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Neo-Orthodoxy and Biblical Research
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2011
Extract
Writing in 1937, D. W. Riddle was able to assert that dialectical theology had exerted little or no influence on biblical studies in America in spite of its importance in Europe. This statement would not be as true today as it was then. Yet it remains sufficiently valid to underline an interesting situation. While Neo-orthodoxy has become increasingly prominent in many areas of American thought, it has made very little progress among biblical critics. Is this an indication of an intellectual vested interest automatically resistant to change, or is it, instead, the reflection of the impact of certain phases of Neo-orthodoxy upon historical study as such? It is the purpose of this paper to attempt to analyze this problem.
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1950
References
1 Riddle, D. W., “German Influence on American New Testament Studies,” Christendom, II (1937), pp. 242–253Google Scholar; p. 253.
I wish to express my thanks to Karl Barth and to Hodder & Stoughton, the Lutterworth Press, and the Oxford University Press for their kind permission to use certain quotations.
2 The terms “dialectical theology” and “Neo-orthodoxy” are taken to be synonymous throughout this discussion.
3 A larger study included an intensive examination of Emil Brunner, Reinhold Niebuhr, and C. H. Dodd, as well as the two named above.
4 Barth, K., The Word of God and the Word of Man (The Pilgrim Press), 1928Google Scholar; trs. by Douglas Horton; pp. 45, 74. Barth does not use this term frequently, but it is a fair characterization of his attitude.
5 Barth, K., The Knowledge of God and the Service of God According to the Teachings of the Reformation (London, Hodder & Stoughton), 1938Google Scholar; trs. by J. L. M. Haire and Ian Henderson; p. 46. Although this is Barth's statement of the Reformation doctrine of man, it is also a description of his own doctrine of unredeemed man. His position is described in his Die Kirchliche Dogmatik: Die Lehre von der Schöpfung (Zürich, Evangelischer Verlag, E. G. Zollikon), 1948, 3, pt. 2Google Scholar.
6 Barth, K., and Thurneysen, E., Come Holy Spirit (New York, Round Table Press), 1934Google Scholar; trs. by G. W. Richards, E. G. Homrighausen, and K. J. Ernst; pp. 9, 42. Cf. also, by the same authors, od's Search for Man (New York, Round Table Press), 1935Google Scholar; trs. by G. W. Richards, E. G. Homrighausen, K. J. Ernst; pp. 95 ff. Cf. also Barth, Knowledge of God and the Service of God, pp. 33, 50.
7 Barth, K., Die Lehre vom Wort Gottes, Prolegomena zur Kirchlichen Dogmatik (Zürich, Evangelischer Verlag, E. G. Zollikon), I, pt. 1, vierte auflage, 1944Google Scholar; pp. 322 f. Hereafter cited as Dogmatik I:1. All quotations from German works are given in this writer's translation.
8 Barth, K., Die Lehre vom Wort Gottes, Prolegomena zur Kirchlichen Dogmatik, I, pt. 2 (Zürich, Evangelischer Verlag, A. G. Zollikon), 1938; p. 188Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Dogmatik I:2. Cf. also Dogmatik I:1, pp. 426 ff. for a similar defense of the divinity of Christ.
9 Barth, K., The Epistle to the Romans (Oxford, University Press), 1933Google Scholar; trs. from the 6th German edition by E. C. Hoskyns; p. 1.
10 Barth, Dogmatik I:1, p. 321; Dogmatik I:2, p. 66.
11 Barth, Knowledge of God and the Service of God, p. 182.
12 Barth, Dogmatik I:2, p. 11.
13 Barth, Dogmatik I:1, pp. 436 f.
14 Barth, K., God in Action, Theological Addresses (New York, Round Table Press), 1936Google Scholar; trs. by E. G. Homrighausen and K. J. Ernst; p. 3.
15 Barth, K., Credo, a Presentation of the Chief Problems of Dogmatics with Reference to the Apostles' Creed (London, Hodder & Stoughton), 1936Google Scholar; trs. by J. S. McNab, pp. 180 ff.
16 Barth, Dogmatik I:1, p. 436.
17 Brunner, E., The Word and the World (New York, Scribner's), 1931Google Scholar; no translator given; pp. 7 ff.
18 Brunner, E., Revelation and Reason, the Christian Doctrine of Faith and Knowledge (Philadelphia, Westminster Press), 1946Google Scholar; trs. by Olive Wyon; pp. 60 ff.
19 Brunner, E., The Mediator (London, Lutterworth Press), 1934Google Scholar; trs. by Olive Wyon; p. 165, note 1; and p. 227. Cf. also by the same author, The Divine Human Encounter (Philadelphia, Westminster Press), 1943Google Scholar; trs. by A. W. Loos; p. 114.
20 Brunner, Mediator, p. 168.
21 It may be argued, however, that many of the factors that led him into his radical position as a New Testament critic also led him into his Neo-orthodox position.
22 Bultmann uses this older term to designate what he means by exegesis through faith, i.e., exegesis through the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
23 Barth, Epistle to the Romans, p. 16. This remark comes from 1921 or 1922.
24 His work as an historian is reflected chiefly in the following: Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (Göttingen, Vandenhoek and Ruprecht), 1921Google Scholar; Das Urchristentum im Rahmen der antiken Religionen (Zürich, Artemis-Verlag), 1949Google Scholar; and, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr), v. 1, 1948Google Scholar; v. 2, 1949. None of these reflect, to any extent, the religious historical relativism which is under examination (but cf. Das Urchristentum im Rahmen der antiken Religionen, p. 8).
25 Bultmann, R., Der Begriff der Offenbarung im Neuen Testament (Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr), 1929; p. 32Google Scholar f.
26 Bultmann, R., Glauben und Verstehen (Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr), 1933, pp. 28–30Google Scholar.
27 Bultmann, Glauben und Verstehen, pp. 215, 222.
28 Bultmann, Begriff der Offenbarung, p. 6.
29 Ibid., p. 11. Cf. also by the same author, Jesus (Berlin, Deutsche Bibliothek), 1929, p. 8. This work is available in English (translated from the 2nd German edition) under the title, Jesus and the Word (New York, Scribner's), 1934.
30 Bultmann, Glauben und Verstehen, pp. 226 f. Cf. also Jesus, pp. 195 ff.
31 Bultmann, Begriff der Offenbarung, pp. 27, 29, 44. Cf. also Glauben und Verstehen, pp. 289–292.
32 Published by Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1921. It is available to the English reader in digest form in the chapter by Bultmann, , “A Study of the Synoptic Gospels,” in Grant's, F. C.Form Criticism, a New Method of New Testament Research (Chicago, Willett, Clark & Co.), 1934; pp. 11–74Google Scholar.
33 Taylor, V., The Formation of the Gospel Tradition (London, MacMillan), 1933; p. 14Google Scholar.
34 Bultmann, Glauben und Verstehen, p. 120.
35 Ibid., pp. 121 ff.
36 Bultmann calls this “pneumatik” exegesis. It is the same principle as that one described as exegesis by faith in the discussion of Barth. The final guide in determining the historical event is the witness given by God through His spirit — thus only he who has experienced that faith in Christ implanted by the Spirit, can study Christ historically. See his Glauben und Verstehen, pp. 116 f., and Begriff der Offenbarung, p. 24.
37 Bultmann, Glauben und Verstehen, p. 246.
38 Bultmann, Jesus, p. 60. It should also be pointed out that Paul himself quoted frequently from that same Law!
39 Bultmann, “Study of the Synoptic Gospels,” in Grant, Form Criticism, p. 55.
40 Bultmann, Jesus, pp. 51 f.
41 Ibid., p. 30.
42 Ibid., p. 40.
43 By the use of the term “religion” here I do not propose to evade the issue as stated by Barth. He regards religion as a human construction and as sinful in itself as any other such construction. As I define it, however, it is the experience, and the record of that experience, of God's dealings with men. And since I cannot see what other knowledge of God man may have than this, whatever is known to any man about God (even including the extensive writings of Karl Barth!) falls within this definition.
44 Even this statement is not quite correct. What we are asked to accept is a garbled version of one phase of Reformation doctrine. I call it garbled because the reaction of the church historian to Barth is much like that of the biblical student. Cf. Pauck, W., Karl, Barth, Prophet of a New Christianity? (New York, Harpers), 1931Google Scholar; especially p. 168.
45 This becomes all the more striking when it is remembered that the basic pattern of thought is the same for both.
46 Brunner, Mediator, p. 217, note 1. Cf. also his Revelation and Reason, pp. 206 ff.