Updated for grammar and content, 11/23/11.
Barth preferred to identify his theology with two different terms: evangelical theology and biblical theology. According to Barth, theology was “evangelical” because its existence was “in the service of the Word of God’s covenant of grace and power.”* His "Dogmatics," 13 volumes containing more than 7 million words and 80,000 references to the biblical message merit the label, "biblical theology," precisely because it was a biblical theology. His writings are not apologetical in the slightest.
Because Barth’s theology was a “biblical” theology, the following is the case: He never quoted outside sources as “authority” for what he wrote. He did not believe that philosophy should have any role to play in one’s personal theology, leaving only the biblical message as foundational. Textual criticism was not important enough to him, to allow its consideration in the development of his personal theology. Because he believed that the reading and study of the biblical message was an inspired event - "God works his will in the proclamation of his word” - he did not feel the need to justify "First Isaiah" with a "Second Isaiah." There is no effort, on the part of Barth, to place greater import on the Synoptics, over and above John's gospel. Whether there were 400 or 4,000 stalls in Solomon's stables was of no concern to Barth. You will not find the great theologian dealing with the issue of a late date for Mark, or "Q" or any number of seemingly contradictory statements found throughout the Message. The whole topic of textual criticism is sorely lacking in his work. The women went to the tomb after dawn in the Synoptic Gospels, but, before dawn, "while it was yet dark" in the Johannine message. Which was it? Don't look to Barth for the "solution." Why? Because he firmly believed the biblical message was a chosen medium for continuing the revelation of and about God to man.** It was sanctified for his purposes, as are the disciples of God in Christ. From the earliest of times, God had elected to use the written word in the proclamation of his will. The written word is "right" and effective, an offering of life giving grace solely because God wills this to be the case, without regard to the actuality of the proposition. The Bible “works for us” because God invests himself, his very person, in the “process” as we read and listen and consider its message.
God, and only God, is “infallible;” that is the critical issue when Barth discusses biblical inerrancy. If God is as we say, infallible, how he chooses to use the Bible is irrelevant, except for the fact, of course, that he is using the Bible.
Is the Bible infallibly written? Is the Bible the Word of God or does it contain the word of God? These questions are often used to frame the debate about the Bible as relates to its "reliability." Because Karl Barth believed in the election of the biblical message as that which would be used by God in the proclamation of his didache, the question of its "correctness" or "infallibility" probably seemed somewhat unimportant to him. After all, a sovereign God can make anything work for his “good pleasure,” can he not?
Can God use or work through "error" to get his will done? Did we somehow miss the fact that none of the apostles stood with Christ at his trial or attended his crucifixion except for John? Have we forgotten that the First Church was 100% Jewish, in its make-up? Have we lost track of the fact that these Jewish Christians, continued to practice the Jewish system of sacrifice and atonement? Is it not important that the Church grew to record proportions before the Bible and its message was codified and ratified? Is it not germane to this discussion that the Church continued through the centuries, before the printing press and the use of a personal Bible? The fact of the matter is this: the Church needed and possessed the word of God long before the invention of the Bible as we know it today.
This silly notion that God is driven from us because of our sins, that a holy God cannot be confronted with sin, is as unbiblical a thought as can be found. While God is holy and man is not, the Christ of God is the mediator of our salvation, the mediator between God and man. It is in him that we have salvation and "that, not of ourselves, it is the gift of God." As Son of God, he can save anyone he wills to save; as Son of Man, he died that all would be saved. It is the Christ of God who has determined that our faith is considered to be righteousness when no righteousness can be found (the Abrahamic promise) .
If the Sovereignty of God trumps our inabilities and imperfections, his manifest will cannot be defeated. And, likewise, if God is Sovereign, then the question of biblical infallibility should not be a stumbling block. I have been a Christian for 54 years and have been a vigorous student of the Bible for most of that time. . . . . vigorous, I say. I have never found anything in the biblical message that has ever caused me the slightest concern. It is easy for me to believe in the "infallibility" of the Message. But, there are those who find this most difficult. I have a son that falls into that category.
Ten years ago, this infallibility issue was a problem for him. Today, it is not. Why? Because he believes in the living Word as he (the Living Word) mediates the written message. If the Bible is the "Word of God," then it is the message that "belongs" to God. It is in his trust and functions within a divine sovereignty that makes its content irresistible, "infallibly" so, if you will.
Never forget that Barth was a dialectic. He had no problem seeing the Bible as fallible and infallible, at the same time.
We misrepresent Barth's reverence for the Bible when we argue that he did not believe in the veracity of the Bible. But his faith in the Bible began with his belief in the sovereignty of God and was not based on his ability to defend the issue of infallibility*** . His faith in the Bible began with God, not with a well stated apologetic that, then, opened the door to a consideration of God, himself. With Barth, nothing stood between him and his faith in God.
Note: I am a proud Fundamentalist . . . . just not proud of all its priorities. Many of my good friends are “stuck,” when having to deal with someone who refuses to agree with the idea of “verbal, plenary inspiration.” Their belief in an infallible biblical message is the beginning point for their faith as well as the beginning point for the sharing of that faith. They do not begin with God, they begin with the proof of infallibility. My son could not agree with the infallibility claim. So, what did his Dad do (that would be me)? I ignored the problem. Today, he shares the same reverence for scripture as I and the Living Christ moves him in all that he does, seriously.
In time, my son stopped asking for proof of the infallibility and simply began to prayerfully consider its narrative. The issue of infallibility became a useless pursuit, for him. We sing the song, "there is power in the Word," and that power is God, himself, alive and active as we read his written witness.
Indeed, it was Barth who once summarized all that he had written, with these words, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." He actually said that to someone. His reverence for scripture is profoundly stated in this proclamation. But, how can that be? Because he believed in the infallibility of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . God. My Fundamentalist friends begin with “infallibility” rather than God. NT Wright, a wonderful Christian scholar, begins his theology pushing for a proper understanding of “Second Temple” historicity, thinking as he does, that Christ must be correctly defined, historically, before the biblical message can be understood. Wow. Still, others begin with a properly worded “Statement of Faith,” most of which begin with “infallibility,” God coming in 2nd or 3rd place in these statements. Barth’s thinking began with God. That is why he spends so little time with apologetics or textual criticism. He does not care about 1st and 2nd Isaiah, for example, because his God is fully capable of using the two Isaiah’s as we share in his revelation. Understand that with Barth, we are not simply studying the Bible, we are involved in the very process of revelation.
Understand this: Barth started with “God,” and never took time to “prove” the existence of God. He reasoned that if God existed, we did not need to argue for the fact, and if he did not exist, no amount of words would make it otherwise.
If Barth would not take time to argue for the existence of God, why would we expect him to, then, develop an apologetic for the veracity of His [biblical] message? Barth only needed to know that God was alive. Infallibility was assumed, as was his (Barth) participation in revelation.
End Notes:
* – Evangelical Theology – an introduction, Karl Barth, © 1963, p.20 (end of first paragraph)
**/ *** - “Exegetical theology investigates biblical teaching as the basis of our talk with God. Dogmatics, too, must constantly keep it in view. But only in God and not for us is the true basis for Christian utterance identical with its true content.” Dogmatics, 1.1, p 16. Two things are important, here; that God is the starting point for a meaningful theology and, two, the Bible is the “basis of our talk with God.” People want to pretend that Barth did not believe this. Shame on them.
"The Pastor and the Faithful should not deceive themselves into thinking that they are a religious society, which has to do with certain themes; they live in the world. We still need - according to my old formulation - the Bible and the Newspaper." (remarks made in a 1966 interview, per Eberhard Bush, a Barthian biographer). I include this quote because I believe it goes to Barth's view of the importance of the Bible. Again, the notion that Barth was a raving liberal with no regard for the Bible is one of the more preposterous lies told about the man. Disgusting.
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