¹ This aspect of the present theological situation is reviewed in Werner Schilling, Feuerbach und die Religion (München, 1957), pp. 134–137. For earlier theological responses consult S. Rawidowicz, Ludwig Feuerbachs Philosophie: Ursprung und Schicksal (Berlin, 1931). On Marx and Feuerbach see Klaus Bochmühl, Leiblichkeit und Gesellschaft: Studien zur Religionskritik und Anthropologie im Frühwerk von Ludwig Feuerbach und Karl Marx (Göttingen, 1961). On Freud see Herman Adolf Weser, Sigmund Freuds und Ludwig Feuerbachs Religionskritik (Bottrop i. W., 1936). Barth himself has written more about Feuerbach than about Marx; about Freud he has been virtually silent.

² “Ludwig Feuerbach. Mit einem polemischen Nachwort,” Zwischen den Zeiten 5 (1927), 10–40. Without the “Nachwort,” 33–40, this was reprinted in Barth's Die Theologie und die Kirche (Zollikon-Zürich, 1928), pp. 212–239. The “Nachwort” had been occasioned by Wilhelm Bruhn, Vom Gott im Menschen: Ein Weg in metaphysisches Neuland (Giessen, 1926). Two English translations of the lecture itself have appeared. The first, by James Luther Adams, is in the Torchbook edition of Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, translated by George Eliot, introductory essay by Karl Barth, foreword by H. Richard Niebuhr (New York, 1957), x–xxxii. The second rendering is Chapter VII of Karl Barth, Theology and Church: Shorter Writings 1920–1928, translated by Louise Pettibone Smith, with an introduction (1962) by T. F. Torrance (London & New York, 1962). The following references to the essay will cite the text of Die Theologie und die Kirche as TK.

³ TK, 212. English renderings can be found on p. x of Adams' and p. 217 of Smith's translations. Hereafter, these will be appended to the TK reference in this fashion: “TK, 212 (ET, x/217).” Most quotations will be taken from these translations, although an occasional rendering will be revised.

⁴ Ibid., 219 (ET, xiv/222).

⁵ Ibid., 220 (ET, xv/223).

⁶ Ibid., 237 (ET, xxviii/235). On Barth's judgment of the justification of this assertion, cf. ibid. with TK, 213 (ET, x–xi/217–218).

⁷ Ibid., 221 (ET, xvi/223).

⁸ Karl Barth, Die kirchliche Dogmatik, III/2 (2. Aufl.; Zollikon-Zürich, 1959), 287 (ET, 240). Hereafter, any volume of this Dogmatik will be cited as KD; quotations will be from the authorized translation, Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh & New York, 1936–). Although Barth is sensitive to the variety of Feuerbach's attitudes toward religion, theology, and Christianity, he makes no use of the developmental interpretation of that variety, which has concerned modern students of Feuerbach himself. This parallels Barth's lumping of early and late writings, without discriminating their significances, in designating the capital sources. See TK, 213 (ET, xi/218) and Die protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert: Ihre Vorgeschichte und ihre Geschichte (2. Aufl.; Zollikon-Zürich, 1952), 484 (ET, From Rousseau to Ritschl [London, 1959], 355). On development in Feuerbach's thought see Gregor Nüdling, Ludwig Feuerbachs Religionsphilosophie (Paderborn, 1936), and Claudio Cesa, Il giovane Feuerbach (Bari, 1962).

⁹ TK, 226 (ET, xix/227).

¹⁰ Ibid., 226 (ET, xx/227).

¹¹ Ibid. That modern Protestant theology has been vulnerable to Feuerbach's critique of religion, because of its basic methodological commitment, is a theme that had been developed fully by Kurt Leese in Die Prinzipienlehre der neueren systematischen Theologie im Lichte der Kritik Ludwig Feuerbachs (Leipzig, 1912). Barth does not refer to this work in his discussions of Feuerbach in either TK or KD.

¹² Notably in his Die protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert.

¹³ Ibid., 486 (ET, 358). Cf. TK, 226 (ET, xx/227). That the content of the question changes at a later stage in Barth's reflections on Feuerbach will appear below (n. 42).

¹⁴ TK, 208 (ET [Smith], 213). Unlike the foregoing quotations from TK, this comes from the lecture, “Das Wort in der Theologie von Schleiermacher bis Ritschl,” not from “Ludwig Feuerbach.”

¹⁵ Ibid., 207 (ET, 212).

¹⁶ The main themes of this first phase receive definitive expression in two of Barth's lectures: “Ludwig Feuerbach,” originally delivered in the summer of 1926, and “Das Wort in der Theologie von Schleiermacher bis Ritschl,” delivered in the fall of 1927. Both are included in Die Theologie und die Kirche. The main restatements of these themes are to be found in (1) allusions to Feuerbach in Die christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf, 1. Band, Die Lehre vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur christlichen Dogmatik (München, 1927); (2) the chapter on Feuerbach in Die protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert (1947 and 1952); and (3) allusions to Feuerbach in Die kirchliche Dogmatik, especially in volumes I/2, II/1 and 2, III/2, and IV/1 (1938–1953).

Apparently the earliest reference to Feuerbach of any consequence appears in “Der Glaube an den persönlichen Gott,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 24 (1914), especially 87–88. Allusions to Feuerbach entered Der Römerbrief only through revision of the first edition into the second, and they have remained identical since. Compare, especially, pages 219–221 of the second edition (München, 1922) with 190–192 of the first (Bern, 1919).

¹⁷ TK, 228 (ET, xxi/228).

¹⁸ Ibid., 231 (ET, xxiv/231).

¹⁹ Ibid., 237 (ET, xxviii/235).

²⁰ Charles Hartshorne and William L. Reese, Philosophers Speak of God (Chicago, 1953), p. 448.

²¹ TK, 237 (ET, xxviii/235). In its sharpest form this charge commits Barth to asserting that Feuerbach at times identified God not only with the essence of the human species but even with the individual man. The assertion is explicit in Die protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert, p. 489 (ET, 361); it may be implied in TK, 238 (ET, xxix/236). This is another point at which it is evident that Barth has not employed a genetic interpretation of variety in Feuerbach's thought (cf. supra, n. 7). On the relations to Feuerbach of Stirner (1806–56) and Ehrenberg (1883–) see S. Rawidowicz, op. cit.

²² TK, 239 (ET, xxix/237). Cf. Der Römerbrief (second and subsequent editions), Ch. XI.

²³ Cf. TK, 210–211 (ET [Smith], 215–216), and ibid., 239 (ET, xxix/237). My argument throughout this section refers to Barth's early, explicit discussions of Feuerbach, not to other contexts in which he undoubtedly reversed the emphases in question. Orientation to the latter may be what led Rawidowicz to invert the two emphases (Rawidowicz, op. cit., pp. 365–367). Schilling agrees with the present reading (Schilling, op. cit., p. 136).

²⁴ E.g., his polemic might be charged with ignoring a target that Barth himself had identified as essential for any adequate attack on Feuerbach, namely Feuerbach's theory of salvation (TK, 219–220 [ET, xiv–xv/222–223]). But this criticism ignores the manifest bearing on Feuerbach's soteriology of the critique that Barth does make of his identification of God with the man that commits evil and dies.

²⁵ Ibid., 227 (ET, xxi/228).

²⁶ Werner Schilling, Glaube und Illusion: von gegenwärtiger Theologie und evangelischer Glaubensbegründung (München, 1960), pp. 28–41. Although they do not go as far as Schilling's denial of significant change in Barth's response to Feuerbach, the following studies do present that response as being of one piece: Rawidowicz, op. cit., pp. 365–367 (note early date of publication, 1931); Jan M. Lochman, “Von der Religion zum Menschen,” Antwort: Karl Barth zum siebzigsten Geburtstag am 10. Mai 1956 (Zollikon-Zürich, 1956), pp. 596–609; and H. Richard Niebuhr, “Foreword” to the Torchbook edition of Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (New York, 1957), vii–ix.

²⁷ Karl Barth, Fides quaerens intellectum: Anselms Beweis der Existenz Gottes (München, 1931; ET, London & Richmond, Virginia, 1960). On its significance for Barth see Hans W. Frei, “Niebuhr's Theological Background,” Faith and Ethics, ed. Paul Ramsey (New York, 1955), especially pp. 40–53.

²⁸ Whether it be Gogarten's call to begin theology with anthropology (KD, I/1 [7. Aufl.; Zollikon-Zürich, 1955], 132 [ET, 145]), or Augustine's argument to the Trinity from human consciousness (ibid., 362 [ET, 394]), or Protestant orthodoxy's methodological parity between the revealing of God and the reasoning of man (KD, I/2 [5. Aufl.; Zollikon-Zürich, 1960], 7 [ET, 7]), or its interpretation of divine revelation on the basis of human religion (ibid., 316 [ET, 290]), or whether it be the Idealist quest for God beyond the world's space and time (KD, II/1 [4 Aufl.; Zollikon-Zürich, 1958], 525 [ET, 467]), or a false deduction from the classic Christian understanding of the vocation of man (KD, IV/3, Zweite Hälfte [Zollikon-Zürich, 1959], 647 [ET, 564]), this polemical use of Feuerbach follows the same formula. The formula runs: (a) the way from “x,” the position under attack, to Feuerbach's conclusion may be long, and (b) it may run counter to the intention of proponents of “x,” but (c) “the continuity of the way cannot be disputed” (KD, I/2, 7 [ET, 7]). In short, Barth still uses a Feuerbachian reading of the history of theology and philosophy to explicate systematic implications of a Feuerbachian cast.

²⁹ The frame of reference of this thesis is explicit discourse about Feuerbach. Thus its claim that the themes constituting a second phase enter that context decisively in Volumes IV/2 and IV/3 does not intend to deny that these same notions have appeared in earlier Volumes of KD, in other contexts. Where that has occurred, a time-lag is evident between Barth's adoption of the idea and his bringing it to bear on Feuerbach.

³⁰ KD, IV/2 (Zollikon-Zürich, 1955), 88–91 (ET, 81–83).

³¹ Ibid., 130 (ET, 117). The contrast between this exaltation and Barth's former invoking of the human negativities against Feuerbach here rests, in turn, upon a displacement of the older appeal to any solitary individual who is honest with himself (cf. supra, n. 21). That has been displaced by an appeal to but one individual and, furthermore, by an explicit doctrine of the essence common to Him and to all men.

³² Ibid., 97 (ET, 88).

³³ Ibid., 111 (ET, 100).

³⁴ From the Lutheran sector on Barth's right flank, this security appears to Schilling to have been bought at the cost of the heart of the Christian understanding of redemption and the sacraments, to say nothing of Jesus Christ. Even though Barth has relinquished his former ban on every formulation of the communicatio idiomatum (KD, IV/2, 83 [ET, 75]), his abiding polemic against any formulation that deifies humanity leaves Schilling unconvinced by his restatement in terms of “confrontation” and “mutual participation.” See Schilling, op. cit., pp. 29–41.

³⁵ Cf. Karl Barth, Die Menschlichkeit Gottes (Zollikon-Zürich, 1956; ET, Richmond, Virginia, 1960) with Ludwig Feuerbach, Das Wesen des Christentums, hrsg. von Werner Schuffenhauer (II Bänden; Berlin, 1956; ET, New York, 1957), especially Ch. V in the German edition or Ch. IV in the English.

³⁶ KD, III/2, 333–334 (ET, 277–278).

³⁷ KD, I/2, 46–47 (ET, 41–42). It is important to note that Barth here uses the I-Thou category within horizontal relations, for we shall not find him relying decisively on it in his rejoinder to Feuerbach's reduction of the vertical relation. On the present issue he uses Feuerbach against Stirner (op. cit.), although we saw that he had used the latter against the former on another issue in the 1920's (supra, n. 20).

³⁸ KD, IV/3, Erste Hälfte (Zollikon-Zürich, 1959), 78–86 (ET, 72–78).

³⁹ Ibid., 86–95 (ET, 78–86). Together with that cited in the preceding note, this passage is of capital importance, because here Barth deals more directly and extensively than ever before with Feuerbach's charge that theological discourse involves illusory projection. The polemic of this passage against bases for rejoinder, other than Barth's present one, shows how he carries forward the old negative side of his anthropology in the service of his new rejoinder.

⁴⁰ Ibid., 80 (ET, 73). On this and on the preceding page Barth derives Feuerbach's skeptical question from concerns especially characteristic of Bultmann — concern for the problem of our own existence, e.g., and for honesty with ourselves and with others. Even though he does not name him, may these not be points at which Barth's response to Feuerbach evinces the intensive, if quiet, debate with Bultmann which Barth owned in his foreword to KD, IV/1? The same can be said of KD, IV/3, Zweite Hälfte, 647 (ET, 563–564).

⁴¹ Ibid., 82–83 (ET, 75).

⁴² Ibid., 84 (ET, 77). Italics mine. For perspective on this whole section devoted to disposing of Feuerbach's very question, it is worth noting that the content of that query has shifted since the first phase of Barth's listening. What he had heard Feuerbach ask in the 1920's was whether the starting-point of modern Protestant theology did not issue in an apotheosis of man. (Cf. supra, n. 13.) In 1959, however, the operative query had become a skeptical one about God: Is he really anything other than wishful projection of our finite selves? In short, Barth has continued to employ a rhetoric of question and answer to make his own assertions about what Feuerbach affirmed. In the transition from the first to the second phase of his dialogue, however, the precise reference of that rhetoric has shifted from one contention of Feuerbach to another.

⁴³ Ibid.

⁴⁴ Ibid., 94 (ET, 85).

⁴⁵ Ibid., 95 (ET, 85, 86).

⁴⁶ Ibid., 91 (ET, 82–83).

⁴⁷ The main limit of this twofold claim pertains to its first half, about substantive contentions; and that limit is set by the indifference of Barth to development in Feuerbach's thought. For example, the view of God he attributes to Feuerbach, and to which he orders his own response, rings truer to Das Wesen des Christentums (1841) than it does to Vorlesungen über das Wesen der Religion (1851). In the latter work Feuerbach viewed God not so much as the essence of man as the essence of Nature. (See Nüdling, op. cit., pp. 181–183; cf. supra, n. 8 and n. 21.) If it is really the early Feuerbach whom Barth has confronted, then, it can still be said that Barth has the merit of meeting his opponent where Feuerbach is generally acknowledged to be at his best.

⁴⁸ Far more telling than his ignoring of particular arguments is the fact that Barth has yet to respond to a type of argument which Feuerbach regarded as important for the support of his thesis about theological illusion: the rational argument that exhibits the self-contradiction of theological assertions. As Barth himself acknowledged, one of the two parts of Das Wesen des Christentums is devoted to this type of argument. (Cf. TK, 220 [ET, xv/222–223]. The passage suggests that he minimizes the import of this type by judging its negative conclusion to be less fundamental to Feuerbach's position than his positive assertions.)

⁴⁹ Even if his early recourse to human individuality, evil and death had sustained his refusal to deify man, this did nothing to justify his further, positive contention that God is radically other than man. For over four decades his discussions of Feuerbach failed to state clearly his grounds for supposing that his talk of God was anything other than illusory projection. Finally, by adapting Anselm's argument to the case of Feuerbach in 1959 (cf. supra, n. 39), Barth rid himself of this central omission. He accomplished this, incidentally, just before Schilling charged him with having failed to do so (Schilling, op. cit., p. 75). (There may have been a hint, it is true, in TK, 239 [ET, xix/237], echoed in Die protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert, 489 [ET, 361]; and his point was evident in other contexts.)

⁵⁰ In the first phase of his response it is true that Barth disputed Feuerbach on terrain that they both acknowledged, anthropological realism; and he has from first to last agreed with Feuerbach that appeal to religious experience and to the history of modern Protestant theology supports Feuerbach's conclusions about theological illusion. But the 1959 clarification of christocentric revelation as the basis for denying that illusion (cf. supra, n. 39), to say nothing of its attendant dismissal of Feuerbach's skeptical question, makes it clear that the second phase of Barth's rejoinder gained internal coherence at the expense of losing contact with the standpoint of his opponent. It did so not only in basis for argument but also in taking the opponent's central assertion (i.e., his “question”) seriously. This latter loss of contact was more thoroughgoing, to be sure, in Barth's profession than in his practice. For the passage devoted to ignoring that “question” is by far his longest on Feuerbach in over thirty years.

⁵¹ This is the polemical ideal in the light of which Schilling taxes Barth with either having evaded Feuerbach or having remained naïve about an adequate rejoinder (Schilling, op. cit., pp. 74–75). His own alternative is a critique of the illusionist theory on the basis of an objective moment of the religious consciousness.