD, 342. In the path of the human knowledge of God, the divine hiddenness uncovered in the terminus a quo is matched by the divine hiddenness in the terminus ad quem (II/1, 244). The circularity here – the question of whether we have to do with a circuli veritatis or whether it is not in fact a circuli vitiosi – is not something from which Christians can or should seeks to protect themselves (see II/1, 243–54). See Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 164–72; cf. Garrett Green, Theology, Hermeneutics, and Imagination: The Crisis of Interpretation at the End of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 159–64.

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character as a sequence.8 A corresponding shift occurs in his understanding of the creaturely apprehension of God. The relation between apprehending and not apprehending is not one of ‘temporal simultaneity’ (zeitlichen Zugleich) but rather of both ‘duality’ (Doppeltes) and ‘juxtaposition and succession’ (Nebenbezw. Nacheinander).9 In the doctrine of the knowledge of God, Barth expresses the primacy and unity of God’s purpose in revelation through what he had previously referred to as the ‘genetic’ or ‘historical-psychological’ perspective: the divine No comes first because the movement is from No to Yes (UCR, 3:20–1). In the path of the knowledge of God, the terminus a quo is veiling and inapprehension and the terminus ad quem is unveiling and apprehension.10 God is first known in hiddenness, and yet this hiddenness both is and leads to the knowledge of God (II/1, 183). However, in the doctrine of the reality of God, Barth follows the pattern in his corresponding material in the Göttingen lectures by viewing the elements from the perspective of God’s purpose in revelation. In this light, the sequence is not a movement from No to Yes, but rather from Yes to No. This reflects the primacy and power of God’s ultimate YES over the tension of Yes and No. The Yes comes first, is followed by a No, and then the two are carried up into the ultimate YES. ‘In God’s revelation the disclosure of God is in fact the first and the last, the origin and the end, of the ways of God. God’s revelation is first and last a Gospel, glad tidings, the word and deed of divine grace’ (II/1, 349). In continuity with the Göttingen lectures, the leading concepts in the reality of God continue to be shaped by this dialectical movement in God’s self-revelation. Therefore, here too these two points concerning the dialectic of revelation must be revisited in the context of the central noetic dialectic in the doctrine of God. First, divine love and freedom are still equally balanced rather than teleologically ordered. In contrast to the ambiguity found in the Göttingen lectures, the Church Dogmatics more clearly delineates the ontic dialectic of revelation and the noetic dialectic in the doctrine of the being of God. Most definitely, Barth stipulates that the Realdialektik of revelation is only operative in God’s life ad extra. God is both unveiled and veiled to creatures, but God is entirely unveiled to Godself. God’s self-knowledge is undialectical. Corresponding to the distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology, 8

9 10

Especially Zugleichsein and Gleichzeitigkeit; see UCR, 2:102–3, 148. Chalamet locates this shift at around the time of the volume at hand: ‘after 1940, Barth was less inclined to speak of a simultaneity of veiling and unveiling’ (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 238). KD II/1, 385; CD, 342. II/1, 184, 192–3, 204, 214–15, 227, 233.

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Barth argues that while creatures know God in secondary or ‘clothed objectivity’ (bekleideten Gegenständlichkeit), the triune God knows Godself eternally in ‘primary’ or ‘unclothed objectivity’ (unbekleideten Gegenständlichkeit).11 God is the truth and the source of knowledge of God because ‘God is not hidden from Himself but is open to Himself. Truth means unhiddenness, openness’ (II/1, 68; cf. 154). In short, God loves in freedom both ad extra and ad intra, but God is unveiled through self-veiling only in God’s relations ad extra.12 At this juncture, another important question presents itself. After clarifying that the perfections of divine love and freedom arise from the dialectic of unveiling and veiling (II/1, 341), Barth immediately recalls that the dialectic of revelation is teleologically ordered: ‘ The one grace of His self-revelation is at the root of both’ (II/1, 342). Could this perhaps imply that the noetic dialectic of love and freedom in some way reflects this teleological structure? Following this line of thought, some have seen an imbalance in Barth’s formulation and claimed that for him divine love proves to be the greater of the two forces.13 Terry Cross, for example, claims that since the dialectic of revelation is teleologically ordered, ‘one side of the two counterbalanced poles receives slight predominance. This is true of unity over distinction, and love over freedom.’14 However, although Cross is certainly correct about the dialectic of revelation, the relationship between love and freedom cannot be read in this way. As God loves in freedom, ‘It is not that God in His revelation is the second of these aspects to a lesser degree than He is the first. The truth is that He is it differently’ (II/1, 349). Neither love nor freedom can become a ‘superior principle’ because both elements are prohibited from being in a ‘subordinate’ position.15 Indeed, ‘there can be no such overriding principle where God Himself is all’ (II/1, 338). Barth is trenchantly opposed to the idea of affirming any master principle or system because this might suggest that God has been grasped by human 11

12

13

14 15

KD II/1, 15–16; CD, 16; see García-Tato, Die Trinitätslehre Karl Barths als dogmatisches Strukturprinzip, 569–98, especially 569–73; Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 42–4; Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, 78. Price also appreciates the importance of this distinction (see Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 43–4). On a quite different note, Henning Schröer points out that in the opening volume of the Church Dogmatics Barth claims that ‘Godhead in the Bible means freedom, ontic and noetic autonomy’ (I/1, 307). He is therefore inclined to interpret the dialectical pairing of freedom with love in CD II/1 as an attempt to bring more balance to this relation. Nonetheless, he wonders whether the prior focus on divine freedom without this pairing might have had at least some residual influence on the emphasis in this later context: ‘whether Barth has in fact fully maintained the complementarity and has not asserted the prevalence of divine freedom, one may ask’ (Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem, 151n. 90). Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 208. KD II/1, 380; CD, 338.

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comprehension or hinder theologians from maintaining a continuous posture of openness towards God’s self-manifestation. For Barth, we rightly speak of the richness of God’s unity when this witness ‘takes place in due humility, and no one of our concepts tries to usurp authority and form a system’ (II/1, 375).16 In addition to Cross, more than a few of Barth’s other interpreters have failed to pay adequate attention to the balance between love and freedom.17 In fact, even the standard English translation of the Church Dogmatics sometimes misinterprets Barth’s language about the sequential priority of love as an indication of its theological priority.18

16

17

18

In this light, both Bromiley and Vanhoozer label love and freedom with categories that are too forceful for Barth’s actually use. The former speaks of them as ‘master-concepts’ and the latter uses the term ‘control attribute’ (Bromiley, Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth, 74; Kevin Vanhoozer, ‘Introduction: The Love of God – Its Place, Meaning, and Function in Systematic Theology’, in Nothing Greater, Nothing Better: Theological Essays on the Love of God, ed. idem [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001], 16). Robert Price perceives an elevation of love over freedom in the interpretations of Barth offered by Cornelius Van Til and Kevin Vanhoozer. According to Van Til, ‘all the attributes of God are subordinate to the one attribute of love or grace’ (Cornelius Van Til, Christianity and Barthianism [Philadelphia: P&R Publishing, 1962], 76; cited by Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 41). According to Kevin Vanhoozer, ‘love operates as a kind of “control attribute” that regulates the other divine perfections’ (Vanhoozer, ‘Introduction: The Love of God’, in Nothing Greater, Nothing Better, 16; cited by Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 41). Price is undoubtedly right about Van Til’s overall emphasis, but in Vanhoozer’s case the issue seems to be with his conception of the role of both love and freedom rather than the relation between the two. Vanhoozer speak of love as a ‘control attribute’ not because he wishes to withhold this designation from ‘freedom’, but because of his focus in the project in question – an intuition which I confirmed through my personal correspondence with Vanhoozer. More generally, arguably the most influential interpretation of Barth which prioritizes a single concept and echoes the elevation of love over freedom is that of G. C. Berkouwer. Berkouwer acknowledges that Barth’s theology does not arise from ‘a “system” constructed on the basis of one fundamental principle’ and that it is Jesus Christ who is ‘the dominant and all-controlling central factor’; nonetheless, he concludes that the motif of God’s triumphant grace is the centre of Barth’s theology (G. C. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth: A Scriptural Examination and Assessment, trans. Harry R. Boer [London: Paternoster, 1956], 13, 18; emphasis original). In response, Barth himself says that although Berkouwer’s exposition is well intended and right to some degree, it ultimately suggests that a principle stands in the place which properly belongs to a person, namely, Jesus Christ. In explaining his decision to call CD, §69 ‘Jesus is Victor’ rather than ‘The Triumph of Grace’, Barth writes, ‘Grace is undoubtedly an apt and profound and at the right point necessary paraphrase of the name Jesus. As Jesus conquers, there triumphs in Him the manifested grace of God (Tit. 211). But the statement needed is so central and powerful that it is better not to paraphrase the name of Jesus, but to name it. “Triumph of Grace” might at any rate give rise to the impression that what is meant to be indicated is the victory of one principle, that of grace, over another which is to be described as evil, sin, the devil or death. But we are not concerned here with the precedence, victory or triumph of a principle, even though the principle be that of grace. We are concerned with the living person of Jesus Christ’ (IV/3.1, 173; see Härle, Sein und Gnade, 299n. 106). For example, in the introduction to §30 Barth calls divine love the ‘erstes Wort’ (KD II/1, 394; CD, 351). This term actually occurs twice in the same sentence and, by all indications, has the same meaning. However, the standard translation interprets the first occurrence as ‘first word’ and the second occurrence as ‘primary word’. The latter translation is particularly unfortunate because in the immediate context Barth is explicitly trying to uphold love and freedom as equally valuable. Moreover, it is quite obvious that ‘first word’ is Barth’s intention in both cases because the preceding three pages were entirely devoted to the sequential priority of love over freedom (II/1, 348–50).

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However, Barth’s unwillingness to prioritize either of these concepts is actually a central motif throughout §§28–31, particularly as he transitions between the sections that alternatively highlight one of the two sides. In the opening of §28.2, Barth asserts that divine love is ‘decisive’ for all of who God is.19 In the opening of §28.3, Barth then writes, ‘After all our previous considerations, we cannot lay too strong an emphasis on this fact in characterising the divine being’ (II/1, 297). In introducing the perfections of divine love (§30), he states that ‘God’s freedom is in fact no less divine than His love. . . . God’s love, too, is no less divine than His freedom’ (II/1, 351). Love cannot relate to freedom in such a way that it is prioritized according to ‘value and dignity’ or that it stands in a place of ‘superiority’.20 Then, in introducing the perfections of divine freedom (§31), he correspondingly adds, ‘God’s freedom is no less divine than His love’ (II/1, 440). Freedom cannot relate to love in such a way that there is any ‘subordination’.21 The divine perfections which Barth presents in each of these two paragraphs are ‘mutually and complementarily related’ because the dialectic of love and freedom which guides them does not involve any ‘prevalence’ of one side over the other.22 Barth reinforces this balance between love and freedom by resisting nominalism and maintaining that both elements genuinely refer to distinct aspects of God’s being. ‘The freedom of God is not merely the form of His love nor is His love only the form of His freedom’ (II/1, 338). The possibility of speaking with ‘nominalistic reservation’ is closed on both sides.23 The perfections of freedom give witness to the divine being ‘not with less (though not with more!), but with equal emphasis and equal truth’ as do the perfections of divine love.24 In short, Barth interprets divine unveiling and veiling as ordered towards the ultimate goal of unveiling, but he interprets divine love and freedom as existing in an equally balanced relation which is free from any subordination.25 Second, in contrast to the Göttingen lectures which emphasize both the paradoxical simultaneity and sequence of personality and aseity, here Barth 19 20

21 22 23 24 25

KD II/1, 307; CD, 273. KD II/1, 395; CD, 351. Note the similarity between this and Barth’s early theology mentor’s refusal to let love become ‘a systematic principle which dominates everything’ (Herrmann, Schriften zur Grundlegung der Theologie, 1:337–8; cited by Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 50). KD II/1, 496; CD, 440. Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem, 151. KD II/1, 380; CD, 338. Ibid. As Chalamet perceptively observes, ‘the teleological schema cannot be applied to just any theological topic. In the diversity of topics presented, there are modifications. Barth always tried to adapt his theological model to the materia he was writing about, rather than forcing his dialectical model upon the subject matter indiscriminately’ (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 243).

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fundamentally understands the elements as a unified sequence of mutually interconnected elements. Here too, Barth presupposes that God reveals Godself as God is. On this basis, Barth finds that the ‘unity’ (Einheit) and ‘distinction’ (Unterschied) in revelation corresponds to a unity and distinction in God’s being.26 ‘If His revelation is His truth, He is truly both in unity and difference: the One who loves in freedom’ (II/1, 343). God’s being is both loving and free, ‘not in separation but in unity, yet not in the dissolution but in the distinctiveness of this duality’ (II/1, 343). Correspondingly, in his treatment of the divine perfections, ‘serious attention is paid to the twofold question answered in the preceding section: Who and what is God? in respect of the diversity as well as the unity of its two parts’ (II/1, 340). If revelation is to be taken with full seriousness, it must be said that God’s unity is ‘dynamic’ (bewegte) and ‘differentiated’ (unterschiedene).27 However, in the same way that the teleological ordering of revelation led Barth to lay a particularly strong emphasis on the unity of God’s gracious purpose in both unveiling and veiling, so also he finds it necessary to lay a particularly strong emphasis on the unity of God’s being in love and freedom.28 ‘The unity of self-disclosure and concealment, of the knowability and unknowability of God, constitutes the biblical idea of the revelation of God, just as the unity of love and freedom constitutes the biblical idea of the being of God’ (II/1, 343). The stronger sense of unity in the Church Dogmatics is reinforced through Barth’s revised conception of how these two elements arise from God’s action in revelation. As has been seen, in the Göttingen lectures, the concepts of divine personality and aseity arise when God’s self-communication as ‘I am who I am’ breaks into two at the level of human apprehension and becomes ‘I am the Lord.’ However, in the Church Dogmatics, God’s love is the content of God’s action and God’s freedom is the manner of its execution. By shifting the focus from the shattering of human language to the description of different facets of God’s action, Barth is more readily able to understand the two elements as equally valid and real distinctions that nonetheless cohere with the simplicity of God’s being. In this latter account, the elements exist in a ‘reciprocal relation’ (gegenseitigen Beziehung). They are a ‘differentiated unity’ (unterschiedenen Einheit),29 or rather,

26 27 28

29

KD II/1, 385–6; CD, 343. KD II/1, 386; CD, 343. See Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 192, 208; Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, 45; cf. Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 223–4; Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 44n. 27. KD II/1, 388; CD, 345.

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a unified duality.30 ‘There is no love of God in itself and as such, just as there is no freedom of God in itself and as such’ (II/1, 352).31 ‘God is not first the One who loves, and then somewhere and somehow, in contradistinction to that, the One who is also free. And when He loves He does not surrender His freedom, but exercises it in a supreme degree’ (II/1, 344–5).32 There is ‘a complete reciprocity in the characterisation of the one Subject’ (II/1, 343; cf. 350). This coinherence is ‘reflected both in the form and the content’ of the doctrines of the divine being33 and perfections.34 Throughout the whole of CD, §§28–31, this coinherence serves as a perpetual reminder that for Barth the knowledge of God’s being and perfections concern ‘the one complete God’ (dem einen ganzen Gott).35 Nonetheless, this reciprocity does not entail that the order of the elements is insignificant. Since Barth is still undertaking theology as Nachdenken, the sequence in which the two series of divine perfections are presented is ‘not a matter of indifference’ (II/1, 348). He is still committed following after the specific pattern of the being of God in revelation.36 Love and freedom must reflect the teleologically ordered revelation in which they are manifest: ‘The logical rigour of the dialectic which occupies us must not conceal from us the fact that we are 30

31 32

33 34

35 36

KD II/1, 388; CD, 345. As Holmes observes, ‘What distinguishes Barth’s doctrine from Jüngel and Krötke is his very strong sense that the indissoluble unity of the perfections of the divine love and freedom contains difference. That is, their unity itself entails – or better, demands – differentiation’ (Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 224; emphasis original; cf. 61). So also, ‘we are already aware that God’s freedom does not exist alone by itself ’ (II/1, 440). Cf. II/1, 321, 359, 375. ‘It is not that God first lives and then also loves. But God loves, and in this act lives. If we have interpreted the divinity of His act, or the divinity of God, as freedom, we could not and cannot mean by this notion of freedom anything different from Himself as the One who loves’ (II/1, 321). ‘Freedom is not anterior to God’s love but its divine depth; divine love is the actuality (not the surrender or compromise) of divine sovereignty’ (Webster, Barth, 86). Webster, Barth, 86; cf. Mangina, Karl Barth, 67–8. Cross, followed by Chalamet, argues that the relationship between the perfections of love and freedom is modelled after the perichoresis of God’s triune life, particularly as seen in I/1, §9 (Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 181–2, 185, 192–3; Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 243; see also Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 94n. 46). This paradigmatic function of trinitarian doctrine does indeed have precedence. For example, in discussing his threefold understanding of divine eternity in II/1, Barth analogically draws upon the doctrine of the trinity in order to affirm God’s unity in the coinherence of these three distinctions: ‘It will be possible to understand eternity in each of the three forms in its particularity, but in a mutually interrelated particularity, so that the foolish idea of a constantly threatening rivalry will be avoided. There is just as little place for this rivalry here as between the three persons of the Trinity, whose distinction is really in the last resort the basis of these three forms. In this connexion, too, there is in God both distinction and peace’ (II/1, 639; cf. I/1, 425–7). This being said, the more straightforward point of comparison for the relationship between love and freedom is the relationship between unveiling and veiling, particularly as seen in II/1, §27. KD II/1, 386; CD, 343. The care which Barth gives in structuring the doctrine of the divine perfections is not an arbitrary systematization but rather ‘a means to an end’ (II/1, 352–3). The end is the description of the divine reality which ‘most faithfully follows and corresponds to the self-manifestation of the living God’ (II/1, 353). The means is ‘an exposition of ideas ordered and controlled as far as possible by this object in its self-manifestation’ (II/1, 353). See also Štefan, ‘Gottes Vollkommenheiten nach KD II/1’, 86; Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 39–40.

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not concerned with any sort of dialectic but with the very special dialectic of the revelation and being of God’ (II/1, 348).37 Just as unveiling precedes veiling, so also love precedes freedom. The ‘order’ (Ordnung) of the elements does not merely characterize revelation but also the being through which God is God.38 The relationships between the elements in these dialectics thus prove to be complex and mysterious. With regard to revelation, in humanity, there is no ‘temporal simultaneity’ (zeitlichen Zugleich) between knowing and not-knowing God, but in God there is an ‘eternal simultaneity and sequence’ (ewiges Zugleich und Nicht-Zugleich) between God’s unveiling and veiling.39 On this basis, Barth upholds ‘the unity and difference in which God loves as the One who is free, and is free as the One who loves’ (II/1, 344). That is, he respects the sequence of the elements within the broader context of their unity and simultaneity in the eternal being of God. ‘It is as the personal triune God that He is self-existent. And although the converse is certainly true, it is only because we must first say that it is as the personal triune God that He is self-existent; as the One who loves that He is the One who is free’ (II/1, 350). For Barth, ‘this second follows that first, is included by it, and actually comes to light and becomes apparent only in it and by it’.40 In short, in accordance with the Göttingen lectures, the teleologically ordered Realdialektik of unveiling and veiling bears witness to the sequential yet complementary noetic dialectic of love and freedom.

The meaning of the elements In addition to these adjustments, Barth also revises his conception of the meaning of the dialectical elements. In the Göttingen lectures, Barth had established a strong sense of paradox within these dialectics by focusing on the level of human thought; here, however, Barth emphasizes that love and freedom are distinct yet coinherent concepts whose mutual qualification in human thought perfectly coheres with their fundamental unity in the fullness of the divine reality. Barth had previously filled out the elements within each dialectic with radically different meanings and brought them together paradoxically in human thought. In that context, God’s unveiling and personality are coordinated with divine objectivity, human apprehension of God, the via eminentiae and God’s being pro nobis.

37 38

39 40

Cf. GD, 393–4; see Härle, Sein und Gnade, 21n. 56; Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 182. KD II/1, 392–5; CD, 348–51; see Chalamet, ‘No Timelessness in God’, 36–7; idem, Dialectical Theologians, 243. KD II/1, 385; CD, 342–3. KD II/1, 393; CD, 349.

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Conversely, God’s veiling and aseity are coordinated with divine subjectivity, human inapprehension of God, the via negationis and God’s being in se. By the time of the Church Dogmatics, Barth realizes that although he had attempted to line up the logical dialectics of the Protestant orthodox theologians with the event of revelation, the strong polarization between these elements allowed logical distinctions to persist which might challenge God’s unity in his action. He therefore maintains his general adherence to the Protestant orthodox approach to the divine attributes while even more rigorously pursuing its ‘detailed elucidation and purification’ (II/1, 341). Despite making these changes, he continues to correlate the elements in both dialectics: God loves us. And because we can trust His revelation as the revelation of His own being He is in Himself the One who loves. As such He is completely knowable to us. But He loves us in His freedom. And because here too we can trust His revelation as a self-revelation, He is in Himself sovereignly free. He is therefore completely unknowable to us. That He loves us and that He does so in His freedom are both true in the grace of His revelation.41

God’s unveiling draws attention to God’s gracious gift of creaturely apprehension and God’s veiling draws attention to God’s inapprehensibility. Nonetheless, Barth now lays greater stress on the fact that each element finds its meaning in and through the other. It is precisely as God is veiled that God is known. As the Göttingen lectures had already established,42 God is hidden because God is hidden.43 ‘God’s hiddenness is the hiddenness of God. It is one of His properties. It is indeed that property of God with which His knowledge

41

42

43

II/1, 343; emphasis mine. This correlation has been widely recognized (see, e.g. Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 241; Štefan, ‘Gottes Vollkommenheiten nach KD II/1’, 93). By contrast, Price claims that ‘while the dialectics (love and freedom, unveiling and veiling) correspond to each other, their individual elements do not’ (Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 43). In arguing this, Price rightly perceives that God is not simply known in his love and unknown in his freedom. However, he undervalues the mutually constitutive character of both dialectics. That is, neither is God simply known in his unveiling and unknown in his veiling. With each of the two dialectics, Barth is insistent that God is only known in both elements. When one accounts for this fact, it becomes more clear that the individual elements do indeed correspond to each other. In the Göttingen lectures, Barth is likewise clear that divine hiddenness cannot simply be made a function of human finitude and fallenness. God’s hiddenness cannot be reduced to a general philosophical problem: ‘We must not get the wrong impression that the statement that God is incomprehensible is merely the broken confession of the human spirit as it becomes aware of the abyss of its own ignorance and despairs of itself, that it is merely the sum of Kant’s critique of reason. . . . A critique of reason is not in itself an analogue of the cross of Christ. The abysses of our ignorance are not in themselves the depths of God’ (GD, 356–7; cf. 360–1). ‘God is not hidden because of the relativity of all human knowledge, but because God is the living God who reveals Godself as God is’ (UCR, 1:165; emphasis original; GD, 135). II/1, 181–4; see Bruce L. McCormack, ‘§27 “The Limits of the Knowledge of God”: Theses on the Theological Epistemology of Karl Barth’, Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie 15.1 (1999): 77–9.

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as such undoubtedly has its formal beginning’ (II/1, 184). In the same way, it is precisely as God is unveiled that God is not known. God ‘remains a mystery to us because He Himself has made Himself so clear and certain to us’ (II/1, §25 thesis). Barth argues that in both ways, through His self-disclosure and His concealment, He is at one and the same time knowable and unknowable to us. In other words, in His self-revelation and concealment He has become for us an object of our human knowledge while remaining completely unknowable to us in both aspects (even in that of revelation). The relation between the two is not such that in His selfunveiling we have grounds for knowing Him, and in His self-concealment for not knowing Him; in the former case for speaking, in the latter for being silent. (II/1, 342)

In other words, in accordance with the mutuality and reciprocity between the dialectical elements, Barth believes that the meanings of the elements are coinherent. The critical implication of this coinherence is that it prohibits God’s identity from being rigidly segmented according to the categories of God’s life ad extra and ad intra or of humanity’s apprehending and not apprehending God. This twofold implication has not always been appreciated, so both parts deserve further elucidation. First, divine love does indeed provide a special opportunity to think about God’s being pro nobis and so also divine freedom provides a special opportunity to think about God’s being in se. Barth can write, ‘Only as He gives Himself to us as the One who loves does He withdraw from us also in His holy freedom’ (II/1, 349).44 However, the distinction itself between God pro nobis and God in se is ‘heuristic’ (heuristische) rather than ‘constitutive’ (konstitutive).45 It is of the nature of the matter that as we speak about God’s love, there is first cause to think about God in his fellowship with another, generally speaking, with the world which has been created by him. And conversely it appears that when we speak about God in his freedom, it first has to do with his sovereignty over against all which is not himself and also over against the world which has been created by him. But this distinction cannot be essential and a matter of principle. (II/1, 344)

The knowledge of God includes both divine ‘majesty’ and divine ‘condescension’.46 Nonetheless, ‘What he is there in the heights (which he also is for us) is what he 44 45 46

Cf. II/1, 272–5, 297–301. KD II/1, 389; CD, 345. KD II/1, 388; CD, 345.

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is here in the depths (which he also is in himself). And that being the case, we only speak about God when we know that he is both – and that he is both in this reciprocal relation, in this differentiated unity’ (II/1, 345). In the Göttingen lectures, personality means being pro nobis and aseity means being in se, but in the Church Dogmatics the coinherence of these elements forbids such polarization. Here Barth further extends his revision of the Protestant orthodox tradition by saying that there can be no attributa absoluta, quiescentia, metaphysica, externa, transeuntia, derivata, or incommunicabilia which are not also relativa, operativa, moralia, interna, immanentia, primitiva, communicabilia (II/1, 345).47 On the one hand, God’s love cannot simply mean pro nobis and immanence: ‘God’s love is in no way coincident with His being for us. He is the One who loves in Himself quite apart from His relation to the existence of another’ (II/1, 347–8). In its coinherence with divine freedom, God’s love carries with it an association with God being pro nobis, but it properly indicates that God is pro alio. In God’s eternal being, God is ‘with another and for another and in another’ (Miteinander und Füreinander und Ineinander) by virtue of the loving fellowship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.48 Divine love cannot simply point to God’s directedness towards creatures because divine ‘majesty’ is also God’s ‘eternal love’ (II/1, 345). On the other hand, God’s freedom cannot simply mean in se and transcendence: ‘God’s freedom is not in any way identical with God’s being over against the world, but is just as operative in His relation to the world as in His being in Himself ’ (II/1, 347). In its coinherence with divine love, God’s freedom carries with it an association with God being in se, but it properly indicates that God is a se. God’s freedom does not simply indicate God’s existence beyond the creaturely sphere, because in revelation, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit demonstrate the freedom of God to love creatures. God’s ‘condescension’ is also ‘the freedom personally entering our world of time’ (II/1, 345).49 Second, divine love does indeed provide a special opportunity to think about God’s gracious gift of creaturely apprehension and so also divine freedom 47

48 49

In Holmes’ words, the Church Dogmatics ‘recasts the discussion away from the duality of incommunicable and communicable and in its place offers a robust account of God’s freedom as bestowed or communicated – but not surrendered’ (Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 71). KD II/1, 308; CD, 275. Jan Štefan rightly discerns the associations of each of these elements when he speaks of the perfections of divine love as those of ‘condescension’ (Kondeszendenz) and the perfection of divine freedom as those of ‘transcendence’ (Transzendenz) or ‘sovereignty’ (Souveränität) (Štefan, ‘Gottes Vollkommenheiten nach KD II/1’, 93; cf. 94–101). However, in using these designations which run more explicitly across the immanent–economic axis than do ‘love’ and ‘freedom’, there is an increased danger that one might fail to appreciate the merely heuristic role that this axis has in guiding Barth’s description of the divine reality.

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provides a special opportunity to think about God’s inapprehensibility (II/1, 343). Accordingly, this twofold scheme is sometimes accompanied by ‘the temptation to attempt a certain logical and epistemological deduction’ of God’s identity.50 That is, one might think that through divine love, God is knowable on the basis of human concepts and that this knowledge can then be purified through recognizing that God is also free, beyond the capacity of human concepts. This risk is even greater if, as in the Göttingen lectures, the first element is tied to the via eminentiae and the second to the via negationis. Of course, even when Barth had made this connection, he disallowed the via triplex from turning into a foundation for a natural theology. Nonetheless, by the time of the Church Dogmatics he becomes convinced that distinguishing love and freedom according to this threefold method is too artificial (II/1, 346–7). Even if a certain validity is granted to associating the positive expansion of creaturely concepts with divine immanence and associating the negation of creaturely concepts with divine transcendence, this does not establish a trustworthy basis for deducing the divine identity. This would be possible only if there were an ontological analogy between God and creatures available apart from Jesus Christ. For Barth, however, God is beyond all creaturely superlatives and antitheses. God’s gracious presence confounds any such attempts because God is immanent in transcendence and transcendent for immanence. Since God loves even in God’s life in se, the positive concepts taken up through the via eminentiae ‘make shipwreck on the rock of this eternal selfexistence of God’ (II/1, 348). Since God is free even in God’s life pro nobis, God’s freedom ‘is certainly not to be apprehended only by means of negative concepts’ (II/1 347). Neither divine unveiling nor divine love serve to establish a basis for the knowledge of God apart from the veiling and freedom which characterize this very same action. The basis for the knowledge of God is Jesus Christ, the one through whom God loves creatures in freedom. In sum, God’s love and freedom are both the depth and the actualization of God’s life as Immanuel.51

The clarification of concepts and the unity of God Turning to dialectical Denkform, the strategy in this account bears much similarity to the pattern found in the Göttingen lectures – and accordingly, in 50 51

KD II/1, 389; CD, 346. It is ‘in Jesus Christ that God’s love and freedom cohere’ (Mangina, Karl Barth, 59; emphasis original; see also Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 53).

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his Elgersburg lecture. However, by this time Barth has shifted his focus away from the true but penultimate message of the incapacity of human speech about God and instead turned more towards God’s gracious gift of Godself in, with and under human speech. God’s revelation is God’s condescension to the creature. This condescension is actualised in His Word by His Holy Spirit. When this takes place we are authorised and commanded continually to undertake in faith – not looking back to our own incapacity but trusting only in God’s own capacity – the attempt to respond to His revelation with human views and concepts and therefore with human words. (II/1, 200)

This is evidence of the fact that Barth continues to utilize dialectic, but he leans in the direction of the way of dogmatism.52 As for this use of dialectic, several clarifications are in order.

The incapacity and expansion in speaking of God First, love and freedom are a noetic dialectic which reflects the difference between human witness and divine self-communication and draws attention to God’s capacity to become known through finite and fallen concepts. In continuity with the Göttingen lectures, the knowledge of God is still the knowledge of faith, that is, ‘indirect’ knowledge (II/1, 17). The aim is still to describe ‘the one complete God’ according to which God is unveiled and veiled, apprehended and not apprehended, and therefore also loving and free.53 Moreover, since the concepts which Barth takes up to describe the divine perfections are still unable to ‘grasp’ the divine object in its ‘clarity’ and ‘richness’, he correspondingly upholds their dialectical structure.54 Nonetheless, whereas the former account emphasizes human weakness, the latter account emphasizes divine strength. In the Göttingen lectures, the theological movement from ‘God is God’ (divine revelation) to ‘I am the Lord’ (Christian witness) is described in terms of the shattering of human language in the presence of the divine reality. In other words, the duality of God’s identity in revelation arises from both the twofold movement of God’s action and the dialectical fragmentation of human language. By contrast, in the Church 52

53 54

See especially Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 246–7; Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 119–20. KD II/1, 386; CD, 343. KD II/1, 402–3; CD, 358.

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Dogmatics, Barth more strongly emphasizes that the unified duality of God’s identity in revelation is given in revelation: [T]he act that is visible in God’s revelation is not so constituted that we can conclude from it no more than the tautology ‘God is God.’ This very tautology as such we find clarified and explained in God’s revelation. For it is nothing less than God’s self-revelation. It is the revelation of the name by which He wills to be known and addressed by us, the name which does not add a second and extrinsic truth to the first intrinsic truth of His intimate, hidden essence, but which is the name and the criterion and the truth (i.e., the disclosure and description of the particularity) of His innermost hidden essence. This essence of God which is seen in His revealed name is His being and therefore His act as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The fact that He makes Himself visible in this name is the solution of the tautology. From this name of His we have to conclude what and how He is in His act and therefore in His being: what is divine, what is the character of Him who is God, what makes God God, what therefore His ‘essence’ is. (II/1, 273)

Both accounts teach that God can be apprehended but not comprehended (II/1, 286; cf. 199), but here there is a greater focus on the fact that humanity’s inability to comprehend God does not mitigate the real knowledge that God grants through concepts. This disposition is especially evident in Barth’s discussion of the concept of divine personhood. If we know God only in a human way, even in this limit we know Him on the basis of His revelation as the One He is. He is the One who loves, surpassing all our concepts and ideas of love, but still the One who truly loves, and therefore One – person. As One, as person, He surpasses all our concepts and ideas of person, but still He reveals what one, a person, really and truly is. We are therefore allowed and commanded within the limits of what is human to speak the truth when we speak of Him as the One, as personal; the truth, beyond which there is no greater, because in the mystery of His ways which we cannot unravel, God is none other than the One as whom He has made Himself manifest and comprehensible to us in His revelation. (II/1, 286)

Barth has not relinquished his use of self-criticism, but his use of dialectic is now more fully in the service of dogmatism. The focus is now on the positive conviction that divine love and freedom can indeed become the knowledge of faith through the presence of God in this action. Second, love and freedom are still a noetic dialectic which protects the divinity of God by maintaining the mutual participation and reciprocity of the elements. The section on the relation between love and freedom explained how

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Barth’s rejection of master concepts and systems leads him to balance love and freedom equally. The additional point in this context is that it is specifically Barth’s dialectical juxtaposition of love and freedom which performs the requisite ‘anti-ideological function’ and which therefore prevents any particular theme or attribute from ‘monopolizing’ the discussion.55 In continuity with the Göttingen lectures, Barth’s dialectical Denkform reflects the fact that concepts cannot grasp God and purifies each concept so that it can more fittingly reflect the indissoluble subjectivity of God in revelation. The meaning of each element becomes clear only in its reciprocal relation with the other.56 Throughout this account Barth speaks of ‘the reciprocal description and demarcation’ (der gegenseitigen Bezeichnung und Begrenzung) of each class of perfections by the other57 and therefore of ‘a relationship of reciprocal penetration and fulfillment’ (ein Verhältnis gegenseitiger Durchdringung und Erfüllung).58 In this way, Barth’s use of noetic dialectic in his doctrine of God continues to bear witness to God’s divinity.59 We only speak of God insofar as witness is given to God’s perfection in both elements (II/1, 345). God’s freedom is not an abstract freedom or sovereignty, nor is God’s love an abstract seeking and finding of fellowship. Similarly, all the perfections of the 55 56

57

58 59

Štefan, ‘Gottes Vollkommenheiten nach KD II/1’, 92; cf. 94–5. See Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 43; Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 183–5. Wolf Krötke is critical of this aspect of Barth’s approach. He argues that on this basis Barth’s doctrine of divine freedom functions as a ‘limitation’ (Einschränkung) of what may be said about God on the basis of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ (Wolf Krötke, Gottes Klarheiten: Eine Neuinterpretation der Lehre von Gottes ‘Eigenschaften’ [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001], 28). In his own theology, he rejects the dialectical juxtaposition of the perfections of love and freedom and, in accordance with the title of his key work on the doctrine of God, prefers to speak of God’s ‘clarities’ so as to lay greater stress on the revelatory function of each perfection considered in itself. Following Krötke, Christopher Holmes likewise worries that this juxtaposition might compromise ‘the concrete co-inherence of the perfections as perfections’, that is, their unified reciprocity which they have directly by virtue of being God’s perfections rather than indirectly through these pairings (Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 223). He further claims that although Barth intends to affirm the ‘indissoluble unity’ of God in these perfections, the mutual correcting of one type by the other is ultimately an ‘unnecessary abstraction’ which threatens their individual ‘clarity’ (Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 223–4; emphasis original; cf. 230–1). In response, although Krötke’s depiction of Barth on divine freedom is somewhat reductionistic, his overall critique that each perfection should be seen as ‘clear’ in itself bears much weight. However, the corollary criticism that Barth compromises God’s unity is less serious. It is interesting to note that while some such as these accuse Barth of compromising the unity of the perfections, others such as Mitchell Grell accuse Barth of compromising their distinction (see Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 44n. 27). As has already been discussed, most studies recognize that Barth has given God’s unity a central place in this doctrine. KD II/1, 387; CD, 344. Similarly, he later speaks of the ‘demarcation and supplementation’ (Begrenzung und Ergänzung) of the elements (KD II/1, 402–3; CD, 358). KD II/1, 423; CD, 376. Especially note Barth’s use of the terms Gottheit, Göttlichkeit, gottheitlichen, göttlich and Gottsein. In §28.3, Barth clusters most of this divinity language in the introduction and the conclusion (see KD II/1, 334–7, 360–1; CD, 297–300, 320–1). See Štefan, ‘Gottes Vollkommenheiten nach KD II/1’, 87.

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divine freedom and love are not truths, realities and powers which exist in themselves, and God’s being is not self-enclosed and pure divine being. What makes it divine and real being is the fact that it is the being of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and it is in the fact that they exist in this triune God in His one but differentiated being that God’s freedom and love and all His perfections are divine in this concretion. (II/1, 659)

For this reason, in giving witness to the divine being, Barth begins with the affirmation that it is God’s love that distinguishes God’s action as ‘divine’ (II/1, 275). ‘That He is God – the Godhead of God – consists in the fact that He loves’ (II/1, 275).60 So also in the final section Barth turns to ‘the aseity, the freedom of the divine living and loving, and only to that extent the divinity of this living and loving’ (II/1, 321). In the doctrine of the divine perfections, this dialectic and its corollary theme of God’s divinity shine through even more strongly.61 Moreover, here Barth’s use of dialectic demonstrates a much greater degree of symmetry and consistency than is found in the Göttingen lectures.62 Having affirmed that love and freedom are ‘the two aspects of divinity’ in §29 (II/1, 350), the theses of CD, §§30–1 both indicate that in each case God’s ‘divinity . . . consists and confirms itself ’ in the pairings of perfections which alternately reflect love and freedom (II/1, 351, 440). Therefore, at the outset of §30 Barth clarifies, ‘God’s love is in fact divine only in so far as it is exercised in His freedom. . . . God’s freedom is divine only in so far as it is the freedom in which He loves’ (II/1, 351). Then at the outset of §31 he again adds, ‘God’s freedom is divine as the freedom in which God expresses His love. The opposite is also true. God’s love is divine as the love which is free’ (II/1, 440). At this juncture, some interpreters argue that in §30 perfections of love are paired with perfections of freedom and in §31 perfections of freedom are paired 60 61

62

Cf. II/1, 272–3, 283–4. Barth anticipates the function which love and freedom will have in the doctrine of the divine perfections back in his treatment on the doctrine of the divine being. ‘We must also focus on this same centre when we come to discuss the doctrine of the attributes of God, and we try to find a common explanation of the divine loving as such and the divine freedom as such’ (II/1, 284). And again, ‘If later on we shall not be able to portray fully the attributes of divine love except with close attention to their divinity, i.e., their divine excellence, conversely we shall have to understand this divinity of God in all its aspects as the sum of His freedom’ (II/1, 302). Barth is, of course, well known for his use of form to reflect theological content, but the particular care which he gives throughout CD, §§30–1 has still been especially noteworthy to many interpreters. It has been described as ‘deliberately and perfectly symmetrical’ (Robert W. Jenson, God After God: The God of the Past and the God of the Future, Seen in the Work of Karl Barth [Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969], 135; cf. Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 5, 102). It contains ‘a sixfold double dialectic, which is carefully structured to bring out both aspects of the divine event-reality’ (Gunton, Becoming and Being, 188). For more on this structure, see Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 49–54, 99–103.

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with perfections of love.63 However, it is more accurate to say that in each case the second perfection is still intended to uphold the emphasis of the first perfection, but it also adds the corollary emphasis.64 More specifically, §30 presents three pairs of perfections which emphasize God’s love (grace and holiness, mercy and righteousness, and patience and wisdom), but the second perfection in each pairing also calls attention to God’s freedom,65 thereby showing the divinity of God’s love.66 Then §31 presents three pairs of perfections which emphasize God’s freedom (unity and omnipresence, constancy and omnipotence, and eternity and glory), but the second perfection in each pairing also calls attention to God’s love,67 thereby showing the divinity of God’s freedom.68 This structure can be depicted as follows.69

§30 The Perfections of Love

§31 The Perfections of Freedom

Love

Love in Freedom

Freedom

Freedom to Love

Grace

Holiness

Unity

Omnipresence

Mercy

Righteousness

Constancy

Omnipotence

Patience

Wisdom

Eternity

Glory

Third, love and freedom are a noetic dialectic without any logical contradiction or incompatibility. Whereas the dialectic of personality and aseity in the Göttingen lectures is one of collision and antithesis – the bursting and shattering of concepts – the relation here is marked by a strong sense of unity and

63

64 65

66

67

68

69

For example, Gunton, The Barth Lectures, 103; cf. idem, Act and Being: Towards a Theology of the Divine Attributes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2003), 100. So also Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 99–100. ‘In God wisdom is related to patience as is holiness to grace, and righteousness to mercy. All these ideas express and translate the love of God. But the second set of ideas – holiness, righteousness and wisdom – express with greater distinctness than the first (grace, mercy and patience) the fact that it is His free and therefore distinctively divine love’ (II/1, 422). In introducing §30 he says that ‘the divinity of His love consists and confirms itself in the fact that it is grace, mercy and patience and in that way and for that reason it is also holiness, righteousness and wisdom. These are the perfections of His love. In this its divinity consists and is confirmed’ (II/1, 352). The pairs of perfection are ‘both be directed to God’s freedom, but the second in such a way that it reminds us of the cohesion and unity of God’s freedom with His love’ (II/1, 441). In introducing §31 he writes, ‘As we speak of His omnipresence, omnipotence and glory, we glance back again from His freedom to His love, and therefore – in this context – to his divinity. The divinity of His freedom consists and confirms itself in the fact that even in His unity He is omnipresent, in His constancy omnipotent, and in His eternity glorious. This fact is the criterion of the divinity of all the perfections of his freedom’ (II/1, 441). Once again, in order to appreciate the increased structure in this account, compare this table with the one for the Göttingen lectures (§§16–17) in the previous chapter.

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compatibility between the elements.70 It is, in Holmes words, ‘less dialectically sharp’.71 Previously, the concepts used to describe God’s attributes were not correct in themselves but only in their dialectical juxtaposition with themes from the opposing element (e.g., GD, 420). In this context, although concepts for the perfections of a given class do serve ‘to demarcate and safeguard the right understanding’ of those of the other, this occurs without contradiction in human thought.72 As the second element in each pairing is formally set alongside the first, it does not indicate any ‘material antithesis’ (sachlichen Gegensätzen) but rather the ‘depth and majesty’.73 This shift in focus is a question of looking at ‘the same object’, not from the ‘opposite’ (entgegengesetzten) perspective, but rather from a ‘distinct’ (unterschiedenen) one.74

The God above creaturely incapacity Corresponding to this turn away from antithesis, Church Dogmatics II/1 also further clarifies that God exists in perfect unity precisely in God’s richness and multiplicity. The focus shifts from the dialectical tension in creaturely

70

71 72

73 74

A parallel shift occurs in Barth’s conception of personality and absoluteness. In both ‘Belief in a Personal God’ and the Göttingen lectures, these concepts are held together only with strong and irreconcilable tension and contradiction. In the Church Dogmatics, however, Barth says that holding these two ideas together in reference to God cannot be a question of ‘logical contradiction’ (II/1, 287). God is not merely inapprehensible in the juxtaposition of these concepts; God is inapprehensible when any human concepts are taken up by fallen humanity to describing the God who is inapprehensible even in God’s unified self-presentation. That is, ‘the (to us) inexplicable paradox of the nature of God is the fact that He is primarily and properly all that our terms seeks to mean, and yet of themselves cannot mean, that He has revealed Himself to us in His original and proper being, thus remaining incomprehensible to us even in His revelation, yet allowing and commanding us to put our concepts into the service of knowledge of Him, blessing our obedience, being truly known by us within our limits. It is the paradox of the combination of His grace and our lost condition, not the paradox of the combination of two for us logically irreconcilable concepts’ (II/1, 287). For more on this revision, see Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 233. Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 71. KD II/1, 587; CD, 522. Although Henning Schröer identifies the dialectical relation between the perfections of love and freedom as ‘a complementary dialectic’ (eine komplementäre Dialektik), he nonetheless observes that Barth does not always use ‘antithetical’ (antithetische) concepts – as is particularly seen in how patience and wisdom are held together (Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem, 151–2). Similarly, according to Cross, since the dialectical pattern in §§28–31 is modelled after Barth’s doctrine of the perichoresis, it does not involve ‘contradiction or tension’ (Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 181). Thus, ‘the dialectical style here is not one that holds together two necessarily contradictory poles of loving and freedom, but rather is one which unites and reciprocates more in the style of perichoresis the two aspects of God that are most prominent in God’s revelation’ (Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 182). KD II/1, 475; CD, 422. KD II/1, 475–6; CD, 422. It is therefore preferable not to speak of Barth as utilizing a formal dialectic with two ‘polar’ (polaren) concepts – at least not without further qualification (Štefan, ‘Gottes Vollkommenheiten nach KD II/1’, 94–5).

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apprehension and turns to the unity of God in God’s action.75 In the relation between God’s being and perfections, In God multiplicity, individuality and diversity do not stand in any contradiction to unity. Rather the very unity of His being consists in the multiplicity, individuality and diversity of His perfections, which since they are His are not capable of any dissolution or separation or non-identity, and which again since they are His are capable of genuine multiplicity, individuality and diversity. The plurality which is to be predicated of God can therefore, even in its multiplicity, because it is the multiplicity of God, signify only the unity. (II/1, 332)76

More generally considered, since the Realdialektik of revelation is not operative in the divine life ad intra, this duality and succession can only be valid as a description of the one who lives in perfect unity, free from dialectical tension. Jesus Christ is ‘without tension, dialectic, paradox, or contradiction’ (II/1, 663).77 The dialectic of revelation is ‘real’, but it only holds with respect to God’s relations ad extra. As with unveiling and veiling so also with love and freedom, the elements can and must be distinguished, but they must likewise be understood as descriptions of divine reality which is unified in itself.78 Therefore, while Barth speaks of the need for ‘demarcation and supplementation’ of the divine perfections, this applies ‘not in itself, not in God, but in our mode of knowledge’.79 ‘In this one thing, in God Himself, in the plenitude of His being, there is no division and therefore no mutual qualification and augmentation of His attributes. But this does apply to the concepts by which we are allowed to recognise God on the basis of His revelation and in the truth of His unity and plenitude’ (II/1, 375). ‘Each of these is perfect in itself and in combination with

75

76

77 78

79

For his reason, among others, here Barth decides not to designate his approach to the divine attributes as ‘dialectical’. Nonetheless, in continuity with the Göttingen lectures, he retains his designation of each of the two leading descriptions of God as a Moment or Wesensmoment (KD II/1, 333, 380, 384). Thus, here too ‘God is understood as the union of Personality and Absoluteness; Loving and Freedom; Life and Aseitas. True to his academic training, Barth holds these properties in dialectical unity: materially one, conceptually dialectical’ (Sonderegger, ‘The Absolute Infinity of God’, 40). Barth makes this same point, for example, in relation to both God’s threefold eternity and God’s triunity: ‘In this connexion, too, there is in God both distinction and peace. If it is utterly necessary to know Him in His distinction, this certainly does not mean that we can expect to find real contradictions. For here, too, the whole distinction takes place in the one, complete unity of God and therefore without contradiction’ (II/1, 639). See Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 192–3. Although, as has been argued, Cross overly diminishes the legitimate distinction between love and freedom, he ably captures the general tenor of Barth’s focus in his observation that ‘in God there is no contradiction, cleavage, or duality. In the Word of God itself, there is no dialectic’ (Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 182n. 20). KD II/1, 402–3; CD, 358.

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all the others’ – a fact which must be reflected at the level of human witness (II/1, §29 thesis). In sum, the Church Dogmatics portrays divine love and freedom as a unityin-distinction. On this account, the ‘paradoxical simultaneity’ of unveiling and veiling and the corresponding polarity between the concepts of personality and aseity give way to the sequence of unveiling and veiling and the corresponding unity of the God who loves in freedom.80 Love and freedom are distinguishable realities in God’s being and in relation to God’s perfections. Furthermore, love and freedom, along with their respective perfections, require expansion and clarification in human thought. However, all of these concepts describe the one perfect God who lives in simplicity and multiplicity. Since we have to do with divine love and freedom, there can be no question of disunity. As the title of CD, §28 indicates, God is the one who loves in freedom. On this basis, Barth makes clear that the aseity which God expresses in God’s love pro nobis in Jesus Christ is the elected path of God’s being-in-action. The eternal plentitude of the triune love is faithfully made known and faithfully present in this history. Having addressed the pairing of love and freedom in light of its theological and historical background, what remains is to synthesize and apply the insights of these first two sections in the form of a direct analysis of the meaning and function of divine aseity according to the material at hand. This analysis will first take the form of an anatomy and then of a paraphrase.

80

UCR, 2:148; GD, 426.

Part Three

The Aseity of God

How could we speak about God and even for a moment not think about God’s aseity? – Barth, GD, 384 rev.

7

An Anatomy

In turning directly to the doctrine of divine aseity, the first task is to present an anatomy which identifies the most basic features of Barth’s interpretation. The key points of this exploration may be summarized as follows. As a statement about the reality of divine revelation, divine aseity is the self-demonstration and self-movement of God’s life. As a statement about the particularity of the Christian God, divine aseity is a trinitarian and entirely unique reality. As a statement about the incapacity of human witness, divine aseity is a primarily positive and dynamic concept. As a statement about the election of the one who loves, divine aseity is the manner and readiness of God’s love for creatures.

The reality of divine revelation The self-demonstration of God’s life First, divine aseity is the self-demonstration of God’s life rather than its human demonstration. As the God who is known on the basis of God’s own objectivity (II/1, §25), and as the God who is revealed in the event in which God’s eternal being-in-action lovingly turns ad extra (II/1, §28.1), God is not an anthropologically grounded possibility. In the context of the doctrine of the reality of God, Barth views the concept of aseity as a valuable resource in his ongoing polemic against natural theology, a polemic which was quite forcefully expressed in the preceding section on the knowledge of God. Accordingly, Barth is careful to ensure that the corollary concepts of divine necessity and absoluteness refrain from assuming an anthropological conception of being and projecting it into the heavens. Barth finds this danger acutely present in the Catholic doctrine of God as the ens necessarium, or rather, as the being whose non-existence or existence in another way is intrinsically impossible. The fact that God eternally exists and does so in this way is not noetically necessary in abstracto. If this were

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the case there would be little protection against the Feuerbachian critique that this necessary God is merely the ‘postulated apotheosis’ of creaturely existence (II/1, 307). The ‘genuine necessity’ of God ‘can spring only from the God who knows no necessity, who, not needing His own being, simply has being as a matter of empirical fact, thus affirming Himself in fact, although He does not need to, as the One who is’ (II/1, 307). Similarly, Barth holds that one must not ground the doctrine of aseity in God’s secondary absoluteness, or rather, in God’s independence in relation to creatures. This notion of God’s freedom from creaturely deficit and need could very well be ‘the reflection of our own existence’ (II/1, 310) and ‘a product of our own wishful thinking’ (II/1, 308). Therefore, as with the opening pages of the Church Dogmatics, the justification of theology must always be a matter of ‘factual necessity’ (faktische Notwendigkeit).1 The doctrine of divine aseity can only be established on the basis of its ‘factual confirmation’ (faktische Bestätigung)2 and therefore on the basis of ‘the decision made in God’s actual existence’.3 Moreover, the doctrine of aseity must not be appropriated for the task of establishing an abstract proof of God’s existence. In the context of §28.3, Barth is especially clear on this point in relation to the ontological argument.4 With Anselm, Barth agrees that God should be understood as aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit, but he also stipulates that this concept must never leave itself susceptible to the claim that it is no more than an ‘idealization’ of humanity (II/1, 305).5 The ontological supremacy of the one who is a se cannot become ‘a hypostatised summary of His non-being in relation to all other kinds of being’ if it is to speak of God genuinely rather than merely ‘prove the existence of man from the awareness of his own limitation’ (II/1, 305). The object of this doctrine is not an ‘idea’, but God’s own ‘proof of existence’ (Existenzbeweis).6 It is 1 2 3 4

5

6

KD I/1, 4; CD, 6. KD II/1, 347; cf. 344–5; CD, 308; cf. 306–7. ‘die in Gottes faktischer Existenz fallende Entscheidung’ (KD II/1, 346; CD, 308). Later in the doctrine of creation, Barth further opposes the abstract conception of aseity in relation to the cosmological argument. The subject of creation is not merely a self-existent first cause, a concept which is inevitably posited by humanity. The subject of creation is the self-existent trinity who is only ever self-positing and, by way of appropriation, specifically the eternal Father (III/1, 11–13, 27, 44; cf. 48–59). Both in Fides quaerens intellectum (1931) and here, Barth views Anselm as stopping short of this error (Barth, Anselm, esp. 44–53; CD II/1, 305). KD II/1, 346; CD, 308. Note Barth’s repetition of the language of ‘proving’ (bewähren) and ‘demonstrating’ (bewiesen). God ‘proves and demonstrates’ (bewährt und beweist) God’s freedom to begin with Godself in God’s existence by beginning with Godself in God’s self-revelation (KD II/1, 342; CD, 304). God has ‘proved and demonstrated’ (bewährte und bewiesene) the ability of God’s freedom by loving creatures (KD II/1, 341; CD, 303). And again, God has ‘demonstrated and proved’ (beweist und bewährt) the genuineness of this freedom through God’s faithful presence with creatures (KD II/1, 358; CD, 318).

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God’s own self-demonstration. It is ‘the freedom with which He proves His own existence, the proof which every human proof of His existence can only repeat if it is really to prove God’s existence’ (II/1, 304). This idea is simply the extension of Barth’s conviction from CD I/1 that God’s reality and revelation are equally enactments of God’s a se.7 Therefore, as Barth repeated notes throughout §28.3, the doctrine of God’s aseity can only arise from its actual exercise in revelation.8 Divine aseity is not an anthropologically grounded possibility but a christologically grounded actuality. Barth’s admonition is to begin not by speaking, but by listening: ‘who and what He is cannot be constructed mathematically or logically or ethically or psychologically. We have simply to listen to Himself on the point’ (II/1, 376). To say that God’s freedom is manifest in its actual exercise is to say that it is concretely manifest in Jesus Christ: ‘In all its possibilities and shapes it remains the freedom which consists and is exercised in Jesus Christ. If we recognise and magnify it, we cannot come from any other starting-point but Him or move to any other goal’ (II/1, 320). As the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone is ‘the principle and basis of all divine immanence’ (II/1, 317). If the freedom of divine immanence is sought and supposedly found apart from Jesus Christ, it can signify in practice only our enslavement to a false god. For this reason Jesus Christ alone must be preached to the heathen as the immanent God, and the Church must be severely vigilant to see that it expects everything from Jesus Christ, and from Jesus Christ everything.9

Here, as elsewhere, there can be no theology which exists apart from christology (II/1, 320).10 Correspondingly, there can be no speculation about divine aseity. In what constitutes one of the most central themes throughout CD, §§28–31, Barth affirms that we cannot look to God ‘behind’ or ‘beyond’ revelation, that is, 7

8 9 10

The aseity of the Word of God plays a significant role throughout Church Dogmatics volume I: ‘God is a se. This is unreservedly true of His Word too. But God’s aseity is not empty freedom. In God all potentiality is included in His actuality and therefore all freedom in His decision. Decision means choice, exercised freedom. We understand the Word of God very badly in isolation from the unconditional freedom in which it is spoken, but we also understand it very badly if we regard it as a mere possibility rather than freedom exercised, a decision made, a choice taking place’ (I/1, 157). ‘It is quite impossible to say that the Word of God “might” be universally present and ascertainable. This “might” always characterises a created reality distinct from God in His aseity and actuality. The Word of God is uncreated reality, identical with God Himself. Hence it is not universally present and ascertainable, not even potentially’ (I/1, 158). See also I/1, 115–20, 304–7; cf. III/2, 150–2; IV/2, 58–9. See especially II/1, 301, 303, 304–5, 320. II/1, 319–20; emphasis original. Cf. II/1, 148–50, 298–9, 317–320.

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Jesus Christ.11 ‘We cannot get behind God – behind God in His revelation – to try to ask and determine from outside what He is. We can only learn and then attempt to repeat what He Himself alone can tell us and has told us – who He is’ (II/1, 321). This resolute commitment to God’s actual self-demonstration in Jesus Christ has crucial implications for the remaining motifs in Barth’s doctrine of aseity. The christocentrism of divine aseity sets its formulation down the path of Christian particularity and specificity. Since, in John Webster’s terms, Barth’s doctrine of aseity is affirmed ‘doxologically’ and dogmatically rather than ‘functionally’ and apologetically, this concept concretely points to the eternal life of the holy trinity which includes the history of Jesus Christ.12

The self-movement of God’s life Second, divine aseity is the self-movement of God’s life rather than merely its ground. The issue here is twofold. For one thing, this issue concerns the scope of divine aseity. Is its reference more narrowly to the basis of God’s existence or does it point more inclusively to the character of God’s existence? For some accounts, and especially those with an apologetic orientation, this doctrine amounts to little more than a theogony. Divine aseity indicates how it is that God eternally exists, or rather, that God exists. However, once this preliminary ‘how’ question is answered, the doctrine reaches its limit. It fades into the background as the attention turns to the other more substantial characteristics of this one who is a se.13 With Barth’s highly christological and concrete account, by contrast, a quite different course is taken. For Barth, God’s aseity is ‘the freedom of the divine living and loving’ (II/1, 321). More particularly, it concerns ‘the divine characteristics by which, as He who lives and loves, He manifests His sovereignty’ 11 12

13

See especially II/1, 260–3, 272–3, 281, 298–300, 320–1, 373–5, 513, 517. Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 111. For Barth on the danger of apologetics, see, for example, Barth, Evangelical Theology, 15–16. It is also worth noting that according to Molnar, ‘the critical insight which ought to be retrieved from Barth’s theology is that God’s freedom signifies that he is a se but not as defined by any philosophical principle. Ted Peters mistakenly supposes that any notion that God is a se must arise from philosophy whereas God’s positive and negative freedom derive only from his own unique being and act as Father, Son, and Spirit. Moltmann and Pannenberg also incorrectly criticize Barth for this’ (Molnar, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity, 145). This need not imply that the ideas which have been determined to stand outside of the doctrine of divine aseity are therefore compromised. In many cases these ideas are simply restructured and placed in alternate doctrinal relations. For example, Bavinck claims that in the Reformed tradition the term aseity ‘only expresses God’s self-sufficiency in his existence’, whereas the term independence ‘has a broader sense and implies that God is independent in everything: in his existence, in his perfections, in his decrees, and in his works’ (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:152).

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(II/1, 321). One might therefore say that Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity is not theogonic but theonomic.14 That is, it is a statement about the majestic and selfdetermined rule which characterizes all of who God is ad extra and ad intra.15 The other matter which this issue concerns is whether God’s being is understood in static or in dynamic terms. Barth perceives the former tendency in the well-intended doctrine of aseity expressed in many of the church fathers and medieval theologians – a tendency which is later emulated within Protestant orthodoxy. According to this static understanding, ‘God is everything in the way of aseity, simplicity, immutability, infinity, etc., but He is not the living God, that is to say, He is not the God who lives in concrete decision’ (II/2, 79).16 God is a se, but in an inactive and indeterminate manner. It is not the aseity of the one whose being is in action and is concretely determined for existence as Immanuel. It is an interpretation of the aseity of the ‘I am who I am’ which elevates the concept of immutability (Exod. 3:14).17 For Barth, the immobility of this God does not arise from Scripture, but instead from the abstract development of classical conceptions of God such as ipsum ens, actus simplex et perfectissimus and primum principium et primum movens (II/1, 493). Exodus 3:14, he argues, in no way warrants a ‘motionless ipsum ens’ (II/1, 495).18 God exists beyond the creaturely antithesis of rest and 14

15

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18

In CD, §§23–4, Barth describes theonomy as God’s rule in the sphere of revelation. In relation to church proclamation and dogmatics, theonomy is thus ‘the freedom and sovereignty of the divine work and action consummated in God’s revealed Word, as the way which God has taken, takes and will take with man in the person of Jesus Christ and through the operation of the Holy Spirit’ (I/2, 856–7; see also Macken, The Autonomy Theme, 26–37; cf. 42–7). Despite their differences, Pannenberg’s interpretation of God as causa sui runs parallel to Barth’s conviction note here in this regard. Interpreting this concept as God’s self-actualization, he finds that when it is ‘applied to the relation between the immanent and the economic Trinity the thought does not express a theogony; it expresses the inner dynamic of the self-identity of the trinitarian God in his relation to creation’ (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1:391). For Barth on this additional notion of God’s triune self-actualization, see II/1, 305–6. ‘The knowledge of the majesty of God must not be misused to set up that idol of the one and absolute which is “properly” without motion, utterance, or action’ (II/1, 345). The connection between aseity and immutability in the divine name of Exodus 3:14 is particularly strong in Augustine. For example, he writes, ‘Now other things that we call beings or substances admit of modifications, by which they are modified and changed to a great or small extent. But God cannot be modified in any way, and therefore the substance or being which is God is alone unchangeable, and therefore it pertains to it most truly and supremely to be, from which comes the name “being.” Anything that changes does not keep its being, and anything that can change even though it does not, is able to not be what it was; and thus only that which not only does not but also absolutely cannot change deserves without qualification to be said really and truly to be’ (Augustine, De trinitate, 5.3 [Hill, 190]). This being said, as Barth himself observes, Augustine’s understanding of divine rest as active demonstrates that he at least partially shares his concern to uphold God’s living character: ‘We should not, therefore, suppose God’s rest to be a state of laziness, indolence or inertia; nor should we suppose His work to be a state of labour, endeavour or industry. He knows how to act while He rests, and to rest while He acts’ (Augustine, De civitate Dei, 12.18 [Dyson, 525]); cf. Barth, CD II/1, 493). For more on Barth’s interpretation of Exodus 3:14, see, for example, I/2, 53–4; III/2, 465.

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movement (II/1, 493). Therefore, while God can have nothing to do with the ‘unholy mutability’ of humanity, the God of Scripture bears what can be described as a ‘holy mutability’ (heilige Veränderlichkeit).19 ‘He is above all ages. But above them as their Lord . . . and therefore as the One who – as Master and in His own way – partakes in their alteration, so that there is something corresponding to that alteration in His own essence. His constancy consists in the fact that He is always the same in every change’ (II/1, 496). Therefore, while both natural being and spiritual being are unmoved, ‘God’s being is being which knows, wills and decides of itself, and is moved by itself ’ (II/1, 268). God lives in freedom.20 God’s life is ‘the fulness of difference, movement, will, decision, action, degeneration and rejuvenation’ (II/1, 492). This is the freedom which God exercises both in eternity and in time. God’s gracious presence is therefore not ‘rigid’, but rather expresses itself ‘in continually new forms according to His sovereign decisions’ (II/1, 314).

The particularity of the Christian God A trinitarian reality Third, divine aseity is trinitarian rather than monistic. Some accounts of divine aseity, while by no means denying the doctrine of the trinity, interpret this concept with little or no reference to the triune character of God’s life. This view is often held by theologians who adopt the foils noted in the previous two points, namely that aseity is a human demonstration of God and merely the grounds of God’s existence. In other words, when aseity is formulated as part of the apologetic task of demonstrating how it might be that a god exists, the trinitarian specificity of God becomes a secondary and even marginalized concern.21 However, these insufficiently trinitarian interpretations of the being of God can also be found among more theologically minded accounts. Barth interprets the Protestant orthodox theologians as having fallen into this abstraction. This error, he argues, 19 20

21

KD II/1, 557; CD, 496. Barth thus offers an actualized rereading of the traditional doctrine of God’s being: ‘God is understanding and willing, and the acts of understanding and willing belong only to a living being. Therefore, God is living. Again, to live is attributed to some beings because they are seen to move themselves, but not to be moved by another. . . . But it is supremely true of God that He does not act from another, but through Himself, since He is the first agent. Therefore, to live belongs to Him in a supreme way’ (Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, 1.97, trans. Anton C. Pegis [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975], 294; emphasis original). See Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 110–11.

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is even reflected in the ordering of their accounts: ‘How do we know God? Does God exist? What is God? and only last of all: Who is our God?’22 In other words, they move from the proofs for God’s existence (how/that) to the essence and attributes of God (what) and only then address God’s triunity (who).23 He therefore criticizes the Protestant orthodox theologians24 for not treating God’s triunity until after God’s essence has been fully set forth.25 As for Barth’s own approach, while challenges to his strong sense of divine unity have not been uncommon, it is nonetheless difficult to deny the deeply pervasive role that the trinity plays in the form and content of his theology.26 In striking contrast to the tradition, Barth places the doctrine of the trinity at the head of his dogmatics (I/1, 300). In doing so, he reflects his conviction that the how of God cannot lead to anything other than the who of God. Who God is answers the question of how God is known.27 Correspondingly, the doctrine of the trinity finds its basis in the event of revelation (I/1, 304). In this event, God as the subject of revelation is identical with both God’s act and effect (I/1, 296). ‘God reveals Himself. He reveals Himself through Himself. He

22 23

24

25

26

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I/1, 301; emphasis mine; cf. II/1, 261, 288, 348–9. As with many of Barth’s formal distinctions, in other contexts these categories of ‘how’, ‘what’ and ‘who’ are used differently according to the needs at hand. For example, in the doctrine of revelation and of the incarnation who–what–how correlates specifically to Father–Son–Spirit (I/1, §8.1; I/2, 33). Barth also finds Catholics guilty of treating the divine essence prior to God’s triunity (see especially I/1, 300–1), a concern famously shared by Rahner (see Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans. Joseph Donceel [New York: Crossroad, 1997], 15–21). Richard Muller has come to the defence of Protestant orthodoxy concerning this matter. He grants that the sequence evident in Musculus’ Loci communes and approximately reflected in Hyperius and Calvin – namely, the movement from the proofs for God’s existence, to God’s essence, to God’s attributes and names, to God’s triunity – does indeed become paradigmatic within Reformed Orthodoxy (Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 4 vols [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], 3:153–4). Nonetheless, contrary to Barth and a variety of other modern interpreters, he argues that this sequential priority of God’s essence over God’s triunity does not reflect a starting point in natural theology followed by a turn to biblical and revealed theology (Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 3:159; cf. 156). Barth’s interpretation of this movement as being from ‘that’, to ‘what’, to ‘who’ somewhat obscures this point. The Protestant orthodox theologians are more accurately interpreted as moving from ‘whether’ (an sit), to ‘what’ (quid), to ‘what sort’ (qualis) (Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 3:156). In this way, it is not merely the final section which refers to what Barth calls the divine ‘who’, but rather the entire account (Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 3:158). According to von Balthasar, the doctrine of the trinity does ‘not play a central role in shaping the overall structure’ of Barth’s theology because the accent falls on God’s oneness rather than threeness (von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 260). However, much evidence weighs against this claim (see, e.g., García-Tato, Die Trinitätslehre Karl Barths als dogmatisches Strukturprinzip, 483–673; Hunsinger, ‘Mysterium Trinitatis’, 189–203; Busch, The Great Passion, 42–8). In fact, faced with the sheer force of this doctrine in Barth’s thought, one early commentator exclaims, ‘As if it were really a matter of life and death, that as members of the church of the Twentieth Century – we should accept the dogma of the Trinity!’ (Wilhelm Pauck, Karl Barth: Prophet of a New Christianity [New York: Harper and Brothers, 1931], 189; see 174–212). See Torrance, Persons in Communion, 71–4.

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reveals Himself.’28 Therefore, just as God’s triunity distinguishes the Christian character of the doctrine of God, so also God’s triunity distinguishes the Christian character of the doctrine of revelation (I/1, 301).29 Moreover, this emphasis is by no means particular to Church Dogmatics I. Barth’s trinitarian understanding of God’s self-revelation is in fact the ‘single most decisive material presupposition’ of his doctrine of the knowledge of God.30 The whole of the doctrine of the reality of God likewise unfolds in trinitarian terms. As Barth already anticipates in volume one, ‘In a dogmatics of the Christian Church we cannot speak correctly of God’s nature and attributes unless it is presupposed that our reference is to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit’ (I/1, 312). There can be no being of God in general. For Barth, ‘a Church dogmatics derives from a doctrine of the Trinity, and therefore that there is no possibility of reckoning with the being of any other God, or with any other being of God, than that of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as it is in God’s revelation and in eternity’ (II/1, 261). It is this being which concretely reaches out to creatures in God’s act of revelation (II/1, 273). In the same way, there can be no perfections of God in general.31 Since the divine perfections are not an independent theme but simply a more concrete elucidation of the same divine being, the same trinitarian grounding is maintained with equal force (II/1, 322–4).32 It is specifically in God’s being as Father, Son and Holy Spirit that 28

29

30 31

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I/1, 296; emphasis original; see Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 27–9; cf. Alar Laats, Doctrines of the Trinity in Eastern and Western Theologies: A Study with Special Reference to K. Barth and V. Lossky (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1999), 24–8. Consider also Barth’s threefold doctrine of the word of God as Jesus Christ, Scripture and proclamation: ‘There is only one analogy to this doctrine of the Word of God. Or, more accurately, the doctrine of the Word of God is itself the only analogy to the doctrine which will be our fundamental concern as we develop the concept of revelation. This is the doctrine of the triunity of God. In the fact that we can substitute for revelation, Scripture and proclamation the names of the divine persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit and vice versa, that in the one case as in the other we shall encounter the same basic determinations and mutual relationships, and that the decisive difficulty and also the decisive clarity is the same in both – in all this one may see specific support for the inner necessity and correctness of our present exposition of the Word of God’ (I/1, 121). McCormack, ‘§27 “The Limits of the Knowledge of God”’, 75–6. However, some interpreters have questioned how fully trinitarian Barth’s account of the divine perfections is. Mitchell Grell, for example, views the trinity as relegated to the margins (see Mitchell Grell, Der ewig reiche Gott: Die Erkenntnis, Gewinnung und Bestimmung der Eigenschaften Gottes nach Isaak August Dorner, August Hermann Cremer und Karl Barth mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Einflusses der Theologie Dorners und Cremers auf die Gotteslehre Barths [PhD dissertation, University of Tübingen, 1992], 270). While not denying that some sections of this material could benefit from a more robust use of trinitarian content, Robert Price rightly views Grell as having misread Barth’s deeper intentions (Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 12–13). On Barth’s trinitarian understanding of the divine perfections, see Štefan, ‘Gottes Vollkommenheiten nach KD II/1’, 90–2; Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 75–6; Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 12–13. Isaak Dorner holds to a similar position: ‘The Doctrine of the Divine Attributes leads us back to the Trinity as it were to its underlying truth’ (Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, vol. 1, §31 thesis).

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God exists in these perfections (II/1, 659). Moreover, each of these perfections is equally possessed by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (II/1, 660).33 Most importantly for the matter at hand, this is also true of the two leading concepts in the doctrine of the reality of God. Accordingly, as in the Göttingen lectures,34 the Church Dogmatics is only interested in the freedom of ‘the God of Holy Scripture, the triune God known to us in His revelation’ (II/1, 303).35 To say that God is free on the basis of revelation is to say that God is with creatures as ‘the free Creator, the free Reconciler, the free Redeemer’ and therefore is this free God in eternity (II/1, 301). As for its negative aspect, Barth finds that God’s absoluteness ‘has its truth and reality in the inner Trinitarian life of the Father with the Son by the Holy Spirit’ (II/1, 317). As for its positive aspect, Barth accepts the Protestant orthodox affirmations that ‘God is and exists absolutely from himself and through himself ’36 and that God is ‘Spirit existing from his very self ’;37 however, he cautions that this notion of aseity can only have reference to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (II/1, 261, 268). Further, Barth generally rejects Herman Schell’s reinterpretation of God as causa sui in terms of God’s self-realization, self-constitution or self-causation. He nonetheless concedes that if Schell’s underlying intention is interpreted concretely with reference to the eternal processions, these concepts might be serviceable. ‘If the inner life of God is the life of Father, Son and Spirit, and if therefore His life resides in this process of generation, then it is hardly possible to raise any decisive objection to the description of God by the idea of self-realisation’ (II/1, 305). God’s self-realization can therefore be an acceptable theological concept as long as it exclusively applied to the Son and the Spirit rather than the Father and so long as it is interpreted in terms of aseity rather than the problematic notion of causa sui (II/1, 305–6).38 God’s aseity is thus ‘manifest and eternally actual in 33

34

35

36

37

38

Contrary to William Stacy Johnson, Barth does not appropriate the three pairings of perfections in §30 and §31, respectively, to the Father, Son and Sprit (see Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 101–2). In explaining God’s identity as ‘“I am” and “the Lord” – personality and aseity’ (GD, 372), Barth recalls that according to his doctrine of the trinity in §5, ‘this second element in the concept of God relates to all three persons’ (GD, 370). ‘God’s own freedom is trinitarian, embracing grace, thankfulness, and peace’ (Barth, ‘The Gift of Freedom’, 72). Jonathan Norgate highlights the similarly trinitarian character of Isaak Dorner’s doctrine of aseity (see Norgate, Isaak A. Dorner, 62–4, 81, 143, 172–3, 217–18). Amandus Polanus, Syntagma theologiae christianae, 2.5; cited by Barth, CD II/1, 261; see Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 52–3. Johannes Wollebius, Compendium theologiae christianae, 1.1.1; cited by Barth, CD II/1, 268; see Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 53. Later in his doctrine of creation, Barth shows less reserve about the category of causation: ‘The divine causa, as distinct from the creaturely, is self-grounded, self-positing, self-conditioning and self-causing. It 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 and in which He has His divine basis from eternity to eternity. This is how God is a subject. And this is how He is a causa’ (III/3, 103).

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the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Ghost’ (II/1, 306). All this being said, despite Barth’s repeated stipulations that God’s being, and particularly God’s aseity, must be understood in trinitarian terms, the actual trinitarian content utilized throughout §28.3 is somewhat more limited than these affirmations might suggest.

A unique reality Fourth, divine aseity is an entirely unique rather than a common reality. In light of the previous considerations, it must be added that divine aseity is not shared with creatures. If divine aseity had a general noetic basis, if it simply indicated that God eternally exists, or if it had reference to a monistic being, it might be possible to understand the uniqueness of God’s aseity as quantitative. However, since God’s aseity is the self-demonstration and self-moving of the triune God, this difference must instead be understood as qualitative. As Barth begins his exploration of divine freedom, he writes, ‘We are not trying to discover a characteristic mark of divinity which this God will have in common with other gods. We are not concerned with any idea of the divine under which we will subsume the only true God with other gods’ (II/1, 299). The true doctrine of divine aseity is ‘the idea of God’ and not ‘the idea of humanity’ (II/1, 299 rev.) or ‘the highest idea conceivable to humanity’ (II/1, 303 rev.). It concerns the ‘distinctiveness’ of God’s existence and for that reason it is not a ‘universal idea’ (II/1, 298) which is accessible according to ‘universal criteria and standards’ (II/1, 300). As with God’s action and love so also with God’s freedom, this doctrine is always concerned with the Christian God who is concretely revealed in Jesus Christ. By God’s grace, creatures can exist in the freedom of love, but only God is free for others as trinity-in-unity and unity-in-trinity. God is ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit and therefore alive in his unique being with another and for another and in another’.39 Divine aseity can therefore only be divine aseity. It is possessed and shared by no other. God is entirely unique in God’s aseity: ‘He Himself, in being, is His own basis, and that as such He differentiates His being from what He is not, His existence from His non-existence, and even from the very thought of His non-existence, the basis and the differentiation being confirmed in the very act of His being’ (II/1, 306). Moreover, God is 39

KD II/1, 308; CD, 275.

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entirely unique in God’s absoluteness: ‘God stands at an infinite distance from everything else, not in the finite degree of difference with which created things stand towards each other’ (II/1, 311). God grants creatures existence, but only God exists in se. The conclusion to §28 thus reads, ‘Woe to us if we had spoken of freedom generally and ascribed this to God as an attribute the meaning of which we could fathom quite apart from the fact that it is a divine attribute! We would then have been engaged in erecting at this very spot the worst of all idolatries’ (II/1, 320).

The incapacity of human witness A dynamic concept Fifth, divine aseity is a dynamic concept rather than a static and precise one. Since divine aseity is this unique triune mystery, it cannot be defined in rigid and analytically precise terms. As the last chapter found in connection with divine love and freedom, Barth will not allow any concepts to become controlling principles. Theological concepts may not function statically as master principles. They instead function dynamically as serviceable pointers. ‘In all our thinking and speaking about Him we never become His masters. We are always and must always be His servants, and indeed quite unprofitable servants’ (II/1, 342).40 In theology, the role of master is not held by a principle, but by a person – or rather the person.41 For these reasons, Barth’s theology displays a wariness of the danger of developing concepts for their own sake and overinvesting in their clarification. While clarity is of course a necessary aspect of the theological task, its overemphasis inevitably results in an attempt to domesticate the divine mystery – regardless of one’s intentions. When concepts are applied to God, even theological ones, they are unable to secure their own basis or to master their object. Barth is likewise wary of the danger of using theological concepts with insufficient theological sensitivity. Since the theologian is charged with the task of speaking about the ineffable life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, mundane concepts must be raised up to the heavenly mystery. All concepts must be filled 40

41

See Lk. 17:10. ‘We are not master of God, and for this reason we cannot apprehend Him of ourselves’ (II/1, 189). Theology is not concerned with ‘a Christ-principle, but with Jesus Christ Himself ’ (Barth, CD IV/3.1, 174; see also Härle, Sein und Gnade, 299).

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out with theological meaning. Even in addressing divine aseity, the very concept which drives his open-handed use of theological language,42 Barth writes, ‘our words require a complete change of meaning, even to the extent of becoming the very opposite in sense, if in their application to God they are not to lead us astray’ (II/1, 307).43 What does this mean for Barth’s formulation of this doctrine? In beginning his exposition, Barth immediately clarifies that the in itself useful title for this subsection – ‘The Being of God in Freedom’ (II/1, §28.3) – in no way suggests that the concept of divine freedom can ‘grasp and exhaust’ the subject matter at hand (II/1, 301). On the contrary, it ‘can only suggest the direction in which we are to look’ (II/1, 301).44 In accordance with Barth’s ‘divinity’ theme, he writes that in the assertion, ‘God is free’, it is essential that ‘the accent does not fall on “free” but on “God”’ (II/1, 320). God is always God – even in the context of a doctrine such as this which itself upholds God’s uniqueness and inapprehensibility. Accordingly, when Barth turns to express the positive and negative content of divine freedom, he does not provide static definitions, but rather cycles between various images and terms.45 Consider this ‘definition’ of the positive aspect of divine freedom: ‘The loftiness, the sovereignty, the majesty, the holiness, the glory – even what is termed the transcendence of God – what is it but this self-determination, this freedom, of the divine living and loving, the divine person?’ (II/1, 302). Throughout §28, Barth fills out divine freedom with the aid of a host of often overlapping corollary concepts: lordship (301; cf. 304), uniqueness (297–301, 321), self-determination (301–2, 304), self-possession

42

43

44

45

Kathryn Tanner offers a similar assertion about the function of divine transcendence: it is ‘not a doctrinal affirmation in any ordinary sense but a grammatical remark about theological language: it signals a general linguistic disturbance, the failure of all predicative attribution, in language about God’ (Kathryn Tanner, ‘Creation Ex Nihilo as Mixed Metaphor’, Modern Theology 29.2 [2013], 138). See especially I/1, 278–87; I/2, 727–36; III/2, 7–13; IV/3.2, 734–9. For example, ‘the concepts of pure metaphysics can become the concepts of proclamation and vice versa’ (I/1, 280). ‘The Christian community has its own message to impart, but it is dependent on the world around in the sense that it does not have its own language in which to impart it. In its utterances, even in the strictest service of the attestation of the Word of God with which it is entrusted, even in the necessary work of probing reflection on its witness, even in its theology, therefore, it can only adopt the modes of thought and speech of its spatial and temporal environment more near or distant, more ancient or modern. It has thus to subject itself to the implied conditions and restrictions. Even though it speaks with tongues, it cannot really transcend human speech’ (IV/3.2, 735). See also, Alan Torrance, Persons in Communion, 28–31. As is also the case in Webster’s treatment, divine aseity cannot be made into a ‘comprehensive definition’ of God but must simply be a ‘gesture toward God’s objective and self-expressive form’ (Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 108). The same is true regarding the relationship between divine and human freedom. In both cases Barth provides ‘description’ rather than ‘theoretical resolution’ (Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology, 91; cf. 101–2; see also Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, 196–200).

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(305–6), self-moving (268–71, 300), self-beginning or self-existent (302, 304–5; cf. 276–84), mystery (283–4), the ability to be immanent in transcendence (303; cf. 309–20), depth (298–300) and the divine manner of living and loving (298– 302, 320–1). This pattern is also evident in his ‘definition’ of the negative aspect of divine freedom. God’s absoluteness is God’s self-sufficiency and independence (II/1, 311), freedom from origination (II/1, 307), freedom from conditioning and determination (II/1, 307) and absolute distinction and pre-eminence in comparison with creatures (II/1, 311).46 Central though this conviction is, it has not always been well understood and appreciated. For example, in George Hendry’s otherwise penetrating examination of divine freedom, Barth’s conceptual flexibility is interpreted as essentially accidental rather than a matter of design. On Hendry’s reading, Barth fluctuates between five different senses of divine freedom: gratuity, choice between alternatives, self-determination, initiative and energy.47 He thus ‘uses the term in a number of different senses, and he glides silently, and perhaps unconsciously, from one sense to another’.48 In other words, Barth is guilty of conceptual imprecision and disorder.49 Hendry argues that in formulating ‘his system’, unlike Kant, Barth is unaware that the term ‘freedom’ has multiple meanings and that these meanings are not always present in each instance.50 That is, Barth does not account for polysemy and falls prey to illegitimate totality transfer. Hendry therefore concludes that ‘it is impossible to construct a system with the concept of freedom because of the possibilities of equivocation in the concept’.51 In response, however, one must first see that Barth is neither trying to precisely define divine freedom after the manner of an analytic philosopher nor is he trying to construct a ‘system’.52 In Barth’s view, static principlizing of this kind does violence to theology’s incomparable object. Theological concepts do not create systems, but rather sketches.

46

47 48 49

50 51 52

Due to considerations such as these, Price argues that Barth’s ‘leading conceptual categories’ of love and freedom are ‘not, strictly speaking, concepts at all’ but rather ‘shorthand descriptors of an identity unique in its immense richness’ (Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 187). Hendry, ‘The Freedom of God in the Theology of Karl Barth’, 233–5. Ibid., 233. This accusation is by no means isolated. Jesse Couenhoven, for example, likewise expresses frustration at Barth’s conceptual imprecision (Couenhoven, ‘Karl Barth’s Conception(s) of Human and Divine Freedom(s)’, 240). Hendry, ‘The Freedom of God in the Theology of Karl Barth’, 233. Ibid., 244. ‘A system of Christian truth can be the task of dogmatics only to the extent that we are dealing with Christian truth that is proclaimed and is to be proclaimed, so that the exposition of it is less a system than the report of an event’ (I/1, 280). See Macken, The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics, 34–42; Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, 53.

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A primarily positive concept Sixth, divine aseity is primarily a positive concept rather than a merely negative and contrastive one. When aseity is developed independent from its trinitarian particularity and instead becomes a function of anthropological metaphysics, it ‘becomes a “paired” concept, inseparably attached to, and expounded in terms of, the contingency of the world. In a curious irony, divine self-existence becomes a derivative concept’.53 The positive character of God as a se is therefore restricted according to the negative character of God as non ab alio. Barth’s theology, by contrast, resists this anthropological reduction. Already in Barth’s earliest dogmatic cycle, he explicitly prefers to use the positive term ‘aseity’ over the negative term ‘independence’ (GD, 371). However, in this context, he does not consistently delineate the positive and negative aspects or articulate their relation. Here he says that divine aseity means that God is the one who ‘in his being and acts is conditioned by no one and nothing above, alongside, or below him, but purely and totally by himself as one who is absolutely free’ (GD, 371). Furthermore, since divine aseity is correlated with the via negationis, Barth finds that it is concerned ‘with “the Lord,” the one who is not communicated or limited or conditioned or dependent – not any of the things that we denoted with our positive concepts’ (GD, 400). In Church Dogmatics II/1, Barth more strongly expresses the conviction that aseity is not a paired concept. Accordingly, this account more strongly distinguishes and emphasizes its positive character (II/1, 302, 307–9). Barth designates the positive aspect of freedom as the primary and ‘proper’ sense because of its reference to God’s splendour and majesty, but he designates the negative aspect of freedom as its secondary and ‘improper’ sense in that it is formulated in relation to creaturely reality (II/1, 301). In itself, this negative sense is quite unobjectionable and indeed ‘extremely significant’ (II/1, 302).54 However, in Barth’s view, there is a danger that a focus on it could lead to a reductionistic and ultimately anthropological account of aseity. He finds this to be true, for example, in the Reformed tradition with its conceptual drift from the positive notion of aseitas to the negative notion of independentia (II/1, 302). With any such negative concepts – whether it be independence, infinity, unconditionedness, or even Barth’s favourite, absoluteness – their validity requires that their meaning be placed in the context of their positive counterpart

53 54

Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 110. See Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 108–10.

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rather than vice versa (II/1, 303). That is, the negative and secondary aspect is only valid in light of and in subordination to the positive and primary aspect.55 In Barth’s words, we understand the negative aspect of divine freedom ‘properly only when we do so against the background of our realisation that God’s freedom constitutes the essential positive quality, not only of His action towards what is outside Himself, but also of His own inner being’ (II/1, 303). This material conviction is formally reinforced through the decision to treat divine aseity first (II/1, 302–7) and only then turn to divine absoluteness (II/1, 307–20). Furthermore, in defining this negative aspect, he does not ground it in God’s relations ad extra, but rather God’s self-relatedness in God’s life in se as the Trinity. God is not only absolute in relation to creatures. God exists in this ‘secondary absoluteness’ in relation to creatures because even in eternity God exists in ‘primary absoluteness’ (II/1, 317). Even in this negative aspect, Barth is clear to emphasize that God cannot be reduced to fit within creaturely categories. As the aseity of the one who is only known through self-demonstration, this negative aspect may never become a ‘self-apotheosis’ of creaturely reality, a Procrustean bed which limits the positive aspect (II/1, 308). God’s reality as a se must be primarily defined by who God is as God and only secondarily by who God is in contrast to creatures.56 Therefore, as a further extension of this primarily positive interpretation, Barth deviates from the Göttingen lectures by no longer correlating aseity with the via negationis.57 55

56 57

According to Ringleben, Barth ‘prefers to understand aseity as God’s independence (KD III/4, 370 [CD, 327]) but not as self-generation (KD II/1, 344 [CD, 306])’ (Ringleben, Religion Past & Present, 4th edn, s.v. ‘aseity’). It is true, as has been seen, that Barth rejects the concept of God as causa sui and only accepts the concept of God’s self-realization if interpreted in terms of the eternal generation and procession of the Son and Spirit (II/1, 305–6). It is likewise true that Barth affirms the negative aspect of divine freedom both here in II/1 (308–20) and in III/4: ‘God alone is truly independent. He alone belongs wholly to Himself and lives in and by Himself ’ (III/4, 327; cf. 328–30). Nonetheless, one must bear in mind that for Barth divine aseity is a fundamentally positive quality. See von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 162. As Christopher Holmes states, through this account ‘the traditional understanding of God’s immanence and transcendence via negativa is imbued with new – and far more – positive content’ (Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 51). Dorner anticipates Barth in this regard. On the one hand, he can describe the positive and negative aspects of God’s aseity in contrastive terms: ‘God must be ab aliquo; that the Law of Causation requires; and, because not ab alio, necessarily a se. He has Aseity’ (Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 1:256). On the other hand, he asserts that aseity is ‘above comparison or mere quantitative difference’ and therefore it is a difference which is ‘as little secured by the via negationis as by the via eminentiae’ (Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 1:203). On a somewhat related note, Stephen Holmes speaks of the problematic nature of applying the via eminentiae to divine simplicity and aseity since ‘God does not come into being and pass away much more purely and radically than we do, he simply does not come into being or pass away’ (Stephen R. Holmes, ‘Something Much Too Plain to Say: Towards a Defence of the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity’, in idem, Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002], 65).

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The election of the one who loves The manner of God’s pronobeity Seventh, divine aseity is the manner of God’s pronobeity rather an obstacle to this movement. If, contrary to Barth’s account, aseity is defined as primarily or exclusively a negative characteristic, the importance of its actuality and positive enactment can often become diminished. More specifically, if divine aseity is defined in fundamentally contrastive and oppositional terms – God as not dependent upon creatures or God as free from external compulsion – a gap can emerge between God life ad intra and ad extra.58 This might suggest that the God who is radically pro nobis in Jesus Christ is somehow primarily self-sufficient in se. This line of thinking echoes von Balthasar’s concern that, at least in Barth’s early theology, ‘God’s aseity is dissolved in the event of his revelation and abolishes itself ’ and ‘the creature . . . either collapses into God (at the origin and goal) or becomes pure contradiction to God (in sin) and dissolves into nothingness’.59 Barth himself expresses concern over this kind of relation disruption in II/1. In his view, if divine absoluteness is ‘consistently’ affirmed, the relation between God and creaturely reality itself is threatened. On the other hand, if divine absoluteness is ‘inconsistently’ affirmed, creaturely reality is granted an untheological degree of independence from God (II/1, 309). For Barth, neither of these options is permissible. The in itself appropriate concept of divine independence cannot be taken to posit any kind of barrier between God and creatures.60 God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ indicates that divine aseity can only be euangelion and never dysangelion.61 The way to avoid this sense of ‘aloofness or hostility’ on God’s part is to view God’s relation to 58

59 60

61

While this view of divine aseity is quite different than Barth’s own account, as has been seen, it does appear in his work as a foil (once again, see IV/1, 423; IV/3.1, 252; Barth, Evangelical Theology, 202). Barth is by no means alone in fearing this defective doctrine of aseity. For example, it likewise serves as a foil for Bonhoeffer: ‘In revelation it is not so much a question of the freedom of God – eternally remaining within the divine self, aseity – on the other side of revelation, as it is of God’s coming out of God’s own self in revelation. It is a matter of God’s given Word, the covenant in which God is bound by God’s own action’ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 2, ed. Wayne Whitson Floyd, Jr, trans. H. Martin Rumscheidt [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009], 90; emphasis original). Von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 85; cf. 72–85, 161–7. Webster thus notes ‘how wide of the mark it is to view his work as tied to the logic of divine aseity in such a way that humanity is an imperiled theme in dogmatics, or to interpret his doctrine of the Trinity as monistic and closed’ (Webster, Barth, 85). See Barth, Evangelical Theology, 11–12.

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creatures sub specie aseitatis (II/1, 309).62 God’s eternal freedom to ‘begin with himself ’ which God enacts in revelation is the demonstration that God’s freedom is to be pro nobis (II/1, 304–5). Since God’s freedom is ‘his own freedom’ (seine eigene Freiheit), God can exercise it in this way.63 As Barth asks, ‘How then can His sovereign freedom be understood as a limitation of His love? How can it be sought elsewhere than in this love itself?’ (II/1, 345). God’s freedom is what God determines in God’s love. In looking to its actual exercise it becomes clear that, as Barth would later say, ‘The concept of God without man is indeed as anomalous as wooden iron.’64 God is ‘free also with regard to His freedom, free not to surrender Himself to it, but to use it to give Himself to this communion and to practise this faithfulness in it, in this way being really free, free in Himself ’ (II/1, 303). It is only in the context of this positive determination that God’s absoluteness, independence and otherness – the negative aspect of God’s freedom – can be properly appreciated.65 With this in view, God’s transcendence itself can be understood to mean not just God’s ‘opposition’ over against creatures but also God’s ‘positive fellowship’ with creatures (II/1, 303). What ‘change of meaning’ is required when the concept of transcendence is raised to this God (II/1, 307)? Theologically considered, ‘divine transcendence . . . can have “immanence” as its primary connotation’ (II/1, 303).66 The one who freely and eternally lives a se and pro se exists only

62

63

64

65

66

Along these lines, Barth later claims that divine omnipotence ‘describes very especially the positive character of the divine freedom, that which distinguishes it from the freedom that might be ascribed to a being unmoved and immovable in itself ’ (II/1, 522). Likewise, Christopher Holmes points out that Barth criticizes ‘a false apophaticism which equates God’s glory with God’s distance’ (Holmes, ‘ The Theological Function of the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes and the Divine Glory’, 219). KD II/1, 342; CD, 304. ‘God’s freedom is His very own. It is the sovereign grace wherein God chooses to commit Himself to man. Thereby God is Lord as man’s God’ (Barth, ‘The Gift of Freedom’, 69 emphasis original). Barth, ‘The Gift of Freedom’, 72. ‘The priority of all of Barth’s thought is that God is related to the world in love’ (Gunton, The Barth Lectures, 102; see also von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 170–2; Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, 17–22). ‘The well-known definitions of the essence of God and in particular of His freedom, containing such terms as “wholly other,” “transcendence,” or “non-worldly,” stand in need of thorough clarification if fatal misconceptions of human freedom as well are to be avoided. The above descriptions just as well fit a dead idol. Negative as they are, they most certainly miss the very center of the Christian concept of God, the radical affirmation of free grace, whereby God bound and committed himself to man’ (Barth, ‘The Gift of Freedom’, 72). God is not an ‘“absolute” God (in the original sense of absolute, i.e., being detached from everything that is not himself)’ (Barth, Evangelical Theology, 10). Even back in 1919, Barth can say that ‘creation and redemption are possible only because God is God, because his immanence means at the same time his transcendence’ (Barth, ‘ The Christian’s Place in Society’, 322; emphasis original). Conversely, in 1924 Barth says, ‘God is God. The limit that is thereby set for us has nothing whatever to do with a one-sided emphasis on God’s transcendence, majesty, or negativity. We have seen that the picture would be the same if we started with God’s immanence in the Son or his eternal turning to us in the Spirit’ (GD, 134; emphasis original).

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as the one who also freely and eternally elects to be pro nobis. Divine aseity is the manner in which God sovereignly enacts the elected path of self-limitation in the history of Jesus Christ.67 ‘He is not a God who is what He is in a majesty behind this condescension, behind the cross on Golgotha. . . . Everything that claims to be exaltation and divinity is to be tested by whether it is identical or not with the free love disclosed in its reality in the ταπεινοϕροσύνη [i.e., humility] of Jesus Christ’ (II/1, 517). As a matter of factual necessity, God has become the God who is a se in this very definite movement.

The readiness of God’s pronobeity Eighth, divine aseity is the eternal readiness of God’s pronobeity rather than God’s absorption into this movement. God’s existence a se is, according to Barth, the manner of God’s existence pro nobis, but he worries that especially for some modern theologians, God’s aseity is essentially absorbed into God’s pronobeity. These theologians interpret God as having given Godself to creatures in such a way that God would not be God without creatures. In this view, God’s free love for creatures is rendered necessary by its object. It is with this fear in mind that Barth condemns the ‘pious blasphemies’ of Angelus Silesius found in The Cherubinic Wanderer: I know that without me God cannot an instant be. He needs must perish at once were death to come to me. God owes as much to me as the debt that I must pay, I give my help to Him, He keeps me in my way. The blessedness of God, His life without desire, He doth as much from me, as I from Him acquire. What God eternally doth ever wish or long, He looketh on in me, as in His likeness strong. God truly nothing is, therefore something to be, Choosing myself for Him, He hath to be in me. God loveth me alone, He holdeth me so dear, That if I love Him not, He dieth of anxious fear. 67

As Gunton writes, ‘the events that are the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are the presence of God among men . . . They are election taking place’ (Colin E. Gunton, ‘Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Election as Part of His Doctrine of God’, Journal of Theological Studies 25.2 [1974]: 386–7; emphasis original).

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Nought is but I and thou, and if we two are not, Then God is no more God, and Heaven itself is nought.68

Even more substantially, Barth worries that by speaking about both the ‘absolute God’ and the ‘absolute world-process’, the Hegelian Alois Biedermann either collapses God into the world-process or vice versa (II/1, 282). Barth is also cautious about Hermann Cremer’s statement that ‘it is the essence of God’s manifestation to us eternally to will and be Himself, not for anyone, not in abstracto for any possible object, but wholly and utterly for us, and for us alone’.69 In all this, Barth in no way wishes to limit God’s capacity to give Godself fully and lovingly to creatures. What he objects to is when, based on the human conception of love which requires a beloved object outside of the loving subject, an attempt is made ‘to tie the love of God to the existence of an object of this kind, and to exhaust it in the relationship to this other’ (II/1, 282). Barth wants to affirm that ‘God is not swallowed up in the relation and attitude of Himself to the world and us as actualised in His revelation’ (II/1, 260). God’s reality cannot be reduced to God’s life with creatures. As Barth establishes in §28.1, God’s existence ad extra is the demonstration of God’s capacity for selfcorrespondence. God lives in the ‘eternal repetition and affirmation of Godself ’ (ewiger Wiederholung und Bestätigung seiner selbst) and the fact that God reveals Godself demonstrates this capacity.70 Therefore, when God loves creatures, God does not become who God is simpliciter.71 The event in which God turns ad extra is an event of self-reiteration. ‘The goodness and power and truth of all God’s acts consist in the fact that in them He is Himself, He recapitulates Himself, He is always true to Himself and proves this to be the case’ (II/1, 532). When God loves creatures in Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit, God becomes who God is in a new way: ‘when God loves us He is true to Himself. Indeed He is supremely true to Himself when He loves us’ (II/1, 282). However, in so determining the path of God’s love, God is not thereby divested of his divinity. ‘As and before God seeks and creates fellowship with us, He wills and completes this fellowship in Himself ’ (II/1, 275).72 ‘His love cannot cease to be His love nor His freedom His freedom’ (II/1, 494). Just as to all eternity God is the one who loves in freedom, so also God ‘remains who He is’ in time (II/1, 311).73 Therefore, if we are to speak 68 69 70

71 72 73

Cited on II/1, 281–2. Cremer, Die christliche Lehre von den Eigenschaften Gottes, 2nd edn, 25; cited by Barth, CD II/1, 282. KD II/1, 553; CD, 492. For Barth’s use of ‘affirmation’ (Bestätigung) and ‘to affirm’ (bestätigen), see especially KD II/1, 344–8, 552–87; CD, 306–9, 491–522; see also Jüngel, God Being is in Becoming, 118. See Busch, The Great Passion, 123; Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 44, 49. The ‘as’ and ‘before’ are both critical. See also I/2, 375–80. So also in the Göttingen lectures, ‘God remains who he is even in his revelation’ (GD, 356).

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of the life and love of God, it is necessary to speak of their ‘depth’ (Tiefe) in God’s eternal being-in-action.74 To use another concept which features prominently in II/1, God’s life in se is God’s ‘readiness’ (Bereitschaft) for life with creatures.75 God is so constituted in God’s inward and eternal life that God is able to be pro nobis in time. Barth explicitly applies this term to divine objectivity76 and eternity,77 but his strong commitment to this pattern of thinking is evident in its application to some rather unsuspecting themes.78 Moreover, the logic of divine readiness particularly coalesces with that of divine aseity and absoluteness. ‘Originally and properly there is no other beside or outside Him. Everything beside and outside Him is only secondary’ (II/1, 271). Therefore, as with God’s primary and secondary objectivity, God’s ‘primary’ absoluteness refers to its readiness in God ad intra and its ‘secondary’ refers to its overflow in God ad extra.79 ‘It implies so to speak an overflow of His essence that He turns to us’ (II/1, 273). This latter movement is in no way less real and in no way separable from the former. The former movement simply emphasizes the terminus a quo of this twofold movement in which the one God has elected to be God. As the readiness of the eternal trinity, divine aseity is God’s ability to be God for us. It is God’s ability to enact the elected path of God’s existence. It is the ability through which ‘God makes the transition from there to here, from His being in Himself to His being in fellowship with us’ (II/1, 346). God can be free for us without being limited by his freedom from us. God can be conditioned without being limited by his being unconditioned. God can be immanent without being limited by his transcendence.80 ‘He who can and does do this is the God of Holy 74 75 76 77 78

79 80

See especially KD II/1, 334–7, 360–1; CD, 297–300, 320–1. See Stratis, ‘Speculating About Divinity?’, esp. 24–5. See II/1, §26.1. See KD II/1, 696–700; CD, 618–22. For example, in contrast to much of the tradition, Barth follows the parallel logic of divine selfrevelation and divine readiness to argue that, as the eternal trinity, God has spatiality in se (II/1, 471–6), has temporality in se (II/1, 617–21; cf. III/1, 67–77; III/2, 526–7), shows grace ad intra (II/1, 357–8; cf. IV/1, 487–8), shows mercy ad intra (II/1, 375) and shows patience ad intra (II/1, 408–10; cf. 416). These features, in turn, are all part of Barth’s broader ‘in Himself and in all His works’ strategy which he identifies in the theses for both §30 and §31. Furthermore, Barth maintains this pattern with other uncommon themes in the later volumes of the Church Dogmatics as well. For example, corresponding to God’s rest on the seventh day, God rests in Godself (III/1, 213–28). Corresponding to Jesus Christ’s obedience and humility in relation to the Father in time, the Son of God is obedient and humble in relation to the Father in eternity (IV/1, 192–210; IV/2, 42–4; cf. I/1, 411–14). Corresponding to the suffering of Jesus Christ, the Son of God suffers in eternity (IV/3.1, 396–7). And lastly, corresponding to God’s justification of humanity in Jesus Christ, God justifies Godself in eternity (IV/1, 560–2). See II/1, 317; cf. 16–25. See II/1, 303–4, 313–15. In Gunton’s words, ‘If God were not so supremely transcendent of reality that is other than he, he would not be the God who does the things he does’ (Gunton, Becoming and Being, 196). However, it can likewise be said ‘with little exaggeration, that he is radically transcendent in order to be radically immanent’ (Gunton, Becoming and Being, 195; emphasis original).

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Scripture, the triune God known to us in His revelation. This ability, proved and manifested to us in His action, constitutes His freedom’ (II/1, 303). This ability demonstrates the asymmetry rather than pure reciprocity in God’s relations ad extra. It is God who initiates, sustains and fulfils this loving fellowship with creatures (II/1, 276–83). As God ‘begins with himself ’ in eternity so also God ‘begins with himself ’ in time (II/1, 304–5). God is Immanuel ‘in an absolute supremacy which is unbroken and uninterrupted in the greatest aspects and also in the smallest’ (II/1, 311). Divine aseity is thus God’s readiness for God’s sovereignly elected path of self-limitation in the history of Jesus Christ.81 God has limited Himself to be this God and no other, to be the love which is active and dwells with men at this point and in this way, in Jesus Christ. God has bound Himself in His own Son to be eternally true to His creation. But He has done this Himself, and the fact that He has acted in this and not in any other way has its basis in and from Himself. He was not under any obligation to befriend creation by giving it no less than Himself in His Son, by Himself assuming and adopting its form. He was not under any obligation either to it or to Himself to be one with it in this specific form, thus constituting and instituting Himself the pledge of His faithfulness. (II/1, 518)

And again, He wills certainly to be God and He does not will that we should be God. But He does not will to be God for Himself nor as God to be alone with Himself. He wills as God to be for us and with us who are not God. Inasmuch as He is Himself and affirms Himself, in distinction and opposition to everything that He is not. He places Himself in this relation to us. He does not will to be Himself in any other way than He is in this relationship. His life, that is, His life in Himself, which is originally and properly the one and only life, leans towards this unity with our life. The blessings of His Godhead are so great that they overflow as blessings to us, who are not God. (II/1, 274)

Having mapped out the basic contours of Barth’s interpretation of divine aseity, it is now possible to appreciate the critical roles which this doctrine plays in Barth’s conception of the being and attributes of God. 81

John Webster similarly argues that the doctrine of divine aseity must account for both the ‘inner depth’ and the ‘gracious turn’ of God’s triune life ad extra (Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 113). As a statement about God’s ‘immanent’ perfection, it indicates ‘the glory and plenitude of the life of the Holy Trinity in its self-existent and self-moving originality, its underived fullness’ (Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 107–8). As a statement about God’s ‘relative’ perfection, it indicates ‘that God’s originality and fullness constitute the ground of his self-communication’ (Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 108; cf. idem, ‘God’s Perfect Life’, 146–9; idem, Holiness [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003], especially 50).

8

A Paraphrase

The second task in the analysis of divine aseity is to present a paraphrase which identifies the primary functions of this doctrine, principally according to Barth’s most extensive treatment in Church Dogmatics II/1, §28. The central contention is as follows. Divine aseity indicates God’s eternal lordship, uniqueness and sufficiency. Nonetheless, since God has eternally determined to be this same God pro nobis in Jesus Christ, it is necessary to identify God’s eternal lordship, uniqueness and sufficiency as lordship in self-binding, uniqueness in selfrevealing and sufficiency in self-giving. The following exposition will develop these three themes in more detail.

God’s lordship in the act of self-binding First, God’s aseity is God’s lordship. Primarily and positively it is the selfdetermination of God’s eternal love as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Secondarily and negatively it is God’s freedom from any necessity based on external obligation or internal deficiency. While an abstract conception of lordship might stand in tension with God’s pronobeity, God’s actual lordship is the manner and readiness of God’s being in becoming Immanuel. So although in and of itself humanity cannot condition God, as a matter of factual necessity, God can determine Godself to be conditioned by humanity in Jesus Christ. This relation is both entirely determinative and entirely asymmetrical because in this genuine conditioning, God’s gracious condescension is God’s freedom.

Aseity as lordship As with Barth’s earliest dogmatic cycle in which God’s aseity means ‘I am the Lord’ (GD, 367–74), so also in the Church Dogmatics God’s freedom means that God is the ‘lord’ (Herr), or rather, that God lives and loves in ‘lordship’

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(Herrschaft).1 God’s lordship is the sovereign initiative and self-preservation of God in all that God is and does. God lives because God lives (II/1, 263, 306). There is no more ultimate ratio because there is no more ultimate reality. The life of God is ‘self-moved, as life living from its own centre’ (II/1, 300). In the same way, God’s lordship is the sovereign faithfulness and self-directedness of God’s love. God loves because God loves (II/1, 279–81). There is no more ultimate action because there is no more ultimate actor. The love of God is ‘utterly sovereign love, positing its own basis and purpose’ (II/1, 300).2 In other words, God’s lordship means that the movement and determination of God’s living and loving are always ‘self-movement’ (Selbstbewegung)3 and ‘self-determination’ (Selbstbestimmung).4 In the story of ‘I am the Lord’ witnessed in the Pentateuch and Prophets and then manifested in the history of Jesus Christ, ‘the Subject posits itself and in that way posits itself as the living and loving Lord. In doing so, this Subject is God’ (II/1, 302). Originally and properly God alone exists. Originally and properly God alone determines. This one whose being and willing are absolutely preeminent and prior is determined by no other. God is not subject to another. God is the subject of Godself. God’s lordship and sovereignty is ‘in no sense dictated to Him from outside and conditioned by no higher necessity than that of His own choosing and deciding, willing and doing’ (II/1, 301).5 In fact, as the one who exists in the sufficiency of eternal perfection, God cannot be determined by any internal constraint or compulsion. God can neither be imprisoned by another nor by Godself.6 This being the case, it is quite proper to say that God could be God 1

2 3 4 5

6

See especially KD II/1, 338–9; CD, 301. ‘God reveals himself as the Lord. . . . Lordship means freedom’ (I/1, 306). Similarly, Brunner insists that if God’s aseity is to avoid being ‘remote and abstract’, it must be understood as ‘a closer definition of the Sovereignty of God’ rather than for ‘the speculative, metaphysical, artificial construction of the Idea of God’ (Brunner, Dogmatics, 1:142). See also Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 218–19. ‘His loving is, as we have seen, utterly free, grounded in itself ’ (II/1, 321). See especially KD II/1, 301–5, 339–40; CD, 268–72, 301–2. See especially KD II/1, 339–40, 350–1; CD, 301–2, 311–12. ‘His freedom or aseity in respect of Himself consists in His freedom, not determined by anything but Himself, to be God’ (I/1, 434). According to Barth, Hegel is guilty of this error: ‘the identification of God with the dialectical method, even if it did not signify that he was identified with man’s act of life, implies a scarcely acceptable limitation, even abolition of God’s sovereignty, which makes even more questionable the designation of what Hegel calls mind, idea, reason, etc., as God. This God, the God of Hegel, is at the least his own prisoner. Comprehending all things, he finally and at the highest level comprehends himself too, and by virtue of the fact that he does this in the consciousness of man, everything God is and does will be and is understood from the point of view of man, as God’s own necessity. Revelation can now no longer be a free act of God; God, rather, must function as we see him function in revelation’ (Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century, 406; emphasis original; cf. II/1, 270; see also McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 99–100). However, Hegel is not without his defenders: see Wolfhart Pannenberg, ‘The Significance of Christianity in the Philosophy of Hegel’, in idem, The Idea of God and Human Freedom (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973), 160–74; Stephen Houlgate, Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2005), 249–54.

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without creatures. God ‘could be everything only for Himself ’ (II/1, 280). In view of the constancy of the divine essence, ‘It does not have to do what it does’ (II/1, 499). ‘Its freedom consists in the fact that it could choose between the being and not being of the world without being any the less love’ (II/1, 500). The being-in-action of God is thus always a se.

Pronobeity-in-lordship In view of God’s lordship there is a definite sense in which God is unbound with respect to creatures. This is particularly clear in relation to divine revelation. God is not bound to creatures in that God cannot be anticipated or grasped. The only possibilities of God’s presence are the possibilities which are made actual in Jesus Christ (II/1, 316–20). The creaturely media of God’s self-revelation cannot reveal God apart from God’s action through them.7 Moreover, God is also unbound in that the mode of God’s immanence is not limited by the possibilities inherent to the creaturely sphere (II/1, 314–15). God’s presence can never become an abstract ‘principle’, for ‘in this His freedom, in which He spontaneously binds Himself in a certain way to the world, He remains unbound from the point of view of the world and its specific determinations’ (II/1, 314). Still further, neither is God bound to creatures in the sense that God can only do what God has done. This would be the reduction of omnipotence to omnicausality (II/1, 526–32). God has bound and still binds Himself to us as the One who is able thus to bind Himself and whose self-binding is the grace and mercy and patience which helps us, because primarily He is not bound, because He is the Lord, because stooping down to us He does not cease to be the Lord, but actually stoops to us from on high where He is always Lord. He is wholly our God, but He is so in the fact that He is not our God only. (II/1, 527; cf. 260)

In these senses, the self-binding Lord is indeed unbound. However, one must be careful to avoid a grave error which presents itself through the ambiguity of this language. The description of God as ‘unbound’ in no way indicates a limitation or restriction of God’s election to love creatures. God’s being unbound in the ways noted above in no way compromises the

7

For Barth, the denial of this claim would be the affirmation of natural theology. Barth’s strong affirmation of divine freedom in the first volume of the Church Dogmatics is often aimed at the foil that God is ‘bound’ in this sense (see especially I/1, §5.2; I/2, §16.1).

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teleological ordering of God’s redemptive action. God is not indeterminate. God is not Yes and No, but simply YES. God could have chosen not to be pro nobis, but this is not in fact what God has chosen. ‘ The freedom of God must be recognised as His own freedom and this means – as it consists in God and as God has exercised it. But in God it consists in His Son Jesus Christ, and it is in Him that God has exercised it’ (II/1, 320). In Jesus Christ it is revealed that, in accordance with the ‘eternally wonderful twofold dynamic of His love’ (ewig wunderbare doppelte Dynamik seiner Liebe), God reiterates God’s eternal love as Father, Son and Holy Spirit in relation to creatures.8 While ‘this overflowing is conditioned by the fact that although it could satisfy itself, it has no satisfaction in this self-satisfaction, but as love for another it can and will be more than that which could satisfy itself. While God is everything for Himself, He wills again not to be everything merely for Himself, but for this other’ (II/1, 280). There is no going ‘behind’ God’s election to be pro nobis. The theological function of the possibility that God could be God without us is to clarify God’s readiness for this actual decision and the gracious manner of its execution (II/1, 281). In view of the constancy and faithful vitality of the one who is self-determined in this way, God action necessarily bears the name Jesus Christ ‘for all time and indeed for all eternity’ (II/1, 513). To go behind this event is to go behind the event in which God’s has determined to be God. One quite simply ‘cannot go behind Jesus Christ’ (II/1, 513). From all eternity, God wills to be Lord in this event of self-binding. ‘God was and is bound to cause this event to take place and to be only in so far as He has bound Himself. . . . He did not need to bind Himself to us as He has in fact done in this event. But He has actually bound Himself in this way’ (II/1, 513–14). God is not bound in God’s election of self-binding. ‘God has the prerogative to be free without being limited by His freedom from external conditioning’ and therefore to use this freedom to establish fellowship with creatures (II/1, 303).9 In other words, ‘God does not only have to be unconditioned. In his unconditionality God can and will also be conditioned in that fellowship which he establishes’ (II/1, 303).10 This ability

8

9

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KD II/1, 315; CD, 281. That is, ‘the freedom of God is the freedom which consists and fulfils itself in His Son Jesus Christ. In Him God has loved Himself from all eternity. In Him He has loved the world’ (II/1, 321). God is the one who ‘exists from and through and in Himself and therefore is not conditioned through some other but rather Himself conditions all others’ (II/1, 349). God’s freedom is ‘His freedom not merely to be like the reality different from Himself, but to be as the Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer acting towards it and in it, and therefore as its sovereign Lord’ (II/1, 304).

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is God’s lordship of love over creatures.11 On the one hand, ‘God is free to exist as unconditioned in the creaturely world, but in it he is also free to exist and work as conditioned’ (II/1, 314). On the other hand, as with God’s being bound, God’s being unbound is only ever the manner of God’s pronobeity – of God’s transcendence in immanence. The modes of God’s presence with creatures are always expressions of God’s faithfulness and never of any capriciousness (II/1, 318).12 God’s determination in this event also cannot be viewed as in any way ancillary to the divine reality. As the reiteration of God’s eternal triune love, this event is both from God and to God. God’s acts of establishing and maintaining fellowship with creatures, ‘realised as they are in perfect freedom, without compulsion or necessity, do not signify an alien or contradictory expression of God’s being’ (II/1, 317). The being of God is not necessary but free. Nonetheless, through the freedom of the one who loves, God’s being becomes necessary. His life with its very alteration and movement can, and does gloriously, consist only in His not ceasing to be Himself, to posit and will and perfect Himself in His being Himself. He does not do this of necessity but in freedom and love, or, one may say, with the necessity in virtue of which He cannot cease to be Himself, the One who loves in freedom. (II/1, 492)

So also, the election of God is not necessary but free. Nonetheless, through the freedom of the one who chooses to love, this election becomes necessary. This is a ‘free’ decision because it is God’s gracious self-limitation. It is free because ‘grace is grace, and we are concerned with a real condescension, when God befriends us’ (II/1, 518). This is a ‘necessary’ decision because it is God’s faithful self-limitation. ‘God is God, the One who has condescended to us and befriended us’ (II/1, 518). The distinction between God’s voluntas libera and God’s voluntas naturalis or voluntas necessaria is permissible only if it recognized that ‘the will of God is free even in His necessity to will Himself, and necessary even in His freedom to will everything else’ (II/1, 591).

11 12

See Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 101. ‘He has the freedom in all His opus ad extra to remain the One who He is in an apparently inexhaustible abundance of distinctions’ (II/1, 316). Yet this inexhaustible abundance can never compromise the fact that God is and ever remains pro nobis. ‘The fact is sure that God constantly turns to us, whether He seems near or far, whether He speaks to us in silence and in secret or whether He addresses us openly, whether He blesses us or punishes us, kills or makes alive’ (II/1, 318). This fact is sure because Jesus Christ is the revelation of God and Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (II/1, 318; see Heb. 13:8).

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The determinative character of this election is secured by the asymmetry in its enactment. God’s election to exist in self-binding is entirely a se. Through God’s freedom in this eternal self-binding, God demonstrates that ‘we are tied to God, but not God to us’ (II/1, 281). God is not in any way obligated to set God’s love upon creatures or even to give them existence, but God graciously gives these things in the gift of Godself in Jesus Christ. ‘The eternal correlation between God and us, as shown in God’s revelation, is grounded in God alone, and not partly in God and partly in us’ (II/1, 281).13 Correspondingly, in the temporal enactment of God’s eternal election, God’s self-binding is entirely a se. Every relationship into which God enters with that which is not Himself must be interpreted-however much this may disturb or correct our preconceived ideas of connexion and relationship-as eventuating between two utterly unequal partners, the sheer inequality consisting in the fact that no self-determination of the second partner can influence the first, whereas the self-determination of the first, while not cancelling the self-determination of the second, is the sovereign predetermination which precedes it absolutely. (II/1, 312)

God’s gracious determination to establish fellowship with that which is not God is grounded in Godself and not in the object.14 The act, event and decision of God’s eternal being is and ever remains a se.

God’s uniqueness in the act of self-revealing Second, God’s aseity is God’s uniqueness. Primarily and positively it is the mystery of God’s eternal love as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Secondarily and negatively it is God’s freedom from every class of created reality. While an abstract conception of uniqueness might stand in tension with God’s pronobeity, God’s actual uniqueness is the manner and readiness of God’s being in becoming Immanuel. So although in and of itself humanity cannot apprehend God, as a matter of factual necessity, God can determine Godself to be apprehended by humanity in Jesus Christ. This relation is both entirely determinative and entirely asymmetrical because in this genuine apprehending, God’s inapprehensible manifestation is God’s freedom. 13

14

‘God’s righteous demand on man, and His faithfulness in covenant with him, are irresistible and irrevocable because for their confirmation they need only God Himself and no corresponding relation of man’ (II/1, 271). II/1, 278–9; cf. 273, 300–1. God’s love ad extra is an ‘overflow which is not demanded or presupposed by any necessity, constraint, or obligation, least of all from outside, from our side, or by any law by which God Himself is bound and obliged’ (II/1, 273). It is ‘rooted in Himself alone’ (II/1, 273).

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Aseity as uniqueness The aseitas Dei is the singularitas Dei (II/1, 442–3). It is the ‘uniqueness’ (Einzigartigkeit) in which God exists.15 To say that God is who God is in aseity is to say that the features of God’s identity are concretely God’s own. It is to say that every aspect of the divine reality is divine. In accordance with Barth’s early claim that ‘God is God’, he therefore opens CD, §28.3 as follows: ‘The being of God is His own. His act is His own. His love is His own’ (II/1, 297).16 Every aspect of the divine reality exists ‘in a unique way’ (in einzigartiger Weise): ‘God’s act is God’s act in a unique way. God’s love is God’s love in a unique way. God is who God is in a unique way.’17 Even God’s freedom is ‘God’s own’ freedom.18 When God’s life indicates that God is actus purus, divine freedom specifies this means actus purus et singularis (II/1, 264). When God’s love indicates that God reaches out in order to exist in fellowship with another, divine freedom specifies this act as a ‘mystery’ (II/1, 283–4). Considered in relation to the sphere of creaturely reality, this uniqueness is God’s absolute distinction from and superiority over everything which is not God. As the one who exists in ‘ontic absoluteness’ (ontische Absolutheit), God is ‘distinct from everything . . . in a peculiar and pre-eminent fashion’.19 The reality of God is ‘self-grounded and therefore absolutely superior to every other being’ (II/1, 447). If with Anselm God is understood as the highest nature, God’s absolute superiority must be understood qualitatively rather than quantitatively.20 ‘God cannot be compared to anyone or anything. He is only 15 16

17 18 19 20

KD II/1, 335, 338; CD, 298, 300. God’s life and love are ‘absolutely God’s own’ (schlechterdings Gottes eigenes) (KD II/1, 338; CD, 301). They are ‘particular’ (Besondere) and ‘distinctive’ (Unterscheidende) (KD II/1, 335–8; CD, 298–300). KD II/1, 334–5; CD, 297. See especially KD II/1, 341–2; cf. 360; CD, 303–4; cf. 320. See especially KD II/1, 350; CD, 311. In Fides Quaerens Intellectum Barth draws attention to this connection between God’s aseity and God’s qualitatively superior uniqueness through his view that there is a sharp distinction between Anselm’s description of God as quod est maius omnibus in the Monologion and as quo maius cogitari nequit in the Proslogion (Barth, Anselm, 73–89, esp. 84). Barth interprets the former name as denoting a quantitative superiority. The greatest being is only known as such in relation to great beings. ‘Without the rest of the pyramid the peak could not be a peak’ (Barth, Anselm, 87). In the latter name, Barth perceives the theological advancement of a turn to God’s qualitative superiority. God is not at the top of the pyramid of a shared concept of being but is rather beyond what can even be conceived. By beginning in faith with a divine name that more closely corresponds with intended object – a name which affirms God’s aseity – the ‘proof ’ becomes valid by ruling out a ‘highest nature’ which is somehow nonexistent or imperfect (Barth, Anselm, 88–9). ‘The prior-givenness of a subject of the Proof can naturally not be excluded by the “aseity” of the Name presupposed’ (Barth, Anselm, 85n. 2). Therefore, in contrast to Gaunilo’s island analogy, this name specifies that the divine object in question is not drawn from general experience. Moreover, Anselm does not merely want to establish the existence of this object but also to understand ‘its unique perfection that is not to be confused with any other’ (Barth, Anselm, 88n. 2). This qualitatively superior object

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like Himself ’ (II/1, 376). God lives in a unique way.21 Since God lives as the absolute person, God’s life must be understood to ‘transcend’ and ‘comprehend’ nature and spirit (II/1, 266). The divine person is ‘distinguished from other persons by the fact that He is self-motivated person. No other being exists absolutely in its act. No other being is absolutely its own, conscious, willed and executed decision’ (II/1, 271).22 God’s life is a particular rather than a general event (II/1, 264–5).23 God loves in a unique way.24 As the one who loves absolutely and accordingly is the absolute ‘I’ who reaches out to a ‘ Thou’, God’s love is ‘different from all other love and eternally surpasses all other love’ (II/1, 283). So also God is free in a unique way. As the one who rules absolutely, God’s lordship is distinguished from all other lordships by its freedom (II/1, 301). God lives, loves and is lord in uniqueness because, unlike every other being, God is and does these things as the eternal Father, Son and Holy Spirit whose being-in-action is entirely a se.25 Corresponding to this ‘ontic absoluteness’ is God’s ‘noetic absoluteness’ (noetische Absolutheit).26 God’s noetic absoluteness is God’s distinction from and superiority over that which is not God in connection with the sphere of human cognition. It means that to think of God’s reality as divine is not to ‘distinguish one subject from others of the same class’ (II/1, 297). It means, following Aquinas,

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is therefore acknowledged as actually existing and doing so in perfection: ‘Out of the general vere esse there now rises significantly before us a vere esse whose reality has its basis neither merely subjectively nor merely subjectively and objectively but is based beyond this contrast a se, in itself. A being to which vere esse in this latter sense applies, whose existence is therefore independent of the antithesis between knowledge and object, such a being is obviously a maius. It belongs to a higher level of existence than a being to which vere esse applies merely in the general sense, which however genuinely it may exist, is subject to this antithesis and whose existence can therefore be denied in theory by the same thinking as has to assert its existence in fact’ (Barth, Anselm, 141–2). ‘God is also the One who is event, act and life in His own way, as distinct from everything that He is not Himself ’ (II/1, 264; emphasis mine). ‘It is not only to unmoved nature and unmoved spirit, but to our motivated and motivating being that God’s being stands in contradistinction, as the one and only being that is self-motivated’ (II/1, 269). This particularity cannot ‘be juggled away by a new idealistic interpretation if at this point we are really to speak of the being of the triune God in His revelation, and not of any other being’ (II/1, 265). ‘The One who (in His own way) loves us, who (in His own way) seeks and creates fellowship between Himself and us, also informs us what a person is, in that (in His own way! not as if we knew of ourselves what it is, but in such a way that we now come to recognise it for the first time) He acts as a person. The definition of a person – that is, a knowing, willing, acting I – can have the meaning only of a confession of the person of God declared in His revelation, of the One who loves and who as such (loving in His own way) is the person’ (II/1, 284; emphasis mine). ‘In God there is no it that is not Himself. There is nothing general that is not His particular being in the uniqueness of its act and therefore its living and loving’ (II/1, 299–300). Basic though this conviction is for Barth’s theology, it has often been underappreciated and misunderstood (see, for example, Sung Wook Chung, ‘A Bold Innovator: Barth on God and Election’, in Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology: Convergences and Divergences, ed. idem [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006], 65–9). See especially KD II/1, 350; CD, 311.

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that Deus non est in genere (II/1, 310–11).27 ‘God is an instance outside every genus. God is, therefore, absolutely unique, in a way that is itself unique and cannot be denoted by any concept’ (II/1, 447). ‘God alone is God. He is the only one of His kind’ (II/1, 442). In this way, divine aseity clarifies that every concept which is taken up to fill out who God is can only ever give witness to divine predicates which are indissolubly bound to the divine subject (II/1, 299–300). Properly speaking, there is no divine predicate but ‘only the divine Subject as such and in Him the fulness of His divine predicates’ (II/1, 300). Since God reveals Godself, one must speak of humanity’s inability to comprehend God, and even more importantly, of God’s incomprehensibility (II/1, 186–7). God is not merely incomprehensible to creatures. God is ‘inapprehensible’ (unerfaßlich) in se.28 The ‘incomprehensibility of the supreme being’ found among Plato, Plotinus and Kant cannot be equated within the inapprehensibility of God (II/1, 187). For their conceptions of divine incomprehensibility to become in any way serviceable, it is necessary ‘to divest of their original character the perhaps inevitable elements of a generally “metaphysical” language structure, giving them a clear theological sense by placing them in the theological context’ (II/1, 187–8).29 The absoluteness of God in God’s self-revelation does not allow for ‘systematisations’ (II/1, 311). Since Deus non est in genere, ‘every theological method is to be rejected as untheological in which God’s self-revelation is apparently recognised, but in fact is subsumed beneath a higher term’ (II/1, 311).30

Pronobeity-in-uniqueness However, while God exists in absolute uniqueness, this is not a uniqueness which threatens God’s love for creatures. God’s unique presence is not ‘inflexible’ (II/1, 314). God is not ‘imprisoned by his own majesty as though he were bound to be no more that the personal (or impersonal) “wholly other”’.31 God is majestic, but

27 28 29

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Aquinas, ST, 1.3.5. KD II/1, 209; CD, 187. ‘God is no “thing-in-itself ”, no metaphysical substance in the midst of other substances, no second, other Stranger, side by side with those whose existence is independent of Him. On the contrary, He is the eternal, pure Origin of all things’ (Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 77–8). Framed in terms of the ways of dogmatism, criticism and dialectic, ‘The critical aspect, embedded in the positive aspect, allows Barth to preserve God’s sovereign freedom when dealing with God’s revelation’ (Chalamet, Dialectical Theologians, 232; see also Gunton, Becoming and Being, 198). Barth, Evangelical Theology, 10; cf. idem, ‘The Gift of Freedom’, 72. ‘God, then, is not a prisoner of God’s distance or otherness. God is uncatchably other in nearness and closeness’ (Holmes, ‘The Theological Function of the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes and the Divine Glory’, 219).

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this incomparable majesty is the divine manner of and readiness for existence with creatures. If a conception of divine distinction and difference inhibits God’s love for creatures, then it is not the conception of divine distinction and difference. God’s freedom is that ‘which He enjoys beyond and above His opposition to the reality distinct from Himself ’ (II/1, 303). God is ‘distinct from everything that He is not Himself, even though at the same time He is its source, reconciliation and goal’ (II/1, 264). In the sphere of divine revelation, God’s uniqueness is God’s proof of God’s own existence as one who is unique in eternity. This unique freedom which is revealed in Jesus Christ is ‘His freedom not merely to be in the differentiation of His being from its being, but to be in Himself the One who can have and hold communion with this reality (as in fact He does) in spite of His utter distinction from it’ (II/1, 304). As a matter of factual necessity, God has demonstrated God’s own unique existence within the sphere of that which is not God. By demonstrating ‘His existence’, God distinguishes Godself as one who is beyond all creaturely possibilities even within this sphere.32 No created being can be inwardly present to another, entering and remaining in communion with him in the depths of its inner life. No such being can create and sustain the life of another, seriously leading and governing, binding itself to the other and the other to itself in eternal faithfulness and whole-hearted devotion. The essence of every other being is to be finite, and therefore to have frontiers against the personality of others and to have to guard these frontiers jealously. It lies in the nature of the created being to have to be true to itself in such a way that with the best will in the world it simply cannot be true to another. It is its very nature that it cannot affirm itself except by affirming itself against others. . . . But God is free. He is also free to be immanent, free to achieve a uniquely inward and genuine immanence of His being in and with the being which is distinct from Himself. (II/1, 313)

By demonstrating ‘His existence’, God is present as one who is absolutely objective and absolutely prior to human apprehension.33 God therefore eternally precedes human apprehension and divine revelation, but does so concretely as the triune God who is eternally self-determined for self-revelation. This determinative movement is entirely asymmetrical. Of ourselves, we are not like God and therefore do ‘not apprehend’ God (II/1, 187–90; cf. 194). The inapprehensible God must be made apprehensible even in this inapprehensibility. 32 33

II/1, 304; emphasis original. Ibid.

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As Barth makes particularly clear in the doctrine of ‘The Knowledge of God’ (CD, §§25–7), only God reveals God.34 This means that revelation only begins with God. ‘The beginning of our knowledge of God – of this God – is not a beginning which we can make with Him. It can be only the beginning which He has made with us’ (II/1, 190). Although revelation is dependent on God’s action, God does in fact act: ‘we are not God. . . . But God is human’ (II/1, 151 rev.). In Jesus Christ it is given to creatures to ‘participate’ in God’s self-objectivity (II/1, 151). In Jesus Christ, we do in fact ‘apprehend’ God in God’s hiddenness (II/1, 191–4). Correspondingly, revelation is its own basis. ‘God’s revelation draws its authority and evidence from the fact that it is founded on itself apart from all human foundations’ (II/1, 271). In the Göttingen lectures, Barth can therefore speak of ‘the subject, which is never and nowhere object, because it is grounded only in itself and may be known only by itself ’.35 Then in the Church Dogmatics, he likewise finds that God’s noetic absoluteness ‘inevitably follows’ from God’s ontic absoluteness (II/1, 311).36 In this way, Barth applies Anselm’s affirmation that there is no ‘any other reason why he is than that he is’ to the sphere of divine action ad extra.37

God’s sufficiency in the act of self-giving Third, God’s aseity is God’s sufficiency. Primarily and positively it is the plenitude of God’s eternal love as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Secondarily and negatively it 34

35 36

37

Consider Daniel Jenkins’ overstated yet perceptive claim that ‘Barth’s overriding concern throughout the whole Dogmatics is so to state theological truth as to make clear the sovereignty and initiative of God in his revelation. That he largely succeeds in doing this is his decisive theological achievement’ (Daniel T. Jenkins, ‘Karl Barth’, in A Handbook of Christian Theologians, ed. Dean G. Peerman and Marin E. Marty [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984], 399–400. cf. idem, Beyond Religion: The Truth and Error of ‘Religionless Christianity [Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1962], 14–15). With a critical rather than an appreciative tone, Robert Brown similarly claims that an ‘extreme’ view of divine freedom ‘lies at the foundation of Barth’s thought’, namely that ‘God as sovereign freedom is unknowable to natural reason apart from grace, because a radically free being is one which cannot be known except when and as it specifically chooses to make itself known’ (Brown, ‘On God’s Ontic and Noetic Absoluteness’, 554–5). In Brown’s case, however, this ‘because’ insufficiently accounts for Barth’s interpretation of the inseparability of revelation and reconciliation in the application of the Reformation proclamation of solo Christo (e.g., I/1, 118–20). Moreover, important though this ‘when and as’ – or as Barth prefers, ubi et quando – may be within his thought, it insufficiently accounts for what McCormack has referred to as the Christocentrism rather than Pneumatocentrism of his mature theology (see McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, 21–2). GD, 87; emphasis original; cf. 61–2. According to Robert Brown, this movement from ontic to noetic absoluteness is a non sequitur which is grounded in a faulty view of divine freedom (Robert F. Brown, ‘On God’s Ontic and Noetic Absoluteness: A Critique of Barth’, Scottish Journal of Theology 33 [1980]: 540–4; cf. 544–8). For Barth, however, this view of God arises from the witness of Scripture and its denial posits a gap either between God’s being and action or between God’s being-in-action ad intra and ad extra. Anselm, De veritate, 10 (Davies and Evans, 164).

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is God’s freedom from any inherent need of creaturely reality. While an abstract conception of sufficiency might stand in tension with God’s pronobeity, God’s actual sufficiency is the manner and readiness of God’s being in becoming Immanuel. So although in and of itself humanity cannot receive God, as a matter of factual necessity, God can determine Godself to be received by humanity in Jesus Christ. This relation is both entirely determinative and entirely asymmetrical because in this genuine reception, God’s boundless overflow is God’s freedom.

Aseity as sufficiency God’s aseity is the fullness and plenitude of the eternal trinity. It is in this way that God’s being-in-action is free. For this reason the doctrine of aseity is not best served by the traditional conceptions of God as causa sui or ens necessarium. Both of these concepts threaten to limit God’s freedom. In the former case, freedom is limited because the God who is self-originating or self-constituting is ‘in a certain sense limited by the possibility of His non-being’ (II/1, 305). In the latter case, freedom is limited because this conception loses sight of the fact that ‘if God is, it is the effect of His freedom, which knows no necessity, no inevitability, no straitness’ (II/1, 307). The concepts of the sufficienta and simplicitas Dei, by contrast, are much more fruitful. In fact, these concepts are closely intertwined with divine aseity in two of Barth’s most formative sources of inspiration: the Protestant orthodox theology38 and Anselm.39

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Already in the Göttingen lectures, for example, Barth draws on material from Protestant orthodoxy which makes these connections explicit (see GD, 428–32, esp. 428; Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 62–8, esp. 63). As Richard Muller observes, in Protestant orthodoxy God’s all-sufficiency and independence are ‘corollaries’ of God’s aseity (Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 3:379). God’s aseity is likewise crucial to their doctrine of the divine essence and attributes more generally. Throughout this broader context, it ‘parallels and reflects the function of divine simplicity, albeit not in quite as philosophical a manner’ (Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 3:378). See also Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 3:368–71, 373–81; cf. 49–58. As with divine uniqueness, in Fides Quaerens Intellectum, Barth highlights the connection between aseity and both sufficiency and simplicity through his view that there is a critical distinction between the quod est maius omnibus of the Monologion and the quo maius cogitari nequit of the Proslogion. The former divine name lacks the ‘self-sufficiency’ that befits its object because such a being might very well be greatest of all but not actually existent (Barth, Anselm, 87–8). That is, it is not clarified that it is of this being’s essence to exist. However, the latter divine name properly affirms the selfsufficiency of its object by locating divine aseity beyond the available sphere of greater and lesser beings (Barth, Anselm, 85n. 2, 88–9). It is true that both accounts operate with an understanding of the unity of God’s essentia and esse (Barth, Anselm, 93–4). ‘By virtue of his aseity, or his glory as Creator, God is all that he is, not through participation in certain potentialities not identical with his actual Power; all his potentialities do not first require to be actualized in the reality of his Power, but he is himself what he ever is and what he ever is, he is himself. His Potentiality and his Reality are identical’ (Barth, Anselm, 94; cf. 54–9). However, it is only the latter divine name which logically and consistently affirms that the divine esse is included within the given understanding of the divine essentia.

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One the one hand, God is sufficient. God does not need a cause or origin for God’s existence (II/1, 305). God is ‘neither in need of, capable of, or exposed to any annulment, decrease, increase or perversion into any other self ’ (II/1, 492). As the one who is a se, God’s being is self-grounded (II/1, 301). God is only posited as self-positing (II/1, 302). ‘Within the sphere of His own being He can live and love in absolute plenitude and power’ (II/1, 301). The entirety of God’s being-in-action is God’s own possession. On the other hand, God does not have this fullness. God is this fullness. God is simple. God is entirely and undividedly Godself in all that God is and does.40 Since the repetition and affirmation of God’s being-in-action is entirely a se, the fact that God has and is this beingin-action is always already included within God’s identity as God. He does not need His own being in order to be who He is: because He already has His own being and is Himself; because nothing can accrue to Him from Himself which He had not or was not already; because, therefore, His being in its self-realisation or the actuality of His being answers to no external pressure but is only the affirmation of His own plenitude and a self-realisation in freedom. If, therefore, we say that God is a se, we do not say that God creates, produces or originates Himself. On the contrary, we say that (as manifest and eternally actual in the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Ghost) He is the One who already has and is in Himself everything which would have to be the object of His creation and causation if He were not He, God. Because He is God, as such He already has and is His own being. (II/1, 306)41

Therefore, in contrast to the notions of God as causa sui or ens necessarium, the doctrine of divine simplicity maintains that God is ‘incomparably free, sovereign and majestic’ (II/1, 445). As the one who lives in this freedom, God is actus purus and even purissimus (II/1, 263–4). God is not motionless and static, but rather God lives in pure vivacity and ‘eternal actuality’ (ewiger Aktualität).42 God’s love ad intra becomes necessary in and through God’s freedom to love.43

40

41

42

43

II/1, 445; cf. 300; see also Kevin Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 274–7. See Robert W. Jenson, Alpha and Omega: A Study in the Theology of Karl Barth (New York: Thomas Nelson, 1963; Reprint, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002), 70–1n. 4. It is also worth noting that McCormack claims Barth’s text here stands in tension with the more radical christocentrism of his later theology (McCormack, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 220). KD II/1, 556; CD, 494. For Barth, ‘the focus of the divine simplicity is on God as the Living One, as the one who possesses life to the fullest. It is God who is Life in Godself, fully and completely, with or without creatures. . . . It is the completeness and full actuality of this Life that is the divine simplicity’ (Christopher A. Franks, ‘The Simplicity of the Living God: Aquinas, Barth, and Some Philosophers’, Modern Theology 21.2 (2005): 297; emphasis original). II/1, 280–1; cf. 275.

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In God’s freedom this love cannot-not be. As a matter of factual necessity, the question of this possibility is untheological. What does this mean for God’s relations with creatures? Corresponding to Barth’s ‘rules’ that God is who God is concretely in God’s action ad extra (II/1, 272) and that the identity of God in God’s action ad extra cannot be different in content than the identity of God ad intra (I/1, 479), he maintains the conviction that ‘God does not do anything which in His own way He does not have and is not in Himself ’ (II/1, 467).44 Therefore, just as the free God could determine to be God without us, so also the free God would be God without us. Since ‘God is what He is absolutely by Himself ’, nothing can ‘confer’ divinity to God (II/1, 273). The independence between creatures is always relative. It is always a ‘mutual independence’ which inevitably carries with it a ‘mutual interdependence’ (II/1, 311). God, however, exists in ontic absoluteness. ‘He would be no less and no different even if they all did not exist or existed differently. . . . He would be who He is even without this connexion’ (II/1, 311–12). As the triune God who exists a se, God would live God even apart from creatures. God’s works or actions ad extra are ‘bound’ to God’s eternal beingin-action, but God is not bound to them (II/1, 260). God’s personhood – God’s existence as a knowing, willing and acting subject – indicates that God is ‘the I who knows about Himself, who Himself wills, Himself disposes and distinguishes, and in this very act of His omnipotence is wholly self-sufficient’ (II/1, 268). Moreover, as the triune God who exists a se, God would love God even apart from creatures. That which God establishes in relation to creatures, God already has eternally in se (II/1, 275). He loves us and the world as He who would still be One who loves without us and without the world; as He, therefore, who needs no other to form the prior ground of His existence as the One who loves and as God. . . . It is not part of God’s being and action that as love it must have an object in another who is different from Him. God is sufficient in Himself as object and therefore as object of His love. He is no less the One who loves if He loves no object different from

44

Therefore, ‘when God becomes the Creator and Lord of the world He does not become anything that He was not before. As Creator and Lord of the world He is not less or more than He was before. Creation cannot bring Him any increase, decrease or alteration of His divine being and essence by reason of its existence as the reality distinct from Himself, of its essence, its vitality, which grows and decays and alters. It cannot do this because it is His creation, the creation of His free love, which has its existence and essence by Him, while what God has in Himself is the ground of its existence and essence and not that existence and essence itself. In God Himself there does exist diversity prior to this, but it is His own and not that of the world. In God Himself there is also life and movement, but again it is His own and not that of the world’ (II/1, 499).

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Himself. . . . He could be everything only for Himself (and His life would not on that account be pointless, motionless and unmotivated, nor would it be any less majestic or any less the life of love). (II/1, 280–1)

In other words, as with Barth’s earliest dogmatic cycle, God’s love is blessed. God’s love is eternally actual and enjoyed in God’s life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.45 Furthermore, the triune God would be both a se and absolute even apart from creatures. On the one hand, God possesses the freedom to begin with Godself ‘in the depths of His eternal being’ and therefore ‘quite apart from His exercise of it ad extra’ (II/1, 305).46 On the other hand, God’s absoluteness is not primarily grounded in God’s relationship to the world, but rather in Godself (II/1, 308–9). God does not need to create the world in order to possess ‘otherness’ because God has otherness in se in the eternal relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit (II/1, 317). ‘Before all worlds, in His Son He has otherness in Himself from eternity to eternity’ (II/1, 317).

Pronobeity-in-sufficiency However, if unchecked, speaking about the possibility of this ‘would’ can endanger God’s actual pronobeity. Barth is quite clear, ‘the God of the Gospel is no lonely God, self-sufficient and self-contained’.47 The love of God needs no other, but sovereignly delights in self-communication (II/1, 321). God stands in need of nothing else. He has full satisfaction in Himself. Nothing else can even remotely satisfy Him. Yet He satisfies Himself by showing and manifesting and communicating Himself as the One who He is. He is completely Himself and complete in Himself. But He comes forth and has an outer as well as an inner side. He is not only immanent in Himself but He moves over to others. He is what He is in irresistible truth and power and act even for that which is not God, which is something else, which exists only through Him. He can and will not only exist but co-exist. (II/1, 666–7) 45

46 47

‘God’s act is His loving. It is His blessedness in so far as it is His essence even apart from us. But He wills to have this same essence, not merely for Himself alone, but also, having it for Himself, in fellowship with us. He does not need us and yet He finds no enjoyment in His self-enjoyment. He does not suffer any want and yet He turns to us in the overflow of the perfection of His essence and therefore of His loving, and shares with us, in and with His love, its blessedness. This blessedness of the love of God is founded on the fact that He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and as such loves us: as our Creator, Mediator and Redeemer, as love itself, the One who loves eternally’ (II/1, 283; cf. GD, 425). God is free ‘in Himself quite apart from His relation to another from whom He is free’ (II/1, 301). Barth, Evangelical Theology, 10; cf. IV/1, 422–3; IV/3.1, 252.

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As a matter of factual necessity, in Jesus Christ, God’s self-sufficiency assumes the elected path of self-giving.48 As the sufficiency of God, it is God’s own possession which God is free to exercise according to God’s will. God is entirely self-sufficient, but God elects not to be entirely self-sufficient. God’s election is the demonstration, the overflowing of the love which is the being of God, that He who is entirely self-sufficient, who even within Himself cannot know isolation, willed even in all His divine glory to share His life with another, and to have that other as the witness of His glory. . . . He ordains that He should not be entirely self-sufficient as He might be. He determines for Himself that overflowing, that movement, that condescension. He constitutes Himself as benefit or favour. (II/2, 9–10)

In other words, God elects for God’s sufficiency in se to become God’s sufficiency pro nobis. God demonstrates Godself to be ‘self-sufficient and thus adequate to meet every real need’ (II/1, 322). The divine reality ‘suffers no lack in itself and by its very essence fills every real lack’ (II/1, 322). God is not self-sufficient and independent apart from creaturely reality, but ‘self-sufficient and independent in relation to it’ (II/1, 311). God does not exist in supreme and utter independence entirely in se, but rather ‘confronts all that is in supreme and utter independence’ (II/1, 311). In this way, God neither keeps the fullness of God’s blessed life wholly in se nor does God give Godself ad extra in such a way that God loses Godself. In the freedom of God’s self-giving, God 48

As Barth similarly states in II/2, ‘this determination of the will of God, this content of predestination, is already grace, for God did not stand in need of any particular ways or works ad extra. He had no need of a creation. He might well have been satisfied with the inner glory of His threefold being. His freedom, and His love. The fact that He is not satisfied, but that His inner glory overflows and becomes outward, the fact that He wills the creation, and the man Jesus as the first-born of all creation, is grace, sovereign grace, a condescension inconceivably tender. But this determination of the will of God is eminently grace to the extent that in relation to this other, the creation of God, God’s first thought and decree consists in the fact that in His Son He makes the being of this other His own being, that He allows the Son of Man Jesus to be called and actually to be His own Son. In and with His lordship over this other, in and with the creaturely autonomy of this other – and even that is grace – God wills and decrees and posits in the beginning both His own fatherhood and also the sonship of the creature. This is more than mere kindness and condescension. It is self-giving. And that is how the inner glory of God overflows. From all eternity it purports and wills its own impartation to the creature, the closest possible union with it, a fellowship which is not to its own advantage but to that of the creature’ (II/2, 121). In this light, it may also be noted that Michael Ovey quite curiously worries that Barth’s concept of divine self-giving lacks ‘trinitarian specificity’ – that is, it obscures the fact that this self-giving is realized through the Father’s gift of the Son (Michael J. Ovey, ‘A Private Love? Karl Barth and the Triune God’, in Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques, ed. David Gibson and Daniel Strange [London: T&T Clark, 2008], 218). For more on Barth’s concept of divine self-giving in the context of election, see Edwin Chr. van Driel, Incarnation Anyway: Arguments for Supralapsarian Christology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 72–4.

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can be ontically absolute in even relation to creatures. God can preserve Godself in relation to creatures such that the ontological ‘synthesis’ and ‘merging’ of pantheism and panentheism are prohibited (II/1, 312–13). If there is a connexion and relatedness between them and Him, God is who He is in independence of them even in this relatedness. He does not share His being with theirs. He does not enter with them into a higher synthesis. He does not mingle and blend Himself with them. He does not transform Himself into them. Even in His relationship and connexion with them, He remains who He is. (II/1, 311)

God can be for us. God can even be for us as a human. Still further, God can be for us as a human who dies. Nonetheless, in all of this, God cannot be less than God for us.49 In view of these convictions, throughout II/1 Barth persistently demonstrates that God’s sufficiency for creatures finds its readiness in God’s eternal selfsufficiency.50 God’s eternal being-in-action is God’s readiness to give Godself to creatures. The self-living God can give life ad extra. The self-moving God can be motivating (II/1, 268–9). The self-loving God can become the gift of love to a new other. God can become our loving creator, mediator and redeemer because God exists in love as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (II/1, 276–7). God can establish fellowship with creatures because God eternally exits in fellowship (II/1, 280). God thus demonstrates that God can give not merely ‘something, but Himself ’ (II/1, 276).51 Not we but God is I. For He alone is the One who loves without any other good, without any other ground, without any other aim, without any other blessedness than what He has in Himself, and who as He does so is Himself and as such can confront another, a Thou. Without being limited or bound by this other, He can be this other’s limit and bound, the very ground of his being, and in such a way that He can meet this other on his side as a Thou, and can be understood and addressed by this other as Thou. He is therefore capable of fellowship – capable of fellowship on the basis of His own power and 49

50

51

‘In giving himself away God does not give himself up. But he gives himself away because he will not give up humanity’ (Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 102). On the connection between sufficiency and pronobeity in Barth, see Gunton, Becoming and Being, 194; idem, The Barth Lectures, 102. On the connection between simplicity and pronobeity in Barth, see Franks, ‘The Simplicity of the Living God’, 297. Even more fully, alluding to Anselm, Barth writes, ‘as He receives us through His Son into His fellowship with Himself, this is the one necessity, salvation, and blessing for us, than which there is no greater blessing – no greater, because God has nothing higher than this to give, namely Himself; because in giving us Himself, He has given us every blessing’ (II/1, 275).

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act, capable of fellowship and capable of achieving fellowship in Himself and without the need of this other, but at the same time capable of fellowship and capable of achieving fellowship with reference to this other. This means really and fundamentally to be I. The being and therefore the loving of God has alone this character of being I. (II/1, 284–5)

It is because God is good not prior to loving but in this act that God can be Godself in this way. God can do this because God is ‘self-communicating life’ (II/1, 276).52 God’s eternal action of knowing is God’s readiness to give Godself to creatures. God is eternally known ‘of Godself and through Godself ’ (aus sich selbst und durch sich selbst).53 It is precisely because of this knowing that God can know and be known in God’s life ad extra. It is precisely because of God’s primary objectivity that God is ready for secondary objectivity (II/1, §26.1). ‘In His essence, as it is turned to us in His activity, He is so constituted that He can be known by us’ (II/1, 65). It is in and from the wealth of God’s readiness that God freely and irrevocably turns to creatures in God’s self-giving. Accordingly, ‘we certainly will never see clearly enough and can never say strongly enough that in loving us God has given and gives Himself to us, and gives Himself fully, since this loving is His own being and essence’ (II/1, 282). This loving movement ad extra is not different or separate from God’s essence. On the contrary, this loving movement ad extra must certainly be regarded as ‘matching His essence, belonging to His essence’ (II/1, 273). Nonetheless, since God gives to creatures from this great depth, God’s entirely determinative self-giving is also entirely asymmetrical.54 Since this act

52

53 54

‘God is glorious in his self-communication precisely because God is self-communicating life, a self-communication which overflows, but does so precisely because God is complete in Godself ’ (Holmes, ‘ The Theological Function of the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes and the Divine Glory’, 217). KD II/1, 70; CD, 65. For some, such as Douglas Pratt, if divine aseity includes absolute independence and self-sufficiency, it compromises God’s relationship with creatures. If these relations are to involve authentic engagement, he argues, they must be mutual and reciprocal. That is, they must include responsive love. However, ‘it would appear Barth wants to have it both ways – he does not relinquish aseitas as a fundamental element, but he obviously wants to take cognizance of God’s ad extra relationships’ (Pratt, ‘Aseity as Relational Problematic’, 15). Therefore, while acknowledging Barth’s desire to uphold the genuineness of God’s loving relations with creatures, Pratt claims that his emphasis of God’s freedom – God’s being ‘unlimited, unrestricted and unconditioned from without’ (II/1, 301) – ultimately undermines this aim (Pratt, ‘Aseity as Relational Problematic’, 16). In response, the concept of relationality which underlies Pratt’s critique is far too anthropological (see Pratt, ‘Aseity as Relational Problematic’, 15). Moreover, in Pratt’s interpretation of Barth on divine freedom, he insufficiently accounts for the dialectical pairing of freedom with love. Just a few pages after the abovementioned quote on 301, Barth adds, ‘God must not only be unconditioned but, in the absoluteness in which He sets up this fellowship, He can and will also be conditioned’ (II/1, 303). This ability is God’s freedom.

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is determinative, God genuinely gives Godself to creatures.55 Since this act is asymmetrical, in this self-giving, ‘God’s love is not merely not conditioned by any reciprocity of love. It is also not conditioned by any worthiness to be loved on the part of the loved, by any existing capacity for union or fellowship on his side’ (II/1, 278). Unlike the ‘reciprocal’ character of relations between creatures, God reaches out in the self-sufficient freedom of God’s divine love (II/1, 313). God exists absolutely and by this absoluteness the ‘relativity’ of that which is not God is made ‘irrevocably necessary’ (II/1, 309). If existence is graciously given to that which is not God, this other can only exist ‘in subordination to, and in the service of, God’ (II/1, 308). If there are ‘possibilities’ of divine immanence, they originate only with Jesus Christ and exist under his rule (II/1, 316–17). If Jesus Christ stands in relation to creation, he is necessarily the ‘firstborn’ (πρωτότοκος).56 If creation stands in relation to Jesus Christ, it is necessarily created ‘through him’ (δι’ αὐτο ), ‘in him’ (ἐν αὐτ ) and ‘for him’ (εἰς αὐτὸν).57

55

56 57

Barth goes to great lengths to clarify that God actually loves creatures. Talk of God’s love ad extra is not merely a veiled description of God’s self-loving and self-glorifying. God’s love must be understood as both ‘for its own sake’ and ‘an end in itself ’ (II/1, 276, 279). Barth notes that for Aquinas, ‘To love is nothing other than to will good to another’ (Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 1.20.2 responsio; paraphrased by Barth II/1, 277). ‘Thus the one who loves becomes external to himself and is transformed into the beloved, inasmuch as he wishes good to the beloved and acts in his concern as if for himself ’ (Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 1.20.2 ad 1; cited by Barth II/1, 277). He then concludes that under closer biblical scrutiny, this definition must be changed to read: ‘The one who loves thus wills good to the beloved and acts by his care as if to himself, inasmuch as he is taken out of himself and taken into the beloved’ (II/1, 277). Col. 1:15; cited by Barth, CD II/1, 317. Col. 1:15–20; cited by Barth, CD II/1, 317; cf. 1 Cor. 8:6; Rom. 11:36.

9

Conclusion

The doctrine of divine aseity is among the most central themes in Karl Barth’s theology. This is true not only in his earlier theology where one might expect it, but also in his more mature work. Throughout these writings Barth maintains and elevates the idea that the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit begins with Godself and is thus God’s own. God simply is this trinitarian event of knowing and loving. In Barth’s early years, he draws on this doctrine to resist the tide of anthropological theologies and to affirm the full divinity of God. As his theology becomes increasingly christocentric, this role is not lessened but reoriented. Barth comes to see that divine aseity affirms that, as a matter of factual necessity, this divinity is only ever the divinity of the human God. Therefore, while Barth’s early theology is enthralled with the mystery that God is wholly other, in time, especially in and around his third cycle on the doctrine of God, his focus turns more directly to the fact that the wholly other God is wholly pro nobis. With new clarity, he sees that God’s irrevocable and eternal self-determination to become Immanuel does not threaten God’s life. God’s is not a prisoner to God’s own plentitude. God is free to overflow ad extra. In the twofold election of Jesus Christ, God’s aseity is God’s readiness to become the gospel to the world. This movement ad extra is entirely asymmetrical because in this determination God begins with Godself. This movement ad extra is entirely determinative because God’s freedom to be God pro nobis is God’s freedom to be God. Since aseity is the capax Dei to exist as God pro alio, there is no tension or discrepancy between God’s inward and outward life. The teleology of God is God’s pronobeity in aseity. What does this doctrine imply about the relations between God and creatures? It means that true human identity and action can only arise from the freedom of God. It means that humanity is only when its hands are open and outstretched to heaven. These hands are ever reaching and never grasping, but by grace and through faith, always overflowing. This is the mystery of God’s self-preservation in self-communication. At the level of Christian witness, this means that the

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doctrine of divine aseity cannot be constructed as an abstract inquiry into the nature of divinity. It does not, for example, arise from a general fixation with protology. Properly considered, it does not constitute a focus on protology per se. Aseity is the depth of the triune God from, in and to all eternal time.1 The aseity of God is the aseity of God. The doctrine of divine aseity must therefore follow the path in which God elects to enact God’s own aseity. According to God’s gracious self-determination, the doctrine of divine aseity is the description of God’s proof of God’s own existence in the history of Jesus Christ. It is the description of God’s gracious self-reiteration, both in time and in eternity. It is the confession that God can become Godself in a new way through the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Spirit. If Barth’s account of this doctrine is lacking – principally according to CD, §28.3 – it is in three respects. First, there is not enough concrete attention on the operations of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit ad intra.2 The problem is not that he disallows these operations from playing a role throughout his work; it is rather that their appearances tend to be brief and superficial. Their scant treatment throughout §28.3 is actually quite striking, especially when one considers that the trinitarian character of the account is among Barth’s explicit and central values. There are certainly other places throughout the Church Dogmatics where the processions receive greater attention.3 Second, there is not enough concrete attention on christological content. As with the first deficit, Barth frequently notes the centrality of these loci for divine aseity. Nonetheless, Barth’s actual recourse to christology has a rather broad frame of reference. 1

2

3

On this note, one might recall Barth’s criticism of Moltmann’s doctrine of the trinity. Upon accusing Moltmann of allowing an ‘eschatological principle’ to control his theology, he asks, ‘Would it not be wise to accept the doctrine of the immanent trinity of God? You may thereby achieve the freedom of three-dimensional thinking in which the eschata have and retain their whole weight while the same (and not just a provisional) honor can still be shown to the kingdoms of nature and grace’ (Karl Barth to Jürgen Moltmann, 17 November 1964, Letters 1961-1968, ed. Jürgen Fangmeier and Hinrich Stoevesandt, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981], 175–6). John Webster, perhaps more than any other recent theologian, has been vigorous in maintaining the proper balance in this regard. See Webster, ‘God’s Perfect Life’, 147–52; idem, ‘Life in and of Himself ’, 114–24; cf. idem, forward to Trinitarian Theology after Barth, ed. Myk Habets and Phillip Tolliday (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2012), xi–xii. Barth is quite accustomed to drawing on the trinitarian relations in his theology (e.g., I/1, 139–40, 360–8, 393–4, 427–37, 473–87; III/1, 11–16, 48–59; IV/2, 338–48). He even draws attention to filiation and spiration in his considerably shorter treatment on the divine reality given just prior to his II/1 preparations: ‘He is thrice named, and thrice truly exists as the One God, the one Subject, the one Person, but the Person who begets Himself, proceeds from Himself and Himself is master of His own existence and essence. As this Subject who is three in one, in virtue of the incomparable freedom and power in which He is what He is, without standing in need of any other being or predicate – as this Person God can and must be free and therefore have dominion over all existence which differs from His existence and over all essence which differs from His essence’ (Barth, The Knowledge of God and the Service of God, 31). However, in the much larger account of §28.3, only the depth of the incarnation of the Son is given extended consideration (e.g., II/1, 317).

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Barth firmly establishes that God is for us and that God is so in the history of Jesus Christ, but he does depend very heavily on specific christological content in explaining this use of God’s aseity. These two deficits, in turn, arise from a third and more basic problem: Barth’s conception of divine love and freedom as a reinterpretation of the Protestant orthodox categories for the doctrine of God in light of the dialectic of revelation inhibits these leading concepts from fully functioning according to their stated purposes. Since Barth began his first cycle through the doctrine of God as a Reformed pastor turned honorary professor of Reformed theology, it is only logical that he would turn to these resources. It is also understandable that he would rely so heavily on the dialectic of revelation since it is among his most trusted doctrinal tools for resisting natural theology and reinforcing the need to adhere to God’s self-revelation. This dialectic is, after all, an attempt to describe revelation as human and divine in Jesus Christ (see GD, §6). Broadly considered, these are two of the most positive forces at work throughout Barth’s theology. The problem is therefore not with these features in and of themselves but rather with the way in which they come together in these loci. This issue is particularly acute in the Göttingen lectures, but it is also present through Barth’s third treatment in Church Dogmatics II/1. More specifically, the matter here centres on Barth’s initial decision to correlate divine personality with unveiling, immanence and positive concepts and to correlate divine aseity with veiling, transcendence and negative concepts. Although this polarized construction provides Barth’s dialectical method with a unique opportunity to draw attention to God’s existence above and beyond human concepts, it limits Barth’s ability to clarify that, as a matter of factual necessity, God is a se not behind but in God’s election to be pro nobis. In large part, this is a symptom of the fact that Barth’s dialectical reinterpretation of the Protestant orthodox categories during this phase is insufficiently informed by the doctrines of Christ and, more inclusively, the trinity. Although his dialectic of revelation is teleologically ordered, it is inhibited from following this ordering with the consistency and rigour that would characterize its later expressions. By the time of Church Dogmatics II/1, Barth identifies this issue and begins to make revisions. One of the clearest changes is that he entirely rejects the association of love with positive concepts and freedom with negative concepts. On the contrary, not only is freedom primarily positive, but it is also specifically aseity which serves as the designation for this positive aspect. As for the categories unveiling–veiling and immanence–transcendence, Barth backs away from their tight correlation with the love–freedom pairing. Nonetheless, he does allow a residual association between them. Love provides a unique opportunity to think

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about unveiling and immanence and freedom provides a unique opportunity to think about veiling and transcendence. The problem is that in filling out love and freedom Barth goes to great lengths to clarify that God is unveiled and veiled as well as transcendent and immanent in God’s unity as the one who loves in freedom. Through God’s election, unveiling is victorious over unveiling; however, in God, love is not victorious over freedom. Correspondingly, God is not veiled in se, not even partially. Therefore, admirable though Barth’s intension may be,4 the way in which the dialectic of love and freedom arises from the dialectic of unveiling and veiling bears an overly formal and even artificial character.5 Additionally, as was implied above, this strong dependence on the dialectic of revelation inadvertently distracts Barth from depending more directly on trinitarian and christological content. The remedy for this issue need not entail any substantial changes to Barth’s dialectic of revelation itself. Neither must it rule out the use of love and freedom as organizing concepts.6 The key formulation which should be revised is the material connection between these dialectics. It is preferable to affirm the veiling of God alongside the definitive and victorious unveiling of God in and through every aspect of God’s identity. God’s love and freedom both express God’s veiling and transcendence, but they do so secondarily and to the same degree. In light of the teleological ordering of God’s life ad extra, God is primarily unveiled and immanent in both love and freedom.7 The content which Barth uses to fill out love and freedom largely supports these contentions, but their expressions are limited by the residual connection of love and freedom to the Protestant orthodox categories and the dialectic of revelation. If, by contrast, one were to retain the association between the love–freedom pairing and the pairings of unveiling–veiling and immanence–transcendence, 4

5

6

7

In Barth’s view, the consideration of the traditional question of the distribution of the divine attributes is actually an attempt to avoid arbitrariness (see II/1, 336). He accuses the psychological approach of being arbitrary due to its failure to be sufficiently guided by revelation (II/1, 338). Barth’s twofold structure is his attempt to adhere to the concrete basis of all speech about God, namely, God’s selfrevelation (see Cross, Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God, 180n. 18). Just as the perfections of God are not ‘arbitrarily determined’, so also the sequential priority of the perfections of divine love ‘must always be respected and never replaced by any arbitrarily introduced symmetry’ (II/1, 376; cf. 348–50). McCormack has laid an even stronger charge of abstraction against Barth in relation to his use of the dialectic of revelation in CD I/1 (see McCormack, ‘The Doctrine of the Trinity after Barth’, 90–7). Geoffrey Bromiley is a bit too dismissive when he writes, ‘If an arbitrary element creeps in when he singles out love and freedom as master-concepts, perhaps the arbitrariness is simply that of method’ (Bromiley, Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth, 74; emphasis mine). This contention has some similarity to Krötke’s critique of Barth’s use of dialectical method throughout the doctrine of the divine perfections (see Krötke, Gottes Klarheiten, especially 104–20). However, while Krötke is primarily concerned with the question of revelation, the argument here extends to the entire relationship between God’s being-in-action ad intra and ad extra.

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as Barth does in II/1, it would at least be preferable to follow the theological pattern which he establishes through his interpretation of the condescension and ascension of the Son of God in Church Dogmatics IV/1–2. In Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation, he subverts Feuerbach’s favourite criticism of Christianity by thinking after God’s self-revelation and thereby developing a deeply paradoxical perspective (see IV/1, 128–38). In chapter XIV, ‘Jesus Christ, The Lord as Servant’, he finds that the doctrine of the Son as vere Deus correlates to Christ’s humility and incarnation (see especially IV/1, §59). Then in chapter XV, ‘Jesus Christ, The Servant as Lord’, he finds that the doctrine of the Son as vere homo correlates to Christ’s glory and ascension (see especially IV/2, §64). On this basis, one can envision a II/1-inspired interpretation of divine love and freedom which follows Barth’s christology more closely by reversing their connection with divine unveiling and veiling. That is, the determinative and irrevocable character of God’s election to be God pro nobis in aseity can be more accurately depicted by associating the mystery of God’s love with veiling and transcendence and the gift of God’s freedom with unveiling and immanence. These criticisms and proposals aside, Barth’s account provides a wealth of conceptual resources for maintaining an undomesticated vision of God’s majestic condescension. First and foremost, this is because even in II/1, Barth cogently demonstrates that divine aseity clarifies both that the humility of the Son of God ad extra is the reiteration of God’s eternal perfection and that, as the elected path of the being of God, this humility is glory. This, of course, is simply to say that divine aseity maintains God’s lordship in self-binding, uniqueness in self-revelation and sufficiency in self-giving. Having expressed these preliminary conclusions, it is now possible to apply these insights to the four questions about divine aseity in Barth studies which were raised in the introduction.

Divine freedom and pronobeity First, to what extent should Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity be interpreted as reinforcing the contingency of God’s decision to be pro nobis or as reinforcing its necessity? On the one hand, divine aseity must certainly be understood as reinforcing the contingency of God’s free determination to be pro nobis. Barth frequently reasons that the triune God could have not been pro nobis because God already has what God creates in God’s relations ad extra. Therefore, if God is for us, it can only be a matter of pure grace – grace which arises from the depth of God’s life in se. In light of Barth’s polemic against natural theology, he

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is especially concerned about this gracious character of God’s relations ad extra in the doctrine of revelation. As with the gift of the knowledge of God, so also with the gift of the presence of God: ‘Grace would not be grace if God could not give and also refuse us this reality and with it this possibility too’ (I/1, 224). However, Barth is also quite insistent on this point in relation to subsequent doctrines, including election. As with God’s being, God’s election is God’s own.8 Any necessity which compromises God’s eternal fullness or views God’s will as constrained must be ruled out. On the other hand, divine aseity must certainly not be understood as reinforcing an abstract conception of God’s free determination to be pro nobis. If this divine ‘could’ is not properly qualified and located, it can quickly lead to untheological abstractions. For Barth, God’s freedom is God’s own concrete determination. It is not ‘unlimited possibility or formal majesty and omnipotence, that is to say empty, naked sovereignty’; it is not the freedom of ‘aloof isolation’.9 On the contrary, ‘the very center of the Christian concept of God . . . [is] the radical affirmation of free grace, whereby God bound and committed himself to man’.10 ‘God’s revelation is God’s inconceivable freeness and so His existence for us’ (I/2, 54–5). ‘God’s high freedom in Jesus Christ is His freedom for love.’11 In short, ‘God’s freedom is essentially not freedom from, but freedom to and for.’12 Accordingly, God’s decision to love in freedom ad extra is not arbitrary. God is true to Godself in this election and its enactment. ‘There is freedom in God, but no caprice. And the fact that from all eternity God pitied and received man, the grounding of the fellow-humanity of Jesus in the eternal covenant executed in time in His being for man, rests on the freedom of God in which there is nothing arbitrary or accidental but in which God is true to Himself ’ (III/2, 218). This movement is ‘the natural expression’ of God’s eternal being-in-action.13 Corresponding to God’s readiness, even in eternity, God ‘leans towards’ God’s life with creatures (II/1, 274). This can be expressed even more forcefully. God’s self-election is selfobligation. With echoes of Anselm, Barth writes, ‘He has determined Himself. Without any obligation, God has put Himself under an obligation to man’

8

9 10 11 12 13

When considering the gracious character of God’s election, Barth is particularly fond of drawing on Psalm 8:4: ‘what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?’ See II/2, 101; IV/2, 791; IV/3.1, 227–9. Barth, ‘The Gift of Freedom’, 71. Ibid., 72. Barth, ‘The Humanity of God’, 48; emphasis original. Barth, ‘The Gift of Freedom’, 72; emphasis original. II/1, 317; emphasis original.

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(II/2, 101).14 Therefore, there is a relative yet proper sense in which this natural expression of God’s life ad extra is necessary precisely as God’s gracious and free movement.15 Within the sphere of God’s free and gracious election, the history of Jesus Christ becomes necessary. Before the Son of God there lies only one path, that of incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension. ‘It takes place in the freedom of God, but in the inner necessity of the freedom of God and not in the play of a sovereign liberum arbitrium. There is no possibility of something quite different happening’ (IV/1, 195). Nonetheless, in affirming this it is always critical to remember that the necessity of God’s action can only ever be the necessity of God’s free love.16 God is the One who, although wholly self-sufficient in His possession of all perfections, and absolutely glorious and blessed in His inner life, did not as such will to be alone, and has not actually remained alone, but in accordance with His own will, and under no other inward constraint than that of the freedom of His love, has, in an act of the overflowing of His inward glory, posited as such a reality which is distinct from Himself. (III/1, 15)

For Barth, ‘the will of God is free even in His necessity to will Himself, and necessary even in His freedom to will everything else’ (II/1, 591). This question of how God’s freedom in election relates to God’s freedom in being God requires further attention. First of all, McCormack is right to point out that in Barth’s view election is an ‘eternal decision’ which ‘has never not taken place’.17 There was never a time in which God was not pro nobis. Barth himself speaks in these terms. Concerning the enactment of God’s election, Barth writes, ‘He was never not our Creator, Father and Redeemer’ (III/2, 545). Concerning God’s election, he also adds, ‘There was no time when God was not the Covenant-partner of man’ (III/2, 218). Since God eternally elects to love

14

15

16 17

See especially Anselm, Cur deus homo, 2.5. According to Michael Root, Anselm has two contexts for language about divine freedom: ‘First God’s acts are free from external compulsion and prevention. God acts strictly a se. Second, God can choose to enter or not enter obligating or binding relations with creatures. Once such relations are established, however, they are immutably binding, for any such alteration in God’s choice is unthinkable’ (Michael Root, ‘Necessity and Fittingness in Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo’, Scottish Journal of Theology 40.2 [1987]: 228). Barth follows a similar pattern, but of course he does so with his characteristic christocentrism and actualism. That is, he clarifies that this determination is known and actualized in Jesus Christ and that it is entirely determinative for God’s own life. Utilizing a distinction provided by Harry Frankfurt, Kevin Hector articulates the necessity of God’s pronobeity as ‘volitional necessity’ rather than ‘absolute necessity’ (Hector, ‘Immutability, Necessity and Triunity’, 71–8; see also Chalamet, ‘No Timelessness in God’, 31–7; cf. Molnar, ‘Can the Electing God be God Without us?’, 213–17). See II/1, 518–19; III/1, 15, 50–1; IV/1, 179–80, 194–5; IV/2, 766–71; cf. I/2, 31–41, 135; IV/1, 176, 324. McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 101; cf. 99–100.

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creatures, God’s enactment of this decision must be understood as ‘matching His essence, belonging to His essence’ (II/1, 273). God does live behind or above this decision, but in it (IV/3.1, 160–1). ‘God is his decision.’18 Since God’s decision is for God’s free love to turn ad extra, ‘God is who He is, not in abstracto nor without relationship, but as God for the world’ (IV/3.2, 762). God’s election is determinative and irrevocable (II/2, 6–9). Although this decision is most certainly not the relinquishment or diminution of God’s life ad intra, it is the relinquishment of God’s capacity not to be God pro nobis.19 As a matter of free 18

19

Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 83. It is ‘indissolubly part of the very being and essence of God that he elects’ (Gunton, ‘Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Election as Part of His Doctrine of God’, 383). It is important to keep the determinative character of election in mind in interpreting Barth’s descriptions of God as free from us and not bound to us. It could be tempting to assume that this language indicates that God retains the possibility of not being for us in the sense of not living out the history of salvation which God has eternally elected. Some scholars might respond positively, thinking that it protects a proper sense of God’s freedom to choose any possible course of action for God’s life. Others might respond negatively, thinking that Barth is reverting back to the less overtly christocentric view of freedom of found in the opening of the Church Dogmatics. Nonetheless, as with many of Barth’s favourite theological patterns of speech, he uses this language frequently, but often with quite different meanings. What has often gone unrecognized is that although Barth is able to use such language in the context of God’s determination to be pro nobis, he uses it more frequently to describe the free manner in which God enacts this determination. When this latter context is in view, it is especially clear that free from and not bound do not mean ‘indeterminate’ or ‘possibly not pro nobis’. On the contrary, these expressions typically mean ‘not grasped by human concepts’, ‘not under our control’ or ‘not externally constrained’. In light of the equivocation which has sometimes entered the recent discussions about Barth’s view of divine freedom, it might be helpful to restate this by means of alternate categories. Barth’s dialectics of God as free from-free for and unbound-bound are often explicitly framed as descriptions of the teleologically ordered dialectics of divine action ad extra – the dialectic of revelation being the most prominent among them. Since there is a lower level of tension in Barth’s ontic dialectics, he is able to emphasize the reciprocal movement between the two elements if he feels that this is warranted by the matter at hand. For example, when Barth becomes fixed on the danger of natural theology in CD I/1, he can focuses on this lower level to ward off anthropological theologies and to protect God’s freedom in revelation. Barth can say that ‘God is free to reveal Himself or not to reveal Himself ’ and that ‘God’s presence is always God’s decision to be present’ (I/1, 321). And again, ‘Even as He gives Himself He remains free to give Himself afresh or to refuse Himself ’ (I/1, 323). However, it is critical to observe that Barth’s main point is not that God might actually rescind God’s election which guilds the teleology of unveiling and veiling. Barth’s point is rather that, prior to the eschaton, the divine No is not fully taken up into the victorious divine YES. In accordance with Barth’s lifelong conviction that God is hidden in God’s revelation, Barth is simply saying, ‘It is the Deus revelatus who is the Deus absconditus, the God to whom there is no path nor bridge, concerning whom we could not say nor have to say a single word if He did not of His own initiative meet us as the Deus revelatus’ (I/1, 321). As Barth’s polemical concerns subside, he demonstrates a stronger inclination to emphasize the upper level of these dialectics, beyond the tension of Yes and No. This same basic pattern can also be seen in CD II/1. For example, Barth writes, ‘God is free to be present with the creature by giving Himself and revealing Himself to it or by concealing Himself and withdrawing Himself from it’ (II/1, 314). However, this is explicitly framed as a question of how God is immanent in transcendence (II/1, 313–15; cf. 302–4). The same point often holds for Barth’s description of God as bound and unbound (e.g., II/1, 281, 314–15). Even when Barth does use bound and unbound in connection with God’s determination to be pro nobis, unbound does not mean that God is indeterminate with respect to election but rather that God’s action is not compelled or necessary (II/1, 526–8). As Barth clarifies elsewhere – even in this very same part-volume – the one thing which God chooses is to love creatures (e.g., II/1, 273–5). There is no indication that this ‘unbound’ is pulling in any other direction. This is quite obviously the case because the idea that God binds Godself to creatures as one who is unbound runs parallel to the logic of the entire doctrine of the reality of God: God loves in freedom, both ad intra and ad extra.

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grace and factual necessity, God would not be God without this election and its enactment. In Barth’s words, in the free decision of His love, God is God in the very fact, and in such a way, that He does stand in this relation, in a definite relationship with the other. We cannot go back on this decision if we would know God and speak accurately of God. . . . Once made, it belongs definitively to God Himself, not in His being in and for Himself, but in His being within this relationship. It belongs to the reality of God which is a reality not apart from but in this decision. . . . Jesus Christ is the decision of God in favour of this attitude or relation. He is Himself the relation. It is a relation ad extra, undoubtedly; for both the man and the people represented in Him are creatures and not God. But it is a relation which is irrevocable, so that once God has willed to enter into it, and has in fact entered into it, He could not be God without it. It is a relation in which God is selfdetermined, so that the determination belongs no less to Him than all that He is in and for Himself.20

Correspondingly, we are God’s in eternity even before we are (III/2, 577). Having surveyed the basic features of God’s freedom pro nobis in Barth’s theology, it is now necessary to pursue two additional lines of inquiry related to his use of hypothetical counterfactual language. The first question is ‘how does Barth’s use of hypothetical counterfactual language develop throughout his theology?’ It is true that the question of what God ‘could’ have done – or, as Hans Goebel says, the divine ‘ability’ (Können) – is especially significant in Church Dogmatics I/1–II/1.21 Barth’s polemical concerns, particularly in I/1, do indeed lead him to make some rather unguarded statements which could lend support to an abstract understanding of the divine life.22 This being said, even as Barth subsequently increases his christocentric consistency, these ‘could’ affirmations still persist, albeit in a more concretely directed form. Furthermore, even in II/1, Barth already senses that God’s ‘ability’ (Können) is that which God has ‘proved and manifested in God’s action’, or rather, in God’s freedom pro nobis (KD II/1, 341; CD, 303). In the same way, throughout the doctrine of the reality of God,

20 21 22

II/2, 6–7; emphasis mine; see also II/2, 77; III/3, 4–6; IV/2, 558. See Goebel, ‘Trinitätslehre und Erwählungslehre bei Karl Barth’, 153–5. For example, in I/1 Barth writes, ‘theology cannot speak of man in himself, in isolation from God. But as in the strict doctrine of the Trinity as the presupposition of Christology, it must speak of God in Himself, in isolation from man’ (I/1, 172). Even if the later Barth can retain the basic purpose of this statement, his language here is certainly out of line with the overall emphasis of his theology. Barth is, after all, the theologian of the humanity of God. Cf. Molnar, ‘Can the Electing God be God Without us?’, 212–13.

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Barth’s thinking is very much centred on the concrete directedness of God’s ‘willing’ and ‘acting’. God seeks and creates fellowship between Himself and us. In itself, first and last, it will always be this and no other relationship. God wills and does nothing different, but only one thing – this one thing. And this one thing that He wills and does is the blessing of God, that which distinguishes His act as divine, and therefore also His person as divine. This one thing is therefore the divine, the θε ον, the essence of God in the revelation of His name, which is the subject of our enquiry. That is to say, we shall find in God Himself, in His eternal being, nothing other than this one thing. (II/1, 275)

These features challenge the notion that the transition from II/1 to II/2 can be summarily described as a conceptual shift from God’s abstract ‘ability’ to God’s concrete ‘will’. The logic of divine freedom in II/1 is much more in line with Barth’s mature vision for ‘theoanthropology’ than is often recognized.23 More generally, it would be a mistake to think that Barth’s understanding of hypothetical counterfactual language follows a linear path which transitions from positive to negative. That this is not the case can be seen through a comparison of Barth’s first and third cycles on the doctrine of God. In some ways, Barth actually shows greater reserve for hypothetical counterfactual language in GD, §§16–17 than he does in CD, §§28–31. The clearest illustration of this point is Barth’s response to the question of whether God could have not created the world. In the Göttingen lectures, Barth speaks of ‘God himself, who even in his pure and free love, without which he would not be God, is still God the Lord, a se, and not in any sense referred to us nor tied to the world’ (GD, 425). Nonetheless, he already identifies the importance of attending to God’s actual freedom. Will is something unique that cannot be subordinated or explained by something else. Will is freedom. Hence God is free. He is not under any alien law. He is sui iuris. He wills, and he wills in this way. We have to accept this. The question whether he might have willed otherwise is irreverent and presumptuous. We cannot ask it in relation to God’s will. The answer to the foolish question whether God might not have willed himself lies in recollection of the attribute of divine blessedness. Not by compulsion but in joy God cannot will anything other than himself. The answer to the equally foolish question whether he might not have willed creation lies in recollection of God’s love in virtue of which, again not by compulsion but in goodness, he cannot will anything other than the world.

23

Barth, Evangelical Theology, 12.

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The fact that he cannot do anything other, then, does not overthrow his will or his freedom. It simply reminds us that we are speaking about his will and his freedom, and therefore about a reality which our concept cannot encompass, for what we call ‘will’ might always do something other. This concept, applied logically to God, leads to those foolish questions, and we thus have to see its inadequacy.24

In other words, he worries that such hypothetical counterfactual suggestions might open the door to conceiving of God as one who wills to live as other than Immanuel. Similarly, he expresses uneasiness about the distinction between God’s will of Godself as natural and God’s will of creatures as free. Even though Barth wishes to affirm a general sense in which the created order is contingent, he worries that behind this distinction between natural and free willing there lies the assumption that God’s actual will to love creatures is somehow less definitive than God’s will to be God (GD, 416–17).25 Later in the early volumes of the Church Dogmatics, however, his tone changes. In I/1, Barth speaks more positively of the distinction between filiation as a ‘work of nature’ (ἔργον ϕύσεως) and creation as a ‘work of will’ (ἔργον θελήσεως).26 The former ‘could not not happen’, but the later ‘could . . . not happen’ (I/1, 434).27 The shift in Barth’s tone is even more apparent when one compares his corresponding accounts of divine love: GD, 422–5 and CD II/1, especially 280–3.28 We may not say that he might have done differently, that he might have refrained from fellowship with the world. When we think about the Trinity, about the Son of God in whom he has turned to the world from all eternity, we have to say that the very idea of another use of his freedom is a denial of God, that there is in God no depth in which this willing of fellowship does not obtain. (GD, 424)29

24 25

26 27

28

29

GD, 416; emphasis original. In this context, Barth is attempting to challenge and reorient the theology of the Protestant orthodox, particularly Johann Wilhelm Baier and Leonard van Rijssen (see Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 127; Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 84). I/1, 433–4; cf. 443. In contrast to the previously noted context in the Göttingen lectures, here Barth is broadly drawing upon the classical tradition, especially John of Damascus and Thomas Aquinas. Also, note that later in II/1, Barth echoes some of his prior concerns by presenting a more nuanced and reserved version of this distinction (see II/1, 591). Although the Church Dogmatics restructures the material from the Göttingen lectures at this juncture – love is elevated from an attribute to a leading concept – the comparison between these two specific sections is warranted by the clear conceptual and verbal parallels. The most obvious verbal parallels are Barth’s extended quotation and criticism of Angelus Silesius’ The Cherubinic Wanderer (GD, 424; CD II/1, 281–2). Over 15 years prior to CD II/2, Barth is already suggesting that election is an eternal decision which reaches back into the very depths of God’s eternal life.

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He loves us and the world as He who would still be One who loves without us and without the world. . . . While He could be everything only for Himself (and His life would not on that account be pointless, motionless and unmotivated, nor would it be any less majestic or any less the life of love), He wills . . . to have it not only for Himself, but also for us. It does not belong to us to have being, and when we have it it does not belong to us in this being of ours to be the objects of the love of God. We might not be at all, and we might be without being the objects of His love. God does not owe us either our being, or in our being His love. (CD II/1, 280–1)

This II/1 material is not a diversion to an abstract concept of freedom, but rather a description of the manner in which God has actually created and loved the world. Even so, Barth does allow a theological function for the hypothetical nonexistence of the world. In fact, Barth’s use of such ‘could’ language spans the entirety of the Church Dogmatics and not mere I/1–II/1. Throughout all four volumes, and not merely in II/1, Barth is persistent that omnipotence may not be reduced to omnicausality (II/1, 526–32).30 God could have elected not to be for us and instead have remained satisfied in se.31 God could have not created the world.32 God could have not preserved and saved the world.33 For this reason, it is necessary to ask an additional question. The second question is ‘what is the theological function of Barth’s hypothetical counterfactual language?’ It is easiest to begin with Barth does not intend with this language. Barth does not grant this hypothetical counterfactual language any independent significance. He is not departing from his science to that of the philosopher. He is not inquiring into the states of affairs that might obtain in other possible worlds. Neither is he replacing the God revealed in Jesus Christ for a hidden God above God’s self-determination. Even more to the point – a point which unfortunately has been overlooked by many recent interpreters – in and through Barth’s discussion of the divine ‘could’, Barth remembers that Jesus Christ is the presupposition of all Church dogmatics. Since all theological speech must arise from and be directed to this presupposition, all theological speech about freedom must arise from and be directed to what God has actually done

30

31

32 33

Although I differ with Molnar on a number of levels, he is certainly correct that this conviction plays an important role in Barth’s thought. See, for example, Molnar, ‘Can the Electing God be God Without us?’, 213–17. See I/1, 139–40, 170–4; II/1, 280–3; II/2, 10, 121, 166, 557; III/1, 68–9, 95; III/2, 187; IV/1, 212–14; IV/2, 754–7, 777, 791; cf. II/1, 513–14; II/2, 557; III/1, 25, 123–4. See I/1, 354, 389, 433–4; II/1, 281, 499–502; III/1, 95; cf. III/1, 7, 15–17, 27–31, 49–51, 182–3, 241. See II/1, 407–8, 505–6; II/2, 28–9; III/1, 247–8; III/3, 67–72; IV/1, 79–80, 306–9, 738; cf. I/1, 224, 320–4; II/1, 400–3; II/2, 491; III/1, 241; III/2, 352; III/4, 649; IV/1, 192–3; IV/3.2, 656.

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pro nobis. Although divine omnipotence may not be reduced to omnicausality, divine omnipotence is not a license for theological abstraction. ‘We are no longer free but forbidden to reckon on an essentially different omnipotence from that which God has manifested in His actual choice and action, as if God could exercise a different choice and action and capacity from what He has done’ (II/1, 542). Barth’s conviction that God’s actual election invalidates any independent consideration of God’s ability is, in fact, a deeply significant motif throughout the Church Dogmatics.34 So how does Barth hold these themes together? He does so by restricting the theological function of these divine possibilities to that of clarifying the sovereign and gracious character of the divine actualities.35 Accordingly, in many of the extended passages where Barth entertains this ‘could’ language, he includes a similar set of stipulations to guard against the danger of abstraction. Alongside Barth’s acknowledgement of the proper ‘could’ of God’s omnipotence, he often specifies these possibilities as signs of the grace of God pro nobis and indicates that God’s actual election prohibits their abstract consideration. The frequency with which these convictions coincide suggests that Barth’s pattern of thought on this matter is neither unintentional nor haphazard.36 Barth’s realization 34

35

36

See II/1, 280–1, 541–2 (cf. 534–8); II/2, 6–7; III/3, 67–8, 79–80; IV/1, 42–54 (cf. IV/3.1, 396–7), 79–82; IV/2, 791; cf. I/1, 99–101; II/1, 57–8, 374, 400–3, 506, 513–14; II/2, 31–2, 493–4, 509–10; III/2, 483–5; IV/1, 38–9; IV/2, 45–6. Jones captures this idea well when, speaking of this ‘could’ language, he writes, ‘for the most part, such qualifications need to be understood as sideways glances, intended to train readers’ eyes more firmly on the utter graciousness of God’s primordial decision to be pro nobis’ (Jones, The Humanity of Christ, 74). The following four examples are particularly helpful in illustrating this pattern: II/1, 280–3; III/1, 67–82; IV/1, 42–54; IV/2, 790–1. In the first text (II/1, 280–3), as has been seen, Barth follows this pattern in connection with God’s creation and love ad extra. Barth begins by affirming, ‘He loves us and the world as He who would still be One who loves without us and without the world. . . . We might not be at all, and we might be without being the objects of His love’ (II/1, 280–1). However, he then turns the focus to God’s irrevocable decision to create and love the world. He writes, ‘We cannot go back behind this event. We should not seek and think of God anywhere else than in this act, or as any other than as the One who is at this point and in this way. Just because we must hold fast to this, it must be clear that the fact that we can actually hold on to this rests on the overflowing of the divine love’ (II/1, 281). In the second text (III/1, 67–82), Barth follows this pattern in connection with God’s preservation of creation. Upon approving of Aquinas’ question of ‘whether God is able to return any created thing to nothingness’ and answering it in the affirmative, he then draws attention to God’s gracious and unnecessitated freedom in both the creation and the preservation of the world (III/3, 71). For Barth, ‘Only if the existence and therefore the creation of the world were necessary for God (which they are not) could we answer the question in the negative. We cannot even appeal to the goodness of God, as though God were under some constraint either to or by that goodness to preserve the creature. For if the goodness of God is the basis of all things, it is so, not ex necessitate naturae, as though God had need of the created order, but per liberam voluntatem. Hence the goodness of God could be withdrawn from the created order without in any way ceasing to be perfect goodness’ (III/3, 71–2). He even adds the quite explicit clarification that ‘God does in fact preserve all things, although he had the power not to do so’ (III/3, 72). This being said, not long after he then writes, ‘The God who made use of His freedom to win for us salvation and liberation in Jesus Christ also wills and creates our preservation in the same freedom and for

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here is twofold. On the one hand, if the divine ‘could’ functions outside of these theological parameters, it turns the marriage supper of the Lamb into a celebration of the Lamb’s capacity not to have chosen his bride. On the other hand, if the divine ‘could’ functions within these theological parameters, it is a profitable and even essential affirmation of the freedom of the Lamb’s decision to love. In this way, Barth’s hypothetical counterfactual language finds its immediate object not in counterfactuals but in the fact of the Church’s confession, Immanuel. It is perhaps best to conclude this discussion with a passage that summarizes Barth’s mature understanding of divine freedom. In considering the history of Jesus Christ, he writes, God Himself is the Beginner in this beginning. . . . What God does, He does with no other necessity than that of His own good and holy but also sovereign election and will. He does it as and because He is God. There can be no question of any other reason. . . . In other words, it is not accidentally, nor arbitrarily, nor under any constraint or compulsion of a reality distinct from Himself, but in His own freedom that He is this God, that He is God in this way and not another. . . . It is not in any sense the fulfilment of a necessary postulate. It does not arise from any necessity, even that of the freedom of God to be this God and not another, or to be God in this way and not another. It is a free gift of this free the same purpose of liberation. The caveat that had He so willed He might have acted otherwise is not only meaningless but most suspicious, for those who enter it may well have begun to turn their thoughts to another god than the One who in the work of Jesus Christ has revealed His whole heart and all the goodness of His Godhead’ (III/3, 79–80; emphasis original). Then in the third text (IV/1, 42–54), Barth follows this pattern in connection with the identity of the eternal Son of God. In addressing the question of the Logos asarkos, Barth begins by saying, ‘In Himself and as such He is not Deus pro nobis, either ontologically or epistemologically’ (IV/1, 52). For this reason, he argues that ‘we have to understand the revelation and dealings of God in the light of their free basis in the inner being and essence of God’ (IV/1, 52). Nonetheless, he then proceeds to say, ‘If it is true that God became man, then in this we have to recognise and respect His eternal will and purpose and resolve – His free and gracious will which He did not owe either to Himself or to the world to have, by which He did not need to come to the decision to which He has in fact come, and behind which, in these circumstances, we cannot go, behind which we do not have to reckon with any Son of God in Himself, with any λόγος ἄσαρκος, with any other Word of God than that which was made flesh’ (IV/1, 52 rev.). Even more forcefully, he adds, ‘Is it real faith and obedience which tries to set itself on the throne of God and there to construct the content and form of His will and Word which He Himself has not chosen, although He might perhaps have chosen it?’ (IV/1, 52). Lastly, in the fourth text (IV/2, 790–1), Barth follows this pattern in connection with God’s love ad extra. According to Barth, ‘God wills that this should take place, and He sees to it that He acquires that which He does not need, which adds nothing to Him, which does not make Him richer, which He might just as well do without, but which He does not will to be without – the self-giving of man, and therefore man as the one who imitates and copies him, and the action of man as the echo of His own’ (IV/2, 791). However, he then adds, ‘There is no end to the questions that we might put in face of that which God has actually willed and done, and does actually will and do, in this respect. But we must not ignore the fact that even the most serious and critical questions in this regard can arise only from the answer which is already given with the fact that the Christian may love God, and that in so far as he is a Christian he does actually do so’ (IV/2, 791).

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God. Hence it is not subject to man’s control or even to the reflection whether or not He might have refrained from it and therefore been another God. It is the gift to which there can correspond only the gratitude of man in respect for the divinity and therefore the wisdom and righteousness and therefore the inner basis of His election. . . . The act of the free God establishes our freedom. (IV/3.1, 227–9)

This is the free love of the God who elects for humanity to love God in freedom. Divine aseity is always and ever the description of the God who chooses this one thing.

Divine autonomy and the modern subject Second, to what extent should Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity be interpreted as the wholly unique freedom of the triune God or as a reversal and extension of the modern conception of the human person as an autonomous subject? For those who fail to perceive the christocentrism which is operative throughout Barth’s ‘could’ language, it might very well appear that he is establishing a kind of abstract voluntarism. On this reading, the divine will is entirely open, even open-ended, and divine power is raw. However, in adopting such an interpretation, one would have to come to terms with the radical and ironic inconsistency that would follow in light of Barth’s agreement with Feuerbach regarding humanity’s tendency towards projection.37 In addition, one would also have to come to terms with the content of Barth’s doctrine of divine freedom, content which differs quite substantially from the ‘radical autonomy’ associated with the Enlightenment. It is true that, as the one who is a se, God is self-positing (II/1, 302). It is also true that, since God is lives, God’s being is ‘absolutely its own, conscious, willed and executed decision’ (II/1, 271). It is also true that, especially in CD I/1, Barth does sometimes elevate God’s freedom in revelation in such a way that it becomes susceptible to the accusation of abstraction (see I/1, §8.2). Nonetheless, Barth’s conception of divine freedom is distinct from that of the Enlightenment because it is construed in concretely trinitarian terms. 37

See Macken, The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics, 159–60; Jones, The Humanity of Christ, 77. McCormack accuses Molnar of adopting such a stance: ‘it is hard to avoid the impression that Molnar thinks of divine “freedom” in terms of the voluntarist conception founded in the Enlightenment, that is, the projection onto God of the autonomous freedom of the human individual’ (McCormack, ‘Let’s Speak Plainly’, 60; emphasis original).

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It is always an interpretation of the being-in-action of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Moreover, in discussing the divine life, Barth is unmistakably clear that the content of God’s conscious, willed and executed decision is that of being for another, that is, love (II/1, 272–3). God’s lordship is not unbounded power, but rather the self-elected path of free love. ‘If we enquire how, according to His revelation in Jesus Christ, God’s lordship differs in its divinity from other types of rule, then we must answer that it is lordship in freedom’ (II/1, 301). And God’s lordship in freedom necessarily means the concrete history in which God has determined to be Lord – Immanuel. As the discussion of divine freedom and pronobeity demonstrated, the event of Immanuel occurs ‘in the inner necessity of the freedom of God and not in the play of a sovereign liberum arbitrium’ (IV/1, 195). If it is God’s freedom with which we are concerned – that is, freedom for humiliation, death and the love of the other – then it has little to do with Enlightenment conceptions of freedom. In fact, it is not even clear why this freedom for gracious condescension would even be particularly open to the accusation of being a human projection of the modern human subject.38 This freedom is, quite literally, just as foreign to Enlightenment thought as the gospel itself.

Divine objectivity and human subjectivity Third, to what extent should Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity be interpreted as establishing the presence of God’s being with creatures or as protecting the integrity of God’s being in se? On the one hand, Barth’s doctrine of aseity certainly supports a robust account of God in se. Barth is insistent that God’s life not be limited to God’s life with creatures. Since God is the eternal trinity, there is a proper sense in which God is ‘in and for himself ’.39 Furthermore, Barth draws on divine aseity in conjunction with divine self-preservation in order to protect God’s divinity in all that God is and does. This theme of divine selfpreservation is particularly acute in connection with the doctrines of creation and of the incarnation: God’s creation of the world out of nothing means that He does not abandon or give His glory as Creator to anyone else. The fact that Jesus Christ is very God and very man means that in this oneness of His with the creature God does not 38 39

See Jones, The Humanity of Christ, 77–8. Gollwitzer, The Existence of God, 217.

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cease for a moment or in any regard to be the one, true God. And the strength and blessedness and comfort of His work of creation as of reconciliation and revelation consists in the fact that in these works of His too He is never less than wholly Himself. (II/1, 446)

Similarly, in addressing God’s rest on the seventh day, Barth writes, ‘For a moment one might be inclined to think that He had thus returned to the aseity of the inner glory of His being and existence before creation and without the world and man. But there was no need for God to return to His inner glory before creation, for He had never really lost it as the Creator’ (III/1, 214). On the other hand, aseity is not merely concerned with God’s life in se. While the equation of God’s being in and for Godself with ‘aseity as theology understands it’ may hold true for many classical accounts, it is not an appropriate description of Barth’s.40 This definition does not even fit with Barth’s interpretation of the negative and improper meaning of divine aseity, namely, divine absoluteness. Even Barth’s doctrine of absoluteness draws attention to God’s difference and freedom from needing creatures precisely in God’s relationship to them. More generally, the problem is that just as love cannot be equated with God pro nobis, so also God’s freedom cannot be equated with God in se. The doctrine of divine aseity is concerned with both the inward and the outward life of God. There is a proper sense in which God is and remains perfect in God’s self-related sphere of existence, but in Jesus Christ God’s aseity is primarily the manner in which the perfection of this eternal fellowship is opened up and shared with creatures. If aseity functions in conjunction with divine self-preservation, this must be understood as the selfpreservation which God enacts in God’s self-communication.41 In Jesus Christ, it is manifested that God’s life in and for Godself is eternally the terminus a quo of Immanuel. In Jesus Christ, God is this God pro nobis.42 The two emphases are inseparable: God ‘has life in himself and acts for us in freedom’.43 Failure to recognize this can result in an abstract doctrine of divine aseity. As with 40 41

42

43

Ibid., 217–18; emphasis original. Barth’s concerns here align with those of Dorner: ‘For only because God has absolute Self-possession by means of His perfect Self-consciousness and His Self-love, is He master of Himself, and certain that in His Self-communication He will not, as all pantheistic systems think, lose Himself in what is different to Himself ’ (Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, 1:444). Since Barth upholds God’s self-preservation in Jesus Christ, it is no surprise that he finds a place for the extra Calvinisticum – even if it is utilized with increasing christocentric reserve. See especially I/2, 159–71; IV/1, 180–3; cf. I/1, 322–4; IV/1, 132–5; see also Darren O. Sumner, ‘The Twofold Life of the Word: Karl Barth’s Critical Reception of the Extra Calvinisticum’, International Journal for Systematic Theology 15.1 (2013): 49–57. Molnar, ‘Can the Electing God be God Without us?’, 212.

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the function of the divine ‘could’, the theology of God in se cannot acquire theological significance in abstraction from God’s election to be God pro nobis.44 There can be no gap between God in se and God pro nobis. In light of God’s election, any portrayal of God as only or principally in and for Godself is idolatry. Christianity confesses ‘the God who is distinguished from all idols as the true God by the fact that He is not merely God in and for Himself but also Emmanuel: “God with us”’ (IV/2, 385).45 In all the heights and depths of God’s divinity, God is pro nobis (II/2, 77).46

Divine triunity and election Fourth, to what extent should Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity be interpreted as reinforcing the conception of election as God’s determination to reiterate the depth of God’s life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit ad extra or as God’s election to constitute Godself as this triune God simpliciter? On the one hand, Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity rules out any interpretations which allow the immanent trinity to be insulated from the economic trinity. First, the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is constituted through history. According to the christologically rich material of II/2 and IV/1, Barth clarifies that God’s election is Jesus Christ (II/2, 94–5) and that Jesus Christ is the history of the atonement (IV/1, 157–8). Even in II/1, Barth already begins to express these ideas. II/1 anticipates Barth’s doctrines of election and reconciliation by expressing his desire ‘to overhaul the way Christian theologians think about God’s aseity, establishing a basic ontologically significant connection between the doctrines of God and incarnation’.47 In this context, Barth already finds that ‘God is in God’s act. God is God’s own decision. God lives from and through Godself.’48 Since God’s freedom ‘consists in His Son Jesus Christ’, God’s freedom is inseparable from its manifestation in this history (II/1, 320).

44

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46

47 48

Jüngel is correct in suggesting that Gollwitzer exchanges the ‘methodological principle’ of God pro me for that of God in se (Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 119n. 159). For Gollwitzer, in revelation we have to do with God pro nobis rather than God in se, yet God discloses Godself as God truly is (Gollwitzer, The Existence of God, 207–9, 214). For Barth, in revelation we have to do with God as God is in se because God has become this pro nobis. As Barth states later in CD volume III, ‘the solidarity with which Jesus binds Himself to His fellows is wholly real. There is not in Him a kind of deep, inner, secret recess in which He is alone in Himself or with God, existing in stoical calm or mystic rapture apart from His fellows, untouched by their state or fate. He has no such place of rest’ (III/2, 211). Jones, The Humanity of Christ, 68. KD II/1, 305; CD, 272.

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Barth is thus beginning to express the idea that ‘God’s being is constituted through historicality.’49 Second, God’s triunity is willed. As with the whole of God’s being-in-action, God is His own will, and He wills His own being. Thus will and being are equally real in God, but they are not opposed to one another in the sense that the will can or must precede or follow the being or the being the will. Rather, it is as He wills that He is God, and as He is God that he wills. Thus we can have no dealings with God without having direct and inescapable dealings with the One who wills Himself and us and in different ways all things.50

Since God is the one who lives, the being of the triune God is willed. ‘God above all willed and determined Himself to be the Father and the Son in the unity of the Spirit.’51 On the other hand, Barth’s doctrine of divine aseity supports the integrity of God’s immanent triunity and, quite pivotally, this is true even to the end of his career. First, the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not only constituted through history because this constitution ad extra is the repetition of God’s constitution ad intra. What the economic trinity becomes in time is the reiteration of what the immanent trinity becomes in eternity.52 ‘In this history [of reconciliation and revelation] God does not become nor is He other than He is in Himself from eternity and in eternity. But again, His constancy does not hinder Him from being the real subject of this real history’ (II/1, 502).53

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50

51 52

53

Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 81. ‘God’s being becomes (develops, unfolds) in and through the historical process’ (McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, 99; emphasis original). II/1, 550; cf. 271. McCormack finds tension here which he believes is not resolved until ‘will’ is supposedly allowed to determine ‘being’ in II/2 and onwards (see also McCormack, ‘The Actuality of God’, 236–40). Since the present study rejects the notion that God’s election is in any way more basic than God’s triunity, it facilitates a more positive reading of II/1. Barth, ‘The Gift of Freedom’, 71. See II/1, 272–5, 306–9, 491–522, 532–3, 666–9; II/2, 175; III/2, 216–22; IV/1, 203–4, 208; IV/2, 341– 53, 754–61, 788; cf. I/1, 371; II/1, 260. God’s determination to become ad extra has been variously described. Jüngel develops this idea in connection with the doctrine of appropriation and speaks of God’s self-interpretation or self-reiteration which is grounded in the fact that God ‘assigns to himself his being as Father, as Son and as Spirit, and so corresponds to himself ’ (Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 51; emphasis original; cf. 83–4, 114–23; see also Hector, ‘Immutability, Necessity and Triunity’, 69–70; Holmes, ‘A Specific Form of Relationship’, 195–200). Paul Jones finds it helpful to use a cluster of terms (self-determination, self-qualification, self-constitution, self-conditioning, self-transformation) so as to shift the discussion away from ‘semantic disputes’ and onto the Son’s radical identification with the history of Jesus Christ (Jones, The Humanity of Christ, 61n. 6). Aaron Smith holds that, in God’s election, God ‘states’ rather than ‘instates’ his being: ‘The event in which God decides his essence does not make him to be, ontologically, something other than what and as he was: God was, is and will be disclosive, open, God-for’ (Smith, ‘God’s Self-Specification’, 23). Accordingly, he prefers ‘specification’ over ‘determination’ (Smith, ‘God’s Self-Specification’, 23). Cf. II/1, 499–500, 515, 532.

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God becomes through history, but in history God is who God becomes through Godself.54 Second, God’s triunity is willed, but the subject who wills God’s triunity is the trinity. Barth offers numerous indications that God’s election is not more basic that God’s triunity. The triune God wills to be the triune God both in se and pro nobis. As the one who exists in eternal constancy, God is not the electing God prior to being the triune God – not even logically.55 Throughout the entire Church Dogmatics Barth affirms that God is able to be pro nobis because God is triune in se.56 In other words, God’s eternal triunity is God’s eternal readiness for Jesus Christ. In Barth’s view, ‘eternity is the dimension of God’s own life, the life in which He is self-positing, self-existent and self-sufficient as Father, Son and Holy Ghost’ and it is through this eternity that God eternally makes time for us (III/2, 526). Even more strongly, throughout the Church Dogmatics, Barth also affirms that God would be the triune God without us.57 In addition to these considerations, Barth also indicates that the revelation of Jesus Christ points both to an eternal decision and to an eternal decision maker, that is, both to a concrete will and to a concrete identity. On the one hand, since Jesus Christ is the object and the subject of election, we will never encounter a more basic decision. ‘In no depth of the Godhead shall we encounter any other but Him’ (II/2, 115). On the other hand, in theology we will never encounter an object that is more basic than the triune God. Barth is sceptical of Federal theology’s notion of an opus Dei internum ad extra. However, this is because it implies an indeterminate God above the decree, utilizes a dubious conception of divine personhood and wrongly excludes humanity despite the fact that election means Jesus Christ (IV/1, 64–6). Barth himself is still able to offer a christocentric reinterpretation of this concept which retains its triune subject: This is what we can call a decree, an opus Dei internum ad extra, and therefore a pact: God’s free election of grace, in which even in His eternity before all time and the foundation of the world, He is no longer alone by Himself, He does 54

55

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57

See Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 77; Chalamet, ‘No Timelessness in God’, 37; Busch, The Great Passion, 123; Gunton, ‘Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Election as Part of His Doctrine of God’, 387. See Hector, ‘Immutability, Necessity and Triunity’, 64–70; cf. Price, Letters of the Divine Word, 139–43; Stratis, ‘Speculating About Divinity?’, 21–8. See I/1, 315–20, 383, 391–4, 420–3, 480; I/2, 34–5, 134–5; II/1, 44–62 (cf. 16–17), 65–9, 150–1, 284–5, 463–4, 468–78, 617–19; III/1, 48–59, 67–9, 96–7, 182–3; III/2, 147, 155, 526–7 (cf. 559); III/3, 430; IV/1, 192–5, 560–2; IV/2, 42–4, 345–6, 754–7; IV/3.1, 81; IV/3.2, 532–4, 798–9; cf. I/1, 371, 433–4, 470–1; II/1, 273–5, 277, 297, 666–9; III/1, 11–16, 230–1; III/2, 324. See I/1, 139–40, 312, 354, 391–3, 427, 433–4, 469–71; I/2, 135, 377–9, 878–9; II/1, 206–7, 273–5, 280–3, 317 (cf. 311–12), 476; II/2, 121, 175; III/1, 115–17; IV/1, 200–4, 213, 560–2; IV/2, 338–53, 754–7; cf. I/1, 371; I/2, 675; II/1, 83, 273, 301, 305–8, 499–500; III/1, 68–9; IV/2, 53–4, 113–14.

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not rest content with Himself, He will not restrict Himself to the wealth of His perfections and His own inner life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In this free act of the election of grace there is already present, and presumed, and assumed into unity with His own existence as God, the existence of the man whom He intends and loves from the very first and in whom He intends and loves all other men, of the man in whom He wills to bind Himself with all other men and all other man with Himself. In this free act of the election of grace the Son of the Father is no longer just the eternal Logos, but as such, as very God from all eternity He is also the very God and very man He will become in time. In the divine act of predestination there pre-exists the Jesus Christ who as the Son of the eternal Father and the child of the Virgin Mary will become and be the Mediator of the covenant between God and man, the One who accomplishes the act of atonement. He in whom the covenant of grace is fulfilled and revealed in history is also its eternal basis. (IV/1, 66)

There are a number of other such descriptions of the electing trinity,58 but the same basic conclusion can also be found in an array of corollary themes.59 Even more straightforwardly, there are a number of texts where Barth directly states that God can elect and enact life pro nobis specifically because God is the triune God.60 The triune life of God, which is free life in the fact that it is Spirit, is the basis of His whole will and action even ad extra, as the living act which He directs to us. It is the basis of His decretum et opus ad extra, of the relationship which He 58

59

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There are more examples than can be mentioned here, especially if one includes those which are at the implicit level; however, here are a few particularly helpful texts: ‘Even in the eternal divine decree of election He was not alone, but the One in whom as their Firstborn and Representative God also elected the many as His brethren because He also loved them in Him before the world was created and established. Hence He did not will to be the eternal Son of the eternal Father for Himself, but for us men’ (IV/3.1, 278; emphasis mine). Then of the Son Barth says, ‘He is originally – not merely in the counsel of God but in the eternal being of God, and then in time, in the flesh and within the world in virtue of the counsel of God – that which men become as they are called to be Christians. That is to say, He is originally the Son of God’ (IV/2.3, 532–3; emphasis mine). And lastly, the vocation of Jesus Christ ‘has as the seed and root of its historical reality, truth and certainty the absolutely prevenient “history” which as the opus Trinitatis internum ad extra is in God Himself the eternal beginning of all His ways and works, namely, the election of grace of the God who loves in freedom and is free in love, in which the Son, thereto ordained by the Father and obedient to the Father, has elected Himself for sinful man and sinful man for Himself ’ (IV/3.2, 483–4). For example, Barth holds that God’s election to be pro nobis is the overflow of God’s triune glory (II/2, 168–9). Similarly, he argues that God’s triune essence does not change but is rather constant in God’s election of Godself for humiliation in Jesus Christ (IV/2, 84–6). In Jüngel’s terms, ‘God’s “being-already-ours-in-advance” . . . is grounded in the trinitarian “beingfor-itself ”’ (Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 91; cf. 120–1). On a related note, Molnar has drawn attention to the places in Barth’s work where he specifies an ‘irreversible sequence’ from God in se to God pro nobis (see Molnar, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity, 268; idem, ‘The Trinity, Election and God’s Ontological Freedom’, 298–9, 303–6; cf. Holmes, Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes, 50; idem, ‘The Theological Function of the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes and the Divine Glory’, 217–18).

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has determined and established with a reality which is distinct from Himself and endowed by Him with its own very different and creaturely being. It is the basis of the election of man to covenant with Himself; of the determination of the Son to become man, and therefore to fulfil this covenant; of creation; and, in conquest of the opposition and contradiction of the creature and to save it from perdition, of the atonement with its final goal of redemption to eternal life with Himself. . . . God does not have to will and do all this. But He does will and do it. And because He is the God of triune life, He does not will and do anything strange by so doing. In it He lives in the repetition and confirmation of what He is in Himself . . . 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. (IV/2, 345–6)61

Jesus Christ is the subject and object of election only as this triune God. Of course, as with the ‘could’ of God’s willing, a properly christological understanding of the ‘would’ or ‘might’ of God’s identity requires that it function not as a mere conjecture about hypothetical counterfactuals, but rather as the clarification of the sovereign and gracious character of God’s elected identity. The gospel of Jesus Christ is that the electing God is the triune God and the triune God is the electing God.62 ‘Godhead is always the Godhead of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. But the Father is the Father of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of Jesus Christ’ (II/2, 115; cf. 79). The election of Jesus Christ means that the eternal Father, Son and Holy

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Similarly, Barth also writes, ‘The true humanity of Jesus Christ, as the humanity of the Son, was and is and will be the primary content of God’s eternal election of grace, i.e., of the divine decision and action which are not preceded by any higher apart from the trinitarian happening of the life of God, but which all other divine decisions and actions follow, and to which they are subordinated’ (IV/2, 31; emphasis mine). Barth’s sentiments on the doctrine of the Logos asarkos capture the essence of this thesis. On the one hand, Barth continues to utilize this doctrine even to the end of his career because he believes that it protects God’s gracious freedom. On the other hand, Barth becomes increasingly aware that this doctrine can readily be used to posit an indeterminate and hidden God above the gospel – that is, an idol. As his theology matures, he is increasing careful to clarify that the doctrine of the Logos asarkos can only describe the manner of God’s self-movement in eternally becoming the Logos incarnandus. Barth can therefore say that the saving love of the incarnate Son ‘seems . . . to be almost a quality of God Himself ’ and that ‘It is almost integral to His very nature and essence to be our Saviour’ (III/2, 218). In Barth’s theology, one can view the Son’s life ‘in terms of a beginning, a middle, and an end that, in a mysterious way, bears back on God’s being’ (Paul Dafydd Jones, ‘Obedience, Trinity, and Election: Thinking with and Beyond the Church Dogmatics’, in Trinity and Election in Contemporary Theology, ed. Michael T. Dempsey [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011], 146; see also Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity’, 184). For Barth on the Logos asarkos, see especially III/1, 50–6; III/2, 483–5; IV/1, 51–4, 66, 180–4; IV/2, 32–4, 96–104; IV/3.2, 724–5; cf. I/2, 169–70; III/2, 218; see also Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 94–8; Sumner, ‘The Twofold Life of the Word’, 49–57.

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Spirit are freely and graciously determined to exist as Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer. This is the aseity of Immanuel. From all eternity God is within Himself the living God. The fact that God is means that from all eternity God is active in His inner relationships as Father, Son and Holy Ghost, that He wills Himself and knows of Himself, that He loves, that He makes use of His sovereign freedom, that He maintains and exercises this freedom, and in so doing maintains and demonstrates Himself. In Himself God is rest, but this fact does not exclude but includes the fact that His being is decision. God does not, therefore, become the living God when He works or decides to work ad extra – in His being ad extra He is, of course, the living God in a different way – but His being and activity ad extra is merely an overflowing of His inward activity and being, of the inward vitality which He has in Himself. It is a proclamation of the decision in which in Himself He is who He is. The origin of this proclamation within God Himself is predestination. This is no less activity than in His own way God in Himself is activity and in a different way His whole work in the world is activity. It is the transition from the one to the other: from God’s being in and for Himself to His being as Lord of creation. (II/2, 175)

Bibliography Literature by Barth Books, book-length lecture series, collections Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Anselm’s Proof of the Existence of God in the Context of his Theological Scheme. Translated by Ian W. Robinson. London: SCM, 1960. The Christian Life: Church Dogmatics IV/4, Lecture Fragments. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981. Die christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf. Vol. 1, Die Lehre vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur christlichen Dogmatik, 1927. Gesamtausgabe 2.14. Edited by Gerhard Sauter. Zurich: TVZ, 1982. Church Dogmatics. Edited by G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–75. The Epistle to the Romans. Translated by Edwyn C. Hoskyns. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968. [This translation is based on the 6th German edition (1928), but it is largely the same as the 2nd edn (1922)]. Erklärung des Johannesevangeliums: Vorlesung Münster, Wintersemester 1925/1926, wiederholt in Bonn, Sommersemester 1930. Gesamtausgabe 2.9. Edited by Walther Fürst. Zurich: TVZ, 1999. Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. Translated by Grover Foley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979. The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion. Vol. 1. Edited by Hannelotte Reiffen. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991. How I Changed my Mind. Edited by John D. Godsey. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1966. Karl Barth–Eduard Thurneysen Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 1921-1930. Gesamtausgabe 5.4. Edited by Eduard Thurneysen. Zurich: TVZ, 1974. Karl Barth–Emil Brunner Briefwechsel 1916-1966. Gesamtausgabe 5.33. Edited by Eberhard Busch. Zurich: TVZ, 2000. Karl Barth–Rudolf Bultmann: Letters 1922-1966. Edited by Bernd Jaspert. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981. Karl Barth’s Table Talk. Edited by John D. Godsey. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1963. Die kirchliche Dogmatik. Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1932, and Zurich: EVZ, 1938–67.

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The Knowledge of God and the Service of God according to the Teaching of the Reformation: Recalling the Scottish Confession of 1560. The Gifford Lectures, University of Aberdeen, 1937–8. Translated by J. L. M. Haire and Ian Henderson. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938. Letters 1961-1968. Edited by Jürgen Fangmeier and Hinrich Stoevesandt. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981. Predigten 1913. Gesamtausgabe 1.8. Edited by Nelly Barth and Gerhard Sauter. Zurich: TVZ, 1999. Predigten 1914. Gesamtausgabe 1.5. Edited by Ursula Fähler and Jochen Fähler. Zurich: TVZ, 1999. Predigten 1915. Gesamtausgabe 1.27. Edited by Hermann Schmidt. Zurich: TVZ, 1996. Predigten 1916. Gesamtausgabe 1.29. Edited by Hermann Schmidt. Zurich: TVZ, 1998. Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History. New edn. Translated by Brian Cozens and John Bowden. London: SCM, 2001. Der Römerbrief, 1919. Gesamtausgabe 2.16. Edited by Hermann Schmidt. Zurich: TVZ, 1985. Der Römerbrief, 1922. Zurich: TVZ, 1940. ET The Epistle to the Romans. The Theology of Schleiermacher: Lectures at Göttingen, Winter Semester of 1923/24. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982. ‘Unterricht in der christlichen Religion’. Part 1: Prolegomena, 1924. Edited by Hannelotte Reiffen. Zurich: TVZ, 1985. ‘Unterricht in der christlichen Religion’. Part 2: Die Lehre von Gott/Die Lehre vom Menschen, 1924/25. Edited by Hinrich Stoevesandt. Zurich: TVZ, 1990. ‘Unterricht in der christlichen Religion’. Part 3: Die Lehre von der Versöhnung/Die Lehre von der Erlösung 1925/26. Edited by Hinrich Stoevesandt. Zurich: TVZ, 2003. Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten 1909–1914. Gesamtausgabe 3.22. Edited by Hans–Anton Drewes and Hinrich Stoevesandt. Zurich: TVZ, 1993.

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‘Fate and Idea in Theology’. In The Way of Theology: Essay and Comments. Edited by H. Martin Rumscheidt. Translated by George Hunsinger. Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications, 1986, 25–61. Forward to Reformed Dogmatics, by Heinrich Heppe. Edited by Ernst Bizer. Translated by G. T. Thomson. London: Allen & Unwin, 1950, v–vii. Reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978. ‘The Gift of Freedom: Foundation of Evangelical Ethics’. In idem, The Humanity of God. Translated by Thomas Wieser and John Newton Thomas. Atlanta: John Knox, 1960, 69–96. ‘The Humanity of God’. In idem, The Humanity of God. Translated by Thomas Wieser and John Newton Thomas. Atlanta: John Knox, 1960, 37–65. ‘The Principles of Dogmatics According to Wilhelm Herrmann’. In idem, Theology and Church. Translated by Louise Pettitbone Smith. London: SCM, 1962, 238–71. ‘The Proclamation of God’s Free Grace’. In idem, God Here and Now, Routledge Classics Edition. Translated by Paul M. van Buren. Introduction by George Hunsinger. London: Routledge, 2003, 34–54. ‘Rudolf Bultmann – An Attempt to Understand Him’. In Kerygma and Myth, vol. 2. Edited by Hans-Werner Bartsch. Translated by Reginald H. Fuller. London: SPCK, 1962, 83–132. ‘Schicksal und Idee in der Theologie (1929)’. In idem, Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten 1925-1930, Gesamtausgabe 3.24. Edited by Hermann Schmidt. Zurich: TVZ, 1994, 344–92. ‘The Word of God and the Task of the Ministry’. In idem, The Word of God and the Word of Man. Translated by Douglas Horton. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1978, 183–217.

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Secondary literature Althoff, Dale R. Freedom and Love in the Thought of Karl Barth. PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1976. Asprey, Christopher. Eschatological Presence in Karl Barth’s Göttingen Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Balthasar, Hans Urs von. The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation. Translated by Edward T. Oakes. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1992. Beintker, Michael. Die Dialektik in der ‘dialektischen Theologie’ Karl Barths: Studien zur Entwicklung der Barthschen Theologie und zur Vorgeschichte der ‘Kirchlichen Dogmatik’. Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1987. Berkouwer, G. C. The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth: A Scriptural Examination and Assessment. Translated by Harry R. Boer. London: Paternoster, 1956. Bouillard, Henri. Karl Barth. 3 vols. Paris: Aubier, 1957. Bradshaw, Timothy. Trinity and Ontology: A Comparative Study of the Theologies of Karl Barth and Wolfhart Pannenberg. Rutherford Studies in Contemporary Theology 1. Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 1988. Brouwer, Rinse H. Reeling. ‘The Conversation between Karl Barth and Amandus Polanus on the Question of the Reality of Human Speaking of the Simplicity and the Multiplicity in God’. In The Reality of Faith in Theology: Studies on Karl Barth Princeton-Kampen Consultation 2005. Edited by Bruce L. McCormack and Gerrit Neven. Bern: Peter Lang, 2007, 51–110. Brower, Jeffrey E. ‘Simplicity and Aseity’. In Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. Edited by Thomas P. Flint and Michael Rea. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, 105–28. Brown, Robert F. ‘Divine Omniscience, Immutability, Aseity and Human Free Will’. Religious Studies 27.3 (1991): 285–95. —. ‘On God’s Ontic and Noetic Absoluteness: A Critique of Barth’. Scottish Journal of Theology 33 (1980): 533–49. Burnett, Richard E. Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis: The Hermeneutical Principles of the Römerbrief Period. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004. Busch, Eberhard. ‘God is God: The Meaning of a Controversial Formula and the Fundamental Problem of Speaking about God’. The Princeton Seminary Bulletin 7.2 (1986): 101–13. —. The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004. —. Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts. Translated by John Bowden. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994. Chalamet, Christophe. Dialectical Theologians: Wilhelm Herrmann, Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann. Zurich: TVZ, 2005.

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—. ‘No Timelessness in God: On Differing Interpretations of Karl Barth’s Theology of Eternity, Time and Election’. Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie, Supplement Series 4 (2010): 21–37. —. ‘Reassessing Albrecht Ritschl’s Theology: A Survey of Recent Literature’. Religion Compass 2.4 (2008): 629–31. Chung, Sung Wook. ‘A Bold Innovator: Barth on God and Election’. In Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology: Convergences and Divergences. Edited by idem. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006, 60–76. Clough, David. Ethics in Crisis: Interpreting Barth’s Ethics. Barth Studies. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Colwell, John. Actuality and Provisionality: Eternity and Election in the Theology of Karl Barth. Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 1989. Couenhoven, Jesse. ‘Karl Barth’s Conception(s) of Human and Divine Freedom(s)’. In Commanding Grace: Studies in Karl Barth’s Ethics. Edited by Daniel L. Migliore. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010, 239–55. Courtenay, William. ‘Necessity and Freedom in Anselm’s Conception of God’. In Analecta Anselmiana 4.2. Edited by Helmut Kohlenberger. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1975, 39–64. Cross, Richard. Duns Scotus on God. Ashgate Studies in the History of Philosophical Theology. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Cross, Terry L. Dialectic in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of God. Issues in Systematic Theology 7. New York: Peter Lang, 2001. Davidson, Ivor J. ‘Divine Light: Some Reflections after Barth’. In Trinitarian Theology after Barth. Edited by Myk Habets and Phillip Tolliday. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2012, 48–69. Elders, Leo J. The Philosophical Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990. Fisher, Simon. Revelatory Positivism? Barth’s Earliest Theology and the Marburg School. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Ford, David. ‘Barth’s Interpretation of the Bible’. In Karl Barth: Studies of his Theological Method. Edited by S. W. Sykes. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, 55–87. Frame, John M. ‘Divine Aseity and Apologetics’. In Revelation and Reason: New Essays in Reformed Apologetics. Edited by Scott Oliphint and Lane Tipton. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2007, 115–30. —. The Doctrine of God. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002. Franks, Christopher A. ‘The Simplicity of the Living God: Aquinas, Barth, and Some Philosophers’. Modern Theology 21.2 (2005): 275–300. García-Tato, Isidro. Die Trinitätslehre Karl Barths als dogmatisches Strukturprinzip. Bad Honnef: Bock & Herchen, 1983. Gilson, Étienne. The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy. The Gifford Lectures, University of Aberdeen, 1930–2. Translated by A. H. C. Downes. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936.

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Gockel, Matthias. Barth and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election: A SystematicTheological Comparison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Goebel, Hans Theodor. ‘Trinitätslehre und Erwählungslehre bei Karl Barth: Eine Problemanzeige’. In Wahrheit und Versöhnung: theologische und philosophische Beiträge zur Gotteslehre. Edited by Dietrich Korsch and Hartmut Ruddies. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1989, 147–66. —. Vom freien Wählen Gottes und des Menschen: Interpretationsübungen zur ‘Analogie’ nach Karl Barths Lehre von der Erwählung und Bedenken ihrer Folgen für die Kirchliche Dogmatik. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1990. Gollwitzer, Helmut. The Existence of God: As Confessed by Faith. The Library of Philosophy and Theology. Translated by James W. Leitch. London: SCM Press, 1965. Gorringe, Timothy. Karl Barth: Against Hegemony. Christian Theology in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Green, Garrett. Theology, Hermeneutics, and Imagination: The Crisis of Interpretation at the End of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Grell, Mitchell. Der ewig reiche Gott: Die Erkenntnis, Gewinnung und Bestimmung der Eigenschaften Gottes nach Isaak August Dorner, August Hermann Cremer und Karl Barth mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Einflusses der Theologie Dorners und Cremers auf die Gotteslehre Barths. PhD dissertation, University of Tübingen, 1992. Grosse, Sven. ‘Melanchthons Wendung zur Trinitatslehre’. Kerygma und Dogma 54.4 (2008): 264–89. Grundlach, Thies. Selbstbegrenzung Gottes und die Autonomie des Menschen: Karl Barths Kirchliche Dogmatik als Modernisierungschritt evangelischer Theologie. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1992. Gunton, Colin E. Act and Being: Towards a Theology of the Divine Attributes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2003. —. The Barth Lectures. Edited by P. H. Brazier. London: T&T Clark, 2007. —. Becoming and Being: The Doctrine of God in Charles Hartshorne and Karl Barth. 2nd edn. London: SCM, 2001. —. ‘Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Election as Part of His Doctrine of God’. Journal of Theological Studies 25.2 (1974): 381–92. —. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology. 2nd edn. London: T&T Clark, 2003. —. ‘The Triune God and the Freedom of the Creature’. In Karl Barth: Centenary Essays. Edited by S. W. Sykes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, 46–68. Hanson, R. P. C. The Search for the Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005. Härle, Wilfried. Sein und Gnade: Die Ontologie in Karl Barths Kirchlicher Dogmatik. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975. Hector, Kevin W. ‘God’s Triunity and Self-Determination: A Conversation with Karl Barth, Bruce McCormack and Paul Molnar’. International Journal of Systematic Theology 7.3 (2005): 246–61.

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Author Index Anselm 3, 6, 8–10, 12–13, 22, 42n. 34, 58, 138, 164, 168, 169n. 39, 174n. 51, 182–3 Aquinas, Thomas 2, 6, 7–10, 13, 74, 111, 142n. 20, 165–6, 176n. 55, 187n. 27, 189n. 36 Augustine 3, 9n. 53, 11, 14, 47, 74, 141n. 17 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 41–51, 68n. 29, 86n. 21, 87n. 25, 143n. 26, 152 Bavinck, Herman 9n. 56, 140n. 13 Beintker, Michael 40n. 25, 48n. 73, 50n. 81, 89–90 Berkouwer, G. C. 117n. 17 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 152n. 58 Braun, Herbert 22–3 Brown, Robert F. 168 Brunner, Emil 10n. 61, 82, 159n. 1 Bultmann, Rudolf 21–4 Busch, Eberhard 36

Hedinger, Ulrich 15 Hegel, G. W. F. 5, 59n. 128, 67, 68n. 29, 90n. 51, 111n. 66, 159n. 6 Hendry, George S. 57–9, 149 Herrmann, Wilhelm 22n. 115, 39n. 19, 40, 45n. 49, 63–4, 87, 92n. 61, 118n. 20 Holmes, Christopher R. J. 110n. 63, 128n. 56, 131, 151n. 57 Holmes, Stephen R. 151n. 57 Hunsinger, George 18, 27, 65, 71n. 42, 72n. 45 Jenkins, Daniel T. 168n. 34 Jerome 4–5, 58n. 125 Jones, Paul Dafydd 27–8, 189n. 35, 195n. 52 Jüngel, Eberhard 8n. 50, 24, 25n. 136, 74–5, 91n. 54, 120n. 30, 194n. 44, 195n. 52, 197n. 60 Krötke, Wolf

Calvin, John 1, 11, 12, 38n. 16, 143n. 25 Chalamet, Christophe 27–8, 39n. 19, 40n. 25, 49, 65n. 15, 91n. 54, 92n. 61, 93n. 64, 115n. 8 Cremer, Hermann 55n. 106, 155 Cross, Terry L. 50n. 81, 116–17, 120n. 34, 131n. 72, 132n. 78 Dorner, Isaak August 1, 6, 12, 55n. 106, 75n. 60, 144n. 32, 145n. 35, 151n. 57, 193n. 41 Goebel, Hans Theodor 16–17, 185 Gogarten, Friedrich 52n. 88, 64n. 11 Gollwitzer, Helmut 22–4, 194 Grell, Mitchell 128n. 56, 144n. 31 Gunton, Colin E. 61n. 137, 156n. 80 Härle, Wilfried 75n. 58 Hector, Kevin W. 17–18, 27–8, 183n. 15

120n. 30, 128n. 56, 180n. 7

McCormack, Bruce L. 17–18, 25–7, 28–9, 42n. 34, 48–51, 54, 65n. 15, 82n. 6, 91, 93n. 64, 168n. 34, 170n. 41, 180n. 5, 183, 191n. 37, 195n. 50 Mechels, Eberhard 87n. 25 Melanchthon, Philip 62–4, 66 Migliore, Daniel L. 54, 98n. 24 Molnar, Paul D. 18, 27, 66n. 16, 140n. 12, 188n. 30, 197n. 60 Moltmann, Jürgen 2n. 7, 20n. 107, 140n. 12, 178n. 1 Muller, Richard A. 143n. 25, 169n. 38 Oh, Peter S. 86n. 23 Pannenberg, Wolfhart 5, 11n. 65, 141n. 15 Peterson, Erik 91, 110

218

Author Index

Plotinus 4, 7n. 44, 166 Price, Robert B. 117n. 17, 122n. 41, 144n. 31

Spinoza, Benedictus de 7n. 44 Štefan, Jan 82n. 8, 124n. 49 Stratis, Justin 73n. 51

Rahner, Karl 143n. 24 Ralls, Walter Mark 20n. 108 Rendtorff, Trutz 19

Tanner, Kathryn 148n. 42 Thurneysen, Eduard 36n. 6, 37n. 10, 102n. 34 Tillich, Paul 8n. 50 Torrance, T. F. 74n. 53

Schell, Herman 5, 145 Schelling, F. W. J. 5 Schleiermacher, Friedrich D. E. 37n. 10, 51, 67, 70n. 37, 159n. 1 Schröer, Henning 86n. 21, 116n. 13, 131n. 72 Scotus, John Duns 5n. 26, 8–9, 13 Smith, Aaron T. 27, 195n. 52 Sonderegger, Katherine 59n. 128

van Driel, Edwin Chr. 27 Vanhoozer, Kevin 117 Webster, John 2n. 8, 61, 140, 148n. 44, 157n. 81, 178n. 2 Zizioulas, John

10n. 62

Subject Index action and being of God 25–8, 72–7 actus purus 7–8, 74, 164, 170 essentialism 25–6 ‘reality’ vs. ‘essence’ 74 ‘work’ vs. ‘act’ 72n. 45 analogia entis 42, 48n. 74 aseity of God absoluteness 6, 40, 46, 54–7, 138, 147, 149, 150–1, 152–3, 156, 164–8, 171–2, 193 apologetics 13, 137–40, 142 autonomy 18–21, 191–2 causa sui 4–5, 7n. 44, 141n. 15, 145–6, 151n. 55, 169–70 centrality of 1, 61 classical conceptions of 3, 7–10 critiques of 2 dialectic 42–4, 82n. 7 divine name of Exodus 3:14 3, 5, 7, 9, 82n. 7, 141 divinity 10, 146–7 doxological conceptions of 13, 140 dynamic vs. static conceptions of 147–9 election 25–8, 194–9 ens necessarium 5–6, 137–8, 169–70 as freedom 15, 40–1, 56–9, 147–9 independence 4, 138, 150, 152–3 Jesus Christ 11, 178–9 life in se 3, 4, 8, 9n. 53, 11, 12, 99, 124–5, 192–4 as lordship 158–63 positive vs. negative conceptions of 3–6, 150–1, 152–3 pronobeity 11–12, 15–18, 41–61, 152–7, 160–3, 166–8, 172–6, 181–91 readiness 154–7, 161, 167, 174–6, 182, 196 revelation 137–40 self-movement 140–2, 159, 174

self-possession 6, 193 as sufficiency 168–76 trinity 10–11, 142–6, 178 unique vs. common 146–7 as uniqueness 163–8 untheological conceptions of 42–5, 60–1, 152 attributes of God clarities 128n. 56 divisions of 84, 100–2 love-freedom 129–30 personality-aseity 84, 100–2, 106–8 Barth’s theological development ability and will of God 16–17, 25–6, 185–91 aseity and pronobeity 41–61 complementary and supplementary dialectics 87–93 McCormack’s interpretive paradigm 25–6, 48–50 von Balthasar’s interpretive paradigm 41–8 cosmological argument creation 13–14

6, 13, 138n. 4

dialectic complementary 86–7, 90–3, 97, 108–9, 115–18, 130–1 creaturely limits 90–3, 103–5, 108–12, 126–7, 130–3 Denkform 39–40, 49–50, 81, 90–3, 98–9, 102–12, 125–33 divinity 39, 105–8, 127–30 eschatology 90, 93, 111–12 life 90n. 51 negative associations with 49n. 80 Realdialektik 39, 49–50, 81–2, 91–3, 99, 109–10, 132 supplementary 86–7, 88–93, 94–5, 97, 113–14, 115–18

220

Subject Index

election freedom vs. necessity 15–18, 159–63, 181–91 opus Dei internum ad extra 196–8 self-giving 173n. 48 teleological ordering 49n. 80, 95n. 3, 99, 113n. 1 trinity (see trinity, election) God actualism (see action and being of God) aseity (see aseity of God) attributes (see attributes of God) centrality of 35 classical doctrine of 7–10, 141 constancy 74–7, 108, 130, 159–61, 195–6 correspondence ad extra and ad intra 72n. 45, 74–7, 145, 155–7, 170–6, 177–8, 192–4, 197–9 divinity 36–7, 47–8, 51–4 eternity 1, 6, 7, 108, 120n. 34, 130, 156n. 78, 177–8 freedom (see aseity of God) free will 9–10, 16–18, 59, 159–63, 181–91 humanity 47–8 inapprehensibility 131n. 70, 166–8 love-freedom (see love-freedom dialectic) personality-absoluteness (see personality-absoluteness dialectic) self-determination 20n. 108, 26, 76–7, 148–9, 159, 163, 177–8 simplicity and multiplicity 7, 70–1, 119–20, 131–3, 169–70, 174 sufficiency 8, 169, 174 summum ens 8–9 trinity (see trinity) unity 30–1, 81, 92, 109–12, 130–3 wholly other 37–8, 51–4, 59, 153n. 65, 166–7 Holy Spirit

52–3, 168n. 34

Jesus Christ beneficia Christi 63–5

christocentrism 25–6, 29, 58, 93, 140, 168n. 34, 170n. 41 Logos asarkos 18n. 97, 26, 190n. 36, 198n. 62 Logos incarnandus 26, 198n. 62 love-freedom dialectic 40–1, 55–60, 113–33, 179–81 immanence-transcendence 124–5 meaning of the elements 121–5 relationship between the elements 115–21 unveiling-veiling dialectic 82–3, 84–6, 115–25, 179–81 natural theology 13, 45, 125, 137, 143n. 25, 160n. 7, 179, 181–2, 184n. 19 ontological argument

6, 138

personality-absoluteness dialectic 40, 54–5, 94–112 meaning of the elements 99–102 relationship between the elements 97–9 unveiling-veiling dialectic 82–4, 97–100 pronobeity see aseity of God, pronobeity Protestant orthodoxy 66–7, 98, 100–2, 104, 109, 122, 124, 142–3, 145, 169, 179–80 revelation divine name of Exodus 3:14 83–4, 85, 95, 97, 99, 103, 109, 119 divine objectivity 65, 83–4, 85, 115–16, 156, 175, 192–4 divine subjectivity 38, 68–9, 83–4, 85 unveiling-veiling (see unveiling-veiling dialectic) theological language dynamic concepts 15, 147–9 meaning as determined by God’s beingin-action 19–20, 150–1, 152–4 nominalism 69–70 realism 70–1

Subject Index theological method content shapes form 39 factual necessity 138, 154, 167, 170–1, 173 impossibility of looking beyond revelation 139–40 Nachdenken 68–9, 87, 98, 120–5 self-projection 21, 56n. 112, 60–1, 67, 138, 146, 151, 181, 191 speculation 26, 63–4, 67, 73, 139–40, 159n. 1 systems 147–9 via triplex 54, 100, 106–8, 125, 150–1 theology anthropological impossibility of 66–9 archetypal and ectypal 90–3, 115–16 basis of 21–4, 36, 66–9 demand for 62–5

221

nature of 69–71 objectivity vs. subjectivity 21–4, 62–5, 71 trinity appropriation 35, 138n. 4, 195n. 52 aseity (see aseity of God, trinity) election 25–8 immanent and economic 25–6, 194–9 perichoresis 120n. 34, 131n. 72 relations of origin 4n. 19, 10–11, 26–7, 151n. 55, 172 unveiling-veiling dialectic 81–6, 179–81 centrality of 81–3 relationship between the elements 90n. 48, 92–3, 94–7, 113–15