Gordon H. Clark - Karl Barths Theological Method (Trinity Papers)

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED PUBLISHING COMPANY

PHILADELPHIA

PENNSYLVANIA

1963

Copyright 1963

By the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-12648 Printed in the United States of America

Four Standpoints

A Critics Difficulties

The Word of God

Modernism Exalts Man

Barth Exalts God

The Concept of God

Derivative Doctrines

Barth and Hitler

The Church and the World

The Norm of Logic

Norms Two to Five

Axiomatization

Science, Theology, and the Church

Is Apologetics Possible?

Common Ground

Gods Image to Man

Barths Rationality

Hesitation

An Argument on Dogma

Propositions and Words

Skepticism

The Word of God as Preached

The Written Word of God

The Revealed Word of God

The Unity of the Three Forms

Has God Spoken?

Contemporaneity

Barths Assertion and Denial of Biblical Authority

Barths View of Inspiration

History of the Doctrine

A Functioning Christianity

A Anselm: Fidens Quaerens Intellectum: John Knox Press, 1960

D. C. Deliverance to the Captives: Harper & Brothers, 1961

D. O. Dogmatics in Outline: Philosophical Library, 1949

H. G. The Humanity of God: John Knox Press, 1960

K. G. The Knowledge of God: Charles Scribners Sons, 1939

P. T. Protestant Thought: From Rousseau to Ritschl: Harper & Brothers, 1959

W. G. The Word of God and the Word of Man: The Pilgrim Press, 1928

No symbol: Church Dogmatics: T. & T. Clark, 1936 ff.

Karl Barth is indisputably a theologian of major importance; he may eventually prove to have been the greatest theologian of our era. Helmut Gollwitzer offers this praise: Since the time of the Reformation no evangelical theologian has yet won such attention from the side of Roman Catholic theology as Barth has. His work has created a new situation for Evangelical-Catholic dialogue. The development of the ecumenical movement is as unthinkable without his work as the Christian opposition to National Socialism in Germany, as well as the multiform arrangements of Christians and Churches with communism in the eastern nations .. (Karl Barth: Kirchliche Dog matik, p. 8).

In answer to the opinion that others are already eclipsing him, G. C. Berkouwer wrote, The judgment expressed at various times that its [Barths theology] influence has passed the high water mark is unmistakably being contradicted by the present theological situation (The Triumph of Grace , p. 9). Although this was written before Bultmanns current popularity reached our shores, it is premature to dismiss Barth as a flash in the pan. Barth is a great theologian.

Therefore no critic need now anxiously justify an attempt to study Barths thought. Of course, many others have carefully expounded and criticized his ideas until the public may wonder whether there remains anything further to say. There does. So far insufficient notice has been taken of Barths theological method. Particular points of doctrine, such as the knowledge of God, the Totally Other, the doctrine of Creation, Berkouwers triumph of grace, have been studied at length in books and periodicals; but Barths underlying philosophy, his notion of apologetics, the relation of theology to science, Barths own statements of methodology have received scant attention. To be sure, discussions of specific points of doctrine frequently refer to methods, as also a discussion of methodology inevitably includes some points of doctrine; but no work hitherto published gives the detailed analysis that Barths first volume of Church Dogmatics deserves.

Then, too, regardless of the many excellent studies already published, another one can find its place by virtue of its evaluation and point of view. The present study is indeed an exposition of Barths philosophic orientation, but it is mainly an evaluation. It accepts and it rejects; it aims to correct and improve; it makes bold to offer its own proposals. Accordingly, since evaluations depend on their authors principles, the standpoint of the present work may well be made explicit at the beginning.

Four Standpoints

In the first place a study could be conducted from the standpoint of American fundamentalism. Some ecclesiastics would not appreciate this basis of criticism, but Barth himself might not be completely averse to it. There is a certain reasonableness in viewing Barth from this perspective. For one thing, Barths policy is inclusive: he wants all Christians to take part in theological dialogueand the fundamentalists are Christians, are they not? Then, further, fundamentalism is violently opposed to modernism. Barth is hardly less opposed: he even dares to brand modernism with the horrid name of heresy. The fundamentalists therefore might welcome Barth as an ally. If they have a common enemy, a fundamentalist critique of Barth would doubtless proceed to enquire whether they have any positive doctrines in common. It would of course begin with its customary criteria. Although not all modernists denied the deity of Christ, some did; and a fundamentalist would rejoice to note that Barth, speaking of Jesus and the New Testament phrase, Jesus is Lord, writes, This man is the Jehovah of the Old Testament, is the Creator, is God himself (D.O. p. 85). And on a later page he says again, Jesus Christ is God himself (D.O. pp. 96-97).

Not to mention certain other favorite themes of fundamentalism, such as the vicarious Atonement and the bodily Resurrection of Christ, the Virgin Birth is an item virtually monopolized by the despised fundamentalists these past fifty years. For some reason or other the modernistic tendency, whether or not in individual cases it went so far as to deny the Atonement and the Resurrection, ordinarily began, in American pulpits if not in Europe, with a rejection of the biological miracle of the Virgin Birth. On this point Barth stands firmly, or at least for an Introduction let us say that he seems to stand firmly, with the fundamentalists. He even sees in modernism's rejection of the Virgin Birth one of the several causes of the increasing barbarism, tedium, and insignificance of modern Protestantism (I 1, p. xi).

Barth does not mention the Virgin Birth in any merely incidental way. He devotes a fairly long section to its discussion. (I 2, pp. 172-202). There are some replies to the usual objections: the brevity of the New Testament references is not a good objection because all (two) accounts of Jesus birth and childhood contain it; and if Paul does not mention it, it is because he was mainly explaining the Atonement. Nor can one claim that it is an importation from or imitation of similar stories in Greek mythology. The stories are not similar and the Virgin Birth has no parallels. To disdain it as a biological miracle, as Brunner does, is to forget that the Resurrection is also a biological, or at least a physical and temporal, miracle. If we give up the Virgin Birth, we must also reject the empty tomb. But Barth's main point, which he enforces at length, is that the Virgin Birth is a necessary and essential element of the Incarnation. If we are to understand it, we must see its inward essential rightness. In excluding human paternity it excludes all human initiative and eliminates the last surviving possibility of understanding the vere Deus vere homo intellectually, as an idea or an arbitrary interpretation in the sense of docetic or ebionite Christol ogy. It leaves only the spiritual understanding of the vere Deus vere homo , i.e., the understanding in which God's own work is seen in God's own light (p. 177).