Obedience from First to Last

The Obedience of Jesus Christ in Karl Barth's Doctrine of Reconciliation

Edmund Fong

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781532683046
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

Obedience from First to Last explores the theological significance of the obedience of Jesus Christ in Karl Barth's theology. It does this via a threefold consideration of, first, the nature of Jesus' incarnate obedience; second, the relation of that obedience to the obedience of the second triune person of the eternal Son; and third, the effects Jesus' obedience has on our own obedience. Barth not only affirms the pivotal role Jesus' obedience has within the economy of salvation, but by equating that obedience with that of the eternal Son's, Barth gives Jesus' obedience a pre-eminent place within the immanent being of Godself. The obedience of Jesus Christ is seen to have a co-participatory role in God's determination of his own divine being that arises from the primordial act of divine election. This notion bears on our understanding of freedom and obedience: as divine freedom is expressed in divine obedience, so it is with human freedom and human obedience.

1

The Divine Obedience of the Eternal Son in the Theology of Karl Barth

If the humility of Christ is not simply an attitude of the man Jesus of Nazareth, if it is the attitude of this man because . . . there is a humility grounded in the being of God, then something else is grounded in the being of God Himself. For, according to the New Testament, it is the case that the humility of this man is an act of obedience . . . . If, then, God is in Christ, if what the man Jesus does is God’s own work, this aspect of the self-emptying and self-humbling of Jesus Christ as an act of obedience cannot be alien to God. But in this case we have to see here the other and inner side of the mystery of the divine nature of Christ and therefore of the nature of the one true God—that He Himself is also able and free to render obedience.7

With these words, Karl Barth takes the humility and obedience of Jesus Christ and draws it “backwards” into the triune life of God, such that humility and obedience is said to belong to the very essence and being of God himself. That Jesus Christ is humble and obedient as the Logos incarnatus (the Word incarnated) is a fact that most, if not all, orthodox theologians are willing to assert. Fewer, however, are willing to follow Barth in intimating the unprecedented move that this humility and obedience is to be extended likewise to the eternal Son himself; understood within Barth’s Trinitarian theology, to the one divine subject that the triune God is.8 Some, in fact, see this particular move of Barth as uncalled for. G. C. Berkouwer, for example, deemed Barth’s move to be “an unacceptable conclusion” and one that “can only be characterized as speculation.”9 Rowan Williams labelled Barth’s climactic description of this intra-Trinitarian obedience in CD IV/1 as “one of the most unhelpful bits of hermetic mystification in the whole of the Dogmatics.”10 Kevin Giles called it “one of [Barth’s] most colourful pieces of abstruse rhetoric in his Church Dogmatics.”11 Colin Gunton admits that the notion of God being obedient to God is a paradoxical and counter-intuitive concept, and views that Barth is “pushing the paradox as far as it will go.”12 Often, the disapproval flows from a perception that intra-Trinitarian obedience is inevitably entangled in some form of subordinationism—the ancient heresy.13

On the other hand, there has been a wave of Barth scholars in the recent two decades, led by Bruce McCormack, who have advanced the notion that from CD II/2 onwards and certainly by the time he reaches CD IV/1, Barth has revised his doctrine of the Trinity. Retaining the core center but modifying the edges, Barth allowed his doctrine of election to bear more significantly and directly on the being of the triune God. On their view, Barth’s positing of an intra-Trinitarian obedience actually seals the argument. As McCormack argues, to say that obedience is essential to God is to take a willed act of self-determination “precisely as a determination of the divine essence.”14

Clearly, why and how Barth develops the idea of divine intra-Trinitarian obedience, and whether he can finally maintain this idea in the context of his wider theology forms a pertinent topic in relation to the obedience of Jesus Christ. Our attention will be directed towards this task in the first two chapters of this volume. This chapter will expound on the idea of intra-Trinitarian obedience as it appears at two key junctures in CD: i) Barth’s first discussion of the motif in CD II/2 where he considers election, and ii) his fully blossomed treatment in CD IV/1 §59 under his doctrine of reconciliation. Along the way, Barth’s Trinitarianism, his doctrine of election, and the question of subordinationism will also be considered.

The argument advanced in this largely descriptive chapter is that Barth’s positing of a divine obedience between the Father and the Son in the triune relationship makes good sense only when it is located against the backdrop of what Barth scholars have a posterior labelled as Barth’s “actualistic ontology” that follows from his doctrine of election. Undoubtedly, the term calls for further explanation. Briefly stated, actualistic ontology is the conception of divine ontology that results when the divine act of God electing himself to be God for humanity in Christ Jesus is allowed to exert “ontological pressure” on the being of God. The pressure exerted, in turn, is seen to range across a spectrum. Minimally speaking, the divine act of election and the triune being of God are both equally primordial and “basic” to him. Maximally speaking, God so determines his own triune being in and through the course of the divine act of election.15 The steps in Barth’s thoughts leading to his full exposition of divine obedience and whether he can justifiably speak of this obedience will be treated in this chapter, while the ontological implications on the doctrine of the Trinity await the following chapter.

One final clarification on methodological procedure is in order. It might rightly be asked...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Divine Obedience of the Eternal Son in the Theology of Karl Barth
• Chapter 2: Divine Obedience and Trinitarian Ontology: Reading Karl Barth’s Actualistic Ontology in the Light of the Obedience of the Eternal Son
• Chapter 3: The Obedience of Jesus Christ in Karl Barth’s Christology in the Church Dogmatics
• Chapter 4: Karl Barth’s Reading of the Metaphysics of the Obedience of Jesus Christ
• Chapter 5: The Spirit in Relation to the Son’s Incarnate and Intra-Trinitarian Obedience to the Father
• Chapter 6: The Obedience of Jesus Christ in Barth’s Doctrine of the Atonement
• Chapter 7: “The Obedient One, Obedient in Our Place”: An Alternate Account of Barth’s Doctrine of the Atonement
• Chapter 8: “Freedom to Obey”: Relating Divine Freedom and Divine Obedience, and Human Freedom and Human Obedience
• Conclusion
• Bibliography