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The Freedom of God in the Theology of Karl Barth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

George S. Hendry
George S. Hendry
Affiliation:
101A Kingston Terrace, R.D.4, Princeton, N.J. 08540
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Extract

The freedom of God is a major theme in the theology of Karl Barth. He treats of it at length in several places in the Church Dogmatics. It is a basic constituent of the being of God, and it plays a central part in the systematic connection between the being of God and his acts, as that is developed in the doctrine of election. It is the latter that will be examined in this article.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , June 1978 , pp. 229 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1978

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References

page 229 note 1 CD II/1, Chapter VI.

page 229 note 2 CD II/2.

page 229 note 3 von Balthasar, H. U., Karl Barth: Darstellung und Deutung seiner Theologie (Köln, 1962), p. 203.Google Scholar

page 229 note 4 CD IV/1, p. 47.

page 230 note 1 CD IV/1, p. 7.

page 230 note 2 CD II/2, p. 7f.

page 230 note 3 CD III/1, p. 42.

page 231 note 1 CD IV/1, p. 201.

page 231 note 2 CD II/1, p. 302. The German word is Wirklichkeit, which comes from the verb, wirken, to effect; it is the equivalent of the Greek which Barth in effect, substitutes for . ‘Actuality’ would be a better English rendering.

page 231 note 3 CD II/2, p. 76.

page 231 note 4 CD II/2, p. 94.

page 232 note 1 CD II/2, p. 102.

page 232 note 2 cf. von Balthasar, op. cit., p. 199.

page 232 note 3 CD II/2, p. 6, etc.

page 232 note 4 CD II/1, p. 5.

page 232 note 5 CD IV/1, p. 38.

page 232 note 6 CD IV/1, p. 44.

page 232 note 7 cf. Silber, John R. in Introduction to Kant's, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (Harper Torchbooks, 1960), p. cx.Google Scholar

page 233 note 1 op. cit., pp. lxxxviff. Some of the differences are so slight, they might be called different shades of meaning. But the effect is the same: a shift from one shade of meaning to another materially alters the picture.

page 233 note 2 CD IV/1, p. 39.

page 234 note 1 CD II/2, p. 28f.

page 234 note 2 CD II/1, p. 301.

page 234 note 3 CD I/1, p. 323, II/1, p. 302.

page 234 note 4 CD II/2, p. 168. The concept of ‘outreaching’ will be discussed later.

page 234 note 5 CD I/1, p. 102. Did Barth consciously borrow this term from Schelling?

page 235 note 1 CD I/1, p. 337.

page 235 note 2 CD I/1, p. 323. Barth adds that both sovereignty and freedom are combined in the NT concept of .

page 235 note 3 CD II/1, pp. 297ff.

page 235 note 4 CD II/1, pp. 257ff.

page 235 note 5 CD I/1, p. 391.

page 235 note 6 CD II/1, p. 260.

page 235 note 7 The term ‘energy’ ( first coined by Aristotle) is current in the Trinitarian theology of the Orthodox Church, but there it refers exclusively to the action of God ad extra and is equivalent to initiative in the sense indicated above. According to Orthodox theology, there is ‘a real distinction between the divine ‘essence’ and divine ‘energy’, and though created man may ‘participate’ in ‘the uncreated life of God’, and in ‘divine existence’, the divine ‘essence’ remains transcendent and totally unparticipable’; even when the divine energy is equated with ‘God-giving-himself’, there is a residual essence which is excluded from this self-giving (Meyendorff, John, Byzantine Theology, New York, 1974, pp. 186ff)Google Scholar. For Barth there is no real distinction between the divine essence and the divine energy; the essence of God is energetic, and the energy of God is essential. His thought may be seen as an attempt (whether successful or not, remains to be considered) to overcome the consequences of a radical separation of the being of God from his works.

page 236 note 1 CD II/2, p. 26.

page 236 note 2 Eberhard Jüngel constructs his digest of Barth's doctrine of the being of God as becoming (Gottes Sein ist im Werden, Tübingen, 1965Google Scholar; ET The Doctrine of the Trinity: God's Being is in Becoming, Edinburgh, 1976)Google Scholar mainly on the basis of Barth's conception of the being of God as act (CD II/i, §28.1), and he expresses the view that the subsection which deals with the being of God in freedom (as well as that which deals with the being of God as the One who loves) adds nothing significant to it (p. 80). It is a fault in this otherwise excellent book that it ignores the problems in Barth's use of the concept of freedom.

page 236 note 3 CD II/2, p. 76.

page 236 note 4 CD II/2, p. 25.

page 236 note 5 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, ET, 1941, p. 219.

page 237 note 1 CD II/2, p. 94.

page 237 note 2 CD II/2, p. 100f.

page 237 note 3 Barth seems here to be using Bonhoeffer's idea of ‘the self-binding of the freedom of God’. Bonhoeffer saw the problem already in 1931: he argued that a formal understanding of God's freedom in contingent revelation as freedom to give or to withhold himself ‘absolutely according to his pleasure’ is not the proper foundation for theology. He wrote: ‘In revelation it is a question less of God's freedom on the far side from us, i.e. his eternal isolation and aseity, than of his forth-proceeding, his given Word, his bond in which he has bound himself, of his freedom as it is most strongly attested in his having freely bound himself to historical man …’ (Act and Being, New York, 1962, p. 90)Google Scholar. But this idea does not solve the problem. It is true of any choice—human or divine—that when the agent has made his choice and committed himself to it, the alternative is negated retroactively, it ceases to be a live option. But if the alternative was not a live option before the choice was made, there was no choice.

page 238 note 1 Florovsky, G., ‘The Concept of Creation in Saint Athanasius’ in Studia Patristica, VI, part IV, TU 81, Berlin, 1962, p. 40.Google Scholar

page 238 note 2 op. cit., p. 37.

page 238 note 3 cf. Milton's version of the archetypal theology:

Though I, uncircumscribed, myself retire And put not forth my goodness, which is free To act or not. Necessity and Chance Approach not me, and what I will is Fate.

(Paradise Lost VII, 170–3)

page 238 note 4 Florovsky, op. cit., p. 46.

page 239 note 1 Selbslentäusserung might be more neatly translated ‘self-utterance’, if the original meaning of utter (to put out) is borne in mind.

page 239 note 2 Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century (Judson Press, 1973), p. 420Google Scholar. Cf. CD I/1, p. 379. But Barth's own construction of the doctrine of the Trinity on the basis of the ‘event’ of revelation implies that revealability is built into the structure of the being of God, and therefore his criticism of Hegel's dialectical demonstration of the necessity of revelation is unwarranted. A dialectic of sheer facticity, which he opposes to it, is a square circle. Moreover, it should not be overlooked that Barth applies the freedom of God in revelation only to the second and third ‘forms of the Word’, i.e., Scripture and preaching, not to the revealed Word, which is revelation itself: ‘Ubi et quando visum est Deo, not in themselves but in virtue of divine decision … the Bible and proclamation are the Word of God. A statement in such form cannot be made about revelation. When we speak of revelation we are faced with the divine act itself and as such, which … is the ground and the limit, the presupposition and the proviso of what may be said of the Bible and proclamation as the Word of God’ (CD I/1, p. 132).

page 240 note 1 See Schmidt, Erik, Hegels System der Theologie (Berlin, 1974), pp. 135ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where references to Hegel's writings are given.

page 240 note 2 Findlay, J. N., Hegel: a Re-examination (New York: Collier Books, 1962), p. 270.Google Scholar

page 240 note 3 For a meticulous interpretation of Hegel's thought on this matter see Fackenheim, Emil L., The Religious Dimension of Hegel's Thought (Beacon Press, 1970), pp. 99ff.Google Scholar

page 241 note 1 CD 11/1, p. 67.

page 241 note 2 ibid.

page 241 note 3 CD II/1, p. 266.

page 241 note 4 CD II/1, p. 267.

page 241 note 5 It is impossible to say whether Barth consciously adopted the term from Hegel, especially since the significance of the term in Hegel's own thought was apparently not recognised until Fackenheim called attention to it (op. cit., pp. 20 and 256). But the resemblance seems too close to be merely coincidental. According to his recent biographer, Barth confessed to a weakness for Hegel and a fondness for ‘doing a bit of “Hegeling” … eclectically’ (Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth (SCM Press, 1976), p. 387.Google Scholar

page 242 note 1 CD II/2, p. 168.

page 242 note 2 CD IV/1, p. 201.

page 242 note 3 The original model of the idea is the emission of light and heat by the sun (Plato, Republic VI, 507–8), and the Greek word, , would be more appropriately (and more intelligibly to modern ears) translated ‘radiation’, than ‘emanation’, which applies primarily to the flowing of water from a spring. The idea of an overflowing of the divine glory was also the answer given by Jonathan Edwards to the question why God created the world, and in his exposition the Neo-platonic background is clearly evident (Concerning the End for which God created the World. Works, NY edition, vol. II, pp. 191–257.)

page 242 note 4 Timaeus 92C.

page 242 note 5 CD IV/1, p. 203 and p. 317.

page 242 note 6 Cassirer describes the concept of ‘emanation’ as a ‘bastard’, produced by mating the Platonic category of transcendence and the Aristotelian category of development (The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, Harper Torch-books, 1964, p. 18)Google Scholar. Findlay, J. N. uses an even more inelegant term to describe it (Ascent to the Absolute, London, G. Allen & Unwin, 1970, p. 30)Google Scholar. Findlay's main objection to the concept of emanation is that it makes creation into a gratuitous, or arbitrary act of deity. But according to A. E. Taylor, it was precisely to avoid this conclusion that the Neo-platonists used the term: ‘Unlike Christian theologians, Plotinus and Proclus do not represent the creative activity in which Goodness finds its outlet as one of “free choice”. To them this would have implied that Goodness might conceivably not have imparted itself to anything, and therefore might not have been wholly good’ (‘The Philosophy of Proclus’ in Philosophical Studies, Macmillan, 1934, p. 166)Google Scholar. Taylor, who was a devout catholic Christian, may be presumed to have shared the view he ascribes to Christian theologians.

page 243 note 1 CD III/1, p. 50.

page 243 note 2 W. Pannenberg stoutly defends Hegel against this charge, with its pantheistic consequences, and he cites other witnesses for the defense. The truth appears to be that, though Hegel did on occasion use language that was open to this interpretation, he made it plain, when the charge was made, that he did distinguish between the intra-triune process and the world-process, and he repudiated the charge of pantheism. Pannenberg concedes that Hegel makes the creation of the world a logical necessity for God and that this has been a major offence to Christian theology, but he points out that for Hegel freedom and necessity converge in the concept of actuality (Wirklichkeit) (‘Die Bedeutung des Christentums in der Philosophie Hegels’ in Gottesgedanke und menschliche Freiheit, Göttingen, 1972, pp. 95ff)Google Scholar. It may be added that in this context Hegel is clearly thinking of freedom as initiative, not as decision or option.