Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Daniel L. Migliore is the Charles Hodge Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His other books include Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Eerdmans).

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Commanding Grace

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Contents

Acknowledgments............................................................................................................................................................viiAbbreviations..............................................................................................................................................................viiiContributors...............................................................................................................................................................ix1. Commanding Grace: Karl Barth's Theological Ethics Daniel L. Migliore...................................................................................................12. Karl Barth's Ethics Revisited Nigel Biggar.............................................................................................................................263. The Spirit and the Letter: Protestant Thomism and Nigel Biggar's "Karl Barth's Ethics Revisited" Eric Gregory..........................................................504. Karl Barth and Just War: A Conversation with Roman Catholicism William Werpehowski.....................................................................................605. Barth and Werpehowski on War, Presumption, and Exception John R. Bowlin................................................................................................836. Barth and Democracy: Political Witness without Ideology David Haddorff.................................................................................................967. Karl Barth and the Varieties of Democracy: A Response to David Haddorff's "Barth and Democracy: Political Witness without Ideology" Todd V. Cioffi.....................1228. Crime, Punishment, and Atonement: Karl Barth on the Death of Christ Timothy Gorringe...................................................................................1369. For Us and for Our Salvation: A Response to Timothy Gorringe Katherine Sonderegger.....................................................................................16210. Barth and the Economy of Grace Kathryn Tanner.........................................................................................................................17611. Karl Barth on the Economy: In Dialogue with Kathryn Tanner Christopher R. J. Holmes...................................................................................19812. Barth and the Christian as Ethical Agent: An Ontological Study of the Shape of Christian Ethics Paul T. Nimmo.........................................................21613. Karl Barth's Conception(s) of Human and Divine Freedom(s) Jesse Couenhoven............................................................................................239

Chapter One

Daniel L. Migliore

Interest in Barth's theology continues to grow. Its consistently high quality, often stunning originality, remarkable comprehensiveness, and strong provocations to fresh theological reflection in both church and academy assure its place among the most influential theological writings of the modern era. Best known for its singular christocentric exposition of the core doctrines of Christian faith, Barth's theology is also notable for its contributions to the history of doctrine, to biblical exegesis, to the interface of theology and philosophy, and by no means least, to theological ethics, the topic that receives special attention in this volume. A number of the articles included here were presented at the conference "Karl Barth and Theological Ethics" held at Princeton Theological Seminary, June 22-25, 2008. Others were subsequently written by participants at the conference in response to the original presentations.

From the beginning, the project that we know as Church Dogmatics was also a project in the reconstruction of Christian ethics. In the current renaissance of Barth studies, the study of his theological ethics has an important place even if this aspect of his thought has not received as much attention as many of his doctrinal topics. That is reason enough for the present volume. One way of formulating the wider question that the volume attempts to address is: Can Barth the magisterial dogmatic theologian offer significant help to theology and church today in the area of Christian ethics, a discipline Oliver O'Donovan has succinctly defined as thinking "from truths of Christian faith to conclusions in Christian action"?

Already in 1911, in a speech to members of a factory union in Safenwil, Barth explored the "inner connection" between the message and work of Jesus the incarnate Word of God and the values and aspirations of modern social democracy. In that address he advanced the blockbuster thesis that "Jesus is the movement for social justice, and the movement for social justice is Jesus in the present." In later years, Barth would express himself quite differently; nevertheless, it is clear that for the Safenwil pastor Christology and ethics were already tightly intertwined.

As Barth would later explain, when WWI broke out, he was shocked to learn that ninety-three German intellectuals, including many of his revered teachers, had issued a manifesto supporting the war policy of the kaiser. He describes the impact of that event as "the twilight of the gods," a failure of the theology of his revered teachers in the face of the ideology of war, exposing the fact that religion and scholarship could be so easily changed into "intellectual 42 cm cannons." By the end of WWI, in his famous Tambach lecture, "The Christian's Place in Society," Barth approached the question of the relationship between Christian faith and social responsibility much more critically than he had in his earlier lecture to Safenwil workers. He now distanced himself from an uncritical affiliation with Christian socialism even as in the intervening years he had taken leave of the theology and ethics of nineteenth-century liberal Protestant theology. The true Christian, Barth argued, is not any Christian, whether conservative or revolutionary; the true Christian is the Christ. The kingdom of God is not the kingdom we build but "the wholly other Kingdom which is God's." Barth did not then, nor did he ever, understand this emphasis in a quietist or merely otherworldly sense. Toward the end of his life, in an exposition of the petition "Thy kingdom come," Barth wrote that Christians "not only wait but also hasten.... Their waiting takes place in the hastening.... [T]he petition 'Thy kingdom come' is not an indolent and despondent prayer but one that is zealous and brave."

It is not my task in this introductory essay to trace the continuities and discontinuities in the development of Barth's theological ethics. It is sufficient to make the point that, early and late, Barth saw dogmatics and ethics as inseparable. For him, when rightly understood, both are based on the living Word of God that announces a gift to be freely and joyfully received and that contains a command to be freely and joyfully obeyed. From the Romans commentary where Barth states that "The problem of ethics is identical with the problem of dogmatics: Soli Deo Gloria"; to the Mnster Ethics of 1928 (repeated in Bonn in 1930-31), which he wrote as the necessary companion to his first two cycles of dogmatics in Gttingen and Mnster, and in which he...