Happy Human Independence/Freedom Day, from Karl Barth

Since it is 'Independence Day' here in America, today, I thought I would repost a reflection and response on 'Human Freedom' that I posted at my older EC blog quite a few months ago now. As you will see, these reflections are in response to a brother (in Christ) of mine. Happy 'Freedom Day'!

³⁶ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. ~John 8.36

Silhouette of Barth, Garbed in the 'Colors'

I am reposting the following because I am working the next couple of days, and so don’t have the time to develop some things I would like to in response to the discussion I have been having with Nathan in this thread. Some have asked what ‘grace all the way down’ might mean (in the thread and post I am referencing). Some of you are wondering how I might move differently than a classic Calvinist or Arminian in framing human action as grounded in a theological-christological anthropology—thus ultimately recasting, and somewhat avoiding the usual categories of working out of ‘the bondage of the will’ dialogue. So in lieu of me writing an actual post that would articulate how I might proceed; this post, and maybe one more tomorrow will have to suffice until I can do a proper (new) one. Somebody might think that some of the language from Barth sounds like what Billings is critiquing in the Arminian, but it’s not. Since Barth’s construct grounds what it means to be human, dogmatically, in the elect humanity of Christ for us. This is the piece that classic Arminianism (and Calvinism) is missing; i.e. ‘the classic way’ operates with a competitive view between Divine-human action vis-á-vis human action simpliciter. Meaning that the classic approach, does not ground humanity from the humanity of Christ in an objective gracious way. Instead, it sees humanity as abstracted from the humanity of Christ in need of union with his humanity which is only actualised through their cooperation with God in salvation by habituating in the ‘created grace’ (which becomes the impersonal intermediary that binds elect or foreknown humanity to Christ’s humanity). More to be said. Here’s Barth on the vicarious humanity of Christ as ‘God with us’, which becomes the recreated humanity through which our humanity elevated to what it means to be human; or free for God.

Here is a great statement from Barth on the vicarious humanity of Christ,

[T]he answer is that we ourselves are directly summoned, that we are lifted up, that we are awakened to our own truest being as life and act, that we are set in motion by the fact that in that one man God has made Himself our peacemaker and the giver and gift of our salvation. By it we are made free fro Him. By it we are put in the place which comes to us where our salvation (really ours) can come to us from Him (really from Him). This actualisation of His redemptive will by Himself opens up to us the one true possibility of our own being. Indeed, what remains to us of life and activity in the face of this actualisation of His redemptive will by Himself can only be one thing. This one thing does not mean the extinguishing of our humanity, but its establishment. It is not a small thing, but the greatest of all. It is not for us a passive presence as spectators, but our true and highest activation—the magnifying of His grace which has its highest and most profound greatness in the fact that God has made Himself man with us, to make our cause His own, and as His own to save it from disaster and to carry it through to success. The genuine being of man as life and activity, the “We with God,” is to affirm this, to admit that God is right, to be thankful for it, to accept the promise and the command which it contains, to exist as the community, and responsibly in the community, of those who know that this is all that remains to us, but that it does remain to us and that for all men everything depends upon its coming to pass. And it is this “We with God” that is meant by the Christian message in its central “God with us,” when it proclaims that God Himself has taken our place, that He Himself has made peace between Himself and us, that by Himself he has accomplished our salvation, I.e., our participation in His being. [Karl Barth CD IV/I, p. 12]

This is the kind of stuff I am looking for. A theological anthropology, that is Christological; that honors the integrity of created humanity by giving humanity its place in the recreated humanity of Jesus Christ for us. It is a participationist humanity that we are given as a gift, we don’t possess it in ourselves. The giveness of humanity is where humanity flourishes through its relation in the divine life (i.e. the proper order) in Christ. This early section in IV/I is entitled “God with Us.”

What is the 'Analogy of Faith'? And Why classic Calvinism and Evangelical Calvinism ARE distinct

My personal chapter for our soon to be released book (this month, I venture to say) is entitled: "Analogia Fidei or Analogia Entis: Either Through Christ or Through Nature." In it, I basically provide a comparative sketch between the broader contours that inhere between two disparate methods of engaging in systematic-dogmatic theology. The form of the so called analogia fidei that I describe is of course from the mind of Thomas Torrance; I compare his 'analogy of faith' with Thomas Aquinas' and classical theism's notion of the 'analogy of being' (analogia entis) approach which is embedded within what is often called 'natural theology'. After I briefly describe the two approaches, I then creatively seek to illustrate these methods by doing a comparison of some Reformed Confessions and a Reformed Catechism (e.g. Scot's Confession, 1560 & Heidelberg Catechism V. Westminster Confession of Faith & Belgic Confession---the former two I situate within a more 'analogy of faith' mode, and the latter two in the 'analogy of being' mode ... so a rather suggestive way to re-read these confessions, and an example of how Evangelical Calvinism seeks to carve out Confessional space within the Reformed tradition). That understood, I want to provide some further thought on where someone like Torrance's 'analogy of faith' received its origin. As many of you know, it is from Torrance's teacher, Karl Barth. In light of that, let me quote Bruce McCormack (one of Barth's foremost interpreters today) on what Barth's 'analogy of faith' entailed:

The 'analogy of faith' refers most fundamentally to a relation of correspondence between an act of God and an act of a human subject; the act of divine Self-revelation and the human act of faith in which that revelation is acknowledged. More specifically, the analogy which is established in a revelation event is an analogy between God's knowledge of Himself and human knowledge of Him in and through human concepts and words. There are three aspects of this analogy which need to be highlighted. First, the analogy in question is not posited with creation. It is not an analogy between the being of the Creator and the being of the creature---which Barth refers to as an analogia entis in contrast to an analogia fidei. The focus here is not being but rather a highly concrete event: the event of revelation. Second, there is nothing in the being or knowing of the human subject which helps to bring this event about---no capacity or pre-understanding which might be seen as a necessary precondition to its occurrence. The only capacity needed for the analogy is one which God Himself graciously provides in the event itself as a gift, namely faith. In the event of revelation, human knowledge is made by grace to conform to its divine object. Thus (the reader will forgive an overused metaphor, but it is good Barthian language), the direction in which the analogy works is always 'above to below'. That is to say, God's Self-knowledge does not become analogically related to prior human knowledge of Him in revelation; rather, human knowledge is conformed to His. God's act is the analogue, ours is the analogate; His the archetype, ours the ectype. Third, the 'analogy of faith' is to be understood 'actualistically', that is, strictly as an event. The relation of correspondence which is established in the revelation-event does not become a predicate of the human subject. To put it another way, the "being" of the human subject is not altered through the experience of faith's knowledge of revelation. The analogy endures only so long as the revelation-event endures. Thus, the 'analogy of faith', once realized, does not pass over into human control. It must continue to be effected moment by moment by the sovereign action of the divine freedom if it is to be effected at all. [Bruce L. McCormack, Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909~1936, (Barnes & Noble, Nook edition), 32]

I won't try to do an itemized reflection on all that McCormack develops for us, but let me notice something. A very important consequent of Barth's 'analogy of faith' is that God's Self-freedom remains just that. Creation (humanity) in its pursuit to know God is not allowed to construct a prior methodological apparatus that supposes a notion of God (simpliciter) prior to meeting God in Jesus Christ, at least not in Barth's accounting. Instead, the 'analogy of faith' requires that God both confronts and contradicts any conceptions of Godself that humanity has tried to construct on their own as a prius (no, not the Toyota ... silly ;)---this would be idolatry, and the kind of theology that springs from the so called 'analogy of being' (which McCormack touches upon in his development)---the kind of theology that has its high places, like what we see constantly in Israel's history (the syncretization of worshipping God through mixture and integration with human conceptions, using creation with our own hands to ultimately gain mastery and control over the god we [or they, Israel in the OT] worship). 


So this is where Torrance appropriates his own special way of articulating the 'analogy of faith'; from his teacher, Karl Barth. It is one, obviously, that I advocate, and think that it is one that all genuinely Christian Dogmatic & Theological efforts should likewise adopt as their method for 'doing' theology, ethics, and life. 


An aside: I am often accused of, apparently, pitting classic Calvinism against Evangelical Calvinism; as if I am artificially flavoring the waters to the point of making theological kool-aid out of this continuum (of Calvinism). So people often think that I am just naïvely creating a chasm between the two instantiations of Calvinism, either because I must be naïve or just plain antagonistic (both of which may be true, but NOT in this instance!). This issue right here (the topic of this post) is where the definitive distinction and wedge come between the two approaches. When I write classic Calvinism, I am not primarily using this designation to assert that this is the historic version of Calvinism V. Evangelical Calvinism, or something. Instead I am tying this version of Calvinism ('classic') into the system of theology given its first real legs by Thomas Aquinas' synthesis of Christian theology with Aristotelian categories; his integration has become known as classical theism, which spawned the so called analogia entis or analogy of being approach to doing theology. When I use Evangelical in front of Calvinism, I also do this intentionally; and it is derivative of what I consider to be its 'Good News' message, i.e. that God is love and triune, and that he is Sovereign and Free and comes to us in Christ and we have the capacity, through Christ, to participate in his life and answer for life in the life of the eternal Word---this is the kind of positing that supplies us with the 'analogy of faith' approach.

So if you are going to presume that I am naïvely, or unfoundedly pitting classic Calvinism against Evangelical Calvinism; think again. By the way, I realize it's not en vogue for theological types like myself to be so real and impassioned about something; but I actually believe what I am writing, if I didn't, I'd quit writing! Does this kind of topic need more development? Probably, but McCormack has already gone along ways (not to mention Torrance and Barth) in providing a substantial situation from which to draw lines; and so I stand on their shoulders (with a post like this), and refer you to them if you desire a fuller accounting of everything---beyond what my meager out-letting at the blog allows for.