God the Eternal Contemporary

Trinity, Eternity, and Time in Karl Barth

Adrian Langdon

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781610979986
  9781498263214
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630875404
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The relation of the eternal God to time and history has perplexed theologians and philosophers for centuries. How can Christians describe a God who is distinct from time but acts within it? This book presents one creative and profound approach to this perennial theme by examining the theology of Karl Barth. Contrary to interpretations of Barth that suggest he held a view of eternity as abstracted from time and history, this comprehensive study suggests that he provides a more complex and fruitful understanding. Rather than defining eternity in a negative relation to time, Barth relates eternity and time with reference to such doctrines as the Trinity and incarnation. This ensures overcoming what he saw as the "Babylonian Captivity" of an abstract philosophical definition of eternity that developed in the Western tradition. The central argument of the book suggests an analogia trinitaria temporis, a basic analogy between the eternal being of God and God's creating and activity within time. Also, implicit in Barth's view is a narrative view of time, similar to the view of Paul Ricoeur, which unfolds as the Church Dogmatics develops.

Part I

Overcoming the Babylonian Captivity

One

Eternity as the Dissolution of Time?

The claim I am making suggests that for Barth the doctrine of the Trinity is the basis for his discussion of eternity and time. This allows Barth to move beyond a timeless or static view of eternity to one which suggests that not only does the eternal God create and sustain created temporality but redeems and reconciles the creature in the times of the incarnate Son and Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, my interpretation is in contrast to some who suggest that in Barth we still have the “grin of the timeless cat,”1 or the persistence of a static “eternal present.”2 Richard Roberts states it most dramatically in describing Barth’s view of eternity: “Like some cancerous Doppelgänger, theological reality appears to inflate itself, drawing life from the reality it condemns, perfecting in exquisite form what could be seen as the most profound and systematically consistent theological alieniation [sic] of the natural order ever achieved.”3

Such criticisms need to be accounted for if the interpretation offered in this book is correct. Do others misinterpret Barth’s development or misunderstand what he suggests? Are there major shifts between Romans II and the Church Dogmatics in understanding eternity or is there continuity? Are there elements in Barth’s Christology or pneumatology which undermine his intentions to positively relate eternity and time? In this chapter we will clear the ground by beginning to answer some of these questions. Four basic sets of interpretations will be examined below. The first set of interpretations suggest that, in one way or another, despite Barth’s best intentions he ultimately reintroduces an atemporal or negative view of eternity. A second set focus on problems surrounding the fulfilled time of the Son, while the third set examines issues surrounding Barth’s pneumatology and ecclesiology. The fourth section highlights those who suggest turning to the Trinity for understanding Barth on eternity. While there are issues and questions to keep in mind from the first three categories, I will argue that those who turn to Barth’s trinitarianism provide the way forward in understanding his view on this important and complex topic.

The Charge of Atemporality

Many suggest that Barth reintroduces the traditional atemporal view of eternity or constructs a view with such tendencies. Barth, in these views, somehow betrays his best dogmatic intentions in being guided by residual philosophical categories or concepts that carry with them an atemporal construction. Representatives from this first group include Robert Jenson, Jürgen Moltmann, Richard Roberts, Colin Gunton and Alan Padgett.

The work of Robert Jenson provides one of the most substantial attempts in contemporary theology to reconstruct eternity and time in a positive relation. This attempt is noteworthy for the present discussion because his initial impetus arose from an engagement with Barth—though subsequently he moved beyond Barth. Highlighting the differences between the two will explain Jenson’s concerns with Barth, but also highlight how Barth’s view may be preferred to that of Jenson’s.

Jenson’s 1969 work God after God: The God of the Past and the God of the Future, Seen in the Work of Karl Barth was the first major work to take up the discussion of eternity and time in the Barth. Jenson correctly sees in Barth an attempt to overcome an abstract atemporal view of God. He points out that Barth reconstructs his doctrine of God by turning to the Gospel for a redefinition of God’s being. He appropriately notes the importance of both Christology and the Trinity for Barth’s construction. Jenson states, for example: “Jesus’ existence is the one great event to which all others, from the creation of the world to the blessedness of the saints, are subsidiary. The story is the story of Jesus Christ, and we and all creatures occur solely in that we have roles to play in that story.”4 Or again, reflecting on Barth’s trinitarianism in relation to eternity, he summarizes: “God comes to be understood not as a transcendent thing but as a transcendent happening, and his transcendence therefore understood not as his timelessness but as his radical temporality.”5

In the end, however, Jenson finds Barth’s view unsatisfactory, claiming that despite his best intentions Barth did not escape the atemporal tradition. For Jenson, the problem lies in Barth’s distinction between God’s being in himself and his temporal activity. 6 What Barth provides, Jenson argues, is nothing more than the Platonic view of time as the image of eternity. He rhetorically concludes: “But if the whole of God’s temporal story is to be analogous to something else, what can this something else be—if not a timeless deepest reality of God? The notion of analogy of the whole of time to something else is itself the grin of the timeless cat.”7 Jenson must conclude that Barth has not made good on his intentions to rescue eternity from its Babylonian captivity of an abstract atemporality.8 Yet, it is not altogether clear why Jenson is suspicious of the distinction between God in se and ad extra, which he argues must lead to Platonic timelessness. Jenson’s negative judgment of Barth can be explained by noting the following four differences between their two views.

First, methodologically, Jenson’s definition of eternity arises from reflecting on the problem of time itself. He suggests that religions offer different versions of eternity that are in fact answers to the problem of time.9 That is, versions of eternity bring unity and coherence to the fragmented human experience of time in which the past is lost, the future is feared, and the present is ever slipping away. The problem of time remains programmatic in Jenson’s definition of eternity even when he takes up the discussion of the Trinity. While Barth does define eternity using temporal predicates reflection on the problem of time as such does not serve the methodological role that it does in Jenson. Rather, the Trinity lies behind Barth’s definition of eternity, even when he defines it as the simul of past, present and future. Moreover, as to be examined below, time is only problematic when its proper use for fellowship with God is refused (“fallen time”). In this way, created time becomes fallen, but still remains the good creation of God as a universal form of human existence.

A second feature of Jenson’s view is the appropriation of Father, Son, and Spirit to past, present, and future respectively.10 Barth by contrast refuses to identify any one of the divine persons with the three m...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Eternity, Narrative Time, and Analogy
• Part 1: Overcoming the Babylonian Captivity
• Chapter 1: Eternity as the Dissolution of Time?
• Chapter 2: Rethinking Eternity and Time
• Part 2: Barth’s Analogia Trinitaria Temporis
• Chapter 3: The Theatre of the Divine Glory
• Chapter 4: Anticipatio et Recapitulatio
• Chapter 5: The Vinculum of Contemporaneity
• Conclusion
• Bibliography