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 (Kulturbewu©¬tsein) 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