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Eternity and Time in the Theology of Karl Barth
Recent years have seen a renewed interest in the relationship between eternity and time among philosophers, scientists, and theologians.1 Theologically, this question gets at the age-old problem of how an eternal God can interact with a temporal creation. A new generation of theologians is not content with the traditional answers proffered through the centuries. An eternal God who is wholly removed from our present experience and affliction, the thinking goes, is not a God we can trust. Karl Barth has been increasingly tapped as a resource for exploring this subject.2
However, no study to date has sought to explore how Barthâs relating of eternity and time is a common theme in the major loci of his Church Dogmatics.3 When we consider it as a literary whole, we can see that in CD Barth treats eternity and time across the various loci in a consistent and coherent way.4 Furthermore, Barth relates them through the linchpin of Christology: his solution to the eternity/time problem is bound up with his own particular christological recasting of traditional theological loci. His original way of relating the divine to the human in Christ presents new vistas for understanding how eternity and time relate.
Existing literature on Barthâs solution to the problem of eternity and time rightly picks up on his christological recasting of traditional formulations. However, there are questions that have not yet been addressed, such as: How does Barthâs Christology inform the relation between eternity and time? And does Barth merely employ a âchristological analogyâ as a heuristic device to explain how eternity and time can relate, or does his use of Christology bear more ontological weight? If we seek to answer these questions, it will become apparent how his Christologyâin fact, Christ himselfâis so central to his thought that it not only informs but structures every locus of his theology.5 Christ is centralâindeed, he is everythingâfor Barth. This is no mere christomonism, as some have labeled Barthâs theology. Rather, this is the idea of Christ-as-all, or what I call christopanism.6
A THIRD TIME-SPHERE
In this book, I will show how Barthâs reframed Christology is a common thread in the CD, which casts greater light on how he explains the relation between eternity and time by means of his Christology. Barthâs Christology is neither metaphysical nor merely heuristic; rather, it must be understood as an actâan event. The event of Jesus Christ in Godâs life is the only solution to the problem of time and eternity in every locus of theologyâwhether the doctrine of God, creation, reconciliation, or revelation. Jesus Christ is himself God, creation, reconciliation, and revelation. He is no abstract God but is both the electing, eternal God and the elected, temporal man in one divine act of rapprochement. Further, he is no abstract creature but is both the eternal Creator and the temporal creature in one divine act of rapprochement. Similarly, Jesus Christ is no abstract redeemer but is both the eternal redeemer and the time-bound man of sinful flesh in one divine act of rapprochement.7 Finally, for Barth there is no abstract notion of revelation but Jesus Christ is both the eternal revealer and the temporal receiver of revelation in one divine act of rapprochement. God, creation, reconciliation, and revelation are the eternal act of God in Jesus Christ, in whom and by whom time is eternity and eternity is timeâprecisely because and insofar as he has become time.8
This actualistic and temporal way of relating eternity and time is as monumental as it is revolutionary. In an attempt to bridge the infinite gap between eternity and time, Barth brings God and creation together in a third time-sphereâhis theology is three-dimensional. He affirms the theological existence of three times: Godâs time, our time, and the time of Jesus Christ. This last time is what Barth refers to as Gottes Zeit fĂŒr unsâGodâs time for us (KD I/2, 50).9 Gottes Zeit fĂŒr uns is a transcendent act of God in the event of Jesus Christ. Here, the Creator and the creature are temporally agglomerated in a perichoretic interpenetration of eternal divinity and temporal creatureliness in which God has become time without ceasing to be eternal. Thus eternity and time will always be one. In other words, they will always be Jesus Christ. For Barth, the rapprochement of eternity and time takes place in a transcendentally temporal act of God in Jesus Christ called âGodâs time for us.â It is this act of rapprochement on Godâs part that provides the conceptual foundation for Barthâs theologizing about his doctrine of election, creation, reconciliation, and revelation.
For Barth, Jesus Christ is himself a dialectical relation existing always and everywhere as a transcendent event. In him, eternity becomes temporal without ceasing to be eternal. Likewise, in him time is eternal without ceasing to be time. This is a relation-act that takes place in the event of Godâs life that is Jesus Christ; it does not occur in âour time.â Our time is fallen time and is therefore incapable of containing God or bearing the acts of revelation, creation, and reconciliation. And it is not Godâs time, which exists in a rarefied field of eternity. Rather, it is a third time: the time of Jesus Christ, who is himself God, and as such is also the act of creation, reconciliation, and revelation. He has always been the eternal God without ceasing to be temporal man. He is a time-bound man without ceasing to be the eternal God. Thus Christian theology may never speak about God or man, Creator or creation, Savior or saved, revelation given or received, in the abstract.10 The church must always speak about eternity and time as the dialectical reality of the event in Godâs life who is Jesus Christ. In this way, Barth proposes a consistently, unapologetically, and unequivocally Christian answer to the problem of the relationship between eternity and time. Furthermore, it is also a distinctly theological proposal as opposed to a speculative-philosophical one.
Barthâs theology stands at the juncture of two converging concepts. The first is the idea of a three-dimensional structure, qualified in terms of time. The second is the solution to the eternity/time problem found in a transcendent act of God. If these two insights into Barthâs thought remain underdeveloped, the radical nature of Barthâs proposal is muted or missed altogether. Too often, interpreters resort to understanding his theology as if he allows for a substance ontology. But until Barth is read consistently as a post-metaphysical, dialectical, and actualistic theologian, the greatest depths of his thought will never be plumbed.11
What is missing is a more precise understanding of Barthâs notion of the third time-sphere, âGodâs time for us,â the time of election, creation, reconciliation, and revelationâthe time of Jesus Christ. What relates Godâs time to our time is not a substance, an ontological thing. Rather, the relation is temporal, a matter of the two sharing in a common time. In light of this, I propose that we understand the relatedness of Godâs time and our time in terms of an actualized analogia temporis, or a temporal analogia actonis. By analogia temporis, I do not mean the idea that God and humanity share in a third metaphysical reality called âtime.â Rather, Barthâs view might best be described as an analogia veri temporisâan analogy of actual time. It is an analogical relation in which the commonality between eternity and time is the act of God in Jesus Christ, described in terms of time.12
TOWARD A CHRISTOLOGICAL READING OF ETERNITY AND TIME
In previous attempts to treat the relationship between eternity and time, as we have seen, the idea of Godâs third time as a transcendent act in Jesus Christ remained ignored in some and underdeveloped in others. I intend in this book to highlight and develop the importance of Barthâs concept of âGodâs time for usâ in his CD. I will identify those areas in Barthâs work that are most pertinent to the issue of how the estrangement of humanity from God is overcome in his notion of a third time-sphere. I will then set that teaching within the broader scope of what Barth is saying in the particular section and/or volume in which his teaching is found. In this way, I will avoid the pitfalls that occur in so many studies of Barth that engage in abstractly selective readings of CD.
This study will demonstrate that the early understanding of eternity and time found in Barthâs doctrine of God (especially in CD II/1) forms a common theme reappearing time and again throughout CD. If the great problem in theology is the estrangement of eternity from time, then the solution is nothing less than Jesus Christ. Therefore, the theological problem is cast in terms of the âinfinite qualitative distinctionâ13 between eternity and time. And, consequently, the only acceptable solution is the rapprochement of eternity and time in Christology. Any other solution comes from religion, against which God has already declared his own emphatic âNo!â14
The argument will proceed as follows. In chapter 2, I will focus on Barthâs initial discussion of eternity and time with regard to the eternality of God. This will be a close study of his treatment of the issue in his doctrine of God in CD II/1. I will seek to explain how he solves the problem of the eternity and time gap in his characteristically christological way, relative to his unique doctrine of election. I will give special attention to the expression âGod has time for us,â and unpack its meaning relative to his proposed solution. I treat this section of CD first because his idea of a third time-sphere forms the conceptual paradigm for solving all eternity-against-time problems that surface again and again in every locus of systematic theology.
In chapter 3, I will explore Barthâs proposed solution to the problem of how God relates to the creature in the act of creation. Specifically, the problem is this: How can an infinite, eternal, and unchangeable being be the cause of a finite, temporal, and mutable creature? Barthâs answer is quite radical and ingenious. On the one hand, he is not satisfied with the answers proposed in the Reformed tradition, where God creates, as it were, from a distance, yet that creation contains within it some manifestation of the being of God as it reveals God himself. Barth will have nothing to do with a Reformed notion of natural revelation. On the other hand, he is utterly dissatisfied with Aquinasâ notion of God as an uncaused Cause who simply serves as the source or fountain of creation. Rather, Barth radically redefines the notions of Creator and creature in terms of his Christology, eschewing any abstract conceptualization of either the Creator or the creature. Barth proposes a concrete rapprochement of Creator (eternity) and the creature (time) in the third time-sphere of Godâs act, who is Jesus Christ. In other words, Jesus Christ is both the eternal Creator and the temporal creature. In order to confirm this thesis, I will offer a careful analysis of Barthâs doctrine of providence and how he transforms the traditional Reformed doctrine in such a way that it parallels his notion of the rapprochement of eternity and time in the time of Jesus Christ, which is known as âGodâs time for us.â
In chapter 4, I will move on to explore Barthâs doctrine of reconciliation. As elsewhere, the underlying problem here is the great rift between God and humanity in the infinite qualitative difference between eternity and time. God is the eternal, merciful God who stands over against sinful, time-bound humanity. Once again, the solution to this âagainstnessâ of God toward humanity is found in the reconciling event of God in the third time-sphere, âGodâs time for us.â In this way, Barth articulates his version of the Reformed doctrine of union with Christ. Once more he retains the older Reformed language but reforms the Reformed view in terms that are thoroughly actualistic and temporal: Jesus Christ is himself the time of Gods u...