"In history itself there is nothing, so far as the eye can see, that could provide a foundation for belief... In history itself everything could always also have been regarded as quite different. One should unequivocally hold that faith is based on revelation - on historical revelation to be sure, but on revelation; and one should get accustomed to thinking of revelation as a special category, as that unresolvable unity of happening, speaking and listening which is actually witnessed to in the Bible. Whoever wants to find revelation must find revelation and not something else, not something that revelation is as well. Otherwise he does not find revelation at all".
K. Barth
I think Barth comes closer to revealing his own position (among all these rather mysterious and cryptic paragraphs) in a casual remark:
"The more clearly the biblical witnesses of Jesus Christ speak, the more what they say gets lost in what we should today call the realm of pure legend".
In other words, the more clearly the Bible claims a revelation has occurred, the less reliable that passage is as history.
Barth's way of thinking here is rather weird: on the one hand he seems to share the historical judgement of liberal biblical scholars who thought that the events that reveal God's power in the Bible did not actually occur, but on the other he didn't follow them in disregarding these events and concentrating on something else. Rather he affirmed that the whole complex event of the Bible, which centred around those alleged revelations of God's power, was an indispensable part of a larger pattern of revelation.
This, to me, sounds like a lot of trickery focused on escaping the obvious conclusions to which your investigations are leading you. I can understand why people like Bultmann would get very angry when finding this dualistic view about the Bible. What I find harder to understand is why so many people today keep using these tricks in order to continue believing that which they suspect is not historically true anymore.
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Who, in your opinion, are the “so many many people today” engage in trickery a la Barth?
ReplyDeleteIs there also some trickery in the modern approach that wants to pretend that its findings are empirical facts, or are in some sense neutral (and also guilty of dualism in disregarding the experience of faith)? We must take into account the disillusionment with modern debate, both liberal and conservative, which seemed to reduce truth to supposed historical facts... and so on.
It is not a necessarily an endorsement of Barth’s theology and nebulism regarding the historical issues to view revelation as having some bearing on hermeneutics. Sure, some current theologising is reminiscent Barth’s frustrating way of skirting the historical issue. But is this Barthian mode really so prevalent?
I often visit a page in spanish which is read by quite a lot of people from spanish-speaking countries. I have been surprised by the high number of people who take Barth as their theological hero. And I don't think (although I may be wrong) this is only a hispanic 'problem': somehow Barth tends to be often seen as a kind of theological 'saviour' of all those who find themselves overwhelmed by the conclusions they seem to be arriving at.
ReplyDeleteI don't deny that the 'modern' frame of mind - the XIX and early XX century way of thinking in which people often thought that they had arrived at some completely objective and absolute conclusions - contains falsehood. But I think that the moment we realized our conclusions were not objective but full of pressupositions we stepped beyond that frame of mind into a new one (perhaps not a very comfortable one, but new nevertheless). As far as I can see, however, Barth's theological trickery is still with us in trying to keep us away from this uncomfortable new-found way.
Thanks, that’s helps to clarify things.
ReplyDeleteThis thread brought to mind a test question I encountered at a particular Bible school a number of years ago:
Q: Was Karl Barth an influential theologian? True / False
A: False
If the question was to be answered essay format, I suppose it could make sense. Yet because this was a true/false question, it seemed a crass oversimplification. So I asked the lecturer why the answer was false. The answer: “well, Karl Barth isn’t influential for us.” I tried to suggest that recognising influence does not necessitate agreement... but this was probably considered shaky ground!
Just a round-a-bout way of saying that Barth’s theology, as far as I understand it, is important in relation to the multifaceted reaction that it caused in the theological world; i.e. its value is as a catalyst? For example, Moltmann’s theology makes sense as emerging out that tradition, while being highly critical of it (esp. in relation to what you wrote about in your initial post, reality and history).
As for the contemporary popularity of Barth, I haven’t encountered the same adherence that you have. This is quite interesting to me... I wonder, why? I suppose there is always as temptation in rallying behind a particular theologian or philosopher (at the school I mentioned above, there was, bizarrely, a group of Kenneth Gentry disciples): in a way, is it avoiding the discomfort that you mentioned above?
I don't deny (how could I) that Barth's theology has an important place in the history of systematic theology, and his legacy is still with us today. Perhaps Barth just did all he could at that particular historical moment in order to keep believing the things that he needed to believe; perhaps those solutions to the problems he encountered where particularly helpful for him and his frame of mind (as helpful as they seem to be today to the people I've encountered).
ReplyDeleteHowever, personally and only personally, I find that his conclusions would lead me away from the honesty (subjective, of course) I am trying to pursue and make me feel a little bit hypocrite. It's interesting the way the same ideas may lead different people is such different directions. I imagine that's why I react against them, and I imagine that's why you try to defend them.
Hi again,
ReplyDeleteSorry, upon reading it again, my last post wasn’t clear. I wasn’t trying to defend Barthian theology... just surprised that some use Barth’s writings as a starting point; as my limited experience of current theological discussion seems post-Barth (and that could just be a reflection of the circles I move in?). Nor did I mean to suggest that you weren’t recognising Barth’s influence (the story about the test question is just an anecdote I tell way too often – in no way similar to your approach!)... argh, but looking over the post again, it looks to hint at that. Again, really sorry if that came off the wrong way.
Anyway, it lead me to think about the way in which it is quite easy to adopt a particular theologian’s canon (such as Barth) as a set interpretive framework, thus avoiding the difficulty of making one’s own decisions. Tangential and off topic.
So what was my point?
I regards to your initial post about Barth and trickery, going by the quotes and your discussion of them, I basically agree regarding the dishonesty. Yet, I wonder if there it is possible to affirm the possibility of revelation while maintaining integrity about history?
No problem about misunderstandings - I am sure it all could be my fault in reading wrongly what you wrote. That's usually one of the many problems with virtual conversations: they can be easily misunderstood since we miss most of the visual contact with the other person's face, which I think is quite a fundamental part of human communication. It's nice to clarify where we stand, though.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really interesting question, the one you ask at the end. Can we talk about 'historical revelations' or 'revelations that take place within history'? I imagine that we can - in fact, I suppose that if we are going to talk about revelation, that's the only meaningful/relevant why of doing it, isn't it? I don't want to sound over-simplistic here, but what other revelations might happen to us that are not 'part of our history'? What other revelations can we talk about that are not part of human history? I am remembering now a woman who shared with me God's revelation to her in a vision she once had. If we take such a vision as an act of God, then we can talk about revelation from God and still consider it part of history (in fact, in that occasion, it was a vision with special relevance to that woman's historical situation).
I suspect that the main problem with this kind of 'historical revelation' is that we can never shake off the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps it was all in our minds, it wasn't really God. And I think (although I may be wrong) the pro-barthian people are trying to avoid that feeling by putting God's revelation in a different/higher/mysterious/undeniable/beyond-our-realm kind of stand which provides a different feeling, a higher certainty/assurance from our common falible human one.