Summary Reflections on Barth 47-71

Preaching is distinct from all other activities of the Church. In preaching (as it should be anyhow) we have the unique task of speaking not merely about God but from God. We are to speak the Word of God, to do what we cannot do without Grace being before and after us, to proclaim the Revelation of God…. to make “repetition of the divine promise.” No other Church activity can do this nor is commissioned to do this. God may, indeed, choose to reveal Himself through such other activities but on our part they are not done with the intention to speak God’s Word. They are done in obedient response to his Word and as such serve as signposts to the Revelation of God, by which others may indeed find themselves directed to God Himself. But to speak from God these activities cannot do nor are they intended to do.

In “modern” Protestant dogmatics the denial of this special role of preaching as proclamation results in the blurring of the activity with that of other Church activities. Even more, with preaching reduced to yet another symbol of one’s inner spiritual being one loses any real reason for excluding non-Christian symbols. “What needs to be said in criticism of this teaching is said clearly enough by the teaching itself. Understanding of the concept of proclamation along these lines can end only with its dissolution” (64).

In Roman Catholicism preaching can only occur on the margins, as instruction and exhortation. Yet its inability to speak a word from God is only a symptom of deeper error. Namely, that the act is considered only a preparatory grace at the most, and that by grace a connection “between a divine being as cause and a divine-creaturely being as effect. With due reservations one might even say that it understands it as a physical, not a historical, event” (68). Rather than a “personal encounter,” grace is understood as an “influence of divine-human being” (70, 68) Naturally, then, there is nothing about preaching that could elevate it above apologetical and moral instructions, nor would there be any such necessity. The relation between Christ and the Church understood as such, the speechless act of the Eucharist becomes primary. Preaching is relegated to a lesser role, and this subordination is much the more drastic than that of communion to preaching by the Reformers, a point Barth consistently emphasizes.

Barth on Apologetics

Three (and perhaps four) errors of “planned apologetics”/ Why “apologetics and polemics can only be an event and not a program”: (cf. 30-32)

1) Faith, taking unbelief seriously, “cannot take itself with full seriousness” and, “therefore, ceases to be faith” as it seeks to produce the event which is not in its ability to produce. 2) It, in error, thinks that the task of dogmatics is complete. “The theologian who gives himself to these crafts is obviously of the opinion that he has both the time and the authority to abandon the concern for dogmatics, and instead of working at the thing itself to begin to discuss it with others.” 3) It risks thinking the task with unbelief is done beyond the dissemination of its program. 4) (Though not listed with the other three, Barth perhaps concentrates most on this point) The true point of conflict is not with unbelief, but with heresy.  “Because of its paradoxical nature, heresy is for faith an important factor… Unbelief in the form of heresy is for faith an important factor—which is not the case when it is present as pure unbelief. Because in heresy it is present as a form of faith, it must be taken seriously at this point, and there can and must be serious conflict between faith and heresy.”

Seven Years...

This week I have begun a 7 year commitment to reading Barth's Church Dogmatics, joining the blogging group started by J. R. Daniel Kirk, a professor at Fuller. I have long intended on working my way through them, but undergraduate and now master's work has prevented much beyond the occasional perusal. Having, like many others, purchased the new printing by Hendrickson and being set to graduate in May, I had anticipated starting soon. My initial reaction upon being directed to this reading group by a friend was that seven years was much too long. I quickly reminded myself (as I often need to do with such things), however, that it seems not in the cards for me to carve out any 2 year period of life to spend studying, what with a wife, daughter, and increasing pressure to provide some sort of income. In fact, life being the way it is, seven years might find itself pushing me a bit.

I suppose the likelihood of anyone stumbling upon this blog that is not a part of Kirk's reading group is rather slim. Given my feelings about blogging in general, as indicated in my initial post, I probably will rarely post regarding anything other than on the Dogmatics for the next few months. I am not sure how consistent I will be, especially once the spring semester begins. Finishing the reading might very well take all the extra time I have. Some thoughts on the first reading:

"Exegetical theology investigates biblical teaching as the basis of our talk about God. Dogmatics, too, must constantly keep it in view. But only in God and not for us is the true basis of Christian utterance identical with its true content. Hence dogmatics as such does not ask what the apostles and prophets said but what we must say on the basis of the apostles and prophets. This task is not taken from us because it is first necessary that we should know the biblical basis" (1.1, 16). 

It seems to me that a dominant hermeneutic in biblical studies, perhaps typified in the educational settings I have found myself in, quickly conflates the 'basis of Christian utterance' and its 'content.' The more precisely we can ascertain matters of authorial intent and original meaning in the various books of the Bible the more we assume to know about what presently the Church should speak (As an aside, it seems curious that the heavy reliance on socio-historical reconstructions seems to, with all the variety it offers, prove such matters of intent/meaning ever the more elusive rather than provide what is sought, some sort of definitive clarity). Yet to understand God's Word as such hardly seems a recognition of it as 'living and active.' While, as Barth stresses, it is absolutely necessary to "know the biblical basis," it is not the task of dogmatics to "simply combine, repeat and transcribe a number of truths of revelation which are already at hand, which have been expressed once and for all" (15). It seems to me that the much of evangelical biblical studies has not allowed for a free God. The typical practice of climbing ladders of abstraction according to 'original meaning' might very well provide us with true things to say, but will often distract from present encounters with the Self-Revealing One through the testimony of Scripture.