Reading Karl Barth

A Companion to Karl Barth's Epistle to the Romans

Oakes

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781621894391
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Karl Barth's 1922 The Epistle to the Romans is one of the most famous, notorious, and influential works in twentieth-century theology and biblical studies. It is also a famously and notoriously difficult and enigmatic work, especially as its historical context becomes more and more foreign. In this book, Kenneth Oakes provides historical background to the writing of The Epistle to the Romans, an introduction and analysis of its main themes and terms, a running commentary on the text itself, and suggestions for further readings from Barth on some of the issues it raises. The volume not only offers orientation and assistance for those reading The Epistle to the Romans for the first time, it also deals with contemporary problems in current Barth scholarship regarding liberalism, dialectics, and analogy.

Part I

Introduction

1 Background

Karl Barth’s Epistle to the Romans is a do-over, a retry, a stark revision of his earlier commentary by the same name.1 There are, then, actually two Epistle to the Romans written by Karl Barth. The first edition, or “Romans I,” was published in 1919, and has not yet been translated into English. Barth was a thirty-three year-old pastor at the time of its publication. The second edition, or “Romans II,” was published in 1922, and first translated into English in 1933. While the first edition secured Barth his first teaching post, the second edition is the clear winner in the rodeo of book survival and influence. Mention “Barth’s Epistle to the Romans” and the second edition will enter nearly everyone’s mind, with the notable exception of a handful of Barth specialists or those completely unaware of Karl Barth.

The Epistle to the Romans is a biblical commentary written by a young Swiss pastor. Underneath the original title of Romans I was printed “Karl Barth. Pastor in Safenwil,” a fact which some of its more academic reviewers pointed out.2 Likewise, when Barth finished Romans II he was still a young pastor working in Safenwil. He was the son of a preacher man, and the grandson of preachers on both his paternal and maternal sides. Barth was even ordained in 1908 by his own father, Johann Friedrich (“Fritz”) Barth. Long before Barth ever started teaching theology, he spent two years as an assistant pastor in Geneva (1909–11) and ten years as a pastor in Safenwil (1911–21). One could say that Barth was a second-career professional theologian, for he spent twelve years in the ministry before ever taking up his first university post (at the University of Göttingen in 1921). The feeling that Barth’s writings so often read like long and repetitive sermons no doubt finds some explanation in all his years in the ministry.

We should add that Romans I and II are biblical commentaries written by a pastor with just the equivalent of a college degree and some successful ordination exams in hand. Barth would eventually receive a host of honorary degrees from various prestigious institutions, but he himself never completed a PhD, or a Habilitation (a second post-graduate degree given after the PhD). Barth the pastor had, to be sure, studied under some of the shining theologians and historians of his time. As was typical for the time, Barth spent different semesters of his university career at a variety of different places in Germany and Switzerland. He spent time under Adolf von Harnack at Berlin, with Adolf Schlatter at Tübingen, and finally finished his university studies with Adolf Jülicher, Wilhelm Herrmann, and Martin Rade at the University of Marburg.

What follows in this chapter and the next is a brief account of how a Swiss country pastor with no official education after his university degree came to write a book like The Epistle to the Romans.

The Young and the Restless Karl Barth

A recently ordained Barth (1908) was so enamored with studying and living in Marburg that he was reluctant to leave after his studies had officially ended. Instead of immediately entering the parish, Barth spent another year in Marburg working as an editorial assistant for Martin Rade at Die Christliche Welt, one of the leading journals of the “modern theology” movement. Barth’s thought at this time was deeply imprinted by “the modern theology,” a school primarily populated by the disciples of Albrecht Ritschl (1822–89). It is interesting that the modern school, which would soon be called not “modern” but “liberal” after Barth was done, already thought itself to be beyond both theological conservativism (or “positive theology” as it was called) and liberal theology. The modern theologians engaged with modern culture, philosophy, and historical methods, while also stressing the importance (and independence) of faith and revelation. Following Ritschl, their theologies were centered upon Jesus Christ and the kingdom, the practical and ethical force of Christianity, the experience of the believer, and the Christian community. They were, it should be noted, also firmly against “natural theology” and particularly suspicious of Aristotle’s influence upon scholasticism.3 Barth’s own theology at this time was like that of his educators: highly experiential, individualistic, centered upon the idea of faith as surrender and trust, skeptical of natural theology and traditional metaphysical accounts of God and the world, and open to historical inquiry while still insisting on the independence and priority of faith. Such was Barth’s “liberal” or “pre-dialectical” theology.

Barth’s extra year in Marburg was followed by two years of being an assistant pastor in Geneva. Sermon preparation, confirmation classes, and visiting members of the congregation largely replaced reviewing and preparing articles for publication. Barth did, however, still find the time to read theology and write more academic pieces. In the summer of 1911 Barth became the head pastor of Safenwil, a largely agricultural and industrial town with a population of around 1,625 inhabitants. In Safenwil Barth preached, gave confirmation classes, and was involved in the concerns and cares of his parishioners. As Safenwil was an industrial town, pastoral care quickly took the form of being involved in worker and union disputes with factory owners (who were also among his congregants). Barth’s activities in these disputes earned him the nickname “the red pastor,” and the ire of some of the well off in his congregation. He developed an interest in socialism at this time, but at more of a practical rather than theoretical level. Barth’s early pastoral and political activities in Safenwil soon caused him to question some of the individualism within the “modern theology.”

Shortly after Barth moved to Safenwil he became good friends with Eduard Thurneysen, a pastor in the nearby village of Leutwil. This friendship would prove to be a highly significant one in Barth’s life, as he and Thurneysen would remain lifelong friends and close theological collaborators in this early period. Thurneysen in turn introduced the young pastor to a wide circle of friends, acquaintances, and contacts. Among these new acquaintances was Hermann Kutter, a pastor in Zürich. Kutter, along with Leonhard Ragaz, was one of the main voices of religious socialism in Switzerland. To put the matter all too simply, Kutter was the visionary of the religious socialists and stressed the need to wait and hope on God. Ragaz, by contrast, was the organizer intent on putting programs and policies into action. The tireless and active Barth initially felt closer to Ragaz, but within several years would move closer to Kutter’s position.

The first of August 1914 marked the outbreak of World War I. For several weeks Barth helped some of the farming families with their haymaking, as some of his congregants were called away to the Swiss frontier. He even spent some nights armed with a gun on guard duty. The shock and confusion of the war were compounded in October 1914 when ninety-three German intellectuals signed a document agreeing with the Kaiser’s war policy. Among the signatories were some of Barth’s past teachers, including Adolf von Harnack, Adolf Schlatter, and even Wilhelm Herrmann. There is a kind of myth about Barth’s reaction to discovering that his former teachers had signed such a document.4 The cruder versions of this story have Barth immediately rejecting everything about liberal theology and becoming overnight the dialectical theologian some revere and some fear. More sophisticated versions of the story of Barth and liberalism have Barth already questioning elements of his liberal upbringing as early as 1911 with the events of 1914 being a decisive factor in his increasing criticism of his nineteenth-century theological predecessors. The reactions of his former teachers shook and mystified Barth, but he would need some time to sort through his confusion.

Barth was also disappointed with the reaction of the socialists to the war. Instead of showing international support for workers the world over, the socialists had also adopted the various nationalist lines that were forming (especially the German Social Democrats). Despite his criticisms Barth still became a member of the Social Democrat Party in January of 1915. In the meantime Barth had moved from Ragaz’s activist line closer to the patient and expectant Kutter, although he wanted aspects of both of their positions. Barth soon found a living and breathing example of the reconciliation of these two positions—waiting on the kingdom of God alongside activity and work for the kingdom—in the figure of Christoph Blumhardt.5 Barth had known Blumhardt for some time and had even visited him a couple of times at Blumhardt’s retreat center in Bad Boll. In April 1915, however, Blumhardt’s mixture of waiting and looking for signs as well as his emphasis upon public, worldly action made a new impression on Barth (Blumhardt was not only a pastor but a Social Democrat as well, albeit a rather free-minded one).6

In the year that followed Barth continued his pastoral duties (one of his first studies after his meeting with Blumhardt dealt with Christian hope) and activities among the religious socialists. In addition to preaching Barth gave a number of significant addresses on the problem of war. The addresses from this time start to show rather clearly some of the characteristic tenets of Barth’s theology. In a lecture from November 1915, for instance, Barth proclaimed “the world is the world. But God is God.”7 This emphasis upon God being God was continued in an address given in January 1916, “The Righteousness of God,” in which Barth contrasted the righteousness of God and the unrighteousness of all human attempts to reach God and humanity’s tendency and need to construct idols.

In the summer of 1916 Barth and Thurneysen agreed that they needed some help in sorting out the questions of their theological inheritances, religious socialism, and the war, and so they decided to read. They discussed studying Kant or Hegel, but eventually decided on reading th...