Introduction
12. The references U.P., 108 to Locus XVII and U.P., 281 to Locus I, are from the editor, Hannelotte Reiffen. The ‘Randnotiz’ at the beginning of § 7 on ‘Faith and Obedience’, U.P., 207 (ET 168), with a reference to Locus XX, Vocation, may have been added by Barth at a later time. That Barth connected calling with pneumatology may be related to the fact that in Heppe the locus on calling functions as the foundation for soteriology and in a certain sense therefore functions also as his locus on the Holy Spirit.
15. Barth deliberately shies away from writing a paragraph that would correspond with Heppe’s Locus xxiv, The Sacraments in General: ‘As far as I see, this is the only strong departure from the usual disposition of the old Dogmatics that I have allowed myself, but I see it as inevitable’ (because of the estrangement of the notion of sacrament from the central Christian message of reconciliation in modern theology, U.II., 198). Nevertheless, some quotations from this Locus can be found at for example U.II., 210 (HpB 476, 468).
17. Barth (1974), 491 (letter 7 April 1927): because of the discussions with Roman-Catholic theologians in Münster, ‘I now know even better what I am doing when I demand the knowledge of orthodoxy from my students as a base stock (‘als eisernen Bestand’). To my satisfaction this rumour has been spread in such a way that the price for an antique copy of Heppe has risen from 3 to 12 Marks!’
21. For Heinrich Ludwig Julius Heppe (1820-1879), professor in Marburg where he was heavily attacked by his Lutheran colleague A.F.C. Vilmar, see Kuhnert (1899) and BBKL Bd. III, 726-727. Bizer observes: ‘In his later utterances Heppe defends himself against the tendency to be regarded as a confessional Reformed dogmatician; he confesses himself to be a pupil of Schleiermacher and he reports that in later years he located the treatment of this material in the framework of the discipline of Symbolics’ (HpB, xiv).
22. Contra Van Asselt and others (2011), 20. Richard A. Muller (2003b), 63ff., describes the different positions in the nineteenth-century debate and says: ‘Heppe argued that the more predestinarian form of Reformed theology, associated with Calvin and Beza, and outlined in his Reformed Dogmastics, could be distinguished from a non-predestinarian, fundamentally Melanchthonian, German Reformed Dogmatics’. See also Muller (1999), 33. Interestingly, Muller describes Beza’s notorious Tabula as a soteriological intervention, rather than the foundation of a predestinarian system. In that sense, Heppe’s adoption of it in the ‘Belegstellen’ to Locus VII (the decrees; HpB 119. HpB-ET 147-48) appears to be less accurate. However, it would be too much to suggest that this amounts to the basic failure of his entire didactical project.
25. Bizer (HpB, XVII) remarks: ‘… it is a selection, which was probably determined by the collection available at the library of the University of Marburg and moreover he limited himself to dogmatic textbooks, The exegetical studies that never ceased, the dogmatic work in France and England, and all the polemic writings – none of this was considered. Important names like Junius, Gomarus, Maccovius, Wittichius, Clauberg, Perkins, Twisse are missing. Even more important is that in his presentation the entire development from the Reformation up to the eighteenth century appears like a unity. The differences, for example between Calvin and Zwingli, or between Calvin and the generations that followed him … do not even appear. He presented orthodoxy in its entirety within the framework of federal theology, which itself represents a break with orthodoxy and was not considered to be orthodox when it appeared’. Also that last point was stressed by Barth, (HpB-ET, vii): ‘Heppe has paid his tribute to the spirit of the nineteenth century, in that for him the incursion of the covenant-theology of Cocceius and his pupils, proclaimed alongside of Cartesianism, into the line of the older expositors of Reformed dogma seems not to involve any deeper problem; so that we ask in vain how it came about, that, in this particular, Reformed orthodoxy in the eighteenth century can be so marvelously and painlessly “intellectual”, that is pietistic-rationalistic.’
26. In his own copy of HpB (R5T8B22), Barth noted two printing errors found in his ‘Zum Geleit’: VIII l. 20: ‘Bei dem allem’ has to be read as: ‘Bei dem alle’, and IX l. 29: ‘der mit dem Kartesianismus verkündeten Föderaltheologie’ has to be read as: ‘verbündeten’.
Table in the Introduction
n. 6. Quenstedt (1701); inserted in Barth’s copy is a letter to Georg Merz of 4 June 1931, on CD I/1, in connection with the lectures Barth had given at that time on the content of that volume for one semester: ‘… so wird es ein opus werden, das an Volumen hinter der Theologica didactica-polemica des seligen Andreas Quenstedt, den ich jetzt auch öfters einsehe, kaum viel zurückbleiben wird’. I have not been able to find any evidence to confirm whether or not Barth stayed in Greifswald for some time in 1925.
n. 31. Alting (1652), in two volumes. The second volume adds an Exegesis Augustanae confessionis, ‘cum appendice problematica, accedit syllabus controversiarum, quae reformatis hodie intercedunt cum lutheranis’. In KD I/2, 938 Barth quotes from this Syllabus controversiarum (75-80) ‘II. Qui lutherani dicantur & quot eorum genera?’ (78). The two other quotations (KD I/2, 310 and II/2, 83) refer to the ‘Problemata theologica, tam theoretica, tam practica’ which were also added to the second volume.
Continuation notes Introduction
33. My own support for this assertion stems from my stay at the Karl Barth Archive in the summer of 2013. On the basis of my work there, I can confirm that it is highly unlikely that Barth ordered students or others to make compilations for the excursuses in his Church Dogmatics, as has at times been suggested. Aside from the material evidence in the KBA, the self-willed character of Barth’s reading of the sources also makes this suggestion improbable.
37. Barth (1947; ET 1972), 161. On the other hand, Ratschow took the same König as the point of reference for his commentary on the older Lutheran dogmatics. He further used works from sixteen other theologians after Melanchthon, while Scholten, the Dutch admirer of Schweizer, in his Leer der hervormde kerk (1855), mentioned sixty-two theologians from the Reformed world – while ignoring those from Britain – of that same period.
38. In his ethical argument on monogamy Barth tells the following anecdote: ‘Calov was just as active as a lover and a husband as he was as a champion of orthodox Lutheranism against Calvinists, Calixtinists and other heretics. In 1684 at the age of seventy-two, only four months after the death of his fifth wife, he entered for the sixth time upon the estate of holy matrimony with the daughter of a younger colleague Andreas Quenstedt. Some slight restraint … would not have been bad for this man and a few others among the older Protestants.’ (KD III/4, 227; CD III/4, 202).
40. KD II/2, 91: ‘Ausgangszeit’ (CD II/2, 85 ‘final stages’). Hollaz’s theology can be characterised as ‘baroque’ in form, but this evaluation is not decisive: ‘It is not to be regarded [only, RRB] as baroque adornment that Hollaz transforms his treatment of each specific Locus into a suspirium, his talk about God becoming quite expressly address to God’ (CD I/1, 23).
57. CD II/2, x: ‘In 1698 Mastricht published the whole second edition of his Theoretica-Practica Theologia in even smaller print than that of the small-type passages of the present book. And in the Praefatio he had the sang-froid to tell his readers: si hoc officiat oculorum perspecaciae, cogitabam hoc facili negotio compensaturum iuvenum quidem oculorum acumen, senilium vero perspicillos (‘If this prevents the eyes from seeing clearly, I thought this could be adjusted with little effort for the eyes of younger people through their sharpness, and for those of older people through their glasses’).’ In this study we will come back to Mastricht and his view of the Church in Chapter 4.
66. KD I/1, 284f. (CD I/1, 269). With Quenstedt, Barth defines our theology as theologia ektypos mediatae revelationis hominum viatorum post lapsum. Thirty years after KD I/1, he in Barth (1962) still remarked: ‘Some things in the history of more recent theology would have turned out differently and better, if these only seemingly absurd distinctions would not have become “dogmatic antiquities” in that disastrous transition from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century (K. von Hase)’.
68. KD I/2, (571)580-585 (CD I/2, 522-526). On page 522f. Barth argues: ‘The gradually extending new understanding of biblical inspiration was one way, in which the great process of secularisation on which post-Reformation Protestantism entered was carried through. This new understanding meant that the statement that the Bible is the Word of God was now transformed … from a statement about the free grace of God into a statement about the nature of the Bible as exposed to human inquiry brought under human control’. For that reason, ‘it is not the question of renewing this doctrine of high orthodoxy’, but on the contrary ‘we must carefully and consistently avoid the mistake of orthodoxy’.
69. KD I/2, 687 (CD I/2, 615): ‘it is justifiable and meaningful to regard as Church fathers … the in their own way and to some extent great men of the age of orthodoxy in so far as according to its own conscious intention the theology of that period did try to be ecclesiastical scholarship, a comprehensive exposition of Holy Scripture and a comprehensive development of the Reformation confession. We must be careful in our estimate of the authority of these orthodox theologians, because the beginnings of later arbitrariness do in fact appear [already] in their dogmatic systems …’.
72. The title of the first locus in Heppe, De theologia naturali et revelata, is somewhat misleading. The majority of his sources begin with a locus De theologia. It is only as an exception (for example, with Bucanus, and later on in principle also with Pictet) that a dogmatics starts immediately – even without a locus De S. Scriptura – with the locus De Deo, and even then the first question is: unde probas esse deum?
100. Schrenk’s work would have sufficed for Barth’s presentation of Cocceius’s doctrine of the abrogations (in point 3 of the excursus). However, Barth probably did look up the references to Ursinus’s Summa Theologiae (KD IV/1, 62) in his own library. The same quite likely applies for Burman’s Synopsis as well; this work is quoted in KD IV/1, 67 and in HpB 305 under Belegstelle 6.
Chapter 1
4. Wollebius (1626, 21935). In HpB, XLVII, Bizer remarks in a footnote: ‘Ich fürchte, ich habe damals die Bedeutung Wollebs weit überschätzt’ (‘I fear, I vastly overestimated the importance of Wollebius at the time’). With some remarkable exceptions, Wollebius offers a very clear summary of the Syntagma of Polanus (see below), and as a survey of Reformed dogmatics his work enjoyed some popularity not only in Switzerland but also, for instance, in the Netherlands. Barth likes to quote his definitions, canons, and so on.
5. III/2, 457: ‘mein illustrer Vorgänger’ (CD III/2,382: ‘my illustrious predecessor’).
7. U.I., 163 (‘und endlich fügte unser dialektischer Freund Polanus gut reformiert noch hinzu:…’) and 194 (‘wir folgen hier dem rüstigen Polanus’); GD 437: ‘our dialectical friend Polanus added in good Reformed style…’’ ; 462: ‘we follow here the vigorous Polanus’.
11. For example, in Syntagma II.4, the chapter on the proofs for the existence of God, Polanus in effect follows Aquinas’s ‘five ways’ by giving fourteen (!) a posteriori demonstrations. At the end, however, he remarks: ‘Imo Deum esse ex tactu divinitatis, ante omnem rationis usum, omnes omnino homines sciunt. Itaque, Deum esse per se notum, frustra negant Thomas Aquinas [sc. Summa Theologiae I q. 2 a. 1 against Anselm, rrb] & alii Scholastici’. In other words, behind the Thomistic Aristotelian empiricism Polanus presupposes a more Platonic immediate knowledge (tactus divinitatis), which he may have inherited from Calvin. One might wonder whether this position has been developed sufficiently well, but in any case it does not arise from one particular philosophical presupposition.
12. Faulenbach (1967). Faulenbach personally brought a copy of his study to Barth in Basel (KBA R5T2B56). At the very first sentence, in which Faulenbach gives an assessment of the work of Staehelin, Barth makes three critical remarks. The underlining in his copy shows that Barth read the first fifty pages, as well as the last page on Wollebius. Barth, or so it appears, was not very pleased with this study.
14. Unlike Muller, Paul Althaus, who provided Faulenbach with his main questions with regard to Polanus and who can with some justification be criticised for that by Muller, was aware of this when he said (Althaus 1967, 1): ‘historische und systematische Theologie haben stets in Wechselwirkung gestanden’ (‘there has always been an interaction between historical and systematic theology’).
22. There is also a seventh dichotomy which, as far as I can see, is not subject to the reproach of a potential dualism. See Synopsis Libri IX: ‘Good Works are twofold: some are of the immediate service of God [Book IX], others are of the mediate service [Book X]’. Immediate service concerns the first table of the Law, that is, the true and sincere religion; the mediate service concerns the second table, that is, the development of the moral virtues of man. Barth addresses the former in § 18.2, ‘the love of God’ (KD I/2, 424, 440; CD I/2 385, 400), and the latter in connection with the ‘love of oneself’ (Syntagma X caput 2: ‘de charitate erga proximum in genere’; KD I/2, 426; CD I/2, 387) and again in § 52.1 on ‘the problem of Special Ethics’ (KD III/4, 7; CD III/4, 8). In the place just mentioned, he reproaches Polanus for displaying a casuistic approach to ethics: ‘a legal text being strangely compiled from the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament and from all sorts of definitions of virtue from Greek and Roman antiquity’. It is not my impression that Polanus is offering such a ‘compilation’ here. Rather, he is trying to develop a Christian variant of an ethics of virtue. Barth seems to have no eye for the merits of such an attempt.
26. KD I/2, 310 (CD I/2, 285), § 17.1: ‘The problem of Religion in Theology’; reference to Polanus, Syntagma IX.1-4 (11609, 3694-3719; 21615, 575-580). Barth levels the criticism against Wollebius here that we can find in him ‘the very thing which Polanus obviously tried to avoid: … a general and neutral definition of the concept “religion”.’ Yet in reality the term ‘general’ in Wollebius’s definition does not deal with general religiosity, but with the bracket of the immediate and mediate service of God, that is, the first and second table of the Law. Here too we see the consequences of Barth’s neglect of the Ramist shaping of doctrine in the works of these theologians.
28. Synopsis Libri I: ‘Idque (Verbum Dei) re & substantia unicum est & simplex, sed revelationis modo duplex est’.
29. Synopsis Libri II. See also Syntagma II.1 (21615, 132 c. 1) with the assertion: ‘has tantum duas esse doctrinae fidei partes confirmat Symbolum Apostolicum, fidei Christianum perfectum compendium’.
32. In Book VI of the Syntagma, where he deals with the covenant, Polanus actually makes a division between the ‘capita sive articuli federis ex parte Dei’ (donatio Spiriti Sancti, iustificatio, regeneratio, liberatio, perseverantia, and so on; Syntagma VI.34-45, 21615, 451-489) and the capita ‘ex nostra parte. Ps 110, 3’ (489 ff.).
34. Synopsis Libri II. Syntagma II.5 (21615, 135 c. 2), with a reference to Psalm 136, ‘in quo hortatur Psaltes fideles omnes ad preaedicandas Dei laudes propter naturam ejus bonum & opera’.
41. Synopsis Libri II. Syntagma II.6 (21615, 137 c. 2); and III.1 (198 c. 1): consentaneum est ordini didascalico ( !), ut de personis in essentia illa unica, quantum per Sacras literas nobis patefactu est, sedulo inquiramus’.
42. KD II/1, 292; CD II/1, 261 (§ 28.1). Reference to Polanus, Syntagma II.5 (11609, 865; 21615, 135 c. 2). Meijering (1993), 217n99, shows that in his own way Polanus is also arguing on the basis of trinitarian presuppositions, but that he deliberately presents his definition the way he does so that also the ‘heathen’ could be convinced by it.
45. Current scholarship on Thomas Aquinas finds a comparable ‘ascending order’ of intensification in his Summa Theologica: in the first part the movement of all things by God, in the second part the movement of man for God, and then, in the third part, the movement by God in the unio hypostatica of the second person of the holy Trinity with humanity and the movement for God through the sacraments in the direction of eternal life. In this ascending order, the result (that is, the speaking de personis Dei in the third part) is already presupposed in an abstract way in the speaking de essentia Dei in the first part. See Wissink (1998), 36, with references to Y. Congar and M. Corbin.
47. Meijering (1993) 229-230n213) rightly points out that Barth omits the trinitarian opening sentence of the chapter Syntagma II.29. We find a similar case in the subparagraph on the hiddennes of God where Barth, quoting Polanus’s Deus non potest definiri, asks: ‘is that the Deus of the revelation?’ and fears that ‘the context points in another direction’. Yet he omits the first context, namely the trinitarian opening sentence of the chapter. KD II/1, 214 (CD II/1, 191), § 27.1; reference to Polanus, Syntagma II.3 (11609, 857; 21615, 134 c. 1).
48. See also the subparagraph on the eternity of God. Polanus acknowledges that there is an ordo, a movement, a before and after in the triune God (begetting, proceeding), and so he speaks of the attribute of eternity in relationship to the Trinity, but he does not go as far as Barth does when he speaks of eternity as a specific form of time. KD II/1, 694 (CD II/1, 615), § 31.3; reference to Polanus, Syntagma II.11 (11609, 929; 21615, 145 c. 2). Meijering (1993) 198n246.
49. [1] KD II/2, 119-120 (CD II/2, 111-112), § 33.1; reference to Polanus, Syntagma IV.9 (11609, 1574; 21615, 245 c. 1): electio est totius Sacrosanctae Trinitatis commune opus, cujus principium est Pater.
50. KD III/1, 52 (CD III/1, 49), § 41.1; reference to Polanus, Syntagma V.3 (11609, 1650; 21615, 257 c. 1): sic ut Creatio sit opus commune omnibus personae Sacrae Trinitatis; Pater tamen singulari jure appellatur Creator.
51. KD I/2, 37-38 (CD I/2, 34), § 13.2; reference to Polanus, Syntagma VI.13 (11609, 2347; 21615, 364 c. 1): God’s becoming man is inchoative (as divine action) a commune opus of the whole Trinity, but terminative (as the divine determination achieved through this action) it is an opus proprium Filii.
53. KD II/1, 583-585 (CD II/1, 519-520), § 31.2, with a reference to an earlier remark in KD II/1 555 (CD II/1, 494). See also the similar problem in the relationship between the eternal divine decision regarding the assumption of human nature in Christ on the one hand, and the assertion that this happened without any alteration or transformation in the divine nature on the other, including Barth’s confirmation of Polanus’s solution: KD II/1, 579-580 (CD II/1, 515-516), with a reference to Syntagma II.13 (11609, 979; 21615, 153 c. 1).
59. KD II/1, 296-297 (CD II/1, 265), § 28.1; reference to Polanus, Syntagma II.35 (11609, 1231f.; 21615, 192). Polanus, however, does not consider ‘mercy’ and ‘patience’ to be ‘figurative’ but rather ‘essential’ attributes of God (Syntagma II.23 and II.24 respectively), as Barth shows himself to be aware of this elsewhere (KD II/1, 416; CD II/1, 370-371).
60. KD II/1, 298 (CD II/1, 266); reference to Polanus, Syntagma II.35 (11609, 1231f.; 21615, 192 c. 2). For the distinction between the ‘theological’ and ‘economical’ way of speaking, Polanus in turn refers to a dialogue of Theodeoret of Cyrus.
63. Syntagma II.7, 21615, 141 c. 1: sunt attributa divina, quibus & essentiae divinae veritas in se innotescit & ab omnibus aliis essentiis discernitur.
67. Syntagma II.7, 21615, 141 c. 2: proprietates Dei essentiales primi ordinis, sunt quae de Deo velut a Priori dicuntur ut est, hoc est, quae essentiam Dei declarant ut est in se absolute, eique soli insunt & tribuuntur secundum essentiam, actu & vim; ac proinde sunt simpliciter incommunicabiles.
69. Syntagma II.14, 21615, 154 c. 1: proprietates Dei essentiales secundi ordinis, sunt quae de Deo a posteriori dicuntur, ut est agendi principium. Et hae sunt incommunicabiles, ut sunt in Deo; communicabiles tamen dicuntur kat’ analogian, quia earum similitudo quaedam in creaturis reperitur.
70. Synopsis Libri I. Syntagma I.4, 21615, 3 c. 1: theologiae cum creaturis rationalibus communicatae fines sunt duo: primarius et summus est glorificatio Dei tanquam summi boni; secundarius et subordinatus est beatitudo creaturarum rationalium. See what was noted in the introduction of this chapter above about the ‘analytical method’.
72. For an example, see KD II/1, 397 (CD II/1, 353), § 30.1; reference to Polanus, Syntagma II.21; 11609, 1040; 21615, 163 c. 1. Barth refers to Polanus’s definition of grace: gratia in Deo residens est essentialis proprietas nimirum benignissima voluntas Dei et favor, per quem vere et proprie est gratiosus, quo favet et gratis benefacit creaturae suae. In the first place, as we have already remarked, not all divine properties are ‘proprietates essentiales’ for Polanus. And in the second place, for him grace is the last link in the chain beatitudo (17) – voluntas (19) – gratia (21), as can also be seen in the definition. But how can a reader of the Church Dogmatics, who does not have the Syntagma in his personal library, see this?
75. KD II/1, 416f. (CD II/1, 370-371), § 30.2, ‘The Mercy and Righteousness of God’; reference to Polanus, Syntagma II.23 (11609, 1119; 21615, 175 c. 1). About the first part of Polanus’s definition, ‘Deus est misericors sua aeterna et simplici essentia’, Barth shows himself enthusiastic: ‘we have to take this positive part of the sentence (as) seriously (as the negative one: non autem qualitate aliqua, non affectu, non passione). The mercy of God really means His splanchna and no less than all His other attributes denotes His aeterna and simplex essentia’. This praise for Polanus seems to conflict with Barth’s criticisms concerning mercy as a figurative attribute as mentioned above.
88. Where Barth refers to tradition in addressing the treatment of divine simplicity by orthodox Protestant theologians, he quotes only Wollebius (KD II/1, 502-503; CD II/1, 446-447): for him it means that God is expers compositionis. The definition Polanus provides in Syntagma II.8 is more detailed, following the examples of Aquinas and Zanchi: for him the simple God is expers compositionis, divisionis, multiplicationis et accidentium (Syntagma 21615, 141 c. 2). Aside from simplicity, Barth omits also references to the divine properties of immortalitas (II.16), bonitas (II.20), and libertas (II.30). The last omission is a strange one, considering the titles of CD § 28 as well as § 31.
89. The reader of the Church Dogmatics can read this summary in volume CD II/1, which should inform him of the structural shape in which Polanus rendered his doctrine of God. As we have seen, however, Barth does not inform the reader of this shape directly. Yet he does do so indirectly, namely in a quotation which can be found in the text on the glory of God. Barth quotes Polanus’s definition of the divine glory, in which the latter summarises the whole of his second book as follows: ‘Gloria Dei est essentialis ejus majestas, per quam intelligitur Deum revera esse (4), eundem essentia sua esse revera id quod esse dicitur (5): simplissimum (8), perfectissimum (9), infinitum (10), aeternum (11), immensum (12), immutabilem (13), viventem (15), immortalem (16), beatum (17), sapientem, intelligentem, omniscium, prudentem (18), volentem (19), bonum (20), gratiosum (21), amantem boni (22), misericordem (23), justum (26), veracem (27), sanctum, castum (28), potentem imo omnipotentem (29), & talem se in omnibus operibus suis (!) declarare. Breviter: essentialis gloria Dei sunt virtutes in ipso Deo existentes & in operibus relucentes (Ex. 33:18)’. Barth comments on this passage: ‘It is indeed the glory of God, that He gives Himself to be known as all this…!’. KD II/1, 725-726; CD II/1, 643; reference to Polanus, Syntagma II.28 (11609, 1213; 21615, 190 c. 1).
90. ‘Kurtzen Inhalt der gantzen Lehr, welche in der Theologischen Schul der loblichen Universitet Basel geführt wirdt’; Staehelin (1955), (111-130), 112: ‘Von Gott’ (title by Staehelin borrowed from Polanus’s Partitiones), article 5. It reads: ‘Wir glauben, [Book II:] dasz Gott ein Geist ist und nicht ein leiblich Wesen, dasz er unendlich (10), vollkommen (9), unwandelbar (13), ewig (11), unermeszlich, allenthalben gegenwertig (12), lebendig (15), unsterblich (16), selig (17),[1] weyse (18), gut (20), gnedig (21) und barmhertzig (23), gedultig (24), gerecht (26), allmechtig (29), aller Dingen frey unnd Niemanden unterworffen (30), [Book III:] dasz er einig im Wesen, aber drey Personen, Vatter, Sohn und Heiliger Geist, seye.’ For Barth’s commentary on Polanus’s description of God as Spirit (‘und nicht ein leiblich Wesen’), see KD II/1, 298-299 (CD II/1, 266-267), § 28.1; references to Polanus, Syntagma II.3 (11609, 860; 21615, 134 c. 2). Barth fears an idealism in which the sense of describing God as ‘Spirit’ only serves to distinguish Him from the world of ‘nature’. That may indeed be a danger. In the tradition of Calvin’s Institutes, however, the sense of the ‘spirituality’ of God is rather to stress the fundamental difference between the God of Israel and the gods of the ‘gentiles’ as hypostatised creatures (in the Institutes of 1559, Book I the beginning of Chapter 13).
92. See above, n. 63. The Latin text of the eleven axiomata reads: 1. Proprietates Dei essentiales sunt realiter ipsamet Dei essentia, & nec ab essentia Dei nec inter se reipsa differunt… 2. Nulla in Deo distinguuntur essentialiter: quia omnia quae sunt in Deo sunt una & indivisibilis & simplicissima essentia. 3. … non realiter, ita nec ex natura rei, sed ratione distinguuntur aut modo potius, id est nostra conceptione & comprehensione, seu nostro intelligendi modo. 4. … non sunt partes essentiae divinae sed quaelibet proprietas essentialis est ipsamet Dei essentia tota et integra, ita ut essentia Dei & essentialis Dei proprietas non sint aliud & aliud, sed unum & idem. 5. … sunt realiter inseparabiles.. 6. quicquid Deus est aut in sese agit, uno & eodem actu, qui est ipsius essentia, id est aut in sese agit: ideo uno & eodem actu simplex, infinitus, immutabilis est, uno & eodem actu vivit, intelligit, vult, amat &c. 7. .. sunt in Deo ab aeterno in aeternum, etiamsi externis operibus eas non semper… declaret. 8. … non sunt posteriores essentia Dei, quia reipsa sunt idem. 9. … non sunt in Deo formae accidentales seu accidentia, sed sunt ideae & formae esssentiales: quia nihil est in Deo non per se subsistens… 10. … sunt actus, prout Deus actus purissimus est & simplissimus. 11. Sine proprietatibus divinis essentialibus Deus esse non potest, ne sine seipso sit: ipse enim ipsissima sapientia, bonitas, potentia est. Non sunt proprie loquendo multae proprietates in Deo sed una tantum, quae nihil aliud est quam ipsa divina essentia… sed respectu nostri quasi multae proprietates dicuntur, quia in nobis sunt multae… Intellectus noster non potest uno simplici actu, sed necesse habet multis distinctisque actibus, ut alia omnia, ita & Deum cognoscere.
94. The former numbers 389-392 in Denzinger’s Enchiridion symbolorum are deleted in the newer editions, because ‘Gilbertus vero subtiliter se defendendo ita successit (namely at Reims in the year 1148), ut papa istis capitulis nullam haeresis notam inusserit’.
98. Bizer,HpB XLVII: ‘He was really a conserving epigone, to a large extent also a compiler’ (wesentlich bewahrender Epigone, weithin auch Kompilator’).
102. KD III/2, 3-4 (CD III/2, 5), § 43.1, ‘Man in the Cosmos’. ‘Beginning with the upper and the lower heavens [V.8: de coelo supremo; V.9: de secundo seu medio coelo]; descending to the good and the bad angels [V.11: de Angelis in communi; V.12: de bonis Angelis; V.13: de malis Angelis]; thence to natura visibilis [V.14: de principiis internis naturae visibilis, nempe materia prima, forma & privatione], to space and time [V.15: de proprietatibus corporum naturalium a Deo creatorum (= de loco, de finitate, de motu)], fire and light, day and night [V.16: de elemento ignis & luce primigenia, die item et nocte], the air and meteorological phenomena [V.17: de aëre & meteoris in eo], the earth and its minerals [V.19: de terra; V.20: de fossilibus], plant life [V.21: de plantis] and earthquakes [V.22: de terrae motu]; then upwards again to the sun, moon and stars [V.23: de Sole, Luna et aliis stellis]; back again to the aquatic sphere [V.24: de aequitilibus], birds [V.25: de volatilibus] and animals [V.26: de brutis animalibus terrenis]; and then finally and centrally to man [V.27, de homine et definitione hominis; V.28 de causa efficiente hominis], to the anatomy and physiology of his body [V.29: de materia hominis; V.30: de partibus humanis corporis; V. 31: de humoribus et spiritibus in corpore humano], to the nature of his soul [V.32: de anima hominis], to his heavenly and earthly destinies [V.33: de hominis finibus], his divine likeness [V.34: de statu hominis integro & imagine Dei in homine] and his paradisal perfection [V.35: de externis bonis hominis in statu integritatis].
103. Barth refers to almost the entire content of this book. Syntagma V.1 treats the externa Dei opera in genere; V.2-5 is about creation itself; V.6 offers a creaturae definitio; and V.7 speaks de mundo communiter. Chapter V.10 seems to be missing in Polanus. Furthermore, Barth omits Chapter V.18: de elemento aquae.
104. KD III/1, 2 (CD III/1, 4), § 40, ‘Faith in God the Creator’; reference to Polanus, Syntagma V.3 (11609, 1700; 21615, 264 c. 2): Creationis vera ad certa cognitio non philosophiae sed theologiae, non naturae sed fidei, non acumini mentis humanae, sed divino lumini, non humanae ratiocinationi, sed divinae revelationi, non rationibus et demonstrationibus physicis, sed autoritatibus et testimoniis divinis accepta est ferenda.
111. So in KD III/2, 456 (CD III/2, 380), § 46.3, ‘Soul and Body in their Interconnection’; reference to Polanus, Syntagma V.32 (11609, 2060; 21615, 319). Barth refers here – with negative overtones – to Polanus’s definition of the soul: [anima hominis est] substantia [nempe proprie sic dicta, non qualitas aliqua, ullumve re aliud accidens, sed] talis naturae, quae a corpore etiam separati & subsistere per se [here you have to add: ipsa] possit.
114. Barth clearly wrote out these examples out with much pleasure and the reader will experience these pages of the Church Dogmatics in the same way. We refer here only to the location in the Syntagma (21615). Cor: 313 c.1; cranium: 313 c. 2; frons: 314 c. 2; una tantum lingua: 316 c. 1; aures: 315 c. 2; os & osculum: 316 c. 2 – 317 c. 1; de humoribus et spiritibus: V.31, (21615) 318 under usus.
116. KD IV/1, 408-409 (CD IV/1, 369-370), § 60.1, ‘The Man of Sin in the Light of the Obedience of the Son of God’; reference to Polanus, Syntagma VI.9 [Barth here mentions the chapter in the first edition, but not the column] (21615, 348 c. 1ff.): ‘He too, as was now the general custom in Protestantism, allowed quite definitely and eloquently for a twofold patefactio: tum naturalis, tum supernaturalis. In the first of these all men have a share qua homines [est communis omnibus hominis qua homines sunt, tam reprobis quam electis; tam non renatis, quam renatis]. Apart from the liber naturae, i.e., the visible external works of God in creation, it includes the liber conscientiae or the lex naturae, i.e. the naturalis notitia in prima creatione cordibis hominus impressa, tradens discrimen honestorum et turpium. Polan accepts this lex naturalis, which being identical with the vera philosophia, cannot contradict the Word of God.’
117. Polanus, 21615, 348 c. 2, G: lux naturalis in homine, ultro a vere luce averso, prope extincta fuit.
119. Loonstra, ‘Scholasticism and Hermeneutics’ (in: Van Asselt & Dekker 2001, 295-306) 302 has come to a similar conclusion with Polanus in a different locus, that of Holy Scripture. There he encountered the sentence ‘unum et verum convertuntur’, that is there is only one meaning in Scripture and this meaning will always be the one truth. It is clear that this position is unacceptable from the point of view of present-day hermeneutics.
120. At the end of his chapter, Polanus addresses the use of the doctrine of divine simplicity: Syntagma II.8 (21615, 143 c. 1). We we may wonder about what Polanus there says under the category paraklèsis: ‘Quia Deus est simplicissimus: ergo & nos in futura vita fiemus simplissimi corda, verbo et opera’. Why should such human simplicity only come about ‘in futura vita’, why not also in this life?
121. II/1, 404: ‘krankt in fataler Weise daran…’ (CD II/1, 359, on the definition of Holiness).
122. KD II/1, 426: ‘bekommt einen eigentümlich willkürlichen Charakter’ (CD II/1, 379, the righteousness of God).
123. KD II/1, 553: ‘hat leider auch an dieser Stelle keine glückliche Hand gehabt’ (CD II/1, 492, the constancy of God). See above, n. 38.
124. II/1, 479: ‘er versagt in dieser Sache’ (CD II/1, 426, the wisdom of God). See footnotes 78 and 79 above.
126. KD I/2, 310: ‘eine auffallende Ausnahme’ (CD II/1, 285, the place of the treatment of religion in the Syntagma). See n. 26 above.
127. KD II/2, 119: ‘ich weiß unter den mir bekannten Dogmatikern der Orthodoxie nur einen…’ (CD II/2, 111, § 33.1. ‘Jesus Christ, Electing and Elected’).
128. KD III/2, 3: ‘ich kenne nur eine Ausnahme von dieser Regel..’ (CD III/2, 5.) See n. 102 above (the cosmic view on the creature).
129. KD III/2, 457: ‘so war es eine seltsame Ausnahme, wenn Polan…’ (CD III/2, 381). See also n. 113 above (the doctrine of the human body).
130. KD III/3, 359: ‘Es war schon bei den Alten eine Ausnahme, wenn etwa Polan dem malum afflictionis eine besondere Abhandlung zuwendete und diese der Behandlung des malum peccati et culpa sogar vorangehen ließ’ (CD III/3, 315, § 50.3, ‘The Knowledge of Nothingness’). Barth’s reference to Syntagma VI.7 is not very clear, and it is quite probable that he actually meant VI.4. Indeed Polanus makes the distinction ‘malum est duplex, culpae et afflictionis’ (VI.3; 21615, 334 c. 1). However, for Polanus afflictio appears not to be quite the same thing as ‘Nothingness’ is for Barth. It is characterised as miseria and is related to God-forsakenness, perseverance, trial, martyrdom, and death.
136. ‘So gibt es denn auch bei Polanus ein Kapitel…., anhebend mit dem strahlenden Satz:…’ (CD I/2, 387; § 18.2, ‘The love of God’); reference to Polanus, Syntagma X.3, ‘De caritate hominis erga seipsum’ (11609, 4182f.; 21615, 651 c. 1): unusquisque sibi ipsi primum proximus est, deinde aliis.
137. KD III/2, 457: ‘Ich frage mich ernstlich, ob mein illustrer Vorgänger hier nicht mindestens stellenweise dem Geist der Basler Fastnacht verfallen ist und ganz bewußt fromme Witze machen wollte’ (CD III/2, 381). Faulenbach (1967), 182n quotes this sentence of Barth, but I fear he failed to see the irony in it.
138. KD II/1, 448: ‘schon zur Erinnerung, wie unerschrocken und einsichtig die “alte Orthodoxie”, trotz aller ihrer Mängel gerade im Blick auf diese Mitte … zu reden gewußt hat’ (CD II/1, 398, § 30.2); reference to Polanus, Syntagma II.26, the passage on the ‘iustitia irae’ (11609, 1166; 21615, 183 c. 2): nullam exemplum iustitiae, irae et comminationum divinarum est expressius, severius, horribilius quam in Christo …’ and so on.
Chapter 2
4. Without naming Walaeus, Barth refers to this seminary (KD IV/3, 24; CD IV/3, 24) in his larger excursus on the history of Christian mission: ‘the Dutch India Company for a time commissioned, employed and supported some Dutch theologians (mostly trained in Leiden) in the Far East’, with the critical remark: ‘… unfortunately with a view to mass conversion on the Roman pattern’.
9. KD III/1, Vorwort (CD III/1, IX) quotes the following fragment: ‘ … so that it may be clear to anyone and everyone that there is a total single-mindedness in what we believe and think, and that we share a consensus in all the headings of theology. We have no doubt whatsoever that the pastors of our churches, when they behold this work as the longed-for proof of the harmony in our teaching, will join with us in congratulating the Province that you command for the fact that by the special grace of God … [under your watch the flames of our internal dissentions have been quenched. And what is more, that they may now once again behold that] on the lecterns in our Academy and on the pulpits in our church-buildings truth and peace “greet and kiss one another” (to use the words of king David the prophet [Psalm 85,10])’; ET (here and elsewhere in this chapter) taken from SPT (2014).
10. Furthermore (Eekhof, 1921, 43.70ff.), the resolution ‘that no one would give his judgment on a controversy of religion, on church government, or on a case of conscience separately, but only together with his colleagues; that no theses were to be publicly disputed unless all colleagues had seen and approved of them; that no book was to be published which all colleagues had not examined and agreed upon’ (Walaeus) also had the function of preventing a provincial Synod from controlling their academic labour.
12. See Sinnema & Van den Belt (2012), Appendix, 534-537. Since the original pamphlets, paid for by the University of Leiden, have been found for a significant number of the disputations, in many cases an exact date is available.
13. In light of recent research, several remarks by Ritschl (1926), Vol. III, 375-377, appear to be outdated. His suggestion that the editing of disputations was a relatively simple means for university professors to publish their academic work overlooks the academic practice of the period. And his observation that ‘a disadvantage of this shaping of doctrine was that the systematic coherence of the doctrine as a whole is of less interest than that of each locus as such’, although ‘with his Institutes Calvin had yet sufficiently provided such coherence for the Reformed world’, incorrectly supposes that a series of disputations would have been read primarily as a textbook.
27. Further references are the following: 1. KD II/1, 317 (CD II/1, 283): SPT. 6 (De divinis attributis), 43: a definition of the divine beatitudo (also already in U.I, 147; ET 425 = HpB 86; GD 104): qua nullius indigus et omnium bonorum complementum se ipso fruitur et in se acquiescit (‘in which He lacks nothing and enjoys in Himself the fullness of all good things and abides in Himself’); 2. KD III/2, 15 (CD III/2, 15): SPT13 [De homine ad imaginem Dei creato], 2: man as totius compendium et vinculum, quo coelestia terrenis conjunguntur (‘the “sum” of everything and the bond that links earthly and heavenly things’) – a doctrine that Barth abandons by stressing that man from a biblical point of view lives under heaven and on earth; 3. KD III/2, 357 (CD III/2, 296, being man and woman as likeness and hope): SPT51 (De resurrectione carnis & Iudicio extremo), 37: non dubitamus asserere, futurum in resurrectione sexuum discrimen: he (Jesus in his answer to the question of the Sadducees, Mk 12, 26-27) ‘by His very negation presupposes that men will still be men and women women; it cannot be otherwise. In the SPTit is rightly observed that this is also demanded by the identity of the human subject in the two aeons. The determination as man or woman is not the least important of the conditiones individuantes of the human subject, so that if it were to be lacking in the resurrection, the subject would no longer be this subject, and man would no longer be man’.
28. SPT 5 (De S. Scripturae Perspicuitate & Interpretatione, Walaeus presiding), 25 and 26 (italics by KB): etenim scriptura sacra non est res muta aut mortua [Heb 4,12; 2 Cor 3,8.9; Ps 50,4; Is. 8,20; Ps 25,14; Joh 6,45; Fil 3,15]…. ; ‘Deus ipse agit, quae per verbum efficiuntur; quia per verbum & cum verbo suo Ecclesiis suis semper praesens, haec omnia in fidelium animis et coetibus operatur’; Barth (1982), 438f.
29. Barth (1982), 456n48 to 3 (De Libris Canonicis et Apocryphis, Thysius presiding), 18 (incorrectly: 16): sola haec Scriptura, Principium a quo; & Materia ex qua omnis salutaris veritas deducenda; Canon & Norma, ad quam exigenda omnis vera, adeoque & falsa de rebus divinis doctrina (Isa 8,20; Luke 18,29, Acts 17,10.11). Testis denique et Iudex & autopistos & irrefragibilis, sua scilicet evidentia, a quo judicanda omnis, quae de rebus divinis agitatur, controversia (Joh 5,39.45); (‘So then this Scripture alone is the fundamental principle by which, and the material from which, every saving truth must be drawn. It is the rule and standard by which every true and also every false teaching about the things of God must be determined. In sum, it is a self-convincing and irrefutable witness and Judge, namely by virtue of its own demonstrated proof by which every controversy which arises over divine matters must be judged’). Gerhard Sauter, the editor of Barth (1982),drew attention to this reference. See also HpB 20f. (ET 21).
30. SPT2 (De Sacra Scripturae Necessitate & Authoritate; Walaeus presiding), 33; Barth (1982), 449. The thesis begins with the following words: tantum vere abest, ut Sacrorum librorum autoritas ab ecclesiae testiminio vel solum, vel praecipue apud fidelium pendeat, ut contra nullo modo ab illo pendeat (‘For believers the authority of the sacred books is so far from depending solely, or even mainly, on the testimony of the church that it in fact does not depend on it at all’). Of course, this statement was made against the Roman Church, although in Barth’s opinion it applies also against modern Protestantism. In the sentences that follow, the thesis uses the metaphor of law and of God as lawmaker. The beginning of the last sentence, which Barth replaces with an ellipsis, reads as follows: S. Scriptura, omnium sacrorum dogmatum supernaturale principium, & moreum ac fidei immota regula, non nisi a Deo, qui eam dedit et a propria sua luce, quam ei indidit, pendere potest (‘Holy Scripture, the supernatural principle of all sacred teaching, and the unmoved rule of faith and moral conduct, can depend on nothing but God who has granted it and on its own light, which He has put into it’). Of course, this is a less ‘personalistic’ or actualistic use of the category ‘principium’ than that of Barth.
32. KD I/2, 581 (CD I/2, 523, § 19.2: ‘Scripture as the Word of God’); ref. to SPT. 2, 3: hanc autem Scripturam definimus, Instrumentum divinum, quo doctrina salutaris a Deo per Prophetas, Apostolos, & Evangelistas, tanquam Dei actuarios, in libros Canonicis Veteris & Novi Testamenti est tradita (‘Moreover, we define this Scripture as the divine instrument whereby the doctrine of salvation was handed down by God through the prophets, apostles, and evangelists as God’s secretaries, in the canonical books of the Old and New Testament’).
33. SPT3, 7: modo Scriptionis hic fuit: modo Deus inspirantis & dictantis, Scriptores vero amanensium & ad certam formulam scribentium (Ex 34,27.28; Rev 2,1), modo adsistentis & dirigentis (Mt 22,43, Heb 1,1) ipsi vero, commentantium & authorum habuerunt (Luke 1,1.3). Non enim semper mere pathetikoos, passive, sed et energethikoos, effective se habuerunt, ut qui & ingenium, mentisque agitationem & discursum, & memoriam, dispositionem & ordinem stylumque suum (unde scriptionum in iis diversitas) adhibuerunt (Amos 7,14.15 ; 2 Cor 10,10 & 11,6), praesidente tamen perpeuo Spiritu S. qui ita eos egit & texit, ut ab omni errore mentis, memoriae, linguae, & calami, ubique praeservarentur (2 Sam 23,1.2, 1 Cor 7,25.40). (‘The manner of writing was as follows: Sometimes God was the one who inspired and dictated, while the writers, like secretaries, were the ones who wrote according to a fixed formula. At other times God assisted and directed, while they had a task as interpreters and authors. For they never conducted themselves purely pathētikōs, passively, but energētikōs, being involved in the process, as ones who applied their own intellect, mental activities and processes, recollection, order of the arguments, and their own style of writing (from where comes the variety of writing-styles among them). But the Holy Spirit was constantly leading them, as he directed and guided them to such an extent that they were kept from every error in thought, memory, word and pen’).
34. In addition, Barth records the quotation he noticed in his ‘Zusätze’ from SPT2, 33 at the same place of the Church Dogmatics: ‘Scriptura… non nisi a Deo, qui eam dedit et a propria sua luce, qui ei indidit, pendere possit’, but now without repeating the former considerations on the perfect or (in his eyes preferable) present tense of this assertion.
35. KD I/2, 525 (CD I/2, 474). SPT3, 13: these writings are preserved with the help of a singular Providence of God …, tum mandato, tum pietatis sancteque communionis lege, divinoque instinctu; ab iis, imo omnibus, ut divini acceptati sunt; idque non libero aliquo Ecclesiae actu, sed necessaria susceptione. Atque in his salvificae illius veritatis uberior explicatio est (‘both by command and by the law of piety and sacred fellowship, through the initiative of God. This happened not by some free act of the Church but as a necessary undertaking. And these books contain a more fulsome exposition of the truth that brings salvation.’).
36. In KD IV/1, 409 (CD IV/1, 370) Barth shows himself to be in agreement with the sentence in SPT.1 (De SS. Theologia, Polyander presiding), thesis 9: nos hoc loco de revelatione supernaturali disserentes, Theologiam definimus, scientiam vel sapientiam rerum divinarum a Deo per verbi ipsius administros Spirito Prophetica afflatos, hominibus in hoc mundo revelatam atque ad captum eorum attemperatam etc (‘Because in this locuswe are discussing supernatural revelation, we define Theology as the knowledge or wisdom of the divine matters that God has revealed to people in this world through ministers of his word inspired by the prophetic Spirit, and that He has adapted to their capability…’). Barth then contrasts what is presented here in the opening section with what one finds further on in Disputation 18 (De Lege Dei, also Polyander presiding), thesis 13 about the lex naturalis (see below). However, already in Disputatio 1 one can read in thesis 7: revelatio latius sumpta, in naturalem & supernaturalem distribui potest (‘Taken more broadly, revelation can be divided into natural and supernatural revelation’); and in Theses 8: naturalem vocamus, quae sit vel in intrinsecus, per veritatem & legem naturae omnium hominum cordibus inscriptam, de qua disserit Apostolus, Rom 1,18 & 2,15 vel extrinsecus, per rerum a Deo creatarum contemplationem, de qua idem disputat, Rom 1,20 (‘We call natural revelation what is either internal, written upon the hearts of all people through natural truth and natural law (which the apostle explains in Romans 1:19 and 2:15), or external, through the contemplation of the things God has created (which the same apostle discusses in Romans 1:20’). After that, Polyander defines the theologia supernaturalis according to the distinction between revelatio immediata and mediata. Then, at the beginning of thesis 9, one reads: nos hoc loco (on this place, and for the time being) de revelatione supernaturali disserentes … But the reader does not need to be surprised when, in another context (for example, (natural) Law), a further discussion of the theologia naturalis can be found. Barth shows himself for a moment to have been a less careful reader.
37. In Barth (1982), 67, Barth found the distinction between verbum agraphon (by the Spirit) and engraphon (in Scripture), and between a verbum internum to the Apostles and a verbum externum of the Apostles in Heppe (HpB 16f.) and, initially, the distinction between revelatio immediata et mediata in Von Hase. In the Zusätze, however, he could take over the following sentence from SPT1 thesis 8: S. Theologia revelatio a Deo Prophetis & Apostolis facta, est immediata; quae autem per hos Ecclesiae Dei manifesta est, mediata est (‘The revelation of sacred theology which God gave the prophets and the apostles was direct and without intervention; however, the revelation that has been disclosed through them to the church of God was via them as intermediaries’). Later on the quotation was repeated in KD I/1, 117 (CD I/1, 114).
38. SPT26 (De Officio Christi, Polyander presiding), thesis 39: Prophetia est functio qua Christus populum suum in veritate doctrinae legalis & Evangelicae instituit …, tum per se ipsum immediate, tum per alios verbi sui administros donis ad eam rem necessariis instructos, mediate. In KD IV/3, 14 (CD IV/3, 15) Barth raises some questions in connection with the expression veritas legalis et evangelica: ‘did this kind of expression denote a real grasp of the subject, or a reference to the self-revelation of Jesus Christ? Was there not the danger that … Jesus Christ would be primarily understood as legislator, i.e., as the authentic exponent of the divine Law and perhaps of general divine law, or more radically as the Revealer, not of Himself in His actuality, nor of the history of reconciliation enacted of Him, but of a principle and system of divine truth with saving significance for man?’ As Wolfhart Pannenberg explains, conceiving of revelation as imparting supernatural truths is a reproach made anachronistically against older Protestantism, because the concept of revelation as God’s self-disclosure is a legacy of later German idealism.
39. SPT26, 41: modum institutionis Propheticae duplicem statuimus, immediatum & mediatum. Priore Christus plerumque usus est, aut secundum divinam tantum naturam sub vetere foedere erga Prophetas, aut secundum utramque erga Apostolos. Utrosque enim sol ille justitiae, radiis liminis Prophetici quod in se habet, suapte virtute illustravit. Posteriore usus est, cum servis suis Prophetis atque Apostolis imperavit, ut populo suo omnia sapientiae suae mysteriae ad salutem scitu necessaria, tum concionibus, tum scriptis suis patefacerent. This is quoted by Barth in different forms: U.II., 103 via Heppe (HpB 368); ‘Das Schriftprinzip’ (Barth, 1990), 507 via Heppe; KD IV/3, 14 (CD IV/3, 15).
40. SPT26, 41 (following the quotation of n. 39): qua Ecclesia Dei mota consideratione omnes traditiones repudiat, quae sacro Codice non continentur.
42. KD I/2, 537 (CD I/2, 485, translation slightly changed). Reference to SPT3, thesis 20: Libri Canonici, ac proinde Canon, suerunt initio libri Mosis (Deut 4,2; Rom 2,17-20), quibus alii accesserunt, partim ad praxin & historiam Ecclesiae, ut succedentes Historici; partim ad interpretationem applicationem & uberiorem praedictionem de Messia, ut Didactici & Prophetici sic dicti; partim ad impletionem & complementum praedictionum de Messia ejusque regno, ut Novum Testamentum, 2 Pet 1,19 (‘The canonical books, and thus the canon, at first comprised the books of Moses. To these others were added, partly regarding the practice and the history of the Church (such as the subsequent historical books), partly for the interpretation, application, and fuller proclamation about the Messiah (namely the so-called didactic and prophetic ones), and partly to complete and fill out the preaching about the Messiah and his kingdom (namely the New Testament, etc.).’).
45. SPT30, 32: modus vocationis opposite consideratus in externum & internum distinguitur. Ille foris per verbi & Sacramentorum administrationem intus per operationem Spiritus sancti peragitur; 33: non semper Deus utrumque vocationis modum ad hominem conversionem sibi possibilem adhibet, sed quosdam interno tantum Spiritus Sancti lumine ac numine absque externo verbi sui ministerio ad se vocat. Qui vocationis modus per se quidem est ad salutem sufficiens, sed rarus admodum, extraordinarius, nobisque incognitus.
48. See U.II. § 30: ‘Die heilige Taufe und die Berufung’, 244ff. Quotation of thesis 5 via Heppe (HpB 412; Locus XX: De vocatione): vocatio specialis est, qua Deus aliquos ex universo genere humano ad supernaturalem Jesu Christi Redemptoris nostri cognitionem ad salutarem beneficiorum ipsius participationem per ministerium Euangelii ac vim Spiritus S. ex hujus mundi inquinamentis evocat; ideoque vocatio supernaturalis atque Euangelica appellari potest (ET, 511: ‘Special calling is that by which God calls some out of the entire human race from the defilements of this world to supernatural knowledge of Jesus Christ our Redeemer and to saving participation in his benefits by the ministry of the Gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit’).
50. SPT30, 3: universalis vocatio est, qua omnes ac singuli homines per communia naturae documenta ad Deum Creatorem suum cognoscendum ac colendum invitantur, Act 17,27; Rom 1,20. Quae propterea vocatio naturalis nuncupari potest (HpB-ET 510: ‘Universal calling is that by which men one and all are invited by the common proofs of nature to the knowledge and worship of God their Creator. This may therefore be called natural calling’). Barth is aware that knowledge of God the Creator refers to a Christian theological knowledge here. Nevertheless, it is an ineffective knowledge and it presupposes a predestinarian distinction between the elect and unbelievers, which in that form was abandoned by Barth. See also J.M. Hasselaar (1974), 138f.
51. SPT30, 6: priore vocatione Dei cognitio potius theoretica, quam practica; posteriore, cognitio Dei tam practica, quam theoretica, atque adeo fides justificans quorundam vocatorum animis ingeneratur.
54. SPT2, 17-20; 17: haec ratio, hominis profani mentem convincere potest : quae sequuntur, etiam, per Dei gratiam, fidem ingenerare. Secundum ergo genus argumenti petitur a perfectione & divinitate Religionis, quae libris illis continetur. Veram enim Religionem a Deo solo profectam esse, nemo unquam negavit, quum illa foedus Dei cum homine comprehendat: atque ideo falsarum quoque Religionum Authores divinitatem aliquam sunt ementiti… (‘This reasoning can convince the mind of an unbeliever; the ones that come next are able even to instil faith, by God’s grace. Thus the second kind of argument is drawn from the perfect integrity and divine quality of the religion that these books comprise. For no-one has ever stated that true religion did not proceed from God alone, because it constitutes God’s covenant with humanity; for that reason also the authors of false religions have feigned some divine character.’); 18: notae autem infallibiles Religionis verae, conscientia hominum id ipsis dictante, hae sunt. Primo, quod in illa verus Deus Creator, & Gubernator omnium rerum solus agnoscitur & coletur, sicuti in sola Religione Christiana sit… (‘Now the infallible marks of true religion, as the consciences of human beings prescribe, are these: First, that in it the true God, as creator and ruler of everything, is acknowledged and honoured, as is the case in the Christian religion alone’); 19. Secunda verae Religionis nota est: quod in ea sola vera ratio explicetur, per quam homo peccator cum Deo reconciliari possit, quam in Christiana sola etiam reperire est… (‘The second mark of true religion is that only it explains the true ground on which sinful man can be restored to God, and that is to be found in the Christian religion alone.’); 20: tertia Religionis verae nota est: quod in ea vera & perfecta Officia erga Deum & proximum praescribantur… (‘The third mark of the true religion is that in it are prescribed the right and complete duties towards God and the neighbor’).
59. SPT18 (De lege Dei; Polyander presiding), 13: Lex naturalis est lumen & dictamen rectae rationis in intellectu, hominem koinais ennoiais, seu communibus notionibus, ad justi & injusti, honesti ac turpis discretionem informans, ut quid faciendum sit, vel fugiendum, intelligat (‘Natural law is the light and direction of sound reason in the intellect, informing man with common notions to distinguish right from wrong, and honorable from shameful – so that he may understand what he should do or shun’); 14. Istarum notiumum aliae sunt primariae, quos principia practica, aliae secundariae, quas conclusiones… vocamus, (‘Some of those notions are of a primary sort, and we call them practical principles; others, which are secondary, we call conclusions…’); 15. utraque notiones ante hominis lapsum fuerunt incorruptae… (‘Before the fall of man, both sorts of notions were unspoiled…’); 16. post hominis lapsum, priores notiones in ipsius intellectu immote permanent…, posteriores vero… miserandum in modum vaccilant & a sincera aequitatis regula deflectunt, ut docent iniquissimarum legum, ac corruptissimorum morum exempla, quae in Ethnicorum historiis inveniuntur (‘After the fall of man, however, the first, primary notions in his intellect remained unchanged… ; but the latter, secondary notions stagger with wretched hesitation…, and they deviate from the sound rule of equity, as is shown by the examples of the very unfair laws and overly corrupt customs that are found in the histories of gentile peoples’); 17. quamvis communes istae notiones… valde sint obscuratae, ac pene extinctae, quae tamen earum superunt scintillae, peccato, etiam in maxime obtenebratis, redarguendo ad condemnando sufficiunt (‘those notions were completely covered up and nearly wiped out…; and yet the little sparks of these common notions that do remain are sufficient to convict and condemn sin, even in those who have been darkened completely’).
60. SPT 14 (De lapsu Adami; Polyander presiding), thesis 7: eadem inobedientia legem moralem, expressam legis naturalis ipsi a Deo inditae hupotypoosis consequenter transgressus est (‘By the same disobedience [ignoring the decree of Gen 2:16-17] he consequently transgressed the moral law, the stated sum of the natural law implanted in him by God’).
62. Barth (1974), 253f. Letter 18 May 1924: ‘Ihr Männer, liebe Brüder, welch ein Gedränge! Meint nun ja nicht, das sei alles altes Gerümpel, alles, alles scheint, bei Licht besehen, seinen guten Sinn zu haben’.
64. HpB, 93, ET, 108: mysterium Trinitatis neque lumine naturae inveniri, neque lumine gratiae, neque lumine gloriae potest comprehendi ab ulla creatura. For Barth and Alsted, see above, Introduction. Heppe used his Theologia scholastica in the Hanau edition of 1618.
66. HpB, 93, here quoted according to ET 108: modus ergo mysterii, ut rationi humanae inexplicabilis, humili potius fide adorandus quam periculosis locutionibus definiendus est; SPT. 7 (De Sacrosancta Trinitate), 14. Lamping (1980), 101 also quotes SPT 7,14 and considers this thesis to be a personal remark from Polyander which passes outside of the doctrinal consensus. Although it may be that a certain heritage of Erasmian scepticism was present in this moderate-orthodox theologian, I cannot find in thesis 14 any deviation from usual orthodox reasoning. Did Lamping consult Heppe or comparable sources for this remark?
67. Barth (1982), 171; ref. to SPT 7, 38: hoc mysterium Trinitatis in novo Testamento multo clarius, disctinctius, ac frequentius, quam in vetere, traditur, quoniam scilicet Deo plenam ac perfectam hujus abstrusi mysterii patefactionem in Messiae adventum diferre placuit (‘This mystery of the Trinity is handed down much more clearly, elegantly and frequently in the New Testament than in the Old, because surely God was pleased to delay the full and complete revelation of this profound mystery until the coming of the Messiah’: as we see here, the ET of the new edition only speaks – rather euphemistically? – of ‘this profound mystery’).
68. KD I/1, 370 (CD I/1, 350, § 9.1 ‘Unity in Trinity’); ref. to SPT. 7, 12: ipsa etenim Dei essentia est maxime unica individua ac singularis, idemque de tribus personis tamquam species de individuo nullo modo dici potest.
69. KD I/1, 380 (CD I/1, 360; § 9.2 ‘Trinity in Unity’); ref. to SPT 7, 10: substantia divina peculiari quodam subsistendi modo.
70. Barth (1982), 244 Zusatz (§ 11 ‘Gott der Vater’). SPT8 (De Persona Patris et Filii, Walaeus presiding), 10: Pater (enim) absque Filio cogitari non potest. The quotation is not repeated in KD I/1 § 10.
71 Barth (1982), 273 Zusatz (§ 13, Gott der Heilige Geist). KD I/1, 473 (CD, 451; § 12 ‘God the Holy Spirit’); ref. to SPT9 (De Persona Spiritus Sancti, Thysius presiding), 21: quemadmodum Pater Dei irati & conciliandi fontisque redemptionis nostrae, Filius redemptoris & conciliatoris, ita Spiritus sanctus meriti & beneficii impetrati a Filio, applicatoris, illuminiatoris & sanctificatoris nostri conditionem, partes & munus sustineat, & exequatur (‘Just as the Father assumes and accomplishes the role and office of God who has been angered and who must be appeased and who is the source of our redemption, and just as the Son assumes and accomplishes the role and office of redeemer and mediator, so too the Holy Spirit assumes and accomplishes the role and office of the one who applies the merits and benefits obtained by Christ; who illuminates and sanctifies our lives’).
72. KD I/1, 484 (CD I/1, 462, again § 12); ref. to SPT9, 2; it is important here to read the whole sentence: quamvis Spiritus vox a creaturae notione plane submovenda est, tamen propter analogiam aliquam quam habet creatura ad Deum, communiter explicari non abs re erit (‘… nevertheless because some kind of analogy exists between a created being and God it will not be unreasonable to explain them generally’). Barth omits the reference to the method of analogy in 1932.
73. KD I/1, 497 (CD I/1, 474, again § 12). SPT9, 10: processionis porro vox non accipienda est, secundum virtutis & efficaciae a Deo emanationem: quatenus opera Dei procedunt ab operante; vel secundum interiorem & immanentem in essentia Dei actionem, quae tamen tendit in objectum extra Deum, qualiter decreta Dei sunt & procedunt a Deo; sed juxta actionem Dei ad intra (ut loquuntur scholae) id est qua ita agit Deus in essentia sua, ut reflexus in seipsum, divinae essentiae communione relationem realem constituat (‘the word “procession” should not be taken in the sense of the flowing forth of God’s power and efficacy, insofar as the works of God proceed from Him who performs the works; nor in the sense of an interior and immanent act residing within God’s essence but aiming at an object outside of God, such as the decrees that are of God and that proceed from Him. But …’).
80. SPT11, 3: actualis et temporalis omnium et singularum rerum, quae sunt et fiunt iuxta decretum Dei aeternum immutabile et liberrimum conservatio, directio et deductio ad finem ab ipso determinatum sapientissime et iustissime facta ad ipsius gloriam; KD III/3, 2 (CD III/3, 4) erroneously offered it as a definition of providence.
82. In KD III/3, 70 (CD III/3, 60; § 49.1: The Divine Preserving) Barth informs us that SPT 11, 12 ‘uses the expression permansio instead of conservatio, by which it obviously means the abiding faithfulness of God towards the creature’. Yet also here Rivet in fact writes: ad hanc Dei gubernationem pertinet permansio… (‘also continuance or maintenance belongs to this government of God’); … ne in nihilum creatura recidat impediens, quod fieret si Deus substraheret virtutem suam (‘this power also prevents created things from falling back into nothing, which would happen if God were to withdraw his strength’). In KD III/3, 109 and 165 (CD III/3, 96 and 145; § 49.2: The Divine Accompanying) he refers to the theses 10, 11, and 13 in the context of concursus; and in KD III/3, 195 (CD III/3, 172; § 49.3: The Divine Ruling) he refers to theses 18-19 in the context of his concept of governance; CD § 50 (God and Nothingness) lacks references to theses 20-25 on divine providence vis-à-vis sin and evil.
83. KD III/3, 109 (CD III/3, 96). SPT 11, 13: Deus ita cum eis [creaturis] concurrit, ut actione sua immediate in actionem creaturae influat, ut una & eadem actio a prima & secunda causa dicatur proficisci, quatenus unum opus seu apotelesma hinc existit; see Hunsinger, (1991), 185-224: ‘Double Agency as a Test Case’.
84. SPT 11, 11: tantum igitur abest, ut operatio divinae Providentiae destruat libertatem voluntatis creatae; ut haec, absque illa prorsus consistere nequeat. Nam cum ab efficacia voluntatis divinae pendeat non solum actio quaelibet creaturae, sed etiam actionis ipsius modus; consequens est, per Dei providentiam non destrui, sed statui humanorum actuum libertatem. Quod etiam de contingentia rerum in genere dicendum est. Divina enim Providentia non corrumpit naturam sed perficit, non tollit sed tuetur. (‘The notion that the functioning of divine providence destroys the freedom of the created will is so far from the truth, that the will cannot exist at all without it. For since not only each and every action of the creature but also the manner of his action depends upon the effective working of the divine will, it follows that the freedom of human actions is established, and not destroyed, through God’s providence. This must be said even of the contingency of things in general. For divine providence does not corrupt nature, but perfects it; it does not take it away, but guards it ‘).
85. KD III/3, 165 (CD III/3, 145f.), with quotation from SPT 11, 10: (sequitur ergo), nullam esse in creaturis libertatem voluntatis, quae non sit ex participatione libertatis summae increatae, quae sit causa prima propria atque intima omnis creatae libertatis omniumque liberarum actionum (quatenus hujusmodi sunt). (‘Therefore it follows that in creatures there is no freedom of the will which does not arise from sharing in the highest, uncreated freedom, which is the first, proper and innermost cause of the created freedom, and of all free actions (insofar as they are of that sort).’). In U.I., 285 Barth already quoted the words ‘ex participatione libertatis summae increatae’ via Heppe (HpB 216; ET 269).
86. This expression refers to a quotation earlier in the excursus of the Jesuit Francisco de Toledo which is also found in the Lutheran Quenstedt. ‘We may ask what the author of De servo arbitrio would have had to say about a Lutheranism of this kind’, Barth remarks (CD III/3, 145). It is remarkable that Barth in another context, that of the divine praescientia, reproaches Walaeus that he, albeit implicitly, in his Loci communes is much too accommodating to the theory of another Jesuit, Luis de Molina, concerning the existence of a scientia media; see KD II/1, 648 (CD II/1, 575f.): ‘Ascribe to the freedom of the creature the truth and immutability on the basis of which it forms a factor independent of God’s will, and it is too late to profess in the doctrine of grace that it is not a matter of him that wills or runs, but of God who has mercy’. It is a matter of further investigation: who are the inconsistent systematicians here – Karl Barth or the authors of the Leiden Synopsis?
88. SPT 11, 18-19. The opening sentence of thesis 18 reads: rectius dicimus, ad Providentiam non pertinere ut per eam res unaquaeque ad finem particularem sibi conventientem dirigatur, sed absolute in finem qui toti operi congruit. This sentence is quoted in HpB 211, Belegstelle 14. Barth referred to it in U.I. 271 f., including the following example, but at that time for him it was received as an incentive to become more ‘weltlich, sachlich und illusionslos’ (more secular, objective and without illusion) – without confusing worldview and theology.
93. SPT 24 (De divina Praedestinatione, Walaeus presiding), 14: definimus electionem illam aeternum atque immutabile Dei decretum, quo ex universo genere humano, e primaeve integritate in peccatum & exitium sua culpa prolapso, certam hominum singularium multitudinem, caeteris nec meliorum nec digniorum, ex solo beneplacito suo, ad salutem in Christo Jesu eligit; eosdemque filio suo dare redimendos, & peculiari atque efficaci operandi modo ad fidem vivam in ipsum, & in eadem viva fide perseverantiam certam, perducere constituit, idque ad demonstrationem gratuitae suae misericordiae & laudem gloriosae suae gratiae. HpB 134 Belegstelle 10 (quoted here from ET 163).
94. KD II/2, 136-157 (CD II/2, 127-145: § 33.1 ‘Jesus Christ, Electing and Elected’). The main spokesman for the supralapsarian view here is Heidanus, the spokesman for infralapsarianism Fr. Turrettini, and the representative of a compromise theory P. van Mastricht. See already U.I., 201 (GD 466f.). The one exception is found KD II/2, 140 (ET 130), with a reference to SPT24, 23: at this place a distinction comes into view between different ‘historical’ steps: first God wanted to show what would happen in the dispensation of creation – quid in homine possit liberum arbitrium – and then, by contrast, in the dispensation of redemption – quid possit suae gratiae beneficium. We will come back to this excursus as a whole below, Chapter 6.
97. SPT 6, 17: Creator, conservator & gubernator universi; Redemptor, Servator & glorificator Electorum.
98. Belgic Confession: 12. Creation, 13. Providence, 14. Fall, 15. Sin, 16. Election, 17. The Promise of the Sending of the Son (only the law is postponed until 25). Barth further mentions Walaeus (1640), who also presided over Disputatio 24, in which the Trinity comes after sin and providence and before predestination and Christology. Walaeus does so ‘without any explanation, without any attempt even to show its reasonableness or value’. In the eyes of Barth this is a ‘highly original and capricious order’ (‘man traut seinen Augen nicht!’).
100. See above, on SPT. 11, 2-3. See also Te Velde (2012), 581-608, who in a discussion of Disputatio 6 in comparison to the earlier Leiden disputations shows that the Arminian controversy created a need among Contra-Remonstrant theologians to stress the unity of God’s inner essence and his outward operations.
101. SPT 24, 4: sumitur haec praedestinationis vox, vel generalius de actionibus divinae providentiae, tam in bono quam in malo, ut videre est Act 4,18 & 1 Cor 2,7, vel de ordinatione personarum ad certum & supernaturalem finem. The second use of the word, thesis 5 says, is called election in Scripture. According to thesis 6 of this disputation, we, in following Augustine, may combine election and reprobation under the single term ‘predestination’.
107. SPT24, 25: neque cum hoc pugnat quod Christus Ecclesiae redimendae causa sit electus. Nam etsi agnoscamus, Deum Patrem … voluntatem seu affectum habuisse quorundam miserendi, quum Christum in eadem aeternitatem redemptorem constituerit, quia redemptor sine redimendis cogitari non potest; tamen haec voluntas aut affectus solus in scripturis electio nondum vocatur, quia misericordia illa a justitia impediebatur, quominus peccatoribus actu completo salutem destinaret, nisi satisfactione interveniente: & quia electio haec non tantum finem, sed & media ad salutem necessaria complectitur … .
108. SPT24, 26: sed tum demum electio vocatur & est, cum Christus eligendorum caput & mediator est constitutus, & ipsi in illius membra sunt destinati; atque hoc respectu in Christo Iesu electi dicimur Eph 1,4 … .
109. atque hoc pacto inter Christum tanquam caput & electos tanquam destinata & donata ei membra, quae vivificanda ac in unum corpus redigenda accepit, certus aliquis respectus est ac mutua relatio, etiam antequam per fidem ei plene uniuntur, sed cum in sese adhuc sunt inimici; quemadmodum inter sponsum & sponsam, quam sanguine suo sibi debuit redimere; atque inter regem & subditos, qui per illum ad obedientiam erant reducendi.
111. SPT 25 (De Filii Dei Incarnatione & Unione personali duarum naturarum in Christo’, Thysius presiding), 1: postquam … de Praedestinatione, quae primo Christum, inde in eo membra ejus spectat, actum est, consequitur ut de objecto Euangelii, novique foederis fundamento, Christi persona etc., sigillatum agamus.
112. SPT 25, 3: quare enim humana ratione doceri aut accipi non potest: quod nullum ejus in tota natura, perfectum & omnino respondens extet exemplum, quamvis cum recta ratione non pugnet: verum divinitus e Scriptura doceri & probari, oculisque fidei accipi debet. (Atque in eo indicium est, sublimis & plane divinae doctrinae verbi Dei, ut quod superiora humanae rationi de Deo ejusque oeconomia nobis prodat & pandat, quae fide, testimonio Dei de se verissime testantis, firmissime accipere necesse est). HpB 329 (Belegstelle 1); quoted here from ET 410.
115. SPT 25, 4: est autem Incarnatio opus Dei, quo Filius Dei, secundum oeconomiam divini consilii Patris & sui & Spiritus sancti, sese humilians, veram, integram, perfectam, sanctamque carnem ex virgine Maria, Spiritus sancti operatione & efficacia, in unitate personae sibi assumpsit : ita ut caro illa nullam propriam subsistentiam extra Dei filium habeat, sed ab illo & in eo vere sustentetur & gestetur : duabus perfectis naturis inter se atreptoos kai asynchotoos, adiairetoos kai achooristoos unitis. HpB-ET, 412f. The second sentence of the definition connects the constitution of the person to the work that he as Mediator must fulfil. KD I/2, 176 (where Barth stresses the agreement with the Lutherans on this point, comparing the definition of the Synopsis with a similar one in Hollaz) quotes an abbreviated version: est autem Incarnatio opus Dei, quo Filius Dei, secundum oeconomiam divini consilii Patris & sui & Spiritus sancti … carnem …, in unitate personae sibi assumpsit; on the omission of the reference to the virgin birth here, see point (5) below.
116. SPT 25, 6: accepta incarnationis voce active est Dei opus:.. ita ut fons actionis sit a Patre, adeoque referatur ad Patrem, medium in Filio nempe sapientia Patris, terminus in Spiritu sancto…; 8: Hac oeconomia relata ad Filium .. seu incarnatione passive et subjective accepta, non Pater aut Spiritus sanctus, sed solus Dei Filius incarnatus seu homo factus est; 9: proinde persona Filii Dei, non natura, quae tribus personis communis, proprie loquendo incarnata est, nisi naturam consideremus qua filii est; HpB 331 (ET 413); U.P. 189f. (ET 154f.); Barth (1982), 298; KD I/2, 37 (CD I/2, 33): thesis 9.
118. McCormack (1997), 361ff.; McCormack (1997), 361ff.; See Barth (1974), 255 (28 May 1924): ‘Das war noch rasante Lehre, – die nun wieder auf den Leuchter sollte, wa?’
120. SPT 25, (11-14)14: in summa, sub nomine carnis non modo verus, integer et perfectus homo intellitur, nobis homoousios, sed etiam humilis, misera et infirma hominis conditio … comprehenditur; unde et formam servi accepisse (Phi 2,7; Ioh 13,13-14; 2 Cor 8,9; Heb 2,17; 4,15); quae quidem omnia lubens volensque subiit; HpB 335f. (Belegstelle 8); ET 419f.
121. U.I., 205 (quoted here from GD 166); Barth (1982), 300f.; KD I/2, 166 (CD I/2, 152): instead of infirma Barth erroneously wrote prima; this error was corrected by Heinrich Stoevesandt in the Studienausgabe of the Church Dogmatics, Volume 3, Zürich: TVZ, 1989;§ 15.2 ‘Very God and Very Man’ takes the form of a commentary on the sentence ‘The Word was made flesh’: section I explains ‘the Word’, section II ‘flesh’, and section III ‘was made’; SPT 25, 14 (together with 25, 18) is quoted in section II, and 25, 4 in section III.
122. SPT 25, 18: veruntamen nomine carnis non intelligitur caro corrupta, qualiter fere accipitur Spiritui opposita (Ioh. 3,6), sed labis communis exsors (Luc 1,35 ; Heb 4,15). Non enim conveniebat humanam naturam peccato obnoxiam Filio Dei uniri. Quamquam venit in similitudinis carnis peccati, seu peccato obnoxiae (Rom 8,3), ut cujus vestigia in fragilitate gessit.
123. KD I/2, 168 (CD I/2, 153). Hasselaar (1974), 108, connects the tendency of Reformed orthodoxy to shrink back on this point to remarks found in Heppe: in hoc foedere in Adamo non continebatur; ‘(Although he shall also have been a son of man, Christ) under the covenant of works was not contained in Adam’ (HpB. 225; ET 291) and: ‘because Jesus did not belong to the covenant of works and so had not sinned in Adam, the sin of Adam was not reckoned to Jesus’ humanity’ (HpB 325, ET 426). Even though Thysius would not have said it in this way, the Leiden Synopsis potentially already allowed some room for such statements. For the concept of a covenant of works, see Chapter 3 below.
128. SPT 25, 24-25: … quod Filius Dei erat per naturam, id Filius hominis factus est per unionis gratiam. Atque hinc Maria mater Domini (Luc 1,35) et veteribis theotokos, deipara, appellatur; HpB 334 (Belegstelle 7); ET 418. References by Barth via Heppe U.P. 193f. (GD 157); Barth (1982), 354f. In KD I/2, 153 (CD I/2, 138f.) Barth only mentions sources from the early Church and the Reformation and makes the general remark that ‘Lutheran and Reformed orthodoxy … expressly validated the use of theotokos to express the duplex nativitas in question’.
129. KD IV/2, 66f. (CD IV/2, 62). In the last sentence of the excursus Barth makes a critical remark regarding the so-called ‘free’ scholarship of the nineteenth century and the bondage of theologians like Biedermann to that scholarship.
Chapter 3
1. Barth (2010), (555-)570. In Den Dulk (1987), 186-203, 213-219, one can find a passage on ‘the discovery of the concept of covenant in the theology of Karl Barth’. I will gratefully make use of this research, although it needs to be complemented (especially with regard to the volumes of the Göttingen Dogmatics that appeared after 1987) and at times also corrected.
2. It may be instructive to compare Barth’s explanation of the end of Romans 11 here with his earlier and later exegesis of the same passage. In the first edition (Barth 1985a, 450-461), the non-messianic Jews of Paul’s text are read as the obsolete church in our eyes; however, we have to identify ourselves with the divine ‘Zentralblick’, that is, the eyes of God, in which the foreshadowing shapes of history may have their function in the process as a whole. The exclamation at the end of the chapter does not warn us to respect the inscrutability of an irrational God, but rather invites us to follow this broader vision on history on the part of God. In 1921 the mysterion of vs. 25 is no longer a solvable puzzle, but an unbearable and actually incomprehensible paradox. The second ‘nun’ (now) found in some manuscripts in vs. 31 is no longer deleted by Barth: that the Jews will experience unmerited mercy now causes an eschatological tension for him, the twinkling of an eye in eternity (‘der ewige Augenblick’). In 1940-1941 (Barth 1956a, 176-179; KD II/2, 328-336; CD II/2299-305) the tension remains and so does the second now. But the latter no longer refers to an ‘obsolete church’, but to the real Jewish people, and not only in the days of the Apostle, but also in Barth’s own days. They participate in the mysterion of God, they are already now partaking of the divine mercy, and they also deserve our mercy, the mercy of men, now: it is impossible that Christian anti-Semitism should postpone this mercy to the realm of eschatology (CD II/2, 305). In this way the divine council, with its veiling and unveiling, its electing and rejecting, has at last become a story to be told, a story that at the same time intervenes in actual history. See Reeling Brouwer (2001),63-74.
5. Letter of 23 January 1923 (‘Rundbrief’), Barth (1974), (129-137)129. See Schrenk (1923) on Calvin and the Kingdom of God, 163-168 and on the covenant concept in the Zürich Reformation, 36-44, but after Zwingli and Bullinger, Calvin is not lacking in this respect! 44-48.
9. Barth (1935b), IX: ‘Heppe has paid his debt to the spirit of the nineteenth century in such a way that its penetration into the older presentation of Reformed doctrine of the federal theology of Cocceius and his pupils, connected with Cartesianism [this is correct for later Cocceian theologians as Braunius and Heidanus, not for Cocceius himself, RRB] did not seem to have produced any serious problem for him, so that one wonders in vain how it was possible that even and in particular Reformed orthodoxy could become “rational”, that is pietistic-rationalistic, so remarkably painlessly.’ See also KD IV/1, 58 (CD IV/1, 55).
13. Although Barth knows from Schrenk how important the Apocalypse of John was for Cocceius and most of his successors and followers (who were sometimes also millenarians, although it is a point of contention among scholars whether this was true of Cocceius himself as well), he does not want to exclude millenarianism totally from his own concept of a consistent eschatology.
22. The concept of a ‘foedus operum’ was perhaps at first connected with the covenant of Mount Sinai (in the context of the exegesis of Galatians 4:24), and then projected backwards to the state of man in paradise. In this sense it is used for the first time by William Perkins in his Armilla Aurea of 1590, and shortly afterwards by the Scottish theologian Robert Rollock in his Tractatus de Vocatione efficaci of 1597. See Loonstra (1990), 76-77.
23. For the rest it is striking that Barth does not here take into consideration the fact that, when Cocceius is speaking about the covenant of works, he does so from the point of view of its abrogation. Heppe, to be sure, in Locus xiv (‘Belegstelle’ 15, HpB 253-254; ET 318-319) only mentions authors who soften Cocceius’s doctrine of the abrogationes (Witsius, Heidegger, Braun) and neglects Cocceius’s own voice on this point. Barth, however, will have taken note of this doctrine from Schrenk (1923), who gives a full report of the Summa doctrinae de foedere et testamento Dei (1648), 82-115.
32. Compare the sentence in U.II., 18: ‘The doctrine of the foedus naturae has its worth, insofar as it is saying that God is no deus ex machina, whom one only remembers when the catastrophe is there’ with the passage on the regnum naturae in the Tambach lecture of 1919: ‘it is musty and ungodly to think of Christ always only as a redeemer, rising from an incomprehensible sinking, or rather as a judge of the present world which lies in wickedness’ (Barth, 2012, 576-577).
36. Barth is so enthusiastic about his discovery of the preponderance of predestinarian thinking in Cocceius that he calls him, along with Burman, a supralapsarian (U.II., 17). Certainly for Cocceius this seems exaggerated, although with regard to Burman this evaluation is correct. Van Asselt (1997), 139 interprets chapter xiv.39 in Cocceius’s Summa theologiae as infralapsarian, but Loonstra (1990), 91 reads it as a methodical reservation on the possibility for humans to identify the thinking of God.
37. U.II., 18-25 (point 4). In Heidegger (1696), the locus xi de foedere gratiae is followed by a locus xii De oeconomia foederis gratiae sub patriarchis and by the loci xiii-xvi De oeconomia foederis gratiae sub lege [de lege rituali, de lege judiciali] Mosis; thereafter, the doctrines on the person and work of Christ (xvii-xix) are followed by locus xx de oeconomia foederis gratiae sub evangelio.
38. U.P., 174-187; GD 142-152. The main witnesses there are Irenaeus and Calvin (the ‘propria fidei doctrina’ of the second book of the Institutes 1559 as a whole, and II.9-11 in particular: law and gospel as both speaking of the covenant in Christ). In 1933, when Barth again reflects on the relationship between the two testaments (Church Dogmatics I/2, § 14) in Bonn, he mentions Cocceius and his school a single time: ‘Their attempts to show the unity of the Old Testament and the New Testament were, like those of Calvin, discreet and comprehensive, in spite of the very questionable nature of the historical viewpoint and methods. If any objection can be raised against them,’ – again! – ‘it is the irruption of a philosophy of history into their thinking, which obscured theological clarity’: KD I/2, 103 (CD I/2, 94). For the rest the category of covenant is not explored by way of a conversation with federal theology, but with the Theologie des Alten Testamentes I of W. Eichrodt (KD I/2, 87ff., CD I/2, 79ff.) which had just appeared at that time and could be used most profitably against the ‘völkische’ theology of those tense days. See the analysis of Den Dulk (1987), 192-195.
39. Busch (1975), 179 (source: a letter of Barth to Agnes von Zahn-Harnack). We find references to this commentary of Cocceius in nine places in Barth (1976b). The last two references, erroneously mentioned in the index, refer to Calvin.
41. Burman (1678). In § 24 Barth borrowed his insights on the sacraments of the first covenant from this work (U.I., 390-92; see also U.II., 14). Bizer (HpB, lxxvi) called this work ‘the proper dogmatics of the school of Cocceius’; apparently he considered Cocceius’s own Summa theologiae too biblicist for that. For historicism as the organising principle in this work of Burman, see Cap. I.13: ‘initium sumemus a Deo et eius aeternitate, transituri per omnia secula (‘we will walk through the ages’), donec iterum desinamum in aeternitatem.’
57. For this protest, see KD II/2, 73f. (CD II/2, 68-69). Matthias Martinius, the main spokesman of the Bremen delegation, was not only Cocceius’s teacher at the Gymnasium Illustre in Bremen, but also inspired Moyse Amyraut in his ‘hypothetic universalism’ (see Loonstra (1990), 69f.), a line of thought that would certainly not have been supported by Cocceius or Barth.
68. KD IV/1, 22-35 (CD IV/1, 22-34); Eichrodt again appears as an expert, as does G. Quell of the Theological dictionary of the New Testament.
77. Schrenk (1923), 82-113. All the details of Barth’s rendering can be found in Schrenk. Barth did not himself have a copy of Cocceius’s Summa doctrinae. Heiner Faulenbach (1973), in a footnote on pp. 86-87, offers a synoptic comparison of the De foedere and the Summa theologiae. Better, however, is the overview with description of the contents of the Summa provided by van Van Asselt (Asselt 2001), 54-60). Unlike Faulenbach, Van Asselt makes it clear that the pactum salutis in the Summa is not treated in the locus on predestination (Locus xiv), but in the locus on the Trinity (Locus iv Ch. 13). Barth certainly did not see this.
81. I am not sure whether this last point of criticism under point 3 is really fair. Barth himself makes the distinction between reconciliation and redemption and seems to suggest along with it that the victory of grace is not totally visible in the economy of reconciliation, that is, in this world which has not yet been redeemed.
89. Van Asselt (2001), 9, n. 20 correctly regrets that most authors who appeal to Barth’s criticisms of Cocceius seldom consider whether or not Barth’s interpretation of him is in fact accurate. Conversely, one might ask a historian like Van Asselt whether the theology of his hero, particularly in an ‘accurate’ interpretation (supposing that such an interpretation is possible), actually can be considered tenable today.
102. Cocceius (1669) xiv.33.1, with reference to v.14.14-15 (this was the quotation Barth had found in Heppe in 1925, from which he drew conclusions that were exaggerated in May 1925; see above, n. 35). Unfortunately, the justification for this sentence is found in an abstract concept of eternity as divine immutability, not positively in the oneness and uniqueness of God’s gracious and covenanting will.
109. Faulenbach (1973), 231. A similar preference for the more individual, relational aspect of Cocceius’s doctrine can be found in Graafland (1996),320, 322. For that reason, he feels the greatest affinity for the Pietistic followers of federal theology.
110. Van Asselt (2001) represents an English translation and revision of his 1988 PhD dissertation (Utrecht, in Dutch). For the doctrine of the covenants and the abrogations, see 248-339 (chapters 11-14). See also Van Asselt (1994).
114. Van Asselt (2001), 261, 303. Barth probably read this last-mentioned insight in Heppe: ‘Nur Christus war in diesen Bund nicht mitaufgenommen’ (HpB 225 below; ET 291: ‘Christ alone was not included in this covenant’) – for had it been otherwise, Christ (in this historicising line of thinking) would also have been a part of the breaking of the first covenant by Adam and therefore unable to become our Saviour.
119. Stolzenburg (1926), 321-377 (‘3. Der Föderalismus als Überleitung von der Frömmigkeit zur Aufklärung’). Barth owned a copy of this book (KBA H 599) and refers to it when dealing with the locus on religion in the works of the Reformed federal theologian Salomon van Til and the Lutheran Buddeus, KD I/2, (313-)315 (CD I/2, (288-)290). An alternative to the interpretation of Witsius by Stolzenburg, Bakker, and others is given by Richard A. Muller (Muller 1994; also Muller 2003b, 175-189). Muller disputes the thesis that the legal thinking of Witsius is a consequence of the ‘decay’ of reformational theology in 150 years. For him this doctrine forms a direct implication of the Reformers’ own doctrine of the duality of Law and Gospel. For the Pauline renewal of the Reformation involved the question of Romans 3,31: ‘Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.’ The doctrine of the covenant of works is an attempt to systematise this ‘establishment’ of the law alongside the gospel. In my opinion, this is of little consequence for Barth’s conversation with federal theology. After all, this discussion is not about a historical theory (‘decay’?), but about theology. And if the Reformers already entertained a certain independence of the law with respect to grace, there is also a problem with the Reformers. Similar observations have to be made about Bierma (1999).
134. The following offers a very brief extract of the presentation I gave at the congress commemorating the 400th anniversary of Cocceius’s birth held on 4 June 2003 in Utrecht. See Reeling Brouwer, (2003). Unfortunately, no English translation is available.
135. Miller (1967), 399f. already wrote: ‘Men of the seventeenth century could not organize their church and state upon the premise of voluntary relations until they had found a larger sanction for voluntarism than economic interest’. And: ‘the federal theology was essentially part of a universal tendency in European thought to change social relationships from status to contract’.
144. The terminology covenant theologians use turns out to go back in part to terminology developed by Franciscan theology, especially during the fifteenth century, in connection with the doctrine of merits. The conception of God becomes detached from substantialist definitions there. It becomes possible to conceive of God as a God who voluntarily commits himself and who can therefore attribute merit to human beings ex pacto (see above), because He wants to be faithful to what He has purposed to do. See Strehle (1988), chapter one; and also Courtenay (1984), IX, 94-119. These roots of federal theology show how, just like the notion of a contractual agreement took centuries to break free from the earlier ‘closed system’, so also the conception of what exactly the partners in an agreement are will have passed through a similar evolution as well.
145. Therefore, against scholars like Richard A. Muller one must maintain that much happened in the general cultural climate over the course of the circa 150 years that separate Witsius from the Reformers. By the late seventeenth century, the sense of what a foedus as an agreement is, what the lex naturae is, and how it works in keeping one’s promises had shifted considerably. It seems odd to me to want to ignore this in one’s theological evaluation.
146. See McCoy & Wayne Baker (1991), 11-98 in their introduction to the English translation of Bullinger’s De testamento seu foedere Dei unico et aeterno (1534). They propose a development starting from the Zürich Reformation in the context of the Swiss federative ‘Eidgenossenschaft’ and leading to the Presbyterian teachers (John Witherspoon) of the fathers of the Constitution of the United States (James Madison). Their thesis of a ‘symbiotic’ federalism as a Reformed alternative world view in contrast to ‘individualistic’ liberalism shaping modernity seems to me to be rather speculative. The same can be said of Weir (1990).
147. Feenstra & Ashmann (1988), 80-83 (a text of J.K. Oudendijk, ‘Het “contract” in de wordingsgeschiedenis van de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden’, Leiden 1961).
149. Samuel Rutherford, one of the leaders of the ‘Covenanters’ of the ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ of 1643, would give a foundation of his politics of covenanting (Lex, Rex, 1644), and would at the same time contribute to
the development of the doctrine of the intertrinitarian ‘mutual pact’ between God the Father and God the Son in terms of daily marketplace ‘negotiations’ (Rutherford even speaks of ‘bargaining’); see McCoy & Wayne Baker (1991), 42-44; Graafland (1994), 314-315; and Loonstra (1990), 125.
Chapter 4
1. U.II., 349-377. On the evening of Monday, 27 July 1925, Barth’s preparations were interrupted by a torchlight procession in front of his home, a spontaneous reaction on the part of the department’s entire student body to the announcement of his probable departure to Münster (U.II,, 350-351 n. 2). See McCormack (1997), 374.
3. HpB opens this locus as follows: ‘In His gracious counsel (Gnadenratschluss) God calls all elect people to the enjoyment of one grace, and in virtue of his eternal gracious counsel He does not isolate them but assumes them as a community into the covenant of grace (Gnadenbund) and implants them in Christ. Hence all who belong to the covenant of grace as members of the one mystical body of Christ constitute one congregation …’ (ET, 657, translation slightly changed). At the beginning of his Leitsatz (U.II., 349) Barth adopts the expressions ‘one grace’, ‘election’ (from eternity), ‘one body of which Christ is the head’ (including the italics), and after that quotes ‘the invisible community of all that are called together’. However, he ignores the technical terms ‘Gnadenratschluss’ and ‘Gnadenbund’. For these terms, see above, Chapter 3.
8. HpB 531-534 and 546-556 (ET 682-694), with the sub-sections: general remarks, Belegstellen nos. 42-44; a. potestas ministerii or potestas clavii, Belegstellen nos. 45-48; b. potestas ordinis, Belegstellen nos. 49-50; c. disciplina ecclesiastica, Belegstellen nos. 51-52 and, finally, some remarks on the gubernatio ecclesiae civilis, Belegstellen 53-57. Nonetheless, in his Leitsatz Barth spoke of ‘die Gewalt, die mit diesem Dienst verbunden ist’ (the power connected with this ministry), U.II, 350, so we may conclude that, had there been enough time, he would have spoken about these matters too. He was able to integrate also the question of discipline in his treatment of the ‘third’ nota ecclesiae sub 3, 370-371 n. 52.
17. Maresius (1673). HpB uses the 1662 Genevan edition (Editio sexta).The concept of a ‘systema’ seems not to be meant in the methodological sense of Keckermann and his followers. Nauta (1935) offers a lot of material on Maresius’s life and work; for the editions of the Collegium or Systema, see 11-13 (no. 32). Nauta is in no way concerned with Maresius’s originality or with his labour as a systematic theologian (282-283). Barth did not have a copy of the Systema, and in the Church Dogmatics quotes Maresius once (KD I/2, 184, on the topos of the assumptio carnis) via Heppe.
23. See the two beautifully composed lectures ‘Der Begriff der Kirche’ (1927) and ‘Der römische Katholizismus als Frage an die protestantische Kirche’ (1928), K. Barth (1994), 140-159 and 303-344.*
24. Barth (1961), 207: ‘Den seltsamen Ruhm wird man mir, wie man auch sonst von mir denke, lassen müssen: dass seit der Reformation keine Gestalt evangelischer Theologie dort (bei der römisch-katholischen Theologie) so viel kritische, aber doch auch positive und jedenfalls ernstliche Teilnahme gefunden hat, wie sie mir nun widerfährt’.
25. On Turrettini and the Church of Rome in his days, see Keizer (1900), 250. One is curious to learn whether § 64 of Barth’s lectures during the Winter semester in Münster 1927/28 (‘Die Kirche’), which remain unedited, show any traces of his encounter with Roman Catholicism there. Stoevesandt (U.II, 350-351n.) only records the Leitsatz.
26. Pictetus (1686) There is also a French edition, which was translated into Dutch (Pictetus 1728-1729). Barth did not own the Theologia (see Introduction, n. 32. The division into books and chapters in the French and Latin editions does not coincide; here we follow the French edition. In the Theologia Book xiv consists of 38 Chapters, of which 1-16 deal with the name, members, attributes, and marks of the church; 17-27 with the head and the ministers of the church; and 28-38 with the Potestas Ecclesiae.
33. Heidegger, quoted in HpB 534 no. 2 (ET 657): coetus hominum ekklèthentȏn, and HpB 526: coetus hominum …, quos Deus … e statu peccati in statum gratiae ad aeternam gloriam vocat’; U.II., 351-352: ‘Der aus der Gefangenschaft der Sünde und des Todes, aus der Miseria der verdammten Menschen, aus der massa perditionis der Verlorenen und Verdammten Herausgerufenen, der zur Busse und Vergebung der Sünden, zur Hoffnung des ewigen lebens Aufgerufenen, der ins Reich der Gnade, in das Reich Christi Hineingerufenen.’
34. U.P., 163. There Barth sketches his plan for the doctrine of revelation: the famous triad Trinity, incarnation, and the pair faith and obedience. Then he announces that ‘the last paragraph of our chapter will deal with the place or reality of revelation, that is, the church’ (GD 134). Afterwards, Barth placed brackets around these words, since he was not able to work out this paragraph for his lectures. As I see it, Barth did realise his intentions in § 16.1 of the Church Dogmatics:‘The Holy Spirit and the Subjective Reality of Revelation’ (KD I/2, 222-264; CD I/2, 203-242), where the objectivity of the church is considered as a highly important element of this subjective reality (by which Barth makes a retraction in relation to the experiment of 1927, with its reference to the conscience of a Christian of his baptism, as a more or less ‘sacramental knowledge of himself’; cf. KD I/2, 225; CD I/2, 205-206). In this way, the doctrine of the church is incorporated into the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the doctrine of revelation as a whole is divided into three rather than four parts, as was the intention in 1925 (to compare with the division of the third and fourth part of Calvin’s 1559 Institutes on the work of the Holy Spirit and the church, respectively, in their differentiation and in their interconnectedness).
36. U.II., 362-363: ‘when you look at the Church only in its visibility, … you look at it, apart from grace, … as at a manifestation that belongs to the world of sin.’ See also Barth (1924),11 (also 34): Sin as ‘Die theologische Kehrseite des geschichtlich-soziologischen Aussenaspekts der Kirche’.
38. U.II., 10-11. See also Agamben’s assignment of the differentiation in Paul between ‘the time of the end’ and ‘the end of time’ in Agamben (2005), 62. The theme of the fifth consultation of the Protestant Theological University and Princeton Theological Seminary in August 2010, ‘The Church as “Coming Community”’ alluded to the booklet of Agamben with that title; Agamben (1993).
39. In KD I/2, 236 (CD I/2, 216) Barth goes so far as to assert that there is a correspondence between the way the church is dependent on the Word of Grace and the anhypostasis of the human nature of Christ. As such you would have to say that the church does not exist in any way outside of the reception of the divine act of grace in Christ. In 1925 (U.II., 352) this is said using covenantal semantics: ‘Sie ist ganz und gar Gemeinschaft in der Gebundenheit an Gott’.
40. U.II., 353-354. Barth (1994), 150-159 positively quotes the Catechismus Romanus: ‘fide solum intellegimus, in Ecclesia claves caelorum esse eique postestatem peccata remittendi…’ See also KD IV/1, 735 (CD IV/1, 658-59).
41. Pictet (1728-29) xiv.8: respectu communionis internae cum Christo invisibilis, .. respectu professionis externae vel respectu regiminis et gubernationis sacrae visibilis. HpB 527 (ET 665), K. Barth, U.II., 359 and 361.
43. Luther also made use of the category of the invisibility of the church, beginning with his dictata super psalterium, 1513-16. Initially it is used in a more or less neoplatonic sense: the true church in heaven is a comfort vis-à-vis the imperfection of the church on earth for the monk in his troubles (as it will be later on for the weeping pietists). However, Luther gradually develops the category in a far more theological, that is for him more realistic, direction. The invisible church is Christ, who is realistically present on earth – namely on the cross. See Iwand (1983), 235ff.
45. The holiness of the church is endangered in terms of it erring doctrinally, not from the perspective of the lives of the saints failing to be holy. The latter is a secondary issue for Luther, because the life consecrated to God is always overshadowed by the need for repentance. For him, therefore, the Church is also ‘the place where Christ wants to live together with sinners’.
46. Fr. Turrettinus (1679ff.), xviii.9.11: Sic tempore passionis in magna obscuritate & ad paucissimos redactam fuisse Ecclesiam constat, Apostolis fugientibus & deferentibus Christum, & nonnullis etiam abnegantibus; ubi tunc fuit splendor & gloria Ecclesiae? (Thus in the time of his passion it is evident that the church was reduced to great obscurity and to the very fewest numbers, the apostles fleeing and deserting Christ and some even denying him. Where then was the glory and splendour of the Church?).
49. In the eyes of Barth, liberal theology maintained an undialectical division of the ideal invisible Church and the negligible visible church. In my eyes, the decline of the reformational-dialectical doctrine of infallibility already begins in later orthodoxy itself. For instance, Pictet (1728-29) xiv.8, only asks: ‘what am I able to see, and what can I not see, concerning the Church?’ I consider that way of questioning much too easy, however. And the pietistic à Marck (1690), xxxii.26, mainly stresses the fallibility of the existing Church on earth and seems almost to forget its dialectical counterpart.
55. Maresius (1673) xvi.26, on the doctrine of the notae ecclesiae: ‘we do not know in a true sense what might be the true church, for we do not know who the people are who accept the truth through a true faith. For here it is about that comparative judgement between different communities, whether any of them most probably has the traits of the true church’ (and of course, after such a comparison in xvi.42 the Reformed church appears to be the church that teaches the most pure doctrine). Here the notae, as part of the section on the visible church, seem to prepare for a discipline like the Comparative Study of Religions, albeit still from a confessional standpoint.
56. U.II., 360 n 28 (see above, n. 29) shows that the first expression is not taken literally from Mastricht (1698) VII.1.5 (HpB erroneously writes VII.1.4). See also U.II, 352: ‘Ewige Erwählung begründet sie (die Kirche), Berufung realisiert sie, im Glauben und Gehorsam der vom heiligen Geist trotz alles ihres Elends Erfüllten und Getriebenen lebt sie und webt sie.’
62. See, for example, Barth (2010; ET), 384 (to Rom 10,15; Barth (2010) also mentions quotations of it in the passages of the commentary to Rom 8,28-30, 9,12-15, 11,25-27, while the recent Dutch translation adds also to 12,2); Barth (2005), 241; Barth (1998),338 (in the discussion on the second Canon of Dort).
63. In Locus xxvii HpB 540, no. 16 (ET 667f.): invisibilis ecclesia est coetus tantum electorum – Invisibilis autem nominatur non quod homines ad eam pertinentes non videantur qua homines, sed quod non cernantur qua electi; solus enim Deus novit, qui sint sui: Wollebius (1626)I caput 25 canon 5 with annotatio (and also in the annotation to canon 29 against Bellarmine).
65. Maresius (1673) xv.6: Quum vox Ecclesiae sit ita polusèmos non potest certa definitione ejus quidditas exprimi, nisi caetera significata, tamquam analogata, ad primarium aliquod caput revocerentur. Hoc vero statuimus esse Ecclesiam Electorum, ad quod solos pertinet vocatio Dei efficax, unde saepe eklektoi etiam klètoi dicuntur, quibus in Christo perficiendis, directe & primario Ecclesiae Ministerium in coetibis particularibus, ex quibis Ecclesia Catholica constat. Hanc autem haud incommode definieris Hominum societatem religiosam, ex universo genere humano per Ministerium Verbi iuxta Dei beneplaritum, ad Christus evocatorum, ut in ipso Gratia & Salutis fiant confortes.
66. Maresius (1673) xv.12, quoted in HpB 540 no. 14: verissimum – solos electos esse vera et germana membra ecclesiae.
67. Maresius (1673)xv.14, quoted in HpB 536 no. 5 (HpB-ET 660). The last sentence can also be found in U.II., 354: habet ecclesia nomen a vocatione, sed ab ea, quae fluit ex praedestinatione. Maresius opposes the view which holds the concept of the invisible church chiefly to mean that the pope cannot be its head. The annotations for this section make it obvious that Maresius has in view the ‘Novator’, a designation he used for the distinguished theologians he detested like Johannes Coccejus, Jacobus Alting, and Christopher Wittichius (see Nauta (1925), 383); in this case Maresius is presumably referring to Coccejus.
70. That is also the opinion of Bonhoeffer (1986), (104-)106: ‘Der prädestinatianische Kirchenbegriff ist nur ein Teil des gesamten Begriffs und nur im Zusammenhang mit dem Ganzen sinnvoll und christlich. Er bedarf der Ergänzung, und diese entspringt aus dem Wirken des heiligen Geistes …’. Berkhof (2002), 391 goes too far in my eyes when he says: ‘(The category of an invisible church makes no sense, among other things because) the numerus praedestinatorum as such does not result in a mutual community’. In the traditional understanding, this is (unfortunately) true, but it implies no argument against any role for predestinarian reasoning in the doctrine of the church – see Bonhoeffer!
71. SchmidP, 371 (no. 4): ‘Sie (die Kirche) wird besser als congregatio sanctorum definiert, denn als congregatio electorum, wie einige tun, quia latior est appellatio sanctorum et credentium, quam electorum.’ Because in the Catholic Church both groups live together until the non-elect are cut off at the end, it is more proper to speak of the assembly of the saints and believers (Gerhard (1885) [xxxii.]xi.13). However, Baier (1750) iii.13.2, more subtly remarks that speaking of true believers and saints is also improprie & synecdochen, as long as there are hypocrites and evildoers among them.
72. SchmP, 375 (no. 13): the distinction in ecclesia stricte et late dicta can correspond with the distinction of the invisible and the visible church, because extra coetum vocatorum non sunt quaerendi electi (outside the assembly of those who have been called you will find no elect) – and because of Matt 22,14 (‘many are called, few are chosen’). See Gerhard (1885), [xxii.]xi.83.
73. For example, Fr. Turrettinus (1679ff.) xviii.3: an praeter Electos vocatos … vera Christi ecclesiae membra sint? Neg. contra Pontificos. On the contrary, says xviii.20: non omnes qui sunt in ecclesia, sunt tamen de ecclesia.
74. In this respect (the ecclesia visibilis), Barth in 1925 stresses the classical image of the church as a mother: ‘Als Glied der Korporation und nicht anders ist das Individuum Gegenstand der Erwählung und Berufung’; U.II., 358-359.
78. This is the project of Agamben (1993): In the famous book Marquardt (1972), 342ff. a reference can be found to an article from the Marxist social scientist A. Casanova, ‘Religion et révelation dans la Doctrine de Karl Barth’, who observes that Barth’s non- or anti-dualistic correction of the classical doctrine of election is in line with the developments of social relations, in which a form of existence without communication is increasingly intolerable. Fixations of self-evident and limited social figures are dissolved, primary groups are destroyed, and the individual lives in ever more complicated structures. And for that reason, an isolation of collective masses is unacceptable – also in Christian doctrine. The time has now come to revisit such observations.
84. U.II., 364: ‘das Sichtbare bezeugt das Unsichtbare’; and 367: ‘sie ist in dieser geschichtlichen Gestalt und Erscheinung … wahre Kirche, sie trägt Züge, die, wenn auch nicht unzweideutig …., von ihrem Ursprung Zeugnis ablegen’; and also 369: ‘kirchliches Wort ist Zeugnis von Gottes Wort.’
89. It is not evident what Calvin meant with this classification, in particular how he interpreted the presbyteros of the New Testament texts: is he, as the episcopos, a preacher of the Word, or is he a member of the Sanhedrin and therefore a governor? Our own seven witnesses from the time of orthodoxy are not very clear on this question, either. See, for example, Bucanus (1605) xlii.19; Wollebius (1626) xxvi def.; Fr. Turrettinus (1679ff.), xviii.32). Barth on the one hand remarks that ‘das ministerium gliedert sich vierfach, ohne das zwischen den vier Ämbtern ein Grad- und Würdeunterschied bestünde’; but on the other hand he quotes Heppe where he states that the seniores or presbyteroi ‘stehen den pastores als “assessores” zur Seite’, which would imply some sort of differentiation or ranking. U.II., 376 n. 69; HpB 548 no. 39 (ET 680); Maresius (1673) xv.75. Very critical of this is Hasselaar (1974), 205 and (1990), 223 (Heppe is committing ‘a capital error here’).
92. For example, Maresius (1673) xvi.5. Barth could have found this position in HpB 549 no. 42 (Heidegger; ET 682). That Barth is pulling Heppe too much toward his own preferences may also have been seen by Stoevesandt who, in reaction to Barth’s remark that the ecclesial measures with regard to the ordination of ministers are dogmatically entirely indifferent, remarks in n. 64: doch (however) … see the quotes in HpB nos. 33-36.
93. Bucanus (1605) xli. 7: ecclesia visibilis est vel in grege …, vel in Pastoribus & Senatu Ecclesiastico, qui ex praecipuus & idoneis Ecclesiae membris constat …’; Maresius (1673), xv.75; Fr. Turrettinus (1679ff.) xviii.2.10: on the question of the definitions of the church, one of the possible definitions is its identification with the Coetus Rectorum et Pastorum ecclesiae. In 1959 Barth will call this ‘a more than doubtful theologoumenon, whether we think in Lutheran terms of the sacred office of pastors or in reformed terms of the no less sacred college of the presbytery, classis or synod’; KD IV/3, 876 (CD IV/3, 765).
101. Miskotte (1935), 340 (n. 23 of the lecture on the Sanctam Ecclesiam). Miskotte refers to, Barth (1982) 83f.: ‘Who we are to preach? The appeal to ecclesiastical ordination is in all cases based on presuppositions, the understanding of which should start off with the insight not only once, but again and again that we actually are people who are not called.’
102. Miskotte (1987), 428 (question III.3). Miskotte’s own answer would have been that the offices are to be understood neither liturgically, nor organically or organisationally, but floating, independently of each other, as instruments of God. Christ has in his right hand the seven stars, the angels of the churches (Rev 1).’
103. And why, we may add, does he mention the name of A.Fr.Chr. Vilmar in the list of his self-chosen predecessors of the nineteenth century in the Preface of Die christliche Dogmatik (Barth 1982, 5; also 18: ‘die lebendige Anschauung vom Amt’ as a presupposition for doing dogmatics)? Was not Vilmar’s main contribution to theology his emphasis on the importance of the spiritual office in the church (Die Lehre vom geistlichen Amt, 1870)? See Barth (1947c), 570-578.
104. Between January and September 1920, Barth preached 24 sermons on 2 Corinthians 1-7. On 7 June of that year he wrote to Eduard Thurneysen: ‘Sachlich ist das irgendwie ein gigantischer Anschauungsunterricht zu dem Thema “Pfarrer und Gemeinde”, insofern kein guter Predigtstoff.’
106. See above, n. 33. See the definition of Heidegger: coetus hominum electorum, vocatorum et fidelium, quos Deus per verbum et Spiritus e statu peccati in statum gratiae, ad aeternum gloriam vocat’. In his 1925 lectures Barth quoted this definition from HpB 526 (ET 657); in CD IV/3, 765 he quoted directly from his own copy of Heidegger (1675).
111. Presumably with the idea to join the Church Dogmatics in this respect, Berkhof (2002),341-414, developed his ecclesiology in three paragraphs (after an introduction on the relationship of covenant and church in § 39): § 40 ‘The Church as an Institute’, § 41 ‘The Congregation as the Body of Christ’, § 42 ‘The People of God as the First-born.’ In my eyes the name of the first paragraph says too little from a dogmatic point of view. In the reformational doctrine of the notae, the issue was not the institute as such, but the dramatic debate as to where in the visible sphere one could recognise the true church that one believed in.
112. Barth refers to the two Lutheran theologians, Gerhard and Quenstedt, who lived at the beginning and end of the seventeenth century, respectively. Above we referred to the distinctions of Mastricht (1698), vii.1 regarding the causae of the church; he does not, however, recognise a causa finalis ecclesiae. Among Reformed theologians one should rather look at à Marck to find an Aristotelian logic similar to what we find in these Lutheran counterparts. The whole of à Marckius (1690) culminates (relatively long after the doctrine of the church in chapters 32 and 33) in chapter 34: ‘De fine: de electorum glorificatione beata’. There à Marck insists that one has to distinguish between the finis subordinatus (that is, salus hominis) and the finis supremus (that is, Dei Gloria). However, these qualifications refer more to the members of the church than to the community as such. Among the earlier Reformed theologians a clear example is found in Bucanus (1605). In xli.30 he – as an addition to the other causae ecclesiae mentioned in xli.15 – defines the causa finalis of the church as follows: ‘It is the true worship of God (cultus Dei). For [the church] is chosen, gathered, and ordered for the true worship of God and to glorify God, in this life as well as in eternal life. However, the goal to which the church extends itself is God, in the vision of whom lies the fulfilment (satietas) of all gladness, thus that heavenly heritage that cannot perish or corrupt or fade away’. For Heppe, see HpB 529: ‘die Kirche bedarf zu ihrem Zweck, mater fidelium zu sein, einer bestimmten Organisation und Verwaltung’ (ET 672: ‘since the church aims at achieving her purpose of being the mater fidelium, it follows that, in order to achieve her purpose, she requires a certain organisation and government’; translation slightly changed).
113. Barth also raises the question whether the Reformation really knew how to distinguish between the church and the kingdom of God. This question requires further investigation. As far as Calvin is concerned, I fear that Barth is too optimistic in suggesting that Calvin did in principle distinguish between these two entities.
116. Mastricht (1698) VII.I.43 (in the pars practica). I found another reference to a missionary situation as visualised in the seventeenth century in Fr. Turrettinus (1679ff.) xviii.23: an vocatio ordinaria ad Ministeriam … semper sit necessaria? Diff. (‘is an ordinary call to the ministry always necessary? We distinguish’), paragraph 18: ‘If today believers, carried by a tempest to the most distant regions of the earth, should be shipwrecked upon the shore among barbarous people, entirely strangers to religion, and pressed by necessity should be compelled to remain there without any hope of returning to their homes, who does not confess that from the law of love they ought to teach the pagans the faith of Christ? And if many of them should perchance be converted, would it not be lawful for them to choose for themselves pastors to constitute a church and provide for its edification and instruction? Would it be better to suffer that light to be extinguished than to establish a ministry for the consolation and salvation of that people, although this could not be according to the usual order?’
119. HpB 550n., quotation from Turrettinus(1679ff.), xviii.29: ‘an ecclesiae aliqua potestas spiritualis competat distincta a politica?’ aff. (‘Does any spiritual power distinct from the political belong to the church? We affirm this.) 2. in excessu peccant Pontificii (The Romanists err in excess, who convert this power into an intolerable domination and tyranny over the conscience and make it supreme and absolute in the Roman pontiff…) – in defectu vero Erastiani et Libertini (The Erastians, Libertines, and other such disturbers err in defect, who acknowledge no spiritual power to have been given to the church, but that mere preaching and persuasion are left to pastors) – 3. orthodoxi medium inter duo extrema tenentes potestatem et auctoritam ecclesiae distinctam a politica datam esse agnoscunt… (The orthodox, holding the middle ground between these two extremes, acknowledge that a power and authority distinct from the political has been given to the church). What could be proposed as a ‘middle way’ in the 17th century will in our time be seen most as a rather extremist position.
120. Maresius (1673) XVI.74-75 (against Papism and against the independents; see Nauta (1935), 305-309); Fr.. Turrettinus (1679ff.) xviii.33: an proprium sit Pontificis Romani indicere & cogere Concilia, iis praeesse, & auctoritatis ipsis conferre…? Neg. (Does it belong to the Roman pontiff to proclaim and gather councils, to preside over them and to confer upon them infallible authority in doctrines of faith and religion? We deny); Mastricht (1698) vii.2.38.
122. Barth (1978); Anhang: Thesen über Kirche und Staat (1928), (457-467) 465-66: ‘Eine ihrer Sache und der Einheit dieser Sache bewusste und treue Staatskirche ist als Symbol der letzten Einheit von Kirche und Staat auch der lebendigsten Freikirche vorzuziehen.’
125. Agamben (2005), 53. The New Dutch Bible Translation (NBV) does a terrible job when it translates the word ‘remnant’ not as ‘de rest’, but as ‘een klein deel’ (‘a small part’). The remnant may be many things indeed, but it is at any rate not a part!
Chapter 5
6. Barth (1947b), Foreword: ‘When the Hitler régime dawned, I happened to be occupied with J.J. Rousseau’ (§ 5).
14. KD I/2, 5 (CD I/2, 4). Barth here mentions not only Buddeus and Pfaff in Germany and the triumvirate in Switzerland, but also the theologians of the school of Chr. Wolff later on in the eighteenth century.
16. KD I/2, 313-317 (CD I/2, 288-291). Aside from the works of Buddeus and Van Til, Barth used also the analysis of Stolzenburg (1926). See also Breukelman (2010), 234-237 for Buddeus on religion and revelation.
21. From the literature used by Barth, we mention Gaß (1862), 275-289; Vischer (1908) and Wernle (1923), 522-524 (and see the index). Barth (2000), 199f. already complains that the category ‘Ausläufer’ from ‘our old friend (or enemy) Wernle’ neglects the wonderful materials he offers himself, and fails to show how reasonable orthodoxy can be adequately explained; see also Barth (1936b), 184 n. 5.
22. Barth (1936b) 185 n. 6 refers to Werenfels (1729), Vol I, (357-374)372: Dissertatio de scopo doctoris in academia S. Literas docentis: a nobis malum incepit; videndum, ut a nobis incipiat magna illa Christianismi reformatio; quae unicum hodie votum et desiderium est tot piarum animarum (We caused the evil; therefore, it is up to us to show how that great reformation of Christendom which so many pious souls today desire can be started).
24. Zinzendorf (Barth (1936b), 185 n. 8) was prepared to ask Werenfels to be the leader of the Unity of the Brethren in Basel; Voltaire received a dedicating epigram from Werenfels (Barth (1936b), 186 n. 10; Werenfels (1729) Vol. II, 566: ‘in Henriadem’); and Friedrich Wilhelm received an anonymous pamphlet on predestination written by Werenfels; Werenfels (1729) Vol. I, 475-481: Scrupulus de predestinatione (see below).
25. This is the opinion of Ernst Troeltsch and his school, which Barth rejects. KD I/1, 128 (CD I/1, 124): ‘The catastrophic crash of orthodoxy in the 18th century, the consequences of which we still have to carry to this day, is no more puzzling than the collapse of a house whose foundations are giving way. Responsibility for the disaster must be borne, not by the philosophy of the world which had become critical, but by the theology of the Church which had become too uncritical, which no longer understood itself in the center’. It is clear that Barth refuses to take also the question of the threat of the ‘modern scientific world view’ all that seriously; see Barth (1936b), 190-191 n. 17. In favour of that hesitation he argues that Werenfels could defend the biblical miracles in such a way that they did not (yet) cause any serious problem for him; Werenfels (1729) Vol I, 70-92: Diss. De veritate Miraculorum in S. Scriptura narratorum, and 93-102: Solutio de Quaestionis, Num Miracula certa sint Veritatis signa.
26. Man würde modern wie im Schlaf (‘they became modern as though in their sleep’), Barth (1936b), 187 n. 14 quotes Wernle (1923), 470; see also Barth (1947b), 126, 147.
28. Barth (1936b), 189 n. 15. Barth rightly shows that a text like Werenfels (1729) Vol I, 103-114: the Meditatio de zelo in S. Scriptura ubique conspicio pro una Dei gloria, breathes an old Reformed air.
29. Barth (1936b) 192 n. 18. Werenfels (1729) Vol. II, 292-297: Responsio ad Quaestionem: num theologia sit theoretica, an mere practica, an theoretico-practica? See also Vol I, 387ff.: the Dissertatio adversus carnalem securitatem, in which Werenfels states that a polemic against those who sin too easily is far more important than any polemic against heretics.
31. Barth (1936b), 192, n. 20 and n. 22: Werenfels (1729) Vol. I, 323-342: Diss. de controversiis theologicis rite tractandis; and Vol, II, 1-116, the famous Diss. de logomachiis eruditorum. In this respect Werenfels had his own problems for dealing with the legal proceedings against J.J. Wettstein with his textual criticisms of Scripture. Initially he participated in the proceedings, but afterwards he withdrew; Barth (1936b), 191 n. 17 and 193 n. 25. Barth, shortly after having read the biography of Harnack’s daughter Agnes Zahn-Harnack (1936), is reminded of similar behaviour (that is, participation, n. 17, as well as withdrawal, n. 25, in ecclesiastical proceedings on doctrine) of his own liberal teacher in theology, Adolf Harnack.
32. Barth (1936b), 195 n. 31. Werenfels (1729), Vol I, 1-34:. Diss. Apologetica pro Plebe Christiana adversus doctores judicium de dogmatibis fidei illi auferentes; Vol. I, 35-56; De Jure in Conscientias, ab homine non usurpando; Vol. I, 463-472: Quaestio de ministris ad sacrum hoc munus admittendis.
33. Barth (1936b), 195 n. 30. Werenfels (1729) Vol I, 431-462: Diss. de ratione uniendi ecclesias protestantes. More recently, Dellsperger 2000, (289-300)299 defended the following position: ‘Ich kann diese Urteile [Barths zu der vernünftigen Orthodoxie] nicht zuletzt vor dem Hintergrund des Kirchenkampfes zwar erklären, sie aber nicht unbesehen übernehmen. Man wird den Triumvirn als Theologen nicht gerecht, wenn man ihr unionstheologisch ausblendet’.
34. Barth (1936b), 196 n. 32. Werenfels (1729) Vol I, 343-356: Diss. de scopo, quem S. Scripturae Interpres sibi roponere debet; Vol. II, 329-364: Lectiones Hermeneuticae, sive de arte interpretandi Scripturam Sacram.
35. One can find Werenfels’s considerations in the third part of the Dissertatio de triplici teste de Verbo Dei testante, Werenfels (1729) Vol I, (138-163)157-163. Barth (1936b), 194 n. 29 praises this work as such because of the useful viewpoints it offers.
38. Barth (1936b), 199 n. 40. Werenfels (1729) Vol I, 115-128, particularly the Appendix, ubi excutitur quaestio: cur hoc incitamenta non plus efficaciae habeant inter Christianos, Vol I, (129-137)136-137. See also (mentioned in the same n. 40) the Dissertatio de Scopo, quem S. Scripturae Interpres sibi proponere debet (the lecture with which Werenfels accepted his Old Testament professorship in 1703), Vol. I (343-355)353-354 against the ‘misuse’ of the doctrine of Paul in the sense of the antinomians and libertarians, where the dark tones of the Confessions on human corruption unfortunately do not function in favour of a piety of humility, but as a pretext against actual conversion.
42. Barth (1936b), 191 n. 17 suggests that Werenfels was scandalised by this dogma, and openly was a Pelagian. This is entirely in line with Barth’s analysis of the theology of the eighteenth century as a whole; see Barth (1947b), 145 (ET 166) on the time of the neologians, Goethe, and Herder, and Barth (2000), 320. Here Barth fails to document his assertion, however.
44. Ritschl (1927), 326, with reference to Hunnius, Diascepsis theologica de fundamentali dissensu doctrinae Evangelicae-Lutheranae et Calvinianae seu Reformatae, Ed. I, Wittenberg, 1626.
45. KD I/2 965-968 (CD I/2 863-866). As is apparent elsewhere, Barth did not like O. Ritschl – nor did he consult him in this case.
47. KD I/2 617 (ET 555) and 619 (ET 557); in the translation, we have replaced the word ‘Reformed’ in the Bromiley-version with ‘reformational’. Barth adds: ‘Inevitably, too, Calixt adopted a mediating position even in the question of knowledge, even in the relationship of reason and revelation.’ We thus again meet the parallel between the doctrine of regeneration and natural theology, like later on the parallel between Pietism and Enlightenment.
48. To discover how the ‘theologians of the period of transition’ evaluated the contribution of Calixt, it is instructive to study Mosheim (1755; Dutch translation 1771-1774). In his part on the seventeenth century II.ii.1, the Chapter on the Development of the Lutheran Church, Latin 828-829 and Dutch 9, 58-71, von Mosheim sketches Calixt as a man of outstanding capacities and merits, who tried to promote peace between Christians. However, he is wrong when he asserts that there was a consensus in the early church and that up to the present Roman Catholics and Protestants still agree on the articuli fundamentales. In this way, Mosheim pled for a better understanding of formerly rejected and tarnished positions on the one hand, but on the other hand he refuses to take a distance from his own Lutheran confession.
51. Buddeus (1724), Caput Primum: de religione et theologia, § 33. Actually Buddeus considers justification among the articles that should not be called ‘primary’, but are still very closely connected to the real foundation (sub **). Buddeus therefore does not call it ‘secondary’ in the strict sense of the term. As to the question whether original sin should be called a ‘secondary’ fundamental article of faith, he remains in doubt (sub ***). In conclusion, we cannot say that the reasonable orthodox generation in Lutheranism was in this respect more ‘liberal’ than the earlier generation of Baier.
52. J.-A. Turrettini (1774-1776) Vol I, 496 – 530: De articulis fundamentalibus disquisitio. Turrettini also took up this disquisitio in his very popular work Nubes Testium (1719), Vol III, (1-188) 11-44. See also the Dutch translation of 1724, (1-482) 1-84. A discussion of this text can be found in Schweizer (1856), 784-790. Barth consulted neither J.-A. Turrettini nor Schweizer in this connection. He owned a copy of J.-A. Turrettini (1777), but did not quote it in the CD; see above, the table in the Introduction n. 26.
56. Schweizer (1856), 787. The development of academia he sketches was clearly made visible some years ago in an exposition at the Musée International de la Réforme (Geneva).
57. Fr. Turrettinus (1679ff.) I.xiv.19: (articulorum fundamentalium haec sunt propria…) 5. Ut ad eos reducantur omnia dogmata theologica tanquam ad regulam, quod Apostolus [Rom. 12:6] vocat analogian pisteoos.’
58. J.-A. Turrettinus (1774f.), Disquisitio Cap. III (Falsa Notae Articulorum Fundamentalium rejiciunter): iii. ‘nota, qua multi utuntur, ad fundamentalia et non fundamentalia distinguenda, ab Analogia, quam vocant, Fidei, seu, quod idem est (!), a Systematibus Theologicis, desumitur.’
59. Buddeus (1724), § 32, 58-59: ‘methodus nostra, qua utimur, ut definiamus, quinam articuli fundamentales aut non fundamentales sint, non ab analogia fidei, sed ab analogia seu comparatione fundamenti realis ac dogmatici, pendet.’ See also Nüssel (1996), (71-77)76.
61. Hollaz (1735), Pars iii, Sectio I, Cap. 4: De gratia Spiritus Sancti applicatrice; Cap. 5: De gratia illuminante; (1) Cap. 6: de gratia convertente; (2) Cap. 7: de gratia regenerante; (3) Cap. 8: de gratia iustificante; (4) Cap. 9: de gratia inhabitante; (5) Cap. 10 de gratia renovante; (6) Cap. 11: de gratia conservante (to be compared with the Reformed : de constantia foederis gratiae? RRB); (7) Cap. 12: de gratia glorificante.
62. In SchmidP on 261-263 the chapter De gratia spiritus s. applicatrice starts with a ‘Vorbemerkung’ (preliminary remark). In that remark the compiler stresses the difference between the older and later Lutheran dogmatics and justifies the chosen order – that is, the means of grace: 1. fides, 2. justificatio; and then the actus or acts of grace: 1. vocatio, 2. illuminatio, 3. regeneratio or conversio, 4. unio mystica, 5. renovatio. However, it will be evident to the readers and users of this textbook that this is not quite the shape of the ordo salutis that would emerge in later Lutheran orthodoxy.
68. KD IV/3, 582f. (CD IV/3.1., 506f.). Barth reads the foundation, De gratia Spiritus Sancti applicatrice, as a first step: the vocatio ad ecclesiam. The words ‘man weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten’ (Heinrich Heine, ‘Die Lorelei’) are skipped in the ET.
74. Witsius (1739), Lib. iii. Cap. 8 § 31: (animadvertum est, …) electos, antequam ipsis justitia Christi ad justificationem vitae imputetur, tam arcte cum ipso per fidem uniri, ut unum corpus, et unus cum ipso Spiritus sint. … (italics added).
77. Buddeus (1724), 1311: per iustificationem idem innocens declaratur tribunali divino, scelerumque purus, adeoque & iustus, non quidem ob propriam, seu inhaerentem iustitiam, sed alienam seu sponsoris Christi. After this Buddeus in a second sentence teaches imputation.
78. Buddeus (1724), 1333**: praeterea, cum ipsa meriti, seu iustitiae Christi adprehensio, actio quaedam fit, fides quoque hoc intuitu ut mere passiva concipi nequit, licet homo ipse, dum iustificatur, nihil utique agat, sed tantum passive sese habeat.
79. Buddeus (1724), 1339*: caput causae in eo consistit, quod Osiander renovationem, seu sanctificationem, cum iustificatione confundit. In that part of Mosheim (1755) on the sixteenth century, we find a similar assessment of Osiander from the point of view of a ‘reasonable orthodox’ church historian; III.II.1.35, Latin (1755) 659 and Dutch (1771ff.) 7, 81-84.
82. Buddeus (1724), Pars iii, Cap. 3: De fide in Christum itemque de regeneratione et conversione; Cap. 4: de iustificatione hominis peccatoris coram Deo; Cap. 5: De sanctificatione seu renovatione, ubi et de bonis operibus, deque unione mystica et perseverantia sanctorum. In effect Buddeus attains a notable simplification of the ordo salutis that had acquired a very complicated and differentiated shape in the later dogmatic and spiritual literature of orthodoxy.
83. Buddeus (1724), 1204: producitur fides per regenerationem (sive vivificationem).
84.. Buddeus (1724), 1224: qui regeneratur, statum quoque iustificatur, & hac ratione in numerum filiorum Dei recipitur.
85. Buddeus (1724), 1310: summopere itaque differt mutatio illa, quae in regeneratione & renovatione contingit, ab ea, quae in iustificatione locum invenit; … ad iustificationem enim fides requiritur; fides autem per regenerationem producitur. See also McGrath (2005), 365.
86. Buddeus (1724), 1319: ut iustitia & obedientia Christi nobis imputari queat, ex parte nostra fides adsit.
87. Buddeus (1724), 1340: Cum ex parte hominis iustificandi fides requiratur, haec autem tantum in regenitis fit, sponte sua inde fluit, neminem nisi regenitum iustificari. Critical of this sentence is Baur (1968), (111-116)113. The attempt to refute his objections by Nüssel (1996), (154-166)159ff. – claiming that faith is the active acceptance here of the forgiveness of sins affirmed in justification, but not a human merit – is only partly convincing.
88. Meijering (1995), 356 quotes the critics of McGrath on Buddeus (and in this respect also Mosheim), as mentioned in n. 85. (As far as Mosheim is concerned, it relates to his lectures in dogmatics that were published posthumously as the Elementa theologiae dogmaticae, Nuremberg 1758). However, Meijering in a quite naïve way, I think, underestimates the seriousness of the question when he says: ‘Buddeus and Mosheim do not teach anything other than receptivity to grace.’ I would ask whether the kind of receptivity developed by Buddeus was such a self-evident phenomenon in the theology of the Reformers.
89. Barth (1947b), 91 (ET 111) and (1936b), 185 n. 7. Very instructive on this point is Goldschmidt (2001). For Dippel the aim of piety is to obtain a state of being united with God in holiness. Neither a satisfactory work of Christ nor any imputation of an external righteousness can help in obtaining it (143). There is no need for reconciliation with God, only for following Christ (146). Orthodoxy expresses a very lazy mentality by teaching a faith that has nothing to do; this is only in favour of the old Adam (175). No other doctrine than that of effectively justifying man makes sense (178). And the old confessions are only an obstacle to finding a way of salvation and defending the freedom of conscience (213).
90. Barth (1995), (124-157)133-136: ‘Gespräch mit Vertretern der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeinde’ (on Justification and Sanctification with Zinzendorf).
91. Gaß (1862), 157-158, offers an interesting interpretation of the ordo salutis in Buddeus. In his eyes, only two steps in the believer’s process of renewal are really left here: conversion as the entry into the Christian life, and sanctification as the continuation of that life. Justification is then God’s pardoning of the sinner on the grounds of the merit of Christ which the sinner is able to receive because of the seed of a new righteousness which has already been implanted in him. Can we say that justification in this way becomes that element in the process of spiritual life in which the believer experiences the contact with his saviour, more than that Christ is his righteousness and sanctification (1 Cor 1,30)? I am inclined to endorse the conclusion of Baur (1968, 116) on the place of justification in the framework of Buddeus’s doctrine of the applicatio salutis as a whole: ‘Die entschlossen inaugurierte Bedürfnistheologie … macht die Rechtfertigung, das Proprium des christlichen, zum abhängigen religiösen Überbau.’
93. See above, n. 29 on Werenfels’s Dissertatio adversus carnalem securitatem.
95. Werenfels refers to the interconfessional discussions between the Lutherans and the Reformed: the Reformed believe that they only truly glorify God on account of human conversion if they attribute irresistible grace to him; the Lutherans on their part believe that it is only possible to maintain human guilt for unbelief if one holds that man is able to set up an obstacle for grace to reach him. For the Lutheran position, see the sixth chapter in the section on grace in Hollaz (1735). In fact, in Reformed theology there already was a dispute, especially between the orthodox and the Puritans: HpB 408, Locus xx, De vocatione, Belegstellen 23 and 24 (ET 525).
96. Werenfels (1729) Vol I, 475-481: Scrupulus de predestinatione – references to the pages of this work are given in brackets in the main text; see Barth(1936b), 200 and Schweizer, (1856), 777-781. On 781-784 Schweizer in this immediate context quotes the Theses de g. convertente, as if these theses offer the solution for the question discussed in the Scrupulus. For me it is not clear on what manuscript or edition of Werenfels’s writings Schweizer grounds his analysis.
98. Certe in nostris Ecclesiis non res nobis est cum Pelagianis, qui hominis viribus in conversione ejus nimium tribuant; sed iis res est, cum hominibus, qui identidem cohortandi sint, ut omnibus, quotquot habent, viribus …, summo studio, utantur. From this Barth (1936b), 200 concludes that for Werenfels only a rather undialectical preaching of conversion makes sense.
99. Schweizer (1856 52), 783-784. See Barth, KD II/2, 18 (CD II/2, 18): ‘The same miserable counsel once defeated by Calvin could 150 years later be reintroduced by Samuel Werenfels as the latest wisdom just as though nothing had happened – and since that time it has achieved something of the dignity of an opinio communis among the half-hearted.’
106. Turrettinus, J.-A (1741), 54-55, with reference to Werenfels, Cur incitamenta … (see above, n. 38).
108. Calvin (1999), 70-71 ad Rom. 3,22: iustificationis nostrae causam non ad hominum iudicium referri, sed ad Dei tribunal.
109. Turrettinus (1641), 165-168: qu. 1 (ad Rom. 3): de conciliatione Pauli Apostoli cum Jacobo, in negotio Justificationis.
110. In contrast again John Calvin at the same place, Calvin (1999), 82: nam haec paraphrasis ad circunstantiam loci aptanda est, quod aliena iustitia nos ornet fides, quam a Deo mendicat (the ungodly man is a beggar!). Atque hic rursus Deus iustificare nos dicitur, dum peccatoribus gratis ignoscit, et amore dignatur quibus iure irasci poterat; dum scilicet nostram (!) iniustiam misericordia sua abolet.
112. At the same time this historicising view in Turrettini is counterbalanced by his participation in the speculations of certain contemporary Cocceian and Pietist circles regarding the coming conversion of the Jews. See Turrettini (1741), 372-376: an appendix on Romans 11,25-26 ‘de plenitudine Gentium ingressura in Ecclesiam, & Gentis Judaïcae conversione’.
114. See Turrettinus (1741), 144: ergo aptissimum in homine regenerato exemplum est, unde cognoscas quantum sit naturae nostrae dissidium cum Legis iustitia, and 145 on (the young, but also the mature, anti-Pelagian) Augustine.
116. Luther (1520), 51-52: neque enim verbum dei, operibus ullis, sed sola fide suscipi et coli potest, Ideo clarum est, ut solo verbo anima opus habet ad vitam et iustitiam, ita sola fide et nullis operibus iustificatur.
Chapter 6
1. Barth (1935a), 156-157: Fragebeantwortung, Utrecht 5. und 6. April 1935; quoted from the ET, 181-183.
8. KD I/2, 972f. (CD I/2, 869f.); also KD I/2, 968 (CD I/2, 860f.): methodus est arbitraria, but the dogmatician must make a weighed judgement. A last assessment on the arrangement of theology can be found in the eighth lecture on ‘Verpflichtung’ (Commitment) in Barth (1962), 95-106. There the central concept is that of ‘gathering’; instead of building a system, a theologian has to gather all things in Christ and in his covenant.
9. Barth, (1935b), ix; ET vii: ‘For him (Heppe) the incursion of the covenant-theology of Cocceius and his pupils, proclaimed alongside of Cartesianism, into the line of the older expositors of Reformed dogma seems not to involve any deeper problem’.
10. For Heidegger (1696), see above, n. 35 of the table in the Introduction. In the paragraph on Scripture from 1924, Barth quoted Heidegger in addition to Calvin as a ‘less classical’ theologian, who nevertheless offered a ‘very good summary’ of the testimonium Spiritus S., U.P., 275 (GD, 225); he also was of the opinion that Heidegger, like the other authors of the Helvetic Consensus Formula of 1675, ‘were not really sure what they were after’ (U.P., 286f; GD, 235); from the beginning, Barth had been noticing the particular capabilities of Heppe’s sources!
16. In Buddeus (1724) the first Locus is ‘On Religion and Theology’, before it moves on to the second locus ‘On Revelation and the Holy Scriptures’; see above, Chapter 5 n. 14 and 16. Barth initially remarks that ‘the change came about in Protestant Theology around 1600’ (U.P., 25; GD, 19). He will not repeat this very early dating in later versions of his Prolegomena.
24. In U.I., 174-187 (GD, 134-141, with the title ‘The Historicity of the Incarnation’!) the main witness is not Heppe’s Locus xvi on the Covenant of Grace and its various dispensations, but rather Irenaeus and Calvin. In the corresponding paragraph (§ 15.1) of 1927, the discussion with the discourse of modern theology on ‘Christian faith and history’ was worked out more explicitly with the help of the category of ‘Urgeschichte’, borrowed from Franz Overbeck.
25. U.P., 243 (GD, 197: § 7.IV: Faith and Obedience in the Doctrine of Revelation); for the pair ‘historical – psychological’, see also U.P., 236 (GD, 192); as we know, in his further development Barth would not persist in describing faith as ‘a leap in the dark’, stressing that faith is illuminated by the prophetic light of Christ.
36. It is tempting to think of the relationship of the two main parts of Der christliche Glaube (2nd edition) by Friedrich Schleiermacher, where the propositions of the first part are characterised as referring to those layers (in Christian self-consciousness) ‘wie es immer schon vorausgesetzt wird, aber auch mit enthalten ist’ (see the title of the first part). But Barth did not sense any affinity with Schleiermacher at that time.
41. Nevertheless, Spieckermann (1985), 230n writes: ‘Gerade gegen die allgemeine, natürlich-theologische zugunsten der höchst besonderen, wirklichen Unbegreiflichkeit Gottes in seiner Offenbarung, insistiert sie [die Wesenslehre in U.I.] auf dem Vorrang der Erkennbarkeit Gottes im Offenbarungsverhältnis, und doch ist diese nur Hülle und Form der Unbegreiflichkeit’ (italics added).
44. U.I., 109 (GD, 397); Hans Urs von Balthasar (1976), 93ff, ‘Die Wendung zur Analogie’, wrote prior to the publication of the Göttingen Dogmatics, and could not yet have known this.
49. U.I., 185 (GD, 455). In Barth (1998), 321ff., he discusses the decisions of the Synod of Dordt under the heading ‘Der Kampf gegen das moderne Christentum’.
61. U.I., 309. In Heppe we find the statement that angels cannot have been elected in Christo redemptore, at best in the logos asarkos (HpB 127n, ET, 154), and that ‘in good angels is an example of the righteousness of works’ (HpB, 171; ET 215; Cocceius) – as if this implicitly would be the best realisation of creatureliness. Barth ignores this doctrine.
65. KD III/2, 455-458 (CD III/2, 380-382): ‘We necessarily contradict the abstractly dualistic conception which so far we have summarily called Greek, but which unfortunately must also be described as the traditional Christian view’ – which was also his own view in 1925! In the meantime (1927), Martin Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit had appeared and dominated the intellectual debate. In 1948 Barth does not mention whether or to what extent that debate influenced him.
67. U.I., 373; in U.I., 367 one can read how Barth already in Göttingen – thus before his move to Münster – denied the confessional difference with regard to the question of the donum supperadditum vis-à-vis the Roman Catholic position.
69. Barth (1974), 321 (letter of 4 March 1925): ‘Ich kam im Lauf des Semesters fast nicht mehr nach und schöpfte zuletzt fast nur noch aus Schmid und Heppe.’
74. U.I., 442. In correspondence with the end of U.I., U.II., 493 ends with the reference to the destiny of redeemed humankind. But here it is consistently said to be ‘not a question of a spectator’, but a question addressed ad hominem. Therefore, we are dealing with a sentence in preaching, where the possibility of not hearing is always present. Unlike U.I., 430, in the Prolegomena Barth connects the doctrines of original sin and servum arbitrium with this possibility of not hearing (see U.P., § 4 ‘Man and His Question’, 96; GD 79). It belongs to the ambiguities of the Göttingen Dogmatics that Barth here deals with original sin and the bondage of the will before he develops the doctrines of the Trinity, incarnation, and faith, just like he speaks about the existence of hell before developing the doctrine of reconciliation (in contrast with CD IV/3, § 70.3: ‘The condemnation of Man’).
78. U.P., 95 (GD, 79): ‘In the place which God creates, as God’s own Word, this Word can in fact be the Word of reconciliation, of overcoming, of homecoming’. Consequently, in the doctrine of the Trinity of the second version of the prolegomena (Barth, 1982), we find a section on ‘The Son as Reconciler’, (§ 12.1); in CD I/1, § 11.1: ‘God as Reconciler’.
81. See Migliore in GD, xlviii-liii, and Barth (1974), 328f. (Letter 7 June 1925), where Barth writes to his friends: ‘Ich bin in der Dogmatik … bis mitten in den ‘De Officio Jesu Christi Mediatorio’ vorgestoßen und stehe eben am munus sacerdotale. Es geht wie bisher so, daß ich unter viel Kopfzerbrechens und Staunens schließlich der Orthodoxie doch fast in allen Punkten recht geben muß und mich selbst Dinge vortragen höre, von denen ich mich weder als Student noch als Safenwiler Pfarrer je hätte träumen lassen, daß sie sich wirklich so verhalten könnten.’
82. U.II., 150-158 and 158-163; on page 149 we read that Barth omitted a separate paragraph on the states ‘aus Gründen der Zeitersparnis – aber die Abkürzüng würde sich auch sachlich rechtfertigen lassen’.
85. U.II., 438 quotes Polanus on the visibility of the parousia via Heppe, and 492f. refers to several remarks by Wendelin and Cocceius with regard to the condition of the redeemed (‘as far as I can see, their remarks are better than their reputation suggests’).
89. U.II., 164-168. As in the lecture ‘Church and Culture’, for Barth at this stage the actor in the dominion over the kingdom of nature is the logos asarkos, in accordance with the doctrine of the extra calvinisticum. Needless to say, in the Church Dogmatics his approach will change again.
92. See Marga (2005), 132-134 for the shortcomings of Barth’s argument, where she argues that it is rooted in older metaphysics. In KD I/2, 983 (CD I/2, 878) Barth will say: ‘we did not derive our differentiation of the Loci from the doctrine of the Trinity. We derived the doctrine of the Trinity itself from the same source as that from which the differentiation of the Loci is now derived, viz. the work and activity of God in its revelation.’
93. U.I., 8; by doing this, Barth’s arrangement may correspond with that of the first book of the Institutes of 1559, where Calvin within the framework of the ‘Knowledge of God the Creator’ offers a sketch of a (modest) doctrine of ‘the true God alone over against all the gods of the nations’ in Chapters 10-12.
96. Barth (1973), 86f. As a last reference to the doctrine of the three forms of the kingdom of Christ, one can mention Barth (1994), (458-520): ‘Der heilige Geist und das christliche Leben’ (1929), 516: ‘Über und in der verworrenen Verläufigkeit unserer Kreatürlichkeit in regno naturae, über und in dem Kampf des Geistes wider das Fleisch in regno gratiae gibt er, Gott der heilige Geist, ein Letztes, Unbewegliches und Endgültiges in regno gloriae.’
97. In their Preface to Barth (1982), xvi, the editors Gerhard Sauter and Hinrich Stoevesandt report that Barth in a letter to Karl Stoevesandt of 12 December 1930 for the first time spoke of a five-volume arrangement of his Dogmatics, including Ethics, which was supposed to be divided among the different Loci. This means that Barth had in mind the five main volumes of the Church Dogmatics from the very beginning, as he had publicly announced in the Preface of KD I/1, xii (CD I/1, xvi): CD II the doctrine of God (the command of God in general), CD III the doctrine of creation (the command of God from the standpoint of order), CD IV the doctrine of reconciliation (the doctrine of God from the standpoint of law), and CD V the doctrine of redemption (the command of God from the standpoint of promise).
98. Barth (1982), § 25.1 begins by rejecting a dogmatic system (569-575); 2. its argument concludes with the fundamental insight never to have already attained the purpose (Phil 3, 12; 575f.); 3. it continues with a sketch of characteristics of the right mindset in doing dogmatics (576-586); and 4. it ends with an appeal to modesty (586f.). In the CD § 24.2 Barth at the beginning rewrites his phenomenology of doing dogmatics (KD I/2, 954-962; CD I/2, 853-861; cf. 1927 § 25.3), and continues with the question whether dogmatics must have the task to develop a system (KD I/2, 963-973; CD I/2, 861-870; see 1927 § 25.1). After that Barth sketches the proposed arrangement of the Loci (KD I/2, 973-988; CD I/2, 870-883; in 1927 this had been sketched in § 26). The last passage (KD I/2, 988-990; CD I/2, 883f.) corresponds with the last appeal in 1927 (§ 25.4).
100. KD I/2, 982-984 (CD I/2, 878f.). See n. 92 above on the comparable considerations on the connection between Trinity and the arrangement of dogmatics in 1927.
101. Meijering (1993), 53-58. We follow his characterisation, noting that we are not sufficiently familiar with the patristics to check his observation from a professional point of view.
103. See also the remark in the Preface to Church Dogmatics I/1 of August 1932, where Barth explained his decision to replace the first Volume of the Christliche Dogmatik with a new version of the Prolegomena instead of publishing follow-up Volumes: ‘I had many serviceable materials at hand’ (allerlei nicht unbrauchbare Vorarbeit lag ja vor); KD I/1 vi (CD I/1, xi).
113. KD II/2, 46-55 (CD II/2, 44-51: § 32.2: ‘the Foundation of the Doctrine’). As the other foundation that must be taken seriously, Barth mentions the experience of human unbelief: people hear the Word of God, but apparently do not become obedient to it, presumably with condemnation as a result (CD II/2, 38ff.). As a witness for this argument he quotes above all from Calvin.
116. KD II/2, 84 (CD II/2, 78); reference to Wollebius (1935), I.3, 3; HpB 106 (ET 137): ‘The decree of God is the inward act of the divine will, by which from eternity He has most freely and most surely decreed concerning the things which had to be made in time.’ On the category of ‘decree’ Barth writes in KD II/2, 199 (CD II/2, 181): ‘this in the older Protestantism reigning concept could be and actually was misunderstood.’ ‘The very concept reminds us inevitably of a military or political ordinance, a law, a stature, a rule which lays down in black and white and preserves and expresses in definite form the will of a regnant power’. For this reason Calvin also avoided the concept, preferring words like consilium or beneplacitum (personal communication from W. Balke).
117. Barth (1936a), 35. McCormack (1997), 458-463, is of the opinion that these lectures are crucial to the development of Barth’s then newly attained ‘christological concentration’. As witnesses to Reformed Orthodoxy in this publication, two books — aside from Turrettinus (1679ff.)— are mentioned which had just been edited in 1935: Bizer’s edition of Heppe with his own preface, and Wollebius’s compendium which was similarly reissued by Bizer; Barth (1936a), 18, 19, 32.
120. Calvin (1667) III.21-24: The eternal Election, and then III.25: The last resurrection. Both complexes deal with the eternal presuppositions of the life of a Christian under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (1) in faith (2), penitence (3-5), mortification (6-20), justification (11-18), freedom (19), and prayer (20).
122. KD II/2,1 (CD II/2, 3). In Hungary, Barth remarked in a Kantian way: ‘this doctrine has to be placed at the beginning of and behind all Christian thinking, but not as the first piece of a description of how man comes into community with God. The doctrine of predestination is not a constitutive, but a regulative principle, which stands at the beginning of and behind all Christian thinking’ (Barth 1936a, 35). I could not find such a sentence literally in CD II/2, nor determine whether it had perhaps been left out intentionally.
129. KD II/2, 119 (CD II/2, 111): elegit nos Pater non ut Pater, quia electio non est opus personae Patris proprium, sed ut Deus, quandoquidem electio est totius sacrocanctae Trinitatis commune opus, cuius principium est Pater; referance to Syntagma IV.9 (11609, 1574; 21615, 245).
132. If Meijering (n. 102) is right, this underlines the degree to which Barth, in the eyes of the Fathers, would have been considered a ‘Sabellian’; the assertion of the presence of the logos ensarkos in the eternal covenant concluded at the heart of the Trinity goes much further than merely preferring the terminology of modus subsistentiae over persona, as Barth did in the prolegomena; see also Meijering (1993), 244.
134. As has been said above, Chapter 3 n. 128, Barth in CD II/2 adopts the concept of an eternal pactum, while in the excursus on Federal Theology in CD IV/1 he rejects it. It is probable that in the doctrine of election he conceived of the notion within the framework of his own doctrine of the Trinity, but that in reading the presentation of Schrenk he came across it in a quasi-tritheistic shape from which he had to distance himself because of his presuppositions.
135. François Turrettini (1679ff.) IV.ix: De praedestinationis objecto. An Objectum Praedestinationis sit homo creabilis, aut labilis. An vero homo conditus & lapsus? And the response: Prius neg. Poster. affir. Barth refers also to HpB 126f. (Belegstelle 8); ET 157f. and to A. Schweizer.
140. KD II/2, 146 (CD II/2, 136); it is remarkable that Barth does not argue that in their naïve-historical view on the sequence of biblical narrative (which they as such shared with their opponents, although it was more decisive in their reasoning) the infralapsarians had to run into problems in later, historical-critical times. Barth concentrates on the strictly theological argument.
141. KD II/2, 140 (CD II/2, 131); reference to Turrettinus (1679ff.) IV.ix.12-13. The most offending sentence reads: media debent esse ujusdem ordinis & dispensationem Providentiae, salus vero et damnatio ad ordinem supernaturalem Praedestinationis; see also Heppe’s reference to Turrettini’s Zürich counterpart Heidegger, (1696) V (The Decrees of God), 19-20: a distinction is to be made between the decretum Dei generale or the decretum creationis et providentiae, h.e. rerum in tempore creandarum, conservandarum et gubernandarum aeterna praefinito, and the decretum Dei speciale or decretum praedestinationis, that is, the consilium Dei de creaturis intelligentibus salvandis aut damnandis; HpB 108; ET 145f.
144. U.I., 191 (GD, 459f); KD II/2, 17 (CD II/2, 17) speaks of a ‘definition of predestination’; however, among most scholars of the Reformed confession, predestination is used as the common denominator for both election and rejection. A real definition of predestination in that sense is quoted from Wollebius, KD II/2, 357 (CD II/2, 325).
147. KD II/2, 101 (CD II/2, 94); the elaboration can be found in KD II/2 175-192 (CD II/2, 161-175: ‘The Eternal Will of God in the Election of Jesus Christ’, section 3); see also Barth (ref. 1936a), 20, with the decisive quotation of P. Maury: ‘One cannot speak of damnation as a decision of God otherwise than on the basis of the cross on Golgotha, but on this basis one must speak of it’ and McCormack (1997), 457.
151. Reference to Heidanus, (1686), I, 221: Deus fertur non nisi in seipsum et gloriam suam. Qua cum volurerit misericordiam et iustitiam suam effulgere, non potuit id effectum dare, nisi in salute vel damnatione peccatoris.
152. KD II/2, 153f. (CD II/2, 142); on 30 July 1947 Barth gave a lecture to a meeting of the Coetus of Reformed ministers in Barmen, in which he offered an outline of the missiological tenor of Church Dogmatics II/2 in the form of a commentary on the sixth Barmen Thesis of 1934. In this lecture he remarks: ‘Es gilt das Soli Deo gloria keinem hohen Götzen, keinem göttlichen Egoisten, keinem ewigen Sauertopf, sondern dem “Vater der Barmherzigkeit und Gott alles Trostes” (2 Cor 1, 3)’; Barth (1947a), (2-19) 5.
157. On this primary and essential function of the Holy Spirit, Barth fully agrees with Calvin. Nevertheless, most contemporary orthodox Reformed opponents of Barth (for example, Graafland (1987), 531) reproach him for a shortcoming vis-à-vis the applying work of the Holy Spirit. Also in this respect not everybody approved of the ‘Sabellianism’ of Barth’s conception of the Trinity. However, the danger on the other side is to play off the Father (in his inscrutable counsel) against the Son (in his willingness to effect salvation), and the Son (in his objective saving work) against the Spirit (whose applying work would always remain uncertain).
160. Wollebius (1626), I cap. 4 can. 15; KD II/2, 370 (CD II/2, 336): the two quotations belong together, a fact that the translator apparantly failed to notice); also HpB 141f. (here quoted from ET 176): in exploranda electione nostra methodo analytica progrediendum a mediis executionis ad decretum, facto initio a sanctificatione nostra, tali syllogismo: Quicunque in se sentit donum sanctificationis, qua peccato morimur et vivimus iustitiae, is iusificatus, vocatus sive vera fide donatus et electus est. Atqui per Dei gratiam hoc sentio. Ergo iustificatus, vocatus et electus sum.
167. See Barth (1982), 24; in KD I/1, 25 (CD I/2, 26) Barth distances himself from this argument: ‘in the first edition of the present book, I myself was guilty of a romanticising philosophy of history, which I must now reject, when I described the earlier procedure as that of a classical age and our modern approach as that of a decadent age’.