Karl Barth's Black Jesus

Karl Barth is famous (and in some places infamous) for conceiving of God as "wholly other" to human beings. Barth's God is radically transcendent, radically other, and quite hidden. Barth is often criticized on this point for failing to do justice to God's immanence, for making God so inaccessible that speech of God becomes substance-less. How can we make affirmations about God if God is always wholly other and hidden?

Setting aside the fact that this is a rather one-sided picture of Barth's theology, I want to emphasize one of the ways Barth addressed this problem. That is, Barth conceived of God not merely as completely veiled to human beings in general, but particularly veiled in lowly communities. It can be said that, for Barth, there is potential for seeing God in people who suffer and are oppressed, because God makes God's self wholly other to human greatness, and not just to humanity in general.

In order to understand this, we have to understand the origin of Barth's radically transcendent conception of God. The identification of God with the German war effort by many of Barth's contemporaries was the occasion for Barth's decisive NO to liberal theology. Liberal theology, Barth came to see, was a theology of glory; it identified divinity with the glory of humanity, with strength, with success, and we could add, with whiteness. Barth saw this as idolatry.

As black theologian James Cone describes, Barth's criticism of liberal theology was a criticism of "nineteenth century liberalism with its emphasis on the goodness and worth of humanity (which always meant white European humanity)."[1] He adds that, "Every black intellectual is aware that when liberals spoke of 'inevitable progress' and the 'upward movement of Western culture,' it was realized at the expense of blacks who were enslaved and colonized to secure 'progress.'"[2]

Barth was similarly aware that it always meant a divine sanction of human corruption. Nations continually claim God for their side, touting themselves as the innocent and the others as the enemy. "It is sheer blasphemy to relate God to our human strivings in this way," Barth preached.[3] Selfishness, arrogance, hatred, anxiety, and violence are all "completely alien to the innermost being of God," so that if they become the rule of the day, it can only mean "God's innermost being is also completely alien to humankind."[4]

Barth's No to liberal theology, then, was not merely a No to humanity on principle because humanness is evil. His No was fundamentally a No to a human attempt to raise the human up by identifying divinity with human ideas of greatness. Included in Barth's protest against this was an affirmation of God's lowliness. "Against all those who want to be great in this world," Barth said in first commentary on Romans, "I must espouse the standpoint of those little people with whom God makes his beginning." God, he says, "is one-sidedly a God of the lowly."[5]

Because God is a God of the lowly, God can never be identified with human greatness, with human vanity. To identify God with human greatness is to put human glory (which is really arrogance and domination) on a high place, on a pedestal, to be worshiped as an idol.

The hiddenness and otherness of God for Barth is not simply a divine attribute of anti-humanity. We must never forget that God did not come in the form of some kind of extraterrestrial alien being, but as a human. The decisive point is that God came in the form of a lowly human, he came in the form of a servant.

Martin Luther similarly stated that "God destroys the wisdom of the wise" by hiding God's self "in suffering," in "the humility and shame of the cross."[6] It is in this spirit that Barth understands the hiddenness of God in lowly communities. Barth says in his second Romans commentary, the otherness of the other "reminds us of the WHOLLY OTHER."[7]

Consequently, "all Titanism, all mounting of high places, is excluded. ... In order to correspond with their veritable situation men must therefore--bow."[8] That is to say, recognizing that the otherness of the other points to the otherness of God, recognizing that God is the crucified Christ, who veils God's self in a servant-form, who unconditionally identifies God's self with the lowly--all of this means not an exaltation or glorification of human greatness, not a divinization of the human, or a sanctioning of human glory, but, rather, a humbling of one's self, a prostration.

If God is identified with the lowly, then we must makes ourselves lowly to glorify God. If God is identified with the lowly, then we should not look to high places, to human greatness, to domination and success, in order to find God's glory, but should rather look to those who are exploited, oppressed, who suffer at the hands of human glory.

Barth stayed true to this understanding in his Church Dogmatics as well. He says, "God stands at every time unconditionally and passionately on this and only on this side: always against the exalted and for the lowly, always against those who already have rights and for those from whom they are robbed and taken away."[9]

It is in God's revelation in Jesus Christ that we have this knowledge, not in some natural knowledge of God, as the liberal theologians would have it. "Far from being founded upon any sort of general anthropology," Barth says, "our proof is absolutely related to Christology."[10] Precisely in the servant-form lies "a veiling of the divine majesty." This is how "the Word enters hiddenness."[11] Jesus' lowliness is not inconsequential, but is precisely how God reveals God's self as both hidden and revealed. “In [Jesus Christ] God reveals Himself inexorably as the hidden God."[12]

Barth's problem with liberal theology was not merely that they identified God with something human, but that they identified God with human greatness, with human glory, and so exalted themselves even more. They were the exalted ones exalting themselves through theology. They were the ones with rights claiming a divine sanction for furthering their own rights over against the rights of others. Barth declared this to be idolatry.

This critique of idolatry was James Cone's starting point as well. Cone's black theology of liberation was aimed at white idolatry, at the identification of divinity with whiteness, and so at the supposed divine sanction of white supremacy. Cone's protest against this idolatry was to boldly proclaim that God is not a God of whiteness, but is wholly other to the white God, and so identifies with oppressed blacks and fights for them.

Similarly, Barth's theology can be described as a black theology. It at least lends itself to black theology. This is so because, for Barth, God reveals God's self in the servant-form of Jesus Christ. The human constructs idols of human glory that are at odds with lowly servant-forms, and so God elects the servant-form to veil and unveil God's self. Jesus is black because Jesus reveals God's self in human lowliness and suffering.

To fail to understand this about Barth's theology is to make Barth's God an abstract concept of otherness, reducible to the idea of the "unconditioned" or the "undeconstructable" in philosophy. Barth again and again insists that the hiddenness of God is not this, that God's hiddenness is not merely a general mysteriousness, or a general concept of that which is beyond human conception. God veils God's self, and God does this not just in defying human thinking, but in veiling God's self in what humans deem undesirable, unworthy, and unwelcome.

To fail to witness to God's hiddenness in those who are lowly is to fail to witness to the Word of God. To fail to see Christ in the otherness of those who are suffering is to fail to see Christ altogether. To fail to see God suffering with the black community is to fail to see the cross.

And even further, to fail to understand one's self as responsible for acting on behalf of the poor and oppressed is to fail to understand our God-given responsibility. As Barth says, we cannot hear and believe God's identification with the lowly "without feeling a sense of responsibility in the direction indicated." Specifically, he says,

There follows from this character of faith a political attitude, decisively determined by the fact that man is made responsible to all those who are poor and wretched in his eyes, that he is summoned on his part to espouse the cause of those who suffer wrong. ... He cannot avoid the question of human rights. He can only will and affirm a state which is based on justice. By any other political attitude he rejects the divine justification.[13]

According to Barth, God is particularly concerned for the poor and oppressed, particularly concerned for their liberation. To hear and believe God's Word then behooves one to be responsible for the poor and oppressed, and to work for their liberation.

So then, to hear and believe God's Word today means to be moved by the suffering of the black community, and to act accordingly. To fail to do so is, as Barth said, to reject divine justification.


Notes:
[1] James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 40th anniversary ed. (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2010), 19-20)
[2] Cone, 20.
[3] Karl Barth, A Unique Time of God: Karl Barth's WWI Sermons, ed. and trans. William Klempa (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), 109.
[4] Barth, A Unique Time of God, 111.
[5] Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief, 1st ed., quoted in George Hunsinger, "Toward a Radical Barth," in Karl Barth and Radical Politics (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976), 225.
[6] Martin Luther, Heidelberg Disputation, in The Annotated Luther, Vol. 1: The Roots of Reform, ed. Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 99.
[7] Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 6th ed., trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (New York: Oxford University Press, 1933), 444.
[8] Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 444.
[9] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. II: The Doctrine of God, Part 1, eds. G. W. Bromily and T. F. Torrance, trans. T. H. L. Parker, W. B. Johnston, Harold Knight, and J. L. M. Haire (New York: T&T Clark, 1957 [repr. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010]), 386.
[10] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. I: The Doctrine of the Word of God, Part 2, eds. G. W. Bromily and T. F. Torrance, trans G. T. Thomson and Harold Knight (New York: T&T Clark, 1956 [repr. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010]), 44.
[11] Barth, CD I.2, 37.
[12] Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 369.
[13] Barth, CD II.1, 386-387.

Predestined in Christ: Ephesians 1 and Calvinism

A couple months ago, I discussed Romans 9 and whether or not it supports Calvinism (here). That was the first of a series of blogs I'm doing about the passages in Scripture typically used to support Calvinism. Here, I am dealing with Ephesians 1:3-14:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

At face value, this passage seems to support Calvinist ideas of predestination and election: "he chose us . . . before the foundation of the world," "he predestined us for adoption," "[we were] predestined according to the counsel of his will." This sounds like Calvinism, and I sympathize with everyone who reads this passage and either thinks, "See? There it is!" or "Well, I guess it is in Scripture." However, when one analyzes the passage, and considers its historical context, not only is the Calvinist understanding unnecessary, but also unlikely.

ELECTION

Before Christ, Israel was the elect. Such is common knowledge. Israel was the chosen vessel through which salvation would be brought to the world. However, as N.T. Wright observes, the people of Israel were "bound up in the problem instead of being the bringers of the solution."(1) Thus, if salvation was going to spread to the world, it would have to be accomplished through a very different means. Enter Jesus Christ. The story continued with the "Messiah [doing] for the world what Israel was called to do."(2) Christ, then, is the new elect. Paul spells out God's redefinition of election with Christ at its center. As Markus Barth states, "God administers and carries out election through Jesus Christ."(3) Likewise, Ralph P. Martin states, "Election is . . . universalized to include all who are in Christ."(4)

It then follows that, since Christ is the elect, Wright says, "those who hear the gospel and respond to it in faith are then declared to be [God's] people, his elect."(5) This can be seen quite clearly in our passage: "God . . . blessed us in Christ . . . [and] chose us in him. . . . he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. . . . he blessed in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood. . . . he set forth [the mystery of his will and purpose] in Christ . . . to unite all things in him. In him we have obtained an inheritance. . . . In him, you also . . . were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit."

It is clear in this passage that the elect ones are what they are only in Christ. This may seem like a simple, commonsensical statement, but we have to stop and think about how this completely redefines election: election is no longer a chosen people group, nor is it made up of specific individuals who are chosen; rather, it is Christ who is chosen, the elect, and, subsequently, all those who are in Christ. Those who accept the gospel and believe in Christ become in him, they become elect: "when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, [you] were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit" (v.13).

PREDESTINATION

How, you might ask, does this perspective explain the references to predestination in this passage? Doesn't the passage suggest that those who are in Christ were predestined to be so?
Not necessarily.

I think all Christians can agree that the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Christ, the Son of God, were predestined. But do passages like these suggest that we go a step further and say that all those who would be saved by his sacrifice were also predestined? It is unlikely that Paul was saying that in writing this passage, for one only has to affirm that Christ's saving act was predestined in order to say with Paul that we were predestined for adoption.

God predestined that Christ would be the elect and that he would call all people to salvation. Thus, when one says 'Yes' to Christ through faith, one becomes one of the elect and it can rightfully be said that he/she was predestined for adoption (Eph. 1:4-5, 11; Rom. 8:29-30), because it was predestined that Christ would be the elect for all people, and that all who accept him would then be the elect. I was predestined to for adoption, because it was God's purpose in Christ to adopt all who believe in him, and I chose to believe in him. Consider Greg Boyd's analogy:

Suppose you attend a seminar in which a certain video is shown. You might ask the instructor, 'When was it decided (predestined) that we'd watch this video?' To which the instructor might respond, 'It was decided six months ago that you'd watch this video.' Note that it was not decided six months ago that you individually would watch this video. What was decided was that anyone who took this seminar would watch this video. Now that you have chosen to be part of this seminar, what was predestined for the seminar applies to you. You can now say, 'It was decided six months ago that we would watch this video.'(6)

In the same way, Christ's saving act was predestined; it was predestined that all who would believe in Christ would be the elect. Election is an open invitation to all people, and all who say 'Yes' become the elect, who are predestined for adoption, "according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will" (v.11).

ROMANS 8:29

I believe this is the way we should look at Romans 8:29: 

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

If we look at the context, "those whom" does not refer to individual people that God elected for salvation; it refers to "those who love God" and "those who are called." Joseph Fitzmyer suggests that this verse refers to "all who have responded to the divine call."(7) Must we draw from this that the individuals who responded to the divine call were foreknown and predestined?

The Greek word οὓς ('those whom') does not go that far. In Romans 11:2, the word refers to the people of Israel in general. 8:28-30 tells us that God predestined to call people to be conformed to the image of his Son, and that those who love God are justified and glorified. That there would be a group of people--the elect--that would respond to God's call by loving him was indeed predestined and foreknown.

God predestined that he would call people to be conformed to the image of his Son. He foreknew the elect as all who would believe in Christ. Just like the presenter of the seminar in Boyd's analogy foreknew the attendees as all who would arrive for the seminar. The passage does not suggest that God predestined and foreknew the elect as specific individuals chosen for salvation. The passage does provide that God predestined that all who are in Christ would be justified, glorified, and conformed to the image of Christ, but it does not go beyond this. It does not suggest that individuals were foreknown and predestined. To say that would be to go beyond what the text itself provides.

Notes:
(1) N. T. Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress press, 2005), 119.
(2) Ibid., 120.
(3) Markus Barth, Ephesians 1–3, Vol. 34 of The Anchor Bible, eds. William Foxwell Albright and David Noel Freedman (Garden City: Doubleday, 1974), 107.
(4) Ralph P. Martin, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, ed. James Luther Mays (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1991), 18.
(5) Wright, 122.
(6) Gregory A. Boyd, God of the Possible (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), 47.
(7) Joseph Fitzmyer, Romans, Vol. 33 of The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1964), 524.