Karl Barth

Swiss theologian

• Born: May 10, 1886
• Birthplace: Basel, Switzerland
• Died: December 10, 1968
• Place of death: Basel, Switzerland

Acclaimed by many as the dominant theologian of the twentieth century, Barth was a Swiss Reformed pastor, professor, and writer best known for his critique of nineteenth century Protestant liberal theology.

Early Life

Karl Barth (bahrt) was the eldest son of Johann Friedrich “Fritz” Barth and Anna Katharina Barth. Both of Barth’s grandfathers were ministers within the Swiss Reformed Church. His father, also an ordained minister, was at the time of Karl’s birth a teacher in the Evangelical School of Preachers in Basel. This conservative seminary had been founded about ten years earlier to counter the influence of Protestant liberal theology that was predominant in most of the larger European universities.

When Karl was three years old, his father accepted a position as a lecturer and subsequently as a professor of church history and the New Testament at the University of Bern. The academic environment of Bern, coupled with the conservative religious training within the Barth household, exerted considerable influence on Karl and his siblings. From his father, Karl acquired a love for history and politics, a seriousness about study, and an appreciation for the arts, especially music. On the eve of his confirmation, Karl “boldly resolved to become a theologian.” Two of his younger brothers also followed their father into academic pursuits Peter, as an editor of a critical edition of the works of John Calvin, and Heinrich, as a philosopher who many years later taught with his brother Karl on the faculty of the University of Basel.

Young Barth began his university studies at Bern. While receiving a solid grounding in Reformed theology, he also became intrigued with the theoretical and practical philosophy of Immanuel Kant and the liberal theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher. His enthusiasm for learning made Barth eager to continue his studies with Wilhelm Herrmann of Marburg, the leading neo-Kantian theologian of the day. In deference to his father’s wish for him to remain within a more conservative academic environment, Barth postponed his matriculation at Marburg. Barth spent the following year at the University of Berlin, where he studied with the renowned church historian Adolf von Harnack; the next summer at school back in Bern; and a second year at the University of Tübingen under the tutelage of the conservative New Testament theologian Adolf Schlatter. Finally, in 1908 Barth was enrolled as a student of Herrmann at Marburg. From Herrmann, Barth learned to define faith in terms of “inner experience” that has its “ground” in the “inner life of Jesus” and is awakened in human consciousness by the influence of the Jesus of history. Three semesters later, Barth completed his formal course work, passed the theological examinations set by the church at Bern, and was ordained. Barth never pursued doctoral studies in theology.

Life’s Work

On ordination in 1909, Barth returned to Marburg to become an assistant editor of Die christliche Welt (the Christian world), a liberal periodical that concentrated on the church’s responsibility in the world. Later that year, Barth accepted a call as an apprentice pastor of a Reformed church in Geneva. At this time, Barth published an article in which he noted that theological graduates of liberal seminaries such as Marburg and Heidelberg were more reluctant to enter into practical pastoral work than were graduates of the more orthodox and pietistic institutions. Barth attributed this to the two central emphases of liberal theology: “religious individualism,” which concentrated on the subjective and personal experience of the individual Christian, and “historical relativism,” which postulated that there were no absolutes in history or religion. Although still a devotee of the Protestant liberalism into which he was trained, Barth, even at this young age, was voicing a concern that contemporary Christian thought was in danger of becoming more anthropology than theology and was more a product of modern individualistic bourgeois idealism than of sound New Testament scholarship.

Between 1911 and 1921, Barth served as a pastor in Safenwil, Switzerland. It was during this pastorate that his theology underwent a gradual reorientation. The practical tasks of preparing sermons that integrated the content of the Bible with human concerns; the renewal of a friendship with Eduard Thurneysen, a neighboring pastor who seemed to have discovered the eschatologism of Christianity; and a growing appreciation for the existentialism of S ren Kierkegaard together contributed to Barth’s intellectual metamorphosis. World events of the decade also influenced his theological persuasions. Following the outbreak of World War I, for example, Barth was dismayed when ninety-three scholars and artists including his own teachers Harnack and Herrmann signed a manifesto that supported the war policy of Kaiser Wilhelm. To Barth, this action called into question his mentors’ understanding of the Bible, history, and dogmatics. Furthermore, when workers in his local parish were involved in a struggle to achieve a just wage, Barth was compelled to turn his attention to social issues. Newly sensitized to the misery and exploitative conditions of his parishioners, Barth declared himself a Christian socialist and in 1915 joined the Social Democratic Party an extraordinary action for a minister in that day. During this decade of disillusionment, Barth came to doubt the progressive notions of human grandeur and inevitable progress.

The work that catapulted Barth into the limelight of theological controversy was Der Römerbrief (The Epistle to the Romans , 1933), originally written in 1918, published in 1919, then radically revised and reissued in 1922. Barth’s aim differed from that of other scholars of his day. While Barth did not reject the methods of biblical criticism (as conservative scholars did), he did denounce the value of commentaries that had no higher goal than to reconstruct the history of the biblical period. Barth’s object, in contrast, was to let the Apostolic message of Paul’s letter to the Romans break with full force on the present age. This message, according to Barth, was in violent contradiction to the optimistic spirit of nineteenth century liberalism, which presupposed an inner continuity between the divine and the “best” of human culture. The theme of Romans, Barth insisted, is “the infinite qualitative distinction” between time and eternity, or between human and God. Thus, against liberalism’s willingness to allow God and humankind to coalesce, Barth injected the demand: “Let God be God!” Although this work was more critical than constructive, Barth’s concept that religion itself is under divine judgment and is a human rather than strictly a divine phenomenon had a great impact on the future direction of Protestant thought.

On the basis of The Epistle to the Romans, Barth was invited to teach Reformed theology at the University of Göttingen. Leaving the pastorate for the teaching profession, Barth launched his academic career. In 1925, Barth left Göttingen to become a professor of dogmatics and New Testament exegesis at the University of Münster in Westphalia, a position he held until 1930. His publications during this period included Die christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf (1927; Dogmatics in Outline , 1949), a historically significant work because it revealed the early shape of Barth’s systematic theological thinking. In this work, Barth rejected both anthropocentric and natural theology in favor of a theology grounded solely in the Word of God. For Barth, the proper subject of Christian theology is the Word of God, not the faith experience of the individual believer.

In 1930, Barth accepted a professorship at the University of Bonn. While at Bonn, Barth and his lifelong friend Thurneysen established a theological journal entitled Theologische Existenz heute (theological existence today). In this periodical, Barth and his associates expressed their vehement opposition to Adolf Hitler and the “German Christians” who advocated a synthesis of German National Socialism and the Gospel. Barth attracted the attention of the Nazi authorities in 1934 when he wrote the famous Barmen Confession, which called Christians to obedience to Jesus Christ alone “in life and death.” Later, after he refused to begin his classes in Bonn with the customary “Heil Hitler!” and to take an unconditional oath of loyalty to the Führer, he was dismissed from his teaching post and expelled from Germany. Fleeing to his original home in Basel, Barth joined the faculty at the University of Basel in 1935 and remained there until his retirement in 1962. Barth continued lecturing and writing until his death in 1968.

An indefatigable worker and prolific writer, Barth produced more than five hundred books, articles, sermons, and papers during the course of his long and illustrious career. His magnum opus, Die kirchliche Dogmatik (Church Dogmatics , 1936-1969, 1975), the first volume of which appeared in 1932, grew to thirteen large books totaling more than nine thousand pages in German. Barth originally designed the mammoth project as a five-volume work, although the sheer length of his study necessitated subdividing each of the sections into part-volumes. It is impossible to reduce the breadth of his theology to a few meager structural principles. It is sufficient to say that Barth’s emphasis remained singularly Christocentric. His system rested on the principle that theological understanding of any subject is fully dependent on the relationship of that subject with the Word as revealed solely in Jesus Christ.

Significance

Barth’s bold commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans was, in the words of a noted Roman Catholic divine, “a bombshell in the playground of the theologians.” This critique of the “subjectivism” within Protestant theology was Barth’s first of many statements that pointed to the dangers of allowing theology to become an ideology that is, a creation of human culture. To Barth, liberal attempts to formulate a “reasonable Christianity” destroyed the validity of the concept of divine revelation (which, Barth insisted, was God-manifested and owed nothing to human initiatives) and weakened the prophetic function of the church by allowing it simply to reflect rather than to critique human culture. Barth later said that in writing this book he was like the man in a dark church tower who accidentally tripped and caught hold of the bell rope to steady himself and, in doing so, alarmed the whole community. Indeed, this commentary written to help the author clarify his own thinking ignited a debate that significantly altered the course of twentieth century theology.

From this first book to the Theological Declaration of Barmen to his massive Church Dogmatics, Barth wrote with boldness and theological insight, perpetually calling the Christian Church back to the Bible and to its foundation in Jesus Christ. His impact has been great, in part because he provided an outline for a theology that was thoroughly biblical, without being fundamentalist. Described by Pope Pius XII as the greatest theologian since Thomas Aquinas, Barth has been acclaimed by Catholics and Protestants alike as a modern church father who stands prominently with Saint Athanasius, Saint Augustine, and John Calvin as a defender of the transcendence and sovereignty of God.

Bibliography

Balthasar, Hans Urs von. The Theology of Karl Barth. Translated by John Drury. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. An excellent single-volume interpretation and critique of Barth’s method and theology by a Roman Catholic scholar.

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics: A Selection. Introduction by Helmut Gollwitzer. Edited and translated by G. W. Bromiley. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. Selections from the thirteen part-volumes of Barth’s Church Dogmatics. A useful introduction to the writings of Barth.

Busch, Eberhard. The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Edited and annotated by Darrell L. Guder and Judith J. Guder. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 2004. Busch, Barth’s biographer, friend, and assistant, explains Barth’s theology.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts. Translated by John Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976. Likely the best and most authoritative biography of Barth. Highly recommended.

Franke, John R. Barth for Armchair Theologians. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. An introduction to Barth’s life and ideas, tracing the evolution of his theology and its relevance to the twenty-first century.

Hunsinger, George, ed. Karl Barth and Radical Politics. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976. A collection of essays that assess Barth’s relationship with radical politics. Of particular interest is Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt’s article “Socialism in the Theology of Karl Barth,” which argues that the initium of Barth’s theology was his encounter with social struggle and socialist praxis while he was a pastor in Safenwil.

Jüngel, Eberhard. Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy. Translated by Garrett E. Paul. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986. A lucid and readable English translation of essays by Jüngel, a scholar who served as an assistant for one of the volumes of Church Dogmatics. This is a sympathetic yet scholarly introduction to the major themes in Barth’s theology: the otherness of God, the humanity of God, Gospel, and law. Includes endnotes and a selected bibliography of the works of Barth.

Mueller, David L. Karl Barth. Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1975. In Word Books’ Makers of the Modern Theological Mind series. A useful introduction to the life and thought of Barth, written by a professor of theology.

Torrance, Thomas F. Karl Barth: An Introduction to His Early Theology, 1910-1931. London: SCM Press, 1962. An excellent discussion of Barth’s controversial The Epistle to the Romans by one of the leading Barthian scholars. Includes a useful bibliography of Barth’s works.