Barth's Dogmatics, §6, The Knowability of the Word of God

In this ongoing project, I am taking brief notes on Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. My folks purchased the whole English-language set for me forty years ago, and subsequently I wrote my doctoral dissertation on a portion of Vol. III, part 2. See my December 2, 2018 post for Barth's overall plan for his series.

Paragraph 6 of the Dogmatics (pp. 187-247) is “The Knowability of the Word of God.” Barth’s summary is: "The reality of Word of God in all its three forms is grounded only in itself. So, too, the knowledge of it by [human beings] can consist only in its acknowledgment, and this acknowledgment can become real only through itself and can become intelligible only in terms of itself" (187).

In his book An Introduction to Barth’s Dogmatics for Preachers (Westminster Press, 1963), Arnold B. Come writes of this and the previous paragraph: "It is, of course, [human beings] who hear and know God. But the capacity is not to have or to hold God's Word but to acknowledge him. And this capacity is given [us] in the event. God's acknowledgment of [us] empowers [us] to acknowledge him..." (90).

Acknowledgment entails knowledge, and thus knowledge entails a relation of human beings to God and God's Word, and that Word comes to us according to God's free decision. On our part, we yield to God's authority and direction, in a genuine experience of God's Word as God makes Godself known (I:1, 205ff). In this section "The Word of God and Experience" and the previous section, Barth provides fascinating discussions with Thomism, Cartesian philosophy, as well as Schleiermacher.

Barth continues this paragraph:

"If we have understood that the knowability of God's Word is really an inalienable affirmation of faith, but that precisely as such it denotes the miracle of faith, the miracle that we can only recollect and hope for, then as a final necessity we must also understand that [we] must be set side and God Himself presented as the original subject, as the primary power, as the creator of the possibility of knowledge of God's Word. Christ does not remain outside. And it is true enough that [we] must open the door (Rev: 3:20). But the fact that this takes place is quoad actum and quoad potentiam the work of the Christ who stands outside. Hence it is also unconditionally true that the risen Christ passes through closed doors (John 20:19f)" (247).

Where Your Treasure Is

Where Your Treasure Is, There Your Heart Will Be
Matthew 6: 19-24

A devotion written for our church's recent stewardship emphasis.

In our scripture from Matthew, Jesus famously teaches that our treasure should be in heaven. Earthly wealth “rusts” (the Greek word has the sense of “eaten away”), but heavenly wealth—our relationship with God, who cares for us and guides us and matures us—is not perishable. Jesus goes on to say that wealth can be an object of false worship, in the sense that we put it before God and pay it more homage than God. But if our hearts are invested in our true treasure, consequently our souls are full of light that in turn shines outward.

Of course, we need money and savings. I’ve been in the position of not having enough money, and it’s a terrible, worrying circumstance! But there is a fine balance between the normal concern about money and finding the meaning of our lives in money. We’ve all known stingy people, who won’t tip well in restaurants, who express haughty attitudes about people based on their income. They (and sometimes we) thereby miss the chance to witness to God’s own generosity.

The story of the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-23) is not our scripture this week. But I thought about it in the context of treasures and the heart.

You could imagine the story of the rich young ruler going another way. Jesus would tell the man the same thing: “Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (Luke 18:22). But instead of sadness, the man would have a “eureka moment” about helping those in need. Perhaps he would ask Jesus’ advice about who was most in need, and Jesus would direct him to some persons. And the rich young man would be remembered in the hearts of those whom he helped; as with George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life, the world would’ve been a better place with him in it.

But conforming our attitudes around Jesus’ teachings is a growth in grace. We begin to find joy in possibilities of giving away some of our money. We begin to feel deeper compassion toward persons in need. It’s okay to feel uncertain with Jesus’ teachings but to want to grow. I can imagine the rich young ruler saying to Jesus, “I’m just too uncomfortable with giving away my wealth, as you say I should, but I do want to learn more from you and to draw closer to God. I want to show myself as a Jesus-follower in making other people’s lives better.”

Landscape: Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), "Line of Trees in Marshy Landscape", 1906. 

Article: "America's Epistemic Crisis"

Interesting essay from Vox.com:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/16/20964281/impeachment-hearings-trump-america-epistemic-crisis?fbclid=IwAR0hPPRTgibyOtuWFE-_8EI39Kpx8G2j26HG9OP2xa-9SLrxQx3M8wYFN7s

"The Electoral College's Racist Origins"

Critics of the Electoral College are right to denounce it for handing victory to the loser of the popular vote twice in the past two decades. They are also correct to point out that it distorts our politics, including by encouraging presidential campaigns to concentrate their efforts in a few states that are not representative of the country at large. But the disempowerment of black voters needs to be added to that list of concerns, because it is core to what the Electoral College is and what it always has been.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/electoral-college-racist-origins/601918/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2019-11-17T11%3A00%3A16&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&fbclid=IwAR2VLymSGUntbsVlyTyqk1Vx8F0aOjz9NLJofHpMf_krq5omDTxwYxn1JqE

WP Essay: Dems and Trump Voters

Interesting article!  "Why democrats can't win the respect of Trump voters." "The right has a gigantic media apparatus that is devoted to convincing people that liberals disrespect them, plus a political party whose leaders all understand that that idea is key to their political project and so join in the chorus at every opportunity...In the world Republicans have constructed, a Democrat who wants to give you health care and a higher wage is disrespectful, while a Republican who opposes those things but engages in a vigorous round of campaign race-baiting is respectful. The person who’s holding you back isn’t the politician who just voted to give a trillion-dollar tax break to the wealthy and corporations, it’s an East Coast college professor who said something condescending on Twitter."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/05/15/why-democrats-cant-win-the-respect-of-trump-voters/?fbclid=IwAR0mJW5M1yq8HFi2PFGyzQ9bnYOx5TJwG0Lm1c7S48Mz5h_PuVmtnBujzY0

Iran Hostage Crisis and the "Reagan Myth"

Today is the fortieth anniversary of the start of the Iran Hostage Crisis. Here's a good summary of the events:

https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/iran-hostage-crisis?fbclid=IwAR0an15azWwuV6ngkmc5jUBuB6s3lvc348NUVtvBoXtgXhgU5OCpXYtJLEg

That was my first semester at divinity school. The situation made me quite afraid, and I dreaded hearing the morning news to learn what might have happened overnight. The events also inspired campus discussions about the religious social justice issues that should be raised in times of difficult foreign policy.

I found another article yesterday, "The Republican Myth of Ronald Reagan and the Iran Hostages, Debunked." The piece raises interesting issues about some of the contemporary comparisons of Obama and Trump, and why Trump's style is popular among some people. https://www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10826056/reagan-iran-hostage-negotiation

Barth's Dogmatics, §5, The Nature of the Word of God

It’s been a habit of mine for the past several years, to begin a project for this blog that is a year-long
spiritual discipline. I usually begin on Allhallowtide (which was this past week), or the First Sunday of Advent.

Earlier this year I began a project to take notes on Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. My folks purchased whole English-language set for me forty years ago, and subsequently I wrote my doctoral dissertation on a portion of Vol. III, part 2. See my December 2, 2018 post for Barth's overall plan for his series.

I didn’t get very far with the project because of some other writing. (I visited the Galapagos Islands in March 2019 and was inspired to research and write a long poem about the experience.) But now I want to resume this Barth project and, Lord willing, continue it as this upcoming year’s spiritual discipline.

Paragraph 5 of the Dogmatics (pp. 125-186) is “The Nature of the Word of God.” Barth’s summary is: "The Word of God in all its three forms is God’s speech to [us]. For this reason it occurs, applies and works in God’s act on [us]. But as such it occurs in God’s way which differs from all other occurrence, i.e., in the mystery of God” (125).

In his book An Introduction to Barth’s Dogmatics for Preachers (Westminster Press, 1963), Arnold B. Come writes of this and the previous paragraph: "The event of God's free self-revelation by his sovereign address to men is his Word. The Word of God never occurs in sheer immediacy. It was objectively and concretely present in Jesus Christ. Proclamation is a recollection of Jesus Christ. Scripture is the precipitate of the earliest proclamation. Both the Written Word, and the Proclaimed Word based upon it, become the Revealed Word when God freely chooses to be immediately present to men through them. So God's speech is his presence in his whole Trinitarian Person. He speaks with the rational power of truth, directed purposively to [humans] in their need of renewal and fulfillment. His speech is concrete contemporary act, with the power to demand an act of decision from [humans] in response to God’s decision about them. We know it is God’s speech because of its mystery: worldly, human thoughts and words both hiding and manifesting God’s free Word. The listening of the ear verges imperceptibly into the hearing of faith, without any explanatory capacity on [our] part. So we must speak of the miracle of the Holy Spirit (¶4, 5)” (Barth's Dogmatics for Preachers, 89-90).

A few quotations that I found interesting:

“[t]o understand God from man is either an impossibility or something one can do only in the form of Christology and not of anthropology (not even a Christology translated into anthropology). There is a way from Christology to anthropology, but there is no way from anthropology to Christology. On the basis of these considerations I must not only decline Gogarten’s invitation to improve my dogmatics by introducing a true anthropology. I must also eliminate all that might seem to be a concession in that direction in my draft of five years ago [his book Die christliche Dogmatik of 1927]” (131). Barth goes on to discuss his wrong direction into existential thought.

“God’s Word means that God speaks…. God’s Word is not a thing to be described nor a term to be defined… It is the truth as it is God’s speaking person, Dei loquentis persona. it is not an objective reality. it is the objective reality, in that it is also subjective, the subjective that is God” (136). He goes on to discuss God’s authority to rule and to call for a decision, never conditioned by human behavior and other variables. But the decision is not “my own particular resolve and choice” but “of being judged and accepted,” of understanding that “I exist in correspondence to God’s Word”—which is good news (161)!

“The Lord of speech is also the Lord of our hearing. The Lord who gives the Word is also the Lord who gives faith. The Lord …. by whose act the openness and readiness of [humans] for the Word are true and actual, not another God but the one God in this way, is the Holy Spirit” (182).

"Calling the Saints to Mind"

A Catholic perspective on the saints, from a sermon by Saint Bernard.

"Let us make haste to our brethren who are awaiting us. 

"Why should our praise and glorification, or even the celebration of this feast day mean anything to the saints? What do they care about earthly honors when their heavenly Father honors them by fulfilling the faithful promise of the Son? What does our commendation mean to them? The saints have no need of honor from us; neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs. Clearly, if we venerate their memory, it serves us, not them. But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by a tremendous yearning.

"Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, to join the assembly of patriarchs, the ranks of the prophets, the council of apostles, the great host of martyrs, the noble company of confessors and the choir of virgins. In short, we long to be united in happiness with all the saints. But our dispositions change. The Church of all the first followers of Christ awaits us, but we do nothing about it. The saints want us to be with them, and we are indifferent. The souls of the just await us, and we ignore them.

"Come, brothers, let us at length spur ourselves on. We must rise again with Christ, we must seek the world which is above and set our mind on the things of heaven. Let us long for those who are longing for us, hasten to those who are waiting for us, and ask those who look for our coming to intercede for us. We should not only want to be with the saints, we should also hope to possess their happiness. While we desire to be in their company, we must also earnestly seek to share in their glory. Do not imagine that there is anything harmful in such an ambition as this; there is no danger in setting our hearts on such glory.

"When we commemorate the saints we are inflamed with another yearning: that Christ our life may also appear to us as he appeared to them and that we may one day share in his glory. Until then we see him, not as he is, but as he became for our sake. He is our head, crowned, not with glory, but with the thorns of our sins. As members of that head, crowned with thorns, we should be ashamed to live in luxury; his purple robes are a mockery rather than an honor. When Christ comes again, his death shall no longer be proclaimed, and we shall know that we also have died, and that our life is hidden with him. The glorious head of the Church will appear and his glorified members will shine in splendor with him, when he forms this lowly body anew into such glory as belongs to himself, its head.

"Therefore, we should aim at attaining this glory with a wholehearted and prudent desire. That we may rightly hope and strive for such blessedness, we must above all seek the prayers of the saints. Thus, what is beyond our own powers to obtain will be granted through their intercession."

From The Liturgy of the Hours, IV, Ordinary Time, Weeks 18-34 (Catholic Book Publishing Corp, 1975), 1526-1527; http://www.ibreviary.org/en/tools/ibreviary-web.html, accessed Nov. 1, 2019.

A Holiness Day

In many Christian denominations, today is All Saints' Day, although in Eastern Christianity, the
festival is the first Sunday after Pentecost. It is the middle day of Hallowmas, the three-day festival commemorating those saints, known and unknown, who have died (in Catholic theology: those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven). Many churches have a recitation of the names of members of that congregation who have died during the previous year. The feast was mentioned in a sermon as early as 373 AD, and the date of November 1 was instituted by the 8th century Pope Gregory III, while the 9th century Pope Gregory IV made it a feast of the entire church.

In The United Methodist Church, All Saint’s Day focuses upon “the church universal,” all Christians called to holiness, and also those members of local congregations who have recently died. My family and I are looking forward to singing "For All the Saints" (with its Vaughan Williams tune "Sine Nomine") this coming Sunday.

The Greek word hagioi, meaning “saints” or “holy ones”, is used in the New Testament many times to refer to followers of God. In some though not all early Greek manuscripts, it is the very last word in the Bible (Rev. 22:21). In that spirit, you could call this day "All Believers' Day," but if you’re like me, you hesitate very strongly being considered as “holy.” Nevertheless, the sanctity of God’s followers is a major biblical theme.

In the New Testament, the work of Christ includes sanctification of believers. As one writer puts it, “[t]hey [the believer/saints] are to be separated unto God as living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1) evidencing purity (1 Cor. 6:9-20; 2 Cor. 7:1), righteousness (Eph. 4:24, and love (1 Thess. 4:7; 1 John 2:5-6, 20; 4:13-21). What was foretold and experienced by only a few in the Old Testament [i.e., the power of the Holy Spirit] becomes the very nature of what it means to be a Christian through the plan of the Father, the work of Christ, and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.”[1] The purity and justice to which Christians are called are Spirit-given gifts and, as such, are God’s own holiness born within us which empower our witness to others (e.g., 2 Cor. 5:21, 2 Pet. 1.4). The same author notes, “[God’s] character unalterably demands a likeness in those who bear his Name. He consistently requires and supplies the means by which to produce a holy people (1 Peter 1:15-16).”[2]

These ideas are linked to Old Testament ideas as well. As that author also notes, the word “holy” and its variants appear over 800 times in the OT, referring to God or the holiness of his people. The holiness of God is reflected in Israel’s life in the distinctions between unclean and clean, holy and common, and sacred and profane. We may be tempted to disregard Old Testament ideas of cleanness and uncleanness because of texts like Acts 10:9-16, but in Israel, these were God-given parameters for how to live and how to relate properly to God, not only according to God’s expressed will but according to God’s revealed nature, the Holy God who dwells in Israel. (cf. Zech. 2:13-8:23; 14:20-21).

The holiness to which Israel is called has the component of justice—which, again, reflects the nature of God who is holy, just and righteous. Holiness is never understood (properly at least) as only a concern for right ritual, cleanness, and restoration from uncleanness. Israel also witnesses to God through acts of justice, provision, and care for the needy (Lev. 19; Ps. 68:5).

In an important way, God’s call of holiness links the beginning of the Bible with the end, because the book of Revelation uses the Torah language of cleanness, separation, and holiness to show who, at the end of time, will share eternal life with Christ (Rev. 22:11-15).

But the Spirit also connects us even earlier in the Bible to the narratives of creation, for the church—which is born in and matured by the Spirit who was present at creation—-is a “new creation” in the world (2 Cor. 5:17).[3] We could say that, as God dwelled among his people through the tabernacle, he dwells among us through the Spirit. But as in the ancient times, God calls us to reflect his nature and witness to his holiness. In fact, we prove the very reality of God in so far as we love God and one another in the spirit of holiness.

These might be good ideas and scriptures for us to read and consider on All Saints Day as we remember those who have witnessed to God in the past. What are some ways we reflect God's holy nature in the ways we serve God and one another, particularly in our current time of growing economic need? What kind of witness would we like to be remembered for, when some future minister reads our names aloud on November 1st? I ask myself that a lot.

Notes:

1. Much of these thoughts and references derive from the article “Holy, Holiness,” in Walter A. Elwell, ed., Baker Theological Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), 340-344.

2. “Holy, Holiness,” 343.

3. Nils Alstrup Dahl, Jesus in the Memory of the Early Church (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1976), the essay “Christ, Creation, and the Church.”

(From 2013 and 2015 posts.)