jt: One or two comments
forthcoming.... so that Lance doesn't go to sleep on us, between selling
books he can prove that I don't understand anything Barth, Bill, Jonathan, he
and JD are saying....
On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 08:12:22 EST [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
TTer's: What we have in the following is the reason why I stay with this
forum. In the midst of extreme bloviation, we find the
occasional gem. Bill is not the only jeweler of this "gem"ational
occurence, but the contribution below certainly qualifies. Where
Bill would credit Barth, and it is a review of Barth's
position(s), I credit God in Christ in Bill
Taylor. I have highlighted those comments that "jumped" out
at me with a few of my own
comments. Bill can
look forward to a big hug from the Smithmeister in just a few days
-- for this writing -----------
movtivation enough for his continued sharing on this forum. Pastor
Smithson
In a message dated 2/28/2005 7:47:39 PM
Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: TTers,
In order to understand Barth's doctrine of inspiration, we must understand what he means when he says that the human words of Scripture enter into union
with the Word of God who speaks through them. I have been hesitant
to say much in regards to this topic because I am far from being a Barth
scholar. However I have had enough theology from students of Barth to
recognize when he is being misrepresented. And his
doctrine of Scripture has definitely been misrepresented by some here on
TT.
jt: This is NOT a doctrine of
scripture - it is a doctrine of Barth and Barth alone. Scripture itself
teaches that "ALL scripture is given by inspiration of God" which is the same
as verbal inspiration is it not? Jesus said His
Words are Spirit and Life? Just where does scripture itself teach such a
union with humanity and why would Karl Barth want to humanize
God?
No, he did not hold to the Protestant doctrine of
verbal plenary inspiration (but as Kevin has so
eloquently pointed out, there is no way for any of us to hold unequivocally to
that doctrine, since none of us can prove that the original manuscripts were
in fact infallible).
jt: Now you misrepresent Kevin Bill
because he never once stated that the scriptures are not divinely
inspired. His point is that there is no original manuscript
available to justify all of the ongoing nit picking about Hebrew and
Greek mindsets and words. Surely at some point we will come to our God given
senses and learn to believe His Word and trust in the ongoing ministry of His
Spirit.
But to acknowledge this is far from saying that he rejected biblical inspiration.
Before he should be written off as a heretic or accused of exalting the
"human" and following his own private "revelation," Christians ought to take into consideration what he actually
taught. And so, in
this post I will try to explain, no doubt in woefully inadequate terms, the distinctions Barth sought to draw in his theology of
revelation -- to which the doctrine of inspiration was a
sub-category. Barth argued that over the course of Christian history, God has chosen to reveal himself to humanity via three forms,
each of which manifest a duality in unity, having both a fully human and a fully divine aspect. The three forms
are the man Jesus Christ, the text of Scripture, and the
preached word. In order to understand Barth's theology as it
pertains to revelation, it is essential that the reader carefully distinguish
the sense in which these various forms are one from the sense in which they
are yet three distinct realities; at the same time
it is equally important to carefully differentiate their human and their
divine aspects.
jt: The above dualities in union
are a figment of Barth's imagination and they are his and his alone. The
scriptures teach the following:
There are three who bear witness in
heaven which are: God the Father, God the Word, God the Holy Spirit (1 John
5:7)
There are three who bear witness on
earth, they are: The Spirit, The Water, and The Blood (1
John 5:8)
Barth's three forms are as follows:
The man jesus, The text of scripture, The preached word (no scripture
reference at all)
As it relates
to the distinction which should be made between the three forms, we must
not firstly confuse the preacher himself or his words with those of the apostles and prophets, which are the source of and the authority for
his preaching. Likewise the human words of
Scripture are not to be confused with the
historical self-manifestation of God in the person of Jesus
Christ.
jt: I'd like to know which words of
scripture are human and which ones are inspired and who has the authority to
make the cut and after this I would like to know how one discerns this
"historical person of jesus Christ" outside of scripture which has both human
and divine words according to Barth.
Do we need to consult the
Magisterium or raise him from the dead to find out?
As the man
Jesus revealed God with us, the human words of
Scripture reveals God's Word to us. If we think in terms of the
order of our knowing, i.e., the way we receive knowledge, then it is with
preaching that the church must begin.a profoundly simple expalanation
for the need and function of preaching.
jt: Profoundly simple? You've
got to be joking JD. It is all as clear as mud and it convolutes the
clear Word of Truth with Barth's own concepts.
People hear the Gospel expounded or proclaimed from
the pulpit or on the street corner, or in some other context. Behind such
preaching lies the given text of Scripture to which the preacher refers, the meaning of which he seeks to unpack for his hearers.
jt: If he is trying to unpack
something then he is trying to give understanding that can ONLY come by way of
the Spirit of grace. The text of scripture is what is supposed to be
both preached and taught. Understanding comes from
God.
But the text itself is not, in this sense, the
ultimate reference of his words; for there is another more
ultimate referential authority to which the Scripture itself points, which lies beyond its words --
and Who engendered and called forth those words of witness in the first
place. This other reality is,
of course, the event in which God acted decisively for our salvation in
the life, death, and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ. It is this Christ
who is the ultimate object of Christian preaching.
The order of being is therefore the
opposite of the order of knowing. It begins with Christ whose saving economy eventually calls forth Scripture as a witness, and this
in turn leads to the preaching ministry of the
church. The explains the "power" in the "gospel"
message. Scripture used in preaching is not powerful becasue I can
locate it with"book, chapter and verse." Rather, it is powerful
because of the originating life force (that would be God in
Christ).
jt: Scriptures teach that one must
first believe before receiving the "power to become"
a son of God (John 1:12) - Where is scriptural validation for this
"being is opposite of knowing" Barthian concept and what "life force" are you
talking about JD? The power of God in the gospel and the life force
accompanying the preaching of the "cross" is the Holy Spirit.
To
miss these distinctions, according to Barth, is invariably to diminish and marginalize Christ himself as the
ultimate source and form of God's self-revelation to humanity.
This diminishment
entails an absolutizing of Scripture as the ultimate referent of preaching
(which is what I see several TTers doing) -- in which case it becomes opaque, rather than serving as the transparent
witness to the risen Christ (which it is intended to be); either that or it
involves a failure on the part of the preacher to stand under the authority of
the apostles and prophets, in effect confusing the authority of their words
with his own, which leads to a relativizing of the biblical text -- which in
turn develops into a to-each-his-own form of authority (it's just me and the
Holy Spirit, in other words, which is also a commonly touted position here on
TT).
jt: How can Barth make such a
statement when before his ascension Jesus Himself spoke of how all things had
to be fulfilled which were written about Him in the law of Moses,
and in the prophets, and in the Psalms (Luke 24:44) and look at
what He did next. He opened their understanding that they
might understand the scriptures. This is what we need -
some understanding because it is Karl Barth who is doing the marginalizing
....
As it pertains
to the human/divine distinction of each of these
three forms, Barth believed that just as there was a legitimate distinction
to be drawn between the humanity and the divinity of Christ, there are
legitimate distinctions between the other forms. Specially, there is a legitimate human aspect to the written
word of God, and there is a legitimate divine aspect to the preached word of
God. Each of the three forms has a human
aspect: the particular story of
Jesus of Nazareth, the texts which the Church acknowledges as Scripture, and
the very human words of the preacher. Well
worth a review
jt: Well let's just take a
course in Humanism 101 then... It's like oil and water - it does not
mix. Jesus had a human body but he was not exactly like us other than
taking on our image and likeness. He took upon himself the form of a
man. You are now accepting him in Karl Barth's likeness.
But in each case what must
be recognized is that this human aspect as such, in and of
itself, does not reveal God, but conceals him. There is nothing about
the humanity of Jesus as such, nothing about the words of the text as such,
nothing about the preaching as such, which compels faith or discloses God in
any obvious manner. In
other words, Barth recognized that it is entirely possible for intelligent
humans to hear these human realities and NOT find themselves in the grip of a
revelatory encounter with the God of the universe (every preacher knows
this). In order for these human realities to reveal God, they
must, as it were, be accompanied by or embodied with something more -- an
activity of God himself which employs them as the instruments and agents of
his self-revealing activity. It is this
and this alone which grants humans the "ears to hear" the Word of God. But
this something, this presence of God himself is not to be confused with the
human realities as such.
jt: No big secret - this activity
of God which grants humans the "ears to hear" is the Holy Spirit. What's
so surprising about that? It has nothing to do with any human aspect... Only
the Spirit works and He annoints God's Word, never human words...
Just as in the incarnate person
of Christ, we have both a fully human and a fully
divine reality in genuine union, to each is given a
measure of grace (?)
jt: We have the Lord from heaven in
human form - otherwise Jesus lied when he told the Jews that they were of the
earth and He is from heaven. (see John 3:13, John 6:33-35) I wouldn't go
there... Let it RIP - hopefully with Barth (if he
repented).
we also have in him a genuine
and continuing contradistinction: the humanity of
Jesus is in no way divine and the divine in him is in no way human;
the humanity of Jesus does not become divine
-- or even semi-divine -- likewise, for Barth, the words
of Scripture, like those of the preacher, do not cease to be fully
human. What those human words do is enter into union with the Word of
God who speaks through them.
jt: Heresy. Mixture are
not from God and Jesus never was "fully human" - He inhabited a body
which he willingly gave as a sacrifice for us. Too late for Barth to have his
pipes cleaned. He is trying to mix the holy with the profane.
Making Jesus human so that he can make humans holy but it doesn't work quite
that way.
Hence for Barth, as a historically constituted and
literary phenomenon Scripture has a permanence of form which enables it to
stand identifiably over against and above the Church and thereby to act as an
index or gauge of the church's faithfulness to the Word of God witnessed to
within and through its pages. Bill
jt: How sad Barth spent so much time
as a critic rather than a doer of the Word.
