A SECOND LOOK AT THE HERMENEUTICS OF KARL BARTH

“[T]heology must begin with Jesus Christ, and not with general principles, however better, or, at any rate, more relevant and illuminating they may appear to be: as though He were a continuation of the knowledge and Word of God, and not its root and origin, not indeed the very Word of God itself” [i] (Karl Barth)

Karl Barth (May 10, 1886(1886-05-10) – December 10, 1968(1968-12-10)) (pronounced "Bart") was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas.[ii] Beginning with his experience as a pastor, he rejected his training in the predominant liberal theology typical of 19th-century European Protestantism,[iii]  and through a process of hermeneutical development finally settled on what some have called the Christological principle; however, not doubt he would have preferred to call his methodology the Trinitarian principle.

For Barth, central to understanding scripture was the revelation of God through His Word as revealed in and through the historical Jesus. History for Barth began and culminates in Christ, the expression of God in His fullness among us.

In other words, to understand God in His essence and intentions, one must look to Christ for whom and through whom all things were created. Christ is by His very nature the Logos of God which, however, is more than a word or philosophical expression—Jesus Christ is ontologically God in the fullest sense of the term. And with that understanding, the fullness of the Trinity as a functioning personhood of Father (relationally in super ordination) and the Son (relationally in subordination) and the Holy Spirit (as the mediating Grace).  

Therefore, to know God, one must accept Christ as the fullness of God’s self disclosure. Yet, for Barth, this discovery must go beyond description of a mere figure in history to accepting Christ as the central cause and intention for and of history.

As for example, Genesis 1:1 says, “In the Beginning God created” and John further expands on the statement by asserting that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1-3).  "For it was in [Jesus Christ]" as affirmed by the Apostle Paul, "that all things were created, in heaven and on earth, things seen and things unseen, whether thrones, dominions, rulers, or authorities; all things were created and exist through Him [by His service, intervention] and in and for Him” (Colossians 1:16).

Since Barth took Scripture very serious, he was after all a staunch Lutheran and therefore a child of the Reformation, he took these verses to heart and applied them in each and every case.

Barth flatly denied that this was a new twist on an old heresy—that of monism, even Christological monism. But, on the other hand, he believed, as with Paul in his Mars Hill apologetic, “[In the] God Who produced and formed the world and all things” (Acts 17:24) is the very God with whom “we live and move and have our being; as even some of your [own] poets have said, For we are also His offspring.” Acts 17:28 

Without a doubt, Christ is at reference in these verses, and Barth embraced this actuality. To satisfy his critics, he carefully noted that this contextual relationship was analogically like that of a circle and a tangent that interplays with the circle but never quite touches it—the circle being God, and the tangent being His creation. Creation for Bath is therefore pregnant with the sustaining omnipresence of God in and of and through Christ in commitment to the purpose and the intentions of His creation; and also as an integral part of His creation by virtue of His only begotten son. Jesus was to Barth, therefore, both truly God and truly man. The Son of God and the son of man. Human and Divine in all aspects.

It should also be noted that Barth was not opposed to the historic creeds, or the Patristic Father’s interpretations; however, his support was at best just a casual acknowledgement of their authority. To quote him, speaking of the Christian creeds, he said that the only way a creed has any genuine  authority is in a “concrete subordination to the Word of God”.[iv]

To dismiss Barth as Neo-orthodox (a term he rejected) is no only unfair, but also show gross ignorance of his considered theology.

Admittedly, it does evoke a kind of modern scholasticism filled with convoluted and circuitous arguments but the sincerity of his pursuit is obvious to the unbiased observer. And, to his credit, sola scriptura was an over arching governing factor in his hermeneutical process.

In closing, it is of interest to me that Barth stated:

“At the risk of more headshaking and displeasure I will at any rate venture to whisper one thing to you, namely, that I have become increasingly a Zinzendorfian to the extent that in the New Testament 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."[v]

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[i] Church Dogmatics: 1957:II.2.p. fn. 4.

[ii] Church Dogmatics IV.1, Edinburgh: T Clark, 2004.

[iii] Issues in Science and Religion (1966), Ian Barbour, Prentice-Hall pages 116-119, 229, 292, 422-25, 456, 459

[iv] Church Dogmatics I/2, p. 586 

[v] Karl Barth, letter to Rudolf Bultmann, December 24, 1952, in Karl Barth-Rudolf Bultmann Letters, 1922 to 1966, ed. Bernd Jaspert and Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), P. I07. Cf Jan M. Lochman, "Toward a Theology of Christological Concentration", in The Context of Contemporary Theology: Essays in Honor of Paul Lehmann, ed. Alexander J. McKelway and E. David Willis (Atlanta: John Knox Press, I974).