chapter i

1.1.2 Secularization and the Western Churches

How have the Christian churches in the West then understood and dealt with this problem of secularization? The first response was strongly negative, since in 1928 secularism was identified as the greatest rival to Christianity. [14] Viewing Western secularism as pseudo-religion preaching a gospel of human autonomy throughout the world, Hendrik Kraemer demanded a fundamental separation between cultural Westernization and Christian missions:

Although man, through science and creative criticism, immensely progressed in the mastery of life by the organization of all human activity, the inner structure of his life has been imperceptibly but steadily undermined by forces of disruption and dissolution. For the West this is rooted in the development of the inner trends of its civilization in the last centuries. For the Eastern peoples it has come as a result of the impact of the Western peoples. [15]

The spell of the erroneous identification of Christianity and the progressive Western culture is broken, and, still deadlier... To promise that Christianity will dispel economic misery and social disturbance is to invite disillusionment... “christianizing” the social, economic and political order, although necessarily included in the living act of manifold missionary expression, cannot be the real motive and ultimate purpose. [16]

He also pointed out that the secularization of the non-Christian religions would even cause a negative impact on Christian missions, as it promotes a separation between religion and real life. [17]

Since the Second World War, however, the second response developed in European theology. Friedrich Gogarten advocated that secularization is the ultimate aim and development of Christianity. In the Netherlands Arend Th. van Leeuwen presented the most striking and extremely positive view of secularization. In the twilight of Western colonialism, he insisted that the expansion of Western civilization did not end but rather achieves “conquests greater than any it has made hitherto,” [18] declaring the verdict that “For him who has once eaten of the tree of Western civilization there can be no turning back.” [19] Based on his own interpretation that the destiny of human history is exclusively fixed on a historical line from Israel to the West and from the West to the world, he claimed that Christianization is westernization as well as secularization. [20] So van Leeuwen suggested recognizing the cultural form of Western missions for spreading the “Christian civilization” of the West as “new channels of advance,” [21] for which “the secularization of Christianity” had to occur first. [22] This radical view of secularization is also found in the Secularization Theology and the Death-of-God Theology in America, though it had “scant appeal and little compelling power.” [23] But it affected theological discussions and ecumenical movements especially in the 1960's, as this positive view was dominant in European theological circles, though it was a reactionary expression to the negative and futuristic view of the world of the past for most theologians.

Today it is changing. According to Rob van der Zwan, following the periods of rejection (1928-1950) and acceptance (1950-1975) “a certain euphoria which characterized the earlier period gave way to a more realistic consideration of the position and possibilities of Western Christianity, after theologians became conscious of the ecclesiastical and religious disruption caused by secularization.” [24] This realism reflects some development of “crisis” consciousness in European theology, as the marginalization of Christianity has now entered a serious stage in Europe. First, the positive support of secularization brought a sense of emptiness to European theology, as it made no positive contribution either to the church or society but only had negative and self-destructive effects in losing influence and frame of reference and becoming a minority in society. Secondly, sociology of religion could no longer maintain its religious neutrality and it now carefully seeks to assume its social responsibility. Stating that “in sociology of religion it is frequently claimed that society cannot continue to exist without one or other form of religion,” G. Dekker suggests that secularization is not a desirable development for the society, as it destroys “the system that gives meaning” (zingevingssysteem) and “the system of value” (waardensysteem) which are indispensable for a healthy society. [25] The sociological change of direction is awakening theologians, who have depended significantly on sociology of religion in their discussions of secularization. Further, as we pointed out above, sociology finally declared that there is no authentic definition of secularization. In fact, theologians of secularization have been so confused by sociology that they even called what had been traditionally included in “sanctification,” such as declaring idols of the world as not divine and liberating spiritually enslaved people from them, as “secularization.” Now, they are going back to the primary and essential meanings of the term, like the decline of church membership and conformity to the world, while clarifying some confused concepts through the use of new appropriate terms. Thirdly, the myth of post-religious society has broken down, as new religions are replacing Christianity. As Anton Wessels pointed out, “The occurrence of the revival of religion in our time, not only of Islam, lets us see another trend, to the regret of all secularization theories.” [26] Thomas Molnar explains persuasively that a massive repaganization movement in the vacuum of Christianity is a great possibility if it is not prevented by a Christian movement of reversal. [27] Hans Küng also contends that “Not religion, but its dying off, was the grand illusion” [28] and concluded: “Waiting for God or vain, meaningless waiting for Godot--that is the alternative today.” [29] Fourthly, theologians are coming to identify themselves more closely with the churches and struggle together with the problem of secularization, as Christian churches have now become a minority in Europe. In fact, theologians have tended to be critical of the churches in the last decades and therefore could not be sympathetic with the churches' attitude toward secularization, which was predominantly negative. [30]

As J. Veenhof points out, “Reformed people, who seek after impulses for their faith in the midst of all secularization, go in greatly different directions in search of the answer.” [31] A unified effort of churches and theologians to assess secularization and define it biblically and theologically is now necessary, in order to deal with it effectively, as theology has to serve the Church as her “internal reflection.” [32] As A. van Egmond suggests, the Christian definition has to be spiritual and theological, dealing with the deeper “origin,” rather than being a mere analysis of its phenomenal “consequences.” [33] The continuity between the Western and Korean understandings of secularization will then be far more apparent, for both churches are after all Christian.

1.1.3 A Christian Definition of Secularization

Long before the use of the term “secularization” in sociology, the Christian churches were already well aware of the concept, for the biblical teaching of the “world” implied a strong warning against such a tendency. It is definitely far more comprehensive and penetrating than its sociological understanding. For practical reasons as well, we have no other choice than to make a working definition of it as it is used in the churches, if we intend to discuss it within the churches. The Christian churches are not concerned with a neutral definition of the secularization of any religion but only with the secularization of Christian religion.

In his dissertation, Saecularisatie als Probleem der Theologische Ethiek, Boudewijn Rietveld has contributed to the Christian and theological understanding of secularization in three ways, as he reflected the negative view within the churches. First, he distinguished secularization from de-christianization. In itself, secularization is a matter of a relationship with God, rather than the Church or Christianity itself. The decline of the Christian churches is a secondary and external phenomenon which appears as a result of the broken relationship with God. Therefore, to understand secularization merely as de-christianization is to confuse an effect with the event itself and mislead the churches from the right perspective and strategy. [34] Secondly, he understood that “the subject of secularization is the life of men in their world, as it functions in all connections with the heart as its center.” [35] Man and his spirit are secularized, because they are separated from God. [36] Its effect then necessarily and naturally appears in every area of his life, i.e., extending from his spirituality and morality even to his political, economic and cultural life. [37] Thirdly, he connected secularization with demonization, i.e., submission to the powers of this world. Because there is no “neutral area” between the Kingdom of God and the dominion of Satan, [38] secularization is “the way to demonization,” [39] even though we may not directly identify them. It is certainly an aspect that is hidden to the social scientists, and this spiritual view illuminates the spiritual history of mankind in the world. Accordingly, Rietveld said that “the history of the Fall (Gen.3) is the history of the beginning of secularization.” [40] Since then, the whole world has been in the process of secularization, while God launched the counter-process of sanctification. Between these two mega-processes, neither can be “a calm unbroken process,” and there is a continuous “struggle between life and death” in a “position war.” [41] In this universal and historical scheme of secularization, its true and objective understanding, whether the Western or Korean secularization, would be possible. After all, it is crucial to understand that secularization is a spiritual movement. So he defined “secularization as the emancipation of the world from the triune God, in an attempt to exist sovereign by itself.” [42]

In fact, the term “secularization” arose in the Christian world, and its etymological origin is connected to the Latin term “saeculum” and its derivatives. Especially in ecclesiastical Latin, saeculum was used as a corresponding translation of the biblical terms, i.e., olam in Hebrew and especially aion in Greek, which are generally used to refer to a long period of time, from a generation even to eternity. [43] And the biblical idea that this world is temporally limited with a beginning and end has naturally developed an extended meaning to this term, that is, “the age of the world” and “this world,” in contrast to “the age to come” and “the future world” (cf. Mk 10.30, Lk 18.30, Eph 1.21). [44] So Christian churches have often used saeculum in a negative sense as “the world,” “worldliness,” or “the spirit of the age,” and its derivatives like saecularis as “worldly,” saecularia as “worldly matters,” and saeculariter as “in a worldly manner.” Therefore, what the term “seculari-zation” means has been quite clear to Christian churches.

The “world” in the Bible has both positive and negative senses. In the Old Testament the world is primarily the creation of God and therefore His property. The Hebrews did not even have a single word for the world or universe. The LXX's use of kosmos is a translation of the Hebrew terms for “heaven and earth,” “all,” etc. [45] This positive view continues in the New Testament, where “the world” is expressed mostly in two interchangeable Greek words, aion and kosmos. Its negative use, however, was developed in the New Testament. In the primary sense, the world is the universe or simply the earth with its plants and animals. But, because man is the primary being of the world in relation to God, the secondary sense of the word refers to the world community of men with its environment. And with the Fall “sin entered the world” (Rom 5.12) and Satan reigned as “the prince of this world” (Jn 12.31, 16.11) and “the god of this age” (2Cor 4.4). So the men of the world have been “in slavery under the basic principles of the world” (Gal 4.3), and the good world fell into “evil” (Gal 1.4). It is in this third sense that the world was given its own spiritual and personal identity. Such a fallen and rebellious world has its own spirit, “the spirit of the world” (1Cor 2.12), as well as its own wisdom, “the wisdom of the world” (1Cor 1.20, 2.6, 3.19). Now, the evil world lures even the believers to love and care for the world with “the power of the world,” while it hates and persecutes those who do not associate with the world (Jn 7.7, 15.18f, 17.14, 1Jn 3.13). On the other hand, “God so loved the world” and sent His only begotten Son “to save the world” (Jn 3.16f). Jesus' mission to the world was “the reconciliation of the world” with God (2Cor 5.19).

Whoever believes Him, therefore, has to keep him “from being polluted by the world” (Jas 1.27) or from “the corruption of the world” (2Pet 2.20), because “the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6.14, Col 2.20). Further, he is called to fight against the power of the world for the Kingdom of God (Eph 6.10-18, 1Tim 1.18-20, 2Tim 2.3f). In this life-long struggle, a definite rule of antithesis is set: “friendship with the world is hatred toward God” and “a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (Jas 4.4). So, “the children of God,” who are opposed to “the children of the world” (Lk 16.8), are ordered not to “love the world” (1Jn 2.15) or “conform to the pattern of this world” (Rom 12.2). Jesus, the Lord of the Christian community, did “overcome the world” (Jn 16.33), and so His churches must and can overcome it (1Jn 5.4f). His victory over the world has set the limited term for the existence of this world, and in this remaining time, the eschaton, the Christian community, which lives in this world but belongs to a new world, is called to make a victorious fight against this evil world with the help of the Holy Spirit (Eph 6.12). In this biblical scheme, “fellowship with the world” is the most undesirable and dangerous threat to the Church, especially when it is a collective and continuous trend. Therefore, the Christian churches have ever been careful of this tendency toward the saeculum, which later became known by the term “secularization.”

But the negative use of the “world” in the Scripture is purely spiritual and it does not mean this visible and cosmic world. Nevertheless, it has been misused as for promoting monastic or pietistic “world-renunciation.” This negative worldview has been significantly corrected, however, especially during the 1960's. Anton Houtepen traces the shift by in-depth analysis of the documents of Vatican II and the World Council of Churches in this period. According to him, both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches had a negative worldview until 1960's, but it has changed from “other-worldly” to “this-worldly,” from encounter to solidarity, as “Both the view of the unceasing redeeming activity of God as well as the view of the task and the existence of the church lead, thus, to a positive concept of saeculum.” [46] His explanation of the reason is very persuasive, for the “mission” consciousness of the church for the reconciliation of the world would generate Christian love of the world. Further, he suggested that the dynamic understanding of the saeculum as the “history” of salvation worked out by the active God and responsible men would overcome both historical utopianism as well as eschatological pessimism and establish a unified ecumenical worldview of Christianity. [47] As Augustine emphasized, the saeculum is the locus of two eschatological cities, which are invisibly interwoven and will be separated only eschatologically. [48] Therefore, the Christian worldview has to be both positive and negative, not neutral, and the “tension” [49] between the two aspects is inevitable and necessary for Christian approach to the world. In this context, secularization means a denial of spiritual tension and a spiritual movement toward the negative dimension of the saeculum. Here we find a spiritual continuity in the understanding of secularization between the Western and Korean churches.

Therefore, I conclude that secularization is universal, spiritual, and antithetical. Secularization occurs on two levels, the individual and the collective, and the common usage of the term in our times particularly means the latter, i.e., mass secularization, which begins with spiritual emancipation from God and ends with physical emancipation from His Church. This last stage of secularization is active in the Western churches, while the first stage is operative in the non-Western churches. This leads here to our particular concern, i.e., the secularization of the Korean churches, but we will approach it by first considering some general features found in the secularization of the non-Western churches.

1.1.4 Secularization of the Non-Western Churches

Since the end of the era of colonialism, non-Western churches began to reflect upon Western Christianity as to whether it was identical with genuine Christianity and whether Western culture was truly Christian. The general response was more or less negative. For example, Choan Seng Song, a Chinese theologian, argued that Western Christianity had been born from the unfortunate wedlock of Christianity and Western culture, and their divorce seems inevitable by the pressure of contemporary secularization. [50] If it is true, it means that the Western missionaries have unconsciously brought an impure and secularized Christianity to the non-Western world.

But is it true? It is a difficult and painful task, but both Western and non-Western theologians have to work together in order to solve the contemporary crisis of global secularization, rather than blaming others and defending themselves. Lesslie Newbigin opens the way in recognizing that “Missionaries in Asia and Africa have been agents of secularization even if they did not realize it.” [51] But, it is quite natural and even praiseworthy that Western missionaries have been agents of modernization and westernization. Out of a simple compassion, the Western missionaries tried to improve the materially impoverished situation by importing Western civilization. The only problem was that they lacked a proper view of culture, as they did not recognize some crucial problems embedded in modern Western culture. [52]

To be sure, it is generally agreed that modern secularization is “linked to the modernization process which has taken place in the Western world in the past few centuries, or even as an inherent part of this process” and therefore it “is automatically expected to take place in every society where a modernization process is taking place.” [53] And in the non-Western world modernization means Westernization. Therefore, it can be assumed that the modern culture of the West is a source of secularization for non-Western churches, as it is generally regarded as the major cause of modern secularization in the Western churches. The Western concept of modernization does not mean merely a pursuit of scientific and technological culture but also involves its futuristic tendency of denying the authority of tradition and therefore secularization of traditional religion. [54] As this idea has permeated the West and then the whole world and caused global secularization, “modern culture” is a cultural continuity, which is indispensable in understanding secularization of both Western and Korean churches.

However, Christian insight cannot limit the source of secularization to a particular culture. Rather, it is universal, as we have seen in the Christian understanding of secularization. Its origin is far earlier, even at the beginning of human history, and its sphere is far wider, extending even to the whole world. Therefore, it is not correct to blame Western and modern culture only for having the seed of secularization within it. All the local cultures in the world are more or less in bondage to the power of the world. It is our suggestion, therefore, that non-Western churches have to reflect critically on their own cultures, especially religious cultures, in order to understand fully their problem of secularization.

Of two sources of secularization in the non-Western churches, we will deal first with the problem of the modern secularization, which has taken place in Western culture and spread over the whole world, as the general context of our study. For the particular context of Korean culture as another source of secularization in the Korean churches, it will be discussed fully later in chapter 4.

1.2 Modern Secularization

Secularization is a perennial and universal phenomenon. However, this process is culminating in our times, so that it is properly called “the Age of Secularization.” Tired of controversy over secularization, Martin E. Marty denied the uniqueness of contemporary secularization. [55] But I do not agree with him, because it is quite different from the secularization in the past. Modern secularization is rather systematic and dominant, so that “At the international missionary conference at Jerusalem in 1928, Secularism was put alongside Hinduism, Islam and the rest as one of the rivals with which the Gospel has to deal, but described as the greatest of them.” [56] As Lesslie Newbigin wrote, “The most significant fact about the time in which we are living is that it is a time in which a single movement of secularization is bringing the peoples of all continents into its sweep.” [57] It is “the supporting atmosphere” or “like the air about us.” [58] It is not a mere subjective judgment but “an objective process” and “a matter of history.” [59]

We will attempt to overview some special characteristics of the modern secularization for deeper insight into this critical phenomenon. Every aspect of culture is considered in relation to it, but three particular aspects receive the most intense illumination, i.e., political, philosophical, and technological developments. It is generally agreed that modern secularization started in the political weakening of the ecclesiastical power and its subsequent transfer of power to the secular powers. The leading ideas of this movement were then developed and strengthened in the area of philosophy, especially the philosophy of history. Finally, it is said that the birth of the technological culture accelerated our contemporary and future secularization. Our discussion in the three sub-sections will concentrate on these three aspects of modern secularization.

1.2.1 Political Secularization

Historians generally agree that the latter half of the nineteenth century is crucial in this trend. [60] Owen Chadwick, in his monumental work entitled The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century, set the crucial period for the European secularization as “from the publication of the Origin of Species in 1859 until the downward turn in French, German and English churchgoing statistics during the 1880s, or in part until 1914.” [61] This agrees approximately with Gary Scott Smith, who analyzed American secularization as follows in The Seeds of Secularization: Calvinism, Culture, and Pluralism in America 1870-1915: “Many of the secular seeds planted between 1870 and 1915 have borne mature fruit only in our time.” [62]

What or who caused this radical turn in the history of Christendom? Most scholars find its distant origins in the Greek philosophy of human autonomy or the Church Fathers' progressive interpretation of history, but they cannot be its direct and decisive causes. It is a typically modern phenomenon and its cause should be found rather within more recent centuries. Many revolutionary thinkers are suggested as influential in the rise of modern secularization. No doubt they have contributed to this universal movement in their own way, but it is difficult to conclude that a small number of intellectuals created this movement, for “Enlightenment was of the few” while “Secularization is of the many.” [63] Rather, they seem to reflect some historic change which was happening at their own time with a keen sensitivity.

Then, what was the historic event or movement which caused a massive departure from Christianity in our times? Because it is a religious change, it is natural to turn our attention to the most revolutionary event in church history--the Reformation. However, if the two movements are related, secularization may be an unintended development of the Reformation. Concerning this possibility, it is interesting that a consensus is emerging in recent studies. In the 1947 Evanston Conference on Secularism, church historian John T. McNeill suggested an idea: “The increasing subjection of the churches to the state in all European countries produced its fruits of secularism among the clergy.” [64] Later, after the heated discussions and analyses on secularization in the 1960s and 70s, the leading sociologist David Martin concluded that secularization was caused by the failure of differentiation between church and state. According to him, church and state are two major organizations in human society, and the social differentiation between these two safeguards their distinct and constant development. However, “it [the Church] constantly encounters the centripetal power of society, either converting the body of the Church into the body of citizens without remainder, or making Christianity merely the vehicle of local continuities, reciprocities and values.” [65] Secularization is the result of the Church's failure to resist “the pressure against Christian differentiation.” This failure is followed by the collusion of Church and state, marginalization, and attenuation. [66] Therefore, the Barmen Declaration (1934) is significant in this aspect: “We repudiate the false teaching that the church can and should expand beyond its special responsibility to take on the characteristics, functions and dignities of the state, and thereby become itself an organ of the state.” [67]

Wolfhart Pannenberg recently published a treatise entitled Christianity in a Secularized World, where he agreed with the analysis that secularization is the consequence of the Church's subjection to the state, and that this transition of power occurred because of the public resentment against the endless confessional wars caused by the Reformation in the post-Reformation era:

People realized that religious passion destroys social peace...The doubt which grew under the impact of the wars of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, led in the seventeenth century thinkers Hugo Grotius and Herbert of Cherbury seeking instead the basis of social order and also of peace between states in the natural law, and in connection with that, in a natural religion common to all human beings... That became the starting point for a secular culture in Europe... (Thereafter) the religious question was subordinated to the decision of state sovereignty. [68]

Accordingly, he suggested church unity, the failure of which has brought this situation, as a necessary condition for overcoming our contemporary secularization. [69] David H. Hopper also agreed with this analysis in his recent book (1991), [70] where he also pointed out that even the Reformation itself inspired this development by its “change in the attitude toward change.” [71] This insightful consensus is very significant in our discussion. The failure in proper relations with the state, i.e. political secularization, leads to the subsequent development of secularization.

Secularization theologians insisted that secularism and secularization are not essentially related and therefore to be distinguished. According to Harvey Cox, while secularism is “the name for an ideology, a new closed world-view which functions very much like a new religion,” secularization is “a historical process, almost certainly irreversible, in which society and culture are delivered from tutelage to religious control and closed metaphysical world-views” and therefore “an authentic outcome of biblical faith.” [72] However, secularization is not only a departure from Christianity but also a pursuit of some different ideal. No doubt, there must be some leading idea for secularization, and it is none other than secularism.

1.2.2 Philosophical Secularization

Then, what is the essence of secularism? Rudolf Bultmann is correct to say that “the loss of the supernatural can be and was replaced in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the belief in progress and its accompanying optimism.” [73] When John Baillie says in The Belief in Progress that “Historians agree in regarding belief in progress as one of the ruling ideas in the Western thought of the last hundred and fifty or two hundred years,” [74] it is but an another name for secularism. The idea of progress is called a “belief,” because it “is of a speculative or a priori kind, and not such as readily to be suggested by the observation of historical data alone.” [75]

And, the belief in progress is called “a Christian heresy,” because “it is within Christian civilization and nowhere else that the modern belief in progress has arisen.” [76] Hendrikus Berkhof seems to agree with this positive understanding:

This concept came into the world only after and through Christianity...in short, in the struggle for what we call progress--an activity is taking place throughout the world to the honour of Christ. It is sometimes performed by people who know and desire it; it is more often performed by those who have no concern for it, but whose labour proves that Christ truly received--in full objectivity--all power on earth. [77]

Therefore, “pessimism of culture” is criticized as “an ungrateful blindness.” [78] On the other hand, all the progressivists are praised even as “evangelists and missionaries in their own kind.” [79] But, it is too positive and too inclusive. As a result, Berkhof has fallen into a dilemma. If it is true that “Sanctification and secularization progress together” [80] and therefore “The growth of the opposition forces, then, is an indication of the growth of the Kingdom of God,” [81] there will never be a solution.

Rather, we need to raise a basic question: What is progress? Simply, is it “a movement in a direction deemed desirable”? [82] It is certainly not a sufficient definition, because it is relative to what is desired. Concerning this problem Baillie made a penetrating statement: “Human history can therefore be thought of as progressive only if it is in some sort conceived as a single action. But the conception of history as a single action involves the conception of an universal agent, that is, of God.” [83] Therefore, from the Christian point of view, the belief in progress without God is logically impossible. But, an essential element of secular progressivism is “without God.” As Karl Löwith pointed out, divine providence has been replaced by the idea of progress and thus man became the subject of history in place of God. [84] That is why Martin Heidegger called this age as the epoch of subjectivity (Subjektivität), the era of human autonomy. That is why humanists attempt to erase even the concept of God. [85] But true progress is progress toward God, the center of history, and the true hope of progress “is thus a hope radiating from a single centre and existing only for those whose lives are determined by a positive relation to that centre.” [86] Therefore, claimed progresses in wrong directions are not progress but “progress against Progress.” [87]

Moreover, a genuine progress must be a human progress. Economic, scientific, or informational progress alone may not be true progress without the progress of humanity. However, no historian testifies to the moral progress of human race. [88] Our century is said to be one of the most immoral centuries in the human history: brutal warfare and killing, compassionless neglect of the starving and poor people, insane addictions to immoral pleasures, and, most of all, egoistic rebellion against family and God. Therefore, Hendrikus Berkhof recognized that there are limits to progress. He listed three such limits: (1) it is not applicable to art, the human ethos, love, empathy, and religion; (2) one cannot speak of progress in the sense of happiness; (3) fundamentally, the fact of sin limits it. [89]

Furthermore, the belief in progress involves an element of illusion and even idolatry, because it is an empty notion without any empirical or theological ground. Some have confused the idea of progress with the doctrine of divine providence, but, as J. B. Bury concluded in his pioneering work The Idea of Progress, those two concepts are “incongruous.” [90] For the providence of God neither guarantees a simple forward progress of human history nor imposes His will with a total disregard of human response. It is mysterious and inscrutable in most details. The Kingdom of God will be ultimately realized, but how and when is not revealed. It is ambiguous, but the way to realize His Kingdom lies in judging the world rather than in making it an Utopia. Some criticize this optimistic pessimism as naive and ignorant, [91] but this apocalyptic expectation seems a more biblical and realistic picture. [92] In reality, this belief in progress finally met the “watershed event” of World War I. As Carl L. Becker recognized, “Since 1918 this hope has perceptibly faded. Standing within the deep shadow of the Great War, it is difficult to recover the nineteenth-century faith either in the fact or the doctrine of progress.” [93] But, it did not die out. Becker himself turned to another hope in progress--the hope of technological progress grounded upon the mastery of power. [94] After World War II and Holocaust, a great return to the Christian faith had been expected, but “the revival of religion in the early post-war years was no more than an episode.” [95] Rather, secularization has been more accelerated than ever with the pride and belief in the technological progress.

1.2.3 Technological Secularization

Suddenly we are in the midst of “technological culture.” As Jacques Ellul writes, “we are all in this game.” [96] “Technology is our environment, the new `nature' in which we live, the dominant factor, the system.” [97] It threatens our natural environment, humanity, society and culture, [98] and creates far bigger problems than what it solves, and some of them are irreversible and irreparable. [99] The more technology advances, greater unpredictable disasters will follow. [100] In addition, its damages and dangers are assessed only in monetary terms, and its problems and solutions are analyzed only in technological terms. [101] Technology humiliates men into serving machines [102] and appreciating any and all technological products. [103] It is absurd. It is even more absurd, when we consider the unreasonable fact that we cannot dispose it, even if we wish to do. [104] We simply cannot resist the attractions of modern technology, whatever problems and threats it entails. As technocrats always conclude, “we cannot stop progress.” [105] “To be sure, there are growing efforts at resistance from the environmentalists concerned about the degradation of the natural environment and also from some religious traditions that seek to preserve the social structure and religious meanings of an earlier time,” as David Hopper observed, “but by and large the pace of technological innovation and its spread are little altered by these efforts.” [106] It seems that this technological mechanism, coupled with human problems of pride and avarice, is leading the human race to a “global death.” [107] Ellul even called it an invincible and demonic “terrorism.” [108]

At present, there is a growing anxiety that technology is “beyond our control”. René Dubos commented: “Technology cannot theoretically escape from human control, but in practice it is proceeding on an essentially independent course.”; John Kenneth Galbraith stated: “I am led to the conclusion... that we are becoming servants in thought as in action, of the machine we have created to serve us.”; Martin Heidegger also said: “No one can foresee the radical changes to come. But technological advance will move faster and faster and can never be stopped. In all areas of his existence, man will be encircled ever more tightly by the forces of technology--these forces--have moved long since beyond his will and have outgrown his capacity for decision.” [109] Almost every intellectual worries about it and some of them even imagine a future in which human beings would actually be slaves of powerful artificial intelligence, but they cannot find any fundamental solution. Jacques Ellul provides an insightful explanation of the puzzle of why we cannot control technology. “What all those who think they can master technique lack is,” he explains, “a basic understanding that technique is simply power, that no one can master power, and that by its very nature power forbids all questioning and slips away from all attempts to seize it.” [110] Therefore, it “cannot be controlled unless the whole be controlled.” [111] Who could control the worldly power if not the Christian churches? As he sees it, however, the churches are the worst victim of the modern technological culture rather than a leading force to overcome it. [112] Ellul simply became pessimistic and negative. [113]

However, pessimistic defeatism or technological negativism may not be Christian, because God still reigns this technological world and the power of darkness cannot ultimately succeed. A Christian philosopher Egbert Schuurman offers a “liberating perspective for technological development.” [114] Upon his critical analysis that transcendentalists and positivists, technocrats and revolutionary utopians are altogether heading toward a cul-de-sac because they commonly share a wrong belief in the “autonomy” of technology, [115] he seeks a “religious” solution, for “it is not science or technology but man that bears the blame.” [116] Technological development itself is a divine call, [117] as it works for the redemptive process of liberating the world. [118] But, it is the secular motive(s) of secularized men rather than technology itself that causes technological secularization. [119] Of course, it is debatable whether technology has an internal mechanism that causes secularization. From a Christian point of view, however, the ultimate problem certainly lies in the sinful mind of man, and his salvation is given by grace, making man free from the power of sin and empowers him to serve God responsibly for the redemption of the world. As he correctly pointed out, nothing or nobody could block the progression of the Kingdom of God, which “is forging a path right through the disturbances and dislocations of meaning occasioned by the technological development led by secular motives and fraught, today, with far-reaching consequences.” [120] The present form, however, is not so optimistic. Technology is so secularized, and the problem is still increasing. So Schuurman called for immediate action to restrain and halt the deepening secularization of technology, [121] though its fundamental solution should be religious, that is, a restoration of relationship with God.

As a matter of fact, there are several powerful movements which resist the wrong developments of technology. First, the environmental movement arose in the midst of technological society and has now gained sufficient political power to control unrestrained industrial developments globally. Moreover, scientific research has proved that uncontrolled technological developments will result in global death. Second, the anti-Western movement arose in the Third World countries and corrected the concept of “development.” Though the Western idea of development in technology and economy is still powerfully influential in the Third World countries, it has been significantly controlled by cultural criticism of the superiority of Western technological culture, and the concept of development as Westernization is no longer dominant. This movement has also led for the West to reflect seriously on their own understanding of “culture.”

Most significantly, another movement is emerging now. Disillusioned with technological culture and disappointed by rationalistic thinking, people are turning to seek for the meaning of life. Now, people are beginning to realize “the technological bluff” which has promised an Utopia. [122] “Technology now provides a lesser hope,” says Hopper: “Sometimes the vision of a new technology revivifies briefly the old political hope, the hope of deliverance..., but with a passage of five or six years, the excitement, the stir, the resolve are gone.” [123] Peter Berger analyzed the “built-in” limits of secularization in terms of “homelessness”: modern technological culture necessarily produced a general feeling of homelessness and alienation so that a massive counter-modernization movement would arise to reverse the trend. As examples of this movement, he listed the Third World nationalism, youth culture, leisure culture (labour movement), liberation movement of race and women, and religious resurgences. [124] Pannenberg agreed with this diagnosis, and listed “three signs of a reversal” of the trend toward secularization: a widespread disappointment with the passion for social revolution, a tendency to withdraw from social commitment into private life, and the renewal of religious life in the sub-cultures of society. [125] Because “long term effects of the secularization of culture”--the loss of legitimation in the institutional ordering of society, the collapse of the universal validity of traditional morality and consciousness of law, and the loss of a meaningful focus of commitment--are too destructive to tolerate, he believed, there would certainly be a break and reversal. [126] He then raised an important question: “What can theology contribute to this?” [127]

As clearly stated from the beginning, this study attempts to offer a theological solution to the problem of modern secularization, particulary the secularization of the Korean churches. In our discussion of the problem of secularization (1.1) and some special characteristics of modern secularization (1.2), we found that secularization is a mass emancipation from God toward the world and the effects tragically appear in every area of life, especially in the political, philosophical, and technological aspects of our modern culture. Our task will be to find a way out of the problem of secularization, and therefore the next section will be devoted to that purpose.

1.3. Secularization and Sanctification

1.3.1 The Gospel of Sanctification

Christianity is a religion which offers the gospel of salvation on the basis of Jesus' redemptive life, death, and resurrection. Christian salvation has several aspects, and sanctification is the most important and immediate aspect of salvation for our purpose in finding a theological solution for the problem of secularization. Sanctification is the grace of reversal and counter-process to the movement of secularization. Men have separated themselves from God and fallen into misery, enslaved under the sinful passion of the world and destined for destruction. Nevertheless, God is so gracious as to offer a way back to Him in Jesus Christ, that is, the reconciliation of the world with Him, which sanctifies secularized man and his life. Traditionally sanctification was limited to the individual soul, but it gradually became recognized that the object of sanctification is universal. The sanctification of an individual soul not only has a crucial relationship with the spiritual state of his society including his family, church, the communities in which he lives and works, and the state, but the sanctified man has also been commanded to sanctify his society. This social consciousness is reflected in some recent dogmatics as “social sanctification” or “structural sanctification.” [128] Further, sanctification has been expanded to include the whole creation, with an ecological concern and Kingdom motif. [129] No doubt, it is a good development in the Church's understanding of sanctification.

Further, sanctification is more important practically than any other aspect of salvation. Though its eschatological aspect is indispensable, Christian salvation is achieved already “here and now.” Accordingly, the present reality of salvation has to serve as an object to prove its validity and attraction to the non-Christians:

You are the light of the world...let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. (Mt 5.14-16).

Here lies a crucial challenge as well as a problem of Christian sanctification. For, in the so-called ordo salutis, there are two possible categories. The first category, which includes forgiveness of sin, justification, adoption, union with Christ, regeneration, glorification, and even election, happens in the transcendental realm and therefore it is not observable but to be accepted in faith as having happened by the work of God. However, the second category, which includes calling, conversion and sanctification, occurs also in the phenomenal realm and is therefore partly observable. Sanctification is the most important ordo, because, while calling and conversion are events that have already happened in the past, sanctification is the only imperative ordo for a life-long process to realize salvation in our lives and this world. Moreover, sanctification is the only phenomenally observable reality that proves the validity of Christian salvation. Therefore, sanctification has been a major concern of the Christianity throughout the centuries.

At present, however, any discussion of the doctrine of sanctification is often regarded as traditional and obsolete. To modern man, sanctification seems the most offensive doctrine, for as Leonard Griffith wrote in his Barriers to Christian Belief:

Of all the obstacles that prevent some good people from moving forward to a complete and whole-hearted acceptance of Christianity there is none more formidable and discouraging than its sheer idealism... Perhaps they have honestly tried to live the Christian life but have felt so lonely in their idealism and so wretched by the sense of failure, that they have simply given it up as hopeless. [130]

Except for some devotional books, it is quite rare to find any theological treatise on this doctrine. However, nobody will deny that our age needs the truth and power of sanctification more than any other age in human history, for this is the secularized age.

1.3.2 Secularization of the Doctrine of Sanctification

As mentioned above, sanctification is the counter-process to secularization, bringing men back from the world and reconciling them with God. Clearly, sanctification is the divine method of de-secularization. Therefore, it could be expected that the spirit of the world must be very hostile to the Gospel of sanctification.

It is happening in our age. Secularists now openly criticize the doctrine of sanctification. For example, Carl Jung strongly insisted that the teaching of sanctification causes neurosis by encouraging people to struggle for a holy life and therefore it should be terminated. [131] He even suggested revising our understanding of imitatio Christi: “Are we to understand the `imitation of Christ' in the sense that we should copy his life... or in the deeper sense that we are to live our own proper lives as truly as he lived his in all its implications?” [132] What does he mean by “the deeper sense” but the secular sense? In his Honest to God, John A. T. Robinson similarly criticized the traditional practise of sanctification as “via negativa” and “interior sanctification.” [133] Paul van Buren limited sanctification as love of man and denied that it included love for God. [134] No doubt, one of the most offensive doctrines for the secularists must be that of sanctification, as it opposes and contradicts their worldly orientation.

On the other hand, there are those who attempt to secularize the concept while retaining this biblical and traditional term. As Paul Tillich pointed out, the secularization of the churches which are seeking for holiness and sanctification is a “great riddle of church history.” [135] So some theologians even insisted that secularization is the destiny of Christianity because Christianity has negated entirely the notion of the sacred and thus liberated the human race from religious bondage. They are certainly wrong, because Christian message is not only “liberation from” but also “liberation for.” And, the goal of liberation is not secularization, but sanctification: “For God did not call us to be unholy, but to live a holy life.” (I Thess 4.7) Whatever they do, it is impossible to reconcile both ideas perfectly. However, they argue that secularization is sanctification. Here is a modern illiteracy that confuses even opposite concepts. Here is a theological licentiousness, however they define secularization.

1.3.3 Secularization Theology and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When Harvey Cox said that “The age of the secular city, the epoch whose ethos is quickly spreading into every corner of the globe, is an age of `no religion at all',” [136] it is almost a quotation from Dietrich Bonhoeffer who is honoured as the modern founder of Christian secularism. As a matter of fact, secular theologies are mostly commentaries on Bonhoeffer, but they misunderstand his deep insight and intention. It is true that he advocated “religionless Christianity” “in the world come of age,” but the “religion” which Bonhoeffer criticized was different from the “religion” of which secularist theologians attempted to rid themselves. What then was the religion or “religious clothing” (religiösen Einkleidungen) [137] which Dietrich Bonhoeffer cried to be removed? It was the Western form of Christianity that had become so rationalized and culturalized that it had been transformed into another religion which is essentially different from genuine Christianity. [138] For Bonhoeffer sighed: “Christianity did originally come from the East, but we have so westernized it and so permeated it with the concerns of civilization that we can see that we have almost lost it.” [139] He could sense the coming of the twilight of Western Christianity, because it lost the essence of the Christian faith which he believed to be the way of cross and participation in God's suffering. [140] So he even worried about divine condemnation of the West and the transfer of the Christianity to another part of the world: “Is our time up and has the gospel been given to another people, proclaimed in perhaps very different words and deeds?” [141] With a strong faith in God's grace, however, he overcame his earlier pessimism. [142] In the struggle against the secularized state and church of Hitler's Germany, he dreamed of a new era of a renewed Western Christianity. He believed that it would arrive soon, because he understood that man was “at the end of” a long secularization process which started from the Enlightenment. [143] Therefore, the task of the Church was to de-secularize Western Christianity: “What we need to do now... is to take Christ out of the process of secularization into which he has been drawn since the days of the Enlightenment.” [144]

Bonhoeffer definitely intended to overcome secularization, not to pursue it. [145] Therefore, he rejected the demythologization of Rudolf Bultmann. He appreciated Bultmann's question but not his solution, because it is a liberal reduction of the Gospel:

...he [Bultmann] misconstrues them in the sense of liberal theology, and so goes off into the typical liberal process of reduction--the `mythological' elements of Christianity are dropped, and Christianity is reduced to its `essence'.--My view is that the full content, including the `mythological' concepts, must be kept--the New Testament is not a mythological clothing of a universal truth; this mythology (resurrection etc.) is the thing itself--but the concepts must be interpreted in such a way as not to make religion a pre-condition of faith. Only in that way, I think, will liberal theology be overcome and at the same time its question be genuinely taken up and answered. Thus the world's coming of age is no longer an occasion for polemics and apologetics, but is now really better understood than it understands itself, namely on the basis of the gospel and in the light of Christ. [146]

This evangelistic mind of Bonhoeffer should be taken into consideration in the interpretation of some texts where the term “secularization” is used positively. As far as this is concerned, it is either a counter-secularization of secularized Western Christianity, that is, de-secularization, or a call to the participation in the suffering of sanctification in this world and this critical time (that is, saeculum). [147] It was a cry and call primarily to Hitler's Germany but also to secularized Christians in the world. To be sure, he was not a theologian of secularization, but a theologian of sanctification whose life theme was the discipleship of Jesus--following after Jesus, Nachfolge Jesu, through the participation in the suffering of Jesus in this world.

Because Secularization Theology was criticized as being established upon a misunderstanding of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it suffered greatly. Moreover, because it did not provide any acceptable Christian alternative, it was rejected by the most Christians as a radical departure from authentic Christianity. When Harvey Cox defined it as the liberation of the world from all that was the supernatural, [148] Daniel Callahan responded as follows: “Who needs it, and so what, anyway?” [149] So did Louis Dupré: “If Christianity is not worth being saved as a religion [that is, as a personal relation to transcendence], it is not worth being saved at all.” [150] Pannenberg also criticized its suicidal “paradox”: “Instead of the end of religion--or even as its decisive phase--it was now the end of Christianity which suddenly seemed imminent, or at least the end of the central content of faith in the Christian tradition.” [151] So the fever and fervour of the Secularization Theology has gone, and it is now passé. After the 1970's, even the word “secularization” almost disappeared in theological discussions. [152]

So far, we have established our proposition that sanctification is the gracious and powerful remedy of God for the problem of secularization, in spite of some confusions and distortions of the Gospel of sanctification. Therefore, we may proceed with our study by offering a biblical doctrine of sanctification. But, as our motif and purpose in this project is very contextual and practical with respect to reflection upon the modern development of secularization in Western churches, a course that non-Western churches are expected to follow if it is not fundamentally restrained, I intend to learn from a model theologian of the West, who made a successful struggle against secularization. As seen above, Dietrich Bonhoeffer could be a possibility, but my choice is Karl Barth. Barth is not only one of the best representative theologians of the Western churches today in the Reformed and evangelical tradition, but he also offers one of the most comprehensive and biblical dogmatics that includes the doctrine of sanctification. Further, it is recognized that he represents a small number of theologians who dealt with the problem of modern secularization seriously. [153] Therefore, Barth's doctrine of sanctification is a very contextual and practical reflection of the biblical teaching on it, and his doctrine of sanctification, born out of the struggle against the secularization in the West, would certainly be helpful for the struggle of fellow Christians in Korea.

1.3.4 Karl Barth and Sanctification

Karl Barth (1886-1968) gives commanding importance to the doctrine of sanctification in the whole system of his theology on his theological principle that dogmatics is ethics and ethics is dogmatics. [154] As a matter of fact, Karl Barth has given such an all-embracing existential importance to the doctrine of sanctification that any dogmatic discussion “loses its meaning and purpose” without relating it to sanctification, because it is the “doctrine of sanctification in which dogmatics directly and expressly becomes ethics.” [155] Therefore, without this practical implication, dogmatics would be a mere “metaphysics which, developed in the attitude of a spectator,” “cannot possibly be the reality of the Word of God, no matter how rich or profound its content might be.” [156] In his theology of the Word, if one does not hear the Word in act, “he does not hear it at all,” [157] and thus dogmatics is ethical by nature, or it is a mere speculation.

In every dogmatic discussion, therefore, Barth attempts to relate it to our subject, whether in terms of the Christian life, sanctification, or ethics. So sanctification is discussed everywhere implicitly or explicitly in all of his writings. For that reason, a complete study of his doctrine of sanctification would require the study of the whole corpus of his works, but the extent of his writings [158] disallows such a full treatment. Accordingly, the selection of the materials is inevitably necessary. Of course, our main text will be Barth's final, mature, and comprehensive discussion on sanctification in his Church Dogmatics IV/2, §66: The Sanctification of Man (1955). In addition, many other complementary texts which reflect the diverse stages and aspects of development in his doctrine of sanctification will be dealt with.

First, since he declared his departure from liberal theology and early socialism, Barth was vigorously engaged in the theological attack against the anthropocentric liberalism from every angle of theology. Therefore, the theological principle of sola gratia dominates his primary discussion on sanctification in the first stage of his thought, prior to the Nazi period. Accordingly, the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is strongly emphasized, while the humanistic idea of sanctification is sharply criticized. In this initial stage he laid a theological foundation for his doctrine of sanctification. According to H. W. Tribble, who wrote the first dissertation on Karl Barth's doctrine of sanctification in 1937, Barth even conducted a seminar on the doctrine of sanctification, though the material is not available now. His theological development on this doctrine in this period is reflected in the following works.

1909 “Moderne Theologie und Reichgottesarbeit,” in Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten 1905-1909, ed. H.-A.Drewes and H.Stoevesandt, GA 21, Zürich 1992, 334-66.

1911 “Jesus Christus und die soziale Bewegung,” Der Freie Aargauer 6.153:1-2, 154:1-2; 155:2; 156:1; “Jesus Christ and the Movement for Social Justice,” in: G.Hunsinger, ed., Karl Barth and Radical Politics, Philadelphia 1976, 19-45.

1919 Der Römerbrief, Eerste Fassung, ed. H.Schmidt, GA 16, Zürich 1985.

1922 Der Römerbrief, Zweite Fassung, Zürich 1989; The Epistle to the Romans, tr. E.C.Hoskyns, Oxford 1933.

1927 Rechtfertigung und Heiligung, ZdZ 5:281-309.

1928 Ethik I, 1928 Vorlesung, ed. D.Braun, GA 2, Zürich 1973; Ethics, tr. G.W. Bromiley, New York 1981.

1929 Ethik II, 1928/29 Vorlesung, ed. D.Braun, GA 10, Zürich 1978; Ethics, tr. G.W. Bromiley, New York 1981.

1930 “Der heilige Geist und das christliche Leben,” in Zur Lehre vom Heilige Geist, with H.Barth, München, 39-105; The Holy Ghost and Christian Life, London 1938.

Secondly, when the National Socialist Party and Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933, Karl Barth was strongly impelled to engage passionately in the political struggle against nationalist imperialism, as a theological endeavour. It is in this period that Barth developed his theology of political sanctification, with bitter resentment toward the political secularization of the German Church. His life was his theology. In this political and theological crisis of the German Church, which was confronted with the test of faith to make a choice of whether to serve the Lord or the political power, he led a small portion of the German Church to the courageous declaration of faith at Barmen. And even after he was forced to leave Germany, he supplied a theology of resistance not only to the evangelical German Christians but also Christians all over the Europe and America. The literature produced in this period mostly deals with the problem of political secularization and sanctification, and the following four collections are essential:

Karl Barth zum Kirchenkampf, Beteiligung-Mahnung-Zuspruch, ed. E.Wolf, TEH 49, 1956; The German Church Conflict 1933-1938, London 1965.

Eine Schweizer Stimme 1938-1945, Zürich 1945.

Theologische Fragen und Antworten 1927-1942, Zollikon 1957.

Against the Stream: Shorter Post-War Writings 1946-1952, London 1954.

As Karl Barth became an indisputable patriarch of contemporary theologians after the Second World War, he had to hurry to finish his monumental Kirchliche Dogmatik. Volume IV/2 which includes his systematic and comprehensive doctrine of sanctification (§ 66) was finally published in 1955. On the other hand, he wrote a dozen of summae, dealing with the whole range of dogmatics including the doctrine of sanctification, in addition to the Church Dogmatics, though they are relatively brief and general. As the primary text of Karl Barth is enormous, the secondary sources are more abundant and diverse. Since the first study on his doctrine of sanctification in 1937, several theologians have produced their understandings on Karl Barth's doctrine of sanctification per se. Further, theologians like F.-W. Marquardt, M.E.Brinkman and W.Rumscheidt have contributed to the illumination of Karl Barth's political theology. [159] Also, there are rich resources of reference in the related areas that discuss Karl Barth's understanding of ethics, freedom, obedience, hearing God's command, as well as a general introduction to Karl Barth's theology and soteriology.

But, there were some previous attempts to present Barth's doctrine of sanctification: H. W. Tribble (1937), J. C. Lombard (1957), O. G. Otterness (1969), and M. den Dulk (1987). Therefore, we will briefly review each of those four studies in the following section. This present study, however, will be quite different from those works, as it attempts a contextual, structural, and comprehensive study. While they have concentrated on a limited aspect of Barth's doctrine of sanctification, this study intends a balanced and comprehensive presentation under the teleological superstructure, a perspective that is crucial for a fair understanding. In that sense it aims for a reappraisal of Barth's doctrine of sanctification.

1.4 Previous Approaches

1.4.1 H. W. Tribble (1937)

Tribble's dissertation entitled The Doctrine of Sanctification in the Theology of Karl Barth [160] is the first study on our subject. Even before Karl Barth himself systematized his doctrine of sanctification two decades later (1955), Tribble had attempted to present a systematic description of Karl Barth's doctrine of sanctification in his 1937 Edinburgh dissertation. The only available text at the time was an article entitled “Rechtfertigung und Heiligung” (1927), though he tried to utilize all the early writings of Karl Barth. He had even participated in Barth's seminars on ethics and especially those on sanctification which were, however, not quoted because they were as yet unpublished. [161]

However, his work is praiseworthy and precise even from the perspective of Barth's own presentation two decades later as well as our contemporary Barthian scholarship more than a half century later. Also, he set a model for subsequent studies, though regrettably his pioneering work seems unknown to later theologians. In chapter 1, following Barth's thesis that “each doctrine must be studied in its relation to all the others,” he began to secure the right perspective by relating this doctrine to Barth's Christology, view of time and eternity [contingent contemporaneousness], eschatology, revelation and God. Chapters 2 and 3 gave a balanced discussion of its objective aspect from the Christological perspective and its subjective aspect from the Pneumatological perspective. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 dealt with some special issues: justification and sanctification, perfection and the Christian life, church and society. In the conclusion, chapter 7, he summarized the distinctiveness of Barth's doctrine of sanctification in three propositions: (i) God's claim upon man rather than a change in man's character; (ii) works of sovereign grace acting upon man rather than a divine-human co-operation; and (iii) a discontinuous act rather than a continuous process. [162] He also defended Karl Barth against every objection and praised his contributions.

Of course, his understanding clearly reflects some distinct ideas of the early Barth, but he could not represent Barth's doctrine of sanctification in its mature form, for it reflects only the early writings and therefore represents Barth's early view of sanctification. As he himself recognized several times, it was “in the process of construction.” [163]

1.4.2 J. C. Lombard (1957)

As soon as Barth had published the CD IV/2 containing the doctrine of sanctification in 1955, Lombard wrote his dissertation on the subject, Die Leer van die Heiligmaking by Karl Barth. [164] The main purpose of this study was “to reflect on the doctrine of sanctification in the theology of Karl Barth.” [165] But, the other important task was to investigate the contemporary claim that Barth had changed. It had been raised by his “self-corrective” statements in IV/2 (§64.1), that the theology from above (“God to man”) must be complemented by the theology from below (“man to God”). In the response to it, the general consensus was affirmative to the “discontinuity in Barth's earlier and later thoughts” and the dividing line might be 1932, when Barth began to publish his Church Dogmatics. [166]

Accordingly, Lombard began his dissertation by analyzing “Barth's theological development and the doctrine of sanctification until 1932” in chapter 1. Next, in chapters 2 and 3, he reflected upon the later doctrine of sanctification as presented in the Church Dogmatics since 1932, though, except II.A where he made a brief survey on I/1 to IV/1, the main body of his dissertation is a simple review of the recently published volume IV/2, chapter by chapter, section by section, following “the referent-systematic method” [167] which quotes as much as possible so as to allow Barth himself to speak. Thus he followed Barth's own structure of presenting his doctrine of sanctification, preceded by its Christological and hamartiological presuppositions and followed by its applications to the church community and the individual Christian.

Then in chapter 4, he concluded his study with some critical evaluations as well as some positive appreciations. Concerning the question of discontinuity, he argued that Barth's doctrine of sanctification as contained in CD IV/2 was a consistent continuation and application of the ground motif of his theology, i.e., “grace-triumph” (genadetriomf), [168] as his point of departure here also was the universalistic tendency of his doctrine of reconciliation, coupled with the “grace-objectivism” (genadeobjektivisme). [169] But he also said that Barth's inclusive Christological anthropology in the doctrine of sanctification, which views Jesus as “the exemplary and prototype Holy One,” testified to his general agreement with the church tradition, [170] and that the surprising turn of Barth's positive discussion on the subjective aspect of the personal sanctification in IV/2 might be regarded as the noteworthy endpoint of his early “crisis-theology.” [171]

However, he pointed out that Barth's too objectivistic and triumphal indicative of Jesus still weakens the concrete imperative of the sanctified man, so that in spite of his self-corrective he continues to be quietistic in the matters which demand “concrete Christian obedience,” with the “full-confident carelessness” of the “grace-triumph” motif. He also states that the critical weakness of his doctrine of sanctification is that the actual applications to the whole area of life for the total rule of Christ as well as the spontaneous power to realize it does not follow. [172] Lombard also critically discussed some interesting issues like universalism and the relationship between law and Gospel, as well as its effect on the church-state relationship. As a whole, he is critical and negative.

In fact, his viewpoint reflects exactly that of his promotor G. C. Berkouwer, one of the most penetrating and powerful critics of Karl Barth, as he represents the reactions of Dutch Neo-Calvinism to Barth's doctrine of sanctification. The encounter between Karl Barth and Neo-Calvinism unfortunately began with conflicting backgrounds, as far as the doctrine of sanctification is concerned. The young Barth had a strong distrust of the “Christian” political or cultural actions because of his early experiences with German Liberalism and Christian Socialism. In the political activities which were promoted in the name of Christianity he found only a collective egotism and cultural religion, while the Neo-Calvinists led by Abraham Kuyper were ambitiously proceeding with the cultural mission of realizing the Lordship of Christ in all areas of life by establishing a “Christian” party, university, newspaper, etc. Barth's first knowledge of Neo-Calvinism was made probably through Wilhelm Kolfhaus, a passionate follower of Abraham Kuyper in Germany. [173] In the General Assembly of the German Reformed Church at Emden (1923), however, Barth met the “Kuyperianer” for the first time and came to the negative judgment: “The Gulden-Reformierte recommends the Kuyperianische Calvin-Renaissance in a totally impossible way.” [174] In 1926 Barth made his first visit to the Netherlands and was welcomed by Theodor L. Haitjema, the first “Barthian” in the country, who was convinced that “Barth offered a healthy correction to Kuyper's Neo-Calvinism.” [175] Barth gave a lecture, “Church and Culture” in Amsterdam, where he insisted that “There is no visible sanctification; no sanctification which can be seen, proved or measured,” and criticized “cultural Protestantism” for holding that “men with the help of God will finally build that tower (of Babel).” [176] It was followed by his second visit in 1927 when he continued his criticism in two lectures, “Justification and Sanctification” and “The Keeping of the Commandments” at Utrecht and Leiden. [177] Barth further criticized Neo-Calvinism in his pneumatology (1929):

Where does one gain the right, speaking supposedly in “Christian” fashion, to reckon “Revolution” as the incarnation of evil, and to take his own anti-revolutionary purpose as conformable to the will of God, without check? I cannot regard it as good thing to have followed in the wake of A. Kuyper, who scarcely estimated aright the peculiar evil of the nineteenth century, and yet openly followed in the tracks of Christ to fall out of one unrenounced simple opinion into the other. [178]

What, then, is meant by such phrases as “Christian” view of the universe, “Christian” morality, “Christian” art? What are “Christian” personalities, “Christian” families, “Christian” groups, “Christian” newspapers, “Christian” societies, endeavours, and institutions? Who gives us permission to use this adjective so profusely? [179]

In addition, he expressed his opposition to Neo-Calvinism in his third visit (1935): “Christian parties? Christian newspapers? Christian philosophy? Christian Universities? The question must be very seriously asked whether such undertakings are in this sense necessary and legitimate.” [180]

It was enough to provoke Neo-Calvinists, who reacted strongly to Karl Barth and Dutch Barthians. The history of the controversies between them is well traced by Martien E. Brinkman. [181] The Neo-Calvinist criticism came first from V. Hepp, who pointed out Barth's “lack of a way”: “Barth looks only at the top of the mountain and not the depth of the valley. He sees nothing of the path leading upward” and sounded “a sort of cantus firmus in all the following Neo-Calvinist criticism on the theology of Karl Barth.” [182] They “turned away from Barth because they found in him too little concern for the world, or for man in the world.” [183] Barth's doctrine of sanctification was too abstract and negative for them, so it was seen as “quietism” or “antinomianism.” The conflict between Dutch Barthians and Neo-Calvinists reached a climax in the 1930's, when both camps counterposed in a “state of war,” as Haitjema wrote a provocative article, “Der Kampf des holländischen Neu-Calvinismus gegen die dialektische Theologie,” in Barth's Festschrift (1936). [184] It followed excessive Neo-Calvinist criticism of “the destructive and anarchic influence of the `Barthianism' which will make Christian politics impossible and kill all Christian activities.” [185] Therefore, Barth's active engagement in the political struggle against the Nazi regime puzzled the Neo-Calvinists greatly: “How is it possible that Barth interferes in the church struggle with such great positivity?” [186] It was G. C. Berkouwer who began to perceive a new development in Barth, i.e., “the all-commanding principle of Barth's theology, the ideas of the freedom and sovereignty of God as `the glowing kernel of Barth's theology'” [187] and gradually appreciated Barth's genuine motif of grace and his historical context.

After the Second World War, Berkouwer and Barth wrote on the doctrine of sanctification in 1949 and 1955 respectively. And it is remarkable that they referred favourably to each other. [188] Further, Berkouwer's positive criticism of Barth, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (1954), made Barth apologize for his previous “fierce attack” on “Dutch Neo-Calvinists in globo.” [189] So the unfortunate history of misunderstanding and distrust was formally ended. [190] But this did not mean that Berkouwer and Neo-Calvinists withdrew their basic criticism of Barth's doctrine of sanctification. He still maintained that Kohlbrugge's early influence on Barth “played a decisive role in his thinking” and there was no “essential modification” in his doctrine of sanctification. [191] It meant that a quietistic and antinomianistic tendency was still at work, making it powerless in its historical and subjective applications. [192] As a result, it must be difficult for Lombard to read Barth's new doctrine of sanctification without any prejudice. It may be true that he was too preoccupied with the “genadetriomf” view of Karl Barth to give proper recognition to Barth's mature and final doctrine of sanctification as newly presented in 1955. In fact, it had significantly changed from that of the 1920's, which was radically objectivistic and reactionary, as Barth dealt emphatically with “subjective” sanctification and how to follow Jesus here and now for the sanctification of the world in §66.

1.4.3 O. G. Otterness (1969)

One of the contemporary problems within Christian churches is the separation of faith and ethics, that “those who are concerned with social justice are not concerned about personal piety and those who are still concerned about personal piety are hostile to the church's involvement in the quest of social justice.” [193] As an attempt to heal this divorce, Otterness wrote his Chicago dissertation entitled The Doctrine of Sanctification in the Theology of Karl Barth in 1969. “This study has proceeded in the belief that there are resources within Barth's theology for a viable social ethic.” [194] Against the popular notion that “regards the theology of Barth as passé and without a relevant message for secular society,” he was convinced that “the theology of Karl Barth still has a relevant message for our day,” [195] because “Barth, however, seeks to heal this divorce and interprets sanctification as the point where Christian faith and ethics bound together.” [196] In contrast to Lombard's criticism on Barth's quietism, he contends that “Barth's interpretation delivers the doctrine of sanctification from the pitfalls of legalism and quietism.” [197]

In chapter 1 he attempted to sketch the doctrine of sanctification of five major theologians, i.e., Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Wesley and Ritschl, who represent the various patterns of the doctrine of sanctification in the history of Christian thought, with an understanding that “Barth has approached the doctrine of sanctification with a depth of historical knowledge and an awareness of the problems involved.” [198] Then he tried “to place Barth's doctrine of sanctification in the context of his total theological position,” “because there is an interdependence among the parts of Barth's theology which makes it impossible to understand any one doctrine apart from a reference to the whole.” [199] So he provided “a sketch of the major themes of Barth's theology--election, covenant and creation, reconciliation as justification--which are the essential presuppositions of Barth's doctrine of sanctification,” [200] based upon CD II/2 to IV/1. Chapters 3 and 4 are his exposition of IV/2. In chapter 3 he first analyzed the Christological and hamartiological presuppositions to the doctrine of sanctification in §64 and 65. And then, he described Barth's doctrine of sanctification proper, presented in §66, with a concluding remark that “Thus Barth affirms that there is a `real change' in sanctification.” [201]

Stating that “Barth's greatest contribution to the reconstruction of the doctrine of sanctification has been the personalistic and relational categories to reflect the dynamics of reconciliation within covenant history,” [202] he summarized in chapter 5 Barth's contributions to the reconstruction of the doctrine of sanctification. These contributions included providing new insight into the nature of man, grace, the church, sanctification as the freedom of discipleship, and the relation of sanctification to Christian ethics. Rather than purification, deification, or mystical experience, “Barth understands sanctification as the history in which a personal God and a responsible covenant people work for the purpose of fulfilling God's will for a community of justice and mercy.” [203] Therefore, “the import of Barth's theology for our day is that it provides a basis for a Christian humanism” [204] --“a christological basis for the affirmation of the dignity of man.” [205]

However, he pointed out “two critical problems” which could be “a serious threat to Barth's total position,” [206] because “the centrality of sanctification in the total structure of Barth's dogmatics can't be over-emphasized” [207] and “the whole of Barth's theological structure is at stake at the point of the implications of his doctrine of sanctification for a viable ethic.” [208] “The first problem has been the difficulty in maintaining that the believer participates in a de facto sanctification,” “because Barth affirms a de facto sanctification in man and then paradoxically feels constrained to deny it.” [209] The second problem is that “Barth never seriously confronts the question of how sanctification takes place in the historical existence of the believer.” [210]

With a principle of judgment that “the depreciation of the new life of man denies the efficacy of God's redemptive power,” [211] Otterness criticized Barth as follows: “Barth's doctrine of sanctification always runs the danger of an abstract idealization of man as de jure participation in the reality of Christ so that the de facto sanctification of man in history is ignored. When Barth finally brings his description of sanctification to a close, it turns out to be not our own, but the obedience of the true man, Jesus Christ. The consequence is that the role of man as God's covenant-partner in any significant way is lost and the very intention of Barth's covenant-centred doctrine of sanctification is called into question. The structure within which Barth places his positive and constructive description of sanctification serves to deny the reality of its content.” [212] It has been caused, he analyzed, by following “the Augustinian paradox of grace and freedom,” [213] which violates the integrity of man for the exclusive sovereignty of God's grace.

Finally, in chapter 6, Otterness attempted to identify the crucial problem of Barth's doctrine of sanctification, in order to find a remedy: “The thesis to be argued here is that the place where the difficulty in Barth's dogmatic structure is not at the point of the doctrine of sanctification. Sanctification, because it necessarily concerns man's subjective involvement, is merely the point where the difficulty becomes most apparent. The problem itself is rooted in the Christology. Barth is unable to fulfil the intention of his theology of the covenant because of his total dependence on Christological categories to the exclusion of an adequate doctrine of the Holy Spirit.” [214] In his criticism on Barth's Christology, Otterness contends that the sanctification of Christ and the sanctification of the sinner are different, for “the human nature of Jesus, however, is less than fully human because the acting subject of Jesus as the God-man is always the divine nature.” [215] ; and that it was influenced by philosophical dualism, especially that of Hegel [historical events and the ideal realm of Geist] and Kant [phenomena and noumena]. But according to Otterness, “if sanctification does not take place at the level of man's historical existence, then it does not exist.” [216] Even though Barth had realized the inability of his earlier dialectical paradigm to relate God and man and developed the concept of “the humanity of God” to provide both an epistemological and ontological basis for the covenant relationship, this “theoretical solution” was merely a formal solution and a shift in its location to an inner-divine dialectic, [217] as “Barth derives anthropology from his Christology” and “moves from an identity of man with Jesus Christ as representative man to a separation of man (the `phenomenal man') from Jesus Christ with no way of bridging the gap.” [218] His criticism was thus that “Barth has so christologized the human subject and sanctification that his own insight into the biblical concept of a covenant history involving two personal subjects is lost.” [219] He also criticized Barth's Pneumatology, because “the second cause of Barth's difficulty in describing the how of sanctification is the lack of an adequate doctrine of the Holy Spirit.” [220] He contends that Barth's description of the Holy Spirit as the “revealedness of God,” the “relatedness” of the Father to the Son, and the power of Christ recognizes “a functional necessity” for the Holy Spirit but assigns “no distinct ontological status.”

However, his dissertation does not end with criticism. Otterness attempted to develop Barth's doctrine of sanctification fully, with the conviction that “its [Barth's relational insight] fuller development could resolve the problems encountered in Barth's doctrine of sanctification.” [221] Because “the analysis of the anomaly of Barth's paradoxical affirmation and denial of sanctification as an empirical reality in the believer's life has revealed that he attempts to accomplish through Christology what properly belongs to a doctrine of the Holy Spirit,” [222] he tried to revise his Pneumatology by emphasizing the Holy Spirit as the Creator of the covenant community and sanctification as His transformation of relationships among them. And, he concluded that in a pragmatic age to seek for the fruits of the faith, “the answer must come from what we have called sanctification, the realization of justice and love in community, becoming empirically available.” [223]

To be sure, his revisionist approach has some merit for a fair and constructive study, in contrast to the former approaches which are either positive or negative only. However, his constructive proposal is too short and sketchy to be persuasive. Further, it still lacks the comprehensive understanding of Barth's doctrine of sanctification, as he also neglects §67 and §68, which present the Holy Spirit's concrete applications of sanctification to the church community and the individual Christian.

1.4.4 M. den Dulk (1987)

In 1987, Den Dulk made another attempt to illuminate Barth's doctrine of sanctification in his dissertation entitled ...Als Twee Die Spreken: Een manier om de heiligingsleer van Karl Barth te lezen. [224] Unfortunately, it seems that he was not acquainted with the works of Otterness and Tribble. The only previous work on the subject that he knew was Lombard's dissertation. It is interesting that Den Dulk started where Lombard had ended. As stated above, Lombard concluded that there was a discontinuity in Barth's earlier and later thoughts but, in spite of his “self-corrective” in §64.1, his doctrine of sanctification still continues to be quietistic and powerless with a “full-confident carelessness” due to his overemphasis on “genadeobjektivisme.” Generally, Den Dulk agrees with Lombard's negative conclusion and starts with the presumption that there is a “tension” in Barth's doctrine of sanctification.

In his introductory comments on the background of his study, Den Dulk stated that he was influenced by K. H. Miskotte, who had taught sanctification as “sabotage” and liberation. Under the influence, he began to read Barth's doctrine of sanctification in §66, and therefore he was naturally attracted by Barth's discussion of sanctification as a break with worldly powers and freedom in §66.3 and 5. Because he strongly doubted the traditional doctrine of sanctification for its applicability to the contemporary world, “here the veil fell off for me for the first time from the indirect and packed language, and so I found here the entrance to the doctrine of sanctification.” [225] Soon, however, he became disappointed with Barth, when he found that the other four sections of §66 were so traditional--individualistic and psychological. So, he began to ask why Barth's doctrine of sanctification embraces the incompatible “double-design” with a “broken structure.”

Therefore, Den Dulk's approach is totally different from Lombard or others. For his objective is to find out the reason why there is such a tension and assist the readers by offering an analytic perspective to rightly read Barth's doctrine of sanctification. According to his analysis, §66 is a documentation of dialogues: Barth and Calvin (sections 1, 2, 4 and 6), Barth and Bonhoeffer (section 3), and Barth and Barth (section 5). So the first six chapters of his dissertation take up the analysis and comparison of the six sections of §66 respectively. Thus, this new study produced an in-depth analysis of §66 as well as an excellent synopsis of Barth, Calvin and Bonhoeffer in the doctrine of sanctification.

But source criticism is a complicated work which is always insistent but also always uncertain. And it is extremely risky, especially when the object of analysis is clearly a contemporary work of one author rather than an ancient document of ambiguous authorship. Therefore Den Dulk's very methodology for the analysis of the mature Barth's final presentation of the doctrine of sanctification in §66 raises an inevitable question. One aspect of the question concerns its appropriateness, for any theologian is influenced by several thinkers in the formation of his own theology but a mature theologian like Barth is supposed to integrate fully those influences into his own system. Moreover, while Barth himself had openly expressed his indebtedness in his doctrine of sanctification (§66) not only to Calvin and Bonhoeffer but also others like Luther, Kohlbrügge, Quervain, Gaugler and Berkouwer, why has he limited Barth's theological dialogue partners to only Calvin and Bonhoeffer, even though those two are certainly the major influences on it?

The other aspect of the question is about the correctness of analysis. Section 1 [the relationship between sanctification and justification] is indebted clearly to Calvin, though he specifically mentioned that “I am particulary happy to record my general agreement” with Alfred Göhler and G. C. Berkouwer. [226] Concerning section 4 [conversion], it is also agreeable to Den Dulk for its definite dependence upon Calvin. Both sections quote extensively from Calvin's Institutes. On the other hand, section 3 [discipleship] lacks any quotation from Calvin while the quotations from Bonhoeffer's Nachfolge dominate, with an extraordinary eulogy: “Easily the best that has been written on this subject is to be found in The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer... In these the matter is handled with such depth and precision that I am almost tempted simply reproduce them in an extended quotation. For I cannot hope to say anything better on the subject than what is said here by a man who, having written on discipleship, was ready to achieve it in his own life, and did in his own way achieve it even to the point of death. In following my own course, I am happy that on this occasion I can lean as heavily as I do upon another.” [227] And section 5 [good work] lacks any apparent influence and therefore we can agree with Den Dulk, who has classified this section as his own “without partner.” [228]

However, we find it quite difficult to agree with his attribution of sections 2 and 6 to Calvin. No doubt, section 6 clearly reflects Bonhoeffer's view of cross-bearing. In the beginning of the section, Barth clearly states three sources: Calvin, A. de Quervain, and Bonhoeffer. [229] Moreover, it has to be taken into consideration that this section is an extension of section 3, where the major influence is Bonhoeffer. At the end of section 3, Barth listed six concrete directions of discipleship and the sixth is cross-bearing. He has “reserve(d) this aspect for independent treatment in the final sub-section,” because “this final order crowns” the whole call of sanctification. [230] Barth probably could have integrated Calvin and Bonhoeffer, not to mention the Quervain, rather than concentrating exclusively on Calvin.

But what puzzles most is his attribution of section 2 to Calvin, for Barth's purpose to refer Calvin in this section is only to criticize him. Barth insisted that Calvin has “weakness which we can never too greatly deplore,” [231] as far as the theme of section 2 is concerned, while he reminded Calvin's “clear insight into the relation between justification and sanctification which we had caused to admire in our first sub-section.” [232] In the whole structure of §66, section 2 is the “key” section, because it presents Barth's distinctive and total framework of the doctrine of sanctification, while section 1 simply secures the place of §66 in the whole structure of the doctrine of reconciliation and sections 3-6 explain in detail the four forms of sanctification: “discipleship, conversion, good works and the cross,” [233] which was introduced in section 2. This section must be his own (if not, where is Barth?), though there are some concepts which he borrowed from Calvin, for this section is the most integrated, creative and distinctive part in his doctrine of sanctification.

As a whole, Den Dulk contends that Barth's doctrine of sanctification suffers the inner tension which disables the power of sanctification, because the nature of §66 is a dialogue rather than a fully integrated thought. It is true that Barth has been always watchful against “God-forgetting psychologizing” (gottvergessene Psychologisieren) and pietistic priority of personal experience. It is also true that he had been utilizing any helpful sources of the Reformed heritage rather than isolating himself as an independent thinker. But it cannot be true that he has not integrated those materials in his own theological system and his final doctrine of sanctification is full of self-destructive inner tensions. In fact, he was presenting a teleological superstructure of the doctrine of sanctification, which embraces the sanctifications of God, Christ, man, church and the world. In the history of Christianity, no theologian has ever presented such a comprehensive superstructure. Of course, nobody will deny that Barth's theology as a whole has some inconsistencies or inner dialectical tensions, but here, if there is any, it is a healthy one rather than a disabling block to the whole doctrine. After all, it is the mature Karl Barth.

Den Dulk clearly demonstrated in chapter 7 that the key concepts like “disturbance” or “limit” were already developed in the early 1920's. In the “pendant” chapter 8 he made insightful “historical-critical observations” on the historical development of Barth's doctrine of sanctification from the 1920's. His investigation of Barth's conceptual development in the idea of the covenant is especially valuable, because the formal purpose of sanctification in Barth is to create “the faithful covenant-partner of God.” In the concluding chapter he presented three criticisms: 1. “Barth's fear of `the God-forgetting psychologizing' has been a bad advisor for his theological work.” [234] ; 2. “Barth's tendency to restrain pneumatology has an un-free and obsessive character.” [235] ; 3. “The argument, that the dialogue that men carry with themselves is `sin' in the sense of `sloth', requires careful distinction.” [236] And, he concluded with the restatement of his main thesis: “I have tried to bring to light the inner contradiction in Barth's doctrine of sanctification. In brief, Barth has blocked the entrance to the centre of his doctrine of sanctification by the censorship which he himself imposed. The power of “debate with oneself” (Auseinandersetzung mit sich selbst) cannot work, because he did not trust on human experience, which is necessary in order to be able to function.” [237] To him, Karl Barth is “gatekeeper” (poortwachter), who is so watchful and anxious to block the gate completely. And it is “deliberative.” So Den Dulk advised Barth's readers to listen to him with “stereophonic hearing,” for Barth's doctrine of sanctification is full of incompatible contradictory statements.

1.4.5 Concluding Synopsis

1. It is amazing that four dissertations in three countries (England, America and the Netherlands) have been produced on the same subject--Barth's doctrine of sanctification--spanning a period of fifty years (1937, 57, 69 and 87). But, only in one case was reference made to one of the others: only Den Dulk referred only Lombard, who wrote in the same country.

2. All four researchers made their own distinctive approaches to understanding Barth's doctrine of sanctification: the affirmative approach (Tribble), the negative approach (Lombard), the revisionist approach (Otterness), and the comparative approach (Den Dulk).

3. While the Anglo-American writers (Tribble and Otterness) were positive to Barth's doctrine of sanctification, the Dutch writers (Lombard and Den Dulk) made a critical assessment of it. The former two were convinced that Barth's doctrine of sanctification could certainly contribute to the sanctification of the Christian church and the world, whereas the latter two registered strong doubts about its contemporary relevance because of their judgment that it lacks the power and spontaneity of Christian sanctification.

4. All three writers who wrote after the publication of CD IV/2 pointed out a kind of inconsistency in Barth's doctrine of sanctification, as an insufficient correction (Lombard), paradoxical constraint (Otterness), or incompatible inner dialectical tension (Den Dulk). Here it is noteworthy that Barth himself said the opposite in his Preface to IV/2: “Perspicuous readers will surely notice that there is no break with the basic view which I have adopted since my parting from Liberalism, but only a more consistent turn in its development.” [238]

5. Except for Tribble who presented a balanced description, that is, the objective aspect from the Christological perspective and the subjective aspect from the Pneumatological perspective, the other three writers expressed their dissatisfaction with the insufficiency of Barth's considerations of the subjective aspect of sanctification. Lombard criticized it as too objectivistic to have its practical applications, while Otterness and Den Dulk claimed the practical weakness of Barth's Pneumatology.

6. All previous efforts to understand Barth's doctrine of sanctification have not recognized his distinctive superstructure for the sanctification of the world as the main frame of his doctrine. Therefore they have been remained only within the area of the personal and individual sanctification and finished their presentation without getting into the greater area of communal sanctification, which is indispensable and essential according to Karl Barth. Also, though all of them tried to understand it within the total structure of Barth's theology, they (except Tribble, of course) did not made an enough effort to understand it in the total structure of his reconciliation doctrine. Generally speaking, they tended to review faithfully the previous Church Dogmatics volumes up to IV/1 and up to §66 in IV/2, but almost ignored §67 and 68 even in IV/2, which deals with the Holy Spirit's application of sanctification to the church community and the individual Christian. Moreover, the lack of study in the doctrine of vocation in IV/3, which clearly illuminates the telos of reconciliation, naturally results in the absence of teleology. So they understood it as theoretical and objectivistic and failed to appreciate its concrete, subjective, and teleological aspects, which were characteristic of Barth's new and final doctrine of sanctification in §66.

7. In understanding the historical development of Barth's doctrine of sanctification, all four authors have practically ignored the pietistic and socialistic formations before 1916 and the German political struggle during 1933-45, which are quite decisive. Thus, their discussions have tended to be theoretical and philosophical rather than practical and contextual. Barth's writings in his anti-Nazi struggle especially had to be seriously considered, if they recognized any difference or discontinuity in his doctrine of sanctification before and after the German political struggle.

1.5 Contextual Approach and Procedure

In contemporary theology, the importance of context is increasingly emphasized not only in hermeneutics and exegesis but in all divisions of theology including dogmatics. This is due partly to the influence of existentialism and pluralism, partly to the modern awareness of culture and situation. On the other hand, because many Third World theologies seem to promote relativism by negating the relevance of Western theologies for the Third World churches, there are some negative reactions to the contextualization of theology. [239]

However, theology is a contextualization. As a function of the Holy Spirit, theology is a human attempt to communicate effectively the Word of God to the particular church in the particular context. It is not correct to assume that any theological work could be communicated to any context. For example, a theological work written in Dutch language and mentality could not be communicated to the people of Korean language and mentality without a proper process of lingual as well as cultural translation. In fact, the Holy Scripture is a collection of the contextualized Word of God, though inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore perfect contextualization suited to a particular people in a particular context. Therefore, without this contextual approach of understanding, it is not possible to conclude the unity of the Scripture written to various recipients of diverse contexts throughout more than a millennium. The gift of multiple gospels as well as multiple descriptions of the Word of God emphatically witnesses that the Holy Spirit is the Perfect Communicator of contextualization. In this sense, theologians, teachers and preachers should try to imitate the Holy Spirit in their effort to communicate the Word of God effectively to their particular context.

Nevertheless, many traditionalistic theologians have not been so successful in following the model of the Holy Spirit and thereby the Word of God has not been so effectively communicated to the people of God, because they attempted to write theologies of universal application without willingness to contextualize, even though they were called and committed primarily to serve their particular church in the particular context with its particular needs and issues. Therefore, their theologies failed to be an effective organ of the Holy Spirit. The introduction of traditional dogmatics usually consists only of the history of doctrine and not the analysis of the context. As H. Berkhof correctly states, “the proper practice of dogmatic study is part of the sanctification of human life.” [240] Therefore, theologians should not fail to discuss the secularization and sanctification of their particular church and particular world. In this sense, the need of dogmatics increases with the “growing secularization.” [241] Accordingly, it is the duty of a theologian to “oscillate” ceaselessly between the two worlds of text and context. [242] In a multi-religious society like Korea, moreover, dogmatics without due discussion on parallel teachings of traditional religions results in the failure of effective communication. [243]

Daniel L. Migliore recently suggested a contextual approach in dogmatics, when he listed four questions that systematic theology should be always asked: (1) Are the proclamation and practice of the church true to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ attested in Scripture? (2) Do the proclamation and practice of the community of faith give adequate expression to the whole truth of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ? (3) Do the proclamation and practice of the community of faith represent the God of Jesus Christ as a living reality in the present context? (4) Does the proclamation of the community of faith lead to transforming praxis in personal and social life? [244] Also, all three major methods in contemporary dogmatics--Karl Barth's Christocentric method of critical self-examination of the theological context of the church, Paul Tillich's correlation method of analyzing the human situation in its broad aspects and then correlating it with the answers of the Christian message, and the praxis method of Liberation Theology to examine critically the church's praxis in a particular context--commonly emphasize the contextual approach. [245]

Further, the contextual approach promotes the unity of the Church, which is the foundation of Christian theology. When Karl Barth said that “theology is a function of the Church,” [246] he is referring to the (una) sancta ecclesia catholica. Theologians may not ignore their own confessional traditions because of their own particular callings and settings, but dogmatics will descend into “a group ideology” [247] if it fails to confess the unity of the Church and to self-examine one's particular church by the standard of sola Scriptura and una ecclesia. But the recognition of multiple confessional traditions as well as cultural diversities of spirituality itself affirms the validity of the contextual approach. Church separation is a secularization, because it is caused by the secular spirit of hate, pride and political avarice. But, when it is healed by the Holy Spirit of unity, understanding and cooperation, the different churches will recognise that “[We] are walking together.” [248] As John Kromminga remarkably pointed out, “To rush to recognize a disunity that Christ does not recognize is to fail to discern Christ Himself.” [249] The unwillingness to recognize the contextuality of one's theology has caused a great number of unnecessary theological wars among different traditions, though it is the holy duty of theology to fight against heresies only because they are not within the one true Church.

It was precisely what Karl Barth did. He did not insist that he could give a theological answer to every church. Even though his most beloved theologian was John Calvin, he did not think that Calvin could solve the problems of Barth's particular church or any other church since his death, because Calvin did not know developments like Orthodoxy, Pietism, Rationalism, Romanticism or Liberal Theology. [250] Likewise, Karl Barth can not help the Korean Church without a proper contextualization, because he did not experience the Korean Church. Accordingly, this study will first attempt to understand Barth's doctrine of sanctification in his own historical and theological context in chapters 2 and 3. Then, before applying it to the Korean churches in chapter 5, we will analyze the context of the Korean Church in chapter 4.

Because our study attempts to re-illuminate and reappraise Barth's doctrine of sanctification with a fair and balanced treatment according to the design and intention of Barth himself, it is very important to place his doctrine of sanctification properly in the historical and structural context of Barth's whole theology. Like Augustine or Calvin, Barth's theology has developed as an accumulation of theological reactions against threats to the Church in his time. Therefore, it is almost impossible to understand his doctrine of sanctification without preliminary research on the contextual process of its development. Accordingly, prior to our main presentation, we will begin with a detailed and thorough analysis of the developmental background since his earliest theological formation, which will clearly illuminate why and how his distinct theological system has emerged. Of course, it will concentrate on the historical and structural development process of his doctrine of sanctification, its key concepts and systematic integration, in two areas--its historical formation in the pre-CD period and political struggles (2.2) and theological foundation in the Church Dogmatics I, II and III (2.3).

Then we will proceed to our main discussion on Barth's doctrine of sanctification in chapter 3. In the introduction to this chapter, the relationship between justification and sanctification [§66.1] will be illuminated by the analysis of the total structure of his doctrine of reconciliation, which consists of three sub-doctrines of justification, sanctification, and vocation. Also, we will discuss the two prior sections [§64 and 65], as the Christological foundation and hamartiological presupposition of the doctrine of sanctification proper in §66 (3.1). Next, it will be necessary to see the total structure of his doctrine of sanctification as presented in §66.2, without which it is impossible to connect the several aspects of sanctification properly (3.2). And, as Barth himself proceeded in §66.3-6, a discussion on the four forms of sanctification (discipleship, conversion, good works and cross-bearing) will be in order (3.3). Then the Holy Spirit's practical application of sanctification to the Christian community and individual, which Barth himself had presented in §66 and 67 but previous writers have generally ignored, will be discussed (3.4). It will be divided into two sub-sections--the sanctification of the church and the sanctification of the individual. Then this main chapter will be completed with a concluding section which will reflect on the compatibility of Barth's doctrine of sanctification with that of the evangelical churches (3.5).

Finally, we will attempt to apply Barth's doctrine of sanctification to the Korean context, in order to find a theological solution to overcome the rising trend of secularization in the Korean churches. However, because it can be applied properly only when there are contextual similarities, a fair and thorough analysis of the Korean context will be necessary with respect to secularization and sanctification: the pre-understandings of sanctification in the traditional religions which have greatly shaped the Christian understanding of sanctification (4.2), and three types of the doctrine of sanctification in the Korean Church (4.3), and historical analysis of her political (4.4) and moral secularization (4.5).

In the conclusion, we will ask two main questions and try to answer them. Our first question will be why the evangelical churches in Korea need Barth now. It will be answered by explaining how the Korean churches have misunderstood Barth and by suggesting how Barth can be a good help in solving some crucial problems which the Korean churches are now confronted with (5.1). Our second question will be what the Korean churches will benefit if Barth's doctrine of sanctification is applied to the Korean context (5.2). Of course, the contexts of Karl Barth and the Korean churches will be compared for a proper application, following our assumption of contextual approach that contextual similarity is the only proper ground for application. Then our whole study will end with a concluding remarks about the sanctification of the world in the Third Millennium (5.3).

[1] . H.Bavinck, Godsdienst en Godgeleerheid, VU inaugural address, Amsterdam 1902, 12.

[2] . Cf. J.W.Becker and R.Vink, Secularisatie in Nederland 1966-1991: De verandering van opvattingen en enkele gedragingen, Sociale en Culturele Studies 19, Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, Rijswijk 1994, 46.

[3] . Cf. ibid., 182: “...only 16% of the population attend church regularly.”

[4] . Cf. ibid., 189; “The period from 1958 to 2020 spans more than sixty years. At the beginning of that period, some 75% of the population were members of a church and 25% were not. By the end of the period, these figures will have reversed. At the moment, about halfway through the sixty years, the ratio of church members to non-church members or believers to non-believers is approximately fifty: fifty.” (192)

[5] . W.Bühlmann, The Coming of the Third Church, New York 1978, 303f.

[6] . L.Oosterom, Contemporary Missionary Thought in the Republic of Korea: Three case-studies on the missionary thought of Presbyterian churches in Korea, IIMO Research Publication 28, Utrecht-Leiden 1990, 115.

[7] . For a comprehensive bibliography on secularization, see K.Dobbelaere, Secularization: A Multi-Dimensional Concept, Current Sociology: The Journal of the International Sociological Association, 29:2, Beverly Hills, Calif. 1981, 161-213.

[8] . Cf. Larry Shiner, “The Meanings of Secularization,” Secularization and the Protestant Prospect, Philadelphia 1970, 31-40; G.Dekker, “Secularisatie in de westerse samenleving,” in: G.Dekker and K.U.Gäbler, ed., Secularisatie in theologisch perspectief, Kampen 1990, 32: He uses the term in three ways: (1) “secularization as the decline of religion of the people”; (2) “secularization as the reduction of the range of religion”; (3) “secularization as the adaptation of religion.”

[9] . G.Dekker and J.Tennekes, “What do we mean by secularization?” in: D.C.Mulder, ed., Secularization in Global Perspective, Amsterdam 1981, 11, 15, 19-21.

[10] . A.van Egmond, “De gevolgen van het secularisatieproces: Reacties in de theologie,” in: Secularisatie in theologisch perspectief, 116.

[11] . Cf. A.J.Nijk, Secularisatie: Over het gebruik van een woord, Rotterdam 1968, 343: “The term secularization is highly confusing and in no way elucidates contemporary religious studies.”; Dekker and Tennekes, “What do we mean by secularization?” 11: “These differences are so great that they might easily give rise to the urge not to use the term secularization at all any more.”; “Many of the people who have devoted attention to this problem have had serious objections to the `scientific' (i.e. within the social sciences) use of this word secularization.” (19)

[12] . Ibid., 11.

[13] . Ibid.

[14] . See 11f.

[15] . H.Kraemer, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, Edinburgh 1938, 4f.

[16] . Ibid., 59f.

[17] . Cf. ibid., 438f: “This can justly be interpreted as a much-needed purification of religion, but it should not be forgotten that both causes contribute also to a thorough secularization of life, a rather disquieting result of Christianization. In these simple rural environments the danger that Christianity should become merely a churchgoing-and-Sunday affair without relevance to real life is as great as it is in urban life and in Europe and America... By desacralizing and secularizing influence of modern life, its inventions and attitudes, to which missions as parts of Western civilization also contribute, the ancient ties biding all spheres of life to religion have been destroyed. This is a great gain but also a loss.”

[18] . A.Th.van Leeuwen, Christianity in World History: The Meeting of the Faiths of East and West, tr. H.Hoskins, Edinburgh 1964, 13.

[19] . Ibid., 14.

[20] . Cf. ibid., 420: “In this age of ours `Christianization' can only mean that peoples are becoming involved in the onward movement of Christian history”; “Is not the process of emancipation from religious constraints, which is usually referred to as `secularization', itself a product of Western Christian civilization, and has it not been set in motion by forces nurtured in the course of Christian history?” (16)

[21] . Ibid., 19.

[22] . Ibid., 414: He agreed with Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, who said that the modern technological culture of the West would be what Jesus “alluded” to as “greater things” than His works in John 14.12: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

[23] . W.Hudson, Religion in America: An Historical Account of the Development of American Religious Life, 2nd edition, New York 1973, 414.

[24] . R.van der Zwan, “Searching for Indian Secularization: An unassuming Quest for Secularization in the Indian Christian Context since 1947,” Exchange 19 (1990): 99-104. Following his analogous approach to secularization, he first analyzed secularization in the West and periodized the shift of attitude towards it in the Western churches and theology.

[25] . Cf. Dekker, “Secularisatie in de westerse samenleving,” 42-46.

[26] . A.Wessels, Kerstening en Ontkerstening van Europa, Baarn 1994, 231.

[27] . Cf. T.Molnar, The Pagan Temptation, Grand Rapids 1987.

[28] . H.Küng, Theology for the Third Millennium, tr. P.Heinegg, New York 1988, 7.

[29] . Ibid., 8.

[30] . Cf. G.E.Meuleman, “Het begrip secularisatie,” in: Secularisatie in theologisch perspectief, 27.

[31] . J.Veenhof, “Geschiedenis van theologie en spiritualiteit in de gereformeerde kerken,” in: M.E.Brinkman, ed., 100 jaar theologie: Aspecten van een eeuw theologie in de gereformeerde kerken in nederland (1892-1992), Kampen 1992, 81.

[32] . Van Egmond, “De gevolgen van het secularisatieproces: Reacties in de theologie,” 116.

[33] . Cf. ibid., 117.

[34] . Cf. B.Rietveld, Saecularisatie als Probleem der Theologische Ethiek: Inzonderheid in Verband met Gedachten van Dietrich Bonhoeffer en Friedrich Gogarten, VU diss, 's-Gravenhage 1957, 21f.

[35] . Ibid., 22.

[36] . Cf. ibid.: “Secularization occurs when the bond between [our] hearts and God's will suffers damage.”

[37] . Cf. ibid. 23.

[38] . Ibid.

[39] . Ibid., 24.

[40] . Ibid., 174.

[41] . Ibid., 24.

[42] . Ibid.; cf. J.S.Weiland, Romeins Schetsboek: Over de metamorfose van het geloven, Baarn 1980, 47: “The secularization is the process, in which through the dropping of all `higher' worlds only the historical, human, and finite world is left over.”

[43] . Cf. C.T.Lewis and C.Short, “saeculum,” A Latin Dictionary, Oxford 1879, 1613f; W.Gesenius, F.Brown, S.Driver and C.Briggs, “olam,” A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford 1953, 761-3; W.Bauer, W.Arndt, F.Gingrich and W.Danker, “aion,” A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Chicago 1979, 27f.

[44] . Cf. H.Sasse, “aion,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G.Kittel, tr. G.Bromiley, Grand Rapids 1964, I: 202-207.

[45] . H.Sasse, “kosmos,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, III: 880f.

[46] . A.Houtepen, Theology of the `Saeculum': A Study of the Concepts of `Saeculum' in the Documents of Vatican II and of the World Council of Churches 1961-1972, tr. M.Goosen-Mallory, Kampen n.d., 142.

[47] . Cf. ibid., 161-168.

[48] . Cf. R.A.Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine, Cambridge 1970, 62f, 71, 101f, 151: “This invisibility of the presence of eschatological categories in historical realities is the foundation of Augustine's theology of the saeculum.”

[49] . Cf. ibid., 63, 83, 154f.

[50] . Cf. C.S.Song, Third-Eye Theology: Theology in Formation in Asian Settings, New York 1979, 17f.

[51] . L.Newbigin, Honest Religion for Secular Man, London 1966, 18.

[52] . Cf. J.D.Gort, “Syncretism and Dialogue: Christian Historical and Earlier Ecumenical Perceptions,” in: Idem et al, ed., Dialogue and Syncretism: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Grand Rapids 1989, 39f: “In our day something new is afoot: the air is being cleared of the clouds of obscuring dust that accumulated throughout the years of Western delusion and domination. That the putative superiority of a supposedly Christian Western culture no longer obtains for most is reflected in a simple but powerful word from the Report of the 1975 Nairobi Assembly of the WCC: `No culture is closer to Jesus Christ than any other culture'.”; “In contrast with an earlier period, in which Western churches behaved as though they had rights of ownership to the gospel as well as to its systematic interpretation and missionary communication, today's situation shows definite evidence of a growing awareness of a worldwide Christian community.” (48)

[53] . Dekker and Tennekes, “What do we mean by secularization?” 9.

[54] . Cf. Van der Zwan, “Searching for Indian Secularization,” 97f: “In a situation of weakening traditions the position of religion becomes vulnerable, simply because religion is dependent on tradition.”

[55] . Cf. M.E.Marty, “Secular Theology as a Search for the Faith,” in: A.Schlitzer, ed., The Spirit and Power of Christian Secularity, Notre Dame 1969, 12.

[56] . Newbigin, Honest Religion for Secular Man, 7; But the position changed at the missionary conference in Mexico, which said: “We are neither optimistic nor pessimistic about this process of secularization as such... Secularization opens up the possibilities of new freedom and of new enslavement for men.” (19); Concerning both possibilities, see 139-140. One is a new life of freedom in Christ, and the other is that the dethronement of the old absolutes opens the floodgates to chaos in which men are simply lost.

[57] . Ibid., 11.

[58] . L.E.Loemker, “The Nature of Secularism,” in: J.R.Spann, ed., The Christian Faith and Secularism, New York 1948, 11.

[59] . Chadwick, The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century, 264; “Simply... a description of something happened to European society in the last two hundred years.” (266)

[60] . Cf. ibid., 18: “This start and end are arbitrary... They symbolize, however, an age admitted by every historical observer to be central to any consideration of the theme. And these forty years have the first merit, that during them the word secularization came to mean what we now mean when we use it.”

[61] . Ibid.

[62] . G.S.Smith, The Seeds of Secularization: Calvinism, Culture, and Pluralism in America 1870-1915, Grand Rapids 1985, 6; Concerning the difference of American secularization from that of Europe: “The nature of secularization in America was quite different from that in England and on the European continent, and its more gradual, subtle change was much harder to apprehend than the overt scepticism and attacks on Christianity across the Atlantic.” (166)

[63] . Chadwick, The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century, 9.

[64] . J.T.McNeill, “Historical Introduction to Secularism,” in: The Christian Faith and Secularism, 34.

[65] . D.Martin, A General Theory of Secularization, Oxford 1978, 280.

[66] . Cf. ibid., 278-305.

[67] . Article 5, in: J.H.Leith, ed., Creeds of the Churches, Atlanta 1982, 521f.

[68] . W.Pannenberg, Christianity in a Secularized World, London 1988, 12-14; His position with respect to the issue of secularization has changed significantly here in comparison with that in the 1960s. In a review article, “Christianity as the Legitimacy of the Modern Age” (1968), in: The Idea of God and Human Freedom, Philadelphia 1973, 190f, he understood the beginning of the secular European culture in the same way, but assessed this “emancipation of the political order from its ties to Christianity” and the process of secularization quite positively: “Secularization in a wider sense can be understood positively as a consequence of the Reformation, that is, the removal of the privileges of the clergy in favour of the Christian people... Of course not every process of secularization has favoured Christian maturity. Secularization can also bring about a break with Christianity altogether. In this sense, these processes are ambiguous. But the motivation of their genuine significance is entirely Christian... in spite of all the tendencies associated with it to turn away not merely from the authoritarian medieval form of Christian tradition, but also from Christianity itself, it represents a phase in Christian history in which the `infinite increase of man's regard for himself' has for the first time come fully to prevail.”

[69] . Cf. Pannenberg, Christianity in a Secularized World, 58; A.Zabriskie, “Secularism and Church Unity,” in: The Christian Faith and Secularism, 243-255.

[70] . Cf. D.H.Hopper, Technology, Theology, and the Idea of Progress, Louisville 1991, 53: “In short, the evil attending the religious wars that ravaged Europe over the last half of the sixteenth century and throughout most of the seventeenth century was of such magnitude that a profound reaction to religion set in among sensitive, discerning intellectuals. Hope shifted from religion to a `rational politics'.”

[71] . Ibid., 50: “The Reformation made clear that there was no longer a dominant institution free from the processes of change... helped to further a change in the attitude toward change.”

[72] . H.Cox, The Secular City, New York 1965, 20f; Newbigin, Honest Religion for Secular Man, 8f. He also distinguishes secularization from secularism, but considered both aspects of secularization: “This process may be looked at both in its negative and in its positive aspects. Negatively, it is the withdrawal of areas of life and activity from the control of organized religious bodies, and the withdrawal of area of thought from the control of what are believed to be revealed religious truths. Positively, it may be seen as the increasing assertion of the competence of human science and techniques to handle human problems of every kind. In a biblical perspective, this can be seen as man's entering into the freedom given to him in Christ, freedom from the control of all other powers, freedom for the mastery of the created world which was promised to man according to the Bible.”

[73] . R.Bultmann, “The Idea of God and Modern Man,” in: R.W.Funk and G.Ebeling, ed., Translating Theology into the Modern Age, New York 1965, 85.

[74] . J.Baillie, The Belief in Progress, New York 1951, 1.

[75] . Ibid., 104, 184; In The Philosophy of History, Collingwood raised the criticism that “Any idea of this kind is open to the fatal objection that it encourages the historian to plug the holes in his knowledge with something that is not history.” (8); Hopper, Technology, Theology, and the Idea of Progress, 40: “Neither Comte nor Spencer was able to establish Progress as a `scientific hypothesis', as the fixed law of society... belief in Progress has become the great dogma of modern society.”

[76] . Baillie, The Belief in Progress, 94f; C.L.Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers, New Haven 1932, 29-31, 40f.

[77] . H.Berkhof, Christ The Meaning of History, London 1966, 171-173.

[78] . Ibid., 174.

[79] . Baillie, The Belief in Progress, 222.

[80] . Berkhof, Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith, 514.

[81] . Berkhof, Christ The Meaning of History, 171: “Along with the growth of the Kingdom of God the antichristian powers will also grow.”

[82] . Baillie, The Belief in Progress, 2.

[83] . Ibid., 186.

[84] . Cf. K.Löwith, Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History, Chicago 1949.

[85] . Cf. F.A.E.Crow, “The Meaning of Death,” in: E.J.Ayer, ed., The Humanist Outlook, London 1968, 260: “The god-hypothesis, invented by man to provide an explanation of the meaning of existence has served its purpose and is destined to disappear.”

[86] . Baillie, The Belief in Progress, 189; “At all events, the further progress for which Christians may hope can only be that which radiates from the Christian centre of history, and can be nothing else than the progressive embodiment in the life of humanity of the mind that was in Christ and `a growing up in all things unto Him who is the Head'.” (235)

[87] . Hopper, Technology, Theology, and the Idea of Progress, 105.

[88] . Cf. Baillie, The Belief in Progress, 34: “We have found no encouragement either in the testimony of the ancients or in that of modern pre-historians for supposing that men have grown progressively more moral.”; Accordingly, it is a misconstruction of modern progressivism that a man in the later age of human history is more moral than a man in the earlier age: “Every individual must make a new beginning for himself.” (227)

[89] . Cf. Berkhof, Christian Faith, 513f.

[90] . J.B.Bury, The Idea of Progress, New York 1932, 21.

[91] . Cf. Berkhof, Christ The Meaning of History, 174: “The average Christian... has a feeling... that God will have his chance in the far future through a sudden interference. The average Christian is not aware of the presence of the Kingdom in the world today... This leads to an ungrateful blindness for the signs of Christ's reign in the present... And they believe that this pessimism of culture is completely in agreement with Christian faith.”

[92] . Cf. G.Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross-Roads, London 1909, 119f: “It is evident that there are vital and progressive forces at work everywhere, but it is equally plain that there are destructive forces... The world is the arena of a conflict between a multitude of irreconcilable ends. The belief that they are ordained to an eventual harmony...falls to pieces on closer inspection, which reveals an inherent rift in nature. All life is under the sway of sad mortality.” Tyrrell was pessimistic on the future terrestrial history and therefore welcomed the apocalyptic reading of the hope of Jesus as offering us a much more realistic picture of our human situation.

[93] . C.L.Becker, Progress and Power, New York 1936, 7.

[94] . Cf. ibid., 24f.

[95] . Pannenberg, “Christianity as the Legitimacy of the Modern Age,” 179.

[96] . J.Ellul, The Technological Bluff, Grand Rapids 1990, 8: “Nothing is indifferent, nothing is outside. The game is so big and so universal that it is communal. There are no individual players; we all play it together.”

[97] . Ibid., 15; “We live incontestably in a society that is totally made by it [technology] and for it.” (12)

[98] . Cf. ibid., 141-148. Here Ellul illustrates that a “technological culture” is essentially impossible for the following reasons. First, technology recognizes only operational information, while culture is concerned with true knowledge. Second, technology is totally subordinate to the economic imperatives, while true culture transcends them. Third, technological language cannot communicate with culture. Fourth, technique is universal, while culture has local and temporal differences. Fifth, technology does not reflect the past, while culture is essentially past-oriented. Sixth, technology decreases social contact, while culture promotes it. Finally, culture is humanistic, while technology does not care humanity.

[99] . Cf. ibid., 50: “Mechanization and technique has thus brought great gains and responded to many human needs. But it is incontestable that they also gave rise to the main problem for Western society throughout the 19th century.”; “We must look at the ecological question in its entirety, with all the interactions and implications, without reductionism. We then see that the problem raised is a thousand times more vast and complex than any of those raised in the 19th and 20th centuries which techniques have been able to solve.” (51); “The situation is even more startling when we look at it globally, taking into account the relation between the advanced technology of the West and the demographic growth of the Third World.” (59); Concerning its irreversible and irreparable effects, see 60-73.

[100] . Cf. ibid., 60: “Unpredictability is one of the general features of technical progress.”; “It is especially in the field of chemistry that we find unforeseen and unexpected results of this kind.” (66); “We can formulate the principle that the greater the technical progress, the larger the number of unpredictable effects.” (70)

[101] . Cf. ibid., 76; “Every problem--social, political, human, or economic--must be analyzed in such a way that it becomes a technical problem. Technique is then a perfectly adequate means to solve it.” (48)

[102] . Cf. ibid., 43: “Machines do not stop... People, then, have to be organized to work as the machines do.”; “But the classical problem is that people do not adapt to machines nor machines to people.” (16); For the problems caused by this machine adaptation, see 42-44.

[103] . Cf. ibid., 203: “The techniques developed in the last decade are themselves leading to absurdity. They produce and demand absurd behaviour on our part.”; “Things are produced that we do not need, that serve no useful purpose. We produce them because technique makes them possible and we have to exploit the possibility. Inexorably and absurdly we have to follow this direction. In the same absurd and inexorable way we also use things that we do not need.” (204); “The primary function of technique was to promote industry. The movement is from investment to mass production to mass consumption to mass returns or profits, which are then reinvested.” (207); “We are truly in the presence of erratic economic thinking (and sadly, we have to say, economic practice)... Obsession with technical innovation brings our system into a series of logical follies and puts it out of step with the economies of people in the Third World.” (209f); “What we have here is techno-economic absurdity in its purest form, for the goods that are produced are totally negative. If we use them, the result is negative because of the enormous destruction they will cause... I am well aware of the economic argument. They keep the wheels of industry turning and supply jobs. On this reasoning the pharaohs who built the pyramids were great economists!” (210); “Many advertisements, urging us to be modern, portray what are basically images of aggressiveness, conquest, power, and violence.” (215)

[104] . Cf. ibid., 197-220.

[105] . Ibid., 218.

[106] . Hopper, Technology, Theology, and the Idea of Progress, 13.

[107] . Ibid., 126.

[108] . Cf. Ellul, The Technological Bluff, 384-394.

[109] . Quoted in Hopper, Technology, Theology and the Idea of Progress, 73.

[110] . Ellul, The Technological Bluff, 157: “Power is at one and the same time both the objective and the justification.”

[111] . Ibid., 153.

[112] . Cf. ibid., 396: “To me, however, the churches seem worst of all. Whether we take the World Council of Churches or the papacy, they have become the privileged agent of technical enthusiasm. They are in a panic lest they should be thought to be behind the times, obscurantist, out of things. To show their good faith and broad-mindedness, they defer.”; “The question that I have to ask is why the churches have so little judgment and so little critical spirit in a matter which concerns not only dogma but the conception of humanity as a whole and even the possibility of a revelation that is beyond the reach of science. I think that all the churches' reactions stem from the fear of not being modern, of not being up to date or `with it.' It is much more important for them to preserve contact with their contemporaries than with God, to talk as society does than to listen to God's Word. They are thus victimized by the terrorism of opinion and communication as regards technique.” (399)

[113] . Cf. ibid., 411: “Seeing the Hydra head of trickery and the Gorgon face of hi-tech, the only thing we can do is to set them at a critical distance, for it is by being able to criticize that we show our freedom. This is the only freedom that we still have if we have at least the courage to grasp it. Nothing is more certain.”

[114] . E.Schuurman, Technology and Future: A Philosophical Challenge, tr. H.D.Morton, Toronto 1980.

[115] . Ibid., 326: “Neither the positivists (Norbert Wiener, Karl Steinbuch, and Georg Klaus) nor the transcendentalists (Friedrich Georg Jünger, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Ellul, and Herman J. Meyer) can give an integral, harmonious view of the relation between humanity and technology. As a result, they are without a meaningful perspective for the future. This brings us to the matter of the fundamental agreement between the transcendentalists and the positivists. Their agreement is grounded in the pretension of autonomy... The self-worship of the positivists is directed outward, while the self-worship of the transcendentalists is directed inward, in the flight before technology.”; “It is self-evident that Ellul's difficulty must follow from his judgement that technology is an autonomous power. If this power is truly autonomous, how, indeed, can there be any escape from it?” (143); Idem, Reflections on the Technological Society, Toronto 1977, 12: “Both the technocrats (Herman Kahn, Antony Wiener, Olaf Helmer, Karl Steinbuch, Erich Jantsch, and Georg Klaus) and the revolutionaries (Herbert Marcuse, Arthur Waskow, Claus Koch, Robert Jungk, Ernst Bloch, and Jürgen Habermas)... stand in the tradition of Cartesian philosophy. Both are guided by the idea of human autonomy.”

[116] . Ibid., 15.

[117] . Cf. Schuurman, Technology and Future, 365: “Finally, technological meaning-disclosure ought to be led by the belief that humanity is called to the task of technology and that people are obliged to accept this mission as a responsibility before God.” See also 374f.

[118] . Cf. ibid., 375f: “A liberated technology will then be able to ease the difficult circumstances in which people live `by nature'. It will afford an enlargement of life's opportunities, relieve the aches and pains and difficulties of work, resist natural catastrophes, conquer disease, improve social security, expand communication, multiply information, augment responsibility, vastly increase material prosperity in harmony with spiritual well-being, and abolish alienation from self, nature and culture. Technology frees man's time and fosters the development of new possibilities”; Also, see Idem, Reflections on the Technological Society, 21, 59.

[119] . Cf. Schuurman, Technology and Future, 156: “In Ellul's opinion, secularization inevitably accompanies technological development. Yet he has the roles reversed here, for it is because of secularization that people construe technology as an autonomous power. People themselves have made an idol of technology; they have placed their confidence in it, and they expect salvation from it in the end.”

[120] . Ibid., 375.

[121] . Cf. ibid., 369f.

[122] . Cf. Ellul, The Technological Bluff, 11.

[123] . Hopper, Technology, Theology, and the Idea of Progress, 74.

[124] . Cf. P.Berger et al, The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness, New York 1973, 181- 200. He mentioned especially the present religious resurgence as “a possible reversal of the secularization trend.” (199)

[125] . Cf. Pannenberg, “Eschatology and the Experience of Meaning,” 193f.

[126] . Cf. Pannenberg, Christianity in a Secularized World, 33-38.

[127] . Ibid., 44. For his answer, see 56-58. Negating both extreme positions, anti-assimilation and pro- assimilation strategies, he suggested integration and a broadening perspective: “Rather, the opportunity for Christianity and its theology is to integrate the reduced understanding of reality on the part of the secular culture and its picture of human nature into a greater whole, to offer the reduced rationality of secular culture a greater breadth of reason, which would also include the horizon of the bond between humankind and God.” (57)

[128] . Cf. A.A.Hoekema, Saved by Grace, Grand Rapids 1989, 228-231 (The Social Dimension of Sanctification); H.Berkhof, Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith, Grand Rapids 1979, 507-512 (The Sanctification of the World).

[129] . Cf. D.L.Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology, Grand Rapids 1991, 181f: “all our fellow creatures... the whole realm of nonhuman creatures”; A.M.Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basis for a Reformational Worldview, Grand Rapids 1985, 72-84.

[130] . L.Griffith, Barriers to Christian Belief, New York 1961, 173.

[131] . Cf. C.G.Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, New York 1933, 236f: “It is my duty as a physician to show my patients how they can live their lives without becoming neurotic. Neurosis is an inner cleavage--the state of being at war with oneself... The conflict may be between the sensual and the spiritual man, or between the ego and the shadow.”; “He must have no fixed ideas as to what is right, nor must he pretend to know what is right and what not... only that which acts, is actual.” (239f)

[132] . Ibid., 236.

[133] . Cf. J.A.T.Robinson, Honest to God, Philadelphia 1963, 95-97.

[134] . Cf. P.v.Buren, The Secular Meaning of the Gospel, New York 1963, 182f: “In a word, sanctification is love for one's neighbour.” He also criticized Bornkamm's distinction between love toward God and love toward the neighbour. He commented cynically: “In passing, we might say that this is closing the barn door several centuries too late.”

[135] . Cf. P.Tillich, Systematic Theology, Chicago 1963, III:378-380: Here, he listed “the many riddles of church history which express the paradoxical character of churches.” “Why, for almost five hundred years, have secular movements arisen within Christian civilization which have radically changed human self-interpretation and have in many cases turned against Christianity, notably in scientific humanism and naturalistic communism? This is a question to which another must be added today: Why do these two forms of secularism have such tremendous power in nations with a non-Christian civilization, such as those of the Far East? In spite of all Christian missionary efforts and successes in some part of the world, the spread of these outgrowths of the Christian civilization is far more impressive.”; “How could it happen that there is so much profanization of the holy in church history, in both of the senses of profanization, i.e., by ritualization and by secularization? The first distortion happens more often in Catholic, the second more often in Protestant, type of Christianity.”; “The secular form of profanization of the ultimately sublime, which is now spreading all over the world, is a further great riddle of church history especially in the last centuries. It is probably the most puzzling and urgent problem of present-day church history.”

[136] . Cox, The Secular City, 3.

[137] . D.Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften, München 1959, II:420.

[138] . Cf. E.Feil, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Philadelphia 1985, 196f: “It would seem that, for Bonhoeffer, religion is the Western form of Christianity, while religionlessness is the form which, after the decline of the West, will take the place of religion as the dying form of Western Christian faith. This would tend to confirm that for Bonhoeffer religion is indeed a concept of intellectual history.”; E.Bethge, “The Challenge of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life and Theology,” in: R.G.Smith, ed., World Come of Age: A Symposium on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, London 1967, 79: “The term `religion' as distinct from `faith' was strongly revived by Barth and... Bonhoeffer presupposes this. In this sense religion means human activities to reach beyond, the postulate of a deity in order to get help and protection if wanted. Bonhoeffer praises Barth in the highest terms for the rejection of religion.”; “It would be completely erroneous to conclude from Bonhoeffer's `religionless' concept of faith, that he had in mind a kind of secularization of the life of the church... For this would then mean that `religionlessness' as such is identical with true Christianity, which Ebeling, in his excellent essay, rightly called a misinterpretation of Bonhoeffer.” (100); W.Pannenberg, “Eschatology and the Experience of Meaning,” 192: “It was often forgotten, however, that Bonhoeffer's call for a non-religious interpretation of the Christian message was motivated not only by an awareness of the secularity of the modern experience of the world, but at least equally by Karl Barth's theology of revelation, which saw the Christian message and Christian faith as in direct conflict with all religion. What was taking place was an attempt by apologetics to rescue Christianity from the attacks of the modern criticism of religion without having to present a defence against its arguments.”; J.Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, New York 1977, 283: “He [Bonhoeffer] fought passionately against the withdrawn piety of those who put up with every injustice on earth because they have long since resigned themselves to it and only live life here in a half-hearted way. But he opposed with equal passion the flat and trivial this-worldliness of those who consider themselves enlightened, who want to enjoy the present, resign themselves in the face of the future, and therefore only live half-heartedly and without fervour... God without the world and the world without God... are merely a mutual corroboration of one another. They are products of the disintegration of a Christianity without Christ.”

[139] . Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften, II:182.

[140] . Cf. D.Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, New York 1972, 361f [18 July 1944]: “He must therefore really live in a godless world, without attempting to gloss over or explain its ungodliness in some religious way or other. He must live a `secular [worldly]' life, and thereby share in God's sufferings... It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the suffering of God in the secular life. That is metanoia: not in the first place thinking about one's own needs, problems, sins, and fears, but allowing oneself to be caught up into the way of Jesus Christ, into the messianic event, thus fulfilling Isa. 53.”; Ibid., 370 [21 July 1944]: “By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world--watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith; that is metanoia; and that is how one becomes a man and a Christian. How can success make us arrogant, or failure lead us astray, when we share in God's sufferings through a life of this kind?”

[141] . Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften, I:61.

[142] . Cf. Feil, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 199.

[143] . D.Bonhoeffer, Ethics, New York 1955, 96.

[144] . Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften, München 1972, V:136; Concerning the starting point of secularization, Bonhoeffer suggested the Enlightenment as its modern emergence, but also pointed to the thirteenth century as the origin of this movement, when Scholastic theologians attempted to rationalize the Christian faith with the introduction of Aristotelian philosophy. See Letters and Papers from Prison, 325.

[145] . Cf. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 325-327 [8 June 1944]: “The movement that began about the thirteenth century toward the autonomy of man has in our time reached an undoubted completion. Man has learnt to deal with himself in all questions of importance without recourse to the `working hypothesis' called `God'. In questions of science, art, and ethics this has become an understood thing at which one now hardly dares to tilt. But for the last hundred years and so it has also become increasingly true of religious questions; it is becoming evident that everything gets along without `God'...`God' is being pushed more and more out of life, losing more and more ground. Roman Catholic and Protestant historians agree that it is in this development that the great defection from God, from Christ, is to be seen... to be anti-Christian... Christian apologetics has taken the most varied forms of opposition to this self-assurance. Efforts are made to prove to a world thus come of age that it cannot live without the tutelage of `God'. Even though there has been surrender on all secular problems, there still remain the so-called `ultimate questions'--death, guilt--to which only `God' can give an answer, and because of which we need God and the church and the pastor. So we live, in some degree, on these so-called ultimate questions of humanity. But what if one day they no longer exist as such, if they too can be answered `without God'? Of course, we now have the secularized offshoots of Christian theology, namely existentialist philosophy and the psychotherapists... That is secularized methodism. And whom does it touch? A small number of intellectuals, of degenerates, of people who regard themselves as the most important thing in the world, and who therefore like to busy themselves with themselves. The ordinary people, who spends his everyday life at work and with his family, and of course with all kinds of diversions, is not affected.”

[146] . Ibid., 329 [8 June 1944]; “The arcanum must be re-established whereby the mysteries of the Christian faith are preserved from profanation.” (286); cf. Bultmann, “The Idea of God and Modern Man,” 92-94: “Faith in the transcendent presence of God can be expressed in the phrase `transformation of God'... It then remains to keep oneself open at any time for the encounter with God in the world, in time... Readiness consists in openness in allowing something really to encounter us... the encounter with which is designed to transform us, to make us ever new selves.”

[147] . During his last years in prison, Bonhoeffer tended to emphasize “this-worldliness of Christianity” (Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 369f). Some insisted that it was a “new start” of his theology, but I agree with Ernst Feil that Bonhoeffer's new development has to be understood in the continuity with his earlier thought, for his main concern lied in the responsible and active participation in the sufferings of God, when he talked about the secular or human autonomy. Though there were some changes and disturbances in the development of his theology, Bonhoeffer was consistent in his basic theological position that is God-centered, Christological, and anti-humanistic (Feil, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, chapter 4: Historical Survey of Bonhoeffer's Understanding of the World, 99-159). Concerning his theological development, see also F. de Lange, Een burger op z'n best: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Baarn 1986.

[148] . Cf. Cox, The Secular City, 2: “It is the loosing of the world from religious and quasi-religious understandings of itself, the dispelling of all closed world-views, the breaking of all supernatural myths and sacred symbols.”

[149] . D.Callahan, The Secular City Debate, New York 1966, 99.

[150] . L.Dupré, “The Problem of Divine Transcendence in Secular Theology,” in: The Spirit and Power of Christian Secularity, 106.

[151] . Pannenberg, “Eschatology and the Experience of Meaning” (1972), 193.

[152] . Cf. Pannenberg, Christianity in a Secularized World, viii: “Since around 1970 it has been moved firmly into the background of the discussion.”

[153] . Cf. van Egmond, “De gevolgen van het secularisatieproces: Reacties in de theologie,” 118-120.

[154] . Cf. CD I/2, 793: “Dogmatics itself is ethics and ethics is also dogmatics.”

[155] . CD I/2, 792f.

[156] . Ethics, 17.

[157] . Ethics, 16.

[158] . In addition to 14 volumes of Church Dogmatics, his magnum opus, Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe has been published since 1971. 23 volumes have already been published, but much more are needed to cover all his writings, apart from CD. For the complete list of his writings, see H.-A.Drewes & H.M.Wildi, Bibliographie Karl Barth, II, Zürich 1984; E.Busch, “Bibliographie,” in Parrhesia: Karl Barth zum 80 Geburtstag, Zürich 1966, 709-723; Ch.v.Kirschbaum, “Bibliographia Barthiana,” in Antwort: Karl Barth zum 70 Geburtstag, Zürich 1956, 943-960; Also, the secondary literature on Karl Barth is extensive. More than 300 doctoral dissertations have been written on Karl Barth so far, without any sign of decline. For the list of some selected secondary literature on Barth, see H.M.Wildi, Bibliographie Karl Barth, II, Zürich 1992; M.Kwirian, Index to Literature on Barth, Bonhoeffer and Bultmann, Basel 1977.

[159] . Cf. F.-W.Marquardt, Theologie und Sozialismus: Das Beispiel Karl Barths, München 1972; Idem, “Sozialismus bei Karl Barth,” Junge Kirche 33 (1972): 2-15; Idem, “Socialism in the Theology of Karl Barth,” in: Karl Barth and Radical Politics, 47-76; Idem, “Current discussion on the political character of Karl Barth's theology,” in W.Herberg, ed., The Social Philosophy of Karl Barth; M.E.Brinkman, Karl Barth's socialistische stellingname: Over de betekenis van het socialisme voor de ontwikkeling van zijn theologie, Baarn 1982; Idem, “Die Politische Kontroverse um Barths Theologie in den Niederlanden,” ZDT 2 (1986): 379-387; W.Rumscheidt, ed., Footnotes to a theology: The Karl Barth Colloquium of 1972, Waterloo 1974; Idem, “Theologische und politische Motivationen Karl Barths im Kirchenkampf,” Junge Kirche 34 (1973): 283-303; W.Hordern, “Sanctification and Politics in the Theology of Karl Barth,” Chicago Theological Seminary Register 52.4 (1962): 6-15; D.N.Anderson, The Political Ethics of Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr, Chicago Univ. diss. 1966; H.Zillessen, Dialektische Theologie und Politik: Eine Studie zur politischen Ethik Karl Barths, Berlin 1970; J.D.Bettis, “Political Theology and Social Ethics: the Socialist Humanism of Karl Barth,” Scottish Journal of Theology 27 (1974): 287-305; G.A.Butler, Karl Barth and Political Theology, Duke Univ. diss. 1973; Idem, “Karl Barth and Political Theology,” Scottish Journal of Theology 27 (1974): 441-58; U.Dannemann, Theologie und Politik im Denken Karl Barths, München 1977; M.Schoch, Karl Barth: Theologie in Aktion, Stuttgart 1967; H.Gollwitzer, Reich Gottes und Sozialismus bei Karl Barth, TEH 169, München 1972; Idem, “Kingdom of God and Socialism in the Theology of Karl Barth,” in: Karl Barth and Radical Politics, 77-120; E.Thurneysen, Karl Barth-Theologie und Sozialismus in den Briefen seiner Frühzeit, Zürich 1973.

[160] . H.W.Tribble, The Doctrine of Sanctification in the Theology of Karl Barth, Edinburgh Univ. diss. 1937.

[161] . Ethics has been published later, but the seminar material on sanctification has not published until now.