KARL BARTH AND THE DOCTRINE OF THE WORD OF GOD: THE BEGINNING AND END OF MISSIONAL PROCLAMATION

Greg Klimovitz December 2009 Biblical Seminary

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The history of the Christian tradition has incorporated a vast array of practical and theological movements, turns, and progressions led by the revolutionary and orthodox, renowned and anonymous men and women of faith. The Christian Church has continued to move despite and because of these movers and shakers who pursued what was believed to be the gospel within their particular contexts. These historical movements and related innovators have continually sparked intense criticism and controversy, scrutiny and progression, schism and reformation. One of the more contentious theologians of the Christian faith was the twentieth-century thinker from Switzerland, Karl Barth. The work of Karl Barth, regardless of one‟s opinions and concerns, has continued to influence the theological and pragmatic witness of the Church long since his death in 1968. Theologians and scholars alike have attempted to label and link Karl Barth to a variety of terms and ecclesial movements in order to affirm or diverge from his contributions to Christian theology. However, the Swiss theologian, much like his approach to the nature of theology, refuses to be contained and instead embraces freedom in efforts to bear witness to the object and goal of both the individual believer and ecclesial community, namely Christ, who is the Word of God, and His kingdom. Barthian theology hinges on a dialectic and reformed approach to speech about God that holds dogma and self-criticism in tension and points beyond itself and towards God‟s revelatory act in Christ. In other words, Barth constantly proposes the question: how are we to therefore speak of God in light of God‟s free act and speech to us through Jesus?1 This is the common thread that runs throughout Barthian theology and eloquently discussed

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Franke emphasizes the pivotal concentration of Karl Barth‟s thought, “He speaks of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as the center of human knowledge of God and yet also asserts that human beings do not have the ability to understand what has been revealed. Hence, Barth can speak of the revelation of God that occurred in Jesus Christ as being like the aftermath of an explosion of an artillery shell. We discern from the large crater that is left behind that something significant has happened, but we are unable to make sense of it within the framework of the knowledge and experience available to us” (47-48). This will formulate much of what is to be discussed within this paper.

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within the prolific, multi-volume work, Church Dogmatics. The paper to follow concentrates solely on the first volume in two parts, The Doctrine of the Word of God, in order to exposit the coherent arguments, major themes and movements, and missional implications of the beginnings of Karl Barth‟s dogmatics. In so doing, it becomes apparent that the work of Karl Barth not only spoke, but continues to speak to the church within the contemporary and ever-changing missional contexts. However, it does so not as the object, rather as a witness to the gospel that is both to the Church and for the whole world. The Beginning and End of Church Dogmatics: Barth’s Coherent Polemic The central reality of biblical theology and church doctrine is that in Jesus Christ God has once and for all revealed God‟s self and acted on behalf of the world. There exists no other theme, no other object, and no other revelation that supersedes this divine incarnation. Everything for Karl Barth hinges on this activity and points towards the reality that God has spoken to us through the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah, the true Word of God. The vocation of the church is, therefore, to speak and act in light of the Christ event. This is what Karl Barth referred to as ecclesial proclamation, i.e. the beginning and end of Church Dogmatics.2 Karl Barth‟s approach to the proclamation of the Church is influenced by his embrace of dialectic theology. That is to say, proclamation must always hold in tension its real obligation and impossible vocation3:

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Barth wrote in the concluding pages of volume one, “We have reached the final and really critical point in the doctrine of the Word of God, that which is both its starting point and its end: the Word of God as the preaching of the Church” (I/2, p. 743). 3 Franke writes, “But this dialectical method is not the means by which humans are able to speak of God. It is, rather, an emergency measure adopted as the only possible way to bear witness to the impossibility of human speech about God in light of their obligation to bear witness” (70).

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If we cannot presuppose God because he always presupposes himself over against us, we can speak about him only paradoxically, only dialectically. As Barth put it, “We ought to speak of God…We are human, however, and so cannot speak of God…We ought, therefore, to recognize both that we should speak of God and yet cannot, and by that very recognition give God the glory” (Busch 23). Moreover, Church speech about God “cannot claim more than a gymnastic character…and cannot aim to be a system of Christian truth” (Barth I/1, p. 79). One cannot possess or arrive at a complete and full understanding of the Word of God and then absolutely proclaim that particular system or school of interpretation.4 Even more so, dogmatics and proclamation cannot be packaged and processed as a timeless and universal formula. Instead, proclamation is to embrace its dialectic and dynamic nature that recognizes all speech about God as human speech, which is neither the object nor the goal of the Christian Church. Ultimately, proclamation is the “raw material” of dogmatics that points beyond itself and bears witness, through human and frail attestations, to the Word of God, who is Christ, and the goal of the gospel, which is his kingdom (Barth I/1, p. 77).5 The proclamation of the Church must also extend beyond the realm of modernist apologetics and polemics that seek to prove and defend the very existence and relevance of the Creator and God‟s Revelation in Christ. Barth‟s prolegomena illustrates apologetic and polemical proclamation and dogmatics as irrelevant and ineffective Christian discourse: But there has never been any effective apologetics or polemics of faith against unbelief except that which is not deliberately planned, which cannot possibly be planned, which simply happens as God Himself acknowledges the witness of faith (Barth I/1, p. 30). 4

Barth underscores the necessity of Church submission to self-criticism, a theme to be discussed in the second and third sections of this paper. Furthermore, it is necessary to note that this theological move by Karl Barth marked a significant shift and break from the 19th and 20th century epistemology that underscored both Cartesian rationalism and absolutism. 5 Barth wrote, “witnessing means pointing in a specific direction beyond the self and on to another” (I/1, p. 111). One of the more brilliant illustrations of this definition of witness is John the Baptist, who claimed not to be the Messiah or goal of the biblical story, rather one who pointed towards and anticipated he who was greater. This would be one of many reasons that Karl Barth hung Grunewald‟s Crucifixion above his desk. “All proper theology in [Barth‟s] view must be like this hand, with which a person does not point to oneself nor at some idea or program but towards the God who for his part completely turns to that person” (Busch 6).

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That is to say, God proves God‟s self in the real event of the incarnation of Christ. There is no need for the Church to defend or argue this reality because, as Church proclamation, it already confesses and assumes that God has revealed God‟s self. Brueggemann writes about Barth: Moreover, Barth asserted, the Bible is “about something” (Someone!). That is, the reality of God is asserted first, not as an afterthought after one asserts the “possibility of God” established in modern categories (OT 18). In other words, for Karl Barth, proclamation moves beyond an apologetic prolegomena and into the more significant matters of announcing and bearing witness to the Word of God and the kingdom that is already here and yet-to-come. This explains why Barth titled his work as Church Dogmatics, for it is the discipline and task of the Church that already confesses the Word and Revelation of God. An emphasis on polemics and apologetics distracts the people of God from the real vocation and calling of the ecclesial community.6 Church proclamation, as mentioned previously, centers upon the Object and Revelation of the Messiah. However, Church proclamation is pursued not for the sake of philosophical debate or solely within the limits of ecclesial instruction. Instead, proclamation is missional in nature: The Word of God is God Himself in the proclamation of the Church of Jesus Christ. In so far as God gives the Church the commission to speak about Him, and the Church discharges this commission, it is God Himself who declares His revelation in His witnesses. The proclamation of the Church is pure doctrine when the human word spoken in its confirmation of the biblical witness to revelation offers and creates obedience to the Word of God (Barth I/2, p. 743, italics mine).

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Franke includes further reflections on the Barthian prolegomena, “Hence, instead of launching directly into the subject matter of theology as theologians had done throughout the history of Christian thought, modern theologians engaged in lengthy discussions of method that sought to validate their investigations. The problem with this approach is that theology then has a tendency to get bogged down in preambles. As one observer has quipped, preoccupation with method is like clearing your throat before delivering an address; it can go on only so long before you lose your audience” (116).

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That is to say, proclamation is normed by the biblical witness and moves people into the activity and missional goal of the gospel, i.e. obedience to the Word of God.7 Barth wrote, “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” (I/1, p. 16). Furthermore, the Church is “specially commissioned” not only to proclaim the Word of God by making “some portion of the biblical witness to revelation…intelligible to [people] of his [or her] own generation,” but also in the institution of the sacrament, which is the “accompaniment and confirmation of preaching and which is designed as such to attest the event of divine revelation, reconciliation and vocation” (Barth I/1, p. 56). That is, the Church is called neither to apologetics or polemics, rather towards obedience as it announces and proclaims the Word of God through its contextual preaching and sacramental activity. The vocation of the Church is to announce through word and sacrament that God‟s kingdom has come and God‟s will is being done in the world.8 Karl Barth wrote, “Proclamation must mean announcement” (I/1, p. 59). This proclamation attests to the future revelation, reconciliation, and vocation that provokes present missional witness and is shaped by the promises and grace of God (Barth I/1, p. 60). The Church does so not in order to activate the rein of God, rather to declare and confirm that the lordship of Jesus Christ is already in effect (Barth I/1, p. 153). Karl Barth illustrated the significance of the ecclesial announcement as follows: The news which the Church has to proclaim is that in virtue of what has happened in Jesus Christ [humanity] can now live with God in faith and love and hope, on the ground of God‟s unfathomable and unmerited mercy. And this news is so urgent that in every 7

The normative witness of Scripture will be discussed further in the section to follow regarding the threefold form of the Word of God. 8 The authors and editors of Missional Church, certainly influenced by the theology of Karl Barth, write, “These ministries of leadership are given to enable the church to carry out its fundamentally missiological purpose in the world: to announce and demonstrate the new creation in Jesus Christ” (185)

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time and place where the Church exists it must be proclaimed at once and in all circumstances (I/2, p. 850). It is in the proclamation and announcement of the Church that it recollects the divine incarnation and anticipates future and final revelation, reconciliation, and redemption that is to the Church and for whole world. This is where dogmatics begins and ends, through its vocational witness to the person of Jesus, who is the Word of God, the lord of creation, and the object of our faith. However, the proclamation of the Church is not to be considered a sacred discipline in a secular world, “It is not at all true that the Church is outside with God and the world is inside without God” (Barth I/1, p. 155). Rather, real proclamation engages its context, exegetes its culture, and creatively pursues new and fresh opportunities to announce and proclaim the Word of God with relevance and coherence. Barth wrote, “For the sake of fulfilling the Church‟s mission, it must make the gift of the Word understandable not only as a task but also as a gift” (I/2, p. 851). In other words, God continues to reveal and unveil God‟s self in the world and we would do well to look for fresh opportunities to make the Word intelligible.9 Furthermore, proclamation, as with dogmatics, is not a once and for all achievement, rather an on-going submission to self examination that maintains biblical theology as its basis, practical theology as its goal, and dogmatic theology as its content (Barth I/1, p. 4). That is, “proclamation must ever and again become proclamation” (Barth I/1, p. 88). It is to that end that we must consider the major movements within Barth‟s doctrine of the Word of God that further illuminate the significance of this twentieth-century theologian for the contemporary and missional church.

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In typical Barth fashion, the Swiss theologian elicits a statement that encourages the Church in its pursuit of contextual proclamation, “God may speak to us through Russian Communism, a flute concierto, a blossoming shrub, or a dead dog. We do well to listen to Him if He really does” (I/1, p. 55).

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The Major Movements of the Doctrine of the Word of God The Doctrine of the Word of God gives birth to the primary movements of Barthian theology and provides the necessary framework for engagement with his prolific work, Church Dogmatics. In a sense, as proclamation is the beginning and end of dogmatics, Karl Barth‟s first volume, in two parts, is the beginning and end of Barthian epistemology. Volume I/1 and Volume I/2 work together to provide a fresh approach to biblical theology and ecclesial vocation that hinges on Barth‟s embrace of the modest and free enterprise that is evangelical theology. Furthermore, Barth never refrains from the reality that God is the Object and Presupposition to Church doctrine, speech, and witness that moves God‟s people forward in their missional vocation.10 As Barth wrote, “The God of the Gospel rejects any connection with a theology that has become paralyzed and static” (ET 10). Therefore, the Doctrine of the Word of God must be explored through the many dynamic movements, rather than absolute systems, that constantly return to the center of the discipline and leads the church towards the essential proclamation of the revealed Word.11 The Doctrine of the Word of God, as with all of Barthian theology, moves in confessional rhythm with the triune nature and character of God. As God has revealed God‟s self as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so also has the Word of God been revealed in a threefold form. Barth wrote:

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Busch writes, “God is the presupposition of our knowledge of him, that we cannot posit with our own knowledge and presuppose ourselves in it. God is his own presupposition, and he thus presupposes that we can and truly do know him. In this way alone our knowledge of faith has to do with God himself and not with some reflection of humanity” (61). In other words, we can only know God by the very grace of God, who has revealed himself to humanity. This is the great and generous mystery of the Christian faith that dominates the content of Church Dogmatics. 11 Barth illustrates with brilliance, “Evangelical theology [which encompasses the Doctrine of the Word of God] would forfeit its object, it would belie and negate itself, if it wished to view, to understand, and to describe any one moment of the divine procession in „splendid isolation‟ from others. Instead, theology must describe the dynamic interrelationships which make this procession comparable to a bird in flight, in contrast to a caged bird” (ET 9-10).

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There is only one analogy to this doctrine of the Word of God. Or, more accurately, the doctrine of the Word of God is itself the only analogy to the doctrine…[that is] the doctrine of the triunity of God (I/1, p. 121). This analogy is illustrated as the Word of God preached, written, and revealed. In other words, as the written word, through Holy Scripture, testifies to the incarnation and on-going activity of the Word, so the preached word, through Church proclamation, bears witness12 to the once revealed and always revealing Word in Christ.13 Again, the object of both proclamation and Holy Scripture is the triune God and, especially, the climatic revelation of Christ.14 The Word of God preached serves as the initial layer of the threefold form and witness of the Word of God within Church Dogmatics. The proclamation of the Word is the primary vocation of the Church that seeks to bear witness to the Object of the faith and announce the lordship of Christ within an ever-changing world. Barth underscores this pivotal movement within dogmatics: Proclamation must ever and again become proclamation. From being an action which, coming forward with the corresponding claim and surrounded with the corresponding expectation, wants to be and should be proclamation, it must become an action which is proclamation. And because the event of real proclamation is the function of the Church‟s life which governs all other, we have to say that in this event the Church itself must ever and again become the Church (I/1, p. 88). In other words, the church is called to be forever engaged in a dialogical and dynamic process of self-criticism as it constantly considers its faithfulness to the Word lived and proclaimed. Only in so doing can the Church begin to embrace its obligation and calling towards what Barth

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The preached and written word is not to be equated with the Revealed Word to which they bear witness, “A witness is not absolutely identical with that to which it witnesses” (Barth I/2, p. 463). 13 Eberhard Busch again provides a helpful summary, “For the „past revelation‟ testified to in Scripture is not just a past event, but an event that took place „once and for all.‟ It contains within it the promise, as an event that happened once, now to take place again and again in the power of the living Jesus Christ. This promise underlies the fact that the revelation that Scripture attests to the church is then proclaimed in it” (66). 14 It is no small epistemological and theological move to differentiate with consistency between the Word of God revealed as person, i.e. Jesus Christ, and the word of God written and proclaimed. The blurring of these lines has paved the way to the intense idolatry of the Evangelical Church through the adaptation of uninformed and naïve biblicism that has been practiced by many Western, especially North American, Christian churches.

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referred to as real proclamation. Real proclamation, within Barth‟s Dogmatics, moves within “four decisive connexions whose mutual relation may be compared to that of four concentric circles” (I/1, p. 89). These concentric circles are understood as the Word of God as commission, theme, judgment, and event that reinforce the Church as a witness, rather than the primary object or goal, of and to the revealed and revealing Word in Christ. The paradoxical dialect of Karl Barth is that the Church has been commissioned by God to proclaim and announce the Word of God in the world. As previously noted, it is both an ecclesial obligation and a theological impossibility to speak of God in light of God‟s activity in the world. Nonetheless, if Church proclamation is to be real proclamation, it is to embrace the reality that God has positively commanded the Church to proclaim the Word. In other words, the Church speaks of God because, beyond all other human reason and motivation, God has commissioned the Church to do so: Real proclamation, then, means the Word of God preached and the Word of God preached means in this first and outermost circle man‟s talk about God on the basis of God‟s own direction, which fundamentally transcends all human causation, which cannot, then, be put on a human basis, but which simply takes place, and has to be acknowledged, as a fact (Barth I/1, p. 90). The Church does not proclaim the Word in efforts to arrive at a higher form of epistemological awareness or some sort of philosophical plateau. Rather, the Church proclaims and announces the Word of God because it is the elected vessel of the Creator to declare the on-going promises of God, supremely made known and real to the Church and for the world, through the incarnation of Christ. That is, the church is commissioned to announce the time of God‟s eternal revelation and activity in the world.15

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Barth wrote, “The present Church, however historically it may feel and think, speaks the last word as the heir and interpreter of history” (I/1, p. 147). Brueggemann, somewhat influenced by Barthian theology, provides a helpful illustration, “The church in word and by steeple clock announces what time it is and that we must live in God‟s time” (PI, p. 48).

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God‟s positive command and commission to the Church for proclamation is not to assume that the content of the preached Word is able to be contained and controlled. That is, the Word of God is the free object “which can never in any sense be our possession” (Barth I/1, p. 91). Thus, Karl Barth is emphatic in regards to the second and third concentric circles: the Word of God as the theme and judge of real proclamation. The proclamation of the Church is not an objective discipline void of influence from the historical location and epistemological conviction of the preacher or teacher. In other words, we are to be reminded again and again that the Church as subject proclaims and bears witness, through the limitation of language, to the real theme and object, i.e. the revealed Word of God, which “never passes under our control” and demands human obedience (Barth I/1, p. 93). Barth reinforces this movement: Our supposed listening is in fact a strange mixture of hearing and our own speaking, and, in accordance with the usual rule, it is most likely that our own speaking will be the really decisive event (I/2, p. 470). In essence, all speech about God is contextual proclamation and, therefore, requires a continual conversion16 and judgment in efforts to remain faithful to the real theme of the revealed Word. A final and decisive element of the preached Word as a witness concerns the Word of God as the real and primary event of proclamation. In the incarnation of the Messiah, God has once and for all spoken about God‟s self, i.e. “The Word of God is itself the act of God” (Barth I/1, p. 143). The Creator has entered the scene of God‟s own drama, as protagonist within God‟s on-going narrative17 to the Church and for the world: It is the miracle of revelation and faith when the misunderstanding does not constantly recur, when proclamation is for us not just human willing and doing characterised in 16

Guder writes in The Continuing Conversion of the Church, “In view of our reductionism and cultural captivity, it might be evidence of greater spiritual honesty if we were to describe ourselves as churches continually needing conversion” (150). This reflects the traditional emphasis of the Reformed tradition, once reformed, always reforming. 17 Hays includes the following insight, “I had appreciatively read great chunks of Karl Barth, and I had been fascinated by David Kelsey‟s description of Barth‟s reading of Scripture as „one vast, loosely structured nonfictional novel‟” (xxiv).

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some way but also and primarily and decisively God‟s own act, when human talk about God is for us not just that, but also and primarily and decisively God‟s own speech (Barth I/1, p. 93). That is to say, Church proclamation is only an attestation of God‟s real proclamation in the “authoritative vicariate of Jesus” (Barth I/1, p. 95). This Jesus commissions and judges the Church who bears witness to the real revelation of the Word of God and moves in rhythm with the urgent demands of the gospel. Moreover, the plurality of interpretive schools, theological systems, and denominational convictions, which undoubtedly frame ecclesial proclamation, reinforce the reality that human language and epistemology is limited and can only point beyond itself and towards the One who is both veiled and unveiling.18 The second movement of the threefold form of the Word of God regards the biblical witness as the written revelation of God. The Christian Church and all commissioned proclamation are normed19 by Holy Scripture, which lay within the canonized acclamations, expectations, and realizations of the men and women who composed and transmitted the sacred texts. Barth writes, “The presence of the Canon of the Church expresses the fact that it is not left to itself in its proclamation” (I/1, p. 101). Instead, the Church listens to the voice of past proclamations, i.e. the “deposit” of what was once spoken (Barth I/1, p. 102), in efforts to examine contemporary announcements that attest the character and activity of the God who has once and for all revealed God‟s self in Jesus. The biblical witness is not to be equated with the real revelation of the Word, which is the object and theme of dogmatics. In other words, while God has revealed God‟s self in the

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Barth wrote, “We shall have to regard God‟s speech as also God‟s act, and God‟s act as also God‟s mystery” (I/1, p. 133). 19 “The cardinal statement of the doctrine of the Word of God which we shall try to develop in what follows is indeed materially the same as the assertion of the authority and normativeness of Holy Scripture as the witness to divine revelation and the presupposition of Church proclamation.” (Barth I.1, p. 43)

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writings of Scripture, God is not bound to the canon, rather the biblical canon is bound and submissive to God who is free: But this then means concretely that He is Lord of the wording of His Word. He is not bound to it but it to Him. He has free control over the wording of Holy Scripture. He can use it or not use it. He can use it in this way or that way. He can choose a new wording beyond that of Holy Scripture. What Holy Scripture proclaims as his Word can be proclaimed in a new wording as His Word so long as it is He Himself who speaks in this wording (Barth I/1, p. 139). This is no insignificant move within Christian theology and biblical epistemology. God as free from the limitations of human language, even within the confines of the Christian Scriptures, has long been neglected and the written word confused for the revealed Word. Barth is intentional in the exclamation that God is not bound, rather free, even from the words of the apostles and prophets. This is not to say that the written Word of God is irrelevant and incomplete in its ability to norm Church proclamation, theology, ministry, and witness in the world. 20 Instead, Barth‟s doctrine of the Word underscores the real tension that exists between the limitations of its real human character and the positive attestations as God‟s written revelation. Barth writes: If we want to think of the Bible as a real witness of divine revelation, then clearly we have to keep two things constantly before us and give them their due weight: the limitation and the positive element, its distinctiveness from revelation, in so far as it is only a human word about it, and its unity with it, in so far as revelation is the basis, object and content of this word (I/2, p. 463). Again, the character of Barth‟s dogmatics reflects the character of God, revealed in the incarnation of Christ, who is both really divine and really human. That is, the dialectic tension

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On the contrary, Barth was a prominent promoter, held in tension with the dialectic nature, of the “knowability of the Word of God.” He wrote, “We have made a positive assertion, pronouncing a definite Yes to the knowability of the Word of God” (I/1, p. 196). Barth wrote later in the paragraph, “…we could investigate only the knowability and not the knowledge of God‟s Word, because the knowledge of God‟s Word is no other than the reality of the grace of God coming to man, whose Huw as a reality is as hidden from us as God himself is, so that we can only relate ourselves to it with our questions and answers” (I/1, p. 227).

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that exists within Holy Scripture, as with the divine-human tension in Christ, is not to be ignored or deflected, rather studied and affirmed (Barth I/2, p. 463). Furthermore, the written Word of God is a form of God‟s revelation in so much as it unveils the real event of Christ. The Bible bears witness to the activity of God in the person of Christ who has inaugurated the reign of God through his life, death, and resurrection. Barth writes: In general, therefore, the witness of Holy Scripture to itself consists simply in the fact that it is witness to Jesus Christ. And the knowledge of the truth of this self-witness, the knowledge of its unique authority, stands or falls with the knowledge that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God… we must say that Scripture attests itself in the fact that at its decisive centre it attests the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (I/2, p. 486). The actuality of Scripture‟s attestation of the resurrection does not imply that the full implications of the gospel and/or the vocation of Christ can be arrived at or achieved. In other words, the Word of God is once revealed and always revealing, once veiled and always unveiling.21 Therefore, the Church must allow the Bible to “again and again” become God‟s Word to God‟s people for the function of proclamation within the plurality of local contexts (Barth I/1, p. 110). In essence, the Church is to engage critically the revelation of Scripture as it bears witness to the on-going activity of God. This activity encompasses God‟s real promises of reconciliation and new creation that are both inaugurated in the person of Jesus and yet-to-come in his anticipated return. The primary and critical movement within the threefold form is God‟s Word revealed. That is, the historical event of the incarnation of Christ bears witness to and assumes the real activity of God who is for us and with us (Barth I/1, p. 116). Barth wrote:

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Barth elicits yet another beautiful illustration, “We ourselves are perhaps among those who have [the knowledge of the Word], namely, as the reflection or echo of its reality, in the act of the Word spoken to us, in the event of experiencing it…when we try to find the content of divine Spirit in the (pardoned) consciousness of man, are we not like the man who wanted to scoop out in a sieve the reflection of the beautiful silvery moon from a pond” (I/2, 216).

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Revelation as such is not relative. Revelation in fact does not differ from the person of Jesus Christ nor from the reconciliation accomplished in Him. To say revelation is to say “The Word became flesh” (I/1, p.119). Jesus embodies the fulfillment of God‟s promises to God‟s people and for the whole world and becomes the “unveiling of what is veiled” (Barth I/1, p. 119). Moreover, the preached and written word attests the divine decision to act and speak positively to and for the created world. This activity becomes, again and again, the object and theme of proclamation, i.e. ecclesial function, which is normed by the Holy Scripture, i.e. written form. The Word of God revealed encompasses rich covenantal overtones and implications that call to mind the past, present, and future faithfulness of the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer. That is, through the incarnation of Christ, God‟s Yes22 to creation is once and for all unveiled, affirmed, and announced. It is this real event that moves God‟s people forward in their missional vocation of proclamation: The Bible is the concrete means by which the Church recollects God‟s past revelation, is called to expectation of His future revelation, and is thus summoned and guided to proclamation and empowered for it (Barth I/1, p. 111). Barth illustrates the Church as commissioned to bear witness to the revealed Word of God who has entered into the world for the sake of real deliverance and redemption. He writes further: The atonement is the ratification and confirmation of the covenant into which God entered with man by creation, and which cannot be destroyed by the faithlessness of man, but only the more clearly displayed by the faithfulness of God in face of that faithlessness (I/2, p. 882). Essentially, in Jesus‟ entrance into the world as the Word of God revealed, the Church comes to know what it means to identify with and live into the imago Dei. That is, the divine-human tension not only attests the character of God, but also the supposed character of humanity. 22

Eberhard Busch does readers of Barth a favor with his paraphrase of Barthian theology, “We can venture statements of this kind only on the basis of the covenant and its fulfillment in the atonement. If the covenant is the inner basis of creation, it follows that the spoken Yes of God to the creature that had fallen victim to nothingness reveals and confirms God‟s original resolve in relation to the creature. Just as his Yes to the creature precedes its existence, so God‟s No to the creature‟s destruction also precedes its existence” (190).

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Moreover, the anthropomorphic nature of God considers “not whether God is person, but whether we are” (Barth I/1, p. 138). This elicits an on-going question and criticism for not only individual believers, but also the larger and ecumenical Church. The Word of God revealed is the Creator‟s free act that transcends time, space, and language. However, it is pure grace that, in God‟s revelatory decision, the Creator has chosen to continually effect reconciliation and new creation. This is the Word of God that must continually become the basis of biblical theology, the goal of practical theology, and the content of dogmatic theology.23 While the Church may only know of the Word of God as though light reflected from a prism,24 it is this light who “promises himself as the content of man‟s future, as the One who meets him on his way through time as the end of all time, as the hidden [and revealed] Lord of all times” (Barth I/ 1, p. 142). This is the “fact” to which the Church clings, announces, and embodies as it bears witness to God as Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer (Barth I/1, p. 143). Even more so, it is this ecclesial vocation that must again and again become God‟s Word to and for the world within the emerging generations and the diverse cultural contexts of today.

The Task of Dogmatics and the Missional Church The task of dogmatics within Karl Barth‟s prolific, multi-volume work can be understood as faithful and contextual proclamation. The Church is to engage critically the biblical witness, i.e. the ecclesial and dogmatic norm, as it seeks to bear witness to Jesus Christ, i.e. the real

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Barth writes in the preface to Church Dogmatics, “To be sure, attempts have always been made on all sides to criticise and correct the Church‟s talk about God. But what is required is its criticism and correction in the light of the being of the Church, of Jesus Christ as its basis, goal and content” (I/1, p. 6). 24 “Hence [dogmatics] has to be enquiry. It knows the light which is intrinsically perfect and reveals everything in a flash. Yet it knows it only in the prism of this act, which, however radically or existentially it may be understood, is still a human act, which in itself is no kind of surety for the correctness of the appropriation in question, which is by nature fallible and therefore stands in need of criticism, of correction, of critical amendment and repetition.” (I/1, p. 14).

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Revelation and Word of God, within the constantly emerging and diverse contexts. That is to say, the goal and center of dogmatics is the Revelation of Jesus Christ as the Word; the norm is the Scriptures in close relationship to the dialectic tension within dogmatics; the vocation is ongoing, informed, and contextual proclamation in the world (Barth I/2, p. 872). Ultimately, the function of dogmatics is then, in light of its Christocentric and Christotelic identity, to examine, critique, and correct the teaching and proclamation of the Church as it applies, announces, and incarnates the reign of Christ in the world (Barth I/2, p. 821).25 The task of dogmatics is best pursued as the continual conversion of Church speech in light of its commissioned vocation to bear witness into the world of God‟s past, present, and future activity. Barth wrote: It must not speak and think in the manner of a timeless Church discipline, but with full participation in the energies and hopes, the cares and struggles of the Church of its own age (I/2, p. 805). In other words, the proclamation of the Church is a constant struggle that continues to ask not only what has been said, but also what must be said in light of God‟s unveiling and the questions and circumstances posed by the Church‟s local and contemporary contexts. This dogmatic tension is illustrated as the twin-vocations of the gathered and scattered people of God: the hearing church and the teaching church. The implications of this dynamism within Church Dogmatics serve as a critical movement to be held and applied by the contemporary Church and in the thick of Church life 26 if it is to be faithful and relevant to its missional vocation.

25

Barth suggested “that the work of dogmatics arises at the middle point between that of exegetical and that of practical theology” (I/2, p. 771). 26 Barth wrote, “It is in the thick of the Church‟s life, i.e., as the hearing Church has to be a teaching Church, that the decision about the purity or impurity of its doctrine is made: in its preaching and instruction, in its pastoral work, in its administration of the sacraments, in its worship, in the discipline which it exercises towards its members, in its message to the world, and last and not least in its concrete attitude over against state and society” (I/2, p. 770).

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Church dogmatics, as it pursues its responsibility as a hearing Church, is reminded that the individual believer and Church does not speak and act in isolation. Instead, Church proclamation is a communal discipline that listens to and consults with regularity the voices of the past as it speaks into the present. Barth wrote: Where there is any attempt to break loose from the community of hearing an receiving necessarily involved, any attempt to hear and receive the Word of God in isolation- even the Word of God in the form of Holy Scripture- there is no Church, and so no real hearing and receiving of the Word of God; for the Word of God is not spoken to individuals, but to the Church of God and to individuals only in the Church (I/2, p. 588). This elicits a real obligation of the Church, i.e. to maintain an ear that tilts towards the historical confessions of the Church so then to move in right rhythm with the Spirit who has always moved in, through, and, sometimes, despite the Church. This is not to say that the confessions of the Church are the absolute Word of God, once and for all. Quite to the contrary, the Church is to engage, with great critique and reform, the past witnesses of the faith as an acknowledgement of God‟s previous activity. Furthermore, as Barth said, “If I have not heard the Church, I cannot speak to [and/or for] it” (I/2, p. 589). Therefore, Church proclamation must maintain a dynamic tension with Church tradition, which surely embraces ecumenism, in efforts to identify further as Church dogmatics versus individual and naïve existential and cultural musings. The hearing Church must also remain faithful to the diverse expressions of the ecclesial communities and witnesses that have preached and acted on behalf of the revealed Word of God. The dialogical nature of Church speech and the free nature of the Word of God assume that “where dogmatics exists at all, it exists only with the will to be a Church dogmatics, a dogmatics of the ecumenical Church” (Barth I/2, p. 823). This furthers the Barthian adherence to proclamation as a local and relative discipline that incarnates itself within real contexts and hears

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the concerns and questions of the people within a particular place and time. The belief that there can exist one, universal, and transcendent dogmatic speech and proclamation is to be naïve of the limits of language and ignorant to the transcendence of the gospel.27 Therefore, the Church is called to reject fantastic idealism and embrace ecumenism and diversity as it listens to its contexts and proclaims the gospel28 with not only adherence to the normative voice of Scripture, but also the relevant voice of place. In essence, the hearing Church embraces the manifold witness and the plurality of truth that moves “right in the midst” of ecclesial schisms and divisions for the sake of God‟s real Revelation to the Church and for the world (Barth I/2, p. 824). This is the supposed and triune reality of the Church local and universal, a church that hears the Holy Scripture as its norm, the confessions of Church fathers and mothers29 as its tradition, and the present and contemporary contexts as its vocational place for contextual and missional proclamation. The task of dogmatics must also, however, be reminded of its missional vocation as a teaching Church. While it is significant to hear of the past revelations and the contemporary situations, the Church is not the Church unless it teaches and preaches the revealed Word. That is: The Word of God committed to the Church has not only an origin but also a telos…By its very nature, it is impossible that the hearing of the Word of God should leave or render the Church indifferent, timid or passive, or that it should spare it or relieve it of the

27

Barth wrote, “[This kind of] faith artificially constructed and expounded from such a watch-tower can only be a faith of phantasy, for it can only be phantasy to try to stand upon such a watch-tower” (I/2, p. 824). 28 This is where the voice of James Cone, despite his critique of Karl Barth, is beneficial, “Theology is not a universal language; it is interested language and thus is always a reflection of the goals and aspirations of a particular people in a definite social setting…Theology is subjective speech about God, a speech that tells us far more about the hopes and dreams of certain God-talkers than about the Maker and Creator of heaven and earth” (36, 38). 29 The Christian Church is to be a confessional Church. That is, “The confessional attitude of dogmatics and Church proclamation means fidelity as required by the Word of God to the fathers [and mothers] and the confession of the Churches as the voice of those who were in the Church before us” (Barth, I/2, p. 828).

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obligation of proclamation and put it in the position of a waiting spectator (Barth I/2, p. 845). 30 In other words, Church dogmatics is missional by nature as it announces the reign of God in the various and diverse cultural contexts, experiences, situations, and obligations. The Church is to ask again and again, what is the gospel in and for this time and place that declares God‟s ongoing witness towards obedience and liberation through the Word of God? That is, God has spoken, is speaking, and will continue to speak God‟s Word into the world. The dogmatic task of the Church is, then, to be reminded that God‟s Word is not only something to be learned and comprehended, but also and especially a revelation to be taught, lived into, and pursued.31 Furthermore, Karl Barth‟s dogmatics moves dialectically from a reflection on the Word of God as the activity of God to the Church (and for the world), the hearing Church as the normative form of the Church, and the teaching Church as the missional vocation and material of the Church. That is, as the Church reflects on the real Revelation of God, hears the voices of Scripture, tradition, and context, it is then asked to bear witness to the gospel in its life and speech. Barth wrote: But the primary requirement of this [Christ] event and message, and therefore the theme given to the teaching Church, is simply that the Church should act. It should do so in respect for and within the framework of that law and norm. But at all costs it should act (I/2, p. 848). The missional task of dogmatics is to engage the local contexts, experiences, and systems with the gospel not only in how it speaks of God, but also in how it acts in light of the Revelation of

30

No doubt that Karl Barth‟s theology of ecclesial activity founded his prominent role in Nazi resistance and his prophetic speech that refuted the Church in Germany‟s accommodation to Hitler‟s regime and ideology. This paved the way to his role in the composition of the Barmen Declaration that served as a fundamental statement and document for the Confessing Church in Germany during the World War II era (Busch 33-34). The contemporary Church would benefit from reflection and study on Barth‟s ability to maintain theological brilliance and innovation as well as practical and prophetic responsibility to systems of injustice. 31 Barth wrote, “What is the use of a purity of doctrine which is not the purity of a doctrine of the Word of God which is actually practiced, and proclaimed” (I/2, p. 846).

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God.32 In other words, “Dogmatics has no option: it has to be ethics as well…because it refers to the Word of God, it must also refer to human existence” (Barth I/2, p. 793). The Church must look for new and creative opportunities to embody the divine pathos and the prophetic imagination33 as it bears witness to the gospel within real human experiences and real systems of oppression. Essentially, the Word of God must move beyond linguistic expression and into missional incarnation. The moment Church dogmatics ceases to engage and transform human experience it becomes yet another form of ecclesial and academic idolatry that lacks relevance and sustenance. Instead, the hearing and teaching Church is commissioned to norm and inform ecclesial activity and witness through its self-critical, dialectic, and contextual movement within Church dogmatics. 34 The reality that the initial volume of Church Dogmatics ends with dogmatic discussion that hinges on the hearing and teaching of the Church reinforces the significance of Barth for the contemporary missional Church. The Church of the Twenty-First Century has often leaned towards a separatist and rebellious nature that refuses any signs of the establishment, institution, or rigid tradition in favor of purely relative and culturally accommodated movement and spiritual dialogue. On the other hand, the days have not passed where fundamentalist, idolatrous, and naïve traditionalism and biblicism prevail in the Church. Karl Barth reminds the missional

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One of the more profound statements written by Barth is as follows, “The community does not speak with words alone. It speaks by the very fact of its existence in the world; by its characteristic attitude towards world problems; and moreover and especially, by its silent service to all the handicapped, weak, and needy in the world. It speaks, finally, by the simple fact that it prays for the world” (ET, 38). 33 I confess my indebtedness to two scholars whose work I have valued to a great extent. The divine pathos is a phrase I have borrowed from the late and brilliant Jewish scholar and activist Abraham J. Heschel. The prophetic imagination is a phrase borrowed from contemporary biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann. 34 The trick is for the Church not to pursue service and work as another program of the church. Instead, Barth would suggest that the Church is the Church when it is active and engaged holistically. All too often Church activity becomes yet another example of humanistic idealism and altruism. However, the Church is missional by its very nature of being a sent people. That is, its activity is to be informed attestation to the Word, “Again in social work, which is much to the fore to-day, there is a variety of talk as well as action, and much of this talk claims to be proclamation. But things will be very different when theological reflection stands behind it and when it does not” (Barth I/1, p. 81). This is one of many of the vocations of the Church as the teaching Church.

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Church that there is a need for a dialectic tension to exist within the normative witness of Scripture, the confessions of Church tradition, and the reality of the cultural shifts and systems that demand reform and theological engagement. Moreover, Barth reinforces the significance of the ecumenical Church that is continually commissioned and called to proclaim, announce, and incarnate the Word in the world. However, Barth does so by reminding theologians and practitioners alike that all Church work and speech is simply a witness to the Object of the faith who is revealed and revealing in the Word of God. Finally, in light of the Barth‟s Dogmatics, the contemporary Church is tasked with the obligation to continually listen to the voices of the past as it also engages the voices of the present in its on-going struggle with its missional vocation and prophetic witness in the world. The Church has not, nor will it ever, arrive at theological and dogmatic certainty. Yet, may this free the Church to follow the Spirit into the world and proclaim the Word, through the lives and the lips of God‟s people. Even more so, may the Church move with a divine concern and announcement for the world that groans for and anticipates final liberation and redemption. That is the real function of pure doctrine and the on-going task of dogmatics.

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Works Cited Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. Vol. I/1. Translated G.W. Bromiley. Eds. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance. New York: T&T Clark, 1975. Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. Vol. I/2. Translated G.W. Bromiley. Eds. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance. New York: T&T Clark, 1956. Barth, Karl. Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. Translated by Grover Foley. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1963. Busch, Eberhard. The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Eds. Darrell L. Guder and Judith J. Guder. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004. Brueggemann, Walter. Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997. Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination. 2nd ed. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001. Cone, James H. God of the Oppressed. New Revised Edition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997. Franke, John R. Barth for Armchair Theologians. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. Guder, Darrell L. The Continuing Conversion of the Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000. Guder, Darrell L., et al. Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. Hays, Richard B. The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001. Heschel, Abraham J. The Prophets. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001.