Eye problems, Karl Barth, and the proclamation of God's revelation

John Shuck has placed an interesting posting on his blog entitled, Religion without Revelation. That would of course catch my eye since I consider that the only true religion is that revealed through Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father. And Jesus Christ is revealed in the Bible, the word of God, which is the written revelation of God.

Another thing that caught my eye was the quote by Karl Barth I found in John’s posting. My respect for Karl Barth is tremendous as anyone who reads my blog knows. So I took the time to read the posting and then to look up Barth’s quote in his Church Dogmatics.

Now since I am forbidden to write comments on John’s blog I thought perhaps a posting of my own would suffice.

John writes about the historical/critical study of texts and how devastating that is to those who hold that the Bible is God’s revelation. Forgetting that Scripture is both the written words of men and the Holy Spirit inspired words of God, John believes that historical criticism destroys the God part. But instead Scripture is rather like the Lutheran view of communion. That is, as the bread & wine holds the actual body and blood of Christ, the Word of God contains what is both the humanity of its authors, (their personality, culture and knowledge) and yet all is the Word of God.

But the subject that most intrigued me was John’s use of Barth and the quote he took from an article “The Relationship of Biblical Studies to the History of Religions School, with Reference to the Scientific Study of Religion” by Gerd Luedemann. The Barth quote is:

“[The Church] will at least require of its servants, even if there are some who personally cannot understand this ordinance, that they treat their private road as a private road and do not make it an object of their proclamation, that if they personally cannot affirm it and so (unfortunately) withhold it from their congregations, they must at least pay the dogma the respect of keeping silence about it.”

John seems to believe that Barth, when writing this quote, which is in reference to the virgin birth, was advocating keeping silent on doctrines that could no longer be believed because of the work of historical criticism. He writes that Barth knew of this problem. John explains the problem with a question: “The effects of the historical-method on religious texts are far-reaching. Is it even meaningful to speak of "God" with any sense of realism when "God" becomes a literary character in a human drama?”

But a little addition of Barth’s words from his text is helpful. (I will divide up his paragraph for easier reading since they are always long.)

“In this connection we may reply briefly to the question of popular theology, whether in order to believe in a really Christian way ‘one’ would have to believe fully in the Virgin birth. We must answer that there is certainly nothing to prevent anyone, without affirming the doctrine of the Virgin birth, from recognizing the mystery of the person of Jesus Christ or from believing in a perfectly Christian way. It is within God’s counsel and will to make this possible, just as it cannot be at all impossible for Him to bring anyone to the knowledge of Himself even beyond the sphere of the Church visible to us.

But this does not imply that the Church is at liberty to convert the doctrine of the Virgin birth into an option for specially strong or for specially weak souls. The Church knew well what it was doing when it posted this doctrine on guard, as it were, at the door of the mystery of Christmas.

It can never be in favour of anyone thinking he can hurry past the guard. It will remind him that he is walking along a private road at his own cost and risk. It will warn him against doing so.

It will proclaim as a Church ordinance that to affirm the doctrine of the Virgin birth is a part of real Christian faith. It will at least require of its servants, even if there are some who personally cannot understand this ordinance, that they treat their private road as a private road and do not make it an object of their proclamation, that if they personally cannot affirm it and so (unfortunately) withhold it from their congregations, they must at least pay the dogma the respect of keeping silence about it.” (This is the Bromiley and Torrance translation.)

I believe that one of the great sins of leadership in the Church today is that too many elders, pastors and professors are making their own roads the main part of their proclamation. May God have mercy on their flocks and students.