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Karl Barth and personalist philosophy: a critical appropriation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2010

Mark J. McInroy
Mark J. McInroy*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 9BS, [email protected]
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Abstract

Scholarship on Karl Barth's engagement with so-called ‘personalist philosophy’ has claimed that the following three sources exerted a significant influence on this aspect of Barth's thought: (1) the founders of an interdisciplinary society known as the ‘Patmos Circle’; (2) Barth's fellow dialectical theologians, Emil Brunner and Friedrich Gogarten; (3) Martin Buber, in particular his classic work, I and Thou. In spite of these assessments, however, I argue that Barth's initial stance towards personalism is actually best characterised as one of resistance and criticism. Specifically, I claim here that Barth undertakes a highly critical appropriation of personalism in which the categories of encounter (Begegnung), co-humanity (Mitmenschlichkeit) and the I–Thou relation (Ich–Du-Beziehung) are deeply criticised and recast in an explicitly theological – not philosophical – mould. When Barth does use personalist categories in his own theological anthropology – particularly in the Church Dogmatics, III/2 – he roots his notion of the human being as a ‘being in encounter’ in his christology and trinitarian theology, comprehensively restructuring personalist categories by placing them on a new foundation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , February 2011 , pp. 45 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2010

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References

1 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1936–77), III/2Google Scholar. Further references to the Church Dogmatics indicated by CD.

2 Harvey, Van, ‘Personalism’, in A Handbook of Theological Terms (New York: Touchstone, 1997), pp. 183–4Google Scholar.

3 Renouvier, Charles, Le Personnalisme suivi d'une étude sur la perception externe et sur la force (Paris: F. Alcan, 1903)Google Scholar; Stern, William, Person und Sache: System der philosophischen Weltanschauung, vol. 1: Ableitung und Grundlehre des kritischen Personalismus (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1906)Google Scholar; Bowne, Borden Parker, Personalism (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1908)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. These three figures are mentioned in Knudson, Albert Cornelius, The Philosophy of Personalism: A Study in the Metaphysics of Religion (New York: Abingdon Press, 1927), p. 18Google Scholar.

4 Harvey, ‘Personalism’, p. 183.

5 Cohen, Hermann, Die Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums (Leipzig: G. Fock, 1919)Google Scholar.

6 Ebner's, FerdinandDas Wort und die geistige Realitäten (Innsbruck: Brenner Verlag)Google Scholar and Rosenzweig's, FranzDer Stern der Erlösung (Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauffmann Verlag)Google Scholar appeared in 1921, shortly followed by Buber's, MartinIch und Du (Leipzig: Insel Verlag)Google Scholar in 1923.

7 For a history of dialogical personalism, see Casper, Bernhard, Das dialogische Denken: Eine Untersuchung der religionsphilosophischen Bedeutung Franz Rosenzweigs, Ferdinand Ebners und Martin Bubers (Freiburg: Herder, 1967)Google Scholar; also Weinrich, Michael, Der Wirklichkeit begegnen . . .: Studien zu Buber, Grisebach, Gogarten, Bonhoeffer und Hirsch (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1980)Google Scholar.

8 This more carefully circumscribed description of dialogical personalism helps us to distinguish Barth's engagement with this philosophical movement from his more general concern with a personal God over against an impersonal Absolute. This latter concern of Barth's was most likely influenced by Friedrich Schleiermacher, Albrecht Ritschl and Wilhelm Herrmann.

9 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Anthropology in Theological Perspective, trans. O'Connell, M. J. (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1985), p. 181Google Scholar.

10 Stahmer, Harold M., Speak that I May See! The Religious Significance of Language (New York: Macmillan, 1968), pp. 121–2Google Scholar.

11 Stahmer, Harold M., ‘Speech is the Body of the Spirit: The Oral Hermeneutic in the Writings of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888–1973)’, Oral Tradition 2/1 (1987), pp. 301–22, 307Google Scholar.

12 Wittig, Joseph, Buber, Martin and Weizsäcker, Victor von (eds), Die Kreatur (Berlin: Schneider, 1926–30)Google Scholar.

13 Rosenstock-Huessy, , ‘Rückblick auf Die Kreatur’, in Ja und Nein: Autobiographische Fragmente, ed. Georg Müller (Heidelberg: Verlag Lambert Schneider, 1968), p. 107Google Scholar.

14 Ibid.

15 Busch, Eberhard, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1976), p. 112Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., p. 141. The quotation is taken from a letter from Barth to Heinrich Scholz on 2 Aug. 1954.

17 McLean, Stuart, Humanity in the Thought of Karl Barth (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1981)Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., pp. 2–3.

19 Ibid.

20 Ward, Graham, Barth, Derrida and the Language of Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

21 Ibid., pp. 83–7.

22 Hunsinger describes personalism as one of six motifs which can be traced through Barth's theology, drawing attention to Barth's use of such ideas as ‘encounter’, ‘fellowship’, and the I–Thou relation. He thus highlights the significant work performed via personalist categories throughout the Church Dogmatics, esp. CD III (‘Doctrine of Creation’) and CD IV (‘Doctrine of Reconciliation’). See How to Read Karl Barth: The Shape of his Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 40–2, 152–84.

23 Here I join with Bruce McCormack who, in an article review of Barth, Derrida, and the Language of Theology strongly opposes the use of the ‘Patmos Circle’ made by Ward. See McCormack, Bruce, ‘Graham Ward's Barth, Derrida and the Language of Theology’, Scottish Journal of Theology 49 (1996), pp. 97–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 102–4.

24 I found the same results in communication with Traugott Jähnichen of the Ehrenberg Archive in Bochum, Germany, as was also the case in correspondence with Gottfried Hofmann and Lise van der Molen of the Rosenstock-Huessy Archives in Bethel, Germany, and Winsum, the Netherlands, respectively.

25 Karl Barth to Hans Ehrenberg, 18 March 1928. Original in Karl Barth Archive.

26 Karl Barth to Hans Ehrenberg, 21 Oct. 1928 (emphasis added). Original in Karl Barth Archive.

27 Karl Barth to Hans Ehrenberg, 20 Feb. 1929. Original in Karl Barth Archive.

28 Karl Barth to Eduard Thurneysen, 28 Oct. 1919, in Barth–Thurneysen Briefwechsel 1913–1921, Gesamte Ausgabe V.3 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1973), p. 348 (hereafter B-TB).

29 Karl Barth to Eduard Thurneysen, 11 Nov. 1919, B-TB, p. 351.

30 Karl Barth to Eduard Thurneysen, 14 Dec. 1919, B-TB, p. 361.

31 Karl Barth to Eduard Thurneysen, 22 March 1920, B-TB, p. 376.

32 Importantly, too, in his letter to Thurneysen on 28 Oct. 1919 Barth refers to Rosenstock as already belonging to the Patmos publishing house. Based on this evidence, it would seem that the Patmos Verlag had been founded in advance of Barth's association with Rosenstock and Ehrenberg, and that Barth was not in fact a co-founder of the press. See B-TB, p. 348.

33 One finds that Heiko Miskotte repeatedly urges Barth to read The Star of Redemption as late as 1957. There is no indication, however, that Barth ever actually did so. In fact, at one point in their correspondence, Barth encourages Miskotte simply to summarise the main points of Rosenzweig's text for him. See Karl Barth–Heiko Miskotte Briefwechsel, ed. Hinrich Stoevesandt (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1991), pp. 89–98.

34 McCormack, Bruce, Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909–1936 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), esp. pp. 361Google Scholar, 393–5, 402–11.

35 Hart, John W., Karl Barth vs. Emil Brunner: The Formation and Dissolution of a Theological Alliance (New York: Peter Lang, 2001), esp. pp. 41Google Scholar, 54, and ‘The Barth–Brunner Correspondence’, in Hunsinger, G. (ed.), For the Sake of the World: Karl Barth and the Future of Ecclesial Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 2004), pp. 19–43Google Scholar, esp. p. 26.

36 Offering overt indication of his debt to Ebner, Brunner once said of his approach to theology, ‘My eyes were opened by Ferdinand Ebner’. See ‘Comments by Brunner’, in Hesselink, John, ‘Encounter in Japan: Emil Brunner – An Interpretation’, Reformed Review 9 (1956), p. 33Google Scholar. Quoted in Hart, Barth vs. Brunner, p. 40. Ebner's imprint on Brunner is arguably present as early as 1923, as evidenced in Brunner's Erlebnis, Erkenntnis, und Glaube (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1923), and Ebner certainly shapes the fundamental categories of Brunner's Wahrheit als Begegnung (Berlin: Fürche Verlag, 1938).

37 Barth, Karl, ‘Nachwort’, in Bolli, H. (ed.), Schleiermacher-Auswahl: Mit einem Nachwort von Karl Barth (Gütersloh: G. Mohn, 1968), pp. 290–312Google Scholar. Quoted in Busch, Karl Barth, p. 152.

38 Gogarten, Friedrich, Von Glauben und Offenbarung (Jena: E. Diederichs, 1923), esp. p. 81Google Scholar. Helmut Gollwitzer offers a helpful summary of Gogarten's engagement with dialogical personalism in ‘The Significance of Martin Buber for Protestant Theology’, in Haim Gordon and Jochanan Bloch (eds), Martin Buber: A Centenary Volume (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, 1984), pp. 385–417. Also useful in this connection is Langemeyer, Bernhard, Der dialogische Personalismus in der evangelischen und katholischen Theologie der Gegenwart (Paderborn: Verlag Bonifacius Druckerei, 1963)Google Scholar.

39 Gogarten, Von Glauben und Offenbarung, p. 77. Quoted in Gollwitzer, ‘Significance of Martin Buber’, p. 389.

40 Karl Barth to Rudolf Bultmann, 5 Feb. 1930, in Karl Barth–Rudolf Bultmann Briefwechsel 1911–1966, Gesamte Ausgabe V.1 (Zürich, Theologischer Verlag Zürich: 1994), p. 102. Quoted in McCormack, Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, p. 410.

41 CD III/2, p. 278.

42 This most commonly occurs in treatments of Buber which yoke together Barth, Brunner and Gogarten (and often Karl Heim, as well) as Protestant theologians influenced by Buber's thought. See Santmire, H. Paul, ‘I–Thou, I–It, and I–Ens’, Journal of Religion 48 (1968), pp. 260–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 260–1; and Friedman, Maurice, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue (New York: Routledge, 2002), esp. pp. 324–7Google Scholar.

43 Becker, Dieter, Karl Barth und Martin Buber – Denker in dialogischer Nachbarschaft? Zur Bedeutung Martin Bubers für die Anthropologie Karl Barths (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986)Google Scholar. The only other book-length study of the topic is Brinkschmidt's, EgonMartin Buber und Karl Barth: Theologie zwischen Dialogik und Dialektik (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2000)Google Scholar. Brinkschmidt's account is lacking in a decisive aspect: he makes no mention of Barth's sole sustained treatment of Buber in a 1944 lecture given by Barth to his colleagues in Basel. This lecture, as I will argue below, provides an indispensable hermeneutical key to understanding Barth's relationship with Buber's thought.

44 One reviewer of the book concisely highlights Becker's hesitance in this arena as follows: ‘The title of the book is appropriately a question’. de Grazia, Louis, ‘Dieter Becker, Karl Barth and Martin Buber’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 24 (1987), p. 307Google Scholar.

45 Becker, Barth und Buber, esp. pp. 13–15.

46 Ibid., pp. 60–5.

47 Buber writes to Barth with a question about Gogarten's notion of radical evil, and Barth offers only a short reply. See Gollwitzer, ‘Significance of Martin Buber’, p. 396.

48 CD III/2, p. 278.

49 The manuscript from this lecture was subsequently integrated into Barth's first draft of the Church Dogmatics III/2, although it was never actually published in the volume. It has recently been released on a compact disc of Barth's unpublished texts; there it is titled ‘Exkurs über Martin Buber’. See Barth, Karl, ‘Exkurs über Martin Buber’, in Karl Barth, Unveröffentlichte Texte zur Kirchlichen Dogmatik, Supplemente zur Karl Barth-Gesamtausgabe, 1, ed. Hans-Anton Drewes, (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2005), pp. 1084–1109Google Scholar.

50 CD III/2, p. 247.

51 Ibid.

52 CD III/2, p. 248.

53 CD III/2, p. 250.

54 CD III/2, p. 252.

55 CD III/2, p. 260.

56 CD III/2, p. 273.

57 Ibid.

58 CD III/2, p. 277.

59 Gollwitzer, ‘Significance of Martin Buber’, p. 397.

60 CD III/2, p. 277.

61 Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, pp. 55–64.

62 Ibid., p. 61.

63 Ibid., p. 62.

64 CD III/2, p. 277.

65 CD III/4, p. 117.

66 See CD III/2, §45.1 ‘Jesus, Man for other Men’.

67 CD III/2, p. 208.

68 CD III/2, p. 216.

69 CD III/2, p. 222–3.

70 CD III/2, p. 278.

71 Buber, Martin, ‘The History of the Dialogical Principle’, in Between Man and Man, trans. Smith, Ronald Gregor (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 264Google Scholar.

72 Barth has been criticised by some for lacking a genuine interest in Judaism, and one might be tempted to say that this critique is particularly felt here. For a nuanced handling of Barth's complex relationship with Jewish thought, see Sonderegger, Katherine, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew: Karl Barth's ‘Doctrine of Israel’ (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; and, more recently, Lindsay, Mark R., Barth, Israel, and Jesus: Karl Barth's Theology of Israel (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007)Google Scholar.

73 Barth, ‘Exkurs über Martin Buber’, p. 1084.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid., p. 1100.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid., p. 1101.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid., p. 1102.

80 Ibid., p. 1105.

81 CD III/2, p. 273.

82 A previous version of this article was presented to the Karl Barth Society of North America in San Diego, CA, on 16 Nov. 2007. My thanks go to George Hunsinger for the opportunity to present my work in that setting. Thanks also to Hans-Anton Drewes of the Karl Barth Archiv in Basel, Switzerland, for so helpfully accommodating me in my research and the Karl Barth Nachlass-Kommission for permission to use unpublished correspondence from the Barth Archiv. Bruce McCormack, Ronald Thiemann and Sarah Coakley all provided invaluable insight, guidance and encouragement throughout the writing of this article; to each of them I am deeply grateful.