Beginning II/2

To think of the contents of this volume gives me much pleasure, but even greater anxiety. The work has this peculiarity, that in it I have had to leave the framework of theological tradition to a far greater extent than in the first part on the doctrine of God. I would have preferred to follow Calvin’s doctrine of predestination much more closely, instead of departing from it so radically. I would have preferred, too, to keep to the beaten tracks when considering the basis of ethics. But I could not and cannot do so. As I let the Bible itself speak to me on these matters, as I meditated upon what I seemed to hear, I was driven irresistibly to reconstruction. And now I cannot but be anxious to see whether I shall be alone in this work, or whether there will be others who will find enlightenment in the basis and scope suggested. It is because of the rather critical nature of the case that I have had to introduce into this half-volume such long expositions of Old and New Testament passages. For the rest, I have grounds for thinking that to some my meaning will be clearer in these passages than in the main body of the text. (From the preface of II/2)

Yesterday we started v. II/2 of the Church Dogmatics, which contains Barth’s (in)famous doctrine of election. I’ve been looking forward to this part-volume since before I knew what a ‘part-volume’ was. A few years ago, a certain American-born, Scottish-educated theology professor named Chelle Stearns would from time to time say things about election that seemed profound and significant in spite of the fact that I didn’t really understand what she was talking about at all. It was apparent that there was some profound reworking of election that she had learned under the tutelage of certain Barthian elements at St. Andrews. The closest we got to an assigned reading on the topic was TF Torrance’s The Mediation of Christ, of which we were asked to read only the chapter “The Mediation of Christ in Our Human Response.” I read the chapter (and a few other chapters, if I recall) and reported back to her in class that I had no idea what that chapter had to do with its alleged topic – it seemed to be all mediation and no human response. I think that now, 2,050 pages of Church Dogmatics later, I would be able to understand better what Torrance was up to, and that is because I have already come to see that the mediation of Christ is the crux, the sine qua non of our human response. Because the mediation of Christ is always already the human response.

The relationship between the action of God and the action of humans is of ongoing interest to me, and it looks like that’s where II/2 is headed. Barth is keeping his sight firmly fixed on Christology, while making the transition from writing about the Doctrine of God to the Doctrine of Creation. Wedged between the two, as the back-half of the former, is the doctrine of election, wherein the living God who loves in freedom freely elects humanity for His love. And after exploring election Barth will turn to ethics for a ‘chapter’ (a.k.a. book length treatment). A lot of people claim II/2 as their favorite part-volume of the CD, and others even recommend this place as the place to start reading Barth’s lengthy opus. But for now, I need to stop writing about looking forward to reading II/2 and make a transish over to my reading chair where I can actually read the thing. There should be more about what Matt and I are learning from II/2 posted here in the coming weeks and months.

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