Karl Barth (1886-1968) is a
name that every serious students of theology should know, period. He is widely
regarded as the most important Protestant theologian of the twentieth century.
His famous works are commentary The
Epistle to the Romans and Church Dogmatics
(seriously, it’s a thick book to read. I only read the summary from time to
time). Barth’s Romans commentary, which first published in German in 1918,
caused a sensation on account of “its vision of dialectic between God and humanity,”
writes Alister E. McGrath editor of The
Christian Theology Reader (1995). He continues, “There is a total gulf between God and the
world, which can never be bridged from our side. The fact that we know anything
about God is itself the result of God’s self-revelation, not human activity or
insight. God is totally distinct from human thought and civilization.”
This relentless emphasis on the “total qualitative distinction” between God and
humanity established Barth as “a radical voice in the theology of the period immediately
after the First World War”.
On the “Otherness” of God
from The Epistle of Romans (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1933), Karl Barth wrote:
“[Paul, in the book of Romans]
appeals only to the authority of God. This is the ground of his authority. There
is no other. Paul is authorized to deliver – the gospel of God. He is commissioned to hand over to humanity
something quite new and unprecedented, joyful and good – the truth of God. Yes,
precisely – of God! The gospel is not
a religious message to inform humanity of their divinity, or to tell them how
they may become divine. The Gospel
proclaims a God utterly distinct from humanity. Salvation comes to them
from him, they have no right to claim anything from him. The Gospel is not one
thing in the midst of other things, to be directly apprehended and
comprehended. The Gospel is the Word of the Primal Origin of all things, the
Word which, since it is ever new, must ever be received with renewed fear and
trembling…
Jesus Christ is our Lord. This is the Gospel
and the meaning of history. In this name two worlds meet and go apart, two
planes intersect, the one know and the other unknown. The know plane is
God’s creation, fallen out of its union with him, and therefore the world of
the ‘flesh’ needing redemption. The world of human beings, and of time, and of
things – our world. This known plane is intersected by another plane that is
unknown – the world of the Father, the Primal Creation, and of the final
Redemption. The relation between us and God, between this world and his world,
presses for recognition, but the line of intersection is not self-evident. The point on the line of intersection at
which the relation becomes observable and observed is Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth,
the historical Jesus.” (Bold mine)
The unknown God is known through Christ our Lord
THINK
BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.
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