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United Theological College A Paper Presentation On Sub: Study of the Text: Karl Barth Topic: Evangelical Theology in the 19th Century Submitted to: Dr.O.V. Jathana By: Nifato Chishi

Introduction In the evangelical theology of the 19th century Barth examines the theology of liberalism against which he was having a hard time. One of the major ways in which Barth was in conversation with his 19th century heritage was in his preoccupation with giving an account of relation of God to humanity. 1 In this essay Barth explores the understanding of relationship between God and human, also the misunderstanding of the theology of 19th century evangelical theology, not forgetting the contribution they had made towards the development of Christian theology. This paper is an attempt to observe some of major issues which Barth have tackled, wrestled and responded to it.

1. Barths understanding of Theology Theology in the literal sense is the science and doctrine of God and it is also the doctrine of the commerce and communion between God and man. 2 He thinks that theology is thinking from a centre in God, being actively communicating by the form of personal being and truth and letting human understand that the true thinking and knowing is only through Him. By this he means that theology involves both man and God, and God known not through human effort but that God reveals Himself. Secondly, theology is understood as logos of God and this logos has been incarnated into flesh in and trough Jesus Christ, and through him God is revealed and is communicated to human kind. Thus in Jesus Christ, God has objectified himself for human kind and has given Himself to human knowing and understanding. Finally, theology is also a way of human understanding of God in accordance with the way in which He has objectified Himself in Jesus Christ. 3 For Barth theology also belongs to the wider realms of the Christian church, ecumenical and universal, in space and time as well. 4

Charles C. West, Review of Humanity of God in Theology Today, edited by Hugh T. Kerr (Richmond: John Knox Press,) , vol VII, No. 4 (1961) : 554. 2 Karl Barth, The Humanity of God (Richmond: John Knox Press), 1960, 11. 3 Thomas. F. Torrance, Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian (Edinburgh: T&T Clark), 1990, 46-47. 4 Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 12.

So when Barth talks about the evangelical theology he means that, evangelical means informed by the gospel of Jesus Christ as heard in the Holy Scripture. Thus for Barth evangelical theology is the science and doctrine, the commerce and communion between God and man as learned by the gospel of Jesus Christ in the Holy Scripture. 5

2. Theology and Philosophy in the 19th century The understanding of Christian man in the 19th century was nourished from Herder to Kant and understanding of Christian man leaves only a small space for the individual religious experience because theology was turned into philosophy of the history of religion in general and of the Christian religion in particular.6 For Barth theology which is the interpretation of the word of God spoken to human existence cannot allow the place and authority of that word to be assumed by a word of man that derives from his own reflection upon the problems of human existence. 7 Also there were the liberals who were tied more strictly to the Bible and the traditional teaching. Harnacks contribution to the 19th century theology had a great impact and it helped to mend in times of brokenness but professors like Ernst Troeltsch gave up theology for the sake of philosophy 8 Barth states that, theology that takes its task as a rational thinking cannot escape the encounter with philosophy and natural science because theology cannot operate on its own, but in the same realm of human thinking where philosophy and sciences are at work. This does not meant to state that theology should give up its peculiar nature but it means that theology should operate in the realm of human thinking and speech as its instrument in order to understand the world of being and order. Again theology should not allow those philosophies to overlap but should understand the distinction between them so that it could maintain its own peculiar nature. 9

3. Impact of the Wilhelm II War policy Barth regarded August 1914 as a black day since it was the day when ninety-three German intellectual support the war policy of Wilhelm II and his counsellors. And one of most discouraging thing for Barth was that even some his theological teachers supported this war policy10 and among them were professor Harnack and Herrmann, who even wrote speech for Kaiser supporting the war. This made him to depart from the liberal theology and it also shakes his respect with the relationship between theology and politics.11

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Ibid., 11. Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 13. 7 Thomas. F. Torrance, Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian, 59. 8 Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 14. 9 Thomas. F. Torrance, Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian, 51. 10 Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 14. 11 Clifford Green, Karl Barth: Theologian of Freedom (London: Collins), 1989, 15-16.

This had a great impact on Barths theological understand and made him to find a new way. This also had an impact in departing from the early Barth. He realised that the church was conformed to the suffering of the world rather than healing it. This perplexity and frustration made him to take up the word of God very seriously and in it he found Gods world. He then discovered that the bible is primarily not concerned with mans view of God but vice versa, not with religion but with revelation, not with how man finds God but how God has sought and found man. 12 Barth now changed his thought which took its point of departure from religious experience and reason to revelation and faith. Barth now discovered something new which the liberal had tended to forget and that is the relationship between God and man, in it the righteousness of God is opposed to righteousness of man and also the words and ways of God are not the words and ways of men. 13

4. Theology, Church and the world The key problem arose because of the conviction that the guiding principle of theology must be confrontation with the contemporary age and their eyes were fixed on the world and even their thoughts were conditioned by this attitude, however, Barth did accept that theology should relate to the world. 14 But Barth main concerned was to establish the truth that God can be known truly only in accordance with His nature as it is revealed in the overflowing of His life and love to the creation. He rejected the idea of pantheism and romanticism that is embedded in the modern culture and stress on the idea that let God really be God and man really be man. He also attacked all the religion and culture that is grounded upon romantic and irrational principles. And his main concern was to keep away theology from the mistaken outlook of the religious philosophy of the 19th century grounded on the natural structures of mans life and history.15 For Barth, the recognition that God revealed himself as Lord in Jesus Christ was the means by which theology could be freed from the threatening influence of culture, anthropology and philosophy and thereby develops and maintains its intellectual autonomy. God is revealed as Lord in Jesus Christ which is permanent and nothing can be replaced for this and the only way to understand about who God is to be discovered in the historical form of God selfrevelation in and through the lordship of Jesus Christ. 16 He furthers added that theology was for the church and its main concern is based on the gospel of Jesus Christ and the faith responding to it and therefore the church should respond with intellectual and biblical truth and should find a new way of proclaiming it. 17 The real
Karl Barth, How I Changed my Mind (Richmond: John Knox Press), 1966, 22. Ibid., 23. 14 Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 18. 15 Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 16 Alister McGrath, Barth on Jesus Christ, Theology and the Church , Reckoning with Barth: Essays in Commemoration of the Centenary of Karl Barth s Birth, edited by Nigel Biggar (Oxford: A.R.Mowbray), 1988, 31. 17 Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 18.
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Church is not the society of the individuals where people come together with their common interest in Jesus Christ but it is a divine institution founded and elected by God so that He can share His divine life and love, and also to share about His knowledge to the humankind. And since the Church is divine therefore it is not shaped by the human ideology and outlook, rather it is governed by the Word of God and human living in accordance to His Words. 18 There are some of the points which Barth regards that the theology went overboard which was its main weakness. They were very open to the world, and this means that, there was so much influence from the worldly affairs and so there was less achievement for the Church to understand the Christian truth. Also this openness made to undermine both theology and Church with very low status and thereby with this openness there was also abuse of church and theology. 19 The German church treated national social culture as the major premise and Jesus Christ as the minor premise but Barth insists that the Christian church must fight on the basis of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and nothing else; the Church must judge the culture basing on the word of God and instead of judging the word of God by a particular culture. 20 With the coming of Hitler to the power in 1933, Barth was deeply involved in the church struggle and founded the Confessing Church, reacting vigorously and resentfully against the Nazi ideology of blood and soil and its attempt to set up German Christian church. Barth gave an uncompromising expression to his conviction that the only way to resist against the secularisation and paganisation of the church is to hold fast to the one ground of Christianity which is in Gods self revelation in Jesus Christ. 21 On the other hand it was the liberals who supported Hitlers programme, seeing it as a revival of German culture. Both the liberal and Barth hold on the historical understanding of Jesus Christ but in a different way, for Barth Jesus is the historical self-discloser of God, a divine act in human history whereas for the liberal Jesus was the historical manifestation of the human religious ideal. 22 Barth is disturbed as he observes that the protestant theological tradition since Schleiermacher has been characterized by an account of Gods relation to humanity. Liberal theology and culture were build around an affirmation of Gods immanence by relating God with the factor of human history, culture and religion. They assume that religion is an activity and ingredient where God himself had intervened and cultivated. But for Barth if God is related to humanity in such a way then it undermines the absolute originality of God because God is absolute and pure and therefore He is distinguished from human and anything related to human experience. 23

Thomas. F. Torrance, Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian, 49-50. Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 19. 20 Alister McGrath, Barth on Jesus Christ, Theology and the Church , 39. 21 Thomas. F. Torrance, Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian, 9. 22 Alister McGrath, Barth on Jesus Christ, Theology and the Church , 29. 23 John Webster, Barth , (London, New York : Continuum), 2000, 25.
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5. Christian Faith, Christian Message. Basing on the assumption to openness to the world the 19th century theology again assumed that theology will have its stand only if God could be recognized along the framework of a total view of man, the universe and God. At this point Barth observes that the validity of the Christian message was at stake. Though some the Protestantism has always maintained that no inward or outward pressure should influence upon anyone to accept Christian message and Christian faith, in reality they have failed to observe this practically and this happened same both to the 19th and 18th century theologians. In the evangelistic and missionary background of the 18th century, it is observed that the validity of the message of Jesus Christ and faith in him was free to accept which is a good point to be noted. But the problem of the 19th century theologians was that the Christian faith was conditioned with the world views. Which means that they always try to find a point of reference in the world view in order to accept the validity of the Christian faith and message. 24 One of the serious questions that arose out of the development of the 19th century theologians is that, could the Christian message and the Christian faith be a subject for debated while the validity of the general world view is presupposed? Is there any proof that acceptance of a particular world view will make Christianity generally accessible or even possible? Even granted the existence of mans religious disposition, can the Christian faith be called one of its expressions, in other words a religion?25 When the 19th century evangelical theologians agreed to this on the other hand Barth argues that if Christian faith has to be understood as a religion then the Christian faith will lose its essence. But they were not aware of this consequence which brought failure in their missionary tasks at a deeper level. The evangelistic concern became an apologetic which sought to win the gentiles for the Christian cause by first accepting the gentile point of view. The 19th century theology assumed that relatedness to the world as its primary task and they gave less importance to the Christian message and also they were more concern in mans relationship to God than in Gods dealing with man. This understanding also had an impact in their biblical interpretation and later to the formulation of Christian faith, moreover their theological understanding is also condition by the philosophy of religion and the history of human. 26

6. Relationship between God and man Barth now shifts his understanding of relationship between God and man by stating that it is not possible to understand Gods commerce with man unless mans commerce with God is taken into consideration and adds that theology is not only the doctrine of God alone but it implies both God and man. 27For Barth mans commerce with is simply in terms of how Man
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Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 21. Ibid., 23. 26 Ibid., 23-24. 27 Ibid., 25.

understanding and proclaim about God. His theology gives importance to practical theology especially on the preaching and he is convicted that it is here that God acts and through this proclamation of the word of God, the church and the world are forced to hear the word of God. Again this word of God has three fold forms: in Jesus Christ, in scripture and in the proclamation of the church.28But the 19th century theology emphasis more on Gods dealing with man rather than man dealing with God. Had the approach from below had been genuine the 19th century theology could have had a genuine expression in their theology. 29

7. Barths concluding remarks on Evangelical Theology of the 19th century Though the 19th century theology had its weaknesses it was successful under Herder and the Romantics in differentiating Christian faith from other religions. On the other hand Christian faith is shaped by its relation to the history which finds its central meaning in the name of Jesus Christ. And this makes an urgent task for the Christians to look into the Biblical exegesis, history of the church and its dogmas. They were justified by the historical phenomenon in their understanding of Christian faith. But for Barth it has to approach the person and the life of Jesus on the basis of the New Testament record; moreover a particular event has to be related to the historical event of Jesus Christ. They should be serious in looking at the historical development of the church throughout the centuries and thereby ascertaining the contemporary form of Christian faith. 30 The 19th century theologians failed to read the New Testaments original meaning and they try to understand it as a document of religious phenomenon. Martin Kaehler in the 19th century raised some of the fundamental question but it received no attention from the other theologians. When they gave more emphasises to the Christian religion rather than to find its central meaning in the name of Jesus Christ and therefore to others the theology of the 19th century appeared as a history of religion to. And it might be because of this that there was a mutual difference between the evangelical theology and the Roman Catholic theology. The evangelical theology criticized the Roman Catholic theology for dealing with the authority without being critical and historical whereas on the other hand the Roman Catholic theology criticized the evangelical theology for secularising the Christian faith. Though they differ in their theological understanding they were never keen to pay attention to one another rather they were on their own way.31

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Alister McGrath, Barth on Jesus Christ, Theology and the Church , 35. Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 25. 30 Ibid., 28-29. 31 Ibid.,

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8. Reflection Though Barth have criticized and challenged the evangelical theology of the 19th century it must not be forgotten that there is substantial continuity in that as Barth puts it but the 19th centurys task remain for us too.32 In this easy Barth have clearly insisted upon the Christians to centre upon the realization of God through the historical form in which God has revealed himself. Though philosophy, culture, anthropology and human history are part of human life it cannot replace the revelation of God in the history. The revelation of God through Jesus Christ is an important significant for the Christian to relate in the daily life and struggles of human life. He also gave an equal importance to mans commerce with God, which means how human understand and relate themselves to God, in way it is important because if human misunderstand or misinterpret in wrong way in understanding God then theology will be at stake. He also calls upon the church to give importance on the message of the gospel and respond to the social, political and religious problem through faith in Jesus Christ. The church should not be influenced by the wrong ideologies and concept in understanding God, which was a serious problem in the 19th century theology. This short essay of Barth also warns the contemporary Christian church and theologian to be aware of the loopholes in interpreting God. It challenges the Christian to be firm in their faith to God and affirm their relationship with God who has disclosed Himself in and through the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Especially in a pluralist society both the Church and theologians should be careful not to romanticise God to a particular cultural or historical experience of human society. Though it is important to note the struggle of human experience and culture on the other hand God cannot be related to that situation alone but God is the one who is absolute and cannot be comprehended with mere human knowledge and philosophy.

Conclusion Had not the 19th century theology made a mistake and had not Barth observed the loopholes in their theological understanding then it is imaginable that Christian faith and Christian message would have been narrowed down to religion. But both had made a great impact in the history of Christian theology till today to rethink about the importance of Christian faith, Christian message and the revelation of God through the lordship of Jesus Christ which is an important significance towards Christianity in understanding the relationship between God and human.

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Karl Barth, The Humanity of God,

8 Bibliography Barth, Karl. How I Changed my Mind. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1966. Barth, Karl. The Humanity of God. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1960. Green, Clifford. Karl Barth: Theologian of Freedom. London: Collins, 1989. McGrath, Alister. Barth on Jesus Christ, Theology and the Church, Reckoning with Barth: Essays in Commemoration of the Centenary of Karl Barths Birth, edited by Nigel Biggar. Oxford: A.R.Mowbray, 1988. Torrance, Thomas. F. Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990. Webster, John. Barth. London, New York : Continuum, 2000. Webster, John. Introducing Barth in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, edited by John Webster. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2000. West, Charles C. Review of Humanity of God in Theology Today, edited by Hugh T. Kerr. Richmond: John Knox Press,, vol VII, No. 4 (1961).

This is a book for which interpreters of Karl Barth in the English speaking world have been waiting many years. Many of the author's short writings have appeared in English. Often they have disturbed us like the arrival of screaming rockets from some unknown launching pad. But on the whole they have been occasional opinions of the great theologian, not expressions of his central theological concern. Slowly the volumes of the Church Dogmatics are appearing in English which give us the full range of Barth's theology. But few readers have time to explore the peaks and valleys of this vast landscape. Most theologically minded Americans have heard by now that the Barth who wrote his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, who so exalted the otherness of God that all human questions and standpoints were as nothing before His word, has developed over the years since that first protest a vast range of positive profoundly human theology based on the fact that God has revealed himself as man in Jesus Christ. But where, they ask, can we find this new and complete Karl Barth succinctly expressed in his own words? This book is the answer to this question. The three essays which it contains are Barth's own brief expression of the central themes which have concerned him throughout his life, chosen and developed with the sovereign wisdom of a life-time's reflection and experience. Here is Barth in the simplicity which is the fruit of years of struggle with the complexity and confusion of man's understanding of himself before God. 554 - The Humanity Of God There are three essays in this book in this book each of which deserves a separate word. "Evangelical Theology in the 19th Century" is logically placed first, although it was written most recently. Barth's appreciation of his nineteenth century German predecessors from Schleiermacher to Ritschl and Troeltsch will be surprising to those who know only his violent polemic against their point of view. It was, says Barth, their missionary and evangelistic concern for a world overwhelmed by rationalism to which the Pietists were not speaking which underlay their work. They were right in keeping their eyes fixed upon the world. A theology which fails to do so becomes abstract and unreal. They were right in taking man and his culture seriously. There is even "a place for legitimate Christian thinking starting from below and moving up, from man who is taken hold off by God, to God who takes hold of man." It could be called theology's attempt to explore the working of the Holy Spirit. "We cannot consider God's commerce with man without concurrently considering man's commerce with God. Theology is in reality not only the doctrine of God, but the doctrine of God and man."

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The issue therefore which Barth takes with his nineteenth century forbears is not that they stressed the importance of man and the world, but that they gave this side of theology decisive importance and measured their understanding of God and His word by it. Theology was justified by the philosophy, the Weltanschauung which underlay it. Christian faith was commended as the best species of the genus religion. The evangelistic concern became an apologetic which sought to "win tile gentiles for the Christian cause by first accepting the gentile point of view." In the course of this a number of assumptions were made about man's own religious capacities and about man's knowledge of his fellowmen which are at least far from self-evident. "May not man be more hidden from man, the Christian from other Christians than God is hidden from man?" Or, in the words of the third essay in this book, "why deny priority to God in the realm of knowing when it is uncontested in the realm of being? If God is the first reality how can man be the first truth? " The consequence of this exclusive anthropocentrism which drove Barth into opposition against it was its failure in ethics. These nineteenth century theologians were not men with a freedom over against the societies of which they were a part. They were anxious conservatives whose very scientific certainty rendered insecure the platform from which they might have borne witness to the world of the judgment and grace of God. Those of us in the Anglo-Saxon world who tend to regard Barthianism as an escape from social responsibility would do well to ponder Barth's essay at this point. It cuts two ways into our society. On the one hand we may recognise with gratitude to God that a great deal more sense of 555 - The Humanity Of God the judging and redeeming word of God remained with even our most liberal exponents of the social Gospel than with the Germans whom Barth is here describing. On the other hand it may be for us a warning. How much anxious conservatism do we find today in what once boasted of being radical and even socialist Christianity?

One of the major ways in which Barth was in conversation with his 19th century heritage was in his preoccupation with giving an account of relation of God to humanity. In early work, the preoccupation expressed itself urgent attempts to find a satisfactory answer to the question: how is God God for us? Barth/s answer always involved him in denying some of the basic premises of the 19th century theology- the priority of religious subjectivity and experience, the identification of God with ethical values, and the presentation of Jesus as archetypal religious and moral consciousness. And as his thought developed, Barth became increasingly confident that no answer to the question of Gods relation to humanity can be considered satisfactory which abstracts from the axiomatic reality of Gods self-presence in Jesus Christ. The brilliance of Barths account of that reality was enough to bring large parts of the edifice

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of 19th century liberalism crashing to the ground. Yet even so, it must not be forgotten that there is substantial continuity in that as Barth put it the 19th century tasks remain a challenge for us, too. 33

John Webster, Introducing Barth in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, edited by John Webster (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press), 2000. 11-12

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