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Some Difficulties in Barth's Development of Special Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Robert E. Willis
Robert E. Willis
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Religion, Hamline University
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Extract

I wish to examine certain aspects of Barth's development of special ethics which are puzzling to me, and which I believe pose difficulties that mitigate considerably the possibility of a successfully completed programme in theological ethics. Whether these aspects are puzzling to others remains to be seen. At any rate, an important part of theological ethics, as I see it, lies in seeing what sorts of responses are engendered by taking up a position and attempting to elaborate it.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , June 1970 , pp. 147 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

page 147 note 1 Die Kirchliche Dogmatik, II/2, p. 574f. Future references to the Dogmatik will be indicated by the letters K.D., followed by the volume and page numbers.

page 148 note 1 Cf. K.D., III/4, p. 17Google Scholar.

page 148 note 2 ibid., p. 26 f. Of course, the notion of the perichoresis of these ‘moments’ of the command has to be kept dearly in view, as a corollary to the principle, ‘opera Trinitatis ad extra sent indivisa’. Once this point has been made, however, there will then be a provisional differentiation and ordering possible within ethics in its significance for creation, reconciliation, and redemption that unfolds in precise continuity with the trinitarian being of God.

page 148 note 3 ibid., p. 31.

page 148 note 4 ibid., p. 18.

page 148 note 5 ibid., p. 9.

page 149 note 1 K. D., II/2, p. 670.

page 149 note 2 In the later sections of the Dogmatics, Barth tends to drop the distinction between the analogia relationis and the analogia fidei. They are still useful, however, as indicating the two main functions of analogy in Barth's thought.

page 149 note 3 Barth's position on this point is even more strict than that taken by Paul Lehmann, who allows at least a limited use to the term ‘principle’ within the ethical vocabulary, provided the ‘distinction between “principles and the situation”, even as a difference of emphasis’, is not allowed to appear. Cf. Ethics in a Christian Context (London: SCM Press, 1963), p. 154.Google Scholar Whether this amounts to a subtle rejection or a subtle recognition of principles by Lehmann, there is at least the possibility, within a limited range, of using the term.

page 150 note 1 K. D., II/2, p. 670.

page 150 note 2 K. D., II/1, p. 210.

page 151 note 1 Metaphysical Beliefs (London: SCM Press, 1957), p. 175 f.Google Scholar

page 153 note 1 K. D., II/2, p. 745 f.

page 153 note 2 K. D., III/4, p. 11.

page 153 note 3 K. D., IV/2, p. 613.

page 154 note 1 ‘Political Decisions in the Unity of Faith’, in Against the Stream (London: SCM Press, 1954), pp. 147–64.Google Scholar

page 154 note 2 K. D., III/4, p. 304.

page 154 note 3 ibid., p. 533 f.

page 155 note 1 Barth, Karl: Parole de Dieu et Existence Humaine (Paris: Aubier, 1957), Deuxieme Partie, pp. 255–58.Google Scholar

page 155 note 2 Cf. A Survey of Christian Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 65 ff., 295Google Scholarpassim.