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::: How Barth’s Doctrine of Election Informs His Doctrine of Justification :::

March 7, 2009 2:56 am / 1 Comment on ::: How Barth’s Doctrine of Election Informs His Doctrine of Justification :::

Barth’s understanding of the nature of justification is easy enough to understand—it is nothing more than God’s pardon of man based on Christ’s substituionary work on his behalf.  However, to grasp the unique complexity and idiosyncrasy of his doctrine of justification, one must first understand the broader soteriological context seen in Barth’s doctrine of election.  Barth’s soteriology holds much in common with typical Christian theologies in key respects.  For example, for Barth, the climax of human history is the Christ event—the incarnation, substitutionary death, burial and resurrection of Christ.  This event is both the execution and the revelation of the eternal sentence of God on all mankind in which God establishes his right over against man’s wrong.  However, whereas the early church and Reformation eras largely understood election and reprobation as dividing humanity into two separate groups of people,[1] the reprobate who are eternally damned and the elect who are eternally saved, Barth reduces the sum total of all elect and all reprobate members down to one person: Jesus Christ.  From all eternity, Christ is both the only one who elects and the only one who is elected; he is also the only one chosen for the full measure of the wrath of God against sin and yet, at the same time, he is the only one elected for eternal salvation.  Whatever blessings of election and horrors of reprobation apply to men and women in general, then, must be understood only as derivative in this sense: in this same twofold eternal sentence of God, Christ’s history becomes our own from all eternity.  It is in light of the temporal execution of the divine eternal sentence of Christ as the elect and reprobate one that man’s own justification can be seen like a shadow behind the Christ event.[2]

 

Pardon—by God and therefore unconditionally pronounced and unconditionally valid—that is man’s justification.  In the judgment of God, according to His election and rejection, there is made in the midst of time, and as the central event of all human history, referring to all the men who live both before and after, a decision, a divisive sentence.  Its result—expressed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—is the pardon of man.  And this as such is man’s justification, this alone, but with unconditional truth and efficacy, so that apart from it there is no justification, but in it there is the total justification of man.  Whether man hears it, whether he accepts it and lives as one who is pardoned is another question.[3]

 

Pardon, then, is not conditional upon one’s response to the Christ event (i.e. faith).  Rather, total pardon is objectively accomplished in Jesus Christ on behalf of man.[4]  But this rendering of the doctrine of justification does not mean that Barth has no place for the wrath of God in his soteriology.  Although pardon, and all that it accomplishes, should be considered the positive aspect of the divine sentence executed in God’s judgment, the negative aspect of this sentence must always be kept in view, for the two belong together since the one (“the divine election of rejected man”) implies the other (“the divine rejection of the elected man”).[5]  The positive side of this sentence is “goodness, mercy and grace; His decision and pronouncement in man’s favour,” and this is “the work of his redemption.”[6] The negative side of the sentence is God’s judgment “that we are these proud creatures, that I am the man of sin, and that this man of sin and therefore I myself am nailed to the cross and crucified (in the power of the sacrifice and obedience of Jesus Christ in my place), that I am therefore destroyed and replaced, that as the one who has turned to nothingness I am done away in the death of Jesus Christ.”[7] 

In God’s eternal counsel the election of rejected man did not take place without the rejection of elected man: the election of Jesus Christ as our Head and Representative, and therefore our election as those who are represented by Him.  Therefore the positive sense of the sentence executed in that judgment belongs together with the negative.  If Jesus the Crucified lives, and we live in Him and with Him, the sentence of God revealed in His resurrection is valid in Him and therefore us, in that negative sense.  Therefore the knowledge of the grace of God and the comfort which flows from it in this sentence, the knowledge therefore, of its positive sense, is bound up with the fact that in it we do not cease to see ourselves as those who are condemned.[8] 

 

In Christ man is not merely pardoned; he is also condemned and destroyed.  Barth therefore often refers to this divine sentence as including both the Yes and the No of God.  Furthermore, even though both aspects of this sentence apply only to Christ, since Christ was “in our place”[9] on our behalf they also apply derivatively for all mankind.  The scope of Christ’s substitutionary work is universal.

 

There is not one for whose sin and death He did not die, whose sin and death He did not remove and obliterate on the cross, for whom He did not positively do the right, whose right He has not established.  There is not one to whom this was not addressed as his justification in His resurrection from the dead.  There is not one whose man He is not, who is not justified in Him.  There is not one who is justified in any other way than in Him—because it is in Him and only in Him that an end, a bonfire, is made of man’s sin and death, … Again, there is not one who is not adequately and perfectly and finally justified in Him.  There is not one whose sin is not forgiven sin in Him.  … There is not one whose peace with God has not been made and does not continue in Him. [italics mine][10]  

 

Although it might sound impossible that either Christ or (derivatively) mankind could be at the same time and in the same senses elect and reprobate, enjoying both the utmost blessings of grace and utmost furies of wrath, Barth understands God’s wrath as a subset of his grace in such a way that the two notions are not contradictory.  Indeed, in the end, the Yes of God is louder than the No of God, for the No of God is only part of the “transition”[11] of man to the Yes of God.  On the one hand, “the righteousness of God means God’s negating and overcoming and taking away and destroying wrong and man as the doer of it.”[12]  On the other hand, because Barth understands the destruction of man taking place in Christ, it does not follow that all of sinful mankind must be eternally damned, for he does not understand this divine retribution the way classical Christian theologies comprehend it. 

 

Do we not have to say that even in the non-willing, the wrath of God expressed in this conflict, even in the terrible “Away with thee” which is pronounced upon the wrong of man and therefore upon man as the doer of it, what rules finally and properly is grace, the divine Yes deeply buried under the divine No, in so far as God’s free address to man is operative even in the No? … [E]ven in the judgment which comes upon man and his wrong God is gracious to man.  The crisis which comes upon man when he encounters the righteousness of God, but in which the grace of God is secretly present and operative, is frequently described in the Bible as chastisement.[13] 

  

Two things are important to note about how Barth understands God’s destroying wrath.  First, it only applies to mankind in general inasmuch as Christ’s history (in which he bore the fury of God’s wrath in our place) becomes our own by the unconditional sentence of God.  This understanding of God’s wrath might be called the imputation of Christ’s damnation to the sinner.  Christ’s destruction, as representing mankind, is our destruction.  For Barth, Christ’s death is the most revealing display of just how serious God’s hatred of sin actually is.  Second, as we have noted, God’s wrath is not what “rules finally and properly,” but it is a means to a greater end—that of God’s grace.  Even in God’s wrath his grace is “secretly present” like the chastisement of a loving father.  Wrath is a form of grace that sustains fellowship with man.[14]  Although the reasoning of Barth is unclear in the matter, he is convinced that if the wrath of God was given full exercise to any given individual without the grace of God as its ultimate end, God would not be truly righteous.    

 

To put it in another way, on the left hand man is the one who because of His wrong is condemned and rejected and abandoned by God, and on the right hand he is the same man as the one who even in his condemnation and rejection and abandonment is still pardoned and maintained by God, being kept for the fulfillment of His will and plan. … And God is righteous in this distinction as such: for satisfaction would not be done to His right if He could only chide on the left hand or only pardon on the right, if He accepted the identification of man with wrong, and was content simply to banish from the world both wrong and the wrongdoer, or if in spite of the wrong which man has done and his identification with it he allowed him to live at the price of not destroying the wrong which man has committed, of recognizing de facto its right to exist.  The righteousness of God would not be God’s righteousness and therefore it would not be true righteousness if it did not proceed on both sides.[15]     

 

Since “even that which God does on the left hand is grace,”[16] wrath must be considered penultimate at most, otherwise the very righteousness of God would be in question. 

Barth is not content to think of justified man as living a dual existence of two mutually exclusive influences—one of sin and one of grace-wrought obedience, for “how then can both be real? … This state of dualism, this static co-existence of two quite different men, can only be the result of a misunderstanding.”[17]  Barth proposes an alternative (which he thinks is the only alternative): rather than understanding man as a mix between the former man and the new man, justified man in the present must be understood as wholly both, but in the future only the latter.  “I was and still am the former man: man as wrongdoer … but I am already and will be the latter man: the man whom God has elected and created for himself … the man who is not unrighteous but righteous before God.”[18]  The conviction that apparently underlies Barth’s insistence that we must never understand justified man to have a dual existence is that “the justification of man by God is an event between God and man, not the static relationship of their being.”[19]  Rather than elucidating what he means by this denial of dual existence, however, Barth’s explanation only seems to further obscure his intentions (at least to this author):

 

The justification of man by God belongs neither to the empirical nor to the ideal world, for God who is at work in it is one God and the Creator of all the visible and invisible reality distinct from Himself which is beyond this contrast. … Again, the justification of man … [is] the being of God and man in a definite movement which cannot be reproduced in two pictures which can be placed alongside and studied together. … As this history the justification of man is a genuine puzzle, unlike that of the dualism which can be caught in that picture.  The justification of man cannot be caught in any picture, not even in moving pictures.  The reason for this is that the man who lives in this history of God with him is not in any sense perceptible to himself.  … [W]e cannot put this too strongly—there can be no self-experience of this drama.  The fact that it is our history which is in train, that we participate in this drama, is something which must be true and actual quite otherwise than in some depth of our own self, and recognizable as the truth quite otherwise than in the contemplation of one of the phenomena which meet us in these depths.[20]

 

Is Barth saying that justification does not happen to man but only for him?  Is he saying that the objective reality of justification is never actually subjectively experienced?  Does this quotation mean that man never perceives Christ’s history as his own in the depths of his own self?  Answers to these questions do not seem obvious.[21]  What is obvious, however, is that by considering Christ as the only true elect and reprobate one, Barth has abandoned the traditional framework of both doctrines (election and reprobation) and argues for a highly eccentric view as the alternative.[22]

NEXT POST :: Barth’s Necessary or Potential Universalism 

 

[1] The exception to this would be the view that God elected a way of salvation, not an actual people, and that people should only be considered elect inasmuch as they follow God’s plan of salvation in Christ. 

 

 

[2] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, eds. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956-1985), vol. IV, part 1, 514.

 

[3] CD IV/1: 568.

 

[4] The last statement in the above quotation portrays a way of thinking that will be examined in more detail later in this treatment as we consider the question of whether or not Karl Barth’s doctrine of election and justification imply a doctrine of universal salvation.

 

[5] Ibid., 515.

 

[6] Ibid., 514.

 

 

[7] Ibid., 515.

 

[8] Ibid., 516.

 

[9] Ibid., 514.

 

[10] Ibid., 630.

 

 

[11] Ibid., 516.  “There is no doubt that the unusual difficulty of the doctrine of justification is an indication of its special function.  In it we have to do with the turning, the movement, the transition of the existence of man without God and dead into the existence of man living for God, and therefore before Him and with Him and for Him.” Ibid., 520. 

 

[12] Ibid., 535.

 

[13] Ibid., 537. Barth appears to marshal all the biblical texts on the loving nature of discipline in this passage (e.g. Job 5:17; Ps 62:12; Rev 3:19; Prov 3:11; Heb 12:7ff; 2 Sam 7:14, and many passages from the psalms).   

 

 

[14] “It is not too small a thing for God actually to continue His fellowship with man in the form of wrath which consumes man because of his wrong.” Ibid., 542.

 

[15] Ibid., 541-42.

 

[16] Ibid., 541.

 

 

[17] Ibid., 543.

 

[18] Ibid., 544.

 

[19] Ibid., 545.

 

[20] Ibid., 545-46.

 

 

[21] It is no surprise to this author that the foremost interpreter of Karl Barth’s doctrine of justification entitled his first chapter, “An Alien Language: Is Barth incomprehensible?—Problem of the thought form—Holy Scripture.”  Hans Kung, Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 3-5.

 

[22] Oliver Crisp distinguishes Barth sharply from the Augustinian tradition. Oliver Crisp, “Augustinian Universalism,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol 53 no 3 (2003): 139.  

MacArthur = the “New Fundamentalism”

March 5, 2009 4:16 pm / Leave a comment

Recent example of how John MacArthur conveniently fits Scott McKnight’s descriptions of the “new Fundamentalism” or “Neo-Reformed”

In an interview on the “Grace to You” website, Dr. John MacArthur sizes-up the emerging church, and here’s his bottom line: “I think it’s just another form of liberalism.” You can read or download the rest from the website or listen to it below.

MacArthur either does not care or is ignorant of the fact that the Emergent movement is composed of both conservatives (e.g. Mark Driscoll, Dan Patrick, etc.) and liberals (e.g. Tony Jones, Brian McLaren).  Does he not read about a position before he attacks it [?], does he not care [?], or does he actually think that even guys like Mark Driscoll are “liberal”?

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::HT: Denny Burk

Unconditional Pardon in Christ :: Justification in Karl Barth

March 5, 2009 3:48 pm / Leave a comment

If not the most important theologian of the 20th century,[1] the case could be made that Karl Barth was at least one of the foremost Christian theologians of modern times.  His attitude toward scripture and scathing critiques of the classical liberal tradition “marked a watershed in twentieth-century theology.”[2]  His first publication, a commentary on the book of Romans, functioned somewhat like a bombshell on the theological playground of his contemporaries.[3]  His decisive break from the school of classical liberal theology spawned an entirely new school of thought: postliberalism.[4]  Although Barth is criticized as never having actually escaped the Enlightenment framework,[5] the Christomonism (or “Christological concentration”) that makes possible a Christian appreciation of the Barthian tradition argued that the truths revealed in Christ were not merely truths ascertainable through general revelation and therefore Christ reveals new and indispensible truth.[6]  Barth in particular took a Christ-centered approach to theology to such extremes he has been criticized for turning “the whole of theology into Christology.”[7]  Nowhere is this Christocentrism more evident than in Karl Barth’s doctrine of justification.

 

This blog series is an attempt to highlight accurately some of the unique aspects of Karl Barth’s doctrine of justification.  Because Barth himself warns that the theology represented in his Romans commentary is only “the beginning of a development,”[8] while his Church Dogmatics[9] is considered his most mature thought,[10] this study will give its attention to the latter.  The study will be at least 6 posts long, and will attempt to show 1) how Barth’s distinctive doctrine of election informs his articulation of his doctrine of justification, 2) how Barth’s Christocentric outlook enables him to see the wrath of God as only a phase or form of the grace of God, 3) why differences of opinion exist on whether or not he held to a position of ultimate universal salvation, 4) what various arguments Barth employs to defend his position that sola fide is not the articulus stantis et cadentis acclesia [“the doctrine by which the church stands or falls”], 5) in what ways Barth’s version of sola fide is similar to classic Protestant positions and in what ways it is dissimilar, and 6) that Barth’s doctrine of justification has played a prominent role in ecumenical dialogue between Protestants and Catholics. 

 

Next Post :: How Barth’s Doctrine of Election Bears on His Doctrine of Justification

 

[1] “Karl Barth was without doubt the most important Protestant theologian of the twentieth century.  Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, vol 2: The Reformation to the Present Day (New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1985), 362.  Alister E. McGrath is more reserved: “Barth is unquestionably one of the most significant theologians of the twentieth century” [italics mine].  Alister E. McGrath, The Making of Modern German Christology: 1750-1990, second edition (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1984), 123.

 

[2] W. S. Johnson, “Barth, Karl (1886-1968)” in Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters, ed. Donald K. McKim (Downers Grive, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1998), 433. 

 

[3] Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (London: Oxford University Press, 1968). 

 

[4] B. E. Benson, “Postliberal Theology,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, second edition, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2001), 937.  McGrath, The Making of Modern German Christology: 1750-1990, second edition, 123-152, 220. 

 

[5] “Barth’s own theology may be regarded, at least in part, as a reaction against the anthropocentricity of the liberal school – a reaction particularly evident in his inversion of the liberal understanding of God and humanity as epistemic object and subject respectively.  Yet Barth has essentially inverted the liberal theology without fundamentally altering its frame of reference.  As such, he may be regarded as indirectly – perhaps even unintentionally – perpetuating the theological interests and concerns of the liberal school, particularly the question of how God may be known.”  Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, third edition (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 398.

 

[6] McGrath, The Making of Modern German Christology: 1750-1990, second edition, 131, 220.

 

[7] McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 401.

 

[8] Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, vi.  Barth even goes so far as to say, “When, however, I look back at the book, it seems to have been written by another man to meet a situation belonging to a past epoch.”  Ibid.

 

[9] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. G. Bromiley et al. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956-75).

 

[10] David Ford even considers Volume IV of Church Dogmatics in particular—the volume we will be focusing on—as “the crowning  achievement of Barth’s mature theology.”  David Ford, “Barth, Karl (1886-1968)” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought, ed. Alister McGrath (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1993), 32. 

::: The Zwingli Prayer :::

March 4, 2009 4:30 am / Leave a comment

The following comes from Dr. Gregg Allison’s forthcoming book, Introduction to Historical Theology in the chapter entitled, “The Interpretation of Scripture.”

Beginning in July, 1525, every day (except Fridays and Sundays) at 7:00a.m. (summer) or 8:00 a.m. (winter), all the pastors and theological students in Zurich met in the cathedral for an hour of intense exegesis and interpretation of Scripture (based on the Greek or Hebrew and Latin versions). Zwingli opened each meeting with this prayer: 

“Almighty, eternal and merciful God, whose Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, open and illuminate our minds, that we may purely and perfectly understand your Word and that our lives may be conformed to what we have rightly understood, that in nothing we may be displeasing unto your majesty, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

-Zwingli 

Welcome to Our World … Where Police Get Away With Brutality

March 3, 2009 1:48 am / 2 Comments on Welcome to Our World … Where Police Get Away With Brutality

Only every now and then is it caught on tape.

::: Trapped in an Elevator for 41 hours :::

March 3, 2009 1:34 am / Leave a comment

::::: Racial Reconciliation in Action :::::

February 21, 2009 2:04 am / Leave a comment

 

====================HT: Christ, My Righteousness 

I m p r o v e :: Y o u r :: T h e o l o g i c al :: L i n g o

February 19, 2009 11:30 pm / Leave a comment

If you learned just one word a week from Theological Word of the Day … you would probably increase your theological linguistic abilities by about 200% in one year.  Below are some examples. 

agrapha (Gk. “not written”)

The agrapha are those sayings of Christ that were not recorded by the Gospel writers, yet are attested either in the traditions of the early church or in other New Testament books. A definite example of an agrapha is recorded in Acts, 20:35 where Paul says, “Remember the word of the Lord Jesus, how he said: It is a more blessed thing to give, rather than to receive.” These words are not recorded in the Gospels, but are part of the unwritten tradition which Paul received. The agrapha are normally found in the writings of church Fathers. If the writing has sufficient attestation in the Fathers and it does not contradict any canonical teaching, it is considered a possible instance of agrapha. One example in the early church is from Justin Martyr, Dial. 47: “Wherefore also our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘In whatsoever things I apprehend you, in those I shall judge you.’” Many of the proposed agrapha, however, could very easily be summaries or paraphrases of canonical sayings, thus making a genuine agrapha difficult to determine.

teritum quid (Lat. “the third way”)

This phrase was first used in the forth century to refer to the Apollinarians solution to the question “Is Christ God or man?” The Apollinarians were said to have offered a “third way” in which Christ was neither God nor man. This phase is used generally to refer to a solution to a problem where there seems to be only two mutually exclusive alternatives. The dictionary refers to it as “something that cannot be classified into either of two groups considered exhaustive.” For example, in Christianity Evangelicalism is often thought of as the tertium quid to liberalism and fundamentalism. Molinism is often said to offer a tertium quid to Calvinism and Arminianism. Often the tertium quid is a resolution that offers compromise, but it can also be the option that offers a both/and approach.

__–__-____-____–HT: Theological Word of the Day

:: A Person’s A Person, No Matter How Small :: Brilliant Speech by 12 year old girl

February 18, 2009 1:14 am / 3 Comments on :: A Person’s A Person, No Matter How Small :: Brilliant Speech by 12 year old girl

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::__HT: The Crimson Window

:: On the Protestant Reasons for Rejecting the Apocryphal Writings ::

February 15, 2009 10:27 pm / 3 Comments on :: On the Protestant Reasons for Rejecting the Apocryphal Writings ::

On the one hand, we Protestants tell Catholics that the church did not authoritatively decide the canon, but rather recognized those books which were recognized by the early church as authoritative.  On the other hand, the early church found it difficult to discern any canonical list that was accepted by ecclesiastical consensus (the consensus of the church abroad). 

The closest measure of ecclesiastical consensus can be determined from the Council of Hippo, and the 3rd and 4th Councils of Carthage.  But, perhaps to the surprise of us Protestants, these councils accepted the apocryphal books as canonical.  Thus, if we were judging by the testimony of the church abroad about which books bear the Spirit’s power, we would have to concede that the apocryphal books are authoritative.  Protestants, however, simply don’t recognize the consensus of the early church on this matter.  This raises an important question: Is it up the individuals to decide for themselves (such as in the Reformation confirming the opinions of Athanasius and Jerome) or for the church abroad to decide?  In other words, what does the Protestant rejection of the apocrypha imply about the criterion for canonization?  Where does authority come from if not from the acceptance of the church abroad?  Or how can one know from whence comes the authority of the Spirit through scripture if not by the testimony of the church abroad?  

Note the reasons for the Protestant rejection listed in most Protestant accounts: 1) the Jewish Scripture was considered canonical by Jesus and his disciples, and therefore must be considered the Bible of the church, and 2) historical inaccuracy of the apocrypha.  These reasons, however, appear incomplete.  The Christian community went beyond the Bible of the Jewish canon when it canonized the writings of the apostles and their companions.  Secondly, historical inaccuracy is based on the authority of scholarly criticism, not the consensus of the church abroad, but the standards of scholarly criticism differ from one scholar to the next. 

It appears to me, at the present, that the Protestant standards for canonicity are relatively arbitrary and lead logically to subjectivism in determining which books are canonical and which ones are not.  Something is also to be said of the apparent arbitrary acceptance of only certain of the decrees of the early theological councils (e.g. Nicaea and Chalcedon) as authoritative for the church, but not others.  In spite of the Protestant motto sola scriptura, even the conservative evangelicals overwhelmingly do not allow people to be called “Christian” unless they affirm these councils.  To put it yet another way, if the church does not have the authority to establish the canon, but only to recognize and affirm that which is already authoritative, then why do Protestants not affirm and recognize those books which were recognized by the early church as authoritative?  How does one know which books are to be recognized as authoritative, or, as bearing the “secrete testimony of the Spirit” (Calvin) if not through the early ecclesiastical consensus?   

Calvin writes: 

Let this point therefore stand: that those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture is self authenticated … And the certainty it deserves with us, ti attains by the testimony of the Spirit. (Institutes, 1.7.5)

But if the scripture is self authenticating through the voice of the Spirit, then how is this voice to be measured if not by the testimony of the church to whom this Spirit speaks?  Regardless of whether the church is to establish the canon or simply recognize the canon, Protestants must explain what the criterion for recognition is if it’s not by the consensus of the church abroad (whether that refer to the early church or the church throughout the ages).  

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