Karl Barth's Use of Analogy in his Church Dogmatics

Jung Young Lee

doi:10.1017/S003693060002367X

Karl Barth's Use of Analogy in his Church Dogmatics

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009

Jung Young Lee

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Since Barth has not developed any systematic treatise on the doctrine of analogy, what I hope to say in this paper is rather implicit in his Church Dogmatics, especially the volumes I/1, II/1, III/1, III/2, IV/1 and IV/3.

Type: Research Article
Information: Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 1969 , pp. 129 - 151

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S003693060002367X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1969

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References

^{page 129 note 1} Mondin, Battista, The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and Catholic Thought (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1963), p. 1.Google Scholar

^{page 130 note 1} ibid., pp. 1–2.

^{page 130 note 2} Pöhlmann, Horst Georg, Analogia entis oder Analogia fidei?: Die Frage der Analogie bei Karl Barth (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1965), p. 11.Google Scholar

^{page 130 ntoe 3} The ‘univoca’ means, ‘the same term, applied to two different objects, in the same way, designates the same thing in both of them’. The ‘aequivoca’ means ‘the same term, applied to two different objects, designates different thing in the one and the other’. See Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/1 (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1957), p. 237.Google Scholar

^{page 130 note 4} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/1, p. 237.Google Scholar

^{page 131 note 1} Pöhlmann, op. cit., p. 110.

^{page 131 note 2} ibid., p. 111.

^{page 131 note 3} ibid.

^{page 131 note 4} Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics III/1 (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1958), p. 194f.Google Scholar

^{page 131 note 5} Brunner, Emil, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption (Dogmatics II) (Lutterworth, London, 1952), p. 42.Google Scholar

^{page 131 note 6} Pöhlmann says, ‘Die analogia fidei Barths ist eine theologische Neuschōpfung.’ See Pöhlmann, op. cit., p. 112.

^{page 131 note 7} Hans Urs von Balthasar, in his well-known book Karl Barth: Darstellung und Deutung seiner Theologie, outlines his presentation into three stages: a period of dialectic which is of the publication of the first two editions of Römerbrief (1919–22); the period of the orientation toward analogical thinking which is of his plan in Die christliche Dogmatik in Entwurf (1927); and the period of the completion of analogy (Vollgestalt der Analogie) which is of his publication of Church Dogmatics (the first volume in 1932).

^{page 132 note 1} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/1, p. 225.Google Scholar

^{page 132 note 2} Mondin believes that Barth's concept of analogia fidei was born as a reaction against the theological liberalism of the nineteenth century. See Mondin, op. cit., p. 169.

^{page 132 note 3} A further discussion on this subject will be presented in the last chapter of this paper.

^{page 133 note 1} Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics I/1 (T. &. T Clark, Edinburgh, 1936), p.x.Google Scholar

^{page 133 note 2} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/1, p. 93f.Google Scholar

^{page 133 note 3} ibid., p. 95.

^{page 133 note 4} ibid., p. 94.

^{page 133 note 5} ibid., p. 97.

^{page 133 note 6} ibid.

^{page 133 note 7} Barth believes that natural theology usually quotes Ps. 8 and 104 to illustrate the possibility of knowing God through man and nature. See ibid., p. 113.

^{page 133 note 8} ibid., p. 102.

^{page 134 note 1} ibid., p. 126.

^{page 134 note 2} Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics IV/1 (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1956), p. 453.Google Scholar

^{page 134 note 3} Barth, Karl, The Humanity of God (John Knox Press, Richmond, Va., 1960), p. 36f.Google Scholar

^{page 134 note 4} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/1, p. 86.Google Scholar

^{page 134 note 5} ibid., p. 243.

^{page 134 note 6} Barth's departure from A. Quenstedt's concept of analog, the concept of attributio as attributio intrinseca in specific, is essentially viewed as a result of Quenstedt's imitation of the Catholic Scholastic concept of analogy. See Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/1, p. 238f.Google Scholar

^{page 135 note 1} Brunner, op. cit., p. 42.

^{page 135 note 2} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/I, p. 75.Google Scholar

^{page 135 note 3} ibid., p. 75–76.

^{page 135 note 4} ibid., p. 76.

^{page 135 note 5} ibid., p. 77.

^{page 135 note 6} ibid.

^{page 135 note 7} Barth, , Church Dogmatics IV/I, p. 81.Google Scholar

^{page 136 note 1} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/I, p. 77.Google Scholar

^{page 136 note 2} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/I, p. 78.Google Scholar

^{page 136 note 3} ibid.

^{page 136 note 4} ibid., p. 231.

^{page 136 note 5} Mascall, E. L., Existence and Analogy; A Sequel to ‘He Who Is’ (Longmans, Green, N.Y., 1949), p. 92.Google Scholar

^{page 137 note 1} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/1, p. 225Google Scholar

^{page 137 note 2} ibid., p. 223.

^{page 137 note 3} ibid., p. 225

^{page 137 note 4} Barth, , Church Dogmatics I/1, p 501.Google Scholar

^{page 137 note 5} Analogia fidei is also called analogia graliae and analogie relationis.

^{page 137 note 6} The term ‘π⋯στις’ is brought into direct combination with ‘ༀναλογ⋯α’ in Romans 12.6, in order to make this analogy, the . See Barth, , Church Dogmatics IV/3, pp. 634–635.Google Scholar

^{page 137 note 7} Barth, , Church Dogmatics I/I, p. 279.Google Scholar

^{page 137 note 8} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/I, p. 26.Google Scholar

^{page 137 note 9} ibid., p. 75.

^{page 137 note 10} ibid., p. 76.

^{page 137 note 11} ibid., p. 85.

^{page 137 note 12} Barth, , Church Dogmatics IV/3, p. 770.Google Scholar

^{page 138 note 1} Barth, , Church Dogmatics I/1, pp. 152–153, II/I, pp. 234, 238ff.Google Scholar

^{page 138 note 2} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/1, p. 237.Google Scholar

^{page 138 note 3} ibid., p. 234.

^{page 139 note 1} ibid., p. 238.

^{page 139 note 2} ibid., p. 237.

^{page 139 note 3} Barth, , Church Dogmatics III/1, p. 14.Google Scholar

^{page 139 note 4} Barth does not really discuss the question of intrinseca or extrinseca in relation to the analogia proportionalitatis. However, his continual use of this analogy shows that he has not abandoned the analogia proportionalitatis extrinseca. In Church Dogmatics III/2 (p. 220), Barth's definition of analogia relationis as ‘a correspondence and similarity between two relationships’ is a traditional meaning of analogia proportionalitatis (extrinseca).

^{page 139 note 5} X represents God and Y the world or man. See Pohlmann, op. cit., p. 108.

^{page 139 note 6} ibid., p. 109.

^{page 140 note 1} Barth, , Church Dogmatics III/1, p. 195.Google Scholar

^{page 140 note 2} Barth, , Church Dogmatics III/2, p. 220.Google Scholar

^{page 140 note 3} However, Barth does not deny that natural reason can attain some knowledge of God. Nevertheless, the knowledge of God attained by human reason is not only obscure the knowledge of true God, but also leads to false God who is quite different from the God of revelation, Barth, , Church Dogmatics 11/I, p. 63f.Google Scholar

^{page 140 note 4} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/I, p. 9Google Scholar

^{page 140 note 5} ibid., p. 223.

^{page 140 note 6} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/I, p. 158.Google Scholar

^{page 140 note 7} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/I, p. 61.Google Scholar

^{page 141 note 1} ibid., p. 229.

^{page 141 note 2} ibid., p. 228.

^{page 141 note 3} ibid., p. 3.

^{page 141 note 4} Barth, , Church Dogmatics I/I, pp. 53–54.Google Scholar

^{page 141 note 5} Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/I, p. 150.Google Scholar

^{page 141 note 6} Barth, , Church Dogmatics I/I, p. 466f.Google Scholar

^{page 141 note 7} ibid., p. 159.

^{page 141 note 8} Barth does not use the word ‘epistemology’ to answer the knowability of God through an analogia fidei.

^{page 142 note 1} Barth, , Church Dogmatics III/2, p. 220.Google Scholar

^{page 142 note 2} ibid., pp. 323–4.

^{page 142 note 3} The term ‘analogia relationis’ is thought to be borrowed directly from Bonhoeffer. See Weber, Otto, Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics (Westminster, Philadelphia, 1955), p. 125Google Scholar, and Come, Arnold B., An Introduction to Barth's Dogmatics for Preachers (Westminster, Philadelphia, 1963), p. 146Google Scholar. However, the analogia relationis which Barth, understands in his Church Dogmatics is in harmony with that which Bonhoeffer describes in his Creation and Fall (S.C.M. Press, London, 1959)Google Scholar. On p. 37 Bonhoeffer describes the analogia relationis in terms of the imago Dei: ‘The likeness, the analogy of man to God, is not analogia entis but analogia relationis. This means that even the relation between man and God is not a part of man; it is not a capacity, a possibility, or a structure of his being but a given, set relationship: justitia passiva … Analogia relationis is, therefore, the relation given by God himself and is analogy only in His relation given by God.’

^{page 143 note 1} Let me directly quote from the first volume of his Church Dogmatics as follows: ‘As a possibility for God proper to man the creature “the image of God” is not only, as we say, with the exception of same remnants ruined, but annihilated. … The image of God is man of which we have to speak here and which constitutes the real point of contact for the word of God, is the one awakened through Christ from real death to life and so restored.’ See Church Dogmatics I/I, p. 273.Google Scholar

^{page 143 note 2} Barth, , Church Dogmatics III/I, p. 186.Google Scholar

^{page 143 note 3} ibid., p. 190.

^{page 143 note 4} ibid., p. 185.

^{page 143 note 5} Ibid., p. 194. (Here, Barth refers from Vischer's Das Christuszeugnis des A.T. I, 1934, P. 59f.)

^{page 144 note 1} ibid..

^{page 144 note 2} ibid., p. 196.

^{page 144 note 3} ibid. ‘Analogy, even as the analogy of relation, does not entail likeness but the correspondence of the unlike.’

^{page 145 note 1} Barth, , Church Dogmatics III/2, p. 218.Google Scholar

^{page 145 note 2} ibid., p. 220.

^{page 145 note 3} ibid.

^{page 145 note 4} ibid., p. 217.

^{page 145 note 5} ibid., p. 222.

^{page 145 note 6} ibid., p. 223.

^{page 146 note 1} ibid., p. 248f.

^{page 146 note 2} Barth, , The Humanity of God, p. 47.Google Scholar

^{page 146 note 3} Pöhlmann, op. cit., p. 117.

^{page 146 note 4} von Balthasar, Hans Urs, Karl Barth: Darstellung und Deutung Seiner Theologie (Verlag Jakob Hegner in Köhn, 1950), p. 210.Google Scholar

^{page 147 note 1} Mondin, op. cit., pp. 169–70.

^{page 147 note 2} ibid., p. 172.

^{page 148 note 1} Pöhlmann, op. cit., p. 101.

^{page 148 note 2} Aquinas, St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1963), p. 59.Google Scholar

^{page 148 note 3} ibid., pp. 177–8.

^{page 148 note 4} Barth, , Church Dogmatics IV/3, p. 768.Google Scholar

^{page 148 note 5} Abbott, Walter M. (ed.), The Documents of Vatican II (Guild Press, New York, 1966), p. 112.Google Scholar

^{page 149 note 1} von Balthasar, op. cit., p. 390. cf. Van Til, Cornelius, Christianity and Barthianism (Baker Book House, 1962), p. 353.Google Scholar

^{page 149 note 2} Mondin, op. cit., p. 172.

^{page 149 note 3} Hamer, Jerome, Karl Barth (The Newman, Westminster, 1962), p. 70.Google Scholar

^{page 149 note 4} Brunner, op. cit., p. 24. Moreover, Brunner was happy that the old controversy on natural theology, which caused so much discussion, was regarded as settled. See ibid., pp. 44–45.

^{page 149 note 5} Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology, Vol. II, (University of Chicago, Chicago, 1957), p. 14.Google Scholar

^{page 149 note 6} Dickinson, Richard, ‘How Do We Know God?’, Journal of Bible and Religion, 1958, pp. 40–41.Google Scholar

^{page 149 note 7} Berkouwer, G. C.The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1956), p. 194.Google Scholar

^{page 149 note 8} Hartwell, Herbert, The Theology of Karl Barth (Gerald Duckworth, London, 1964), p. 56.Google Scholar

^{page 150 note note 1} Barth, , The Humanity of God, p. 44.Google Scholar

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