Biography of Karl Barth

Between man and God

10 may 1886 10 December 1968 Karl Barth was born in Basle (Switzerland) on 10 may 1886. Calvinist theologian and pastor, he stormed onto the scene at the beginning of the European theological and philosophical ' 20 of the twentieth century with what is then left his most accessed and ta: the "Epistle to the Romans" (Roemerbrief). With this text initiated a theological movement called "neo-orthodoxy" as opposed to "liberal theology" historicist array. Task of theology is to reassert, according to Barth, the report "dialectic", paradoxical, inconceivable, "rupture" between God and the world (people, culture, history) contrary to what the Liberal theologians (Harnack, Troeltsch) which asserted a continuity between God and man, considering the faith as an element of the inner human psychological and theology as historical-critical analysis of Scripture. After the initial controversy Barth you deals on softer positions. No deny ever the original assertion of God's transcendence ("totally other" than in humans and to the world) Barth established the predominance of aspect of the report and of the encounter between man and God in the event of Jesus Christ. Fundamental text of this phase is the monumental "Dogmatic Church" (Kirchliche Dogmatik) in 13 tomes which committed the author from 1932 to his death (1968). Barth thought we can identify four crucial moments of development: •-training at the school of liberal theology until failure with it •-the Roemerbrief, i.e. the "dialectical phase"-the transition phase of the Fides quaerens intellectum • Kirchliche Dogmatik-ripe stage dogmatic

Training, sources and influences

Karl Barth studies at several universities in Switzerland and Germany by acquiring an education in line with the dominant trends in the Protestant world of the early twentieth century. His teachers are liberal theologians Herrmann and Harnack, his favourite Kant and Schleiermacher. In line with this theological current Barth mature interest in historical-critical investigation, interpretation of the faith as "inner feeling", the reduction of Christianity to moral message that Christ would have been the most exemplary bearer. Over time various influences overlap to this base and lead a very different sensibility to mature Barth. Pastoral activity, started in 1909, contact with the worker question, material and cultural poverty of his parishioners, the difficulty to transmit and teach God's Kingdom--mature in him the belief of the abysmal gap between liberal theology, which he had learned at the University, and the existential condition of the Church. The Kingdom of God becomes a reality "unspeakable", problematic, transcendent and that when it does so, it acts beyond human capabilities and historical institutions. The outbreak of World War I in 1914, door Barth to distance himself from his German masters who had declared their support for the war. He lives so the "dusk of the gods", is brought to critically evaluate his teachers and his beliefs. The meeting with the Blumhardt, two charismatic pastors, father and son, who are bearers of a message full of hope (among them there were pilgrimages and mentally healed) feeds into the idea of a liberating and renewing God Barth, which releases, save, and gives hope to the world with its miraculous intervention and grace. Reading Plato, through his brother Heinrich, leads him to highlight the concept of an ' origin ' transcendent, a theoretical plane, ' other ' and transcends the world limited and load of problematic and non-sense. The theologian Overbeck and the influence of the enlightenment of which he is liable to pay market in Barth the conception of a Christianity in total contradiction with respect to the world and culture. The Christian message and Jesus Christ can be understood only outside the historical patterns as belonging to "Urgeschichte (prehistory or history). The discovery of Dostoevsky translates into a vision of the world and existence as a fact issue, layered, full of contradictions. The Church itself is seen as a human institution, Promethean Limited and at the same time as it seeks to replace God. Finally a determinant, but not enlightening influence is to Kierkegaard: the Danish philosopher Barth puts order in the "mental material" collected through all these stimuli and find the formula of "infinite qualitative difference between time and eternity" which underlies all his speculation in particular, but even after 20 years. In this perspective, faith is a gift of grace, a non-deductible encounter between man and God, a profound leap that can't be explained with the philosophical categories and which is located outside of time and history. The influence of Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard near Barth to themes and sensibility of Existentialism, but did not identify him with this movement as for Barth the centrality is in God and not in man and his existence.

The Roemerbrief (RB) and the dialectic stage

Mature result of labor and youth development of Barth is the RB of 1922 (a first edition then completely restructured was released in 1919). It is the poster of the so-called "neo-orthodoxy". The term "dialectic" refers to the underlying trend of this theology whereby: 1) God and man are in a static report-irreducible matrix kierkegaardiana, a dualistic dialectic, between the two terms there is no synthesis, but only contrast and difference; 2) by virtue of this same God manifests himself to man in dialectic terms, contradictory, paradoxical, him so you can't speak ever in linear terms, logical and conclusive; 3) therefore the very existence of man, the story, the world is immersed in viewpoint, in the problematic in non-sense in a closed circle that humanly can not break. At the base of the RB are two statements about God "dialectics" throughout the text and that never find a Supreme conciliation. 1) God is "totally other" than men, in the world, history, at the time. Between God and the world there is an irreducible and infinite "qualitative difference". The man is so immersed "a priori" in a closed circle of sin and problems that led him to ask ongoing questions without finding definitive answers. The man is placed in an intractable crisis which is aware, but they can't overcome. This crisis opens a space: from existence emerges a question on an "origin" across the world and of history in which they outdo all the contradictions, but that source is never humanly possedibile and reachable. From this underlying consideration here are some consequences: man is sinful and privileged place for questions about God (but not answered). Human knowledge are all related, fallacious and weak, theology cannot do "strong" statements about God, faith is a non-deductible jump, a blank space left to the initiative of divine grace. Ethics cannot rely on humans, but must be testimony to the failure of man in the dimension of "sacrifice". Politics must escape the extremes of revolution and preservation, because both end up with the challenging God and his salvation. Religion constantly runs the risk of soldiers, want IE to reach God. The Church is often how the historical attempt to "humanize God". 2) God may enter into a non-deductible relationship of grace with the world. Despite its infinite transcendence, God does not give up to form relationships with humans, to meet him and intervene "between the times" without going "over time". This is a non-deductible that can act only by God himself who is grace or divine election. With this Act God in his absolute freedom, founded the faith in man letting him get out of his problems and making him see a glimpse of eternity. The result is that the world really problematic and senseless acquires meaning, is charged with meaning and becomes a "symbol," parable "," testimony "from something beyond the world. The passing of time and undetermined corruptibility "symbolic" fixation and are significant. The consequences are manifold. The man is "renewed" by faith in God and becomes a "son" of God, but did not identify with him, the hope of faith sheds new light on the existence, without clear and cancel the sinfulness of man, and then a degree of freedom and choice. Who acquire significance in the light of God, theology must listen to the revelation, renounce all too human metaphysical speculations and seizing "contemporaneity" speaking through the word of God, faith is the acceptance of a gift that comes from God, obedience accepted a call. In the field of ethics you must live like we're Christ, love our neighbor totally free. Religion becomes the highest of human possibility, because it is the place where man is open to transcendence and grace. The Church does not seek to assert herself, but returns over itself, becoming a symbol and reminder of a transcendent reality. These two aspects of the thought of the RB that more disruptive is the first and is the most valued by critics and even from the same Barth.

The Fides quaerens intellectum of 1931

After the first phase harshly polemic against liberal theology, Barth softens his tone and describes the relation of faith (divine grace) and reason (intellect) is no longer in terms so strongly contrasting, but tries to reconcile the two terms. Faith keeps his absolute primacy, it is a gift of God, from the grace and non-deductible from history and psychology. However the intellect is not excluded from play a role: within the given faith touches the intellect indeed try to understand and comprehend. Barth sees this setting in Anselm of Canterbury and in his Proslogion. This work, far from being the demonstration of God's existence only ratione is actually searching for confirmations and insights once you are already inside the faith itself and that it is accepted. The schema that Barth refers is the "Augustinian" where the credo Credo ut intelligam has primacy over intelligo. After polemic against liberal theologians, Barth retrieves a role to human reason. In this work, more mature both God and man, faith and reason, eternity and time are therefore in greater collaboration.

The humanity of God and "dogmatic stage"

Starting in the 30 's until his death on December 10, 1968, the thought of Barth fulfills that softening of positions that had already been seen in the study of Anselm of Canterbury. Crucial text of this phase is the monumental Church Dogmatics (Kirchliche Dogmatik KD) in 13 volumes that will commit the author for over thirty years. Surveying and definitely more accessible is a 1956 conference entitled the humanity of God in whom already entitled you notice an evolution, without however denials, of his thought. Salient features of this phase are basically three: 1) a stronger accentuation of the encounter between God and man, eternity and time that are now found in a report of meeting, partnership and Alliance; 2) as a result a concentration around Christ, place of encounter between God and man; definitive 3) and finally the primacy of revelation and the word on philosophical concepts. 1) the encounter God-man. Barth puts more and more clear that the heart of the Christian message is the resurrection, Salvation, election, grace and not condemnation, transcendence, God's wrath which rejects man and the world ... This latter aspect and therefore the idea of God "totally other" than the world, crucial in RB, is never eliminated from Barth, but is referred to as "hard shell" which you have to admit, but which does not represent and does not exhaust at all the ' good ' core of friendship between man and God, and then the "humanity of God." The relationship between God's transcendence and meeting with the man (kenosis) who in the early works was more biased towards the first element (also for reasons of intellectual controversy), tips here on behalf of the second element, without losing anything (God always remains a transcendent reality to man and never possedibile). 2) Christological concentration. As a result of this enhancement of meeting God-man the center around which theology is increasingly the Christ, humanity of God, the place where God becomes man and restores human dignity to the floor and a historian. Primacy of revelation and the Word. Tied to these two points and corollary of them is the realization that when talking about God in a theological discourse you must first listen to the revelation that God himself gave himself, his word. The idea of a God-man is philosophically problematic, but we must accept it on the basis of the same revelation of God, as opposed to the transcendence of God, philosophically more consistent, but that must be corrected and calibrated on the basis of revelation and in particular on the person of Jesus Christ. In this perspective, the philosophy is not rejected by the theology, but it becomes a tool to interpret better the revelation (on the line of what has already been said by Barth in Fides quaerens intellectum). The important thing is to avoid to make absolute a philosophical system, but always be aware of the limits of human thought putting every philosophy in the service of a greater understanding of the faith (in this sense Barth calls himself "eclectic" in philosophy). Culmination of this evolution is the development of the method of analogy of faith within the KD. This term refers to the method by which Barth, in his mature phase, wanted to express the possibility of a relationship between man and God. The first term has a different shade of meaning "analogy" and intermedia with respect to "equality" (implying coincidence or identity) and complete diversity (which implies contradiction or incompatibility), it is a match or "partial agreement". If there was equality God would cease to be God and his infinite qualitative difference would be less than the creature. If there was total diversity God would be absolutely unknowable and would contradict the incarnation of Christ. The second term "fidei" is intended as a contrast to the term "entis». The ' analogia entis ' in fact was how the School had defined the relationship between God and man: in this perspective, it was believed to be able to say something about God, his nature, his attributes, starting at the being of creatures (nature). Barth, for its assumptions refuses obviously this position and opposed the "analogy of faith". He intends to emphasize that God cannot be known ever since the created nature, precisely because of the infinite qualitative difference which separates it from God, on the contrary if we know something about God is only by virtue of his own self-disclosure that we can only accept in faith, beyond the categories of rationality. Therefore there is a relationship between Barth mature in both God and man, but it is never an identification, because the premise of dialectic stage, the transcendence of God, is never deleted.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.