Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God (Prolegomena to Church Dogmatics) Part 1 - Introduction. [Hardcover]

Karl Barth (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0567090132 | ISBN-13: 978-0567090133 | Publication Date: December 9, 2003 | Edition: 2nd

Described by Pope Pius XII as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas, the Swiss pastor and theologian, Karl Barth, continues to be a major influence on students, scholars and preachers today.Barth s theology found its expression mainly through his closely reasoned fourteen-part magnum opus, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik. Having taken over 30 years to write, the Church Dogmatics is regarded as one of the most important theological works of all time, and represents the pinnacle of Barth s achievement as a theologian.>

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Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: T&T Clark Int'l; 2nd edition (December 9, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0567090132
• ISBN-13: 978-0567090133
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,507,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 stars The Opening Act, December 30, 2011

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Baroque Norseman (Louisiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God (Prolegomena to Church Dogmatics) Part 1 - Introduction. (Hardcover)

Karl Barth's goal in this volume is to recover the proclamation of the Word of God as the place where God's message of salvation meets sinful man. Contrary to the shrill reactions from the Reformed crowd, Barth did not deny the truth of the Gospel. However, Barth's message did rework what we mean by "the Bible," "The Word of God" and "Revelation." Some of these re-structurings will cause problems to conservative Calvinists. Be that as it may, the reasons why Barth did these things are very instructive and for the present reader, offered a way through many impasses in reading the Bible.

Similar to the hysteria surrounding the academic career of N. T. Wright, Karl Barth also wrote in response to liberalism and modernism--something both his and Wright's critics failed to grasp. Barth denied that God was the "sum total of human experience" (ala Schliermacher) or the "evolution of religious consciousness" (ala Tillich). Rather, God was "wholly other" who meets man through his Revelation. What does Barth mean by "Revelation?" For Barth, Revelation is "the Word become Flesh" (119). The "Word of God" is our meeting said Revelation in the proclamation of the Church (137).

Barth's reading will cause problems for many conservatives, and we should seriously consider these problems. If Barth is correct, then "inerrancy" simply becomes a non-issue. One can still maintain inerrancy, but there is no longer a need to fight that (admittedly difficult) battle. Seeing God's revelation as "the Incarnate Word" is helpful. This is precisely how the apostle John spoke about Jesus and the Word of God. Such a reading brings an urgently personal dimension to issues like Christ and the Bible. This does not mean that our understanding of who Jesus is is now relative and up for grabs. The Bible still remains the criterion for the Church in its proclamation. While no longer seen as literally the "breath of God continually breathing in our quiet time," and no longer seen as direct, propositional revelation from God, it is still holy men's witness to God's revelation.i It is still the script of the Church. The Bible, though, must now be read and interpreted in the Church. Academic theology is officially finished.

Throughout the volume Barth repeatedly (and helpfully) summarizes his argument. We meet "the Word of God" (which is "speech from God," cf. 157) in three forms: proclamation, Scripture, and revelation. We can know the Word of God because God's word is "speech." It is speech to us and speech implies, assuming God isn't insane, a rational speaker. The point, then, of a rationally speaking God is that he speaks to (at least some) men who can (at least some times) rationally receive his message (187, 214).

The structure of Barth's introductory volume will seem peculiar to some. He spends the first half of the volume dealing with problems of revelation and Scripture and then moves into the Trinity. However, there have been hints within Barth's narrative that he planned this all along. Keep in mind that for Barth "revelation" does not equal "propositional speech from/about God," but rather, revelation is God, or more specifically, The Word of God Incarnate. If that is so, then in discussing revelation we must discuss God, and in discussing God, we must discuss the Trinity.

Barth on Analogy

Barth was notorious for denying the concept of man's analogous reasoning towards God, even calling the doctrine of analogia entis the "artifact of Antichrist." Critics have since accused Barth of denying all forms of analogy and thus reducing Barth's position to absurdity, for analogous reasoning is inevitable (e.g., when we call God "father" we obviously have at least some human point of reference). But Barth did not deny all forms of analogy. Interestingly, neither do the Eastern Trinitarians. What is being denied is an analogy between God's being and creaturely being. The reason both groups deny this analogy is because the content of the creaturely being (which is what we know) begins to define (and thus limit) our understanding of the divine being. There is no problem, within reason, however, of drawing analogies between God's operations or the divine persons, which Barth does.

Revelation as Trinity

Barth's second half of this volume is a discussion of God as Trinity. This necessarily follows, per his gloss, from his discussion of Prolegomena, because God reveals himself as Trinity. Keep in mind that for Barth God's revelation is not "The Bible" but God himself. It is here that Barth introduces his (in)famous description of God as "three modes of being" (359). By this Barth simply wants to describe God's life in a way that doesn't suffer from the usual definitions of "person." Men have criticized Barth for using the term "mode" and from that drew the conclusion that Barth is a modalist. I don't think Barth is a modalist, though.i Instead, Barth is drawing upon the Cappadocian notion of tropos huparchos, or mode (way) of being. By this he means that the one God is God in the mode of Father, in the mode of Son, and in the mode of Holy Spirit (359-360).

Mode for Barth is simply his attempt to say what the Church has always meant by "person." Of course, what the Church has "always meant by person" is a challenge, as Barth gives an excellent survey over the theological etymology of the word "person" (355-358).

Conclusions and criticisms

Whenever a theologian sets out to write 9,000+ pages (Church Dogmatics, you will recall, is a largely unfinished work), there will be sections where the reader disagrees. That is to be expected. My disagreements and criticisms of Barth in no way detract from from the sheer awe that is due to the man.

Was Barth consistent?
We agree with Barth that revelation equals the Incarnate Word. We further agree that the Bible cannot simply be defined as "the word of God." Barth elsewhere notes that God's revelation is God himself, and as such claims Lordship over man. God is both the means and content of revelation (295). Accordingly, Barth is worried about any attempt of man, (for example, the Church) to be in a hermeneutical position vis-a-vis the Scriptures. He notes that if man stands in authority over the Scriptures, the Bible can no longer exercise that free and existential lordship over the Church. As such, he is "self-interpreting" (311).

Unfortunately for us, self-interpreting claims are always ambiguous. It begs the obvious (and unanswerable) question, "Self-interpreting to whom?" While the Word of God can "grasp" the individual believer and meet him with the claims of Lordship, at the end of the day someone has to interpret the Scriptures. Further, if Barth is correct and the location of dogmatics is done in the Church (112), then that someone's interpretation will in some way be binding on said believer's life. (The alternative, of course, is the free church model where "everyone did what was right in his own eyes.") At one point Barth appears aware of this problem when he says, "We must bear in mind that the word of God is mediated here, first through the human persons of the prophets and the apostles who receive it and pass it on, and then through the human persons of the expositors and preachers, so that the Holy Scripture and proclamation must always become God's words in order to be it" (304).

This problem is even more pointed earlier in the narrative when Barth (unwittingly) sets Scripture against the Church (97). It is not merely that Barth objects to the idea of an apostolically-ordained bishop (which he doesn't specifically challenge that historicity of such), but also the idea of a teaching office of the Church. Of course, Barth's background is the papal claims of Vatican I, and almost all of his rhetoric is directed against such. The question, though, one can ask Barth is, "How do you know your canon of Scripture is correct?" He doesn't answer the question. He assumes a normative Protestant canon. He does not deal with (at least in this volume of CD) the issue of how the canon came to be. It would be embarrassing for his argument if he did. Keep in mind his claim elsewhere (311) that God's revelation (and by extension, Scripture) is "self-interpreting." If it is self-interpreting, it is necessarily the highest authority. If that is the case, and I think Barth would agree, then the highest authority must establish itself. This authority, though, does not say anything about the content or goal of a canon. The canon must be established elsewhere.

The problem isn't over, yet. If one establishes the canon elsewhere, one must also do so in light of the fact that for Barth (and most of the Protestant tradition), "Scripture interprets Scripture." Aside from other hermeneutical problems with that statement, this means that the horizon of Scripture is not determined by Scripture (remember, Scripture says nothing about a fully intact canon). The Church, however, through the holy fathers, says quite a bit about such a horizon. At this point in history when Barth was writing, aside from a few Catholics, nobody raised the question.

Final Thoughts

The book is rightly seen as the beginning of a masterpiece. Even if everything Barth said is all wrong, one cannot deny that he was a master thinker and writer. The book is written with a superior style. The alternating text of large print/small print is an aide to the reader. If one has some history in post-Reformation theology and continental philosophy, the book is actually quite easy to read. Finally, one will get a thorough overview of post-Reformation dogmatics and will be able to speak of these thinkers with confidence.

4 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Book one of fourteen(!): just the setup, ma'am., December 6, 2008

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Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God (Prolegomena to Church Dogmatics) Part 1 - Introduction. (Hardcover)

Karl Barth, The Doctrine of the Word of God (Scribner, 1936)

Depending on your point of view, Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics is either the greatest religious treatise, or the greatest piece of intellectual masturbation, of the twentieth century. Either way, you have to admit it's an enormously impressive achievement. Spanning just shy of nine thousand pages over the course of fourteen volumes, Church Dogmatics is the go-to reference when it comes to Protestant theology; no matter how obscure the point you want insight on, Barth has probably analyzed it straight into the ground and back out the other side. (I should note here that, for the first time, to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the current edition, T&T Clark are--finally!--releasing a paperback edition of Church Dogmatics. The page count will be smaller by two thousand, but the volume count is more than doubled. Riddle me that, Batman.)

Despite my not being a Christian--despite, in fact, my decided antipathy toward the Church--I have long wanted to read the Church Dogmatics, simply because Barth actually found nine thousand pages' worth of material to address as regards the Church. (Also because Barth is, when it comes down to it, a very good writer; his essay on Mozart is sure to be enjoyed by Christian and secular readers alike.) After a decade and a half of waffling on the idea, I decided to bite the bullet and sit down with volume one this year, and continue on through the series at the rate of one book a year (while noting the irony that if I'd started in 1993, I'd be done now). And, thus, we come to The Doctrine of the Word of God, the first volume (the preface, really) of Church Dogmatics, and why a heathen like me is sitting here getting ready to review it. I say "getting ready" despite that fact that I've already written three hundred odd words because, obviously, I haven't actually addressed the content of the book yet.

It's pretty obvious that over the course of nine thousand pages, Barth has all the room he could possibly need to delve as deeply into whatever subject he's got his teeth into at any given moment as he needs to. In this case (and I should mention that these five hundred seventy-five pages comprise Chapter One and the first half of Chapter Two), Barth is still getting warmed up. The first book is about how to approach dogmatics (which is, of course, the study of dogma), not dogmatics itself. The definition of dogmatics as it relates to the Church (the Lutheran Church in particular, naturally), how the definition of dogmatics in the Protestant Church differs from the definition of dogmatics in the Catholic Church, and what all this means with regards to how Barth will approach the subject for the nest eight thousand four hundred pages.

For those of you who feel the need to skim, Barth's translator, (the no doubt long-suffering) T. F. Torrance, notes that it's possible to simply read the bits that are printed in regular font and ignore the stuff printed in small font (since Barth will often go off on tangents running two of three pages, it seemed more confusing than it was worth, I guess, to try and make footnotes out of these passages). I, on the other hand, am here to tell you that if you don't read the fine print, you're going to miss out on all the fun this book has to offer. Yes, I did say, and mean, "fun". For all that this project has an air of the dry and scholarly about it, when Barth hits his stride, he can be just as catty as Paris Hilton with a Swiss accent; back in the days before the Internet, printed exchanges of heated debate were not uncommon (there's a great example in Pick's book of criticism on Gerard Manley Hopkins' "The Windhover"); Barth, while writing the updated 1934 edition of the Dogmatics, was obviously embroiled in quite a few of these, and he often used these "diversion passages" (it's misleading to call them footnotes) to express his frustration that a particular critic didn't get what he was on about, expound on hos another dogmatist had missed the mark entirely on a particular point, or what have you. It's great stuff. We all know there are few things more fun to watch (though less fun to participate in) than a heated religious debate; I grant you, we're only getting one side here, but that doesn't make the schadenfreude any less delightful.

All that said, it is hard going; I ended up taking an extended break once I'd gotten about halfway through the book and coming back to it five months later, when I felt that I was ready to handle Barth's (or Torrance's, though having read any number of bad translations from Germanic languages--and one or two literal word-for-word translations of Barth--I have to say that Torrance did a damned fine job of making this book as readable as he could) long-winded, digressive style once again. This is not a book you'll be keeping by the window bench for light reading while you're gazing out at the tulip beds. Barth's goal was to create as definitive a religious reference as possible, and the style reflects that. So I can't really say that this is the kind of thing you're going to find yourself reading for pleasure...unless you're me, because obviously I'm doing just that. If you do decide to take the plunge with me, however, even if you're just as much a heathen as I am, reading something this huge is really its own reward. ***