Abstract
Two further massive half-volumes of the Church Dogmatics are here made available in an English version. Any reviewer must first pay tribute alike to the majestic scope of the author’s work and to the unflagging energy and skill of his translators. Vol. II, Part 2 is concerned with the two themes of election and of ethics. The first of these is dealt with in a manner both original and stimulating. Barth insists on the absolute sovereignty of God’s predestinating will, but at the same time emphasizes throughout that this must be seen as something that occurs in and through Jesus Christ and not in any sense behind or apart from him. This is followed by a treatment of ethics under the heading of the command of God. Ethics, Barth says, must come in here because it ‘belongs not only to dogmatics in general but to the doctrine of God’ (p. 512). But could not the same claim be made with equal justification for any other branch of dogmatic theology? Vol. IV, Part 2 deals with the exaltation of the Son of Man and the resultant sanctification of man. Here, as in the treatment of Election, the main emphasis is that renewal of life has come to every man in Jesus and that unbelief is self-contradiction, a denial of the truth about ourselves.
All these themes are worked out with great power and with a wealth of exegetical support. They are expounded on such a scale that it is impossible to do justice to the treatment of them in a comparatively brief review. It must suffice to say that no one could fail to find a wealth of stimulation and inspiration in the profundity and the vigour of the theological exposition.
Nevertheless, within the context of this primary recognition of the theological greatness of the work, four peripheral criticisms which have grown out of the reading of these 1,600 pages may be set down.
The work is too long. This has frequently been said. I believe that it can rightly be said in the only proper sense that the words can bear – namely, that what is here said could without loss have been said more briefly. The exegetical passages, which are frequently the most illuminating of all, sometimes read more into the text than can reasonably be allowed. E.g. the insistence on a connexion between the paradounai of Judas' betrayal and that of Christian tradition involves a badly misplaced ingenuity (Vol. II, Part 2, p. 482). There is a tendency towards loose affirmations of a speculative character which ill conform to the professed basis of Barth’s thought. E.g. what justification is there for speaking of conditions under which ‘God does not will to be God’ (Vol. II, Part 2, p. 308)? There is an element of obscurity which is clearly deliberate. E.g. it is no accident or oversight that after an exhaustive treatment of the theme of Election covering 506 pages, we are still left in doubt whether Barth believes that the New Testament teaching implies universalism or not. He appears to do so, but never formally commits himself.
But these are peripheral. If these volumes be taken not as final models but as stimuli for our theological work, they will be of incalculable benefit to the life and thought of the Church.
Lecturer in Theology at Ibadan and appointed Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford, in 1970
Originally published in Theology 62 (466): 158–9 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0040571X5906246611>.