KARL BARTH: THE STORY OF GOD
Karl Barth (1886-1968) is a Swiss theologian and a towering figure in 20th century Bible scholarship - in spite of the fact (or perhaps because of the fact) that people still can't quite agree on where he stood on many matters.
Barth studied at the best universities in Germany where liberal or 'modernist' Christianity was being developed. This sort of Christian thought was sceptical about miracles and the supernatural, downplayed literal concepts like Heaven and Hell and interpreted the Bible as a human document full of errors - but emphasised instead the goodness of God as a loving Father, the brotherhood of man and the allegorical and moral message of the Bile. |
Barth is pronounced 'Bart' - as in 'Simpson'
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Jesus loves me. This I know, because the Bible tells me so - Karl Barth
One can not speak of God simply by speaking of man in a loud voice - Karl Barth
It is by the grace of God that God is knowable to us - Karl Barth
The fact that we know God is His work and not ours - Karl Barth
No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him - Luke 10: 22
That only leaves us with what Barth calls "God without Jesus" but unfortunately such a God is:
a ghost, a phantom and a delusion, a far-away and unapproachable God - Karl Barth Fortunately, God will not let the matter rest there. Barth titled one of his collections of sermons God's Search for Man (1935) and this title sums up his view on Grace: we are not searching for God, God is searching for us. Our job is not to seek, but to allow ourselves to be found - and God finds us when we read the Bible.
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The Bible is God's Word to the extent that God causes it to be His Word - Karl Barth Karl Barth is saying that the Bible is a human document and therefore flawed and limited to the situation and context it was written in. However, it is a witness to God's revelation in Jesus Christ and therefore it can become a revelation too when it is read. It becomes a medium through which God reveals himself. This doesn't happen automatically: the words of Scripture are ordinary human words until the moment God chooses to speak through them to the reader, then they temporarily transform. Barth views this as a sort of miracle.
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a strenuous and disciplined attempt to lay ourselves open to hear the Word of God speaking to us, to read what the Word of God intends ... and to refrain from interrupting it or confusing it with our own speaking - Karl Barth
Scripture does indeed bear witness to revelation, but it is not revelation itself - Karl Barth
Barth warns that, if we treat the Bible as a revelation in its own right, it becomes a "paper Pope" - a human authority mistaken for a divine one and blindly obeyed.
Barth compares the Bible to the Pool of Bethesda in the Sign of Healing at the Pool. In this Sign, the crippled man wants to bathe in the pool because he believes it has healing powers, but Jesus arrives and heals him with a word. The real power is in Jesus, not the Pool, although the man would never have met Jesus and been healed if he hadn't first come to the Pool. In the same way, the Bible is a place where the reader can 'meet' Jesus Christ - but it has no power of its own.
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The Bible witnesses speak as men and not as angels or gods - Karl Barth
Barth claims there are two events in history which are "unhistorical history" and they are the creation of the universe and the Resurrection of Christ. No one was there to see these things happen and they are unimaginable, so they are not like normal history - yet Barth says they nonetheless happened.
He concludes that Christians can do what Scripture does: they can bear WITNESS to the Resurrection of Christ in their lives by the way that they live, but they can never hope to describe the Resurrection or explain it. It is beyond human words. |
Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching - Chicago Statement (1978)
YES
Karl Barth recalled liberal Christian scholarship from a route that was heading into atheism and worldliness. The fact that he recognised and rejected Nazism clearly shows his insight into the true nature of the Word of God. His ideas act as a warning to keep Jesus Christ at the centre of interpreting Scripture.
Barth is equally critical of conservative Christianity. His view of Scripture as a witness and as the 'Story of God' challenges the traditional view that Scripture is inerrant and must only be read literally. He encourages these Christians to think more carefully about what the Bible means.
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NO
Barth's integrity is great but his ideas are very conservative. He asks Christians to suspend their rational and critical faculties and read the Bible in a childlike way, receptive only to traditional ideas and values rather than criticising and challenging old interpretations. His views are too mystical to be useful for applying the Bible to the modern world.
Barth's thinking has become a theological dead-end. By rejecting the idea of knowing God through reasoning and replacing that with faith, there's no further development for this type of thinking. The idea that humans can no nothing about God without Grace leads to a loss of faith in theology itself.
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