Theology and Church. Karl Barth
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investigation and its relevance to the concern of theology. But theology is concerned with the Word become flesh, with the activity of God in space and time, and therefore it is concerned with these concrete objectivities that are necessarily open to empirical and critical observation only in their relation to the ultimate objectivity of God who has come to us in their midst to reveal himself to us and reconcile us to himself. It is that fact that differentiates theological science so radically from natural science, for it is concerned with the outward objectivities of space and time as the form in which it encounters the Object of knowledge who is indissolubly Subject, and which it only knows as Object in so far as it knows it as Subject—although, of course, it does not know the Subject except so far as he makes himself Object of human knowledge within the realm of man’s nature and existence.
It is this essential and profound polarity of its given object—which Barth calls its primary and secondary objectivity—that distinguishes theological knowledge from every other kind of knowledge or science. This differentiation, however, is a scientific difference, that is, a difference arising out of precise and exact behaviour in accordance with the nature of its proper object. Thus theology differs from natural science both in regard to the direction and source of its knowledge and in regard to the nature of its object, but within that difference it is still true that methodologically theology stands closer to the empirical sciences than to philosophy, and is indeed better described as theological science than as sacred philosophy.
The closeness between theological science and natural science becomes apparent when we note the formal points which they have in common, and the scientific way in which theology develops its own peculiar method.
Barth notes three main points which theological and empirical science have in common, over against philosophy.
(a) They do not operate with a world-view or necessarily develop a cosmology. By their very dedication to their object, they renounce all prior understandings of the universe, and refuse to construct a cosmological interpretation which will serve as a guide to further investigation. Natural science confines itself strictly to phenomena, and refuses to mix its studies up with philosophy, although, of course, it may well listen to philosophical questions in so far as they help it to get free from presuppositions and so help it toward purer objectivity. Theology likewise is dedicated to its proper object, and it is precisely its attachment to its object that detaches it from all presuppositions arising from philosophy or tradition or any other source—not, of course, that the theologian, or the natural scientist, is ever without these or can ever ultimately escape them, but that methodological renunciation of presuppositions (except the one presupposition of its object) is scientifically demanded of it. It is for that reason that neither theological nor empirical science can properly lead to or result in cosmological constructions, or speculative ontologies of the universe.
(b) Both theological science and empirical science recognize the centrality of man in the cosmos—both recognize that they are human endeavours, aspects of human thinking and research, and cannot transcend the human correlate in that activity. Thus inevitably and practically empirical science describes the cosmos as the cosmos of man, the cosmos of human observation and inference, knowledge of which is limited accordingly. For theology, too, the cosmos has an anthropocentric orientation, not because the starting-point of man’s knowledge is from man himself, and not simply because he can engage only in human thinking, but because his thinking takes its rise from and is determined by the Word of God which is addressed to man in the midst of the cosmos. Theology cannot and must not try to, but does not need to, usurp God’s standpoint, for God has come to give man knowledge both of God and man himself from within the sphere accessible to and knowable by man, who may thus have knowledge of God without renouncing his human standpoint. Indeed, it is because God addresses his Word to man in the world, and loves the world which he has made, that theology looks in the direction of the address and love of God—toward the world, as well as toward God. Only because it must travel with the Word the road from God to man in the world, does it and may it travel the road from man in the world to God as the goal of all its knowledge.
(c) Theological science and empirical science resemble one another in that both recognize two fundamentally distinct realms, the realm of the observable and objectifiable, and the realm beyond, which is outside the range of human observation and comprehension. Theology calls these heaven and earth, Barth says, but although empirical science uses different language, it no less than theology respects the difference between heaven and earth; that is to say, it respects the limited range of human observation, investigation, and description, and therefore also reckons with the realm of what is inaccessible to man. As exact science it cannot deny that realm, but acknowledges it at least as the frontier of its knowledge, where it calls a halt precisely in order to be exact science. Therefore, as empirical science, it maintains a respectful silence about what lies on the other side of its frontier, and does not seek to extend its method (built up in correlation with the observable and objectifiable) beyond its range and so to corrupt it.
With the exact sciences that maintain strict scientific faithfulness theological science can engage in fruitful discussion, but it is also the responsibility of theology to take cognizance of what these other sciences have to teach especially about the phenomena of the human or the characteristics of man as a creature, and to relate to it its own knowledge of the reality of man derived from the Word of God; for it is precisely to this man, with his scientific endeavours that the Word of God is addressed, and upon the whole of his existence that it lays the claim of the divine grace.
The methodological closeness of theology to empirical science is seen at a deeper level in the essentially scientific way in which it develops its method, for it does not bring to its task a method that it has already thought out or acquired, but elaborates a method only in its actualization of knowledge. Neither theological science nor empirical science knows a method in abstraction from the material content of its actual subject-matter. Thus the questions theology asks are not correlated with the subject but with the object. If it brings questions to its object, it is only in order that they may themselves be called in question by the object and be restated in accordance with the nature of the object. They are questions designed to let the object declare itself, and so are framed as questions that the object by its nature puts to the inquirer. In so far as they are thus correlated with the subject they are acts of self-criticism designed to clear away all artificiality and to open a way for seeing what is actually there and for learning what the objective reality has to disclose to us unhindered and undistorted, as far as possible, by any prior understanding on the part of the subject undertaking the inquiry. The questions that are put are only designed by the theologian or the scientist in order to let himself be told what he cannot tell himself and must genuinely learn. For theology this kind of inquiry is an act of repentant humility.
Of course, in the nature of the case, the kind of inquiry in which theology engages face to face with its object will differ from the kind of inquiry in which natural science engages face to face with its object, for the nature of object in each case demands that difference as a part of its scientific obedience. Natural science is concerned with creaturely objects, and, as a rule, with mute objects, so that although we speak here of letting the object disclose itself and yield to us knowledge of it, that is a way of insisting upon objectivity in investigation. But the kind of question the scientist has to put to these objects to make them ‘talk’ or yield their secrets are scientific experiments in which he compels them to reveal themselves. Controlled experiment is the kind of inquiry appropriate to inanimate creaturely objects, but the kind of inquiry appropriate to other human beings will pass beyond that to a kind which allows the other actively and willingly to reveal himself as one human person to another. The kind of inquiry that theology directs toward God must, scientifically, be appropriate to the nature of God before whom I am questioned before I begin to ask questions, whom I can know only as I am known by him, and knowledge of whom I can articulate only as he gives himself to me to be known. In other words, the kind of inquiry proper to theological science is prayer, inquiry which we address to God as the Truth in order that we may listen to what he tells us of himself, and may understand it only under his illumination of our minds. It is because the object of theological knowledge confronts us always as Subject, and indeed as absolute Subject, as the Lord God, that prayer is the scientifically correct mode of inquiry, for it is