BARTH AND EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY IN THE 19TH CENTURY

As we journey into the life and writings of Karl Barth (1886-1968) I want you to see the challenge that confronted him in the same way that you must see the challenge that confronts us in the Christian world of belief today.

Barth starts out by defining Theology as: The Study of the doctrine of God.  This appears to be a pretty conservative definition. But Barth states that man cannot study God as a creature apart from his relationship with man. In other words, we must study God through our experience (relationship) with him.

Barth goes on to say: Evangelical Theology must be understood as the science, doctrine, and the communion between God and man along with the gospel (purpose of the life of Jesus).  Such a practice did take place during Barth’s time, but it was clouded by many other studies that accompanied it. During his time there were many different studies of history, philosophy, and literature; as well as theology including Roman Catholicism, Reformed, and Evangelical denominations.  This all took place during the 18th and 19th century.

Barth lived in the 19th and 20th centuries and during this time there were some wide gaps in theology.  But there is, what Barth calls a “community of concern,” which he considered to be endangered.  Such concern is the basics upon which the Christian faith has been built.

Evangelical theology in his day as well as our day has an urgent task.  We inherit the problems of the earlier centuries of theology such as the 18th and 19th centuries.  We now have to add the 20th century to this collection.  We must then understand something of that history; for it shows a breach from the earlier theologies of other centuries. From this we can see what might have influenced theologians thought as well as the thinking of the church community.

In the 19th century philosophers had a great deal of influence over theology.  One book he mentions was by Schleiermacher in 1799, “On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers.”  He has been called the “Father of Modern Liberal Theology.”  In this book he shows the beginning of a new theology. This new approach is a form of idealism that was expressed through modern philosophers like Hegel. .

At this time theology existed in both the conservative and progressive liberal studies as well as many other “in-between” forms.   

During the 20th century there was what he called a climax of theology when in 1914 Adolf Von Harnack published his book, “What is Christianity?” 

Harnack traced the influence of Hellenistic (Greek) philosophy on early Christian writing and called on Christians to question the authenticity of doctrines that arose in the early Christian church. He rejected the historicity of the Gospel of John in favor of the Synoptic Gospels, criticized the Apostles’ Creed, and promoted what became known as the Social Gospel.

We might say that Harnack was one of the first to start the “Historical Jesus” movement before it actually became a movement.  It was this scientific/philosophical approach to the Gospel that put him in favor with the philosophers of his time as well as afterward.

1914 was the year that Barth says 93 German intellectuals supported war policy of Germany that lead to WWI.  Almost all of his theological teachers that he respected supported this war policy.  This was a serious matter for Barth because such ideas contradicted the spirit of the gospel and it broke his spirit.  He felt he could no longer follow their ideas of theology and the manner in which they interpreted scripture.  At this point true evangelical theology ceased to be what it had been.

There was a pervasive rationalism that overpowered vital Christianity and drove it underground.  Reason and knowledge became substitutes for the Christian Holy Spirit.  There was also religious fanaticism that brought about secularism (those who exist outside the religious community).  Fanaticism usually makes the divide between the church and the world broader, but not in a true sense of right and wrong, but rather in a sense of agreement and disagreement for they no longer thought in terms of right and wrong. Theology was measured against the achievements of a classical period of German culture, philosophy, and the poetic, as well as against modern science.  This was an important development as we will see.

What did theology have to say to the 19th century?

What could it offer a man who didn’t think about eternity?  Someone who was more distracted by wealth and self-assurance of his understanding which was based upon natural science, reason, and logic?  They did not take notice of theology unless it intruded into their lives. They were not only indifferent to it, but it became more of a hostile aversion. Things are not much different today for many take notice of it, but for the purpose of destroying it and ridiculing it as well as those who believe it.

At one time theologians were not afraid to face these issues because of their spirituality. Those who stood up against this had a certain dignity that is only imitated today.  Those who imitate it are like the hired hand that Jesus spoke of in his parable who at the first sign of trouble left the sheep to fend for themselves.

So Barth is saying that these theologians did the best they could at that time because they had to deal with all sorts of idealisms.  Today, we have our own –isms to deal with that intrude upon our beliefs.  Feminism, liberalism, modernism, post-modernism, etc. There are only a few who know how to defend the gospel against these –isms, but many today somehow think that they are doing the kingdom service by including these -isms in the faith.  What they are doing is misleading both those outside the faith as well as those inside the faith.

So what were some of these problems that they had to deal with in the 19th century?  The biggest problem that Barth notes is that theology was guided by the idea that it must confront the contemporary age with its misconceptions and misunderstandings i.e. philosophy.  It must confront the movements (philosophies) with a philosophical explanation of the gospel. It was concerned about the gospel and faith and how to explain the scriptures in association with the history of the church, doctrine, and systematic theology.  But the theologians had fixed their eyes upon the world and because of this their thinking became conditioned by this outlook. They became overly influenced by their focus.  They no longer saw the gospel as a unique message of its own, but rather just a different form of philosophy.  So as a result Christian theology became transformed by those influences.  In my own words, they began to believe their own explanations of the gospel rather than the gospel message itself.

Barth believed that theology had to be in a conversation with the contemporary world, but it went overboard. This was the weakness of 19th century theology.  It confronted the age head-on, but this confrontation became the focus and its primary concern.  Theology became a kneejerk reaction to the outside impulses.  It became a thought process rather than a process of love and experience.  The existential component of the gospel was lost.

Christianity reduced itself by oversimplifying itself in order to indulge in offering answers to the community that challenged it.

It brought about an impoverishment and triviality to Christianity that remains with us today.

Fatal errors entered into theology that were not only tolerated, but were enjoyed and even seen as authoritative.

Man in the 19th century might have taken theologians more seriously if they themselves had not taken him so seriously.  In other words, the theologian took the world of philosophy too seriously and their response made them trivial and almost comical.  Why? Because they tried to be something that they were not and this is what makes one not only comical, but pathetic.

The problem for theology and theologians was based upon the assumption that it would have to be open to the world. It felt that it had to defend itself within the framework of a total view of man in order to get universal recognition. In order to accomplish that, they had to speak from within a current philosophical world view—WHICH IS THE MAIN POINT OF THIS ESSAY.

Theologians had to make a compromise for the sake of ego, fame, financial gain, which are all signs of acceptance by the world. Thus they laid a framework or foundation of philosophy and logic as opposed to that of true faith.

In the past the Protestant message was that the gospel should be pure and untainted by philosophy even though we can trace back to the 3rd century when philosophy had already begun to challenge Christian theology i.e. Gnosticism, Aristotelianism, and Platonism. 

According to Barth, the 18th century still maintained the message of Jesus and faith in him.  I, myself, cannot whole-heartedly agree that this was so, in fact, even prior to the 19th century the pure message had already been tainted by some of the philosophies of that time. Faith slowly moved away from being an experience/relationship to a thought process.

The problem became difficult when 19th century theologians tried to prove faith by means of the world’s views—not only to others, but even to themselves.

To accomplish this theologians had to first make a particular worldview as their own in order to affirm their legitimacy as true theologians.

They applied this standard to their own faith as well as to others.

They thought that if they could have taken upon themselves a philosophy that was already accepted and relate it to the gospel message, they would eagerly be accepted by the philosophers of the world.  But the problem is that philosophy does not stand still—it constantly changes. Their theological proofs became dissonant with new evolving philosophies.

During the 19th century many theologians thought of themselves as philosophers because it was not socially acceptable for them to be simply theologians.  So they created an imaginary Christ who might be more acceptable to the philosopher.

The main point here is that not only did theology become entwined with Philosophy; it became distorted by it.  Theologians who joined with Modernism fell from popularity when Post-modernism arrived on the scene.

Barth commented:

The Christian message of faith.  Can it be debated while under the foundation of presupposed philosophy?  What if the foundation of this presupposed belief is weak or even false? How can you then throw faith upon it?  Are you not building a house upon the sand?

It boils down to this question:

Is there a relationship to philosophy that some worldview can make Christianity possible or at least acceptable?

Can or should I say should Christianity become an expression of philosophy?  In order to be acceptable faith had to be subjected to an interpretation of philosophy in order to make it compatible. Christianity would be made valid through that philosophy.  In other words, philosophy would now become the controlling process of theology and perhaps even the church rather than the Holy Spirit of God.  So man would once again reclaim his power over God, which fit perfectly with the age of reason.

This means that Christianity would have to become more of a religion than a relatioship in order to be attached to such a philosophy.

This is what was going on in the 19th century—Faith was turned into a religion through philosophy. It simply became just another philosophy dressed in the robes of religion.

In the 19th century theologians made a decision to relate to the world as its primary task with the idea in mind that the Christian faith would also be accepted on its coat-tails. 

Barth said that from this they became more interested in the Christian faith as an ideology than the gospel message.  In other words, they were more interested in what man thought of God than how man and God related to one another.

They became more involved in creeds about the Christian faith than faith itself and how to make these creeds acceptable to philosophy.

Kierkegaard could have offered some help since he tends to bring people back to the elemental idea of man’s relationship with God as being primary rather than through speculation or abstract thought.

Barth expressed the idea that theology is not just the doctrine of God, but the doctrine of God and man.  It is about the relationship between God and man and not simply a study.  From man’s eye God does not exist alone.  He only exists for man through man’s awareness of his own existence.  It is through this existence that he is able to perceive God.  For man cannot stand outside himself as he tends to do in philosophy and other abstract thinking as though he were a third, unbiased party..

The problem was that Evangelical theology could not find a satisfactory philosophy in which to express itself. 

So the foundation of faith transformed the ideology of Christ into a best fit the philosophy of the day. Today it started with modernism and has now settled on the Post-modern ideology—at least for now.

As they continued with this 19th century theological dilemma the assumptions of philosophy compelled them to understand faith as the realization of man’s spiritual self-awareness. It changed the way that man looked at his spiritual relationship with God.  This sounds very familiar as we look around today and see all sorts of pseudo religious self-awareness movements led by self-ordained gurus.

Barth asked the question of how could the truth of the gospel be asserted except by interpreting it as a symbolic statement of a Christian’s inner experience.  But theology was still under the spell of the renaissance/modern discovery that man was the center of all things.

Christian theology had no answer in response to Feuerbach when he said, statements of the Christian faith were merely statements of man’s needs projected into the infinite.

The search that theologians made to answer philosophical questions took over its voice.  But the idea of self-understanding was not enough to impress the philosophers.  When the Christian gospel was changed into a gospel of self-awareness man’s confrontation with God was lost and the lordship of God was abdicated.  Man’s inner existential experience was not enough to resist the lure of philosophy. Theology had nothing more to offer the human than religious mystery.

Barth believed that The Christian faith was set off from other religions by its historical nature.  This is why it is so important that Jesus is understood as an historical figure and not as merely an ideology, which philosophy tended to do.

What Barth means is that God entered into history and became salvation.  We don’t have that in other religions.  We may have ethics, laws, and morality, but we do not have a God who loved us and became our salvation through an historical phenomenon.  To be an authentic Christian, according to Barth, one must see the New Testament as a historical basis of our faith.

He mentions demythologization of the New Testament where they were trying to remove the historical Christ out of the gospel—leaving it a powerless abstract ideology. So it was no longer what Jesus did or was, but only what he said and even that was censored through philosophy.

One of the main things challenged was the role of Jesus in the Christian faith.  Was he really the object of New Testament worship?  Was his existence susceptible to scientific research? So what would be the fate of the theologians who followed the 19th century philosophers?  How would they interpret scripture if Christ was not really an historical character and what would be the purpose of church history and doctrine? 

The Christian faith would not be able to offer Christian truth based upon the principles of philosophy—but it never intended to do such a thing and that is where it is today.

At that point 19th century theology appeared to the world as the history of a religion. Barth believes that this was the impetus of indifference that exists in the Christian faith today. At this point Roman Catholicism claimed that Protestant theology surrendered to the secular world.  Would we agree?  

Through all this Barth does not believe that true theology is dead.  He thought that we must take what we can from this theology and grow with it.

REFLECTION / EVALUATION / SUMMARY

So what Barth saw in his 19-20th century life has evolved into the 20-21st century theology.  Have we replaced the historical, living Christ with an idealized one?  What will we do with the theology that we have inherited from the past? This is the question that I want to present to you now.  Will the Gospel of Jesus Christ evolve into a Christian ideology for the purpose of social acceptability or has it already done this?

Sources and Further Reading on Karl Barth:
  • Evangelical Theology in the 19th Century – Karl Barth
  • The Humanity of God – Karl Barth
  • Barth for Armchair Theologians – John R. Franke
  • Epistle to the Philippians – Karl Barth