Blogging Barth's Dogmatics: § 1.2

This week in Daniel Kirk’s virtual Barth reading group, we are discussion § 1.2 of the Dogmatics.  Here Barth discusses what comprises a proper prolegomena to dogmatics.

Coming from an Evangelical context, it’s common to take analytic philosophy as the prolegomena to theology.  This is particularly true for neo-Evangelical theologians such as Carl Henry and conservative Evangelicals such as Millard Erickson and Norman Geisler.  Their systematic theologies rest on logical rules such as the law of non-contradiction as applied to what they consider to be empirical observations concerning the propositional content of scripture.  This method leads to an emphasis on rational argumentation, which in turn supports a robust apologetic program. The same observation could be made concerning scholastic Roman Catholic theology.  Indeed, Norman Geisler considers himself an “Evangelical Thomist.”

Barth will have none of this.  For him, adopting anything other than “revelation” as the basis for dogmatics is a form of unbelief and idolatry.  Philosophy, for Barth, is a human construction, and therefore the ultimate ground of rationalistic theologies is man, not God.

The immediate response to this claim is that man is made in God’s image, meaning that human reason and the rules of logic are reflections of God’s own self.  Barth rejects any such notion of the analogia entis.  As he will develop later in his discussion of revelation and the Trinity, Barth — drawing strong support from Martin Luther — takes God to be wholly other, hidden, and inaccessible to fallen humans absent a radical act of grace.

Two very helpful themes can be derived from this section.  First is the limitations of apologetics.  For Barth, apologetics are not merely of limited value — “apologetics and polemics,” he says, “have obviously been irresponsible, irrelevant, and therefore ineffective.”

Second is that revelation is the proper foundation of theology and indeed of Christian epistemology.  As Barth notes,

“the place from which the way of dogmatic knowledge is to be seen and understood can be neither a prior anthropological possibility nor a subsequent ecclesiastical reality, but only the present moment of the speaking and hearing of Jesus Christ Himself, the divine creation of light in our hearts.”

As we will see, and as this quote foreshadows, Barth’s concept of “revelation” certainly is not the same static notion as Henry’s or Geisler’s.

At this point we might begin to wonder, however, about Barth’s anthropology.  Barth will eventually flesh out this brief introduction with a lengthy argument specifically against any sort of anthropological prolegomena to theology, in response to a claim that an earlier version of the Dogmatics relied too heavily on anthropology.  But it is not at all clear that he — or anyone — can escape some sort of a priori anthropological assumptions.  Even Barth, after all, is making a reasoned argument against the use of reason as prolegomena.

For this and other reasons, I will eventually lean towards Thomas Torrance’s softer understanding of the analogia entis and natural theology. It should also be noted here that Roman Catholic theology, after the nouvelle theologie, is no longer predominantly scholastic. Barth and one of the key figures in the nouvelle theologie, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, were famous interlocutors, though this relationship began after Barth wrote Volume I of the Dogmatics.  Balthasar may also be a helpful conversation partner, along with Torrance, as we delve deeper into Barth’s work.