Theology Today - Vol 20, No. 3 - October 1963 - BOOK REVIEW - Karl Barth: An Introduction To His Early Theology

417 - Karl Barth: An Introduction To His Early Theology

Karl Barth: An Introduction To His Early Theology
By T. F. Torrance
231 pp. London, SCM Press, 1962. $5.00.

This volume will be welcomed by ministers and teachers alike as one of the ablest and most timely studies of Barth's theological development available. This book betokens a deep appreciation of Barth as well as the author's own theological wisdom. Torrance eschews a criticism of Barth's theology "except within the logic of its own development" (p. 9), yet this is a study which does bear the impress of Torrance's own distinguished Reformation and ecclesiological erudition. There is, properly, a critical appropriation of Barth at work here, and it should be recognized as such. Torrance is especially helpful in giving detailed examination of material not available in English, such as Die Christliche Dogmatik of 1927, and "Schicksal und Idee in der Theologie" of 1929, which considers the significance of realism and idealism in our knowledge of God.

Part One contains a sketch of Barth's life and personal characteristics. Part Two, "The Development of Barth's Theology," moves from his early liberalism through his dialectical theology and on to the transition to Church Dogmatics, concluding with a study of the book on Anselm, Fides Quaerens Intellectum. Part Three, "The Barthian Revolution," emphasizes the centrality of the Incarnation and ends with comments on "Jesus Christ and Culture." Torrance does not allow us to forget that Barth's development reflects the concern with the Church's preaching as it is criticized and clarified in the light of the Word of God (p. 41). The importance of Barth's exegetical studies is emphasized, and we are reminded that Barth's debates are carried on not only with Neo-Protestantism but with Roman Catholicism as well (pp. 93 f.). When Torrance asserts that "there can be no doubt that at the Reformation there was an immense change in style from mediaeval to modem thinking" (p. 175), this judgment may require more qualification than is forthcoming. Surely we must consider the challenges posed by the Enlightenment as these have affected not only historical and scientific thinking but the effort to vindicate theology as an independent discipline. (See again, Troeltsch's Protestantism and Progress, chapter 1, "The Meaning of 'The Modern World.'")

The account of Barth's dialectical theology is very well done. Torrance shows that the diastasis between Jesus Christ and culture is itself an expression of "Barth's old conviction regarding the universal range of

418 - Karl Barth: An Introduction To His Early Theology

the Kingdom of God, the cosmic relevance of his Word, the solidarity of the Church with the world under grace, and therefore the judgment of grace . . . " (p. 136). Torrance notes the importance of Barth's rewriting of the Commentary on Romans (p. 48), but it would have been useful to have a fuller account of the first edition of 1919 and its relation to the edition of 1921 in which the eschatological aspects of Barth's thought emerge more sharply. The influence of figures as diverse as the Blumhardts, Feuerbach, Overbeck, and Kierkegaard is ably portrayed.

Torrance shows how the Christliche Dogmatik of 1927 still is set within the "framework of an anthropology," as if the starting-point of theology were in some form of prior understanding of man's existence as the basic norm for theology (p. 141). Torrance does not, however, underestimate the fact that a new theology with its concentration upon the Incarnation, upon Jesus Christ as God and man, is struggling to be born (p. 115). It is the book on Anselm, Fides Quaerens Intellectum, which is decisive in Barth's "advance from dialectical thinking to Church dogmatics" (p. 182). Here the possibility of our knowledge of God lies within the nature of God Himself as He gives Himself of His own free grace. "It would now be a misnomer to speak of Barth's theology as 'dialectical,' for the emphasis is no longer upon diastasis but upon analogy" (p. 89).

We do miss in this book any detailed analysis of the essays of Barth's earliest period, although Torrance recognizes that his theology "fell in some measure, at least, within the thought-forms of Neo-Protestantism" (p. 49). But fuller attention might well be given, for example, to "Der Christliche Glaube und die Geschichte" of 1912. Here we see what Barth sought to appropriate from Schleiermacher and from Herrmann; we find him struggling to express the significance of Jesus Christ in a manner reminiscent of Herrmann's category of "inner history." If we are to grasp properly Barth's steadfast insistence that God is known only in Jesus Christ, we cannot avoid scrutiny of the way in which the Christocentric emphasis is expressed even in his liberal period.

Torrance shows the importance of the debate between Harnack and Barth in 1923 in the course of which the latter denies that the Incarnation can become the proper object of historico-scientific research (pp. 81 f.; p. 148). We should like to know more clearly what Torrance makes of the influence of Kähler on Barth. There are places in the debate with Harnack where Barth employs language reminiscent of Kähler, who denied that it is the purpose of the Gospels to serve as a scientifically constructed biography of Jesus, for their intent is to awaken faith in Him through the proclamation of His saving activity. This point is of considerable importance for Torrance's own interpretation of the theology of Barth as the theology of "Christ clothed with his Gospel" (p. 208).

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Torrance characterizes Barth's thought as "a realist theology with a dash of idealism" (p. 171). There is a genuine analogy, a correspondence, between God as He becomes known and our human concepts which express our knowledge of God (pp. 153 f.; p. 189). However, the relevance of idealism is "the uncovering of the hiddenness of God even in his revelation," and this reminds us that theology must continue to be critical of its own knowledge of God. Barth's treatment of philosophy discloses little grasp of empiricism in either its classical or contemporary forms. Precisely such empiricism, particularly as reflected. in contemporary analysis, poses for Barth's theology further directions of inquiry concerning the use and the intelligibility of theological language. What about Torrance's appeal to the "interior logic" of dogmatics? Supposing an astrologer appeals to the "interior logic" of astrology, would we grant thereby that an independent discipline with its own subject-matter was established? What is needed is a further evaluation of the criteria actually employed in warranting theological arguments. Torrance declares that "for Neo-Protestantism the object of religious knowledge is not rational in its own right, and therefore comes to expression only in symbolic form" (p. 181). We would like some further illumination on how symbol and parable-as well as analogy-do function in Barth's theology. Does the conception of theological rationality with which Torrance is working allow sufficiently for the variety of ways in which the language of the Church actually functions, not only in its assertive, but also in its expressive, performatory, hortatory, and ethical uses?

It would be interesting to know more of the parallelism which Torrance draws between theology and natural science (p. 179, p. 205. See also Torrance's Introduction to Barth's Theology and Church, London, 1962, pp. 42 f.). Torrance wants a theology determined by its object, knowledge of which is realistically available to faith. But does the sort of objectivism of which he speaks have an appropriate parallel, or analogue, in the natural sciences? The analyses of Toulmin and Braithwaite, for example, call in question any view of scientific theories as literal descriptions of the real world. The relation of physical theories to the world they describe would seem to be more indirect and more dependent upon interpretative insight and creative imagination than Torrance grants when he declares that scientific knowledge is concerned with a knowledge that forces itself upon us. The latter assertion hardly allows for the ways in which scientific theories are initially formulated, modified, and sometimes withdrawn. Some philosophers-F. P. Ramsey and Schlick, for example-argue that scientific laws and theories exhibit features that resemble methodological procedural rules rather than the kinds of statements that can be spoken of as true or false.

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We have not lacked, of course, theologians who have defended the view that while scientific and theological knowledge differ in content, they are similar in their mode of cognition. D. C. Mackintosh can be cited in this connection, arguing that religious data do indeed enable us to formulate hypotheses susceptible of verification. But the sorts of procedures employed in verifying scientific hypotheses scarcely govern the warranting of theological claims as Barth understands them. If we are to use the term "science" in designating the theological discipline, we may need to qualify such use more clearly than Torrance has done. Torrance holds that there is a procedure common to theological science and all other genuine science. (See especially Introduction, Theology and Church, p. 44.) It is just such commonality which the present debates about the logical status of scientific explanations are tending to call in question.

Daniel L. Deegan
Reed College
Portland, Oregon