Having appreciated the work of Richard Muller, and his students, and having benefited immensely from their writings, I am still far from an expert in the area of Reformed scholasticism. Nevertheless, my thinking as a Reformed theologian has been greatly enriched by the fruit of their labors. For this, I am exceedingly grateful.

Yet, I struggle still with grasping (and joining in with) the celebration of “Reformed Thomism.” Truth be told, I am unsure what exactly it is. Is it the use of the scholastic method in doing Reformed systematic theology? If so, then great. I find that method wonderful. Is it the approach to theology that seeks precision, even down to the most minute detail? Again, I have no complaints there. I’m all about it. Does it have to do with the use of Aristotelian categories to help us explain theological concepts? If so, let the celebrations begin and let’s pillage Egypt. Lastly, does it have to do with setting forth what has often been called “classical theism” with a clear articulation of the attributes of God such as his aseity, simplicity, spirituality, immutability, eternality, and infinitude? Here too I am an enthusiastic supporter. If that is what is meant by “Reformed Thomist,” then sign me up. Though I prefer the more generic label of “catholic.”

Be that as it may, I suspect something more is intended with the label of “Reformed Thomist.” And I suspect it has something to do with the way theological prolegomenon is done. Much chatter has been heard about Muller’s great work on Reformed scholasticism, and especially the first volume on prolegomenon.[1] I will skip the details of that chatter for now (if you know, you know). And though I am no expert in this particular area, I try to read broadly in the tradition and have noticed something that gives rise to my question for my friends who regard themselves as Reformed Thomists.

To set up my question, let’s take for example J. H. Heidegger’s abridged summary of Reformed theology, The Concise Marrow of Theology.[2] Now before saying more, it should be noted that I recognize taking this work as an example is not completely fair. After all, this is just a summary of his larger, still untranslated work, the Medulla. The Concise was meant as a stepping-stone for initiates to learn the system of theology before moving to the larger work. Think of the relation between Berkof’s Summary compared to his full Systematic Theology.

Anyway, Heidegger’s Concise gives us a, well, concise summary of how he (along with other Reformed scholastics) saw the relationship between prolegomenon and the rest of the Reformed theological system. And here, with Heidegger, we do see some similarities with Thomas’ approach to reason and nature. Heidegger witnesses to a dual approach to theological knowledge. The first comes by way of “the dictation of reason alone.”[3] Reason alone renders man inexcusable, but it does not save him. Now, what does “reason alone” mean? What is it “alone” from? Presumably from revelation. Heidegger goes on, in the very next article (same page) to speak of revealed theology (standing against the natural theology that comes by the dictates of reason alone). Revealed theology is teaching about God concerning salvation and the worship of God. Revealed theology then perfects reason but does not destroy it.[4]

This strikes me as clearly Thomistic. Thomas too places reason distinct from sacred theology (founded on revelation). In other words, Heidegger, like Thomas, does not seem to have a notion of what we might call natural revelation. Reason is that part of nature—common to all—that points us to the knowledge of God but is not itself the knowledge of God. It only leads us to the existence of God, not who God is as triune. Reason therefore leaves us without excuse for rejecting the existence of God, but it does not reveal God directly, and it does not reveal the triune God.[5]

Now we are getting closer to my question. This dual approach seems to me to set up a problem of consistency for later in his theology. Take for example the covenant of works. Heidegger begins with two options for the knowledge of God: reason and revelation. Reason tells us that there is a (generic?) conception of God available to all men. Revelation tells us about salvation (given sin). Where then does the covenant of works fit into those two options? The covenant of works is prelapsarian, so it does not fit well into his idea of revealed theology. And the covenant of works contains more than what reason can give.

In the locus on the covenant of works, Heidegger explains that it is known “more obscurely from nature and more clearly from revelation.”[6] He explains that the natural part consists of man’s conscience and from his natural appetite for the highest good. Reason is not mentioned here. Nor is conscience and natural appetite mentioned in his section on natural theology. But, and this is mystifying, the terms of the covenant of works—which in this locus he clearly speaks of being a revelation of God to prefall Adam—is not mentioned as a part of revealed theology back in the first locus. In other words, his prolegomenon—as it sets up a dual approach to the knowledge of God through reason and revelation—runs countercurrent to his theology of the covenant.

So, here is my question: Would Heidegger not be better off had he in his prolegomenon spoke of revelation as the alone way unto the knowledge of God?

If he had done that, then he could have accounted for (1) reason, conscience, and appetite all as a general revelation of God, and (2) the covenant of works as an act of special revelation of God to man in the prelapsarian situation. In this way, there is only one way to know God (revelation) given in two “books:” nature and God’s spoken word. This would eliminate the dual epistemology and subsume all knowledge of God under a singular mode: revelation. This, furthermore, would connect nicely to the Reformed notion of the image in which man is created in original knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. Man from the outset received the knowledge of God from (1) outside himself in creation, (2) within himself in reason, conscience, and appetite, and (3) from God’s spoken word in the terms of the covenant of works. These three being all aspects of the one mode of revelation.

Anyway, that question I ask of my Reformed Thomist friends and brethren is a sincere one, and I remain open to instruction here. Hopefully such a question can serve as a clarifying focus point for future fruitful discussion.

Notes

[1] Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol.1, Prolegomena to Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003).

[2] J. H. Heidegger, The Concise Marrow of Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2023).

[3] Heidegger, Concise, 9.

[4] Heidegger, Concise, 10.

[5] Which seems different from theologians like Augustine and Bavinck who hold to the revelation of the Trinity in nature (i.e., the vestiages doctrine).

[6] Heidegger, Concise, 61.

I often receive questions about Barth’s views on the Bible, which admittedly is a challenging topic. According to Karl Barth, the Bible is not revelation. The Bible is one of three modes of Barth’s doctrine of the Word of God. While Barth can say that the Bible is the Word of God, he will not, however, affirm that it is the revelation of God. Only God’s act of grace in Jesus Christ is revelation. Scripture, like the church’s preaching, merely witnesses to the Word of God in revelation. Consequently, the Bible is not inerrant.

Barth is also clear that there is a kind of becoming to the Bible as the Word of God. “The Word-of-Godness” (that’s my expression, not Barth’s) of Scripture is not inherent in Scripture itself. Rather, its “Word-of-Godness” is actualized “from above,” as it were, through God’s act of grace and self-disclosure in Jesus Christ. In other words, the “Word-of-Godness” that Scripture becomes arises not from Scripture itself, but from God.

It is a great strength of our Presbyterian and Reformed ethos that we are historically conscious. We enjoy history and pride ourselves on being self-consciously rooted in the past. Confessional and conservative Presbyterians very much have their identity wrapped up in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. And a central figure in that controversy is our hero of pride, J. Gresham Machen. Machen showed us how to stand for the truth of God’s Word and the Reformed faith even upon pain of humiliation and marginalization.

The way the history is told includes how Machen (and others, of course) opposed liberalism. Machen gave special attention to modernism’s rejection of the supernaturalism of historic Christianity, particularly as that supernaturalism comes to expression in doctrines like the virgin birth and miracles of Jesus.

For generations, this history has aided conservative Presbyterians in defining liberalism. In the main, we have defined a “liberal” as someone who denies a high doctrine of Scripture or Christology. The label “liberal” is (rightly) applied to those who deny the virgin birth, Christ’s resurrection, or the Bible’s inerrancy. Conversely, if a minister in our denomination affirms those things they get a pass (sometimes irrespective of his other theological positions).

That is all well and good. But that way of approaching the evaluation of a man’s theology has its significant liabilities. Those liabilities arise when we realize that the denial of miracles or inerrancy is not the problem, at root. Liberalism, at heart, was a failed apologetic attempt to defend the Christian faith in the face of growing skepticism. And people like Schleiermacher, the father of theological liberalism, was attempting to save Christianity, not destroy it.

Identifying the Source of Liberalism

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) was the son of a pastor, and pietism was the air he breathed growing up. He struggled with doubts about his faith, doubts his father simply blew off. When he matriculated at the University of Halle, he read deeply in Plato and Kant and found an intellectual home in the Romanticism of the day. He would eventually become a pastor in the state church and a professor at the University of Berlin.

Upon looking for answers to his doubts he found answers in grounding true religion in intuition rather than knowledge. This differed greatly from the older orthodox Protestantism which began with the knowledge of God in revelation. In his great systematic theology, The Christian Faith, he proposed that the basis of all theology is man’s feeling of absolute dependence on God.

Schleiermacher saw increasing skepticism toward the faith among his fellow Bohemians, especially those involved in the arts and literature. He wanted to provide a way for them to believe, despite their allegiance to enlightenment ideas. This was the occasion for his On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers. These speeches were an apologetic effort to convince modern people of the value of religion.

In this book, Schleiermacher says that religion is the sense and taste for the infinite. If one lives his or her life without religion, it is quite incomplete sans the transcendent. To put it roughly, he argues that religion is good for you. In his introduction to the book, Rudolf Otto explains that Schleiermacher attempted to “lead an age weary with and alien to religion back to its very mainsprings; and to reweave religion, threatened with oblivion, into the incomparably rich fabric of the burgeoning intellectual life of modern times.”

That is a big statement. And it is for several reasons.

First, Schleiermacher offered a defense of religion at a time when it was decreasing in popularity and on the cusp of “oblivion.” Secularism was knocking, and Schleiermacher wanted to turn it away. Second, Schleiermacher attempted a “reweave” of religion, giving it a make-over to present it more palatable to a modern age. Third, the “reweave” would include fabric from “the burgeoning intellectual life of modern times.” To put it simply, Schleiermacher sought to show how religion and modernism could sweetly comply.

To summarize in a very pedestrian way, we might say that Schleiermacher felt a need to help religion survive by recasting it in a way that a modern people would be cool with.

The Spirit of Schleiermacher Today

If liberalism is a disease, the denial of the supernatural is only the symptom. The disease can manifest itself in other symptoms. I worry that conservative Presbyterians are unaware of those symptoms when they arise. That is because we have a kind of confession within our confessionalism. For some, we only fight over “gospel issues” (whatever those are). For others the battleground is only over inerrancy or the five points of Calvinism (include justification by faith in that). And while those are important—even central—issues to fight over, there is surely more.

I would contend that any time we find an attempt to recast our doctrine or practice in order to make us more attractive to the culture, it may be the spirit of Schleiermacher haunting us. In the early twentieth century that came in the form of anti-supernaturalism. But the spirit of Schleiermacher can haunt the halls and pulpits of churches and seminaries that are committed to supernaturalism as well.

For example, if we alter our doctrine of sin so as to not turn off those who identify as “sexual minorities,” we may be exhibiting symptoms of Schleiermacher. If we alter our worship to make it more entertaining to millennials, we may be haunted by the ghost of Schleiermacher. Or, if we seek to placate Arminian or open theist critics of the Reformed doctrine of God by compromising it in a way that they can endorse, Schleiermacher may be in our midst.

The examples can be multiplied, but it can all be boiled down to this: Are we tempted at any point to back off our doctrine or practice for fear of turning off someone on the outside? Are we tempted to recast and restate the faith in order not to offend them? If so, we might just be seeing an apparition of the Berliner apologist among us. Beware of compromised apologetics. 

Part of a good transcendental critique must be drawing the lines between the dots for people to see clearly. If I have any critique of Van Til, it is that he could have done better connecting those dots. He observes things in people’s thought with uncanny penetration and insight. And he will often state that their position entails something else, often an unwelcomed theological conclusion. And he seems to be right when he draws the dots. However, he often leaves us dangling and does not always connect the dots explicitly. If we can improve on Van Til anywhere it is here: connect the dots more explicitly, while penetrating deeply and critiquing transcendentally (as Van Til did). An example of what I am talking about is found in his The Theology of James Daane. There Van Til says that Arminians cannot do justice to the idea of an infallible Bible (p. 24). On the surface that sounds absurd because many Arminians believe in infallibility. But his point is that once you deny an absolutely sovereign God who stands back of all history and events, direct inspiration and the assurance that human authors are kept from error fails. In other words, a god that is not absolutely sovereign cannot have contact with creation, and even if he could he cannot speak with any level of absolute certainly. But he does not write that large with explicit clarity. He does not walk us through the logic of why “A” necessarily entails “B” (not just in this instance, but in almost every system of thought he critiques). I think that is how we can advance Van Til today. Not by changing or toning down what he said (as some “Van Tillians” would have it), but by making more explicit and lucid what he did say.

“Yet the Aristotelianism of Rome, with its idea of potentiality, offers, we are bound to think, a point of contact with the underlying philosophy of Dialecticism. Rome occupies an intermediary position.”[1] What has Basel to do with Rome? In the above quotation Van Til is making a startling point. On the one hand earlier on in the paragraph he acknowledges that Rome has way too much orthodoxy in it for there to be an easy alignment with “the theology of Crisis.” Nevertheless, Rome’s theology and the theology of Basel are not devoid of all commonalities. So, when he speaks of “the Aristotelianism of Rome” he has in mind, of course, the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Van Til, rightly or wrongly, always associates Roman Catholicism with Thomism. But what is most important here for our purposes is to identify what he means by Rome’s “idea of potentiality.” We need to be brief here (a fuller scholarly treatment of this subject is beyond our purview). But the idea of “potentiality” entails what some call a chain, or scale, of being. Potency is understood opposite of actuality. And every thing has potency, which means it has potential toward actualization. Only God is pure actuality, having no potency in himself. Everything else is on its way toward actualization. This idea is often connected with the idea of the analogia entis – or analogy of being. Things on the scale of being – God who is the greatest being, man as an actualizing agent – relate to one another analogically. While there is much dissimilarity between God and man – God is fully actualized, we are not – there is also a commonality as well: God and man are both beings. So, it is an analogy based on the fact of what God and man have in common: being. And while God and man differ quantitatively in their being they are not qualitatively different. So, what has this to do with Barth (here Van Til uses the broader term “Dialecticism,” but he has primarily Barth in mind)? After all, does Van Til not know that Barth absolutely rejected the analogia entis (goes so far as associating it with the anti-Christ)? Does Van Til not know that Barth speaks about the “qualitative difference between eternity and time?” Where in the world could Van Til find common cause between Aquinas and Barth? While it is true that Barth begins with the “qualitative difference between time and eternity” he does not stay there. Especially as his theology develops from the time of his Romans commentary, he recognizes that he cannot stop with the qualitative difference if God and man are ever to be reconciled. Somehow God and man, time and eternity, the Creator and creature must be brought together. At the same time his actualistic doctrine of God does not allow him to have a God who is eternal or timeless in the absolute sense. So he speaks about “God’s time.” For Barth God’s time is his time of grace in the eternal decree who is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is himself both the electing God and the elect man. With that, then, Jesus Christ is both the eternal God and the temporal man. And he is such in his eternal nature. There is for Barth no logos asarkos, that is a Christ who is ever understood as being without flesh and therefore without time. Jesus Christ is himself “God’s time for us.” That means that God and man, eternity and time, are co-terminus realities. The relationship between God and man is relative and not absolute. For God is forever and from all eternity this God who has time for us in Jesus Christ. To be sure, this is not the same thing exactly as Thomas’ analogy of being. It is more like an analogy of God’s time. And while the construction differs, what remains as a common ground between Thomas and Barth are their commitment to placing God and man in a relative relationship rather than an absolute one. Both Thomas and Barth then stand over against the Reformed understanding of how God and man relate. For the Reformed God and man relate covenantally. They both have a relationship in absolute distinction from the beginning. The way in which they relate, then, is not through some kind of ontological bond. Rather, the bond is covenantal. It is a relation established by God and guaranteed and sealed by divine fiat – not through bringing God and man in under a common ontological reality (being for Thomas, time for Barth). But there is one last commonality between Thomas and Barth, and it is based on the commitment to their respective views of analogy. And that is they both stand in antithesis to the Reformed Faith. Reformed theology will not allow this common sharing or an ontological bond between God and man. For the problem between God and man is not ontology. The problem is a matter of hamartiology. And the solution is soteriological and covenantal. And therein lies the difference between the Reformed Faith on the one hand and Thomas and Barth on the other.

[1] Van Til, C. (1947). The new modernism: an appraisal of the theology of Barth and Brunner. The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Philadelphia. P. 8.

Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus (2 Tim 2:3). Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Tim 3:12).

The identity of the Christian, which is found in Jesus Christ, includes with it the sufferings of Christ. In other words, to be united to and thus identified with the once crucified Savior means that the Christian’s life in this present mode of existence will necessarily entail suffering. What is in view from the perspective of these verses is not suffering as such, but suffering as a Christian. Furthermore, it is not suffering that a Christian may endure because of his indwelling sin, corruption, or foolish actions that is in view (though that may be in view in other passages). Rather, it is suffering that arises precisely because of one’s identity with Christ who suffered for us. In the first verse take note of Paul’s metaphor of a soldier. Timothy, in his particular capacity as a minister of the New Covenant, is likened to a soldier. Surely, however, the analogy of a soldier is proper not just to ministers of the Gospel, but to each individual Christian. And not just to Christians as individuals, but to the church corporately in its present mode of existence living in the midst of this present wicked and perverse generation (Phil 2:15). So, the church corporately, as well as each individual Christian, is called to be a soldier. Specifically, Christians are called to be soldiers of Jesus Christ. Christ is himself the captain of the army of the Lord (cf. Josh 5), and believers are his soldiers. Further, the Christian is called to be a “good” soldier of Jesus Christ. But what does it mean to be a “good soldier?” It is, in fact, to “share in suffering.” The goodness of the soldier is qualified in terms of suffering. And specifically suffering that comes in warfare. And the warfare in view is that which comes by enemy opposition. What it means to be a good soldier who suffers in the midst of warfare is given further expression by Paul in 3:12, the second verse above. And once again, the suffering that is assumed by Paul here is not mere human suffering which is common to all – inclusive of believer and unbeliever. But the suffering that is in view is the suffering that comes to those who “will be persecuted.” Further, the persecution that arises is not opposition from unbelievers as such. Unbelievers may in fact oppose a person – whether a believer or fellow unbeliever – for good reasons (such as lawful cases of legal prosecution, or self-defense, etc). But what is in view here is opposition, persecution (i.e., suffering) that arises in opposition to those who “live a godly life.” In a different context Jesus speaks about those who are “persecuted for righteousness sake” (Matt 5:10; cf. 1 Peter 3:14). But, one more important idea needs to be underscored. Note that for Paul it is those who “desire” to live a godly life who will be persecuted. There is something, according to Paul, about the godly desires and affections of the believer which elicits a counter-response of opposition by unbelievers. One contextual observation is necessary here. The persecution here may in fact be state-sponsored opposition to the righteous living of Christians. In context, Paul mentions his own persecution in v. 11, in the cities of Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra (cf. Acts 13 and 14). It is interesting to note that the persecution that arose there always came by “the Jews.” In some instances, like in Iconium, “the rulers” are mentioned as complicit in the plot to stone Paul and Barnabas (14:5). Women “of high standing” and “leading men” are mentioned in Antioch (13:50). However, leaders or city officials are not mentioned at all in Lystra. But what is striking for our purposes is that while officials may or may not be involved in the persecution of Paul and Barnabas, it is the general population of the cities, specifically unbelieving Jews, who lead the opposition. In other words, it does not appear to be the state who is the primary antagonist to the Gospel and the “good soldier of Jesus Christ.” In short, the “persecution” here does not seem to come only, or even primarily, from the state. It comes from all manner of unbelievers. In summary, Paul seems to give here principles of how the Christian is to identify with Christ – principles which are also given by our Lord himself in the Gospels as well as Peter (we could also include the other authors of the NT as well). In other words, part and parcel of the Christian’s identity is that he will be opposed and be persecuted when he acts as a good soldier with a desire to live a godly life (Jesus said, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you,” John 15:20). Now, that does not necessarily mean the persecution will be as intense as it was in Paul and Barnabas’ instances. It may come in greater or lesser intensity. But it will come – always. These exegetical observations seem to leave very little room for a triumphalist view of the Gospel and the church vis-a-vis the culture. While certainly God may in fact ordain times and seasons and places where the church is persecuted and opposed less intensely than in others, the lack of evidence of any promise of God that this will happen (either on a local or global scale) is remarkable. Therefore, the church should expect that the default mode of her existence, until the vindicating return of her Savior, will be that of constant warfare. She is always the church militant and never the church triumphant this side of Glory. The church’s present mode of existence is rightly described by the Westminster Standards as the Kingdom of Grace, and not yet the Kingdom of Glory (cf. Westminster Shorter Catechism 102). Now she lives by grace in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9), and only after the parousia will she live free of militancy and in a state of triumphal rest. In the meanwhile, the more we desire to live godly lives the more we should expect persecution. Living a godly life in the midst of this crooked generation is not an option. But rather than think our godliness will transform the world and tame it now, we should expect that it will only all the more exasperate the opposition of the world. Will sinners be converted under our faithful witness? Yes, we should expect they will. Will many be converted under our faithful witness to Christ? Only God knows, but we should pray to that end. But even here we should expect, as happened in Paul’s ministry, the more sinners that are converted to Christ the more opposition the church will face. Conversions, even mass conversions, do not subdue the world’s hatred for Christ, but rather incite it. Can we hope and pray for a day and an age when the church will live globally in peace, with unbelief and evil generally marginalized? Sure! What a great prayer that is! But if that happens it will happen not because the Bible promises it. It does not. In fact, the promise the Bible gives us is that if we are faithful Christians that means persecution for us. But despite being opposed at every turn, if we are faithful soldiers God will give us the victory. Not a victory of this-worldly triumph (too many Christians hope for too little!). But a greater victory than that. The victory of eternal life in Immanuel’s land where righteousness will dwell forever.

In The New Modernism Van Til identifies the Theology of Crisis with “dialectical theology.” But what is dialectical theology? Van Til explains that dialectical theology is “at bottom activistic and positivistic.” But what in the world does that mean? He explains: “God’s being and God’s work are said to be one and the same” (p. 3). In other words, Barth’s theology is actualistic. “Actualism” is a distinctly modern approach to metaphysics, or the study of the nature of reality. It is the question of being qua being. Metaphysics seeks to discover what the essence of something or someone is. Standing over against dialectical theology – which Van Til equates with “modern theology” as a whole – is the Reformed Faith which is “non-activistic theology” (ibid). Continuing his thesis, dialectical theology (or, Crisis Theology) and Reformed Theology are opposed to one another. But how are they opposed? In order to answer that question we have to explain why it is that Van Til associates dialectical theology with modern theology. Modern thought, going back at least to Kant, rejects the older metaphysical tradition. That tradition is characterized by the influence of Greek metaphysical thought, especially as it influenced Western theology through Thomas Aquinas. This mode of metaphysics adheres to the idea that everything has its own particular static nature (i.e., a nature that does not change). In this mode of thinking God was understood, according to modern thinkers, as a static and abstract nature, essence, or substance. An example of this would be in the traditional doctrine of God’s immutability. Modern thinking said that this makes God out to be aloof, cold, unfeeling and abstract. He cannot change or adjust to situations. In short, he has nothing to do with us here and now. Modern thought with its rejection of medieval metaphysics proposed instead for us to think about being or ontology in dynamic terms. In this way we understand God not in terms of an abstract substance, but rather as a concrete, dynamic and living act. This is the actualism (or, more commonly used is the term “activism”) of which Van Til speaks. God’s identity, his being, is understood only in terms of his acts relative to us his creatures. Now, Van Til sees this approach to metaphysics, or ontology, as opposed to the older traditional approach. He says only in the Reformed Faith is God “wholly self-contained.”[1] What does that mean? It means, in short, that God is in no way identified or understood as existing in a way that is dependent upon the creature or his acts relative to it. This is in keeping with the older theology proper which understood God as being a se. God in himself does not progress or become. He is himself perfect in his being, pure act with no potentiality. That means his interaction with the creature is completely unnecessary to who he is. But standing over against this traditional view is Barth’s commitment to the terms for ontology set by modernity. Liberalism did not like the cold, aloof God of traditional theology. So they made God to draw near to man in an immanent relationship to the creature. Liberalism was committed to actualistic ontology, identifying God with his acts toward creature. Barth opposed liberalism and emphasized God’s transcendence. But – and this is Van Til’s great observation – while emphasizing God’s transcendence Barth at the same time refused to surrender the modern and liberal commitment to actualistic ontology. However, rather than God being identified with the creature in an immanent act, for Barth God is identified with his transcendent act of electing grace. For Barth God is necessarily gracious because in a transcendent act of his own freedom he chooses to always and everywhere be the God who forgives in Jesus Christ. Therefore, as I try to show in my book, God’s eternity is not a purely eternal attribute.[2] But his eternity is simultaneously his time for us in Jesus Christ. In other words, God from all of eternity is not “self-contained” but has his being identified with his act of grace for us in Christ. And so here – no less than in liberalism – God is dependent on the creature for his being. Creation and redemption (not to mention revelation) for Barth are not contingent acts of God, but necessary acts which give identity to the question of who he is. Actuality dictates ontology. And for the older orthodox Reformed view that is a completely contrary starting point for understanding God. For the older view, God’s being (ontology) dictates the activity of God in time. God’s acts are consistent with and flow from who he is in and of himself. Only this way can we say in any true and meaningful way that God acts in perfect freedom. As the answer to the children’s catechism goes: Can God do all things? Yes, God can do all his holy will. In these simple – yet profound – words we discover the reason why Van Til is so clear: Dialectical Theology and Reformed Theology are – and must be – sworn enemies. There is no common ground between them.

[1] When Van Til speaks about “the Reformed Faith” that is representative shorthand for Reformed orthodoxy. Particularly as it comes to expression in great Reformed church creeds and confessions of the 16th and 17th centuries. It is certainly a legitimate criticism here that Van Til uses a term that is both too imprecise and narrow. To be sure, there is enough variety in the history of Reformed theology and Reformed confessions to say that “the Reformed faith” is not as monolithic as Van Til seems here to assume. While we may grant that point it is important to note that Van Til’s work is not so much concerned with historical theology and the nuances found in the Reformed tradition, rather his work is “frankly polemical” (p. 3). But the granted point need not detract us because despite all the variety that there is in the Reformed confessional tradition, one thing most certainly is not: actualistic ontology. [2] See God’s Time For Us: Barth’s Reconciliation of Eternity and Time in Jesus Christ (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2016).

Moving on from Van Til’s first published criticism of Barth (see the previous six posts entitled In The Beginning) we now consider his first published monograph dedicated entirely to a criticism of “the Theology of Crisis” in The New Modernism (1946).[1] The overall contention of the book is that the Reformed Faith is no friend of “the Theology of Crisis,” but rather its mortal enemy (p. ix; p. 3). Everything he says about Crisis Theology will seek to substantiate that basic contention. Also it is worth our noting how The New Modernism differs from his second monograph on Barth in 1962, Christianity and Barthianism. There, taking his lead from J. Gresham Machen’s well-known Christianity and Liberalism, Van Til argues that Barthianism is not a legitimate expression of Christianity but another religion altogether. Whereas in his earlier volume he sets the Theology of Crisis over against the Reformed Faith, in the latter he sets Barthianism over against Christianity as such. But for now, let’s stick with The New Modernism. In particular, I would like to highlight how Van Til opens the book. Whatever you think of his thesis that the Theology of Crisis and the Reformed Faith are enemies, careful attention must be given to how Van Til understands Barth and Brunner’s theology. It is assumed today by many that Van Til “got Barth wrong.” That seems to me an unhelpful sweeping claim. Did he get anything right about Barth?  If so, which parts did he get right and which ones wrong? Furthermore, it strikes me as an easy way to dismiss Van Til’s critique. What is needed, however, is a thoughtful and close read of Van Til’s critique. So, in the spirit of trying to set the record straight I believe it is helpful to distinguish between Van Til’s thesis about Barth on the one hand and his understanding of Barth on the other. We’ve already said what his thesis is: the Reformed Faith is the enemy of the Theology of Crisis. Now, that is a big claim. But a claim that cannot be agreed with or disagreed with until one first grapples with Van Til’s understanding of Barth. Until one evaluates his understanding of Barth one cannot evaluate if his thesis is correct. So, what I would like to do here is highlight how Van Til understood Barth (and Brunner). We will unpack the details in a future post as we work our way through The New Modernism. But for now Van Til gives us a summary of how he understands Crisis Theology right at the beginning of the book:

For purposes of orientation, we might first consider certain constantly recurring emphases of the Crisis theologians. There are three such emphases. First, both Barth and Brunner have rebelled against Schleiermacher, the “father of modern theology.” Their hostility to what they call “modern Protestantism” is very bitter. Second, both are severe critics of the analogia entis theology of Rome. Third, both are set against what they call the historicism and psychologism of post-Reformation orthodoxy. What is it that the Crisis theologians withstand in modern Protestantism, in Romanism, and in traditional orthodoxy? Significantly enough, it is the same thing in each instance. It is the theology of the beati possidentes that they attack in Schleiermacher, in Thomas Aquinas and in Herman Bavinck. All theologians who claim in any sense to possess the truth are thrown on the theological scrap heap. The dialectical blowtorch is applied to them all.[2]

Notice Van Til describes the whole Crisis program as one of protest. They have protested against liberalism, catholicism, and Reformed orthodoxy. But, according to Van Til, there is one thing that holds these three targets of protest together: the beati possidentes.[3] But what is the beati possidentes? It means literally “the blessed possessors.”[4] It refers to those systems of theology which believe that man has the capacity for receiving God’s revelation. So, for instance, for liberalism God reveals himself in man’s feelings of absolute dependence. In Reformed orthodoxy God can be known by man in and through his revelation in both creation and Scripture. But Barth rejects these systems because they all believe man has the capacity for receiving directly from God his own self-disclosure. For Van Til, the denial of direct revelation is what lies at the heart of the Crisis Theology. This denial will have a rippling effect throughout Barth’s theology. And that is what Van Til will unpack in the rest of the book. Now, immediately we need to ask: is Van Til wrong here? Is he wrong that Barth targets those three theological systems for their commitment to the beati possidentes? If he is wrong about that, then the rest of his critique should be called into question. But if Van Til is correct about this, then it seems to me he should at least get a further hearing. Certainly if Van Til got this right he cannot legitimately (with any level of intellectual honesty) be dismissed out of hand. Now, let’s wrap up with this. That Van Til got at least this one thing right should be easy enough to substantiate. It really is a non-controversial point, even among current Barth interpreters.[5] The idea that man has no capacity for revelation is a frequent claim in Barth’s famous Nein! to Brunner. Furthermore, take for instance Trevor Hart’s excellent way of describing Barth’s rejection of direct revelation in saying that revelation is not a “commodity” that can be “handed over” to man to make his own possession.[6] This is what Van Til means when he says that God’s revelation is always and only indirect in Barth’s theology. And that seems to be a fairly uncontroversial claim. And if we can agree that Van Til got that right, then we need to move on to further consider how Van Til understands Barth.

[1] It should be noted that Van Til takes aim at both Barth and Brunner in this volume.   [2] Van Til, The New Modernism: An Appraisal of the Theology of Barth and Brunner, 2. [3] This is language Van Til uses also in The New Synthesis (1975, pp. 8 and 11), which I document and briefly unpack in another Essential Van Til. [4] Van Til notes this in a footnote on this page. [5] I am familiar with Bruce McCormack’s “Afterword: Reflections on Van Til’s Critique of Barth” in Karl Barth and American Evangelicalism. However, I will reserve engaging with that piece for another time. [6]Trevor Hart, “Revelation,” in John Webster, ed.  The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: CUP, 2000), 45.

At long last we have come to the end of the beginning (see parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). We have reviewed Van Til’s opening salvo against Barth’s theology as it appeared in the form of a book review. This last part of Van Til’s critique is a kind of parting shot, and prognostication concerning the future of Barthianism. He takes his lead from another American reader of Barth:

Professor McGiffert of Chicago predicted last summer that Barthianism would not last because it was really a recrudescence of Calvinism. If we might venture a prediction it would be that Barthianism may last a long time because it is really Modernism, but that neither Barthianism nor Modernism will last in the end because they are not Calvinism, that is, consistent Christianity.

Van Til here predicts the “success” of Barthianism. However, Barthianism will last long not because it is good but precisely because it is not Calvinism. Barthianism is not a real break from Modernism. And while Van Til does not explicitly say why he believes that Modernism has “legs” to last a long time, we can venture a guess here. First, Modernism is a synonym for theological liberalism (we understand that Modernism has a much broader meaning outside of the field of theology). And Van Til understood the draw of liberalism. He understood why it gained such wide allegiance. It did so because it imbibed the zeitgeist of the 19th and early 20th century. A brief on liberalism is in order here. Liberalism was not at its heart a denial of orthodox doctrine – though it did do that. But liberalism, at its heart, was unbelief driven by fear. The fear was that Christianity would lose its place in the world, its hegemony over Western culture. How could Christianity withstand the tide of the waxing influence of modern philosophy, science and the cultured intelligentsia? It either had to make adjustments or die and lose its grip on the world which it enjoyed for over a millennium. Christian doctrine had to be adjusted to adhere to the standards and demands of modernity. In other words, it had to make itself acceptable to the times. Second, according to Van Til Barth did not break with this tradition. Rather, he channeled the spirit of Schleiermacher. He disagreed with his liberal forefathers in many respects. But he did not disagree with them that Christian doctrine had to be non-offensive to the age. He only disagreed with them on how to make Christian doctrine accede to the terms of modernity (particularly as modernity was changing in his day). He could not, for example, go back to liberalism’s commitment to the rejection of scholastic metaphysics. Kant has taught us too well. We cannot go back to the deus absconditus or the logos asarkos because that would mean resorting back to the metaphysics which funded those doctrines. No, in keeping with the times, we must focus not on static being but on dynamic notions like time and act. These sentiments are already in the air in neo-Kantianism, Hegel and Heidegger. Granted, while Barth did confess to doing some “Hegeling,” he is no Hegelian nor is he an existentialist (at least not his Church Dogmatics). But he strikes chords which resonate with his generation of youthful intellectuals who would never have supported the Kaiser. And it is for these reasons that Van Til predicted the “success” and long lasting influence of Barthianism. It too is making adjustments to Christianity to make it “fit in” and non-offensive to a modern (and then post-modern) people. It purports to solve the problems in the older liberal theology which could support a tyrannical war effort while at the same time refusing to return to the older orthodoxy. Barth gave a fresh voice to a new generation. Once again, and in a different way, he made Christianity palatable to the cultured despisers. But biblical Christianity, for Van Til, is not acceptable to the “natural man.” The natural man and the modern person seek a faith that won’t be mocked and that is “reasonable” (to our natural mind). True Christianity, as it comes to its most mature expression in the Reformed faith, is offensive to the natural and (post?) modern mind. But, it will at long last prevail because it is true and consistent Christianity. But until then the Reformed faith will be the Christianity of the despised and marginalized. Concurrently, all the new theologies that play to the whims of the times will preserve the shell of Christianity. But like Schleiermacher’s innovations the new will be shown to be inconsistent folly and at long last go the way of all flesh. And remaining will be God’s people who faithfully cling to his promises, not being overcome by the spirit of the ages which, like Ishmael toward Isaac, mock them. By grace they will not be overcome, for they will not fear Ishmael. Rather, they will fix their eyes on the self-attesting Christ of Scripture. And they will bear witness to him in love to their neighbors believing that this old story of Jesus and his love is sufficient to save today no less than in generations past.

Van Til now turns to Barth’s doctrine of creation.

Barth denies that creation as it came forth from the hand of God was good, and was to have a genuine significance. Instead, Barth’s doctrine resembles that of paganism which held that the spatial-temporal world was somehow existing independently of God and was evil in itself. Accordingly Barth has a very low conception of sin. Man is not really responsible for sin and is not really guilty inasmuch as sin or evil was already in the world. Hence Barth has a very low view of redemption. The whole of objective redemption is reduced to the prosaic level of setting the ideal of the eternal before man.

Van Til believes that Barth has a low view of both sin and redemption. Why is that? It flows from his view of creation. Reformed theology has held to the inherent goodness of creation. Creation is, according to the Reformed, made “from the hand of God” as unfallen and very good. This view stands over against the Roman view of Thomas who asserted that creation was made with an inherent defect called concupiscence. This is a natural drag inherent in creation in general, and humanity in particular, that pulls it “downward” toward non-being. God then gave the “super-added gift,” the donum superadditum, in order to keep humanity from “sliding” into sin and non-being.  Concupiscence is not sin itself, to be sure. But it is an undesirable tendency in creation, and as such negates the biblical witness that creation was made “very good.” The Reformed rejected this medieval move and affirmed the goodness and non-deficiency of the original creation. For Barth, however, creation is in itself fallen by virtue of that fact that it is not-God. Creation is deficient. What is more, it is against God. Van Til says that this resembles paganism. Perhaps what he has in mind is gnostic conceptions that regarded the physical world as being inherently deficient and even evil. Perhaps Van Til sees this as being part and parcel of the Aristotelian system picked up by medieval metaphysicians. Be that as it may, Barth denies that creation was made sinless and without corruption. He further denies that creation only subsequent to the act of creation fell in real-time history through an act of one man, Adam. To use the language of later criticisms of Barth, there is no transition from a state of grace to a state of sin (just as there is no transition from wrath to grace in Barth’s doctrine of redemption). If creation – inclusive of humanity – is inherently fallen, then we cannot be blamed for our sin and rebellion. This produces a low view of sin. Certainly it mitigates the culpability of sin to some extent (and to a full extent if carried to its logical conclusion). This, therefore, produces a low view of redemption. Redemption is not so much ethical as it is ontological. That is because sin is not so much ethical as it is ontological. Sin is me not being eternal. It is a condition in which I find myself, not one brought about by my own culpable rebellion. My rebellion flows from my fallen ontological condition, and not vice versa. Redemption then is me becoming eternalized in Jesus Christ who is the eternalized man in union with the eternal God. It is not a moment when I am transitioned from an estate of sin into a new estate of grace and glory. This mitigates the fully ethical and covenantal nature of the atonement, and that is what Van Til means when he says that Barth has a low view of redemption.

As we continue to unpack Van Til’s review of Zerbe’s book we come to the second part of the review, which concerns Barth’s epistemology. Van Til opens with an absurd claim, and then unpacks what he means:

[Barth] has no room for revelation. At first blush it would seem as though the very opposite were the case. He says that only in the eternal is true knowledge. He says that all knowledge comes by revelation. …. Karl Barth says that all knowledge for man as well as for God is based upon analysis of the eternal truths that exist apart from time. The ideal of knowledge for man as well as for God is complete comprehension. Knowledge is no knowledge unless it is completely comprehensive. … God and man are engaged in a common analysis of principles that exist independently of both.

It is statements like “Barth has no room for revelation” that tend to get Van Til into trouble! The statement, on the surface anyhow, seems ridiculous. But Van Til is quick to acknowledge that his statement can seem absurd. He notes that a surface read (“at first blush”) of Barth would prove the absurdity. After all Barth says that “all knowledge comes by revelation.” Now, there are two points that need to be made here. One of the points Van Til says here, the other he does not. First, Van Til understands that for Barth for a person to know something that person must know it comprehensively. I think Van Til is on solid ground here. Barth will often indicate that man cannot know God because man as limited and the finite cannot comprehend the infinite. God is eternal, we are temporal and therefore we cannot know the eternal. This is what Van Til means by “eternal truths.” Truth is eternal, and therefore in order for there to be true knowledge of those truths one must likewise be eternal. And here only God qualifies because only he is eternal. The trouble here is that truth, eternal truth, is an abstraction. It is a kind of tertium quid which is neither God nor man. Truth is independent of both. It is an object, quite distinct from both God and man. It is only potentially known by either God and man (i.e., “all knowledge for man as well as for God is based upon analysis of the eternal truths that exist apart from time”). And only God has the kind of mind that qualifies for knowing eternal truths comprehensively. Therefore, only God can know, man cannot. The upshot to all this is that if there is going to be revelation at all it must be something that takes place in eternity (i.e., transcendentally). It must be an act that takes place quite apart from and above us. This means, for Van Til, Barth has no room for revelation as it has been traditionally conceived. Barth has a doctrine of revelation to be sure, but according to Van Til it is not a biblical doctrine of revelation. Second, the way in which Barth solves this problem is through Jesus Christ. Van Til does not say this here, though he will articulate it in his later writings. Jesus Christ alone is revelation. Revelation is not, therefore, a thing that can be grasped. It is not words captured on a page nor man’s experience of absolute dependence. It is God making himself known in a divine act of grace in Jesus Christ. Christ is himself both sides – the divine and human – of revelation. This is an eternal act that takes place quite transcendently relative to us living in the hear and now. Only in Jesus Christ is God made known, to himself in Jesus Christ, comprehensively. The problem with this view, according to Van Til, is twofold. First, God and man are in similar epistemological positions. Both are subject to eternal truths. However, God has an advantage; a qualitatively greater advantage. He can know those truths because he is himself eternal. Man cannot, because he is not eternal. But still, God and man both have the same object of their knowledge – eternal truths. Nevertheless, God is relativized by these eternal truths which he himself must know. In this way, as Van Til will later note, the universe is therefore superior to God. Because eternal truths and God are co-existent the creator-creature distinction is eliminated. To be sure, Barth would never say that. But that is what Van Til believes it amounts to. Coordinated with this problem is the fact that man cannot know God (nor can he know eternal truths). If man cannot know comprehensively then he cannot know truly. And he cannot know eternal truths comprehensively, and therefore not truly. He also cannot know God truly because he cannot know God comprehensively. At the end of the day man must be skeptical about God, and with his skepticism about God he must be skeptical about all things. At the end of the day Barth is both a a rationalist (because God and man have the same source and object of knowledge – eternal truths) and an irrationalist (because man cannot know God, or anything eternal for that matter). And because of this, Barth has no room for revelation as revelation has been historically and biblically understood in Reformed theology.

When I first heard about Barth’s concept of the “wholly other” God, it sounded perfectly orthodox. Barth’s emphasis on the qualitative difference between God and man struck me as nothing but good Reformed theology. In addition, I had heard that Barth protested against the Liberal idea of identifying God’s being with man’s subjective experience. Surely Barth is a friend of Reformed theology! And that would be the case if that was all Barth said about the relation between God and man. However, it was not. Barth understood that he couldn’t stop there. He had the Christian sense to know that one cannot stop with the absolute qualitative difference between God and man. Had he stopped there there would be no hope in his theology. There would only be separation between God and man. He knew somehow that he had to bring God and man together, even if but dialectically. Liberalism did that through identifying God with man in man’s experience. Barth, however, would take the opposite position. He would reconcile God and man in God’s experience. We continue to unpack Van Til’s initial salvo against Barth, which is a 1931 Christianity Today book review. Van Til also was grateful for Barth’s “wholly other” God. However, he was not so sanguine about how Barth brings God and man together:

Barth has made God to be highly exalted above time. For this we would be sincerely grateful. Only thus is God seen to be qualitatively distinct from man. Only thus can we stand strong against Modernism. But Barth has also made man to be highly exalted above time. For this we are sincerely sorry. By doing this Barth has completely neutralized the exaltation of God. By doing this God is no longer qualitatively distinct from man. Modern theology holds that both God and man are temporal. Barth holds that both God and man are eternal. The results are identical.[1]

For Barth the fundamental problem and presupposition of all theology is ontological: God and man are qualitatively different and therefore separate. Reconciliation is therefore also ontological. God and man are reconciled only in the God-man. And the God-man is an eternal act of grace by which God and man are made one. There never was a time when the God-man was not. The God-man, Jesus Christ, is the resolution of the ontological problem by virtue of the gracious decree of God who wills our salvation in absolute freedom. This means that man, the man Jesus, is just as much a necessary aspect of the being of God as is his divine nature. Both the human and the divine share in the same transcendent time-event of God’s grace for us. So, as in liberalism God and man were identified in man’s feeling of absolute dependence, in Barth God and man are identified in the transcendent event of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. This eternal act of grace is what Barth calls “God’s time for us.” In this way, time (“eternal time”) and act replace “being” in the older Thomistic theology. In Thomas “being” was a kind of independent entity in which both the Creator and creature participate. God has being and man has being. But God’s being is infinite while man’s is finite. But in Barth “act” and “time” become the transcendent reality in which both God and man relate in the God-man, Jesus Christ. This means that God and man share in a common quality or entity, as in liberalism. The difference is that in liberalism the mutual participation is immanent whereas in Barth it is transcendent. But, according to Van Til, the same theological problems persist.

[1] Van Til, C., & Sigward, E. H. (1997). Reviews by Cornelius Van Til (Electronic ed.). Labels Army Company: New York.

In the last post we began to consider Van Til’s first published criticism of Barth. It was set in the context of a book review.[1] There we underscored Van Til’s criticism that Barth’s “theology is based upon an antitheistic theory of reality.” We noted that it was “antitheistic” because it was a “correlative theory of reality.” We said, in short, this means that God and man exist on the same, eternal, “plane” with one other in Jesus Christ. God’s identity, in some sense, depends on the creature. Van Til goes on in the review to unpack the implications of Barth’s “theory of reality:”

[Barth] even denies the real significance of the temporal world. The whole of history is to be condemned as worthless. The eternal is said to be everything and the temporal is said to be nothing. Does not this seem as though Barth holds to a genuine transcendence of God? Does it not seem as though transcendence means everything for Barth? It does seem so—but it is not truly so. Barth holds that “the only real history takes place in eternity.” If then man and the temporal universe in general are to have any significance at all they must be an aspect of God and as such be really as eternal as God. Anything to be real, says Barth, must transcend time. Man is real only in so far as he transcends time. We are true personalities only in so far as we are experiences of God. We are not to say with Descartes, I think therefore I am, or even with Hocking, I think God therefore I am, but we are to say, I am thought by God therefore I am. Abraham’s faith takes place in eternity. Resurrection means eternity. The entire epistle of Paul to the Romans is said to bring this one message that we must be eternalized. To be saved means to be conscious of one’s eternity.

Before unpacking this criticism, a few words of observation about it are in order:

1. Zerbe’s book and Van Til’s article are very early. Zerbe interacts with the German works of Barth, but his research only goes up to 1929 (co-authored volume Zur Lehre vom Heiligen Geist).
2. We know Van Til read Barth’s Church Dogmatics in German before it was translated into English. But it is impossible to tell from this review if Van Til is criticizing Barth in accordance with his own reading of Barth’s corpus up to 1931 or if his criticism is entirely or in part mediated by Zerbe’s reading. Given that the themes we see in Van Til here persist throughout his critical writings on Barth points us in the direction that Van Til was already conversant with the same early German writings Zerbe was working from.
3. This is not Van Til at his most nuanced. At first blush we may think that he is charging Barth with denying the reality of the temporal world. That is an understandable reaction, but on a more careful read Van Til is not leveling such a charge. We’ll discuss this more below, but when reading Van Til here we have to understand that he is speaking in generalities and is not as precise in his wording as he could have been (English being his second language and all).

OK, those qualifications having been stated, let’s unpack Van Til’s claims. That first sentence needs careful exegesis. What Van Til is critical of here is Barth’s denial of the “real” meaning of reality. He is not saying that Barth is denying reality, as if the world and the things around us do not actually exist. Here the word “significance” is important to get Van Til’s meaning. “Significance” for Van Til means “meaning” or “interpretation.” What he is saying, in short, is that Barth denies the real (read: divine) interpretation of reality. Yet more needs to be said. Whatever we want to say concerning Barth’s later theology, his earlier theology is most certainly characterized by the “crisis” that exists between eternity and time, or between God and man. Given this great divide our reality, history and present experience are cut off from God and his revelation. God and his revelation are of eternity, we are of time (and the twain shall not meet!). But, for Van Til, God only by his revelation can give to us the true (i.e., real) meaning (i.e., significance) of reality. And since God/eternity and man/time are qualitatively different without overlap or contact, there is no way for man to know the true interpretation of his experience. As Van Til goes on to note, the only way man/time can have any real God-given significance (i.e., meaning/interpretation) is for God to lift man/time up into his eternity, destroy its old fallen meaning and make it new (this process is called Aufhebung in German). And that God does in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is an eternal event of grace in which man/time is lifted up, destroyed and united to God. That does mean, as Van Til rightly notes (even if in a somewhat un-nuanced way), that time (and everything which is of the warp and woof of this present age) is but fallen, sinful and nothing. The only place where reality is something is in the real man, Jesus Christ who alone is the transcendent act of God’s grace for us. Everything else is fallen nothingness. Now, this is the position which I believe Barth holds for the rest of his life, whatever we may think of the qualifications he brings to it via a modern version of the analogia. Barth’s later theology would become much more orderly and systematic. But his early work forms a foundation which he will not reform in any significant way. So much more can and should be said about that. But for now, I hope I have brought a small measure of clarity to Van Til’s critique. My experience is that for those who actually have read Van Til on Barth have exercised very little patience in accurately and charitably understanding his main point. Granted, to get there one must wade through what is often time clunky English prose. The interpretation of Barth given by Van Til above, while coming with an admittedly negative tone, is far from being idiosyncratic or even particularly controversial (even among some of Barth’s most ardent supporters today).[2] I wonder if now isn’t a good time for both friends and critics of Barth to set aside personal emotions and take up Van Til afresh and give him another chance to help us reappraise the theology of Karl Barth.

[1] Review of The Karl Barth Theology: The New Transcendentalism, by Alvin S. Zerbe. Christianity Today 1/10 (Feb 1931): 13–14. The book reviewed is Alvin S. Zerbe, The Karl Barth Theology: The New Transcendentalism (Cleveland: Central Publishing House, 1930). [2] I recognize fully the need to unpack this claim and substantiate it more comprehensively. I aim to do just that in future posts.

It is often assumed that The New Modernism (1946) is Van Til’s first published writing in which he evaluates Barth’s thought. Actually Van Til first published about Barth in a Christianity Today book review in 1931.[1] That was just two years after the opening of Westminster Seminary, and five years before the founding of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. It is also the year before Barth published the first part of his Kirchliche Dogmatik. As such it is a very early insight into how Van Til was evaluating Barth’s theology, albeit through the eyes of the author of the book he was reviewing. Van Til does not delay in delivering punches. After one sentence commending the book he is reviewing he says, “Karl Barth’s theology is based upon an antitheistic theory of reality.” That is a position he will hold for the rest of his career as a critic of Barth’s theology. Now, to be sure, that does not sound very charitable. In fact, it sounds kind of harsh, even brash. But what drives Van Til to this conclusion? Is he just an ill-tempered man? Does he revel in criticism? Or, does he have a legitimate point in view? Let’s begin with taking a deep breath, and looking carefully at what Van Til is saying. First, notice that Van Til is not attacking the man here. He does not say Barth, himself, is antitheistic. Nor, interestingly enough, does he say that Barth’s theology, itself, is antitheistic (though he will come to that conclusion elsewhere). What he is saying is that Barth’s theology rests upon a foundational “theory of reality” that is itself antitheistic. But what is that “theory of reality?” Van Til’s next two sentences are: “Barth has made God and man to be correlatives of one another. Barth has no genuine transcendence theory.” What does it mean to say that God and man are “correlatives” of one another? It means what James Dolezal, for example, calls “theistic mutualism.”[2] In other words, for Barth God has no being or identity apart from the man Jesus Christ. This, in effect, eternalizes man. It makes humanity – in the man Jesus – of equal and ultimate origin with God (i.e., eternal). But if God and man are both eternal, there is an ontological interdependence between. This is what Van Til means by “correlatives.” It is this “correlative theory of reality” which stands at the basis of Barth’s theology, and which Van Til finds to be antitheistic. And it is antitheistic precisely here: a correlative relationship between God and man relativizes God, rendering God somehow dependent upon the creature. Such a god cannot, in any meaningful way, be said to be absolute sovereign Lord over the creature. Despite everything that Barth says about God’s lordship elsewhere, this view makes God and humanity (in the humanity of Christ) co-equal. Such a god cannot be omnipotent and self-sufficient, but must take his place in and among the creation. That makes such a god no different than the gods of mythology. And such a god is antithetical to true Christian theism. Now, more can be said about this article, and we’ll say more in the weeks to come. But it is important for us to at least get this down pat before moving on and trying to understand the rest of Van Til’s critique.

[1] Christianity Today 1/10 (Feb 1931): 13–14. The book reviewed is Alvin S. Zerbe, The Karl Barth Theology: The New Transcendentalism (Cleveland: Central Publishing House, 1930). [2] See his volume, All That is God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2017).

It is this conception of the ultimacy of time and of pure factuality on which modern philosophy, particularly since the days of Kant, has laid such great stress. And it is because of the general recognition of the ultimacy of chance that rationalism of the sort that Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz represented, is out of date. It has become customary to speak of post-Kantian philosophy as irrationalistic. It has been said that Kant limited reason so as to make room for faith. … In the first place the irrationalism of our day is the direct lineal descendent of the rationalism of previous days. The idea of pure chance has been inherent in every form of non-Christian thought in the past. It is the only logical alternative to the position of Christianity according to which the plan of God is back of all. (Christian Apologetics, 163-64).

It is often assumed that Kant provides a kind of Copernican revolution in the history of philosophy, overturning every Scholastic table that came before him. But Van Til does not see it that way. Kantian irrationalism is just another form of rationalism. Kant and Descartes are not enemies, but rather twins struggling in the womb of mother rationalism. So, how then is irrationalism actually rationalism? Before we answer that, we first need to say more about what Van Til means by irrationalism understood in the tradition of Kant.[1] Another phrase we can use for this tradition is “critical thought” (hereafter CT). CT begins with a basic dualism between the noumenal and phenomenal realms. The phenomenal realm is everything we can perceive with the senses. We can only know this realm through the categories of the mind. Therefore, there is a “contribution” that man makes to knowing objective reality. What he can know is only that which is phenomenal. The noumenal realm is, however, directly unknowable by man. It contains things which cannot be perceived – the things of faith (God, being, etc.). In his critique of pure reason Kant, as Van Til says above, limited reason to make room for faith. Man can reason only according to what he can know in the phenomenal realm. Faith then is for those things in the noumenal realm which cannot be known. It is with regard to the noumenal realm that Van Til speaks about irrationalism. Irrationalism does not mean that man does not use reason. Rather, irrationalism is the idea that there is a place (the noumenal realm) that reason cannot go. It is the realm of ineffable mystery. It is the realm of the unknown. The noumenal realm cannot be known, at least not directly.[2] This means that no source of ultimate authority can be accessed by us living in the here and now. The final arbiter of all truth is inaccessible to us. Now we can begin to see how irrationalism is really just rationalism. If there is no access to the transcendent realm, then there is no direct knowledge of God or his revelation. That means that man along with his reason is completely on his own. He can speak about facts without any reference to an ultimate and final authority. In this way man is autonomous and is able to interpret reality quite apart from or without reference to God. Irrationalism “boxes out” the noumenal realm where transcendent truth is found. This allows fallen man to interpret reality according to his own sinful reason. Van Til gives a great illustration of this situation which is worth quoting at length here:

In the second place modern irrationalism has not in the least encroached upon the domain of the intellect as the natural man thinks of it. Irrationalism has merely taken possession of that which the intellect, by its own admission, cannot in any case control. Irrationalism has a secret treaty with rationalism by which the former cedes to the latter so much of its territory as the latter can at any given time find the forces to control. Kant’s realm of the noumenal has, as it were, agreed to yield so much of its area to the phenomenal, as the intellect by its newest weapons can manage to keep in control. Moreover, by the same treaty irrationalism has promised to keep out of its own territory any form of authority that might be objectionable to the autonomous intellect. The very idea of pure factuality or chance is the best guarantee that no true authority, such as that of God as the Creator and Judge of men, will ever confront man. If we compare the realm of the phenomenal as it has been ordered by the autonomous intellect to a clearing in a large forest we may compare the realm of the noumenal to that part of the same forest which has not yet been laid under contribution by the intellect. The realm of mystery is on this basis simply the realm of that which is not yet known. And the service of irrationalism to rationalism may be compared to that of some bold huntsman in the woods who keeps all lions and tigers away from the clearing. This bold huntsman covers the whole of the infinitely extended forest ever keeping away all danger from the clearing. This irrationalistic Robin Hood is so much of a rationalist that he virtually makes a universal negative statement about what can happen in all future time. In the secret treaty spoken of he has assured the intellect of the autonomous man that the God of Christianity cannot possibly exist and that no man therefore need to fear the coming of a judgment. If the whole course of history is, at least in part, controlled by chance, then there is no danger that the autonomous man will ever meet with the claims of authority as the Protestant believes in it. For the notion of authority is but the expression of the idea that God by his counsel controls all things that happen in the course of history. (Christian Apologetics, 164-65).

In short, irrationalism (or pushing all forms of ultimately authority, i.e., God, into an unknowable realm) serves rationalism by pleading ignorance (“makes a universal negative statement “) about time. It knows nothing about the meaning of history (because it does not know God whose plan stands back of history) nor does it know what the future holds (because it knows no God and his plan back of the future). The true meaning and significance of time (whether past or future) is inaccessible to man. Therefore time (whether past or future) only has the meaning that autonomous man would assign to it. That is to give to man’s mind a quasi-divine status, thus breaking down the distinction between the Creator and creature. And that is the heart and soul of rationalism.

[1] Before we get to that, it is necessary to briefly acknowledge that the interpretation of Kant is quite variegated. I am no Kant scholar, and neither was Van Til. So, here I recognize that what I am about to say can legitimately be quibbled with by Kant scholars who would argue on the lines of a different school of interpretation. Our purpose here, however, is not to enter those debates but simply to explain what Van Til understood by modern thought after Kant. [2] The noumenal realm if it is to be known can be known only indirectly. That is, by way of deduction from what can be known.

Last week we talked about Barth’s “absolutely other” god. There we noted how Barth begins with an unknown and unknowable god. In other words, he begins with the god of modernism. But, as we also noted, he does not stop there. For Barth God makes himself known, and he does so through revelation. Revelation is found neither in “the things that have been made” nor in Scripture. Rather, revelation is act of God in Jesus Christ alone. Jesus Christ is himself the only revelation of God. And in Jesus Christ God is wholly revealed. Herein lies Barth’s dialectical method. God is at once both absolutely other and wholly revealed. Van Til notes:

On the other hand when the god of Barth does reveal himself he reveals himself wholly. For Barth God is exhaustively known if he is known at all. That is to say to the extent that this god is known he is nothing distinct from the principles that are operative in the universe. He is then wholly identical with man and his world. It appears then that when the god of Barth is wholly mysterious and as such should manifest himself by revelation only, he remains wholly mysterious and does not reveal himself. On the other hand when this god does reveal himself his revelation is identical with what man can know apart from such a revelation. (Christian Apologetics, 171)

In short, if God reveals himself wholly, then what man knows is not God but only “man and his world.” A God who is wholly given over and identified with creation cannot be known. He is as much hidden in his revelation as he is as “absolutely other.” Some more clarification is in order. Van Til here leaves some important things unsaid which would illuminate his point had he included them here (he does, however, makes these points elsewhere). First, for Barth God’s revelation only takes place in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not a medium of revelation – he is revelation. In Christ God is at the same time wholly revealed and wholly concealed. Jesus Christ is the dialectical relation between God’s act of veiling and unveiling. He is both simultaneously. Second, Barth is known for having said “God is Jesus Christ.” That is quite different, note, then saying “Jesus Christ is God.” In the former expression Barth is identifying God with Jesus Christ such that the incarnation becomes a dialectical relation between God and man – which is quite different than traditional Chalcedonian Christology. In Barth’s theology God then is wholly identified with Jesus Christ. In orthodox Christianity we would say the finite (humanity of Christ) cannot contain the infinite (divine nature). But for Barth God exhaustively reveals himself – in fact, gives himself over – in and by the God-man Jesus Christ. Third, if God’s revelation of himself is found only in Jesus Christ and not in nature and not in Scripture, that leaves man with a knowledge that is disconnected from revelation. And knowledge which is disconnected from revelation is, according to Van Til, autonomous and therefore rebellious knowledge – and thus no true knowledge at all. At the end of the day we are left with pure skepticism.

It is often said that Barth believed in a god who was “wholly other.” It’s an oft repeated phrase, but rarely understood. Van Til would say “absolutely other.” By that Van Til understood a modern conception of God. It was a modern assumption that if God exists he must exist quite separate and distinct from us. Van Til observes:

Sad to say, however, the “absolutely other” God of Barth is absolutely other only in the way that a sky-rocket is “absolutely other” to the mind of the child. Barth’s god has first been cast up into the heights by the projective activity of the would-be autonomous man. In all his thinking Barth is, in spite of his efforts to escape it, still controlled by some form of modern critical philosophy. And this means that the mind of man is always thought of as contributing something ultimate to all the information it has and receives. Accordingly the “absolutely other” god of Barth remains absolute just so long as he is absolutely unknown. In that case he is identical with the realm of mystery which the autonomous man admits of as existing beyond the reach of its thought. It then has no more content and significance than the vaguest conception of something indeterminate. There is no more meaning in the idea of God as Barth holds it than there was in the idea of the apeiron, the indefinite, of Anaximander the Greek philosopher. (Christian Apologetics, 170).

At first blush this may just look like Van Til’s own creator-creature distinction. But it is not. Why not? Simply put, while Barth begins with the qualitative difference between man and God, Van Til begins with the self-contained ontological Trinity. Barth begins with an unknown deity, Van Til begins with and presupposes the Triune God of Scripture. In other words, for Van Til there is never any place or any time that God is unknown. The Triune God of Scripture always and everywhere makes himself known in the things that have been made (Psalm 19; Romans 1). In summary, Barth begins with a god that is the product of the would-be autonomous modern man. To be sure Barth will speak about God making himself known in revelation. We will discuss that next week as we look at the paragraph following the one cited above. But suffice it to say for now, having begun with modern/critical assumptions about the unknowability of God is there any hope that Barth can produce anything other than a modern/critical understanding of the knowability of God in revelation? Barth will try to give a Christian answer on the basis of dialectical reasoning. But, as Van Til will go on to show, Barth fails to escape the web of modern criticism, which is a web of his own making.

In chapter 3 of Christian Apologetics Van Til addresses the issue of the “point of contact” (Anknüpfungspunkt). That is to say, the point at which the believer may make contact with the unbeliever in the task of defending the faith. Is there a place of agreement between believer and unbeliever from which the apologetic endeavor may begin?

In this chapter Van Til offers an acute criticism of Old Princeton on this issue. He likens the Old Princeton understanding of reason, and the mode of apologetics that flows from it, to Rome and Arminianism. He makes this connection under the sub-heading “Less Consistent Calvinism” (pp. 101ff).

It may help here to underscore what Van Til is not saying in this section. He is not attacking Hodge’s or Warfield’s (hereafter: H&W) theology or their epistemology, as such. This is evident in part by a section (pp. 94–97) in which he offers quote after quote from Hodge on his doctrine of the incapacity of the natural man to know God. He also offers a quote from Warfield to the same effect (pp. 101-102). To be clear, Van Til is not saying that H&W hold to an Arminian theology. Rather, what he is doing is pointing up an inconsistency between the Old Princeton theology (which he praises) and the Old Princeton apologetic (which he criticizes as being Arminian). In short, the criticism concerns what he perceives to be an inconsistency and incongruity between their theology and apologetic.

To narrow the focus of the criticism, the reason why Van Til charges H&W’s apologetic with Arminianism is because of how they relate reason to revelation. After a section where he praises H&W for their very Calvinian doctrine of man’s knowledge of God, Van Til turns to critique: “It would seem that we have dropped from this high plane to the level of evangelicalism when Hodge speaks of the office of reason in matters of religion” (p. 102). In other words, Hodge presents us with a way of relating reason to revelation that is more consistent with an Arminian view than a Calvinistic one. He goes on to explain:

First [Hodge] shows that reason is necessary as a tool for the reception of revelation. About this point there can be little cause for dispute. “Revelations cannot be made to brutes or to idiots.” Second, Hodge argues that “Reason must judge of the credibility of a revelation.” . . . Third, Hodge continues, “Reason must judge of the evidences of a revelation.” As “faith involves assent, and assent is conviction produced by evidence, it follows that faith without evidence is either irrational or impossible.” (pp. 102-103)

Van Til does not disagree with all that Hodge says here (evidenced in his comment in the first point). But Van Til does take exception to the idea of reason being a judge of revelation’s credibility and evidences. Therefore, the believer may not assume reason’s competency to judge revelation:

But the unbeliever does not accept the doctrine of his creation in the image of God. It is therefore impossible to appeal to the intellectual and moral nature of men, as men themselves interpret this nature, and say that it must judge of the credibility and evidence of revelation. For if this is done, we are virtually telling the natural man to accept just so much and no more of Christianity as, with his perverted concept of human nature, he cares to accept. (pp. 103-104)

Van Til’s point is simple: because the unbeliever does not accept the fact that he is created in the image of God, he is in no position to rightly interpret the evidence of revelation. What is worse, we are allowing the unbeliever to be the final judge over revelation, which means he will accept only what he wants to accept – and nothing more. If we allow him to use his own fallen reason the unbeliever “will certainly assume the position of judge with respect to the credibility and evidence of revelation, but he will also certainly find the Christian religion incredible because impossible and the evidence for it always inadequate” (p. 104).

Now, this is where it gets interesting. Van Til actually concedes that H&W believe this:

Hodge’s own teaching on the blindness and hardness of the natural man corroborates this fact. To attribute to the natural man the right to judge by means of his reason of what is possible or impossible, or to judge by means of his moral nature of what is good or evil, is virtually to deny the “particularism” which, as Hodge no less than Warfield, believes to be the very hall-mark of a truly biblical theology. (ibid.)

So, where is the rub? It is precisely here:

The main difficulty with the position of Hodge on this matter of the point of contact, then, is that it does not clearly distinguish between the original and the fallen nature of man. Basically, of course, it is Hodge’s intention to appeal to the original nature of man as it came forth from the hands of its creator. But he frequently argues as though that original nature can still be found as active in the “common consciousness” of men. (p. 105)

And then finally:

Now it is quite in accord with the genius of Hodge’s theology to appeal to the “old man” in the sinner and altogether out of accord with his theology to appeal to the “new man” in the sinner as though he would form a basically proper judgment on any question. Yet Hodge has failed to distinguish clearly between these two. Accordingly he does not clearly distinguish the Reformed from the evangelical and Roman Catholic views of the point of contact. (pp. 105-106)

In summary, Van Til is not lambasting the Old Princeton theology here. He is not even lambasting the Old Princeton epistemology. What he is critical of, however, is how H&W’s inconsistency in their apologetic approach and the question of a point of contact. On the theoretical level H&W are spot on about man’s fallen nature and the need for regeneration and special revelation to properly interpret all things. But, they fall to inconsistency in that they fail to apply their doctrine of man and sin appropriately to the post-fall use of reason. In short, the apologete cannot assume a “common consciousness” between believer and unbeliever.

H&W’s theology was so faithfully Calvinistic that we should be baffled over why they switch to an Arminian apologetic. At the same time, however, we should not think that Van Til is calling H&W Arminian. He is not. He is not even saying that they contained within their thinking a mixture of Calvinism and Arminianism. Van Til’s critique is not of their theology, nor of their epistemology (see my past post “No Critic of Old Princeton?”). The criticism is exclusively on the level of application; that is, the failure to consistently apply their (good) theology to their (inconsistent) apologetic.

Both Van Til and Barth rejected all forms of bare theism. That is, they denied a generic view of God. Both believed this “god” was an idol. This is the god of human autonomy and philosophy. It comes from an apologetic approach which seeks to first prove or show that there is “a god” before it seeks to prove that this god is in fact the Triune God of Christianity. The blame for this approach may, arguably, be placed at the feet of Thomas Aquinas who first seeks to prove “an unmoved mover” on the ground of reason before he moves to talk about the Trinity from divine revelation. The impression left is that there is validity to speaking about God in any other way than the Triune God of Scripture. Van Til says this about that idea:

It is accordingly no easier for sinners to accept God’s revelation in nature than to accept God’s revelation in Scripture. They are no more ready of themselves to do the one than to do the other. From the point of view of the sinner, theism is as objectionable as is Christianity. Theism that is worthy of the name is Christian theism. Christ said that no man can come to the Father but by him. No one can become a theist unless he becomes a Christian. Any god that is not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not God but an idol. (Christian Apologetics, 79)

For Van Til the God of creation is the Triune God. The God of the Old Testament is also the Triune God. That unbelievers or the saints of the Old Testament do not articulate a Nicean doctrine of the Trinity does not mean that God is anything else or anything other than Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the one God who is at the same time three persons. The God who reveals himself in both nature and Scripture is the one Triune God. Van Til and Barth share a common anti-Scholasticism at this point. But, unfortunately, here the commonality ends. As we mentioned in an earlier post, Barth’s ontological starting part is actualism. That is, things are understand properly only by way of their acts and relations. So, for instance, there is no eternal Logos (i.e., the Word of John 1:1) who stands behind or apart from Jesus Christ as the Logos come in human flesh. So when he says the only God who is is the Christian God he is not affirming what Van Til is affirming. For Van Til the Triune God has always existed, even quite prior to and independent of the incarnation. What is more, the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – existed eternally and happily even prior to and independent of his decision to create and redeem by becoming the God-man in Jesus Christ. But for Barth the Triune God is who he is precisely because and only insomuch as he is the God who from all eternity has acted by way of a sovereign and free decision to become Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in and by Jesus Christ. To put it in very simple terms, for Barth God is dependent on creation (even the humanity of the incarnate Logos) to be (more accurately: to eternally become) a Trinity.[1] However, for Van Til the God of the Scriptures is “the self-contained ontological Trinity.” (see, for example, Christian Apologetics, p. 97). In other words, for Barth God’s act of grace toward his creatures in Christ becomes the constituting event which renders God as Trinity. For Van Til God does not need to be constituted as Trinity, for he is always and everywhere Trinity, and as Trinity the sovereign Lord over creation. Unfortunately, the logical conclusion to Barth’s approach is that creation is sovereign over his god. And that god is no Christian God. But for Van Til the Triune God is the Christian God—and the only God—precisely because he is not dependent on creation for his being or identity. If there never was a fall, there would be no incarnation. And still God would be Trinity. Perhaps the irony is that, according to Van Til, the Triune God does not need the incarnate Christ in order to be the Christian God. To say otherwise is to make God dependent on the creature. And a dependent God can in no way be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[1] I understand that whether or not, or to what extent, God’s act of electing grace in Christ constitutes his being as Triune is hotly debated among Barth scholars. I do not intend to engage that discussion here. I make this statement without prejudice to the current debate. I am simply speaking from within the context of how Van Til himself reads Barth.

Now we begin to make a definite turn toward Barth in Van Til’s writing. Thus far this blog series has been a smattering of topics arising from my rereading of Van Til. But the purpose of my research is to get to the heart of Van Til’s critique of Karl Barth. Did Van Til have a legitimate beef with the Swiss theologian, or was it all much ado about nothing? Before we get into some detail about Van Til’s critique of Barth it may be helpful to spend a blog post here talking about his method. How does Van Til approach Barth as he seeks to understand, analyze and criticize his thought? Van Til’s critique is unique among all critics of Barth’s theology. Most critics take issue with this doctrine or that doctrine. Evangelicals debated whether or not Barth affirms a historical resurrection. Others draw the line at his denial of inerrancy. Berkouwer was critical of the fact that Barth’s soteriology functionally denies a real transition of sinners from wrath to grace. Whatever you may think of these criticism, and Van Til was in agreement with them, they were only surface attacks. For Van Til his deepest concerns about Barth were not over this doctrine or that doctrine, but over his system as a whole. To attack Barth at the level of specific doctrinal formulations is to go after the symptoms, not the disease itself. Van Til wanted to go after the disease and get to its source. This is not only how Van Til approached Barth, but all forms of unbelief. He asked the question: what are the fundamental preconditions standing behind a system of thought which lead to its conclusions? Such a method seeks to also show that, given those pre-conditions, the system under review leads to irreconcilable contradictions which eventually destroy the system as a whole. The identity of those preconditions and drawing them out “by good and necessary consequence” to their logical conclusion is what we mean when by “transcendental critique.” Because of its Kantian baggage the term has its limitations. But those limitations can be easily lifted if we gut the lingo of its Kantian background and instill it with biblical and Reformed content. We will look at examples of how Van Til applies his transcendental critique to Barth in future posts. But for now I would like to briefly address a common critique of Van Til’s reading and analysis of Barth’s theology. It is often said that Van Til draws conclusions about Barth’s theology which Barth himself expressly denies. A quick example, an example we will be unable to unpack here, is the idea of God’s antecedent being. In short, antecedence means God’s self-contained being which stands back of his actions in creation and time. Van Til said that Barth’s system denies an antecedent God who stands back of creation and his acts in it. Barth, however, speaks very clearly about God’s antecedence. So, is Van Til being uncharitable toward Barth, imposing a belief on him that he did not hold to? Another example would be the charge of universalism. Barth expressly denies that he affirms universalism. Van Til, nevertheless, charges him with it. Is this an unfair critique? Van Til’s transcendental method helps to explain why he persists in pressing his charges even though he knows full well Barth’s denials. For Van Til, despite Barth’s affirmations to the contrary, he cannot possibly hold to that affirmation given his ontological presuppositions. Barth believes in the qualitative difference between God and the creature, very much in a modern kind of way. That means that the only way one can speak about God’s interface with creation is through act. Therefore, God is known to be who he is only in and by his act of grace in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ himself, for Barth, gives God the “form” he has. There is, therefore, no God back of Jesus Christ who is not himself identified with Jesus Christ. It is a clear and easy process of reasoning to conclude that there is no antecedent being of God in any commonly understood sense of the word. Van Til’s method points up something very important for us to understand about reading theologians. We must not read them in a strict, literalistic way. We know how dangerous that approach to reading the Bible can be. The Westminster divines were wise when they spoke about things expressly stated in the Scripture and that which can be deduced “by good and necessary consequence” (WCF 1.6). That’s a great principle of interpretation, not just for the Bible but also for reading theologians. Van Til refused to read Barth simplistically. He dug down deep into his system, to the roots of his thought. And he was able to consistently trace out the threads of Barth’s thinking to their logical conclusions. Barth doesn’t get to just deny those conclusions and walk away. He is obligated to either admit there is an inconsistency in his system, or go back and revise his pre-theoretical commitments. Barth did neither, and that is why Van Til’s critique must still be pressed today.

Van Til used the word “scholasticism” (or its other variations) as shorthand for Thomistic dualism (and with it the medieval synthesis of Christian and pagan thought). In short Thomistic dualism is the idea that there are two sources of knowledge: reason and revelation. Knowledge that comes from reason can be gained by man on reason’s own terms, quite independent of revelation. I am aware that this understanding of Thomas is disputed. But that dispute need not distract us here. However, for our purposes, when Van Til criticizes “scholasticism” he is attacking Thomistic epistemology, as he understands it. So, for example:

But the essentially scholastic or Romanist procedure on the matter of the application of some abstract system of logic to the facts of experience is followed even by some Reformed theologians. This is done particularly in the field of apologetics. We therefore touch on the matter very briefly here. (Introduction to Systematic Theology, 301) Perhaps we can clarify this whole matter by contrasting the scholastic procedure, with respect to finding knowledge of God, to that which we have here advocated as being the consistently Christian procedure. To do this, we may conveniently turn to the work of a modern Catholic philosopher. We take the work of P. Coffey on Ontology, in order to see what he says with respect to the being-of God. We quote a portion of his chapter, “Being and Its Primary Determinations.” (ibid, 328) Scholastic theology indulged its speculative tendency when it spoke of a lumen gloriae by which man is supposed to be lifted out of his creatural limitations in the life hereafter in order that he may have a large measure of insight into the very being of God. (ibid, 370)

These are just three examples from one text of Van Til’s writings, but they are fairly representative. This means that Van Til was not against or critical of “scholasticism” as such. Scholasticism, rightly demonstrated by the Muller school, is primarily a method of organizing and presenting content. It need not necessarily carry with it particular content. So for example Thomas was a scholastic in that he organized his material in a systematic way and in a way that was intended to instruct and convince. Francis Turretin was a scholastic in this same way. Yet no one in their right mind would ever confuse Turretin for Thomas in terms of context. Turretin and Thomas both used a scholastic method, but their theology couldn’t be more different. What Van Til goes after are medieval theological systems which compromise Christianity with pagan thought. He does not go after “scholasticism” as such, much less Reformed scholasticism. For him to have done so would have been to bite the hand that feeds him. After all, no one influenced Van Til’s theology more than Vos and Bavinck. And Vos and Bavinck were very dependent upon Reformed scholasticism for their theological insights. They generally do not adopt the scholastic method, but they do adopt Reformed scholastic theological content. We may speak similarly about Old Princeton. Old Princeton feasted upon the meat of Francis Turretin’s great systematic theology Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Van Til received that theology from his professors at Princeton. As we have noted in a previous post Van Til disagreed with his professors’ apologetic, but not their theology. He believed that their apologetic was too influenced by a synthesis with modern thought which was reminiscent of Thomas’s synthesis with Aristotle. It is that synthesis which he often dubs “scholastic.” But it must be made clear that Van Til in no way rejected, but rather upheld, Reformed scholasticism (also called Reformed orthodoxy). Van Til often criticized other systems of thought over against Reformed scholasticism/Reformed orthodoxy. Reformed orthodoxy stood with Calvin’s thought over against Rome and Barthianism, so he can say: “There is less appreciation for Barth’s Christ as act in Calvin and in Reformed orthodoxy than there is in Romanism” (Christianity & Barthianism, 89). This is just one example among others. But the idea is finally and ultimately established by how Van Til uses the expression “Reformed orthodoxy” in his criticisms of Karl Barth. Where he quotes Barth and polemicizes against him (see for example footnote 25 in A Christian Theory of Knowledge, pp. 363-365) Barth uses the language of Reformed orthodoxy and Reformed scholasticism interchangeably to describe the same theological phenomenon, namely Reformed theology in the 17th century. It is the Reformed scholasticism of the 17th century that Barth attacks and which Van Til defends. Again, Van Til is not concerned to defend Reformed scholasticism’s method (Van Til himself did not use this method), but rather Reformed scholasticism’s theological content. What is the upshot of all this? Van Til should not be used by us today to reject “scholasticism” as such and with a sweeping wave of the hand. Nor should we blame Van Til for today’s depreciation of scholasticism. And what is more, perhaps, we should not think that “Calvin and the Calvinists” appropriated pagan sources the same way medieval scholastics did. Van Til was very critical of how the medievals synthesized Christianity and pagan thought, but did not see the same kind (or the same level) of synthesis among Calvin and Reformed orthodoxy. Van Til, after all, is dependent (albeit mediated by others) upon the theology of Reformed scholasticism, even as he is critical of medieval forms of scholasticism.

This post is a kind of follow-on from a previous post about “as-suchness.” In The New Synthesis Van Til writes:

Paul does not discuss questions of “fact” and views of “logic” as such. For Paul, there are no facts as such and there is no logic as such. Paul does not ask the Greeks to consider whether the facts might not be considered as probably or even possibly pointing toward the teleology of Scripture rather than to a teleology such as Plato and Aristotle offer. In effect, Paul asserts on the authority of Christ that no facts of the space-time world can exist and no logic can function except on the presupposition that whatever things the triune God of Scripture says are true.

Classical modes of defending the faith, in general, seek to prove the faith on the basis of some (as it is supposed) given standard of truth which is agreeable to both believer and unbeliever. Classical Apologists (hereafter, CA) say, “what does the unbeliever demand in order to believe? Whatever it is, I will give it to him.” So, some unbelievers demand “evidence” for the belief in God’s existence. They want “just facts” and no spin. CA are happy to oblige. Now, before we are critical of the CA, we have to acknowledge the good in their thinking. They believe that Christianity should be able to be defended by logic, facts, evidence, or history because the Christian’s God is the God of logic, history, evidence, and history. Christianity is a historical faith. It is based on facts. So, what is wrong with making a logical, historical, or evidential argument for the faith? Van Til is not opposed to logic, evidence or history. Nor is he opposed to using such in the service of defending the faith. What he opposes, however, is thinking that facts, logic, etc. are things which exist “out there,” brute facts that both believer and unbeliever can use together to evaluate truth claims about Christianity. But, for Van Til, to do that is to surrender the debate to the unbeliever at the outset. This mode of thinking makes facts, logic, etc. into abstractions. And Paul, says Van Til, does not argue from abstractions. The Bible knows nothing of “facts” which are independent of God and the meaning he gives them in his Word. But for CA abstractions become something akin to Platonic ideals which rule all of reality – from God to rocks. Furthermore, abstractions presuppose that both believer and unbeliever interpret them the same way. But they don’t. The unbeliever presupposes the Lordship of logic, facts, etc. over even God himself. The Christian, however, presupposes that God is the Lord over all things. And so the failure of the classical mode is at once apparent. CA adopt the presuppositions of the unbeliever – i.e., that logic, facts, etc. are interpreted the same way between believer and unbeliever. CA start with an unbelieving philosophy of fact, which allows the unbeliever to place God in the dock, imposing abstract notions of facts, logic, etc. upon God. But God is not the kind of person that can be placed in the dock. God is judge and jury. He is the arbiter. Therefore, we must begin with the triune God. Without the self-attesting Christ of Scripture there is no logic, fact, etc. The Christian must challenge the unbeliever’s philosophy of fact, not grant it to him. And it is precisely here – at this compromise – that CA find their failure.

There is still a great deal of confusion out there concerning the difference between orthodox Reformed theology and the theology of Karl Barth. Are they not the same? Is Barth not just advancing the ground work established by the Reformed branch of the Reformation? For Van Til the answer is a clear and resounding “no.” In fact, far from advancing the cause of the Reformed faith Karl Barth militates against it at every turn. The history of Barth critics among evangelicals and Reformed has shown that there is still very little clarity on why Reformed Theology and Barthian Theology are contrary to one another. It is an oft repeated opinion that Barth is not orthodox. But when asked “why not?” very few have a good answer. I hope to give a good answer here, with the help of Van Til. Allow me to quote two passages from The New Synthesis.  I will simply cite them here, and then unpack them on the other side:

However, Barth did all this not because he had any intention of restoring orthodoxy to the theology of the “blessed possessors” (beati possidentes). On the contrary, his “nein” to Brunner came about because, together with Romanists and Protestant consciousness theologians, Brunner had not completely cleansed his thinking of the left-overs of orthodoxy. Orthodoxy, and not merely that of the period’s Protestantism, but orthodoxy so far as it holds to the direct revelation of God in nature and in history, has been from beginning to end, Barth’s bete noir. He even observed remnants of a theology of possession in his own earliest major work, Romans, as also in the second one, Dogmatik 1(1927). Thus, when he opposed Brunner he was also, in effect, opposing his earlier works, in attempting to be self-critical in his criticism of others. Finally, Barth found himself in his book on Anselm and then, in 1932, commenced writing his Kirchliche Dogmatik on the principle of the Christ-Event alone. You have, he argued therein, a lie instead of the truth if you say as much as a single word about a God in himself. We know nothing about God unless this God be wholly revealed in and therefore wholly identical with Christ. And you also have a lie, instead of the truth, if you say as much as a single word about a man in himself. Historic as well as liberal Protestantism were thus guilty of speaking such lies. There is, to be sure, an absolute identification of God and man in Christ, but it is indirect. Jesus is God and the Bible is the Word of God but the “is” is, in both cases one of act not substance.

The first expression which helps us to understand Barth is “a theology of possession.” He rejects this kind of theology. For Barth, all classical modes of theology – including that found within liberalism – have the idea that the creature can possess or contain the Creator. In Thomas God was contained in the creation, whether in “being” or in the Mass. In Schleiermacher God was found in man’s feeling of absolute dependence. These are “theologies of possession” – theologies in which God reveals himself in, with, by and through the created order. Second, note the last sentence in the second quote, “one of act not substance.” In short, Barth’s theology is “actualistic.” God relates to the world only indirectly. He relates to the world only in and by a divine act. This act takes place not in, by, with or through the created order. Otherwise we would then have a “theology of possession.” Rather, God acts in, with, by and through God himself. God’s free act of grace is a transcendent event. It does not touch our world, but ever remains wholly other relative to it. So much more can and needs to be said about Barth’s theology. But this is it at its heart. Barth has an actualistic understanding of ontology. In theology we can only speak of God’s transcendent acts, but never his real entering into the created order. Contrary to this Reformed theology says that God – without losing any of his attributes, or without divinizing any part of the created order – condescends to his creation so that he is truly present in, with, by and through his ordained means. In this way, orthodox Reformed theology can truly say, without blushing, that the Bible is the Word of God. It is the Word of God come in a servant form. For Barth, revelation only takes place in a transcendent act of revelation in Jesus Christ. Therefore, the Bible cannot be said to be the revelation, even though it can be said to be the Word of God. But, as Van Til points out, it is the Word of God only in an actualistic sense. God reveals himself, but only indirectly (i.e., to and by himself, never to or by his creature). While Reformed ontology differs greatly from that of Thomas and Schleiermacher, it also differs greatly from Barth. Like the former, Reformed theology begins with a “substance” ontology – albeit it of a very different sort. And that is precisely where Reformed theology and Barth part ways, and it is at the very foundation of theology. Reformed theology cannot be maintained on the basis of an actualistic ontology. Therefore, Barth’s “Reformedness” can only be nominal. In summary, what is the difference between Barth’s theology and Reformed Theology? It is the difference between actualistic ontology and Reformed substance ontology. From Barth’s ontology comes the idea that God’s revelation is only and always indirect, and never given directly to us in nature or the Bible. Everything else gets unpacked from there.

The triumph of the eternal decree of God over history is just as much a problem as the triumph of history over the eternal decree. In an attempt to stave off Arminianism (a commendable task!) deniers of common grace have reasoned that God could in no way have any favor toward the reprobate. To say that God favors the reprobate is to introduce a contradiction between the eternal will of God and his works in history. God would be “two-faced.” He would will one thing, but then do another. Therefore, God is not gracious toward the reprobate nor does God genuinely desire for the reprobate to believe the Gospel and be saved. In this mode of theology, consideration of the eternal decree trumps how we are to understand God’s works in history. One of the prominent proponents of this position was Herman Hoeksema. Van Til has much to say against his denial of common grace, but central to his critique is the following:

Hoeksema never answered adequately the charge that on his view the elect can never in any sense have been under the wrath of God and Christ need not have died for them in history. Hoeksema took no note. (Common Grace and the Gospel, 251).

Van Til’s point is that if we identify God’s attitude toward man in time with God’s predestination then we can never speak about the elect as ever having been under divine wrath. Hoeksema’s unqualified supralapsarianism has its center in the proposition that what happens last in the order of history comes first in the order of the eternal decree.[1] This means that God chose the elect and the reprobate quite prior to his decree to create or ordain the fall. Each person’s eternal destination is determined apart from all the means that lead there onto. The means are swallowed up in and by the end. This means that the reprobate cannot have any favor with God. But – and this is Van Til’s point – the elect can never be said to ever have been under God’s wrath. In other words, the person who becomes a Christian later in life can in no meaningful way be said to have transitioned from being under God’s wrath to being under his grace. On the terms of Hoeksema’s supralapsarianism, the elect person was always under God’s favor, even as an unbeliever. This also means that when Adam fell there was no real transition from being in an estate of favor to an estate of wrath. What about the reprobate who were “in Adam” before the fall? Can we say, biblically, that the reprobate in Adam before the fall were under God’s wrath despite the fact that humanity was still innocent? Furthermore, when Christ came to die on the cross we cannot say that – relative to the elect – there was any real transition from an estate of wrath to an estate of grace. In fact, on Hoeksema’s presuppositions, there really was no need for Christ to come and atone for sins at all. Election is ultimate, and the elect were chosen quite irrespective of God’s decree to redeem in Christ. Christ and his work become somewhat of an unnecessary afterthought. And so what Hoeksema ends up doing is making history somewhat of a farce. Historical dynamics are not real manifestations of moving from grace to wrath or wrath to grace. God does not have any real interaction with even his elect. His elect can never be under his wrath before their conversion, nor can they come under God’s Fatherly displeasure after their conversion. Likewise, the reprobate can never experience the true and genuine favor of God, nor ever hear a true and sincere call to repent and be saved. God does not really desire the repentance of the wicked. So, how then are we to understand the relation between historical transitions and God’s eternal decree? Van Til proposes a Christian idea of “limiting concepts.” Limiting concepts, understood Christianly, has its basis in a Christian idea of mystery. In other words, there are things we simply do not know. In revelation, we are given knowledge of certain things, but not all things. God and his decree remain always incomprehensible to us. And where God’s revelation ends, there we must be content with mystery. God does reveal to us that he elects some unto eternal life and some unto eternal reprobation. God does reveal to us that he really and genuinely interacts with history, and that there are real transitions of covenant status among men. Now, how exactly those two truths relate is a mystery. But each (God’s eternal decree and real transitions in history) are truths God gives to limit our thinking from going to one extreme or the other. Unfortunately Hoeksema did not have his thinking limited by the truth of real transitions in history, and therefore fell into a form of rationalism by prejudicing God’s decree at the expense of history. Arminianism also falls into rationalism, by prejudicing history at the expense of God’s sovereign decree. Both have tried to pierce into mystery, and therefore they have surrendered one limiting concept for the sake of the other. And this is why Bavinck is absolutely correct when he says that mystery is the lifeblood of all true theology. Forsake mystery – and its correlate, “limiting concepts” – and rationalism is the inevitable result.

[1] See Herman Hoeksema, The Heidelberg Catechism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), 6:148; cf. Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, 241.

It is often assumed that Karl Barth’s thought is the antithesis of medieval scholasticism. It is true that Barth is exceedingly critical of Aquinas. But does Barth offer us a better theological program than that offered in Scholasticism? Van Til answers that question with a resounding no. For instance, in Common Grace and the Gospel Van Til says:

In the first place it means that we cannot join Karl Barth in reducing God as He is in Himself to a relation that He sustains to His people in the world. Barth virtually seeks to meet the objector’s charge that Christianity involves a basic contradiction by rejecting the idea of God as He is in Himself and of God’s counsel as controlling all things in the world. He says that Calvin’s doctrine of God’s counsel must be completely rejected. Only when it is rejected, is the grace of God permitted to flow freely upon mankind. And that means that God’s love envelops all men. To be sure, for Barth there is reprobation but it is reprobation in Christ. The final word of God for all men, says Barth, is Yes. It matters not that men have not heard of the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. For Jesus of Nazareth is not, as such, the Christ. All men are as men, of necessity in Christ. All grace is universal or common grace. From the historic Christian point of view this is simply to say that the concept of grace is so widened as no longer to be grace at all. How truly Herman Bavinck anticipated, as it were, this most heretical of heresies of our day when he pointed out that in the last analysis one must make his choice between Pelagius and Augustine. The grace of God as Barth presents it is no longer distinguishable from the natural powers of man. All men to be men, says Barth, must have been saved and glorified from all eternity in Christ. This is how Barth would meet the objection against the idea of the sovereign grace of God. There is no longer any sovereign God and therefore there is no longer any grace. (pp. 154-155)

What Van Til says here takes some unpacking. I will do so in several points. First, Van Til notes Barth’s rejection of Calvin’s view of God’s eternal decree (cf. CD II.2, 67-76). Calvin affirms an absolutum decretum. This is the view that God, from eternity past, has elected some onto eternal life and some unto eternal damnation (i.e., double predestination). Barth believed that this was abstract theology, beginning as it does with an abstract decree of God-in-himself. Barth proposes instead a thoroughly Christological revamping of God’s decree. The idea is that Jesus Christ himself forms the two sides of election. In his humanity he is the elected man, and in his divinity he is the electing God (CD II.2, 76). And it is this relation-in-act which constitutes God’s being as it is. As he will later say, God’s “being is decision;” i.e., his decision to elect humanity in Christ’s humanity (CD II.2, 175). Second, this means that God’s grace is to and for all of humanity in the humanity of Jesus Christ. The humanity of Jesus Christ, in the eternal decision of election, is the vicarious humanity of all humans. In other words, because his humanity is the object of God’s electing grace and since his humanity represents all of humanity, that means all of humanity receives the electing grace of God. All humans are elect. God’s grace is – as Van Til says above – permitted to flow to all mankind. That means that God’s grace is universal. Or, we might say, common. It is given to all men, regardless of whether or not they consider themselves Christians. Grace is common to all – believer as well as unbeliever. Third, Van Til says that Barth’s position is that God’s being as well as man’s being is constituted by relation to one another. There is no abstract God, or God-in-himself. God’s being is a being-in-relation (to man). Likewise, man’s being is a being-in-relation (to God). This relation is found in Jesus Christ who is himself the relation between man (his humanity) and God (his divinity). Man’s being then is a being of grace. Humanity is elected man and therefore is “full of grace.” This applies not just to his status as elect, but to his very being. Van Til is troubled by this, in part, because if everything is grace then nothing is grace. If every man is a recipient of grace then grace has lost its meaning. Grace can be understood as grace only over against condemnation. And while Barth affirms Christ is both the elect man and reprobate man, yet no man is actually reprobate. All are elect. That turns what Calvin regarded as special grace into common grace. Common grace and the Gospel are confused in Barth. Fourth, as he said earlier, this makes Barth’s position almost indistinguishable from the analogia entis of Scholasticism. Van Til notes

For it is of the essence of the analogy of faith … that the ideas of God and man be thought of as correlative to one another. God is then nothing but what He is in relation to man through Christ, and man is nothing but what he is in relation to God through Christ. If the idea of correlativity between God and man was already involved in the analogy of being, it came to its full and final expression in the idea of the analogy of faith. (Common Grace, 130)

In other words, just as man and God are related to one another by the common idea of being (something the two share), so likewise with Barth’s view of analogy. God and man are related, they are as Van Til says elsewhere, “correlative” to one another in the eternal decision of God in election in Christ. For Thomas it was being that served as a common ontological notion which God and man have in common. For Barth it is God’s act of electing grace which holds them in common. But in either scenario God becomes dependent on something other than himself in his existence. God’s being as the electing God depends on his relation to man, just as man depends on his relation to God in Christ for his being. In God’s Time for Us I argue that this relation occurs in the “time” of God’s grace in Christ. This “time” serves as a substitute for a metaphysical notion of being. But whether we are talking about time or being, either way there is an ontological tertium quid which serves as an abstract ontological commonality relating God and man. Barth, no less than Thomas, fails to properly maintain the creator-creature distinction. And with that, he – no less than Thomas – fails to properly maintain the antithesis between believer and unbeliever (since grace is common to all). This gives the unbeliever a certain kind of autonomy and libertarian freedom to believe as he wants about God. Barth, in some ways, out-scholasticizes and out-rationalizes even Thomas himself! If nature is grace for Barth then all theology is natural theology, even while it is at the same time gracious theology. If Barth were consistent with his theology, then there really could be no Nein! to natural theology, but only a full and unequivocal yes and amen.

I am always edified when I read Van Til. I am also always challenged to conform my thinking to the Holy Scriptures and the Reformed faith. But I am not often surprised. That is a testament to the consistency of Van Til’s thought. But I was recently surprised by Van Til while reading Common Grace and the Gospel.  There he writes:

As for “Old Princeton Theology” in the booklet on Common Grace, I have scarcely referred to it. Elsewhere I have expressed disagreement with its apologetics. In this I was following Kuyper. But never have I expressed a basic difference with its theology or its basic epistemology. (p. 177)

In context Van Til is defending himself against a number of charges leveled against him by William Masselink. Masselink asserts that Van Til disagrees with Old Princeton (among others such as Kuyper, Hepp, etc.) on the matter of epistemology. And here Van Til retorts that while he does disagree with Old Princeton on apologetics, he does not disagree “with its theology or its basic epistemology.” This surprised me, in part, because I have always thought of Van Til’s criticism of Old Princeton as a criticism—first and foremost—of its epistemology. Of special interest here is what Van Til says about Warfield’s notion of “right reason” (for example in Defense of the Faith, 350). Is Van Til’s criticism against Warfield’s notion of how the unbeliever knows, or against his approach to the unbeliever apologetically? Or is it both? I won’t try to answer that question here. But, it seems to me, it is awfully difficult to separate out Warfield’s idea of “right reason” (which seems to be an epistemological issue) from his apologetic method. Is Van Til being completely consistent with himself here? Again, I raise the question not to answer it here. It seems the answer would be complex enough to warrant a longer study. Or, at the very least, it seems to warrant further discussion. Now it’s your turn. Thoughts?

Who says Van Til is impractical? I would argue that Van Til in all his writing always has an eye towards the church. All of his theologizing, all of his thoughts about apologetics, has a view toward the church and her ministry. A case in point is found in An Introduction to Systematic Theology:

It is sometimes contended that ministers need not be trained in systematic theology if only they know their Bibles. But “Bible-trained” instead of systematically trained preachers frequently preach error. … There are many “orthodox” preachers today whose study of Scripture has been so limited to what it says about soteriology that they could not protect the fold of God against heresies on the person of Christ. … If we carry this idea one step further, we note that a study of systematic theology will help men to preach theologically. It will help to make men proclaim the whole counsel of God. Many ministers never touch the greater part of the wealth of the revelation of God to man contained in Scripture. But systematics helps ministers to preach the whole counsel of God, and thus to make God central in their work. (pp. 22-23)

At first blush it may sound like that Van Til is prioritizing systematic theology over the Bible. There is nothing further from the truth. What Van Til is eschewing is the practice of myopic and atomistic handling of Scripture in the ministry. We might say that Van Til is saying that systematic theology properly done protects against reductionism. That is certainly what he has in view when he talks about orthodox preachers who limit their study of Scripture to soteriology. Such a practice can be found even today in the Reformed church. Sometimes everything gets boiled down to soteriology, or one aspect of soteriology like justification. Sometimes it all gets boiled down to counseling, or evangelism, or law, or what have you. Every sermon seems to be harping on one subject. Texts are picked out which teach only that subject matter. Or, worse still, texts are made to address those subjects no matter what they are really saying. Being trained as systematic theologians helps us to maintain balance in the ministry. With it we can be free to preach the whole counsel of God. We can maintain a balance between soteriology, the doctrine of God, the person and work of Christ, etc. Anyone who is a frequenter to this website knows how much of a premium we place on Biblical Theology. But Vos himself was quite clear how BT and ST should relate, even as they should be distinguished. The Reformed minister would do well to heed the concerns of both Vos and Van Til. If we do we will be better equipped to serve the health and well-being of the church. In closing, I leave the reader with this quote from Van Til later in the same volume:

It is not sufficient, then, to instruct the church in certain portions of Scripture, or to make them memorize a great deal of Scripture. In addition to this, they must possess a doctrine of Scripture as a whole. It is only if men see clearly that Scripture is what the orthodox doctrine says it in that they will, by the grace of God, be safeguarded against every wind of doctrine that so easily besets us. Unfortunately many Fundamentalist ministers are, to a large extent, themselves to blame for this deflection of the membership of the churches into all manner of false doctrines. With all the good intentions that they have, they all too commonly teach Scripture in a piecemeal fashion. And, in particular, many of them occupy themselves to such an extent with the more obscure passages of Scripture that they cultivate in their hearers a wrong sense of proportion. It is not uncommon to find an ardent and well-meaning youth, of less than twenty, interested greatly in the details of the “signs of the times,” while he has no reasonable knowledge of the main doctrines of Scripture, to say nothing of the catechisms of the church, in which the system of doctrine of the Scripture is set forth. (p. 240)

In his writings, Van Til used what has now become a defunct moniker to describe an early 20th century theological movement surrounding Karl Barth and Emil Brunner. That moniker is “neo-orthodox.” Space prevents us from getting into a history of the term here, but suffice it to say that the expression has come under significant scrutiny today and has been all but abandoned by Barth scholarship. In Van Til’s day it was a helpful term to denote in a very broad fashion a group of theologians who – on the surface anyhow – seemed to have a good deal in common. I for one am glad the term is losing favor, especially when applied to Barth.[1] The term is more of a misnomer and does not accurately capture Barth’s very complex thought.[2] I’m not sure what label would be better instead, especially because Barth and Brunner (not to mention Bultmann) all went in very different directions as their lives and careers advanced through the years. I am unsure a catch term would be helpful, other than perhaps the most broad “20th century Protestant theology,” or whatnot. Barth’s thought is so sui generis I wonder if the best word we can use today is simply “Barthian” to describe his thought as that of those who followed him. I say all this because the next quote from Van Til I want to share uses the older term “neo-orthodox.” I preface the quote with the above to put at ease the minds of advocates of Barth’s theology that I am aware of the problematic nature of the term and that in quoting Van Til here I am in no way desirous of keeping the term alive. But also, for those who are reading this outside from the Barthian fold, you should be aware of the now defunct term so that, hopefully, you don’t use it in polite company and unduly offend your friends. This quote is from Van Til’s Common Grace and the Gospel:

The neo-orthodox view of the relation of God to man is based on the idea that since man cannot have a “systematic,” i.e., purely rationalist knowledge of God, he must, in purely irrationalist fashion, fall back on the notion that any “systematic” interpretation of God’s “revelation” is nothing more than a “pointer” toward something of which man knows nothing. That is to say, the neo-orthodox view of God’s relation to man is based on the modern, particularly the post-Kantian, philosophical notion of truth as being nothing but a limiting concept. Man is surrounded by an ultimate void and he must direct the “flashlight” of his intellect into impenetrable mist. (xlviii)

Allow me to put Van Til’s point in other words. The Barthian position is that since man cannot have comprehensive and infallible knowledge of God (since man is temporal, limited, and sinful) that means that man cannot have any direct knowledge of God at all. Because man cannot have rationalist knowledge of God (i.e., comprehensive and infallible) then he can only have knowledge of God in an “irrationalist” way. That irrationalist way is the way of “limiting concepts.” Van Til elsewhere will advocate for a proper, biblical view of limiting concepts. But here he is attacking what he sees as an anti-Christian view of limiting concepts. On that view God becomes a kind of unknown place holder in one’s pursuit of knowledge. According to Kant, and those around him, God is an unknown which we can know exists only because of our experiences. In other words, I have certain experiences which can be explained only if there is a God back of them. But I cannot know God directly, that is, by any direct reception of information about God from God. The best I can do is point the flashlight of my intellect into the darkness, and seeing only darkness conclude that because of the darkness there must be a God out there. But Barth is not as skeptical as Kant. For Barth God does reveal himself. But revelation is not something we ourselves have direct access to. Revelation is Jesus Christ and him alone. Man – in the humanity of Christ – has access to the knowledge of God only in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is himself both the divine giver of revelation and the human receiver of revelation. We can only see Jesus Christ by faith through the witness of Scripture and the church’s proclamation. My experience with revelation is only from afar, and at that only secondary and indirect. For Van Til this is an anti-Christian view of mystery. Van Til affirms mystery, over against rationalism. But he advocate a Christian and Reformed view of mystery. That view says God is not known to man unless and to the extent that God reveals himself to man. In this way, God is incomprehensible – that is, he cannot be known fully or on the basis of man’s intellect itself. But God is apprehensible, that is he can be known only through a sovereign and gracious act of condescension whereby he makes himself known to us. Barth (and others) rightly rejects the rationalist view of the knowledge of God (i.e., Aquinas, Gordon Clark, etc). But in their correct rejection they go to the opposite extreme and conclude that since we cannot know God rationalistically (i.e., comprehensively) then we cannot know God at all, at least not directly. We can only know him indirectly through limiting concepts (i.e., as a place holder that makes sense of my experience).

[1] Barth himself rejected the label, see CD III.3, xii. For more on why the label should be dismissed see Bruce McCormack’s Critically-Realistic, 24-28. [2] For more information about this see my blog post here at Reformed Forum.

Going hand-in-hand with what we said in a previous post about rendering God not God, Van Til points up how unbelieving thought assumes a neutral view of reality, and in so doing renders every aspect of reality as a final arbiter between God and man: “Now Romanism does not go nearly so far as this. It does hold to the possibility of true propositional knowledge about God as an antecedent being. Even so, Romanism is so largely monistic in its philosophy of being that it cannot do justice to the Christian idea of revelation. Following Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas talks about being as such before making the distinction between the divine and created being. And this is fatal to Christian theology. It constitutes an attack on the basic distinction between God as self-contained and man as his creature. Being as such is a pure abstraction. Hegel was quite right in maintaining that it can be interchanged with non-being. To attempt to say one word about it is to attempt to make Reality as a whole, inclusive of God and man, the final subject of predication. It is, in effect, to deny that created reality is what it is, as exclusively revelational of what God is in himself to himself. It is, in effect, also to deny that all of man’s knowledge is true to the extent that it is a restatement by man of the revelation of God. Conversely, it is to maintain, in effect, that man is able to make true predication about reality without a priori self-consciously, revelational activity on the part of God. To talk about being as such is to talk about possibility as such. And to talk about possibility as such is to assume the idea of logic as such. And to assume the idea of logic such is to assume the idea of consciousness as such. And to assume the idea of consciousness as such is to deny the fundamental distinction between the self-contained consciousness of God and the dependent consciousness of man. In other words it is to assume that man can employ the laws of logic and by means of them legislate for reality” (An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 200, emphasis mine). Believing in any “as-suchness” whatsoever renders the creature superior to the Creator. It makes that thing – as such – the final arbiter of reality, of even God himself. This is how we end up with so many bad theologies of God. We come to a question about God, and we try to answer that question in keeping with the rules of abstract concepts of being, act or becoming, justice, logic, goodness, etc. Here is a quick example. God cannot possibly foreordain certain people unto eternal perdition. And certainly God cannot on the day of judgment sentence a whole mass of people unto eternal punishment. Why not? Because, then God would not be good or just. Did you see that? Did you see how what follows the “then God would” is a kind of third party, supposed neutral legislator that has its own independent existence apart from God. Goodness and justice – as understood by fallen rebellious man – become standards to which God Himself must be held accountable. Contrary to this, for Van Til, we must begin with God as the “concrete absolute.” That is to say, only in God is goodness or justice concrete and not an abstraction. God IS good. God IS just. He defines what goodness and justice is, not us. And certainly not goodness or justice as such. There does not exist — at least outside of our own rebellious and fallen minds – any “as-suchness” whatsoever.

The below observation is not a criticism of the PCA or the 2017 Assembly. I watched much of the Assembly on-line and was greatly blessed by so many of the things I saw and heard. So, this Assembly, for my purposes here, is an occasion for me to make an observation about subscription as such, and not the PCA as a denomination. An interesting debate arose during the report of the committee to review Presbyterial records. I do not know the details, only that a Presbytery was cited for having an image of Christ on a worship bulletin. The debate came to the question of whether or not a Presbytery should be cited for this image when the PCA has been generally tolerant toward exceptions to WLC 109 (which explicitly forbids the making of images of any of the three persons of the Godhead). At least one speech – maybe two – said in essence: “it would be very incongruous of us to cite a Presbytery for doing something we have allowed as a denomination for years now.” I am not a member of the PCA, so I cannot speak to the accuracy of that statement (is it in fact true that the PCA has been tolerant of exceptions to the WLC 109 for years now?). But assuming its veracity, for the sake of this post, the speaker actually made a valid point. A point, by the way, which actually speaks against the practice of allowing exceptions to the standards in subscription. How can a church be consistent, and at peace with itself, if it allows exceptions to its confessional standards and then levels disciplinary action against its members (specifically its ministerial members) on the basis of those standards? The speaker was making an argument (which was legit, at least on the surface) that if something is a tolerated exception for a few then it – in effect – becomes tolerated across the church. In other words, that section of the standards becomes – functionally – excised from the book. The exception becomes the new rule. Now, the good news is that the motion to cite that Presbytery ended up passing. But the bad news is that once a church allows for exceptions in one part of the church, that exception will end up binding the whole church. And what is worse, it will limit the church’s ability to discipline its members against the standards of the church, particularly relative to those sections that some are exempt from believing or practicing. Some have said that we may allow exceptions to the standards so long as the person taking the exception promises to not teach or practice their actual convictions. I think that is a horrible attack on Christian conscience. How can we ask a believer to bury their convictions? If a believer does not do or proclaim (since he is called – especially if a minister – to declare the whole counsel of God) what he believes is biblical then he is in sin. Therefore to ask our brethren to not teach or practice their convictions is to ask them to sin. How cruel is that? And then we become upset at them when we see them print pictures of Jesus. In some ways, their printing the picture of Jesus is not their fault – it’s ours (if we in fact allow them to take that exception in the first place). They are only living according to the new rule that has been established by the exception.

Van Til is a master at exegeting unbelief. This is helpful for apologetics. If we do not understand the unbeliever in a biblical way, inevitably our approach to defending the faith will be unbiblical.[1] Therefore, it is very important to know how the unbeliever thinks about reality (ontology) and knowledge (epistemology). In terms of the former, consider this quote from An Introduction to Systematic Theology:

They have thought of God either as enveloped in the universe or as removed from it so far that it really existed independently of him. (p. 142)

Van Til concisely underscores the two modes of ontology found in unbelief. I say here two, but really they are one. On the one hand, the unbeliever begins with a god that is “enveloped” in the universe. Obvious examples of this mode is found in pantheism, Hegelianism, process theologies, etc. Less obvious, however, is analogia entis forms of thinking. Van Til typically (though by no means exclusively) finds this in Roman Catholicism, especially in the metaphysics of Aquinas. For Van Til Aquinas believes in a chain of being between God and the rest of creation. In this system “being” is an abstraction. That means being takes on a life of its own, sort of speak, which “envelops” both the Creator and the creature. Being is something that is absolute, and as such is shared by both God and man. Of course, Van Til is not saying Aquinas is an “unbeliever,” rather the charge is that he adopts an unbelieving mode of ontology into his thinking. This is the mode of thinking which Van Til calls “rationalism.”[2] On the other hand, the unbeliever so separates God from creation, creation ends up having an independent existence all its own. Obvious examples of this mode is found in deism, Kantianism, etc. Less obvious, it would also be found in Karl Barth. We’ll unpack that idea in a future post. For now, suffice it to say that this mode of thinking is what Van Til calls “irrationalism.” But here’s the zinger: the second mode, no less than the first, ultimately envelops God within the created order. This is how. If God is so removed from the creation, i.e., “wholly other,” and he has not revealed himself directly to us, then he is ultimately unknowable (this is what Van Til calls a “non-Christian view of mystery”). And if God is ultimately unknowable, then we must exercise our “would-be” independence and autonomy to interpret the world around us quite apart from God. This move turns our irrationalism into rationalism, and it (in effect) exalts “would-be autonomous man” to become god-like. Deism turns into pantheism! The unbeliever inevitably looks to something in creation to be the final arbiter of what is true. This final arbiter becomes, for the unbeliever, not only the decoder ring (my metaphor, not Van Til’s) for understanding reality, but also the judge and jury over God himself. To use an expression of C. S. Lewis, on this approach God is placed “in the dock.” He is on trial, and the creature will judge the Creator. So, Van Til’s observation:

Whether in science, in philosophy or in religion, the non-Christian always seeks for a daysman betwixt or above God and himself, as the final court of appeal. (Common Grace and the Gospel, 11)

I love this quote for many reasons. But particularly for its use of “daysman.” It comes from the King James translation of Job 9:33, “Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.” For comparison, here is the ESV translation: “There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.” I would urge the reader to go and read that verse in context, its quite profound. I won’t exegete it here, but will only say that Van Til’s allusion to it is brilliant. God is God and he will not be put on trial by his creatures. And that is the essence of unbelief. Unbelief is the creature putting the Creator on trial by invoking a “daysman” from within the very creation of the Creator to judge Him. At the end of the day, this is where all unbelief ends. It all ends with a violation of the Creator-creature distinction. It is all—whether pantheism or deism—an attempt to exalt the creature above the Creator. It is an attempt to make God not God. It is an act of cosmic treason, which is idolatry.

[1] For a helpful “exegesis” of unbelief in the tradition of Van Til, see the lectures on the anatomy of unbelief by K. Scott Oliphint found here. [2] I am aware of recent protestations against Van Til’s understanding and critique of Aquinas. For an answer to those protests, an answer I find absolutely compelling, see K. Scott Oliphint’s lectures on Aquinas here.

Again, there is much in the Scriptures about Christ. After the entrance of sin into the world, Christ is the only way through whom God can be known. He is not only the one through whom we can more fully than otherwise know the Father; it is through him alone that we can come to the Father. Furthermore, Christ is God, so that when we know him we know God. In spite of all this it should always be remembered that Christ’s work is a means to an end. Even if we think of the fact that Christ is the second person of the Trinity, we ought still to remember that it is the full Godhead with whom we ultimately have to do and about whom, in the last analysis, we wish to know. Hence, theology is primarily God centered rather than Christ centered. (p. 16)

I think this is absolutely correct, and is a word of exhortation that theologians—especially today—need to heed. Especially in light of some contemporary attempts to find a new prolegomena and new starting point for doing systematic theology. Usually, these theologies purport to begin with the works of God—whether that be election, creation, the incarnation, or the Gospel, or even eschatology. But theology in general, and systematic theology in particular, must not begin with the works of God. The intentions of those who want to begin somewhere upon the field of history and the works of God therein are admirable and understandable. Regular listeners of Christ the Center have heard us say time and again how important eschatology is, even invoking Vos’ great maxim: eschatology precedes soteriology. Listeners have heard us harp on the idea that pastoral and preaching imperatives must always be grounded in the indicative of the Gospel. So, why is theology not to be Christ-centered, or Gospel-centered, or grounded in eschatology? Here Van Til’s answer is as helpful as it is simple: “Christ’s work is a means to an end.” We cannot confuse the absolute, necessary triune being of God with redemptive history. We need to understand both God’s necessary nature AND his works in redemptive history. But the two are not equally primal or important. That is because God existed—as triune—before he elected, created, or was incarnate. God is necessary, we are not. With all reverence and fear we must even say that not even Jesus Christ—understood as the God-man—is necessary. The God-man is not necessary because creation and sin and redemption were not necessary. The God-man presupposes all those things. Likewise, God did not have to decree to do anything outside of himself (ad extra), he was perfectly content in himself (ad intra). Why was he content? He was content because, without even a thought about us, he is and enjoyed perfect love in the perichoretic relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If he never chose to elect or create or become incarnate he would have been perfectly content in and with himself. Everything he does ad extra is contingent and unnecessary. That means every work of God is always and only to the greater end of his own self-glorification. It is all to serve the triune God. Therefore, we begin with God himself. He, as triune, is the ground of everything. He is the ground of election, creation, the incarnation, the Gospel, and eschatology. Without the self-contained ontological Trinity there can be no intelligible understanding of anything: not election, not creation, not the Gospel, not eschatology, nothing! So once again from An Introduction to Systematic Theology:

God, as self-sufficient, as the One in whom the One and the Many are equally ultimate, is the One in whom the persons of the Trinity are interchangeably exhaustive, is the presupposition for the intelligent use of words with respect to anything in this universe, whether it be the trees of the garden or the angels in heaven. (p. 180)

Since the triune God is the ground of all things, systematic theology (especially, but not just systematic theology) must begin here, and nowhere else. All true theology, then, has no one and no thing other than God himself at its center. Finally, why this contemporary desire to begin with God’s acts? It is almost assumed today that to speak about the Trinity is to do speculative theology. It is too often presupposed (and orthodox theologians have allowed the presupposition to go unchallenged!) that talk about the existence, being, and nature of God is philosophical and not properly theological. It is true that in the history of theology the doctrine of God has been treated that way (i.e., as an object of philosophical/speculative study). But that method must be challenged. And Van Til does that for us here. No, beginning with the Trinity is not—and must not be—speculative. Why? Because the triune God of Scripture has directly revealed to us something of his eternal and everlasting nature. While he is eternal and we are not, and therefore we can never comprehend him, we can nevertheless know him truly (albeit in a limited and imperfect way). And we can know him truly, though not comprehensively, as the self-contained ontological Trinity. It is here—and nowhere else—where Van Til will begin his theology and his apologetic approach.

Following Kuyper and Bavinck, Van Til so emphasized the antithesis between believer and unbeliever that many have concluded that Van Til cuts the unbeliever off from any point of contact whatsoever. Van Til’s system has been caricatured as one in which the believer and unbeliever inhabit two different worlds from which they can only shout their own particular claims at each other, but can never engage in any meaningful way at any point.[1] The charge is that, for Van Til, the believer and unbeliever live in two antithetical, hermetically sealed, worlds. But that is only a caricature of Van Til’s thought. For instance, he says in Common Grace and the Gospel:

Metaphysically, both parties have all things in common, while epistemologically they have nothing in common. (p. 9).

The believer and the unbeliever both inhabit the same creation. Both stand in God’s world. Both are recipients of God’s self-disclosure “in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20). Furthermore, both the believer and unbeliever bear the imago dei. As such their conscience, informed by the “works of the law written on their hearts,” bears witness against all people of their sin and rebellion (Romans 2:15). In other words, when an unbeliever becomes a believer it is not as if he metaphysically becomes something other than what he was before. Rather, his covenantal status has changed from a child of wrath to a child of the Father. And with the transforming work of the Spirit, who works faith in the unbeliever-become-believer, we have received “the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12).[2] So, not only is the covenantal status of the believer antithetical to that of the unbeliever, but so is his whole way of thinking. The believer, alone, has the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). It is true the believer still has indwelling sin, and so his mind needs to be progressively transformed (Romans 12:2). Nevertheless, the believer no longer knows God, the world, or himself in exactly the same way he did before the regenerating work of the Spirit. In fact, it is not just a matter of the believer thinking better, but he thinks differently now that he seeks to “think God’s thoughts after him.” In other words, the manner in which the believer knows is not quantitatively different than the unbeliever (the unbeliever may know a whole lot more than the believer about science, math, history, or even the Bible), but rather the difference is qualitative. The unbeliever cannot think truly about anything (because all his thoughts are darkened and informed by rebellion against the Creator). He has no capacity for true thinking about the world, himself, or God. Only the believer can think truly about the world, himself, and God. Of course, that does not mean the unbeliever cannot make a valid calculation (he can add two plus two), but he cannot think truly (in a way that takes “every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” 2 Cor. 10:5) about this valid calculation. It is in this sense that Van Til can say that the believer and unbeliever have nothing in common epistemologically. At the same time, every area of life becomes a potential point of contact with the unbeliever because both live in God’s world as his creatures. This, of course, makes evangelism and apologetics both imperative and possible. Finally, now with an eye toward Barth, there are significant ontological and epistemological differences between Van Til and Barth which can be pointed up over the issue of the point of contact. Barth denies a point of contact, but Van Til affirms it. The question is: why? Answer that question and you are well on your way toward understanding the foundational difference between the two thinkers. And here is a hint for my Barthian friends: the difference is not because Van Til adopts an analogia entis metaphysic. In fact, he does not. And that will be an issue to address in a future blog post. Stay tuned!

[1] See John Warwick Montgomery, “Once Upon an Apriori,” in ed. E.R. Geehan Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til (Nutley, NJ: P&R, 1971), 380-92. [2] See the very helpful exegetical comments on this verse in Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., “Some Epistemological Reflections on 1 Cor 2:6-16,” in Westminster Theological Journal 57:1 (1995), 103ff.

I’ve come again, afresh, to the writings of Cornelius Van Til. Lord willing, my plan is to compose a monograph on Van Til’s critique of Karl Barth over the next several years. In light of relentless criticism, from both Barthians and evangelical Calvinists, I would like to offer a fresh reading and defense of Van Til’s critique, on his own terms. To that end, I have begun reading Van Til outside of his works that specifically target Barth.[1] This approach is purposeful. I believe that the best way to understand how and why Van Til criticizes Barth is to understand his thought as a whole. If one tries to abstract Van Til’s critique of Barth from his theology as a whole – and the apologetic/polemic approach that arises from it – then Van Til’s critique will never be properly understood. So I have begun with two of the newly released annotated versions of Van Til’s works published by P&R Publishing, Common Grace and the Gospel (annotated by K. Scott Oliphint) and An Introduction to Systematic Theology (annotated by William Edgar). I have also made use of the digital version of Van Til’s works by Logos. If you do not have Logos, and you want to engage in serious study of both the Bible and theology, do yourself the favor and save your pennies for it. And, while you’re saving, save also for the digital Van Til set! So, what I would like to do here is offer a series of posts containing some of the best quotes I come across in Van Til’s writings and offer some brief commentary. I hope you enjoy it, and benefit from Van Til’s faithfully and consistently Reformed insights. The first quote comes from Common Grace and the Gospel, p. 13:

To use a phrase of Kierkegaard, we ask how the Moment is to have significance. Our claim as believers is that the Moment cannot intelligently be shown to have any significance except upon the presupposition of the biblical doctrine of the ontological trinity. In the ontological trinity there is complete harmony between an equally ultimate one and many. The persons of the trinity are mutually exhaustive of one another and of God’s nature. It is the absolute equality in point of ultimacy that requires all the emphasis we can give it. Involved in this absolute equality is complete interdependence; God is our concrete universal.[2]

One of the common misconceptions out there about Van Til’s apologetic approach is that his great insight was that everyone has presuppositions. That no one comes to the process of thinking about anything neutrally. And so the believer presupposes the existence of God, while the atheist does not. And God is the believer’s basis for ethics, logic, etc. The atheist, however, has no basis. All that is true enough, as far as it goes. But the misconception is due to the fact that it does not go far enough. Van Til does not offer a generic deity as the Christian’s presupposition. It is not as if Van Til’s God can be swapped out for the God of Islam, Judaism, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Rather, Van Til presupposes the self-contained ontological Trinity as he reveals himself in the Bible. That is important because a generic deity cannot account for anything in the universe – unity or differentiation, universals or particulars, the subject-object relationship, etc. A generic deity yields only a meaningless and unintelligible creation. For Van Til only God as absolutely self-contained (i.e., a se) can render anything and everything intelligible. I hope to be able to unpack that idea some more in future posts.

[1] The several works I have in mind here are The New Modernism, Barthianism and Christianity, Has Karl Barth Become Orthodox?, The Confession of 1967, Karl Barth and Evangelicalism, and Barth’s Christology. Of course, he has critical statements about “the new modernism” all throughout his writings. But these are particularly focused on the thought of Karl Barth (and others). [2] Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, ed. K. Scott Oliphint, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2015).

The Primacy of the Trinity in Theology In the closing section of Herman Bavinck’s chapter on the Trinity, the Dutch theologian makes some very important and keen observations on the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity. After Bavinck the importance of the “Trinitarian Dogma” will resurface in a new form in the thought of Cornelius Van Til. Van Til, following Bavinck, held the doctrine of the Trinity as key to a proper understanding of the creator-creature distinction and how God relates to the created order. For both men threatening the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity are the equally heretical positions of Deism on the one hand and pantheism on the other. A denial of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity inevitable results in one error or the other (and in some instances both at the same time). Pantheism and Deism should not be seen as two extremes on the same spectrum with orthodox Trinitarianism in the middle performing a balancing act between them. Rather, pantheism and Deism are two wings of the same bird which fly over against and in the face of the Trinitarian dogma. So, for Bavinck the doctrine of the Trinity “alone makes possible – against Deism on the one hand – the connection between God and the world, and – against pantheism on the other – the difference between God and the world.” (RD 2.332) Part and parcel of how the doctrine of the Trinity maintains a proper creator-creature distinction is due to the personal properties of the respective persons of the Triune God. Indispensable – and absolutely so – for Bavinck is the doctrine of the eternal generation the Son and the procession of the Spirit. The unity and diversity of the Trinity, understood in terms of the personal properties, ward of pantheism because its teaches us that God is not without “action and production” in himself. Rather, in himself he is “life, blessedness, glory.” (ibid). God is not a static being, and he does not need anything outside of himself to ward off that charge. He has no need to perform any acts ad extra in order to “become” and to be the living God. The God of orthodox Trinitarianism is not, and never was, a dead God conceived in terms of Greek abstractions. Furthermore, since God is self-communicative he can communicate himself to the creation and not be aloof, as in Deism. So “if the divine being were not productive and could not communicate himself inwardly (ad intra), then neither could there be any revelation of God ad extra.” (ibid) In other words, a denial of the Trinity and the personal properties leave us with an abstract God about whom we can know nothing. This false god is dumb and mute:

The doctrine of God’s incommunicability, with its implicit denial of the Son’s generation and the Spirit’s procession, carries within itself the corollary of the existence of a world separate from, outside of, and opposed to God. (Ibid).

The glorious conclusion to the real doctrine of the Trinity is that it “tells us that God can reveal himself in an absolute sense to the Son and the Spirit, and hence, in a relative sense also to the world.” (RD 2.333). In other words, a true Christian epistemology is grounded in an orthodox ontology. To be more precise, a Christian epistemology must be grounded upon the orthodox doctrine of “the self-contained ontological Trinity” (to use a Van Tillism). The pursuit of a faithful systematic theology, in other words, begins and ends with the doctrine of the Trinity. Mess with this, and everything else gets messed with. The entirety of our system of theology rests on this point. The Apologetic Import This doctrine of the Trinity has practical implications for doing apologetics. Take for example the starting point of all modern thought. The starting point of all modern thought, after Kant, is what Bavinck called above “the doctrine of the God’s incommunicability.” This is the ontological dualism that flows from a rejection of the Trinitarian dogma.¹ Once we are rid of the ad intra generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit God becomes a static monad, or worse three divine beings. The god of Kant is the God of silence. He is incapable of communicating himself to us because he is opposed to us and we to him. There is an unbridgeable gap, a qualitative difference between the eternal God on the one hand and the temporal creature on the other. This is the basic assumption of all modern thought and theology. There are different proposed solutions, however, to the problem of this dualism and its consequent epistemological conundrum (i.e., how can we know a god who is opposed to us and is incommunicative?). Kant’s solution was the categorical imperative. Man has a sense of morality, that sense must come from somewhere. Therefore, in the noumenal realm there must be a law-giver, a source of our sense of morality. For Schleiermacher it was the sense the absolute dependence. For Hegel it was a process of God’s own self actualization in the world. Kant and Schleiermacher ended with the god of Deism, Hegel with the god of pantheism. Now, Barth is unique in all this. He begins with the qualitative difference between eternity and time (rather than the triune God of Scripture). He assumes the dualism. He takes his starting point in Kant. Barth is, after all, a modern man. For Barth, however, God must be able to communicate himself. After all, Barth affirms the absolute freedom of God. But how can God communicate himself without transgressing the qualitative difference between God and the creature? Jesus Christ is his answer. God communicates himself to man in Jesus Christ. His doctrine of the Trinity is recast in light of his Christology. Jesus Christ constitutes God’s being as triune. Ontology and epistemology are one in Jesus Christ. Barth can say not only that Jesus Christ is God, but also that God is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is himself the creature, the man made in the image of God. He is not something different from God, he is not a human nature assumed by the second person of the Trinity at some point in time. Rather, Jesus Christ is the eternal God himself. God takes up our humanity in Christ in an eternal act of grace. Jesus Christ then is not understood as a redemptive-historical manifestation of God in time. Rather, God becomes time from all eternity. God always has been, is, and always will be Jesus Christ. Barth manages to do a remarkable thing in the history of theology. He simultaneously maintains the absolute qualitative difference between time and eternity on the one hand and the identification of God and creature in Jesus Christ on the other. In him there is a dialectical relationship between Deism and pantheism, holding both in tension without a need to reconcile them. God for Barth is incommunicable to us in the here and now, and only communicates himself to the creature in himself in Jesus Christ. In other words, for Barth, at the end of the day God needs the creature to be communicative. There is no way of getting around that given his actualistic Christology. This leaves us with a God who is essentially incommunicative because he is not the one God who communicates himself through an eternal generation of the logos asarkos, nor through the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit who is himself spirated from the Father and the Son ad intra. This means, epistemologically, that there is no direct self-revelation of God to us here and now. There is no direct revelation of God to us in Scripture nor in the created order. God is silent toward us. To be sure, he has spoken in Christ. But how do we know Christ, and therefore know God? We can only receive the fallible witness of the Scriptures and the church by faith and in the faith-moment claim we know something about God. Faith becomes the subjective experience we exercise rather than a clear Word of direct revelation in the Scriptures. Barth, like Kant and Schleiermacher, falls back into a subjectivist epistemology, despite all his claims for the objective revelation of God in Christ. Dualisms abound! And they must given his essentially modern starting point and his overturning of orthodox ontology and Trinitarian dogma. Rounding off this section on the apologetic import of Bavinck’s and Van Til’s insights, the God of the Bible is under attack from almost every quarter. Our God gets accused of being a static, cold, and lifeless being. Or, he gets humanized and then criticized. Only the “Trinitarian Dogma” gives answers to an increasingly hostile world. It is this God we worship, and he has in himself and revealed to us in his Word everything we need to answer the unbeliever. This is why the entire apologetic endeavor must, as with every theological endeavor, begin and end with the self-contained ontological Trinity. Conclusion In summary, I might leave us with a question of some historical significance. If my read of Bavinck and Van Til is correct, then it may just be that there are two new contenders for the most significant trinitarian theologian of the twentieth century. Often this honor is assumed to belong to Barth. To be sure, compared to his liberal forefathers, Barth does appropriate the doctrine of the Trinity in significant ways. But if orthodoxy at all matters in theology, and if the absolute prioritization of the Trinitarian dogma in the theological and apologetical endeavor at all matter, perhaps Bavinck and/or Van Til should be considered in the running and a reappraisal of who the most significant Trinitarian of the twentieth century may be in order. Still, its not as if theology is a contest and it really matters what the theological world thinks about Bavinck and Van Til. For those with ears to hear, however marginalized and dismissed, the answer is clear. Nevertheless, it is a provocative question worthy of contemplation given Bavinck’s stimulating section on the Trinitarian dogma. It also should give us pause before we too easily dismiss the doctrine of the personal properties as speculative. The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity is a package deal for Bavinck, it must come as a whole or not be useful to us at all. It also connects for us dots from theology proper to the other loci of systematic theology, including the doctrines of revelation and creation. For these reasons, indeed, it is worth our considering Bavinck’s (and Van Til’s) doctrine of the Trinity as a resource for prioritizing, shaping, and structuring Reformed theology in the twenty-first century.

In the meadow we can build a snowman And pretend that he is Parson Brown He’ll say are you married We’ll say No Man But you can do the job When you’re in town

But what I heard this morning was:

In the meadow we can build a snowman, And pretend that he’s a circus clown We’ll have lots of fun with mister snowman, Until the other kids knock him down.

Gone away is Parson Brown for a circus clown. I’ll leave it right there, and let you formulate your own cultural analysis.

Being that we do not know the exact year John Knox was born, that means we can stretch out the celebration of his 500th for multiple years! Scholars continue to speculate about the year of his birth. At one time it was thought he was born as early as 1505, but now his birthday is regarded as more likely to be later – with 1515 being the terminus year of speculation. And that is to the advantage of us all, for the longer we celebrate this man of God the better! 2015 has seen numerous resources come out about the father of Scottish Presbyterianism, and this fine film by Gunn Productions is the latest contribution. Sit down, as I did with my kids, and take an hour to learn about the fascinating life and ministry of John Knox! The whole family will benefit from it!

The below is a historical preamble written by the session of South Austin Presbyterian Church which explains why the church has a voice to speak to both the state and the culture. It was attached to a correspondence to the nine Justices of the Supreme Court calling them to repent of and repeal their decision on same sex marriage. I offer it here for consideration to the broader church. I am of the opinion that the church must be extremely choosey about which issues it speaks to and which issues it does not. First, the church had better have a clear “thus saith the Lord” before it speaks. Second, I myself am somewhat leery of when Christians talk about “the prophetic voice of the church.” Usually that expression is a sanctimonious way of saying “I want to leverage God’s name for the sake of pushing my political agenda.” And I find that tremendously distasteful. Third, I have noticed that churches and Christians have been not only hesitant to speak to the SCOTUS decision publicly, but also critical of those Christians who feel compelled to do so. It is therefore against both extremes that I offer this brief historical preamble to the question of how and why and when the church should and should not speak to the state. Please notice that in the examples cited caution is issued to the church to avoid meddling in civil affairs as much as possible. But, also, the examples acknowledge that there are times when the church may and must speak. These examples avoid the extreme of remaining silent about all civil matters on the one hand, and the extreme of speaking indiscriminately to many, most, or all civil matters on the other.

Historical Preamble

The Church’s Prophetic Voice

In the history of God’s people there have been various and sundry occasions when the church has been called upon to speak to the civil government. After all, God alone is the one true King of all nations who serve at his command. And the church, as the Kingdom of God, is the place from which the Lord God speaks to not only his people, but to all peoples everywhere – including civil governments. In ages past God spoke through the prophets to civil governments in extraordinary circumstances. The Judge of Israel, Deborah, addressed the kings of the earth (Judges 5:3), Nathan the prophet called King David to repentance for his sin (2 Samuel 12), throughout the book of Daniel the prophet declared messages from God to unbelieving Babylonian kings through the interpretation of dreams, and John the Baptist called King Herod to repent of his sexual immorality (Mark 6).

Beyond the biblical witness, the church has always been a voice to those outside her pale. The church has never been understood as being a merely private institution, but a prophetic entity with a public voice. Of course we saw this quite clearly in the days of the civil rights movement. But even before that the church has been understood to have the jur divino ability to speak to the civil magistrate. We can only cite two examples here.

First, enshrined in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the doctrinal statement of many denominations here in America and throughout the world, is this statement: “Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary.” Our forefathers were very resistant to the idea of the church speaking to the state or the culture at large about matters civil. It was believed that insomuch as the church “inter-meddled” with civil affairs it was being distracted from its divine mandate to proclaim the Gospel and to be agents of reconciliation between God and man. But the church also recognized that there are times and cases which are “extraordinary” which demand the church to speak using its “prophetic” voice.

In addition, we have a representative example of how early American theologians articulated the role of the church relative to the state in the great Princeton theologian Charles Hodge. While he acknowledges that the church “has nothing to do with the state, in the exercise of its discretion within its own sphere; and therefore has no right to meddle with questions of policy, foreign or domestic,” and that “they profane the pulpit when they preach politics, or turn the sacred desk into a rostrum for lectures on secular affairs,” he nevertheless acknowledges as well the church’s prophetic voice toward the state.¹ For instance, he says:

if the state pass any laws contrary to the law of God, then it is the duty of the Church, to whom God has committed the great work of asserting and maintaining his truth and will, to protect and remonstrate. If the state not only violates the Sabbath, but makes it a condition to holding office, that others should violate it; or if it legalizes piracy, or concubinage, or polygamy; if it prohibits the worship of God, or the free use of the means of salvation; if, in short, it does any thing directly contrary to the law of God, the Church is bound to make that law known, and set it home upon the conscience of all concerned. (ibid., 104)

and:

It follows from the great commission of the church, that it is her prerogative and duty to testify for the truth and the law of God, wherever she can make her voice heard; not only to her own people, but to kings and rulers (Ibid., 103)

It is in light of this historical precedent that we, the Session of South Austin Presbyterian Church, do respectfully and humbly submit the attached appeal.

The way Barth understands the relation between eternity and time manifests itself in how he answers the theological problem of how the once and for all work of Christ on the cross “then” has relevancy for us “now.” This is the problem of the limitations of time which goes back to at least G. E. Lessing and his “ugly ditch” (CD IV/1, 287). Barth answers the problem with a Christological solution. Christ, as the eternal event of God in whom eternity and time come together, is always with us. Barth affirms Christ’s contemporaneity with us (CD IV/1, 293). Barth says that it is “the directness of our encounter and presence with Him, and the overcoming of the temporal barrier between Him and us” (ibid.). So, what is a problem on the temporal/horizontal level is analogous to the fundamental problem between eternity and time on the vertical level. Just as there is a qualitative difference between eternity and time (eternity “up there,” and time “down here”), likewise there is a qualitative difference between Christ back then and us living now. And so the solution to both problems (which are really one) is the same—Jesus Christ and the rapprochement of God’s eternity and man’s time in him. In this event, and in this event alone, Christ “then” and we “now” are contemporaneous realities. Several observations need to be made here. First, the event of Christ in which he is always and everywhere present to us is a transcendent event: But these conclusions have to be continually drawn afresh as long as we have time, as long as our allotted span of life endures. In Jesus Christ a Christian has already come into being, but in himself and his time he is always in the process of becoming. . . . And as this power it is each day afresh the power of the revelation of Jesus Christ Himself, the power of His resurrection, on which depends that our presence is also revealed, and therefore the presupposition given from which we have continually to draw these deductions and to become Christians . . . it is the power of the inconceivably transcendent transition from what is true and actual in Jesus Christ to what is true for us, or even more simply from Christ to us as Christians. It is the one transcendent power which is at work on both sides, from Him on the one side and to us on the other. (CD IV/2, 307; emphasis mine) This idea is similar to what above we described as “the beyond.” Christ in his work can and is always contemporary to us because his work is never bound by our time, precisely because it is not of our time. It is its own special time. It is the time in which eternity and time come together and are reconciled. Therefore, our time is always present with God in Christ in this one “transcendent power.” Second, while reconciliation and the rapprochement of eternity and time in it is a transcendent event, it is never an event which takes place without our time. It, in fact, includes it. This is what Barth means when he speaks against “transcendentalising” (CD IV/3.2, 501). He eschews any Docetic tendency at every turn. He refuses to make the temporal and physical irrelevant and unreal. Barth says that the incarnation “demands a human soul and a human body, human reason and human will, human obedience and humility, human seriousness and anger, human anxiety and trust, human love for God and the neighbor. And it demands all this in an existence in our own human and created time” (CD IV/2, 99). This is because the work of Christ “is accomplished in a history which takes place in the world itself, on the earth, in time, among men” (CD IV/2, 96). However, thirdly, the event itself is not an event which takes place only in our time: “But it has the same character as what had gone before to the extent that it, too, is an event within the world, in time and space. It, too, takes place in the body, although not only in the body” (CD IV/2, 143). So, while the event of reconciliation does not take place “without the body,” or apart from our time, yet it is not an event which is trapped in our time. It does not originate within our time, and so it is not bound by the limitations and restrictions of our time. It is its own sovereign act of God’s freedom in love for us, and thus it is present to each and every time. In this way we can say that reconciliation is transhistorical, even while it is supra-historical. Fourth, and in connection with the previous point, it is helpful to understand the principle of Aufhebung in Barth’s thought.¹ Terry Cross puts it well: In Hegel [Aufhebung] occurs in history; in Barth it only occurs in God—in the eschaton of eternity. In some sense, it is trans-historical for Barth. For Hegel, the circle of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis is entirely drawn within time; for Barth, the dialectical movement of thesis/antithesis remains in a tension between time and eternity—its only synthesis occurs in God.² The distinction between Hegel and Barth is significant here. Barth may have employed Hegelian language, but his content is completely God-centered and Christologically structured. The act which this word is intending to denote is one in which a dialectical relation attains between time and God. God takes our time to himself, and as he does so he both condemns it and, in Christ, redeems it and makes it his own. Our time, remaining always in antithesis to God, is present before God as redeemed in an eternal-temporal event. This event is the relating and reconciling work of Christ who takes our time (embodied in the humanity of Christ) and brings it into a state of rapprochement with eternity (denoted by the divinity of Christ). So, both eternity and time are present and related Christologically in the eternal-temporal event. The event is eternal because it is qualitatively different from our time, and it is temporal because it includes our time. Yet the event is not of our time, and thus is a different time altogether—God’s special time of redemption for us. Fifth, Barth’s bridging of Lessing’s ditch entails a change in the direction of traditional Protestant soteriology. In the tradition it is typical to speak of Christ’s accomplished work of redemption being historically grounded and then applied to the individual believer by faith. But as Webster points out: Barth locates the bridge between Jesus’ history and our own not in some cognitive or interpretative or experiential process, but in the self-manifestation of the risen Jesus in the power of the Spirit, as a reality which we can only acknowledge.³ Traditionally, “union with Christ” is the lynchpin by which Christ’s work “then” becomes relevant to us “now.” As we noted above, the acquisitio salutis and the applicatio salutis are distinguished in the tradition, but brought together in one event according to Karl Barth. Still, the language that Barth employs can often times lead to confusion. He expresses himself in familiar, traditional language which might lead one to believe that he sees a distinction between the acquisitio and applicatio. So, for example in 71.3 we see the longest-sustained discussion in the CD on the topic of the relation between the Christian and Christ, as that relation comes to expression in the doctrine of unio cum Christo. If one were to read only this section on the subject, one would be justified to conclude that Barth develops a doctrine of union with Christ along subjective lines. Indeed, one might also conclude that Barth’s formulation is not altogether opposed to the way in which the Reformed church has historically spoken about union with Christ and the twofold benefit of justification and sanctification. For instance, Barth can speak about faith as the way in which the Christian is “attached” to Christ: The power in which Jesus Christ sets a man in attachment to Himself is the liberating power of His Word which is opposed to all compulsion and eliminates and discards it. . . . It is the power of His prophecy in which He awakens him to faith in Himself which is rooted in this recognition, and therefore to obedience. It is in doing this that He sets him in the attachment to Himself which makes him a Christian and distinguishes him from other men. No compulsion brought to bear upon him . . . could awaken him to faith rooted in that free recognition and therefore set him in attachment to the One who is light and not darkness, to the living Jesus Christ. (CD IV/3.2, 529) At first blush this may not appear to be very original. It sounds very much like a traditional ordo salutis: Christ by his Spirit works faith in the sinner and by so doing unites the sinner to himself. Moreover: The Word of Jesus Christ has divine power to accomplish this. But this divine power is the Holy Spirit. As Jesus Christ speaks with man in the power of the Holy Spirit, his vocation is vocatio efficax, i.e., effective to set man in fellowship with Himself. . . . The gift and work of the Holy Spirit as the divine power of the Word of vocation is the placing of man in this fellowship with Him, namely, with the being, will and action of Jesus Christ. (CD IV/3.2 538; emphasis Barth’s) Again, on the surface this sounds like a traditional formulation. It appears as if for Barth the doctrine of union with Christ is the teaching that the Holy Spirit transitions the sinner from a state of wrath to a state of grace in the life-history of the sinner-become-believer, by which he is united to Christ at the moment of this “conversion” experience. However, nothing could more completely miss the Copernican impact of Barth’s proposal. In order to understand how this is so, we must read this extended section on the doctrine of union with Christ against the backdrop of what he has said about the incarnation previously.⁴ Such a hint is in fact given to us in the beginning of section 71.3: The mystery of vocation, of the fact that there takes place this calling of man within human time and history, is very great. In its own manner and place it is no less than the Christmas mystery of the birth of the eternal Word of God in the flesh in which it has its primary basis. . . . We are concerned with a lofty event, yet not with one which is without meaning and purpose, but with one which is controlled by and intrinsically clear ratio, like the primary event of Christmas. . . . Can we really say that Christian existence as such . . . stands or falls with the fact that he is called . . . becoming what of himself and previously he was not, in the mystery and miracle which correspond in mode to the Christmas story? (CD IV/3.2, 521; emphasis mine)⁵ Now, we must not misunderstand Barth at this point. He is not saying that the Christmas mystery—the incarnation—is something analogous to union with Christ. Rather, what he is saying is that the incarnation is union with Christ. The traditional theological distinction between redemption accomplished in the life and death of Christ on the one hand, and the application of the benefits of that life and death to the believer on the other hand, is eliminated. Salvation is wholly objective, and performed by God in Christ. In other words, Barth’s formulation of union with Christ is always and everywhere qualified and conditioned by his soteriological objectivism. This unique doctrine of union with Christ is confirmed by considering earlier references to the doctrine which anticipate his formulations in CD IV. In CD I/2, in § 16, Barth enters into a discussion of what it means to say that the church has its origin in Christ. In short, it means that the Word became flesh: It derives from the Word that became flesh. That the Word was made flesh was not without meaning for the world of flesh. . . . In Jesus Christ our human nature and kind were adopted and assumed into unity of being with the Son of God. . . . [T]here are among the men whose nature and kind were met by this occurrence in Jesus Christ those who live in this adoption and assumption. They are the children of God because, in spite of the sinfulness of their nature and kind, they are justified and sanctified by that which meets their nature and kind in Jesus Christ. (CD I/2, 214-5) In response to this, at least two comments are in order. First, notice the emphasis on the idea of “unity of being” between human nature and the Son of God. What is significant for our purposes is to highlight the connection between the incarnation spoken of here with what he says about union with Christ in IV/3.2. Notice the similarity of not just language but thought pattern: But we have to remember that even indicatively it speaks of the history in which the union of the Christian with Christ takes place. . . . And they are in Him because Christ has adopted them into unity with His being. . . This historical being in Christ is decisively determined, of course, by the fact that first and supremely God was ‘in Christ’ reconciling the world to Himself. (CD IV/3.2, 546; emphasis mine) Union with Christ takes place because Christ adopts or assumes humanity into his being. What is meant by this idea of Christ adopting another into his being? According to I/2, it means the event of the incarnation. Union with Christ is a real, carnal, objective event in the hypostatic union. In other words, hypostatic union is union with Christ. Barth bypasses the entire notion of a subjective appropriation of the benefits of Christ’s redemptive works in the historia salutis through a wholly objective soteriology. Also, notice the reference to the twofold benefit mentioned in the quote from I/2. Here it is stated that by virtue of the incarnation human nature is both justified and sanctified. This is language which the Reformed tradition reserved to describe the twofold benefit the believer receives upon being united to Christ existentially. Further, notice that justification and sanctification are said not to be subsequent acts after the incarnation of Christ, but the very act of incarnation itself. Here Barth begins to invoke very strong “union with Christ” language which he will later pick up in IV/3.2: ‘In Christ’ means that in Him we are reconciled to God, in Him we are elect from eternity, in Him we are called, in Him we are justified and sanctified, in Him our sin is carried to the grave, in His resurrection our death is overcome, with Him our life is hid in God, in Him everything that has to be done for us, to us, and by us has already been done, has previously been removed and put in its place, in Him we are children in the Father’s house, just as He is by nature. . . . That is why the subjective reality of revelation as such can never be made an independent theme. It is enclosed in its objective reality. (CD I/2, 240; emphasis mine) Here it becomes very clear that subject and object—God and man, the I and the thou—are collapsed one into the other. Any distinction between the two is all but erased. To be sure, Barth elsewhere maintains a Creator-creature distinction and invokes Chalcedonian formulae. Nevertheless, Barth brings into the closest proximity his doctrine of union with Christ with that of his doctrine of the hypostatic union and its correlates, revelation and reconciliation. This is how he proposes to bridge Lessing’s ugly ditch. By virtue of the incarnation of the Word with humanity, we are united to Christ. All things that Christ has done, we have done—for we were in him. Sixth, the relation between Christ’s time and our time is described in terms of the relation between the death and resurrection of Jesus: As the Resurrected, He lives as the One who not only then, but then once and for all, was humiliated and exalted, offered up and triumphant, for the justification and sanctification of all men, living not only in His own age but in every age as the Lord of all time. He lives in every today as the One in and by whom there took place yesterday, in His time, the reconciliation of the world to God. (CD IV/3.2, 605) This is further confirmed when Barth enters into an extensive discussion on the relationship between Christ’s death and resurrection. It is here that he is trying to discuss and to answer the question of how Christ’s death on the cross has significance for us today. And for Barth it is the resurrection which constitutes Christ’s eternality and thus renders him present to all times: “He is not of the past, He did not continue to be enclosed in the limits of the time between His birth and death, but as the One who was in this time He became and is Lord of all time, eternal as God Himself is eternal, and therefore present to all time” (CD IV/1, 313). In the resurrection Jesus Christ “became and is as such His eternal being and therefore His present-day being every day of our time” (ibid.). In fact the resurrection of Christ “lifted up” all other times and events (ibid.). This understanding makes the cross “not something which belongs to the past, which can be present only by recollection, tradition and proclamation, but is as such a present event, the event which fills and determines the whole present” (ibid.). In this way, Jesus becomes the “eternal Reconciler” and history in “His time” becomes “eternal history” which is “the history of God with the men of all times” (ibid.). This means that the problem of the objective and the subjective in reconciliation is resolved in Jesus Christ who is both the accomplishment of redemption and its application. In Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation all is accomplished by God alone. This is how Barth preserves the Protestant doctrine of salvation sola gratia. In summary, the rapprochement of eternity and time in the event of reconciliation provides Barth with a conceptual mechanism by which he can answer Lessing and cross his so-called ugly ditch. The fact that this event is a transcendent event, and yet an event which includes our time, renders Christ himself as the eternal-contemporary. Jesus Christ is always and everywhere present to our time, and all times. This special time, God’s time which he has for us, includes not only Christ’s person but his work as well. This is how both his person and his work are present to us and for us, always. In fact, as we have noted before, Christ’s person is his work, and so where his person is present for us, so is his work. And his work of reconciliation is found, primarily and objectively, in the incarnation where eternity and time are brought together into one harmonious time-act. In this way, we can say that Christ’s atonement is both something that has occurred already for us, and yet also has a future reality.

Notes

Thus far in this series we have looked at the life of Barth as well as begin to explore his theology as well. In particular we have shown how Christ is everything for Barth in the sense that he reframes every loci of systematic theology along christological lines. Jesus Christ, the God-man, forms the two sides of each doctrine that comes under review. Christ is himself both the divine and human sides of the covenantal relationship between eternity and time. We looked at how that is the case for his doctrines of revelation and election. Now we will look at how it is the case for his doctrines of creation and reconciliation. We will then conclude this part, and the series, with some critical reflections.

c. Creation

In Barth’s doctrine of creation he will make an important distinction which many of us will appreciate. He holds at every place the importance of making the distinction between the creator and the creature. Now, he uses that word “creation” in a very interesting way. He understands “creation” to be a reference to both an act and a thing. We may speak about “creation” as an act of God whereby he calls that which is not into existence. We can also use the word to describe the finished product, the thing which God has made – the “creation.” So we can speak about the act of creation, and we can speak about the creation. So, really, there are three elements to Barth’s doctrine of creation: the creator, the creature, and the act of creation.

So, now, you may already be anticipating how his Christology structures his doctrine of creation. In the tradition, the act of creation is an event that occurs at the beginning of time by the triune God. Particularly, it is the second person of the Trinity, the pre-incarnate Word, who is the immediate agent of creation. However, for Barth, Jesus Christ is himself the subject, object, and act of creation. He is both the creating God and the creature, as well as the act of creation. His divine nature is the creator, and his human nature is the creature, and the incarnation is itself the act of creation – the actualistic bond that holds together both creator and creature.

Jesus Christ is always both sides of the covenant, for Barth. He is the revealing God, and the revealed-to man. He is the electing God, and the elect (and reprobate!) man. He is the creating God and the created creature. He is always and everywhere both sides of the covenant, without separation and without confusion.

d. Reconciliation

And lastly we have Barth’s Christological doctrine of reconciliation. Here we may, once again, begin on familiar ground. Let us begin with John Murray’s classic Redemption: Accomplished and Applied. The two parts of redemption correspond, roughly, to the historia salutis (what Christ has accomplished for me in history) and ordo salutis (the application of Christ’s work to me by the Holy Spirit).

In traditional Reformed theology these are two aspects of soteriology which are one act of God, but distinct in time. Christ’s accomplished work of redemption is done at a particular time and in a particular place once for all. But Christ, by his Spirit, applies that once and for all work to believers all through history – both those who came before his work, and those who came after it. But there is a time differential between redemption accomplished and applied.

Barth proposes to close that gap. He does so by eliminating our faith, and the necessity thereof, as a condition for receiving the application of the benefits of Christ’s accomplished redemption. He does so by making the two aspects of redemption one time-event. Following the pattern we have seen before, Christ is himself both God the redeemer and the redeemed man. He is, from above, the divine accomplishment of redemption and, from below, the human application of redemption. In one transcendent act of grace, Jesus Christ is himself both redemption accomplished and applied.

E. Barth and Modern Theology

And so we can see how Barth would be subject to the label “christomonism.” Christ is literally all. All of theology is reduced to Christology. There is no single loci of doctrine that is not reframed along Christological lines. For Barth, Christ is all in his theology.

Nevertheless, the expression “christomonism” may not be the most accurate label. Which is why I am proposing the term “christopanism” instead (see part 1 of this series). For Barth Christ restructures all of theology along the lines of God’s one transcendent act of grace in his time for us in Jesus Christ.

Now, its that idea of “transcendent act” that I would like to discuss now. In Barth, time and eternity, or God and the creature, are both wrapped up in this one act. This is an act that takes place, for Barth, in a transcendent time – called “God’s time for us.” This time is neither our time, nor is it pure eternity – as eternity is traditionally conceived. Rather, it is a different time altogether. As such Jesus Christ is quite literally out of this world, he is the great beyond, being beyond our time.

Barth’s theology was formed viz-a-viz the imminence theology of modern theology. Liberalism sought to bring together God and man in the sphere, or in the time, of the human experience. It was a theology from below. God and man participated in a common act – the feeling of absolute dependence. Modern theology, from Kant to Schleiermacher to Ritschl, rejected Western metaphysics and developed an actualistic ontology. Ontology would be understood in terms of act, not substance. God and man shared in the same imminent act of human experience. You can understand why Barth tied together the the analogia entis of medieval Catholicism and modern day liberalism. In both schemes God and man share in some kind of commonality.

Barth would not shed this actualism. In fact, he would advance it and apply it more consistently in his theology than anyone before him. But what Barth does is moves, he shifts, the act. In liberalism, the act of feeling of absolute dependence is essentially man’s act. But for Barth, actualism describes not the act of man in his subjective experience, but the act of God in his objectivity. And so he shifts the act from below to above. The act which forms the ground of all theology is an act of God in his grace in Jesus Christ. And it is an act that occurs above, in a realm or sphere which is wholly other. It is not our sphere or time, space, or history.

Besides the fact that he runs into all sorts of difficulties with regard to the historical nature of the acts of God in the historia salutis, Barth also did not shed the most significant problem he found in liberalism. God and man, in Barth, still share something – naming the time of God’s grace. This third time, God’s time for us, is that in which God and man (in the Man, Jesus Christ) participate. They share in this one transcendent sphere. He hasn’t eliminated the modern problem, he’s only shifted it.

In this way, really, Barth has not eliminated the analogia entis, he has only reframed it and reshaped it. To refine that last point some, we might say that Barth has swapped out the ae for an “analogia vera temporis” – an analogy of actual time. That is to say, God and man, on Barth’s scheme, do not share in some abstract notion of “being” but rather in the concrete act of time. Time then becomes the singular concept that holds both God and man together in God’s gracious transcendent act. In other words, at the end of the day, in Jesus Christ there is no real ontological duality. God and man are not, in Jesus Christ, utterly distinct. In fact, there is a complete, radical, and transcendent univocal relation which obtains between them. Barth really never gives up the modus operandi of modern theology after all.

F. Van Til and Barth

Now, I really have to give credit to Cornelius Van Til on this last point. According to Van Til this is the Achilles heal of Barth’s system. The idea of time as the common sphere in which both God and man participate is not developed by Van Til, its a theme I develop in my dissertation. But the basic critique is Van Til all the way. Van Til, long before I was born, analyzed Barth’s thought along similar lines. I’m simply trying to add color and contour as I seek to advance Van Til’s fundamental insights.

Van Til had many criticism to level against Barth. However, in summary form, Van Til’s critique can be understood in two basic steps. If you get this, you are well on your way to understanding Van Til’s transcendental critique of Barth.

First, according to Van Til, there is no direct revelation in Barth’s system. This should be fairly uncontroversial. For Barth, as people like McCormack and Trevor Hart have pointed out, revelation can never become a product of our history or time. Revelation, as we said above, is a transcendent event. Therefore, revelation is not a thing to be possessed by humanity. Rather, revelation is a person in this gracious act of God in Jesus Christ. In this way, then, revelation can only be indirectly known by us. We have no immediate access to revelation. We can only know of revelation as the Bible as the Church point to revelation. But revelation does not take place in nature, and it does not take place in the Bible. Therefore, man cannot read revelation or perceive revelation. He may read about revelation. He may perceive of revelation. But one thing is for sure, man may not have direct access to revelation.

Because of this, while the Bible is important, it can only be a fallible witness to revelation. We must come to the Bible by faith, in order to see this revelation. And since it is a fallible witness, Barth opens the way for a critical reading of the Bible. What is reliable and what is not in the Bible is determined by revelation itself. Because of this, we must read the Bible only in light of Jesus Christ. But what that revelation is is really quite beyond us. We can never grasp this revelation. We can never bottle up this revelation in the form of verbal, intellectual propositions. For Van Til this produces a kind of nominalism in theology. Ultimately and essentially it is irrationalism, deism, and agnosticism.

But since man cannot claim any level of certainty with regard to knowledge of revelation, the theologian is left to formulate his theology on that which is not revelation. Now, to be sure, Barth believes in exegesis. He does quite a bit of it, especially in the first part of volume III on the doctrine of creation. Nevertheless, it is still theologizing without – at least in theory – an infallible Word from God directly given to us. Rather, God is only – but fully and exhaustively (read: with no remainder) – revealed to man in Jesus Christ. This yields, of course, rationalism.

So, for Van Til, Barth – along with all anti-theistic thinking or thinking that stands on the basis of man’s would-be autonomous reason – is caught up in a rational-irrational dialectic. The would-be autonomous theologian has both ignorance and omniscience at once and the same time.

Second, because God and man meet together in this one time-act in Jesus Christ, God and man share in a common reality. God makes himself fully known through himself. Jesus Christ is the revealing God and the revealed-to man. God and man then, in Jesus Christ, mutually exhaust each other.

So, because of the transcendent nature of the ontological relationship between God and man, God (and man!) remains so “wholly other” that he is truly disconnected from us in the here and now. This is the Kantian and deistic aspect to Barth’s ontological scheme.

But since God and man share in the same actualized time-sphere, God and man are wholly identified with one another. This is the pantheistic, or analogia, aspect of his ontology. This yields an on-going, persistent and consistent deistic-pantheistic dialectic in Barth’s thought. Which, as Van Til points out, is no better than liberalism. If in liberalism God and man become one in the imminent, subjective experience of man, then on Barth’s scheme God and man become one in the transcendent, objective act of God in Jesus Christ. Same problem, shifted to a different sphere.

And this is why I believe so many other criticisms of Barth’s thought have fallen flat. No one else, of those who have written major critiques of Barth, analyze his system as deeply as Van Til. Berkhower and Horton, for example, hover on the surface in their criticisms of Barth, attacking this doctrine or that doctrine. But they never expose the deep structures of his thought.

G. Conclusion

In this series, we have attempted to show at least two things.

First, for Barth Jesus Christ really is all. In fact, the label of christmonism is an appropriate way of summarizing Barth’s theology. But what is more appropriate is to apply the label “christopanism” to his system of theology as a whole.

Second, Barth’s theology is of a cloth with his liberal professors. He did break with his professors, but it was not a radical break. It was a protest driven by political and cultural concerns. He shifts the ground of theology from the subjective to the objective, but does not return to the theology of Calvin, Luther, and the Heidelberg Catechism.

These two factors, his “christopanism” and essentially modern approach to theology, lead to the dialectical tensions in his thought which have plagued his writings ever since he was flourishing in the mid-20^th c. Far from being a resource for Reformed theology in the 21^st c., Barth’s thought should rather be regarded as a voice of caution from the past. To be sure, all Reformed theology should be Christ-centered. Christ is himself the goal, the sum, and substance of all redemptive history. But when Christ is not just the center, but when he becomes “all,” the irony is that we lose the one true Christ of biblical revelation. If the incarnation becomes an analogy, or conceptual framework, for each loci of theology, only trouble and confusion can result. When a preconceived Christology, even if it is a Chalcedonian Christology, becomes the structure into which everything else must be fitted, man becomes sovereign over his own theological system.

But when we begin with the direct self-revelation of Christ which he gives to his people in his Spirit-breathed Word, then our theology will be truly a manifold witness. It can include a Christ-centered understanding of creation or redemption without forcing it into a christopanistic mold. Christ can be – and must be – preeminent as we do exegesis of the very Word and Words of God in Scripture. But the Scriptures, of course, reveal to us God’s mind about other things other than Christ – even though Christ is always and everywhere the sovereign Lord over all things.

Unfortunately, attempting to move forward with Barth today is actually (ironically?) a returning to the past. It is to return to the 19^th century and even back to Kant himself. It is to return to the old pagan philosophies in which man is autonomous and God is made in man’s image.

No, rather, I would urge the next generation of pastor-theologians to move forward by advancing what we have learned from the past. Taking our starting point from the Infallible Word, let us do exegesis while learning, without re-inventing the theological wheel, from Irenaeus, Augustine, Anselm, Thomas, Calvin, Owen, Hodge, Warfield, Machen, and Murray. And let us learn from them with discernment, delighting in the glorious treasures which they have – by God’s grace – mined from the depths of the Bible.

And not just delight in them, but to live them and to teach them to others. It is these truths, the grand truths of the Reformed Faith, that can and will feed and drive the church until that day when our Savior appears for a second time, this time apart from sin, to take us to himself forever.

This is the third part of a four part series on the life and thought of Karl Barth. After completing a brief biography, we now turn to examine his thought. We will take this section in two parts. The first will survey how Barth offered a Protestant answer to the analogia entis, and how he applies that answer to the doctrines of revelation and election. The next and last part finishes my summary of his theology along with a closing critical analysis. Barth’s thought is so intricate that this section will hardly do justice to Barth. So, my attempt here is a modest one. I hope simply to give some “take-home” concepts for the reader. Consider this an effort in giving those presently uninformed about Barth’s theology a head start for future learning. Needless to say, there are more opinions out there about how to understand Barth’s theology than there are pages in the Church Dogmatics! Here you are reading one of those opinions. Many will disagree with my read of Barth and the criticism I offer. That’s OK, I welcome the dialogue. This series is a start to discussion about Barth, not the final word.

2. Thought

A. Introduction

We begin here where we left off in part 2: at the parting of the ways with Bultmann and Brunner, as an entry way into his thought. He could not walk with them because he believed they both compromised with the analogia entis. Barth was convince that the analogia entis is of the antiChrist. In other to understand that concern of his, we need to set the background of what exactly the analogia entis is.

B. The analogia entis

The analogia entis means literally “the analogy of being.” Without getting into all the detail, it is the metaphysical scheme with which medieval Roman Catholic theology usually gets labeled, especially Thomas Aquinas. Now, that theory of Thomas’ metaphysic is under intense scrutiny today, and most Thomas sympathizers have rejected it, even to the point that if you attach the label to Thomas anymore, you are automatically seen as a theological Neanderthal. Where have you been the last 50 years?

Be that as it may, the idea is that in order for there to be any connection at all between our knowledge and God’s knowledge there must be something which we and God have in common. For the analogia entis that “commonality” is being. What God and man share, what they have in common, is “being.” God has being, and we have being. The only difference is that God has more of it and to a greater – in fact, perfect – degree. He has – and he is – by virtue of being pure act an eternal and infinite being. We have limited and temporal being. But we both have being. God is at the top of the ladder of being, we are on the lower rungs. Not as low as pond scum, but not as high as unfallen angels either.

Now, it is this idea of there being a commonality between God and man, a metaphysical commonality, that Barth abhors. And rightly so. If nothing else, Van Til has taught us that there are two circles of being – the creator and the creature – and the twain do not overlap. God is God, man is man, and his ways are not our ways, his being is not our being. God has a being all his own, a divine being. Our being is created. God is himself the source of all being. God does not participate in being, he IS being. His being is original, our’s is derived. Therefore, God’s knowledge of himself is of a different order than our knowledge of God. Because of the creator-creature distinction, God is incomprehensible to us.

And so, here, we can be sympathetic with Barth’s rejection of the analogia entis. For him, to say that God and man have something in common means that God can come under the control of man. Natural theology, according to Barth, is man – creation itself – encapsulating God within the sphere of man’s own dwelling. It is, in fact, an exercise in – to use a Lutherism – the theology of glory. It was there resident in the thinking of his liberal professors who supported the Kaiser’s war effort, it was in the rise of national socialism, and in the German Christian movement. All these movements instilled Christian value into nationalistic pride. Christianity was identified with this-worldly considerations, like being a German. The interests of the nation and the German people were identified with the interests of the Gospel. All of this was a product of analogia entis thinking.

This was also the problem with the liberalism which Barth at first embraced. Schleiermacher placed the knowledge of God within the sphere of man’s feeling of absolute dependence, Kant in the categorical imperative, Ritschl in the value judgments of the community of faith. God was captured, time and again, by man and subjected to the whims of man’s own internal self-reflection. Liberalism was nothing more than theologians shouting “man” with a megaphone, rendering God as nothing more than a being made in the image of man.

Barth’s response to the analogia entis (hereafter, ae) – of either the medieval or liberal sort – was to replace it with a transcendence theology, with a God who is “wholly other.” To use the language found in his Romans, he begins his thinking with the quantitative difference between God and creation.

C. Bridging the Gap

So militant was Barth’s opposition to the theology of his professors that in his Romans commentary there was almost a one-sided commitment to widening the gap between God and man as much as possible. God is God and we stand under the divide between creator and creature. As such we are those under the creator’s judgment, his crises. We are all sin, all fallen, and estranged from God. We cannot be in God, or near God, we cannot possess him, or even know him. He is a stranger in a strange land.

But Barth would soon have to deal with the question of relevance. If such was the case, then what relevance has God for us? If he is so wholly other, then what good does that do us? Is God so aloof that the Christian religion has no meaningful relevance for us today?

Barth quickly realized that he needed some kind of analogia in order to bridge the gap between God and us. At some point, God must have some contact with creation. Whereas Van Til proposed revelation, God’s self-disclosure in both general and special revelation, Barth proposed faith. This is what he called the analogia fidei (hereafter, af). Now, this doctrine of the analogy of faith is extremely complex, and I have yet to read or hear someone explain in a completely lucid fashion. So, bear with me while I try.¹

First, the af is not an analogy of being. The relation between God’s knowledge of himself and our knowledge of God is not grounded upon a putative commonality of being (as in the ae).

Second, the af describes how our act of faith corresponds to God’s act of faith, or grace. So, faith is understood by Barth in terms of his actualism. Faith is not a substance, a thing we have or possess. Rather it is something that happens, it is an event or an act. Barth replaces the idea of substance with act (i.e., actualism). Reality, for Barth (and with Barth modern theology generally) is not made up of stuff but, rather, actions or events. Faith, both on our side and on God’s side, is an event, not a thing.

Third, our faith only corresponds to God’s act, it does it not possess God – either ontologically or epistemologically.

Fourth, God’s event of faith is God’s own self-knowing. God knows himself only in, by, with, and through himself. God’s revelation is a self-revelation – a revelation of himself and through himself in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God’s act of revelation. Jesus Christ, as a transcendent event, is simultaneously the known God and the knowing man. God makes himself known to man by faith, but he makes himself known to man by faith only in the faith of the man Jesus Christ. This is an event, an act of God’s grace, that takes place in God’s own special time – God’s time for us – and as such is wholly other from us. It is a time we cannot enter, it is a time we cannot possess or access.

Fifth – and finally – our faith only analogically corresponds to God’s gracious act in the faith-revelation of Jesus Christ. We believe, to be sure, but it is not an act which we ourselves originate. Faith originates, continues and endures, only in the act of God in his revelation in Jesus Christ. And yet, when we believe in the object of faith, Jesus Christ, we believe only in a way that is like God’s self-revelation, its analogous. We believe, and therefore we know, but we know only indirectly. We know only by knowing that we do not know. In Romans II, Barth was waxing existential, when he wrote “faith is therefore never finished, never a given, never secured; psychologically considered, it is always and ever again a leap into uncertainty, into the dark, into empty air.” (The Westminster Handbook to Karl Barth, 74; Romans, 73).

So, in conclusion, the af is a “correspondence between the human act of faith and the action of divine grace, an analogy that is not ontological but miraculous.” (Handbook, 74). God does the act of revelation in Jesus Christ, and we simply, miraculous and passive believe. We trust and know that which we ourselves could never trust, know or manufacture. We only mirror or reflect by our faith the faith which is the act of God that is always present to us in Jesus Christ.

D. Christ is All

So, now we have laid the ground work for the rest of Barth’s theology in the CD. If God is wholly other, and we are not-God, then we have no capacity for God. Our time is the time of complete and utter corruption. Therefore, the ground of theology must be found in something other than us or our present, temporal reality. And this is where Barth’s Christology comes in. Every loci of theology gets re-interpreted in terms of the rapprochement between the creator and the creature in Jesus Christ. For Barth theology always has two sides: the divine and creaturely. Jesus Christ – the God-man – represents, and in the divine act of grace is, those two sides.

This is, to be sure, where Barth receives the charge of “christomonism.” It is a term that is not completely inappropriate. In fact, he himself seems to own the label. In the preface to CD III.3, concerning the label of christomonism, he says:

It is my one concern to cling to this in these spheres (in the doctrine of creation) too. And my question to those who are dissatisfied is whether with a good conscience and cheerful heart Christian theology can do anything but seriously and finally remember “Christ alone” at each and every point.

In other words, while the label often times is used as a criticism of Barth’s theology, it need not necessarily be so. Barth himself would turn it around, and wear as a badge of honor. So, without negativity, we’re going to show this “christomonism” (or, “christopanism,” which I believe is a term more faithful to Barth) over the span of the four major doctrines which make up the CD: Revelation, Election, Creation, and Reconciliation.

a. Revelation

When it comes to his doctrine of revelation, he crafts it along Christological lines. For Barth revelation is Jesus Christ. Revelation is not God’s self-disclosure in nature. That would be natural theology, and to resort back to the ae . Revelation is not a human subjective experience, that would be to resort back to liberalism. Revelation is not even the Scriptures. Here 17^th century Protestant Scholasticism, according to Barth, falls back to ae in trying to capture God in a book.

Still, we can speak about the Word of God in its three forms. In revelation, in Jesus Christ, we have the Word of God in its original form. Secondly, in Scripture we have the derivative Word of God. It is the Word of God only in so much as it witnesses to revelation. Its gets its “Word of Godness” by the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, to which it points.

Barth illustrated this point from a painting, Grunwald’s Crucifixion, a copy of which hung right over Barth’s working desk. In this painting, John the Baptist stands by the crucified Christ, holding a book in his hand as he points with a long pointer finger away from himself to Christ dying on the cross, the Latin words written behind him from John 3:30 (He must increase, and I must decrease). This was an illustration of Barth’s sentiments about the Bible and doing theology. The Bible is not revelation itself, but rather points to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

The same can be said about the third form of the Word of God, which is the preaching of the church. Preaching too points away from the church, even as the theologian is to point away from himself. Therefore, the Bible is not the infallible revelation of God. On the contrary, it is a fallible witness to the infallible God-man, who is the only infallible revelation of God.

b. Election

By the time we get to the second volume of the CD, Barth covers the Doctrine of God, especially important is how he recasts the Doctrine of Election. There is a reason why he includes the Doctrine of Election in his Doctrine of God, as we will see.

Barth’s Doctrine of Election has come under a great deal of discussion and debate recently. We are unable to get into all the details here, but suffice it to say that at the center of the debate stands Bruce McCormack’s 2000 article “Grace and Being.” In this article, McCormack argues that for Barth God’s act of election constitutes his being as triune. In other words, the eternal act of election renders God’s being what it is. For God’s act precedes and constitutes his being as the Trinity.²

So, how does Barth articulate his doctrine of Election? He retains some formal similarities with the Reformed doctrine of double predestination, but radically reframes it along Christological lines. Christology frames the structure of his doctrine of election. And it is in the basic form of Chalcedon. That is to say, its a “two-nature” doctrine of election. Rather than saying that God elects some out of the human race to be saved, and passes over others in a sovereign act of reprobation, Barth can speak about Jesus Christ as the electing God and the elect man. The two natures of Christ, his divinity and his humanity, form the two parts of the divine act of election. His divinity denotes the electing God, and his humanity the elect man. In this man, all men, are elect. But Christ’s humanity, by virtue of his death and resurrection, is also – at once and the same time – both reprobate man and elect man. Humiliation and exaltation, which are traditionally understood as chronologically successive states in the human life of Christ, are reinterpreted by Barth not as two aspects of Christ. Humiliation is indicative of that which characterizes Christ’s life in our own fallen sphere of time. It is true humanity, humanity as fallen and under the judgment (crisis) of God. His exaltation is indicative of true divinity, that which is characteristic of God’s time.³ In this way, Jesus Christ is both electing God and elect man, while also being both the elect man and reprobate man. This is Barth’s doctrine of election, and you can see how his two-nature, “Chalcedonian,” Christology grounds and centers his articulation of election. ⁴

In the next, and final, part we will look at how Barth christologically reconstructs the doctrine of creation and redemption. We will then conclude with some critical interactions with his theological project as a whole.

In our previous post, part 1, we introduced our thesis and opened with the beginning of Barth’s life. We pick up here with his years from the beginning of his academic career to his death.

C. Professor Barth

In 1922 he was appointed professor of Reformed Theology in Göttingen. The position was newly minted and was to accommodate Reformed students in an predominately Lutheran school. One of his first lectures was on the Heidelberg Catechism. This was his initiation into Reformed academic study. He worked, it is reported, day and night to prepare his lectures. Some of his earliest lectures were at 7 AM, having only finished his lecture notes between 3-5 AM! He was quite critical of the Catechism, saying that historically it marked the transition between the Reformation’s zeal to the church’s complacency (Busch, 128). The first question and answer, he said, is “definitely not good” beginning as it does with “your comfort.” Apparently, it was too pietistic and subjective! It was during these years at Göttingen that he began to prepare his lectures on Dogmatics.¹ Here he took up Heppe’s Dogmatics and began to understand and appreciate more and more the old Reformed theologians, especially Calvin. It is not that he agreed with them. But working from them, and learning lessons from them, he refined his own dogmatics in its own characteristic way. He could not go back to his Professors’ immanence theology, but neither could he go all the way with the Reformed. Rather, he re-appropriated the Reformed insights and gave them his own distinctive spin, within a basic modern framework. We’ll discussion his theology some more later on. It was while in Göttingen in 1924 that Barth met Charlotte von Kirschbaum. She was a helper to Barth in his research, indexing and cataloging many quotes from the reading he was doing. Charlotte, or Lollo (sometime “my dear Lollo”) as he called her, was 13 years younger than Barth (born June 25, 1899). In the summer of 1925 we know she assisted Barth in his research on Augustine and Luther as they went off together to “the Bergli,” a summer cottage owned by their mutual friends. She was 26 at the time, and Barth had just turned 40. It is reported that there was a deep mutual trust and understanding between them (Busch, 185). In fact, so deep was their relationship that she moved into the home with him and his family (in 1929), much to Barth’s wife’s (Nelly) chagrin. This relationship caused a great strain in Barth’s other relationships, including with his mother and close friends. Busch notes that “the intimacy of her relationship with him made particularly heavy demands on the patience of his wife Nelly.” (ibid). Nelly increasingly faded into the background, even though she never left him. It is said that this arrangement, even and especially when Barth and Lollo went off to the Bergli for study, caused a great strain, burden, and suffering for his wife and children. Lollo was herself an accomplished theologian in her own right. She wrote on and lectured on the Protestant doctrine of woman. Her insights even made their way into CD III.2 (Busch, 363). When she finally died, several years after Barth (d. 1975), she was buried with him and his wife (d. 1976) in the same plot. In 1925 he made another move, this time to Münster. There he prepared seminars on the history of Protestant theology from the time of Schleiermacher and also on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo? This seminar (and the book that came from it), it is argued by some, was the impetus for a significant shift and change in his thinking. It is particularly the thesis of von Balthasar that his Anselm book marks a turn in Barth’s theology toward an analogia entis, or an analogy of being, in a more classically scholastic direction. More on this later. In 1930 he made his last move in Germany, this time to the University of Bonn. It was here that Barth would come up against Hitler and the 3^rd Reich. Eberhard Busch notes that Politics suddenly became interesting for Barth in 1933, after Adolf Hitler established the Third Reich. Barth spoke out in anger against Naziism when it attempted to create new “German Christian” churches in which National Socialist political theories were given the same sanctity as theological dogma….[according to Barth] This was a nationalist heresy….[which produced] confusion between God and the spirit of the German nation. In response to the Nazis, Barth launched a new magazine to attack this “heresy.” Furthermore, in 1934 he wrote the Barmen Declaration—an anti-Nazi protest that claimed the autonomy of the church from all temporal power. The declaration was signed by 200 leaders of Germany’s Lutheran, Reformed and Evangelical Unionist churches. It did not take long, however, for the Nazi’s to persecute non-conformists. The opposing party to the Nazi’s, the Democratic Socialists Party, was threatened by the Nazi’s. The leadership of the DSP advised those in the party who held academic posts to withdraw their formal membership so as not to sacrifice their academic careers. But Barth would not resign his membership. He said, in short, if they want him to teach, they have to take him as he is, party membership and all. Soon thereafter, the Nazi’s disbanded completely the Democratic Socialist Party. And Barth’s days in Germany were now numbered. So, the German Christian Movement began to grow, and they encouraged all others in the church to join with the Nationalist government. In the midst of this there was a push to make changes in the church’s book of order (Bausch, 226). The changes would be quite “patriotic,” speaking of “our beloved German Fatherland” and provide for a centralized “Reich Bishop.” In response to these proposed changes, a group called the “Pastor’s Emergency League” was formed. Out of this group the “Confessing Church” was founded. The was a coalition that opposed the change in the church order. Barth wrote in this context calling the position of the German Christians “heresy” and summoning the church to do theology, and only theology. The church is to be concerned to preach the Gospel only, and is not to see church membership tied to race or blood. The document in which he wrote this was entitled “Theological Existence Today” and was sent to Hitler on July 1, 1933. 37,000 copies were printed before it was banned the following year. The effect of this pamphlet is said to have been “tremendous” (Busch, 227). The new church order, however, was put into place, including the notorious “Aryan paragraph,” which stated that only Aryans, or those married to such, would qualify for employment in the church. Accordingly, the persecution would only increase. As a professor at the University of Bonn, Barth was technically a civil servant. But he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Führer or open his classes with the Nazi salute. It would be bad taste, he told them, “to begin a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount with ‘Heil Hitler.’” Soon after, Barth was brought before a Nazi court and found guilty of “seducing the minds” of German students, was suspended and eventually fined 20% of his annual salary.² This spelled the end of his time in Bonn. Providentially, however, it was the occasion for his return home to Basle, where a special chair of theology was offered to him by the University. It is here in Basel that he would live, write, and teach for the rest of his life. In 1962 Barth paid a long overdue visit to the U.S. Here he lectured many times, including at the University of Chicago and Princeton. While in America he met the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as Billy Graham (whom he met earlier back in Europe). It was while he was at Princeton that he had his one and only run-in with the Westminster apologetics professor, Cornelius Van Til (more on this below). And finally in 1968, after suffering a series of health set-backs (including at least one stroke), he died peacefully at in his bed where he was being taken care of by his faithful wife, Nelly. She found him dead on the morning of December 10 in their Basel home.

D. Literary Corpus

Barth’s literary output is by any standard amazing. He wrote a lot along the way including a large library of sermons, letters, and other unpublished manuscripts. This is not even including his course lectures (much of which made it into his published volumes) and other special lectures he gave.

But the back bone to his literary work, after the two versions of his Romans commentary, is the Göttingen Dogmatics and his Church Dogmatics. While he was teaching in Göttingen, he gave two rounds of lectures on Dogmatics between 1924-25. These lectures were published in three volumes. It was anticipated that the Göttingen Dogmatics would be translated into English and made available in two volumes, but only one volume has ever been published.

After this, while he was in Münster, he published his Christian Dogmatics in Outline, which he later labeled “a false start.” But these four volumes all formed the ground work for his later real start, which became known as the Church Dogmatics.

He began the CD in Bonn and then continued it in Basel. The first part of volume I was released in 1932 and the final part of volume IV was released in 1967, the year before he died. He had anticipated writing a fifth volume on the doctrine of redemption, which would have included his thoughts on eschatology. However, by the time he finished volume IV, he was literally too tired to do it. He expressed his “lack of energy and mental drive” to make it happen. But the finished project was 13 tomes, excluding the index, spreading out over nearly 10,000 pages.

I have included a link to a timeline of Barth’s literary output and his career here. This timeline was put together by Darren Sumner and posted at the Out of Bounds blog. This provides a very helpful, at-a-glance, resource for gaining appreciation and understanding of his literary productivity.

E. Meeting with Van Til

There are many versions of the story of Van Til and Barth meeting. Truth is, Van Til made at least one attempt to meet Barth while he was in Basel, even phoning Barth’s house. Unfortunately, Barth was out of town and unable to meet.³ When Barth came to the States, he gave a lecture at the chapel on the campus of Princeton University. Van Til and Art Kuschke traveled up to Princeton to hear the lecture. Afterwards they hurried outside to meet Barth. Van Til introduced himself, they shook hands, and Barth said something to effect “you say bad things about me, but I forgive you.” According to Kuscke’s account, Van Til did not reply to Barth before he was whisked off in a car and taken away. Van Til did follow-up soon thereafter with a letter seeking to set the record straight that he never called Barth the worse heretic in church history, and never questioned his personal faith. Van Til also asked Barth’s forgiveness if he had misrepresented anything he wrote (Muether, 191). Barth never replied.

To the best of my knowledge, Barth never makes any explicit reference to Van Til in any of his published writings. He does seem to allude to him in a letter on June 1, 1961 to G.W. Bromiley at Fuller Seminary in which he refers to some of his “fundamentalist” critics as those who believe him to be the worse heretic of all time (Busch, 380; Karl Barth Letters: 1961-68, 8). He also refers to Van Til in a letter to Edward Geehan (editor of the festschrift for Van Til, Jerusalem and Athens) saying that Van Til has not understood a word he has written. Barth, however, quickly acknowledges that he himself had not understood Van Til’s critique! (Muether, 191). He further refers to Van Til, in a veiled manner, in his 1955 preface to CD IV.2, xii. In there he refers to certain “fundamentalists” who are beyond the pale of dialogue because they are “cannibals.” It is interesting to note that Van Til signed his last letter to Barth as “C. Van Til, Ein Menschenfresser” (Muether, 191).

F. Relationship with Bultmann and Brunner

Many have lumped together the three great “B’s” of dialectical theology – Barth, Bultmann, and Brunner – as if they were of a cloth. But, actually, it did not take long for Barth to part company with these two. In the mid-30’s Brunner issued a call for dialectical theology to give some room to Natural Theology in its thinking. To this call Barth issued his very passionate “Nein!” where he argued that to give any quarter to Natural Theology is to go back to the analogia entis and neo-Protestantism. Bultmann with his denial of the historicity of the miracles of Jesus, the supernatural acts of God, and his demythologizing hermeneutic moved the basis of theology away from Christ and back to man. From Barth’s perspective, scientific history is a human construct and formed Bultmann’s starting part in theology. For Barth, this was to ground theology in something other than God’s revelation, which is Jesus Christ himself. Because of this, Barth leveled several lengthy critiques of Bultmann throughout his CD.

Again, so much more can – and should – be said about this man’s amazing (and often time disturbing!) life. But for now we move beyond his biography and reflect some on his thought. We will take up his theology in the next part of this series – part 3.

“Christ is All: An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Karl Barth”¹

Part I

1. Introduction and Thesis

A. Introduction

You are reading the first installment of a four part series on the life and thought of Karl Barth. The first two parts of this series will be on the life of Barth, and the last two parts will be on his thought. My goal is to provide a nutshell of the man and his theology. Needless to say, so much more can and needs to be said about Barth. This series, however, is intended to only give an entryway into deeper study for those who are so inclined, while also giving an impression for the casual reader who is looking to familiarize himself with Barth. For this reason, it is purposely written as a mere introduction. Those who want to know more about his life and thought are encouraged to consult the works cited here. Now, that is my goal, but what is my thesis that runs throughout this series?

B. Thesis

It may be argued that all theology is a matter of negotiating the conceptual relationship between unity and diversity. How do we distinguish, and relate, the one essence of God from his persons? We must do so in a way that the essence is distinct from the persons, without separating them or loosing their relation. How do we distinguish between Christ’s human and divine nature without losing the hypostatic relation? How do we avoid confusing justification and sanction without separating them in the relationship they enjoy by virtue of union with Christ? Distinction-in-relation is the repeated mode of operation in all good and careful theology.

And so it is with understanding the theology of Karl Barth. What are the continuities and the discontinuities between his thought and that of modern theologians who went before him? Understanding Barth’s thought, relative to modern theology, is a matter of distinction within relation. Only within a basic relation of continuity with his forebears can we properly understand the discontinuities. Only when we understand Barth in this way – Barth in relation, Barth in context – can we ever hope to understand aright the profundity of his thought and the contribution he makes to the long history of theological reflection.

In doing this, it will become apparent how his Christology – in fact, Christ himself – is so central to his life and thought that it not only informs but structures every loci of his theology.² That Christ is central – in fact that Christ is everything – for Barth is the working thesis of this series. The idea of “Christ-as-all” (or “christopantism”) is a way of “nutshelling” Barth’s thought such that even the casual reader can walk away with a better – albeit, basic – understanding of the the man and his theology.³

To that end, in this series we will examine his life and his thought. We will sketch a relatively brief biography of his life which will in turn set the backdrop for understanding his thought as a whole. From this we will see how his thought is in relation to modern thought, even while he makes a distinct contribution to what is known as modern theology. We will finally conclude with a critical appraisal of Barth’s theology.

2. Life

   A. Beginnings

On May 10, 1886 Karl Barth was brought into this world. 1886 represented a day and an age of no little religious and political upheaval. Barth was born in an era which can rightly be characterized as the height of the flourishing of theological liberalism and political tensions throughout Europe. Albrecht Ritschl was nearing the end of his life and career, and Adolph von Harnack was at the height of his powers. Despite attempts at peace, Otto von Bismark’s application of realpolitik was uniting the nation and building up the walls of German nationalism.

It was in this context that Karl was born to Fritz and Anna Barth in Basel, Switzerland. Fritz Barth was a pastor and a theologian in his own right. Before Karl was born, Fritz and Anna had left the pastorate and moved back to Basel for Fritz to take up a call teaching at the College of Preachers, an institution to train “spiritual” pastors for the free churches, in opposition to liberalism. It should not be missed that Barth was born into an anti-modernistic home to an anti-modernist pastor.

At the age of 18 he matriculated at the University of Berne where he recalled how he was “earnestly told, and … learnt, all that can be said against ‘the old orthodoxy’…all God’s ways begin with Kant and, if possible, must also end there.”⁴ In fact, Kant was Barth’s “first love” in University. Here he also found himself developing his social and political thought as well. He was an advocate of socialism, believing that a biblical worldview demanded it. But his socialism was not of a nationalist sort. Already, despite his initial sympathies with theological liberalism, he shows a strong skepticism of governments as agents of revelation or grace. Socialism must spring from the revelation of God in Jesus Christ and not from fascist ideals.

Later on he would go to Berlin to study under von Harnack. Here he was treated to the well-known thesis that the doctrine of the early church was a baptizing of Greek philosophical thought. For this seminar Barth wrote a 158 page paper on the book of Acts, for which he received high commendation from Harnack (Busch, 39). It was around this time that Barth finished his reading of Kant, working carefully through his most important works, and then took up Schleiermacher. He was quite drawn to Schleiermacher and the history of religions school.

However, his father wanted him to study under the conservative Adolph Schlatter, so Barth – reluctantly – enrolled at Tübingen for a short spell. After this he went over to Marburg in 1908 where he learned under his new inspiration Wilhelm Herrmann. He was quite taken away with Herrmann, especially his book Ethics. He was also significantly impacted by the Marburg neo-Kantian philosophers Cohen and Natorp (Busch, 44). By the time he finished his formal education, he was well-steeped in modern thought, and he was a committed neo-Protestant.⁵

B. The Change

It was in 1909 that he left Marburg to take his first ministerial post in Geneva as assistant pastor of the German Reformed Church there, preaching his first sermon that fall on Philippians 3:12-15. He was here for two years. It is reported that his sermons were very long, academic, and liberal! (Busch, 52-54). In 1911 he took a new call in the village of Safenwil. So strong was his commitment to preaching and promoting socialism there he become known as “the red pastor.” This is where he would spend the next 10 years of his life and marry his wife, Nelly Hoffmann.⁶ It is also the place where he would write and publish his Der Römerbreif, a commentary on the book of Romans which is said – famously – to have landed like a bombshell on the playground of the theologians.

On August 1, 1914 the world changed forever as the supposed “war to end all wars” broke out.⁷ But beyond the war itself, there was an event that shook the theological world (Busch, 81). Ninety-three German intellectuals, including Barth’s most beloved professors (e.g., von Harnack and Wilhelm Herrmann) signed a document in support of the war policies of Kaiser Wilhelm II. This caused Barth to bring into question the liberal theology which they taught – and he believed. According to Barth, the ethical failure resident in their support of the war “indicated that their exegetical and dogmatic presuppositions could not be in order” (ibid). No longer could their teachings be trusted.

To be sure, this caused a crisis in the midst of his pastorate. He had been preaching liberalism fervently, but no longer could he do so. It was his friend and colleague in the ministry, Eduard Thurneysen, who suggested a new way forward when he whispered to Barth: “What we need for preaching, instruction and pastoral care is a ‘wholly other’ theological foundation.” (Busch, 97). No longer could they “share the fruit of Schleiermacher.” (ibid). Rather than beginning with a god of the subjective human experience, they would begin with the God who is, and who reveals himself wholly outside of us. This God would not be dependent upon man for his being and identity. This God would be a free God, a sovereign Lord, and not the projection of man’s imagination. He would stand as judge over man and his feelings. Therefore, two years after the outbreak of war, and the day after “Thurneysen’s whisper,” Barth sat down under an apple tree and gave himself to reading the book of Romans afresh.

During this time he is said to have read and written ceaselessly. Originally his writing was only for himself and a few friends to reflect on his change of thinking. He described this time as his still coming out of the eggshells of the theology of his teachers (Busch, 99). Barth was committed to stand on God’s perspective over against all human and partisan perspectives. Man had commandeered God for his party, his purpose, and his own political agenda. For Barth, however, God transcends party politics and worldly agendas. As a result of these new ways of thinking, Barth penned his commentary on Romans, finally finishing the first draft in August 1918. After some difficulty finding a publisher, it was finally printed in Dec 1918⁸, and substantially revised in 1922.⁹

He begins the commentary with a fundamental ontological claim: there is a qualitative difference between time and eternity, or between God and man. This is where we get the idea that Barth’s God is “wholly other.” Over against the immanence theology of liberalism, Barth responded with a thoroughgoing transcendence theology. Rather than God revealing himself in man’s feeling of absolute dependence, God stands over all and renders all under his judgment – his crises. This is one of the original terms used to describe Barth’s theology – “crises theology.”

It is at this time that Barth’s theology begins to be seen as a “new theological trend and new school” (144). It is labeled variously. Some called it crises theology, but others called it “theology of the word” or “dialectical theology.”¹⁰ Later it would receive the label “neo-orthodox.” As an aside, Barth himself rejected this label (CD III.3, xii). It is regarded by some today as a misnomer. As early as 1972 German reflection on the thought of Barth was challenging the “neo-orthodox” label (see McCormack, Critical-Realistic, 24-28). Bruce McCormack’s magisterial study seeks to show that Barth’s theology never was an attempt to repristinate the older orthodoxy of either the Reformed or Lutheran traditions. Quite on the contrary, while there are significant discontinuities between Barth’s thought and that of modern theology since Schleiermacher, there is also a fundamental continuity. So strong was that continuity that the German scholar Trutz Rendtorff concluded that Barth really was an “exponent of liberal theology.” (McCormack, 28).

McCormack, in fact, observes that Anglo-American theologians in particular try to read – or, misread – Barth as a “neo-orthodox” theologian. Barth, in other words, may have rejected the liberal orientation to modern theology, but he did not reject modern theology as such. He certainly did not reject it for the sake of going back to something that preceded it. The lesson here is, of course, don’t call Barth a “neo-orthodox” theologian and don’t refer to his theology as “neo-orthodoxy!” If anything, it might be more accurate to refer to his theology as neo-modernism. Its not quite the old liberal theology and its not a rediscovery of pre-modern post-reformation Reformed orthodoxy, but rather is something new. But something new within the broader sphere of modern theology.¹¹

But whatever you label Barth’s theology, one thing is for sure, his Romans commentary changed his life forever. He would move very quickly now from being a small-time pastor in a rural community to being a leading mind among the young, restless, and European crowd. And his commentary would also get the attention of the academy. And to the academy he would go.

In the next installment we will conclude our short biography as we look at his years as a professor and then finally his retirement and death. Of special interest will be some attention to his relationship with Charlotte von Kirschbaum, his live-in assistant.

Barth’s theology, fairly early on, received the label “neo-orthodox.” Barth himself rejected the label (CD III.3, xii). It is regarded by some today as a misnomer. As early as 1972, German reflection on the thought of Barth were challenging the “neo-orthodox” label (see McCormack, Critical-Realistic, 24–28). Bruce McCormack’s magisterial study of Barth seeks to show that Barth’s theology never was an attempt to repristinate the older orthodoxy of either the Reformed or Lutheran traditions. Quite the contrary, while there are important discontinuities between Barth’s thought and that of modern theology since Schleiermacher, there is also a fundamental continuity which led the German scholar Trutz Rendtorff to conclude that Barth really was an “exponent of liberal theology” (McCormack, 28). The trouble, McCormack argues, is when theologians in the Anglo-American context try to read—or misread—Barth as a neo-orthodox theologian, as if Barth was bringing back that old time religion. The lesson here is, of course, don’t call Barth a “neo-orthodox” theologian and don’t refer to his theology as “neo-orthodoxy.” If anything, it might be more accurate to refer to his theology as neo-modernism. It’s not quite the old liberal theology, yet it’s not a rediscovery of pre-modern post-reformation Reformed orthodoxy. Rather, it really is something—for a lack of better term—wholly other. Its otherness notwithstanding, it still resides at home in the broader sphere of modern theology.¹

Eberhard Busch describes Barth’s approach to theological prolegomena:

he saw the prolegomena as being a first step into the subject-matter itself, bringing about a first clarification of what revelation was and how it was to be spoken of. The prolegomena were concerned “not with the things to be said beforehand, but with the things to be said first.” Or in other words: “Thus in the prolegomena to dogmatics we are concerned with the Word of God as the criterion of dogmatics.” (Karl Barth: His Life and Letters, 213)

Bavinck, interestingly, treats apologetics as an aspect of prolegomena in a similar fashion, folding the discipline into the dogmatic enterprise, not something prior to or outside of it:

Apologetics cannot precede faith and does not attempt a priori to argue the truth of revelation. It assumes the truth and belief in the truth. It does not, as the introductory part or as the foundational science, precede theology and dogmatics. It is itself a theological science through and through, which presupposes the faith and dogmatics and now maintains and defends the dogma against the opposition to which it is exposed. (RD I:515)

Bavinck’s statement is quite consistent with Van Til’s own approach to both theology and apologetics. Van Til was concerned to set a course correction in what he saw in the history of theology, particularly in Aquinas and Old Princeton tradition, where prolegomena in general and apologetics in particular were treated “philosophically” and as a precursor to doing theology. It gave the feel that apologetics has a different starting point than theology, as if prolegomena/apologetics were autonomous disciplines based on another ground than that of theology. Bavinck and Van Til, however, want to make it clear that prolegomena/apologetics, no less than theology, begin at the same place: special revelation. Therefore, prolegomena/apologetics are not separate from dogmatics, but an aspect of dogmatics.

Barth was quite famous for his rejection of apologetics. But his rejection of apologetics was not a rejection of defending the faith as such. What he rejected was a form of apologetics found in the analogia entis of Thomas and—Barth would add—liberal theology. Schleiermacher, and those who walked in his ways, were concerned to ground their defense of the faith and the things that need to be said beforehand in philosophy, reason, and what Barth regarded as “natural theology.” This gave the apologetic endeavor a man-made, or man-centered, orientation. This is why Barth shouted from the rooftops a resounding Nein! to Brunner’s proposal for a recovery of natural theology.

For Barth, then, prolegomena must be founded upon the same grounds as all of dogmatics—God’s revelation witnessed to in his Word. Barth disdained autonomous natural theology and man-centered prolegomena just as Bavinck and Van Til did.

Is there a place of rapprochement between Barth and Bavinck/Van Til?!

Now, to be sure, the agreement between Barth and Bavinck/Van Til does not last long. Barth takes his doctrine of revelation in a very different direction than Bavinck/Van Til did. Almost immediately the two diverge in polar opposite directions. Barth will allow for autonomy, indeed. It won’t be in the area of prolegomena, at least not formally. Yet where he allows for it will affect his prolegomena, whether he realized it or not. He could not keep the proverbial autonomous camel out of the tent once he allowed its nose of biblical studies in. Whereas for Van Til the Scriptures are the revelation of God giving us both the history of special revelation and its interpretation infallibly, Barth allowed the would-be autonomous bible scholar to discern what in Scripture witnesses to revelation and what does not. The Scriptures are the Word of God only insofar as they witness to revelation (i.e., Jesus Christ). Where they do that rightly, there we have the Word of God. But where there is error, there the authors and the text (both being caught up in this fallen world) fail to witness to revelation. And it is up to the autonomous reader to determine the difference.

And so, despite his best efforts to the contrary, natural theology found its way into Barth’s theology after all.

Bavinck in the first volume of his Reformed Dogmatics is very clear about revelation becoming nature. God reveals himself in, by, and with nature. Bavinck is clear that revelation is not “abstractly supernatural,” somehow floating above and apart from nature (442). Here the saying is relevant that grace perfects nature (443).

Barth, however, rejects the idea that revelation becomes nature. Revelation cannot become one with nature. Rather, in revelation (which is the transcendent act of God in Jesus Christ) God takes up nature, destroys it, and replaces it. This is because nature has no capacity for grace. There is an infinite qualitative difference between eternity and time, God and nature. God in his act of revelation cannot become nature, but rather through grace says no to nature as he takes it up, destroys it, and makes it something wholly new.

This view of nature seems wholly akin to an Anabaptist notion of nature. Nature according to Anabaptistism, and for Barth, is inherently problematic. It is not-God, and as such is sin, fallen, and evil. Nature has only non-reality, non-existence. Contrary to Bavinck’s notion of grace perfecting nature, for Barth grace obliterates nature. Death and nothingness is eschatology.

This is, of course, a similar view of nature as one might find in so much of American evangelicalism, especially of a pre-millennial sort. The body is bad, something to be shed that our souls might go to heaven to be with Jesus forever. This world is something to be shed, to be escaped, to be raptured out of. We must be careful in amillennialism that we do fall prey to a similar trap. Jesus will purge the world with fire, at the palingenesis. But he does not do so to destroy it. He does it to renew it, and perfect it as a New Heavens and New Earth. This is Bavinck’s view, and I believe it is the most consistently Reformed.

President Obama may some day, if not already, rue the day he compared the Crusades to the current terror tactics of ISIS. But, was his comparison completely off-based?

Several well-circulated articles have appeared by Crusades scholars to put the Presidents remarks to the lie. These articles have been very helpful in setting the record straight. To be sure, the comparison between the Crusades and ISIS is historical revisionism at best. 

Even so, I wonder if the President’s remarks were all wrong. While not an expert in history, never mind Medieval history, I have some serious theological and ethical concerns about the Crusades that I think give some justification to the President’s comparison. While his comparison was troubling in many ways (a discussion for another time!), I do not believe that it was completely without some rationale.

This is what I mean.

First of all, Thomas F. Madden in his First Things article makes clear that the Crusades were a “holy war.” In other words, it was a war of defense, seeking to push mack Islamic aggression that came with the promise of eternal life for its warriors. In other words, Madden notes, the wars need to be understood in penitential terms. Those who fought in the war, especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice, paid for their sins and earned for themselves a plenary indulgence from the Pope. To say that this is bad theology, not to mention ethically dubious motivation for taking up arms, is an understatement. But what is interesting, for our purposes here, is that Islam sees its Jihad against the infidels in a similar way. War is a means of grace, a way to earn eternal life. Obama is not completely off in his comparison. 

Second, Madden is correct to underscore the history of just war theory in the Christian tradition. Civil magistrates, as Paul explains in Romans 13, do not bear the sword in vain. But is it the role of the church to bear arms for the sake of self-defense? Notice, this is a different question than the one about whether or not an individual Christian may use arms to exercise violence in self-defense or as a member of the state’s military. The tradition’s answer to that latter question is overwhelmingly in the affirmative. But the question is, does the Pope—or any representative of the church—have the authority to command the taking up of arms by those who represent the church and for the sake of the church? It seems to me there is a terrible confusion of spheres of authority at this point. Christ does not say take up your arms and advance my Kingdom through violence or arms. Rather, “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” (2 Cor 10:4-5). Furthermore, Jesus says that his Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), and when we are reviled we are not to revile in return knowing that we are to joyfully accept the plundering of our property, since we know that we have a better possession and an abiding one (Hebrews 10:34). In other words, to attempt the advancement—or otherwise the defense—of Christianity through carnal weapons is to adopt the same ethic as Islam. Again, Obama was not too far off in his comparison. 

So, what is a Christian to do when fighting the good fight of faith and the cultural warfare we find ourselves in? How about we acknowledge the faults of our forefathers in the past? 

This is not to say that self-defense was not called for—it was. But self-defense should have been carried out by the civil magistrate, not the church. And failing that, the believers suffering under the oppressive hand of an inherently violent religion would have rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name (Acts 5:41). 

In conclusion, the Crusades were not without fault (I wonder if maybe Madden overdoes it with the theological and ethical whitewash?). In fact, it was in many ways very Islam-like. It adopted the presuppositions of Islam’s—if I can put it this way—philosophy of ministry; not to mention its soteriology. Islam believes in the advancement of a worldly religion through carnal means motivated by a semi-Pelagian soteriology. In other words, to use Luther’s distinction, both Islam and the Crusades were driven by a theology of glory rather than a theology of the cross.

Let us take the higher road. Instead of feeling like we need to defend Christian errors of the past, we would do well to confess them and then move on to the real claims of Christ seeking the reconciliation of our Muslim neighbors to the one true and living God.

A recent firestorm has arisen within the blogosphere concerning an alleged failure by Karl Barth. It was initiated by Matthew Rose over at First Things here, responded to by IVP editor David Congdon here, Darren Sumner here, David Guretzki here, and Kevin Davis at After Existentialism here, as well as Bobby Grow over at the Evangelical Calvinist here. An accurate and helpful summary of Rose’s argument is given by Congdon above, so I won’t repeat it here. I agree with Congdon (and the others mentioned above) that Rose is seeking to promote, through criticism of Karl Barth, a Roman Catholic ontology and epistemology. As Congdon concludes:

modernity is Protestant, so to reject modernity is to reject Protestantism. Perhaps that is the underlying message of Rose’s article. Barth finally fails, because he remains, at the end of the day, a theologian of the Reformation.

As I understand Congdon (and company), to be modern is to be Protestant, and since Barth is thoroughly modern and Protestant in his ontology (event over metaphysics, the incapability of fallen man to know God, etc), to call Barth’s program a failure is to call the Reformation a failure. In other words, Rose’s beef with Barth is over the fact that he is not a Thomistic Roman Catholic. In my opinion, Congdon, et al., have penetrated to the heart of Rose’s contention precisely. So, in light of this, I have several thoughts:

1. While I agree with the Young, Restless, and Barthian guys’ tagging of Rose’s agenda, I cannot concede their contention that modernity is identified with Protestantism. That is simply anachronistic and inaccurate. It is inaccurate because first of all modernism has made its way into Roman Catholicism, evidenced I believe by Vatican II (and even before that evidenced by the Leo XIII’s and Pius X’s attempt to stave off modernism in the church by decrees establishing Thomism as the official doctrine of the church and binding priests with the anti-Modernism Oath, respectively. HT: Camden Bucey). Second, the rise of modernity occurred after the rise of Protestantism and was, in effect, a self-conscious move beyond the Reformation. That the Enlightenment occurred within and among Protestants does not mean it constitutes Protestantism. That is simply the historical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Remember, Kant’s influence was nearly 300 years after the rise of the Reformation. Therefore, it is incorrect to read modernism back into the Reformation.
2. As for Rose, I agree with him that Barth was modern and not orthodox. Now, that being said, I believe that Rose is far from having proven that Barth’s modern commitments necessarily arise to a failure. Especially if the alternative is medieval rationalism. Proving the failure of Barth’s newly constructed modernism requires, I believe, a thoroughgoing transcendental critique. More on that anon.
3. Modernism and Thomism have more in common than Rose and the young Barthians will admit. In fact, they are both so fundamentally and essentially (not in an ontological sense) of a cloth that it must be said the Reformation stands over and against both Thomism and Modernism. In other words, the dividing line is not between Thomas and Modernism, ultimately. The dividing line – with regard to the principium cognoscendi externum of theology – is really between Calvin and the Reformed confessions on the one side and Thomas and Modernism on the other. Both of the latter, over against the Reformation, deny the epistemic priority of God’s verbal, inscripturated revelation in matters of church doctrine and life. There is a word for this phenomenon: rationalism. And Thomas, Modernism, and Barth are all guilty of it.

In closing, this charge of rationalism, especially relative to Barth, needs a defense. While I can only be brief here, I offer the following two points to consider and would welcome pushback from Rose, Congdon, and Grow:

1. Barth was right to rise up against against both the analogia entis and his neo-Protestant professors to critique the theological structures which enabled them to support the Kaiser in his attempt at European dominance. However, Barth did not go far enough. He allowed modernism’s commitment to ontological dualism to stand, and with that its denial of God’s verbal, inscripturated revelation to man. In other words, Barth never exited the park which contained the playground of the theologians, even as he dropped a bomb on it. If Barth is correct to say that the event of revelation is not directly given to us in “our time,” then there is no direct revelation of God to us here and now. Scripture and preaching are only witnesses to revelation, but they are not revelation itself. This means that two problems in Barth’s system arise at once. Relative to epistemology, no direct revelation entails the dual and simultaneous problems of rationalism and nominalism/skepticism. On the one hand it entails nominalism because we here-and-now cannot know God, having no access to his direct revelation. We only have witnesses to revelation. But how is the theologian to know if those witnesses are reliable if he has no final arbiter to compare them to? Who is to say St. John’s witness is not more reliable than St. Paul’s? Or, who is to say that Polycarp’s witness is less dependable than St. Luke’s, or St. Peter’s compared to Thomas Aquinas? If there is no direct revelation, then all are equally valid witnesses. Even a dead dog is able to witness to revelation.
2. On the other hand, it also entails rationalism. We are the ones who do the naming. We are speculating about who God is. Barth speaks piously about Jesus Christ, yet the Christ he talks about is a Christ he has constructed as his fundamental starting point from the words of merely fallible humans. In other words, Barth’s Christomonistic prolegomena is built upon the resources of man’s own “natural theology” no less than medieval Scholasticism. His system is nothing other than a modern reconstruction of the very natural theology he so passionately dismissed as the invention of the anti-Christ. And it is at this point, the point of Barth never having escape the very thing Rose is seeking to promote, which constitutes Barth’s fatal failure. It is the failure of all would-be autonomous man-made theologies. It is the failure of not just another equally valid expression of Christianity, but of another religion altogether.

1. Continuing Revelation. David Wells in God in the Wasteland notes a remarkable statistic (albeit one that is now outdated): “Those who were most inclined toward the inerrancy position were in the Baptist tradition; those least likely to endorse it were in the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition.” (p. 193). All sorts of qualifiers can and should be made here (including the one made by Wells himself that the difference was not drastic). However, I think this points up at least one basic principle: with new continuing revelation who needs that old dusty book? I do love my continuationist brethren, but I do not think that it is something to be celebrated that the new Calvinism is wide enough to embrace both sides of the debate. I do, however, rejoice that continuationists are coming to embrace Calvinistic soteriology. But to embrace unconditional election and have new revelations in worship is hardly a reformation in today’s church. Even Aquinas embraced unconditional election and sovereign Predestination. The Reformation, however, championed more than a move away from semi-Pelagianism.
2. Confessions. With some exception the new Calvinism tends toward being a Bible-onlyism movement. It is noteworthy that in #1 above my concern is too low a doctrine of Scripture, and here it may seem I am saying that the same movement is too focused on Scripture. But Bible-onlyism does not flow from a high doctrine of Scripture. The new Calvinism seems to come at the Bible abstracted from the creeds, confessions, and history of the church. But being confessional was part and parcel of the Reformation. The Reformers did not want to leave the tradition behind. They reaffirmed the great creeds of the faith. They learned from them and built upon them. They taught from the creeds, preached from them, and used them in their liturgy. Using and holding up creeds, far from denigrating the Bible, exalts the Scriptures as the source from which the creeds and confessions flow. On this point, I would be remiss if I failed to mention Carl Trueman’s important book, The Creedal Imperative. Get it, read it, and love it!
3. Polity. The new Calvinism is built by Calvinistic soteriological bricks with no housing frame or foundation underneath. This was present even in to so-called old Calvinism as well. A classic example of this is the celebration of generic old-style Calvinism in the Banner of Truth. I love Banner books (what bibliophile doesn’t?!), but heroes of Banner like Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones were great expositors of Calvinistic soteriology (praise God!), but their churches lacked the kind of robust Reformational bones of the past. The Reformation was self-consciously a renewal of the church and her polity, bringing the structure of the church into greater conformity with the Scriptures. A non-accountable, non-denominational disconnectionalism fits at odds with a Calvinistic theology. There were differences immediately among the Reformed in terms of polity, but there was also a general agreement on some basic polity issues which are all but ignored in the current climate.
4. Sacraments. The question continues to arise as to whether one can be Reformed and still practice believers-only baptism. I think the expression “Reformed Baptist” is somewhat anachronistic. The Calvinistic baptists of an earlier generation did not use that term, and rightly so. “Reformed,” as a moniker, carried with it more weight than that of a basic soteriological framework. Reformed was a church, not five points of doctrine. But what is more is how the sacraments are regarded among the new Calvinists. Rather than being means of grace, they are merely signs and seals. In other words, the nominalism eschewed by the early Reformers when the rejected the anabaptist/radical reformation has not been surrendered fully by the modern day new Calvinists.
5. Eschatology. Eschatology is not an insignificant aspect of church identity which was can simply be brushed off with a pious “well, I’m a panmillennialist because I believe it will all pan out in the end.” Eschatology is the church’s identity. That is not to say that there is not room for disagreement among confessional Calvinists. There is room within the confessional standards. But there is also no room for some forms of eschatology. For instance, Paul condemns hyper-preterism (2 Timothy 2:18). Dispensational premillennialism does not fit at all within any of the Reformed confessions, far as I can tell. But if the church is an end-times people, then her identity is found as pilgrims, strangers, and sojourners on the earth. In which case, I fail to see how the transformationalism and triumphalism that we see so prevalent in much of the new Calvinism squares with a Calvinistic doctrine of the church.

To sum, I am not persuaded that we can have Calvinistic soteriology (or even a Calvinistic “big God”) without a Calvinistic church. To abstract theology from ecclesiology is a foreign concept in the minds of the Reformers. Therefore, as Geerhardus Vos said in another context, “To our taste the old wine is better.” (The Self-Disclosure of Jesus, 65.) Or, what may surprise some, I agree completely with Karl Barth’s sentiments at this point: “For us, therefore, Church dogmatics is necessarily Reformed Dogmatics. By this we mean the dogmatics of the particular Church which was purified and reconstituted by the work of Calvin and the confession which sealed his testimony” (CD I/2, 831). Whether or not Barth succeeded in producing a Reformed dogmatics along these lines is another question, but I agree at least with the form of his statement. I can fully sign on to Barth’s idea as summarized tersely by von Balthasar: “Theology is church theology or it is nothing at all” (The Theology of Karl Barth, p. 7).

The history of biblical exposition boasts of a rich heritage when it comes to commentaries on Galatians. We cannot list all of the great commentaries here, so I simply offer a brief annotated list of commentaries I have found helpful for sermon and Bible study preparation. Another list can be found over at Tim Challies’ site. Additionally, allow me some remarks about my rationale for these titles. There are so many more that could be mentioned such as Longenecker, Ridderbos, and Moo. I have certain reservations about all of these, and so they didn’t make the cut. There are others for which I would have no reservations, such as Calvin. But when I pick out commentaries for ministry, I try to get something practical (Ryken, and Schreiner), rigorously exegetical and modern (Lightfoot, Schreiner, McWilliams), theological (McWilliams), and historically classic (Luther and Lightfoot). Above all, however, the greatest standard for my choices tends to be theological soundness. With few exceptions, I have no time for liberal or Barthian commentaries. Lastly, let me advise you not to feel like you need to go overboard. Please don’t use too many commentaries at once (I often don’t use all five for every verse). You do not want to spend all your time reading commentaries and leave yourself no time in the actual composition of the sermon or lesson.

1. Thomas Schreiner, Galatians: Zondervan Exegetical Commentary. This is number one on my list for many good reasons. First, it is scholarly and rigorously exegetical. Schreiner has a mastery of the secondary literature, but he does not plague his main text with it. Second, it is recent, up to date, and orthodox in the Reformed tradition. Third, each section ends with fine practical and pastoral points of application, which will help the preacher who struggles in making the connection between the text’s meaning and its significance for us today.
2. David McWilliams, Galatians: A Mentor Commentary. This commentary was recommended to me by friend and fellow pastor, Glen Clary. What Glen likes about is what I like about it: it is exegetical, but Galatians is handled with sensitivity to Paul’s redemptive-historical and eschatological perspective. If you love the juicy insights of Reformed biblical theologians like Vos, Ridderbos, Kline, and Gaffin, you will love this commentary.
3. Martin Luther, 1535 Lecture on Galatians. I went ahead and got the two volumes of Luther’s works published by Concordia for this. It is not cheap, and there are other abridged editions of the lectures you can get for much cheaper. However, when it comes to Luther’s work on Galatians, why go cheap and abridged? Luther’s text is not very detailed with regard to exegetical insights from the Greek text. However, he is worth reading for his theological articulation of Reformation theology and pastoral wisdom to bring comfort to weak, weary souls that are ravaged by the guilt of sin. His passion for the doctrine of justification by faith alone needs to be our passion. That said, be prepared to filter Luther through Calvin, because the former was susceptible to greater bouts of overstatement than the latter. Luther can leave you at times wondering if the law plays any role at all in the ongoing life of the believer.
4. J.B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. This is also outdated, however it remains an abidingly valuable Protestant exposition of Galatians. With Luther, this commentary is a classic with historical value. With its close read of the original Greek, it is also detailed and theologically sound. His introduction is quite lengthy, and really delves into the depths of introductory matters concerning Galatians.
5. Philip G. Ryken, Galatians: Reformed Expository Commentary. There are two items I would like to mention which I believe make this commentary useful. First, Ryken takes aim at the New Perspective on Paul and the Federal Vision, offering helpful criticisms. Second, it is pastoral and practical. This commentary set is made up of sermons preached by a pastor in the context of real church ministry. He will guide you in what issues you can address to a modern audience from the text of Paul’s letter.