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Can God Speak a Word to Man? Barth's Critique of Schleiermacher's Theology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
It is well-known that Karl Barth, in his ringing denunciation of Protestant theology as it had developed in the nineteenth century and into the first decades of the twentieth century, gave especial emphasis to the figure of Fried rich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher. Barth considered Schleiermacher to be the greatest theologian of the liberal Protestant tradition as well as its fountainhead. He expressly and repeatedly repudiated Schleiermacher's theology, and his criticism was often stinging. On one occasion, for instance, Barth denied that his own theological ‘ancestral line’ could include Schleiermacher, because he could only judge that Schleiermacher had never learned the basic point that ‘one can not speak of God simply by speaking of man in a loud voice’.
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References
page 189 note 1 The Word of God and the Word of Man, trans. Horton, Douglas (New York and Evansion: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1957), pp. 195fGoogle Scholar. As his own theological ancestors Barth names Kierkegaard, Luther, Calvin, Paul and Jeremiah.
page 189 note 2 Die Theologie Schleiermachers (Vorlesung Göttingen Winter Semester 1923/24), in Gesamtausgabe, II, ed. Ritschl, Dietrich (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1978), p. 461.Google Scholar
page 189 note 3 Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History, E. T. (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1973), p. 427.Google Scholar
page 190 note 4 Die Theologie Schleiermachers, p. 6. The same comment is repeated two years later in his 1926 lecture, ‘Schleiermacher’ (in Theology and Church, Trans. Smith, Louise P. (London: SCM Press, 1962), p. 199).Google Scholar
page 190 note 5 Schleiermacher-Auswahl, ed. Bolli, Heinz (Munich and Hamburg: Siebenstern Taschenbuch Verlag, nos. 113/114, 1968), p. 307.Google Scholar
page 190 note 6 Willems, B. A., ‘Barths Afgebroken Gesprek met Schleiermacher’. Tijdschrift voor Theologie 9 (1969): 2.Google Scholar
page 190 note 7 Protestant Theology, p. 426.
page 190 note 8 Schleiermacher-Auswahl, p. 303. It is worth noticing that Barth views this judgment as applicable also to those whom he considers to be the present-day Epigonen of Schleiermacher, namely, the Bultmannian school, cf. pp. 298–303.
page 190 note 9 Die Theologie Schleiermachers, p. 461.
page 190 note 10 ibid. (Barth's italics).
page 191 note 11 In Theology and Church, p. 200.
page 191 note 12 There is an interesting disagreement in the secondary literature regarding Barth's understanding of Schleiermacher. Forstman, Jack (‘Barth, Schleiermacher and The Christian Faith’. Union Seminary Quarterly Review, 21 (1966): 305)Google Scholar, thinks that we must speak of a ‘failure to understand what Schleiermacher wanted to do as a theologian and as a Christian believer’ on Barth's part (cf. also p. 306). B. A. Willems (op. cil., p. 6), in contrast, thinks that Barth understood Schleiermacher's deepest intentions and concerns so well that, even where he was in disagreement, he could render Schleiermacher's view without any difficulty at all. I must say that my own impressions lead me to think that Willems is a good deal closer to the truth.
page 192 note 13 On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, trans. Oman, John (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1958), p. 41.Google Scholar
page 192 note 14 ibid., pp. 42–5. In the first edition of the Speeches, Schleiermachcr had defined religion as a combination of intuition and feeling (Anschauung and Gefühl), but in later editions he subsumes the whole under the concept of feeling (Gefühl).
page 192 note 15 The Christian Faith, ed. and trans. Mackintosh, H. R. and Stewart, J. S. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928, 1948 and 1956Google Scholar; reprinted New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1963), paragraph 3.
page 192 note 16 On Religion, p. 38.
page 192 note 17 ‘Schleiermacher’, in Theology and Church, p. 161.
page 193 note 18 On Religion, p. 8.
page 193 note 19 ibid., p. 122.
page 193 note 20 Christmas Eve: Dialogue on the Incarnation, trans. Tice, Terrence (Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1967), p. 85.Google Scholar
page 193 note 21 ‘Schleiermacher's “Celebration of Christmas”’, in Theology and Church, p. 156. The other theme, in Barth's opinion, is ‘the divine in women’.
page 194 note 22 Christmas Eve, p. 46.
page 194 note 23 ‘Schleiermacher's “Celebration of Christmas”’, p. 157. Barth is fond of quoting Schleiermacher's sentence, ‘How often have I struck up the music of my religion’, (On Religion, p. 119), as an indication of the close relation between religion and music in Schleiermacher.
page 194 note 24 Recalling his essay on Schleiermacher's little story over 40 years later, Barth says that he had written it ‘with a certain irony’ (Schleiermacher-Auswahl, p. 297). Unfortunately, he does not specify to what this ‘irony’ refers in particular. That it may refer to his interpretation of the theological substance of the work as pertaining to music and women has something to say for it in that, within his essay itself, Barth introduces his interpretation with the parenthetical comment that it is ‘somewhat sharply pointed!’ (‘Schleiermacher's “Celebration of Christmas” ’, p. 156).
page 194 note 25 On Religion, p. 152 (my italics).
page 195 note 26 Christmas Eve, p. 46.
page 195 note 27 Protestant Theology, p. 455.
page 196 note 28 ‘Schleiermacher’, p. 161.
page 197 note 29 ibid., p. 163.
page 197 note 30 In Schleiermacher-Auswahl, p. 156.
page 197 note 31 ibid., pp. 157f.
page 197 note 32 Protestant Theology, p. 457.
page 198 note 33 Schleiermacher-Auswahl, p. 158.
page 198 note 34 ‘Schleiermacher’, p. 160.
page 198 note 35 On Religion, pp. 8f.
page 199 note 36 The Christian Faith, paragraph 133.
page 199 note 37 Protestant Theology, p. 422. I mention this image here because Forstman (op. cit., p. 315) concludes that what is ‘apparently suggested’ by the image is ‘surrender’. However, Barth's meaning is clearly not surrender, but a ‘cease-fire’. The theologian puts down his arms for the time being in order to parley with the other side (p. 442), and later he will resume his position speaking from within religion as a Christian theologian (p. 444). That Barth in the long run — would consider apologetics as a surrender to the enemy is true, but it is not present in his use of the image of the white flag here.
page 199 note 38 On Religion, p. 151.
page 199 note 39 Protestant Theology, p. 454.
page 200 note 40 cf. Forsiman, op. cit., pp. 308–9.
page 200 note 41 Church Dogmatics, ed. Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1932–1969), I. 1, p. 69.Google Scholar
page 200 note 42 ibid., I. 2, p. 813.
page 201 note 43 ibid., I. 1, p. 176.
page 201 note 44 Protestant Theology, p. 470.
page 201 note 45 Die Theologie Schleiermachers, p. 414 (Barth's italics).
page 202 note 46 ibid., p. 419.
page 203 note 47 Church Dogmatics, I. I, p. 348.
page 203 note 48 ibid., p. 349.
page 203 note 49 Protestant Theology, p. 470.
page 203 note 50 ibid., p. 432. Barth points lo this ‘inconsistency’ in Schleiermacher's position regularly; ef., e.g., pp. 463–70. Welch, Claude, protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century, I (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), p. 83Google Scholar, makes much the same point when he writes that Schleiermacher ‘made only a half-turn to the new nineteenth-century attempt to construct Christology “from below”.’
page 203 note 51 The Christian Faith, paragraph 93.
page 204 note 52 Protestant Theology, p. 470.
page 204 note 53 Church Dogmatics II. I, pp. 327–30.
page 205 note 54 ibid., p. 339. Barth himself rejects the moderate position as well, arguing that the entire category of divine simplicity points more to a philosophical than to a theological i.e., revelational conception of God. For him the ‘multiplicity, individuality and diversity’ of the divine attributes must be emphasised as much as the simplicity of the divine nature.
page 205 note 55 ibid., pp. 370f.
page 206 note 56 ibid., p. 370.
page 206 note 57 ibid., p. 371.
page 206 note 58 ibid., pp. 529–32.
page 206 note 59 ibid., p. 531.
page 206 note 60 ibid., II. 2, p. 553.
page 207 note 61 ibid.
page 207 note 62 ibid., III. 3, p. 328.
page 207 note 63 ibid., III. 3, p. 330.
page 207 note 64 cf. Protestant Theology, p. 454.
page 208 note 65 According to Torrance, Thomas F., Barth's supreme charge against nineteenth century, neo-Protestant theology is the ‘reduction of all theology to some form of anthropology’ (Karl Barth: art Introduction to His Early Theology, 1910–1931 (London: SCM Press, 1962), p. 60).Google Scholar
page 208 note 66 The Word of God and the Word of Man, p. 286.
page 208 note 67 ibid.
page 209 note 68 Schleiermacher-Auswahl, p. 311.
page 209 note 69 Protestant Theology, p. 461.
page 209 note 70 ibid., p. 471.
page 209 note 71 ibid., p. 472.
page 210 note 72 In this essay we cannot go into the questions raised in connexion with Barth's own discussions of revelation and the Word.
page 210 note 73 Die Theologie Schleiermachers, p. 373.
page 210 note 74 See Torrancc, Thomas F., Theological Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 311f.Google Scholar
page 210 note 75 Schleiermacher-Auswahl, pp. 311 f.
page 211 note 76 ibid., p. 310.