The postmodern realism of Barth's ethics

Abstract

In light of current discussions in theological ethics, Karl Barth's ethics can be understood within the dialectical relationship of ‘postmodern’ and ‘realism’. Barth shifts theological ethics beyond anthropocentric Kantian or naturalist inspired ‘modern realism’ on the one hand, and a nihilist or deconstructionist inspired ‘postmodern antirealism’ on the other. Beginning with the centrality of the Word of God, Barth deconstructs modern (anthropocentric) moral realism, while at the same time reestablishing this same moral realism on theological grounds, which ironically moves it beyond the claims of postmodernism itself. What makes Barth's thought post-modern, then, is not his similarity to antirealist and deconstructionist thought, but his departure from its secular and anti-theological assumptions. Barth's ‘postmodern realism’, therefore, not only provides a way for contemporary theological ethics to dialectically be critical and hopeful, deconstructive and constructive, decentering and centering, but does so from the anti-anthropocentric and anti-secular standpoint of the Word of God.