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.