Church Dogmatics, Volume 2, Part I

Church Dogmatics #2.1

by Karl Barth, Bromiley and Torrance (Series Editor)

Described by Pope Pius XII as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas, the Swiss pastor and theologian, Karl Barth, continues to be a major influence on students, scholars and preachers today.Barth's theology found its expression mainly through his closely reasoned fourteen-part magnum opus, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik. Having taken over 30 years to write, the Church Dogmatics is regarded as one of the most important theological works of all time, and represents the pinnacle of Barth's achievement as a theologian.T&T Clark International is now proud to be publishing the only complete English translation of the Church Dogmatics in paperback.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Reference, Christian, Nonfiction

699 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Protestant theologian Karl Barth, a Swiss, advocated a return to the principles of the Reformation and the teachings of the Bible; his published works include Church Dogmatics from 1932.

Critics hold Karl Barth among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important since Saint Thomas Aquinas. Beginning with his experience as a pastor, he rejected his typical predominant liberal, especially German training of 19th century.

Instead, he embarked on a new path, initially called dialectical, due to its stress on the paradoxical nature of divine truth—for instance, God is both grace and judgment), but more accurately called a of the Word. Critics referred to this father of new orthodoxy, a pejorative term that he emphatically rejected. His thought emphasized the sovereignty of God, particularly through his innovative doctrine of election. His enormously influenced throughout Europe and America.

Reviews

[Corey · Rating 3 out of 5]

On board with quite a bit, but don't like "impossible possibility" language.

[Mitch Mallary · Rating 4 out of 5]

First half was great. Second half wasn't doing it for me.

[Michael Nichols · Rating 5 out of 5]

I simply do not know what to make of Barth.

[Nathan Casebolt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can God be known? If so, what is he like? These are the questions Barth begins to tackle in his third volume of "Church Dogmatics," the first of two volumes on the doctrine of God. The first question he answers in the affirmative, but only if we understand that God is free to reveal himself as and how he chooses. If we begin with our own perceptions, building from a natural theology in which we hypothesize big ideas or spin clever deductions and work our way up to God, we inevitably construct a lifeless caricature, an idol in our own image, which ends only in dead religion or sterile secularism. Only by humbly receiving God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ as attested in the pages of Scripture can we know the God who has chosen to make himself known.

The second question is misleading as I've phrased it. God is not "like" anything because he is utterly unique, without analogy to anything in our existence. He is the only completely free being, and he has chosen freely to love us. His grace is his holiness, his righteousness his mercy, his patience his wisdom, his unity his omnipresence, his constancy his omnipotence, and his glory his eternity. In his simple multiplicity, in his triune unity, he is then, now, and always only who he is. His attributes cannot be separated out one from another, surgically dissected and labeled and displayed as a monument to our scientific glory. The distinctions within his nature are all expressions of his one, divine, and living being. He can only be understood as we submit to what he has freely chosen in love to reveal through the incarnation as attested in Scripture, and we can only react with thanksgiving and glad service to this incomparable God.

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barth’s volume is largely divided into two parts: Our knowledge of God’s Revelation and God Himself. Per the latter, he famously rephrases the attributes of God as God’s perfections (more on that later). This review will give a (very short) exposition of the book, highlight some interesting passages, list some concerns and criticisms. Just because I saw a few positive things about Barth does not mean I am a “Barthian,” whatever that is. For what it’s worth, I firmly reject the Anglo-Barthian Neo-Orthodox school of thought (though for somewhat different reasons than most).

Realdialektik

Per our knowledge of God’s Revelation, we see Barth developing his Real Dialektik. The following exposition of realdialektik is based on Bruce McCormack’s reading of Barth in Orthodox and Modern (OM) and his Karl Barth’s Critically Realist Dialectical Theology (KBCRDT!)

God is indirectly identical with the creaturely medium of his revelation, the creaturely medium being Jesus’s flesh (110). If revelation is Self-revelation, then it involves the “whole” God, albeit his whole being is hidden in a creaturely veil.
Per Kant’s epistemology, Barth was willing to grant this insofar as it dealt with empirical reality. However, Barth said that God entered into the Phenomenal (143) and would have had to break with Kant at some point.

The hiddenness of God in revelation is the hiddenness of the whole God in revelation. There is no “behind the back” of God when God reveals himself. He doesn’t hold back. This does not mean we fully know the hyperousia of God, whatever that is. Rather, when God gives himself to us in Jesus, he gives the full Jesus. Jesus doesn’t hold back on us. The dialectic of veiling/unveiling is not static. Veiling is ordered towards unveiling. The stand together in an “ordered history” (179). As McCormack notes elsewhere, “God unveils himself by veiling himself in human language” (KBCRDT 18). So far, critical realistic dialektikal theology.

The Goddity of God: God’s Being in Act

God is who he is in the Act of Revelation. We cannot begin with a generic idea of “being” or “the divine” and then project that idea onto the Triune God (Barth 259). Deus non est genera. Interestingly, Barth does indeed affirm that God’s revelation as event did happen (262), but it cannot be reduced to one happening. What does he mean by this? He doesn’t say here, but one can speculate. We say that the Father eternally generates the Son and speaking analogically, we can say that this “happened.” Yet the language of “happened” is temporal and the Father’s generating the Son happened in pre-temporal eternity.
More concretely, Barth identifies the being of God as “vita” (263). I think this is his most defensible statement in the whole book. He is clearly in line with the best of Cappadocian thinking which identified the essence of God as the shared life. In any case, at this point he isn’t making up new stuff.

Even more concretely, Barth places this “vita” in conjunction with another phrase from Reformed scholasticism: et singularis. This is crucial for the doctrine of simplicity and anticipates his argument in CD IV:1. God’s moment of identity and act (i.e., modes of generation and spiration) was a singular act without reserve. I see Barth’s statement here as an inference from divine simplicity.

This brings us to an important debate in Barth studies: Is God’s being constituted by Act? George Hunsinger says no. Bruce McCormack says yes. (Most modern conservative Reformed default to Hunsinger’s reading). In this volume Barth never really answers (or asks) the question, though I believe we can see the beginnings of an answer. If God’s being is the event of his act, and this act is et singularis (264), and if we maintain the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity, then I think McCormack has the correct reading. I haven’t read Hunsinger yet, so I won’t go further on this point.

Following this discussion, Barth gives us his treatment of the attributes of God. He largely defaults to the Reformed scholastics, except he rephrases the attributes as manifestations of God’s perfections. He then spends the next 400 pages discussing the attributes.

Notae Bene

The following sections are quite interesting and worth a thoughtful perusal, but time and space preclude a full exposition.
Barth anticipates and rejects some of the modern Evangelical silliness, taken from Orthodox and Roman Catholic bloggers, that the world is “sacramental” (309).

Concerning the via negativa, he asks the obvious question that isn’t often asked, “How can our negation be a trustworthy transcending of the created world and as such a trustworthy description of God” (347)?
He has a beautiful meditation on Solomon’s wisdom (433).

Excellent discussions on the nature of space/time and how they affect Reformed and Lutheran debates on the sacraments and Christ’s presence (464, 482, 488ff.).

Excellent discussions on how the Reformed Scholastics spoke of God’s knowledge. Further, he gives an awe-inspiring and brutal critique of Molinism (567-586--all small print)

Interesting discussion on ordained and absolute power (593-596).

Criticisms

My main criticism of Barth is that he always remained something of an Origenist. He comes close to sometimes seeing our problem as “non-being” as opposed to being (281). While Barth does point to where the Reformed scholastics didn’t always solve the problem, I am not always certain that Barth himself really advanced the discussion. While to his credit he doesn’t use sappy, sacharine evangelical views of love, he tends to prioritize this attribute. However, the doctrine of simplicity does not allow us to do that. Very little mention of God’s covenant.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here, we have Barth's extensive criticism of natural theology (something that defines his project as whole) as well as his explication of the doctrine of God. His theology proper, though pushing the figurative envelope in some ways, has much of benefit and ought to be read and engaged with by anyone interested in this area of theology even if his starting point (anti-natural theology, anti-scholastic) approach is unpalatable. This is before his more controversial treatment of election in CD II/2 and so those of a more classical theist bent will appreciate what Barth has to say here, in my opinion at least.

[John Coatney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will simply say that I'm loving this five pages a day of Barth for 8+ years. I love when I find agreement with what he says (and am perhaps a little too surprised); I love understanding where and why we disagree. I love being floored by him; I abide not understanding certain passages, and am somewhat at peace with not having time to work through those passages. Onward to 2.2!

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has influenced the way I've been teaching on the doctrine of God. What more to say?

[Ben De Bono · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume represents the first half of Barth's doctrine of God. Despite it's immense size, I found it completely absorbing and unputdownable, being even more engaging that the previous two.

The volume covers two main topics: the knowledge of God and the attributes (or perfections, to use Barth's term) of God. Both were quite excellent. I found his argument against natural theology to be the most complete and sound polemic against the topic that I've yet come across. It was helpful to me, because I've found myself wondering, in light of certain biblical texts, what precise role natural theology is able to play in leading unbelievers to faith. I still want to give the topic more thought, but Barth's discussion of it has gone a long way to clarify my thinking.

The historical times Barth lived in seemed to have a bit more pronounced influence in this volume, particularly in his discussion of God's omnipotence. He states carefully and repeatedly that while God is powerful, power is not God and that pure power independent of anything else is, in fact, evil. It's difficult not to see images of the Third Reich behind this part of Barth's thinking. No doubt his experience in Nazi Germany helped prompt him to question what the difference was between God's power and the power sought and wielded by Hitler.

If there was one section I found slightly less satisfying it was Barth's discussion of the will of God as it relates to human freedom and foreordination. He seems to simultaneously argue against fatalism, as set forth by some of the more vigorous proponents of Calvinism, and Molinism. Barth's position seems to be that all actions are God's will but that human freedom still exists and is active in all decisions. His argument in this section was quite complex and no doubt there's a lot I missed on a first reading. Still, it seems as though he's trying to have his cake and eat it too. He devoted a huge amount of space to the topic, but I found myself wishing he would have taken just a bit more rather than leaving the argument seemingly unresolved.

That quibble aside, this was another great volume. Onward to volume II.2!

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant explication of the doctrine of God, working from the method Barth established in 1.1 and 1.2. God's being is as the one who loves in freedom, Barth asserts, and he works through the attributes of God while doing justice to this formula. An indispensable introduction to his earth-shaking 2.2.

[Adam Gossman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really refreshing look at the Doctrine of God, deeply theological but over flowing with highly practical theological implications. I guess I'd say this about anything of Barth's that I have read.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magisterial.

[Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not long enough.