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Karl Barth's Christological Treatment of Sin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Allen Jorgenson
Allen Jorgenson
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185 Sheldon Ave. N., Kitchener, ON, Canada, N2H 3M7
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Extract

A christological treatment of sin is, for Karl Barth, the only possibility for those who wish to know something of that which opposes life in Christ. Such a treatment must be christologically ordered in so far as Christ remains the arche, teloas, and nomos of theological thought. It is not coincidental, then, that his treatment of sin is proper to the doctrine of reconciliation and ordered by the christological assertion that Jesus Christ is truly God, truly human, and the unity of these as the ‘guarantor and witness of our atonement.’ Indeed, the knowledge of sin is only possible in the light of the revelation of God and humanity in the God-man Jesus Christ. Consequently, the doctrine of reconciliation is the proper place for the knowledge of sin in so far as Jesus, the one who knew no sin, was made to be sin ‘so that we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Cor. 5:21). To know sin one must face the one who became sin for our sakes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 54 , Issue 4 , November 2001 , pp. 439 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2001

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References

1 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics: Volume I, The Doctrine of the Word of God, Part 1, 2nd edn, trans, by Bromiley, G. W., ed. by Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), p. 4.Google Scholar

2 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics: Volume IV, The Doctrine of Reconciliation, Part I, trans, by Bromiley, G. W., ed. by Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), p. 79.Google Scholar

3 Although the attempt to capture the evolution of the understanding of sin in the Catholic tradition up to the Reformation by analysing three thinkers seems simplistic, the choice of Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas is justified in light of the predominance of their thought in the Western tradition. The logic of beginning our historical overview at Augustine and ending it at the Reformation is also suggested by Barth's interest in Luther and Calvin and by Luther and Calvin's interest in and dependence on Augustine. Detours a la Anselm and Aquinas are necessary in so far as Anselm presents the alternative understanding of original sin that most clearly rivals Augustine in the west and Aquinas represents the attempt to synthesize these two thinkers. The return of the Reformation to the Augustinian position allows us a historical reading in which the telos and the arche coincide and proffers the Bishop of Hippo as a fitting starting point.

4 Augustine, Saint, ‘De Peccatorum Mentis et Remissione’ in Nicene and Post- Nicene Fathers: Volume V, ed. by Schaff, Philip (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1956).Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 43.

6 Kors, J.-B., OP, , La Justice Primitive et Le Péché Originel (Kain: Le Saulchoir, 1922), p. 7.Google Scholar

7 Augustine, Saint, Enchiridion, trans, by Evans, Ernest (London: SPCK, 1953), p. 42.Google Scholar

8 Anselm, Saint of Canterbury, , ‘De Conceptu Virginali et de Originali Peccato’, in Trinity, Incarnation and Redemption, ed. and trans, by Hopkins, Jasper and Richardson, Herbert (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970), p. 37.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 52.

10 Ibid., p. 68.

11 Anselm does, however, seem to indicate that while all humanity is born of a seed (Christ included in so far as he is born of the Virgin's ‘seed’), seed can be understood as unclean in itself in so far as it is conceived in pleasure (ibid., p. 59). Nonetheless, for Anselm, this pleasure would be understood as an act of the will (ibid., p. 57).

12 Ibid., p. 57.

13 Ibid., pp. 45, 64, 65.

14 Ibid., p. 75.

15 Laporte, Jean-Marc, SJ, , Les Structures Dynamiques de la Crâce (Bellarmin: Montréal, 1973), p. 107.Google Scholar

16 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, Summa Theologica: Volume 11, la—IIae, trans, by Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1981), p. 956.Google Scholar

17 Ibid.

18 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, Summa Theologiae: Vol. 26, trans, by O'Brien, T. C., OP, (London: Blackfriars, 1965), p. 30.Google Scholar

19 Op. cit., p. 957.

20 We will use texts as found in Concordia Triglotta: Libri symboloci Ecclesiae Lutheranae, Germanice-Latine-Anglice (St Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1921)Google Scholar.

21 Ibid., p. 43.

22 Ibid., pp. 105, 111, 113.

23 Ibid., p. 109.

24 Ibid., p. 107.

25 Ibid., p. 113.

26 Ibid., pp. 113–15.

27 Luther, Martin, Luther's Works: Volume 1, Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 1–5, ed. By Pelikan, Jaroslav, trans, by Schick, George V. (St Louis, MO: Concordia, 1958), p. 166.Google Scholar

28 Kors, op. cit., pp. 9, 10.

29 Ibid., p. 29.

30 Apology, p. 115. The Lutheran position is seen to be in concert with the tradition in this respect. Aquinas also presents this perspective (cf. Ia–IIae.83.3.ad. 3).

31 Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion: Volume I, ed. By McNeill, John T., trans, by Battles, Ford Lewis (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), pp. 250, 251.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., pp. 251, 252.

33 Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion: Volume II, ed. By McNeill, John T., trans, by Battles, Ford Lewis (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), p. 1311.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., pp. 1312, 1313.

35 Barth, op. cit., p. 79.

36 Ibid.

37 Triglotta, p. 113.

38 The Lutheran approach presumes, of course, the revelation of the telos that orders the doctrine, and in that sense is Christologically ordered. Nonetheless, Barth's approach can truly be considered overtly Christological in a sense that is not the case in the Lutheran approach.

39 Barth, CD IV/1, p. 142.

40 Ibid., pp. 142–4.

41 Ibid., p. 414.

42 Ibid.

43 Sponheim, Paul, ‘Sin and Evil’, in Christian Dogmatics: Volume I, ed. by Braaten, Carl E. and Jenson, Robert W. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), p. 414.Google Scholar

44 Kors, op. cit., pp. 132–6.

45 Ibid., p. 136.

46 This participation is made possible by the theological virtues, which are above the natural virtues, and thus surajouté (cf. Ia-IIae.62, 1, 2).

47 Op. cit., pp. 84–8.

48 Webster, John, ‘“The Firmest Grasp of the Real”: Barth on Original Sin’, Toronto Journal of Theology 4 (Spring, 1988), 24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Barth, op. cit., p. 501.

50 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics: Volume IV, The Doctrine of Reconciliation, Part II, trans, by Bromiley, G. W., ed. by Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), p. 384.Google Scholar

51 Ibid., pp. 378–403.

52 Ibid., pp. 403–83.

53 Ibid., pp. 483–98.

54 Ibid., p. 398.

55 Ibid., p. 404.

56 Cf. for instance; Greene-McCreight, Kathryn, ‘Gender, Sin and Grace: Feminist Theologies Meet Karl Barth's Hamartiology’, in Scottish Journal of Theology 50, no. 4 (1997), 415–432CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Basset, Lytta, in ‘Le Péché á l'heure de. la deculpabilisation’, in Revue de Theologie et Philosophic 121, no. 4 (1989), 423–439Google Scholar suggests that according to Barth Jesus Christ esl venu «nous liberer de notre culpabilityé et de ses conséquences», c'est-á-dire de l'orgueil qui nous pousse á vouloir être Dieu (p. 432). As we saw above, there are occasions in which Barth reduces sin to pride, or restricts his treatment of the same to pride and sloth; but it seems that the logic of Barth's treatment demands attention to sin as falsehood.

57 Hendry, George S., ‘Is Sin Obsolescent?’, in Princeton Seminary Bulletin Ns. 7, no. 3 (1986), 256–267, p. 264.Google Scholar

58 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics: Volume IV, The Doctrine of Reconciliation, Part III, First Half, trans, by Bromiley, G. W., ed. by Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), p. 375.Google Scholar

59 Ibid., p. 413.

60 Ibid., p. 440.

61 Ibid., pp. 469, 470.

62 Ibid., p. 396.

63 Ibid., p. 389.

64 Ibid., pp. 391, 392.

65 Ibid., pp. 440, 441.

66 Ibid., pp. 469, 470.

67 Webster, op. cit., p. 21.

68 It would, however, be a mistake to assume that Christology was unimportant for the framers of the doctrine of original sin. The soteriological concerns evidenced in their arguments suggest that the question Was treibt Christum? was operative in their harmatological decisions.

69 Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 500, 501.

70 Ibid., p. 508.

71 Ibid., p. 365.

72 Cf. n. 48 above where Webster stresses Barth's interest in human wrongdoing.

73 Wolsteroff, Nicholas, ‘Barth on Evil’, in Faith and Philosophy 13, no. 4 (Oct., 1996), 595.Google Scholar

74 Cf. Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics: Volume III, The Doctrine of Creation, Part III, trans, by Bromiley, G. W. and Ehrlich, R. J., ed. by Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 289–368Google Scholar. We note, in particular, Barth's observation that Leibnitz and Schleiermacher correctly identify the privative element of nothingness, but miss its positive character, while Sartre and Heidegger do the opposite (p. 345). All, however, fail by viewing das Nichtige from a human perspective. Barth underscores the privative aspect in that das Nichtige can be identified as a break in the divine/human relationship (p. 294). He identifies its positive existence as a ‘third way’ of being (p. 349). This third way is dependent upon God's opus alienum (p. 353).

75 Wolsteroff, op. cit., pp. 598, 599. Barth describes sin as both ‘the concrete form of nothingness’ as well as an ‘aspect’ of the same (CD III/3, pp. 310, 315).

76 Cf. Mangina, Joseph L., Karl Barth on the Christian Life: The Practical Knowledge of God (New York: Peter Lang, 2001)Google Scholar. In the third chapter Mangina underscores that sin's parasitic dependence on human agency allows it an actual appearance. That parasitic nature, however, denies sin any ontological status. Sin is described as that which is actual, but not real.