The Coming Reality
Note: we have decided to discontinue Athena Thursday, in favor of adding a neglected theological voice to the weekly chorus. Thursdays will now feature selections from Hans Joachim Iwand (1899-1960).
In 1953 Hans Iwand, despite his long and filial friendship with Karl Barth, remained critical of the latter regarding his transposition of the Law and Gospel in his theology. In a letter to Rudolph Hermann, Iwand noted that the way Barth taught the Word of God as Gospel-Law
reminded him of the Antinomians. Yet, for Iwand, what Barth did in his transposition of the Law and Gospel remained the essential question
for contemporary theology. Iwand writes:
At any rate it’s clear to me that Melanchthon was wrong when he identified the commandments with the lex naturalis (natural law), even the first commandment! On the other hand it is clear that the Gospel means a righteousness which lies beyond the revealed law, a righteousness which is the presupposition to any impletio legis (fulfillment of the law)… I have thought about what Luther calls the lex sine lege (Law without Law), etc. In the doctrine of the Spirit, Luther most certainly also sees a true oneness of Law and Gospel, except that this oneness is always directed toward the coming world and reality, a coming world and reality becoming new in the resurrection. [Hans Iwand, Briefe (NW 6), pp. 306-307]
