Abstract
The ethical legacy of the Swiss theologian Karl Barth continues to be a topic of significant interest in the field of Christian ethics. This volume, written by David Haddorff, Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at St. John’s University in New York, is the latest in a series of recent monographs devoted to the theme. The author follows the trajectory of many of the more recent works in offering an appreciative account of Barth’s ethics, but broaches new ground in seeking to bring Barth’s ethics into explicit dialogue with issues in culture and society today. Drawing his constructive engagement with Barth’s moral ontology under the over-arching rubric of witness, Haddorff seeks to demonstrate the significance and relevance of Barth’s ethics for contemporary Christian ethics and practice.
The book is ordered into an introduction and four parts. The introduction begins by sketching the postmodern world in which Haddorff suggests we find ourselves. He posits that this age holds out both ‘the possibility of great hopes … [and] uncertainties about our future’ (p. 3), and concludes that postmodernity is ‘not only ambiguous about our future but also about the process of determining ethical actions which benefit humanity’s future’ (p. 5). This leads Haddorff to introduce the work of Karl Barth as a potentially helpful resource to provide answers to contemporary ethical questions. In particular, he affirms Barth’s central contention that ‘Christian ethics begins with a prior understanding of theological ethics, which is … an ethics of witness’ (p. 7), such that ‘human actions responsibly correspond to God’s covenant-partnership with the world’ (p. 12). These contentions, central to the work as a whole, are further developed in the chapters ahead.
Part One of the work is entitled ‘Ethics and Barth’s Witness: Theology and Practice’. In its three chapters, Haddorff seeks to ground his later constructive work in a consideration of some of the background context and fundamental principles of Barth’s ethics. Chapter 1 explores the discipline of theological ethics in its transition from modernity to postmodernity, surveying the possibilities and dangers at each stage. It opens with a short treatment of modernity in general (and Descartes in particular), progresses through a series of reflections on modern theology and ethics (focusing on the work of Kant and Schleiermacher), and culminates in an initial outline of postmodern theology. The promise of the latter lies in the way in which it ‘cannot simply reject the past (as did modernity), nor simply return to the past (premodern)’ (p. 48), but allows instead ‘the old to critically and creatively meet the new … to reframe the new in light of the old’ (p. 49, original emphasis); the danger lies, however, in the marked tendency of postmodernity towards nihilism. Chapters 2 and 3 together pursue a second avenue of exploration, tracking the development of Barth’s ethical thinking from 1916 to 1931 and from 1931 to 1968 respectively. Together, the two chapters offer an impressive survey and summary of a vast array of historical material, and draw out a number of largely consistent emphases in Barth’s ethical work: the radical otherness of God, the divine election to be for humanity in Jesus Christ, the location of the Trinitarian command of God within this gospel of grace, the denial of natural theology and natural law, the grounding of human freedom in divine agency, and the witness of righteous human action undertaken in humble obedience. Significantly for the approach that follows, Haddorff observes that, for Barth, the work of the Christian ethicist must be neither isolationist nor apologetical and must be firmly located in a particular time and place.
Haddorff engages with rather different material in Part Two, which bears the rubric ‘Postmodernity and a World at Risk’. Here he turns to a social and ethical analysis of the postmodern situation, unpacking further the ‘ambiguity’ mentioned in the Introduction. Haddorff posits that the justification for this analysis lies in the cautious yet humble openness of Barth’s ethics to insights from other disciplines; he thus assumes an ‘“eavesdropping” strategy that remains open to hearing “parables of the kingdom” where we may find them’ (p. 129). Chapter 4 explores social theory and postmodernity, offering descriptions of postmodernity from deconstructionist and reflexive perspectives, and considering various contemporary views of globalism and risk together with their implications for discourse about God and religion. The conclusion drawn is that ‘[s]ocial theory wrongly presumes that a theory of moral reflexivity can be articulated without appealing to some moral framework for ethics’ (p. 159). Chapter 5 turns to ethical philosophy and postmodernity, offering descriptions of postmodern ethics from (again) both deconstructionist/pragmatist and reflexive perspectives. Again, the conclusion is drawn that ‘the epistemological framework in postmodernity has made it increasingly difficult to understand and articulate a coherent moral ontology’ (p. 190). The solution to this postmodernist deficit therefore lies in a moral ontology grounded in ‘the actions of a free God who chooses to act with and for others in a covenantal-partnership’ (p. 193). Throughout these chapters, the range of knowledge and analysis on view is deeply impressive. Figures from Lyotard to Giddens and from Derrida to Rorty serve as dialogue partners in a multi-faceted and inter-disciplinary conversation, even if the ultimate conclusion to the conversation—which indicates the desirability and imminence of a return to the ethics of Barth—seems rather foregone.
In Part Three, under the rubric ‘Witness and Barth’s Ethics: Toward Contemporary Understanding’, Haddorff correspondingly revisits Barth’s theological ethics (particularly as found in the Church Dogmatics) to explore the theological underpinnings of Barth’s ethics of witness in more detail. Chapter 6 considers issues of theological realism, divine command and human agency, detailing how these topics are treated by Barth and considering various critics of his position. The key for Haddorff lies in perceiving that, for Barth, ‘Christian ethics is an ethics of responsible witness of the Christian community to God’s past, present, and future action’ (p. 219), a witness that can take the form of action for good or resistance against evil. The subsequent two chapters address these forms. Chapter 7 considers the Yes of responsible moral action and the related ideas of witness, liberation and discipleship, as well as Barth’s view of the role of Christian moral judgement. The chapter concludes with a sustained conversation between Barth and Hauerwas on the understanding of agency and witness. Chapter 8, meanwhile, considers the No of responsible Christian resistance against the powers of evil, embarking on a brief treatment of nothingness and a longer exposition of Barth’s work on the spiritual and chthonic powers. Some of the material from Part Two is reprised here in connection with the postmodern view of the powers; rejecting the postmodern outcome that ‘it is the human subject that becomes the central agent of deliberation and action in the world’ (p. 299), Haddorff endorses instead the Christian confession of the living God and of Christus Victor over the powers. Chapter 9, finally, analyses the task of Christian ethics today in terms of its relation to public ethics, drawing Barth into conversation with James Gustafson, Robin Lovin and John Milbank. Haddorff concludes that, in his ethical work, Barth ‘dialectically weaves his way between the twin poles of synthesis and diastasis avoiding the risks of secular reductionism and theological esotericism’ (p. 340). Throughout this section, Haddorff shows himself to be an accomplished expositor and defender of Barth, conversant not only with the primary literature but also with its commentators.
Part Four, entitled ‘Christian Ethics as Witness: Political, Economic, and Environmental’, desires to draw Barth’s ethics directly into conversation with contemporary issues. Chapter 10 engages the theme of responsible witness, focusing on the three inter-related areas of the Christian life within which this occurs—the personal, the ecclesial, and the worldly. Haddorff concludes that the social witness of Christians in these areas is called to be eschatological, dialectical, and open-ended, seeking responsible obedience while eschewing moral absolutism. What this means in practice is investigated in the final three chapters, the most creative and constructive section of the book, which thematically draw on Church Dogmatics IV/1-3 respectively. The first, chapter 11, attends to the priestly work of Christ and the virtue of faith in political witness (against the sin of pride and the power of leviathan); the second, chapter 12, attends to the kingly work of Christ and the virtue of love in economic witness (against the sin of sloth and the power of mammon); and the third, chapter 13, attends to the prophetic work of Christ and the virtue of hope in environmental witness (against the sin of falsehood and the power of ideology). The result is the Christian pursuit of the goals of peace and democracy, justice and reform, and freedom and ecology, a witness rendered ‘possible because, in Jesus Christ, human moral agency is restored, healed, and allowed to live in free response to God’s relational command of grace’ (p. 446). By virtue of the nature of Barth’s ethics itself, the concrete results of these chapters can only be ostensive, indicating simply the lines and contours which obedient Christian activity in the contemporary world might follow. But it is to Haddorff’s credit that they are nonetheless carefully explained and impressively drawn.
The volume of material covered in this book is substantial, covering a vast range of sources and commentators and engaging in a huge variety of conversations and controversies. That Haddorff is able to attempt this task, let alone accomplish it with both competent assurance and creative flair, is deeply impressive.
On the one hand, Haddorff offers a highly competent survey and generally sympathetic analysis of Barth’s theological ethics. In the process, he attends well to some of the complex controversies surrounding issues of interpretation and evaluation, and demonstrates a sound theological awareness of the broader systematic context of Barth’s ethical work. There are issues, of course, upon which one may wish to demur. The ready endorsement of a ‘Chalcedonian pattern’ of divine and human agency (p. 211) is not without its problems, while the apparent conflation of the shadow-side of creation and nothingness (p. 272) may be rather misconceived. More significant, perhaps, is the unwillingness of the author to interpret Barth at face value in respect of the latter’s repeated affirmations throughout his work of the concrete specificity of the divine command. Haddorff denies that the divine command is a ‘moral imperative’ (p. 209) or a ‘situational moral imperative’ (p. 250) and posits that the divine command ‘does not give us knowledge or content about one specific course of action’ (p. 250). Though this view makes life easier in terms of constructing a robust account of Christian moral judgement, and though it echoes a number of recent Roman Catholic interpretations of Barth, it is far from clear that it is sustainable as a fair reading of Barth. Such disputes aside, however, Haddorff’s reading of Barth is broadly lucid and compelling.
On the other hand, the book draws Barth’s ethics into a series of new conversations, both in academia and in society. In respect of the first, it will be for social theorists and philosophical ethicists to respond in detail to the kinds of questions and charges that Haddorff’s work raises, and for Haddorff and others to determine and to continue to determine which ‘parables of the kingdom’ from other realms of academic activity might legitimately be embraced by a theological ethics after Barth. In respect of the second, it will be for Christian ethicists to consider and to continue to consider more fully how the lessons of Barth’s ethics might engage with the issues—whether political, economic, environmental, or beyond—confronting society at global and local levels in the present day. What Haddorff’s work has achieved, however, is to advance the kind of constructive reception of and advance upon Barth’s ethics which will undoubtedly sustain further interest in the topic in the seasons ahead. His work is both unceasingly realistic and relentlessly hopeful, and is a welcome addition to the field.