CHAPTER V

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

25
THE FULFILLMENT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
The knowledge of God occurs in the fulfilment of the revelation of His Word by the Holy
Spirit, and therefore in the reality and with the necessity of faith and its obedience. Its content
is the existence of Him whom we must fear above all things because we may love Him above
all things; who remains a mystery to us because He Himself has made Himself so clear and
certain to us.

1. MAN BEFORE GOD

In the Church of Jesus Christ men speak about God and men have to hear about God. About
God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; about Gods grace and truth; about Gods thoughts
and works; about Gods promises, ordinances and commandments; about Gods kingdom, and
about the state and life of man in the sphere of His lordship. But always and in all circumstances
about God Himself, who is the presupposition, meaning and power of everything that is to be said
and heard in the Church, the Subject who absolutely, originally and finally moves, produces,
establishes and realises in this matter. In dogmatics it is the doctrine of God which deals with this
Subject as such. In the doctrine of God we have to learn what we are saying when we say God.
In the doctrine of God we have to learn to say God in the correct sense. If we do not speak rightly
of this Subject, how can we speak rightly of His predicates?
But in relation to this Subject, we are at once confronted with the problem of knowledge. All
speaking and hearing in the Church of Jesus Christ entirely rests upon and is connected with the
fact that God is known in the Church of Jesus Christ; that is to say, that this Subject is objectively
present to the speakers and hearers, so that man in the Church really stands before God. If it were
not so, if man did not really stand before God, if God were not the object of his perception, viewing
and conception, and if he did not know Godwhatever we understand by knowthen he could
not speak and hear about Him. Then everything declared and heard in the Church would have no
Subject and would be left in the air like an empty sound. Then the Church, if it lives only by what
is said and heard in it, would not be alive; or its life would be merely an apparent life, life in a
dream-world with those subjectless images and concepts as the phantasies of its imagination. But
if the life of the Church is not just a semblance, the knowledge of God is realised in it. This is the
presupposition which we have first of all to explain in the doctrine of God. We have to learn how
far we can know God and therefore speak and hear about Him.
It is not a question whether God is actually known in the Church.
 I believe I learned the fundamental attitude to the problem of the knowledge and existence of God
which is adopted in this sectionand indeed in the whole chapterat the feet of Anselm of Canterbury,
and in particular from his proofs of God set out in Prosl. 24. May I therefore ask the reader to keep that
text in mind, and to allow me to refer to my book Fides quaerens intellectum: Anselms Beweis der Existenz
Gottes (1931), for an understanding of it.

We start out from the fact that through His Word God is actually known and will be known
again. On principle we have to reject any anxiety about this occurrence as not only superfluous but
forbidden. Knowledge of God within the Christian Church is very well aware that it is established
in its reality and to that extent also called in question by Gods Word, through which alone it can
be and have reality, and on the basis of which alone it can be fulfilled. But precisely because the
knowledge of God cannot call itself in question in its effort to understand itself, it cannot ask
whether it is real from some position outside itself. This question can be put to it only from Gods
Word. And from the Word of God this question is in fact put to it. And it is also given the answer
there. But it will not want to be set under the Word of God just in order to make its own existence
problematical. It is made problematical by the Word of God, but thanks to that same Word it need
not fear that it will be made problematical anywhere else. For in the Word of God it is decided that
the knowledge of God cannot let itself be called in question, or call itself in question, from any
other position outside itself. The Word of God will not let it move from its own place into another.
And even if it wanted to, there is no other place from which somebody or something can compete
with the Word of God which establishes the knowledge of God: Not because the knowledge of
God bestowed upon the Church makes itself absolute; but because it cannot affront the truth, worth
and competence of the Word of God. It must refuse to let its reality be debated from any position,
and must start out by establishing its own reality. It is another matter that it can do this only in
reflection and response to the Word of God which establishes it. But it cannot retreat from its own
reality. Therefore we cannot ask whether God is known.
But this also means that the question cannot be whether God is knowable. Where God is known
He is also in some way or other knowable. Where the actuality exists there is also the
corresponding possibility. The question cannot then be posed in abstracto* but only in concreto*;
not a priori* but only a posteriori*. The in abstracto* and a priori* question of the possibility of
the knowledge of God obviously presupposes the existence of a place outside the knowledge of
God itself from which this knowledge can be judged. It presupposes a place where, no doubt, the
possibility of knowledge in general and then of the knowledge of God in particular can be judged
and decided in one way or another. It presupposes the existence of a theory of knowledge as a
hinterland where consideration of the truth, worth and competence of the Word of God, on which
the knowledge of God is grounded, can for a time at least be suspended. But this is the very thing
which, from the point of view of its possibility, must not happen. Just as the reality of the Word of
God in Jesus Christ bears its possibility within itself, as does also the reality of the Holy Spirit, by
whom the Word of God comes to man, so too the possibility of the knowledge of God and therefore
the knowability of God cannot be questioned in vacuo*, or by means of a general criterion of
knowledge delimiting the knowledge of God from without, but only from within this real
knowledge itself. Therefore it is quite impossible to ask whether God is knowable, because this
question is already decided by the only legitimate and meaningful questioning which arises in this
connexion.
The only legitimate and meaningful questions in this context are: how far is God known? and
how far is God knowable? These questions are legitimate and meaningful because they are genuine
questions of Church proclamation, and therefore also genuine questions of dogmaticsgenuine
objects of its formal and material task. How God is known and is knowable has to be a matter of
continual reflection and appraisal for the teaching Church, and it has to be continually said to the
hearing Church so that it may be called to new witness. And with the questions put in this way,
both the teaching and the hearing Church will walk in the path of the Word of God. Put thus, they
are not inquisitive and superfluous questions; much less are they questions that insult the Word of
God by suspending its truth, worth and competence. On the contrary, they are both permitted and
commanded, as questions about the right understanding and correct elucidation of the Word of
God. In this section we will deal first with the former questionthat of the how of the knowledge
of God in its actual fulfilment.
This fulfilment is taking place. The Church of Jesus Christ lives. It lives, of course, by the
grace of the Word. Therefore the Word is not bound to it, or only so far as the Word, in once
bestowing itself upon the Church, has bound itself to it as promise for the future. In view of this
promise, however, we have to say that the fulfilment of the knowledge of God is taking place, and
that we can only ask about its mode. But also, in view of this promise, we can ask about the reality
and possibility of the knowledge of God from within the unambiguous, unreserved and
unconditional binding of the Church to the Word. This means above all that the question of the
object of this knowledge, like the question of its mode, cannot be regarded as open. There can be
no reservations about whom or what we have to think when we ask about the knowledge of God.
When the knowledge of God is under discussion we are not free perhaps to think of Him who in
the Bible is called God and Lord, but perhaps equally well to think of some other entity which can
similarly be described and proclaimed as God, and which has in fact been described and
proclaimed as God somewhere and at some time. We cannot equally well ask about the
knowledge of the World-Ground or the World-Soul, the Supreme Good or Supreme Value, the
Thing in itself or the Absolute, Destiny or Being or Idea, or even the First Cause as the Unity of
Being and Idea, as we can ask about the knowledge of Him who in the Bible is called God and
Lord. The problem of the knowledge of God will have to be posed quite differently from what has
been suggested if, in relation to the knowledge of God, we are just as free to look in the various
directions to which these concepts point as in the direction to which the biblical concept of God
points. There will then be no need, no possibility even, of avoiding the questions whether the
knowledge of God is real and whether it is also possible. If what we take to be our knowledge of
God is only the knowledge of an entity which we ourselves can find to be the Godhead, choosing
it as God from among other possibilities and ourselves describing it as God; if our knowledge
of it does not settle the question that this entity and it alone is God, then, of course, we can never
be too insistent in our enquiry as to the reality and possibility of such a knowledge of God. Over
against the positions occupied by such a knowledge of God there is more than one other position
from which the reality and possibility of this knowledge can and must be questioned. If we try to
leave open only for a moment the question of who or what is to be understood by God; if we try
even for a moment to understand the fulfilment of the knowledge of God (with the mode of which
we have here to occupy ourselves) as one particular case in the series of many other similar
fulfilments executed in the same freedom; then, of course, we revert to the question whether this
knowledge is real and possible, and we are forced to make sure of the reality and possibility of
what is supposed to happen in what we regard as the fulfilment of our knowledge of God. But the
fulfilling of the knowledge of God with which we are concerned most certainly does not rest on a
free choice of this or that object, of this or that God. It must be established at once from the
knowledge of God with which we are concerned that everything that is described as God on the
basis of a free choice cannot possibly be God; and that everything that is declared, on the grounds
of this presupposition, to be the knowledge of God cannot have any reality or possibility as a
knowledge of God. The knowledge of God with which we are here concerned takes place, not in
a free choice, but with a very definite constraint. It stands or falls with its one definite object, which
cannot be different, and which cannot be exchanged for or even joined with any other object.
Because it is bound to Gods Word given to the Church, the knowledge of God with which we are
here concerned is bound to the God who in His Word gives Himself to the Church to be known as
God. Bound in this way it is the true knowledge of the true God.
If we are not concerned with the God who in Gods Word gives Himself to the Church to be known; or
if we think about this God as if He also were an entity freely chosen and called God on the basis of a free
choice; if He is known otherwise than with this constraint; if it is therefore possible to treat of Him openly
or secretly like one of those freely chosen and designated entities, and to form Him after their image; then
we must not be surprised if we find ourselves in a position where the reality and possibility of our
knowledge of God is at once questioned again from without, a position where we begin to experience
anxiety and doubt; and this will apply most heavily, not at once to the particular and perhaps unconquerable
content of knowledge, but to its possibility and reality as such. For if the knowledge of a God is or even
can be attacked from without, or if there is or even can be anxiety and doubt in the knowledge of him, then
that God is manifestly not God but a false god, a god who merely pretends to be God.

True knowledge of God is not and cannot be attacked; it is without anxiety and without doubt.
But only that which is fulfilled under the constraint of Gods Word is such a true knowledge of
God. Any escape out of the constraint of the Word of God means crossing over to the false gods
and no-gods. And this will shew itself by leading inevitably to uncertainty in the knowledge of
God, and therefore to doubt. A knowledge of God which is the knowledge of false gods can be
attacked and, indeed, is attacked. Under the constraint of the Word, however, only the question as
to the mode of the knowledge and of the knowability of God can be putin the freedom and
therefore in the certainty which reigns when the choice is not arbitrary. The battle against
uncertainty and doubt is not foreign to man even here. But here it will always be a victorious battle.
For it goes to the very root of uncertainty and doubt, and it will be simply the one good fight of
faiththe fight for a renewal of the confirmation and acknowledgment of our constraint by Gods
Word as the point of departure from which uncertainty and doubt become impossible possibilities.
Therefore between the constraint of Gods Word (or of the God attested by His Word) and the certainty
of our knowledge of God there exists the same necessary relationship as between our free choice of this or
that God and the uncertainty which will then afflict our knowledge of God. We must remember that these
two circles do not touch one another but are mutually exclusive; and that therefore a direct transition from
the one into the other is impossible. Uncertainty will never be possible in this constraint of the Word of
God and therefore in the knowledge of the God revealed therein. And on the other hand, certainty will never
be possible in freedom from the Word of God and therefore in the alleged knowledge of God which rests
upon a free choice of this or that God. Questions as to its reality and possibility which may be addressed
to the true knowledge of God from without can never carry any weight. Addressed to a false knowledge of
God they are always weighty. Of course, our being bound to Gods Word cannot, must not and will not
prevent us from subsequently explaining the fact and reason why (since the object of our knowledge of God
is the One who is presented to us by Gods Word and no other) we do not know God but only false gods,
no-gods, in all the other entities which offer themselves to us as gods. But such a demarcation can and will
come to pass in the constraint by Gods Word and therefore also with the pre-determination which is of
necessity given in this constraint. It will have the character of a supplementary, incidental and implicit
apologetics, comparable to the subsequent substantiation of a judgment of the supreme court which has
already been given and come into force and hence whose validity cannot be questioned. It will presuppose
the reality and possibility of the knowledge of God as grounded in itself and as already distinguished from
the unreal and impossible knowledge of all false gods. Therefore in its polemic against them it will have to
show, not that they are false gods, but only to what extent they are false gods. The fact that they are false
gods has already been manifested by God showing Himself in His Word as the true God. An apologetics
which is conscious of its tasks and limitations as an account of what happens when God is known will as
soon undertake this demonstration outside or above the constraint of the Word of God as it will the
demonstration of the truth of God Himself. It will testify both to the truth of the true God and to the falsity
of the false gods simply on the ground that these facts are previously and finally testified by Gods Word
and need from the Church only this repetitive and confirmative witness. It is submission to this order which
decides whether the demarcation brings certaintywith a resultant authority and power as a ministry to the
Word of Godor whether it re-introduces uncertainty into the knowledge of Godin which case it will
definitely not have the authority and power of a witness, the authority and power of the ministry of the
Word of God. But we must consider just as closely the converse that even where these entities are freely
chosen as gods, the leap into constraint can still be considered and undertaken as a final possibility
perhaps after all other possibilities have been exhausted or have proved doubtfulas the salto mortale* of
free thought, as the last in the series of free choices. All apologetics which are false because they are not
really bound to what has already happened, and all arbitrary demarcations between the knowledge of the
true God and that of false gods, will, sooner or later, end here. Apparently in sublime, sovereign freedom,
open on every side, interested in anything and everything, taking every possible and impossible knowledge
of God with a tragic seriousness (as if it were or could be serious!), this apologetics will definitely at
some point or other suddenly declare the sacrificium intellectus* to be the one possibility remaining to it.
Then, probably assuming a parsonic voice, it will praise this very sacrificium* as the last and best choice.
At this point the false apologetics will start to speak of a necessary constraint of the Word of God; and it
will begin talking about Jesus, or the Bible, or the dogma of the Church. But there is no need to deceive
ourselves or let ourselves be deceived, for it will not be possible at this juncture to speak of these things
with certainty and thus with power and authority. The possibility of constraint running alongside these
many other possibilities, but finally freely chosen instead of them, is certainly not identical with the original
constraint by the Word of God, even though it now declares and designates itself to be such. We can only
come from the real and original constraint by the Word; we cannot come to it. If it is an experimenteven
the last and greatestin a series of other experiments; if we think that after trying this or that we will and
can in the last resort try also a religious philosophy of authority, and then in this framework give Jesus, the
Bible or Church dogma a trial too, we simply cannot expect to think and speak with the certainty of the true
knowledge of God. The sacrificium intellectus* as the last despairing, audacious act of self-confidence, in
which man thinks he can decide upon his very knowledge of God, has always turned out to be a bit of
conjuring, about which no one can be happy in the long run. Even interpreted as a leap into faith, it does
not create a position which cannot be attacked and is not attacked. For why should not a religious philosophy
of authority be just as open to attack, and just as freely attacked, as any other philosophy? The doubter
cannot free himself from doubt, even by persuading himself to will to doubt no more, even by performing
this sacrificium*. And the doubter cannot free other doubters from their doubt by exacting this sacrificium*
from themperhaps by making it convincing, perhaps by inducing them to perform it for themselves. He
must not be a doubter at all if help is to come to him and through him to others. But that means that he must
not think that he can choose and therefore that he can help himself and others. He must be bound already
to the Word of God. Any desire to bind himself to the Word of God can only demonstrate to himself and
others that in fact he is not yet bound. And any supposed certainty, built on a desire for this self-binding,
will only show his actual uncertainty to himself and others. Binding by the Word of God must take place at
the beginning. That is, where there is no sort of intention of creating a position for ourselves, but where we
find ourselves in a position without self-willing or choosing. At the beginning, where possibilities other
than those indicated by the Word of God do not come into consideration at all, and therefore where there
can be no question of a particular despair and therefore no salto mortale as the last resort of audacity or
embarrassment. If this constraint does not take place at the beginning it does not occur at all. There, at the
point of departure we are constrained by the Word of God. And so we must fight the good fight of faith in
order that the constraint may be acknowledged and that we may let it come upon us. The words of Psalm
127:12 are quite decisive here: Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it.
Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is but lost labour that ye haste to rise up
early and so late take rest and eat the bread of carefulness, for so he giveth to his beloved in sleep. Good
apologetics is distinguished from bad by its responsibility to these words.

That the knowledge of God in its fulfilment by the revelation of the Word of God is bound to
its one, determined and uniquely distinct object, and that it is knowledge of this object and not of
anotherknowledge of the God who gives Himself to be known in His Wordmeans further that,
without any prejudice to its certainty, but in this very certainty, it is mediated knowledge. That is
to say, God is and remains its object. If God gives Himself to man to be known in the revelation
of His Word through the Holy Spirit, it means that He enters into the relationship of object to man
the subject. In His revelation He is considered and conceived by men. Man knows God in that he
stands before God. But this always means: in that God becomes, is and remains to him Another,
One who is distinct from himself, One who meets him. Nor is this objectivity of God neutralised
by the fact that God makes man His own through the Holy Spirit, in order to give Himself to be
owned by him. For what else does this mean but that He gives Himself to man in His Word as a
real object? He makes man accessible for Himself. He lets Himself be considered and conceived
by man. Man cannot and must not know himself apart from God, but together with God as his
opposite. Again, the objectivity of God is not restricted by the fact that we have to understand
God Himself as the real and primarily acting Subject of all real knowledge of God, so that the self-
knowledge of God is the real and primary essence of all knowledge of God. That God is originally
and really object to Himself does not alter the fact that in a very different way He is also object to
man. And the fact that God knows Himself immediately is not neutralised by the fact that man
knows Him on the basis of His revelation and hence mediately, and only mediately, and therefore
as an object. The reality of our knowledge of God stands or falls with the fact that in His revelation
God is present to man in a medium. He is therefore objectively present in a double sense. In His
Word He comes as an object before man the subject. And by the Holy Spirit He makes the human
subject accessible to Himself, capable of considering and conceiving Himself as object. The real
knowledge of God is concerned with God in His relationship to man, but also in His distinction
from him. We therefore separate ourselves from all those ideas of the knowledge of God which
understand it as the union of man with God, and which do not regard it as an objective knowledge
but leave out the distinction between the knower and the known. It is not as if we can arrive at the
real knowledge of God on this view. On the contrary, this view can help us only by making clear
what it means if man is not yet or no longer engaged in fulfilling the knowledge of God.
We are vividly reminded of one of the most beautiful but also most dangerous passages in the
Confessions (IX, 10) of Augustinethe conversation between Augustine and his mother Monica at the
garden window at Ostia. They were talking about the vita aeterna sanctorum, quam nec oculus vidit, nec
auris audivit, nec in cor hominis ascendit* (1 Cor. 2:9). Augustine tells how his mother and himself, leaving
behind them the contemplation of even the highest delectatio* that could be mediated through the senses,
mounted together in idipsum* (Ps. 4:9 Vulg.In pace in idipsum dormiam et requiescam *). They
wandered step by step through all the corporeal world, including the heavens and all their constellations.
Climbing yet higher in wondering review of the works of God they arrived at the spirit of man and then
passed beyond even this, ut attingeremus regionem ubertatis indeficientis, ubi pascis Israel in aeternum
veritatis pabulo et ubi vita sapientia est, per quam fiunt omnia ista, et quae fuerunt et quae futura sunt; et
ipsa non fit sed sic est ut fuit et sic erit semper; quin potius fuisse et futurum esse non est in ea sed esse
solum, quoniam aeterna est: nam fuisse et futurum esse non est aeternum Et dum loquimur et inhiamus illi
attigimus eam modice toto ictu cordis, et suspiravimus et reliquimus ibi religatas primitias spiritus, et
remeavimus ad strepitum oris nostri ubi verbum et incipitur et finitur*. And then they said: If the tumultus
carnis* could be silenced in man, and all the images (phantasiae) of the earth, sea and air, and even the
soul itself et transeat se non se cogitando, sileant somnia et imaginariae revelationes, omnis lingua et omne
signum et quidquid transeundo fit, si cui sileat omnino; quoniam si quis audiat, dicunt haec omnia: Non
ipsa nos fecimus sed fecit nos qui manet in aeternum*if everything was silent, listening to God Himself:
et loquatur ipse solus, non per ea sed per se ipsum, ut audiamus verbum eius, non per linguam carnis,
neque per vocem angeli, nec per sonitum nubis nec per aenigma similitudinis, sed ipsum quem in his
amamus, ipsum sine his audiamus, sicut nunc extendimus nos, et rapida cogitatione attigimus aeternam
Sapientiam super omnia manentem*if all else ceased, if all other sights vanished et haec una (visio)
rapiat et absorbeat et recondat in interiora gaudia spectatorem suum, ut talis sit sempiterna vita, quale fuit
hoc momentum intelligentiae cui suspiravimusnonne hoc est: Intra in gaudium Domini tui?* (Mt. 25:21).
Et istud quando? An cum omnes resurgemus, sed non omnes immutabimur?* (1 Cor. 15:51). The beginning
and end of the passage shew that Augustine wishes to speak of the eternal vision of God at the end of time,
and we are not now concerned with the specifically eschatological side of the problem. But Augustine does
not speak only of a future, eternal vision, but very definitely of an experience on that day at the garden
window at Ostia. Here for a little while everything became silent; here he aspired to that idipsum* and here
also he found it; here the timeless Wisdom met him in time; here he saw and heard God without concepts,
without an image, without a word, without a signGod Himself speaking, not through something else, but
through Himself, ipsum sine his*, so that the One seen is already about to take up into Himself the one who
sees: Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. However it may be with the reality and contents of this
experience, it is certain that the reality of the knowledge of God is not reached by way of the image of such
a timeless and non-objective seeing and hearing. In this context reference may be made to the fact that
elsewhere (De civ. Dei XXII, 29) Augustine himself described the eternal vision of God quite differently:
ut Deum ubique praesentem et universa etiam corporalia gubernantem per corpora quae gestabimus et
quae conspiciemus clarissima perspicuitate videamus incorporeum Deum etiam per corpora
contuebimur ut videatur ab altero in altero, videatur in se ipso, videatur in coelo novo et in terra nova
atque in omni quae tunc fuerit creatura, videatur et per corpora in omni corpore*. In the knowledge of
God in His Word here and now we are definitely concerned with such a mediate, objective knowledge.
What Augustine describes in Conf. IX, 10 is, according to his own account, the consequence of an
ascendere* and transcendere* of all the limitations and restrictions of mans existence and situation.
Whether that is a possible beginning we will not pursue further. But it is certain that this ascendere* and
transcendere* means abandoning, or at any rate wanting to abandon, the place where God encounters man
in His revelation and where He gives Himself to be heard and seen by man. But on the other hand Augustine
himself has said the right word about this arbitrary procedure: Optimus minister tuus est, qui non magis
intuetur hoc a te audire, quod ipse voluerit, sed potius hoc velle, quod a te audierit*. If we really soar up
into these heights, and really reduce all concepts, images, words and signs to silence, and really think we
can enter into the idipsum*, it simply means that we wilfully hurry past God, who descends in His revelation
into this world of ours. Instead of finding Him where He Himself has sought usnamely, in His
objectivitywe seek Him where He is not to be found, since He on His side seeks us in His Word. It is
really not the case, therefore, that if we have a knowledge of God in the form of that experience, we have
reached a higher or the highest step on a way which began with an objective perceiving, viewing and
conceiving of God, as though that were only an early and sensuous mode of thought. It is not the case that
in the non-objective we are dealing with the real and true knowledge of God but in the objective with a
deceptive appearance. Just the reverse. If we regard ourselves as bound by Gods Word we shall certainly
find a deceptive appearance in that ascendere* and transcendere* so far as what happens therewhatever
else it may beclaims to be knowledge of God. For how can it make this claim except where the fulfilment
of the real knowledge of God in Gods Word has either not yet begun or has ceased again? Where it is being
fulfilled, the hasty by-passing of Gods revelation or the flight into non-objectivity cannot possibly occur.
Where it is being fulfilled, knowledge is bound to the objectivity of God just as it is bound to this definite
object who is the God who gives Himself to be known in His Word. And it is bound to the fact that His
very revelation consists in His making Himself object to us, and so in His making a flight into non-
objectivity not only superfluous but impossible. Thus the straight and proper way in this matter can never
be from objectivity into non-objectivity, but only from non-objectivity back into objectivity.

The fact that man stands before the God who gives Himself to be known in His Word, and
therefore to be known mediately, definitely means that we have to understand mans knowledge
of God as the knowledge of faith. In this consists its reality and necessity, which are not and cannot
be attacked from without. And from this follow all determinations of the mode of its fulfilment.
We must now discuss the assertion that the knowledge of God is the knowledge of faith.
In the first instance, it is simply a confirmation of the fact that the knowledge of God is bound
to the object set before it by Gods Wordand to this object in its irrevocable objectivity. Faith is
the total positive relationship of man to the God who gives Himself to be known in His Word. It
is mans act of turning to God, of opening up his life to Him and of surrendering to Him. It is the
Yes which he pronounces in his heart when confronted by this God, because he knows himself to
be bound and fully bound. It is the obligation in which, before God, and in the light of the clarity
that God is God and that He is his God, he knows and explains himself as belonging to God. But
when we say that, we must at once also say that faith as the positive relationship of man to God
comes from God Himself in that it is utterly and entirely grounded in the fact that God encounters
man in the Word which demands of him this turning, this Yes, this obligation; becoming an object
to him in such a way that in His objectivity He bestows upon him by the Holy Spirit the light of
the clarity that He is God and that He is his God, and therefore evoking this turning, this Yes, this
obligation on the part of man. It is in this occurrence of faith that there is the knowledge of God;
and not only the knowledge of God, but also love towards Him, trust in Him and obedience to
Him. But these various determinations of faith are not to be understood as parts or even certain
fruits of faith. Each one is the determination of faith in its entirety. If we speak of the knowledge
of faith, we do not speak of something which is faith as well as being all sorts of other things, but
we speakeven if from a distinct angleof faith in its entirety. Everything that is to be said of
the nature of faith in general will also have to be said of the knowledge of God as the knowledge
of faith. And we cannot speak of the knowledge of God except by speaking of the nature of faith
in generaleven if from a distinct angle.
In view of the importance of the standpoint which we have to adopt here, it is a serious question whether
the knowledge of God will not have to be the decisive and ruling factor in a definition of faith, and one to
which all others will have to be added. That Calvin certainly thought so is to be seen from the well-known
opening of his Catechism: Quelle est la principale fin de la vie humaine? Cest de cognoistre Dieu;*and
the definition of saving faith: fidem esse divinae erga nos benevolentiae firmam certamque cognitionem,
quae gratuitae in Christo promissionis veritate fundata, per Spiritum sanctum et revelatur mentibus nostris
et cordibus obsignatur*. (Inst. III, 2, 7; cf. Catechism, ed. W. Niesel, Qu. 111.) Since no other concept
besides cognitio* is used in this definition to describe faith as such, at a first glance all the other factors
seem to be lacking. But in reality they are, so to speak, posited in the object and from it made visible. It is
a procedure that has much to be said for it. And it is an obvious weakening when afterwards in the
Heidelberg Catechism, Qu. 21perhaps not without the intention of correcting Calvin slightlyfaith is
defined not only as a certain knowledge, whereby I hold everything for true but also as a hearty trust.
However, we do not have to decide this point now. What is certain is that faith must also be described as
knowledge and can also be described thus in its totality.

It is when we understand faith as knowledge that we understand it as mans orientation to God

as an object. It was previously our second point that the positive relationship of man to God is
created and established by God becoming and being its object. But this takes the first and central
place in the faith that is understood as knowledge. The turning, the self-opening, the surrender in
faith, the Yes of faith, faith as obligation, love, trust and obedience in faithall this presupposes
and includes within itself the union and the distinction which man fulfils between himself and the
God whose existence and nature make it all possible and necessary. This orientation which unites
and distinguishes is the knowledge of God in faith. Without it faith could not be all those other
things as well. As knowledge it is the orientation of man to God as an object. And only as it is this
can it be those other things as well.
We do not say all that so as to commend some sort of realism or objectivism. Nor are we reporting on
any sort of experiences. It is a decisive mark of what the Bible calls faith that everything stated about man
as such, and about his bearing and circumstances, appears absolutely as the determination of his orientation
to God as an object and therefore as the determination of his knowledge. Biblical faith excludes any faith
of man in himselfthat is, any desire for religious self-help, any religious self-satisfaction, any religious
self-sufficiency. Biblical faith lives upon the objectivity of God. In one way or another, God comes into the
picture, the sphere, the field of mans consideration and conception in exactly the same way that objects
do, uniting Himself to man, distinguishing Himself from him, evoking by His existence and nature mans
love, trust and obedience; but before and in and above all this, bearing witness to Himself by establishing
from His side this orientation of man, this uniting and distinguishing. Biblical faith stands or falls with the
fact that it is faith in God. When the Early Church confessed: Credo in Patrem, in eius Filium Jesum
Christum, in Spiritum sanctum*, it thought it had nothing further to confess about its faith as such, because
with this in it thought it had said everything necessary. God speaks; He claims; He promises; He acts; He
is angry; He is gracious. Take away the objectivity of this He, and faith collapses, even as love, trust and
obedience. The objectivity of this He must not be taken out of biblical faitheither out of Abrahams faith
in the promise, or out of Pauls * (Phil. 3:9f.). That God is worthy of love, trust and
obedience, that man is able to render them to God, that he really does so, and the nature of love, trust and
obedience: all these things spring from the fact that God is He, that He is an object on the human plane just
like other objects, that He puts Himself in a relationship to man and man in a relationship to Himself, and
makes orientation to Himself possible and necessary. In the Bible faith means the opening-up of human
subjectivity by and for the objectivity of the divine He, and in this opening-up the re-establishment and re-
determination of human subjectivity. But it is good for me to hold me fast by God, to put my trust in the
Lord God, and to speak of all thy works. (Ps. 73:28). Thus, in the Bible, faith decidedly meansthe
knowledge of God.

But our first task is not to understand faith as the knowledge of God, but the knowledge of God
as faith. Inasmuch as faith rests upon Gods objectivity it is itself knowledge of God. That must be
said in advance. But if we wish to understand this knowledge of God we must still go back to faith
itselfnot now to its special determinations as love, trust and obedience, but to the special
determination of its object which makes it possible and necessary not only as knowledge but also
as love, trust and obedience. Precisely because we understand faith as the knowledge of God, we
must go further and say that we are concerned with the knowledge of the God who is the object of
faith. Therefore it is not any sort of object; not an object that can give itself to be known and will
be known just like any other object; not an object which awakens love, trust and obedience in the
same way as other objects. Its objectivity is the particular and utterly unique objectivity of God.
And that is tantamount to saying that this knowledge is the particular and utterly unique knowledge
of faith.
If God becomes the object of mans knowledge, this necessarily means that He becomes the
object of his consideration and conception. On the strength of this it becomes possible and
necessary to speak and hear about God. If it were not so, there would be no knowledge of God and
no faith in Him. God would simply not be in the picture. We could not hold to Him. We could not
pray to Him. To deny the objectivity of God is to deny the life of the Church of Jesus Christ
which lives on the fact that God is spoken of and heard. It is to deny prayer to God, the knowledge
of God, and with knowledge faith in God as well. But not every object is God; and so not all our
human consideration and conception is knowledge of God. For although God has genuine
objectivity just like all other objects, His objectivity is different from theirs, and therefore
knowledge of Himand this is the chief thing to be said about its character as the knowledge of
faithis a particular and utterly unique occurrence in the range of all knowledge. Certainly the
same thing happens in faith that happens always and everywhere when man enters into that uniting
and distinguishing relationship to an object, when his subjectivity is opened up to an objectivity
and he is grounded and determined anew. But in faith the same thing happens quite differently.
This difference consists in the difference and uniqueness of God as its object. Knowledge of faith
means fundamentally the union of man with the God who is distinct from him as well as from all
his other objects. For this very reason this knowledge becomes and is a special knowledge, distinct
from the knowledge of all other objects, outstanding in the range of all knowledge. What our
consideration and conception mean in this context cannot be determined from a general
understanding of mans consideration and conception, but only in particular from God as its
particular object. On the strength of the fact that God in His particularity is its object, and as such
is also known, it becomes possible and necessary to speak and hear about God. It must again be
said that if God is not object in this particularity there will be no knowledge of God at all. God is
not God if He is considered and conceived as one in a series of like objects. But then prayer and
the life of the Church will necessarily cease, i.e., dissolve into the relationship of man to what he
knows or thinks he knows as one object in a series of other objects. As one in this series He will
not be worshipped, nor will He have a Church. Faith will have to be denied if we want to take our
stand on this presupposition. God, as the object of knowledge, will not let Himself be placed as
one in a series. If faith can be denied, yet the fact remains unaltered that the faith which is not
denied is the direction of man to the one object who forbids this procedure, who will not let Himself
be placed with any other object in a series, but who distinguishes Himself from all other objects,
and therefore makes a particular knowledge of Himself possible and necessary.
We do not teach this distinction between the knowledge of God and its object on the ground of a
preconceived idea about the transcendence and supramundanity of God; nor do we teach it in the form of
an affirmation of our experience of faith. On the contrary, we teach it because of what we find proclaimed
and described as faith in Holy Scripture. There can be no doubt about this point. Just as He who in the Bible
encounters man in the objectivity of the divine He is not identical with any human subject who knows Him,
so also He is not one object in the series of other objects of mans cognisance. In the Bible, faith in God
occurs by way of separation. That is to say, God separates Himself as well as the believing man. God
sanctifies Himself, i.e., makes Himself known as distinct from all other objects. And at the same time He
also sanctifies man in his relationship to Himself, i.e., puts him into a separated position. Israel is taken out
from among the peoples. The existence of the Church is nothing but the comprehensive continuation of this
process in the form of the removal of men (but now men from all nations) into one particular position
distinct from all other positions. This particular position is the position of faith. In the Bible faith means
sanctification. And in the Bible sanctification is the execution of a choiceof particular places, times, men,
events or historical sequences. Where this sanctification and therefore this choice occurs, there, according
to the Bible, knowledge of God occurs also. The foundation and subject of this sanctification and choice is,
however, the object of scriptural faith, electing and consequently sanctifying Himself in glory. And this
object is God, the one who is certainly an object, but the utterly unique object of a unique human knowledge;
the object who, according to Isaiah 42:8 and 48:11, will not give His glory to another. What happens
throughout the Word of God is the history of this choice and sanctification. It is this history that we recount;
and our own faith only comes into play in so far as we keep to this history. In this way, and only in this
way, do we come to distinguish God from other objects, and therefore knowledge of Him from all other
knowledge. This means, however, that we cannot possibly help distinguishing God from other objects.
 If we ascribe objectivity to God (as we inevitably do when we speak of the knowledge of God)
a distinction becomes unavoidable. As He certainly knows Himself first of all, God is first and
foremost objective to Himself. We shall return to this point in the second part of the present section.
In His triune life as such, objectivity, and with it knowledge, is divine reality before creaturely
objectivity and knowledge exist. We call this the primary objectivity of God, and distinguish from
it the secondary, i.e., the objectivity which He has for us too in His revelation, in which He gives
Himself to be known by us as He knows Himself. It is distinguished from the primary objectivity,
not by a lesser degree of truth, but by its particular form suitable for us, the creature. God is
objectively immediate to Himself, but to us He is objectively mediate. That is to say, He is not
objective directly but indirectly, not in the naked sense but clothed under the sign and veil of other
objects different from Himself. His secondary objectivity is fully true, for it has its correspondence
and basis in His primary objectivity. God does not have to be untrue to Himself and deceive us
about His real nature in order to become objective to us. For first to Himself, and then in His
revelation to us, He is nothing but what He is in Himself. It is here that the door is shut against any
non-objective knowledge of God. As such, it would not be knowledge of God, for God is
objective to Himself. He is immediately objective to Himselffor the Father is object to the Son,
and the Son to the Father, without mediation. He is mediately objective to us in His revelation, in
which He meets us under the sign and veil of other objects. It is in, with and under the sign and
veil of these other objects that we believe in God, and know Him and pray to Him. We believe in
Him in His clothed, not in His naked objectivity. That we know Him in faith has a double
significance. We really know Him in His objectivity (even if it is clothed); and we really know
Him only in His clothed objectivity. We do not ask first of all why this must be so, but are content
to establish the fact that it is so. Man therefore stands before God in the knowledge of faith. He
really and truly stands before God. God is object to himthe object from whom he sees himself
to be distinct, but with whom he sees himself united; and conversely, the object with whom he
sees himself united, but from whom he sees himself to be distinct. But he always stands indirectly
before God. He stands directly before another object, one of the series of all other objects. The
objectivity of this other object represents the objectivity of God. In the objectivity of this other
object he knows God, i.e., between himself and this other object the acts of distinguishing and
uniting, uniting and distinguishing, take place. This other object he genuinely perceives, considers
and conceivesbut in and with this other object, the objectivity of God. This other object is thus
the medium by which God gives Himself to be known and in which man knows God.
We must now describe in greater detail the particular, outstanding knowledge of God of which
we have already spoken. It is the particular occurrence of an encounter between man and a part of
the reality surrounding him which is different from God. In the encounter the reality of this piece
of his environment does not cease to be a definite, creaturely reality, and therefore it does not
become identical with God, but it represents God. That is to say, it represents God in so far as it is
determined, made and used by God as His clothing, temple, or sign; in so far as it is peculiarly a
work of God, which above and beyond its own existence (which is also Gods work, of course)
may and must serve to attest the objectivity of God and therefore to make the knowledge of God
possible and necessary. Thus, to the particularity of this event which, in contrast to all other objects,
is grounded in the nature of God, there corresponds the particularity of one such object which, in
the sphere of creaturely reality, points to the nature of God, a uniqueness which does not belong
to this object in itself and as such, but which falls to its lot in this event in which it is now effective.
But it is effective, not on account of its own ability, but in virtue of its institution to the service
which this object has to perform at this point. In other words, it is effective in virtue of the special
work to which God has at this point determined and engaged it, because it has become the
instrument of this work and has been marked off and is used as such. For now it is not only what
it is to and in itself. Of course it is always that. But over and above its own self it is now this special
work of God, Gods sign, the garment of His objectivity, the means by which He gives Himself to
be known to man and by which man knows Himman, who as creature cannot stand directly
before God but only before other objects. Here too we have a conditio sine qua non*. At bottom,
knowledge of God in faith is always this indirect knowledge of God, knowledge of God in His
works, and in these particular worksin the determining and using of certain creaturely realities
to bear witness to the divine objectivity. What distinguishes faith from unbelief, erroneous faith
and superstition is that it is content with this indirect knowledge of God. It does not think that the
knowledge of God in His works is insufficient. On the contrary, it is grateful really to know the
real God in His works. It really lets itself be shown the objectivity of God by their objectivity. But
it also holds fast to the particularity of these works. It does not arbitrarily choose objects to set up
as signs, in that way inventing a knowledge of God at its own good-pleasure. It knows God by
means of the objects chosen by God Himself. It recognises and acknowledges Gods choice and
sanctification in the operation of this knowledge. And, for its part, it uses these special works of
God as they ought to be usedas means of the knowledge of God. It lets their objectivity become
a witnessyet only a witnessto the objectivity of God. Where the worship of God is made
possible and necessary by God Himself, it does not establish an idol worship. Faith, and therefore
the knowledge of God, stands or falls with all these determinations of the clothed objectivity of
God. It is under these determinations that God is spoken about and heard in the Church of Jesus
Christ. Not a single one of them can be set aside or altered without radically injuring the life of the
Church.
Here again we have pointed to a thread running through the Bible. It is well known what great weight
Luther laid upon it. It was for him no less than a principal rule of all knowledge of God. He continually
spoke of it with great energy in all possible connexions. When we speak and hear about God we are not
concerned with the nuda essentia* or natura* of God, but with the velamen*, the volucra*, the certa
species*, the larvae* of His works. We must keep to them according to Gods wise and unbreakable
ordinance. We must be thankful for them. We must not disregard them, or prefer any direct, non-objective
knowledge of God. If we do, we run the risk, not only of losing God, but of making Him hostile to us. We
must seek Him where He Himself has sought usin those veils and under those signs of His Godhead.
Elsewhere He is not to be found. There can be no doubt that these affirmations have no little force in the
Bible itself, in view of what it indicates and declares to be faith.
It is definitely a mistake to point to the visions and auditions of the prophets and others (in which,
apparently, no means or signs enter in), or to the everrecurring simple formula: And God spake, as a
proof that the Bible allows revelation of God and therefore knowledge of God in His naked, primary
objectivity as well, and therefore without the veil of His works and signs.
In opposition to that we have to set first Ex. 33:1123. We can hardly understand this except as a
confirmation of Luthers general rule, and it forms a background for the understanding of all the rest. It
says there of Moses that the Lord spake with him face to face, as a man speaks with his friend (v. 11). What
does that mean? We read in what follows that Moses called upon God in consequence of God saying to
him: I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Thereupon Moses wished to know
of Gods waysthat is, to know Him (v. 13) as the One who would go up with them in the move
from Sinai to Canaan which He had commanded. If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.
For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou
goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the
earth (v. 15 f.). God replies that this very thing shall take place. Moses insists that he would see the glory
of the Lord (v. 18). And not even this request meets with a blank refusal. No; God will make to pass before
him all his glory, and he shall hear the name of the Lord: I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,
and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy (v. 19). But it is precisely in the passing before of God
that Moses is to hear His name. Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live (v.
20). This passing before obviously means that His prayed and awaited going with them had begun, that
God actually does go before him and the people. And in this passing before God will place him in the
cleft of a rock and spread His hand over him so that he can only see Him from the back (and hence in the
process of that passing before and going with and going before). It is in this way and not in any other that
he can and shall see the glory of God. It is in this way that God speaks with Moses face to face, as a man
speaketh with his friend. God really speaks with him. Moses hears Gods name. He is really encouraged
and given directions by God Himself. He knows God, as he has prayedGod in His extremest objectivity.
But all this comes to pass in Gods passing before and going before, in Gods work and action, in which he
does not see Gods face but in which he can only follow God with his eyes. In this case, more than that
would not only be less, but even nothing at allindeed, something negative. Man cannot see Gods face,
Gods naked objectivity, without exposing himself to the annihilating wrath of God. It would indeed have
to be a second God who could see God directly. How could man escape destruction by God? Hence God
shows Moses a two-fold mercy: not only does He actually receive him according to His promise; but also
He does it in a way that is adapted to him as a creature, and speaks to him through the sign of His work.
We can hardly presuppose that any of the other scriptural passages and references that should be considered
in this context teach anything in opposition to this indirect knowledge of God. Rather we shall have to
assume that, even in those passages where means and signs of Gods appearance or speaking are not
expressly mentioned, they are nevertheless taken for granted by the biblical writers. They always mean the
God who is present and revealed to man in His secondary objectivity, in His work.
As far as the prophetic formula: And God spake is concerned, we cannot sufficiently keep in mind
that the whole of Old Testament prophecy seeks to be, and is, nothing but the proclamation of God in the
form of continual explanation of the divine work, of the action of God in the history of Israel, that is to say,
in what had happened and what was happening to Israel, beginning with the Exodus as its epitome. It is this
God in action, and indeed, this God in His action itselfand hence the God whom they can only follow
with their eyes, whom they only know from behind in His secondary objectivitywho speaks to the
prophets, and whose words the prophets deliver and whose name they proclaim. How else or whence else
could they know Him? What else could they have to say about Him? He really stands before them; He
really speaks to them; they really hear Him. But all this takes place, not in a direct, but in an indirect
encounter. What directly confront them are the historical events, forms and relationships which are His
work. They see this work, but as followers, as contemporaries of this history, and partly also in expectation
of its future continuation. This Opposite speaks to them and they hear His voice. Yet not in the same way
that we let any sort of event or all events work upon ourselves, and attempt to read out of history in general
or out of this or that piece of history what we have first read into it. But they hear Him as prophets of God
and as such, as Gods special witnesses and bearers of the divine workbefore whose eyes that special
event is placed as what it is, the secondary objectivity of God Himself, in which He gives Himself to be
known and in which they really know Him.
Moreover, the message of the New Testament is nothing but the proclamation of the name of God on
the ground of His gracious passing before. And it is given in the form of a continual explanation of a
definite historical eventof the same historical event that began with the Exodus, even with the call of
Abraham, even with the covenant with Noah. But now its concrete aim and its totality become quite clear.
The Messiah, the promised Son of Abraham and David, the Servant of Yahweh, the Prophet, Priest and
King has appeared; and not only as sent by God, but Himself Gods Son. Yet the Word does not appear in
His eternal objectivity as the Son who alone dwells in the bosom of the Father. No; the Word became flesh.
God gives Himself to be known, and is known, in the substance of secondary objectivity, in the sign of all
signs, in the work of God which all the other works of God serve to prepare, accompany and continue, in
the manhood which He takes to Himself, to which He humbles Himself and which He raises through
Himself. We saw His glory now means: we saw this One in His humanity, the humanity of the Son of
God, on His way to death, which was the way to His resurrection. Hence, it is again an indirect encounter
with God in which the apostles, as the witnesses of the New Testament, find themselves. They, too, stand
before a veil, a sign, a work of God. In the crib of Bethlehem and at the cross of Golgotha the event takes
place in which God gives Himself to them to be known and in which they know God. The fact that they see
this in the light of the resurrection, and that in the forty days they see it as what it really is, Gods own
presence and action, does not alter the fact that in the forty days they do see this unambiguously secondary
objectivity, and in it as such, and attested by it, they know the primary objectivity and hence God Himself.
The fact that the God-manhood of the Mediator Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of the revelation and
reconciliation proclaimed in the New Testament is equivalent to the fact that the knowledge of faith in the
New Testament is indirect (and for that very reason real!) knowledge of God.
And it is precisely this knowledge of faith, attested in the Old and New Testaments as the knowledge
of God from His works, which is now the content of knowledge in the message of the Church of Jesus
Christ. Since this message is the Gospel of its Lord and therefore of the God-man, the Mediator, it stands
in explicit contrast to any message having the pure and naked objectivity of God Himself as its object. It is
the Gospel of faith and the summons to faith in that it proclaims Godreally God Himselfin His
mediability, in the sign of His work, in His clothed objectivity. And it is this just because it does not leave
the realm of indirect knowledge of God, but keeps to the fact that in this very realm God Himselfand
therefore all thingsis to be sought and found, and that this indirect knowledge is the right and true
knowledge of God because it is chosen and ordained by God Himself. Letting this be enough for oneself is
not resignation but the humility and boldness of the man who really stands before God in faith, and in faith
alone. The Gospel of the Church of God is therefore of necessity a defined, circumscribed and limited
message. It does not contain and say anything and everything. Its content is not the *, the boundless
and groundless that human presumption would like to make God out to be. It does not destroy perception
but integrates it. It does not oppose a definite and concrete view but establishes it. It does not teach thought
to lose itself in an unthinkable one and all, but forms it to very definite conceptsaffirming this and denying
that, including this and excluding that. It contains the veritable Gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Messiah of Israel, the true God who became also true man in His own time and place. It explains, not an
idea of God, but His name revealed in His deeds. And in correspondence with its content it is itself objective
in formvisible Church, audible preaching, operative sacrament. These constitute an area of objectivity
among and alongside so many other areas of objectivity; but this is grounded on the witness of the apostles
and prophets which must be shown and proved objectively. Nor is it ashamed of this witness: on the
contrary, it boasts of it as just one book among many others. Christian faith as knowledge of the true God
lets itself be included in this area of objectivity, and allows itself to be kept in this area, which in itself and
as such is certainly not identical with the objectivity of God. But in it Gods work takes place, and hence
Gods own objectivity gives itself to be known and is to be known, and this on the strength of the choice
and sanctification of His free grace. We shall have to destroy the very roots of the Church of Jesus Christ
and annihilate faith itself if we want to deny and put an end to the area of secondary objectivity; if, to reach
a supposedly better knowledge of God, we want to disregard and pass over the veil, the sign, the work in
which He gives Himself to be known by man without diminution but rather in manifestation of His glory
as the One He is. Faith either lives in this sphere, or it is not faith at all. And just the same thing is also true
of the knowledge of God through faith.

But we have not yet come to the end. As knowledge of faith the knowledge of God is just like
any other knowledge in that it also has an object. We have seen that thereby the primary objectivity
of God is to be distinguishedbut not separatedfrom the secondary. But as knowledge of faith
the knowledge of God is unlike all other knowledge in that its object is the living Lord of the
knowing man: his Creator, from whom he comes even before he knows Him; his Reconciler, who
through Jesus Christ in the Holy Ghost makes knowledge of Himself real and possible; his
Redeemer, who is Himself the future truth of all present knowledge of Himself. He and none other
is the object of the knowledge of faith. Its difference from all other knowledgea difference based
on its objectis that the position of the knowing man in relation to this object is the position of a
fundamentally and irrevocably determined subsequence, of a subsequence which can in no way be
changed or reinterpreted into a precedence of man. It is the position of grace. Knowledge of God
as knowledge of faith either occurs in this position or it does not take place at all. But this means
that knowledge of this object can in no case and in no sense mean that we have this object at our
disposal. Certainly we have God as an object, but not in the same way as we have other objects.
This is true of God both in His primary and also in His secondary objectivity, and therefore in the
whole extent of the sphere which it marks out. We have all other objects as they are determined
by the pre-arranged disposition and pre-arranged mode of our own existence. And this is so
because we first of all consciously have ourselves. The problematic of this two-fold havingof
ourselves and of our objectsand the philosophical ambiguity of this correlation, is a separate
question which we have not now to investigate. Whatever the answer to this question may be, the
claim of our own precedence will always, in some form or other, be awake and valid and plead for
consideration; it will at least be debatable whether we may not equally well ascribe to the subject
a similar, a greater, or even the sole right of disposal over the object as vice versa. When it is a
case of God being the object, discussion is excluded from the very outset. The position of grace,
which is the position of faith, and in which God is known, is as such the position of subsequence
which makes any disposal of the object impossible. Knowledge of God is thus not the relationship
of an already existing subject to an object that enters into his sphere and is therefore obedient to
the laws of this sphere. On the contrary, this knowledge first of all creates the subject of its
knowledge by coming into the picture. There cannot be allowed here any precedence of man which
can entitle his subsequencein which God has become the aim of his direction, the object of his
knowledgeto ascribe to itself a right of disposal over the object, to make use of a power of
disposal over itas man does continually and obviously in regard to all other objects, whatever
the theory of knowledge that he may hold. The precedence which alone comes into consideration
here, and which never ceases as such to come into consideration, is the precedence of this object.
Only because God posits Himself as the object is man posited as the knower of God. And so man
can only have God as the self-posited object. It is and remains Gods free grace when he is object
for us in His primary and secondary objectivity. He always gives Himself to be known so as to be
known by us in this giving, which is always a bestowal, always a free action. How would it be His
objectivity if this were not so? How could He be our Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer, how could
He be the living Lord, if it were not so, and if His being for us were ever to be separated from His
activity, so that a direction of man to Gods being could exist that was grounded in something
other than his being directed by Gods activity? Faith stands or falls with the fact of man being
directed by Gods action, by the action of His being as the living Lord. Mans being directed is his
direction to God and thus of necessity his direction to the living Lord; not to any other sort of
being, but to the actual being of God. The knowledge of God by faith is therefore concerned with
Him and with Him alone. It cannot draw conclusions from the fact that its object creates its own
precedence. It cannot withdraw before the actuality of its object into any sort of a safe place from
which it can contemplate Him in abstracto* in His being as if it corresponded to a pre-arranged
being of the contemplating man himself. For its part it can perform only the act of that being of
man which is created and set up by the act of the divine being. It can only perform this act in the
way that it has to be carried out on the basis of this creation and setting up: for on the basis of this
creation and setting up, mans being is quite incapable of any other act; but this act is absolutely
necessary to his being. Therefore it cannotas it would if man were directed from anywhere
elsebe directed to anywhere else than to the living Lord. It will in no way be able to precede this
act of God, but will only be able to succeed it. It is therefore of decisive practical importance for
the content of the knowledge of God (i.e., for the final question, whether it is false or true
knowledge of God) whether a man knows or not that he must of necessity pray for its fulfilment
as real knowledge of God, that God may give Himself to be known. The position of grace cannot
be taken up and held in any other way than by asking and praying for it. The prayer that has to be
made here is that God will set Himself as our object and ourselves as knowers of Him. For this
will not take place except as His free gift, in the act of His graceand this in spite of the fact that
He is in fact object in Himself and in secondary objectivity in His revelation, in Jesus Christ, in
the witness of the Scriptures, in the visibility of the Church, in the audibility of preaching, in the
operation of the sacraments, in the whole world of His work and sign. His primary and His
secondary objectivity is objectivity for us, since He Himself makes Himself into object for us and
us into knowers of Him. We understand His work and sign very badly if we want to understand it
as an object like other objects, and therefore to use it as a sort of atlas of revelation from which we
can read the being of God without God Himself speaking to us through it all in His act as the living
Lord, according to His free grace. We understand His work and sign very badly if we think that
with their help we can survey and master God from some sort of humanly logical, ethical, or
religious precedence. The whole world of His work and sign is then at once changed into a world
of dead gods or all too living demons. Necessarily, it is all up with the truth of Gods work and
sign if we cease to adore its grace. For just as certainly as grace is truth, so certainly can truth only
be had as grace.
As we turn back again to the Bible we remember that what is there described as the knowledge of God
stands in contrast to all other human cognition in that it always in fact coincides with some action of God.
God is known, not simply because He is God in Himself, but because He reveals Himself as such; not
simply because His work is there, but because He is active in His work. Biblical knowledge of God is
always based on encounters of man with God; encounters in which God exercises in one way or another
His lordship over man, and in which He is acknowledged as sovereign Lord and therefore known as God.
They are encounters which are always initiated by God, and which for man always have in them something
unforeseen, surprising and new. They may be preceded by a whole history of mans relationship to God.
Man may for a long time past have found grace in his sight. He may for a long time have been chosen,
called, enlightened and commissioned. But in these encounters he has as it were continually to begin afresh
with God, returning and finding himself. They are encounters which can certainly be continuations of earlier
encounters. At the same time, however, all these precedents are reconsidered in them, and the knowledge
of God becomes the object of new decisions. For example, it is not the case that Abraham, Moses and
David, once chosen, called, enlightened and commissioned, knew once for all how they stood with God.
But what was once for all decided concerning them by God had to be worked out and fulfilled in them in a
long history of renewalsfor as long, indeed, as they lived. And as the renewals take place and become
effective these men have what the Bible calls knowledge of God. The Exodus stands before all eyes as the
work and sign of God, as the great objectivising of God Himself which is the basis of knowledge.
Nevertheless, for it to be seen and understood as such it continually has to receive a new form and voice.
The veritable God of the Exodus has to speak and speak again to the prophets and through the prophets, so
that in His work and sign He may be known and known again. There is indeed at all times in the history of
Israel a faith in Yahweh which, seeing this and other signs, imagines that in them it can have Yahweh in
the way that one can have the Baalim but not Yahweh. It is therefore a secret apostasy from faith in Yahweh
and it soon comes out into the open as apostasy to strange gods. Without new grace and without the
effectiveness of God in His works Israel would have departed from God at every turn and then have been
inwardly destroyed. Everything depends on the fact that God does not cease to bear witness to Himself as
the one eternal God in new manifestations of His presence, in new revelation of His former ways, leading
His people continually from old to new faith. To this extent, the indicating of the peoples sin and secession,
even of the contradiction and errors of the very greatest men of God, is indispensable to the biblicalor at
any rate, to the Old Testamentrepresentation of the knowledge of God. What would become of this
knowledge if it were not continually renewed and re-established by its object? Where would there be truth
among these men if it were not continually spoken to them as grace?
In the New Testament we are concerned with a situation which in this respect is apparently more
complicated. It is clear enough that, according to the Synoptics as well as to John, the Old Testament thread
continues unaltered in the presence of Jesus Christat any rate, up to His death, and properly speaking,
even to His ascension. Quite apart from the people and the scribes and Pharisees, even the disciples whom
Jesus chose and called are not in any sense portrayed as those who finally believe and know, being fully
established and possessing a finally assured knowledge of God. On the contrary, like the people of Israel
and its men of God in the Old Testament, they are continually revealed to be insecure, doubting, erring and
offending, continually needing and receiving instruction, admonition and confirmation. So long as Jesus is
among them the picture they present is apparently a continuation and repetition of the picture that we meet
with throughout the Old Testament. The positive thing that is to be seen and said about them is the
faithfulness of Jesus in which the renewal is continually fulfilled in them. And the figure of Judas the traitor,
standing immediately beside Peter who confesses and yet denies, shows the abyss on whose brink they are
upheld only by this faithfulness of Jesus and not by what they themselves are or were. This picture becomes
strikingly different, at least as far as the apostles and the bearers of the apostolic office are concerned, in
the Acts or more precisely from Pentecost onwards. The point at issue is no longer the weakness, doubting
and erring of these men. (Gal. 2 is in this respect the exception that proves the rule.) The fact that they can
fall and have to be renewed like Abraham, Moses and David, and the whole nation under the old covenant,
is at any rate no longer emphasised; indeed, it is not mentioned again intentionally. In relation to the Jews,
the Gentiles, and the mighty in this world but especially in relation to the communities gathered out from
Jews and Gentiles, they themselves now seem to have become the fixed pole which only Jesus was in the
Gospels. It is the others who are now contrasted with the disciples. To them the name of Jesus Christ has
to be proclaimed and has already been proclaimed. They need new grace and new instruction, consolation
and admonition. If this involves a riddle, the solution is to be found in their function. In their office as
suchand it is in this office that they appear from Acts onwardsthe apostles do not need new grace for
the confirmation and establishment of their knowledge of God. It is not denied that as men they need it just
as much as before. But this fact becomes, so to say, irrelevant, just as now from their point of view the
neediness of the Old Testament witnesses also becomes irrelevant. Now, on this side of the resurrection
and ascension of Christ, the importance and interest of these men is only in their role as living participators
in the work of God that was performed in Jesus Christ. What is important is the fact that it now happens
through them, not that it has happened to them. The Gospels have already spoken clearly of the fact that it
has happened, and have said how it happened, and that it happened as a subsequence. But so far as it happens
through the apostles, and so far as they themselves are instruments of grace, they are obviously not in need
of that renewal. The problem of renewal has reference to them only as it arises for the others for whom and
to whom they are instruments, and not for themselves. In their existence as apostles the secondary
objectivity of the human appearing of Jesus Christ Himself is repeated. And hidden within this is the
primary objectivity of God Himself, calling to faith, awakening faith, establishing and renewing faith, and
with faith the knowledge of Godnot by these mens own strength but by the power of the Holy Spirit
communicated to them, in the freedom of grace. (And, looking back, we must affirm that, in respect of their
office, just the same thing is true of the witnesses of the old covenantin fact, in regard to their commission
among the nations, of the people of Israel as such.) After the Head of this people had been born, after it had
been revealed to whom the prophets bore witness, the fact that in them the fixed pole, the secondary and
primary objectivity of God, was already given and operative became more important than the other
undeniable factthat they became what they were through God alone, since He continually made Himself
object to them and continually made them knowers of Himself. For all that, we must notice that the apostles
pray, just as the man Jesus, in His solidarity with His disciples and with His people, also prayed. This
praying of the apostles is a clear reminder that in the bearers of this office, even in the instruments of
illuminating grace, we have to do with men who as such were in need of the renewal of their knowledge of
God. Hence there can be no question of the emergence of a new type of man standing in a position of grace,
in which, as the man who knows God, he now stands in a relation of precedence towards God There can be
no question of a fundamental alteration in the situation of the man who knows God in the New Testament
as compared with that of the man who knows Him in the Old. We see this at once if we look at the men in
Acts and even more so in the Epistles, to whom the apostles turned with their witness as founders and
guides of the rising Church. The position of Israel emerges clearly again at this pointin its positive as
well as in its critical aspect, in its danger as well as in its promise. Here, among the men to whom Gods
work comes, there obviously has to be continual instruction, admonition and consolation, a continual
beginning at the beginning. And often enough this takes place in such a way that we see the edge of the
abyss on which it happens here too. There is a building up indeedbut only on faith. And that means, on
Jesus Christ, the foundation and corner-stone; on the object and not on the subjects of faith; on the content
of the Gospel which was delivered by the apostles and received by the churches, and not on a human
precedence which has to be taken into consideration. The precedence is simply Jesus Christ proclaimed,
handed down and believed, and He as the living Lord and in His free grace (which remains free), as the
One whom even Paul, according to Phil. 3:12f., did not think he had apprehended, but whom he follows
after so that he might apprehend Him in consequence of being apprehended by Him. In this and only in this
situation does the knowledge of God come to pass in the New Testament community also. The Reconciler,
Jesus Christ, who in the Holy Spirit makes the knowledge of God real and possible, is also the Creator,
from whom man can only proceed as one who knows God. But He is also the Redeemer and therefore the
future truth of all knowledge of God, the truth which the man who knows God must approach in the humility
of hope. GodGod Himself, Gods Son in the Holy Spiritis faithful. God never ceases to make continual
new beginnings with men. God is continuously effectual in His work. This is the content of the New
Testament picture of man standing before God and knowing God.

We come now to the final point. In view of all this, what becomes of the knowing man? An
answer has still to be given to this question. And what other possible answer can be given than
this? The knowing man and his knowing as such; his faith as his direction to God; in faith, his self-
distinction from God and self-union with Him; all this is in its totality the subsequence following
the divine precedence. We are not returning to the critical aspect of the statement: that it is not in
any sense a precedence. It has also and above all a positive meaning. Knowledge of God is
obedience to God. Observe that we do not say that knowledge of God may also be obedience, or
that of necessity it has obedience attached to it, or that it is followed by obedience. No; knowledge
of God as knowledge of faith is in itself and of essential necessity obedience. It is an act of human
decision corresponding to the act of divine decision; corresponding to the act of the divine being
as the living Lord; corresponding to the act of grace in which faith is grounded and continually
grounded again in God. In this act God posits Himself as our object and ourselves as those who
know Him. But the fact that He does so means that our knowing God can consist only in our
following this act, in ourselves becoming a correspondence of this act, in ourselves and our whole
existence and therefore our considering and conceiving becoming the human act corresponding to
the divine act. This is obedience, the obedience of faith. Preciselyand onlyas this act of
obedience, is the knowledge of God knowledge of faith and therefore real knowledge of God.
Were it something else, did it not spring from obedience and therefore from faith, it would miss
God and would certainly not be knowledge of God. For God will be known as the One He is. But
precisely as the One He is, He acts. It is as this One who acts, however, that He will be known.
And to know Him as the One who acts means to become obedient to Him. It is only now perhaps
that we see the decisive importance of our previous definition of the knowledge of God as the
knowledge of His free grace, as the knowledge of the real activity of God in His work. It is only
now that we can more closely define prayer, which we have already mentioned as the essentially
necessary determination of the knowledge of God. Since it is the prayer that God will posit Himself
as our object and ourselves as those who know Him, it must obviously run concretely: Lead us
not into temptationinto the temptation of an objectivistic consideration of Gods secondary and
primary objectivity; a disinterested non-obedient consideration which holds back in a place which
it thinks secure. Lead us not into the temptation of the false opinion that Thou art an object like
other objects which we can undertake to know or not just as we wish, which we are free to know
in this way, or even in that. Lead us not into the temptation of wanting to know Thee in Thy
objectivity as if we were spectators, as if we could know, speak and hear about Thee in the slightest
degree without at once taking part, without at once making that correspondence actual, without at
once beginning with obedience. Obviously this temptation does not threaten from the side of
Gods objectivity, but always from our side. When we can no longer evade the objectivity of God,
we can and will still evade God Himself; we can and will still see the objectivity of God changed
into that world of dead gods or all too living demons, into a world whose essence we can
contemplate without giving ourselves into the hands of God, but for that reason being all the more
enslaved by these gods and demons. This is the characteristic temptation of those who are already
called to the people and Church of God. If we give way to it, the knowledge of God is not merely
partially but totally lost in the sphere of this people, in the sphere of this Church. What proceeds
out of ourselves will always be this temptationand this is true even of those who are chosen and
called, enlightened and commissioned. Therefore we have to pray that we may overcome this
temptation. The being of God for us is His being in hearing this prayer and therefore by the act of
His grace. The being of God is either known by grace or it is not known at all. If, however, it is
known by grace, then we are already displaced from that secure position and put in a position
where the consideration of God can consist and be fulfilled only in the act of our own decision of
obedience. The object of this consideration is God in His almighty and active will. But if it is
consideration of God in His almighty and active will, how can it fail to lead at once to decision?
Either the consideration will become a flight before what is considered, and therefore
disobedience, and therefore meaningless, thus ceasing to be the knowledge of God; or the
consideration will become that correspondence, and therefore obedience, and as such real
knowledge of the real God. Tertium non datur*. But where by grace it is really consideration of
God in His almighty and active will, it has already passed this Either-Or, and has become
obedience and therefore real knowledge of God. Concretely, this means that the distinction and
union between God and man in which the knowledge of God comes to pass will be fulfilled in the
order laid down by the almighty and active will of God. It will not be any sort of freely chosen
union and distinction, but will be concerned under all circumstances with the gracious God on the
one hand and sinful man on the other. This qualifying of God and man will be the norm and
criterion of all union and distinction, and therefore of the knowledge of God, and therefore of all
speaking and hearing about Him. This qualifying is, however, unthinkable as naked thought. It
will not be realised, or man will not know what he is doing in realising it, if, when he realises it in
thought, it is not fulfilled beforehand in himself; if he does not know the gracious God as his God
and himself as the sinful man distinct from God and yet united with Him; if he is not the man
directed by the act of God the living Lord; if, therefore, in his direction to God he does not stand
in obedience. Just as truth is certainly only to be had as grace, so the securing of grace will certainly
have to consist in the decision of obedience.
We have already cited Calvins definition of faith: cognitio divinae erga nos benevolentiae*. In
accordance with this definition, he described the knowledge of God at the beginning of the Institutio: ad
quam nos deduceret genuinus naturae ordo, si integer stetisset Adam: Neque enim Deum, proprie loquendo,
cognosci dicemus ubi nulla est religio nec pietas. Pietas*, the presupposition of religio*, Calvin describes
as coniuncta cum amore Dei reverentia, quam beneficiorum eius notitia conciliat. Religio pura
germanaque*, born of pietas*, means according to Calvin: fides cum serio Dei timore coniuncta: ut timor
et voluntariam reverentiam in se contineat et secum trahat legitimum cultum qualis in Lege praescribitur*.
Only in such pietas* and religio* is there real knowledge of God. Observe that the voluntaria reverentia*
and the proper reverence of God, corresponding to the Law of God, is based upon the sincere fear of God.
This fear, however, is itself a supplement of fides* which, for its part, is grounded in the notitia beneficiorum
Dei*. Therefore, when we ask about God, everything depends upon the sensus virtutum Dei*. Everything
depends upon His being recognised as the fons omnium bonorum*. Our question must be, not quid?* but
qualis sit Deus? Quid iuvat Deum cognoscere quocum nihil sit nobis negotii?* In respect of God known as
Lord and Father and just Judge, we must ask ourselves: quomodo mentem tuam subire queat Dei cogitatio,
quin simul extemplo cogites, te, quum figmentum illius sis, eiusdem imperio esse ipso creationis iure
addictum et mancipatum? vitam tuam illi deberi? quicquid instituis, quicquid agis, ad illum referri
oportere? Id si est, iam profecto sequitur, vitam tuam prave corrumpi nisi ad obsequium eius componitur,
quando nobis vivendi lex esse debet eius voluntas* (I, 2, 12). According to Calvin, the whole of existence
and the whole course of the world is in itself an answer not only to the question quid?* but also to qualis
sit Deus?* and a unique summons ad Dei notitiam, non quae inani speculatione contenta in cerebro tantum
volitet, sed quae solida futura sit et fructuosa, si rite percipiatur a nobis, radicemque agat in corde. A suis
enim virtutibus manifestatur Dominus, quarum vim quia sentimus intra nos et beneficiis fruimur, vividius
multo hac cognitione nos affici necesse est, quam si Deum imaginaremur cuius nullus ad nos sensus
perveniret* (I, 5, 9). Therefore under these objective and subjective aspects Calvin has already described
what he understood by the Dei notitia hominum mentibus naturaliter indita* (I, 3). This is still only an
anticipation of what is later described as the knowledge of God mediated through Holy Scripture and
realised in Jesus Christ. The objective basis of real knowledge of God, and the virtutes Dei* revealed in
creation, are actually hidden from natural man as a result of the fall, so that according to Calvin also real
knowledge of God in the form of natural knowledge of God does not occur: quum frustra Deus omnes
populos ad se invitet caeli terraeque intuitu* (I, 6, 4). This being the case, the revelation of God in Jesus
Christ attested in the Scriptures means objectively that for us now probe et ad vivum a suis operibus
describitur Deus, dum opera ipsa non ex iudicii nostri pravitate, sed aeternae veritatis regula aestimantur*
(I, 6, 3). The divina benevolentia* now, so to speak, rends the veil of human non-understanding and
misunderstanding, and the rule of all real knowledge of God now comes into forceand this is the
subjectively new thing which takes place on the basis of revelation: Omnis recta Dei cognitio ab obedientia
nascitur (I, 6, 2). Quodnam vere doctrinae initium est, nisi prompta alacritas ad audiendam vocem Dei?
(I, 7, 5). Les hommes ne suyvront point Dieu en dormant: encores quils sy efforcent beaucoup* (Serm. on
Deut. 5:2833; C.R. 26. 413). No: Dei cognitio est efficax nec vero hoc tantum ex Dei natura manat, ut
cognitum statim amemus, sed idem Spiritus, qui mentes nostras illuminat, inspirat etiam cordibus
conformem scientiae affectum. Quamquam hoc secum fert Dei cognitio, ut eum timamus et amemus. Neque
enim dominum et potrem, ut se ostendit, possumus agnoscere, quin praebeamus nos illi vicissim morigeros
filios et servos obsequentes* (Comm. on 1 Jn. 2:3; C.R. 55, 311). For Calvin the fulfilment of the real
knowledge of God is a cycle. God gives Himself to be known in His will directed towards us. God is known
by us as we are submissive to this His will. It is obvious that this cycle corresponds exactly to what is called
knowledge of God in the Old and New Testaments. The encounters between God and man in the sphere of
that secondary objectivity of God mean singly and in the aggregate the taking place of a history (Calvin: a
negotium*) between God and man. This history begins with a voluntary decision of God and continues in
a corresponding voluntary decision of man. This history develops systematically and completely. The will
of God offers itself as good will towards men and is met by faith. Man with his will yields and becomes
submissive to the will of God. Faith becomes the determination of his existence and therefore obedience.
And in this way the knowledge of God takes place. According to the Bible there is no knowledge of God
outside this cycle. Knowledge of God means knowledge of the way or ways of God, which as such are
good, true, holy and just. How can they be known except as God gives them to be known, i.e., gives Himself
to be known as the One who goes these ways? Everything depends on this divine precedence. But again,
how can they be known except as man for his part travels ways which in his sphere correspond to the ways
of Godways of wisdom, of life, of peace, which are indeed no longer his own ways, no longer the ways
of the heathen and godless? Thus everything depends too on this human proceeding and going with God. It
is therefore of more than external significance that according to the Gospels all the dealings of Jesus with
His disciples take place in such a way that He is with them and they are with Him on the waynot any sort
of way, but on the way determined by Him. In His going this way and their going with Him, their knowledge
of God is fulfilled. That is to say, they reach the faith which as suchas faith in Him whom God has sent
is knowledge of Him as the One sent by God and therefore knowledge of the God who has sent Him. So
decisive is this connexion that, according to Jn. 14:6, Jesus calls Himself absolutely the Way, and thus
the Truth and the Life (i.e., revelation and salvation). Again, after Pentecost the preaching of His name and
faith in Him is described just as absolutely as this way (Acts 9:2, 22:4, 24:14. Cf. 2 Peter 2:2). A break
in this connexion, and therefore the establishment or presupposition of real knowledge of God apart from
this way, without manifestation of the divine will or without the corresponding human decision of will, can
hardly be found in the sphere of the biblical witness of God. Where God in His benevolentia* gives Himself
to be known by man, and where man stands before Him as the one who knows this benevolentia* as such
and is therefore determined by it and obedient to it, there and there alone is there a fulfilment of the real
knowledge of God.

To summarise, we started out from the fact that we are concerned with the problem of the
knowledge of God as bound to the Word of God. The task we set ourselves was to understand how
this came to pass. We first of all established that it is as such objective and therefore real
knowledge; it is not identical with God Himself, but it has its object in God. That is to say, it is the
knowledge of faith, in which God becomes object to man. It is a particular, separating and
sanctifying object distinguishing between itself and the knowing man, so that knowledge of God
necessarily has to be understood as an event outstanding in its relationship to other events. We
saw, moreover, that this objectivising of God always occurs concretely in the use of a medium, in
the putting on of a veil, in the form of a work of God; and therefore knowledge of God occurs in
the fact that men make use of this medium. But, on the other hand, this medium, and therefore this
mediate knowledge of God, is not to be thought of apart from the grace in which God the Lord
controls and uses this medium and is Himself its power. Thus the knowledge of God can be
understood only as the bestowal and reception of this free grace of God. And finally, because in
this act of His free grace God makes Himself object to us and makes us knowers of Himself, the
knowledge of this object cannot be fulfilled in neutrality, but only in our relationship to this act,
and therefore only in an act, the act which is the decision of obedience to Him.
And now we look back to the beginning. All this, regarded first from mans side, is the
fulfilment of the knowledge of God as bound to the Word of God. At the outset we said of the
knowledge of God as bound in this way that neither its reality nor its possibility can be questioned
from without. We said that in regard to both its reality and its possibility we have to keep to its
fulfilment, understanding both its reality and its possibility from within. We shall now have to take
a second step. We shall have to understand it, not from mans side, but from Gods. The first step
should have made it clear that when we delimited the bound knowledge of God from other
ostensible or real knowledge of God by rejecting any other understanding of its reality and
possibility than that which proceeds from within outwards, we were not guilty of an arbitrary
absolutising of any human position. Of course, this bound knowledge of God is also formally a
human position, and materially a human affirmation. It is a human thesis like any other, to which
as such the question coming from without seems to be not only permissible but even necessary.
There can be no question of ascribing to this human position as such a special legal title, a
particular superiority and certainty over against other human positions. It does not lay claim to any
such things. It is even more unassuming than all other human positions in that it quite simply takes
its stand beside them without any legal title, without proof of its superiority and certainty, even
without proof of its equality of rights. But on the other hand, the unpretentiousness in which we
represent the position of the bound knowledge of God as a human position must not be regarded
as a cause and ground for misunderstanding the essence and nature of this position; nor should
motives of humility lead us to transform it into the essence and nature of any other human position.
It is quite essential to this human position of the knowledge of God bound to the Word of God that
it cannot let its reality and possibility be questioned from without, that it can reply to such questions
only by a reference to its fulfilment, or rather only by the fulfilment itself, allowing its own
actuality to speak for itself. If anything else takes place, this human position has already been
transformed, betrayed and finally destroyed. In this wayand this way alonecan it be adopted,
defended and maintained. We have to assert this, in a friendly but emphatic manner, when all other
human positions complain about the self-sufficiency and pride which reigns here, or the ambiguity
which arises when this problem is rejected, or the dangers of isolation and illusion which we are
supposed to have incurred. Those who want to support and hold this human position cannot
impress this fact sufficiently upon themselves. It is possible to leave this position (although seen
from within, it has to be said that in point of fact we cannot leave it), but it is quite impossible to
defend and maintain it unless we represent its reality and possibility from within outwards, and do
not try to establish its reality and possibility from outside. From outside means from the point
of view of a human position where truth, dignity and competence are so ascribed to human seeing,
understanding and judging as to be judge over the reality and possibility of what happens here. But
this is the very thing which is excluded by the inner understanding of what happens, as we are
taught at least by our first step. Already we have had to understand the knowledge of God bound
to the Word of God as an event utterly undetermined by man but utterly determined by God as its
object. God distinguishes Himself from man in this event. God also distinguishes this event from
all other events. Gods work is the medium of this event, and that in such a way that if this event
comes to pass God is and remains the operator of His work. And in respect of this event man is
himself already immitted into this event. He is already brought on to a way parallel with Gods
way, and thus placed in the impossibility of ascribing to himselfhimself the judgedthe office
of judge over this event. If the knowledge of God bound to the Word of God is the knowledge of
faith, and if we have represented it correctly in our analysis, how can there subsequently be
acknowledged a human judgment upon this event? What else can this mean but that the absolute
lordship of God as the One who is known over the man who knows is again denied? But this is the
very thing which must not happeneither from the need humanly to assure the human position of
the knowledge of God bound to the Word of God, or even out of humility towards other human
positions.1

1Karl Barth, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics: The
Doctrine of God, Part 1, vol. 2 (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004), ix31.