The Knowledge of God and the Service of God According to the Teaching of the Reformation. Karl Barth
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of God and the service of God according to the teaching of the Reformation, and it is about this that I would like to speak in these lectures, all the time continuing in my calling and subject to its ordinance, and continuing true to both of them. Roman Catholic theology stands in no clear antithesis to “Natural Theology” and just as little does this antithesis hold good of modern Protestant theology, as it has attained sway in most non-Roman churches since about the year 1700. Both are based on compromises with “Natural Theology.” Were I a Roman Catholic or a Protestant Modernist, I could not render “Natural Theology” the service which I would like to render it here. But the Reformation and the teaching of the Reformation churches stand in an antithesis to “Natural Theology” which is at once clear and instructive for both.
It is well known that the sixteenth century was not yet able to see that so clearly as we must see it to-day after the developments of the last four hundred years. The Reformers occasionally made a guarded and conditional use of the possibility of “Natural Theology” (as, e.g. Calvin in the first chapters of his Institutes), but they made occasionally also an unguarded and unconditional use of it (as did, e.g. Luther and Calvin in their teaching on the Law)—that, however, in no way alters the principle, that the revival of the gospel by Luther and Calvin consisted in their desire to see both the church and human salvation founded on the Word of God alone, on God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, as it is attested in the Scripture, and on faith in that Word. This is the reason why their teaching—if we disregard the fact that in its historical form it is not absolutely free from certain elements of “Natural Theology”—is the clear antithesis to that form of teaching which declares that man himself possesses the capacity and the power to inform himself about God, the world and man. From the point of view of Reformed teaching what could be more impossible than this task, undertaken by all “Natural Theology”? And similarly because the teaching of the Reformation is so absolute an opponent of “Natural Theology,” the latter could have no other opponent, whom it must look full in the face so frankly and with so much interest. We shall have opportunity here and there in these lectures to make this antithesis clear.
But the proving of this antithesis is not to be the aim of these lectures. They will not therefore be devoted to the refutation of “Natural Theology.” This is not only because this aim would be incompatible with good faith towards Lord Gifford’s will. The decisive reason is that the Reformation teaching does not live by its antithesis to “Natural Theology” in the way in which the latter lives by its antithesis to Reformed teaching. Even if there were no “Natural Theology,” Reformed teaching would be just as it is. It lives independently by its positive content. For this reason we must turn our attention to this positive content—and we must do so for the sake of our proposed service to “Natural Theology” as well. If it is to know whom it is contradicting and if it is really to have the opportunity once more of measuring itself by its most dangerous opponent, it must not hear exclusively or even primarily this opponent’s denial of it, but must first and foremost hear the positive affirmation of that opponent, in order that then and from that position it may perhaps also understand the denial which is directed against it. In these lectures I shall therefore endeavour to speak not negatively but positively, without, however, losing sight of the problem of “Natural Theology.”
IV
In order to remind us that we are dealing here not with my personal opinions but with the teaching of the Reformed church, these lectures on that teaching will not take the form of an independent outline, but will be connected with a document of the Reformation. Further, taking into account the specifically Scottish character of the Gifford foundation, this document will be a document of the Scottish Reformation. In responsibility towards what was 325 years later offered “to the whole population of Scotland,” I am letting John Knox and his friend speak in their Confessio Scotica of 1560. This is not to take the form of an historical analysis of the Scottish Confession, but that of a theological paraphrase and elucidation of the document as it speaks to-day and as we to-day by a careful objective examination of its content can hear it speak. I say “to-day” advisedly. I am aware that in present-day Scotland the Confessio Scotica has no longer any significance as a standard of the church. Naturally it has no significance in that sense for me either. On that account we shall be in a position to listen to what it has to say all the more impartially. The Confession of a church, if it was once a good confession, cannot lose its message just because it has lost its significance as a standard of the church. He that has ears to hear, hears it even then. And the confession of John Knox is a good confession—and, moreover, in many respects a very original and interesting confession. And besides, even if it had significance as a standard of the church, it could not even then be understood as a code of doctrine binding us by its letters and sentences. Reformation teaching knows of no law set over it except the spiritual law of the Scripture, which must be heeded ever anew. Reformation teaching neither can nor will insinuate itself between us and Scripture. The Confessio Scotica itself declares in Article 18: “The interpretation [of Scripture] we confesse, neither appertaines to private nor publick persone, nether zit to ony Kirk for ony preheminence or prerogative personallie or locallie, quhilk ane hes above ane uther, bot apperteines to the Spirite of God, be the quhilk also the Scripture was written.” And it applies this to itself in the words of the preface, “Protestand that gif onie man will note in this our confessioun onie artickle or sentence repugnand to Gods Halie word, that it wald pleis him of his gentleness and for Christian charities sake to admonish us of the same in writing; and we upon our honoures and fidelitie, be Gods grace do promise unto him satisfactioun fra the mouth of God, that is fra his haly scriptures, or else reformation of that quhilk he sal prove to be amisse.” That means manifestly that when we associate ourselves with this document, we must at the same time remain free in relation to it—free to give heed to the Scripture itself. The Confessio Scotica wishes to be read and understood as a signpost pointing to Scripture. To understand it in any other sense would be to fail to understand it in its true and historical significance. Therefore the theological paraphrase and elucidation of the Confessio Scotica, that I would like to offer here, is to be a repetition, exposition and presentation of its text in the way in which according to its own purport it desires to be read and understood to-day—as a witness to Scripture and therefore in the light of Scripture, which authenticates but also criticises it. It goes without saying that my treatment of the text of the Confession is subjected to the same standard and ultimately to this standard only.
(Art. 1a)
OF GOD
We confesse and acknawledge ane onelie God, to whom only we must cleave, whom onelie we must serve, whom onelie we must worship, and in whom onelie we must put our trust.
I
“We confesse and acknawledge God.…” So begins the Scottish Confession. Who or what lies hidden behind this word “God”—a word with which indeed we are only too familiar? All confessions of all churches and religions purport to treat of “God.” What is conceived by all other “believers,” past, present and future, whatever the manner, place and date of their belief, is certainly not what the Scottish Confession means by the object of its profession. The Confession does not conceive its object at all, it acknowledges it: “We confesse and acknawledge.” And before we have time to ask it how and where it acknowledges God, it has already singled out a part of this knowledge of God,—or should we not rather say the whole of it?—and placed it before us in the words “We confesse and acknawledge ane onelie God.” It thus puts to us, so to speak, the counter question whether we ourselves do not acknowledge this same one and only God, and whether we have not long known how and where He, the one and only God, was to be acknowledged. But a Confession cannot wait for the assent of its hearers. This, it says, this is God, the one and only God, “to whom only we must cleave, whom onelie we must serve, whom onelie we must worship, and in whom onelie we must put our trust.”