The theologies of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer bring about an experience of wider knowledge concerning 20th-century theologians who were thought leaders in the arena of faith, freedom, and truth. The background and contribution of both Barth and Bonhoeffer are of utmost regard as their views and written work serve as points of deep and lasting value to build upon.
Barth
Karl Barth (1886-1968) was an exceptional theologian of the 20th-century, and the reach of his work extended far into various Catholic and Protestant traditions. He made a significant impact on Christianity as it pertains to biblical interpretation, Christology, and divine election. Further work around social ethics and its associated political theology were of paramount importance during the Nazi era within Europe. Particularly during the socialist lead up to World War II, including the rise and fall of the National Socialists of his day. Moreover, over time, his work influenced both Evangelical and Roman Catholic theologians as it concerned their constructive theologies that developed across decades of thought and activity. Karl Barth leaves a permanent and lasting legacy as it affects the theological development of humanity.
Over a period of decades, Barth’s views and convictions transformed as external social and political forces weighed upon him. Beginning as a younger socialist with aspirations to explore theological truth, he wrote and lectured profusely. In later years, some of his work was self-corrected, primarily due to the harmful effects of socialist pressures that weighed upon him and the Church. To include a commentary on Romans, his work would later become revised as he began to see flaws of reason about unwarranted philosophical presuppositions that he later in life repudiated. He did not renounce his work but the human-centered backdrop that served as a premise of understanding, interpretation, and regret. He updated his work and public discourse as a way to make clear his pursuit of theological truth from the divine revelation of Scripture and his disdain for human and socially centered formulations of reason. Barth relied on Anselm’s historically valid assertion that belief and theological development remain the Confessing Church’s function. Any externally grounded philosophy or anthropology that concocted a way of understanding theological truth was never a valid foundation to settle upon premise to build structures toward or around truth. Barth’s contribution to reformed epistemology was of staggering significance, especially as it concerns the authority and sole primacy of the revealed Word of God as written through Scripture. Barth was so against human inclination to originate divine truth from itself that he rejected the inference of Systematic Theology and instead entitled his most significant work as “Church Dogmatics.” He wanted to make it abundantly clear that social interest in theological matters of truth was not subject to varying depths of flawed reason, corruption, perversion, or profane thought. The Church retained its authority through apostolic witness, and the Word of God recorded in Scripture.
With the lead-up and installation of “Führer” Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany, Barth stepped up his work with a sense of urgency to form a Dialectical theology (neo-orthodoxy) with Emil Brunner (1889-1966) and Friedrich Gogarten (1887-1967). Once a Democratic Socialist that contributed to the rise of National Socialism of Nazi Germany, he eventually became opposed to its guiding principles as they claimed as orders of existence as a nation, a race, and folk. Particularly as it concerned the isolation and genocide of Jewish people throughout Europe. Barth had witnessed the formation of a grave evil throughout society, and he recognized the theological contributions were human-centered or socially adapted. He sought to do his part in reversing course. However, it was too late as idolatry of the State to support the population’s desire for socialism was too far advanced.
As Nazi Germany made efforts to harness the evangelical Church in Germany, it did so in an effort to transfer its faith and devotion to God to instead the national mission of the socialist nation. Nazi Germany claimed it was their God-given right as it was committed to them as orders of creation. The State situated itself against the Church’s freedom to hijack it toward its nationalistic aspirations. In opposition to the hostilities of Nazi Germany against the Church, German Christians began to form, and they organized a Pastor’s Emergency League. This organization became the foundation of the Confessing Church, and its first Confessing Synod in 1934 of Barmen Germany included 138 delegates. From that meeting, the famous Barmen Declaration was written by Barth as a theological statement. The Livingston text doesn’t adequately cover the material, so the articles of the Barmen Declaration for personal reference are as follows.
The Barmen Declaration
“In view of the errors of the “German Christians” of the present Reich church government which are devastating the church and also therefore breaking up the unity of the German Evangelical Church, we confess the following evangelical truths:”
Article 1:
“Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in holy scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God’s revelation.” (John 10:1,9; Jn 14:6)
Article 2:
“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.” (1 Cor 1:30)
Article 3:
“The Christian church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in word and sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.” (Eph 4:1-16)
Article 4:
“The various offices in the church do not establish a dominion of some over the others; on the contrary, they are for the exercise of the ministry entrusted to and enjoined upon the whole congregation. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church, apart from this ministry, could and were permitted to give itself, or allow to be given to it, special leaders vested with ruling powers.” (Matt 20:26-26)
Article 5:
“Scripture tells us that, in the as yet unredeemed world in which the church also exists, the state has by divine appointment the task of providing for justice and peace. [It fulfils this task] by means of the threat and exercise of force, according to the measure of human judgment and human ability. The church acknowledges the benefit of this divine appointment in gratitude and reverence before him. It calls to mind the kingdom of God, God’s commandment and righteousness, and thereby the responsibility both of rulers and of the ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word by which God upholds all things. We reject the false doctrine, as though the state, over and beyond its special commission, should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the church’s vocation as well. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the characteristics, the tasks, and the dignity of the state, thus itself becoming an organ of the state.” (1 Pet 2:17)
Article 6:
“The church’s commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people in Christ’s stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and sacrament. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church in human arrogance could place the word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.” (2 Tim 2:9)
“The Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church declares that it sees in the acknowledgment of these truths and in the rejection of these errors the indispensable theological basis of the German Evangelical Church as a federation of confessional churches. It invites all who are able to accept its declaration to be mindful of these theological principles in their decisions in church politics. It entreats all whom it concerns to return to the unity of faith, love, and hope.”
These articles place the Church and State in subordination to the Word of God as given within Holy Scripture. These articles also served as a position of the Confessing Church. As further developments transpired beyond the Barmen Synod, the dialectical theology of Barth, Brunner and Gogarten eventually dissolved as Brunner and Gogarten theologically and indirectly aligned themselves with the National Socialists of Nazi Germany. As disputes around natural law and natural theology between Barth, the Catholic Church, and Brunner mounted, further erosion between Barth and Gogarten continued concerning “political ethics.” Gogarten had concerns about God’s intended meaning around law, orders, authority, and peace, where the State was an instrument to exact “orders of creation” within a sinful society. Gogarten viewed the sin that required justice were offenses against God. At the same time, Barth knew that the offenses were what the State would use to apply injustice and gain power to reach its murderous and blasphemous goals as millions were killed by socialism and Nazi Germany.
Barth’s commitment to social ethics did not begin with his opposition to socialism and Nazi Germany. As he further thought through disputes with his colleagues, the issues around natural theology convinced him that it contributed to the National Socialist attitudes and behaviors that produced a pervading worldview outside the Church. Barth was insistent, by theological development, “God is known only by God” and that civil law is an outworking product of the Gospel. God’s gift of freedom is a product of grace through the Gospel of Christ as people were to become obedient to God by explicit imperatives as revealed by His Word. Barth’s further attention to social ethics was demonstrated by his opposition to nuclear warfare. The threat of weapons of mass destruction was of deep concern to Barth while he served in the Swiss militia for a short while. He was a peace activist for a short time, but he accepted the necessity of warfare. His social ethics activism in the form of synodal involvement and theological development essentially took shape during the growth of National Socialism.
Barth was aggressively opposed to Liberal theology because of its inherently corruptive disposition and inclination toward eventual chaos and misery. While he undertook the initiative to write “Church Dogmatics,” he sought to make “dialectical shifts” of emphasis along with corrections of errors in earlier work. Without yet a way to validate Livingston’s coverage of Barth’s theologies, they are outlined as three major themes of his work: the doctrine of the Word of God and its Interpretation, Christology, and the doctrine of Election.
To Barth, the Word of God comes by no other means outside these three areas. Outside human expression, reason, or insistence that self-declares special revelation as the Word of God rejected by Barthian theology, and more specifically concerning the doctrine of Scripture. Barth held that the reality of the Word of God is given in three forms to narrow how anyone can recognize the doctrine coherently and authoritatively. The Word of God is exclusively characterized and given in the following three forms listed here.
- As revealed in Jesus Christ
- As written in Holy Scripture
- As proclaimed by the Church
In defense of his position elaborated upon within his “Church Dogmatics,” he wrote guidelines and stipulations concerning interpretation through exegesis and proper hermeneutical application. Where human reason, concepts, and ideas were in subordination to the apostles, prophets, and patriarchs written text under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. By the Word, Barth wrote that people were obligated to place themselves under the authority of Scripture in obedience as it produced freedom through grace as given by God. The individuals‘ presuppositions brought to Scripture included grace, prayer, and faith for wisdom, godly living, and obedience to imperatives explicitly and implicitly interpreted. The Livingston text points out that cultural and philosophical presuppositions controlled by the text of Scripture have validity without an affirmation from Barth. It appears that the Livingston texts want the philosophical forms of thinking to serve as a meaningful way of interpretation and application when Barth elsewhere warns about schemes of understanding that are human originated.
The Christology of Barth involves Jesus’s preeminence in all of creation to include humanity. He clarifies that Christ is the God of and for humanity as His Word is inseparable from revelation through His incarnation. Barth also clarified that the doctrines of creation, election, anthropology, and reconciliation are Christological. Moreover, Barth’s entire theological focus was Christological. To understand God and humanity, it was and is necessary to recognize and understand Christ. According to Barth, it wasn’t required to undergo anthropological research to understand the origins of humanity, nor was it essential to look toward the fallen Adam. To Barth’s theology, Christ is the prototype of humanity. He elaborates about the functional work of Christ as messiah and savior in a context of sin and evil by comparison as “nothing” and an “impossibility” to withstand God’s intended plan and purpose of redemption.
Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a theologian of the 20th-century who authored numerous books, lectured among academic institutions, collaborated at seminaries, and participated in social work to include covert activism against National Socialist Nazi’s that ended in his capture, imprisonment, and death. At age 39, he was hanged in a Nazi concentration camp at Flossenbürg just days before liberation from American forces. Bonhoeffer’s interpersonal footprint was in numerous geographical locations within Europe and America. His occupation as a teacher, speaker, and author, gained him notoriety as he developed his theological work around systematic theology, sociology, and ethics. He had ecumenical interests he pursued with the Catholic church while doing civil charity work involving poverty and unemployment relief. He became engaged in American “Social Gospel” work through Liberal professors at Union Theological Seminary.
Like Karl Barth, Bonhoeffer was opposed to Liberal theology, and he wasn’t impressed with the theology that originated from the American institutions he visited. As his theology developed during his life, his early writings and relationship with Karl Barth were of significant influence on his contemporaries and those of later generations. The influence upon Bonhoeffer was widespread and fragmented in areas of philosophy, epistemology, revelation, and existentialism. His work as “Sanctorum Communio” (communion of the saints) drew upon his background in both disciplines of sociology and theology as he wrote to elaborate upon the relationships between the individual and the Church. He went on to describe what the Church’s relationship is with God and the world as it consists of social beings. The idea Bonhoeffer wrote about concerning “Christ existing as community” drew much attention. It appeared that statement contradicted the biblical account of God’s incarnation as Jesus in the flesh of an individual. Bonhoeffer rejected transcendentalism or the “wholly other” perspective about God’s existence. His view about “Christ existing in community” was an attempted answer to the Catholic Thomists and Heidegger to describe God’s continuous presence in this world. Barth merely agreed with Bonhoeffer to the extent that Christ’s revelation exists within community. And to understand that God’s freedom involved is co-presence in the world, not that He is fully incarnate within the spiritual community of believers.
Another one of Bonhoeffer’s main theological themes pertains to Christology. His view of Jesus concentrates upon his humanity, his fleshly condition (humiliation), what He does for His people, and His role and presence within the Church throughout history. Bonhoeffer placed significant weight upon the historicity of Jesus to validate the faith of the community. He didn’t outright reject the assertion that theological dogma about Jesus required historical confirmation. Bonhoeffer was sympathetic to a Social Gospel, which is what makes his theology attractive to liberals today.
Bonhoeffer’s written work was shaped by his circumstances as a believer, the Church, and academia. His convictions further developed around ethics and discipleship. His love of Christ was made evident through this life and publications such as The Cost of Discipleship and Prisoner of God. In The Cost of Discipleship, he wrote of exclusive devotion to Christ and how the Church was together in its fellowship and activity. Through a love ethic, he inspired people to live authentic Christian lives in freedom and charity. He believed that Christology was bound up in discipleship, and he saw the enduring value of unity in the Church before God reconciled to serve Him and the world in a more meaningful way. He understood and made clear to his readers and listeners that the penultimate in the world exists for the ultimate. Even if the penultimate exists independently for self-development apart from God as a natural course of existence, it was his view, contrary to Protestant theology, that the natural life had its place as it is common to the entire human race. He understood that people embrace the freedom and joy of the natural life, and it was the unnatural as the enemy of Christ. He made clear by his theology that the natural life wasn’t a means or a right but a gift of Jesus Christ.
Toward the end of Bonhoeffer’s life, while in prison, he went into deeper reflection about his thinking on modernity. As the modern world was coming of age at the time, he came to believe that Jesus wouldn’t regret or prevent that from occurring. Bonhoeffer felt that secularization was pervasive and growing, and he wanted to find a way of interpreting Christianity without religiosity or religion itself per se. His non-religious inclinations of the Christian life were about the individual who would live Christianity out loud but do so in a way that would connect with people. Conversely, if individuals in the Church were unable to connect authentically, they should live their faith in private while vulnerable, and inner reflection and belief. To communicate with unbelievers, it was in a person’s life and goodness that expressions of non-religious faith would be recognized as strength. The world coming of age meant a reduction in the practice of religion and religiosity toward the world and growth in the meaning of personal faith in Christ and care and service toward others. As a secret discipline, the life of a non-religious Christian in a modern world meant living a life of humility, reserve, prayer, unheralded person action, or of silence if a person is to be kept from the profane of the world.
Bonhoeffer looked back on his life and expressed doubt about what he learned, wrote, and spoke about. Yet, he developed relationships among socialists, both liberal and conservative theologians, including philosophers of his day. Bonhoeffer continues to stimulate a lot of thought as a product of his search for truth. He was well-studied and a model of an intelligent believer who lived his life of faith with conviction and purpose. Dietrich Bonhoeffer still carries a meaningful voice for many who seek to grow closer in their relationship with God and others.
