God In Action. Karl Barth
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point of becoming fashionable again. We do not know, nor ought we to care, whither this development will lead. It is not our business either to foster or to hamper it. But we need to be aware that today in particular the question has become decisive if the Church will become and be at the place where the one thing is done that makes it and preserves it as a Church. Without it we shall surely win victories; but they will soon prove to be grave defeats. And with equal certainty, real victories which may today come suddenly within its grasp will escape it.
The path of the Church is remarkably narrow indeed. It is so for the reason that in thinking of the Church we are thinking, almost with a sort of natural necessity, either in terms of Roman Catholicism or modernistic Protestantism, or, alternating between the errors of the one or the other, we develop a combination and synthesis of them. The only method of escape out of this labyrinth is and can be the method of the Holy Spirit and of faith.
In defining man’s lending his ear to God as being the decisive moment of the Church, we surely emphasize also its humanity, its worldliness, and its profane character. And we state it to be not a mere blemish when we say that the very existence, form, and message of the Church shares in the darkness of the man who has lost God and who remains lost if God does not recover him. In fact, the Church participates to an even fuller extent in the world’s darkness and is even more profane than the rest of the world surrounding it. For the man who hears God—in fact, he alone—is aware of his profane character. It is essential to the Church that nothing human is foreign to it. It is always and everywhere the Church of man, a Church of particular ages and peoples, and languages and cultures. But beyond these, its sympathy, yes, its solidarity with the world is most complete where it seems to differ most sharply from the world: e.g., the world of politics, of science, or of art: in the Church the boundaries of humanity are respected and guarded. The Church does not worship idols. It does not cultivate ideologies. In the Church man must needs have a very sober view and understanding of himself. He sees his finitude and nakedness, his limitations and solitariness. The world was not always grateful to the Church for ignoring its idols. It is a well-known fact that there were times when the world persecuted the Church for this reason. Perhaps the Church would suffer persecution again, if it would clearly set forth its distinctiveness from the world by ignoring its idols.
But let it not be overlooked, in that which really makes it differ from the world, the Church is even more worldly than the world, more humanistic than the humanists. In it, it comes nearer to the real meaning of every human tragedy-comedy which as an attempt on one man’s part to help himself could be genuine only if it confines itself within its natural limitations by waiving all religious pomp and claims. The world’s secret is the non-existence of its gods. At the price of floods of tears and blood, the world keeps denying its secret and seeks to populate nature and history with its idols. The deep reason of its unrest is its refusal to confess its profane character. The Church is aware of this secret of the world. It must not permit itself to be befuddled by reproaches and accusations. Just so it is truly loyal to the world.
But this faithfulness of the Church to the world is after all possible only as the reverse side of an entirely different loyalty. The Church is in existence where man hears God. Not gods, not something divine, but God. God is not a power or a truth, or even a being which man can discover by himself in order to clothe it with the title of deity. On the contrary, God is He who became known to man as his real Lord by meeting Him by his initiative in judgment, forgiveness, sanctification, and promise: by revealing himself. That this has happened we are told by apostles and phophets. Who else should have told us? To be sure, many books bring us records of gods and things divine; but of God Himself this book alone. Where the voice of those was heard who stood in expectation and remembrance of Jesus Christ, the Church came into existence: et in hanc petram ædificabo ecelesiam meam. Where the Scriptures speak—and through the Scriptures God Himself in the language of His mighty deeds—and where man hears—hears God Himself in the word of his witnesses—there the Church comes into existence and exists. We deny the existence of the Church apart from this relationship.
In this relationship it is begotten and born to the world. It is nourished by it. In it, it has room to move and air to breathe. This relationship possesses the peculiar character of revelation itself, and the Church does not acknowledge the existence of any compensatory substitute for it. It is the sole riches of the Church. But it is the Church’s life-condition also, and its neglect must result in its immediate plunge into an abyss of nothingness. It is to the Church that the gospel, with its mysterious mark of excellence over the state, over every school of philosophy, over conservative as well as revolutionary movements, gives to humanity’s history its manifold and constantly changing forms. But it is also very simply the law of the Church to which it must cling. In its exposition and obedience it must continually exercise itself if it is to remain—or become again—Church.
Note well the relationship between the Holy Scriptures and the Church, and the foundation of the Church on this rock of Peter, is at no time anything less than a revelatory event, i.e., the eternal word and its Holy Spirit in action. For this reason, the testimony of the prophets and apostles which is the means of this action, as a tool in God’s hands as it were, stands always sovereign, above the Church and its teachers and preachers, its dogmas, customs, and institutions. These latter are bound to the former while the former is not bound to the latter. The Scriptures govern the Church, and not the Church the Scriptures.
But note well: the Scriptures as a tool in God’s hands. For they are only human testimony of divine revelation. Therefore, the Scriptures, so far as God elects to speak at this moment and under these circumstances to these people through these men and determines so to build His Church; the Scriptures which at times to many or to all is almost, if not actually, a sealed book; the Scriptures which speak to us perhaps in only relatively small portions as our contemporary; the Scriptures from which the word of God strikes us always as a flash of lightning out of dark clouds—but which as a whole demand our constant attention because as a whole their origin and meaning bear witness of divine revelation and for this reason are rightfully called “Holy” Scriptures, canon of the Church, by which the Church is constantly measured and which it is the Church’s duty constantly to search and humbly to expound.
This is the other, and the genuine and original faithfulness which is peculiar to the Church. This is its faithfulness to God. For faithfulness to God means for the Church, simply and concretely, faithfulness to this book. In this faithfulness, the Church’s faithfulness to the world is rooted. It makes the Church a place where sobriety reigns and therefore a place of a genuinely worldly character. The question if and how the Church can exist, depend simply and concretely on the other questions whether the Church is capable of putting its confidence in this book, and therefore feels constrained to obey it. In such trust and obedience consists what was previously called the method of the Holy Spirit and of faith. Study the history of the Church! Did it ever consist in anything else? And whoever is concerned about what the world thinks of the Church ought to become aware of the fact that the world is interested in only one question about the Church: Does the Church still dare, and dare ever and ever again, to cling simply and concretely to the method of the Holy Spirit and faith? The Church which dared to do so always overcame the kingdoms of this world—secretly or openly. But the Church gained this mastery only where it did not seek it. For in order to make this method effective, the last security of Roman Catholic and modernistic clericalism must be sacrificed.
If it is true that hearing the word of God, submission to it, and being bound by it constitutes the concrete order of life for the Church—if it is true that the Church comes to life, always and ever, by the word of apostles and prophets as it calls us to join their ranks in order that with them we may become face to face with the initiative of God and with them become witnesses of revelation and hearers of his word—then it is also true that life in the Church, yes the life of the Church itself, must be humility and service.
In more than one instance the New Testament gives to those who desire to listen to God and to the word of his prophets and apostles as its foremost direction the admonition to tapeinophrosune. It signifies thinking in submissive abasement before God and men. There is no danger that a spirit of domination will die out either in public or private life. The state represents sovereignty, culture means dominion, and even the