chapter ii

The young Barth wrote this article in 1909, summing up his theological development in Bern, Berlin, Tübingen, and especially Marburg. It also celebrates the end of his academic training, as he left to enter the practical world of ministry immediately after writing it. [8] In this representative article, we can grasp the primitive ideas of his doctrine of sanctification in terms of ethics and religion, because both concepts are inseparable from sanctification in the theological structure of Karl Barth.

Moralism

Barth was a moralist. He had been raised as such and educated also in the liberal theology of the so-called “ethical Christianity.” The most influential book on Barth in his early theological formation may be the Ethik of Wilhelm Herrmann, an admirer of Kantian moralism. [9] For Barth, therefore, “morality is the prerequisite of religion.” [10] So religion without morality is impossible and their separation is unthinkable. Here his view that dogmatics and ethics are inseparable is already emerging, and it is significant for our study of sanctification. In this moralistic mentality ethical failure means total failure. Barth was very concerned with the present reality of Christian salvation and believed that it should be proved in Christian ethics. In his writings in this liberal period, the term “Heiligung” hardly appears. Instead, the term “Ethik” dominates his early world of thought. In his student days he was quite influenced by the philosophical moral-ism of Immanuel Kant and the ethical Christianity of nineteenth-century theology in general, especially through the ethical teachings of Wilhelm Herrmann. [11]

Accordingly, when he was confronted by the “ethical failure” of the German theologians in that dies ater (1914), he immediately condemned their theology and broke with them. [12] He courageously protested it [13] and departed from this liberal theology. [14] Of course this theological departure included his emotionally difficult break with Wilhelm Herrmann, “the theological teacher of my student years,” [15] because Barth regarded him as a representative of the Schleiermacher school. [16] It is significant that this theological conversion was occasioned by the “ethical failure” of the political judgment of Schleiermacher school. Because the “theological revolution,” [17] which he quite successfully achieved in his life-long endeavours, is focused on the Schleiermacherian teachings on religion, piety, and ethics, which are directly related to the subject of sanctification, Barth's passion for formulating the authentic Christian doctrine of sanctification prevails in his life and theology. This radical idea of ethical priority has been established in his early theology and has been continuously worked out in his whole life as a structural principle of his theology. Heiligungslehre therefore becomes one of his major theological interests.

However, why did Barth understand the serious decision of “the ninety-three German intellectuals” as an “ethical failure”? If the same decision was not morally right for Barth while it was so for his German teachers, there must be a crucial disagreement between the ethical norms of the two parties. Barth was here rejecting the ethical norm which originated from Schleiermacher and was generally accepted by die moderne Theologie, being aware of the fact that it was merely a romantically and culturally-conditioned arbitrary idea of humanistic Liberalism. [18] This happened because his conception of Christian morality, not theirs, had changed through his Genevan experience and Safenwil ministry, which we shall investigate below.

Psychological Subjectivism

On the other hand, what Barth learned from Wilhelm Herrmann and German theology was not a universal and absolute morality of historical Christianity, but an individual and relative moralism that had been modified by Kant and Schleiermacher. Therefore he insisted that “morality is not obedience to norms that comes up from outside of men, but a reflection on and direction of the will to a truth and authority which makes itself known in human being.” [19] Because there is no objective universal norm for moral judgment, morality depends upon one's subjective judgment: “all questions can be answered only by [man] himself and there is neither any universally applicable ordo salutis nor any generally valid Offenbarungsquelle (source of revelation).” [20] For him, the Lebensfrage (vital matter) of theology was the Lebensaufgabe (life's work). So he identified “the vital religious interest not only as a plot `Weltüberwindung' (overcoming the world) but the present life which always brings new stimulus and encouragement, because it is suitable.” [21] Said simply, he was concerned with one's “personal living reality.” [22] Barth abhorred the traditional religious struggle against the power of the world in the historical sense, as this religious individualism naturally led him to historical relativism. So he preferred to follow the empirical and pietistic idea of Schleiermacherian religious experience for the spiritual benefit of the self. Criticizing the “escape to praxis,” he relativized any religious experience or stages of maturity “as a phenomenal form of the Gospel.” [23] For him, the only absolute issue is the religious experience of “the power and peace of the inner life” [24] and “Religion is a strictly individual experience.” [25] On the other hand, he felt religion to be “a duty,” since it is “a general human cultural consciousness (Kulturbewußtsein) to explain its scientific side.” [26] So he concluded that religion is a universal phenomenon and therefore the subject of scientific study. However, he admitted a logical contradiction between the ideas of religion and history within this theology, for “religion knows only individual value, while history knows only generally valid fact.” [27] It must have made him question on the Liberal mixture of romanticism and rationalism.

In terms of religion, his primitive idea of sanctification is shown in this article. When he denies the claim of spiritual maturity (Reife) by relativizing the religious experiences simply as different forms, Barth negates the concept of sanctification as a process. He also denies the concept of sanctification as obedience to the command of God as the given norm. Further, he rejects the life-long struggle against the power of sin and the world, when he understands Weltüberwindung simply as a psychological matter and spiritualizes God and Christianity. Whatever is beneficial for Leben (living) by way of Glauben (believing) may be regarded as a work of sanctification, if there is any. Sanctification is making its presence felt when we subjectively feel any peace, power, stimulus, encouragement, freedom, or the like in religious activity. As a matter of fact, therefore, his break with die moderne Theologie has several significant implications in relation with his formative understanding of sanctification. For example, the notion of grace which later becomes the most dominant principle in his theology is not at all present here. However, some basic orientations for his view of sanctification were already set even before his theological conversion, though it had to pass through a series of modifications.

He left the academic world with the theoretical conviction that cultural and psychological Christianity could satisfy the spiritual needs of the people. Therefore his radical departure from religious relativism and natural theology, which came later in the encounter with the concrete world of parish ministry, could not be expected in this stage of development. Karl Barth started his ministry in September 1909 as the assistant pastor at the German church in Geneva. There he had to prepare sermons, especially when the first pastor was absent for six months (Oct 1910-Feb 1911), and he was immediately confronted with the practical problems of empty pews and spiritual powerlessness. Also, the Genevan setting naturally motivated him to consider John Calvin seriously. As he had gradually transferred his involvement from the German theology of Lutheran dominance to the Swiss churches of Reformed origin, it might be natural that the ethically-oriented young pastor was interested in Calvin's emphasis on the practical doctrine of sanctification rather than Luther's emphasis on the rather theoretical doctrine of justification. [28]

He had also been shocked and challenged by the personal encounter with John Mott, an American leader of the student mission movement, in his 1911 visit to Geneva, which inspired him to be critical of individualism, sectarianism and theoretical academism, which had been his personal way of life so far without ever struggling for the evangelization of the world. [29] It is natural to assume that Barth's experience with Mott must have made a fresh impact with respect to the sudden transition from individualistic and theoretical Christianity to social and practical Christianity. This transition has been powerfully applied in his radical turn to socialism in the Safenwil ministry which started just a couple months later. And his change of attitude to the social and practical view of Christian life is significant in the development of his doctrine of sanctification.

Besides, his pastoral experience in Safenwil exposed how easily so-called personal piety fails in the social practice of Christian love and how deceptive it is. Finally, the 1914 pro-war manifesto of his German teachers convinced him that personal piety is individualistic and collectively egoistic, that is, non-Christian. Therefore, he attempted to think in another way. Whenever he talks about salvation, reconciliation, sanctification, Christian life, or ethics, thereafter, Barth's starting point is always the sovereignty of God and His reconciliation of the world rather than personal piety or individual salvation, as it is clearly expressed in the following principle: “Our theme is the reconciliation of the world with God in Jesus Christ, and only in this greater context the reconciliation of the individual man.” [30] Because of this social concern, we may infer, he turned to the religious socialism, as he departed the religious individualism of die moderne Theologie and tried to find another foundation.

2.2.2 Jesus Christus und die soziale Bewegung (1911) [31]

His Safenwil ministry (1911-1921) is very significant, because here he experienced his theological conversion and developed his distinct theology with the writing of Der Römerbrief in 1919. Safenwil was a small Protestant town under the rapid process of industrialization from the agricultural community life. As a young and vigorous pastor, he had to protect his congregation, the majority of which were poor factory workers, from the injustice of capitalism. So, he was actively engaged in socialistic teachings and the trade union. However, his personal interest in the Christian socialism was developed even earlier under the circumstantial and formational influences. In his early years he was impressed by the Christian socialism of Friedrich Naumann and Leonhard Ragaz as well as his beloved pastor Robert Aeschbacher. Moreover, his father had helped to form the Christian Socialist Society. Barth's address, “Zofingia und Sociale Frage” (1906), represents his early understanding of socialism. [32] However, it seems that the immediate motif for this radical turn had come from his Genevan experience, particulary his encounter with John R. Mott, from whom he had been fundamentally challenged to reconsider his perspective for a practical activism.

As soon as he started his Safenwil ministry in July 1911, he took up the study of socialism and trade union. As early as October 1911 he began to give lectures to the Workers' Association. The lecture given on December 17, 1911, “Jesus Christus und die soziale Bewegung,” which was immediately published in the socialist daily, provoked the subsequent controversy. In response to this lecture, a local entrepreneur Walter Hüssy protested by an open letter in a local newspaper. Barth responded in the same way but with a stronger tone. It was followed by the resignation in protest of the chairman of his church committee, Gustav Hüssy on February 13, 1912. However, Barth totally ignored such protests and strongly proceeded with his socialist movement, though he refused to join the socialist party. Our analysis of this article will demonstrate the essence of his “social Christianity” [33] as well as the social modification of his Liberal view of sanctification.

Socialism

Barth radically identified socialism and Christianity, stating that “Real socialism is real Christianity in our time” [34] because the ultimate goals of both are identical. [35] He presupposed that “Jesus is the movement for social justice, and the movement for social justice is Jesus in the present.” [36] Therefore, he completely socialized the Christian doctrines of God, man, and salvation: “For Jesus there was only a social God, a God of solidarity; therefore there was also only a social religion, a religion of solidarity.” [37] ; So, “one must become a communal person, a comrade, in order to be a person at all.” [38] ; “The spirit that has value before God is the social spirit. And social help is the way to eternal life,” [39] No doubt, this all-pervasive socialization of the Christianity was radical enough to exalt socialism even above the historic Christianity. Still, he was not yet free of the old grip of liberal theology, when he insisted that even “as an atheist, a materialist, and a Darwinist, one can be a genuine follower and disciple of Jesus,” because he thought that “what Jesus has to bring to us are not ideas, but a way of life.” [40]

Nevertheless, his social understanding of the Christianity has some significant merits, in relation to our study. As a matter of fact, it initiated his departure from pietism and thus a pietistic view of sanctification, “one of the current misunderstandings that religion is a means of making the individual quiet, cheerful, and where possible blessed in the midst of the anxieties of life.” [41] This description of religion is exactly what he had insisted on before. [42] So, he resented his pietistic background that viewed Christianity as “a matter of the closet, and indeed of our private closet.” [43] In pietistic faith, he analyzed, church community is only a means to an individualistic end, as “One finds oneself together with other persons in the church in order to secure the consolation and joy of the gospel, but the community extends no farther.” [44]

Moreover, when he criticized the totally spiritualized view of the Kingdom of God as “the great, momentous apostasy of the Christian church, her apostasy from Christ,” [45] and pointed out that we do not go to heaven but God's Kingdom comes to us materially and on earth, [46] Barth not only condemns the German pietism of the Schleiermacherian school, but also reveals the emergence of a new perspective for the Kingdom of God. [47] Though he still held theologically to the humanistic idea of self-salvation, he was certainly different from an ordinary socialist. As a pastor, Barth was convinced that his contemporary socialists should learn much from the example of Jesus who “created new men in order to create a new world.” [48] So he admonished them to purify their motif of the spirit of mammonism and egoism. [49] To be sure, there was a fundamental idea for this socialist passion, as clearly stated in the open letter: “Am I not a dreamer, Herr Hüssy? You see, I am of this opinion because I believe in the moral progress of humanity... What has led me as a pastor to place myself on the side of socialism is precisely this: that in the idea of a socialist `state of the future'... I found the belief in progress away from economic egoism toward an economic sense of community.” [50] As a whole, we may conclude that it is a synthesis of the Kingdom of God idea in the contemporary German theology with the belief in progress in post-Enlightenment Europe within the context of socialism in the crisis of industrialization.

To be sure, it is remarkable that in this socialist turn he was beginning to differentiate himself from German theology in general: “Religion beforehand and afterward remains a matter between God and the soul, the soul and God, and only that. This attitude is found today especially among the Christians of Germany, above all to the extent that they stand under the influence of Luther. They then distinguish themselves without exception by a complete failure to understand social democracy. In that regard we Swiss, even if we don't realize it, are brought up differently through our Reformers, Zwingli and Calvin. To these men, religion was from the outset something cooperative, something social, not only externally, but also internally. It is therefore no accident that among us, Christianity and socialism have never come to the kind of rift that exists between them in Germany.” [51] So he boasted that “we understand Jesus better than our fellow Christians in Germany.” [52]

Since he declared his departure from die moderne Theologie in 1914, Barth had been radically attracted to the Swiss leaders of Christian socialism: Christoph Blumhardt for the eschatological vision of the Christian hope, [53] Leonhard Ragaz for the activism of Kingdom discipleship, [54] and Hermann Kutter for the prophetic emphasis on the “living God.” [55] And, he found himself “always forced to follow Kutter in matters of emphasis.” [56] Though he had been naively involved in this movement even earlier, he now attempted seriously to find a new theological foundation in Christian socialism, [57] but Barth began to recognize the same problems also in this camp. So he gradually lost his enthusiasm in the socialist activities, [58] and began to seek for a new direction. [59] He was seriously struggling with the preaching problem: what to preach and, more fundamentally, whom to preach. Suddenly he was confronted with the question of God, whom he had assumed that he knew, and realized that he did not truly know God: “That is the question which I failed to recognize as a student or as a young pastor. It is the question, which then came down on me like a ton of bricks round about 1915.” [60] The God of die moderne Theologie was but a theo-logical description of “man,” and he had now become suspicious of the socialist “living God” also. On the “fateful 16 January 1916,” [61] Karl Barth launched a new theological movement to recognize God as God and man as man. [62] Finally, he departed from Christian socialism too in the fall of 1916, declaring its hopelessness: “Our dialectic has reached a dead end, and if we want to be healthy and strong we must begin all over again and become like children.” [63]

In his socialist period Barth's primitive idea of sanctification, shaped by the teaching of die moderne Theologie, was significantly modified in several ways. The individualistic and psychological view of sanctification was replaced exclusively by its social and historical idea. Also, his negative view on the Weltüberwindung was transformed dramatically by his belief in the moral progress of humanity. Barth began to become aware that the most threatening sin against this progress is self-centered egoism, including religious egoism. Further, his excessive adoration of German Lutheran theology was definitely moderated by the social awareness of his Swiss Reformed heritage, so that Barth preferred to rely on “our Reformers,” especially Calvin, “the theologian of sanctification,” rather than Luther, “the theologian of justification.” It meant a great change of direction in the doctrine of sanctification. Though in this socialist stage of thought the distinctive Reformed doctrine of sola gratia or the sovereignty of God is scarcely present, it gradually came to dominate his theological world, as he relied heavily on Calvin and the Christian thinkers of the nineteenth century “who did not bow the knee to Baal.” [64] His radical emphasis has shifted from the justice of human action to “the righteousness of God,” from the ideal of self-sanctification to waiting for God's action. But, his encounter with the living God happened in “the strange new world within the Bible” and it was made public through his revolutionary Der Römerbrief.

2.2.3 Der Römerbrief I (1919) [65]

This monumental work, which fell like “a bomb on the playground of the theologians,” [66] marks the beginning of his new doctrine of sanctification with a rich biblical exegesis. The concept of sola gratia pervades the whole commentary, the pietistic method to attempt to meet the divine objectivity [standard] is rejected as the unsolvable and inescapable circular way of the unredeemed tragedy, and sanctification is no longer limited to the inner mind but includes the physical and social spheres of life. The sanctification of a Christian is no longer a religious choice for his own benefit, but it is a demand of God upon all men under grace.

The Single Sanctification

First of all, Barth understood that sanctification happens once for all, and not “again and again” as pietists suppose. His idea of “the single sanctification” (der Einzelheiligung) [67] is grounded upon the Reformed doctrine of sola gratia that we are sanctified by the grace of God alone, not by our pietistic effort of works. According to his analysis, however, the religious method of pietism is based upon the non-Christian assumption that God is so strict and demanding endlessly that nobody could ever satisfy Him and therefore everybody should be always afraid of Him with endless despair and anxiety. [68] It is “the unredeemed tragedy” of those who have not received the grace of God, for “the painful problem of pietism takes the place of the grace in the «body of Christ» under the monstrous pressure of the divine objectivity on the unredeemed man again and again.” [69] It is neither necessary nor promising, but “tragic and fruitless,” circling around and around like Israel in the desert. As a result, we are thrown “back and forth” between two extremes, “exultant and depressed, believing and unbelieving, proud righteousness and absurd error, a feeling of being saved and a feeling of being abandoned or even being damned!”, never a “normal” Christian personality with “God-given peace and life from His power.” [70]

Though we are pietists by nature who try to sanctify ourselves or to add “something else” by our own efforts, Barth suggested, we have to “go back to our starting-point, to the freedom which we have in the Messiah.” [71] Man is a being who “needs redemption,” and who is “not qualified to step into the divine objectivity.” [72] And, “God has done all for you,” of course, including sanctification. [73] Therefore, any pietistic attempt at self-sanctification is “against the grace of God.” [74] The Gospel demands a simple faith in the gracious salvation of God, which includes justification and sanctification. This concept of the single sanctification is a fundamental antithesis to the pietistic view of sanctification, which actually presupposes the subject of sanctification as man rather than God.

Sanctification as Surrender

However, Barth did not deny the subjective aspect of sanctification. Our sanctification has been “decided in the council of God” and executed by His free grace for us. So he called such human being as Sein unter der Gnade (being under grace). Because God has redeemed him, He has the right to claim him as “His.” It imposes responsibility upon him to surrender the ownership of his whole life, and thereby sanctification as surrender (Auslieferung), becomes his own responsibility as God claims his life. [75] Because “God has done all for you,” the only one thing possible for him to do is to surrender. [76] However, the surrender must be a free, joyful, and obedient simple surrender out of his gratitude for His grace and love, not a deceptive means of achieving self-deification in order to be united with the eternal God. [77] Of course, free will has also been given to him by the grace of God. Nevertheless, it is by “you, yourselves” that sanctification “must be initiated” by the way of surrender, [78] though it is to be continued during one's whole life because life is renewed every moment. This “Sollen,” to initiate sanctification, excludes any excuse by those who hold to a fatalistic or mystical view of sanctification. [79]

The Sanctification of the Whole

Barth further held that the surrender should be the surrender of the whole life, [80] that is, both the inner and outer, material and spiritual, individual and social, because the whole being is under subordination to God. Understanding Rom. 6.19b as “the sum of all ethics,” [81] he pointed out that all areas of life and all parts of body which had been affected and used by the power of sin should be now surrendered and sanctified. [82] Because God claims “the sanctification of the whole” (die Heiligung des Ganzen), Barth excluded any possibility of a dualistic Christian ethics, which reserves some areas of life so that God's claim would be silenced there. [83] It may not be tolerated to establish some “domain of sin, in addition to the kingdom of God.” [84] His concept of sanctification, as described here, was so fundamental that he could declare “the end of my pietism.” [85] From a fresh perspective, the social concept is incorporated into the concept of sanctification of the whole. Also, two aspects of sanctification--objective and subjective, single and gradual--are accepted and integrated into his comprehensive understanding of sanctification. When we recognize that most theological controversies on the doctrine of sanctification have been caused by the rejection of this duality, Barth's initiative in accepting the duality of sanctification in the unity of grace is quite revolutionary.

2.2.4 Der Römerbrief II (1922) [86]

Barth has “so completely rewritten [the Römerbrief] that it may be claimed that no stone remains in its old place,” and, “as a result, the original position has been completely reformed and consolidated,” although there is still “a definite continuity” between both editions in the “identity of historical subject-matter as well as of the theme.” [87] Of course, this complete re-forming of the first edition significantly reshaped his understanding of sanctification in a positive as well as a negative way. To understand the substance of this reformed position, we need to inquire first into his motives for making this second edition. In the Preface, he listed four circumstantial reasons: “First, and most important: the continued study of Paul himself”; “Secondly: the man Overbeck”; “Thirdly: closer acquaintance with Plato and Kant,” as well as “the writings of Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky”; “Fourthly: a careful consideration of the manner in which the first edition of this book has been received.” [88] Although an extensive explanation is required, [89] our study will limit itself to describing the general perspective that made a definite impact on the reformulation of his doctrine of sanctification.

The most important event between both editions is the Tambach lecture on September 25, 1919, [90] which was the decisive opportunity “to open doors into Germany for Barth” as well as “to a wider circle of people who were involved in a parallel movement concerned with criticism and renewal.” [91] And Barth's wider popularity sparked a severe criticism of Barth's “new theology” as contained in the first edition of the Römerbrief by German Liberal theologians--Barth was even condemned as a “heretic.” [92] No doubt, this verdict from the theological “authorities” must have disturbed the young theologian, though the reform-minded younger generation of German theologians gave enormous encouragement and support as well as fresh challenges and insights. [93] On the other hand, his closer readings of Pauline epistles, [94] Calvin, [95] the transcendental philosophies of Plato [96] and Kant [97] , the fundamental critics of the Western Christianity--Sören Kierkegaard [98] and Franz Overbeck [99] --had resulted in a great amount of deeper and sharper insights as well as regret for the simple-minded first edition. [100] As a result, the second edition became philosophical and “dialectical” in comparison with the simple and plain style of the first edition. [101] It thus marks the beginning of so-called “dialectical theology” [102] or “theology of crisis,” because the structural crisis of time and eternity necessitates the use of dialectical language [103] and the grace of God created a KRISIS against the power of sin, as he had a particular concern for the sin of religion which had been culturally committed by the Western Christianity. [104] This philosophical complication has reformulated the duality of sanctification--initial and continuous--by the Platonic framework of time and eternity, so that real sanctification happens only in eternity and visible sanctification is but its shadowy reflection. However, in contrast to the first edition, his biblical and cultural insights for the doctrine of sanctification had doubtlessly deepened and his discussion of the doctrine had widened from only a couple places to a great extent throughout the commentary.

Invisible Sanctification

Against the Liberal mixing of God and man, Barth adopted a philosophical system, that is, “what Kierkegaard called the `infinite qualitative distinction' between time and eternity” [105] with an unbridgeable gulf between both sides. In this philosophical system of two exclusive realms, the sanctification of the new man belongs to the divine realm of eternity, “invisible and non-historical.” [106] “The new man has no existence except non-existence,” because “everything which we can know and apprehend and see belongs to this world.” [107] “Through this divine contradiction the new individual, created and redeemed by God, is shown forth as the invisible reality of our existence, while our visible reality is declared to be untruth.” [108] Men under grace “have been existentially moved, translated, wrenched from `this side (Diesseits)' to `the other side (Jenseits)',” and “a great gulf is fixed between what they were and what they are.” [109] “The occurrence is non-historical,” [110] because “the action of God cannot occur in time; it can occur only in eternity.” [111] Only “by faith, sola fide, we are what we are not.” [112] Therefore, the sanctified reality of our new man is invisible and incomprehensible, [113] though it has definitely happened in the realm of eternity and it is our true identity.

However, Barth was not so unrealistic as to negate totally the significance of our visible reality in time. In his dialectical system of thought, the divine realm of eternity and the creaturely realm of time are simply different dimensions [114] which “at no single point touches or overlaps,” [115] so that the relation or communication between both realms is impossible. As they are not connected, it is impossible to cross the border “by gradual advance or by laborious ascent, or by any human development whatsoever.” [116] By the grace of God alone, sola gratia, it is possible to relate both realms: “Grace is the relating of the visible man to his invisible personality which is grounded in God.” [117] Therefore, the man under grace “is the zero-point between two branches of a hyperbola stretching to infinity,” [118] with “a perception which extends backwards to the actual context in which all men stand by law, and forwards to a radically different, and indeed opposite, context.” [119] Thus, only from the perspective of grace, faith, and obedience does “the visible and concrete sanctification of human life” emerge in this temporal world, and “in fact, it is the comprehension of the temporal world by eternity.” [120] As a result, visible sanctification is necessarily obscure [121] and so ambiguous that Barth raised a hard question: “In this harvest of human endeavour wheat and tares grow up in such entangled identity that it is impossible to detect which brings forth iniquity and which sanctification. Who is able to judge, and by which objective norm?” Again, “Is there any visible iniquity which it is quite impossible to interpret as sanctification? Or is there any visible sanctification which may not be called iniquity?” [122] This obscurity is removed in the eschatological TELOS, [123] but in so far as we live and act in this temporal world, “our whole behaviour, always and to the world's end, bears stamped upon it the form of this world.” [124] In fact, “All human doing or not-doing is simply an occasion or opportunity of pointing to that which alone is worthy of being called `action', namely, the action of God.” [125] “Human conduct is therefore in itself only... a parable, a token, of the action of God.” [126] The same is true to the visible sanctification, however sublime or saintly it looks.

The KRISIS of Sanctification

It therefore challenges the pietistic understanding which identifies sanctification with religious piety or moral progress. Rather, “Religion is the KRISIS of culture and of barbarism,” [127] because religion is “the supreme sin,” “the sin of the Fall,” “the sin of anthropomorphism,” [128] “a robbing of God: a robbery which becomes apparent in our arrogant endeavour to cross the line of death by which we are bound; in our drunken blurring of the distance which separates us from God; in our forgetfulness of His invisibility; in our investing of men with the form of God, and of God with the form of man; and in our devotion to some romantic infinity, some `No-God' of this world, which we have created for ourselves.” [129] In a word, religion is the idol of sinners, the Nicht-Gott which they have created through Satanic temptation: Eritis sicut Deus, i.e., ye shall be as God. [130] However peaceful or admirable it looks, the reality of religion is ugly and erotic. [131] Therefore, the grace of God creates a KRISIS for religion, religious culture, [132] and religious piety for self-sanctification, [133] which promote self-righteousness over against the righteousness of God alone, [134] by means of the Law which “brings all human possibility into the clear light of an all-embracing KRISIS.” [135]

However, the Christian community, which is possible only in the grace of God, has also fallen a prey to the sinful passion of religion in the name of piety and sanctification. [136] As a result of their mixing the righteousness of God and of men, grace and works, the Church has been so confused and lost the power of the Gospel. [137] So, Barth condemned Schleiermacher's “attempt to construct a religion out of the Gospel” as “the betrayal of Christ,” because “since Schleiermacher, this attempt has been undertaken more consciously than ever before in Protestant theology.” [138] The Gospel is the absolute negation of religion, and Christ is the end of religion. [139] With the Reformed slogan, “Finitum non capax infiniti,” [140] Barth absolutely denied any possibility of compatibility between religion and the Gospel. [141] For the mission of the Son was neither to develop our religion for self-salvation, nor to promote the moral, artistic, intellectual, scientific, or political salvation, but simply to proclaim the Gospel of grace and create the new man and the new world. [142] Like the function of the Law, the positive meaning of religion as “the final human possibility” is only to recognize its inability and sinfulness, remove every confidence except in “God alone” and to surrender oneself to the Gospel of sola gratia. [143] Therefore, “religion must die. In God we are rid of it.” [144]

Sanctification as Disturbance

Thus, “our religion consists in the dissolution of religion; our law is the complete disestablishment of all human experience and knowledge and action and possession.” [145] Therefore, “the experience of grace” has to be distinguished from “the prolongation of already existing religious experience,” [146] “progress to a higher stage of religion or of life,” “eschatological illusions in which the union of `here' and `there' is anticipated in our imagination,” [147] “the `building up' by men of an adequate ethical life,” or “the Kingdom of God as a growing organism.” [148] On the other hand, because “faith is neither religion nor irreligion,” [149] any revolutionistic pseudo-radicalism of anti-religionism or anti-intellectualism could not be a proper attitude for men under grace. [150] Now, “faith is the ground, the new order, the light, where boasting ends and the true righteousness of God begins.” [151] When the religious sanctification is given up, the new creation of divine sanctification as “the imperative of grace” [152] is irresistibly activated, [153] because grace “brings him radically under KRISIS.” [154]

Barth here borrowed a provocative term “disturbance” from Calvin in order to powerfully explain sanctification. [155] He held that “the Gospel of Christ is a shattering disturbance, an assault which brings everything into question,” [156] for this disturbance is “not merely a casual and unauthorized disturbance of men by their fellow men,” but “really and genuinely the disturbance of men by God.” [157] The grace of God has two sides: it not only reveals “divine impatience, discontent, dissatisfaction,” [158] which fundamentally and thoroughly disturbs our life, but also offers “the power of obedience,” which “is undeniable and unavoidable, because it is the power of the Resurrection.” [159] Therefore, “To the man under grace, righteousness is not a possibility, but a necessity.” [160] As a matter of fact, they cannot “escape from that naturally Christian--Medieval!--disturbance of soul,” but “stretch out towards a sanctified life.” [161] Due to the fact that it is the disturbance by God, not an arbitrary man-made religion, two qualifications follow. One is its “universal validity,” for it is not a private or subjective disturbance. [162] The other is its totality, for it demands the absolute surrender of one's whole existence. Human individuality is “shattered and disturbed, as only God can disturb it,” though it is executed “under the sign of victory and the sign of hope,” [163] without leading to anxiety or despair. Thus, individualism is broken down and the motive of human behaviour is “purified of all biological, emotional, erotic factors.” [164] Therefore, “the Lutheran misunderstanding” “that ethical behaviour rests upon a number of moral ideals realizable in this world, rather than upon a critical negation of all such ends and purposes and possessions,” or the naive pietistic “confidence upon an adequate moral life” is rejected. [165] “A truly ethical disturbance” could be made only by “grace alone,” and “it must be treated as covering the whole field of human life.” [166] Fundamentally, “repentance is the `primary' ethical action upon which all `secondary' ethical conduct depends,” and “repentance, as the `primary' ethical action, is the act of rethinking,” the act of renewing our thoughts for new perspectives and new positions, which creates new behaviours. [167] Further, as “God reckons men's whole existence to be His and claims it for Himself,” [168] it includes “the sanctification of our mortal body.” [169] Though it seems “trivial and fantastic,” [170] it is the existential realization of Futurum ressurectionis here and now, as God disturbs our total existence of psycho-somatic unity. [171] He concludes: “To sanctify something means to separate and prepare it that it may be presented and offered to God.” [172] And “this is more precisely defined in the conception of sacrifice,” for it means “surrender,” “an unconditional gift,” and “the renunciation of men in favour of God.” [173] Therefore, the problem of sanctification is identical with the fundamental issue of Reformed theology: Soli Deo gloria! [174]

2.2.5 Rechtfertigung und Heiligung (1927)

This is the first systematic presentation of his understanding of sanctification, where he contrasts it with justification in nine points. [175] Here Barth makes another significant turn in his understanding of sanctification by affirming sanctification as a process. Also, its eschatological character is heavily emphasized by the concept of sanctification as “strife-talk” (Streitrede), which is effective only during the eschaton. However, it does not mean that he gave up his former view. Rather, he strengthened his basic position [176] by his new discovery of H.F.Kohlbrugge and his radical doctrine of sanctification of sola gratia. [177] In this article, Barth refers frequently to Kohlbrugge in addition to Calvin and Luther.

Sanctification as Process

Barth formerly attributed all acts of God, including justification and sanctification, to the realm of eternity. Here, however, Barth modified this by stating that “justification is the eternal and the divine side, while sanctification is the temporal side of the incomprehensible one act of the grace.” [178] These two may be compared to regeneration and conversion, election and calling, or the divinity and humanity of Christ. [179] Justification is an “actus purus” “with the majesty and clearness of the starry sky” and “once for all, perfect and sufficient,” [180] while sanctification is “multiplex, inchoate, relativa, inaequalis” and “a historical-psychological Prozess or a whole complex of such processes, as an actus physicus.” [181] Justification can be grasped simply by faith, but sanctification demands our concrete “obedience.” [182] So, “Here is then doubtlessly also the difference between each individual man. There are steps and grade (Stufen und Grade)... more and less, above and below,” [183] as one becomes “mature” (reif). [184] It is surely a great modification, and even seems to be reversal back toward the pietistic view of sanctification.

In fact, however, it reflects his new understanding of dialectical language in time and eternity: “As God's eternity is an unique undivided Now, but our time, though in His hands, a process from the past to the future,” the one truth of God becomes necessarily two for the temporal human being. [185] For example, “the incarnated Word is one, but our word on the Word is inevitably two: Jesus and Christ, the Son of God and of man--so is in it, in the mystery of the Holy Spirit given to us: the work of the grace is one, but we understand it in a two-fold form, justification and sanctification.” [186] It is not two for God, “but only for us it is two kinds.” [187] Therefore, sanctification is “our temporal reality” where “grace sanctifies us,” while justification is our eternal reality. [188] As far as we live and act in the temporal world, our redeemed reality here and now is our sanctification.

Sanctification as Strife-Talk

Further, the temporality of sanctification sets a time limit for sanctification. Clearly distinguishing the present “reconciliation” (Versöhnung) from the eschatological “redemption” (Erlösung), [189] Barth understood sanctification as “Streitrede” until the point of Erlösung, “when (these second will be arrived, then) the strife-talk will stop, because then there will be no more strife.” [190] Because reconciliation is “the fight of the Kingdom of Christ in medio inimicorum,” [191] a reconciled sinner in this world must live as “a homeless man, a mover, an activist, a fighter, a man of hope.” [192] Until then there is an endless struggle with himself, his neighbours, the righteous and the wise of the world, all ethics, and hypocrisy, causing and demanding continuous suffering, distress, and burdens. [193] In the struggle for the Kingdom of God, his conscience under grace becomes “an indicted, disturbed, halted, worried conscience,” “a wounded conscience,” shocked by the sinful reality of himself and the world, and “there, there, in the space so created the freedom and peace of the Christian man blossom.” [194] Thus, the sanctification of the reconciled and the struggle for the Kingdom are essentially inseparable.

Therefore, sanctification is an eschatological concept, though temporal, because it will be fulfilled in the future redemption. [195] We are saved in hope for what has “not yet appeared.” In this hope we believe, obey, and persevere. In this world our salvation is an “unfinished work” (Stückwerk). [196] So Barth strongly emphasized the Pauline perspective that, if there is no hope but this life, “we are the most miserable of all men” (1Cor 15.19). [197] This eschatological view of sanctification implies that the consummation of redemption will end our sanctification as a life-long process and as a strife-talk, because we will enter into the realm of eternity where the duality or partiality of salvation does not exist. Therefore, we are looking forward to the final redemption as the eschatological fulfilment of sanctification. So, Barth described it as sanctification “on the way” (auf dem Wege). [198]

2.2.6 Ethik (1928/29)

His 1928/29 lectures on ethics have been posthumously published as Ethik I (1973) and II (1978). [199] As Barth had been greatly attracted to the Ethik of W. Herrmann before his theological conversion, this work, which might have been intended to replace it, would be greatly significant. Here Barth tried to emphasize the commanding importance of the doctrine of sanctification over the whole discipline of dogmatics and ethics, and grounded his special ethics upon this doctrine, because “the place where... the knowledge of God thus becomes the knowledge of the good or theological ethics, is the divine act of sanctification.” [200] Therefore, his ethics [201] discusses sanctification as its foundational doctrine with the serious intent “to present the doctrine of sanctification with the emphasis it deserves.” [202]

The Sanctifying Word of God

First of all, the most crucial knowledge in theology is that “the Word of God is moral truth,” [203] and therefore to be understood “expressly and emphatically as the sanctifying Word.” [204] It means that “Only the doer of the Word” hears the Word of God, “or he does not hear it at all,” [205] because “we are what we do.” [206] God's Word is given for us to hear and act responsibly. [207] Therefore, knowing the Word without doing it is simply impossible. As we call this relating the Word to the particular existence “sanctification” in dogmatics, [208] the doctrine of sanctification becomes the most important “point of relation” (Beziehungspunkt) in understanding the Word of God, because “on the fact that it really has this point of relation depends the whole answer to the question whether its presentation of the reality of the Word of God will differ from a metaphysics which, developed in the attitude of a spectator, and depicting a reality that is not heard existentially, that does not come home to man or claim him or make him responsible, cannot possibly be the reality of the Word of God no matter how rich or profound its content might be.” [209]

Therefore, dogmatics and ethics are inseparable in the unity of the sanctifying Word of God. [210] In fact, “the theme of dogmatics is simply the Word of God” and “the theme of the Word of God is simply human existence, life, or conduct.” [211] It means that “the concern of ethics is a proper concern of dogmatics,” and therefore “ethics is not possible as an independent discipline alongside dogmatics.” [212] Rather, theological ethics is “an auxiliary discipline” of dogmatics, for “theological ethics is itself dogmatics, not an independent discipline alongside it.” [213] Barth observed that “the modern emancipation of ethics from dogmatics,” in “an unethical dogmatics” which is a mere “spectator-metaphysics” or “the luxury of an idle worldview,” has originated from the introduction of pagan philosophical ethics to the Christian theology as the “second standpoint” ever since the second half of the first century. [214] In order to guard against this distraction, he suggested three measures, one of which is “to present the doctrine of sanctification with the emphasis it deserves, for here the question of the theme of the Word of God is a burning one.” [215]

The Ethics of Sanctification

Barth therefore advocated “the need for special ethics” in Christian theology. [216] For the theological definition of the good is fundamentally different from that of the philosophical or general ethics. According to Barth, “Good means sanctified by God.” [217] And to be sanctified or made holy means to be related to God, for “in the Old and New Testament holy denotes a divinely established relation.” So “it is divine separation when our action is sanctified, not a quality immanent in the action itself.” [218] Of course, “knowing the divine act of sanctification, we can and should offer our action to God in penitence and conversion just as the sacrifice is offered,” but “sacrifice becomes holy by the fact that God accepts it.” [219] Therefore, the Christian ethical norm of the good should be sharply differentiated from a humanistic definition of the moral goodness. In fact, the question of the goodness can be answered only by a reference to “the one who alone is good” and also “the one who commands”--God himself. [220] “Thus the claiming and sanctifying of man by God, and therefore the goodness of his conduct, really lies in the reality of the divine commanding.” [221] So “man does good acts when he acts as a hearer of God's Word, and obedience is the good.” [222]

However, the fundamental principle of the human goodness lies in the fact that God has loved, elected and determined the existence of a man even before he began to exist and act. [223] As a matter of fact, “as this decision is taken, man acts as a hearer and with responsibility, and to that extent he does good acts.” [224] So Barth understood that our existence “is a highly determined existence, an existence determined not by us but by God's Word” and “this determination of our existence by God's Word is according to our presuppositions the essence of our sanctification.” [225] It implies that our sanctification is “God's grace, total, real and effective grace.” [226] Further, it implies that the guarantee of the relation between the eternal reality and the present reality of our sanctification is indirect and obscure, for it is fundamentally grounded on the eternal determination of God. [227] Therefore, the doctrine of sanctification or the theological ethics should not blur “the infinitive qualitative distinction between God and man.” [228] The reality of our sanctification “is God himself alone.” [229]

The Reality of Sanctification

Nevertheless, our sanctification is “an event,” “a reality that takes place.” [230] As a matter of fact, it is something “without which we should not believe.” [231] It becomes evident as a present reality, and “this becoming evident of the good in the reality of our own existence is the divine act of sanctification.” [232] Also, the Christian concept of man defines him as “sanctified man.” [233] The realization of sanctification as the present reality is inevitably understood in terms of different “steps or parts,” which are only “a logical distinction” rather than an ontological one, because they “can denote only various points on the way of knowledge, only various angles from which to understand what is intrinsically one whole reality, not a division within this reality.” [234]

Furthermore, due to the fact that our sanctification is “en Christo,” [235] it demands social realization. Jesus needs no sanctification, but he was sanctified “in solidarity with us.” [236] “To follow Jesus, then, is not only to be sacrificed with him but to be sacrificed with him for the brethren, to be bound to men, to be bound in life to our neighbours as those to whom we owe our life.” [237] Therefore, in our sanctification, “the I-centeredness of our action is most sharply called in question.” [238] As the divine “instrument” of sanctification, [239] his obedience will be used “in the service of the sanctification of men,” as far as he is “aware of the limits of its activity” and humbly recognizes that “God alone can establish true custom and true morality.” [240]

2.2.7 Der heilige Geist und das christliche Leben (1930)

In this treatise, [241] which represents his early pneumatology, Barth discusses the Holy Spirit in three ways: The Holy Spirit as Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer. Because sanctification is generally regarded as the work of the Holy Spirit and especially because he emphasized sanctification as sola gratia Dei, the primary concern of his pneumatology was the Christian life of sanctification. According to him, one's view of the Holy Spirit is decisively related to his view of sanctification and vice versa.

Continual Sanctification

First, Barth emphatically negated the continuity between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit, which was the position of the Liberalism. [242] Roman Catholicism originally supposed that the possibility of communication between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit is based on an essential continuity between God and man. However, Barth criticized this theology of analogia entis, because the only possible communication is relational, not essential, and even this relationality is possible only by grace. [243] Though Catholics assumed the ontological possibility of two-way communication on a permanent basis since Augustine, [244] Barth pointed out that it is neither two-way nor permanent, for the sola gratia continuity presupposes that only God can cross the border and only when He wants. [245] For us humans, as a matter of fact, the way “upwards” is closed. [246] However, upon the philosophical conviction of the possibility to reach high and pursue upwards by following the gradual steps of religious ascent (Hinordnung) [247] Catholics attempted to achieve their own sanctification. But once the border between God and man collapses, the “ascent” actually becomes the inner-activity of self-realization. [248] So the Catholic doctrine of infused grace justifies its internal development without the necessity of continuous grace ad extra. Protestant Liberalism followed them rather than the Reformers in this aspect, [249] with the result that they understood the Holy Spirit as permanently immanent in humanity and, further, as the collective ideal of human spirits in the Hegelian philosophy of the Geist. [250] This immanentism of the Liberal pneumatology denies the transcendence of the Holy Spirit as well as the necessity of continuous grace.

Against this position, Barth strongly insisted that the Holy Spirit is given continuously rather than once for all, and the sanctifying grace as well. [251] Barth means continual and gradual sanctification rather than regeneratory sanctification, which he had formerly stated as once-for-all event. [252] In fact, our human spirits have no inherent ability to receive the Word of God. Only when the Holy Spirit prepares and enables us, “then, just then,” can we hear and obey the Word. [253] Barth therefore called the hearing of the Word as “the miracle of God.” [254] Thus, our sanctification is miraculous and transcendental rather than natural and immanent, for it is continued again and again as the grace of the Holy Spirit when the Spirit of holiness is given to us again and again.

Sanctification as Self-Authentication

One's sanctification is therefore an authenticating proof that the grace of God is given to him. Based on James' thesis that “faith is not without works,” Barth formulated the thesis that “justification is not without sanctification.” [255] Accordingly, he understood that one's sanctification is the self-authentication of his justification, since action self-authenticates faith. [256] No doubt, this is a very powerful and demanding proposition, though what he meant by sanctification is fundamentally different from that of Catholics or Liberals, which subtly promotes the idea of a works-righteousness [257] and negates the existence of ultimate evil. [258]

In contrast, he reminded his readers of the humble and honest confession of “Calvin, whose special interest was, indeed, the reality of sanctification,” that our sanctification is not only “always at the beginning, but we have been flung back into nothingness.” [259] Until the Spirit convicts our conscience, we are unable to recognize sin and repent [260] and even our repentance always falls short of God's standard. [261] Also, our faith is not strong enough to sustain itself throughout life without His gracious strengthening by giving faith again and again when we are in doubt or despair. [262] In our daily temptations we are accustomed to failure. [263] Without the continuous giving of the Holy Spirit as the gift of God, no Christian could possibly persevere.

Then what is the reality of sanctification? According to Barth, it “consists in this vertical line falling upon and cutting the horizontal line of our existence.” [264] The grace of sanctification “cuts against the grain of our existence all through,” but it “is never at all to be comprehended or apprehended by our existence.” [265] In fact, it is real but hidden in the mystery of the Holy Spirit, and here “arises the problem of Christian obedience.” [266] If sanctification is the self-authentication of justification, but our obedience is so feeble and dependent to prove, where is the authenticating obedience? Barth understood that this is also hidden in Christ. [267] Therefore, the imperfection and obscurity of our obedience inevitably set the limits of our sanctification, which may bear on Barth's criticism of Wesleyan perfectionism. Man's obedience is imperfect and possibly deceptive even with respect to intention. [268] When “the veil of partition” is removed and the temporal order ends, “our final reality” of fulfilled redemption will come. [269] In this temporal world, our sanctification is “a life lived in hope” of future redemption, [270] a life of con-science, gratitude and prayer. [271] However, as the grace of sanctification disturbs and contradicts against ourselves, [272] it is in the way of our obedience that the reality of sanctification “on its subjective side, therefore, becomes concrete.” [273] In fact, the grace of sanctification delimits us absolutely and concretely, that is, it binds us to God and to our neighbours. [274] So we struggle to restore “the orders of creation” in this temporal world, “for example, marriage, race, etc; in the Church and in the State, as in the spiritual and secular order of life,” [275] so that His Kingdom comes.

Here, Barth made a significant step in his understanding of sanctification, since he demanded a concrete authenticating sanctification as proof of justification, even though it is imperfect. Further, his pneumatological rejection of humanistic sanctification strengthened his consistent attack upon natural theology. Historically viewed, it must have served as his theological preparation for the difficult political situation that was approaching him and the German churches.

2.2.8 Political Writings

Already in 1931 Karl Barth had prophesied the emergence of four “new religions” which would seriously threaten the Christian Churches in the future: Fascism, Communism, Americanism and New Islam. [276] Criticizing the “bridge-building” approach of Jerusalem missionary conference in 1928, he demanded “simply the Missionary campaign” “without yielding by a hair's-breadth” to those “daemonic” “religions.” [277] Therefore, his theological resistance against the rise of Adolf Hitler's Fascist regime in 1933 was quite predictable. Moreover, as he explained later, he had been experiencing one of the most significant moments in his theological life through the transitional development toward “deepening” and “application.” [278] Since his study of Anselm at the beginning of the 1930's Barth has tried to rid himself of the philosophical methodology and scholastic tendencies of his 1920's and to deepen even further his theology of grace by concentrating in Jesus Christ of the Scripture alone. So his opposition was not a simple arbitrary attitude but the political application of his theology, especially his doctrine of sanctification, which had developed so far in this direction. In this final section, we will analyze his political writings which had been diligently written in the anti-Nazi struggle and the post-war international situation, in order to present his profound idea of political sanctification and its two key concepts--new obedience and political freedom.

Political Sanctification

The conflict between church and state was inevitable for Karl Barth. In his view God demands sanctification of the whole, including politics and state, [279] but the Nazi totalitarian regime also made “a total claim on the life of men.” [280] In this situation the German churches had been divided into three camps: the “German Christians” who collaborated with Nazism and advocated the “Aryan Christianity,” the neutral majority which denied any participation in the politics by the church, and the Confessional Church which took a position of resistance. [281] Barth found that each group has its own distinctive view of sanctification, which led them to take the different positions on the political participation of the church. As the spiritual descendants of Liberalism, the German Christians follow “the naturalism and Pelagianism of the German-Christian doctrine of justification and sanctification,” [282] while the neutral majority's via media represents the Lutheran and Pietistic view of sanctification. [283] He immediately condemned Aryan Christianity in 1933, [284] and wrote the Barmen Theological Declaration in 1934, [285] which confesses as follows in Art. 2:

“Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” (I Cor.1:30)

As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness he is also God's mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world for a free, grateful service to his creatures.

We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords--areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him. [286]

As a matter of fact, the ideas like “God's mighty claim upon our whole life” or that all “areas of life... belong to Jesus Christ... (and) need... sanctification through him” clearly reflect Barth's understanding of sanctification, and it unmistakably delivered a declaration of resistance against the Führer and his political force. Since then, he led the church opposition of “no concession” as its theological center of resistance, with a strong determination to flee to the “catacombs” [underground] and even to die--“a rest in the tomb”--if necessary, until the total surrender of the “evil” force in 1945. [287]

His idea of political sanctification is fundamentally based on the political nature of the Gospel that Jesus Christ has redeemed all the spheres of life and therefore “the political sphere is His” as well. [288] Accordingly, “we are irrevocably bound, precisely because we are members of His Church, to serve God in this sphere also.” [289] Structurally, he incorporated political sanctification within the larger category of “the sanctification of the world,” which had been developed in the 1937-38 Gifford Lectures at Aberdeen. [290] The mission of the church in this world is to sanctify the world by proclaiming the Word of God so that the world can obey the Lord. Therefore, the church claims the political order for the service of God, as “rulers and ruled are summoned to obedience to God.” [291]

Also, the sovereignty of God is so absolutely exclusive [292] to recognize any “little Lord.” [293] So any man, organization, state, ideology, nature, history, reason or whatever, however powerful it may be and however small an area it may concern, claiming his or its sovereignty, would be definitely rejected and subjugated sooner or later by the exclusive sovereignty of God. [294] Also, the actual sovereignty of God “is always the sovereignty of Jesus Christ” which has been accomplished “once for all” by His sovereign act--our reconciliation of justification and sanctification. [295] Further, the Lord Jesus Christ is none other than “Jesus Christ... testified for us in the Holy Scripture,” as confessed in the Barmen Theological Declaration (Art.1). Concerning this triple exclusiveness, Barth formulated it this way: “God is never for us in the world, that is to say, in our space and time, except in this His Word, and that this Word for us has no other name and content but Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ is never to be found on our behalf save each day afresh in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.” [296]

Therefore it is quite understandable why he wrote and lectured on The First Commandment as a Theological Axiom “in the very first days of the Third Reich.” [297] No doubt, as “the great temptation of 1933” was launched, [298] he tried to give a strong warning to the German churches against the emergence of other god, other Jesus, other revelation, other salvation and other gospel. [299] He was extremely disturbed by the resurgence of natural theology, because he regarded it as a back door through which all the above “other”s could easily infiltrate into the Church. It had happened in the past when Roman Catholic theology had intermingled grace and nature [300] and when Protestant theology, since the 18th century, allowed revelation to be related to, absorbed into and controlled by reason, nature, history, religion, culture, conscience, or the like, [301] with a devastating effect upon the Church, and alas! it was to happen again with the rise of the Nazi regime. Barth therefore was so angry and shouted “Nein!” to Emil Brunner, when Brunner suggested that “It is the task of our theological generation to find the way back to a true theologia naturalis.” [302] Despite the popular misunderstanding, it was not because he absolutely denied any revelational value to nature, reason, or history, [303] but because such a theological compromise caused and could cause the secularization of the German churches “if things continue in this way.” [304] As “compromise” is a political term, so it was a political problem. As a matter of fact, the appearance of Hitler and Nazism had been welcomed by some politicians and theologians as “a great salvation,” [305] “a divine revelation,” [306] “the Gospel in the Third Reich,” [307] or “a new commission of our Lord to His Churches.” [308] Therefore, his call for the rejection of any theological compromise meant a call for resistance against a false Messiah as “a co-redeemer, a second center, a secondary source of grace,” [309] and, when he theologically led the church's resistance against the state, it raised the particular ecclesiological question of the relationship between church and state. [310]

New Obedience

In his understanding, the church is political [311] and the state is sacred. [312] Both communities have been established by God in order to apply and fulfil the redemption of Christ, and therefore they have to co-operate with each other, though in separate spheres and with different principles, so as to serve the same Lord and accomplish the same ultimate purpose. [313] Figuratively, he illustrated their relationship as two circles with the same center: the church as “inner circle,” the state as “outer circle,” and the Lord as “the center of the two communities.” [314] As the outer circle of the Kingdom of God, the State belongs to “the order of redemption,” [315] “originally and ultimately to Jesus Christ,” so that “it should serve the Person and Work of Jesus Christ and therefore the justification of the sinner.” [316] Due to this Christological and soteriological connection, i.e., that the “justice” which God committed to the state is originally possible only upon the basis of “justification” which Christ has accomplished, the state has to administer justice faithfully, as “a servant of divine justification,” so that the church could freely preach the gospel of justification. [317] The church alone is aware of the need for the state in the most absolute and serious sense, [318] because it alone knows how dangerous and sinful man is and that, without the state's powerful enforcement of justice, “chaos and nothingness” would break in and sooner or later terminate human existence. [319] In this situation, “it [the state] serves to protect man from the invasion of chaos and therefore to give him time: time for the preaching of the gospel; time for repentance; time for faith”--“time of grace.” [320] Thus, the state is “a constant reminder” of the divine grace and providence in controlling human sinful desires, which would necessarily cause chaos. [321] So Barth concluded that the state performs “the external, relative and provisional sanctification of the unhallowed world.” [322]

What kind of political system would then be ideal for the state as the divine redemptive ordinance for the administration of justice? As a principle, Barth suggested that the state should find its “model and prototype” in the church, and its “allegory” or “analogy” in the Kingdom of God, for the sake of the unity of the divine ordinances. [323] By the method of “explication and application,” through which each aspect of the church is explained and then “translated into political terms,” he offered a list of examples. [324] However, the most crucial aspect is that, as the church is the witness of divine justification, the state should be just and constitutional. [325] A good state understands its power as potestas “that follows and serves the law,” rather than as potentia “that precedes (and masters) the law.” [326] Because the administration of justice and law is the essential reason for the existence of the state as an order of redemption, the church should “guarantee the existence of the State,” as the “freedom of the Church can only be guaranteed through the existence of the State.” [327]

The church should fulfil such a role in several ways. First, the church should pray for the state, as “this intercession is necessary because from God alone can rulers receive and maintain that power.” [328] And, the church should pray for the state, because this “priestly duty” belongs to “the very essence of its [church's] existence.” [329] It is an unconditional duty, regardless of the state's faithfulness, that the church should even increase its prayer for the state when it becomes unjust and tyrannical. [330] Moreover, the church should pray for the state seriously and concretely, and this implies the church's responsible and careful observation of the state and its Christian reflection, which would be translated into its political action beyond “the purely passive subjection.” [331] Second, the church should call the state “from neutrality, ignorance and paganism into co-responsibility before God, thereby remaining faithful to its own particular mission.” [332] Of course, it has to be translated into the political terms and activities, for the state does not understand the spiritual languages of the church. Third, the church should encourage and guide its members for active political participation, for they are the citizens of the Kingdom of God for whom political participation is “necessary and imperative.” [333] As a matter of fact, nobody will be better equipped, motivated and qualified for political action than the Christian, if the church is faithful to this task. [334] Many churches are afraid of “political preaching,” but the Gospel of the Kingdom is political. On a right interpretation of the Scripture the genuine preaching of the Gospel “will necessarily be prophetically political.” [335] Therefore, the church may not avoid political preaching, in order to guide Christians biblically in their political life. [336]

Rom.13 has been a perennial problem for the political attitude of the church, especially when the state has become unjust and tyrannical. But Barth suggested that the framework of interpretation be governed by the key word “hupotassesthai” (Be subject unto), the object of which is the “taxis” (order), i.e., the “order/ordinances of God” which has been established for the purpose of administering His justice. [337] Therefore, as the inner circle of the Kingdom, the church should protect and defend this divine ordinance from perversion when the state turns to suppress the preaching of justification. [338] Moreover, within the structure of the Kingdom of God, “Church and Theology are the frontiers, the bounds, of the State” [339] and, as the “restricting frontier” of the state, the church has a God-given right and responsibility to restrict and restrain political power. [340] The church's “resistance” to political power is then inevitable. Otherwise Christians would then neglect “the distinctive service which they can and must render to the State” and become an “enemy” of the true state. [341] If the state is distinguished from the ruler in such circumstances, to resist such a ruler or government would be to obey God, [342] “defending the State against the State,” “restoring the State,” and “saving it from ruin.” [343]

This political obedience to God and His order by resistance to the perversive ruler and his regime--Barth called it “new obedience” (neue Gehorsam), [344] in contrast to the traditional form of unconditional and submissive obedience. New obedience, as an act of political sanctification, is possible only when a Christian community, “which is the Fellowship of the Called, the Hearers, the Obedient, the Awakened, the Pray-ers, the Hopers and Hasteners,” is disturbed by the Word of God, “really, seriously disturbed,” “so disturbed that they cannot allow themselves to be quietened any longer.” [345] Then, there is no other choice but to fight and resist it in order to secure the freedom of preaching of the Gospel. As it happens, the grace of God is often misunderstood as being always peaceful, quiet, patient and spiritual, “but grace is also stormy.” [346] For “grace calls us into the decision of faith” and “grace allows no idleness, no neutrality, no standing aside.” [347] In his diagnosis, the general failure of the European Christians to make a decision of faith against the imperialistic and totalitarian regimes has been caused by the metaphysical and pagan idea of God of the Protestant Orthodoxy, which has departed from the living and sovereign God in Jesus Christ, [348] for a decision of faith is possible only within the sovereignty of the living Lord. [349] He thus rejected Christian pacifism, not only because it is “unrealistic” [350] but also because it is “an absolutism (like all `isms')” to which Christians may not be enslaved. [351] He also criticized Christian quietism in the name of political neutrality, suffering humility, or human inability, [352] as a senseless indifference, negligence of political duty, spiritual sleeping, lack of courage, or “eschatological defeatism.” [353]

Rather, the church has to speak out “through the mouth of its presbyterial and synodal organs, in important situations in political life, by making representations to the authorities or by public proclamations.” [354] Such political witness needs to use very prudently and definitely chosen words in very carefully and wisely selected situations, but it does not mean that the church may take a political action only on sensitive matters like Sabbath problems or “make a habit of coming to the scene too late.” [355] Of course, the normative way of the church's political participation is none other than witnessing, confessing and proclaiming, but Barth recognized even more than that. In certain circumstances it may be not only a “passive resistance” but an “active resistance,” that is, “opposing force by force.” [356] In fact, the use of force is not un-Christian, because, by recognizing the political order of force, “we have in any case directly or indirectly a share in the exercise of force.” [357] However, forcible resistance or even a plot to overthrow an unjust government may not be taken without meeting all the negative and positive conditions for such an action. [358] Whatever way it takes, the most important principle of political action is to obey the Lord, as far as it is a work of political sanctification.

Political Freedom

The other side of this new obedience is political freedom, for freedom is the necessary precondition for obedience. And if the Gospel is political, Christian freedom must have its political aspect also. In the political theology of Karl Barth, however, the idea of political freedom is quite distinctive and even transcendental. But, whereas his idea of “new obedience” has met with a wide welcome, that of political freedom has not. It was certainly “against the stream,” [359] “highly offensive,” [360] and “unpopular.” [361] However, Barth's idea of political sanctification is incomplete without it.

First, it is freedom from political powers. Because God established two separate and distinct ordinances of church and state for the Kingdom of God, “the Church cannot itself become a State, and the State, on the other hand, cannot become a Church.” [362] If such a self-destructive attempt, “denying its own existence” with its particular mission, might be attempted against the will of God, the result of this rebellious insanity would be monstrous--either “an idolatrous Church” or “a clerical State.” [363] To infuse the political methods or systems into the church and “assimilate” (Gleichschaltung) it to the state would be “secularizing” the church without maintaining its proper status and distinct mission. [364] Therefore, the best service to God and each other would be to be a “true Church” and a “true State,” encouraging each other in that direction. [365] However, while the church as the inner circle should recall of its God-given mission and even restrict the state as its frontier, the state as the outer circle may not instruct or reform the church, because it is directly guided and heard by the Word of God. [366] The freedom of the church for “self-determination” (Eigengesetzlichkeit) [367] has to be guaranteed by the state as well as secured by the church. On the other hand, the church also has to free itself by avoiding a mistake to “bind the Gospel” to a particular political power. [368] Historically, it has been “the weakness of Protestantism” that the church “has always sought alliance and coalition with stronger forces,” that is, with the ruling party, regardless of whether it is just or not. [369] To overcome this Protestant problem of political secularization, the church has to free, first of all, from the dominant political power of the present, so that it could obey the Lord alone in political activities. So Barth even opposed “Christian party,” for it would “inevitably bring discredit and disgrace” to the Christian community. [370]

Second, it is freedom from political systems. While the state per se, as the order of justice, has been ordained by God, “the various political forms and systems are human inventions.” [371] The church has “no exclusive theory of its own.” [372] Even democracy is not “the Christian concept, against all others,” [373] though it is possible to distinguish “between the better and worse political form and reality” according to the standard of efficiency in its administration of justice and its affinity with the church, [374] and the Christian view shows “a striking tendency” toward democracy. [375] No doubt, the Christian communities of biblical times and later on accepted the rule of a monarch. So the church may not invalidate “the form of a monarchy or an aristocracy, and occasionally even that of a dictatorship” per se, as far as it does not turn to be tyranny or anarchy. [376] Since “political systems come and go, even though they often last for a long time,” [377] the church “must hold itself free to carry out its own mission and to work out a possibly quite new form of obedience or resistance.” [378]

As it is well known, Barth applied this principle to the East-West problem and stirred up a great controversy. To him, the East-West conflict was simply “a form of the world-political struggle for power,” [379] an event in “the natural history of the world,” [380] “a mere power-conflict” of two “evil” “imperialism,” [381] as revealed in the Book of Daniel. [382] Therefore he called for “the Christian disillusionment” of this imperialistic delusion, suggesting “a third way, its own way” of “no partisanship.” [383] With the critical self-reflection that “geographical and natural circumstances inevitably lead us to take sides with America and the Western hemisphere,” [384] he denounced Western arbitrariness: “The cause of the West may be our cause because we happen to live in the West, happen to inherit Western traditions, but it is not therefore necessarily God's cause” [385] and “the Church is not identical with the West.” [386] His critical attitude toward anti-communism [387] has been a great embarrassment to the Western churches, which is typically expressed in an open letter by Emil Brunner, who asked why Karl Barth, who had been a great champion of Christian resistance against the totalitarian regime of Hitler, should now be a sudden advocate of collaborative toleration of “totalitarian Communism.” [388] However, Barth understood the situation not as a conflict between democracy and totalitarianism but as between capitalism and communism, both of which are merely two different economic-political systems from which the church is to be free. [389]

Likewise, the church is to be free of political ideologies, since the free grace of God is not bound to any human idea, “no matter how good, deep, or pious.” [390] Collective egotism like nationalism or racism is incompatible with the church, because it is universal. [391] So the church may not be influenced by the propaganda of the state, as it has no right to enforce “a particular philosophy of life (Weltschauung)” or any ideological view on its citizens. [392] Moreover, it is not right for the church to be enslaved by a “political fanaticism” “to fight God's battle against His enemies,” even though “that battle has already been fought and won on the cross of Golgotha,” [393] or by a “false enthusiasm” to solve the problems of the whole world by itself, “acting as though the Lord on high were dead,” busying the church with “all quantitative thinking, all statistics, all calculation of observable consequences, all efforts to achieve a Christian world order.” [394] To give up its political ambition and rely upon God alone is the way to the “spiritual freedom” of the church, for “to point to God's Kingdom as the kingdom of justice and peace is the prophetic task of the Church,” which involves “its office as political watchman and its service as social Samaritan.” [395]

Third, it is freedom from political change. For the church has easily lost its political freedom in the midst of political change, by supporting either the old regime or the new regime. To be sure, Barth made a quite distinctive approach to this problem. From his perspective of salvation history, because all the “small changes” including political changes happen in the framework of the “great change” --“Jesus Christ in the twofold aspect of His death on the Cross and His second coming in glory, as made known in His resurrection,” [396] every political change has some redemptive significance as the “indirect evidence of the Kingdom that has no end.” [397] Therefore, the Christian community which has experienced this great change cannot react with extreme joy or extreme fear when such small changes come. [398] Rather, as “the Word of God is not tied to any political system, old or new,” the church has to be free from both and judge them from the superior perspective of the great change, [399] for Jesus Christ is “the whole, within which the change of political systems takes place.” [400] It is wrong to advise the Christian Church to support the old regime, glorifying the old political ideology as well as discriminating against the new one, or to side with the new regime, mistaking the spirit of the new power as “the Holy Spirit” and the proclamations or actions of the progressives as “a revelation of God.” [401] Then “the Church would surrender its freedom,” and this act of “ideological glorification and discrimination” will show that the church has already lost its political freedom, either in its “identifying its own mission with the dominant ideals of the old system,” or in the “vacuum” of political confidence which is now “filled with a quite un-Christian enthusiasm for the new regime.” [402]

However, political freedom does not mean a pietistic withdrawal or diplomatic neutrality but free and active participation. [403] So when political change occurs, he suggested, the church would be better to consider it positively, though not collaboratively, and proceed seriously with repentance, gratitude and renewal. Repentance is needed, because the decisive, or at least partial responsibility for the collapse of the old system lies in the church's failure in political sanctification. [404] Gratitude is also needed, because the wise providence of the gracious God has provided “a new chance” “to make a fresh start.” [405] In these acts and attitudes, the church has to renew itself by reading the Scriptures anew and learning a new way of praying. [406] Then “it will be able to make to some extent a direct contribution to political events in a revolutionary age.” [407] This is what Barth advised the Church leaders who were struggling with the political change to communism, [408] when they asked him how “to deal with the new Communist regime.” [409] Of course, he must have had some personal reservations against communism, [410] but his primary concern was the political freedom of the church without any ideological glorification or discrimination. No doubt, his situational judgment per se is refutable, [411] but his idea of political freedom is quite noble and prophetic. Unlike Reinhold Niebuhr or Jean-Paul Sartre, [412] he refused to change his position. [413] Even during the Cold War, he did not give up hope for future peaceful co-existence beyond ideological hatred. [414] Now, in view of the collapse of communism in the East and the new trend of ideological decline in the West, the question remains unanswered as to whether what Barth called “an ideological glorification or discrimination” is compatible with the political freedom of the church.

As a matter of fact, Christian churches in the past have co-existed with all political powers. The ruler of the government, as “God's servant,” whom the Apostle Paul commended for Christians to be subject to and not to rebel against in Romans 13, was none other than the notorious emperor Nero. [415] To be paradoxical, “one and the same State, Nero's Roman State, is described in the New Testament as a divine institution [Rom.13] and as a beast from the abyss [Rev.13].” [416] In fact, all states are placed between “these two poles.” [417] Therefore Barth said that “we shall not meet a perfect Christian State until the Day of Judgment--nor the devil's State either.” [418] Because fear is the most crucial problem in relations with the state, he encouraged Christians in all states: “Let us not be afraid.” [419] What made him so politically free was his absolute belief in the sovereignty of God that the state could not escape “the real subordination in which it exists,” even when it has become an unjust State and a persecutor of the Church. [420] Paradoxically, “in no circumstances can this `demonic' State finally achieve what it desires”--“with gnashing of teeth it will have to serve where it wants to dominate; it will have to build where it wishes to destroy; it will have to testify to God's justice where it wishes to display the injustice of men.” [421]

No doubt, there is a discrepancy in his political teachings between two periods--the pre- and post-war situations. While the idea of political resistance started in Nazi Germany, that of political freedom was developed in neutral Switzerland. It seems that two essential concepts in his idea of political sanctification, i.e., new obedience and political freedom are inconsistent and even contradictory. However, his dialectical inconclusiveness, uncompromisingly resistant to synthesize, is the genuine strength of Barth's theology, rather than its weakness, because such a duality is undeniably co-existent in the Word of God. [422]

2.2.9 Summary

So far we have followed the historical development of his theology, as formative process of his doctrine of sanctification, during the four decades (1909-1952) before the writing of CD IV/2. Prior to his theological conversion, the young Barth, as a son of the so-called “ethical Christianity,” had founded his theology upon the synthesis of Kantian moralism and Schleiermacherian subjectivism by Wilhelm Herrmann, “the teacher” of Karl Barth. After his revolutionary theological conversion in 1916, he departed from this old foundation in spirit but not in its basic form. The early principle of ethical priority especially continued to be a guiding light to his whole theological career, with the result that he strongly interrelated dogmatics and ethics. So the Heiligungslehre becomes one of his major interests, as it is the “point of relation” between two disciplines. On the other hand, the psychological subjectivism of his student years made him deny not only the idea of spiritual sanctification by the transcendent God but also the possibility of spiritual maturity and thus sanctification as a process (2.2.1).

However, his Genevan experience and Safenwil ministry (1909-1921) raised a serious questions in relation to these ideas of individualism and psychologism, as he realized their romantic hypocrisy and practical uselessness. In a radical move, he turned to the Christian socialism of Christoph Blumhardt, Leonhard Ragaz and Hermann Kutter. His “ethical Christianity” became “social Christianity.” Thus, he began to depart from his pietistic view of sanctification, criticizing it as a “Christian” egoism, as he expanded his thinking from a “private closet” faith to a social Gospel, with the new conviction that Jesus Christ “created new men in order to create a new world.” In this socialist turn, it is significant that he began to differentiate himself from the German Lutheran theology, initiated by the awareness of his Swiss Reformed heritage, which directed him to Calvin, “the theologian of sanctification.” In this socialist period, the individual and psychological view of sanctification was entirely replaced by its social and historical conception. Also, he became to believe in the moral progress of humanity. No doubt, it was a great change in direction in his understanding of sanctification (2.2.2).

Since his declared departure from die moderne Theologie in 1914, due to the ethical failure of the Schleiermacherian school and his subsequent departure from socialism in 1916, Barth began to write a revolutionary work in the history of theology--Der Römerbrief (1919), which inaugurated a beginning of his new understanding of sanctification. The concept of sola gratia prevails his new theology, especially his view of sanctification, as he has discovered a wonderful world of the living and gracious God in Jesus Christ of the Scripture. Therefore he was strongly opposed to the pietistic idea of sanctification as “tragic and fruitless.” He emphasized strongly that the salvation of sola gratia is once for all, denouncing any works-righteousness, Barth stressed the truth of “the single sanctification.” It seemed to negate any subjective aspect, but there is one thing for “the man under grace” to do--to “surrender,” as God “claims” him, with God-given freedom. And it should be “the surrender of the whole life,” that is, both the inner and outer being, both the material and the spiritual life, both the individual and social functions. So, “the sanctification of the whole” is the claim of God and with this he declared “the end of my pietism.” Now, in a fresh perspective, the social concept is incorporated into the concept of the sanctification of the whole. Barth's initiative in accepting the duality of sanctification, objective and subjective, single and continual, in the unity of grace is quite revolutionary and praiseworthy (2.2.3).

Next, in his “completely rewritten” Römerbrief (1922) Barth introduced the “dialectical” method and opened the era of so-called “dialectical theology.” As his theology was reformulated by the new dialectical paradigm of time and eternity, so he replaced his idea of single and continual sanctification with that of the eternal and temporal sanctification. However, because our sanctification of the new man, our true identity, belongs to the divine realm of eternity, it is “invisible and non-historical.” Due to the “infinite qualitative distinction” of time and eternity, our eternal and temporal sanctification are not essentially related to each other. However, the grace of God makes possible the impossibility of “relating” both realms, though the visible sanctification, only “a parable, a token, of the action of God,” is “necessarily obscure” until its obscurity is removed in the eschatological TELOS. Also, Barth criticized strongly pietistic religion, for “religion is the KRISIS of culture and of barbarism,” “the supreme sin,” “the sin of the Fall,” “the sin of anthropomorphism,” and “the robbing of God” to play god. Therefore, the grace of God creates an absolute KRISIS for religion, religious culture and religious piety with respect to self-sanctification, which resist the grace of God alone. Because he understood the Gospel to be the absolute negation of religion and Christ to be the end of religion, he denied any compatibility between religion and the Gospel. However, it does not mean that he denied any act of sanctification, for it is the will of God and “the imperative of grace.” Simply stated, he was describing true and genuine sanctification, that is, sanctification from above. In this context he borrowed a provocative term from Calvin--“disturbance.” The grace of sanctification is “a shattering disturbance, an assault which brings everything into question,” “not merely a casual and unauthorized disturbance of men by the fellow men,” but “really and genuinely the disturbance of men by God,” which “fundamentally and thoroughly disturbs our life.” When one is so disturbed, he repents, rethinks, and initiates new behaviours. As God disturbs our total existence of psychosomatic unity, it includes even “the sanctification of our mortal body” with the power of resurrection. And, such a sanctification of sacrifice, surrender and self-renunciation will raise our praise: Soli Deo gloria! (2.2.4).

In 1927 he wrote a treatise, “Rechtfertigung und Heiligung” which is the first systematic presentation of his view of sanctification, contrasting it with the doctrine of justification. Here, Barth has significantly modified his position by describing that “justification is the eternal and also divine side, while sanctification is the temporal side of the incomprehensible one act of the grace.” He also recognized the individual differences in sanctification, the “steps and degree” of spiritual maturity. To be sure, it is a significant modification, though it reflects his new understanding of the dialectical structure of time and eternity that the one eternal truth of God becomes necessarily two for the temporal human being. As a result, the temporality of sanctification sets the temporal limit for sanctification. It is a “strife-talk” until the point of eschatological consummation of “redemption.” In the struggle for the Kingdom of God, his conscience becomes “an indicted, disturbed, halted, worried conscience,” “the wounded conscience,” shocked by the sinful realities of himself and the world, and “there, in the space so created” the sanctified reality of grace flourishes. Therefore, the sanctification of the reconciled is essentially related with his struggle for the Kingdom of God. Thus sanctification is an eschatological concept, for it is “on the way” (2.2.5).

His Ethics (1928/29) discusses sanctification as its foundational doctrine, for it is the “point of relation” where dogmatics becomes ethics. Fundamentally, the Word of God is a moral truth, and therefore it has to be understood “expressly and emphatically as the sanctifying Word.” Because as such the Word of God is the common theme of both dogmatics and ethics, both are inseparable. He insisted their essential identity against “the modern emancipation of ethics from dogmatics.” On the other hand, he advocated “special ethics,” because the Christian norm of the good is sharply different from the humanistic definition of the moral goodness, for “Good means sanctified by God.” True goodness and holiness are realized only through the process of divine commanding, human hearing and obeying. However, because God's gracious “determination” of our existence is “the essence of our sanctification,” it must be indirect and obscure. Nevertheless, it is “an event,” that is, “a reality that takes place.” Goodness and holiness become “evident” in the reality of our existence by the divine act of sanctification. So its temporal reality inevitably shows “stages or parts” of sanctification, though it is “one whole” which is really indivisible. Also, our sanctification en Christo, in solidarity with him, necessarily demands its social reality, bound in life to our neighbours, as the divine “instrument” in the service of “the sanctification of men” (2.2.6).

In his pneumatology (1930) Barth pointed out that one's view of the Holy Spirit is decisively related to one's view of sanctification and vice versa. Over against the Roman Catholic theology of analogia entis and the Protestant Liberal doctrine of immanentism, both of which commonly deny the transcendence of the Holy Spirit and the necessity of continual grace, he strongly insisted that the Holy Spirit is given continuously, rather than once for all, for continual sanctification. Because our human spirits have no inherent ability for receiving the Word of God, only when the Holy Spirit prepares and enables us, can we hear and obey the Word. So without the continuous giving of sanctifying grace, our sanctification cannot proceed. Therefore, the occurrence of one's sanctification is the authenticating proof that the grace of God is given to him continually. As faith is not without works, so justification is not without sanctification. It was a significant step, for Barth demanded a concrete authenticating sanctification as the proof of justification (2.2.7).

Finally, in his political writings written during the anti-Nazi struggle and the post-war situation of the East-West confrontation, Barth offered a profound idea of political sanctification as the political implications of his theology. From the historical viewpoint of his theological development, Barth's resistance to the Nazi regime was quite predictable. The conflict between church and state was inevitable, because God claims “the sanctification of the whole” and Hitler also made “a total claim on the life of man.” His idea of political sanctification is based fundamentally on the political nature of the Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus Christ has redeemed the whole spheres of life and therefore “the political sphere is His.” In the Barmen Theological Declaration he rejected any existence of “areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through Him [Jesus Christ].” In this context, he emphasized “the First Commandment as an axiom of theology” and rejected any possibility of “a new revelation” as well as a natural theology. Further, he incorporated this idea into the larger category of “the sanctification of the world.” As the mission of the church is the sanctification of the world, the political task of the church is to claim the political order for the service of God and summon the rulers and ruled to obedience to God.

Furthermore, his idea of political sanctification has two key concepts: new obedience and political freedom. When the German conflict had again raised the question on the proper relationship between church and state, he illuminated it in terms of the redemptive historical perspective. Both church and state are divine ordinances, belonging to the order of redemption, for the Kingdom of God, in which the church is its inner circle, the state its outer circle. The center of both circles is Jesus Christ, the common Lord of church and state. In this structure of the Kingdom, the state performs “the external, relational and provisional sanctification of the unhallowed world” by administering justice, preventing chaos, and guaranteeing the freedom of the preaching of justification. The church has to help the state, so that it could faithfully perform those functions, by praying for the government, reminding it of its “co-responsibility” before God, and teaching its members their political task, which inevitably demands political resistance when the state turns against its ordained functions. In such a case, they are to obey God rather than the ruler--he called this obedience as “new obedience.” He criticized the Christian pacifism or quietism in the name of political neutrality. However, the other side of new obedience is political freedom, because freedom is a necessary precondition for obedience. It includes freedom from the political powers, political systems, and political changes. The church has to be free from the state, for the sake of the church's “freedom of self-determination,” and also from the dominant political power, the ruling party, and even “Christian” party, so that the church can obey the Lord alone. The church has to be free from any political system as well, because “the various political forms and systems are human inventions,” while the state per se is ordained by God. The church has to be free also from any ideology, collective egoism like nationalism or racism, or political fanaticism. In the East-West ideological confrontation, he suggested that the church would take “a third way” of non-partisanship. Further, the church has to be free from any political change, without committing support for either the old regime or the new regime, for it then runs the risk of losing its political freedom by “ideological glorification or discrimination.” Rather, the Christian community which has experienced the “great” change of Jesus Christ may not be extremely joyful or extremely fearful with respect to any “small” political change. Because political change also serves as “indirect evidence of the Kingdom that has no end,” the church has to face calmly and freely political change by the act of repentance, gratitude and renewal. Due to the absolute sovereignty of God in the time of grace, neither a perfect Christian State nor the devil's State will appear until the Parousia. All states exist between the two poles of Rom.13 and Rev.13 and the state could not escape its structural function whatever the ruler might wish. In conclusion, it seems that these two concepts, new obedience and political freedom, are inconsistent, but Barth's idea of political sanctification is incomplete without either one, and it reflects his long process of development with a sincere struggle to integrate the duality of sanctification as found in Scripture (2.2.8).

Historically, the Christian churches have chosen one side at the expense of the other. Even Barth himself followed this traditional pattern when he was a follower of Protestant Liberalism and Christian Socialism. However, since he discovered the wonderful new world of the Word of God in 1916, he has given up logical consistency in the sense of simple logic and tried to accept whatever the Bible says and integrate those seemingly contradictory ideas with the adoption of the dialectics. It is apparent in every writing thereafter and in his understanding of sanctification, the simple recognition of its duality: whether it is single and continual, objective and subjective, eternal and temporal, invisible and visible, divine determination and human surrender, reality and event, or whether it is inner and outer, material and spiritual, physical and mental, individual and social, or new obedience and political freedom. It was now his task to integrate further these dual aspects into a comprehensive doctrine of sanctification, with distinctive concepts like claim, disturbance, obedience, freedom, surrender, sacrifice, determination, strife, halt and the like. It was this that he attempted in CD §66.

2.3 The Structure of Barth's Theology

2.3.1 Dogmatics and Sanctification

Our investigation into the development of Barth's doctrine of sanctification demands yet another area of study for its completion--Church Dogmatics. Moreover, though he produced many other writings, the theological structure of Karl Barth is found here in this magnum opus. Therefore, as an attempt to understand Barth and his doctrine of sanctification in the proper theological context, we will survey its volumes I, II and III (1931-1951) here, leaving IV (1953-1967) for the next chapter. However, we will not present a general introduction of all the doctrines, which is beyond the scope of our project. Rather, we will attempt a concrete and contributive treatment of some particular loci where he has interrelated with the concept of sanctification, [423] in order to understand Barth's doctrine of sanctification within the structure of his theology as a whole.

For our contextual approach it is significant that the writing of this work, particularly its first three volumes, periodically coincides with his political writings. Barth wrote the Church Dogmatics under such critical circumstances like the rise of the Nazi regime, the German church struggle, his forced return to Switzerland, the Second World War, and the East-West confrontation. [424] Therefore “it would be wrong to separate the two kinds of writing.” [425] In fact, the change in the political situation in Germany was an important reason to cancel the ambitious but ambiguous project of the Christliche Dogmatik and replace it with the Kirchliche Dogmatik. [426] The problems which he faced “in the last five years” led him to acknowledge “a far richer, more fluid and difficult aspect” and convinced him that dogmatics “is bound to the sphere of the Church, where alone it is possible and meaningful.” [427] As a result of their total loss of mystery, the German churches had been “punished with all kinds of worthless substitutes,” and even “many of its preachers and adherents have finally learned to discover deep religious significance in the intoxication of Nordic blood and their political Führer.” [428] In the midst of “the constantly increasing confusion,” Barth was firmly convinced that the urgently needed clarification in the politics cannot be reached “without first reaching the comprehensive clarifications in and about theology.” [429] Thus he believed “that it should keep precisely to the rhythm of its own relevant concerns, and thus consider well what are the real needs of the day by which its own programme should be directed.” [430]

To be sure, he attempted to purify and sanctify his dogmatics in this critical situation, when he found that his previously written Christliche Dogmatik (1927) was a “false start” (Fehlstart), [431] for he had consciously attempted to base his theology on Existentialphilosophie and also unconsciously implanted “a resumption of the line which leads from Schleiermacher by way of Ritschl to Herrmann.” [432] With the theological conviction that the analogia entis is “the invention of Antichrist” [433] as well as his gradual change of mind toward affirmative theology, [434] Barth tried to exclude “anything that might appear to find for theology a foundation, support, or justification in philosophical existentialism.” [435] His all-embracing concept of “the sanctification of the whole” functions as a principle for theology as well. In the Prolegomena he laid the foundational proposition that theology is an act of sanctification.

First, dogmatics aims at sanctification. Because “the theme of dogmatics is always the Word of God” and “the theme of the Word is human existence, human life and volition and action,” [436] if it is not heard in the actual life of man, “dogmatics loses nothing more nor less than its object, and therefore all meaning.” [437] So he radically identified dogmatics and ethics--“dogmatics itself is ethics and ethics is also dogmatics,” [438] for “neither theology nor dogmatics can be true to itself if it is not genuinely ready at the same time to be ethics.” [439] As a matter of fact, “a theoretical reality” which “does not affect or claim men or awaken them to responsibility or redeem them” in actual life “cannot possibly be the reality of the Word of God, no matter how great may be the richness of its content or the profundity of its conception.” [440] This motif is not only present everywhere in his dogmatics, but also serves to conclude every doctrine with its ethical application as the last part. [441] In this ethical approach to the dogmatics, its commanding importance is necessarily given to the doctrine of sanctification, “in which dogmatics directly and expressly becomes ethics.” [442] In every discussion of dogmatics, “therefore, it will still have to be no less a doctrine of sanctification and therefore ethics, if it is not to lose its purpose and meaning.” [443]

Moreover, dogmatics itself is an object of sanctification. Because “God's Word is His Son Jesus Christ,” “in the most comprehensive sense of the term dogmatics can and must be understood as Christology.” [444] In Jesus Christ, therefore, dogmatics is “sanctified,” “if it does not look elsewhere.” [445] In other words, the “pure doctrine” which dogmatics endeavour to attain can happen by the act of obedience, as the Church is summoned and commanded to the self-examination of its teaching. [446] For a successful self-examination can be achieved by “the greatest selflessness,” that is, total “self-surrender” as an act of faith and obedience. And, “the completeness of obedience to God results from the completeness of faith in His own presence and action.” [447] This means that complete obedience is possible only on the basis of complete faith in the Holy Spirit, who illuminates and reminds the Word of God as Jesus Christ, guides and enables the Church to surrender and obey. In this sense, dogmatics is “sanctified” in the Holy Spirit, [448] when the Church devaluates the autonomy of dogmatics as “only a secondary autonomy” and primarily depends on “the autonomy of the Holy Spirit.” [449] Only in this obedience of self-surrender, following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, “the danger of systematisation” which dogmatics necessarily involves will be overcome. For “systematisation means self-will,” [450] but self-surrender will purify it from “the possible corruption of dogmatics” caused by self-will, self-righteousness or self-determination, which inevitably leads to the way of idolatry and heresy. [451] The positive aspect of obedience for the “purification” of dogmatics is requested, [452] and this is to hear the Word of God, which is identical with the dogmatic content as well as its method and criterion. [453] Without hearing first, it may not and can not teach, else it will teach the word of man, not the Word of God. As a rule of dogmatic method, a dogmatician must dare “to say what he has heard, and to give out what he has received.” [454] To be specific, dogmatics has to “accept the Bible as the absolute authority” in hearing the Word of God for the self-examination of the Church's teaching. [455] As far as it is obedient in surrendering its self-will and hearing the Word of God alone, dogmatics is sanctified and pure. [456] It thus demands an “instant and constant obedience,” as the Word of God claims it. [457]

Dogmatics also sanctifies the Church proclamation. As it is “the formal task of dogmatics” [458] to challenge, confront and summon the Church to listen to Jesus Christ as attested in Holy Scripture alone and afresh, “the redemption of Church proclamation consists in its purification (Reinigung).” [459] In fact, it should teach what it has heard. What is the use of a purity of doctrine, as he said, if it is not actually practised, and proclaimed? [460] It is “intrinsically impossible” that hearing the Word of God should not lead to teaching it, “just as it is impossible that the word of the divine justification of the sinner should be heard without leading at once to his complete and sustained sanctification.” [461] Because “it teaches as it hears, and in that way it shows that it can and must teach,” [462] not to teach what it has heard is “not only disobedience and disloyalty, but folly and self-betrayal.” [463] On the other hand, it is another task of dogmatics “to issue a warning whenever it sees a threat to the obedience which Church proclamation must render.” [464] Especially in the “pre-heretical deviations” of the Church, dogmatics has to clarify its “opposition” in order to awaken the Church to “a new obedience” to its Lord. [465] However, “it cannot do this in virtue of an abstract conservatism, but only in the meaning and context of its call that the Church has to listen everyday afresh to its Lord alone.” [466] The human words of a dogmatics that has faithfully heard God's Word must obviously have “the quality of creating obedience to the Word of God,” that is, sanctification. [467]

2.3.2 The Holy Spirit and Sanctification

Though he agreed with the principle of opera trinitas ad extra sunt indivisa, Barth understood that the trinitarian appropriation ad extra in the non-exclusive sense would be appropriate due to the trinitarian differentiations of the biblical revelation and the creaturely limits of our comprehensibility. [468] Following the examples of Luther and Calvin, who appropriated to the Father, Son and Spirit, creation, redemption and sanctification or principium, sapientia and virtus respectively, [469] he assigned “creation, reconciliation and redemption.” [470] In this general structure of per appropriationem, sanctification primarily belongs to the works of the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit is “the subjective reality of revelation” [471] while the Son is its “objective reality.” [472] The critical question of how the objective reality of reconciliation becomes real to us as its subjective reality could be answered only in the Holy Spirit, [473] because it is a special function of the Holy Spirit to create the “relation” (Beziehung) between the two sides--God and creature, eternity and time, the objective and the subjective. [474] Therefore, as far as it is recognized that justification is the objective and sanctification the subjective reality of reconciliation, sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit. He therefore assumed that the Spirit is holy “because its purpose is the sanctification.” [475] In his Pneumatology Barth discussed three issues of sanctification, i.e., freedom, religion and love.

First, the Holy Spirit creates freedom for man to obey God, which is the necessary precondition for sanctification. It explains how homo peccator becomes capax verbi divini. The Holy Spirit sets man free for a purpose, and this freedom is “an ability or capacity or capability which is given to man as the addressee of revelation and which makes him a real recipient of revelation.” [476] Accordingly, it is not an arbitrary freedom without any orientation or purpose, which is the freedom of sin and therefore “un-freedom,” [477] but it is “the freedom for God,” that is, the freedom for obedience to God. [478] There is no other freedom than this, and it is a freedom given in His mercy by the power of the Holy Spirit. [479]

Nevertheless, it is “our freedom,” because it is I myself, not a transcendental alter ego by means of a possession or a trance, who has been elected, called and freed. [480] Our own identity with ourselves is neither removed nor abolished in the process of setting us free. Therefore, there is no place within ourselves “where we can exempt ourselves from responsibility,” as the whole man is directly and totally confronted by God. [481] Of course, the “contradiction” “between the spirit and the flesh, between the new and the old man, between what we see and what God alone sees,” “between the clarity of the fact and the obscurity of the means,” must be “an insoluble riddle” for us, because it is “the mystery of grace,” “the mystery of the Holy Spirit” and “the mystery of Jesus Christ.” [482] Yet our life in contradiction is not merely “a life of acceptance” as determined but already “a life in reconciliation,” maintained by the omnipotence of God Himself. [483] In this life our freedom for God exists where Jesus Christ is to us “unavoidably the Master,” and “to have our master unavoidably in Jesus Christ” entails the impossibility of withdrawal from Him, His supreme authority of total subjection, His absolute command without any excuse or subterfuge, our ultimate irresponsibility for the sake of His total responsibility, a definite formation and direction toward Him, and finally the supplanting of our own interest and concern by His. [484] Thus our freedom is for obedience to the Master, Jesus Christ, which is the subjective reality of sanctification realised by the outpouring power of the Holy Spirit.

Second, the Holy Spirit sanctifies human religion and its religious piety. Categorizing all religions into two kinds, i.e., “religion of revelation” and “religion of works,” Barth understood that “all religion as such is a religion of works.” [485] So, as every religion of the world has its own idea of sanctification, it attempts self-sanctification (Selbstheiligung) by the use of religious techniques for spiritual ascent. [486] Thus it resists and denies to recognize our sanctification achieved once for all in Jesus Christ. Because it does not believe in the sanctification of grace, “religion is unbelief,” pursuing the rebellious idolatry of self-righteousness. [487] It is the dilemma of human religion that “religion is self-contradictory and impossible per se” because it is “an ultimate non-necessity” as merely a playful externalization of its own answer, and that religion has to die when satisfaction changes because it seeks the culturally and historically conditioned human satisfaction. [488] Even the two forms of human religion, mysticism and atheism, which attempt to criticize religion by way of conservative internalization and artless negation respectively, are not radical and powerful enough to achieve the absolute negation of human religion. [489] After all, “the real crisis of religion can only break in from outside the magic circle of religion,” that is, from the revelation of God. [490]

Even the Christian religion may not be automatically exempted from the danger of human religion. As a matter of fact, Scripture shows the Old and New Testament religions to be unbelief and idolatry, though the Law was not given as “an authorization and challenge to self-justification and self-sanctification.” The Gospel is a challenge “to confirm the justification and sanctification achieved in Christ.” [491] Church history also demonstrates the culturalization and secularization of religion, and it might become “an ever more burning question” in the future of the Christian religion. [492] It happens when it becomes “not the religion of revelation but the revelation of religion,” that is, when “religion is not understood in the light of revelation, but revelation in the light of religion.” [493] This reversal of revelation and religion and the priority of religion over revelation has caused a massive culturalization and secularization of the Western Christianity. [494] Thus the Christian religion also “stands under the judgment that religion is unbelief,” when it becomes “our Christianity,” [495] whether it is a national, regional, racial or denominational Christianity.

However, “the unity of divine revelation and human religion” [496] happens in the event of Jesus Christ, and therefore religion “can be justified” and “sanctified” by it, to be “true religion.” [497] And the Holy Spirit sanctifies human religion and piety by making us free from and able to surrender our human religious and pious attempt of self-sanctification and self-righteousness, and by redirecting us to the religion of grace and revelation, Jesus Christ, who achieved the justification and sanctification of the sinner once for all, and His Church. [498] The Christian religion alone is the true religion, only in so far as it is the religion of Jesus Christ which has been created, elected, justified and sanctified in His name. [499] As the sun is reflected upon the earth and it becomes “the light of the earth,” the objective reality of reconciliation becomes visible in its subjective reality of sanctification and it becomes “a sign and testimony” of reconciliation. [500] In the Old Testament, “the acceptance and observance of the Law was a recurrent guarantee that this people was the people of covenant,” as “the evidence of a visible form” and “a necessary sign and testimony,” though it was “only” a sign and testimony, because “the giving of the Law was the sanctification of this people” which demonstrated “a visible separation, differentiation and characterisation” as the people of the covenant with God. [501] In the New Testament it is “the sanctification of the Christian religion which is accomplished once and for all in the name of Jesus Christ, but has to be continually re-acknowledged and re-affirmed in obedience.” [502] Because the name of Jesus Christ is “the sanctification of the Christian religion,” [503] the Church has to point to and proclaim Him continually for its sanctification, though the sanctification in this exercise and repetition is quite “beyond their own striving and its successes and failures.” [504]

Third, the Holy Spirit sanctifies the life of the children of God by the outpouring of love into their hearts. As the Holy Spirit intersects the closed circle of one's own existence and conditions his humanity by the grace of revelation, he becomes “the Christian in concreto.” [505] The Christian life begins and ends with love, because “love is the essence of Christian living,” “its conditio sine qua non.” [506] Therefore, when Jesus spoke that the greatest commandment for the children of God is to love--to love God and their neighbour, he meant the gracious determination of their “being and doing.” [507] In his exposition of Mk. 12.29-31 Barth emphasized that our love of God is willingly and obediently to accept, confirm and grasp our determined future as “lover” by the grace of God and to seek God with “a consuming desire to know, to ask about the One who has first loved us,” giving up the search for all other lords. [508] He also pointed out that our love of neighbour must be understood Christologically, i.e., that it is no other than the love of God in the transient world and time, [509] when we are summoned willingly to witness to Jesus Christ for “the praise of God,” with “the evangelical attitude” of the whole life in word and deed. [510] It is the love of “co-existence” with the suffering humanity for “the new brotherhood” in the humanity of Jesus Christ, [511] as the witness of assistance makes it possible for “the fellowship of sin and misery,” which serves as a “mirror” and “reminder” of one's sin and misery, to be transformed to “the fellowship of grace and forgiveness.” [512] The Holy Spirit's outpouring of love to enable us to love God and neighbour is our sanctification of grace, as “in loving we can participate in His perfection.” [513]

2.3.3 Divine Holiness and Sanctification

God's command to “Be holy, because I am holy” (Lev 11.44, 1Pet 1.16) means that our sanctification has to be grounded in the holiness of God, sanctitas Dei. Therefore, our proper understanding of divine holiness as an attribute of God is inseparable from that of our sanctification. With a preference for the word “perfection” (Vollkomenheit) over the traditional term “attribute” (Eigenheit) [514] and contrary to the nominalistic or semi-nominalistic weakening of the divine personhood, Barth insisted that “perfection” of God like love or holiness is not a metaphysical concept or impersonal idea [515] but “God Himself.” [516] So he emphasized that the diverse perfections of God should be interrelated and “unified in God Himself,” [517] personally as “the One who loves in freedom,” who as such is “the standard of all perfection” towards which “we also [have to] move forward.” [518] Since we know God on the ground of His self-revelation in Jesus Christ, our first and last knowledge of Him is “as the One who loves.” Comprehensively stated, “God is He who in His Son Jesus Christ loves all His children, in His children all men, and in men His whole creation.” [519] “The love of God is grace,” [520] for grace may be defined as a “turning,” “inclination,” “favour,” “goodwill” or “a sheer gift.” [521] In fact, “He alone” can exercise grace in the absolute and genuine sense, because it must be a “condescension” of “a superior to an inferior” and He alone is “really in a position to condescend.” [522] The grace of God, as revealed in Scripture, means “redemption,” for it is the forgiveness of sinners and overcomes the opposition of sin. [523] It is a determined action of God which “cannot fail” and “always” operates. [524] He thus criticized that the Roman Catholic conception of divine grace promotes “uncertainty” and therefore it is “a theology of the gods and idols of this world, not of the living and true God.” [525]

However, the idea of divine grace needs some “qualifications and expansion” for its clearer, deeper and richer understanding “in our mode of knowledge” through the fact that the love of God is also holy, [526] as “the concept of divine grace stands directly confronted with and controlled and purified by the concept of divine holiness.” [527] The holiness of God means that “He remains true to Himself and makes His own will prevail,” even in His “saving turning” of grace. [528] That is, He does not surrender Himself to ignore or compromise with those to whom He is gracious, but thoroughly breaks down and destroys their resistance. [529] The holiness of God is so terrible, like “a consuming fire.” [530] Because the saving grace of God is terribly holy, we must fear Him. [531] If grace is the forgiveness of sin, holiness is the judgment upon sin. [532] If grace causes justification, holiness demands sanctification. Because the gracious God is holy, He cannot allow us to go our own way, “unaccused, uncondemned and unpunished,” but confronts us in holiness. [533] Thus, God made “the sanctification of His people” His business. [534] Therefore, to accept God's grace necessarily means “to respect God's holiness, and therefore to accept, heed and keep His laws, to fear His threats, to experience His wrath and to suffer His punishment,” and these qualifications distinguish the Christian religion of grace from “heathen quietism.” [535]

On the other hand, the Gospel is distinguished also from “heathen religion of fear,” because the holy God is also gracious. [536] The biblical concept of “the holy (das Heilige)” is thus fundamentally different from Rudolf Otto's mysterium tremendum, for it can be truly understood only in the context of “the covenant.” [537] As His own people and children of the covenant, the holy God demands to be holy, that is, “separate” from others. [538] Because Israel belongs to God as His covenant partner, the holiness required of Israel has essentially “the character of cultic holiness” for fellowship and serviceableness. [539] In view of the most fearful holiness of God before whom nobody can claim his holiness, it is obvious that the command of holiness is simply “the command of self-preservation,” as it reminds us that an intrinsically unholy man is saved, “not because he sanctifies himself, but because in obedience to these commands he submits himself to the holiness of God.” [540] The keeping of the Law including the Holiness Code is not a matter of success or failure in fulfilment or achievement, and therefore cannot even remotely signify “a meritorious righteousness of works.” [541] If the covenant is gracious and eternal, it is simply a claim of His “holy love,” achieved once for all in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in whom the divorce between God's grace and holiness or the Law and the Gospel ends. [542] So the love of God in Christ not only justifies the sinners but also sanctifies them, for it is holy as well as gracious.

2.3.4 Divine Command and Sanctification

In the theology of Karl Barth, the starting point of theological ethics is “the command of the grace of God,” [543] and his distinctive doctrine of the divine command is grounded upon the gracious election of God. When he states that “election is the sun, sanctification is its shining--who is to separate the two?,” [544] he means that the origin of our sanctification is the divine election before our existence. For there was a certain purpose in electing a man, and it was sanctification. [545]

In this context, the command of God is the means of sanctification, for it is “the sanctifying command” (das heiligende Gebot). [546] God does not give His command to anybody, but only to whom God is gracious. Therefore, the grace of God is “the commanding grace.” [547] No doubt, that is why we should obey His gracious command. It is not simply because God is powerful, but because God has given us Himself in Jesus Christ. [548] Therefore, the divine basis and right for the claim upon us exists in Jesus Christ. [549] Here, the motif of sola gratia is crucial in every way. As a matter of fact, to obey the command of God is the way to love Jesus, because we cannot love Him without keeping His commandments and Jesus Himself is “the divine demand which confronts us as a genuinely compelling demand,” “the fulfilment of which really brings us ourselves into harmony with the will of God.” [550] As the command of God is given, heard and obeyed, he is sanctified. And, it must be continually repeated and confirmed at every moment, because the command of God “secretly fills every moment of our life” and therefore every moment that lacks this fulfilment is a moment of “lost time” and “lost life” in the strictest sense. [551] However, God is so eternally gracious and good to us that He gives us “new every morning” and renews our sanctification. [552] After all, this principle of necessary repetition and renewal is “the law of the spiritual growth and continuity of our life.” [553]

For the command of God is given for us to respond properly to His gracious election. It is proper for us to do what corresponds to this wonderful grace. [554] With joyful gratitude, “we are to respond (Antwort).” And then “we are responsible (verantwortlich).” [555] An action is good, insofar as it is a response proper to the divine grace, and therefore “its good consists in its responsibility (Verantwortung).” [556] From all eternity and in Jesus Christ God has determined our sanctified existence, and now He wants the decision on our part that corresponds to the divine predetermination. And “it is in His command that His decision waits for ours.” [557] So “we live in responsibility, which means that our being and willing, what we do and what we do not do, is a continuous answer to the Word of God spoken to us as a command,” because we are not given over to “the caprice of an alien power” nor to our “self-will,” but we are “subjected to the divine will, Word and command, and called to realise the true purpose of his existence as a covenant-partner with God.” [558] In this sense, “our life consists in a continuous series of decisions which we have to make and execute” in response to the command of God. [559]

However, the command of God is neither general nor abstract. Rather, it is personal and specific. It is personal, because it claims our obedience in relation to the definite person, Jesus Christ, and it demands the totality of our lives with our active acknowledgment that we are not our own but the Lord's. [560] Therefore, this command has to be obeyed personally and joyously. [561] It is specific, because God is personally concerned with us and gives “a specific prescription and norm for each individual case” rather than a general and abstract command, leaving us to give it its specific content by means of our ethical judgment. [562] Thus, the command of God in the Bible has “to be understood historically and concretely and not in a general, non-spatial and non-temporal sense.” [563] Therefore, it is an exegetical imperative to interpret the biblical texts of the divine command “in the light of their historical contexts” and not vice versa. [564] As the command of God is specific and unique to the particular person, it does not demand some kind of “deification” but only “a human action” with “a definite limitation.” [565] So there can be no excuse for non-conformity to this command, “because it requires and expects of man no more than he can do” and “it is always the demand of grace.” [566]

It seems contradictory that the gracious command is so demanding and inexcusable, but it is certainly different from all other commands. While the human commanding is in every respect “a holding fast, a binding, a fettering,” the gracious commands of God are “permissions, releases, liberations.” [567] First of all, the command of grace orders us to be free, genuinely free, and this freedom and permission is the distinct “form and manner” of the divine command. [568] So, “it is not a case of must, but may,” though “our may is our must.” [569] As a matter of fact, however, the correlation of permission and obligation easily fails and results in either lawlessness or legalism. [570] Nevertheless, this problem is resolved in the truth and power of the sanctifying grace of God which makes it possible for us to freely respond to His gracious command with joy and gratitude. [571] Moreover, the unity of the two has been realised in the person of Jesus Christ, who is “not only the ground and content but also the form of the divine claim,” and therefore the harmony of freedom and obligation “may be learned and exercised in His school.” [572] Furthermore, “it is His Spirit which drives the children of God into the freedom which as such is real obedience.” [573] Then, “the misinterpretation and misapplication of the command” of which sinful man makes a pretext for self-sanctification will be overcome, [574] as “their sanctification by the command obviously does not take place in the power of experiences and accomplishments which they are in the position to claim as their own.” [575] Rather, the good command of God always advises him that his attempts at self-sanctification are so futile that they cause an endless inner conflict. God's command sets him in the truth of the peace that God has unconditionally accepted him and freed him from the Law of self-sanctification. [576]

The required conformity with the grace of God is nothing else than simply accepting the gracious action of God as “right” and joyfully participating in it as “the best thing possible for man.” [577] In other words, it is to believe in Jesus Christ, in the gracious action of God actualised and revealed in Him, and that “our sanctification is God's work, not our own.” [578] Because we are what we are only in relation to Him, “Jesus Christ is our sanctification,” [579] and therefore our sanctification is “a glorification of the grace of Jesus Christ,” [580] who is “the sanctifying God and sanctified man in One.” [581] As He has been judged, executed, rejected, and thus sanctified in our place, our sanctification is realised only by our participation in His being judged, executed and rejected. [582] In fact, “the purpose of God in His judgment is the sanctification of man,” [583] because from all eternity He has seen us as unable to stand in face of His command and therefore to be sanctified only by His judgment of wrath done to Jesus Christ. [584] Therefore, the command of God is the execution of judgment, a process necessary for our sanctification. [585] Thus, we are “sanctified by God, being liberated and capacitated for eternal life.” [586] After all, it is by faith, “the genuine faith which confirms and accepts the fact of our sanctification.” [587] It is even so that our acceptance and acknowledgment can only work “because it is a fact, and is significant and powerful as such.” [588] We cannot seek and discover the fact of our sanctification, but rather “it is we who are searched and discovered in our existence by it.” [589] Like “the ground on which we stand, the horizon by which we are bounded, the atmosphere in which we breathe,” “it is inaccessible and concealed just because it is so real.” [590] As a creature cannot create an atmosphere to live and establish a ground to stand, our sanctified existence is simply given by the gracious God. As “a divine reality,” it is so divine and real that we can understand and live it only by faith. And, it is so mysterious and spiritual that the Holy Spirit alone could possibly accomplish our union with Christ and His sanctification. [591]

Finally, the command of God unites all, for it is good in the sense that it is “right and friendly and wholesome.” [592] It may seem to be individualistic, because the command of God is given personally and specifically, but all the diverse applications of the command produce real unity among men, as they are essentially one same command of the same God and “the divine command cannot be split up.” [593] In contrast, human commands separate men in different directions, and even a general principle cannot unite men, because it requires its “interpretation” which inevitably brings into play “self-will, better judgment, particular standpoints, various interests, jealousies, cleavages and parties” and thus exercises “a secret centrifugal effect.” [594] Due to its unifying nature, “to hear and obey the command of God is always to be on the way to fellowship.” [595] Because the lack of fellowship among men has been caused by the inner conflicts within man himself, “it [first] unites the individual in himself and then makes him an instrument and messenger of this harmony to others.” [596] Therefore, the commanding grace has a “teleological power” (teleologische Kraft), as the grace of God is “the movement and direction of man” towards the telos of the divine determination. [597] And “the form of the teleological power is the existence of the people of God,” that is, Israel and the Church. [598] His people are called to be “the bearers of the grace of God for all men and therefore of the divine claim on all men,” for the Kingdom of God is greater than the sphere of Israel and the Church. [599] As His people continuously increases, the grace of sanctification expands ever more.

2.3.5 Human Determination and Sanctification

For Barth, the proper object of theological anthropology is “the real man” (wirkliche Mensch) rather than the abstract ideal man of philosophical anthropology, and the real man is a cosmic being created by God to be His covenant-partner (Gottes Bundesgenosse). [600] It is “his true reality” as well as his ground of existence. [601] Therefore, he is responsible before God the Creator to participate actively in “the common history of the covenant” and create it together with God. [602] However, because it is one side of man seen “from above, from God,” Barth attempted to discover the authentic humanity which is acceptable to both sides, with the conviction that “between the determination of man as God's covenant partner on the one side, and his cosmic and creaturely being on the other, there is obviously an inner relationship.” [603] He demonstrated this correspondence in the relationships between the divinity and humanity of Jesus, and man and woman.

Because Jesus is the “true man” and “real man,” Barth based his anthropology on Christology. [604] As Christ can be called “man for God” and “man for man,” his humanity may be described as “fellow-humanity” (Mitmenschlichkeit). [605] As Jesus was sent and ordained to be the Deliverer of men, it is inconceivable to imagine Him as a solitary man--Jesus without His fellow men: [606] “If we see Him alone, we do not see Him at all. If we see Him, we see with and around Him in ever-widening circles His disciples, the people, His enemies and the countless millions who have not yet heard His name.” [607] Furthermore, because “He is originally and properly the Word of God to men,” “His orientation to others and reciprocal relationship with them are not accidental, external or subsequent, but primary, internal and necessary.” [608] Therefore, his fellow-humanity is essentially different from a mere occasional help, but is “a matter of dying for them.” [609] His being is freely offered up to “be prescribed and dictated and determined by an alien human being,” “to be so fully claimed and clamped by His fellows, by their state and fate, by their lowliness and misery,” so “that they may live and be happy.” [610] On the other hand, this mysterious fellow-humanity of Jesus is rooted in the mystery of God Himself, the triune God of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. God is not alone but exists in “a co-existence, co-inherence and reciprocity,” and thus He is “the original and source of every I and Thou.” [611] And, this trinitarian relationship in the inner divine being is repeated ad extra and “reflected in God's eternal covenant with man as revealed and operative in time in the humanity of Jesus.” [612] Therefore, he concluded, it is only in the humanity of Jesus that “the connexion between God and man is brought before us.” [613] It is apparent that “between His divinity and humanity there is an inner material connexion as well as a formal parallelism,” for He could not be for God if He were not for man and vice versa as well. [614] If His divinity can be described as “God for God” and “God for man” and His humanity as “man for God” and “man for man,” His being God and man connects both in the concept “for” as the being for others, and further demonstrates the possibility of correspondence between the human existence as the creaturely humanity and as a covenant-partner of God.

Does it possibly mean then that man is naturally capable of taking up the covenant relationship with God and being His covenant-partner? Of course, Barth negates this natural capability because it is by grace that man is His covenant-partner, but he continues to ask how God would have made him His covenant-partner, if He had given him a nature opposed to the fellow-humanity of Jesus, alien and antithetical from the very outset to covenant-partnership. [615] Simply stated, if God created us to be His covenant-partner, it is very natural to suppose that the created humanity would be, at least, serviceable and adaptable for this covenant-partnership. [616] No doubt, there must be “a common factor” between God and man as well as the humanity and covenant-partnership. [617] By the criterion of the humanity of the man Jesus, “a man without his fellows, or radically neutral or opposed to his fellows, or under the impression that the co-existence of his fellow has only secondary significance” is absolutely intolerable, even in the religious and pious form, and every supposed humanity which is not fellow-humanity is ipso facto “inhumanity” (Unmenschlichkeit), however enriching, deepening or heightening of the humanity it seems. [618] The powerful proposition “I am” is often misinterpreted, like the “superman” of Friedrich Nietzsche who is “the most consistent champion and prophet of humanity without the fellow-man.” [619] The statement “I am,” however, implicitly presupposes that I am what is distinguished from others and therefore the existence of my humanity is possible only in relation to others. [620] Therefore, “I am” may be paraphrased as “I am as I am in a relation,” “I am as Thou art,” or “I am in encounter.” [621] Barth explained humanity as “being in encounter” (Sein in der Begegnung) in three ways: mutual look, mutual speech/hearing, and mutual assistance, but emphasized mutual gladness as “the secret of humanity” or “the conditio sine qua non of humanity.” [622] Because our human existence with our fellow man is “a given factor” by the grace of God and “each is essential to the other” in discovering the uniqueness and irreplaceability of each other in the genuine encounter, our humanity demands mutual acceptance and mutual recognition which lead to mutual joy of co-existence. [623] However, it is to be clearly stated that human existence with one's fellows is the creaturely humanity of a general anthropology but human existence for his fellows is proper only for the man Jesus and His people sola gratia. [624]

Also, Barth understood that the human existence as man and woman, “the only structural differentiation,” is “the original and proper form of this fellow-humanity.” [625] The creation of man and woman at the climax of the whole creation, witnessed in “the Old Testament Magna Carta of humanity,” is “a radical rejection of the picture of man in isolation.” [626] And this co-existence is gradually developed in the concrete form of covenant between God and His people Israel, which is “the center of the Old Testament.” [627] However, it is in the New Testament where the man-woman relationship is clearly revealed as a model of “the covenant of the Holy with the unholy,” “the covenant between Jesus Christ and His community,” which is “the eschatological reality” of election and creation. [628] In this analogy, the motif of sanctification is so strongly present that purity and holiness is emphasized and the problem of superordination and subordination is overcome in the sanctified relationship. [629] Though Barth has not directly related this subject to sanctification, the fact that man is determined to be the covenant-partner of God and so created with fellow-humanity would be an indispensable framework for the proper understanding of sanctification, if the sanctification of man implies a restoration of the created humanity as well as acceptance of God's gracious predetermination for us. Whether we accept it or not, there is an “inviolable and indestructible” correspondence between our being and our destiny, as “a sign and witness of our determination (Bestimmung),” and our humanity realizes its orientation and fulfils our determination as the covenant-partner of God, as “the light of grace” shines upon it. [630]

2.3.6 Human Freedom and Sanctification

In his Ethics (1928/29), Barth radically negated the possibility of general or philosophical ethics and strongly advocated the need for special or theological ethics due to the fundamental difference of the ethical norm. [631] This early position has not changed, but in the Church Dogmatics he uses both terms, i.e., “general” ethics, and “special” ethics, though they are used in different senses and therefore enclosed in quotation marks. And, these two kinds of ethics deal with the two aspects of sanctification, that is, the objective and subjective sanctification. While the allgemeine Ethik, as “an upward look,” concerns the relationship with God and His freeing of man for eternal life by the divine grace of command and judgment, the spezielle Ethik now “looks down” and inquires with respect to “sanctification as it comes to man from God,” “the subjective side of the same event,” “what becomes of him in consequence,” that is, “man's real activity.” [632] For he has already founded his general ethics in the doctrine of God, [633] Barth now presents his special ethics here in the doctrine of creation. [634] It is essential because “the command of God does not hang ineffectively in the air above man,” “being forced to follow its movement and thus being led automatically to man” and his real activity, which is always concrete, particular and special. [635] In this special ethics, he deals with several concrete areas of sanctification in terms of human freedom.

As a particular existence before Him, a man is sanctified for freedom before God so that he can be responsible to His particular command. [636] Because “God's sanctifying command aims and wills man himself” and “claims the whole man,” the sanctification of man concerns the “total and definite orientation of his being.” [637] Therefore, it sanctifies the whole framework of a man, including time and space, sex and family, state and cosmos. First, the Sabbath commandment requires “an interruption, a rest, a deliberate non-continuation, a temporal pause, to reflect on God and His work and to participate consciously in the salvation provided by Him and to be awaited from Him,” [638] as it aims at the “complete surrender” to the omnipotent grace of God, repeatedly renouncing “his own sanctification.” [639] By singling out one day, however, God demands the sanctification of all days and all times, as “the concern of this particular day is indirectly that of all other days as well.” [640] Second, God claims the sanctification of family in the relationship between man and woman, parents and children. The true basis of marriage between man and woman is not their love for each other but God's calling and gift, but “it must have a human aspect, in the best sense of the word, if the calling and gift of God are heeded and find obedience.” [641] As the most intimate human relationship, man and woman, as husband and wife, are commanded to fulfil even “the decisive sanctification of physical sexuality and the sex relationship,” as the command of God sanctifies man by including his sexuality within his humanity, and challenging him even in his sexual life to be true man, to be a body with a soul, and to be man with his fellow-man. [642] On the other hand, parents have a kind of “sanctifying power” as “God's representatives to their children” and they “are challenged to see their children from the divine standpoint.” [643] Sanctified parenthood, therefore, requires to fulfil “its distinctive and extraordinary claims and constraints” by interposing Jesus Christ Himself and the Kingdom of God between parents and their children, even though it may be very difficult for them to understand and therefore very easy to rebel against the divine claims, “because these claims apparently lead their children away from them and because humanly speaking they lay upon parents a costly sacrifice.” [644] Third, God demands the sanctification of one's communities, the near and distant neighbours (die Nahen und die Fernen), that is, his state and the world. For God's command is directed to a particular man “as a member of his people and therefore as one who is also a member of humanity generally” and it “embraces the whole man and his whole being and activity,” it “inevitably calls him to obedience and sanctifies him to the extent that he stands in these relationships.” [645] Though there is nothing holy in itself, “there is a sanctification of this man and therefore of his particular geographical determination, of his outlook, background and origin in accordance with home and country and people.” [646] In his obedience, therefore, “he will joyfully and thankfully be what he is,” as his circumstantial and social determination would be significant to him “only in the context of its sanctification.” [647] Therefore, our earthly identity, limited by language, locality and history, cannot be “an end itself,” as the crucial point is to recognize that “being in one's own people should be subordinated to being under the divine command.” [648] Rather, it is given to us as a starting point of a movement “from the narrower sphere to a wider, from our own people to other human peoples,” “in service.” [649] In Jesus Christ, “the centre of all history and the meaning and goal of all national history,” we are able to overcome nationalism or racism and to participate in the Kingdom of God. [650] As the historical existence of nations and peoples is “reversible, fluid and removable,” “being in the relationship of the near and distant is the place where the command of God finds and claims man” and “the framework in which he has to render obedience.” [651] The separation of the nations and peoples in Genesis 10 and 11 is the historical pretext for fulfilling the “teleological divine purpose” of reuniting all people spiritually to “the one people of God,” as the goal and conclusion of world history. To this end, therefore, “we must now orient ourselves accordingly.” [652]

Now, Barth orients us to “the sanctification of human life as such, as the imperative summons to freedom for human existence.” [653] Because “human existence is a loan (Leihgabe),” [654] its sanctification is to “live as a human life” rather than an impulsive life with “an abusus in excessu and an abusus in defectu.” [655] Therefore, he emphasized respect for life and condemned suicide as self-murder and self-destruction, as it corresponds to self-justification and self-sanctification. [656] He also criticized the Church for being “a spectator” of capital punishment, for he regarded it as “a symptom of the weakness or secularisation of the Church” and one of the reasons “why the Gospel has been quietly discredited in the modern world.” [657] However, it is his prophetic criticism of the Church's historical failure to resist unjust wars that demands our serious attention. According to his analysis, there is “a strange difference” between the Church's position before and after Constantine, and “the post-Constantinian theology of war,” developed by Athanasius, Ambrose and especially Augustine, has tragically prevailed up to our own time. [658] As a matter of fact, this “satanic doctrine” has justified and blessed imperialistic and nationalistic wars and invasions for political ambition and economic profit, which certainly cannot be justified at all even from the humanistic point of view. [659] Of course, the Church had to condemn and resist those unjust wars, [660] and provide “guidance and direction” to Christians, especially to the Christian politicians and military leaders, in such an important matter. [661] But ever since the Church became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it has failed in this political witness and the result has been disastrous. Barth's sad description seems to reflect the present situation of the European churches: “they have become savourless salt, and must not be surprised if they are freely trampled underfoot on every side.” [662] What he recognized as a just war is either a defensive war for independence or a supportive war for a weaker neighbour who asked for assistance, fighting for independence. [663] Such a just war is demanded as “an act of obedience” and therefore to be ventured unconditionally in faith, “independent of the success or failure” and “with joyous and reckless determination.” [664]

After all, we are commanded to honour and protect life in order to live “an active life” [665] freely, since freedom is given to us for such a purpose. [666] Because human life is not “an end in itself,” “it does not permit him to be satisfied with his life as such, and therefore self-complacently to take his ease and enjoy himself” but requires that “man should set his mind on something and accomplish it.” [667] Of course, it has to be “an active life under His leadership and according to His example,” [668] for Jesus Christ Himself became “an active man.” [669] In Him the active life of obedience becomes quite unique and significant for “the whole cosmos,” [670] because it serves the cause of God as His covenant-partner. Therefore, “man's direct or indirect co-operation in the fulfilment of the task of the Christian community” is the “centre, apex and range” of the active life. [671] If it is in obedience to the divine command, our ergon must be a parergon. [672] So, the humanity of “co-operation and co-existence” has to prevail in the political and economic world as well, beyond ideological disguises. [673]

However, our human existence is limited by time and space, ability and opportunity, and this limitation seems contradictory to the human freedom and even to be “a threat, a curse, a judgment and a punishment.” [674] But it has to be positively appreciated and accepted as a “salutary” blessing, because “the man who is limited by Him is the man who is loved by Him.” [675] For the divine limitation is God's differentiation of a man from Himself, all other creatures and all other men as distinguished and special. This reflects “the special intention of God” in which “the sanctification and obedience of man” is claimed. [676] The temporal limitation of a particular man makes his life “the unique opportunity” and his vocation is the unique “framework” of free obedience, [677] but in this limiting grace of the divine creation he is “open in all directions” and “stands in relation to all the spheres of creation”--“the macrocosm in his microcosm.” [678] In Jesus Christ who is “the centre and meaning of the whole cosmos and history,” he shares “the cosmic determination and interconnexion,” in the uniqueness of his existence, for the fulfilment of the cosmic covenant history. [679] No doubt, it is an “unsurpassable honour” to receive the invitation of God to be His child and partner in communion and fellowship with God, [680] and it cannot be lost because it is “the reflection of the glory of God falling upon him.” [681] Therefore, it is also our great honour to obey and fulfil His command of sanctification joyfully. [682]

2.3.7 Summary

So far, we have surveyed the structural interconnection of the Church Dogmatics, with a special interest in his fundamental concept of sanctification, as an attempt to understand his doctrine of sanctification properly in the total structure of his theology. Here, it is significant to know that this great work was born out of his serious awareness for the critical need to purify and sanctify his own dogmatics in the crucial atmosphere of confrontation with pro-Nazi natural theology and he has continued to reflect upon it during the period of political struggle. Therefore, the concept of sanctification prevails throughout the work in its various aspects.

In the Prolegomena, Barth made it clear that dogmatics not only aims at sanctification but dogmatics itself is also an object of sanctification. Dogmatics is sanctified by its Christological orientation and self-surrender to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the absolute authority of the Bible. Sanctified dogmatics will then be able to sanctify the Church proclamation (2.3.1). In the doctrine of the Trinity, he appropriated sanctification primarily to the work of the Holy Spirit, for the function of the Holy Spirit is to relate the two sides of reconciliation. So the Holy Spirit creates freedom for man to obey God, which is the necessary precondition for sanctification, and also sanctifies human religion and religious piety in the event of Jesus Christ, as they are easily misoriented to self-sanctification. Further, the Holy Spirit sanctifies the life of the children of God by the outpouring of love into their hearts (2.3.2).

In the doctrine of God, he grounded our sanctification upon the holiness of God, for His holiness thoroughly breaks down and destroys our unholiness as He demands our sanctification. However, what He demands is not our own attempts at self-sanctification, but the covenant-partnership and humble submission to His gracious sanctification, as the holy God is also gracious (2.3.3). In his general ethics, Barth understood the command of God as the means of sanctification, for it is given so that one can respond properly to His gracious election and a man is sanctified when His command is repeatedly heard and obeyed personally and joyously. However, what is required is simply to accept the gracious action of God as right and joyfully participate in it, because Jesus Christ is our sanctification, which has been already accomplished for our sake by the execution of judgment according to the command of God. Therefore, the divine command is fundamentally different from all other commands, as it harmonizes freedom and obligation in the sanctifying grace of Jesus Christ and has the teleological power to unite all men in the ever-widening circle towards the telos of His Kingdom (2.3.4).

In the doctrine of man, Barth based his anthropology on Christology and identified authentic humanity as the fellow-humanity of Jesus, the real man. Here, he found the inner relationship between the created humanity and the human determination as the covenant-partner of God, which is our destiny and sanctification. To be sure, the fact that a man is destined to be the covenant-partner of God and so created with fellow-humanity would be an indispensable framework for the proper understanding of sanctification, for it is our authentic identity and what we should be as we are sanctified (2.3.5). In the special ethics, Barth deals with the subjective aspect of sanctification, that is, the concrete issues of sanctification. Because God claims the whole man, His command sanctifies the whole framework of a man, including time and space, sex and family, state and world. It also concerns the sanctification of human life as such, as we are commanded to honour and protect life in order to live an active life of co-operation for the fulfilment of the cosmic covenant history within the Christian community. His prophetic criticism of the Church's tragic failure to resist unjust wars demands our special attention. Because there is a teleological divine purpose to reunite all the peoples of the world spiritually into the one people of God, it is crucially important for our sanctification to relate properly to our own people and the general humanity. It is our greatest honour to be called and participate in the cosmic covenant history (2.3.6).

As a whole, Karl Barth has established a sanctification-oriented dogmatics, for he was convinced that a theoretical, philosophical or dogmatical dogmatics has no meaning ipso facto. Accordingly, he has consistently emphasized the subjective aspect of sanctification, though the ultimate reality of our sanctification is objective and transcendental. And the holistic and teleological orientation of our sanctification prevails upon the whole design of the divine determination, for God has elected, determined, created, justified and sanctified us for that purpose and direction.

[1] . T.F.Torrance, Karl Barth: An Introduction to His Early Theology 1910-1931, London 1962, 15: “Barth must be accorded an honoured position among the greatest theologians of the Church--Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin.”; Idem, “Introduction” to K.Barth, Theology and Church: Shorter Writings 1920-1928, London 1962, 7: “the greatest theological genius that has appeared on the scene for centuries”; D.McKim, ed., How Karl Barth Changed My Mind, Grand Rapids 1986, ix: “one of the theological giants of all time--not just of this century”; E.Jüngel, Karl Barth--A Theological Legacy, Philadelphia 1986, 22: “the most significant Protestant theologian since Schleiermacher.”

[2] . CD IV/2, xii; cf. C.Van Til, Christianity and Barthianism, Philadelphia 1962, vii: “The present writer is of the opinion that, for all its verbal similarity to historic Protestantism, Barth's theology is, in effect, a denial of it.”; “He has therefore no gospel of grace to present to men. He cannot challenge men by presenting them with the Christ of the Scriptures because his Christ is a mirage. It is the Christ of modern reconstruction. It is the Christ of the higher humanism.” (445); Idem, The New Modernism: An Appraisal of the Theology of Barth and Brunner, London 1946; Also, see G.C.Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, Grand Rapids 1956, 11: “His theology has been described as neo-Marcionism, neo-Manicheism, Occamism, and new-Modernism, only to mention a few.” (cf. nn.1-4)

[3] . Cf. K.Barth, Fürchte dich nicht!: Predigten 1934-1948, Münich 1949, 278, quoted in A Karl Barth Reader, ed. R.J.Erler and R.Marquard, Grand Rapids 1986, 1: “All of us, however great, significant, or good, have a definite circle of life, a space, a time, a force, and opportunities, but also a limit that we cannot cross.”

[4] . R.G.Smith, “Editor's Foreword,” AS 7.

[5] . See 1.4. “Previous Approaches,” for the detailed investigation of their writings.

[6] . Cf. T.F.Torrance, Karl Barth: An Introduction to His Early Theology, 1910-1931, London 1962; C.v.d.Kooi, De denkweg van de jonge Karl Barth: Een analyse van de ontwikkeling van zijn theologie in de jaren 1909-1927 in het licht van de vraag naar de geloofsverantwoording, Vrije Univ. diss., Amsterdam 1985.

[7] . K.Barth, “Moderne Theologie und Reichsgottesarbeit,” in: Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten 1905-1909, GA 21, Zürich 1992, 334-66 (The following quotations are my translation). His obsession with “die moderne Theologie” is clearly represented in this article, which was published in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche while he assisted Martin Rade in editing Christliche Welt. Against the wish of his father and grandfathers who had been rather moderately conservative pastors and theologians, Karl Barth happened to be a committed supporter of “modern” theology. His schoolbag (Schulsack) was filled with the modern theology of Wilhelm Herrmann and Adolf Harnack in particular, as he understood the essence of modern theology to be religious individualism and historical relativism. This article was written in response to the question of the practical problems of modern theology, raised by a student circle probably at Marburg, of which he was a member (cf. Busch 50), which charged that it leads to discouragement in the labor for the Kingdom of God (Reichsgottesarbeit). The question seems a legitimate one, but he was so intent on defending the modern theology as strongly as possible, that even he himself was later astonished at his deed. Though he recognized some weakness in it, he did not regret it “because we have no other choice.” (MTR, 347)

[8] . Cf. Busch, 50-52.

[9] . Cf. K.Barth, “The Principle of Dogmatics according to Wilhelm Herrmann” (1925), TC, 238. Even after his break with Herrmann, Barth remembered him with gratitude and affection: “The day twenty years ago [1906] in Berlin when I was first read his Ethik I remember as if it were today... `From this book I received the push into perpetual motion.' With more restraint, but with no less gratitude, I can say that on that day I believe my own deep interest in theology began... And when on the day I began my ministry [1909] the mail brought me, five minutes before I was to go to the pulpit, the new, fourth edition of the Ethik as a gift from the author, I accepted this coincidence as a dedication of my whole future.”

[10] . MTR, 342.

[11] . Cf. Busch, 48: “The systematic theologian Wilhelm Herrmann, from Marburg, who sought to combine Kant and Schleiermacher, influenced Barth most of all”; “On the one hand Herrmann was a Kantian... and on the other a pupil of the younger Schleiermacher, not the older” (44). For the strong influence of Kant's moralistic thinking, see ibid., 34f, 45, 48 and 55.

[12] . TSchl, 263f: On 1 August 1914, “the First World War broke out and brought something which for me was almost even worse than the violation of Belgian neutrality--the horrible manifesto of the ninety-three German intellectuals who identified themselves before all the world with the war policy of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg. And to my dismay, among the signatories I discovered the names of almost all my German teachers. An entire world of theological exegesis, ethics, dogmatics, and preaching, which up to that point I had accepted as basically credible, was thereby shaken to the foundations, and with it everything which flowed at that time from the pens of the German theologians. And Schleiermacher?... the entire theology which had unmasked itself in that manifesto, and everything which followed after it, was grounded, determined, and influenced decisively by him [Schleiermacher].”

[13] . Cf. Busch, 81f: “Barth made his protest against this failure that same August in a private letter to Martin Rade... Without obtaining Barth's consent, Rade had the letter to him published by Ragaz in Neue Wege.”

[14] . Cf. Torrance, Karl Barth, 33: “In his early period... Karl Barth's theology falls within the thought- forms of Neo-Protestantism, as represented above all by the great Schleiermacher”; Tschl, 261: For Barth himself recollected that “There was once a time, so I must begin, in my youthful occupation with theology when... I knew how to swear no higher than by the man, Daniel Ernst Friedrich Schleiermacher.” Even, he believed that Schleiermacher's “Speeches [on Religion to its Cultural Despisers] was the most important and correct writing to appear since the closing of the New Testament canon.” (262)

[15] . Barth, “The Principles of Dogmatics according to Wilhelm Herrmann,” 238.

[16] . Cf. TSchl, xiv: “The two most striking representatives of this group, W.Herrmann on the one wing and E.Troeltsch on the other.”; “Bultmann was and is a continuator of the great tradition of the nineteenth century, and thus in new guise, a genuine pupil of Schleiermacher.” (270)

[17] . TSchl, 259f: “He was a great and gifted and pious man, that among all who came after him, whether they followed in his tracks or tried to kick against the pricks, there was and is none to hold a candle to him. Protestantism has not in fact had any greater theologian since the days of the reformers. But this theologian has led us all into this dead end! This is an oppressive and almost intolerable thought. How can it really be reconciled with confidence in Protestantism's power of truth? Or should we in fact say that this was and is the normal and legitimate continuation of the Reformation, the completion of Luther and Calvin: this doctrine of the feeling of absolute dependence or of the universum and all that is connected with it?” He thus advocated a “theological revolution”: “If we cannot find in Schleiermacher a legitimate heir or successor of the reformers, if we cannot see in the indubitable domination of his thinking the gracious guidance of God but the very opposite, a wrathful judgment on Protestantism which invites it to repentance and conversion instead of continuation, then the only possibility that remains--and I do not see how one can avoid this--is obviously that of a theological revolution, a basic No to the whole of Schleiermacher's doctrine of religion and Christianity, and an attempted reconstruction.”

[18] . Cf. K.Barth, “The Humanity of God,” GGG, 32f: “We shall look back to the revolution of those days... It is, that things could not go on as they were doing. It was inevitable that bounds should be set to the then prevailing theological conception by new and at the same time older and original Christian knowledge and language. Along almost the whole front, at any rate in all its representative figures and groups, evangelical theology had become religionistic and so anthropocentric and so, in this sense, humanistic. I mean, the phenomenon and theme about which everything circled was an outer and inner disposition and emotion in man, namely his piety... in its ethics... And apparently it had so to circle without having any exit into the open air. What did it know and what did it still to say about God's Godness? To think of God meant for them, with scarcely any attempt to hide the fact, to think of man, particularly of the religious man, the Christian. To speak about God meant to speak about this man, no doubt in elevated tone... Without doubt man was here magnified at the expense of God... this dialogue was becoming a pious notion, the mythical expression and symbol of something within man himself, of a movement oscillating between him and his heights or depths, whose truth could be only that of a monologue.”; “It would, I fancy, have embarrassed me somewhat if I had been asked, say in the year 1920--the year in which I confronted in this very hall my great teacher, Adolf von Harnack--to speak about the humanity of God. We should have sensed evil behind this theme.” (31)

[19] . MTR, 342; “Christian morality knows no single normative commandment and there is no normative Christian world-view.” (343)

[20] . MTR, 342f.

[21] . MTR, 343.

[22] . MTR, 345.

[23] . MTR, 347.

[24] . MTR, 344.

[25] . MTR, 347.

[26] . MTR, 347.

[27] . MTR, 344.

[28] . Cf. MSJ, 34.

[29] . Cf. K.Barth, “John Mott und die christliche Studentenbewegung,” Zofingia 51 (1911): 487-502; “Karl Barth on John R. Mott,” Ecumenical Review 7 (1955): 260f. Barth expressed his deep impression in this article as follows: “I at once discovered that I was dealing with an unusual person, not, as they say in French, with a `quelconque' but with a `quelqu'un'. This much was clear to me, the man is unique, not one of the ever‑present herd. He knows what he wants, and he wants what he knows. He is what we are always talking and writing books about: a personality. I let the impression of this personality have its effect upon me.” What he really appreciated was that he was a man of life, not one of theory like him or his people: “Mankind ‑ the universities ‑ the student ‑ the person ‑ Jesus. That, I would say, is the way Mott thinks. For us this is all theory... for whom [him] the entire series is a whole, not just a theory but a process.” He felt that some important thing happens--the salvation of mankind: “Something happens,” “the ultimate and most important thing.”; “Man is judged by his aim and the aim is Mankind... this fixed goal of Mott.” In contrast, however, Barth regretted himself and his people for their weakness and sickness: “But basically we remain what we are, and as a punishment we are infected by acute or chronic cases of disease, we become either mere professionals or `petit‑bourgeois' or `Holy Joes'.”; “But in John R. Mott, we have for once had among us an essentially healthy person. He would bring mankind to Jesus.”; “You may find his universalism quite American. I certainly do. I also shrug my shoulders, because I find it impossible to accept this attitude myself. But this process has appeared before us as a fact. When I think of the incurable splintering and sectarianism of our spiritual life, in which I also share, I cannot help saying that this Mott‑process impresses me and that it would be a good thing if we had more such `Americans'.”

[30] . CD IV/1, 150.

[31] . K.Barth, “Jesus Christ and the Movement for Social Justice,” in: G.Hunsinger, ed., Karl Barth and Radical Politics, Philadelphia 1976, 19-45.

[32] . K.Barth, “Zofingia und Sociale Frage,” Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten 1905-1909, GA 21, Zürich 1992, 61-103.

[33] . 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: Hunsinger, ed., Karl Barth and Radical Politics, 47-76; 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: Hunsinger, ed., Karl Barth and Radical Politics, 77-120; E.Thurneysen, Karl Barth-Theologie und Sozialismus in den Briefen seiner Frühzeit, Zürich 1973; U.Dannemann, Theologie und Politik im Denken Karl Barths, München 1977; M.E.Brinkman, Karl Barth's socialistische stellingname: Over de betekenis van het socialisme voor de ontwikkeling van zijn theologie, Baarn 1982; W.Rumscheidt, ed., Footnotes to a theology: the Karl Barth colloquium of 1972, Waterloo 1974; J.Bently, “Karl Barth as a Christian Socialist,” Theology 76 (1973): 349-356; 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.

[34] . MSJ, 36; He did “infer his [Jesus] attitude toward capitalism and socialism in the present” from Jesus' attitude toward the issue of private property. (30) His radical mentality caused a profound understanding on the issue: “Jesus rejected the concept of private property; of that, it seems to me, there can be no doubt.” (31) On the contrary, “church and state shroud the concept of private property with an amazing aura of sanctity and unassailability.” (30) To Barth, “what stands in the way” “of the coming of God's Kingdom to earth” “is capitalism” and particulary private property (29). Quoting Joseph Dietzgen (“This despiser of Jesus has understood Jesus correctly.”) who said that “The real original sin... is self-seeking,” Barth definitely condemns the concept of private property: “Jesus' view of property is this: Property is sin, because property is self-seeking.” (32) Therefore, private property is against justice. (45) So he praised “social democracy” of “common ownership” (31) and “nationalization” without capitalistic competition. (42) As a conclusion, “This system of production must therefore fall, especially its underlying principle: private property--not private property in general, but private property as a means of production.” (29) Accordingly, he also condemned rich people. “What he [Jesus] brought was good news to the poor, to those who were dependent and uneducated.” (24) Definitely, “a rich person, a possessor of worldly goods, does not enter into the kingdom of God.” (30) Even Jesus' turn to the rich ended with the failure of being crucified by the rich. (24) So, agreeing with the socialist conviction that “The individual worker can achieve nothing, but the battalion of workers will in an unremitting assault bring down the fortress of capitalism,” Barth encouraged solidarity of the workers: “Solidarity is the law and the gospel of socialism.”; “The historic programmatic text of socialism, the Communist Manifesto of 1848, concludes with the famous words: `Proletarians of the world unite!'” (33)

[35] . Cf. MSJ, 28: “Regarding the goal, social democracy is one with Jesus”; “About what they want, I say: That is what Jesus wanted.” (36)

[36] . MSJ, 19.

[37] . MSJ, 34.

[38] . MSJ, 35f.

[39] . MSJ, 28; “nothing but social help in material terms.” (27)

[40] . MSJ, 22.

[41] . MSJ, 33f.

[42] . See 2.2.1. “Psychological Subjectivism.”

[43] . MSJ, 34.

[44] . Ibid.; His pastoral difficulty with some of the Reformed inhabitants of Safenwil, who refused to worship together and belonged to a pietistic community called Albrecht's Brethren may have caused a practical resentment to pietism (Busch, 67).

[45] . MSJ, 26; For his criticism on the negative view of the body and the material, see ibid., 29.

[46] . Cf. MSJ, 27: “`The Word became flesh' (John 1:14), and not the way around!”

[47] . Cf. Busch, 63.

[48] . MSJ, 28: “He [Jesus] worked from the internal to the external. He created new men in order to create a new world. In this direction the present-day social democracy still has infinitely much to learn from Jesus. It must come to the insight that we need men of the future to create the state of the future, not the reverse.”

[49] . Cf. MSJ, 37: “Leave the superficiality and the hatred, the spirit of mammon and the self-seeking, which also exists among your ranks, behind: They do not belong to your concerns. Let the faithfulness and energy, the sense of community and the courage for sacrifice found in Jesus be effective among you, in your whole life; then you will be true socialists.”

[50] . MSJ, 43.

[51] . MSJ, 34.

[52] . Ibid.

[53] . Cf. K.Barth, “Auf das Reich Gottes warten” (1916), SG 175-191; Idem, Action in waiting: Karl Barth on Christoph Blumhardt, tr. The Society of Brothers, Rifton NY 1969; Idem, “Past and Future: Friedrich Naumann und Christoph Blumhardt” (1919), in: J.Moltmann, ed., The Beginning of Dialectical Theology, Philadelphia 1968, 35-45; Ch.F.Blumhardt, Vom Reiche Gottes, Schlüchtern 1922; Idem, The Kingdom Come: A Blumhardt Reader, ed. V.Eller, Grand Rapids 1980; J.Bentley, “Christoph Blumhardt: Preacher of Hope,” Theology 78 (1975): 577-582; G.Merz, “Christoph Blumhardt unter der Kritik der dialektischen Theologie,” ZdZ 10 (1932): 541-550; G.Sauter, Die Theologie des Reiches Gottes beim älteren und jüngeren Blumhardt, Zürich 1962; M.Mattmüller, “Der Einfluss Christoph Blumhardts auf schweizerische Theologen des 20 Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik 12 (1968): 233-246; P.Schütz, Säkulare Religion: Eine Studie über ihre Erscheinung in der Gegenwart und ihre Idee bei Schleiermacher und Blumhardt, Tübingen 1932.

[54] . Cf. L.Ragaz, Das Reich und die Nachfolge, Bern 1938; Idem, Die Bergpredigt Jesu, Bern 1945; A.Lindt, Leonhard Ragaz, Zürich 1957; M.Mattmüller, Leonhard Ragaz und der religiöse Sozialismus I (Basel 1957), II (Zürich 1968); A.Rich, “Leonhard Ragaz: Eine Skizze von seinem Denken und Wirken,” Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik 12 (1968): 193-209; H.U.Jäger, “Die sozialethische Funktion des Reichgottesglaubens bei Leonhard Ragaz,” Ibid., 12 (1968): 221-232; Idem, Ethik und Eschatologie bei Leonhard Ragaz, Zürich 1971; M.J.Top, Leonhard Ragaz, Kampen 1977.

[55] . Cf. K.Barth, “Brief von Karl Barth an Hermann Kutter” (1916, 17, 25, 28), in: H.Kutter, Hermann Kutter in seinen Briefen 1883-1931, ed. M.Geiger and A.Lindt, Zürich 1983, 360-362, 384, 473-474, 477-480, 568-569.

[56] . BwTh I, 79 [Sept 8, 1915].

[57] . Cf. K.Barth, “Religion und Socialismus” (1915); Idem, “Die innere Zukunft der Sozialdemokratie” (1915); Idem, “Krieg, Sozialismus und Christentum” (1915); Idem, “Bolschewismus” (1919); Idem, “Die russische Revolution 1917” (1919). These articles are not published and placed in the Karl Barth Archiv, Basel.

[58] . Cf. BwTh I, 122 [Jan 1, 1916].

[59] . Cf. K.Barth, “To W. Spoendlin” [Jan 7, 1916], quoted in Busch, 89: “We must begin all over again with a new inner orientation to the primitive basic truths of life: only this can deliver us from the chaos arising from the failure of conservative or revolutionary proposals and counter-proposals... With God or, as so far, without him? We must resolutely `look for another'.”

[60] . K.Barth, “To P. Barth” [April 29, 1932], quoted in Busch, 91.

[61] . Busch, 89f.

[62] . Cf. K.Barth, “The Righteousness of God,” WGWM, 24: “It will then be, above all, a matter of our recognizing God once more as God. It is easy to say recognize. But recognizing is an ability won only in fierce inner personal conflict. It is a task beside which all cultural, moral, and patriotic duties, all efforts in `applied religion,' are child's play. For here one must give himself up in order to give himself over to God, that God's will may be done. To do his will, however, means to begin with him anew. His will is not a corrected continuation of our own. It approaches ours as a Wholly Other. There is nothing for our will except a basic re-creation.”

[63] . K.Barth, “Auf das Reich Gottes warten,” SG, 177.

[64] . TSchl, xiv: “There was, of course, an opposing theology in the 19th century which definitely did not originate with Schleiermacher and is not to be traced back to him. In relation to it we should have to talk about Gottlich Menken and J.T.Beck, Kierkegaard and the elder Blumhardt, the Lutheran Vilmar and the Reformed Kohlbrügge, Lagarde, and Overbeck, the younger Blumhardt and Hermann Kutter, and it would be well worth giving a series of lectures on these seven thousand who did not bow the knee to Baal [cf.1 Kings 19:18].”

[65] . K.Barth, Der Römerbrief, first edition, ed. H.Schmidt, GA 16, Zürich 1985 (The following quotations are my translation).

[66] . K.Adam, “Theologie der Krisis,” Hochland 1926: 385.