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Man in the Image of God: The Disagreement Between Barth and Brunner Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Joan E. O'Donovan
Joan E. O'Donovan
Affiliation:
Christ Church Oxford 0X1 1DP
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Extract

The task of understanding the uniqueness of human being which underlies the obligations obtaining among men in distinction from all other creatures, is a perennial task of Christian theology. The one complete and final revelation of God in Jesus Christ has planted this task firmly and unalterably at the centre of theological reflection rather than at its periphery. In our generation the search for theological clarity on this matter receives heightened urgency from the pervasive assault on dignity of human being coming from recent developments in the modern sciences and technologies. This assault is conducted simultaneously in the theoretical and practical realms, armed by the increasing coalescence of the two realms in advanced scientific method.1 Today the most consequential knowledge of human life is produced by the most exact, intricate, and complex forms of manipulation and control. In the enthralling feats of biochemical technology the coming–into–being of individual human life is now the object of experimental making.2 Whetheror not our mastery of the reproductive process will ever lay bare the mystery of human generation, it certainly throws open to an unprecedented degree the question of what human being is, and by what its uniqueness is constituted.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , November 1986 , pp. 433 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1986

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References

1 The coalescence of theory and practice in the experimental method of modern science is central to Heidegger's understanding of the essence of modern technology as ‘technique’. See Heidegger's, essay ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Translated by Lovitt, W. (New York: Harper and Row, 1977)Google Scholar. An illuminating account of our civilisational paradigm of knowledge that is indebted to Heidegger is given in Grant, George, ‘Knowing and Making’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 4th Series, 12 (1975), pp. 59–67Google Scholar. Grant explores the dilemma for moral reflection posed by the interpenetration of ‘knowing’ and ‘ making’.

2 A theological-ethical consideration of the various methods of procreating by technological artifice that addresses the moral dilemma of ‘technique’ is undertaken by O'Donovan, Oliver in Begotten or Made? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).Google Scholar

3 Both writings were published together in English translation under the title Natural Theology. Translated by Peter Fraenkel, with an introduction by John Baillie (London: Geoffrey Bles: The Centenary Press, 1946).

4 (Berlin: Furche–Verlag, 1937). Translated by Olive Wyon (London: Lutterworth Press, 1939).

5 (Zurich: A. G. Zollikon). Church Dogmatics, III/2. Edited by Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T.F.. Translated by Knight, H., Bromiley, G. W., Reid, J. K. S., and Fuller, R. H. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1960).Google Scholar

6 ‘The New Barth: Obervations on Karl Barth' Doctrine of Man’, The Scottish Journal of Theology, 4 (1951), pp. 123–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Two earlier discussions of the Barth-Brunner disagreement that are of relevance to our own and of enduring interest are those of Lehmann, P., ‘Barth and Brunner: The dilemma of the Protestant mind’, Journal of Religion, 20 (1940), pp. 124–140CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Williams, D. D., ‘Brunner and Barth on philosophy’, Journal of Religion, 27 (1947), pp. 241–254CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Lehmann's discussion focuses on the relationship between law and Gospel, while Williams is concerned with the relationship between theology and philosophy as Christian undertakings.

8 Translated from the Dutch edition by Dirk W. Jellema (Grand Rapids, Michigan:Eerdmans, 1962). Berkouwer's work has been of valuable assistance in orienting us to the parameters of the imaga Dei concept's meaning and function in relation to the Biblical evidence. Our alternative theological conceptualisations of human being are also indebted to categorial distinctions found in Berkouwer, although not identical with them. Other studies of the imago Dei instructive for our discussion include: Miller, J. M., ‘In the “image” and “likeness” of God’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 91 (1972), pp. 289–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Prins, R., ‘Image of God in Adam and the restoration of man in Jesus Christ; a study in Calvin’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 25 (1972), pp. 32–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; DeLacey, D. R., ‘Image and incarnation in Pauline Christology: a search for origins’, Tyndale Bulletin, 30 (1979), pp. 3–28.Google Scholar

9 ‘Nature and Grace’, p. 23.

10 Ibid., p. 24.

11 Ibid., p. 22.

12 Ibid., p. 24.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., p. 25.

15 Ibid., pp. 31–32.

16 Ibid., p. 32.

17 Ibid., pp. 31–32.

18 Ibid., p. 34.

19 The provocation afforded Barth by Brunner's arguments was enhanced by their polemical form. They were set forth as counter-theses to purportedly ‘false conclusions’ drawn by Barth from the Reformation principles of ‘solaScriptura/sola gratia’.

20 ‘No!’, p. 79.

21 ‘Nature and Grace’, p. 24.

22 ‘No!’, p. 82.

23 Ibid., p. 85.

24 Ibid., pp. 88–89.

25 Ibid., p. 89.

26 Ibid.

27 Church Dogmatics, I/I. Translated by G. T. Thomson. (Edinburgh: T. and T.Clark, 1936), p. 273.

28 Ibid.

29 ‘No!’, p. 92.

30 Ibid., pp. 92–93.

31 Man In Revolt, Appendix 1, p. 513.

32 Ibid., pp. 70ff.

33 Ibid., p. 282f.

34 Ibid., Appendix 1, pp. 499–500.

35 Brunner claims support from Dillman, Oehler, Konig and Eichrodt in their writings on Old Testament theology.

36 Ibid., p. 501.

37 Ibid., pp. 98–99.

38 Ibid., Appendix 1, p. 500.

39 Ibid., p. 330f.

40 Ibid., p. 513. A more elaborate development of this argument is a recurring feature of Brunner's, work entitled Christianity and Civilisation, Part 1 (London: Nisbet and Co., 1947).Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 156.

42 Ibid., pp. 157–158.

43 Ibid., p. 155.

44 Church Dogmatics, III/2, pp. 129–130.

45 Ibid., p. 130.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid., p. 131.

48 ‘The New Barth’, p. 128.

49 Ibid., p. 132.

50 Ibid., p. 133.

51 Ibid., p. 134.

52 Church Dogmatics, III/2, p. 136.

53 Man In Revolt, p. 341.

54 Ibid., p. 404.

55 Church Dogmatics, I/I, p. 183.

56 Ibid., p. 234.

57 Man In Revolt, p. 158.

58 Ibid., p. 197; cf. p. 223.