Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Hans Vium Mikkelsen is associate professor at the Center for Theology and Religious Education, Denmark. He is the author of many scholarly articles on Barth and contemporary theology and several books in Danish.

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Reconciled Humanity

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Contents

PREFACE...............................................................xiABBREVIATIONS.........................................................xiv1. Introductory Remarks...............................................32. Barth's Dialectical Theology of Revelation.........................213. The Bible as the Witness of Revelation.............................294. Objective and Subjective Aspects of Revelation.....................435. The Human Being as a Being in Encounter............................876. Sin and Nothingness................................................1217. The Chalcedonian Pattern...........................................1458. The Covenant.......................................................1659. The Judge Judged in Our Place......................................17810. The Double Outcome................................................20311. The Punishment and Wrath of God...................................21412. The Humanity of Jesus Christ......................................23913. Discussion........................................................247ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.......................................................263BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................267INDEX.................................................................275

Chapter One

Aim

This book is an attempt to show how vital a dialogue partner Barth is for contemporary theology. The main issues I will investigate in this book are those of revelation and atonement. How do we use and refer to revelation today—and what do we mean when we say that Jesus died for the sake of the human race? I have not only chosen these two subjects because they are important in understanding the theology of Barth, but also because they are vital for understanding the scope and the challenge for theology today.

The perception of revelation relates first and foremost to the perception of Scripture: How, at one and the same time, do we claim that the Bible is the Word of God and that the Bible is composed of human words about God? This double statement is to be read as an attempt to avoid the two pitfalls of theology today: fundamentalism and relativism. Fundamentalism claims that the authority of the Bible is based on a literal understanding of the Bible, where the Bible is read as the answer to all our questions in a way that does not take its own context and historical embeddedness into account. This approach can be made in more or less sophisticated ways. One common feature is that interpretation is abandoned, or when allowed, is really used as a synonym for translation. The question of interpretation is then narrowed down to a question of translating the message of there and then, to a message that can be understood here and now. Translation regards form, not content. Thus, the message is the same, from eternity to eternity. No space is allowed for changes, either in the message or in God. Relativism states, on the other hand, that no religion can claim to be the true religion. Such a claim is looked upon as a variety of imperialism. Instead the buzzword is tolerance. The distinction between true and false is no longer looked at from the perspective of essence or reference; instead the touchstone is whether it functions or not. If it works, it is truth; if not, it is false. The inherent truth-claim of the Bible (and any other holy scripture) is thereby reduced to a question for the individual participant: Does he or she find comfort in the religion or not? Is Barth's dialectic between the perception of the Bible as the Word of God and the Bible as human words about God a practicable road between the abysses of fundamentalism and relativism? Does Barth's perception of the revelation avoid too heavy an emphasis on the literal content of the Bible?

The revelation of God in Jesus Christ is at the very center of Barth's theology—both noetically and ontologically. God is both the subject and the object of revelation. The emphasis on this double structure is well known and thoroughly described in several analyses. Less known is the fact that Barth's theology of revelation includes a positive understanding of the human being's experience of revelation. Revelation has to have an actual impact, which means that the reality of revelation cannot be fully explored with a description of the dialectic between God as both subject and object. This remains within the objective aspects of revelation. In my analysis I will therefore focus on a description of what I define as the subjective aspects of revelation. Revelation must be experienced as such to have an impact on the individual, which again implies that revelation includes involvement of the self. One cannot remain neutral toward the revealed revelation. If that is the case, nothing has been revealed. Barth's structural understanding of revelation here is very close to the structure of the encounter within the I-Thou philosophy, which inspired Barth more than he himself gives away in the Church Dogmatics. In fact, it seems as if this is mere coincidence. However, by means of an investigation of Barth's lecture manuscript on anthropology from 1943/44, I will demonstrate the extent to which he is acquainted with Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue. One can only guess why he does not want to admit this heritage in CD.

Barth's teaching of the atonement is at one and the same time in opposition to a traditional conservative understanding of the death of Jesus as the necessary sacrifice to God, and a modern liberal theology where God has nothing to do with the death of Jesus (pure coincidence). Neither of the two is able to deal with the importance and the meaning of the death of Jesus in an adequate way that gives a meaningful answer to the questions: Why did he die? Did he have to die?

These two questions entail a whole range of sub-questions that all relate to the relation between God the Father and Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man. Did Jesus have to die to satisfy God? Was Jesus' death the necessary sacrifice that enables God to live out his love for human beings? How are the will of Jesus and the will of God related? Does the death of Jesus have any impact on God himself? Is it only the situation of the human being which is changed in the atonement, or is it also the situation of God? Has God bound himself to human beings in the atonement so that God no longer can be God without humanity? Or is it only human beings who are tied to God? Asking these questions helps examine the tradition in a positive way—not just for the sake of confirming or rejecting it, but also for the sake of exploring new theological insights in discussion with the tradition.

Barth's teaching of the atonement seems at first glance very close to that of Anselm, both in language and structure. Not only do they both describe God as both the subject and the object of the atonement, but they also use juridical metaphors to describe the content of Jesus' death. But does Barth really agree with Anselm on the topic of atonement? No: despite the fact that Barth maintains the structure of God as both the subject and object in the atonement, he does not describe the death of Jesus as a necessary sacrifice with the aim of overcoming an internal conflict in God...