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Directed, ordered and related: The male and female interpersonal relation in Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2008

Lisa P. Stephenson
Lisa P. Stephenson*
Affiliation:
Lee University, 1120 North Ocoee Street, Cleveland, TN 37320, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article examines Karl Barth's conception of the interpersonal relation of male and female and demonstrates that, although Barth superimposes the concept of order within the Trinity onto the specific interpersonal relation of male and female, there is provision within his anthropology concerning interpersonal relations in general (i.e. interpersonal relations which are irrespective of sexual distinctions) to correct this error. I focus on Barth's exegesis of the creation narratives in Church Dogmatics III/1 and his discussion of the interpersonal relation of male and female in Church Dogmatics III/4. Then, because of Barth's principle of analogia relationis, I will briefly examine his doctrine of the Trinity in Church Dogmatics I/1. Whereas the role of christology in Barth's anthropology is frequently highlighted, there is often little regard for the trinitarian grounding of Barth's anthropology, especially with regard to the interpersonal relation of male and female. Finally, I will look at Barth's discussion of interpersonal relations in general in Church Dogmatics III/2 where he delineates a principle of the ‘priority of the other’, which serves to redeem his anthropological statements on the humanity of male and female. I contend that the recognition of the imago Dei in the interpersonal relation of male and female, sustained by the priority of the other, is a better way to achieve the personhood of both sexes than Barth's proposed static relational order.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 61 , Issue 4 , November 2008 , pp. 435 - 449
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2008

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References

1 Romero, Joan Arnold, ‘Karl Barth's Theology of the Word of God: Or, How to Keep Women Silent and in their Place’, in Goldenberg, Judith Plaskow (ed.), Women and Religion (Missoula, MT: University of Montana, 1973), p. 35Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Protestant Principle: A Woman's-Eye View of Barth and Tillich’, in Ruether, Rosemary Radford (ed.), Religion and Sexism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974), p. 324Google Scholar.

2 Russell, Letty, Becoming Human (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982), p. 68Google Scholar.

3 Daly, Mary, Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), p. 2Google Scholar.

4 Hereafter Church Dogmatics will be abbreviated as CD.

5 Deddo, Gary, ‘Karl Barth's Theology of Relations: Trinitarian, Christological, and Human. Towards an Ethic of the Family’, in Molnar, Paul D. (ed.), Issues in Systematic Theology, vol. 4 (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), p. 3Google Scholar.

6 I am not aware of any place where Barth explicitly notes the parallel function of the concept of order between the Trinity and the male and female interpersonal relation, although, as this article seeks to demonstrate, the same logic is at work.

7 Jewett, Paul K., Man as Male and Female (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1975), pp. 23–33Google Scholar. While Jewett wants to attribute to Barth this move of correlating the imago Dei with the interpersonal relation of male and female, Barth's ideas concerning the imago Dei did not originate entirely with him. In CD III/4 he credits Charlotte von Kirschbaum for contributing her authority on the subject of the correlation of the imago Dei with the I–Thou relationship between male and female, although to what extent and in what manner she influenced him is not known. See Selinger, Suzanne, Charlotte Von Kirschbaum and Karl Barth: A Study in Biography and the History of Theology (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), pp. 89–90Google Scholar.

8 K. E. Greene-McCreight, ‘Ad Litteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis 1–3’, in Molnar, Paul D. (ed.), Issues in Systematic Theology, vol. 5 (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), p. 213Google Scholar.

9 Barth, Karl, ‘The Doctrine of Creation’, in Church Dogmatics III/1, ed. Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F., trans. Edwards, J. W., Bussey, O. and Knight, Harold (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1958), pp. 182–3Google Scholar.

10 Barth borrows this phrase analogia relationis from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The difference between the two theologians is that Bonhoeffer understands the I–Thou relation to be independent of the gender distinction, whereas Barth does not. Relationality for Barth is ultimately dyadic, rather than communal. See Selinger, Charlotte Von Kirschbaum, p. 136. Barth's emphasis on the significance of the other lies primarily in ‘sexuality’ rather than in ‘sociality’. See Clifford Green, ‘Karl Barth's Treatment of the Man–Woman Relationship: Issues for Theological Method’, in Kelly, Geoffrey B. and Weborg, C. John (eds), Reflections on Bonhoeffer: Essays in Honor of F. Burton Nelson (Chicago: Covenant Publications, 1999), p. 29Google Scholar.

11 Barth, CD III/1, p. 185.

12 Ibid., pp. 288–92.

13 Ibid., pp. 301–2.

14 Barth, Karl, ‘The Doctrine of Creation’, in Church Dogmatics, Vol. III/4, ed. Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F., trans. Mackay, A. T., Parker, T. H. L., Knight, Harold, Kennedy, Henry A. and Marks, John (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1961), p. 169Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., pp. 169–72.

16 Ibid., p. 170.

17 Ibid., p. 171.

18 Ibid.

19 Campbell, Cynthia M., ‘Imago Dei Reconsidered: Male and Female Together’, Journal for Preachers 4/2 (Lent 1981), p. 10Google Scholar.

20 Deddo, ‘Karl Barth's Theology of Relations’, p. 4. This concurs with George Hunsinger's assessment of Barth's style of writing that ‘[i]t is [Barth's] method of alluding to themes previously developed while constantly enriching the score with new ideas . . . Themes or fragments of themes, once dominant, are constantly carried forward into new settings where other themes take the ascendancy. Materials are constantly being combined, broken up, recombined, and otherwise brought into contrapuntal relationship.’ See Hunsinger, George, How to Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 28Google Scholar.

21 Barth, Karl, ‘The Doctrine of the Word of God’, Church Dogmatics I/1, ed. Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F., trans. Bromiley, G. W. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975), pp. 360–1Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., p. 362.

23 Ibid., p. 363.

24 Ibid., pp. 413–14. In CD IV/1 Barth says that ‘there is in God Himself an above and below, a prius and a posterius, a superiority and a subordination’. See Barth, Karl, ‘The Doctrine of Reconciliation’, in Church Dogmatics IV/1, ed. Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F., trans. Bromiley, G. W. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1974), pp. 200–1Google Scholar.

25 Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 202–3.

26 Green, ‘Karl Barth's Treatment of the Man–Woman Relationship’, p. 235; Fiddes, Paul S., ‘The Status of Woman in the Thought of Karl Barth’, in Soskice, Janet Martin (ed.), After Eve (London: Collins Marshall Pickering, 1990), p. 150Google Scholar; Campbell, ‘Imago Dei Reconsidered’, p. 13.

27 McKelway, Alexander J., ‘Perichoretic Possibilities in Barth's Doctrine of Male and Female’, Princeton Seminary Bulletin 7/3 (1986), p. 240Google Scholar.

28 Barth, CD III/2, p. 248.

29 Clifford Green rightly notes that Barth's exegesis, including Old Testament and New Testament passages of scripture, also contributes to the troubling issue of the ordered relation between male and female. While the brevity of this article has not allowed me fully to explore this aspect, after observing this theological error which is operating in Barth's understanding of the function of order in the interpersonal relation of male and female, one might contend that this misunderstanding partially prejudices his reading of the texts. See Green, Clifford, ‘Liberation Theology? Karl Barth on Women and Men’, Union Seminary Quarterly Review 29/3–4 (Spring and Summer, 1974), p. 230Google Scholar.

30 Fraser, Elouise Renich, ‘Jesus' Humanity and Ours in the Theology of Karl Barth’, in Shuster, Marguerite and Muller, Richard (eds), Perspectives on Christology: Essays in Honor of Paul K. Jewett (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991), pp. 194–5Google Scholar.

31 Barth, CD III/2, p. 250.

32 Ibid., pp. 252–9.

33 Ibid., pp. 260–3.

34 Ibid., pp. 265, 267.

35 Ibid., pp. 271, 274.

36 Fraser, ‘Jesus' Humanity and Ours’, p. 194.