Karl Barth. Paul S. Chung
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critique of theologia naturalis can also be witnessed in his debate with Emil Brunner. Barth’s Nein! to Brunner was not merely theologically, but politically, motivated in face of the so-called German Christian support for Nazism. The danger of natural theology lay in domesticating and naturalizing the knowledge of God in the self-revelation of Jesus Christ. In the face of Hilter’s rise to power, an attempt was made to domesticate and absorb Christianity into the German nature and culture. The so-called Deutsche Christen (German Christians) collaborated and advocated reconciliation with Nazi ideology. In addition, Roman Catholic theologians misapplied St. Thomas Aquinas’s dictum (that grace perfects nature rather than destroys it) to provide theological grounds for the concordat between the Vatican and Hitler. In other words, these theologians asserted that grace does not destroy German nature (blood and soil), but perfects and fulfills it. As a result, the essence of the Christian gospel is at stake in Barth’s confrontation with the natural and ideological theology of the Deutsche Christen. This is why Barth responded to Brunner’s mediating pamphlet Nature and Grace with an angry and radical “No!”
However, regarding christological inclusivism in Barth’s theology, Torrance says that according to Barth, “natural theology (theologia naturalis) is included and brought into clear light within the theology of revelation (theologia revelata), for in the reality of divine grace there is included the truth of the divine creation.” In this sense, “grace does not destroy but completes it.”50
According to Marquardt, Barth’s acceptance of extra Calvinisticum51 provides a universal-inclusive basis for his Christology of anhypostasis and enhypostasis. This doctrine becomes, for Barth, not only an indication of the remaining majesty of divine Word even in his state of incarnation, but also—in Barth’s typical supplementary way—a witness for the divine actuality as well as for the divine universality of the Word.52 Marquardt assumes that Barth might revoke his previous radical rejection of theologia naturalis through his doctrine of reconciliation (cf. “The Light of Life,” CD IV/3.1 §69.2). As evidence for this, Marquardt introduces Barth’s own testimony in his interview with Brüdergemeine in 1961: “Later I retrieved the theologia naturalis via christology again. Today my critique would be: One must say theologia naturalis only differently, i.e., just christologically.”53
Given this fact, Marquardt’s basic thesis is that “the christological establishment of natural theology is identical with the transformation of structure of its inherited form.”54 What is here to be considered is not a renewal of theologia naturalis in affirmation of logos spermatikos, but a social and material transformation of its traditional form from a standpoint of a particular-inclusive Christology. Thus Marquardt takes a step further in insisting that within the universal-christological framework of Barth, the content and impulse of theologia naturalis is reappropriated, deepened, and transformed socially and materially through theologia revelationis. Christ’s divinity is to a theology of revelation what his humanity is to the content of theologia naturalis because in Jesus Christ the humanum of all humans is posited and exalted as such to the unity with God (CD IV/2:49). There is no natural realm existing independent of christological effectiveness. This is Marquardt’s approach to a material and social transformation of theologia naturalis in its inherited and traditional sense from a standpoint of the collectivity of the human species.55
To avoid a misunderstanding of a relation of Barth to natural theology in his doctrine of lights, Pangritz introduces an interpretation by Hans-Joachim Kraus: “The so-called ‘doctrine of lights’ represents the positive pole of the negation of natural theology. . . . Barth presents a christologically founded counterproposal to the theory of religion that is based in the doctrine of the logos spermatikos and was developed within the domain of natural theology.”56
However, Herman Diem disagrees with Marquardt’s thesis that Barth never totally rejected natural theology but denied it on political grounds.57 Strangely enough, Diem argues that Barth—even on the basis of the extra Calvinisticum—“rejected all attempts at a ‘mediating’ or natural theology.”58 Thus, Diem attacks Marquardt’s attempt at imputing the possibility of a natural theology from the perspective of the history of human species. Marquardt’s attempt would lead to a conceptual confusion in Barth’s Christology.
In a similar vein as Diem, McCormack rejects the possibility of natural theology in Barth. According to McCormack, Barth knew that in Reformed Christianity the Bible is indispensable as the rule of faith and life, but God could speak elsewhere in nature and history. McCormack argues that this has nothing to do with an affirmation of natural theology because revelation in the Bible or in nature and history is actualized by means of the source of revelation.59
Barth’s confrontation with Przywara concerning the analogia entis in Münster did not misrepresent or misinterpret Przywara’s concept of analogia entis as some scholars insist.60 As McCorrmack says, “Barth had not finally been satisfied that Przywara’s talk of ‘von Gott her’ had been sufficient to remove his anlogia entis from the sphere of Thomas’s realistic reflections. His understanding of the anlogia entis would not undergo any significant modification from this point on.”61 However, Balthasar is convinced of a radical christological orientation in Przywara. Beyond the Thomist-Scotist opposition, Przywara developed his concept of analogia entis through a radical christocentric framework.62
In dealing with Barth’s radical rejection of any form of natural theology and the analogia entis in both neo-Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, Han Küng cites the famous foreword to the first volume of Church Dogmatics: “I regard the analogia entis as the invention of Antichrist and think that because of it one cannot become Catholic. Whereupon I at the same time allow myself to regard all other reasons for not becoming Catholic, as short-sighted and lacking in seriousness” (CD I/1:x).
Barth’s radical rejection of Brunner’s idea of a point of contact for divine revelation was also relevant to Vatican I. According to Barth, Vatican I introduced a cleavage in the idea of one God, which led to a twofold sense of God: a natural and a supernatural God. Instead of the analogy of being, Barth introduced an analogy of faith. However, for Küng, Barth’s concept of analogia fidei “includes the analogy of being.”63 Moreover, when it comes to the lights, words, and truths of the created world in the doctrine of reconciliation, Küng accused Barth of not publicly admitting his retraction of his former position against natural theology and analogy of being.64 The following statement convinces Küng of Barth’s own correction of his former protest against the natural theology. “Dangerous modern expressions like the ‘revelation of creation’ or ‘primal revelation’ might be given a clear and unequivocal sense in this respect” (CD IV/3.1:140).
Moltmann goes a step further, regarding natural theology as the goal of Christian theology rather than regarding natural theology merely as the presupposition for Christian theology. Hans-Joachim Iwand becomes a mentor for Moltmann’s eschatological understanding of natural theology: “Natural revelation is not that from which we come; it is the light towards which we move. The lumen naturae is the reflection of the lumen gloriae. . . . The theme of true religion is the eschatological goal of theology.”