“That the lame walk, that the blind see, that the dead are raised, that sinful and erring men as such speak the Word of God: that is the miracle of which we speak when we say that the Bible is the Word of God. To the comprehension of this statement there belongs, therefore, the recognition that its truth consists in the removing of an offence which is always and everywhere present, and that this takes place by the power of the Word of God. This offence, like the offence of the cross of Christ, is based on the fact that the Word of God became flesh and therefore to this very day has built and called and gathered and illumined and sanctified His Church amongst flesh. This offence is therefore grounded like the overcoming of it in the mercy of God. For that reason it must not be denied and for that reason, too, it must not be evaded. For that reason every time we turn the Word of God into an infallible Word of God we resist that which we ought never to resist, i.e., the truth of the miracle that here fallible men speak the Word of God in fallible human words – and we therefore resist the sovereignty of grace, in which God Himself became man in Christ, to glorify Himself in His humanity.”
– K. Barth, “Church Dogmatics” I.2, p. 529
It is here, at the point of Barth’s understanding of the revelation of God as we find it in scripture that we come, I believe, to the heart of the inescapable complexity within his overall theological paradigm. It is also here, consequently, that Barth makes himself anathema to those within conservative evangelicalism who – in some ways rightly, and in some ways perhaps over-defensively – suspect that Barth’s programme constitutes an undermining of and wholesale revolt against the inerrancy, infallibility, and hence the authority, of scripture as it has been traditionally understood. What is profoundly interesting about this rhetorical conversation is that in it, Barth would not at all understand his position as constituting a “lower” view of scripture at all; rather, quite the opposite. Barth would argue that an understanding of scripture as the Word of God which comprehends that work of revelation as occurring through, and in spite of, the thorough humanness and natural error of the authors of scripture, actually more fully appreciates the miraculous nature of God’s self-revelation through such means and therefore proves itself to be an indeed ‘higher’ view of this work of revelation than an understanding of scripture that requires that it’s human authors be miraculously (or ‘magically’) prevented the possibility of error, and hence in some way actually removed from their own humanness, in the act of writing.
To those of us coming to Barth from outside the theological streams of historical European, enlightenment, protestant liberalism, this line of thinking is so foreign that we are hard pressed not to simply dismiss it off hand as irredeemably and dangerously unorthodox. Indeed, I myself am not entirely sure what to do with it at this point. In the end, for those of us for whom the primacy of scripture is paramount, it may very well need to be dismissed as such. However, even if we are to dismiss this particular – and again I say, central – aspect of Barth’s thinking as erroneous, we must be ever careful not to do so simply off hand. The “greatness” of Barth as a theologian lies in the manner in which all thoughtful theology that follows him must do business with him; once encountered he cannot be circumvented, but must be conversed with. And, if in the end we determine that we disagree with Barth, we will be much better Christian thinkers for having had to wrestle with understanding precisely the point at which we have found it necessary to part ways with him.
It is clear to me that to understand Barth one must wrestle thoroughly with his doctrine of scripture, as disconcerting an experience as that may very well prove to be. And this is important for, if it is disconcerting, it is because Barth here seems to brush up against a profound and sublime understanding of God’s revelation; an understanding that takes the sovereignty, objectivity and miraculous grace of God’s self-revelation – and, specifically, the paradigmatic miraculous-ness of the incarnation of God - with utmost seriousness and genuine piety. It is not Barth’s intent to play fast and loose with the doctrine of scripture, but to deepen our appreciation of the miracle of revelation beyond mere parrot-talk of inerrancy and infallibility. And, as post-modernity comes of age around us, and with it the inherent skepticism of categorical assertions of this sort, those of us who hold to the primacy and authority of scripture must become fluent in these conversations of nuance and tension, or otherwise risk wholesale retreat from engagement with the seeking world around us.
At this moment, I am fairly certain that I cannot follow Barth here. I am further convinced, however, of the importance of learning how to understand and articulate why, exactly, that is.
No comments:
Post a Comment