In Defense of Barth
Via Iwand, Nachgelassene Werke 2, pp. 404-405
As unlikely as one can trace Barth’s “fear” to the “anthropocentrism” of the nineteenth-century but instead to the necessity of proclamation (1 Cor. 9:16), just as unlikely can one maintain that Luther did not fear that we humans could be masters over God; in fact, if Luther had not had this fear, then the entire Reformation of the church would be senseless. “For this reason is the church today wrapped up as with clothes in the splendor of power; she is not founded on Word and Faith, not upon the Scriptures is she founded, but instead upon the arm of the world and she trusts in a bloody rule… Yet there sits sovereignty upon her until now the most holy deputy of God with his church and the foolish German people squander their blood for this monster, and of them it is sung in the Psalms: power and rule are not outside the church, i.e., only in purple is Christ ridiculed and scorned.” The fact that temptation and troubles teach us to heed the Word, they also teach us especially to heed the Word in theology. Barth’s theology has wakened the sleeping long before the storm – and enlightened the erring and gathered the scattered. In a period of apostasy, his theology has helped the church to a proper confession of faith. That which has proven itself in such a way should not, without thanks before God and man, be judged critically at that point where we cannot agree with him.
