When I was 15 a friend of mine gave me Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. I instantly fell in love with Bonhoeffer. I thought that Bonhoeffer’s ideas were revolutionarily radical while still being faithful to Christianity. At the time I remember thinking that theology had reached its pinnacle and conclusion in the ideas of Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church really piqued my curiosity, so after a little bit of research I found the Barmen Declaration, which was, for all intents and purposes, written by Karl Barth. At the time I was intent on absorbing everything theological, so I looked into this Karl Barth. I never expected that simple action would have such far-reaching effects on the way in which I viewed (and still view) theology.
The first book I found by Karl Barth was Humanity of God and while I can admit now that I barely understood any of it, it was huge in my development. Up until that point, I had never read anything that discussed God in such wonderful and imaginative terms, or something that made me think God loved me as much as Humanity of God did. From there, I put Barth on the backburner, and turned my attention to the Christian anarchist movement and other radical Christians. However, I never really have forgotten about my love of Barth. Karl Barth has changed my mind in so many ways, and I’ve interacted and wrestled with his ideas so much that I feel, in a large way, deeply indebted to him.
The first thing that I learned from Barth, and the way in which he shaped my mind rather than changed it, was Barth’s insistence of Jesus Christ as the paramount and most complete form of God’s own self-revelation. Barth’s emphasis upon Christo-centricity over the anthropocentricity that was common amongst theologians of his day (and even ours to some degree) is a wonderful reminder that God has posited himself to be known by us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth as an act of grace and mercy. This is a wonderfully liberating concept, because it shows us that we aren’t responsible for hearing God or attempting to know him on our own terms, but rather that God has set the terms through which we are to know him. This is an idea that seems so simple to me now that I’ve been studying theology for a little bit of time, but when I first read it 'way back when, it completely revolutionized the way I thought about theological work.
This leads into the next big idea that I learned from Barth, namely that the work of theology is a work of gratitude. God has first spoken his Word to us, so now we may, in gratitude, respond to God’s first Word with words of our own. I remember reading some theologian or another when I was younger that talked about God’s radical and complete otherness and feeling incredibly discouraged because I felt a call to do theology, but I couldn’t figure out how I could ever speak about this God, let alone know him. So when I read about Barth’s theology of the Word, I was ecstatic: I could talk about God in a way that was real and true because God has first spoken his Word to me (and all of humanity!). I am now free to respond to God because he first addressed me.
One of the things that I admire most about Barth was his commitment to the Church. I remember hearing a story about how Barth changed the title of his seminal work from Christian Dogmatics to Church Dogmatics because he considered theology to be only possible in its proper context, the Church. Barth was committed to being fully engaged in the life of the church because he felt that, in order to speak about God, one has to be rooted in the place that God’s Word would be most faithfully heard. Barth’s ideas have pushed me to reconsider the sphere in which I do theology, and the reason for it as well. I started to question the legitimacy of theology that isn’t done in the context of the faith community and I decided to commit myself to always be a theologian in and of the church. Barth’s constant dedication to the Church was a huge inspiration for me.
One of the final things that Barth taught me, and one of the biggest ways that Barth changed my mind was concerning the doctrine of election. Barth’s doctrine of election, that of all people being elected in Christ, the Elected One, absolutely changed my mind. I used to be a staunch Arminianist, firmly believing that it was the turning of the person towards God that initiated the salvific work in their lives. I remember firmly debating some of my Calvinist friends concerning the doctrines of predestination and election, and getting very frustrated with the narrowness which defined the category of ‘elect.' But after reading Barth and engaging with his beliefs on election, I started to see that the idea of a person being able to turn to God of their own volition and in their own strength was to firmly root the object and final authority of salvation in man rather than in God. This was not a move that I could make because it seemed to reject the totality of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and to place a power in the hands of humans that I cannot believe we have. However, at the same time, I wasn’t able to accept the traditional doctrine of double predestination so prevalent in Calvinism because it seemed to also deny the totality of Christ’s sacrifice and make it only available to some, rather than all humanity. Barth’s idea of election seems to flow fluidly and logically out of the biblical narratives of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
When I think about all the ways that Karl Barth has changed my mind, I begin to realize that more and more of my ideas are, at the very least, influenced by Barth. I’ve come to see that I am decidedly a Barthian; whether this is good or bad is yet to be determined. However, I don’t think that I would change this at all because Karl Barth has allowed me to see a theologian who loved God, the Church and theology and for that I am eternally thankful.
I’ll end with a joke I once heard about Karl Barth that I found to be not only hilarious, but also to be indicative of how influential Barth has been for most modern theologians, myself included. It goes like this:
Hugo Rahner had an audience with the Pope. After a great deal of discussion, the Pope asked Hugo Rahner his opinion of the world’s greatest theologian.
Rahner squirmed a little bit, breaking eye contact with the Pope while he sought the proper and most humble way to answer the question. Finally, he looked up, shrugged, and said, “I suppose, Your Grace, I would have to say the world’s greatest theologian is my brother, Karl.”
The Pope’s eyes widened. He sat straight up in his chair in astonishment and exclaimed: “Your brother is KARL BARTH?!”
-I wrote this after reading a book of the same title, in which various Barth scholars and theologians wrote essays concerning the ways that Barth influenced their thinking and careers. Anyone that knows me knows of my deep love for Karl Barth and I thought it would be appropriate to sort of give some reasons about why I love Barth. Plus, I just happen to really like this essay.
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